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He doesn’t dream.
Sleep, when he catches it in scant minutes, a few hours, is dark and empty. No images, no scenarios paint their way across his subconscious, and yet, he always wakes breathless, his heart rattling in his ribcage like he’d just dreamed of terrors.
Today is no different. He opens his eyes and gasps for breath, a hand coming to curl in the front of his shirt. It takes him a moment to realize where he is, that he’s still in the back of a van, the buttons of the jacket pillowed beneath his head still pressing uncomfortably into his skull, and that Kuroo’s still beside him. He’s watching, even though he’s assured Keiji over and over that they’re safe, that they can trust these people, that Sawamura’s an old friend and he’ll help them get into the City. Keiji wouldn’t be able to sleep otherwise, and Kuroo’s never once argued with him, just settled close to him, thigh pressing against the top of Keiji’s head as he lies down to get what rest he can.
“We’re nearly there,” Kuroo says, as Keiji forces his hand to loosen against the front of his shirt, pressing his palm flat to his chest as his heartbeat finally slows down. Adrenaline courses through him, chasing away any last hint of drowsiness, but it still takes him a moment to sit up.
“I slept too long,” Keiji says, “I’m sorry.”
He can see Kuroo’s smirk from the corner of his eye, always with the cocky half-smile, even when he’s sincere.
“It’s fine. You could use the rest.”
Keiji brings his knees close to his chest, trying to stretch the ache in his back away. His head hurts, it always hurts after he wakes up, and the jostling of the van isn't helping. Kuroo says nothing, but he is a warm, solid presence next to Keiji, and that alone helps stem the rush of Keiji's heart, of his breaths.
"Learn anything while I was asleep?" Keiji asks. He turns his head, resting his cheek against his knees. Kuroo's smirk falls into something a little more mellow, defeated.
"Nothing we don't already know," he says, shaking the battered tablet in his hand. "The City's still on lockdown, and the only way in or out seems to be Sawamura's little short cut."
Keiji frowns at the name, that bubble of caution working its way up to his brain again.
"They're good people," Kuroo says, as he's said many times before.
"You keep saying that."
"Because it's true."
"I don't trust-"
"I know you don't, but you trust me, don't you?"
It's not a new argument, but it still snaps Keiji's jaw shut. He hates this feeling, like he's backed into a corner that no amount of logic can get him out of.
"Of course I do," Keiji admits quietly, loosening one arm from his legs, and running his fingers lightly across the top of Kuroo's hand, "but I-"
He hesitates, tracing the scars across Kuroo's hand, the brutal wounds that won't ever go away.
"I wish there was another way," he settles on. Kuroo turns his hand around, snatching Keiji's fingers before he can pull away and settle back into stillness and his own empty head.
"Nothing will go wrong," Kuroo says, giving Keiji's hand a squeeze. The way he says it, so carefree, so self-assured, Keiji almost believes him.
"I hope not."
The van hits an especially large bump, and they both grunt at its impact. Kuroo laughs quietly, slowly shifting as they both try to settle back into a semi-comfortable position. Keiji tucks himself close to Kuroo's side, just for a minute, absorbing the peace of the moment, before the van slows, and then pulls to a stop.
Nervousness floods over Keiji, like a bloom of heat rushing up from his belly. He tenses once again, his body preparing for fight or flight. Kuroo, as usual, is solid, unflappable, calm to a fault, while Keiji feels like his heart will burst out of his chest given enough time in the back of a windowless van.
"You're sure about this?" he asks, one last plea before they face the world outside. He hears the sounds of two doors closing, the sounds of footsteps crunching on the gravel.
"If I wasn't," Kuroo speaks lowly, "it's too late to do anything about it now."
He grins at Keiji, his eyes bright in amusement. Keiji frowns back.
The door opens.
He feels naked without the knives tucked into the tops of his boots, with an empty holster strapped to his thigh. He hasn't been without a weapon in two years, since the day the world fell apart, and with none, not even the secret needles he keeps hidden, he feels vulnerable. Frightened.
A glance at Kuroo and he's, naturally, unaffected. He knows that Kuroo's the same as him, hasn't seen him without a gun or a knife or a sharp stick since the day he says he dragged Keiji out of the City, but none of that discomfort reaches his face. He is unreadable, in a way Keiji both admires and hates.
They aren’t being led through the maze of the building so much as they’re being ushered through it. The two people who picked them up, both dark-haired, dark-eyed, and intense, don’t have any weapons trained on them, but they walk with confidence, a silent, intimidating aura that promises pain if he and Kuroo were to cause any trouble.
They are called to a stop in front of a force field, big enough that Keiji feels a tingle of electricity against his skin even at a safe distance. One person steps up to the control panel, the other staring at the both of them. Keiji can feel the eyes on him, that intense glare raking over his form. He resolutely stares forward, watches as the force field drops, and they're beckoned through.
"Sawamura's just ahead," one of the guards says, "so we'll find out if you're lying soon enough."
"If I was lying, why would you take me straight to your leader?" Kuroo retorts. Keiji sighs at the provocation, that damn smirk quirking the corners of Kuroo's mouth. It's gotten them both into more trouble than Keiji would care to recall, but the guard doesn't say anything, doesn't do anything, except crease his forehead in the slightest of frowns.
"Don't cause any trouble," Keiji hisses to Kuroo, sparing a brief glance about the room, as they encounter more people.
"What?" Kuroo murmurs back. Keiji can hear the smile in his voice. "Me? Cause trouble?"
"I'm serious. Don't be stupid."
"Keiji, you insult me."
"Shut up," one of the guards says, shifting one of their packs over his shoulder. Kuroo smiles, Keiji frowns, but they both look forward.
"Wait here," the other guard snaps, when they've rounded the corner in what looks to be a makeshift but open boiler room of some kind. He leaves, ducking down another hallway, leaving them alone with one guard. If necessary, they could overpower him; he's just a kid, nearly as tall as Keiji, but still wide-eyed in a way that screams youth and inexperience. They could pin him down, tuck him behind one of these generators, grab at least one bag with their weapons in it, and leave, but-
Kuroo hums softly, snapping Keiji out of his imagined plan, and they both straighten up as another person enters the room.
"Aha, Sawamura," Kuroo drawls, "about time you showed your face around here."
There's no reply, and Keiji spares a cautious look forward, at whom he assumes is Sawamura. He looks impassive, steady. Unreadable, just like Kuroo.
He approaches slowly, and from the corner of his eye, Keiji watches the smile slowly drop off of Kuroo’s face.
“Sawamura,” he tries again, when they’re standing in front of each other. Plans start running through Keiji’s head once again, how they’re going to get out of here alive, how they’re fucked because of Kuroo’s insistence on blind trust, but then-
Then, and for a split second Keiji feels like it’s all happening in slow motion, Sawamura jabs Kuroo in the gut, genuine surprise filtering across Kuroo’s face. Keiji lurches forward in an instant, but his instant is too slow, both his wrists crushed painfully behind his back. His heart is pounding like it had been less than an hour ago, adrenaline flooding through his whole body as he struggles against the iron grip, and he can feel it slowly giving way under his sheer will to break the hold, when he hears Kuroo squawk. Looking up, Sawamura’s arms have come up around him, and another spike of panic bursts through Keiji, but it’s stopped when Kuroo returns the grip, the hug, one of his charmingly bright, genuine smiles across his mouth. When Sawamura pulls away, he’s smiling as well, and Keiji goes still with confusion.
“What the fuck?” he blurts out, Kuroo laughing sharply at his outburst.
“I told you I knew him,” Kuroo says.
“Sorry,” Sawamura says, “Iwaizumi, let him go.”
Keiji’s arms are released, and he rubs petulantly at his wrists.
