#vaya collab

[ikesenhell]

And Again.

Again., Chapter 15 and the Finale–a collaboration by myself and @a-shout-to-the-void​ AKA Vaya. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here, and Vaya’s here. NOTES: WOW THE FEELS HERE. Sorry on taking forever with this part. I’m not going to spoil anything, but... just put on your feels vests.

Ieyasu and Kenshin started taking lunch together. At first, it was by coincidence; they kept running in to one another on the street with takeout clutched in their fists. But slowly, gradually, their schedules twisted and merged until they were sitting on the same park bench together, picking over leftover hibachi.

“Care you spare any carrots?” Kenshin mused, poking a mushroom with his chopstick.

Ieyasu shoved one toward him. “That’s a change.”

“What’s a change?”

“Mitsunari hated carrots. We couldn’t get him to eat them for the life of us.”

Kenshin’s ocean eyes crinkled in a smile as he popped the carrot in his mouth. “You know, he asked me about marrying the two of you on a bench just like this.”

Ieyasu hesitated. “He did?”

“He did. He asked me how I knew I wanted to marry Isehime, how I knew she was the ‘one’.” He dipped a piece of zucchini in soy sauce, idly waiting for it to stop dripping.

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him that I knew I loved her when I was doing things to make her happy, just because they did. Wearing her favorite colors, cleaning the tiles. Things like that. He said he felt the same way about you two.”

Ieyasu fell silent. The breeze skittered through the park, tossing dead leaves over concrete. “Weird.”

“What is?”

“That he asked you. And now, you’re--we’re--”

Kenshin smiled his beautiful, crystalline smile. It knocked Ieyasu’s breath away. Without thinking, he shut the styrofoam lid of hibachi and shunted it behind him, his hands cupping the other man’s cheek. “Come here.”

The other man just chuckled. “Should I?”

“Yeah. You really, really should.”

Finally, Kenshin scooted closer. At last--after what felt like years of yearning--Ieyasu leaned in and kissed him.

---

It took a year before Kenshin joined them in the bedroom. For so long it had been just Ieyasu and Williams that it felt taboo--but the moment she took Kenshin’s hand in hers and pulled him over the threshold, it felt right. The very first time he peeled his shirt away the two of them just stared.

“You can’t be a decade older than me,” she laughed. Kenshin just frowned.

“And why not?”

“Because--” Ieyasu sputtered his way through the thought. All those years of therapy had certainly helped his jealousy, but for the first time in a long time he felt that primal, confusing call of arousal he so often confused for it. “Because we’d both bang the hell out of you.”

Kenshin’s sly, silver-fox smile sent shivers down his skin. “We’ll have to see about that, won’t we?”

That they did.

Ieyasu was used to waking pinned between Mitsunari and her. Kenshin didn't try and take that place. Instead he cradled her body and rested his hand on Ieyasu’s waist, mouth buried into the curve of her spine. She stretched when she woke in the morning and her hips would ride back into his, and then they’d all wake with need. They were too old now to do all they used to. Apparently Kenshin was still as insatiable as he’d ever been. The man blinked sleepily between blonde strands and worked his lips over her shoulder.

“Good morning,” she giggled, nuzzling into Ieyasu’s chest.

“Mornin’,” Ieyasu managed.

“Good morning indeed,” Kenshin sighed, threading a fine line with his tongue over her neck. She moaned and rocked back her head.

“Can’t give her even a minute when she wakes up?” Not that he hated it so much. Ieyasu wrapped his arm protectively over her shoulder blades as her hips ground back into Kenshin, the man’s hands disappearing between her thighs and conjuring more sighs with it.

“When she’s this eager? Wouldn’t it be criminal to wait?”

“I think there’s a statute somewhere,” he conceded reluctantly. “Dunno if I could quote it.”

Her flushed smile was a thing of beauty. Ieyasu pressed his mouth against her forehead and she sighed again. “Please?”

Kenshin shot a questioning stare up at Ieyasu for consent. How could he say no to those eyes?

“Fine,” he pretended to grouse. “But I hold her.”

Trailing one thin line down her spine, Kenshin treated her neck to another kiss before stripping away the covers. “I wouldn’t imagine taking that from you.”

---

Years rolled on. Nari grew tall and willowy like his father, amethyst eyes flashing against dark skin, an infectious smile and an analytical mind. He learned to debate between his three parents and to drive from Kenshin, adopted Ieyasu’s love of spicy food and his mother’s deft hands for his hair. When he graduated from high school, it was as valedictorian.

And along the line, he and Leyla Toyotomi-Akechi grew close. What started almost as a parental in-joke--wouldn’t it be funny if?--evolved.

They were all older now. Kenshin’s hair was as white as Mitsuhide’s, Ieyasu’s fast behind. Williams had laugh lines that measured every happy year she’d spent with them. Their house was cluttered with photos of the four of them and Isehime and Mitsunari, vacations with the prosecutor’s office and albums of Nari. They still maintained Nari’s room, even though he was in his senior year of law school and rarely there.

When he visited that March morning, they all knew why.

“So.” Nari shuffled his hand through his hair, a near-perfect imitation of a nervous Ieyasu, and smiled at his three parents on the couch. “So, I kind of--I have to ask, cause I--tradition, you know.”

“Mm.” Kenshin rapped his fingers on the side table. Ieyasu just put an arm around Williams and waited.

“Well.” Their son--their beautiful, beautiful son--smiled broadly and tapped his fingers together. “So I’ve been seeing Leyla--you know, for a while, it’s been a while, and--”

“Oh my god.” Williams covered her face.

“No! Don’t cry, Mom--”

“I’m going to!” She choked a laugh. “My baby--”

Nari swooped forward and scooped his mother into his arms. The two of them stood there, swaying together in the living room. Kenshin and Ieyasu exchanged a single knowing glance.

“Excuse us.” Kenshin got to his feet.

“Bring the other one, too,” Ieyasu instructed quietly. “You know where it is.”

“I do.”

Nari watched with wide eyes as Kenshin disappeared upstairs. It was only a few moments before he returned, a pair of small boxes in hand.

“You’ll need these.”

“I--” Now it was Nari’s turn to tear up. “You don’t have to--”

“You can get them resized,” Ieyasu pushed forward, taking the familiar purple ring in his hand. “Your father would want this to be used. It makes sense that it would go to you.”

“And Isehime,” Kenshin followed through gravely, “Would be proud to be part of this.”

Swallowing back a sob, Nari rushed forward into their arms. All four of them huddled together in the living room--or six of them--all enveloped together.

---

They grew older still.

Nari and Leyla moved away, following work to the west. The house was quieter. Countless hours of work-weary footfalls and dashes out the door had softened the place, lending the gentle hum of a place well-loved to keep the silence at bay. Slowly, slowly--the years slid away from them. Nobunaga retired. Then Mitsuhide, then Kenshin--and one day, Ieyasu turned off the lights to his office and knew it was his turn as well.

Mornings were soft. Ieyasu woke to his spouses together in bed, the warmth enough to make him want to stay, stay, stay. Days passed in dreamlike quiet. Ieyasu watched his loves grow beautiful and old alongside him--tending to the pepper garden and the rabbit hutch out back, weaving flowers into Williams’ twists…

And then came the inevitable.

He didn't even know it happened at first. He went to sleep, and when he woke, it was to a gentle hand on his cheek.

“Yasu?”

Ieyasu squinted awake. What about that voice was so familiar? He struggled to right himself and sat up with more ease than he’d managed in at least a decade, the fingertips smoothing out his eyebrows. “Nari?”

A quiet laugh. “Yes. Hi, honey.”

Not Nari. Ieyasu blinked rapidfire, realization dawning. “Mitsunari?”

And there he was--violet eyes and silver hair, radiance and sugar and sunshine and a thousand other things Ieyasu had lost so many years ago. Mitsunari smiled with the grace of an angel and his heart ached. God. How he’d missed that smile! And in what felt like the blink of an eye, there was Williams, too, and Kenshin, and a woman he’d never met but recognized as Isehime.

“Hi, honey,” Mitsunari repeated, soft and sweet. “Hello, my loves. I’m so happy to see you again.”

[ikesenhell]

Goodnight, Moon

Again., Chapter 12–a collaboration by myself and @a-shout-to-the-void​ AKA Vaya. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here, and Vaya’s here. NOTES: WARNING: MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH. 

After some pre-wedding counseling, it was decided: Williams and Ieyasu would be formally married in the eyes of the law. That was just paperwork. As far as the ceremony went, they could make it a joint wedding of their dreams for the three of them.

And so it was. Mitsunari’s brother, Masazumi, insisted on becoming ordained and hosting the wedding at their Connecticut estate. Williams’ family was uncertain at first but ultimately supportive, insisting on having the dinner be potluck style and contributing half of it themselves. They wound yellow and purple ribbons together over the white benches and made boutonnieres of morning glories and moonflowers and wound them into a bouquet for her. On a gently foggy day in spring, Mitsunari and Ieyasu stood together at the altar as Williams walked down the aisle with her father, the white lace bright against her beautiful dark skin, her eyes brimming with love. Mitsunari choked up and clutched Ieyasu’s hand.

