Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Shoutarou snatches the papers away from Philip's hand and walks ahead of him, exclaiming, "There's nothing to worry about!"

Philip’s hiss goes unnoticed to Shoutarou as his mouth continues to prattle on about how he’s competent enough to pull the ‘outrageous’ plan he had proposed. Ending it with a sigh, Shoutarou twirls to face his partner, smug as he says, "I can handle this fine—"

But then his gaze falls exactly upon the blood seeping out of Philip’s flesh, and he watches as a droplet heads straight down towards the floor.

It was silent, but Shoutarou winced at its impact.

"—alone..." His unfinished sentence thoughtlessly slips out of his lips.

Philip lightly flexes his hand, experimentally making squeezing motions to test out the stinging feeling on the side of it. More blood oozes out, and it trickles into the lines of his palm, which is interesting; how can a tiny gash caused by paper instigate so much spillage of blood?

Its warmth slithers down the sides and splats into a bigger mess on the floor. Philip feels his facial muscles tense into an apologetic look because normally, Shoutarou would nag at him for leaking anything on the office floor, but Shoutarou is still keeping quiet.

Philip looks up and seeks for Shoutarou's eyes to gather for hints of whatever is running inside his partner’s mind, and he only sees a mixture of indecipherable emotions rushing through Shoutarou by the way his eyes are moving wildly to focus on and investigate various things all at once.

It makes him realize that something must be wrong.

"Shoutarou...?" He carefully tries to anchor him back to him as a form of comfort, but with how Shoutarou’s wide eyes meet his like he’s seen a ghost, he knows that he has failed. Why is Shoutarou looking at him with so much disbelief and denial?

He watches Shoutarou release the breath he didn't realize he was holding, and he fails to feign composure as his voice trembles in response, "Philip."

i just wanna try to protect you like your skin protects your blood.

Chapter Text

Too much can be smothering, and the both of them have been too much on each other, so Shoutarou leaves to take a breath, letting the winds of Fuuto carry his worries off of his shoulders and dry his unshed tears.

Then hours later after isolating, his phone rings.

Of course, he picks up. They don’t drift away from each other too long.

"Where did you go?" The familiar voice at the other end immediately asks him while still trying to sound neutral.

Shoutarou huffs, noticing the slight tremble in his voice at the end of his inquiry.

As if I'm going anywhere too far.

He hums before he answers, "I brought flowers for oyasan."

There is a mild pause that emphasizes the distance between the two of them, and then Shoutarou hears him release a breath, "Thought so."

Shoutarou throws back the same question, "How about you? Where are you?"

There is another pause, like he's calculating, then he mutters, "Probably a kilometer south from the agency."

He chuckles, "So we both went out then?"

"It doesn't matter where we go, Shoutarou." His partner interferes rather too quickly, then guiltily, his voice fades into a whisper, "The exits are all closed."

Shoutarou lets it linger for a while, letting the confession sink in for the both of them and dig deep under their skins, then he asks, "Do you want one to open?"

"No." Is his steadfast response, and there is desperation and an apology in his voice when he exhales, "If I lose you, I lose too."

but there's nothing i can do

to make it easier on you.