Work Text:
Cloudless. The night sky was cloudless and yet there were no stars. It was dark, like a black hole sucking in every life form around it. The sky was an abyss but those deep ocean eyes even more.
Mikey’s head was light, he felt like he was flying. When he looked down, all he could see was his dangling legs and the unmistakable flashes of phone screens a few stories down.
He looked up again, ocean eyes pulling him in, wet with tears as blood trickled down the face of the man he loved.
He couldn’t understand what he was doing, he couldn’t understand how he got there. One thing was clear. He was going to die.
Mikey feels his hand slipping, the blood on Takemichi’s palms being one of the reasons aside from exhaustion. He could see the boy’s mouth move. He can’t hear him. Why can’t he hear him?
He wanted to panic. He wanted to cry. But there was a sense of calm in him, unusual, terrifying. Mikey didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to stay suspended in the air. He wanted to feel anything.
But what he didn’t want even more was for Takemichi to fall with him.
He could feel his mouth move. He couldn’t hear what he was saying.
Mikey wasn’t afraid of death, not in the way most people were. People were afraid of the unknown, Mikey thrived in it. Adrenaline, thrills, it was everything he lived for in his younger days. The feeling of wind in your hair as he races on his bike at a speed that would lead to his death. That rush in his veins when he fought people, the sting of the cuts on his body when he got hit. Those breathless moments he goes through whenever Takemichi looks at him. The way his heart beats so much louder in his ears when Takemichi’s hands are on him.
No. Mikey wasn’t afraid of death. Mikey thrived in thrills. There was only one thing that Mikey had feared the most. The one thing-
He could see it: how the boy’s hand trembled, how he neared dangerously nearer to the edge of the window that he was holding on, closer to death. Let go , Mikey wanted to scream. Please let go. Please let me go.
If Takemichi were to fall with him, he would never forgive himself even in death. If Takemichi were to fall with him, he would kill himself twice, he would never have the courage to ever look at his love again.
But then Takemichi says something, and this time Mikey does hear it. He felt his eyes widen. He could feel the familiar tears. Most of all, he could see it . He could see Takemichi smiling at him.
“And I’ll definitely come to save you, Manjirou.”
Let go , Mikey wanted to scream. Please let go. Please let me go. But something creeps up his throat instead, selfish selfish words, selfish desires.
Mikey couldn’t understand what he was doing, he couldn’t understand how he got there. But Hanagaki Takemichi, his Takemitchy, smiled at him and said those words and everything made sense. Yes. Nothing mattered. Nothing ever did as long as Takemichi was right here.
Mikey was a man who was so insanely in love with this boy that he was willing to put everything aside. He was willing to throw himself to hell and back, he was willing to stay in this uncertain situation, just to see this boy’s smile.
He hears the words that slip past his lips as his hand slips more from Takemichi’s.
“Please help me, Takemitchy.”
Takemichi’s eyes closed. Mikey’s heart drops.
They fall.
He holds him close.
There were tears streaming down his face. Sano Manjirou’s eyes blink open to a plain ceiling, the shade unknown due to the darkness the room is cladded in. On his left was a large window, showing the city lights of Tokyo, closer to dots from the height he was in. On his right, Hanagaki Takemichi snores softly, his back on Mikey’s side.
He lets out a sob.
Mikey reaches out, pulling Takemichi even closer. He was trembling, he could feel himself trembling. His heart was beating quickly, loudly. His ears were ringing and he couldn’t hold back the sob that left his chest as the tears blurred his vision.
He felt a hand on his cheek as Takemichi stirs, a thumb wiping away his tears. “Manjirou? What’s wrong?”
With Takemichi now facing him, Mikey only buries his face on the other’s neck. He could feel the boy’s heart beat. He could feel him breathe. Takemichi was in his arms. Takemichi was alive .
Mikey holds him closer. Takemichi does the same, running his hands through blond strands tangled from sleep.
“I had… I had a bad dream,” Mikey murmurs after a few minutes of trembling, of awful awful chokes and sobs that felt like needles being pierced into Takemichi’s heart.
Takemichi presses a kiss on Mikey’s head.
“It felt so real. Real.” It felt real. It was real. It couldn’t be real.
“Do you want to tell me about it?” Takemichi asks softly, still cradling the blond.
Mikey shakes his head. Never. He never wanted to tell Takemichi about it, in fear that it would come true. He would never let it become true, he would never let it happen. Because as long as Sano Manjirou is breathing, Takemichi will be as well.
Memories. They were too real to be a dream, they were too vague to be real. Memories. It wasn’t him, but it was Sano Manjirou all the same. It wasn’t his Takemitchy but it was still Hanagaki Takemichi. Somewhere, in a different world, in a different time, Hanagaki Takemichi dies because of him. Somewhere, in a different world, in a different time, Sano Manjirou was the reason for his greatest fears.
Mikey wanted to scream, he wanted to burn himself with the fire that was roaring in his heart, he wanted to drown in the dread in his stomach. He had done something unforgivable.
He should have let go.
Why didn’t he let go?
Mikey stares at the darkness, still holding Takemichi close. He could feel the boy’s hands on his hair, he could feel the lips on his head. But it was empty. Sano Manjirou was empty as he decided on something that night as invisible hands grabbed onto his feet, as a weight settled on his shoulders and as a dark cloud seeped in his head. They keep a hold on him, tightly, tighter than Takemichi’s caring caresses, tighter than chains, heavier than shackles. Memories of a future that could be.
He decides.
If a situation ever occurred where he had to pick himself and Takemichi, he would gladly kill himself with his own hands.
Mikey is a man who was willing to throw himself to hell and back all for Hanagaki Takemichi. He was a man who would jump off a building one too many times if it meant that Takemichi wouldn’t. He was a man who would face death and stare at him in the eye if it meant that Takemichi could continue to smile.
Because Sano Manjirou didn’t fear death.
There was only one thing that Mikey had feared the most.
Sano Manjirou feared a world without Hanagaki Takemichi