Iwaizumi, the intense, impassive guard, comes around to his side, staring in bewilderment at Keiji's hands, like he can’t believe the strength in them. He self-consciously folds them against his front, unsure what that look means, and unwilling to find out.
"Your friend?" Sawamura asks, and it comes off as both inquiring and demanding. Keiji can easily sense how this man became the leader of this so-called Renegade group.
"Uh, Keiji," he offers simply. Sawamura doesn't offer a hand to shake, but he nods his head in acknowledgment.
"From the inside?" Sawamura asks. Keiji shifts the slightest bit.
"Yeah," Kuroo answers, dragging the attention back to himself, "found him when it all started, and we've been stuck together ever since."
"Where'd you find him?"
"Can't remember," Kuroo says. He waves his hand dismissively, casually, but Keiji's caught on the thread of caution in his tone.
"You can't remember? Really?" Sawamura says, a forceful twist of suspicion in his voice, but whatever he's going to say next is interrupted by the sound of soft clapping behind him.
"Daichi, stop harassing the guests," a new voice calls, and the hard lines of Sawamura's face soften.
A figure clad in workman's coveralls joins the cluster of strangers clumped up around one of the generators, walking steadily up to Kuroo and Keiji with a pleasant smile on his face.
"I'm sorry," he says, "we're a little edgy here. Two years is a long time to stay in hiding, as I'm sure you both know. We don't have much, but we can give you food and water and a place to sleep for a few days."
"One day," Sawamura says, arms crossed firmly across his chest.
"A few days, Daichi," the person says, smile never wavering. When Sawamura doesn't retort, Keiji wonders exactly who's in charge here.
"Call me Suga," he says. The insight sends a prickle of discomfort down Keiji's spine, as if this Suga was prying into his thoughts. He- Suga- already has something almost alien about his appearance, with the way his hair and skin seem to glow in the dim fluorescent light.
When Keiji meets Suga's eyes, those large, observant eyes, Suga's smile seems to quirk the slightest bit, as if he's confirming Keiji's private suspicions.
"Tobio," he calls, "would you be good enough to show them to an empty room? And make sure the water's hot for them?"
The other guard, the young, starry-eyed one, nods sharply. He hands the pack off to Iwaizumi, and Keiji’s eyes follow it almost sadly.
"We'll have to keep your weapons while you're here, I'm afraid," Suga says, the insight once again startling, "but you can have them when you're on your way."
Kuroo nods for the both of them. Nothing good will come of them arguing, and although Keiji still feels uncomfortably lopsided without something close at hand, he'll put up with it until they have a plan for moving on.
Sawamura joins them, as they trail down the hallway, as well as Suga. The circle of people doesn't exactly feel welcoming, as Suga's soft presence had sought to do just moments before, but it doesn't feel overly threatening, either. Cautious, like Suga said, something Keiji can understand well.
"How long have you been on the road?" Sawamura asks.
"Two years," Kuroo replies. He's smiling, always smiling, but there's no humor to it. Keiji knows all too well just how long and how hard those two years had been, still are, as they stretch into three. How difficult it is to actually rest, now that they have the opportunity to.
Sawamura seems to understand this as well. He watches Kuroo, with wide, dark eyes that might have been soft and boyish once, but have hardened into battle-worn steel.
"Why didn't you find me sooner?" Sawamura asks, and this time, there's a touch of humor to it, something that actually perks up Kuroo's smile, as he glances sidelong at Sawamura.
"The most famous of the Renegades is surprisingly difficult to find," he replies, and Sawamura cracks a grin in return.
Over his shoulder, Keiji catches a glimpse of Suga, looking between the two. His gaze lingers on Kuroo, and the smile hasn't dropped yet, but something about the look makes Keiji uneasy once again. He's not sure why exactly; he senses no malice from Suga, but his uncanny knack for observation makes him wary.
"I've got it from here, Kageyama," Sawamura calls to the guard in front of them. Kageyama stops, and steps off to the side, standing up straight and severe in a way that doesn't match his youthfulness. Nothing in this world is kind to the young anymore.
Suga departs as well, stating that he has work to return to, and he and Kageyama walk down another hallway together, before they disappear from sight.
Once they leave, the mood changes abruptly. Keiji senses it; it feels like an oncoming rainstorm, moving like a warm, sticky breeze over his skin, setting him on edge.
"Suga said a few days," Daichi speaks in a low voice, "but we can't spare much more than that."
"We'll be out of your hair tomorrow."
"No. No. Suga said a few, and he means it. I mean that. I really do, and I wish I could do better-"
Sawamura halts, both in speech and his movements. They're in a long hallway, with doors on either side. Looks like the living quarters, if it's only marginally more warmly lit and comfortable than the boiler room and the other bits of the compound they've already seen. Sawamura looks up at Kuroo, very intently, and Keiji almost feels as if he's witnessing a silent conversation, something so intensely intimate a flush creeps up his neck. There’s a history between these two, even if Keiji doesn’t know it, and watching them now feels like an intrusion. He wonders if this is what Suga had discovered.
"We're all doing our best, Daichi," Kuroo says softly, reaching out with one hand to clasp Sawamura's shoulder.
"Yeah. Guess you're right."
Sawamura clears his throat, and they resume walking. He leads them with purpose, eventually stopping in front of a door and knocking lightly. No sound comes from within, and he turns the knob quickly.
"It's not much," he says, when Kuroo and Keiji trail in after him, "but there's a shower and about ten minutes of hot water for each of you, and a clean bed. We'll eat in an hour, if you want to join us."
"It's great, Daichi, thanks."
Sawamura nods sharply, and leaves quietly, shutting the door behind him. They don't have their packs, as those were taken along with their weapons, but there are neat stacks of clean clothes on top of the sole bed- a bed- in the middle of the room, along with another door which presumably leads to the bathroom.
"Well," Kuroo says, squeezing Keiji's shoulder briefly, "our own little luxury suite."
"Think they have any little shampoos and soaps to steal?"
"Please don't steal from my friend."
Keiji smiles, if only briefly, and heads towards the other door.
"And please don't use all the hot water!" Kuroo calls.
"Can't make any promises."
There is no shampoo, but there is soap. Keiji could have died happily in the luxury of a hot shower, but the soap nearly pushes him to tears. He hasn't felt clean like this in months, maybe even close to a year, as he can't remember how long ago it was that he and Kuroo had stumbled across that abandoned house and spent an entire week there eating out of cans and sleeping on an actual bed. But he does remember going through an euphoric phenomenon similar to this, as he washes the grime and dirt and dried bits of blood off his body. There's even a towel, and he dries himself slowly, relishing in the feeling of being clean. He steps out of the bathroom, shivering as the steam of the bathroom leaves him, to retrieve a set of clothing. Kuroo whistles at him, and Keiji's so pleased that he actually smiles.
“I forgot there was a person under all that mess,” he says.
“Like you’re one to talk. You look like you have a bird’s nest on your head.”
Kuroo scoffs in mock offense, but Keiji’s already turned away, dropping his towel and pulling on a pair of pants. He pulls the shirt on as well, even though it’s a little warm in the room, and picks up the towel once again to run through his damp curls.
“There’s water still,” he says from beneath the towel. “Be grateful I left you any.”
“Cruel, Keiji.”
Kuroo takes his stack of clothes with no further comment, and turns towards the bathroom before Keiji can do something dumb, like run back in there and take another shower. When the door clicks shut, he sits down on the bed, the wet towel draped over his neck. He feels inexplicably drained, suddenly, his body recognizing the opportunity to rest and trying to force him to take advantage of that. The bed is awfully comfortable, even if the springs squeak when Keiji sits down, and he tells himself he’s only going to lie down while he waits for Kuroo to return. He stands up and pulls the covers back, draping the towel over the edge of the flimsy metal bed frame, and runs his hand over the cool, clean sheets.
