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sententiaTitle: End Of The World, chapter 13
Author(s): Sententia
Artist(s): dragon_gypsy
Fandom(s): Switch
Type: (Gen, Het, Femmeslash or Slash) Gen
Rating: PG
Word Count: 34,000.
Characters/Pairings: Takei and Shiba.
Warnings/Spoilers: For the entire series and the official '5 years later' doujinshi done by Naked Ape.
Summary: It was the end of the world as Takei knew it, and he was feeling ... wait, how did the rest of the song go again? Takei returns to work after Shingo's betrayal, only to be hit be a far greater one. Both Shiba and Takei struggle with the consequences.
Author’s Notes: This is the longest thing I've written, and it really shows. When I planned it out it was only supposed to be 10,000 words (which is still huge for me), but it blossomed into something much longer. It's been a great growing process, and if I were to redo the story again with everything I'd learnt, it would probably be a completely different fic.
Chapter 13: .... and I Feel Broken/Exhausted/Angry/Petrified/Fine (please circle one)
It was perfect.
Shiba shot him a grin, and the last strands of Takei’s carefully woven resistance snapped.
He punched Shiba, hard, in the face.
He had never, ever been so infuriated in his life.
“You bastard,” Takei hissed, his fists still clenched. Everything felt tight and stretched, and Takei wasn’t sure if he was the one still moving or if it was the pavement. In the end it was Shiba slowly rising to his feet, flexing fingers wryly clutching his jaw. Flames from the building behind them speared high into the air, and it was all too much. Takei felt the heat, the burn of the fire, the pain-
The world explodes into a wall of white hot agony, and Takei feels as though he is being scoured alive before a thick, black wall of darkness crashes down around him and robs away all consciousness.
“You took your time,” Shiba dared mock. Takei cut off any further taunts, his knee crashing up into Shiba’s ribs and sending Shiba back to the ground – to the gutters, which gushed now that they were trying to escape the collapsing building.
“Takei, Shiba! Now isn’t-“
“Stay out of this,” Shiba commanded, cutting off Kei mid sentence. His eyes never moved away from their careful focus on Takei. “So we’re finally going to have this conversation, huh?”
“Are you trying to piss me off even more?” Takei was hardly the fool that Shiba was playing for. Shiba was deliberately trying to rile him up further, pushing all the tiny little buttons that no-one else in the world knew existed. And, fine. If Shiba wanted him to be mad, then Takei could do mad. It wasn’t an emotion he did all that often, but right now he had a whole fucking lot of ‘mad’ tucked away just waiting for some arsehole to unleash it on.
And, surprise!
“Maybe if you were a little bit more in touch with your emotions, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Don’t you dare try and blame this on me,” he growled, surprising himself by meaning it. If only Ibu could see him now. Ha, he’d probably be hiding his face in embarrassment. “I didn’t force you to do anything.” The words were tumbling out now, breaking through all of Takei’s carefully constructed barriers of common sense and friendship.
It was almost as though they were continuing the same conversation they started a year and a half ago, back when Takei was on one side of Shiba’s prison door and Shiba was locked away on the other.
“No, you didn’t. I did that all by myself. It’s what adults do, Takei. They make stupid, fucked up decisions all on their own.”
“This was more than fucked up,” Take countered. “You chose to join them.” Takei couldn’t even say their name, not when the ghosts were clinging to him like leeches, sucking all colour out of him and turning everything grey again. “After everything they did to Kei, after everything they did to Hal.”
Shiba watched him carefully, and Takei could see the words mouthed on Shiba’s lips before they reached Takei’s ears. All his senses seemed to be closing down, one by one.
“After everything they did to you, Takei.”
Fire and flames and pain-
The world was caving in again, and all Takei could breathe in was smoke and fear. Shiba seemed far away, and yet nothing else existed but him. It was too much like when Shiba had first confessed to his betrayal, and Takei felt again like his best friend had stripped away every last shred of control Takei had ever had in his life.
Please, he silently begged. Implored. Please don’t. The world shouldn’t end more than once.
Shiba’s gaze was compassionate but unrelenting, and Takei was already falling.
“After everything we did to you.” Shiba’s words were quiet, pained.
Oh, god. No.
