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[fic] (rough) TGZ - Highlander
Just tossing this up before heading home. There are mistakes, we'll correct them later. *sighs*
Oh,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dagronrat? What if she called him 'dove'?
+++
"We're lost, aren't we?"
"We are not lost." Hakuba insisted, looking around with an utterly lost expression on his face. "We are merely taking a scenic tour through Paris."
Kaito sighed, shaking his head. They were lost. Stubborn British bastard had all the directional sense of a wooden bird in a coo-coo clock. "This is the last time I let you ask directions from a moving statue."
"I told you, it wasn't a moving statue." The blond informed him loftily. "They were L’Homme Statue, Human Statues."
"Yeah, yeah. What ever." He waved it off. People disguised as statues that moved when you tossed money at them. Or just ventured a little bit too close, causing people to scream.
... privately, he thought they had a lot more damn patience than he did. Hm... that'd be something to consider to pull on Nakamori-keibu if he ever got back to Japan. When he got back. Something.
Hakuba muttered something in French he'd heard him say before but still didn't know the translation of, but still sounded either Ichi: Painful, Ni: Anatomically Impossible or San: All of the Above. Probably San.
"Do you at least know where we -are-?" He asked plaintively. All the French might as well been Greek to him. He could read the letters just fine, but lacked the vocabulary to make sense of the words. Well, okay 'Rue' was 'Street'. But 'rue' also 'regret' in English, so that wasn't much help either. And what was up with all these silent letters? English did it too. At least Japanese was straight forward, no silent, skipped or differently pronounced letters. Except for Kansai-ben, but that didn't count. It was Kansai.
He definitely had to learn more languages.
"I think we're somewhere around the Muséum Na-" Hakuba trailed off as the sound of a fight reached their ears. Angry shouts --in English-- and the clashing sound of metal-on-metal.
Hakuba straightened, getting that intent 'wolf on the scent of blood' look to his face. Oh, no no no no no. Iie, non, no, not gonna do it. You didn't run -towards- fights, you sure as hell ran the other way.
"Hakuba..." He warned.
"Come on." And the blond was off and running, brown coat flaring out behind him as he ran.
"BASTARD!" He spat. Stupid, idiotic, moronic, retarded, half-brained lummox!!! "TEME!!"
And then as if he had a hope in Hell, he followed afterwards like a good little kaitou to attempt to keep his half-witted friend out of trouble. Detectives - couldn't take them anywhere, couldn't leave them hanging out to dry.
Sometimes he really wondered if Kid had made the right decision showing up at Hakuba's house that night with the handcuff dangling from his wrist. On the other hand, life wouldn't be nearly as interesting as it was if he hadn't. Although he wasn't really sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Wasn't it supposed to be a curse? To live in interesting times?
He nearly crashed into Hakuba's back as the blond halted suddenly, an arm stretched out to stop him at the opening to an alley. The sound of swords had faded suddenly, leaving behind an awful silence. Something rolled, stopping at Hakuba's feet and he nearly lost what remained of his last meal.
It was a head.
The face was twisted in an angry snarl, the eyes still shining with the bloodthirsty rage that had been contained in the body that it had been just moments before. It was a head. It was dead. It was a dead head. He hadn't expected this when he'd left Japan. Shot maybe. Stabbed possibly. Hung or strangled. Poisoned. But not heads rolling merrily down the street like a deranged bowling ball ready to gnaw off their ankles.
Hakuba's arms gripped his shoulders and he held on to Hakuba's arms in return, the solidness of the form reassuring to his queasy stomach. Something wasn't right here. Something was very very wrong. "Don't look."
"It's a head." He commented stupidly, distracted by the obvious and a touch of vertigo. There was something in the air, he could sense it, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Some sort of pressure building.
"Yes." Hakuba agreed, not sounding completely composed himself. Mist crawled towards them, creeping over the uneven ground and tickling their shoes. "There's also no blood."
No blood. A head had been chopped off. There should be great big spurts of it, all over the place. Severed arteries gushing everywhere.
