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sententiaTitle: End Of The World
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 1: It’s the End of the World As We Know it...
Takei opened the door.
It was a simple act, one he had perfected back when he was three years old and his toys were kept tidied away in his wardrobe. Back then, the complicated act of freeing his toys from behind the tricky door had involved a small stool, one pair of always grubby hands, and his batman cape worn over his sister’s tutu. The costume had been an imperative component of the scheme. Magic was clearly required to ensure his success.
There was still some leftover magic trapped in the act, even all these years later. Takei could think of no other reason why the doorknob tingled beneath his touch, nerves and excitement and anticipation electrifying up through his fingers and rushing up his arms.
And so Takei opened the door, and stepped into a room steeped in tension. The whirl of a typewriter scattered the low thrum of conversation into pockets of words, blurring everything together into a claustrophobic mash of sound.
Tat-tat-[latest reports state]–tat-tat-[I ordered three]-tat-tat-tat-[half an hour]-tat-tat-tat-[bagels]-tat-[raid]
Takei realised that there were more people in the Yokohama Narcotics office than there were desks and chairs, and then that moment was gone and there was nothing but movement set in staccato. The constant scratch of those chairs and the creak of desks that groaned under the weight of too many half drunken coffee cups took on the same ramshackle sense of life and frustration as the staff members scrambling around.
Takei breathed in deeply, inhaling nicotine and just a hint of body odour. An adoring smile blossomed on his lips. It was all so insane and ridiculous and who used a typewriter in this day and age, seriously?
It was pretty much as close to perfection as one could get without atmospheric lighting and a pump-up-the-volume soundtrack. Takei didn’t even care that no-one had noticed his dramatic return, at least not enough that it kept him from relaxing against the doorframe and just … just absorbing.
Takei’s gaze swept over the cluttered mess of people and intent with a set of fresh eyes, ones that had been absent long enough to have gained a new appreciation for how perfectly in sync everyone was, despite the madness. Takei grinned at Shin, who was slouched sourly over a computer screen, fingers tapping tunelessly over the J-K-L keys without ever quite depressing them far enough to totally screw up whatever report he was reading on the screen. There was a new coffee machine sandwiched between two older ones (Takei was pretty sure that at least one of them had been stolen from another department. The way someone had half-heartedly tried to hide it beneath a lace doily with a pot plant optimistically placed on top was a fair give away).
The other set of eyes, the pair he tried to leave at the office when he took off home on the weekend (or drowned at the bottom of a couple of beers when those eyes threatened to stalk him throughout the night) observed the room with a more clinical sharpness. They cut through the fuzzy warm feelings that came with returning to work with a razor-sharp awareness. The rush of excitement that consumed the room felt strained and tense, but all the hurried actions and movement still maintained a professional sense of control.
And, and … there was a space, one that should have held a slightly condescending gaze that just occasionally lingered too long. Takei barely noticed that space, because ha! It was not like that space had sucked in several years of Takei’s life and spat out a scarred, rambling mess that had had to be stapled back together and maybe still relied just a teeny bit too much on painkillers. Spaces didn’t do that.
Nope. They just blew you up and didn’t even have the decency to send you a fruit basket.
The sharpness of the room was slowly beginning to lose its edge, and the stretches of skin across his chest that had only just become properly reacquainted with each other were reminding Takei exactly where their boundaries were.
The heavy hand that fell onto his shoulder kept him from floating away, but it was the voice, low and friendly, which grounded him.
“I thought you’d never get here.” If angels drank too much and smoked two packs a day, then … yeah. They probably still wouldn’t have sounded like this, because angels were way too wholesome to inject the same amount of sly humour into their voices. Shiba had years of sneaking up on awesome, amazingly patient partners. No angel could ever hope to replicate the right amount of smug glee.
Besides. Shiba would look ridiculous with a harp; the strings would get caught in his goatee. The image lightened Takei’s mood, and he turned to his partner with a grin.
“Not be here to nail those bastards?” Takei said with a cocked eyebrow. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Takei couldn’t remember the first couple of weeks after the explosion. There were some hazy memories of gauze and soft voices, however what he recalled the most was the constant, unsettling confusion that had smouldered once awareness had decided to take up a more permanent form of residency. Oh, he’d recognised names and faces right up until the moment he hadn’t, and voices had a habit of fading away part way through a word and not gaining traction again until hours later. That endless confusion, and how frightening it had been. That had surely been worse than even the pain.
Well. At least until Takei remembered the pain, and how crippling it had been. The confusion didn’t seem so bad in comparison.
Takei’s gaze hardened and his smile sharpened into an emotionless smirk. Yeah, he was ready to give back ever second of that pain tenfold.
“Huh,” Shiba said dryly, eyeing him up and down with a deliberately sceptical look. “Try to keep up, then.”