Takei’s knees crashed hard into the pavement, the pain splintering up through his bones. He dropped one hand down onto the ground, his hair spilling over his eyes as he gasped for air. It was too much; it was too fucking much-
- he latches onto something, anything, and it is warm, not like the heat that is burning everything (and why does it hurt so much?), but warm like Shiba. Consciousness is only coming in snatches, but this warm thing that smells like Shiba and feels like Shiba is holding him close to a chest that reminds him of Shiba, and maybe if he just closes his eyes-
“Takei-“ the voice was soft and warm, and so close that Takei thought he could breathe it in and claim it as his own. But ... it was all too much. He threw his weight forward onto his arms and whipped around his leg, swiping Shiba’s out from beneath him and sending him crashing back down onto the pavement. Shiba went down hard.
“You could at least fight back,” Takei said between heavy breaths, flicking his hair back out of his face. “It would feel a hell of a lot more satisfying if you would at least pretend.” It was difficult to feed off just his own adrenalin, especially with each inch of his body screaming out in protest. His ribs ached, his shoulder had a distinctly dislocated feel to it, and his heart was beating so fast that Takei’s mind couldn’t keep up.
It had always been one of Takei’s biggest problems, getting his heart and mind to work in sync.
There were so many different emotions, and it was making Takei schizophrenic, thrusting him between hurt and angry and helpless and confused with a kaleidoscopic madness.
He was ... he was exhausted. It was all collapsing around him, and Takei was not entirely sure he had enough left to care.
“The way I see it, I’m due more than just a beating.” A bemused smile tipped the corner of Shiba’s mouth upwards. “Although I’d forgotten just how good you are at this.” Shiba groaned, resting forward on his knees. “Maybe this transf-“
“Why?” Takei demanded, his eyes widening in horror as the question escaped from the box he had locked it in for almost two years. He was terrified, and he felt completely, ridiculously unhinged. Even for all Shiba’s bravado, something in his expression slipped.
It wasn’t so easy to have this conversation, was it? Takei’s thoughts took a dark, vulgar turn when Shiba dropped his gaze. Those thoughts were annihilated in a flash when Shiba slowly lifted his eyes again, and Takei was hypnotised by the raw shame in them.
“Because of the money.” Shiba said, bitterly. His words were slow and laboured. “Because I was tired and alone and because you -.”
The bottom fell out of Takei’s stomach.
“I was?” Takei asked hoarsely. He didn’t want to know. There was a reason why they’d never had this conversation, and Takei didn’t think he was strong enough for this. Not now. Not ever. He ... he didn’t want this reality for Shiba, and he didn’t want it for himself.
But it was too late, and it had gone much too far. Takei was standing on the edge of his own sanity, and the drop seemed to go on forever into darkness.
“Because you weren’t there,” Shiba said, his head too heavy, his jaw clenched into a grimace. “And it looked like you never would be again.” Desperation slipped into Shiba’s tone. “You almost died, Takei. You were in hospital for ages before you could put together a proper sentence. They couldn’t even tell if there was brain damage for god knows how long.”
“I know.” Takei’s voice took on a haunted echo. He remembered. Always, he remembered.
They never talked about it.
“It was the end of the world,” Shiba said, and it was like looking in a mirror, one that was cracked and reflecting back broken and twisted fragments of the people they once were. Shiba’s smirk was comprised of nothing but those edges. “And I thought I might as well benefit from it.”
“You changed your mind.” Takei clung to that scrap. “You turned it all around, gave us the information we needed to tackle them head on. You changed your mind.” It was a mantra, and Takei kept chanting it with a fanatical devotion.
“No,” Shiba disagreed quietly. “You did. You ... you weren’t supposed to come back so soon.” Pain briefly scrunched up Shiba’s forehead and he shifted his weight to the other side, learning forward. Their injuries were wearing on them both, and Takei found himself sagging as well. “I knew it was a big mistake by then, but I couldn’t see any way of getting out. I thought that if I could just get through it, maybe try and salvage something from the aftermath-“ he broke off with a coarse laugh. “So fucking selfish, right?”
“Yeah.” There was no point in disagreeing. These were their friends, the people who had stood by them through their own difficult times and never once thought to doubt their intentions. Takei’s teeth ground together, and it was all he could do to stop them from chattering. “You selfish, pathetic bastard.” Each word came out on its own deliberate breath of anger.
