Upside Down

Please Note- This fic has been rated Mature for a reason! It contains graphic sexual references/conversations, homosexual sex, drug use, violence and loads of swearing and generally grown up situations. Please adhere to the age of consent for your country. I take no responsibility for those who don't.

I do not own the copyright on these characters. I get no money for writing about them. It's purely an act of worship (and lust) so please don't sue me. I don't have any money anyway.

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Ken sighed and tried to look as though he was enjoying himself.

It wasn't the music, he quite liked the music. It wasn't the horde of beautiful people thronging the dance floor, he rather liked them too, liked looking at them at least. It wasn't even that Yohji had pulled ten minutes after arriving and had promptly abandoned them so that he could remove some woman's tonsils with his tongue.

It was just that Ken didn't belong in places like this and he knew it. He felt like everyone else must know it too. It wasn't because of Weiss or because he killed people on a regular basis, it went back far further than that. It was because places like this just made him feel even more invisible than he usually did. Only those with charisma you could ski down would stand out in this sort of environment. So Ken didn't have a prayer. He knew that he was boring and predictable compared to his team mates.

It was different for them. Yohji was human catnip. Aya, despite just standing there and glaring, had the kind of manner that drew eyes. He was a challenge; women liked that, a lot. He had already mortally offended three of them. And Omi was inherently adorable with the ability to make instant friends with virtually everyone. Ken was just...Ken, quiet, thoughtful, not confident, not glamorous, not cute, just Ken. He couldn't remember a time when he hadn't felt that to be true. Even when he had been a footballer he had only felt visible on the pitch under the brightest lights. Kase had used to drag him to parties afterwards and despite the wildness that went on at them Ken had somehow still found himself stood in the kitchen with a beer having an intense conversation about score averages.

He sighed again and wondered where Aya had stalked off to. He had been behaving oddly since they arrived, buying Ken lots of drinks and watching him like a hawk. Ken hadn't known what to make of it. Now he couldn't see him anywhere. Unfortunately Yohji was impossible to miss. He was in a corner with some woman (possibly the one from earlier but it was difficult to tell, they all looked the same to Ken) dry humping her into the middle of next month. A few yards away Omi was dancing cheerfully. He had made friends in the first ten minutes and was now dancing with them, laughing and flirting.

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"Let's go clubbing," Yohji had said from his position of sitting backwards on the blue sofa, his head pointed at the floor and his feet in the air, "It'll be fun. Plus if Aya doesn't do something fun soon I'll be forced to kill him."

Ken had laughed at the mere idea of Aya doing something fun. "He'll never agree to it."

"You can persuade him," Yohji gave Ken a strange look. His head was going pink from all the blood rushing to it. This was unusual for Yohji who spent most of his life with his blood headed in the other direction. "He likes you."

Ken laughed again, "He does not."

"Well, he doesn't despise you as much as the rest of us. He definitely despises me."

"That's true. He can't stand you."

"It's only jealousy, I assure you," Yohji waved a hand in airy contempt, "I get that a lot. He just wishes he could get laid as much as I do."

Ken frowned at the extraordinary idea of Aya having a sex drive. "I don't think Aya cares about that sort of thing," he said dubiously.

Yohji snorted as if trying to repress laughter, his whole body shuddered with it. He looked like he was biting his lip to keep a retort in.

"What did I say?" Ken demanded, wondering if sitting upside down for so long was good for a person.

"Oh nothing, nothing." Yohji coughed as though he was pulling himself together, "Everyone has a rampant sex drive you know."

Ken shook his head in disbelief. Yohji often posited that opinion. What he failed to realise was that everyone he met developed an extreme sex drive not because it was innate to them but simply because they had met Yohji. He could probably seduce a saint, given a couple of hours. Aya on the other hand might as well be made of birds, ready to fly away in a flurry of angry claws if anyone so much as touched him.

He was hardly going to go to a nightclub and dance.

"Go on, ask him," Yohji repeated, things clearly being plotted in his deviant brain, "Tell him that you are going. Tell him that we'll all get really drunk."

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So here they were in a nightclub and Ken had to grudgingly admit that Yohji was right. Aya had agreed without a struggle as soon as Ken had suggested it. Ken took another drink, felt his insides warm and something uncurl, some tension releasing in his back that he wasn't often aware of. It had been a long time since he had got drunk but he didn't know why. For some reason he had been avoiding alcohol lately. He found himself grinning. Then he glanced at Omi on the dance floor and started laughing. The teenager was kissing a girl with blue hair with an intensity that suggested that he had decided to make the most of an unusual opportunity. Ken tried to stop laughing. Good for him, he thought.

Unfortunately it turned out that the blue haired girl hadn't come alone. Unbeknownst to Omi a huge ape of a man was advancing on them. The light of righteous fury was in his eyes and his enormous muscles rippled in anticipation. Clubbers saw him and scattered instinctively. Ken began to struggle through the crowd towards Omi. Aya headed towards him from the opposite side of the floor. Trust Aya to see trouble before it's even started, Ken thought.

