Sensible Heart_Part 3
Title: Sensible Heart
Chapter: 3/4
Pairing: Tora x Shou, implied Tora x Saga
Rating: R to NC-17, for this one, R
Genre: AU sorta, angst
Warnings: male x male, gore, sorta AU, foul language, sex, angst, character death.
Summary: What happens after all that you've ever known is gone? You try to move on, with every fibre of your being.
Comments: I think I'm slowly getting over my angst, very slowly considering how this chapter ends, but there is light at the end of the tunnel :) I see some Vital Signs in my future, don't you worry, its getting there. I have a feeling I will be ending this first though, writing it is like a therapy XD I hope you guys like this chapter.
***
They were walking back to the log cabin, dusk falling around them, their stomachs full of Shizuka's famous cooking, Shou carrying the battery operated flashlight, and Tora a large jar of unfiltered sake that Takuya had made in one hand, his trusty shotgun in the other. It was an hour long walk, but Tora didn't mind it, knowing the path like the back of his hand, taking it twice a day or almost. They walked in companionable silence, grass and branches crunching under their boots, the late summer air balmy and sweet.
Shou had cleaned up nicely, turning the bathwater grey with the dust that had covered every inch of him. His clean hair had waved in a dark brown profusion down to his shoulders, glossy and thick, and his skin had regained that healthy glow that only a good scrubbing with a handful of salt could produce. Some steady meals, and some good sleep would handle the scrawny figure and dark circles under his chocolate brown eyes. He had borrowed some of Tora's clothes, his own way too dirty to wear again. A pair of dark jeans, and a white tee, with a slightly loose, cream-coloured cable knit sweater over it. With his natural good looks, he very nearly made it look fashionable, making Tora chuckle when he took a few silly poses.
Shizuka had been smitten with him. Showering him with attention, making sure his glass was always full, constantly asking him if the food was good, if he wanted more, if he was cold, and then gaping openly when he smiled at her, making her blush and stammer. And making all the men laugh. Hiroshi and Tora most of all, with Takuya being half annoyed, half amused at his wife's antics.
"You haven't told them, have you?" Shou asked, breaking the silence.
"About what?"
"About who you were before all this."
Tora smiled wryly, carefully stepping over a root.
"How can I put this? I didn't want to be treated differently. I didn't want to be put on a pedestal because I used to be famous. I just wanted to help, and they wouldn't have let me if they'd known."
Shou hadn't thought about it this way. But it made a lot of sense. Now that he thought back on it, he hadn't talked about the band very much in Okinawa either, probably because the pain of losing his bandmates was too raw still.
"It makes sense. So, Tora the village doctor, ne?"
The tall man chuckled, remembering the bewildered looks Shou had given him when he had taken the stethoscope out of his bag to examine Shizuka.
"I guess so. I've told them I had no medical knowledge, again and again, but they seemed to think that only a person from the city with some sort of education would be able to do the job. I gave it a try. As it turns out, I rather like it. I'm still learning though."
"All the medical books in your library, that's what its about…"
"I'm just doing what I can to help. They needed someone to handle out medical care, I'm doing my best to fill that void."
"Thats awfully nice of you, and not surprising. You've always been the guy willing to help anyone in need. I've always admired that about you."
"Well, some things never change I guess…And thank you."
"Maybe I could become your assistant, you know. Teach myself some basics…I'm gonna have to make myself useful if I invade your little house like that…"
Tora snorted.
"Remember when we used to live together, back in our Givuss days…This is the same, just that the new rule is 'don't touch my medical equipment' rather than 'don't touch my guitars' simple enough ne?" Tora teased, earning a snort from Shou in response, "And maybe you should learn some medicine too, so you can take care of me whenever I'm sick, and just so I can call you nurse Shou."
"Har har, very funny."
"No really, it sounds great! Doctor Tora and nurse Shou, it would've made a fine tv show I'm sure!" Tora joked, "But really, I'll teach you what I know, and you can assist me. I would love it."
The idea of working side by side with Shou again made him a little giddy. It was entirely different, and the situation was no where near close to what they were doing before, but Tora had a feeling it would work. They already had that instant chemistry that had bloomed the very day they had met, the bonds building themselves right back, just after a few hours together, despite being apart for more than four years. You couldn't destroy a bond like theirs.
***
Shou was a stray pin in the well oiled mechanism of his routine.