The wedding was beautiful. They all danced and sang and watched the daylight dip into dark, taking the guest carriage house for themselves, and nothing in the whole wide world felt sweeter.

---

It was in early December, three years after the wedding, that they finally decided--yes.

First they sold the little condo and moved out of the big city to a sprawling suburb, taking a house that Mitsunari insisted on almost purely for the lawn and the library (though Ieyasu balked at the price tag--it was the subject of many an argument until she threw her weight behind it and finally he gave in). They bought new furniture and arranged it until everything was perfect and things were calm. And then--at last--came the great debate.

At first they all took genetic tests, but when all came back as fine, (though Ieyasu pointed out they didn't indicate a reason for Mitsunari’s absent-mindedness and therefore they couldn’t be but so accurate) they took it to their therapist. After many, many sessions of debate spent rolling between Ieyasu’s occasional jealousy and their emotional needs, weighing the pros and cons of simply combining the materials needed and leaving it to chance and deciding that was too cold, they finally settled on the old fashioned way.

Those were some of his favorite nights. It felt so different when you were trying. Every moment felt precious, every sigh from her lips and Mitsunari’s like raw gold spilling between his hands. He memorized the curve of her body as it was and knew it would never be the same, that he cradled a privilege meant for no one else. They made love until she was utterly spent and dripping and couldn’t take any more, the heady smile on her lips better than any sex in the whole wide world.

And then one day Mitsunari and he came home from the firm and found a bundle of roses wrapped in a baby blanket, a positive pregnancy test sitting on top of it all.

---

Naturally, before all else, Mitsunari went out and bought a pile of baby books. Books on babies, books on how to rear them, books for babies--

“They won’t even be able to read for a while,” Ieyasu groused, halfway through assembling a crib and glaring at the bookshelf Mitsunari was already setting up. “Don’t you think diapers are a priority over that?”

“Of course, but I figured I would get them now. It pays to be prepared. Besides, some studies indicate that reading to a child in the womb is--”

“Please don’t quote more studies at me,” she half-laughed, half-groaned, pecking a kiss onto her bookish husband’s nose. “I’m already nauseous half the time as-is, I don’t need the anxiety of that.”

The child was a boy. She framed all of the ultrasounds and started a scrapbook, cradling her ever-swelling belly with tender hands. When he got home in the evenings he would grant her a kiss and brush a hand over her stomach. They painted the nursery in shades of yellow and cream and lilac, draped the crib with soft blankets and dressed the changing station, stocked a playpen with everything a growing kid might need. Mitsunari started reading at night as soon as the fetus developed ears.

“Goodnight room,” he whispered, turning the pages as if the child could see it. “Goodnight moon. Goodnight cow jumping over the moon--”

Despite himself the new routine lulled Ieyasu to sleep. He wrapped an arm over Mitsunari’s lap and drifted off into dreamland.

She was due in three weeks when he got the call.

“Is this Ieyasu Tokugawa?” The voice on the other end asked.

“Speaking,” he huffed, cupping a hand over his ear to block out the noises of the court and wondering why the devil Mitsunari had to be late to a court hearing, of all things. “How can I help you?”

“This is Mount Sinai Hospital. I’m afraid there’s been an accident.”

---

Car accident, one of the doctors said. Coma. He hasn’t woken up yet--

Ieyasu stared at his husband’s unconscious figure and stayed silent.

Is there anyone else we need to notify?

“Our wife,” he answered without thinking, “She--I’ll--I’ll call her.”

Are you sure?

“Yeah,” he forced, willing his trembling hands to his cell phone. “Yeah, she’s--she’s pregnant--”

It rang twice before she picked up, cheer and light incarnate. All he could manage were the words, “Mitsunari got hit by a car.”

The hospital lights were too, too bright. Mitsunari looked sallow. A halo of bruises circled his forehead and right eye and turned purple. She arrived and sat frozen beside his bed, hand locked in his. Ieyasu paced. Nothing good happened if he stopped moving. If he stopped moving, it became real.

The swelling of Mitsunari’s brain increased. A doctor made them sign consent forms to drain fluid. Ieyasu barely remembered to write his own name.

He still didn't wake.

“Honey,” she murmured once, her voice barely louder than the persistent beep of the heart monitor. “Honey, come back to me. Please?” Curling her fingers around Mitsunari’s, she guided his hand to her stomach. “Come back to us, Honey?”

Nothing.

His prognosis isn’t great.

Ieyasu couldn’t speak.

We don’t think he’s actually going to wake up. Does he have any other family?

“A brother,” he managed. “In Connecticut.”

You might want to call him.

If he called it became real.

Even then he lifted the cellphone and searched through his contacts for one he never used, settling into a quiet spot by the door for the conversation. “Masazumi? It’s Ieyasu. Call us back.”

She went into labor two weeks later. Mitsunari didn't wake up.

After the delivery, Ieyasu held his son in his arms and brought him down from the maternity ward into Mitsunari’s room. Gently as he could, he arranged his husband’s arms until it bowed just right, settling the newborn into the crook.

“It’s your son,” he whispered, struggling not to cry. “Please wake up. He looks so much like you.”

No answer. Ieyasu reached out and pet the silky locks of silver hair, padded his finger along the dark bruises, and wished they would fade.

If they faded, it wasn’t real.

They didn't fade.

Masazumi stayed with them for a week before they all made the choice. After one long, sleepless night, the four of them went into the hospital room and said their goodbyes.

That single, final long sound made it all real.

---

The house was quieter somehow. Emptier. It mourned the way only houses did: with silence. Even the nursery felt haunted. She sat by the crib and hummed a tune to their son, but it disappeared in the quiet fall air--and Ieyasu never hated quiet so much as he did in that moment.

Quickly, quietly, he went to their room and scooped up the pile of books Mitsunari was working through and returned, settling in beside the rocking chair on the footstool. She fixed him with a mournful smile but said nothing as he opened the first book.

“Goodnight nobody,” he read, his voice cracking on the first sentence. “Goodnight mush. And goodnight to the old lady whispering ‘hush’. Goodnight stars. Goodnight air--”

She dipped her face into her hand and sobbed. Ieyasu blinked, tears splattering over the book, but he held his jaw tight and forced his way through the last sentence. “Goodnight noises everywhere.”

[ikesenhell]

The Book of Love

Again., Chapter 14–a collaboration by myself and @a-shout-to-the-void​ AKA Vaya. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here, and Vaya’s here. NOTES: Yeah, we both listened to the title song while writing this in sections. So much fluff here. 

They had a four person table, and almost every night, all the chairs were occupied. Kenshin was there almost as often as Williams and Ieyasu. He liked being there to pick up Nari after Kindergarten, or helping Williams bring the groceries inside. It was less lonely than his own apartment.

“Good for you,” Shingen commented kindly, clapping his old friend on the back. “You’re getting out of the house.”

“As opposed to?” He groused, taking a long sip of sake.

“Staying inside? You’ve been almost… happy, dare I say it, since you’ve started helping out with Nari. Like you got some purpose back.”

That was a valid observation. Kenshin could feel the light coming back into his life, as if the clouds blanketing his sky were finally rolling away. He liked spending time with the couple. Ieyasu was whip-smart and sarcastic, Williams kind and sharp. He loved watching them spin around Nari and read to him. It felt domestic and warm. What else was there to say?

One rainy day he realized what was happening.

He’d volunteered to bring Nari home--both of his parents were working late. He used the spare key and stepped inside, depositing the child on the floor and taking off his shoes, listening to the five year-old’s animated recounting of his day with mmhmms and oh?s. The house was quiet and empty. Kenshin straightened up and realized that the floor was muddy.

That wouldn’t do. It would make the both of them happy if they didn't have to worry about their floors when they got home, so Kenshin made himself useful. He went to the kitchen and found a bucket and sponge. Quietly he shifted all of the shoes onto a mat and removed the rug, settling onto his hands and knees and getting to work. Nari occasionally interrupted; he would charge in with a book and point at pictures, or read aloud to him and out of order. Kenshin just chuckled and kept at it.

The front door opened.

“Hey.” Ieyasu paused and observed the freshly cleaned floors, Kenshin still drying them. “What are you doing?”

He brushed back a strand of his blonde hair. “Your floors were dirty.”

“You didn't have to.”

“I felt like it.”

Ieyasu didn't seem to know what to say. Instead he knelt and unlaced his shoes in the doorway, honoring Kenshin’s work by not adding to it, and crept inside. “She’ll, uh… she’ll appreciate it.”

He interpreted that as a ‘thank you’ and smiled serenely. “You’re welcome.”

---

Kenshin left less than an hour to midnight, closing the front door gently behind him. Ieyasu stared blankly at the door even after it clicked shut, as if Kenshin might pop back in for a brief word. Finally, he shook his head and turned away.

“Weird,” he murmured, collecting two whiskey glasses--one empty, one half full--from the table. “I’m being weird.”

He was drying the glasses when Williams finally came home, settling the door shut as quietly as Kenshin had. “Sorry I’m so late tonight. Is Nari in bed?”

Ieyasu nodded. “Kenshin put him to bed around nine.”

Her eyes widened. “Did he stay?”

“We had a drink.” He held up one of the glasses. “Well, I had a drink. He had two. You just missed him.”

