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Lupin’s digs this time around were a tiny cottage in the North Downs in England, one he’d only used one other time that Jigen could remember.  There was no air conditioning in the summer, and the electricity was dodgy, but at least there was running water and enough gas to cook with.  It was a hell of a drive from the nearest airfield (he could have just come in through Heathrow, but noooo, that’d be too damn easy), but he managed to make it before the sun set and the rainclouds above him finally burst.

Goemon was sitting next to the sofa and meditating as usual, Zantetsuken tucked into the crook of his arm.  Upon hearing the door open, he cracked one eye open in Jigen’s direction before closing it again without a word.  Fair enough.  Jigen wasn’t particularly looking forward to that conversation.  He had every right to be pissed.  They all did.  All that casual chatter before was a crock of shit.  Lupin might act like everything was all fine and dandy, and Fujiko didn’t give a damn either way, but Goemon?  If he was pissed at you, he let you know it.  Sometimes at swordpoint..

Well, Jigen wasn’t going to stick around long enough to give him a chance.  He was just going to check things over, steal himself a beer, and… hell, he didn’t know.  Maybe hit up a pub somewhere for seconds.  Chat up some guy who needed a second in his own hairbrained scheme.  Let Lupin come to him for a change instead of crawling back like a pathetic lost puppy.

Kicking off his shoes, he wandered past Goemon into the little kitchen and opened the fridge.  Just down the hallway was a single bedroom, one queen-sized bed in the middle and almost a dozen frou-frou throw pillows scattered around the floor.  Sitting cross-legged on the bed next to an already-smoldering ashtray, humming to himself and annotating a large diagram laid out in front of him, was Lupin.  Shit, Jigen had only been gone for a few days, and it looked like Lupin already had most of the details mapped out… typical, really.

God knew he’d need all the help he could get.  Being a little short on manpower and all.

Jigen was just turning to go, beer in hand, when the call of “Hey, Jigen!” followed him.  His teeth gritted at the sound, but against his better judgement, he turned around.  Lupin actually looked and sounded pleasantly surprised he was here, and it was almost more than he could stand.

He weakly held up the hand holding the bottle.  “I just was grabbing this… don’t lemme keep you or—”

“Hey, c’mere, I wanna show you something!”  Gesturing for Jigen to come join him, he laid the diagram at the end of the bed and started to explain the setup and markings, every gesture meticulous, an excited sort of purpose in his voice like always.  But Jigen was only half-listening as he stood in the doorway, only catching every third word, if that.

How could Lupin just… pretend like this?  It was something he was damn good at, and it always pissed Jigen right the hell off.  Now more than ever.  His best friend had shot him and left him for dead, and here he was gabbing like it never happened.  Sitting there perfectly comfortably as that same “friend” stood twenty feet away.  Smiling like a goddamn idiot while his partner in the other room was probably plotting a murder.

Any other time, Jigen would have immediately pulled him into a headlock and refused to let go unless he told him the truth.  But right now, it wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying.  Hell, Lupin had jokingly threatened plenty of times to do the same thing to Jigen… maybe Jigen wished he actually would.  It’d be no less than what he deserved.

Lupin must have noticed him not paying much attention because he gave a small pout before shrugging it off and folding the diagram up to set aside.  That shrug alone was enough to make Jigen want to grab him and squeeze him until his head popped, but he resisted for now.  “’S’not finished anyway.  So how was the competition?  I heard that Alisa took first place.”

“Good.  It was good.”  Jigen still didn’t move from the doorway.  For a moment he was tempted to pull his hat further over his eyes, but Lupin would catch that in a second.

Whatever he had to say, he’d better say it now.  Jigen was a big boy, he could take whatever the son of a bitch threw at him.

Instead, Lupin just sat there, face set in a determinedly neutral position, studying Jigen like he’d study a particularly complicated lock.  “When did your flight come in?”