It feels even better to lie down in the sheets, the kind of luxury he hasn't experienced in ages.
He nearly falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow, but even the comfort offered to him doesn't quite relieve that niggling feeling of anxiety at the back of his head, doesn't quite turn off his overactive, alert instincts. His stares at the wall, and he soon hears the sound of the water stop, and then the sound of the door opening. He looks over his shoulder, not quite trusting that it's just Kuroo coming out of the bathroom. Paranoia's saved his life too many times to count, and he's not about to let his guard down here, no matter how silly it may be.
Clean and shirtless, Keiji can see all of Kuroo's scars. He tends to forget about these, even though he's stitched up plenty of them. There's no time to feel sorry or guilty on the road, but now that they're both able to rest, the slow realization of just what Kuroo does and has done for him is unavoidable.
Kuroo drops his towel right next to Keiji's, and stretches his arms over his head. Keiji rolls over to face him on the other side of the bed, pulling back the sheets and offering him a space. Kuroo climbs in beside him, and before he's even settled, Keiji's sliding closer, pressing one palm flat against Kuroo's chest.
Intimacy is a strange concept to the both of them. It's tangled up in survival, and Keiji's not quite sure if he'd feel the same way if they weren’t in this situation. It's a knot Keiji has yet to unravel, but sometimes, spur of the moment, Keiji feels the need to touch, to be touched, to ground himself in Kuroo. It's nothing much, this time, just a gentle, yet urgent kiss, but he feels Kuroo's arm snake around his shoulders, pulling him closer, until they're flush against each other. Kuroo always lets him have control, lets Keiji push as far as he's comfortable, take as much as he wants, sighing softly against Keiji's mouth as Keiji's hand comes up to card through Kuroo's hair.
Keiji pulls away shortly, hand returning to Kuroo's chest, where he runs his thumb across a scar.
"Do you want to go get something to eat?" Kuroo asks. Keiji can feel the rumble of his voice against his own chest.
He shakes his head, eyes on the scar, the slow movement of his thumb, back and forth, back and forth.
"Nap first?" Kuroo tries again, the rumble turning into a quiet laugh when Keiji nods. Drowsiness is claiming him quickly, now that Kuroo's by his side once again. They shift against each other, settling down into comfort. Keiji's asleep before he knows it.
When he wakes up, the first thing he notices is a surprising lack of panic. His heart isn’t pounding, his breaths aren’t coming in short supply. He lies in bed, eyes still half-closed, and thinks about falling back asleep. But then his body and his brain both realize that Kuroo isn’t next to him, and his heart trips into overdrive.
"Keiji, you're awake," he hears, along with the sound of a door being closed. When he cranes his head up to peer over the blankets, Kuroo's there, with some packages in hand, and Keiji's breath comes out in a blissful rush of relief.
"We slept through dinner and breakfast," he says, "so Suga brought us some food."
Keiji grunts in acknowledgement, rolling onto his side and rubbing sleep out of his eyes. Now that he’s able to relax again, he still feels a little drowsy. Kuroo kneels on the bed, tossing the packages in the space between them, and Keiji is rather hungry, so he sits up the best he can be bothered to.
They're quiet as they eat, but quick, too used to eating before things spoiled, or having to settle for snatching bites whenever a moment of peace would allow them. The long hours of rest make Keiji feel sluggish and lazy, relaxed in a way he finds surprising. They don’t meet many friendly strangers outside of the City, and even when they do, Keiji’s always hyper-aware of their presence, whether they spend an hour or a few days together. Here, though, he’s unsettlingly relaxed, restless to continue their journey into the City, but enjoying the reprieve more than he thought possible.
“Kuroo,” he says on impulse, “tell me about your home.”
It’s a question he’s asked many times before, a question Kuroo’s answered many times. His answers are always stories, pieces of his life before the Dome fell. Keiji doesn’t know if the stories are true, but he has nothing to compare them to, no memories of his life before the world fell apart. He’d rather have Kuroo’s tales fill his head than the empty, black space in his brain whenever he tries to remember.
Kuroo chews a mouthful of food slowly, tilting his head and looking up at the ceiling like he’s seeing the memory in his head. After he swallows, he inhales.
“Outside the City, you used to be able to see the stars.”
“I’ve seen the stars.”
“You’re seeing them through the smog and through the Dome. The City’s been pumping out pollution for the past two years and making everything hazy, and the shield just distorts everything. You used to be able to see them clearly, all these bright little pinpricks stuck up in the sky like diamonds. There was this one hill I used to climb when I was a kid…”
Kuroo’s not a particularly good storyteller; he stumbles over his words and backtracks often, like the memories in his head are skipping when he plays them, which is why Keiji suspects he just plugs in random thoughts at will, but he’s captivating all the same. Everything about him, when he tells these stories, is raw and real, and even if the details are flubbed, his emotions are connected to these stories. Keiji curls up across from him on their bed, propping his head up with one bent arm and listens, and in the soft, rumbling lilt of Kuroo’s voice, he swears he can see the stars, smell the damp scent of the grass on Kuroo’s hill, feel it tickling his body as it cushions him.
He’d be well on his way to dozing off to the sound of Kuroo’s voice, if a knock on their door hadn’t startled him back into awareness. Kuroo bounds off the bed before Keiji can even sit up, and opens the door to find Sawamura behind it.
“Oh, I’m not, uh. Interrupting, am I?” Sawamura asks, one eyebrow arching up at the sight of Kuroo still without a shirt. Keiji’s dressed, but he still shifts self-consciously on the bed.
“No, just laziness,” Kuroo says.
“Right. Did you want to check out the route into the City? I have a few minutes now-”
“Yeah, that’d be great. Keiji?”
He’s already out of bed with a fresh set of clothes in hand.
“Let me change.”
The hallways are much more crowded than yesterday.
Keiji figures they must’ve come in late yesterday, but time tends to blend into one long blur for him, a mess of snatching sleep and food and rest and recovery whenever possible, so the apparent regularity of the compound is a little startling. He hasn’t seen this many people since he and Kuroo accidentally stumbled into a patrol of the City Watch.
“Exactly how big is this compound?” Kuroo asks. They’ve taken too many corners and turns for Keiji to have kept track, so the question lingers in his mind as well.
“It looked like a shed outside,” Keiji adds. Sawamura turns his head enough that they both catch his smile.
“It’s underground, isn’t it?” Keiji asks, it clicking into place quietly. He should’ve figured it out sooner, but the entrance to the compound was subtle enough that he hadn’t noticed its gentle sloping.
“You wouldn’t believe how long it took us to dig it out.”
Kuroo laughs lightly, but he looks around with the same awe as Keiji. The walls are that much more impressive.
“It wasn’t actually all us,” Sawamura goes on to say. “We found the bunker, but it was another month before one of us found the tunnels. Seems like someone else, with a lot more time and money, had been starting their own resistance long before the world went to shit.”
Time and money.
Keiji looks sidelong at Kuroo; time and money are a familiar eccentricity to the both of them. Keiji wonders, as enormous as the compound is, if this is another breadcrumb in the trail they’ve been following for two years.
“That’s handy,” Kuroo manages to get out, before an awkward amount of time can go by. Sawamura nods in front of them.
They turn another corner, into an even busier corridor. The hallway bustles into what looks like a vehicle storage bay, and the distraction of all the people, plus trying to concentrate on what Sawamura's saying dulls his attention. He's quite startled, then, when someone catches his shoulder, and he stumbles back.
"I'm sorry," he says, carefully stepping away from the scattering of tools and piping his feet had rattled. The noise was loud enough to draw the attention of most of the storage bay, and Keiji feels their uncomfortable eyes on him.