“I thought ... I thought if I just kept you by my side right up until the last minute then I could keep you safe, and that would somehow make everything right.” The childish belief made Takei want to punch Shiba again, demand him to take those words back. How dare this jerk try and find something as fragile as salvation through Takei? Takei’s look was somehow enough, as Shiba flinched backwards. “I know, all right. I know. But it was like ... nothing else mattered. I could betray the department, I could set up Keigo, but as long as you didn’t have to get involved-“
“I was more involved than anyone else on our team. That’s why I came back.”
Shiba knew that better than anyone, because Shiba was the one who had been there through each rocky step of Takei’s recovery. The world had been a strange, unnatural place after his release from hospital, and even the thought of returning back to his apartment had filled him with a paralysing, tar-black dread. Takei remembered the self-loathing and bone-deep tiredness he had felt as he stood on his own doorstep, too afraid to step inside.
He remembered Shiba’s steadying hand on the small of his back as Shiba turned him away, all light and air and laughter as he took Takei back home with him.
Shiba’s old apartment had been a bachelor’s haven built for one; however his friend had made it work. With his injuries still raw and healing, Takei had been allowed to crash in Shiba’s plush bed while Shiba took the incredibly impractical couch. At least, that had been their plan. Shiba stated on the third night that he was too old and way too good looking to be sleeping on the couch, and reclaimed one side of the bed back as his own.
Takei had teased Shiba for being a clingy wife, one who was worried her husband might scurry off in the middle of the night when presented with a better offer. Shiba had certainly reacted to every jerk, each startled movement Takei made during the night.
It meant, however, that there was always someone there when Takei’s painkillers lost their edge, when the nightmares came. And they came, each night like clockwork.
All that time, Shiba had been sharing another bed with the very men who had reduced Takei to such a pathetic mess.
“When you made that last phone call, asking when I would be getting back ... I couldn’t do it. Not to you. Not to me. Not to them.” Shiba’s words slowly came back into focus, dragging Takei from his memories and dropping him into a different hell.
“How decent of you.” The comment was unnaturally snide. “I want to hate you,” Takei said distantly. “Just for a little while. It would make this so much easier. I think ... I think I could get over hate. But all there is is this stupid, ridiculous hurt.” Oh, that was right. A hard smile flashed across his lips. “And maybe just a touch of anger. Every inch of which you deserve.” With Shingo, there was hate. There had been other emotions once, but an indifferent sort of hate was all that remained.
Shiba’s forehead creased, tired and frustrated.
“Because you refuse to talk about it, Takei. Every time I tried to bring it up, to try and address what I did-“
Takei launched himself at Shiba, colliding hard with his chest and knocking him down onto the concrete. It knocked the air from them both, and Takei desperately tried to claw his own breaths back as he snarled down at Shiba’s shocked face. “Don’t you dare try and blame this on me. I’ve spent far, far too long doing that and it is not fair.” His voice cracked. “It’s not fair,” he repeated, “and I can’t-”
He just couldn’t.
This was too difficult, and it hurt too much. Takei thought he was fine, and was then absolutely sure he was fine, because he went days or weeks or months without hating himself at all.
Shiba was pinned beneath him, a bruise already starting to form on his cheek and Takei’s hands locked down on either side of his shoulders. There was so little space between them, and yet somehow Shiba still managed to detangle one arm and reach upwards, cupping Takei’s cheek.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Shiba murmured quietly, and Takei shuddered. “You did nothing wrong. I screwed up, big time.”
“You took it all away, everything. This was supposed to be us-“ the fire burning brightly behind them, the crims caught, “- this was supposed to be ours.” The joy, the tension, the passion thumping through their veins as they laughed dramatically in the face of huge odds. “Some days I can’t even look at myself in the mirror without wondering if I’m making some sort of huge mistake.”
“I know.”
“You broke my heart,” Takei said hoarsely, eyes pleading.
“I know,” Shiba echoed, his hand sliding up around the back of Takei’s neck and drawing him down against his chest. Shiba’s fingers splayed up into Takei’s hair, and the only things that remained between them now were remorse and hurt.
Because the world clearly hated him, it started to rain.
“Ok, we can do that,” Shiba said, humour creeping into his voice even as he smoothed his hand through Takei’s hair. “We can pretend it’s raining. It’s something that happens all the time, right? Nothing unnatural about it.”