As much as he loved having his old friend back, sometimes it drove him up the wall just as equally. Once again, it was a learning curve. It had started the very first night, when he remembered that he only had one bed. It was nice and big, but he hadn't shared a bed with anyone since Saga. He offered to sleep on the floor in the living room, with a thin futon he had used before he had built his own bed, but Shou would have none of it. The bed was huge, they could share it. There went his habit of sleeping in the buff too. He had gone to bed wearing a pair of loose sweats he usually wore in the winter, letting Shou take his only pair of clean boxers, only to find himself naked the next morning, having undressed in his sleep, with the warm length of Shou's nearly naked body plastered to his own.
Awkward, to say the least.
Not to mention that Shou was everything but an easy sleeper. He tossed and turned, kicked, hogged the blankets. He even talked too, often nonsense, but sometimes so clearly that Tora would spend quite a while wondering if the slender man was awake and just messing with him. And he cuddled, squeezing him to death sometimes, making Tora wake, and blush, mortified that he once again found himself being the little spoon, Shou's steady breath tickling his shoulder.
There was the whole complicated matter of bathing too. The times that he woke up to find Shou already in the bath, trying to shave without making too much noise, making them both blush and sputter apologies were becoming too numerous to count.
But there were good things too.
Shou found out that he had a skill for botany and horticulture when he had lost himself in a large tome on medicinal plants, spending hours picking them up in the forest, setting up a complicated network of cuttings to be able to cultivate them indoors. They split up the office in two, Tora's side with all the books and medical equipment, Shou's side cluttered with clay pots, bags of dirt, shears, and wooden racks where he hung herbs to dry. As soon as the winter ended, he would clear a patch of land beside the cabin, and plant all sorts of vegetables, eagerly learning all the russian words for seedlings that he wanted, making the old sailors laugh at his eagerness. They would bring back the seedlings for beets and potatoes, pumpkins and wheat, as soon as the ice melted.
They went fishing and hunting, picked apples and ume plums, spending two days carefully following Tora's grandmother's recipe for umeboshi, that he had committed to memory at an early age. They prepared for the winter.
They were having breakfast together in the library, at the bigger worktable that Tora had built for them a week before, impressing Shou with his woodworking skills, when the first snow fell. Tora was already neck deep in a large illustrated tome on obstetrics. Shizuka was six months along, and he would have to deliver that baby when it came. He wanted to be as ready as possible, to make sure that both mother and child would survive. Besides, there was another pregnant girl in the neighbouring village that he would soon have to start following. One could never know too much. Shou was observing him, sneakily as he ate his rice, pretending to read his own book on horticulture. He absentmindedly peeled his eyes from the beautiful man sitting across from him at the table to look outside, getting up excitedly to stick his nose to the cold windowpane when he noticed the snowflakes drifting down from the sky, welcoming the distraction.
Tora was getting under his skin.
There was no denying it now, that they were alone in this world, without the distractions that their earlier lifestyle had given them. The thing was that Shou had fallen for him the instant they had laid eyes on each other, struggling most of their career to keep his feelings in check when he saw that fond affection between Tora and Saga bloom into love. He'd struggled, his desire for his closest friend's happiness more important than his own, denying himself constantly. When Tora and Saga had joined them at the club after their Budokkan concert, all blushing smiles and stars in their eyes as they shyly held hands, kissing each other lovingly in the darkness when they thought no one was looking, Shou had felt his heart break. He was happy for them, of course, but when he saw Saga slide into Tora's lap, their mouths meeting with such eager tenderness, too drunk and in love to care, he'd had to leave, feigning tiredness, not to burst out in jealous tears. He'd kept it to himself, bottling his sadness deep inside of him, feigning indifference.
But this was entirely different. They had survived the apocalypse, and they had found each other again. And it terrified him to see that his feelings for him had not diminished with the years apart, only finding them more virulent than they had once been. All that time spent together, that unavoidable intimacy, was only making it harder and harder for Shou to keep himself in check. He spent as much time alone as he could without it seeming suspect, going out for hours in the woods, just to keep his mind busy. Just to avoid having to be in that same room, having that solemn, gorgeous, fallen angel sitting across from him, oblivious to the destruction his very being was creating in Shou's mind.
The nights were the worst.
