Chapter Text
“My orders are to kill the thief that takes the diamonds. If you don't take them then I don't have to kill you.”
Yasui swallows heavily. “Then I'm afraid you'll have to try, because my orders are to take these diamonds.”
“Try?” Taiga asks, and Yasui hears the click of the safety catch. “I have a gun pointed at your temple.”
Yasui turns his head to face Taiga and now the gun is pointing right at his forehead, between his eyes. “We both knew it would come to this, somehow.” Taiga's hand is trembling ever so slightly and Yasui looks straight into his eyes, his head tilting ever so slightly. “Go on, try...”
Taiga licks his lips, an old habit that betrays his nerves. “I'm the third deadliest assassin in the country, I've never missed a target yet.”
Yasui smiles “The Tiger Snake, fitting...though the way I heard it you don't usually use a gun?”
“I prefer venom...I specialise in revenge killings, venom makes the suffering last longer” Taiga explains and Yasui shakes his head, what happened to the sweet boy he knew?
“And is it that you don't want me to suffer?” Yasui asks. “Or that there isn't time? Did you know I wouldn't be alone?” Taiga's eyes widen. “Nikaido will be here within minutes, if you're going to take me out then you'd better do it quickly. Don't snakes strike fast and true?”
The words are barely out before there's a flurry of movement and then a sharp sting in his leg. He looks down to see a dart sticking out of his thigh and he gasps because he never thought that Taiga actually would. He looks back up and Taiga's face is stony, unreadable, only there's that brief flash of tongue over his lip again.
“You promised you would never lie to me.” Taiga tells him and his voice is still shaking. “If you're lying now then your blood is on your own hands.” and just like that he's gone.
It wasn't a lie exactly, Nikaido is on his way, he will be there in a matter of minutes though truthfully it could be as many as thirty. He barely has time to wonder how fast the venom works when his leg goes numb and he crumples to the ground. The numbness spreads, quickly, working it's way up and it can't be any more than a few minutes before Yasui's throat is too numb for him to even be able to tell if he's breathing.
It only takes a few more minutes before he decides that he's not, his head is spinning and his vision is starting to go fuzzy but no matter how hard he tries he can't force air into his lungs. He has a moment of blind panic, and then he thinks he can see a figure in his dark and blurry vision, just before he passes out.
It's bright when he comes to. Too bright to make out at first who the figure is at the end of his bed, his saviour. He tries to push himself up, but pain shoots through his chest and he falls back to the sheets, gasping. He doesn't try to get up this time, but he squints through his blurred vision just as the man moves closer, around to his side, and Yasui gasps.
“You?” he asks and Taiga raises an annoyed eyebrow. He always did have that knack of looking both doting and put out at once. “Why?”
“Good question.” Taiga answers angrily. “Do you even know what your lie has cost me?” Yasui opens his mouth to answer but Taiga snaps quickly “Everything!” and the then he’s pacing “I missed a target. Your man showed up and took the diamonds, since nobody on my side knew you weren't working alone, and since you've mysteriously vanished everyone assumes that you ran off with the diamonds. And since I mysteriously vanished too, and given our history, they can only assume that we were in on it together and now there's a hit out on me. Who do you think they send to kill the third deadliest assassin in the country?”
Yasui swallows heavily. “The second?”
“I wish.” Taiga says sardonically. Yasui doesn't have to ask.
“So what do we do?” he asks.
“We?” Taiga asks in surprise. “You stay here and recover. I go out and track Kamenashi down myself before he comes after us both.”
“No.” Yasui says sternly. “No there has to be another way. If I can contact Nikaido...he's proof we didn't...”
“Like he'd back us up.” Taiga says, and then spits “You can't trust a thief.”
His pout is as adorable as it had been ten years ago when Yasui had told him what skill class he'd elected to major in. Taiga isn't a child any more, Yasui can't just pat him on the head and swear that he'll never lie to him, that won't cut it out in the real world. Taiga is a far cry from the child he was, since then he graduated top of his year at the academy, and with full marks in assassination, the only person to have done so since Fujigaya. Now he's, as he keeps pointing out, one of the deadliest assassins in the country, it's not just a boast or even a title, Yasui knows that means something in this world.
The thought distracts him from the matter at hand. “Why did you save me?”
Taiga's pout only turns to a glare and he picks up the pistol he'd been re-loading and walks from the room.
Yasui pushes himself up and out of bed. His chest feels like it will implode from the pressure of standing upright and he can see rotting black flesh on his leg where Taiga stuck the dart in him. It's agony, enough that he kind of wants the numbness back only there are more important things than pain just now.
When he staggers into the sitting room, Taiga is stuffing another pistol into his boot. There's a rifle slung over his shoulder and a belt of grenades beside him. Yasui knew it was serious. “Do you have to leave right now?” he asks and his voice is quiet, lame.
Taiga doesn't turn to him. “There's a vial case in the refrigerator. If you feel nauseous drink the cloudy one, if you're struggling to breath then drink the blue one. If I don't come back...” his voice trails off and Yasui hears him swallow hard. Taiga turns to fix a determined expression on him “Do yourself a favour, use the needle to inject yourself with the clear one.”
“If you don't come back?” Yasui asks, and his voice is shaking now, he knows what that means, worse, he knows how likely that outcome is. Taiga turns for the door and it makes Yasui's entire body throb as he throws himself across the room after Taiga. He lands half against Taiga's back, in an awkward half embrace. Taiga turns to him scowling and Yasui can't help thinking how brave he is, how brave he's trying to look, but he remembers the scared little boy he loved. “You should have killed me.” he says, and his vision fills with tears.
Taiga pushes him back but grabs hold of the flimsy T-shirt he's wearing and holds it in his fists. He opens his mouth like he's about to argue, but then something in his glare flares up and he crashes his lips against Yasui's. “If I do come back...” Taiga says, words pressed against Yasui's lips, but he doesn't continue, just wraps his arms tightly around Yasui's shoulders, squeezing him so hard it hurts and then he's gone.