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It began with touch.

The first touch was that of a blow, a fist buried in his stomach, a firestorm of pain sparking behind his eyes as Sena doubled over, Ken catching him almost gently. He'd mouthed off, said something that maybe he wouldn't have had he not been so pissed off and Ken had taken offense. He doesn't even entirely remember what was said now, just the result was Ken slugging him, stealing breath and making the bile rise hot and fast to the back of his throat. It bugged him -- not that he'd been hit, but that he'd been so sloppy, that he'd let Ken connect, able to do nothing but hunch over, nearly falling to his knees as soon as Siberian removed his arm. It was no secret to anyone on the team that Ken didn't exactly approve of him being a member of Weiss, had gone so far as to blame him exclusively for Kyou's death and as much as Sena agreed with that assessment, it didn't make working with the man any easier.

More than that, there was just something about his attitude, that cocky arrogance that grated on Sena's last nerve, making him edgier than he should have been in his presence, as if he had something to prove. Maybe that he had a right to be there, sharing the same space, sharing Aya's attention. Didn't seem to matter that they were fighting the same enemy, no matter what the reason or rationale and after Ken had been so openly critical of him after Kyou's death, too busy rubbing salt on a bleeding wound to care that it might actually be stinging him, that Sena hadn't exactly been inclined to make nice.

The second touch was different, just a slight brush of fingers against his, reaching over to oh so casually take a soda from him. Ken's good at movements like that -- all elegant carelessness and contained grace. He sat back on the couch next to Sena, plopping his feet on the table, ignoring Aya's pointed stares and started talking, cracking jokes a mile a minute, one arm looped around the back of sofa, near Sena's head. It was odd that closeness, that sudden inclusion, as if Ken had gotten over whatever wariness that had held him back and oh look, Sena's now one of the group. He wasn't sure how he felt about that, half-tempted to smack away the elbow that nudged his side conspiratorially, good-natured features leaning towards his as if to share secrets. There are secrets a plenty in Weiss. Sena had come to expect that but seeing the man from that angle he wondered about things, about what could have made this man whom Aya and Yohji think so highly of the way he was now -- wary and half-feral, hints of shy humor and sly wit peeking out when he doesn't expect them.

It wasn't that they start spending more time together, more like they couldn't stay out of the other's way, Ken watching soccer games in the commons room while he did his homework or moving in tandem, lost in a mission, carried by their own thoughts, never speaking but silently mirroring each other's moves. The arguing hadn't stopped either but sometimes... somehow... it was different than before. More visceral and he couldn't quite blow off Ken's disapproval like he once had. The words they threw at each other, they cut far more than they should have, deeper and deeper until he can feel those words digging beneath the skin, crawling around there and hatching out late at night as he lay awake trying to keep the nightmares at bay. They fed into the self-doubt and worry, the questions -- What was he doing there? Did he have any right to be a member of Weiss? Was it his fault...? Not just Kyou's death but all of it, his entire life. Had he done something to drive his mother away, to commit murder? Was there some turn off where he could have changed things if he'd just seen, been a little more careful or smarter?

He thought maybe Ken asked himself the same questions, catching something in dark teal eyes that went beyond humor or anger, ancient and bleeding, leaving him shaken in the aftermath of missions. That was how the third touch came -- after a mission, Ken standing in the middle of a room full of bodies, for once not cracking jokes, not snarling out his rage, just blank and almost afraid. Sena had taken his arm then, pulling him along so that they could rejoin the others, afraid of this sudden shift, not trusting that it was something that would be so easily dispelled. That time he led and Ken followed, almost blind, haunted by whatever demons or God wanted to claim him. It was the first time he'd ever seen the man pray, bent over and sweating, and Sena had reached for him then, his hand gently resting atop the other's damp hair. Ken had jerked, his eyes a little wild but seeing him, the spell not broken but disturbed, Sena unable to stop himself as his fingers traced downward, skimming lightly over his brow and nose, feeling the skin so warm beneath his touch -- high cheekbones, a straight nose, and soft, surprised lips.

They didn't speak -- not for a long time after that, things awkward and stilted again but this time without the anger or accusations. The eggshells they walked upon were cracking beneath them and he realized that Ken was just as afraid as he was but the difference was that Sena wasn't sure he could let it go, that he couldn't not make a move, anything to resolve this. And so he tried to speak, but the words died, stillborn on his lips, nervous and untried, wondering what he could say to fix things, to make them right or if he even wanted that. Their friendship, strained and forced as it had been was dead and now they were seeing each other with new eyes, Ken watching him, waiting for -- a sign, for a flicker, or hint. Sena wondered of what and it only made him angry, irritated and annoyed because he felt lost too, caught in a moment he hadn't left yet, that he didn't want to leave.

