Work Text:
"Ichijou-san, it's me!"
Ichijou looked at the figure half-crumpled against his bedroom wall, next to the open window. Hands raised in that self-deprecating, humorous, deflecting, deflecting, DEFLECTING manner that he always used when he wanted the focus off him.
Ichijou punched him again.
"It's been months, Godai," he said a few minutes later, when Godai had an icepack against his jaw and a cup of coffee in his free hand. They sat at his little table. Ichijou had pulled on a t-shirt over his shorts, and Godai was fully dressed, as befitted someone who climbed in windows at 3.17am. "Months, with only a single postcard to let me know that you were still even alive."
Godai met his eyes for a moment, with a flash of vulnerability. "I know, and I'm sorry... but anyone'd think you didn't want to see me! Do you want me to go, Ichijou-san?"
Ichijou knew he meant it, knew Godai would respect his wishes and would go back the way he came, into the night, and would definitely return again another day. But possibly not for months. Years. He shook his head. "That's not the point."
He covered Godai's wrist on the table with his hand, for a moment.
This was what was so goddamn infuriating about Godai. If you needed him, if you truly needed him, pain, injury, death itself wouldn't stop him. And that was entirely unfair on Godai. The things he'd been called upon to do...
But if you just needed to know that Godai was by your side and could be trusted to get milk, to meet you at six, to turn up for dinner, to stay where he was put? Never.
Ichijou didn't know if Godai's inability to handle the quotidian minutiae of everyday life came from a fear of getting too deeply into other people's lives, or a fear of others getting too deeply into his. Perhaps both. He was appalling at admitting to his own issues, after all. His own pain.
(Ichijou acknowledged to himself, very grudgingly, that perhaps he had his own - significantly milder - version of that, too.)
Godai took a deep breath, and Ichijou could see the effort on his face. For him, Godai would actually try. "I needed to go," he said softly, then he took a sip of his coffee.
Ichijou nodded. With no reproach in his voice, he said, "Because we asked too much."
Godai's eyes widened in alarm and he shook his head violently. "Oh, no, Ichijou-san! You didn't! And all of you helped, you all did, and so many people, police officers and civilians, lost their lives..."
...Ichijou took him in his arms, took him over to the couch, and just held him until he stopped shaking.
It was a while.
Godai's eyes were open again. He hadn't actually cried. Hadn't made a sound.
"I understand why you left," Ichijou said softly, still rubbing Godai's back in slow circles. The bruise on the man's cheek was visibly lighter. Healing already, in an inhuman way. The man took a deep, shuddery breath. Utterly human.
"But you wish I hadn't."
"Yes." Ichijou wasn't about to shy away from that. He missed him, dammit. He had good co-workers, he had friends, even, he had a life, he still even had danger in it. He was useful. But no one was like Godai.
Godai just looked at him, worry in those dark eyes. "I'll have to go again, sometime."
"I know. Until then, stay here. Please."
Godai crumpled forward, shaking again, but this time he made a sound against Ichijou's shoulder.
The sound was "Yes".