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They're a month into their partnership. Working out the kinks, as it were.
Lupin rolls his shoulder and winces when it catches. Shoulder holster or no, it's not meant to be twisted the way it had been. Jigen watches him with half-closed eyes, arms folded across his chest. There's a fresh bandage under his rolled up shirtsleeves, rough lacerations from Lupins nails as he clambered up the limb to safety.
“Should have done the other side too,” Lupin says with a grimace, stretching his arm out wide, “at least then I'd match.”
Jigen grunts.
“Bold words for a man who was missing bullets by sheer dumb luck.”
He notices Jigen fails to mention they were both being shot at. That even as he clawed his way up through suit fabric, there were three new bullet holes in Jigen’s hat that weren't there before. He could have been dropped like a stone.
He has been before.
It hurts a lot more than a dislocated shoulder.
“Good thing I've got a good -” He pauses. Are they partners yet? Colleagues?
It’s a fleeting thought, nothing more. What are they? To each other?
“-gunman.”
Jigen cracks a lopsided grin, sharp canine visible in the low light.
“Dann fool thief.”
Bunkering down with a new colleague can be tricky. Going to ground itself can be hard, but add a second person into the mix and well - you either come out the other end best friends or enemies.
Jigen’s contract is technically over. It lapsed two months ago and neither of them have bothered to pull up paperwork for renewal. He doesn't have to be here. He could be halfway to Japan by now.
But he's not.
He ducks under the low doorframe, grey trail of smoke following him. He throws two objects in Lupins direction without warning. Lupin catches them both on autopilot. A set of car keys and a packet of smokes. His brand, not Jigen’s.
“You didn't need to-”
Jigen cuts him off. “You get cranky.”
It’s such a small insignificant action.
Yet Lupin can't think of the last time a colleague went out of their way to do something like that for him.
The sofa creaks as Jigen settles down, legs draped over the end. The paper rustles while he looks for the crossword.
“Jigen,” he starts.
The rustling stops. A muted “mmm” comes from behind the thin wall.
Another fleeting thought, brought on by proximity and kind actions. What am I? To you?
“Thank you.”
Silence stretches out for a moment. The thin wall threatens to come tumbling down with a mild breeze. Then the paper rustles and the moments gone.
“S’worth it to not have you be a pain in my ass in three days’ time.”
“Is that all I am to you?”
He says it lightly, and Jigen’s rough chuckle makes the dark living room of the safe house seem a little bit brighter.
“Yep.” The ‘p’ pops with his enunciation. “That's what you are, a pain in my ass.”
“A pain in your ass that pays you,” he counters, drawing a louder chuckle from the gunman as he reaches behind him for a pen.
“You don't pay well.”
“You're still here.”
More silence. The scratch of a ballpoint against paper.
“6 letters, beginning with Y. Longs for time with poles.”
Lupin groans, “You know I hate the cryptic ones.”
Jigen huff's, “useless thief. Pass me the dictionary.”
The rustle of pages and the crackling of the fire make it hard for Lupin to keep his eyes open. It’s like stopping to breathe after a long race, his body not quite caught up to where they are yet. Hasn't quite caught his breath.
Jigen hums from across the room quietly, flicking the thin dictionary pages before picking up the paper again.
“Ah,” his gunman exclaims softly, “yearns.”
In Lupins defence, it's not something he has to think about too deeply until they begin to invite others into the fold, like Fujiko.
He introduces him as his gunman. Skirting the line between familiarity and professionality.
Fujiko looks him up and down, and Lupin can feel the scorching glare she receives in return.
“You sure know how to pick them,” she says later, in the privacy of her room, chin propped up against a dainty wrist.
“It's not like that.”
“Isn't it? It sure looks like it might be.”
“it's not - we're not - “
She raises a perfectly manicured eyebrow, and the protests fall flat.
“Are you like us? Do I need to change my screening schedule?”
Lupins mouth opens and closes like a goldfish, words refusing to find their way past his vocal cords.
Not so fleeting anymore. Not when other people are the ones asking. What are they? To each other?
“We're just. He's just my gunman.”
“Is that what you're calling it these days?”
It makes him think though. And makes him wonder. And posed with a question, he soon finds he needs to search for the answer.
So, he asks, during breakfast at a small cafe downstairs from the apartment they're renting while they're in-between jobs.
