Work Text:
kaiser didn't need this. he didn't need to feel comforted. he didn't need the soft, gentle reassurance of ness's voice draping over him like a blanket trapping heat (or in this situation, a blanket trapping the words that kaiser could have said but could never climb high enough over his ego to let them come out).
he didn't need it.
he's michael kaiser. best striker in the country. he had everything anyone would ever want-- loyal eager puppy by his feet, always wound up tight waiting for another demand with an idiotic smile on his face, and enough money to buy the bar his father spends more time at than his own house (no amount of alcohol would fill the hole in either of their chests where their heart should be, if anything, it increased the incessent throbbing in the empty space, like slowly pouring salt for a long time over a bleeding wound and suddenly dumping it all at once), he has everything.
but right now, with a hand that kaiser couldn't look at (smooth clean comforting) without tears crashing over him like a dam curled around his own (calloused dirty violent) and sweet and kind and stupid mumbled words that he knew ness had rehearsed over and over in front of his (their?) mirror, looking at his own reflection and perfecting stupid affirmations he came up with until ness wasn't sure if he was saying them to himself or if he was practicing saying them to kaiser, but with all these things, maybe kaiser did need this.
listening to ness was seriously messing with his head.
kaiser certainly didn't need this. this was his fault. everything was his fault, isn't it?
"it's okay, micha."
shut up, ness. you don't know what you're talking about.
"you didn't do anything wrong."
I do everything wrong. you would know if you snapped out of the stupid lovestruck daze you're in and looked at me head on, without the rose colored glasses you like to look at me through-- if you looked at me until your magenta eyes burned me, left angry red welts across my sickly skin in their wake when they dragged over my bruised and battered form (because what's the harm in another scar on an already rattled body?), if you woke up from your delusions and realized I'm not who you believe I am, wake up.
wake up.
wake up.