Work Text:
As a rule of thumb, Hayakawa Aki cleans his house once a week. It’s sufficient. He picks up after himself, and he maintains his appliances well. Once is enough.
Makima sending a debt-ridden orphan and a homeless Devil to live with him severely throws a wrench in his weekly plans.
“How are the children?” Angel asks.
Aki blows a thin wisp of smoke out of his mouth. “They’re not my children. And they aren’t anything. I came here to smoke, not get stressed, so stop talking.”
“They’re kind of your children.”
“One of these days, I will be branded a psychopathic serial killer, and it’s going to be because of people like you and them. Devils, I mean. Like you.”
Angel doesn’t even look at him. “I’m sure they’re fine. You are a very dramatic man.”
-
First of all, Aki is the least dramatic person in the entirety of the 4th division.
Power spits vegetables out like a gun and doesn’t flush, doesn’t dress, doesn’t shower, doesn’t clean, doesn’t anything. Denji is girl-crazy, doesn’t hold a single shred of self-preservation in his body, and agreed to be a dog. Kobeni is disloyal and delusional. Hirokazu is… cowardly, and cracks under pressure and…
Himeno goes, sorry, used to go on kissing sprees and vomit in people’s mouths when she got drunk.
Aki just shouts when things don’t go his way.
Okay, so maybe they aren’t exactly dramatic. He’s still leading a team of crackpots, who belong at least on the same floor as a psych ward.
And second of all, even if he was a little dramatic, it would be justified.
“The next time I see your feet on my coffee table,” he whirls around and holds a threatening finger up. “I will kill you.” Power sticks her tongue out to blow a raspberry at Denji, who is wiggling his toes on a pristine glass sheet. He steps towards her. “That goes for you too, Devil.” She scoffs, affronted.
“Human. You’re really anal about things like this. Is this why you don’t have a girlfriend?” She receives an elbow to her ribs and a well-meaning glare from Denji. “What?”
“His girlfriend’s dead!” Denji whisper-shouts. Aki releases a long-suffering sigh. He just wants to take a nap.
“Take your goddamn feet off my table, Chainsaw. Cost of cleaning products is taken out of your pay.”
“Ha! Loser!”
“I’m taking plumbing bills out of your pay, Power. Don’t test me.”
They begin protesting. Aki can’t be bothered to babysit any longer, so he turns around and stalks back to his room, where he takes a 10-hour long nap. Right before he falls asleep, he sends a quiet prayer up to any god that will listen to him to keep Denji and Power from burning his entire house down. And then he sends a wordless, but no less important, curse to Makima for orchestrating the beginnings of his mental breakdown.
If Aki ever gets a brain aneurysm, he hopes the bill is sent to Makima.
When he wakes up, night has fallen. He stumbles out to see Denji sleeping on the floor, a puddle of water spread around him. Nyako slumbers undisturbed on top of his chest. Power is nowhere to be seen.
The vase that he usually uses to hold flowers is broken on the floor next to Denji’s head.
Aki sighs, again. With one socked foot, he gently shifts the broken shards away from Denji, before bending down to check for blood on his head. Nyako blinks her eyes open.
“I'm going to kill them, Nyako.” Aki says. “I mean it.”
There’s no blood on Denji. Aki straightens with a crack of his knees and makes his way back to bed.
-
Makima sends him an address only, and if he didn’t respect her, Aki would have replied far less politely. As it is, he sends a simple acknowledgement and gathers his team.
Kobeni and Hirokazu are less likely to induce headaches, but that’s only because they do not live with Aki. This morning, he has to physically drag Denji out of bed and shove Power into the shower. They make a fuss at breakfast, as is wont with them, and Aki spends the first hour of his day wishing he was asleep.
The devil they are tasked with is the Needle Devil, and, as you might have guessed, it is completely covered in needles. Normal private devil hunters might be able to take it down fairly easily, but Aki guesses that the Public Safety Bureau must have snatched this case up quite quickly. The humongous sting-like needle pointing through its head may be reason enough for devil hunters to be scared too.
Aki takes one look at it and clicks his tongue. Before he’s able to speak with the policemen around the scene, Power and Denji have already sprung into action.
He clicks his tongue again. There’s no use trying to stop them. “You two, go after them. Make sure they don’t die.” Aki is very certain that he had read that Hirokazu is older than him. There shouldn’t be a reason why he feels like a burnt-out single parent.
He checks his watch. It’s not even been ten minutes since they arrived. He can see Denji swinging up to grab onto the big needle, which makes the Needle Devil yowl and hurtle forward, nearly impaling Kobeni. Kobeni trembles and falls to her feet. Power takes a huge bite out of the Needle Devil’s neck. Denji breaks the needle with his bare hands. Hirokazu dashes to Kobeni’s side to help her up.