The other person stops in front of him, and Keiji waits for the returning apology, but the seconds tick on as the storage bay lapses into silence. The person looks tired, weary down to his bones, as he turns to look at Keiji, but as his eyes sweep over Keiji's form, energy seems to seep into his body. Keiji's shoulders tense up, as he gets the distinct feeling he's being studied, that this intense stare is that of a predator's, and that all the caution he's exercised up until this point is useless, now that he's been caught.
"You look very familiar," the person says in a low voice.
"We've never met," Keiji says softly. It's true; he'd remember this towering figure, the shock of red hair, the eyes that've latched onto him.
The person cranes his head to the side, eyes wide enough to paint an eerie picture.
"Hm, but you're familiar," he says, this time, his voice loud enough to cut through the storage bay, "like I've seen your face in my nightmares."
Keiji frowns, but his heart leaps in his throat when a hand darts out and grabs the front of his shirt. They're nearly at the same height, but Keiji still feels the strength in that arm, like he'll be dragged right off the floor if he can't put up a fight here.
"Tell me," the person says, voice dropping into a whisper as he leans closer to Keiji's ear, "do you know what the City Watchmen do to their prisoners?"
"Tendou!"
The hand is pried off the front of Keiji's shirt, and he stumbles backwards once again, a tremble shaking through him. Sawamura's got this Tendou by the wrist, and Kuroo's stepping towards Keiji, a dark, imposing figure wedging his way between the two of them. Sawamura's speaking lowly, but Tendou's rolled his eyes off to focus on something else, an open-mouthed smirk playing across his face. When Sawamura shoves him backwards, he doesn't look chastised at all, just darts his gaze back to Keiji and licks his teeth.
"Guests," Sawamura says shortly, and Tendou finally looks at him.
"Did you hear me?" Sawamura prompts. The forcefulness of the tone makes Keiji straighten up a bit.
"Guests," Tendou repeats in a singsong. Sawamura pins him with a hard look, until Tendou sighs, and slinks away from their group, seemingly continuing down the hallway on his original route.
"I'm sorry," Sawamura says immediately.
"What the hell, man?" Kuroo says, before Keiji can even nod his head. It's uncharacteristically frantic, Kuroo's tone, and it prompts Keiji to look up at him, to study the disbelief and anger in the lines of Kuroo's face.
"I'm sorry," Sawamura emphasizes again, this time pointedly looking at Keiji for a moment. "Tendou's hard to handle, but he's one of the few that've been inside the Stronghold and made it out alive."
Kuroo looks ready to argue, but at the mention of Stronghold, his mouth snaps shut. They both know what kind of achievement that is, even if neither one can quite believe it. Still, something like rage clouds over Kuroo's face. Keiji touches his arm lightly, and the storm lessens, but there’s still a heavy tension hanging in the storage bay. Sawamura clears his throat, and they continue on to the tunnel. They cram into a small control room shrouded behind glass, and Sawamura hesitantly starts talking, recounting how they discovered this single, unguarded path into the City, how they've kept it safe.
Keiji tries to listen, but his focus is elsewhere, wandering to that iron grip on the front of his shirt, that uncanny chill that ran down his spine when Tendou mentioned he looked familiar, the voracity with which Kuroo felt the need to defend him. He's never met Tendou, he's sure of it, but there is something picking at an empty memory, another blank spot in his mind.
"Patrol's coming in," Sawamura says, and Keiji shakes his head slightly to clear the cobwebs in his mind. "You two want to stick around and help us out?"
"Yeah, sure," Kuroo says. He seems in slightly better spirits, his face decidedly blank instead of angry, "we're happy to help while we can."
Sawamura's mouth quirks up in a slight smile, and he gestures them both to follow with a nod of his head.
He and Kuroo lose track of time in the vehicle bay, helping to unload and restock. Kuroo had volunteered him to help with maintenance on a few of the vehicles, and after a long, cold look at Kuroo and a fair share of grumbling, he spends some rather pleasant time working on upgrades. He doesn’t notice the people that’ve crowded around him until he drops a wrench, and untangles himself from the truck’s engine to get it. They keep a fair distance, and don’t ask him any questions, but there’s more than a few wide-eyed stares as he rewires the engine, softly explaining to his partner in maintenance what he’s doing.
The crowd doesn’t dissipate until there’s a call for meal time, and Keiji soon learns that mealtimes aren’t anything like he had expected. The entire compound seems to have reached the same collective agreement, and that is nearly everyone eats at the same time. There’s a makeshift cafeteria that he and Kuroo follow everyone into, seats and tables looking like chunks of the compound itself, vehicle wreckage, twisted metal and wood. It’s a mismatched collection of junk, but no one seems to take an issue with it. In fact, there’s a hominess to the atmosphere, a comfortable sort of camaraderie shared over food.
“They’ve got their own little bed and breakfast going on here,” Kuroo says. Keiji rolls his eyes and prods him forward in the line, so they can sooner find somewhere to sit. His body’s used to running on less fuel and on far less sleep, but he’s been spoiled after one good night and a couple of meals, and drowsiness is starting to settle into his head.
“If you fall asleep in your food,” Kuroo says, “I’m not waking you up.”
“Quiet,” Keiji replies, rubbing at his eyes with a fist. He’s thinking about taking another shower, mind wandering over the hot beat of the water against his skin and his muscles. He lets his mind drift even further, wandering down a lazy reverie as Sawamura finds them at their little corner hunk of junk, as Sawamura and Kuroo trade barbs and laughter over food and water.
"I'm gonna head back," Keiji says when there's a lull in the conversation. The cafeteria is nearly empty at this point, and Keiji assumes it's fairly late. At least, his body's telling him that.
"You alright to head back?" Kuroo asks.
He could feign ignorance, wheedle Kuroo into coming back with him. He wants to fall asleep curled up against Kuroo's chest again, listen to the sound of his steady heartbeat as he drifts off into his empty slumber, but his eyes pass over Sawamura, Kuroo's oldest friend, and he changes his mind.
"I'll be fine," he says, and quietly bids Sawamura goodnight.
He gets turned around only once on his way back to their room, which he considers an accomplishment, given how big the compound is. There's another change of clothes on the bedspread, and Keiji smiles a bit when he sees it. Comfort is so easy to take for granted, and so easy to fall back into when it's been missing for so long.
He takes the quickest shower he can bear, lingering in the steamy warmth of the little bathroom until it grows a little chilly. He's just pulled his shirt over his head when he hears a knocking at the door, and his bubble of contentedness bursts.
It's nothing, Keiji tells himself, trying to talk himself out of that spike of paranoia that plagues him in an instant, it's probably Kuroo.
He waits a minute, standing in the middle of the room, anticipating something from Kuroo. He always announces himself in some way, with a gesture if they need to be silent, with a word if they don't. He waits, but nothing comes, nothing but another quick knock.
Keiji takes a deep breath, and runs through the other possibilities. Suga, Sawamura, the man he was working with today. No one in the compound is out to get him, but it's hard to turn his thinking into that mindset, since it's been so long that the option was even available to him. He takes a hesitant step towards the door, then another, throwing his shoulders back and trying to expel the panic in an exhale.
The knock comes onces more, just before he turns the knob and opens the door a crack. Before he can slam it shut, Tendou shoulders his way in.
"Hello!" he calls out in that same lilting tone he used with Sawamura, a manic grin stretching wide over his mouth. Keiji's heart is a battering ram against his ribs, but he speaks clearly, just as loudly back.
"What do you want?" he says. Tendou's gaze zeroes in on him, like it's the first time he's realized whose room he's burst into, and the grin somehow brightens.
