Title: Repeating Patterns

Author: Clannadlvr

Fandom: Witch Hunter Robin

Rating: PG

Spoilers: Through episode 14 or so. This takes place before "Time to Say Goodbye"

Summary: How Michael looks at the world from his cage…

Disclaimer: All things Witch Hunter Robin belong to Sunrise and Bandai. This is for entertainment purposes only!

In the two years since he'd hacked into the STN-J's system, wallowed in its secrets, and panicked as the backdoor slammed shut, Michael Lee had made a list of the things he wouldn't see soon or possibly ever again. He never wrote it down or typed it out, feeling as if doing either of those things would make his situation more real. But still … he kept the list locked away in his mind. Maybe it was to torture himself for how he'd gotten in over his head, a reminder that he wasn't the technological god he'd thought himself to be at age 14. Possibly it was a tether, a fragile string that connected him, in at least some small way, to the world that he'd had to leave behind.

Whatever the reason, there it was: a list that seemed to grow longer and longer, every day of his incarceration. He didn't add to it as much as he did during those first six months - in some ways he'd become resigned to, and most of the time enjoyed, his fate. Occasionally, though, a smell, a sound, or even an image online would trigger a memory so strong that the only way he could keep from screaming was to open the file, add it to the list, and hit save. There were a lot of things on that list that he'd hoped to see again, some more vivid and visceral than others. Moments that almost made him regret not obeying when his mother told him to go outside and get away from the computer screen for a few minutes.

… to see the Tokyo City Hall up close and personal, trailing his fingers along the squiggles in its marble base, more intricate and random than any code …

… to watch the way the sun broke through the clouds over the bay, turning the choppy waves below into a cornflower meringue that made him forget being stuck on a bus, mired in traffic …

... to count the stars outside his old bedroom window, the few cool white pinpoints that broke through the red and gold electric haze of the city …

… to watch a movie in the theatre, the crowds around him, munching on Pocky and rubbing elbows nervously with the girl to his left …

And then there were the moments and memories that to any other person would have seemed mundane and possibly even dreadful.

… the way it felt to walk down the street in the acid rain, lukewarm water running from the top of his head through the choppy tips of his hair into the collar of his shirt …

… the smell of downtown, a mix of exhaust, food from vendors, and tightly pressed bodies, that seemed to cling to you days after you'd left …

… the monotone voice of his history teacher, droning on and on about occupation and loyalty, as giggling girls passed notes to each other on bubblegum scented paper …

While Michael could say now, two years on, that he'd made the best of his situation and even enjoyed his work and the camaraderie at the STN-J (he had a job most hackers would dream of), there were definitely things he missed. Definitely aspects of his former life that he longed to experience again. So when little snippets of that life entered the office, whether in the form of Miss Doujima's incessant gossip on the latest clubs, a Bepsi stain on Haruto's jacket from a baseball game, or even the scent of the sewers that Amon or Miss Karasuma carried after a particularly dirty hunt, Michael took each one, catalogued it, cross-referenced it, and added it to the file.

So much so that, as his headphones blasted music into his abused ears, he could be at the park, or the sewers, or out in the rain, without ever leaving the office, unbeknownst to his co-workers who thought he cared about C+ and little else. He took what he could get, his life becoming a mixture of the experiences of others, filtered through his own memories.

But the last thing he expected to experience, a memory from his former life, was triggered by Amon and Robin. And not exactly the easiest memory at that.

When Michael was eight years old, his parents had begun to regret his latest birthday present. From the first time he'd turned on the little silver box and put his fingers to the keyboard, he'd been hooked. He'd burned through all the programs on the computer, the games, word processing, and data entry devices, when he'd discovered that there was more to see than what was on the screen. Then he found the layers, like pulling down the petals of a lotus, each one more brilliant than the next. Strings of numbers and letters which, the more and more he looked at them, hour after hour, began to make an eerie and complete type of sense. So much so that he was on the verge of tinkering with them, unsure whether rewriting the sentences and changing the structure was okay to do. He stood on that edge, not sure if he should go forward, and knew, in some small corner of his mind, that inklings of the man-to-be were showing themselves in the boy-that-was.

Then there was a knock on the door and, before he knew it, his father had informed him that he had half an hour to get dressed to go out on the town. No arguments. No questions. The door closed.

Michael had been raised well enough to know that such a command was not to be denied.

So he'd looked one last time at the monitor, the decision still weighing heavily on his mind, and engaged the screen saver.

The drive to the theatre had been short, yet filled with incessant questions from Michael toward his parents. "Where are we going? What's at the theatre? Will we see a circus? A movie? A concert?"

His parents had been unusually silent, as if dreading their son's reaction. But Michael had made barely a peep as they'd pulled to the front of theatre, the valet greeting them in front of the event sign.

A ballet? Michael had looked at his parents in shock, groaning as his father handed over his keys. They knew how much he hated to watch overgrown men prance around in tights, especially after the field trip a few years before that his school had taken to an avant-garde production.

It seemed like he was finally getting the punishment they felt he deserved for ignoring his mother's pleas for him to go play with his friends and take his hands off the keyboard.

He'd started to grumble as they made their way through the hallways, dimly lit with electrified sconces that reflected against the muted red velvet of the walls. He'd continued to grumble, so his mother had unceremoniously pushed him into his seat and told him to behave. The only thing, in fact, that stopped Michael's grumbling was the rise of the curtain and the blast of the orchestra, effectively hushing the whining of an eight year-old boy.

Most of it was as he'd expected, women in those frilly tutu things prancing about the stage, trying to act like fairies or birds, and men chasing them along. But even as he'd rolled his eyes at the dramatic sighings and dyings of the dance, Michael couldn't help but be pulled in, even just a little bit, to the actions on the stage. The way the bodies wove, the synchronized raising of an arm, a pointing of a toe….