Takei was this close to kneeing Shiba in the balls. Instead, he chuckled, low in his throat. It was not the world’s prettiest laugh, rough around the corners and maybe just a touch hysterical.
It was a good laugh, but not a magical one. And yet...
Shiba wasn’t going anywhere. For the first time since that stupid, screwed up day, Takei believed it. If he closed his eyes, closed himself off from the world, he could feel Shiba’s heartbeat, could absorb each breath of air with the rise and fall of Shiba’s chest.
The hurt had been bad, almost crippling. But what it had been masking was a different beast, one that had only shown its true face now.
Fear. Bone deep, soul crushing fear.
Takei rolled inelegantly off of Shiba, landing on his back with an omph. They must have looked a pair of fools, laying side-by-side on the brick pavement in the not-rain.
He smiled manically. Shiba snorted beside him.
The silence between them was oddly comforting, and Takei thought he could maybe stay here for a while.
But that was kind of stupid.
“You know,” he started thoughtfully, when the various abused parts of his body slowly started to remind him that his current position wasn’t exactly known for its healing properties. “I’m pretty banged up.” It was a loaded comment, and Shiba was well aware of what the bullets were comprised of.
Shiba groaned. “Oh, come on. You just beat the crap out of me.”
“I’m hardly a paragon of good health myself, remember?” Or had Shiba already conveniently forgotten the pistol whipping, rib bruising, fire-escape escaping, emotionally draining day that Takei had been subjected to? “This is definitely piggyback territory.” No two ways about it. If Shiba thought he could-
“Takei, I’m sorry.”
Takei tipped his head backwards, the sky above blurring into a wash of blues and greys. His gaze slid over to Shiba, who held the pieces of the world in his hands apologetically and offered him a new one in its place. But it was Shiba’s eyes, those soft, aching eyes that begged for forgiveness-
Takei nodded. It was a short, jerk of a nod. Not really a nod, just his head snapping down and back up again. But it said everything that Takei was still too afraid to say.
“We’ll ... we’ll talk when we get back.” The words were still stilted, but ... they were enough. “I have these boxes.” For the first time in forever, they felt honest. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and a light shone in Shiba’s eyes. It was a start. “Now, giddy-up.”
Author(s): Sententia
Artist(s): dragon_gypsy
Fandom(s): Switch
Type: (Gen, Het, Femmeslash or Slash) Gen
Rating: PG
Word Count: 34,000.
Characters/Pairings: Takei and Shiba.
Warnings/Spoilers: For the entire series and the official '5 years later' doujinshi done by Naked Ape.
Summary: It was the end of the world as Takei knew it, and he was feeling ... wait, how did the rest of the song go again? Takei returns to work after Shingo's betrayal, only to be hit be a far greater one. Both Shiba and Takei struggle with the consequences.
Author’s Notes: This is the longest thing I've written, and it really shows. When I planned it out it was only supposed to be 10,000 words (which is still huge for me), but it blossomed into something much longer. It's been a great growing process, and if I were to redo the story again with everything I'd learnt, it would probably be a completely different fic.
It was perfect.
Shiba shot him a grin, and the last strands of Takei’s carefully woven resistance snapped.
He punched Shiba, hard, in the face.
He had never, ever been so infuriated in his life.
“You bastard,” Takei hissed, his fists still clenched. Everything felt tight and stretched, and Takei wasn’t sure if he was the one still moving or if it was the pavement. In the end it was Shiba slowly rising to his feet, flexing fingers wryly clutching his jaw. Flames from the building behind them speared high into the air, and it was all too much. Takei felt the heat, the burn of the fire, the pain-
The world explodes into a wall of white hot agony, and Takei feels as though he is being scoured alive before a thick, black wall of darkness crashes down around him and robs away all consciousness.
“You took your time,” Shiba dared mock. Takei cut off any further taunts, his knee crashing up into Shiba’s ribs and sending Shiba back to the ground – to the gutters, which gushed now that they were trying to escape the collapsing building.
“Takei, Shiba! Now isn’t-“
“Stay out of this,” Shiba commanded, cutting off Kei mid sentence. His eyes never moved away from their careful focus on Takei. “So we’re finally going to have this conversation, huh?”