"Why are you hiding in here?" he asks. It'd be almost friendly, if there wasn't such an edge to his voice, like the sound of broken glass catching in dirt, the promise of a wound just for the hell of it.
"I'm tired," Keiji says shortly. He's forcing his body into casualness, crossing his arms loosely and relaxing his hips into a cant, feigning disinterest and control, when really he feels like he's been pinned in place by Tendou's stare.
"Do you dream?" Tendou asks, a rapid change in his demeanor shuddering over him.
"No," Keiji replies after a beat. He hasn't quite caught up to this change in Tendou.
"I do," he says, all pretense and giggles evaporated. "When I dream, it's always the same thing. You see, I was interrogated by the City Watch once upon a time. They starved me and plugged me into a machine, and would've let me rot, if Eita hadn't found my cell and broken me out."
Tendou's gaze is wide and dark, and Keiji finds himself staring back.
"Oh, but you wouldn't know Eita," he says, "because he's dead. Head smashed in by a collapsed crossbeam."
Tendou pounds his fist into his open palm, a visual demonstration that leaves Keiji with a lump in his throat.
"I turned around after a section of the tunnel collapsed, and there he was. Staring back at me, in a pool of his own blood. City Watch didn't even get him, just the shoddy infrastructure down there."
Tendou speaks casually, like he's relaying something as simple as the weather. Keiji finds himself speechless.
"Anyways," Tendou goes on, his hand twisting in a quick gesture in the air, "the point is. The only thing I dream about is City Watch, burning me and poisoning me and strapping me down into that chair of theirs, electricity frying my brain, all while you oversaw it all."
Any words Keiji could even think to string together have absolutely no chance of escaping his throat. Tendou towers over him, his presence abnormally larger than life, and Keiji's been backed into a corner, prey nearly consumed by his predator.
"It wasn't me," Keiji says in a whisper.
"But it was," Tendou says, and his grin is creeping back across his face. His hand darts out, likely going for the front of Keiji 's shirt again, but he's reactionary this time, his fingers flying of their own volition and wrapping around Tendou's wrist. He can feel the strength thrumming through Tendou's arm, but he holds fast, very much afraid that any slip on his part would mean the swift end to his own life.
"That's quite a grip you have," Tendou says. He laughs, a bright burst of noise that makes Keiji cringe at its suddenness.
"What do you want?" Keiji says slowly, like he's dragging the words out of his own mouth, the last semblance of his own security.
"Do you want your weapons?" Tendou asks, again changing the subject so swiftly Keiji feels uprooted and confused.
"Weapons?" he asks, "You know where they keep them?"
Tendou nods, his teeth pressing into his bottom lip like he's trying to bite away his own smile.
"You want them?" he prompts again. Keiji almost says yes right away, his peace of mind suddenly, intensely aching for his knives and his bullets, but he's wary, still clutching Tendou's wrist in his own hand.
"Where are they?" he tries instead.
"I'll show you," Tendou says again. Keiji stares at him, searching for something in his face, any sign that Tendou can be trusted, but he longs so wholly for his things that soon he's nodding, and releasing Tendou's hand.
"That'll bruise," he says with a giggle, rubbing at his wrist.
"Take me to them," Keiji says, jamming his feet into his boots. Tendou nods wildly, throwing open the door and running down the hallway.
Keiji curses under his breath, quickly strapping his boots, and slips quietly after Tendou.
The hallways are deserted, and their silence is eerie. Keiji is acutely aware of every step he takes, the sound of his boots soft, but magnified in the silence. He creeps along as quietly as he can, struggling to keep up with Tendou. He’s still not certain about his decision, but he’s prepared to deal with the consequences, should they arise.
He catches a glimpse of Tendou’s red hair around the corner, and hurries to follow. Tendou isn’t running, but he still manages to maintain a fair distance, a gap large enough that Keiji has to run in short bursts in order to keep up. He rounds another corner slightly out of breath, somewhat weirdly relieved to find Tendou just standing, staring at a large metal door. Keiji arches an eyebrow, disappointment beginning to cloud his head as he notices the obvious keypad on the wall beside the door, blaring bright red letters.
LOCKED.
To his surprise, however, Tendou starts to punch keys on the pad, rapidfire movements that Keiji can’t keep up with, and that, most surprising of all, actually work. He steps inside, not bothering to see if Keiji’s following. Keiji shifts from foot to foot, looking around uncomfortably, waiting for someone to turn the corner and catch him in the act. He hears a clatter from within, his attention drawn to the dimly-lit room, and impulse drives him forward.
The door slides silently into place behind him, leaving him in the dark room. He walks slowly, arms outstretched, until his fingertips brush what must be the wall, then uses it as a guide. The lack of light is disorienting, and his brain struggles to process the space and the textures and where he is. He bumps softly into what seems like a shelving unit, and he decides to leave the wall and follow this cool, metal surface with his fingers instead.
He hears more clattering in the room, and then a light snaps on in a side room. It’s bright enough to faintly light the rest of the room, and what he sees in the glimmer of light is surprising. There are shelves upon shelves of guns, ammunition, flame throwers, battering rams, poles, spikes. He wonders dizzily just what kind of uprising Sawamura’s been planning, and then, when he hears a shuffling towards the right, if anyone knows that Tendou has unlimited access to this room.
“Where’s our stuff?” Keiji asks in a hiss, too paranoid to raise his voice beyond a whisper.
“Back here, in Suga’s workshop.”
Keiji’s half-expecting to stumble across Suga, hunched over a bench with that same easy, unsettling smile on his mouth, but the little side room is empty. Tendou’s snapped on the overhead light for the workspace. It’s housed in cold cement and plastisteel, but it’s neat and tidy, except for the desk. There are some blueprints spread across it, on real paper, and out of curiosity and a slight reverence towards the past, Keiji tilts them a bit so he can read them. He knows what to rip out of an engine to make it run smoother, how to tear one apart and piece it back together, but the delicacy of the drawings, and of Suga’s notes in the margins, are beyond him. It’s a weapon, he figures, based on the notes, impressive in size even on a sheet of paper. Something this size could take on the City; there’s nothing that they have that’s comparable, and their defenses would only hold for so long against that much power.
Keiji shuffles the plans around, looking for something a little easier to understand. If he can grasp the concept of this weapon, maybe they can work together, coordinate an assault on the City. They could-
Keiji frowns as he comes across another slip of paper. It details the anatomy of a human body, but there are no muscles, no bones and veins. The interior is all mechanical, made up of wires and gears, plastisteel posts shaped into the delicate functions of bone, regulatory systems all running from a central computer, a cheap imitation of the human heart.
An android, or at least the components to make one.
It looks like guesswork, the notes punctuated with question marks and various options as to what might work better. The most eerie thing about it is Keiji finds it oddly familiar. He has the strangest sense of déjà vu, like he’s seen an android body mapped out like this, but in better detail, and with no guesswork.
He steps away from the desk when Tendou drops his and Kuroo’s packs, the bags hitting the table with a solid thunk. Keiji pries them both open to examine their contents, and to his great relief, nothing’s missing. He yearns quite suddenly for his holster, but he hadn’t put it on since his first shower yesterday, and it sits in their borrowed room with their other meager belongings they weren’t forced to part with.
“Thank you,” Keiji says softly, breathing out a sigh of relief. Tendou doesn’t say anything, and Keiji looks up to glance at him. He’s staring down at the plans Keiji had uncovered for the android, a frown over his forehead. Tendou runs a tentative finger down the length of the ink-drawn android, then looks up at Keiji with an intensely serious expression. Keiji finds himself staring back, his tongue caught behind his teeth, feeling like he’s pinned in front of the predator once again.
But then an alarm blares overhead, and they both snap out of their staring.
“What is that?” Keiji asks, his ears already starting to ache from the pitch of the noise.