It was a pattern he'd realized, with more than a little shock. And rather than the dancers performing the movements, it was the music, the staging, the pattern,which was controlling everything. Michael had become giddy at the realization, that a string of commands could create something so, he had to admit it now, beautiful. And the closer he'd looked, he'd begun to see the strings, the sentences that affected the dance.

But the power of that structure, the terrible beauty and absolute dominance of the pattern, didn't truly show itself until the pivotal scene of the ballet. A dance which, a whole other lifetime later, Michael would have been able to describe verbatim.

There were three dancers, an easy simplicity to overlook as they stood motionless on the stage. Still, he'd begun to see the structure of the organization even then as they stood poised on the brink. Then there were soft moans of the oboes, violins in tremolo, and the movement had begun. At first it had seemed as though the two men simply chased after the woman in striking green and gold, the dance a sort of mating ritual in which the victor would reap the spoils, the decision of her affection. But as he'd watched more closely, he'd seen the deeper truth. They moved together, touching, leaping, sashaying, embracing, but were constantly divided by the music, the scenery, the very pattern of it all. Doomed to circle each other for eternity, the first man watched the woman, moving away as she turned her gaze, tilting her body toward him, moments in front of the second man who reached fruitlessly for her, his whole body stretching fluidly in time with the music. Pivoting away, as if realizing the insanity of the chase, he just missed the woman spinning in his direction, her hips thrust toward him, her slender neck gleaming with the lights of the stage. On and on they went, each moving independently yet symbiotically, with the others, oblivious to the fact that they were being led by strings, words and numbers.

Michael had watched, rapt with fascination, wondering if the pattern would reveal itself to them, if the dancers would ever realize the links of desire between man and woman, the competition between man and man. But they never did and the dance ended, each dancer facing a different direction, yet each man entwined with some part of the woman. It was in that last moment, the shift from dominant to tonic, when it happened.

Michael understood.

He realized that very few saw the pattern. Those who did could control it, separate from the dancers, yet still moving their legs, bending their arms, pointing their feet, could wield power unimaginable.

That night, as he'd turned the screen saver off, Michael had easily leapt over the edge, not ever looking back. And here he was, eight years later, still manipulating the pattern of words and numbers.

Yet, for the first time, as he watched the new ballet in front of him, he finally realized that seeing the pattern could be very difficult when you were a dancer yourself.

She walked through the office, a type of grace in her movements, tempered by her age. There was power and knowledge that you could read in every tentative step, each murmured word, but she seemed oblivious to it all. Her eyes shone brightly, capturing her surroundings, but never lighting up as much as when a certain someone walked in the room.

A certain Amon, that was.

Michael smirked to himself as he rocked his chair back and forth in time to the music. She never saw him as he watched her, letting his eyes run over her every so often after reading a line of code. He watched as Robin peered at her partner, trying to hide her interest, but pretty much failing to camouflage her fascination. Maybe the subterfuge worked on the rest of the group, but not on Michael. He, as usual, saw the pattern. The way Robin's body would react when Amon walked in the room, her spine snapping to attention, the slight flush to her cheeks, the way she hesitated between coming and going. He'd catalogued all the looks, the hurt, desire, confusion, and wonder she gave off when ever the lead hunter was in the room.

But she wasn't the only part of the equation, Michael had realized early on. For all that he tried to act cold and unfeeling, Amon danced as well. He met her various looks with a seemingly unflinching stare, but it was in the moments when she turned away that the pattern revealed itself. Michael had watched as Amon reacted to Robin's presence enough times to get a sense that he was fascinated as well.

Michael saw the way Amon's eyes shifted slightly as Robin moved through the rooms, his preternatural attention seeming to be focused elsewhere, but undeniably centered on the girl. He'd seen the slight flash in Amon's eyes when Doujima made a callous comment to the young hunter, even if Amon had made such a comment to Robin the moment before. And Michael was old enough now to know that the burning looks that Amon sent his partner sometimes were not about anger or disappointment, but based in something much more primal and basic.

Just like Michael was old enough to understand his own reaction to Robin when they worked in close quarters. The way his palms sweated slightly when she sat at her desk behind him. Or the shiver that went down his spine when she spoke softly over his shoulder, her breath, which seemed familiar and exotic all at one, brushing lightly over the ragged ends of his hair. Or the way his stomach seemed to jump when she was on a mission and seemed to be possibly in danger.

The simple fact was, Michael couldn't stop paying attention to one particular strand of the pattern, whether she was in the room or not.

Like right now, as he watched her pour a cup of the ridiculously strong coffee she loved so much. Michael shook his head, forcing himself to look away from her and concentrate on his work. But as his eyes moved past her back toward his screen, another set of eyes bore directly into his own.

In that moment, everything else fell into place. Michael gulped, not only at the predatory gaze he was receiving from Amon, but also from the realization of his own ignorance. He'd been reading the pattern wrong all along.

And, all of the sudden, it was eight years before. Only now, instead of sitting on a velvet cushion in the darkened hall, Michael was on stage. He was moving without thinking, bending and twisting, ever reaching and never attaining.

He was part of the damned pattern after all.

As he quickly shifted back to his computer screen, trying to force the images from his mind, he tried to shake off the effect of Amon's stare. But Michael couldn't stop himself from realizing that the inevitable was always true.

Whoever saw the pattern was the one who controlled it.

And as he watched Amon rise fluidly from his seat and walk toward Robin, Michael knew that he'd seen the truth too late and that, this time, the control would be out of his hands.

fin