Not for the first time, Aki wishes that the troublemakers didn’t make the better hunters. He’s anticipating either resignation letters from Kobeni and Hirokazu, or Makima firing them.
“You should be fighting with them.”
Aki startles, before slowly turning his head around to stare incredulously at Angel. “Are you stalking me?”
“Why would I stalk you?”
Aki wishes sarcasm was commonplace in other species. “Nevermind. Does Makima know you are here?”
“Why ask such an insipient question? Makima would not bother with the whereabouts of a lowly Devil such as I.”
Aki squints. Who… talks like that? Genuinely.
“Look. Your youngest child has cut the needle off the head. Oh – your female child is biting into its neck. How foul.” Angel’s eyes tighten at the corners to express faint disgust.
“They’re not my children. Wait, what? POWER, STOP DRINKING!” Aki leaps over the barricades and rushes to the falling body of the Needle Devil, where Denji is already attempting to pull Power off. She holds on to the Needle Devil by her teeth, yowling and kicking angrily.
Aki berates her, as is fitting of a leader, not a father. When he looks back, Angel waves at him with a twinkle in his eye, before turning away to head back to the Headquarters. Aki frowns at Power, who is sulking pettily.
“I am draining you,” he announces with finality.
-
He hands in his report for the day with Kobeni, who tags along like a puppy. The file goes onto Makima’s desk, because Makima is seldom in her office when Aki requires an audience with her.
Kobeni trots next to him. “You did not fight today.”
“Neither did you,” Aki spits cuttingly. “What are you trying to say?”
She flinches away from him, which would make Aki feel bad if he wasn’t already resentful of her. He feels bad, sure, for his words and her fear, but fear has no place in a Devil hunter. Aki has only just reached adulthood himself. He thinks it’s justified for him to wish she would just resign so that he could expend less energy on making sure she stays alive.
He sighs. “No, I did not fight. If you will recall, the last time I did I lost a bit of my life. Makima and Kishibe think it prudent that I abstain from unnecessary battles, just for now.” It’s a very small olive branch. Kobeni takes it.
“I hope you feel better, Hayakawa-san.”
Aki nods once, and strides away from her. When he rounds the corner, Angel is there, face expressionless. “You lost more than a little bit of your life, Hayakawa Aki,” he says measuredly. Aki snorts.
“I’m really beginning to think you have some kind of obsession with me. They don’t have to know that. Kobeni doesn’t have to know that.”
“You are responsible for their well-being. Would your death not affect them?”
His eye twitches. “I’ll be dead. What does it matter?”
Angel smiles mirthlessly. “Look at you. Even you do not believe what you say. You owe your wards the truth. What will happen when you die and the Blood Devil finds you lifeless in your bed? Will she cry? Will she scream?” He pauses here, moving toward Aki, pressing his fingertips to Aki’s chest through his shirt, right above his heart.
“You are alive now. You will not be within the coming months. What then? I have seen death, Aki, and I have been responsible for them. Grief is not a pretty thing.” Angel removes his fingers, and Aki immediately breathes easier, as if five gentle pressure points of warmth had stolen the breath from his lungs.
“You do them a disservice by hiding this. They are both orphans, and now they have found kinship in you. Family borne by choice and not blood; have you any idea the depth emotions may run? You must tell them, Aki.”
Aki finally looks up, meeting his eyes. He sighs. He opens his mouth, then closes it, then finally decides, whatever, I’m dying.
“I wish I could touch you.”
Angel frowns, and Aki can see the question on the tip of his tongue. No, no, he thinks, touch, bare-handed, without layers of cotton between us. He looks at Angel, willing his gaze to not turn desperate.
Something must show anyway, because Angel's eyes soften. He smiles dimly.
"I know what you mean." And strides past Aki, back into the building.
-
Denji is whining for fried chicken, which, even if Aki had such a craving, he would not deign to ruin his kitchen by cooking it.
“I don’t mind if you want to order it. Why do you insist on frying it yourself?”
“Because it’s COOL, Aki. Badass!” Denji pumps his fist in the air.
The reflexive urge to shut him down has already pushed a rejection to the tip of his tongue, where it hides behind his teeth, waiting for a chance to escape. Aki really doesn’t want to fry chicken in his own home, where the scent will permeate and persist past his air freshener, where the oil will have to be properly disposed of, where a mess will inevitably be made, as is expected of Denji and Power.
Power is silently cheering on Denji, gnawing at his arm to stave her hunger. Denji swats at her half-heartedly.
He looks at them; really looks. Angel says they are his family, which is hard to believe, because how has the passage of time escaped him so? Denji came to him months ago, homeless and helpless, only asking for shelter and food. They have grown on him in a way he had not foreseen.
