Kisuke sighed and buried his face in his hands, restless and exhausted and unable to sleep for the worry that gnawed at his mind.

He just let Griffin leave. He’d let a newly declared villain leave safety simply because the man was confident in his contacts.

He could have stopped him, could have insisted on some other means of communication like a letter or… or something. Something that didn’t involve the man walking right into the heart of military headquarters and then vanishing along with Yoruichi.

(The chances that Griffin had been gotten rid of were—)

(No. Don’t think like that.)

Griffin had Yoruichi with him, Kisuke was certain of it. She’d been hanging around in her feline form as the man left, which meant she’d probably seen him change into his civilian identity and knew who to follow.

(And wasn’t that a strange thing to realize…)

(Griffin had always been so careful with his identity and suddenly… not.)

Kisuke dug his fingers into a skin, just enough for the discomfort to pull his meandering thoughts back in line. Griffin had Yoruichi at his side. He’d be fine. He’d be fine, even if he refused Kisuke’s offer of help and turned to his superiors instead. It only made sense the man would do that; Kisuke was his enemy — had been his enemy for years — and a single moment of good will wasn’t enough to erase—

Wards shrieked in his mind, making Kisuke jerk to his feet and lunge out the door of his lab before anything more could register. He followed the feel of them, pulled Fox to the fore and shoved open the back door—

Griffin landed in the little back lot with a thump, Yoruichi leaping from his arms as he staggered, wings drooping and knees beginning to buckle—

Kisuke darted across the space. Slung one of Griffin’s arms over his shoulder and wrapped an arm around the man’s waist before he could fall. Felt the man stiffen, readied himself for Griffin to pull away and… almost staggered when the man slumped against his side instead.

“Easy,” Kisuke murmured as he tightened his grip and tried to hold Griffin up without twisting the man’s wing-feathers around. He could feel Griffin trembling with exhaustion, his breathing the enforced evenness of a marathon runner, and it… worried him. Except for their last battle, Griffin had often seemed indefatigable. To see him like this was… disturbing. “You alright?”

Griffin grunted and pressed his face against Kisuke’s shoulder, the hard edges of his mask digging into Kisuke’s skin. The trembling in his limbs slowly faded, but instead of pulling away he only leaned into Kisuke more.

“Are… are you falling asleep on me?” Kisuke asked incredulously, staring at the man against his side and then giving Yoruichi a look when Griffin didn’t reply.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Yoruichi replied with a sniff. She twisted her body around to scratch behind her ear, ignoring Kisuke’s rising impatience with practiced ease. “He didn’t sleep more than an hour or two the whole trip back from the north, and then he had to fly us from Ardene in order to get back before dawn.”

Kisuke readjusted his grip on Griffin as he tried to calculate the distance the man had flown. Ardene was about an hour away by train, and direct flight would mean fewer miles but…

But birds couldn’t fly as fast as trains could run, and humans — even humans with avian features — were not meant for sustained flight. If Griffin hadn’t rested since Kisuke knocked him out, no wonder the man was practically asleep on his feet.

“You are more ridiculous than I thought,” Kisuke muttered in exasperation, then winced as Griffin’s hand flexed and the tips of his talons dug into Kisuke’s skin. “Don’t think I won’t drop you,” he growled at the man.

“Pot, kettle,” Griffin growled into Kisuke’s shoulder, but he did at least loosen his grip.

Kisuke snorted and turned them towards the door. “Wings up or away, unless you don’t care about dragging them across the ground,” he said, pinching Griffin’s side in order to rouse the man a bit more.

A deep, annoyed growl rumbled up from Griffin’s throat, more inhuman than anything Kisuke had ever heard from the man before, and then a heavy weight dropped onto Kisuke’s shoulders as Griffin draped one wing over Kisuke like a strange cloak. The other wing lifted slowly, painfully, and folded in against Griffin’s back.