The pressure around them reached a fever pitch, the sound of someone moaning, as if in pain reaching them. He peered around Hakuba into the alley behind him to see a man with a katana and a pony-tail spreading his arms wide, as if in penance or acceptance of a gift from a god. Mist swirled around him like it was a living thing, whipping the long coat the man was wearing and half obscuring a second figure laying splayed on the ground. One apparently missing it's head.
Then things started exploding, sending showers of sparks cascading down the walls and skittering across the ground. Hakuba flinched, pulling both of them against the wall, wrapping around him protectively. Kaito did the same, the two of them hiding their heads like turtles while the alleyway exploded, the sound of tortured screaming intermingling above it all.
Finally silence descended, the mist, the lightening and the pressure fading as if it had never been.
Neither of them moved for several moments, heart beat pounding in Kaito's ears. Okay... that was freaky. People with guns, okay. He could deal with that. Being fired at even. Bouncing heads, random lightning storms and back alley murderers with swords, not so much.
Without letting go of each other's arms, they both peered around the corner, in time to see the pony-tailed man --head still intact-- stagger away, the katana waving like a tired flag.
"Are you alright?!" The shout was in English, footsteps pounded towards them as a tall lanky man in an oversized sweater ran towards them. Kaito tensed for a moment, then relaxed, seeing nothing but concern and worry in the man.
"Somewhat." Hakuba commented, voice detached as he released his grip on Kaito, straightening up. Kaito did the same, looking around. The head was gone. The body looked like it was still there, but the man had distracted Hakuba from the corpse.
"I heard explosions." The man panted, and Kaito realized that he had a vaguely British accent. "You alright? No one hurt? What happened, anyway? Electrical problems?"
"Something, anyway." Hakuba had gone stoic, the blue contacts reflecting strangely in the low light. "It appears that someone was injured, farther in the alley."
The lanky man followed the detective's stare to the body laying in the alley. "I don't think they're any hope for him." He said sadly. "Come on, I was just on the way to the bar. We can use the phone there to call it in. My name's Adam Pierson, by the way."
"Saguru Hakuba." Hakuba turned his hawk-like gaze towards the man, bowing slightly. "This is Kaito Kuroba."
"Nihonjin desu ka?" Pierson asked, bowing slightly to both of them. "Hajimemashite."
Kaito bowed in return. "Hajimemashite." Peirson had obviously spent some time in Japan to get the accent right. Hakuba picked up on the same fact as well, chatting quietly with the graduate student about traveling to various places around the world. Kaito followed silently behind, making the occasional comment.
Something was off with Pierson as well. He just couldn't put his finger on it, but he'd learned to trust in instincts. They rarely lead him wrong.
Joe's Bar wrapped itself around them with a blanket of soothing blues and the faint hint of tobacco smoke as they walked it. Compared to the alley, it was security itself, a shelter for people to unwind and forget the outside world for a bit. The owner Joe Dawson met them at the bar himself, a grizzled man getting on in his years, limping with what looked like prosthetics, but a big grin that spoke of a person who was at peace with themselves. He plied them with coffee slightly spiked with a bit of brandy and began drawing the story out of them.
He did it so subtly that it took Kaito a while to realize that they were being interigation. It was the friendliest interigation he'd ever been party to witness, the old bartender did appear to be worried about them, much like Pierson was, but he seemed more keen on finding out exactly what they had seen. And who they would be telling.
Kaito began to seriously doubt that any phone calls to the usual authorities would be made tonight.
The door behind them opened, both Pierson and Joe glancing up, --Pierson before Joe-- and then returning to the conversation. A pleasant looking man with a funny accent joined their group, looking tired.
And wearing a long coat that moved funny. Almost like it was carrying something.
"Ah, Mac. Just in time to meet some new friends." Pierson greeted him, doing the introductions as Macleod, or 'Mac' shrugged off his jacket.
A jacket which had a dragon handle hidden in it's folds. A handle that looked like it was attached to a katana.
Katana hidden in a long jacket in the possession of a pony-tailed man.