Williams pursed her lips. “He could have stayed.”

“He should have stayed,” Ieyasu grumbled, setting the glasses in the cabinet. It had crossed his mind to ask to offer Kenshin a bed for the night. It was late, and the subway was hardly reliable.

From behind him, he heard her sigh. “Even if you’d offered, he wouldn't have stayed. He never does.”

She was right, he knew, but something about her words sent a pang through his chest. Kenshin never stayed. As much time as he spent in their home, Kenshin always retreated for the night, keeping them at arm’s length. Ieyasu wanted more, to know him the way he knew both of them. Kenshin had seen Ieyasu’s darkest hour, counseled him through it, carried the weight of their loss and their son, and yet…

And yet he felt no closer to Kenshin.

Something about that gnawed at him.

Williams’ hand on his arm jolted him away from thoughts of Kenshin. “Are you coming to bed?”

“Yeah.” Ieyasu glanced around the kitchen, certain that everything was back in its place. “Yeah, I’m coming.”

They settled into bed as they often did, his arm around Williams, her face nestled in the crook of his shoulder. He pressed his lips to her forehead, and she hummed in reply. Williams let her eyes fall shut, and Ieyasu smiled as he took her in. She pressed more tightly to him and he sighed in contentment. It was the most natural thing in the world, holding her.

“Do you remember Mitsunari’s funeral?” Ieyasu asked suddenly, startling Williams’ eyes open.

“I—how could I forget?” She quipped, though Ieyasu caught the edge in her voice. “Why do you ask?”

“I was just thinking, earlier…” He started, then stopped, sinking his teeth into his cheek. “Why was Kenshin so damn nice to us?”

Williams laughed against him. “It was our husband’s funeral. Everyone was ‘so damn nice to us.’”

Ieyasu frowned. “Maybe, but then why…”

“Why…?” She prompted.

Why? The question rattled around in his head, jarring loose every spare thought he had about Kenshin. Why did he think of Kenshin, over and over, when he and Williams would be too late at the office to pick up Nari from daycare? Why did the pair of them always seem to find themselves having dinner with Nari and Kenshin sitting with them? Why did the empty glass at the end of the evening—the only thing Kenshin ever left in their apartment—leave a dull ache in his chest?

“I came home to Kenshin cleaning the floors,” he finally said.

“What?”

“I guess there was mud on the floor.”

Williams stared up at him, too shocked to speak. Ieyasu almost laughed; it was a rare gift to see her confused. “So he just… cleaned… our floor?”

Ieyasu nodded. “After that, we had our drinks, talked, some. A lot, actually.” He could see—too clearly, perhaps—the curve of Kenshin’s lips as he had sipped from his glass earlier that night, the sharpness of the man’s gaze even late into the night. The rhythm of Kenshin’s silent laughter. His eyes narrowed fondly. “It was nice. I didn’t want to stop.”

“And here I thought I was the only one.” She took Ieyasu’s hand gently, lacing their fingers together with practiced ease. “I was afraid to say anything. Afraid I was… wrong, somehow, or a bad person.”

Ieyasu rolled his eyes. “If you’re a bad person, I’m the goddamn devil.”

“Oh, give yourself some credit. We both know that’s Nobunaga.” They laughed until their sides hurt, noses brushing together, fingers still entwined. When she spoke again, her earlier reticence gone. “Yasu, I think I’ve fallen for Kenshin. I think you have, too.”

Oh. He blinked a few times, unsure of an answer. He knew the moment she said it that she was right, as she so often was. How had he not seen it? He’d fallen before—twice, he reminded himself—he should know what it looked like. “It feels different this time.”

The corner of her mouth ticked upward. “I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”

Ieyasu sighed. “So what do we do?”

Williams reached for the nightstand, tapping blindly with a hand until her fingers brushed the edge of a small picture frame they kept at their bedside. She settled it between them, pulling Ieyasu’s hand with hers to rest on the photo itself.

He knew without looking that it was a photo of all three of them: Williams, Ieyasu, and Mitsunari. It was a lifetime ago, before they were married, all of them clustered around a minuscule table at their coffee shop downtown. Mitsuhide had taken it—he tossed the photo casually on Ieyasu’s desk one day with no explanation. Mitsunari beamed out of the picture as if he knew it was being taken; the smile broke and soothed Ieyasu’s heart in equal measure every time he saw it.

“Right now, we sleep,” Williams murmured. “And we can decide what to do in the morning.”

---

Kenshin knew he was just as guilty of overthinking as trying not to think at all. He did it all the time. After Isehime died, he put away every reminder of her so he wouldn’t be tempted (it didn't work). There was too much guilt in his heart. What if, what if, what if--it felt like he was cursed.

It was so much easier not to think about feelings. Apparently the Tokugawa-Ishida household wasn’t going to let him off the hook so easily.

“Are you coming by tonight?” Williams asked him over the phone.

Kenshin checked his watch as if that held his calendar, knowing damn well he never turned down an opportunity to be with them--unless Leyla Toyotomi-Akechi was having some event (and how could he refuse her?). “Yes. Why?”

“Nothing. I was just checking so I knew how much dinner to make.”

They never double-checked to see if he was coming. Something was up, Kenshin knew it. His heart beat staccato out of his chest, the hitch of a smile on his lips a traitor to his cause. Why was he so excited? Spending time with Williams, Ieyasu, and Nari was not new by any means. He liked all of them.

And it was that last thing that he couldn’t quite get his grip on. It was treasonous to want another man’s wife--and God, Kenshin was more eager to drink himself into an early night than spend time really uncovering what the Devil lingered between him and Ieyasu. Now it felt like the prelude to a conversation he knew might happen.

Or not! He wrenched himself away from lingering thoughts of what might happen and tried to fling himself into his work. But--but--he knew what sinful thoughts lurked on the periphery of his mind. He woke all the time from his imagination running wild between the two of them, gentle touches and sweet cries--

Hell.

Kenshin bent his iron will to the grindstone until the clock reached 5 and he was headed to the door. A quick text to the parents confirmed that Williams was picking up Nari--no need for him to run to the daycare today. Instead he sat in the front seat of his car and wrapped his fingers tight around the steering wheel, struggling to contain the surge of shivers rolling through his body.

Eventually he put the car into drive. The familiar route to their house in the suburbs was a comforting familiarity. Kenshin absorbed himself in the routine as best he could, pulling up in front and swinging out to rap on the door.

The next couple hours were the usual. Playing with Nari. Reading. Dinner and finally, Nari nodded off into Kenshin’s shoulder and he silently lifted the boy, heading upstairs. The quiet clink of dishes echoed through the halls as Kenshin tucked him in bed. He crept back down into the kitchen and settled in by the granite island, watching the duo finish cleaning.

“Hey.” Ieyasu motioned at him. “Want to crack into the wine?”

Kenshin smiled. “Just wine?”

Williams giggled, the sound echoing off their backsplash. “This time. We’re not going to get tanked like that one time.”

“Whyever not? And you say ‘we’ got tanked as if that wasn’t just you.” But he obediently rose, fishing through their refrigerator for a bottle of riesling and expertly cracking it. Ieyasu met him with three glasses back at the island and together, they made short work of pouring. Migration to the living room was slow and inevitable. Good god if it wasn’t cozy. They flipped on the fireplace and clustered around it on the carpet, leaning back against the coffee table. Williams wound herself beside her husband and crossed her ankles over his.

“Your legs are freezing,” Kenshin noted, reaching without thinking to rub her feet.

She didn't fight him. Ieyasu just waved a hand at the fireplace. “Yeah, it’s winter.”

Something about that got him. Kenshin snorted and lowered his head, watching his hand wander slow over her knee. I ought to stop.

Before he could think to, her hand was entwining in his, the other resting on the back of his head--and next thing he knew, Williams planted a kiss on his forehead. She smelled like honeysuckle and sweet cream and fresh laundry, like the springtime circling through an open window. Gods, how long had it been since someone touched him like that? Isehime burst into his mind.

Isehime would want him to love.

Kenshin cast a questioning glance up at her. Williams just smiled and touched his chin, letting her hand trail away. It took the sight of it leaving for him to know just how starved for contact he was; thoughtlessly he leaned in and nuzzled his nose against her neck, relishing her surprised laugh and the curve of her hands around his shoulders. Ieyasu huffed.

“Lean more to your left.”

He obeyed and was rewarded. Ieyasu shuffled in tighter and wrapped his arm around his neck, rubbing Kenshin’s head.

“If you keep doing that,” he purred into Williams’ neck, “I won’t want to leave.”

Ieyasu just shrugged and kept doing it. “Then don’t leave.”

[ikesenhell]

The Unknown

Again., Chapter 13–a collaboration by myself and @a-shout-to-the-void​ AKA Vaya. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here, and Vaya’s here. NOTES: None this time.

It took a couple favors to pull together the gift. Mercifully, Shingen didn't ask. He’d heard. Slowly, Kenshin filed all of the clippings and pictures and minutiae in a small folder and tucked it under his arm, donning his best black suit for the funeral. He also brought a small satchel of baby things--a sort of christening gift for a child he’d heard about and hadn’t met.

He’d been in their shoes. He knew how well it hurt.