“Infiltration alarm,” Tendou says, turning back to Keiji with a slow smile. Keiji has no time to consider the abrupt shift in Tendou’s personality, as he darts out of the shop. Keiji grabs his pack and shoulders it, and slings Kuroo’s over one shoulder as well, chasing after Tendou as fast as he can.
Keiji is able to follow Tendou by listening for the sound of his laughter. It rings eerily through the compound, snatches of it just barely heard over the alarm. It lights up the hallways like a blaze would, pulling everyone from their stations or their beds, until the hallways are swimming with people. He’s so concentrated on evading the people that pop out of the doors at random, so concerned with catching the last lingering trail of Tendou’s laugh, that he lurches against the hold of the hand that snakes out to grab him, and nearly reacts on pure instinct. But Suga holds him fast, doesn’t blink when he tries to rip his arm free, just regards him calmly.
“It’s a raid,” he says, and Keiji’s surprised he can hear him over the noise of the alarm. Suga’s eyes drop down to the packs on his shoulders, and he tightens his fingers a little more securely over the straps, but Suga makes no move to take them.
“I’m sending you through to the City.”
“I’m not leaving without Kuroo.”
“No, of course not.”
Keiji suspects that Suga had yelled for Tendou, and he’s sure he would have heard it, since he’s standing right there, but Tendou seems to pop up next to his elbow with no prompting.
“Wait for his partner,” is all that Suga says, but Keiji still feels like he missed half a conversation. Tendou nods sharply to Suga, then tugs on Keiji’s hand, pulling them both in the opposite direction.
“Wait-” Keiji says, but Suga’s already gone, running down the hallway. He tries once, twice, to pull himself free from Tendou’s grip, but doesn’t succeed until the third try.
“We have to wait,” he emphasizes, a little bubble of panic flaring up in his mind, the dizzy thought that he’ll actually leave this place without Kuroo.
“We will,” Tendou insists, grabbing Keiji’s hand again. Keiji digs his heels in to effectively halt them.
He sees how Tendou huffs, and rolls his eyes before turning around, his expression serious for once.
“We’ll wait at the tunnels,” he says, and in disbelief, Keiji allows himself to be pulled along.
He’s really a piece of work, pacing just inside the lip of the only pathway inside the city, feeling like his mind is falling to pieces because Kuroo’s not here yet.
The chaos of the compound is softened down here, since the tunnels are so isolated, but Keiji still feels the anxious affects of the raid even if its sounds are lessened.
“You only had the one bed in your room,” Tendou says out of the blue. Keiji stops his pacing and glances sharply at him.
“So?”
“Are you lovers?”
Keiji feels his face grow warm, and he’s angry at himself for the foolish reaction, and at Tendou for asking such a stupid question.
“Now is not the time to discuss that,” he says in reply. Tendou doesn’t look particularly delighted or miffed, but he does study Keiji with an intense scrutiny. Keiji remembers the name, Eita, and wonders-
“Keiji!”
Kuroo startles him out of his brief thoughts, and the rush of relief in him nearly makes him dizzy. Kuroo’s hands delicately cup his face, and Keiji can almost forget they’re in the middle of a raid.
“Are you safe?” he asks, and Keiji nods. He slams Kuroo’s pack into his chest, making him stumble backwards with a grunt. He can almost forget, but not quite.
“We have to go now. Suga’s sending us through the tunnel. It’ll be our only chance.”
“Yeah, okay. Is he coming with us?” Kuroo says, gesturing to Tendou. He’s already far enough down the tunnel that Keiji can barely see him in the gloom. Keiji curses under his breath, and for the nth time that night, finds himself struggling to catch up with Tendou.
It’s not slow going, but the tunnels are so long it feels endless. There aren’t any lights in the tunnel, so he and Kuroo have to dig battered old flashlights out of their packs. Keiji’s keeps flickering at random, and it lends a creepy, unnerving quality to the tunnel. The lights are soft enough to distort the shapes and shadows along the walls as they go along. Keiji chooses to carefully avoid looking at Kuroo’s face, the once warm, familiar lines too warped under this dim light. He does, however, opt to grab Kuroo’s hand, and hold it tightly.
Up ahead, Tendou’s singing to himself, punctuating the tune with bursts of laughter. He doesn’t know what to think of the man, frankly, the ups and downs of his temperament, what his actual level of mental clarity is. He suspects that the City Watchmen broke something loose inside Tendou’s head, and that pieces are rattling around, bursting out of his mouth in ill-timed, invasive questions.
Keiji looks up from the dark ground when he hears the sound of footsteps, and sees Tendou running back towards them. His eyes are even brighter, catching fragments of the beams of the flashlights, and washing out his skin with a sickly, silvery glow.
“What’s your name?” he asks Keiji, walking backwards as boldly as if he could see the ground behind him.
He frowns, but answers, “Keiji.”
“Keiji...what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“How?”
“He has a bad memory,” Kuroo interjects, before Keiji can fumble out some poorly made-up excuse.
“Bad memory. Did the City Watch scramble your brains, too?” Tendou asks, furrowing his brow with something like sympathy.
“It has nothing to do with the City,” Keiji says.
“Then why are you going to it?” Tendou asks, cocking his head at an angle.
“Looking for someone,” Kuroo pipes up before Keiji can. He can sense the subtle change in Kuroo’s body language, how he prickles and squares off his shoulders. Funny, Keiji would’ve thought he’d be the one more like that, but it’s surprisingly easy to forget that Tendou had manhandled him just a few hours ago.
“That’s a lot of effort for just one person,” Tendou says. Keiji can nearly feel the physical barb of the words, how they cut straight to every single doubt he’s had, following after a brief sliver of memory that very likely no longer exists. He’s long suspected the City would be nothing but another dead lead, but one of the very few, if faint, memories he’s been able to cling to since the Dome fell is the memory of a dazzling smile and the warmth of another’s arms around him, a bud of happiness, not tainted by the sickness of the City always looming in the distance. He’d let Kuroo drag him over every inch of the rotten earth just for a chance to see that smile again.
Neither he nor Kuroo answer Tendou’s remark, but Keiji does squeeze Kuroo’s hand a little tighter. He feels tired, all of a sudden, tired and sad and sick of his brain twisting up on him, of his mind drawing in blanks where there should be bright, wonderful memories. Tendou doesn’t insist on an answer, and turns around when he figures he isn’t getting one, skipping on ahead and humming to himself.
“Daichi said it takes around six hours to get through the tunnels, and then we’ll come out into the processing plant just below the City,” Kuroo says, when Tendou’s wandered far enough ahead that the won’t be overheard, “and then there’s some machinery to cut through, and then we’ll follow another trail straight into Stronghold. So really, as much as a I hate to admit it, that guy will probably be a help to us.”
“He got our bags,” Keiji says quietly, a soft sort of defense on Tendou’s behalf.
“He did, did he?” Kuroo replies, tone equally soft. Keiji doesn’t say anything more.
Tendou stops them after three hours of walking, and pulls some packages of protein gel and some bottles of water from the back pack Keiji never remembers seeing him grab. They rest for a few moments, all of them sitting close in the pitch black. He and Kuroo had reluctantly snapped off the flashlights to conserve their power packs, and in the darkness, the heavy sound of their breaths is the only indication that they’re all still there. But then, Tendou tells them it’s time to continue, and they drag their weary bodies up off the floor and begin the last half of the journey.
Kuroo was right about Tendou; having him around to lead them silently through the very depths of the City is an immense help, but at his insistence, the only path up is over some very precariously moving equipment. It’s harrowing, all of them nearly slipping off edges and miscalculating the timing of their jumps, Keiji at one point slipping and landing hard enough on his elbow he was surprised he didn’t hear something crack.