Kisuke resisted the urge to rub his cheek against the soft feathers so close to his head; he could feel them against his neck, soft and smooth and so very tempting, but… he’d learned to rein in his impulses over the years. Griffin might be half-asleep, but Kisuke wasn’t willing to tempt fate.

(Griffin had come back to him.)

(He didn’t want to risk it.)

“Come on, let’s get you to bed,” Kisuke said as he moved towards the back door, half carrying and half dragging Griffin with him. The man grumbled but didn’t fight, letting Kisuke maneuver him through the door and down the hallway to the room that Kisuke had put him in before.

Tessai arched an eyebrow at him as they passed, amusement gleaming in his eyes as he went to open the door to the guest room so that Kisuke didn’t have to try to fumble it open himself.

“Oh be quiet,” Kisuke huffed at his friend, knowing exactly where the man’s mind was going. Just because Griffin was draped over him like an unwieldy blanket didn’t mean the man actually liked him. Kisuke suspected the man was actually just too tired to care who he was leaning on.

He carefully knelt beside the futon and tried to untangle himself from Griffin in order to put the man to bed. Instead, Griffin lifted his head slightly, then toppled over onto the futon and yanked Kisuke down with him.

“Hey!” Kisuke yelped, then sputtered as Griffin wiggled closer and clung, limpet-like, to Kisuke’s body. One great wing settled across them like a blanket, and the man’s face — complete with mask — pressed into Kisuke’s neck hard enough to be uncomfortable. “Ah… Griffin-san…”

“Warm,” Griffin mumbled, hand flexing so that his talons dug slightly into Kisuke’s shoulder.

Kisuke sighed and fidgeted a bit, testing his range of motion before giving up. Griffin had him pinned down too thoroughly for an easy escape, and it wasn’t like the position was bad, exactly, but… it didn’t stop him from worrying.

(How would the man react to this when he woke up?)

(He’d shown nothing but disdain for Kisuke so far and now this…?)

“Sleep,” Griffin growled, somehow managing to drape more of himself across Kisuke in the process.

“Ah… Griffin-san, your mask is…”

Griffin grunted and lifted his head a bit, hand moving from Kisuke’s shoulder to yank the offending piece of attire off and toss it aside, before tucking his now-bare face against Kisuke’s neck once again. His breath ghosted across Kisuke’s skin, soft like the feathers brushing against his face, and it made something ache in Kisuke’s chest.

He swallowed and tipped his head back, staring up at the ceiling and trying desperately to rein in his body’s reactions. Griffin was tired and didn’t know what he was doing. It meant nothing.

(How he wished it meant something…)

Movement caught his eye, and he glowered at Tessai as the man crossed the room on silent feet.

Tessai smirked at him as he knelt and unfolded the blanket from the foot of the futon, draping it over the two of them and tucking them in in a show of caring that barely hid the amusement he was feeling.

‘Traitor,’ Kisuke mouthed, knowing exactly how much teasing he was going to get for this later.

Tessai’s smirk grew wider as he reached out to brush his hand across Kisuke’s mask in question. When Kisuke sighed and nodded it agreement, Tessai lifted it from his face and set it on the tatami mat next to them. Clearly content with his efforts, Tessai murmured a soft, “Sleep well,” and rose to his feet to leave.

The door slid closed behind Tessai with a strange note of finality and Kisuke closed his eyes with a soft groan. He was alone with Griffin, trapped beneath the man’s weight and close enough to smell the cinnamon-spice scent of his feathers. It was a torture he’d never expected, never prepared for, and yet he couldn’t find it in himself to pull himself free and leave.

Griffin was warm and comfortable and safe. He’d come back even when Kisuke had suspected he never would. They’d need to talk, need to come to an agreement about where they stood and what they were going to be doing next but…

But for how he could savor this moment.

(It wasn’t like he’d get a repeat.)

(Might as well make the most of it…)

Kisuke closed his eyes and let himself follow Griffin into sleep.