The funeral was brief and well-attended. Flowers littered the casket. Well-wishers pulled together in a quiet line to give the grieving couple their condolences. The baby (scarcely a month old, by the looks of him) started fussing. Fortunately Kenshin was next in line.

“Here,” he murmured, taking the infant from his mother. “I’ve got it.”

Williams gave him a relieved, worn smile. “Are you sure?”

“I’m certain.” He bounced the boy in his arms. “You’ve enough to worry about right now. I brought you something. What’s his name?”

Ieyasu fixed him with a baleful stare, but the baby hushed and curled against his chest.

“Mitsunari,” she murmured. “His name is Mitsunari. We’re calling him ‘Nari.”

“Nari is a good name,” Kenshin agreed, offering her the satchel. “Here. For you and your husband.”

Ieyasu took the bag with a murmured thanks, flipping it open to find a thick supply of toys, diapers, and the folder. As soon as they parsed the contents, Williams teared up and hid her face in his shoulder.

“Thanks,” Ieyasu managed through gritted teeth.

“It was nothing,” Kenshin answered. “Think nothing of it. If you need me to take Nari for now and sit behind you so you have a minute, consider it done.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“He’s fallen asleep, so I may as well.”

They didn't protest. Kenshin took up a spot behind the two and settled into an armchair, watching over the infant as he slept.

---

They spent their leave mostly looking after the ever-growing ‘Nari. He smiled like his father, big purple eyes flashing, his dark brown skin and dark hair so much like his mother that Ieyasu called him ‘Sunshine’ sometimes. When he slept, the two of them parsed through Mitsunari’s things in deathly slowness and figured out what best to do.

It was on one of those nights that she found the letters.

“Yasu?” She called, sitting at the familiar desk. “Come here. These are all addressed to us.”

Ieyasu crept into the room, brows knit. “What are?”

“Letters?”

Williams waved one at him. Sure enough, there it was, written in Mitsunari’s curving hand. Ieyasu cracked it open.

My dearest love,

You’re not paying attention to me right now, and I’m the happier for it. I know that sounds strange. It’s a little like watching a van Gogh painting in motion; like the whole of Starry Night twisted and shifted into life, the nest of your hair become the swirling stars and her body the curving grass.

I probably won’t share this with you--it’s not nearly as pretty as you both deserve. I could watch you for hours. I just might.

Sometimes now I have sympathy feelings when I watch you kiss her. Not pains. You’re kissing her neck right now. Your mouth is slightly open and your breath hitches when you ride your hips upward into hers, and I can feel the way it would drag were you on my neck instead. I wish, sometimes, that I could watch the way you looked at me when you have me where you like.

I would suggest taking a video, but I know that would embarrass you, and she’d likely say something about ‘evidence’, and I’d get terribly distracted by it anyway. Maybe part of the golden mystery is the mystery itself, though I doubt very much that I would ever grow tired of even the most quantified of your expressions.

God, I love you both.

It just struck me as I’m watching you now how your shoulders scallop and curve as you hold yourself. It’s like watching the shift of a tectonic plate--the whole world of my heart moves when you do.

I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.

The paper cracked as Ieyasu gripped it tighter. “Are they all like this?”

“I think so,” Williams murmured, opening another. “There are hundreds of them. This is what he was up to all those nights…”

He had to set down the letter before he destroyed it in his grasp, clutching his knees instead. What was he supposed to say? How could he even speak into reality the rage and love and sorrow and desperation swelling in his chest? “How could he say this wasn’t as pretty as we deserved?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “It’s beautiful.”

Ieyasu clenched at the air and rose, swinging his fist at nothing. Silence greeted him. “I think I need to go for a run.”

---

Kenshin came over sometimes. Mostly it was to help around the house; having a third person was something they’d grown used to in the years gone by, and now it was more needed than ever. He helped shift furniture and watch Nari and sometimes stayed for dinner late into the night, the quiet more comforting without tears in the void.

“Does it ever stop hurting?” Ieyasu asked him one night, still spinning his fork around on the empty plate.

The other man paused. Sometimes, when he was taken just off his guard, Ieyasu could see the sorrow hanging close to the surface. He was beautiful (not just handsome, beautiful), but sad, too. Those ocean eyes held an well.

“No.” Kenshin hesitated once more. “No, it doesn’t.”

They fell quiet again. At last he pushed back his icy blonde hair and sighed. “It doesn’t hurt the same after a while. At first it feels like burning, like you’ve swallowed lava and you’re just waiting for it to settle somewhere less painful, like if you just drink enough the burning will stop. Eventually it does, but the scald of it is still there. Some nights I’ll wake up and call for her. It’s been nine years. I keep thinking I’ll stop doing it. I never do.”

“I don’t--” Ieyasu inhaled sharply. “I can’t live like that.”

“You do,” Kenshin said, simple and clear. “You will. You’ll learn. Every day you’ll wake up and wonder how you manage. Every night you go to sleep knowing you did, somehow. It hurts forever--just differently.”

---

In the blink of an eye, Nari turned two. His second birthday party was a whimsical affair, with streamers and party hats and great mylar balloons all around the apartment. Ieyasu and Williams spent the morning whirling through the place, arranging and rearranging until they were satisfied that everything was presentable. And, of course, that everything was just out of reach of the toddler.

“That should do it!” Williams moved her hands away from the end of the streamer that was now securely pinned to the wall. “How does it look?”

Ieyasu leaned against the counter, arms folded. “It’s a two year old’s birthday party. Not everything has to be perfect.”

“But is it?” She insisted with a grin.

Ieyasu rolled his eyes. “Yes. Of course it is.”

In a few quick steps her arms were around him, and she pressed a quick kiss to his jawline before bouncing away again. “You picked up the cake, right?”

“Yes,” he grumbled. “Do you want me to check the fridge for it? Might’ve run away.”

“That would be great!” She sang. “What time is it?”

He checked his watch as he popped open the fridge. “Its uh--about one-thirty. Why?”

She flew back into his line of sight. “We should probably wake up Nari around quarter to two--oh, Yasu, he’s going to love this.” He glanced at the frosted behemoth taking up an entire shelf in the fridge. He’d ordered it from a bakery a few blocks north; they did custom cakes and were almost too thrilled over the thing. Iced giraffes covered the pastry, grinning up at him with goofy expressions.

“Please explain how our son’s favorite animal became giraffes,” he grumbled, swinging the door shut. “What’s so great about giraffes?”

“I think he became obsessed after Kenshin called Shingen one,” she commented lightly. “You know. Just fixated.”

As if on cue, their doorbell rang. From upstairs came the telltale shriek of an over-excited toddler, the pitter-patter of footsteps letting them know that Nari had escaped the allegedly ‘baby proof’ bed once more. Ieyasu muttered something about lying manufacturers and headed upstairs as she went for the door.

“Well, hello!” Williams gave a mock curtsy at the door. “You’re early.”

“Hello yourself.” Kenshin stepped through the door, a coat with a thick fur trim slung around his shoulders and a bag in his hands. “You told me two. I figured you might need help. Shingen couldn’t make it, but sends his regards.”

“Shinshin!” From atop the steps came a delighted scream. Ieyasu moved the baby gate just in time for Nari to toddle down the stairs, arms outstretched. “Shinshin!”

“Goodness!” And Kenshin swept the baby up into his arms, bouncing Nari into his elbow. “And you’re getting big! How tall are you now?”

Nari puffed himself up proudly. “Big!”

“Of course you are,” Kenshin chuckled. “Soon enough you’ll be as big as me. How old are you now? Can you show me?”

The baby held up two fingers. Williams giggled and leaned into Ieyasu, watching the other man head into their kitchen. “They’ve bonded, haven’t they?”

Ieyasu studied the odd pair with a slight crease between his brows. “Yeah. They have.”

“I don’t think I mind it.” She nudged him gently. “Do you?”

Did he mind it? How could he mind the way Nari smiled when Kenshin swung him around, or the way the boy giggled whenever Kenshin asked him a question? How could he mind at all when his son was so happy—

Only a vision of his husband gave him pause. Mitsunari, holding their son in his arms. Mitsunari, cutting the cake. Mitsunari, standing with Ieyasu and Williams as they took photo after photo of their little boy having a ball.

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I just—I don’t know.”

[ikesenhell]

Status: Solved

Again., Chapter 9–a collaboration by myself and @a-shout-to-the-void​ AKA Vaya. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here, and Vaya’s here. NOTES: AND THUSLY WE FIGURE OUT THE CASE.

TO: NOBUNAGA ODA

FROM: IEYASU TOKUGAWA

RE: ZACHARY BETO APARTMENT SEARCH WARRANT

Police issued a search warrant for the apartment of Zachary “Zach” Beto, age 22, at 7:52 p.m. Upon arrival, police were greeted with a belligerent Beto. He demanded to see the warrant, then attempted to bar the officers from entry. He was removed from the doorway and restrained as officers conducted their search.

In the apartment, police found:

>multiple open boxes of pizza, contents unfinished >One broken x-Box >One mint condition x-Box >One angry ferret, cage uncleaned >Three skateboards without deck tape >Two skateboards with deck tape >A furby that would not stop talking >One Ms. Renee Ailes, aged 16, sitting on the couch

CONCLUSION: Fuck that guy.