It’s slow going, picking over the machinery, and it adds another hour, maybe more, onto their total journey. Keiji’s starting to get nervous now; as soon as he’d gained some sort of lucidity after the Dome fell, he’d demanded to know who Kuroo was and where the hell he came from. Kuroo hadn’t answered, just let Keiji scream and curse at him until his knees had given out, and he’d landed himself in the dirt. Kuroo never really did give much of an explanation beyond the simple fact that he’d found Keiji within Stronghold and pulled the both of them out of the wreckage of the City before the Dome fell. Returning to the one place he knows as some sort of starting point for his memories is as exciting as it is concerning.
But now, finally, Keiji just has to make this jump, and duck under the slow-grinding arm of one of the processing generators, and they’ll be free of the machinery, and back to wandering dark corridors. He shakes his head to clear his cloudy thoughts, and takes a deep breath, counting in his head and leaping off the edge on the count of three.
But he’s not going to make it.
The timing of his jump was off, and he knew it the second his foot left the previous overhang. He still rolls beneath the pounding piece of machinery, but his mind is screaming at him, not going to not going to. It should be no surprise, then, when he comes out of his roll, but finds himself stuck, held back by something that’s slowly crushing his arm.
When the pain hits, he can’t help the scream that tears its way out of his throat. It startles even him; it’s loud and raw, like the sound an animal makes on its last burst of life. He’s never felt anything like this.
“Keep him quiet!” Tendou bellows over his noise. “They’ll hear!” but he can’t stop screaming. Tears start to prickle in his eyes, and his mind is in hysterics. No thought is clear, everything overridden by pain, pain, pain.
Kuroo’s hand flutters hesitantly over his mouth, and he knows what’s coming, but he can’t bring himself to stifle the noise, sobs now shuddering their way through his chest. Kuroo’s hand covers his mouth, and Keiji screams and moans and cries into it.
“It’s lifting,” Tendou says, and the pain changes, into something more fluid, more encompassing. The pressure lifts, and Keiji kicks his feet, his body desperate of its own will to escape, to do something so this sensation will stop. He feels Tendou’s careful hands on his arm, prying it out of the grip of the generator’s long length of machinery, and looks dizzily back.
To his confusion, there is no blood. He stares at his smashed arm, mangled fingers and split wrist, the mess of his forearm all the way up to his elbow, but there are no bones, no muscle, and no blood. Only bits of wire, broken gears, shards of metal and plastisteel.
Tendou has his upper arm in a firm grip, but Keiji can’t even register that pressure, not until Tendou grabs the lower half of his arm and suddenly snaps it off cleanly. Keiji screams again, and Kuroo’s hand presses more firmly against his mouth, a weak attempt to muffle the sound. Keiji looks away from the carnage of his hand, breathing rapidly in between his sobs, his head starting to lighten, his vision starting to blur. He claws weakly at Kuroo’s hand, trying to pry it off his face, but the last thing that’s clear to him, before he slips into darkness, is the look Kuroo gives him, something like horror and sorrow.
Keiji wakes up slumped against a wall, to the sound of a high-pitched alarm ringing in his head and gunfire echoing behind him. There’s a thread of familiar laughter in there, fading in and out as his body fights through the tug of unconsciousness, but then it’s swallowed completely by the other sounds.
He opens his eyes, and struggles to lift his head, his whole body feeling stiff and shivery, his stomach turning when he looks down at his left arm, only to see the frayed ends of wires hanging out of the stump. He looks around the room instead, and is hit with an overwhelming sense of familiarity, snatches of memories from two years ago, a room just like this, only calmer, sterile, more cords and wires, something in his back-
“You’re awake,” he hears, turning his head to see Kuroo in the corner of the room, a rifle in his hands. Tendou is nowhere to be seen. Keiji inhales sharply and shoves himself bodily up, trying to scramble away as his brain screams danger, but Kuroo holds out a hand, and the gesture is placating enough that Keiji stills for a moment.
“Don’t,” Kuroo says quietly, “okay? Your body’s been through enough already.”
“Fuck off.”
“Keiji-”
“I said fuck off, Kuroo,” Keiji says in a hiss.
He tries to push himself upright, but his body protests as soon as he stands, and he wobbles on his feet. Kuroo grabs his arm before he collapses, and drags him over to a chair. The touch ignites a whole spectrum of emotions in Keiji’s mind, compounded by the fact that he now knows he isn’t actually feeling those things, that it’s likely brought on by a complicated measure of equations and machinery. He sinks into the chair wearily, closing his eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he says in a watery voice. His throat is burning, his head is spinning, and he can feel the way Kuroo’s looking at him, soft eyed and sympathetic.
“I. I couldn’t,” he says.
“Why?”
“I couldn’t! I promised you I wouldn’t. I promised I’d keep...you safe, and that we’d all meet again and take down the City. I didn’t think- I didn’t know your biggest secret was you, or a-a- copy of yourself, all dumped in the body of an android. But the government was already collapsing when I found you plugged in, and there was no time to ask questions. I dragged you out before the Dome dropped, and only knew we had to get back in.”
There’s a booming sound outside this little office, and they both look towards the noise. Keiji notices two doors for the first time, both sealed, but likely easily broken, especially by employees of the City. It spurs Kuroo into action, and when he turns back around to look at Keiji, all his earlier pity is gone, replaced by cold calm.
“I need to plug you in,” Kuroo says, and Keiji’s face wrinkles in confusion. Kuroo turns the chair around, and Keiji faces a computer, a familiar set of lights and buttons, of holograms and the heartbeat of the City, and he begins to remember.
“Kuroo, no,” he pleads, bracing his hand on the arm of the chair, trying to push himself out of the seat.
“I have to. I’m sorry, Keiji. For everything.”
“I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this. Don’t, please, there must- be another way-”
“There’s no time, Keiji. You were here when I first found you. You should be able to interface into the mainframe without any problems.”
“I can’t,” Keiji says, his voice a thin whisper, “I can’t do this. Kuroo, I can’t. I don’t-”
Keiji feels a sharp tug on the back of his shirt, his collar digging against his throat, breaths coming in short gasps. He feels a shivery sensation against the center of his back, but his body is utterly unable to fight. All of his protests are locked up inside his mouth, and hysterically, he wonders if this is a result of his android body, if its willingness to participate has to do with returning to what he suspects was his original purpose.
His body snaps upright when he feels the sensation of a click against his back, and something warm and familiar jolts into place. His eyes flutter, and his head tilts back. Like a bloodstream, information begins to pour into him, data from every inch of the City, right to the very edge of the impenetrable shield keeping every citizen in.
"Kuroo Tetsurou," Kuroo is saying against his ear, "clearance code 514b. Execute Order 52. Negate all other orders."
"Kuroo-"
He can't speak. Something locks up in his head, and he's jolted upright, his body beginning a slow slide forward, over the control panels in front of him. He's slowly losing awareness, the control of his body not his own, but he's unable to fight it. He can feel the way his consciousness is being sealed away, perhaps the only seed of his false humanity effectively being stored inside the mechanics of his body, until-
Order 52. Security program. Override the lockout, authorization code 601, Akaashi Keiji, level 9 clearance. Bioengineer, one of three members of the City's premiere science class. Fingerprint analysis certified. Dome maintenance. Outer shield offline. Inner shield shut down one of three. Two of three. Yes, continue this operation. Security clearance 866521, A.K. 001. Inner shield shut down. Dome maintenance complete, offline.
Twelve miles away, amidst the chaos of a raid on a hidden facility, someone takes notice of the Dome's offline status, and shouts to the other members of the technical crew. Someone else comes racing to the computer, another person's blood smeared over a pale cheekbone.