The nights, when moonlight came in through the window, silvering Tora's skin and hair, highlighting the bow of his full mouth, the angle of that strong, masculine jaw. It made Shou want to run his hands all over that pale skin, through that silky hair spread on the pillows like spilled ink. He gave in once. Only once, running the tips of his fingers across his forehead, down his temple, following the smooth lines of his jawbone with bated breath, only to take his fingers away as if burned when Tora sighed loudly in response. Sighed a name.
Saga.
It had made Shou slip out of bed, eyes full of anguished tears as he ran out, desperately trying to breathe the cool night air, failing, panting and coughing as he sat down on the front steps, burying his head in his hands.
He felt a fool for thinking that he could ever replace him. For secretly maintaining that crazy hope that he would be able to fill that gaping void in Tora's heart.
He kept his distance after that night, avoiding spending more time that he had to alone with Tora, sighing with relief when they were invited into town for dinner, welcoming distraction whenever it came. But winter had arrived, and he was forced to spend more and more time indoors, trying to keep busy with his books, mending clothes, caring for his plants that were flourishing beautifully on his side of the office despite the weak light. He felt so relieved when Tora got to work trying to make himself a guitar, a project that demanded so much of his attention that he barely noticed when Shou spent most of his time outside, away.
He noticed when Shou started getting scrawny again, only caring for his plants, spending the rest of his time listless and oblivious, sleeping all day to avoid dealing with his aching heart. He confronted him one morning, Shou looking quite the worse for wear, deep circles under his eyes, cheeks hollow, barely even touching his food.
"Something's eating at you." Tora stated, "How about you spill it and make yourself feel better?" he suggested, casually, hoping that it would be enough to make his friend tell him what the matter was.
"I'm fine."
"I may be older, but I'm not blind yet. You're starting to look worse then when you got here. You're always tired, you barely eat, you don't smile anymore. I think I haven't heard you laugh in the last month…something's wrong. Are you sick?"
Oh he was sick alright, if love could be considered a disease. It consumed him entirely.
Tora reached over the table, trying to feel Shou's forehead, eyes widening when Shou flinched back, pulling himself back just short of his fingers.
"You don't have to play doctor with me, I'm great ok. I'm going out, I need air." Shou blurted, up and shrugging on his coat before Tora could even articulate a reply.
But he wasn't letting him off the hook so easily. Tora stood up too, grabbing onto him before he could open the door, turning the slender man towards him.
"You're worrying me, what's wrong?"
Those amber eyes, so full of honest concern undid him completely. He burst into tears, incapable of even saying anything coherent as Tora enfolded him in the warmth of his arms, the contact loathed and desired all at once only making him sob harder.
"Shou…tell me whats wrong…please." Tora murmured in his ear, with that caressing voice that he would hear in his dreams, uttering the sweetest of endearments.
"Oh…oh…gods I can't breathe…" Shou gasped, overwhelmed, trying to push Tora away.
But he wasn't letting go, not until Shou told him what was devouring him from the inside.
"I can't…I can't…" he panted, breathing so panicked that his vision filled with black and white spots.
He lost consciousness, his entire body going limp in Tora's grasp, engulfed in blissful darkness, and silence.
***
New years day came around.
Shou had been more silent than ever since his "fit", as he himself put it, avoiding Tora even more if that was even possible, guilt devouring him.
They were invited to Hiroshi's house to celebrate, along with a few of other villagers that they were close with, and their russian friends that had chosen to winter in Japan. Shizuka had insisted to prepare all the proper osechi foods, despite the fact that she was getting into her eighth month of pregnancy, enlisting Shou to help her out at the stove while the rest of the men enjoyed a few drinks of Takuya's homemade sake, and a bottle of Hiroshi's prized whiskey, that he kept for special occasions. The talk was loud and merry, and Shou couldn't help himself but feel happier than he had been in weeks as he saw Tora laughing and joking with the others, cheeks flushed, eyes glittering. Once again he had been distracted by the tall man's laughter when Shizuka elbowed him in the ribs, making him notice that he was doing more eager staring than chopping.
"Come on Shou-kun…stop staring at your lover like that, its distracting…" she stated, giggling when Shou turned around to give her a bewildered look.
"He's not my lover…" he hissed, blushing.
She rolled his eyes, lifting the lid on one of the boiling pots to check her soup.
"You two aren't fooling anyone…"
"No…really, we aren't lovers…"
She looked thoughtful for a second, before leaning closer to whisper in Shou's ear.
