Work Text:
Before:
There is only the cold and hungry ocean. Empty. Better the emptiness than the screaming, and the red, and the pain.
There is no love. This is good. Or is that right?
He watches the moonbeams split and intertwine on the waves and tries to remember why he thought that was a good thing.
At last, he crawls to shore. He is small and weak and they will hurt him. He is too tired to care. He falls.
A hand reaches to him through the dark. It's soft and small and perfect.
"It's ok. You're safe now. It's ok."
And for some reason, held tight by this child (Akira, he said) in weak, soft arms that couldn't actually protect him from anything, he believes it.
———————
"You should let me kill it."
But no, that's wrong. He tries again.
"You know it's going to die, the weak ones always die."
That's right, but it hurts. His knife is in his hand, but it doesn't make him feel safe, it makes him feel bad, and he's trembling and Akira is looking at him and– oh. Akira is crying now, big fat tears. He's crying harder than Ryo has ever seen.
"D-do yo-u w' want to to," Akira can hardly speak, he's crying so hard, but that's ok, it's Ryo's fault, and anyways he can understand what he's asking. He presses close to Akira, rushing like the other boy might change his mind and push him away (he never does) (but he should). Ryo leans against Akira's side, pretending to care about the ugly dying animal in the box. He doesn't even mind when Akira puts his arm around him, closing him in, because right now the scariest thing is the big empty ache in his middle that feels like it could swallow up the whole world.
———————
They are supposed to practice relay with batons in P.E today.
The teacher arranges them on the track. Their group is Miki, then the other Miki, then Akira, then Ryo. Akira is laughing with both Miki and they've all been having fun as they run and try to pass and drop it and go back and try again. They haven't made it to him yet, alone at the end of the track, and Ryo is jealous. It's hot in the sun and this game is stupid. Ryo doesn't want to play, he wants to read, there's so many words he still doesn't know and-
Clunk.
The baton is on the ground. Red. Rolling now over the white painted line on the cracked asphalt. He didn't catch it. Akira had brought it all the way to him, finally, and he didn't do the one thing-
"Ryo?"
He tears his eyes away from the baton to see Akira standing in front of him. Akira is flushed and sweaty from running, but now he's also flushed because he is crying. Oh. Ryo doesn't know- He should… pick up the baton. But his legs feel really far away, and his head is going sort of blurry and floaty.
Small arms squeeze around him, tight. He gasps in a breath against the pressure, and then another when he realizes how starved he is for air after the first. He hadn't been breathing. Is it possible to forget how to breathe?
"It's ok. Ryo, it's ok. We can try again. We'll practice till you get it too, ok?"
It turns out he's bad at this.
Ryo hates being bad at things. But he is truly terrible at relay. Terrible at intuiting the timing and moving in sync with the others. Even with Akira. He tries so hard. The baton drops to the ground again and again, the sound echoing sharp and shameful across the field.
The other teams have finished long before. They're under the shade of the big tree, at the picnic tables, drinking juices and eating ice cold watermelon slices and watching them with dark, judgemental eyes.
Miki and Miki and Akira don't leave him. Even when the teacher comes back and offers to take over practicing with Ryo so they can rest.
Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.
The stares from the rest of the class grow claws, turn into whispers and scornful giggles. His relay team pretends like they can't hear them. They set up for another round, Akira's mouth set in a determined, stubborn moue.
And then! He catches it. Somehow. Fumbles and grabs it with inexperienced fingers and runs it to the finish line with everything his weak, puny legs can give. And as he does his team is right there with him, cheering, sunburned and exhausted and happy with him. Happy for him. And Akira is the happiest of them all, hugging onto him at the finish line like a sweaty limpet, rocking them together as he laughs and laughs, high and sweet. Like they'd won the Olympic gold instead of just completing a basic P.E. exercise.
But then, Ryo never saw a gold medal that could shine as bright as Akira's smile, so maybe this is better after all.
———————
"You're such a weirdo, you crybaby freak!'
Akira is defending Miki from the older boys, four of them, big and mean and strong. They'd been throwing rocks at her for being a 'gaijin'. They'd tried that with Ryo only once before they learned he was more trouble than they could handle. Akira is in front of Miki, arms outstretched. Ryo watches the boys from behind Akira's shoulder, tense.