“Somehow, I don’t think that is going to be problem.”
“Good to have you back, buddy.” Shiba leaned in against his shoulder and murmured the words into his ear. “No more of this almost getting yourself killed business, alright?” It was practically a threat, and one that promised a nasty follow-through if Takei dared try and contradict him.
“You do know that it’s an official clause in my contract now, right?” Takei replied. “I have exceeded my one near death experience for the year. If I get myself killed now, it’s going to result in immediate termination.”
Shiba groaned, smacking Takei around the head and giving him a pitying look. Clearly, the awesomeness of Takei’s joke had gone over Shiba’s head. Most things did.
Noting could possibly make this moment more perfect than it was right now. Takei had spent months and months in Shiba’s company since the explosion, although admittedly, Takei had been unconscious for a whole chunk of that. This, however, was different. This was them. And yeah, they were still them when they were having drinks together or resting up after a mission, but this? On the cusp of a raid and with the odds stacked against them? This was them at their best.
It was easy to forget empty spaces and tortured, burnt scraps of flesh when anticipation started pulsing through your veins. Takei’s humour returned, easing away some of the harsher lines around his smile.
Shiba was very, very good at this.
(Takei didn’t think he could get through this without him)
With a pat on the shoulder, Shiba evaporated into the crowd, his barked commands joining in the rat-a-tat beat of the typewriter and mingling with the dozens of other voices.
Yeah. Perfect.
And then it all fell apart.
Hiki’s face was carved in stone, deep shadows gauging his cheeks with cold emotion. When Hiki informed them of what had happened to Keigo, the air was sucked from the room. All that was left behind was confusion and horror. How, how was it possible for the Ryuugen to have known where Keigo was going? Shiba was the one who had set everything up, Shiba-
Takei fumbled desperately for his phone. He’d only been back for two days; there was no way this could possibly be happening-
“He’s ... he’s not answering.” Desperate eyes sought out Hiki’s terrifyingly emotionless ones. “I can’t reach him.” He dialled again and again, his hands trembling and his heart beating so fast that it felt like he was being shaken apart from the inside. If Shiba was hurt-
He hung onto that thought. There was no room for alternative theories, even as Hiki’s gaze never wavered. Masato was shaking his head quietly, disbelief warring with pity - shut up, I can tell what you are thinking, you bastard! - and Takei needed to get out of there. There were too many eyes, too many sympathetic looks, and Hiki, Hiki -
Takei spun on his heels and strode from the office, his phone pressed against his ear and his head bowed. The eyes followed him into the corridor and so he simply kept going.
Somehow, Takei ended up in a bathroom stall, his back pressed against the door and one arm wrapped around his waist.
“Shiba, please pick up,” Takei begged after Shiba’s tinny answering machine message ran its course once more. “There’s been a misunderstanding here and I ... I really need you to call me back. Please.” He left message after message, although he didn’t know why. One should have been enough.
Shiba should be answering his phone.
“Hey, Shiba. It’s me. Call me back, ok?”
What the hell as going on?
And then, Takei’s phone rang. He almost dropped it, the tension in his fingers taken over by numbness. He looked down dumbly at the screen, distantly recognising Shiba’s number.
ring ring
He dropped down onto the toilet seat, ignoring the way the cheap, plastic lid squelched beneath him.
ring ring
‘Please be hurt, Shiba. Please be trapped somewhere and desperately need help. I can do that, I’m good at waltzing in and saving the day. Fuck, my hair was made for that kind of thing.’
ring ring
In the ridiculous action movies that Shiba so loved, it would have all crashed down in one shattering instant that ripped the air from Takei’s lungs and sucked him deep into a fiery hell. In the silly comedies that Takei dragged Shiba to on his days off, there would be a slapstick moment where Takei (quite literally) ended up with pie in his face.
All he had was the ringing of his cell, and the sound reverberated through the bathroom, drowning out all other noises and slowly driving Takei insane.
He answered the call.
“Are you ok, Shiba?” Takei asked quietly, his eyes squeezed shut.
There was a pause, long and drawn, before Shiba finally answered.
“Yeah.” His voice sounded so far away, too far away for Takei to reach. “I’m fine, Takei.”
Takei folded in on himself, his elbows dropping to his knees and his head curling into his chest. Blank eyes saw nothing ... nothing.
“You need to tell me everything,” Takei said hoarsely. This ... this wasn’t happening. There was absolutely no way.
“I’m going to.” The last shred of childish hope disintegrated. There was another pause, and in it Takei’s world shattered into a thousand pieces. “Takei, I’m sorry.”
Nothing.
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.
Takei opened the door.
