Archive of Our Own ^beta

Ban stared at Yuki for a moment, and then two. Yuki was suddenly, viscerally aware that he couldn’t read him anymore, that somewhere between five years and amnesia Ban had become almost a stranger to him.

Ban opened his mouth, and then closed it again.

He was shocked, he was looking for something to say. He wasn’t a stranger. He was Ban, and in a moment he was either going to scold Yuki for being stupid and reckless or ask--

“What?” he said, voice soft in shock. “Why?”

“You’re my best friend,” Yuki repeated. “You--we met in high school. You were the first person who ever cared about me. We started a coffeeshop together and then that whore Kujo started trying to run us out of town, and you were able to get rid of them but then he had you hit with a car and kidnapped from the hospital room, and--and I’ve been looking for you ever since.”

Ban’s face froze. For a moment, a wild, desperate hope entered his eyes, before he glared sharply at Yuki and turned away.

“You’re lying,” he said.

“He isn’t,” Momo told him. 

“He is ,” Ban said. He sounded like he did at the end of a long argument--tired, and worn, and stretched taut, about to snap, refusing to listen. Usually when Ban got like this Yuki was already yelling and storming outside with the door slamming behind him before either of them said something they really regretted, though he never thought it through that much at the time. The worst way you could hurt Yuki was walking out on him, but the worst way you could hurt Ban was with words, and so when they fought, really fought, Ban would snap cutting things and Yuki would storm out and they would reconcile the next day or the day after that, none the worse for wear. “He has to be.”

“I would never lie to you,” Yuki said. “You’re my best friend.” He paused. “Okay, when I fell desperately in love with you for like three years during high school I lied about that and said I didn’t have a crush on anyone, but in my defense I was a teenager, and you definitely figured that out by the time I proposed the second time. I think.”

“That’s...possibly the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

“We’re ridiculous people,” Momo said.

“After you were kidnapped I had a nervous breakdown and became a hitman even though I’m vegetarian. Also I’ve tried to save money by feeding Momo human meat before, because I didn’t realize there was a taboo against it.”

“Yuki, darling, you are making a terrible impression,” said Momo. “Please don’t tell Ban about that time you tried to turn me into a cannibal. It’s embarrassing.”

“Embarrassing,” said Ban, who seemed to be in a state of shock. “Just embarrassing?”

“Also immoral,” Momo said, “but I mean. We aren’t really in any position to talk about morality.”

“Hm,” said Ban. He still wasn’t looking at them. “Because of--human trafficking?”

“What?!” said Momo. “Human--okay, we’re involved in a lot of shady stuff, but not that. Not ever that.”

“I know,” Ban said, “for a fact, that my best friend sent me here because he hates me. I’m fairly certain that if Yuki is my best friend, that means that he sent me here, because he hates me, which is human trafficking. I think.”

“I didn’t do that!” Yuki said, distressed. “Ban, I--I didn’t, I would never do that to you! Whoever said that is a lying whore !”

Ban’s shoulders tensed. “No,” he said. “It--it’s the only thing I know for sure. It isn’t a lie.”

“You know I love you for sure,” Yuki said stubbornly. It was the sort of thing he had said to reassure Momo dozens of times, and it had always worked, even if sometimes it made him cry. It had to work on Ban, too. Right?

Ban had always known how much Yuki loved him. Ban had always known Yuki. They were a forever thing, like Yuki and Momo were. Yuki had never had to actually say it before, other than his various attempts to marry Ban. It was understood.

Right?

“I don’t,” said Ban tightly, “because you don’t love me. If you did--then how could you do this to me?”

Yuki stopped cold. Because--it was his fault, wasn’t it? If he had been a better friend--if he had been protecting Ban like he should have, the way Ban had always protected him--then this wouldn’t have happened. Ban would be safe. Maybe Kujo would have taken him, instead. That would have been better. Ban would have dragged him home within the month, and even if Yuki forgot everything, he would never, ever forget how important Ban was to him.

“Yuki didn’t do this to you!” Momo said fiercely. “It was fucking Ryo. And Kujo. Yuki would never, and--even if he was capable of that, he wouldn’t do it to you. I saw him after you were taken. He was a wreck. His heart was broken. He didn’t do this to you. He never would!”

Ban just stood there for a minute, before he walked as far away from them as he could in his cell before sitting down with his back to them, shoulders slumped, taking the sole, thin pillow from his cot and holding it against his chest for comfort. “Just...leave me alone,” he said. “Please. Please...just leave me alone.”