---

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

Officer: Renee, are you aware that we’ve been looking for you for quite some time?

RENEE: No.

Officer: And here I was thinking you kids were so plugged in these days.

RENEE: I’m not a kid.

Officer: You--you’re--How old are you, Renee?

RENEE: Sixteen.

Officer: Thank you for reminding me. This old noggin ain’t what is used to be, ya know?

RENEE: ...sure

Officer: I’d like to ask you a couple questions about your dad’s murder.

RENEE: Yeah, I know. I already agreed to this. We did the whole rights thing and whatever. So go on. Ask.

Officer: Were you there, that day? With your dad?

RENEE: Yep.

Officer: And did--tell me, did you notice anything weird? Anything happen that might have been freaky?

RENEE: What, you--other than my dad being murdered, you mean?

Officer: Before that.

RENEE: [Eight second pause] I mean, him and my mom fought.

Officer: Fought? They--could you, uh, tell me about this fight?

RENEE: Like, screaming, shouting. Mom was--I, um, she just. So angry, you know? Screaming her head off, couldn’t even understand her she was yelling so loud, and um. I. My dad kept telling her to calm down, and she just yelled more, and then she um. She uh, reached in her--her purse, yeah, and she pulled out this--this knife, like a big one from our kitchen, and I. I just sort of ran, it was really scary, and I just. I didn’t want her to find me, because like. Like I knew the truth, you know? So I had to hide until she was gone for good. I um. Didn’t really think anyone would notice.

Officer: [Extended pause] Just--just to be clear, now. You said your parents were screaming at each other?

RENEE: Yes.

Officer: On the street.

RENEE: Yeah.

Officer: And your mom had a knife, you said?

RENEE: That’s what I said.

Officer: [Five second pause] Renee, are you lying to me right now?

RENEE: What are you--

Officer: We interviewed the whole neighborhood and nobody heard any screaming. You wanna try that again?

RENEE: Well I--maybe people didn’t hear--

Officer: Hear all that screaming? Right outside of their houses? Well, maybe it’s possible, but that would be pretty weird, don’t you think?

RENEE: I--

Officer: Who are you covering for, Renee? That guy? Zach, right?

RENEE: Zach had nothing to do with--

Officer: Dad found out about your relationship and didn’t like it too much, right? And Zach wasn’t about to take some old man telling him who he could and couldn’t date, so he--

RENEE: No, Zach would never--I don’t--why would you even say--

Officer: If you come clean and tell the truth about Zach right now, you’re gonna be okay. He goes away, and you’re safe. He can’t hurt you.

RENEE: He would never hurt me! He--he wouldn’t hurt a fly.

Officer: Did he use another knife? Fake a murder weapon with your kitchen knife, keep his prints off the crime scene, peel off in that car of his before anybody thought to ask questions?

RENEE: How do you even know--

Officer: His car was at the scene of the crime. I know it, you know it. All we need from you--

RENEE: You don’t understand--

Officer: Tell us it wasn’t your mother and--

RENEE: I don’t--I don’t--I--I--I can’t--

Officer: He’ll go down for this like he should--

RENEE: No he didn’t make me do anything I did--

Officer: And you’ll be safe from the murderer.

RENEE: It was my knife I did it please don’t send him to jail--

Officer: [Extended pause] Could you say that again?

RENEE: Please don’t send Zach to jail he didn’t kill anyone I did he has a ferret--

Officer: Oh my god.

RENEE: [Extended silence. Soft weeping is audible.]

---

Kenshin didn't get invited to as many parties as he used to. Granted, he’d never liked being invited--he only ever went for the alcohol and because Shingen Takeda (back when they were firm partners on medical malpractice suits) often forced him to. Those days felt like forever ago. Just as often he’d go as stay home with his wife and curl up together on the couch.

Then breast cancer claimed Isehime. Then he was nearly disbarred after assaulting her former doctor.

Needless to say, he wasn’t invited to many parties anymore.

Something about Isehime’s death had both sharpened and shattered him in one. He had less patience with fools these days. He was more withdrawn and sullen, more prone to drinking, more lost in his thoughts. Caring hurt. God, it hurt so badly. Some nights he wanted to drink his heart dead.

His old friend, Sasuke Sarutobi, was just as determined to see that never happen. It took some convincing, but somehow (somehow!) he wound up in a small soiree with Hideyoshi Toyotomi, of all people. They got to talking. Talking turned to stories of Hideyoshi and Mitsuhide’s daughter, Leyla, and next thing he knew, he was spending time with the small family. At first it was almost too painful to bear. How could he look at their wonderful world without thinking about the one he’d never make with his late wife?

It softened eventually.

He still cried some nights. He wrapped a pillow in one of her old nightshirts (an extra soft one that she used to wear when she worked in the garden at their old home, the one he’d sold because it had too many memories of them) and clung to it. But life moved on. The days pressed relentlessly forward, and he went with it.

So here he was: at a party. With the prosecutor’s office, his former rivals. Holding a Shirley Temple, of all things, in one hand, and Leyla bouncing on his arm with the other. The toddler was almost completely asleep against him.

“Do you need a break?” Hideyoshi offered, hovering around like the mother hen he was.

“I’m fine.” Kenshin adjusted her with a shift of his elbow. “She’s tuckered out.”

“Yeah. She didn't have naptime today.”

That was just fine by him. Kenshin settled down into a chair and crossed his legs, balancing the girl against his chest. Nearby on the other couch, Mitsunari Ishida--their genius extraordinaire and airhead--was picking through his phone for something.

“Ieya--” The man blinked owlishly at Kenshin before smiling. “Oh! I’m so sorry, Mr. Uesugi. I didn't see you there.”

“I imagine not,” Kenshin noted. “You had your nose in your phone.”

“Sorry. I know it must seem rude of me.” Mitsunari paused, contemplative. “Say, do you know much about mattresses?”

“No more than the next guy.”

“Mmm.” Mitsunari frowned at his phone. “Do you think a King or a California King is better for more than two people? Or is the California King just excessive?”

It took a few seconds for the question to really hit home. Kenshin almost wanted to laugh. “Are you planning slumber parties?”

The other man opened his mouth, worked his jaw, shut it. Tellingly, those bright purple eyes roved over to--ah. Tokugawa and Williams. Those two looked deep in conversation over a punch bowl.

“Can’t say,” Mitsunari answered cheerily. “Maybe! Maybe I just like to splay out.”

“You’re not subtle.” Kenshin permitted himself a chuckle. “Go with the California King, if you really like to splay out so much. You might not be the only one.”

Apparently this hadn’t occurred to Mitsunari. He nodded fiercely, tapping away at the phone. “You’re right. Slumber parties can be messy.”

“What can be messy, now?” Hideyoshi appeared from nowhere, glass in hand and a thousand questions in his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“Mattresses,” Mitsunari answered. “Did I say something odd?”

Mitsuhide appeared from seemingly nowhere, wrapping his arm around his husband’s waist. “Dearest, you owe me money on our bet.”

Hideyoshi paused for a half second before lighting up. “They are!?”

“What?” Mitsunari blinked. “What? What?”

“Nothing.” Hideyoshi staggered, fishing out his wallet and putting it back. “I’ll just--I’ll just take you to dinner one night.”

For his part, Kenshin just laid back and observed. It was miraculous to him that the others didn't see it sooner. Tokugawa wasn’t much of a man for contact, but the way he and Williams entwined around each other was poetry in motion. It made sense. Tokugawa was gold and she was bronze and Ishida was silver, all three of them like precious metals that wound seamlessly together.

Leyla stirred in his lap.

“Ke-shi?” She murmured, and all his attention turned back to her.

“Hush,” he murmured, and sipped his Shirley Temple.

[ikesenhell]

Diverging Path

Again., Chapter 7–a collaboration by myself and @a-shout-to-the-void​ AKA Vaya. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here, and Vaya’s here. NOTES: THIS IS THE ONE WE’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR. Umeka belongs to @war--lords.

Ieyasu grew to love their coffee meetings. And they were meetings in his head--he was very careful to tell himself that--because date was too intimate, too real, too much something he told himself he didn't want. And it was so easy to tell himself he didn't want… whatever it was his stupid heart did every time he saw them. Together, Williams and Mitsunari were so beautiful.

Of course they were. They were both brilliant and gorgeous, with flashing smiles and open hearts and loving personalities. They bent their heads in together and Ieyasu watched her twists tangle with Mitsunari’s feather-soft locks. It was like a painting… one he didn't belong in.

Who was he? Just Ieyasu Tokugawa, with hair that never fell flat and too many insecurities to be kind. He knew his place. It wasn’t between the two of them. (And honestly, that wasn’t how relationships worked--right? There weren’t three, it was always two. Anything else was too complicated.)

He went to the coffee meetings regardless. Every day they all met, and his heart felt a little softer around the both of them.

And then one day she didn't show up.

“Do you think she got hung up with something?” Mitsunari asked, nursing a lukewarm coffee he’d only just started on out of politeness.

“Must’ve.” Ieyasu checked his cellphone for the thousandth time. It wasn’t like her to not contact them. “We have court in an hour and a half. Maybe she had an appointment, too.”