“Are you trying to piss me off even more?” Takei was hardly the fool that Shiba was playing for. Shiba was deliberately trying to rile him up further, pushing all the tiny little buttons that no-one else in the world knew existed. And, fine. If Shiba wanted him to be mad, then Takei could do mad. It wasn’t an emotion he did all that often, but right now he had a whole fucking lot of ‘mad’ tucked away just waiting for some arsehole to unleash it on.
And, surprise!
“Maybe if you were a little bit more in touch with your emotions, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Don’t you dare try and blame this on me,” he growled, surprising himself by meaning it. If only Ibu could see him now. Ha, he’d probably be hiding his face in embarrassment. “I didn’t force you to do anything.” The words were tumbling out now, breaking through all of Takei’s carefully constructed barriers of common sense and friendship.
It was almost as though they were continuing the same conversation they started a year and a half ago, back when Takei was on one side of Shiba’s prison door and Shiba was locked away on the other.
“No, you didn’t. I did that all by myself. It’s what adults do, Takei. They make stupid, fucked up decisions all on their own.”
“This was more than fucked up,” Take countered. “You chose to join them.” Takei couldn’t even say their name, not when the ghosts were clinging to him like leeches, sucking all colour out of him and turning everything grey again. “After everything they did to Kei, after everything they did to Hal.”
Shiba watched him carefully, and Takei could see the words mouthed on Shiba’s lips before they reached Takei’s ears. All his senses seemed to be closing down, one by one.
“After everything they did to you, Takei.”
Fire and flames and pain-
The world was caving in again, and all Takei could breathe in was smoke and fear. Shiba seemed far away, and yet nothing else existed but him. It was too much like when Shiba had first confessed to his betrayal, and Takei felt again like his best friend had stripped away every last shred of control Takei had ever had in his life.
Please, he silently begged. Implored. Please don’t. The world shouldn’t end more than once.
Shiba’s gaze was compassionate but unrelenting, and Takei was already falling.
“After everything we did to you.” Shiba’s words were quiet, pained.
Oh, god. No.
Takei’s knees crashed hard into the pavement, the pain splintering up through his bones. He dropped one hand down onto the ground, his hair spilling over his eyes as he gasped for air. It was too much; it was too fucking much-
- he latches onto something, anything, and it is warm, not like the heat that is burning everything (and why does it hurt so much?), but warm like Shiba. Consciousness is only coming in snatches, but this warm thing that smells like Shiba and feels like Shiba is holding him close to a chest that reminds him of Shiba, and maybe if he just closes his eyes-
“Takei-“ the voice was soft and warm, and so close that Takei thought he could breathe it in and claim it as his own. But ... it was all too much. He threw his weight forward onto his arms and whipped around his leg, swiping Shiba’s out from beneath him and sending him crashing back down onto the pavement. Shiba went down hard.
“You could at least fight back,” Takei said between heavy breaths, flicking his hair back out of his face. “It would feel a hell of a lot more satisfying if you would at least pretend.” It was difficult to feed off just his own adrenalin, especially with each inch of his body screaming out in protest. His ribs ached, his shoulder had a distinctly dislocated feel to it, and his heart was beating so fast that Takei’s mind couldn’t keep up.
It had always been one of Takei’s biggest problems, getting his heart and mind to work in sync.
There were so many different emotions, and it was making Takei schizophrenic, thrusting him between hurt and angry and helpless and confused with a kaleidoscopic madness.
He was ... he was exhausted. It was all collapsing around him, and Takei was not entirely sure he had enough left to care.
“The way I see it, I’m due more than just a beating.” A bemused smile tipped the corner of Shiba’s mouth upwards. “Although I’d forgotten just how good you are at this.” Shiba groaned, resting forward on his knees. “Maybe this transf-“
“Why?” Takei demanded, his eyes widening in horror as the question escaped from the box he had locked it in for almost two years. He was terrified, and he felt completely, ridiculously unhinged. Even for all Shiba’s bravado, something in his expression slipped.
It wasn’t so easy to have this conversation, was it? Takei’s thoughts took a dark, vulgar turn when Shiba dropped his gaze. Those thoughts were annihilated in a flash when Shiba slowly lifted his eyes again, and Takei was hypnotised by the raw shame in them.
“Because of the money.” Shiba said, bitterly. His words were slow and laboured. “Because I was tired and alone and because you -.”