“I… couple hours ago.  Drove the rest of the way here.  Kinda out of the way, but I made it.”

Lupin nodded.  He looked down at his hands and seemed to notice he was still holding the pencil from before, and he reached over to set it next to the discarded diagram.  When he spoke again, it was facing away from Jigen so he almost couldn’t hear.

“… You could have stayed, y’know.”

Jigen couldn’t help but snort.  “No, I couldn’t have.  Imagine a scraggly old geezer like me trailing after that poor kid—she can do a lot better for… she can do a lot better.”

Imagine, Daisuke Jigen as a father.  Even for a kid that wasn’t his.  He didn’t mind them or anything, but the prospect of any kids getting that close to him terrified him on their behalf.  He still had stress dreams about that heist where they’d been followed by half a classroom’s worth of child actors claiming to be their children.  Best case scenario, Alisa would ask too many questions, try to get too close herself, and end up in the crosshairs of someone else’s gun.  She had no idea what he did for a living away from Lupin, what kind of miserable living it could be… there was no place for a little girl.  Alisa had her whole life ahead of her while Jigen had…

What the hell did he have now?

Lupin slowly straightened and resumed his earlier position, hands gripping his ankles.  “You could also have told me what was really going on.”

Down to brass tacks at last.  “What was I supposed to say?  ‘Sorry, this maniac’s got a hold of my old friend’s daughter, and I gotta do what he says or he’ll kill her, so don’t mind if I kill you and Goemon to make it look good’?”

All Lupin gave was another shrug.  “It’s a start, anyway.”

All right, now this was just unnerving.  “How can you be so goddamn casual about this?  Your partner—hell, your best friend—shoots you in the chest, and you wanna move on like it’s nothing?”

That time, an eerie sort of chill settled over Lupin’s face.  “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Jigen’s breath caught for a second.  Lupin never talked about his career prior to bringing him, Fujiko, and Goemon on board, and Jigen never thought to ask.  Usually if some part of a man’s life was nothing but a carefully constructed blank, it was for a good reason.  This reason… it made perfect sense.  Tracked with everything he knew about Lupin, that was for sure—his insistence on keeping his partners close, on considering them friends barely into the casual acquaintances stage, on going the extra mile to keep them content between jobs…

Shit, if that didn’t just make him feel worse.  Best thing that ever happened to him, only one who treated him like an actual person and not just a gun with an arm attached, and Jigen had almost broken his damn heart.  And that wasn’t even considering if Goemon would ever trust him again.

He sighed, leaning against the doorframe and shoving his hands into his pockets to keep from fidgeting with his hat.  “Look, I meant what I said back there—I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to sever ties with me.  If you don’t want me sticking around, that’s your right.”

A few degrees of chill melted from Lupin’s expression, and he stared back up at Jigen with that same fierce concentration.  Like he’d almost figured out the last tumbler on the lock.  “How long do you want to stick around?  Tell me the truth.”

…Hell, forever?  No way was he saying that out loud—it was much too sappy for him—but it was the first thing that came to mind.

So Jigen settled for a quiet, “Long as you’ll have me, I guess.”

Lupin seemed to weigh that in his mind before finally nodding.  “Good enough for me.”

“Wha—seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“What about Goe--?”

“I’ll talk to him.  Worst case scenario, we’ll just duke it out.  The guy’s like one of those little fighting robots—you wind him up, go a few rounds to get it out of your systems, then he calms down.  It’s worked before.”

Somehow Jigen doubted it would be the same for him.  Lupin and Goemon both ran hot in their own ways while Jigen was a lot cooler… it might take a little while longer to get all of the hurt and guilt and anger out of his system.  But part of him desperately wanted to take Lupin’s word for it, if only for things to truly go back to normal without anyone giving him the silent treatment or pretending things were fine when they weren’t.  He was willing to see the next few weeks through, at least, whatever they brought his way.  “If you say so.”