The outraged thug placed a beefy hand on Omi's shoulder and tore him away from the girl. Omi's shock was palpable. The girl yelped and ran off, pushing through the crowd like a burrowing creature. Meanwhile Omi was upside down and being shaken like a street sign in a gale. Until Aya reached him and tapped his captor on the shoulder.

"You can't keep your woman by beating on her lovers, you know." he remarked, his calm voice carrying over the music.

Several nearby revellers heard it and gasped. They stared at Aya wondering if he was actually trying to get himself stamped an inch deep and three feet wide on the floor.

The man growled furiously and dropped Omi. Ken managed to grab him before he could hit the ground and turn him the right way up.

"What would you know about women, pretty boy?" the giant sneered.

Aya smiled mirthlessly and Ken shivered. If this man knew Aya he would be running by now. That had been the assassin's most ominous smile.

A fist swung round, aiming for Aya's head and Aya moved with easy confidence, with almost insulting insouciance, out of its path. They were by now the centre of a circle of cheering people yelling, "Fight! Fight!" and laying bets. Aya kicked out and the man's legs were thrown out from under him. With a comical expression of surprise he went down to a roar of approval from the audience. Ken kept a hold of Omi who was struggling to join in.

Before long Aya's opponent was up again and he had wrapped his fingers around Aya's thin wrist and was squeezing in a way that would have made any other man wince. Aya's face remained inscrutable. He twisted and brought up a booted foot that made a crunching contact with the man's face. The crowd hissed in sympathy but applauded Aya nevertheless. The man staggered a little, bleeding.

Then he drew the gun.

Ken later reflected with some admiration at just how quickly the audience vanished, the club emptied and even the staff disappeared. More quickly than he would have thought possible they had the place to themselves. They hadn't even bothered to turn off the music. "This aint a scene, it's an arms race" was stuck on a loop. Yohji appeared by Ken's shoulder and muttered,

"Typical fucking Aya, I was in there. She's run off now."

The thug was wavering from all the blood in his eyes and the gun circled lazily in the air still pointing vaguely in Aya's direction. Yohji glanced at Ken who nodded.

By the time the thug was unconscious on the sticky nightclub floor and the gun confiscated into Omi's backpack their night had been effectively ruined. All that remained was to dodge the police and go home. The walk back to the Koneko was tense. Yohji kept glancing at Aya rather viciously and Omi looked miserable and embarrassed.

"Did you have to play up to the crowd like that?" Yohji demanded at last. Aya rolled his eyes. "You could have just knocked him out and we could have carried on with our night. But you had to show off didn't you and get the whole place shut down."

Aya visibly bridled at being called a show off.

Omi sighed and caught Ken's eye. It looked like they were in for part 320 of the never ending saga of just how much Aya and Yohji hated each other. The eternal dance of rage. Ken had got so bored by it that he had taken to composing bad poems in his head while they yelled at each other, just to have something to do. They were sarcastic poems usually.

Aya and Yohji, kings of Weiss
Lords of the stony stare
They've got such very nice coats
And really, really cool hair.

Once it kicked off Omi and Ken leaned against a wall, shared a sneaky cigarette and waited. They only smoked when Aya and Yohji were screaming at each or trying to kill each other so they were going through two packets a week now.

"You just can't stand having any fun, can you?" Yohji was sneering at Aya.

"Well, duh," Omi mumbled to himself.

"At least I am a professional." Aya replied, eyes narrowed, "At least I have interests outside of sex. Face it, you're constantly distracted Kuduo, we carry you."

Yohji growled. Then he glanced at Ken and grinned nastily to himself.

"Well," he smiled, "I suppose I shouldn't complain. It wasn't just my evening that was ruined. You had plans too, didn't you Aya?"

To Ken's mystification Aya also glanced at him before replying. "Carry on in that vein and I will rip your head off."

Yohji smirked and set off up the street. Ken was surprised that it was over already. He had been settling in for the long haul. Normally it wasn't over until at least one of them was bleeding.

"What did Yohji mean by plans?" he asked Omi as they followed Aya home. Omi sniggered and then pretended to cough to cover it.

"You know," he said, as if Ken hadn't spoken, "I knew someone once at school. They were so shy, they were afraid to answer the register in class, they were that shy. And then once we all got drunk on cheap beer round the back of the football grounds and he just turned into a completely different person. He was confident and cool and all the girls suddenly fancied him. It's a funny thing, alcohol."

Ken stared at him, "Why are you telling me this?"

"Oh, no reason." Omi was grinning broadly now, the blue haired girl briefly forgotten. "Let's get drunk."

Aya stormed off to bed when they got back and Yohji headed out again after making a few phone calls. Ken wondered which of his many girlfriends would be graced with Yohji's presence tonight. He also wondered what it must be like to be that wanted. He was reduced to drinking vodka with Omi in the mission room. Before long Omi was maudlin and the room was spinning gently. Ken slumped on the sofa and contemplated the water marks on the ceiling while Omi told him about every single woman he had tried to get off with and why it had gone wrong. Except for Ouka of course. Omi never mentioned her, hadn't done once since the night she died.

"Go to bed Omi," Ken advised. "When alcohol makes you this depressed it's advisable to be unconscious."

