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writtentofreedom) wrote2018-07-13 06:09 pm
writtentofreedom) wrote2018-07-13 06:09 pm
Entry tags:
[Fanfic] an echoing voice of vertigo and monotony
Summary: Mistakes are made, regrets are had, and Sakuya is insistent on at least fixing the bigger issues, even if his priorities aren’t the same as everyone else’s.
Tags: Algeki, Gen, Angst, Special Ops AU
Word count: 2k
Unbeta'd.
Finish date: 2/21/18
Can also be read on AO3 here!
---
It was a dumb mistake. He figured that he would be fine this far from the battlefield, shooing Hijiri off as soon as he heard the gunshots signaling Ritsu’s cover has been blown. The information just needs a moment longer when the sound of footsteps echoing from around the corner of the hall tells him his spot has also been found.
Readying his gun, he puts himself in a defensive position, eyeing the status on the monitor behind him. He’s not that good at hand-to-hand, preferring to stay out of the action when possible, either behind the trigger or behind a screen and some wires, but there’s not many choices right now. He needs to buy himself some time, just a bit more time.
“I could send Rigel in,” Tatsuhiko had said over the comms when the shooting started.
“We’ll be fine,” he’d said as he sent Hijiri off to rescue the smallest. Yuuri and Mikado were most likely off radio, for he knows they would have stopped him and his stupid pride if they had heard.
“Sakuya, are you sure?” Tatsuhiko gave him one final chance.
“Yes, I’m sure,” he grounded out.
He regrets it now that the shooting hasn’t stopped, Mikado’s steady voice directing everyone on the field as they try to fight back, and there’s multiple footsteps heading in his direction. There isn’t much in the room, but he pushes a bookshelf in as a barricade.
“Bring in Rigel,” Yuuri instructs, always trusted to give the right call where Sakuya can’t. That’s why they’re friends, he thinks, and it hits him at the same time the first hit against the door comes.
He’d insisted in the beginning that his relation with all of them is merely professional, that he has nothing attached to any of them besides their jobs placing them on the same team. It was a precaution, he had said, keeping them all at arm’s distance. The jobs they have are no stranger to death, and he’d be damned if something like friendship and feelings got in the way of him doing his job well.
He’d call becoming friends with them a mistake too, except it isn’t really. He doesn’t regret any of it at least. Somewhere along the way, he started appreciating the knowledge that they all had his back. Their fussing over him had been annoying, but then he started worrying over them too, and it wasn’t so bad anymore.
There’s a lot he hasn’t told them though, about himself and about how he feels for them, and he remembers now why he didn’t want to make friends. At the third bang, the bookshelf is knocked over, and he’s trying to shoot them off before they get closer because there’s way too many for him to handle with his shitty combat skills.
“Sakuya, status.” There’s a bit of distortion from the comms, but he can still hear Mikado’s worry at the sound of gunfire from the hacker.
“I got found. There’s at least five of them,” he says, not sure if there’s more in the hall and not willing to check, not when the first guy’s managed to reach him and it’s taking all he has to block and dodge.
“Yousuke’s coming for you.” Well, damn. Looks like they had Rigel on standby despite his earlier protests. He’d be mad, but that was indeed a shitty call he made, and if he survives he’ll definitely own up to it. He owes them that much, for all the times he’s blamed the others for a mission gone wrong, for all the times he really should’ve stayed by their sides in the infirmary after a close call and he’d convinced himself that he shouldn’t bother because there was nothing between them. He owes them, as both a teammate and a friend.
He manages to take down the first guy, but the second guy’s faster and manages to get in a few extra hits. His ribs are aching when he notices there’s a guy at the door holding out a gun, and then he’s pushing forward, knocking back the guy in front of him and pulling away just in time for the bullet to graze his shoulder. He pushes on, getting in a good hit and knocking the guy out.
The gun clicks ready again and he grabs the next guy and throws him towards the one at the door with the gun, desperately trying to keep them away until either the information’s done and he can get out, or Yousuke comes. Hopefully the former, his cursed pride whispers, and the idea of needing to be rescued from his high tower like a princess doesn’t sit well on his stomach, so when he sees from the corner of his eyes that the information’s been fully loaded, he kicks down the guy directly in front of him and does his best to send the other two about to crowd in as far back as possible so he can pull his stuff out and get the hell out of this stuffy room.