“It’ll be fine, Jigen.  It’ll blow over like it always does—remember when Goemon left to chase after that kabuki gang, and we all fought it out when he came back?  You just gotta give it time.”

That word “left” was doing a lot of heavy lifting.  Mostly as a pretty substitution for “betrayed us.”  And then Goemon felt guilty enough to let Lupin cut off his head, only to be brought around by an all-out brawl instead.  Lupin had been plenty pissed off then, Jigen knew, but it hadn’t lasted long; true to form, right after they’d beaten the shit out of each other, he and Goemon had gone back to the plan as if nothing ever happened.  Maybe it was seeing his friend’s obvious guilt that alleviated it.  Maybe he just took for granted that Goemon would be back eventually and felt like he had to go through the motions anyway.  Maybe he was too used to Fujiko stabbing him in the back every other day.  Maybe he did genuinely want Goemon back more than he wanted revenge.

Jigen would never make sense of it.  Even all these years later, it was hard to tell why Lupin did anything.

It was easier to cover it up with a joke.  “I can’t tell if you’re just really trusting or really stupid.  Not the best look for an internationally wanted criminal.”

That time, Lupin did look a little hurt, but quickly masked it with quiet outrage.  “Come on, I trust you guys with my life.  You know that.”

“Yeah, I know—”

“Do you?”

It didn’t sound like a demand so much as… almost a plea, if an exasperated and tired one.  Like he was practically begging Jigen to get the hell over himself and accept the forgiveness being offered.  Like he needed the return to normal as much as Jigen needed… hell, he didn’t even know what.  To be kicked out for good this time?  To be reprimanded?  To have his lights punched out the way Lupin and Goemon had done years ago?

And they’d called Lupin a masochist…

But instead, here they were.  Talking about their feelings like a couple of chumps.  The metaphorical door was open and the hand outstretched.

And every bone in Jigen’s body was screaming for him to walk through and take it.  To just let himself come home.

So he nodded.  “Yeah.  I do.”  And that was that.

If nothing else, no matter how terrible an idea it was, he believed in the thief.  This entirely too forgiving dumbass thief who’d changed his life… and apparently wasn’t done with him yet.

Lupin nodded in return, this time with a little more energy and satisfaction, and tossed another frilly throw pillow at Jigen’s head, which he caught without even thinking.  “Goemon’s already staked out the couch, so you’re either with me or on the floor for tonight.”

“I’m takin’ the floor—don’t wanna roll off in the middle of the night.”  After several hours either crammed into a tiny airplane seat or on the road in the middle of nowhere, Jigen felt restless enough to kick a hole in the wall.  Better that than Lupin’s back.  Besides, their entire conversation had left him psychologically wrung out, and right now he needed some small distance.  Later he’d have to unbind his chest, too–there was still so much tension there, like his whole goddamn torso was in a vice.  Shoving the pillow under his head and ignoring Lupin’s little “aww” of mocking disappointment, he sprawled out right next to the bed and eased a hand from his pocket to readjust his hat, getting as comfortable as he could for now.  Out of the corner of one eye, he could see Lupin lying back against the last pillow and reaching for his pack of cigarettes, and for the first time all day he couldn’t resist smiling.  “Anybody ever tell you not to smoke in bed?”

“What, are you gonna tell my mommy?” Lupin chuckled, lighting up and taking a grateful first puff.  “‘Sides… thirteen and counting, and the place hasn’t burned down yet.”  And he took a long luxurious stretch across the bed, arms up over his head before folding them under his neck.

… Oh, what the hell.  “Hey, hand me one of those.”

“Thought you hated my brand.”

“Yeah, but getting mine out’s too much effort.”

Without missing a beat and holding his own cigarette away from the blankets, Lupin rolled over to place one between Jigen’s teeth and light it.  It took him a couple of tries—the old fancy pearl-plated lighter had been traded for a cheap Zippo—but that first burst of nicotine was the best thing Jigen had tasted all day.