“What am I to you?”
Jigen considers the question for a moment while he lights his cigarette.
“Asker of questions that are too philosophical for this unholy time of morning.”
“Jigen, it's nearly midday -”
A puff of smoke blown in his direction stops him mid-sentence. The waitress arrives out of nowhere with coffee, and the moment for the answer, if it was ever there to begin with, is gone. Jigen flips open the paper, balancing it in one hand with his coffee in the other.
“9 letters, ending in E. To have a prisoner get at it will charm you?”
The gunman ignores Lupins grumbling about cryptic clues as he studies the paper some more.
“Captive” Lupin offers, stirring his coffee.
Jigen mumbles something and shakes his head, “not enough letters”.
A small pile of envelopes gets placed in his lap by the waitress on her second round after she confirms they're the ones staying upstairs. He flips through them idly, still thinking about the clue. A short letter from Fujiko outlines some new targets, some even close to where they are.
“Hey Jigen,” he says, skimming through the rest of the details, “wanna do a job?”
“I thought you'd never ask.”
Lupin grins, his mind already clicking into the higher gear he reserves for planning heists. Jigen grins too, he can see the soft smirk just above the line of the paper.
He decides it doesn't matter that much, what they are, as long as they're like this.
Jigen scratches something down, scribbles over it, and scratches some more. He clicks the pen triumphantly.
“Captivate.”
Jigen and Goemon get along like a house on fire. If the house in question was smouldering slowly over several days.
Lupin doesn't mean to eavesdrop - he really doesn't. But he's shoving clothes in a drawer when he smells the distinct smell of Jigen’s cigarettes and the low hum of voices on the balcony below him.
“-you have worked together for some time?”
Jigen grunts, “long enough.”
“And,” the samurai pauses, “are you-you seem”
Jigen makes a noise, and Lupin knows immediately his eyebrow is likely raised in a manner that might make even the samurai uncomfortable.
“Forgive me, it is simply unusual to see lovers work so well together for so long.”
Jigen coughs, “we aren't -”
Goemon backtracks quickly, “ah, my apologies. It seems I was mistaken. You work well together and know each other well also.”
There's nothing but silence for a long moment. A rustling of fabric that says Goemon is shifting his position. Finally, Jigen’s voice carries up again.
“We've been working together a long time. You get comfortable you know-“
Goemon makes a noise of assent.
“He's a good man to work with. Completely insane. But a good man.”
Goemon seems to digest this information slowly. Jigen doesn't add anything, and Lupin can see in his mind’s eye the two men standing beside each other. Goemon, back straight, arms probably folded. Jigen, bent double to lean on the balcony railing.
“It is incredibly fortuitous to meet another and be so well connected.”
“Mmmm.”
“I suspect you will continue working together for many years to come.”
Jigen spits out a gruff laugh, “maybe if we hit some actual money.”
Goemon’s low chuckle joins the gruff laughter.
“There are good days and bad in every partnership.”
A lighter clicks once, twice, and then smoke winds its way up in the wind.
“There's more good days than bad.” Jigen says, and then the topic is changed abruptly to changes in gunpowder across continents.
Lupins mind is still circling, gunpowder ignored.
Later that evening Jigen hands him a glass of wine without him needing to ask, before he settles down behind a 2-day old paper.
“I thought you did that one?”
He’s sure of it actually. He remembers the front page and the subsequent argument about whether ‘Igneous’ was a valid 7 letter synonym for ‘Molten’.
“M’gonna try the sudoku.”
It takes him less than ten minutes to concede defeat, throwing the paper into the fire to watch it curl up and crackle merrily.
Like the embers in the hearth, the not-so-fleeting thought travels up and down Lupin’s consciousness.
Jigen refills his glass without asking, clicks his lighter for Lupin’s cigarette as if the movement were as natural as breathing.
What am I to you?
The gunman settles back down into the sofa, scotch glass in hand, legs stretched out across the faded fabric. A second thought crosses Lupin’s mind, one he doesn’t really want to consider in a half dark, warm room, where the air is thick with domesticity two days before they put themselves in mortal danger.
What are you to me? You’re the calm before the storm.
Lupin can hear Jigen’s teeth chattering from across the room. His lighter clicks, then clicks again, then he swears dully.