He started noticing little things then, the way Ken's eyebrow quirks when he's skeptical or the face he makes when Aya says something he doesn't want to hear, looking like a little kid whose mother has just spit cleaned his face. The way his laugh was strained and rich at the same time, full of jagged shards and honeyed whisky, inviting and cutting by turns. The deadly compact movements he made on missions, a slender shadow, grim then, the laughter banished until he seemed possessed by something else and... the times afterward. After a mission when he was so worn he collapsed on the couch, staring at the ceiling, twitching when he slept, as if relieving every blow, never allowed even that moment of peace.

It was during one of those times, Ken curled on his side flinching without sound, mouth slashed downward almost painfully that Sena reached out again, tangling his fingers in messy hair, softer than he remembered. Threading through his fingers, he stroked, face hot and realizing just how stupid it was, that Ken would kill him when he woke up and maybe he should because this was overstepping the boundaries they'd set.

But Ken hadn't killed him. Slanting teal-dark eyes had opened, a hand catching his wrist, holding it between them, time stretching as they stared each other down, Sena all but daring him to do something, to slug him, to say something, to--

Ken kissed him. Just a pull and yank and somehow they found each other, mouths clumsy as they met, almost tentative and not at all how he imagined. It was full of stops and pauses, as if neither could decide which way it should go, who should lead, until they found a rhythm, Ken's hand closing around the back of his neck, dragging him in closer so that his hands are resting on the other man's chest. He expected it to stop, for one or both of them to suddenly come to their senses or change their minds. But it didn't happen. Instead his lips parted and Ken was there too, that quick tongue sliding over his teeth and brushing against his own tongue, gentle in a way he would never have expected, his large hands moving to cradle Sena's face as if he couldn't decide to pull him closer or shove him away. For Sena, it was something new, a first kiss because it obliterated every touch or tentative mash of lips with anyone before it. New because he felt awake, for the first time, truly awake, fumbling as he tried to get closer, nearly crawling on top of his teammate, hands insinuating at the base of his spine. It didn't go any further than that, than sweet, sweet kisses, hurried and starved then slowing, each one drawn out until he couldn't help but whimper in the back of his throat, wanting more. So warm and comfortable to be like that, feeling the heat of Ken's body mesh with his, bodies molding against each other, as if melting. He doesn't remember much about it, beyond easy, almost reverent caresses and feeling safe, an emotion he hadn't felt in so very long that it almost hurt.

When he woke up alone later, neck protesting the angle of the couch, his mouth dry and still tasting of the other man, a blanket drawn around him, his first impulse was to curl in on himself, almost sick and feeling as if Ken had punched him again but without the righteous rush of indignation that went along with that. He'd lost something, slipping through his fingers before he even realized it had gone and he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with that. How could you mourn for something that had never been yours to begin with? Sena wasn't even sure what he felt, if it was real or just the product of a misstep. Had it meant anything at all or had it just been a passing fancy? It wasn't as if he could make any claim on Siberian. They could barely speak to each other without going for each other's throat some days and that wasn't exactly the best start for any relationship.

Relationship? When had he started thinking in those terms?

He didn't speak to Ken again for nearly two weeks, avoidance made easy when a new set of orders came down and Ken was assigned a recon mission, he and Aya on standby in case backup was needed. There was too much to sort out and he wasn't sure he even wanted to deal with it, angry and trying to keep busy, to keep himself from acting like a petulant child. Sena was pretty sure Aya noticed something off but the older man kept it to himself, the invitation to speak open and ready between them but he couldn't talk to Aya, not about this. It seemed a betrayal somehow, speaking to Aya when he couldn't even talk to Ken because he owed him that at least.

He did come to a couple of conclusions, not the least of which was he couldn't seem to stop thinking about Ken, about what happened between them and that was bad. It was distracting and... it hurt. It hurt to think about; to not know, to poke and examine what happened over and over until he wasn't sure of anything any more, not even that if happened except it must have or else he wouldn't be so miserable. He doesn't want this or so he told himself, but Sena was always uncomfortable with lying, an odd fault for an assassin but there it is. Kind of funny seeing as his whole life had become one pack of lies, layers up on layers, each brick laid with care. That was all Izumi Sena was really, just a comfortable fiction for Takeru to wear on his quest perilous, given a purpose and a meaning again, even given a new family with Weiss.