The bottom fell out of Takei’s stomach.
“I was?” Takei asked hoarsely. He didn’t want to know. There was a reason why they’d never had this conversation, and Takei didn’t think he was strong enough for this. Not now. Not ever. He ... he didn’t want this reality for Shiba, and he didn’t want it for himself.
But it was too late, and it had gone much too far. Takei was standing on the edge of his own sanity, and the drop seemed to go on forever into darkness.
“Because you weren’t there,” Shiba said, his head too heavy, his jaw clenched into a grimace. “And it looked like you never would be again.” Desperation slipped into Shiba’s tone. “You almost died, Takei. You were in hospital for ages before you could put together a proper sentence. They couldn’t even tell if there was brain damage for god knows how long.”
“I know.” Takei’s voice took on a haunted echo. He remembered. Always, he remembered.
They never talked about it.
“It was the end of the world,” Shiba said, and it was like looking in a mirror, one that was cracked and reflecting back broken and twisted fragments of the people they once were. Shiba’s smirk was comprised of nothing but those edges. “And I thought I might as well benefit from it.”
“You changed your mind.” Takei clung to that scrap. “You turned it all around, gave us the information we needed to tackle them head on. You changed your mind.” It was a mantra, and Takei kept chanting it with a fanatical devotion.
“No,” Shiba disagreed quietly. “You did. You ... you weren’t supposed to come back so soon.” Pain briefly scrunched up Shiba’s forehead and he shifted his weight to the other side, learning forward. Their injuries were wearing on them both, and Takei found himself sagging as well. “I knew it was a big mistake by then, but I couldn’t see any way of getting out. I thought that if I could just get through it, maybe try and salvage something from the aftermath-“ he broke off with a coarse laugh. “So fucking selfish, right?”
“Yeah.” There was no point in disagreeing. These were their friends, the people who had stood by them through their own difficult times and never once thought to doubt their intentions. Takei’s teeth ground together, and it was all he could do to stop them from chattering. “You selfish, pathetic bastard.” Each word came out on its own deliberate breath of anger.
“I thought ... I thought if I just kept you by my side right up until the last minute then I could keep you safe, and that would somehow make everything right.” The childish belief made Takei want to punch Shiba again, demand him to take those words back. How dare this jerk try and find something as fragile as salvation through Takei? Takei’s look was somehow enough, as Shiba flinched backwards. “I know, all right. I know. But it was like ... nothing else mattered. I could betray the department, I could set up Keigo, but as long as you didn’t have to get involved-“
“I was more involved than anyone else on our team. That’s why I came back.”
Shiba knew that better than anyone, because Shiba was the one who had been there through each rocky step of Takei’s recovery. The world had been a strange, unnatural place after his release from hospital, and even the thought of returning back to his apartment had filled him with a paralysing, tar-black dread. Takei remembered the self-loathing and bone-deep tiredness he had felt as he stood on his own doorstep, too afraid to step inside.
He remembered Shiba’s steadying hand on the small of his back as Shiba turned him away, all light and air and laughter as he took Takei back home with him.
Shiba’s old apartment had been a bachelor’s haven built for one; however his friend had made it work. With his injuries still raw and healing, Takei had been allowed to crash in Shiba’s plush bed while Shiba took the incredibly impractical couch. At least, that had been their plan. Shiba stated on the third night that he was too old and way too good looking to be sleeping on the couch, and reclaimed one side of the bed back as his own.
Takei had teased Shiba for being a clingy wife, one who was worried her husband might scurry off in the middle of the night when presented with a better offer. Shiba had certainly reacted to every jerk, each startled movement Takei made during the night.
It meant, however, that there was always someone there when Takei’s painkillers lost their edge, when the nightmares came. And they came, each night like clockwork.
All that time, Shiba had been sharing another bed with the very men who had reduced Takei to such a pathetic mess.
“When you made that last phone call, asking when I would be getting back ... I couldn’t do it. Not to you. Not to me. Not to them.” Shiba’s words slowly came back into focus, dragging Takei from his memories and dropping him into a different hell.
“How decent of you.” The comment was unnaturally snide. “I want to hate you,” Takei said distantly. “Just for a little while. It would make this so much easier. I think ... I think I could get over hate. But all there is is this stupid, ridiculous hurt.” Oh, that was right. A hard smile flashed across his lips. “And maybe just a touch of anger. Every inch of which you deserve.” With Shingo, there was hate. There had been other emotions once, but an indifferent sort of hate was all that remained.