It was a simple act, one he had perfected back when he was three years old and his toys were kept tidied away in his wardrobe. Back then, the complicated act of freeing his toys from behind the tricky door had involved a small stool, one pair of always grubby hands, and his batman cape worn over his sister’s tutu. The costume had been an imperative component of the scheme. Magic was clearly required to ensure his success.
There was still some leftover magic trapped in the act, even all these years later. Takei could think of no other reason why the doorknob tingled beneath his touch, nerves and excitement and anticipation electrifying up through his fingers and rushing up his arms.
And so Takei opened the door, and stepped into a room steeped in tension. The whirl of a typewriter scattered the low thrum of conversation into pockets of words, blurring everything together into a claustrophobic mash of sound.
Tat-tat-[latest reports state]–tat-tat-[I ordered three]-tat-tat-tat-[half an hour]-tat-tat-tat-[bagels]-tat-[raid]
Takei realised that there were more people in the Yokohama Narcotics office than there were desks and chairs, and then that moment was gone and there was nothing but movement set in staccato. The constant scratch of those chairs and the creak of desks that groaned under the weight of too many half drunken coffee cups took on the same ramshackle sense of life and frustration as the staff members scrambling around.
Takei breathed in deeply, inhaling nicotine and just a hint of body odour. An adoring smile blossomed on his lips. It was all so insane and ridiculous and who used a typewriter in this day and age, seriously?
It was pretty much as close to perfection as one could get without atmospheric lighting and a pump-up-the-volume soundtrack. Takei didn’t even care that no-one had noticed his dramatic return, at least not enough that it kept him from relaxing against the doorframe and just … just absorbing.
Takei’s gaze swept over the cluttered mess of people and intent with a set of fresh eyes, ones that had been absent long enough to have gained a new appreciation for how perfectly in sync everyone was, despite the madness. Takei grinned at Shin, who was slouched sourly over a computer screen, fingers tapping tunelessly over the J-K-L keys without ever quite depressing them far enough to totally screw up whatever report he was reading on the screen. There was a new coffee machine sandwiched between two older ones (Takei was pretty sure that at least one of them had been stolen from another department. The way someone had half-heartedly tried to hide it beneath a lace doily with a pot plant optimistically placed on top was a fair give away).
The other set of eyes, the pair he tried to leave at the office when he took off home on the weekend (or drowned at the bottom of a couple of beers when those eyes threatened to stalk him throughout the night) observed the room with a more clinical sharpness. They cut through the fuzzy warm feelings that came with returning to work with a razor-sharp awareness. The rush of excitement that consumed the room felt strained and tense, but all the hurried actions and movement still maintained a professional sense of control.
And, and … there was a space, one that should have held a slightly condescending gaze that just occasionally lingered too long. Takei barely noticed that space, because ha! It was not like that space had sucked in several years of Takei’s life and spat out a scarred, rambling mess that had had to be stapled back together and maybe still relied just a teeny bit too much on painkillers. Spaces didn’t do that.
Nope. They just blew you up and didn’t even have the decency to send you a fruit basket.
The sharpness of the room was slowly beginning to lose its edge, and the stretches of skin across his chest that had only just become properly reacquainted with each other were reminding Takei exactly where their boundaries were.
The heavy hand that fell onto his shoulder kept him from floating away, but it was the voice, low and friendly, which grounded him.
“I thought you’d never get here.” If angels drank too much and smoked two packs a day, then … yeah. They probably still wouldn’t have sounded like this, because angels were way too wholesome to inject the same amount of sly humour into their voices. Shiba had years of sneaking up on awesome, amazingly patient partners. No angel could ever hope to replicate the right amount of smug glee.
Besides. Shiba would look ridiculous with a harp; the strings would get caught in his goatee. The image lightened Takei’s mood, and he turned to his partner with a grin.
“Not be here to nail those bastards?” Takei said with a cocked eyebrow. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Takei couldn’t remember the first couple of weeks after the explosion. There were some hazy memories of gauze and soft voices, however what he recalled the most was the constant, unsettling confusion that had smouldered once awareness had decided to take up a more permanent form of residency. Oh, he’d recognised names and faces right up until the moment he hadn’t, and voices had a habit of fading away part way through a word and not gaining traction again until hours later. That endless confusion, and how frightening it had been. That had surely been worse than even the pain.
Well. At least until Takei remembered the pain, and how crippling it had been. The confusion didn’t seem so bad in comparison.
Takei’s gaze hardened and his smile sharpened into an emotionless smirk. Yeah, he was ready to give back ever second of that pain tenfold.
“Huh,” Shiba said dryly, eyeing him up and down with a deliberately sceptical look. “Try to keep up, then.”
“Somehow, I don’t think that is going to be problem.”
“Good to have you back, buddy.” Shiba leaned in against his shoulder and murmured the words into his ear. “No more of this almost getting yourself killed business, alright?” It was practically a threat, and one that promised a nasty follow-through if Takei dared try and contradict him.