In the end, Ken was the one to seek him out, appearing almost as suddenly as he had disappeared, just leaning in the doorframe of Sena's room one day and Sena knew he was in trouble as soon as he saw him. Everything he thought he would say, all the excuses and the recriminations disappeared and he could only stare as Ken sauntered in the room, body language more confident than the eyes flickering nervously over Sena's features, trying to read him. He wasn't sure what prompted this visit, only that they managed to sit in silence for almost an hour before either of them made a move, Ken touching his face hesitantly, as if to ask permission and for whatever reason Sena gave it, wondering if it would feel the same, if that current would be there again.

It didn't take him too long to realize that a) it was still there and b) he had it worse than before, pulling Ken down with him, this time hands just as greedy as lips. It was probably stupid, worse than stupid but he wanted it, wanted this closeness to someone, to another human being, to Ken and he thought maybe Ken wanted it, too. He hadn't objected anyway, broken whispers and sounds filling the air between them, skin moving against skin and it had felt so -- good. To be like that, without walls or words, communicating with each touch of lips or hands, Ken's arm around his waist as they moved together, his body answering each thrust, holding him close and listening, feeling something wet plop against his shoulder as they drew closer, suspiciously like tears but he only reached around, his arm around Ken's neck, pulling their faces nearer, almost cheek to cheek. And afterward, when his body had stopped trembling, wracked by the aftershocks of a million earthquakes, lying quietly with Ken's head against his chest, his fingers lazily smoothing over ruffled locks, his lover had begun talking.

They were secrets, things poured out that he was pretty sure that Ken had never told anyone else and they were more painful, these gifts, given to him in trust and a few times, Sena found himself grateful the other man wasn't looking at him, having to blink back tears. They frightened him too sometimes, these words, rambling onward, so angry and afraid and full of loathing, as if Ken were confessing his sins and in a way he was. Lover-priest, he heard them all, feeling totally inept during the entire exchange but holding him close, holding those secrets close, wanting to protect them both and angry all over again. Not at Ken but at what had been done to him, at every betrayal and cut, at every one who had ever used him and thought nothing of what it did.

Angry at himself because Sena thought he might love him and that would only hurt more for his lover to hear it.

He couldn't heal the fracture in Ken's soul, but he could give him solace, could give him his body and his attention when it was asked for, his love even if he couldn't come out and say that. Sena thought maybe Aya didn't approve, but the one time he'd asked about it, Aya had sighed and almost shrugged, warning him that any relationships he might form while in Weiss were likely to be tenuous and difficult to say the least. Oddly enough, he'd been running his fingers over one of the few decorations in the house, a silver photograph of the old Weiss, the team Aya had first joined, violet eyes fixed on the younger member of the team for the longest moment, smiling but it was tinged with so much regret and wistfulness Sena had had to look away.

Maybe it wouldn't work out, maybe he was just asking for more hurt, already in silent agony every time they went on mission, every time he and Ken were split up which happened often enough, wondering each time if it would be the last. Sometimes it made their coming together more violent than before, tearing into each other with bitter words, patient recriminations, and occasionally blows. He couldn't pretend to be happy with things the way they were and it was too much to ask that they be paired together permanently. Persia would never agree and he didn't want to think what would happen if they were ordered to break things off. Beyond that there was the simple logistics of providing support to Abyssinian and Balinese. He couldn’t shake up the team dynamic simply because he wanted to keep an eye on his wayward lover.

But God, did he want to try sometimes, plagued by nightmares, seeing Kyou in his dreams only the faces and forms blurred and it was Ken dead at his feet. He couldn't bring himself to speak of it, not wanting to add to the load on Ken's shoulder's or taint their time together with 'might-bes' and 'maybes.' Maybe he would walk out tomorrow and not come back. Maybe not. It didn't matter. What mattered was now and now was their time.

That's why he can lie like this now, sweat-slicked limbs entangled and drowsy, Ken already lightly snoring, his face buried in Sena's neck. All of this could go away and he would mourn its passing, mourn the loss but at least there was something to lose, something to cleave to besides the ghosts and the bitter loss of his first family. Here he's not alone. Neither is Ken. They have each other and even if he can never get up the nerve to say what he longs to say, to give Ken the only secret he has left, it means something. They mean something together.

Out of all the lies his life has become, this is truth. It's real and immediate and it fills him with something beyond the mission, beyond memory and past love, and in this moment, this place... That matters more than anything else, Ken matters more.

Sometimes he wonders if Ken thinks about these things, if Sena means as much to Ken as Ken does to him but he knows better than to ask. It's enough that he's here, except the times when it's not and he wants so very badly to ask--to know but doesn't dare, letting the mood pass, tongue forever held.

There's still time, he thinks. Time to sort things out, time to speak -- once this business with Esset is sorted out, of course.

It's comforting, that thought, and he curls closer around his lover, content to drift away, sated and safe, feeling Ken snuffle then draw him closer.