“Ban…” Yuki said.

“Leave me alone!”

Yuki felt hot tears welling up in his eyes, blurring the first glimpses of Ban he’d gotten in over five years. He pressed a hand to his mouth so that Ban wouldn’t have to hear him cry, and leaned his forehead against the glass.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Ban, I’m so sorry.”

Ban didn’t respond.

Momo squeezed Yuki’s free hand. “We should give him some time,” he murmured, because Momo was, frankly, a genius when it came to interpersonal relationships. Yuki loved him so much. Momo deserved so much better than Yuki.

Yuki nodded, because what else could he say, but he didn’t move away from the glass. He sat there, watching Ban’s shoulders shake with repressed sobs, and wished there was something he could do for him.

“I’m going to check out the securities in this cell,” Momo declared after what was probably an uncomfortable period of time, and Yuki nodded. As Momo examined the different surfaces, Yuki sat down and leaned his forehead against the glass, keeping his eyes on Ban.

He wasn’t going to leave him. Not now, and not ever again. Things would be okay. Ban would be okay. Even if he hated Yuki forever, Yuki would make sure that he got home safe, no matter what.

Time passed, some indeterminate amount of it. The bright lights in the cell never dimmed, but Yuki’s body started yelling at him to sleep, and Ban went from sitting turned away from him to laying down away from him, chest rising and falling as though in deep sleep. 

Momo tapped him on the shoulder. “I have an escape plan,” he said. “It is incredibly stupid and risky, but darling, that’s what we’re all about, isn’t it?”

Yuki smiled up at him. He loved Momo so much. “It is,” he said. “What’s the plan?”

“We let Ban get some sleep, because--I think he needs time to process...us,” said Momo, helpfully not bringing up Yuki’s cannibalism comment. “Then, we shoot through the glass door, pick his lock, and book it out of here with Ban. Hopefully, Yamato and co. will be close enough to provide backup if we need it. Once we’re out, we start calling Okarin like crazy, and then go home, smile and nod while he yells at us for being reckless idiots, show Ban his room, and...deal with life, I guess.”

Yuki always hated the dealing with life parts of Momo’s plans, because they usually involved Momo and Okarin tricking him into going to some sort of office and talking to a stranger about his feelings. Momo called it therapy, and said it was healthy and would help him deal with his truckloads of trauma, but Yuki wasn’t so sure about it. He didn’t like talking to strangers, and he didn’t like talking about his feelings, so it was kind of a terrible combination for him. Besides, even though Momo said that Yuki carried a lot of trauma that people could exploit, Yuki didn’t think he had any trauma at all. Dealing with his feelings by lying on the floor and shaking for a couple hours before repressing them again was perfectly healthy, thank you very much.

“Does dealing with life mean therapy?” asked Yuki.

“You’re still blacklisted from every therapist’s office in town, so no, not for you,” Momo told him. “But Ban will get some.”

“Therapy’s dumb and a scam,” said Yuki.

“Ban literally is the reason I’m in therapy, like he literally bribed me to go,” said Momo. “At first I literally only went because I had a crush on both of you and I thought I might be able to shoot my shot with him if I impressed him by doing well in therapy. Then I started going for myself, but listen. There’s no way Ban won’t think therapy is an excellent idea.”

“But you have to talk about your feelings,” Yuki said. “Ban and I never talked about our feelings. We just understood each other that well.”

“Ban said that a good part of the reason he went to therapy was to figure out how to communicate with you better,” Momo said. “I think he maybe gave up on you communicating your feelings, darling, and tried to find another way.”

“Wait, Ban wanted to talk about feelings?” Yuki said.

“He talked about them with me a lot.”

Yuki paused. “...Huh. But he always knew things about me without asking, though.”

Momo rolled his eyes a little and smiled at Yuki. “Just because you guys didn’t have a psychic link doesn’t mean you don’t know each other really well, darling. Ban told me that he was able to read you really well and circumvent most of your communication issues that way. He just also went to therapy, partially because he wanted to better communicate with you.”

“Oh,” said Yuki. He hadn’t ever thought about that. He had pretty much forgotten entirely that Ban had ever even gone to therapy. He might not have ever known, but that didn’t make any sense. He and Ban had known everything about each other, right?

Right?

“He wasn’t ever...upset with me, was he?” asked Yuki. “For not communicating well?”