They’re boarded up in a foxhole of Jigen’s somewhere in the east of Russia near Novgorod. He swears the heating was working when he left, but it’s clearly not now. The chill is seeping into the building through every crack. Lupin fingers sting when he pulls his own lighter out and passes it over.
“Y’do it.” Jigen mumbles, “Can’t feel my fuckin’ fingers.”
He clicks it, and it lights first go. Jigen hands the cigarette over after he takes a drag. Lupin takes it gratefully. The nicotine doesn’t do much for the cold, but it takes the mind off of it.
Between the two of them they drag the mattress and meagre bedding out into the kitchen. The stove won’t do much in the blistering cold, but it might keep the edge off.
He feels clumsy, shucking his jacket to slide into the cocoon of sleeping bags they’ve made. Jigen’s already down to his thermal layer, lying on his side, trying and failing to stop his teeth from chattering.
The gunman shifts to make room, and winces when Lupin’s knee accidentally ends up between his thighs.
“Buy me dinner first,” he grumbles.
“Didn’t the canned spaghetti from the pantry count?”
Jigen grumbles under his breath and reaches up to switch the light off.
Lupin can’t tell what time it is when he wakes up. He’s not freezing anymore, which is a small blessing. The gunman shifts slightly behind him, moving the solid warmth from against his back. The cool air rushes in when he unzips the sleeping bag.
“Where’re you going?” his voice sounding scratchier than it ought to.
“Need to piss,” is the succinct reply, and then the gunman is gone, leaving a warm space behind with nothing in it.
It feels like hours, but in reality, is only minutes before Jigen returns, sliding back into the sleeping bag with a groan. Lupin rolls over and finds himself face to face with his shivering gunman.
It’s his fault. He knows this. He was too cocky, left it too late, and now they’re stuck when they could have been across the border and on a plane to Italy by now.
“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.”
Jigen doesn’t say anything, just raises an eyebrow, expression barely visible in the low light coming through from the hall.
“We didn’t need to end up stuck here, I’m sor-“
“Don’t be stupid.” Jigen cuts him off abruptly, “I know what I signed up for.”
“You didn’t sign up to freeze to death.”
Jigen huffs out warm air, not quite a laugh, “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
It feels like he’s joking, but there’s nothing but tired sincerity in his dark eyes. It reaches down into the pit of Lupin’s stomach and twists. What are we?
What am I to you? What are you to me?
“Jigen,” his voice sounds strange to his own ears.
“Mmm?”
“Can I – can I try something that I’m going to blame on the cold tomorrow?”
“Mm?”
Jigen’s eyes widen, but the rest of his expression remains inscrutable.
For a moment Lupin worries he’s misjudged. Jigen’s lips are warm, and his beard scratches the bottom of his jaw, but the gunman doesn’t move. Doesn’t even breathe.
The thought twists around in Lupin’s gut as he starts to lean away, disappointed but not necessarily surprised when Jigen makes a soft noise in the back of his throat. The next thing he registers is teeth, tongue, warmth. Hot warmth sliding down into his chest, blooming outwards, chasing away the sharp pain in his fingertips.
What are you to me? You’re the heat bleeding into my veins, steaming out the freezing cold. You’re a spit-slicked bruise on sensitive skin, toeing the line between pleasurable and painful.
Lupin doesn’t like hospitals at the best of times. They’re too sterile for his liking. And there’s too much going on. Monitors keep beeping, people talking in hushed voices behind curtains. He can barely concentrate on the matter at hand, keeping Jigen upright. Keeping the blood inside his body and not outside on the floor.
He helps the nurse sit Jigen onto a bed and then all of a sudden, he’s being shooed. Another nurse starts to undress his gunman and the curtain nearly gets pulled in front of him before he gets the words out.
“No, I need to stay with him. I can’t leave him.”
The elderly nurse shushes him gently, “He’ll be alright, love. It’s just protocol to only have next of kin or family in with him at first. He’s going to have a thorough assessment.”
Lupin stutters, barely making sense of the words being spoken. He is family.
“No, you don’t understand, I have to stay.”
The nurse touches his arm, “Love, you didn’t write anyone in the next of kin box on the form.”
“I’m his next of kin. I’m his –“ he stumbles on the words. Best friend. Colleague. Associate.
“I’m his partner.”