When the leader says that to Akira, in the nasty tone that means they'll start throwing rocks again, Ryo thumbs out the blade of his knife and moves-
"No, it's ok, Ryo," said quick and quiet to him, one gentle hand blocking his path, and then Akira turns back to the bullies to say something else but Ryo doesn't hear, Ryo can't look away from where his knife is stuck in Akira's palm. His hands want to shake around the knife handle, but he can't let them shake because that would hurt Akira more. Already the blade went so deep and there's blood dripping down the blade to stain his hands red and sticky.
The bullies run off, perhaps because Akira scared them when he started crying the big, fast tears he only ever cries for Ryo. Ryo doesn't care about them, he can't move. He must not move.
"R-ryo, it's it's o-okay," Akira says in between sobs, and he shifts and Ryo makes a desperate, weak sound.
"Akira you should not move. Do not take out the knife until there's someone ready to bandage the incision, or else it will bleed more."
He's talking wrong, flat and too fast, using words too big for Akira, who is still crying too hard to see much. It's all Ryo's fault.
"I-it was-as an accid'nt."
Akira says the same thing to the adults, but they recognize Ryo's knife in his hand, and they take him from Akira and he wants to fight them but Akira needs to get stitches and he doesn't want to risk distracting the doctor.
So he sits and trembles and tries to breathe but doesn't work and it comes too fast. The adults stop yelling at him when this happens, and instead they try to touch him, and when that doesn't work they tell him to breathe, but can't they tell that he's trying to breathe, but it's just not working?
Without Akira there isn't any air. That's a fact. There's no atmosphere on the moon, and the rabbits are dying.
Why did he think that? Which moon has rabbits on it?
———————
Ryo grows up and he gets his PhDs without even caring that much. Physics, astrobiology, and theology, but really it's all the same. The accolades don't really matter, but the professorship does with its generous travel grant and the fame does for the wealth. It means independence. Freedom.
He flies back to Japan as soon as he can. Tracks down Akira in the suburb his foster family had moved to. They'd had to move when the island commune was shut down.
He's not sorry about that. They were bad people. He made sure Akira's foster family got out with enough to resettle, and that's all that matters. They love Akira and they kept him safe and happy while Ryo was so far from him.
Sometimes that was the only thing that would keep his pieces together, late at night, shaking too hard to stand, trying to breathe through the terror that something would happen to Akira (soft, weak, fearless) before Ryo could get back to protect him. If he is gone from this world there wouldn't be anything else that mattered. That's what his heart said to him, every night they were apart. And he wondered if, even with the endless, hungry ocean separating them, Akira was still crying for him.
But right now he knows Akira is crying, because he's right there, gold limned in the sunset, facing off against some bullies for Miki, because of course he is. He looks well. He recognizes Ryo immediately.
He holds out his hands, his tears coming faster, and Ryo is across the dock in a single breath, shoving the bullies into the water, taking a punch to the ribs as he does. The pain doesn't even matter, because now he's enclosed in Akira's arms. He is so warm. He smells like boy and sweat and safety.
Ryo is surprised to find he's crying too, great heaving gulps. He never cried while he was away. Not once.
Akira lets Ryo hug him for far too long to be considered normal. He pets soothingly down the back of his white coat, over his spine, over and over. Always in the same direction, like he's a cat, or a bird. Ryo laughs a little at the thought, and it comes out wet and tremulous. Akira squeezes him a little tighter then holds him out at arms length, pinning him in place with warm eyes squinted nearly shut from smiling, even as he continues to cry for Ryo.
"Welcome home!"
"Akira," he says back, and he means: 'I'm home.'
———————
"You need to be strong. I-I don't, this is-"
His words are failing him, for the first time, in the face of Akira's anger. He's different now, taller and sharper. Strong. He studies Ryo’s tongue-tied helplessness for a moment, face closed and unreadable. He used to always be able to read Akira.
Then Akira slumps a little, scrubs a hand through his hair and smiles, and he's back to being the same boy he always knew.
"I trust you, Ryo. If you say this is good, then this is good. And now that I'm strong like this, I can save more people."