“Maybe,” Mitsunari repeated. “I’ve a bad feeling.”

For a split second, Ieyasu noted both that Mitsunari was the only person who said ‘I’ve a bad feeling’, and that he also had a sinking pit in his stomach. But he shook it off, tucking his phone away. “Nothing for it now. Let’s go.”

---

It was fifteen minutes before they had to leave for court when someone knocked on the office door. Umeka answered, the brief flash of shock in her dark eyes disappearing as she turned. “Uh, Mr. Tokugawa?”

He was midway through adjusting one of Mitsunari’s haphazard note piles. “Yeah?”

“Mr. Takeda is here to see you.”

Shingen? Ieyasu halted in his tracks and stared across his desk at Mitsunari. The other man seemed just as surprised. Shingen Takeda’s dislike of the whole prosecutor’s office was nigh legendary. That he would stop by was almost unheard of. “Sure. Have him come in.”

Umeka backed up and waved him forward. The tall redhead nodded and winked at her, breezing inside as if he owned the place. “I’ll be quick. Have you two heard from Ms. Williams today?”

“What makes you think we would?” Ieyasu answered, stiffer than he meant. “Is there a reason a PI is looking for her?”

“Unfortunately.” Shingen delved into his pockets and produced a small ledger. “She has a death threat out on her. We’re trying to find her.”

Silence. Every second stretched on like infinity. Ieyasu could hear his blood rushing through his ears.

“No,” he managed at last. “She was--she was supposed to--”

“We usually all meet up for coffee around eleven,” Mitsunari managed what Ieyasu couldn’t, providing a tangible detail. Ieyasu stared at the papers in his hands, all the words running together. “She didn't show or text.”

“Mmm.” If Shingen had something to say, he mercifully bottled it down. “That’s not good. Nothing else?”

“No. Nothing.”

Ieyasu leafed through the court documents one at a time, slowly arranging them. Mitsunari and Shingen’s conversation blurred into white noise. Where could she be? She had to be fine. She had to be.

And then Mitsunari touched his shoulder, gentle as a feather.

“Ieyasu?” He murmured. “I--are you okay?”

“Worried,” Ieyasu admitted. “Not that we can do anything about it. There’s--there’s court in thirty…”

Except there was something. He knew it as soon as he looked up into Mitsunari’s amethyst eyes. There were two of them. Only one of them had to go to court…

“Do you…” Mitsunari started, then stopped. “Is it possible…?”

“Go.” Ieyasu choked out the words. “Just give me the documents and go. I can carry it. You’ve done all the paperwork, so I can just read up before we’re called. It’ll be fine. The judge is only expecting me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Maybe--maybe she’s on the L train somewhere. She told us her stop when she was drunk, right?”

Mitsunari’s eyes flashed resolutely. “That’s what I was thinking.”

“Great. I’ve got it.” Ieyasu stuffed the papers into his briefcase. “Go.”

He didn't have to say it again. Mitsunari swung on his thick grey designer coat and flew out the door.

---

Usually, he was calm in court. Judges didn't scare him. Where once the oppressive atmosphere sank like a rock in his stomach, it was now as mundane as a grocery store.

Except for today.

He didn't monitor his phone. It vibrated against his thigh a few times, but he didn't have opportunity to check it. God only knew what messages waited him! We found her--it’s too late… I can’t locate her anywhere… we received another threat… Ieyasu wanted to punch a wall. Or, at the very least, slam his hands down on the table he was trapped behind, waiting for a recess.

His only solace was more than he expected. Mitsunari was a genius. No one else in the whole world was more trustworthy than him. Forget Shingen Takeda and the investigators--Ieyasu put his faith in Mitsunari Ishida.

Finally they called for a recess.

Ieyasu almost sprinted out the door. The phone was in his fist the second he exited. Emails, notifications… a text from Mitsunari. He tried not to swallow his heart as he pulled it up.

I found her. Phone got snatched and the L train was down.

“Of course,” he snarled to no one, too elated and relieved to sound nicer, “Of course the fucking L train was down.”

A second text: we’re at the office.

“What?” Ieyasu snapped, punching the dial button. It only rang twice before Mitsunari picked up.

“Hello?”

“There’s a death threat out on her, and you’re still in public?” No greeting was necessary. “Are you serious?”

“There’s security to get through to get in here, I only thought--”

“No.” Ieyasu fumbled through his mind before settling on a solution. “Take her to my apartment. My spare key is in the drawer. Umeka has the master key. You know where I live, right?”

“Text me the address. I’ll make it happen.”

“Great. And--” He paused briefly. “Tell--tell Williams I said hi.”

A shuffle. “He says hello!”

“Hi!” Came her voice in the background, a small chime of her laughter music to his ears. Ieyasu let out a breath he didn't know he’d been holding.

“Yeah. Great. Get her there.” And then he hung up, too embarrassed to properly end their conversation.

---

He didn't even bother going back to the office. Instead Ieyasu texted Mitsuhide a brief summary of the situation and boarded the subway immediately after court. What was usually a tolerable commute felt like waiting in line at Hell’s DMV--infinite and agonizing. When the building doors swung open he charged up the stairs two at a time, reaching his small apartment in moments. Typically he took off his shoes before coming in.

Not this time.

This time he shoved the key in the lock and bumped open the door with his hip, stumbling in to find Mitsunari and Williams on the couch. There she was--there she was--whole and in one piece and genuinely okay.

“Ieyasu!” She called, her smile stretched. “Hi!”

What did he do? He hung in the door just long enough before remembering it was a security risk to keep it open, then he shut, locked, and deadbolted it. “Did you call Takeda?”

“Already done,” Mitsunari replied. “I made some tea. I hope you don’t mind.”

“I’ll make you a new cup,” Ieyasu deadpanned at Williams. “Sorry you had to drink his butchered swill. Hold on, just--you’re okay?”

She nodded slowly. “I didn't even know… I mean, I hadn’t heard there were any threats. I don’t think they’ve arrested anyone yet.”

The very real possibility something could’ve happened to her passed unwanted through his mind. He sat his briefcase heavily in the doorway and made his way into the kitchen, scooping up a small dusting of stray tea leaves and discarding them in the sink. His hands were shaking. Ieyasu did his best to still himself, but even as he filled his old metal kettle, it banged against the sides of the sink. Williams emerged at his side.

“Do you need help there?”

“No,” he snapped harshly, “It’s my kitchen. I know what’s where.”

“Didn't say you didn't.”

“Go sit down.”

“You seem rattled is all…”

He set the kettle down onto the stove and flipped it onto high. “Yeah, because I’m the one who might’ve died.”

She fell silent and still. Mitsunari appeared in the corner, his bright eyes luminous. “I’m sorry for abandoning you at the court--”

“Shut up!” Ieyasu snapped. A mental image of her, laying on the ground, bleeding out from some awful thing, the red liquid tangling in her twists bubbled unwanted in his mind. “Just--just go sit down--”

“Ieyasu,” Williams murmured, “Come here.”

“No.” He filled a mug for her. “Sugar or honey?”

“Yasu.”

The next thing he knew her arms were around him. Ieyasu almost struggled, but she was so warm, the strength of her arms buoyed by the breath in her lungs, the sweet smell of honeysuckle enveloping him. Without thinking he shut his eyes and braced her tight to him.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, and he wanted to yell that it wasn’t.

“Shut up,” he mumbled instead, clutching her tighter against him.

Her hand pressed soft against his cheek. Ieyasu looked at her, and there she was, so very close, her dark eyes beautiful. Hell. He felt himself falling into them (and if he were honest, he always wanted to, wanted to swim in the lagoon of her eyes, to soar through Mitsunari’s and come back to earth through her).

“Come here,” she breathed. “Please?”

She tasted like peppermint and coffee. Ieyasu spent so long savoring the first kiss that he almost didn't surface for air. But then he did, and she was still there, Mitsunari leaning in the frame of the kitchen just watching, and Williams leaned back in for another.

“You need another phone,” Ieyasu murmured when they broke away, and she giggled against him. “This can’t happen again.”

“No?” Mitsunari was there now, his arms wrapping around her waist and Ieyasu’s shoulders. “Are you talking about the kissing or the death threats?”

Ieyasu’s mind whirled. “I--I was referring to being scared lifeless--what are you talking about--?”

“It looked like fun. I wanted to try.”

Ieyasu was too blank from shock to fight it. When Mitsunari leaned in, he tilted his head back despite himself. Mitsunari tasted like book pages and sunshine, soft and sweet and warm. Williams buried her face in his neck and Ieyasu took a thick fistful of Mitsunari’s hair before they broke away.

“What the fuck,” Ieyasu managed.

Mitsunari cocked his head, expression too innocent for what had just transpired. “I didn't think that was on the table so soon.”

Williams barked a laugh into Ieyasu’s shoulder. All at once Ieyasu realized the tea was oversteeped and disentangled himself from the two of them, still struggling to make sense of everything. “I--sugar? Honey? You didn’t—I asked, but you never—”

“Honey works, thank you--”

“Yeah, uh, here.” He thrust the mug and the jar into her hand, shuffling around for a spoon. “Didn't, uh, didn't think they taught that at Yale, Mitsunari.”