Hakuba had gone stiff and silent beside him, staring at Joe and Pierson's wrists. Their alleyway 'savior' had pushed his sleeves up in the warmth of the bar, partially revealing at tattoo on the forearm that was holding the beer. Joe was in the process of rolling up his own sleeves to rinse some dishes, a similar tattoo in the same place Pierson had one.
Kaito had a very bad feeling about this.
"I think I need to get some sleep." Hakuba said very quietly, setting his mug down on the counter. "I think I might have hit my head and was seeing things."
"That's probably a wise idea." Joe agreed carefully. "Should I call you boys a cab?"
"Thank you, no." Hakuba rose, Kaito taking his cue from the detective and rising as well, automatically guarding the blond's back. "I think we can find our own way from here."
"Okay." Joe agreed easily. "You boys take care. Stop by any time you feel like it."
"Thanks." Kaito waved, following Hakuba out of the smokey bar. Behind them, Macleod jokingly asked Pierson if he had done something to scare them off. He didn't seem to be the type to be cutting someone's head off in an alley, but what did Kaito know? He masqueraded as an Internationally Wanted Criminal on the weekends.
The tense silence held until they reached the main streets again, heading at a brisk pace back towards the brighter lights. He didn't sense anyone trailing them, but they took a few round about ways just in case. Only once both of them were satisfied that no one was following did they relax enough to talk.
"You recognized something?" Kaito questioned softly, fingering a smoke bomb in his pocket.
Hakuba shook his head, paused, then shrugged. "A few rumours, maybe."
Kaito raised an eyebrow. "Rumours?"
"Alleyway fights, secret organizations, freak electrical storms." Hakuba shrugged again. "They've been reported all over the world, but supposedly they're beginning to concentrate here and on the East Coast of the States. Nothing's ever been proven, of course."
"Which is why we didn't see anything." Kaito concluded. If they had -seen- someone being decapitated, they might find themselves minus a head as well.
"Exactly." Hakuba agreed. Several things flickered across the detective's face for a moment. Sadness, worry, regret, protectiveness. "This hasn't exactly been the best first visit to the City of Lights." He apologized.
Kaito relaxed, nudging the blond with his shoulder. Poor Hakuba. He'd probably been hoping for a relaxing trip. Not one dealing with teasing kaitou, people jumping off the Tour Eiffel, conspiracies or dead bodies. Mainly the last one. Not like they could help it though.
Hell, he knew the risks of traveling with a detective.
"S'okay." He grinned. "It's been memorable."
That was for sure. Hakuba smiled back, chuckling weakly.
"Just one thing..." Kaito drawled.
"Yes?"
"We're lost again, aren't we?"
“... Shite.”
-fin-
[Edit: Fixed the majority of the errors, polished it up and promptly left the story it at my house. >_< Which I'm not going back to for a while >P )
Oh,
dagronrat? What if she called him 'dove'?+++
"We're lost, aren't we?"
"We are not lost." Hakuba insisted, looking around with an utterly lost expression on his face. "We are merely taking a scenic tour through Paris."
Kaito sighed, shaking his head. They were lost. Stubborn British bastard had all the directional sense of a wooden bird in a coo-coo clock. "This is the last time I let you ask directions from a moving statue."
"I told you, it wasn't a moving statue." The blond informed him loftily. "They were L’Homme Statue, Human Statues."
"Yeah, yeah. What ever." He waved it off. People disguised as statues that moved when you tossed money at them. Or just ventured a little bit too close, causing people to scream.
... privately, he thought they had a lot more damn patience than he did. Hm... that'd be something to consider to pull on Nakamori-keibu if he ever got back to Japan. When he got back. Something.
Hakuba muttered something in French he'd heard him say before but still didn't know the translation of, but still sounded either Ichi: Painful, Ni: Anatomically Impossible or San: All of the Above. Probably San.
"Do you at least know where we -are-?" He asked plaintively. All the French might as well been Greek to him. He could read the letters just fine, but lacked the vocabulary to make sense of the words. Well, okay 'Rue' was 'Street'. But 'rue' also 'regret' in English, so that wasn't much help either. And what was up with all these silent letters? English did it too. At least Japanese was straight forward, no silent, skipped or differently pronounced letters. Except for Kansai-ben, but that didn't count. It was Kansai.