Over the whirr of the computer comes the sound of the bullet driving into the wall, but then the gun’s cocking and he’s on his feet despite there being two guys between him and the one holding the gun, two guys he knows he can’t power through, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t at least try. The stuff’s all in his bag now at least, and he measures his steps so he can kick it away during the fight. It costs him a hit, and his shoulder stings like a swarm now, but he’ll be damned if the information doesn’t get to the others. Whether he dies or not, he’ll make sure his job is done.
The first shot hits his leg, and he makes sure to take the other guy down with him as he falls. His leg burns. He tries to get in a good hit to knock the guy out when a punch lands on his face, and then there’s two guys taking advantage of his sloppiness with some kicks.
“Who sent you here?” a low voice growls. A hand in his hair pulls his head up, and he feels the cold edge of a knife pressed against his too-warm throat, that accursed gun cocking again as it presses against he back of his head. His entire body burns, the world shifting and stretching weirdly as he tries to breathe, ribs protesting at the harsh breaths.
The hand in his hair grips harder, the knife and the gun pushing further against him as he doesn’t bother answering, instead just focusing on breathing and trying to think of a way to at least get his stuff out. There’s an answering crash from the door, and his ribs protest as he gets thrown off to the side in favor of facing the new intruder.
His vision swims, but he can make out Yousuke’s place in the fight, eyes pinning down orange hair and strong biceps. His fingers wrap around his own gun, and he takes slow, careful aim, hitting the one about to try knocking into Yousuke from behind. Yousuke finishes off the other guy, and Sakuya’s about to believe they’d be getting out of this alive when he remembers that this last guy is also the one with the gun. The realization comes with the world rendering itself in bright flashes as he’s stunned, then a blinding pain that keeps him down.
He’s not sure how the rest of the fight plays out, only remembering Yousuke dropping next to him after the guy is out and pulling his emergency first aid from his pouch so he can apply gauze and tape across the bullet wound.
“Get my bag,” he croaks out, and Yousuke complies with a small comment about how even now he’s demanding, grabbing the black bag before lifting Sakuya and running back out. As they get closer to ground floor, there’s most sounds of struggle, and they run into the main room just as Izumo shoots down the last guy.
“Holy shit,” Izumo says as soon as he sees Sakuya’s body, “The hell are you still doing here, Yousuke? Hurry and get out!”
“On it,” Yousuke grins as he runs out the room, and Sakuya can feel Izumo’s worry past all the snapping anger. He’s certainly in for a lecture once they get home.
“Like, yesterday!”
Yousuke keeps mumbling encouragements for them both as he runs. The two of them make it about halfway to the rendezvous point when Sakuya’s earlier realization returns like a forest fire burning through him alongside the two gunshots, and he struggles to sit up in Yousuke’s arms, interrupting the older man.
“Woah!” Yousuke stops to shift his hold, mindful of Sakuya’s pained hisses. “Hold still! We’re almost there.”
“I gotta tell you something,” Sakuya manages between his teeth.
“Can you tell me while I’m running?” Yousuke asks as he takes off again. He’s been trying his best not to show how worried he is, so Sakuya accepts it.
“You’d better listen though,” he says, leaning his head back against Yousuke’s chest because just sitting up seems to have drained him of whatever energy he had after taking those two and a half bullets.
“I’m listening,” Yousuke says, which is a damn lot more reassuring than his continuous muttered “You’ll be alright”s.
“I didn’t get to tell you guys before, but.” He stops for a moment to gather himself as the pain pulses, and that’s where Yousuke chooses to butt in.
“Don’t talk like you’re dying.” He’s out of breath from running while carrying him, but he’s still choosing to talk to Sakuya. It’s a bit of warmth in Sakuya’s chest in the middle of the too-hot, too-cold of pain, and he reminds himself exactly why he needs to say this.