“I don’t think so,” Momo said. “He mostly worried about you. You’re super important to him, you know. And to me, too.”

“I used to be, anyway,” Yuki said miserably. “He hates me now.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Momo said. “He’s just...hurt. And he doesn’t know what’s happening. You saw the way he looked at you, right? He wasn’t angry. He was just...sad. Really, really sad.”

“He was at the end of his rope,” Yuki said. “That’s how he always sounds...sounded, after a really bad fight. Usually around the time I’d run away.”

“Well, the past five years of his life have been really upsetting,” Momo said. “And...I mean, you said that was usually when you were storming out, right? What if that was when he worried you wouldn’t come back?”

“What?” said Yuki.

“I mean--you guys were all each other had, right? Ban told me he wasn’t speaking with his parents, and I’ve seen you with yours...I talk to them more than you do, half the time, and most of that is me joking at them. And so maybe that’s what he sounded like when he thought he was losing you, and, I mean...since they convinced him you were the one who sent him here, he probably thinks he’s already lost you.”

Yuki thought about that, and then thought some more, and very nearly ended up shaking on the floor, but he whacked his emotions with a large stick until they receded somewhat, and said, “But Ban’ll never lose me. I always come back.”

“I know,” Momo assured him, wrapping an arm around him. Yuki immediately hugged him back. “It’s kind of hard to remember in the middle of a fight. I mean, I’ve thought you’ll leave me for someone better so many times, but you haven’t.”

Yuki blinked at him, confused. “But there isn’t anyone in the world better than you,” he said. “You and Ban are the best people in the world, and Okarin is second best, and your sister is third best, and nobody else matters.”

“I need to find you a good therapist,” Momo muttered. “Yuki, lots of people in the world...we can’t get into this now. Anyway, Ban doesn’t hate you, okay? He’s just hurting. I bet once we’re all out and safe, and you two have a chance to talk things out--yes, including talking feelings, you’ve done it for me so you can definitely do it for Ban--he’ll believe you. It might take a little while, but he absolutely will. I mean, this is Ban we’re talking about. He’d move heaven and earth for you--just like me. He’ll definitely forgive you, especially since you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“If I’d been better--”

“It might still have happened, darling,” Momo said. “It might have happened to both of you, even. Or something worse.”

“If it had happened to me instead, Ban would’ve been okay,” Yuki argued.

“Ban would have been as out of his mind with worry as you were,” Momo said. “Maybe moreso, even--I don’t think he ever realized you were capable of feeding yourself, even though you made all that stuff for the coffeeshop. You know how much he loves you.”

“Loved.”

“Loves.”

Yuki looked away. “...Let’s talk about something else,” he suggested.

“Okay,” said Momo, because he was the most wonderful person on the planet. “How much of the route through the building leading here did you catch? We should probably plan our way out.”

Several hours passed. Yuki and Momo both eventually fell asleep, curled near the door of the cell, and when Yuki awoke to Momo pouring water on his face Ban was already up, sitting on his cot with his pillow in his lap, watching them with an amused expression on his face.

Technically, he was hiding his amusement, but Yuki recognized the cocked eyebrow, the slight flicking of his lips upward, the hidden glint in his eye as Yuki slowly pushed himself up, complaining about the water.

“You need to be awake for our grand escape, darling!” Momo said, pouting. “I can’t just rely on the gunshots to wake you!”

“I have slept through a gunfight before,” Yuki agreed. He looked over at Ban and smiled at him. “Good morning, Ban. Are you ready to escape?”

“Am I--what?” Ban said.

“Ready to escape!” Momo said. “Like we said yesterday, we came here to rescue you! And we have a plan, which is better than most of our plans because it’s more than just saying ‘we want this to happen’ and then messing up until either it happens or we get arrested, so it’s definitely going to work!”

Ban raised his eyebrows doubtfully. “Somehow, I don’t think that’ll work.”

“Yeah it will,” Momo said confidently.

“How are you going to get out of the cell?”

Momo grinned ferally and pulled out his handgun. “With this!” he said, and started shooting at the bulletproof glass.

“What are you doing?!” shrieked Ban, leaping to his feet, pillow still clenched in one of his hands. “You--oh, my God, you’re going to get us killed for this. You’re going to die! I don’t want you to die!”

“We won’t die,” said Yuki. “Promise.”

“How can you promise that?!”

