justonetruth | (no subject)

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A piercing scream ripped through the halls near the mobile infirmary, which, in its customary shifting patterns, was temporarily located on the fifth floor.

The lone occupant of the sterile room jolted up in his bed, bewildered blue eyes frantically searching the otherwise empty room. His right hand kept flexing long digits over the bedspread, just twitching, grasping, spreading over the clean sheets, not so much holding anything as to just moving. His left hand looked like it wanted to too, but the lower arm was held splinted between two aluminum rods -some might recognize it as Kid's glider frame- and slung tight to his body.

It took Kaito a moment to correlate his raw throat to the noise which woke him.

"K-k-kami..." he whispered, voice cracking from how parched it was but sounding so musical to his own ears.

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The door slammed open to a furious Kudo Shinichi, eyes landing on Kaito and scanning the room as he entered, taut fury in his movements. Seeing nobody else, he holstered the gun in his hand, voice a low, tense, possessive tone as he approached the bed.

"Who made you scream?"

The door slamming open made Kaito shrink back in his bed. "A-Absinthe," he cried, automatically addressing the stranger with the name that still haunted him.

Instinctively, the thief pulled his splinted arm closer to his bandaged but otherwise unclothed chest, and he slid back further into his bed as if the covers may protect him.

Was Absinthe angry? Did something upset him to make the psychopath want to hurt him again? Still too raw from his previous encounter with the agent, Kaito couldn't find the reserves to pull his poker face up.

Absinthe--Absinthe--

Something shut down in his expression, anger sliding away, but something dead there, too. Absinthe. He hadn't realised how it hurt to hear that name from him. His eyes landed on the splinted arm, taking in the fact that the thief was around two years younger than him...

He smiled blandly, walking the last few feet to the bed. "I thought we were over the nightmares, Kaito-kun," he said, sitting on the edge of the bed, determined to figure out whatever was going on before he reacted to it.

Kaito shied away from the black clad agent as the other sat, but given that he was sitting in a bed backed against the wall, he managed to only push his pillows further into the headboard. He dragged the blankets up with him while his badly splinted hand clutched tightly the bandages by his side, just willing for something to grab onto as well.

"A-Absinthe-san," he whispered, struggling to regain his control. He felt his poker face's fleeting presence within him, teasing him with the edges of his lost confidence before shying away to leave him shaking. Kaito bit his lip to prevent a whimper from escaping. "W-where am I?"

"I don't know," was the simple answer, Absinthe moving forwards to grasp Kaito's broken arm in a gentle, but firm grasp that would not allow escape.

"...This is my work." Eye lifted from it to examine Kaito, the question could almost, almost have been gentle, steely edge to it notwithstanding. "I'll ask you instead. Where are we?"

Kaito instinctively jerked his arm back, but the other's firm grasp kept it in place. He winced instead.

"Absinthe-san..."

Yet the agent's strange question shot like an arrow through to the thief's fear fogged mind. Absinthe was asking him where they were? It was enough to give Kaito a pause, and hesitantly, the thief took his eyes off his torturer to give his surroundings a look.

The layout of the room was familiar. So were the windowless walls, the cabinet for drugs, the emergency supplies that laid in glass shelves by against the far wall. They were in...

"The Mansion?" Awe and disbelief clouded his vision, for about three seconds, before panic set in.

Absinthe. Was. In. The. Mansion.

"So that's the name of this place," said Absinthe with cool detachment, fingers still grasped over Kaito's wrist. His other hand reached out to touch fingertips to the other teen's cheekbone, resting lightly there. "This would explain your age."

This time Kaito did jerk back. The last several hours added to the most recent revelation made Absinthe's touch a little more than his frayed nerves could bear.

"Don't touch me!" Kaito tried to swing himself out of the other side of bed. The covers tangled at his legs, but he hastily kicked them away. It didn't matter that he was naked underneath, he had to get away!

The Mansion... he had friends here. People who were willing to help him deal with Absinthe. They said so... several weeks ago. If he can reach them, somehow contact them, they will be able to protect him.

Absinthe snarled, grabbing for Kaito as he tore himself away. He pushed himself over the bed, following the thief, crashing into him with the intent to pin him to the floor; fast and brutal, yet careful of his arm.