He definitely had to learn more languages.
"I think we're somewhere around the Muséum Na-" Hakuba trailed off as the sound of a fight reached their ears. Angry shouts --in English-- and the clashing sound of metal-on-metal.
Hakuba straightened, getting that intent 'wolf on the scent of blood' look to his face. Oh, no no no no no. Iie, non, no, not gonna do it. You didn't run -towards- fights, you sure as hell ran the other way.
"Hakuba..." He warned.
"Come on." And the blond was off and running, brown coat flaring out behind him as he ran.
"BASTARD!" He spat. Stupid, idiotic, moronic, retarded, half-brained lummox!!! "TEME!!"
And then as if he had a hope in Hell, he followed afterwards like a good little kaitou to attempt to keep his half-witted friend out of trouble. Detectives - couldn't take them anywhere, couldn't leave them hanging out to dry.
Sometimes he really wondered if Kid had made the right decision showing up at Hakuba's house that night with the handcuff dangling from his wrist. On the other hand, life wouldn't be nearly as interesting as it was if he hadn't. Although he wasn't really sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Wasn't it supposed to be a curse? To live in interesting times?
He nearly crashed into Hakuba's back as the blond halted suddenly, an arm stretched out to stop him at the opening to an alley. The sound of swords had faded suddenly, leaving behind an awful silence. Something rolled, stopping at Hakuba's feet and he nearly lost what remained of his last meal.
It was a head.
The face was twisted in an angry snarl, the eyes still shining with the bloodthirsty rage that had been contained in the body that it had been just moments before. It was a head. It was dead. It was a dead head. He hadn't expected this when he'd left Japan. Shot maybe. Stabbed possibly. Hung or strangled. Poisoned. But not heads rolling merrily down the street like a deranged bowling ball ready to gnaw off their ankles.
Hakuba's arms gripped his shoulders and he held on to Hakuba's arms in return, the solidness of the form reassuring to his queasy stomach. Something wasn't right here. Something was very very wrong. "Don't look."
"It's a head." He commented stupidly, distracted by the obvious and a touch of vertigo. There was something in the air, he could sense it, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Some sort of pressure building.
"Yes." Hakuba agreed, not sounding completely composed himself. Mist crawled towards them, creeping over the uneven ground and tickling their shoes. "There's also no blood."
No blood. A head had been chopped off. There should be great big spurts of it, all over the place. Severed arteries gushing everywhere.
The pressure around them reached a fever pitch, the sound of someone moaning, as if in pain reaching them. He peered around Hakuba into the alley behind him to see a man with a katana and a pony-tail spreading his arms wide, as if in penance or acceptance of a gift from a god. Mist swirled around him like it was a living thing, whipping the long coat the man was wearing and half obscuring a second figure laying splayed on the ground. One apparently missing it's head.
Then things started exploding, sending showers of sparks cascading down the walls and skittering across the ground. Hakuba flinched, pulling both of them against the wall, wrapping around him protectively. Kaito did the same, the two of them hiding their heads like turtles while the alleyway exploded, the sound of tortured screaming intermingling above it all.
Finally silence descended, the mist, the lightening and the pressure fading as if it had never been.
Neither of them moved for several moments, heart beat pounding in Kaito's ears. Okay... that was freaky. People with guns, okay. He could deal with that. Being fired at even. Bouncing heads, random lightning storms and back alley murderers with swords, not so much.
Without letting go of each other's arms, they both peered around the corner, in time to see the pony-tailed man --head still intact-- stagger away, the katana waving like a tired flag.
"Are you alright?!" The shout was in English, footsteps pounded towards them as a tall lanky man in an oversized sweater ran towards them. Kaito tensed for a moment, then relaxed, seeing nothing but concern and worry in the man.
"Somewhat." Hakuba commented, voice detached as he released his grip on Kaito, straightening up. Kaito did the same, looking around. The head was gone. The body looked like it was still there, but the man had distracted Hakuba from the corpse.