He crosses the room at last and sits on Ryo's hospital bed. Ryo struggles to sit up and fails with a bitten off sound. His ribs and leg protest sharply. He'd been stupid to rush into that fight. Why had he tried to defend Akira from those demons? What could he possibly do against that kind of strength?
At least Akira is safe now. He's strong. The strongest of all demons, tamed and mastered by his even stronger human heart.
Ryo takes his hand and tries to tell himself that this is all according to plan.
**************
Akira can't stand it anymore.
He doesn't understand. Why would Ryo say those things on TV? Why would he put everyone into a panic, doesn’t he understand that people will only kill each other more when they’re scared?
He watches his old friend, trying to stay calm even though Miki is still out there somewhere, she's not safe, and there’s no time.
But Ryo is standing so still, face blank in that way that means he's actually really scared. He stiffens his shoulders and breathes in deep, looking like he’s working himself up to something.
"Akira, I'm Satan."
He bows his head with this admission and then shifts, glowing golden, bright wings spreading out from his body like rays from the sun. Akira takes an automatic step back. He's beautiful. He's terrible. His eyes when they look back up at him are blue like the hottest part of a flame.
"I think I planned this all, subconsciously," he says, gesturing to the beginnings of the apocalypse around them. "I didn't intend to hurt you. All the weak ones die, and you can't die, you're all that matters. I didn't mean it."
"Ryo"
He's saying terrible things, but he's standing there so sad and scared. His true form (demon?) (angel?) is different from the Ryo he's used to, but it's also beautiful. And when he looks closer, what Akira really notices is the way he's holding all twelve of his wings, folded back high and tight and miserable. The way his hands are gripped tight on his crossed arms, hugging himself like he thinks Akira won't want to hug him anymore.
Ryo never initiates hugs, even when he really, really wants them.This is a truth Akira discovered when they were both very young. So Akira lets Ryo's tears drip down his face even as he smiles, and he holds out his arms.
All twelve wings sag in shock then in the next instant he has a face full of golden hair and feathers, and a shivering, panicked angel in his arms.
"I think. I think this has all happened before," Ryo confesses into Akira's shoulder, lips soft against his skin. "I remembered. Not everything, but I remember that I killed everyone, that first time. On purpose or on accident, I'm not sure. But the whole world was dead, or demons, or worse, and then you and I fought, and we split the moon in two, and then you died-"
His voice shatters on the word 'died' and Akira hugs him tighter, feeling like he's going to cry his eyes out trying to contain all of Ryo's sadness.
"There was no one left. I tried to hold you but you were already gone. I cried. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered with you gone. And then, God reset the world in a barrage of blinding retribution, and I forgot it all. But there are two moons in the sky now, so it really did happen."
He breathes for a moment, the rise and fall of his back pressing against Akira's arms.
"I don't want to lose you again," he whispers, pressing closer into Akira's hold.
"There's still time, Ryo," he murmurs gently into golden hair. He's taller than Ryo, even like this, Ammond's form hulking in comparison to the slender form of Satan. "Let's save them. We can do it, both of us together."
The fallen angel is silent for a long moment, tense still but calming. At last he sighs, and Akira feels the tickle of feathers as his wings shrug with the long exhale.
"I suppose there isn't enough space up there for more moons, anyways."
Akira pulls back in surprise and then he laughs and laughs. He laughs as they launch into flight, falling upwards into the sky, obsidian and pearl intertwined, their wills finally turned towards the same end.
**************
After:
Ryo stands in the backyard, in his true form. All his wings are flared in a challenge, face turned up to the stars bright above, his long slender neck bared.
He is shining. He is magnificent. He is terrified.
"Will you strike me down, now, God?" he says, voice like a clarion, "Will you erase everything I fought for, just to spite me once more?"
His challenging posture crumbles, and he falls to his knees. He covers his face in his hands, spine bowed, wings mantled defensively around him. It looks like pain. It looks like prayer. His words are muffled but Akira can still hear them. Being a DevilMan does have its convenient moments.
"Please. Please, let me keep him this time. Please."
He steps out the back door of their home, and when Ryo looks up he opens his arms.