Shiba’s forehead creased, tired and frustrated.
“Because you refuse to talk about it, Takei. Every time I tried to bring it up, to try and address what I did-“
Takei launched himself at Shiba, colliding hard with his chest and knocking him down onto the concrete. It knocked the air from them both, and Takei desperately tried to claw his own breaths back as he snarled down at Shiba’s shocked face. “Don’t you dare try and blame this on me. I’ve spent far, far too long doing that and it is not fair.” His voice cracked. “It’s not fair,” he repeated, “and I can’t-”
He just couldn’t.
This was too difficult, and it hurt too much. Takei thought he was fine, and was then absolutely sure he was fine, because he went days or weeks or months without hating himself at all.
Shiba was pinned beneath him, a bruise already starting to form on his cheek and Takei’s hands locked down on either side of his shoulders. There was so little space between them, and yet somehow Shiba still managed to detangle one arm and reach upwards, cupping Takei’s cheek.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Shiba murmured quietly, and Takei shuddered. “You did nothing wrong. I screwed up, big time.”
“You took it all away, everything. This was supposed to be us-“ the fire burning brightly behind them, the crims caught, “- this was supposed to be ours.” The joy, the tension, the passion thumping through their veins as they laughed dramatically in the face of huge odds. “Some days I can’t even look at myself in the mirror without wondering if I’m making some sort of huge mistake.”
“I know.”
“You broke my heart,” Takei said hoarsely, eyes pleading.
“I know,” Shiba echoed, his hand sliding up around the back of Takei’s neck and drawing him down against his chest. Shiba’s fingers splayed up into Takei’s hair, and the only things that remained between them now were remorse and hurt.
Because the world clearly hated him, it started to rain.
“Ok, we can do that,” Shiba said, humour creeping into his voice even as he smoothed his hand through Takei’s hair. “We can pretend it’s raining. It’s something that happens all the time, right? Nothing unnatural about it.”
Takei was this close to kneeing Shiba in the balls. Instead, he chuckled, low in his throat. It was not the world’s prettiest laugh, rough around the corners and maybe just a touch hysterical.
It was a good laugh, but not a magical one. And yet...
Shiba wasn’t going anywhere. For the first time since that stupid, screwed up day, Takei believed it. If he closed his eyes, closed himself off from the world, he could feel Shiba’s heartbeat, could absorb each breath of air with the rise and fall of Shiba’s chest.
The hurt had been bad, almost crippling. But what it had been masking was a different beast, one that had only shown its true face now.
Fear. Bone deep, soul crushing fear.
Takei rolled inelegantly off of Shiba, landing on his back with an omph. They must have looked a pair of fools, laying side-by-side on the brick pavement in the not-rain.
He smiled manically. Shiba snorted beside him.
The silence between them was oddly comforting, and Takei thought he could maybe stay here for a while.
But that was kind of stupid.
“You know,” he started thoughtfully, when the various abused parts of his body slowly started to remind him that his current position wasn’t exactly known for its healing properties. “I’m pretty banged up.” It was a loaded comment, and Shiba was well aware of what the bullets were comprised of.
Shiba groaned. “Oh, come on. You just beat the crap out of me.”
“I’m hardly a paragon of good health myself, remember?” Or had Shiba already conveniently forgotten the pistol whipping, rib bruising, fire-escape escaping, emotionally draining day that Takei had been subjected to? “This is definitely piggyback territory.” No two ways about it. If Shiba thought he could-
“Takei, I’m sorry.”
Takei tipped his head backwards, the sky above blurring into a wash of blues and greys. His gaze slid over to Shiba, who held the pieces of the world in his hands apologetically and offered him a new one in its place. But it was Shiba’s eyes, those soft, aching eyes that begged for forgiveness-
Takei nodded. It was a short, jerk of a nod. Not really a nod, just his head snapping down and back up again. But it said everything that Takei was still too afraid to say.
“We’ll ... we’ll talk when we get back.” The words were still stilted, but ... they were enough. “I have these boxes.” For the first time in forever, they felt honest. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and a light shone in Shiba’s eyes. It was a start. “Now, giddy-up.”