Yuki paused. “We...haven’t died yet, so we probably won’t now?” he said. “Also, I have your favorite meal in the fridge for when we get home, so I definitely can’t die, because I need to give it to you.”

Ban blinked at him. “...Thanks, I guess?” he said. He still looked very stressed, and then a guard came when the glass was just seconds away from shattering, and Yuki figured that that was probably a good reason to look stressed.

“What,” said the guard, “is going on here?”

“Well you see,” said Momo, “your mom came to visit me last night, and…”

The guard pulled out a remote control from his pocket, and pressed a button, and then Ban screamed and fell to the floor, and for the first time Yuki noticed the shock collar around his neck.

“Ban!” Yuki screamed. “What did you do to him, you monster--Ban! Ban! Are you okay?! Ban!”

“I’m...fine, don’t worry,” Ban said, slowly picking himself up, but he was trembling madly.

“Shock collar,” the guard said. “To discourage any escape attempts.”

That guard was dying. Today.

He looked at the gun in Momo’s hands, and then the cracked glass, and sighed. “This is--ridiculous,” he muttered. He pressed a button on his phone. “Well--Cell 7. Step outside--you’re going to be my human shield while I transport these lunatics into a different, non-compromised cell.”

“Human shield?” Yuki echoed, horrified, plastering himself against the glass of the door. Perhaps this plan had not been as well thought through as he’d previously thought. If Ban was a human shield, then he could get hurt. He’d already gotten hurt. “No, please, don’t touch him! Please, I’ll do anything, just don’t hurt him, please don’t hurt him!”

Ban stared at him, eyes wide, as he slowly opened the door to his cell and walked out. He looked surprised, as though not expecting Yuki to be horrified that he was hurt, to beg for him to be treated better.

“That’s up to you and your partner,” said the guard.

“Then I choose for him to not be hurt ever again!” Yuki said.

“Then be on your best behavior, and turn over all your weapons,” said the guard. “Do you have any idea how expensive that glass is?!”

Far more expensive than your sorry hide, Yuki thought but did not say, because he didn’t want Ban to get hurt.
“...Fine,” he said, as Momo poked the gun through the fist-sized hole in the glass and let it clatter at Ban’s feet. “You can have them. We’ll escape another way.”

The guard snorted, and moved towards the cell door, but Ban’s hand shot out quick as lightning and grabbed his wrist.

“Wait,” he said. “Let--let them go. They don’t deserve to be locked up here.”

“And why would I care about your opinion at all?” the guard said.

“Just--just please just let them go.” Ban’s voice was tight, and nervous, and he was clearly terrified, but his hands did not shake and he looked the guard evenly in the eyes.

“Are you asking to lose more memories?” the guard asked.

Ban lifted his chin and smirked, and, even though he was clearly terrified out of his wits and at the end of his rope, the sight of his smile was reassuring to Yuki. “What memories?” he said. “I have nothing left to lose. I mean, I’m trapped in here, I can’t remember any other life, and my best friend literally paid you guys to take me and do this to me, so there’s nothing for me out there, either. Why shouldn’t I try to help these people?”

“Nothing left to lose, huh?” said the guard. “What gave you that impression?” He leaned over and whispered something in Ban’s ear, and Ban’s face went pale and slack with horror. His lips trembled as the light in his eyes suddenly extinguished and the emotion faded from Ban’s face. He stood there, looking empty, looking like a leaf could knock him over, before slowly sinking to his knees, his limp hand inches away from Momo’s gun. The guard smirked, pleased. “There’s always something left to lose,” he said. “And because you seem to think these two are somehow special...well, how about we give them some shock collars of their--what are you doing with that gun.”

“There’s always something left to lose…” Ban echoed dully. “You have a lot to lose.” He stood, again, face still horribly empty, hand tightening around the gun. The guard reached out to take it from him, but Ban swung it hard and slammed it into the man’s skull with a sickening crack, and when he collapsed, continued beating him, both with the gun and with his hands, until the guard was a bloody mess and Ban knelt over him, beginning to tremble. Blood ran down his hands and stained his worn sweatpants and faded old Re:Vale coffeeshop T-shirt.

“Ban?” Yuki said, as gently as he could, crouching down on the other side of the glass as close to his friend as he could.

Ban’s head slowly raised up to look Yuki in the eye.

Yuki had seen corpses before. Sometimes they were corpses he’d made. Sometimes they were corpses someone else made. But in this moment, Ban looked more like a corpse than any actually dead person he’d ever seen before.