Mitsunari smiled sweetly. “Oh no. I learned that at Columbia. Those were interesting parties.”

Ieyasu dropped the spoon and fumbled for a new one. “Alright then.”

“Do…” Williams squeezed a thick dollop of honey into the mug, accepting the second spoon gracefully. “Do we talk about this now?”

“Yeah.” Ieyasu inhaled. “Maybe. Probably. Yes. Let’s--let’s move to the living room.”

[ikesenhell]

Evidence

Again., Chapter 8–a collaboration by myself and @a-shout-to-the-void​ AKA Vaya. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here, and Vaya’s here. NOTES:

Ieyasu woke in a tangle of limbs. At first he wasn’t entirely certain of where he was. It took only a few moments for him to blink the sleep from his eyes and realize that they’d all passed out together in the living room floor. Curled up beside him was Williams’ sleeping form, her head resting on his (very prickly and not happy) arm, and there--his hand wrapped around the both of them and cupping Ieyasu’s lower back--was Mitsunari. Hell. He looked so much like an angel asleep that Ieyasu almost believed his reputation.

What happened? He took a long moment to collect himself and remembered--ah, yes--they’d watched a movie in a pile on the floor. He had himself to thank for that one. What was he supposed to say if they, god forbid, talked about this? ‘I rather like you both’ was a sentence so far removed from his vocabulary that he almost wanted to laugh at it.

But he only had a little time to himself. He shifted to try and assuage the pins and needles in his arm, and Williams roused ever so slightly (with the sweetest and faintest of sounds). Mitsunari followed sleepily in turn. Ieyasu checked the clock on habit. Five a.m. Well, at least they weren’t in a rush.

“What time is it?” Mitsunari managed sleepily.

“Early. Got time. Maybe two hours before they need us in the office.”

“God,” Williams laughed, curving her hips back into his. Ieyasu struggled to compose his body. How was she so blisteringly hot? He’d always recognized she was beautiful, true, but now his whole person leapt to her every whim. “Okay. I’m too old to sleep on a floor like this. I’m definitely feeling it.”

“Well, I don’t even remember falling asleep.”

“Does one ever remember falling asleep?” Mitsunari posited, ever the literal one. “I suppose that would be an interesting study. Do--”

“Mitsunari?”

“Yes?”

“Shut up.”

Williams sat up. Ieyasu followed, his hips cracking loudly as they all untangled, the blanket draped over their legs falling away to the carpet. Mitsunari groped for his glasses and found them in his pocket, cleaning them with a cloth before setting them on his nose.

“So…” Ieyasu desperately tried to smooth his hair. No use. It poofed angrily under his hand. “So what now?”

Mitsunari checked the clock. “I suppose we all shower at some point and get on the train--”

“That is not what I meant.”

Williams cast them both an amused smile. “You want to do this at five a.m., but not while you’re making out with two people at once?”

If there were a pepper as hot as Ieyasu’s cheeks felt, he didn't know. “Look--look.”

“I’m looking.”

“Yes?” Mitsunari chirped up. “Well, if you’re referring to the current emotional situation, then the last time I was part of a trio--”

The whole world screeched to a halt. Ieyasu desperately floundered with his hands for time out. “When you were what?”

Those amethyst eyes just blinked innocently. “The last time I was part of a trio? Much like now--”

“You’ve done this before? How? When? What the fuck--”

Mitsunari looked almost smug. “I know my way around Tinder. Something else I picked up from Columbia.”

Ieyasu sat dumbly. Williams buried her face in her hands and laughed, a sweet, awkward sound in line with how he felt.

“Okay, so we’ve an expert. Please, oh wise one, illuminate the path or… whatever it is we should be doing right now.”

Mitsunari just shook his head. “I’m no expert, it only happened once. But we started by establishing if it was going to happen again or not. Do all parties here consent to being involved at the same time?”

“Can you please make that sound less like something Nobunaga would say?” Ieyasu groaned.

Williams brushed back her twists. “Um. Yes? I--yes. I--I don’t exactly know what I’m doing, here, but I really like the both of you...”

“And I like both of you, of course,” Mitsunari immediately offered.

Two eyes turned to him.

“I--” Ieyasu barely managed to strangle that from his throat. “I--listen--I don’t… I didn't hate what we were doing.”

“Well, that was enthusiastic,” Williams snarked.

“I’m trying.”

“Ieyasu is a bit more reserved with his feelings,” Mitsunari explained, and Ieyasu hated every second of how right he was. “He’s a bit modest.”

“Yes. Alright?” Ieyasu wondered if he could melt into the earth about now. “God, how do I even…” He trailed off, eyes bouncing back and forth between the two. Mitsunari, that agonizing, beautiful smile on his face, and Williams, looking the softest he’d ever seen her.

“When I’m… with you, both of you, I mean, I. You two are so… hard to look at. I can’t stop watching you, and it’s been driving me crazy, not knowing why, and then knowing why, and seeing how perfect you were for each other.” Every word felt like lead, but Ieyasu soldiered on. “I never thought, not even for a second, that either of you would ever… want me. I’m just having a hard time when you’re both so annoyingly perfect all the goddamn time, but of course I want this. You. Both of you. How could I not?”

“Stop it,” Williams murmured, and next thing he knew, she was in his lap, caressing every flyaway strand of his hair, peppering kisses over his cheeks. And for once--for once in his life--he just leaned forward and let her, allowed her to love on him so simply. Mitsunari’s long fingers brushed over his cheek affectionately (and they were pianist’s hands, he realized all at once, a rush of affection and frustration at his silver-spoon partner rushing through him). “I want you, too.”

Usually Ieyasu had a litany of things to do at this hour. Meal prep, going to the gym, trying to tame his hair--but in the cool grey dawn of this morning, he simply leaned forward and let them show his hungry heart love.

---

He and Mitsunari took the train together that morning. Williams dipped off in the wee hours to her apartment (“I haven’t even gotten changed yet!”). Mitsunari borrowed a shirt and recycled his trousers, and as they sat together on the train, they quietly linked pinkies together as if to share a secret.

Naturally, they took one step inside the office and Mitsuhide cast them a single look before declaring, “Hideyoshi owes me money.”

“Shut up,” Ieyasu snarled. “What are you on about?”

Mitsuhide’s silver-fox smile was telling. “I think the fact that you started with ‘shut up’ and not ‘what are you on about’ means you know exactly what I’m on about.”

Ieyasu couldn’t think to say anything except, “You’re a fucking snake in a suit.”

“What?” Mitsunari asked, clueless as ever. “What is going on?”

“Lan-gua-ge,” Mitsuhide chided sing-song. “I’m certain your little partner there will tell all.”

“Tell what?” Mitsunari asked again.

“He’s too much of an airhead to say shit,” Ieyasu groused, flinging his suitcoat over his chair. “So shut up and put your eyes back on the page.”

“Oh, but I’m having such a ball reading the room.”

On a horrible, terrible, no-good-very-bad cue, Nobunaga slid open the door to his office and stuck his head out. “Tokugawa. Ishida. What is going on out here?”

“We were merely discussing the latest turn of their case,” Mitsuhide lied smoothly, his face as impassive as ever. For one brief moment, Ieyasu was thankful that their coworker could lie like the devil. “Need you anything?”

Nobunaga looked entirely unconvinced, but he just nodded. “No. Keep it down.”

“Understood. My apologies.”

The door slid shut. Ieyasu pantomimed a silent watch your back to Mitsuhide. The man returned with a crude jerking gesture around his crotch.

Mercifully, the rest of the day proceeded as normal. They returned to gathering information about their active cases, sifting through file after file, sorting motions and pleadings and emails and memos as the clock ticked on relentlessly.

Then came the most critical piece of all.

Ieyasu jumped as Mitsunari suddenly appeared in his field of vision, slapping a piece of paper triumphantly onto his desk.

“I knew it,” Mitsunari announced, purple eyes gleaming. “I just knew something didn't fit.”

“Fit where?” Ieyasu scowled. “In what?”

“Well,” Mitsuhide drawled lowly from his nearby desk, not even looking up, “When a daddy and a daddy love each other very much…”

“In the case. The Ailes case,” Mitsunari pressed, either ignoring Mitsuhide or too excited to acknowledge him. “Look at this.”

A single giant photo, a screenshot from Instagram, of all places, covered the page. Ieyasu frowned. It was a selfie, with little in the background save for a corner of a house and the trunk of a car. Beneath the photo was a caption: can’t believe i almost witnessed a murder #findrenee. A few comments followed, but Ieyasu didn’t bother to read. “What am I looking at, exactly?”

Mitsunari pointed emphatically at the comments. Of course. “This photo was allegedly taken less than ten minutes before the victim’s time of death, on the same street, on the same day.”

“Even if that’s true, what does this tell us?”

“Williams’ witness reported a vehicle at the scene of the crime.”

Ieyasu slid the paper back toward Mitsunari. “Yeah, because it’s a neighborhood.”

He had almost turned back to his computer when Mitsunari spoke again. “I asked someone with the police to run a check on this license plate number.”

Ieyasu stilled. Mitsunari was rarely so insistent. “And?”

“This vehicle is registered to Renee Ailes’ boyfriend.”