An odd expression crosses the nurses face as she pulls out the admission forms, “Oh, why didn’t you say so pet? Let’s fix that up now.”
An hour later Jigen is high as a kite on anaesthetic and his wounds are mostly closed. Lupin leans against the bed with his eyes shut. The kind elderly nurse had brought him a cup of tea that he hasn’t touched yet. She’d left it with a small sigh and pat on his shoulder.
“Have a rest pet, he’ll be sleeping for a few more hours yet.”
“I’m not leaving him.”
She’d smiled then, a true smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes, “You sound just like my wife you know. He must be a lucky man.”
Thin fingers find purchase in Lupin’s hair and tighten before loosening and running across his scalp. He suspects Jigen doesn’t even realise what he’s doing, the drugs aren’t supposed to wear off for another few hours.
“You’re here” Jigen says, although the words are almost blurred together.
Lupin doesn’t move, and Jigen’s fingers don’t stop their ministrations.
“Course I am, I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
Jigen’s hand stills, “I wonder – sometimes.”
The pregnant pause stretches out. Lupin can hear the unasked question.
What am I to you?
You’re all my bad days rolled into one. You’re the worst decision I’ve ever made. I worry – I worry – I worry.
“I’m not gonna leave my gunman.”
Jigen huffs out a low chuckle, wincing at the movement, “Not in my current state anyway.”
I worry.
They tiptoe around the elephant in the room like ballet dancers.
Gunman becomes a loaded word. Loaded like a pistol made ready for Russian Roulette.
What are you to me?
You’re my – gunman - best friend. You’re my – gunman – solid rock in a storm. You’re my - gunman – good days, bad days and everything in between.
They’re in another safehouse. A different one. Jigen’s wounds are healed and he’s working on a small pistol they found at an antique store. Lupin is watching him from his vantage point on the sofa, heavy book in his lap. Jigen pulls the gun apart, inspecting all the pieces before carefully putting them back together with the patience and delicacy of a craftsman at work.
“I can hear the cogs turning from here.”
He turns towards the sofa, long legs folding over themselves, not made for sitting on the floor in such a cramped space.
“I’m just thinking,” Lupin says honestly.
“About?”
“Us.”
Jigen hums softly, “us, as in?”
“Us.”
Jigen taps the fabric of the sofa gently. A nervous response he doesn’t quite manage to tamp down when it’s just the two of them. He reaches for the pistol instead, runs his fingers along the barrel and across the chamber.
“What about us?”
It seems so simple, yet when he goes to speak, the sentence may as well be in a foreign language.
“What am I? To you?”
Jigen rolls the chamber in between his fingers, making it click.
“You’re an infuriating, damn fool, thief. But I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, wouldn’t want to be with anyone else.”
It’s the closest he’s gotten to a confession in the time they’ve spent together. Probably the closest he’s ever going to get. Jigen holds his gaze steady, the chamber no longer clicks in the pistol.
“Well, what am I then? To you?”
He’s had a different answer every time Jigen’s asked him over the years. The truth is buried behind layer upon layer of brick-and-mortar walls designed to protect. Walls doing their jobs all too well.
“You're my gunman,” he says with a wink.
Jigen grins. He twirls the small pistol he'd been working on around his thumb with a flourish. The .22 calibre shot makes a pinging noise as it's fired, a woosh as it flies past Lupins ear and a soft crunch as it punches through the drywall.
“Don't you forget it.”
With the lopsided hat and grin burned into his retinas, and the smell of gunpowder fresh in his nostrils, Lupin finds himself pulled forward. He doesn’t know who instigated the movement – he does know that it can’t be comfortable for either of them. The book presses into the meat of his stomach but he doesn’t care because Jigen’s lips are solid against his. His tongue runs along the seam of them, and then there’s movement and teeth and a groan that sounds like it comes from deep within Jigen’s chest. The pistol gets dropped onto the coffee table with a thud, and somewhere along the line his hat gets dislodged.
When they part, Jigen looks like he’s just run a race. His hair is mussed, and his chest is heaving. Lupin’s sure he doesn’t look much better.
“Your gunman?” he asks, as though there could possibly be a question at all about the answer.
Lupin shoves the book aside, and reaches for Jigen’s tie, pulling gently. He comes up slowly, unfolding legs before leaning over the thief, following his guiding hand.
“My gunman.” He confirms and pulls him down.