“Don’t tell me how to talk,” he says though, because even now his pride still continues to rear its ugly head. He takes a deep breath and ignores the dull prod of his ribs so he can speak again. “Just. Tell the others that I’m.” He loses his train of thought, forgets what word he wants to use for a moment as the light-headedness fills his body and he lets his eyes close.
“Sakuya? Sakuya, please don’t die.” Yousuke’s voice is almost frantic, and Sakuya forces his eyes to open again.
“I’m not. Don’t count me out so easily.” It takes another moment for him to remember what word he’d been thinking of, and another to steel himself into saying it despite the insistence of otherwise from his proud conscience, which is long enough for Yousuke to reach the place where they’re to wait for the helicopter. “I’m happy, that you all are my friends.”
“Sakuya, I’m glad you feel that way, but please stop talking like you’re dying. Please.” He smiles despite everything at Yousuke’s pleading tone.
“Tell them,” he says. His eyes shut as the sound of a helicopter steadily gets louder through the haze of his mind, and then he passes out.
“And then he smiled! It was scary!” He hears, muffled and covered slightly by a monotonous beeping. “I thought he was going to die!”
“Who’s dying here?” he wants to ask, but talking means moving and his body is convinced that doing anything right now is too much.
“Did he really say that, though?” a higher voice asks, curious.
“Well, we can ask him once he wakes up.” There’s a light calmness in that voice that he’ll always recognize as a beacon during the chaos of combat. Yuuri.
“You can ask him after I’m done.” That’s Izumo, and Sakuya’s lips pull up again remembering the certainty of Izumo’s angry rant. That means he made it, he’s in the infirmary now and… well, he’s told Yousuke already, and judging by the conversation, Yousuke followed through and told everyone else.
His pride flares up at the thought of not even being able to say the words himself, especially now that he lived. He washes it out with the relief of knowing that they now all know that much, no matter how embarrassing it is. Since he’s still alive, the rest of what he wants to say can come later. He can yell at them later too, both for assuming he’d die and for not being prepared for death despite their lives on the battlefield. The darkness that returns lapping at his consciousness is a bit less overbearing than the scorching urgent heat of before.
---
This is a bit on the embarrassing side of old at this point, but I wanted to move my fanfics over to here as well.
This is also part of my Casts, Murders, Convocations series, which is a Special Ops type AU I've got going /o/
Title from song Hibana, translated by Forgetfulsubs.
Tags: Algeki, Gen, Angst, Special Ops AU
Word count: 2k
Unbeta'd.
Finish date: 2/21/18
Can also be read on AO3 here!
---
It was a dumb mistake. He figured that he would be fine this far from the battlefield, shooing Hijiri off as soon as he heard the gunshots signaling Ritsu’s cover has been blown. The information just needs a moment longer when the sound of footsteps echoing from around the corner of the hall tells him his spot has also been found.
Readying his gun, he puts himself in a defensive position, eyeing the status on the monitor behind him. He’s not that good at hand-to-hand, preferring to stay out of the action when possible, either behind the trigger or behind a screen and some wires, but there’s not many choices right now. He needs to buy himself some time, just a bit more time.
“I could send Rigel in,” Tatsuhiko had said over the comms when the shooting started.
“We’ll be fine,” he’d said as he sent Hijiri off to rescue the smallest. Yuuri and Mikado were most likely off radio, for he knows they would have stopped him and his stupid pride if they had heard.
“Sakuya, are you sure?” Tatsuhiko gave him one final chance.
“Yes, I’m sure,” he grounded out.
He regrets it now that the shooting hasn’t stopped, Mikado’s steady voice directing everyone on the field as they try to fight back, and there’s multiple footsteps heading in his direction. There isn’t much in the room, but he pushes a bookshelf in as a barricade.
“Bring in Rigel,” Yuuri instructs, always trusted to give the right call where Sakuya can’t. That’s why they’re friends, he thinks, and it hits him at the same time the first hit against the door comes.
He’d insisted in the beginning that his relation with all of them is merely professional, that he has nothing attached to any of them besides their jobs placing them on the same team. It was a precaution, he had said, keeping them all at arm’s distance. The jobs they have are no stranger to death, and he’d be damned if something like friendship and feelings got in the way of him doing his job well.