Omi grunted and dragged himself up the spiral stairs to bed. Ken knew that he should stop drinking. He was starting to feel weird.

Feet on the stairs made him wonder if Omi had changed his mind, which would be a problem because there wasn't much vodka left, but it was Aya.

Aya, who looked at Ken thoughtfully, as though assessing something. Aya, who pulled Ken out his seat and kissed him hungrily.

Whispers of booze made it even more difficult for Ken to comprehend what was happening. One thought kept popping up, 'It's finally happened. Aya is completely out of his tree.' It was soon followed by another thought, 'Why aren't you stopping him? Why are you kissing him back and putting your arms around him? Why are you doing that?' Ken felt like his hair was standing on end with lust.

He pulled away with a gasp, oxygen starved.

'What the hell?' he exclaimed. Aya almost winced, Ken could see it in his eyes, that familiar suppression of emotion. He also couldn't help seeing how flushed the usually pale man was, how his eyes were darker, his mouth...Ken shook his head. Since when was he attracted to Aya?

'Since always.' he thought.

What?

Starting to feel a tad schizophrenic Ken sat down shakily, mostly because his drunken legs refused to hold him up anymore. Aya stood in front of him like a man on trial, arms crossed defensively.

"I misjudged how drunk you are, didn't I?" he remarked, in a tone so calm that he might be discussing the weather.

"I am drunk." Ken admitted.

"But not drunk enough." Aya sighed, just a little, "Not as drunk as last time."

"Last time?" Ken regretted the question as soon as he asked it. An inkling of memory had just raised its hand in the back of his mind. He stamped on it quick.

"The last time we...got together." Aya told him.

Despite his bewilderment and incipient mental collapse Ken couldn't help smiling. It was just like Aya to use euphemisms.

"I don't remember that." Ken was very conscious of how Aya was staring at him. If he hadn't known better he would have said that Aya looked disappointed.

"You got very drunk and we had sex."

So much for euphemisms. Ken surged up from his seat yelling, "Liar!" he swung a poorly aimed fist at Aya who ducked it easily. Ken overbalanced and fell over.

He hit the floor hard and it took a moment to get his brain back into his skull. There was a mouse under the sofa. It stared at him. Ken stared back.

Eventually he sat up. Aya raised an eyebrow.

"I am not a liar, Ken and you know it."

Ken had to admit that that at least was true. Aya simply didn't care what anyone thought and was prone to tell the absolute truth no matter what. He didn't seem to care who he hurt with it.

"Well, everyone does mad things when they are drunk. It doesn't mean that I...you know." Ken felt himself blushing and made a mental note to kill himself later.

"Except that you are always doing it."

The front door slammed and Yohji stamped angrily into the room only to come up dead at the sight before him. He looked like he wanted to flee up the stairs at once but Aya had moved and so was blocking his path.

"Yohji," Aya said, "Tell Ken what he does whenever he is drunk."

Yohji glanced from Ken to Aya, horror struck. Ken felt a wash of relief mingled with disappointment. Yohji clearly had no idea what Aya was talking about.

"Doesn't he know?" Yohji asked Aya.

Ken contemplated throwing up. He was pretty sure it would stop anyone wanting to have sex with him.

"He claims not to," Aya shrugged.

"Oh," Yohji looked rather embarrassed, "Well, uh, Ken, the thing is that when you are a bit out of it you have a tendency to, um, jump on Aya."

Ken felt another hiss of memory and ground it under a mental boot.

"Actually," Yohji laughed a little nervously, "funny story...you even groped him in a bar once and got us all thrown out. Omi was furious. He had just met this girl and," Yohji caught Ken's expression, "Never mind."

There was a long silence during which Ken wondered if that mouse was still watching them all. Sniggering no doubt. That mouse probably knew exactly what it did when it was drunk and had no doubts at all about its sexuality. Then Ken wondered about the concept of gay mice.

Yohji began to look worried, "Are you alright?" he asked, "You look a bit...freaked. I mean, we always knew that you conveniently 'forget' this stuff when you sober up but we didn't think that you really didn't remember."

Yes, he did remember. He even remembered the last time and being so afraid of the intensity of his feelings for Aya that he swore not to get drunk again. He had been confident that if he stayed sober he could control himself.

A lot was becoming clear. Ken had been conducting an impressive campaign of misinformation inside his own head. His mother had always said that he had a split personality, calm one moment, coldly violent the next. It was part of the reason that he had been recruited by Weiss in the first place. It seemed this ability extended into other parts of his life too. He wanted Aya and couldn't face it, not after Kase, not after that. So he had repressed. Which works great provided you don't get drunk.

This probably also explained all those headaches lately.

Something else became evident and chilly anger trickled up his spine. He looked up at Aya.

"You bastard." he hissed.

"My cue to leave, I think," Yohji mumbled, edging past Aya and practically running up the stairs.

Ken dragged himself up and advanced on Aya, who didn't flinch. Ken stopped an inch away from him and locked with his eyes.

"Do you know what they call people who have sex with incredibly drunk people who they know wouldn't do it sober?" he hissed.

Ken took a breath. He was going to say it and accept the consequences.

"They call them rapists." he said.