"I don't believe it," he says, scanning over the information presented to him. In another moment, he's booting up a program that's been hidden on every computer in the compound, and launching an experimental weapon, aimed straight for Stronghold.
It rattles the pillar of the City, makes all its metal beams groan in anguish. In a little 16th-story corner laboratory, the weapon's beam blows all the glass out of the windows, and shakes the doors in their frames. When the dust settles, there is blood spilled across the marble floor, the papery wheeze of a collapsed lung heard more prominently in the little room than the chaos outside of it.
A hand grasps a plug, yanking it out of Keiji's back, and he drops forward like silk, bashing his nose against the control panel. The pain blooms on the front of his face, bringing tears to his eyes as his body comes back into his control. He's shaking, he notices, stumbling up from the chair. He trips over a body on the floor, and a new pain shoots up his left arm. The exposed wires of his left arm are raw and delicate, and any additional movement from his arm brings a fresh, hellish experience. He sits up the best he can, but his stomach drops, and all pains are forgotten, when he sees the body he’s tripped over.
Keiji knows now that he doesn't have a heart, that it's likely just a tiny computer chip acting as a façade of a pulsing, human organ, but he still feels a burst of pain in his chest when he rolls Kuroo onto his back.
"God, no. Please, no."
One of the doors rattles with a rhythmic pounding, loud enough that Keiji's startled. He can hear the sound of radios, the odd electronic chirping of the City Watch as they get their next move from some nameless higher up. He fumbles to feel Kuroo's pulse, and, relieved, he finds a faint beat, marching in time with the sound against the door.
Keiji looks around the room, looking for a weapon- Kuroo's rifle. He grabs it, and holds it steady, aiming for the door in front of him.
But, suddenly, the pounding stops. He hears a bright, boisterous laugh, something achingly familiar to all his old half-pieces of memories, and he's nearly remembering a scene from his past, him, Kuroo, another, the one they've been looking for, the bright gleam of his grin in the darkness as they explore the underworkings of the City, but Kuroo's soft wheeze brings him back to reality, and he remembers the laugh belongs to Tendou, and not another.
There's the sound of footsteps, shouting, general chaos outside the door, and then-
Nothing.
Keiji sits on the floor, dropping the rifle, breathing harshly in the silence. He strains his ears to hear more clearly, but there's nothing, nothing but his breaths and Kuroo's.
“It’s time to go,” he whispers to Kuroo.
He stands up, dragging Kuroo up the best he can with only one hand. It's a struggle to get a grip on Kuroo’s body, his arm pulsing in agony when he has to shuffle Kuroo’s body as close to his as possible, but he manages it, even if it's only by his own pure will. Kuroo’s still semi-conscious, staggering on his feet and shifting some of his weight off Keiji’s shoulders, but it’s slow going, shuffling over to the far door first, the one the Watchmen weren't pounding on.
Jammed.
He drags Kuroo over to the next door, takes a deep breath, and remembers the door code like he was in here working, instead of trying to escape. He peeks around the corner, looking for any trace of movement, but there is none. The hallway stretches before him, empty and still.
There's a breeze of cold air pouring in through the shattered windows. It must've been Suga's weapon; there's nothing in the wastes outside of the City that could do this much damage, at least, that Keiji knows of. But despite the breeze, he's still starting to sweat. Kuroo is a crushing weight against his side, and his already weak body protests the additional weight.
Keiji slips, and nearly drops Kuroo. At first, when he looks down at the smear of blood on the floor, he thinks it’s from Kuroo, but looking further down the hallway, he sees a semblance of a trail, smears of scarlet against the bone-white floor. The blood makes his stomach lurch, and he has to force himself to swallow and take another step forward. He suspects it’s Tendou’s handiwork, and that thought chills him.
Around the corner, the blood trail disappears over the edge of an extendable walkway, a failsafe for those working in the labs. Any kind of hazardous situation in the labs would keep it separated from the rest of the building.
“Oh god, okay. Okay,” Keiji mutters to himself. “I’m going to set you down, Kuroo. You’re gonna sit here for a little bit while I figure this out.”
Keiji lowers Kuroo as gently as he can, and looks around for the controls to extend the walkway to the other side. If he could just remember- yes!
A switch over on the wall, just hit it and the walkway will extend.
He takes a step forward, but darts back. The unmistakeable sound of a patrol on the other side of the walkway echoes through the cavernous space. He throws himself backwards, his back slamming harshly against the rough wall beneath it. From his position, he can see the Watchmen as they run by, hear the chirping of their radios and transmitters echoing in the gap between the two hallways. He stays in his spot, pressing desperately up on his toes in an attempt to keep himself hidden in the shadows, until they’re long past, eyes on the shadowy corner where he left Kuroo. In the stillness, he quickly steps out of the shadows, daring himself to stay put as he listens hard for the sound of anything. It feels like hours before he deems it safe enough to move, running quickly over to the opposite wall and flicking the switch, praying the failsafe that would keep it from extending hasn’t been activated. He manages to drag Kuroo upright before the walkway has even connected with the other side, and wastes no time in crossing.
There’s no more blood to follow, once he drags Kuroo across. The hallway is impeccable, brightly lit, clean, empty. That does nothing to quell Keiji’s sense of paranoia. His breathing sounds too harsh in the empty corridor, every step of his boots echoing too loudly, Kuroo’s blood dripping and smearing as Keiji drags him along.
There’s an exit up ahead. He doesn’t remember how he knows what, but it’s lodged in his brain anyway, just two more right turns, and then a left, and they can get out through one of the side doors into a courtyard behind Stronghold. It’s not far, they can make it, they can recover, lick their wounds, and try again. There’s still someone they haven’t found, after all, but as he turns left into the last stretch of hallway, he runs directly into-
Himself.
The first time he saw the sky was the night Kuroo dragged him out of the City.
Staggering along with Kuroo’s arm around his waist, his brain still too fuzzy to quite comprehend what was going on, he had looked up. He saw tiny, innumerable pinpricks of light, shining clear and beautiful, free from the cover of the Dome.
“Nice, aren’t they?” Kuroo had whispered in his ear. Keiji smiled then, despite his pain and grogginess, his body still slowly settling into awareness away from the plug of the computer Kuroo had ripped out of his back. He smiled up at the sky, at the bits of light he wanted to touch, to hold in warmth against his skin.
When Kuroo set him down in a patch of woods, so they could both catch their breath, Keiji had asked.
“What are those?” he said. His voice sounded like rust, the slow grinding of a machine that’s never been used screeching into utility once again. He pointed up at the sky, too, for good measure.
“The stars,” Kuroo had answered. There was no trace of judgment in his tone, no condescension. Just simple fact.
He didn’t know Kuroo, just knew that he woke up to being dragged through the Stronghold by this man, but he trusted him implicitly, smiling back when he caught the white gleam of Kuroo’s teeth in the darkness under the trees.
The memory stills, shudders, and fizzles out when Keiji feels the first bullet rip through his abdomen. He drops Kuroo, the both of them falling in front of his mirror image. On his knees, Keiji stares down at wound through his stomach with ever-growing heavy eyes. He touches the ragged cloth of his shirt delicately, but there’s no blood, only a glimmer of pain beginning to roar in his head. He looks up into his own face, nearly too weary to raise his own head, but finds only cold condemnation there.
“Kill this one, take the other,” he faintly hears, like it’s being spoken through thick cotton. From the corner of his eye, he watches as Kuroo is lifted and slung between two Watchmen, but he can’t bring himself to move.
A hand grasps his hair, jerking him upright. Another bullet tears through him, through the delicate workings of his mechanical brain. It’s a starburst inside his head, the birth of a universe, a supernova, a black hole, a dark night with Kuroo beside him, stars lighting up the sky, and then-
Nothing.