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Yuusuke wakes up screaming. Shaking.
He… he wakes up, at all.
And he turns.
Tsukasa sits next to him, not quite touching. Yuusuke hates it. How hesitant the man is. As though he’s afraid a mere touch will hurt Yuusuke.
Yuusuke’s… he’s Kuuga.
He’s not the one to worry about. It kills him far more, how scared Tsukasa is.
Natsumi is away, which must be why the nightmare got so bad. She usually steps in. And Yuusuke—
He’s just tired.
“Can I touch you?” Tsukasa asks, gently, and Yuusuke all but collapses into his arms, still shaking. As long as he doesn’t think too hard about any of it, he can pretend to be okay. “I know you don’t want to talk about it.”
Yuusuke nods. Best to leave the hell of the past in the past.
Except—
“Yuusuke,” Tsukasa says, interrupting his thoughts. “Stay with me, beloved. You’re safe now.”
Yuusuke trembles, and eventually, he sobs.
I’m not okay. I’ll never be okay. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m so sorry I couldn’t…
Tsukasa just holds him as he spirals, as he falls. Takes his hands despite the dirty bandages Yuusuke is far too scared to remove, hints of his dark revival not yet healed all the way. He really should, and he knows it.
He just can’t make himself do it.
It’s not that he doesn’t consider this revival a gift. Hearing what Daiki had planned… he doesn’t want to be the one Daiki sells his soul for. Frankly, he doesn’t want to be involved in any soul selling whatsoever.
It’s just that it doesn’t feel over, not really. At first it did.
But…
Tsukasa seems to feel it too. Natsumi, a little. Daiki acts like he doesn’t care.
And Yuusuke is just scared . He can’t take another loss. Another dark twist. He can’t take knowing it was his fault. If he thought just a few seconds, shoved Daiki instead of jumping in between, then maybe…
Maybe he wouldn’t have died.
Maybe he wouldn’t have—
Maybe Natsumi wouldn’t have—
Maybe Daiki would be—
…maybe Tsukasa would be okay. Because they’re all broken, but it just feels wrong on Tsukasa. He’s the center of their universe, and he feels so ill content.
Here. At the photo studio. At home .
(“You don’t need to worry about me,” Tsukasa says, when he brings it up. “I am what I am. And I’m happy to have you back. Yuusuke. My Yuusuke.”
Yuusuke smiles a thing he doesn’t really feel.
“Of course,” he says. “Yours. Always yours.”
And he means it.)
“Can I at least rewrap the wounds?” Tsukasa asks. “I don’t have a true body. I don’t even have a soul. I doubt anything in there could infect me.”
“Of course you have a soul,” Yuusuke says, naked in the bathroom, and ignoring Tsukasa’s question. This is why he tries to bathe alone. His partners get too sad about the damn bandages he refuses to undo. He’s surprised Wataru respected him enough to leave them on as requested, really.
“No, I don’t,” Tsukasa says. “And I don’t care. But please, Yuusuke. Let me help you. You don’t deserve to suffer.”
Yuusuke sighs. Tsukasa hadn’t seen the worst, either.
“Alright,” he says. “I trust you.”
Tsubasa smiles, and somehow he has procured gloves, as though to remove any more fear in Yuusuke’s heart.
Yuusuke finds himself sat down at the edge of their tub. And Tsukasa gently unwraps the bandages. And there it is, same as ever. The same last vestiges of his rotting body refusing to fully heal.
“I’m going to wipe them, too,” Tsukasa says. Yuusuke nods, closing his eyes.
He feels vulnerable. Like he’s back there .
(But does he have the right to feel pained? He wonders. He’s not the one who…)
A wet washcloth, a different one for each arm, and then the trash. Tsukasa wraps Yuusuke’s arms in fresh bandages.
“Waterproof,” he says. “From the outside. The many advantages of the multiverse.”
Yuusuke nods. Now, it’s much easier to let Tsukasa wash the rest of him, too.
“Do you really think it’s over?” Yuusuke asks gently, late at night, with his head in Tsukasa’s lap.
“I don’t think it will ever be over,” Tsukasa replies. It’s not an answer. “But I think your struggles are at an end.”
Yuusuke closes his eyes, and it changes nothing, in the dark of the night.
Still, Tsukasa’s presence against him is calming.
Yuusuke thinks he can trust this much, at least.