“Ban,” he said softly, “would you mind...letting us out of here? And we can bring you home. And help you get cleaned up, and give you cocoa...it doesn’t taste good, I can’t ever get it to taste good, but...it’s warm. And we have tea, and good food, too. And your bed’s all made up nicely, with clean sheets, and we’ve got towels and your favorite pajamas in the bathroom for you. And everything’s gonna be okay. I promise. It’ll all be okay. Nobody’s ever gonna hurt you again, I promise. Everything will be okay.”

Ban’s lips trembled, and for a moment he looked absolutely devastated, but he turned away again without a word and pulled the guard’s phone out of his pocket, and then stood up and passed it through the hole in the glass.

It was still unlocked, luckily, and Yuki and Momo were able to make quick work of the cell door, unlocking it and then opening it. Yuki paused in front of Ban, who had the same dull devastation on his face, and then reached out and hugged him the way he’d longed to for five years.

Ban curled into him, finally shattering completely into desperate sobs as he gripped the back of Yuki’s shirt tightly and burrowed his face into Yuki’s shoulder.

“You’re okay,” Yuki whispered, “you’ve okay. You’re safe now. I’ve got you. I’m here. I won’t let anyone hurt you ever again.”

“I’m going to rob the corpse,” Momo said. “He probably has some stuff on him that we can use--at the very least, to get Ban’s shock collar off.”

Yuki nodded, still hugging and soothing Ban as much as he could. Killing was terrible, Yuki knew that well. Especially when it was your first time. He only really ever killed if Momo was in direct and immediate danger, but seeing as he was a private investigator, that happened far too often.

After a couple moments, Momo swore. “The fucker’s still alive!” he said.

“That’s fine,” said Yuki, one arm tightening around Ban while the other went to his own concealed handgun. “I can fix it.”

And fix it he did, with three shots through the man’s head, before holstering the gun again and going back to hugging Ban as Momo found the remote control.

“I’m going to take your shock collar off now, okay, Ban?” Momo asked. 

Ban nodded into Yuki’s shoulder, so Momo pressed a button on the control and the shock collar clicked and then separated at the ends, and Momo carefully pulled it away from Ban’s neck and threw it across the room, revealing a thin scar where it once had been. 

Yuki gripped Ban a little tighter. “I love you,” he mumbled into his ear, and Ban made a little pained noise and curled further into Yuki’s shoulder.

“We need to start moving,” Momo said. “Ryo’s probably going to send more guards down after those gunshots, and we can’t count on Yamato and the others for backup until after we’re already all out.”

Yuki nodded. “Ban, is that okay with you?” he said, both because he didn’t want Ban to cry harder and because there was still a very large part of him that was screaming to let Ban take over, to follow in his lead, though that would end in both of them crying on the floor, and Yuki had sworn to himself not to do that until Ban was safe and stable.

Ban nodded again, and pulled away, wiping at his face. Yuki reached for his hand before thinking better of it, but Ban didn’t pull away and Yuki guessed that he could use some comfort after whatever the guard had said to him, even if that comfort had to come from Yuki.

The three of them headed out the door after Momo reloaded his gun, both members of Re:vale ready to shoot as soon as it was necessary. Ban kept an eye out as well, but the hallways were thankfully, blessedly empty.

Yuki realized why once they made it to the ground floor and saw the bodies and blood scattered everywhere: they had not been the only ones escaping that day, and the place was a massacre.

Momo nudged one of the corpses with his boot. “It must have happened after the one the three of us took care of came down into the dungeons,” he said. “I’m guessing our missing persons figured that the gunshots were us and we had everything under control. We can probably walk right out of here!”

“Do they really count as missing when we know exactly where they are?” asked Yuki.

“Well, we don’t know exactly where they are,” Momo said. “Plus, I mean, legally they’re all missing. We haven’t told anyone we found them, at any rate.”
“Oh yeah,” said Yuki, who had informed Chiba Shizuo via excited 3 AM phone call that they had run into Yamato and were working to help him get somewhere safe and had already received a good deal of money for that.

“On the bright side,” Momo said cheerfully, looking around at the corpses, “it looks like we can walk right out!”

“Yeah,” Yuki said. He tucked away his gun and let go of Ban’s hand to put his arm around his shoulder. Ban didn’t pull away, so Yuki figured this was alright with him. “Let’s go home.”

“Home…” Ban said softly. “I can’t wait.”