"I heard explosions." The man panted, and Kaito realized that he had a vaguely British accent. "You alright? No one hurt? What happened, anyway? Electrical problems?"
"Something, anyway." Hakuba had gone stoic, the blue contacts reflecting strangely in the low light. "It appears that someone was injured, farther in the alley."
The lanky man followed the detective's stare to the body laying in the alley. "I don't think they're any hope for him." He said sadly. "Come on, I was just on the way to the bar. We can use the phone there to call it in. My name's Adam Pierson, by the way."
"Saguru Hakuba." Hakuba turned his hawk-like gaze towards the man, bowing slightly. "This is Kaito Kuroba."
"Nihonjin desu ka?" Pierson asked, bowing slightly to both of them. "Hajimemashite."
Kaito bowed in return. "Hajimemashite." Peirson had obviously spent some time in Japan to get the accent right. Hakuba picked up on the same fact as well, chatting quietly with the graduate student about traveling to various places around the world. Kaito followed silently behind, making the occasional comment.
Something was off with Pierson as well. He just couldn't put his finger on it, but he'd learned to trust in instincts. They rarely lead him wrong.
Joe's Bar wrapped itself around them with a blanket of soothing blues and the faint hint of tobacco smoke as they walked it. Compared to the alley, it was security itself, a shelter for people to unwind and forget the outside world for a bit. The owner Joe Dawson met them at the bar himself, a grizzled man getting on in his years, limping with what looked like prosthetics, but a big grin that spoke of a person who was at peace with themselves. He plied them with coffee slightly spiked with a bit of brandy and began drawing the story out of them.
He did it so subtly that it took Kaito a while to realize that they were being interigation. It was the friendliest interigation he'd ever been party to witness, the old bartender did appear to be worried about them, much like Pierson was, but he seemed more keen on finding out exactly what they had seen. And who they would be telling.
Kaito began to seriously doubt that any phone calls to the usual authorities would be made tonight.
The door behind them opened, both Pierson and Joe glancing up, --Pierson before Joe-- and then returning to the conversation. A pleasant looking man with a funny accent joined their group, looking tired.
And wearing a long coat that moved funny. Almost like it was carrying something.
"Ah, Mac. Just in time to meet some new friends." Pierson greeted him, doing the introductions as Macleod, or 'Mac' shrugged off his jacket.
A jacket which had a dragon handle hidden in it's folds. A handle that looked like it was attached to a katana.
Katana hidden in a long jacket in the possession of a pony-tailed man.
Hakuba had gone stiff and silent beside him, staring at Joe and Pierson's wrists. Their alleyway 'savior' had pushed his sleeves up in the warmth of the bar, partially revealing at tattoo on the forearm that was holding the beer. Joe was in the process of rolling up his own sleeves to rinse some dishes, a similar tattoo in the same place Pierson had one.
Kaito had a very bad feeling about this.
"I think I need to get some sleep." Hakuba said very quietly, setting his mug down on the counter. "I think I might have hit my head and was seeing things."
"That's probably a wise idea." Joe agreed carefully. "Should I call you boys a cab?"
"Thank you, no." Hakuba rose, Kaito taking his cue from the detective and rising as well, automatically guarding the blond's back. "I think we can find our own way from here."
"Okay." Joe agreed easily. "You boys take care. Stop by any time you feel like it."
"Thanks." Kaito waved, following Hakuba out of the smokey bar. Behind them, Macleod jokingly asked Pierson if he had done something to scare them off. He didn't seem to be the type to be cutting someone's head off in an alley, but what did Kaito know? He masqueraded as an Internationally Wanted Criminal on the weekends.
The tense silence held until they reached the main streets again, heading at a brisk pace back towards the brighter lights. He didn't sense anyone trailing them, but they took a few round about ways just in case. Only once both of them were satisfied that no one was following did they relax enough to talk.
"You recognized something?" Kaito questioned softly, fingering a smoke bomb in his pocket.