“The twenty-two year old?” Ieyasu echoed. “The one that really shouldn’t be dating a teenager? The one that said he didn't know anything and police let him go? That boyfriend?”

“That boyfriend,” Mitsunari confirmed.

“None of this is in evidence,” Ieyasu murmured. “This might not even be anything.”

“But what if it is?”

“...It’s not our job to solve crimes, it’s our job to prosecute them.” Even as Ieyasu said it, his resolve wavered.

“And what if we have the wrong person?” Mitsunari pressed. “This doesn’t add up. You know it doesn’t. I know it doesn’t. We prosecute criminals.”

“And if we have the wrong person…”

“Then we’re hardly doing our job.”

Ieyasu sat in silence for a long, long time, his hand hovering over the mouse of his computer. They could forget about this. It was very possible. They could have nothing--just suspicions and doubts that didn't pan out. But--but--he looked up into Mitsunari’s bright violet eyes.

He trusted his partner.

Screwing his pride down, Ieyasu reached for the phone instead. It rang only twice.

“Shingen Takeda’s office,” came the familiar voice on the other end.

“Shingen,” Ieyasu managed, his throat dry. “We should talk. I’ve got something you might be interested in.”

[ikesenhell]

Again.

Again., Chapter 1--a collaboration by myself and @a-shout-to-the-void​ AKA Vaya. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here, hers here, or become a Patron of mine! NOTES: ALRIGHT time for a short ‘Yesha Gets Real’. This story is going to hurt. There is no way around it. A major character is going to die midway through, and it is going to hurt very, very much. We will not be making that any less than it is going to be. If you are very very attached to the characters, please take caution and take care of yourself. We wanted to give the heads up beforehand because we know that this is going to be immensely angsty in some regards. ALSO: Umeka belongs to @war--lords​! Thank you so much!

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:

Dispatcher: 911, what’s your emergency?

CALLER: I--hi, yeah, so--uh, I don’t know--I don’t really know--

Dispatcher: Ma’am, what seems to be the situation?

CALLER: [Five second pause] One of my neighbors is outside.There’s--it’s just a lot of blood, there’s a lot of it everywhere--

Dispatcher: On who?

CALLER: It’s her and her husband. Her husband is just lying there, she’s hanging all over him--

Dispatcher: What’s the address? CALLER: [ADDRESS REDACTED] --you might have to give a pass to the security before you can get in the neighborhood, I--

Dispatcher: That won’t be a problem, ma’am. Did you hear any shots? Is there a shooter?

CALLER: I--no. No, there were no shots. It--no screaming, either. That’s a lot of blood. It’s getting in my gutters…

Dispatcher: Is there any danger you’re aware of?

CALLER: Not that I know of. I--I think she killed him. No one else was there. I mean, there was a weird car earlier but you know, Jehovah’s witnesses come by sometimes, even though we called the cops on them once--

Dispatcher: Police are on their way, ma’am. Stay on the line with me.

CALLER: Okay. Should I go outside and see if he needs help?

Dispatcher: No. Stay inside.

[Several minutes of silence. Sirens become audible]

Dispatcher: Are you still there?

CALLER: Yeah. I’m just--I’m just watching. He’s not moving. Neither is she. I--okay. Alright. I see the police.

Dispatcher: Alright. I’m going to hang up now, ok? You should be fine.

CALLER: Right. Right. Thank you. Oh my god. It’s all over my lawn…

[Call disconnects]

---

The next man on the train stood entirely too close. Ieyasu winged out his elbows until he made his point very clear, scowling as the offender scurried further to the side. Good. Sparks sprayed past the window as they scraped hard along the tunnels, the wail echoing through their cab.

Soon--and not nearly soon enough--it was his stop. Ieyasu triple-checked all his pockets before stepping off onto the platform, pushing his way through the sluggish crowd. A beat hammered out on trash can lids echoed in the stairwell. Someone tried to push a mixtape on him. Halfway up the steps he realized he’d never even picked up his coffee from the counter and swore loudly to himself.

This wasn’t going to be his day, was it?

Fine. Ieyasu re-shouldered his bag and set his headphones to noise cancelling. At least it wasn’t too much further. Checking his watch for the thousandth time, Ieyasu reassured himself that he was on time as ever (he’d long ago started taking the earlier trains, god knew they were always late) and crossed over the busy street to the massive marble building he called an office. Outside someone was fielding a protest. Ignoring them, he shoved his way through the glass doorway and swiped a badge, nodding at security. Just another day in one of the highest courts in the land.

“You’re late,” Mitsuhide drawled as he shoved his way inside the office doors.

“No I’m not.” Ieyasu checked his watch anyway, realizing at the last second that this was exactly the reaction Mitsuhide wanted. Shooting the man a fierce scowl, he tugged off his trenchcoat and went to fling it on the coat rack, realizing at the last second that he’d worn one that looked just like the--far nicer--grey one already there.

Goddamnit. Mitsunari Ishida had bought himself a new coat, and not only was it nicer than his, it was designer. This really, really wasn’t going to be a good day. Thoroughly invested in ignoring that, Ieyasu frowned at the row of desks, each stacked high with reams of paper and notations and folders and thick reference books. “Where’s Nobunaga?”

“I imagine he’s in a meeting,” Mitsuhide sighed lazily, going over something with a highlighter. “Do I look like Umeka?”

“Did someone call me?” Their secretary peered out of the break room. Though he’d never admit it, Ieyasu liked her just fine. She was competent (the major sticking point) and slightly shorter than him, with straight black hair and dark eyes that just as easily transformed to flint as crinkled with a laugh.

“No, but at least you showed,” he scoffed. “Could you make me some coffee?”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “You usually make your own. Sugar? Milk? Dash of lemon for the lemon boy?”

Mitsuhide almost bellowed a laugh, fumbling the highlighter between fits of giggles. Ieyasu frowned even harder. “Black is fine.”

The door swung open behind him. In stalked Nobunaga Oda, tall and assured as ever. Ieyasu had been lucky, he knew, to start his career at the great behemoth that was Azuchi, handpicked from the masses by Nobunaga himself. Luckier still to move with him from private practice to the attorney general’s office. Nobunaga Oda cut through the mindless chatter that muddled the law, speaking clearly and plainly, if not harshly. For three years, Ieyasu had worked closely with the man and still a shiver traversed his spine when Nobunaga spoke. He set the bar impossibly high with everything he did; his youth, his charisma, his skill, his success. Ieyasu hated and admired him in equal measure.

“Mr. Oda,” Umeka greeted him immediately. “Good morning.”

He flashed her an approving glance but didn't directly address her. Instead he focused like a laser on Ieyasu. “Are you busy with the McDiehl case?”

“I was planning on getting to that--”

“Here.” Without warning, Nobunaga shuffled through his papers and thrust a folder into his arms. “You have another.”

Ieyasu nearly dropped the thick bundle, grasping it at the last second. “I--”

“I was just sent over a case that has the potential to be an actual challenge. The paperwork is already immense.” Nobunaga waved a stack of papers that looked like it could knock a man flat and grinned anyway. “Regardless, you can have that case.”

Mitsuhide folded his fingers together and rested his chin on the lattice. “Is that the Ailes case?”

The Ailes case? Ieyasu flipped it open. It certainly was. “Isn’t this just an open and shut first degree murder? Woman was caught in a cul-de-sac with her dead husband after she stabbed him?”

“Yes. I don’t have time for it.” How did he always manage to make everything sound so condescending? “Prove yourselves to me.”

Ieyasu took a beat. “‘Yourselves’?”

Oh no. Mitsuhide’s sudden wolf-grin was so telling that he wished he hadn’t asked. “Of course. Who do you think is doing research?”

No. No. As desperately as Ieyasu wished, it didn't stop Mitsunari Ishida from barging in the door with a bundle of unorganized papers under his arm, silvery hair askew and glasses hanging by a single limb from his purple sweater-vest, a bright smile on his lips.

“Ishida!” Nobunaga took the coffee from Umeka’s outstretched hand (coffee that was meant for Ieyasu) and sipped it. “You’re working with Tokugawa on the Ailes case.”

“What was that?” Hideyoshi Toyotomi followed him in, a lunch box in one hand and a smile on his mouth. “Did I hear that right?”

Nobunaga pointed at Hideyoshi. “Your clearance shouldn’t work anymore.”

“Security is taking their time,” Mitsuhide drawled as if he had nothing to do with it, getting up to greet his husband. “Thank you.”

“Just because I moved into HR doesn’t mean I can’t come by my old office sometimes. Here, love.” The two men exchanged a quick peck on the lips. “Did I hear Mitsunari is getting to work research and prep with Ieyasu?”

Mitsunari looked ready to vibrate out of his skin with delight. “I can’t wait to get started! This is such a fascinating case--you should see the notes on the lividity--”

Ieyasu wondered if he could swallow cyanide and get out of it that way. Knowing Mitsuhide, there was some in his desk. “Type them up and put them on my desk, then.”

“But there’s also fascinating testimony by--”

“Type it up,” he hissed. “No handwriting. No one can read your brainless chicken scratch.”

“Perfect.” Nobunaga straightened his tie as if all was well, nodding at the others. “I’ll be in my office.”