He’d call becoming friends with them a mistake too, except it isn’t really. He doesn’t regret any of it at least. Somewhere along the way, he started appreciating the knowledge that they all had his back. Their fussing over him had been annoying, but then he started worrying over them too, and it wasn’t so bad anymore.
There’s a lot he hasn’t told them though, about himself and about how he feels for them, and he remembers now why he didn’t want to make friends. At the third bang, the bookshelf is knocked over, and he’s trying to shoot them off before they get closer because there’s way too many for him to handle with his shitty combat skills.
“Sakuya, status.” There’s a bit of distortion from the comms, but he can still hear Mikado’s worry at the sound of gunfire from the hacker.
“I got found. There’s at least five of them,” he says, not sure if there’s more in the hall and not willing to check, not when the first guy’s managed to reach him and it’s taking all he has to block and dodge.
“Yousuke’s coming for you.” Well, damn. Looks like they had Rigel on standby despite his earlier protests. He’d be mad, but that was indeed a shitty call he made, and if he survives he’ll definitely own up to it. He owes them that much, for all the times he’s blamed the others for a mission gone wrong, for all the times he really should’ve stayed by their sides in the infirmary after a close call and he’d convinced himself that he shouldn’t bother because there was nothing between them. He owes them, as both a teammate and a friend.
He manages to take down the first guy, but the second guy’s faster and manages to get in a few extra hits. His ribs are aching when he notices there’s a guy at the door holding out a gun, and then he’s pushing forward, knocking back the guy in front of him and pulling away just in time for the bullet to graze his shoulder. He pushes on, getting in a good hit and knocking the guy out.
The gun clicks ready again and he grabs the next guy and throws him towards the one at the door with the gun, desperately trying to keep them away until either the information’s done and he can get out, or Yousuke comes. Hopefully the former, his cursed pride whispers, and the idea of needing to be rescued from his high tower like a princess doesn’t sit well on his stomach, so when he sees from the corner of his eyes that the information’s been fully loaded, he kicks down the guy directly in front of him and does his best to send the other two about to crowd in as far back as possible so he can pull his stuff out and get the hell out of this stuffy room.
Over the whirr of the computer comes the sound of the bullet driving into the wall, but then the gun’s cocking and he’s on his feet despite there being two guys between him and the one holding the gun, two guys he knows he can’t power through, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t at least try. The stuff’s all in his bag now at least, and he measures his steps so he can kick it away during the fight. It costs him a hit, and his shoulder stings like a swarm now, but he’ll be damned if the information doesn’t get to the others. Whether he dies or not, he’ll make sure his job is done.
The first shot hits his leg, and he makes sure to take the other guy down with him as he falls. His leg burns. He tries to get in a good hit to knock the guy out when a punch lands on his face, and then there’s two guys taking advantage of his sloppiness with some kicks.
“Who sent you here?” a low voice growls. A hand in his hair pulls his head up, and he feels the cold edge of a knife pressed against his too-warm throat, that accursed gun cocking again as it presses against he back of his head. His entire body burns, the world shifting and stretching weirdly as he tries to breathe, ribs protesting at the harsh breaths.
The hand in his hair grips harder, the knife and the gun pushing further against him as he doesn’t bother answering, instead just focusing on breathing and trying to think of a way to at least get his stuff out. There’s an answering crash from the door, and his ribs protest as he gets thrown off to the side in favor of facing the new intruder.
His vision swims, but he can make out Yousuke’s place in the fight, eyes pinning down orange hair and strong biceps. His fingers wrap around his own gun, and he takes slow, careful aim, hitting the one about to try knocking into Yousuke from behind. Yousuke finishes off the other guy, and Sakuya’s about to believe they’d be getting out of this alive when he remembers that this last guy is also the one with the gun. The realization comes with the world rendering itself in bright flashes as he’s stunned, then a blinding pain that keeps him down.
He’s not sure how the rest of the fight plays out, only remembering Yousuke dropping next to him after the guy is out and pulling his emergency first aid from his pouch so he can apply gauze and tape across the bullet wound.
“Get my bag,” he croaks out, and Yousuke complies with a small comment about how even now he’s demanding, grabbing the black bag before lifting Sakuya and running back out. As they get closer to ground floor, there’s most sounds of struggle, and they run into the main room just as Izumo shoots down the last guy.