"Damn you, thief," he hissed vehemently, some of his anger at kaito calling him 'Absinthe' flooding out through his tone. "Stay still, before you injure yourself!"

Kaito collapsed under the tackle that pinned him to the ground. Blind fear at being pinned by the man woke up his survival instincts. "Leave me alone!" He bucked and kicked, doing whatever he could to get his assailant off him. When he didn't take Absinthe's warning and jerked too hard on his newly broken limb, he gasped and cried out in pain.

"No," was the hissed word, Absinthe moving with a quiet intent, taking the opportunity afforded him by Kaito's pain and pinning his whole arm into the floor by his wrist. His other hand went to Kaito's throat as he sat on him, using body weight to immobilise the thief the rest of the way.

"Calm down," he said coldly. Did he really have to break his thief all over again?

Obviously pinned and his throat dangerously held in Absinthe's grasp, Kaito stilled his struggling. However, he was far from calm, and the panicked gaze he fixed on Absinthe was more than enough to tell the agent that.

"W-why are y-you h-h-here?" The tremors shaking his whole frame sent his words into stuttering gasps.

"Because you screamed," was the cold reply, and it was truth enough. Kaito had screamed, and he had come running.

"Now. Are you going to continue struggling, or can you have a modicum of sense?"

Sense? Sense? If Kaito wasn't nearing a mental breakdown, he would have laughed at how Absinthe was asking him to stop struggling to show sense.

But he did try. Closing his eyes, he struggled to take in a deep breath, followed by a second, and finally managed to salvage a pathetic bit of control. When he opened them again, his raw gaze still screamed in terrified trepidation, but his expression was moderately cooled.

"I'm s-sorry for d-disturbing you, Absinthe-san.... But you c-can l-leave now."

"My name," hissed Absinthe, leaning in to speak by Kaito's ear, "is Shinichi. And I am not. going. anywhere."

He sat up again, his gaze cold. "I thought you were more obedient than this."

"W-what?"

That clearly short circuited Kaito's brain, and for moments, he just stared dumbly at the man seated on him. A corner of his mind told him that yes, he knew this Absinthe was a Shinichi, but that the agent would tell him that... wasn't right.

Then Kaito noted there were the other differences too. Like how the other looked older, and something rang... less sinister about him. That wasn't to say he wasn't still plenty sinister.

Did this mean he was not Absinthe, but another Shinichi who was as crazy as Absinthe? Just the thought was enough to draw a whimper from Kaito.

"Who are you...?" he whispered, suddenly uncertain.

"Absinthe. Kudo Shinichi. The man who broke your arm oh so many years ago now for me."

A grim, nasty smile, covering over any hurt he might be feeling, any compassion at all for Kaito's situation. His voice was a dark, insidious purr as he leant closer again, probably far to intimately for the thief's liking.

"The man who makes you scream his name at night because you want more."

"W-what?" Kaito repeated, squirming miserably under the glare. This was Absinthe's... future? His future? Kaito felt something die within himself.

He shook his head rapidly, refusing to believe this.

"N-no! That can't be!" The horror of that future got Kaito struggling again. Taking advantage of Absinthe's close position, the thief arched up and attempted a headbutt into the agent's face. "I'm not from your world!"

Absinthe's head rang from the blow, but he held on with grim determination, fingers digging in tighter to Kaito's arm. He hissed under his breath, and pushed down with his other hand, tightening his grip about Kaito's throat. It had been far too long since the thief had struggled, truly struggled against him. He held his grip, waiting for Kaito to stop thrashing. Whether unconsciousness took him or not, he didn't care. Perhaps the thief would be more pliable that way.

Damnit, didn't anyone inform the agent that he was supposed to let go when attacked? Kaito gasped when the hand tightened, but the sound was blocked by the firm grasp, the same one that sealed off his air.

With his vision blackening around the edges, the thief's struggling weakened.

Several seconds later, Kaito didn't black out, but he was near enough to stop pushing against the agent's painful hold. Why... why here too? Couldn't he hide even in another dimension?

