Chapter Text
Daiki is dying. Nonononono. Daiki can’t die. He’s all Tsukasa has left, and then Tsukasa will join him, and then what?
Natsumi would be heartbroken. If they die without reason, like this. If they fail, if her sacrifice means nothing and Tsukasa is reckless and…
Daiki is dying.
“Tsukasa?” Daiki asks. “You’re staying with me.”
“Of course,” Tsukasa says. “How pathetic would it be to let you die alone?”
Daiki shrugs, but it’s more of a flop as his hands go to the many, many holes across his chest. Holes transferred through a now-shattered mirror from Tsukasa’s own chest, and damn it, now they both die, unless Tsukasa can think …
“Bullets,” Daiki says. “Of course. Life has a funny sense of humor, to kill me with a gun, and a treasure. Kill me for you.”
“You’re not dying,” Tsukasa says. What does he do? He must have something. Every Rider up to Saga’s powers in his hand, not just the special 32 or so that are called most often, and then some after. Someone can heal. He mostly uses just a few, but who? No matter that Riders are a cursed fate, something to stop the bleeding… “I won’t let you.”
Daiki must have a way out of this. Or a hospital! It’s just bullet wounds, just gotta get him to a hospital.
“And if I do?” Daiki asks. “You said we’d move on, but… that’s bullshit. You can’t forget them for me.”
His words get more slurred, voice heavy.
“I’ll get you to a hospital,” Tsukasa says, standing, ignoring Daiki’s cry of pain because the alternative is infinitely worse. Come on. Move. Why is he freezing up now?
“You really don’t want me dead,” Daiki says. “Is it sad I’m a little surprised?”
(It is. It’s very sad. It’s not a surprise to hear him say.)
“Shut up,” Tsukasa says. “And just let me save your life.”
“Kaitou?”
“What a coincidence, Tsukasa.”
(It definitely was not.)
“What do you want?” Tsukasa asked, glaring at the thief. Daiki shrugs.
“Treasure,” he says. “There’s some interesting stuff here. The mirror of death, for instance. It’s just a way to see the dead, and a user can only touch it once.”
“And what happens the second time?”
“Whoever living they touched who’s closest to death, they get the wounds.”
“Sounds risky.”
“I have gloves.”
Tsukasa rolled his eyes as Daiki slipped behind him, nuzzling at his neck with a blatant grin.
“And you?”
Tsukasa shrugged.
“Still working that out,” he says. “I should probably stop you, though.”
He did no such thing.
It went like this: working together felt different, now. Like there was something there.
Something softer than either of them were capable of, and not just in small moments. Tsukasa could trust Daiki to watch his back again.
Except. Daiki ran off, because he’s Daiki, and then Tsukasa got hurt, and Daiki came back, and then he immediately “fixed” it, takin Tsukasa’s injuries like he thinks Tsukasa is so easy to kill.
And now, here Tsukasa is, looking at a now-out Daiki.
Who will probably live, now. Daiki’s strong. It’s fine. It’s fine !
He was so scared, and in the depths of his mind, he can admit that fact. Natsumi died in his arms, just like that, same smattering of gun wounds, but those were lasers, and some were cuts. He tried not to look too hard before the cremation.
Yuusuke was already dead; it was Daiki who picked up his mangled corpse. Tsukasa couldn’t bring himself to touch blackened flesh and the still-visible rust-rotten Amadam.
Daiki… Daiki…
Tsukasa physically can’t lose him too. Can’t stop imagining that if he stayed frozen just a few minutes longer…
Daiki…
This isn’t their relationship. It can’t be, even now.
There is only one person nearly as good at running as Daiki is.
“Leaving again?”
“Natsumikan!”
She looked so upset. She had no idea, then, but neither did Tsukasa.
“You can go,” she said. “But be careful. I can tell it’s… changing you.”
Tsukasa took her hand, gently. He knew it wasn’t just him she was scared for. But he also knew she was right, he was never quite the same, without her, and Yuusuke… and even Daiki.
“I will always return, Natsumi,” he promised. Natsumi met his gaze.
“Don’t leave me with just ghosts, Tsukasa,” she said. “I’m so tired of loss.”
But it wasn’t her who was left behind.
“Tsukasa?”
He expects what comes next. Namely, Daiki escaping the hospital and looking for him. He doesn’t expect it to be quite this pathetic, the thief visibly swaying and looking at Tsukasa with pure longing.
“I found—”
Daiki goes tumbling, and Tsukasa runs to catch him, and Daiki stands but most of his weight is clearly against Tsukasa. Despite, you know, bullet wounds.
“You left,” Daiki says quietly, “why’d you go?”
“You’re delirious.”
“I miss them too. I miss you too. It was my fault, you know that?”
Tsukasa pauses.
“What do you mean?” He asks, can’t help the threat under his light tone. There are few things Daiki stays guilty over.
“I…”
…But he won’t get the answers out of a drugged and/or delirious Daiki, that’s not fair. He covers Daiki’s mouth, only somewhat gentle.
“Tell me later,” he says. “Let’s get you somewhere more comfortable, though.”
Daiki nods, slowly.
“Don’t leave this time, Tsukasa,” he says. “Don’t make me go again.”
“You chose to—”
“Even I can get tired of you treating me like shit.”
And those words come with significantly less slurred speech.
Oh. Okay, that’s… fine. Tsukasa gets it. He knows how they work. Daiki follows him whenever, because he’s Daiki and he doesn’t have a life, because he’s Daiki and possessive and annoying. Tsukasa finds Daiki when he needs something, some kind of connection. And ignores him the rest of the time.
He never knows what to do with Daiki on Daiki’s terms because it always causes problems. Like today, even! It…
“Kaitou.”
“Yeah?”
“We need to go. They are going to kill us.”
“We’ve fought worse than this. I need the Treasure.”
“What is so important that—”
The distraction was long enough. Daiki disappeared. Tsukasa fought, but it was too many, and even when he knocked the monsters back, they managed to force him out of Decade, and behind them were humans with guns.
Before his body even hit the floor, before he even registered the pain, the injuries were gone, and he killed those humans too.
(Without a second thought. He used to have a second thought or two.)
It was only then that he noticed Daiki, on the ground.
Dying.
It was Daiki’s fault for getting selfless at the wrong moment. Tsukasa might have survived that on his own. But Daiki is, as ever, painfully human.
“You want to go home?” He asks. Daiki nods. Tsukasa gently picks him up. “Okay. I’ll take care of you, now. Don’t worry.”
“I love you.”
“I know.”
“I need you too.”
“I… I know.”