It feels like yesterday when he had kicked Denji in the chest, disgusted at his juvenility, at his crudeness. And disgusted at Power because she was a Devil, and a Devil had killed his family. But now Power is family. And now Aki must grow past himself.
He relents, and hates himself for it.
“I’ll get the ingredients. You can watch, but if you even step foot in the kitchen I will gut you both. Am I understood?”
“Yes, dad.” Denji snickers. Aki’s hands freeze where they are taking eggs out of the fridge.
“Impertinent brat,” he mutters.
-
They’re curled up in Aki’s bed, which happens with Denji and Power when they crave the warmth of a human body, which is all the time. Aki’s actual bed is only a single, which would never fit more than just Aki, so they’ve pushed the bedframe out of the way. Aki sleeps on a pile of bedsheets and comforters.
Power is tucked into Denji’s chest, small despite her larger-than-life personality. Denji is tucked into Aki’s chest, and he’s definitely not small, compared to Aki. They’re all breathing in tandem, Power fast asleep, Denji’s eyes flitting restlessly under his eyelids.
“Denji,” he whispers. The boy hums tiredly.
When Aki fails to respond, Denji opens his eyes and turns over. He pokes Aki in the shoulder.
“Denji,” Aki whispers again. “I –”
His voice catches in his throat. Now, Denji is almost fully awake, his eyebrows pulled down in concern. He pokes Aki again.
“What is it?” Denji whispers back. “Are you gonna cry, dude?”
Aki blinks rapidly. “No, bastard.” He takes in a shaky breath.
“Denji, I’m going to die.”
Denji stares at him. Then, his eyebrows relax and his concern dissipates. “Oh, well,” he says nonchalantly. “We already knew that. Your sword, right? You should tell Power too!” His smile is small but blinding in the darkness.
Aki gapes at him. “You… know?”
“Yeah, Himeno told us about the sword, and then the Angel guy… well, you touched him, didn’t you? Do you know how long you have?”
“Maybe 3 months, maybe more, maybe less.”
“Oh.” Denji’s eyes turn sadder, his lips drooping at the corners. “You should really tell Power. She’ll be mad enough that I got to hear this first.” Denji smiles, small and sad, pushing Aki onto his back and climbing on top of him. Aki oofs when Denji lies down atop of him, crushing his spine and ribs into the inadequate cushion.
“You’re gonna be fine,” Denji slurs. “Now sleep.”
Aki smiles. This is his family, who will support and accept him in life and death. A marriage bond couldn’t hold a candle to them.
“I’ll tell Power. Thanks, Denji.”
Denji grumbles incoherently, wrapping his arms around Aki’s middle.
“Good night, Denji. And Power.” A lone tear threatens to spill from the corner of his eye, but Aki blinks it back.
-
He’s smoking outside Headquarters again when Angel leans against the wall next to him.
Aki flicks the ash off his cigarette and turns his face to Angel. “You best clear this up now before I report you for stalking me.” He smiles.
Angel laughs. “I do not stalk, Hayakawa Aki. I may follow. I may watch.” He raises a disapproving eyebrow at Aki’s cigarette before catching himself and looking away. Aki snorts.
“I’ll quit if you ask me to.”
“Excuse me?”
“Smoking. Just say it. I’ll stop.”
Angel wipes his face clean of emotion. Aki, however, has spent a significant amount of time watching Angel’s micro-expressions, so the tiny twitch in his brow betrays him.
“You are dying anyway. There is no harm in smoking.”
Aki smiles softly to himself. He drops the cigarette and stubs it out with the heel of his foot. “No, indeed. I told them.”
“Your children?”
“Yes. I told them. They take it well, far better than I expected. Denji tells me they have known for a long time.”
Angel hums thoughtfully. “Of course they did. They watch you, when you are not looking.”
“Like you?”
“I watch you when you are looking, Aki.” Angel snaps listlessly. Aki giggles behind his hand, which puts ease to Angel. His frown falls away. “I am glad you told them. Whether they knew it or not, it is important to hear such important things personally.”
Aki shuffles his feet and puts his hands in his pockets. Angel tracks the movement with his eyes. “Yes. How important. I am glad I told them as well.”
He pushes off the wall to walk back into the building. His break is over. The children will need his presence soon.
“Aki.” Angel’s voice stops him in his tracks.
He turns his head questioningly, looking at Angel over his shoulder. To his credit, Angel meets his eyes steadily even as he says:
“I wish I could touch you too.”
Reciprocating, baring himself.
-
Up above, through an open window, Denji calls for Aki. The familiar chortles of his family rise and echo out of the building.