Hakuba shook his head, paused, then shrugged. "A few rumours, maybe."
Kaito raised an eyebrow. "Rumours?"
"Alleyway fights, secret organizations, freak electrical storms." Hakuba shrugged again. "They've been reported all over the world, but supposedly they're beginning to concentrate here and on the East Coast of the States. Nothing's ever been proven, of course."
"Which is why we didn't see anything." Kaito concluded. If they had -seen- someone being decapitated, they might find themselves minus a head as well.
"Exactly." Hakuba agreed. Several things flickered across the detective's face for a moment. Sadness, worry, regret, protectiveness. "This hasn't exactly been the best first visit to the City of Lights." He apologized.
Kaito relaxed, nudging the blond with his shoulder. Poor Hakuba. He'd probably been hoping for a relaxing trip. Not one dealing with teasing kaitou, people jumping off the Tour Eiffel, conspiracies or dead bodies. Mainly the last one. Not like they could help it though.
Hell, he knew the risks of traveling with a detective.
"S'okay." He grinned. "It's been memorable."
That was for sure. Hakuba smiled back, chuckling weakly.
"Just one thing..." Kaito drawled.
"Yes?"
"We're lost again, aren't we?"
“... Shite.”
-fin-
[Edit: Fixed the majority of the errors, polished it up and promptly left the story it at my house. >_< Which I'm not going back to for a while >P )
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And since you say you'll correct later, I'm not going to nitpick the Japanese (and the French from the other chappies)
Excuse me for the fangirlishness...
ahem...
^_^
Poor Kaito
*snicker*
*g* Having a grand ol' time terrorizing the boys? Fun bit, especially Kaito cursing his detective...
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*flails and fangirls embarassingly*
*gathers self together*
Okay, that moment's over.
Very enjoyable. Particularly liked Hakuba's lack of direction and his very careful and tactful, "You know, I think I might have hit my head" comment. :-) Can just imagine him edging slowly away.
Of course... you know what you need now. Chat Noir. Kaito Kid. And the AMAZING AMANDA!!! *snerks* They could all bump into each other at the same Museum, each intending to nick something different.
"I'm after that statue by your elbow."
"Oh? I wanted the jewel in the third case over on the right."
"Kay, can you just grab it and chuck it over here, and I'll roll this one over and nobody has to set off any alarms which would result in an extremely embarassing arrest for us all."
"Gotcha."
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Kami, mental image of Hakuba with pictures of Kaito, Carman, Amanda and Chat Noir in the background with the caption: Gotta Catch'em All >.<
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Dare ya to write it!! Dare Ya! Dare ya! Dare ya!!! ^______________________________^
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Here it is then (http://www.livejournal.com/users/sakurazuka_jae/52895.html#cutid1).
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In french they say 'Colombe' for dove. (And Pigeon-pronounced Pee-sh'oo(n), er, something like that- for Pidgeon, aka sucker.)
As for Highlander chap~
Is cool :c3
I like the way Kaito seems to be getting confused with his languages XcD and how he thinks of doing a mime trick on Nakamouri also >.>
You get quite a few street performers near the Pompidou Center I've been told. And some near the Musée National du Louvre. A bit everywhere where there's likely to be a crowd of tourists I guess 6_6;
Freakish encounter with Highlander XcD
Poor poor Hakuba. Hé. ^^
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And since you knew I'd come with that:
< nitpick>
"Nihon desu ka?"
->Nihonjin desu ka?
"Hashimimaste."
-> Hajimemashite
< /nitpick>
*is shot*
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Went back and fixed those, since I -knew- we'd misspelled the Japanese. *sighs*
Fixed it on the copy we left at home too. Real annoyed at myself.
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So used your corrections to correct the fic here, but we still have to get our other copy to paste, because there were some other corrections besides the Japanese.
For one thing, where's Hirokini during all this? He can just TELL them which way to go!!!
no subject
What's a lummox?
Blood thing was kinda funny. Was thinking about the first manga DC case with the roller coaster and head being cut off...FWOOSH! Fountain.
And I think it's splled "interrogation"