Absinthe was shaking when he let go of Kaito, a tense tremor that wouldn't quit no matter how he railed at it internally. He refused to think about why. He fisted a hand in the thief's hair, hauling upwards as he stood.

"Get up," he bit out, jerking Kaito roughly up with him.

Too busy regaining his breath to fight against that hold, Kaito was dragged up by his hair. He cried out briefly as he struggled to get his feet up from under him before his hair roots suffered the whole trip up.

"I'm up, I'm up!" he groaned, trying to free Absinthe's hold with his free hand. "Let...go."

"No. You've just proven you're not going to be reasonable." He did loosen his grip slightly, enough so he wasn't actively pulling on his hair. He put pressure behind his hand, guiding Kaito to the bed.

"Sit. Preserve your precious modesty if you must. But stay there."

Half dragged, half guided, Kaito got pulled to the bed where he found himself more or less commanded into a sitting position. Given the option, he quickly pulled the bedspread over his lower regions while treating the agent to fearful glares.

"Things are different here. You don't have the Black Organization to back you up."

Absinthe looked at Kaito for a moment, then laughed harshly, bitterness seeping through.

"Neither do I at home."

He tugged gently at the thief's hair, little more than a reminder. "Do you really think I need those bores to keep you?"

Kaito winced, but wisely didn't act this time to the provoking. He needed to conserve his energy for that chance for freedom. Now was not yet the time.

Initial hysteria over, Kaito was calming down. Now he just needed the opportunity to escape, just one. Until then, keep Absinthe talking. That other Shinichi suggested fooling Absinthe, right? Maybe it could work here where he remembered the advice.

"I will assume you don't, Absinthe-san... you seem like a very independent man."

Shinichi snorted derisively, but Kaito's calm attitude was doing the trick in calming him in return. He moved around the end of the bed to the other side, tugging Kaito's hair by deafault as he moved for closer access to the medical supplies, and to be between Kaito and the door.

He put his other hand at Kaito's chin, grasping it firmly and tipping the thief's chin up to look at him.

"I am going to see to your arm," he said quietly. "If you struggle again, I will not only break your other arm, I will take my time snapping your fingers. Understood?"

There was real fear in Kaito's eyes expressed by the blue orbs widening in crystal clarity. He understood alright, knew that it wasn't an idle threat where Absinthe was concerned. When he nodded his head, it was to state that, and that he understood he needed to get away, as fast as possible.

"N-nothing to worry about from me, Absinthe-san."

"Good."

Absinthe regarded Kaito a few moments more before releasing him, lifting his broken arm into his hands. He cradled it gently as he began undoing the bandages holding the splits in place, resting it in Kaito's lap before he removed all of the supports. His gaze flicked up to Kaito every so often, not completely absorbed in his work.

Absinthe's gentle actions were so reminiscent of Kaito's last immobile moment, just hours ago when the agent bandaged the same wounds he caused, that the thief shivered. Except he can shiver right now, and when he wanted to bite his lips his muscles responded, which made this nightmare.... better.

Kaito was meek though. He winced when his arm was maneuvered and kept his gaze averted, hoping to lead Absinthe into a false sense of security. Whatever else Absinthe wanted to do to his arm, Kaito knew he wanted no part in it.

Absinthe traced a gentle finger down the line of his arm, checking the set of it. He frowned slightly at the slight swelling, and the vague tinge to the skin which meant it was threatening to come out in a bruise.

He grasped Kaito's chin in a quick movement, tipping the thief's head back to meet his gaze yet again.

"Stay," he said firmly, then turned to the side-cabinets, searching for the arnica - and plaster-of-paris while he was at it.

Kaito answered with a fearful look, none of it faked, and hid all his relief when Absinthe moved away. It was his chance. He waited until Absinthe's head was buried in one cabinet standing as far from Kaito as the agent ever would be....

Before he bolted.

Grasping his broken arm tight against his chest with his right hand, he leaped off the bed. The blanket fell away from his naked form but he didn't care. It was now or never.

He ran out the door and kept running, never turning to look back.

Absinthe turned with a startled noise, chasing Kaito-- to the door. He stopped with a snarl, shaking again, hands clenched as he clung onto the doorframe like a lifeline.

Damn that thief anyway! Damn him!

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