“You do know that it’s an official clause in my contract now, right?” Takei replied. “I have exceeded my one near death experience for the year. If I get myself killed now, it’s going to result in immediate termination.”
Shiba groaned, smacking Takei around the head and giving him a pitying look. Clearly, the awesomeness of Takei’s joke had gone over Shiba’s head. Most things did.
Noting could possibly make this moment more perfect than it was right now. Takei had spent months and months in Shiba’s company since the explosion, although admittedly, Takei had been unconscious for a whole chunk of that. This, however, was different. This was them. And yeah, they were still them when they were having drinks together or resting up after a mission, but this? On the cusp of a raid and with the odds stacked against them? This was them at their best.
It was easy to forget empty spaces and tortured, burnt scraps of flesh when anticipation started pulsing through your veins. Takei’s humour returned, easing away some of the harsher lines around his smile.
Shiba was very, very good at this.
(Takei didn’t think he could get through this without him)
With a pat on the shoulder, Shiba evaporated into the crowd, his barked commands joining in the rat-a-tat beat of the typewriter and mingling with the dozens of other voices.
Yeah. Perfect.
And then it all fell apart.
Hiki’s face was carved in stone, deep shadows gauging his cheeks with cold emotion. When Hiki informed them of what had happened to Keigo, the air was sucked from the room. All that was left behind was confusion and horror. How, how was it possible for the Ryuugen to have known where Keigo was going? Shiba was the one who had set everything up, Shiba-
Takei fumbled desperately for his phone. He’d only been back for two days; there was no way this could possibly be happening-
“He’s ... he’s not answering.” Desperate eyes sought out Hiki’s terrifyingly emotionless ones. “I can’t reach him.” He dialled again and again, his hands trembling and his heart beating so fast that it felt like he was being shaken apart from the inside. If Shiba was hurt-
He hung onto that thought. There was no room for alternative theories, even as Hiki’s gaze never wavered. Masato was shaking his head quietly, disbelief warring with pity - shut up, I can tell what you are thinking, you bastard! - and Takei needed to get out of there. There were too many eyes, too many sympathetic looks, and Hiki, Hiki -
Takei spun on his heels and strode from the office, his phone pressed against his ear and his head bowed. The eyes followed him into the corridor and so he simply kept going.
Somehow, Takei ended up in a bathroom stall, his back pressed against the door and one arm wrapped around his waist.
“Shiba, please pick up,” Takei begged after Shiba’s tinny answering machine message ran its course once more. “There’s been a misunderstanding here and I ... I really need you to call me back. Please.” He left message after message, although he didn’t know why. One should have been enough.
Shiba should be answering his phone.
“Hey, Shiba. It’s me. Call me back, ok?”
What the hell as going on?
And then, Takei’s phone rang. He almost dropped it, the tension in his fingers taken over by numbness. He looked down dumbly at the screen, distantly recognising Shiba’s number.
ring ring
He dropped down onto the toilet seat, ignoring the way the cheap, plastic lid squelched beneath him.
ring ring
‘Please be hurt, Shiba. Please be trapped somewhere and desperately need help. I can do that, I’m good at waltzing in and saving the day. Fuck, my hair was made for that kind of thing.’
ring ring
In the ridiculous action movies that Shiba so loved, it would have all crashed down in one shattering instant that ripped the air from Takei’s lungs and sucked him deep into a fiery hell. In the silly comedies that Takei dragged Shiba to on his days off, there would be a slapstick moment where Takei (quite literally) ended up with pie in his face.
All he had was the ringing of his cell, and the sound reverberated through the bathroom, drowning out all other noises and slowly driving Takei insane.
He answered the call.
“Are you ok, Shiba?” Takei asked quietly, his eyes squeezed shut.
There was a pause, long and drawn, before Shiba finally answered.
“Yeah.” His voice sounded so far away, too far away for Takei to reach. “I’m fine, Takei.”
Takei folded in on himself, his elbows dropping to his knees and his head curling into his chest. Blank eyes saw nothing ... nothing.
“You need to tell me everything,” Takei said hoarsely. This ... this wasn’t happening. There was absolutely no way.
“I’m going to.” The last shred of childish hope disintegrated. There was another pause, and in it Takei’s world shattered into a thousand pieces. “Takei, I’m sorry.”
Nothing.
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Date: 2013-01-16 01:00 pm (UTC)- Takei in a batman cape = instant cute (I'll not mention the tutu, even if it's part of the magic)
- angel!Shiba is love - although due to Supernatural, I picture angels wearing a trenchcoat. that doesn't go so bad with a goatee, maybe?
- joking about near death experiences <3
- of course Shiba would love ridiculous action movies (the serious, not ridiculous ones he already faces in real life, after all)
Also, of course, ouch.