“Holy shit,” Izumo says as soon as he sees Sakuya’s body, “The hell are you still doing here, Yousuke? Hurry and get out!”
“On it,” Yousuke grins as he runs out the room, and Sakuya can feel Izumo’s worry past all the snapping anger. He’s certainly in for a lecture once they get home.
“Like, yesterday!”
Yousuke keeps mumbling encouragements for them both as he runs. The two of them make it about halfway to the rendezvous point when Sakuya’s earlier realization returns like a forest fire burning through him alongside the two gunshots, and he struggles to sit up in Yousuke’s arms, interrupting the older man.
“Woah!” Yousuke stops to shift his hold, mindful of Sakuya’s pained hisses. “Hold still! We’re almost there.”
“I gotta tell you something,” Sakuya manages between his teeth.
“Can you tell me while I’m running?” Yousuke asks as he takes off again. He’s been trying his best not to show how worried he is, so Sakuya accepts it.
“You’d better listen though,” he says, leaning his head back against Yousuke’s chest because just sitting up seems to have drained him of whatever energy he had after taking those two and a half bullets.
“I’m listening,” Yousuke says, which is a damn lot more reassuring than his continuous muttered “You’ll be alright”s.
“I didn’t get to tell you guys before, but.” He stops for a moment to gather himself as the pain pulses, and that’s where Yousuke chooses to butt in.
“Don’t talk like you’re dying.” He’s out of breath from running while carrying him, but he’s still choosing to talk to Sakuya. It’s a bit of warmth in Sakuya’s chest in the middle of the too-hot, too-cold of pain, and he reminds himself exactly why he needs to say this.
“Don’t tell me how to talk,” he says though, because even now his pride still continues to rear its ugly head. He takes a deep breath and ignores the dull prod of his ribs so he can speak again. “Just. Tell the others that I’m.” He loses his train of thought, forgets what word he wants to use for a moment as the light-headedness fills his body and he lets his eyes close.
“Sakuya? Sakuya, please don’t die.” Yousuke’s voice is almost frantic, and Sakuya forces his eyes to open again.
“I’m not. Don’t count me out so easily.” It takes another moment for him to remember what word he’d been thinking of, and another to steel himself into saying it despite the insistence of otherwise from his proud conscience, which is long enough for Yousuke to reach the place where they’re to wait for the helicopter. “I’m happy, that you all are my friends.”
“Sakuya, I’m glad you feel that way, but please stop talking like you’re dying. Please.” He smiles despite everything at Yousuke’s pleading tone.
“Tell them,” he says. His eyes shut as the sound of a helicopter steadily gets louder through the haze of his mind, and then he passes out.
“And then he smiled! It was scary!” He hears, muffled and covered slightly by a monotonous beeping. “I thought he was going to die!”
“Who’s dying here?” he wants to ask, but talking means moving and his body is convinced that doing anything right now is too much.
“Did he really say that, though?” a higher voice asks, curious.
“Well, we can ask him once he wakes up.” There’s a light calmness in that voice that he’ll always recognize as a beacon during the chaos of combat. Yuuri.
“You can ask him after I’m done.” That’s Izumo, and Sakuya’s lips pull up again remembering the certainty of Izumo’s angry rant. That means he made it, he’s in the infirmary now and… well, he’s told Yousuke already, and judging by the conversation, Yousuke followed through and told everyone else.
His pride flares up at the thought of not even being able to say the words himself, especially now that he lived. He washes it out with the relief of knowing that they now all know that much, no matter how embarrassing it is. Since he’s still alive, the rest of what he wants to say can come later. He can yell at them later too, both for assuming he’d die and for not being prepared for death despite their lives on the battlefield. The darkness that returns lapping at his consciousness is a bit less overbearing than the scorching urgent heat of before.
---
This is a bit on the embarrassing side of old at this point, but I wanted to move my fanfics over to here as well.
This is also part of my Casts, Murders, Convocations series, which is a Special Ops type AU I've got going /o/
Title from song Hibana, translated by Forgetfulsubs.