"Well, if you two aren't yet, it sure looks like Tora would like it very much…if only you saw the hungry looks he's giving you when your back is turned…"
Shou's eyes immediately lifted from what he was doing to look at where he knew Tora was sitting, only to meet those amber gems, full of banked heat and promises. They both broke eye contact at the same time, flushed, grinning like two teenagers with a crush. Shou resumed chopping, Shizuka patting him on the back, proud of her little stunt.
It had been a gamble, but she had gauged right.
It had planted the seed of hope, deep in Shou's heart, and with a bit of careful nurturing, it had the potential to bloom. They'd drank a bit more than was wise, the both of them laughing and stumbling home, holding onto each other not to trip and fall. They had a snowball fight when they arrived at the cabin, started when Shou mischievously, and drunkenly, pushed Tora in a snow bank, running away laughing when the other man chased him, pelting him with snowballs in retaliation. They still hadn't decided the winner when dawn came, tinting the snow with pink and red, orange and yellow, the both of them sprawled on the front steps, wet, cold, exhausted, but the happiest they had been in the past months.
Their dynamic shifted after that night.
Shou had rediscovered his taste for life, and Tora couldn't get that heated gaze they had exchanged out of his brain.
It was like he was seeing Shou for the first time. That sheer beauty that had been under his nose for four months without him really giving it any credit. It permeated Shou's every move, making Tora painfully aware of that attraction that had lay dormant for god knows how long, only to wake up like a ravenous beast wanting to be fed. Shou was gorgeous, and he had been to caught up in his own troubled brain to even notice it.
The tension built between them, sparks flying, breath quickening whenever they touched, even inadvertently. And not so inadvertently when the both of them started finding excuses to touch each other, hands brushing when they both reached for the same thing at the same time, standing side by side when they did the dishes, a little closer than was necessary. The merest contact of skin against skin making them both breathless. But neither made a move, still feeling that invisible barrier between them. Saga.
Tora didn't know if he could share what he had shared with Saga with another, every tender feeling he harboured for Shou, no matter how sweet, still feeling like a betrayal towards his dead lover.
Shou was painfully aware of Tora's hesitation, not daring to breach that barrier himself, not until the raven haired man was ready. And at the rate they were going, they had a long path of teasing touches, too long hugs, and heated looks ahead of them. It was a little disconcerting.
***
It had been one of those nights.
The storm was raging outside, wind and snow buffeting the windows. They had been indoors all day, the both of them trying to focus on their respective studies, and failing miserably.
The air was heavy with tension, the both of them on edge from a mixture of restlessness brought on by the storm, and the fact that neither had enjoyed a good night's sleep, tossing and turning because of the whistling of the wind through the trees outside. Shou started getting fidgety, tapping his fingers on the table as he tried to focus on his reading, the noise driving Tora up the wall.
He snapped his book shut, glaring at Shou.
"Will you please fucking stop fidgeting so much! You're driving me fucking insane!"
Exhaustion made Shou impatient as he rolled his eyes, shutting his own book.
"I can't help it, the fucking storm is making me nervous."
"You could fucking try to accommodate me, godammnit! I need to fucking know this book inside out by next week!"
"Does it look like it's my fucking fault if that fucking storm is making me miserable!"
Tora got up and crossed his arms on his chest defensively.
"Did I say it was?"
"You sure as hell make it sound like it's all my fault!"
Tora frustratedly pulled at his hair.
"Saga never was this fucking sensitive!" he hissed, only realizing he had gone too far when the colour drained out of Shou's face, his features closing up entirely as he stood up from his chair.
"Oh yeah…comparing us now? You're gonna go that fucking far? You've made it pretty fucking clear that I had a fucking chance these past weeks, finally starting to put the past behind us, way to fuck it up…" Shou replied, flippantly, voice full of barely contained frustrated irony, fingers clenching on the table.
The words made Tora's blood boil.
"As if I could just forget! As if you could ever replace him? Its not like you could ever fucking compare to him…" Tora spat, enraged as he walked over to the door, grabbing his coat as he stepped out into the storm, slamming the door behind him.
He never heard Shou's broken reply.
"I never tried…I never fucking tried…"
***
Awww man more angst…one more chapter to go. And Shizuka is a troll, I love her ;) I may also write an epilogue but I'm not quite sure yet. Thanks again to everyone commenting and being so nice :) It never fails to make me smile whenever I see that my work is appreciated…love you all xoxo