152. (fic) soulxsoul, ch.11 and epilogue
title: soulxsoul, ch.11 and epilogue
rating/genre: pg; au (sci-fi), drama, romance
pairing(s): ohmiya, sakuraba
words: 5,042
summary: nino doesn't think he's crazy, but he doesn't tell anyone about satoshi anymore. because how could you tell anyone that you have another person living in your body?
disclaimer: FICTION.
notes: finished. for really real. read on for the dramatic conclusion...
Chapter 1| Chapter 2| Chapter 3| Chapter 4| Chapter 5| Chapter 6| Chapter 7| Chapter 8| Chapter 9>|Chapter 10
“Shifters alter their surroundings-things, objects, never people,” Ikuta is saying. “But the Host isn’t really a person, it is an object, and as such, can be Shifted.”
“But why does it have to be me?” Jun asks.
They are back down in the clinic, or the office, or whatever it is, the same place Jun found himself when he woke up after being taken from the apartment. On the second floor, the rooms lose the police station feel of the upper floor and are homier-the one they are in now looks something like a home office or library, with drab wallpaper and overstuffed armchairs. Jun is seated across from Sho, with Aiba hovering nervously, hopefully.
The deal Johnny struck with them is still ringing in Jun’s ears.
“You all retain your abilities and work for me. Field agents, as it were-you can go back to your lives, receive training with us in the meantime, and help with any situations that arise that require your particular skills. In exchange I can of course pay you, but more importantly, I can supply Vessels for the two of you currently without corporeal form.”
“Um, sir,” Sho had said, “I don’t really…have a life to go back to.”
“I’d thought of that, yes,” Johnny had replied. “Satoshi-kun, too, suffers that same unique problem. But, we have people here who can create backgrounds for you, at least enough to get by, assuming you don’t get yourselves arrested or anything like that.”
“What if we don’t want to take the deal?” Jun had asked, finding all eyes turned to him again.
Johnny had watched him thoughtfully for a moment before replying. “For you, it would only mean the loss of your abilities. Not such a great thing to lose, perhaps?”
Strangely, Jun had had no answer to that.
“But, wait, how will we get bodies?” Sho had pressed. “I thought you said there were none.”
“I said the agents never knew how to make a living Vessel,” Johnny corrected. “I didn’t say it couldn’t be done.”
The problem had arisen when Johnny had explained just how it was possible. And that is the very problem Jun is dealing with now.
“I don’t think I can,” Jun says. “I mean, I don’t even-today was the first time I’ve ever ‘Shifted’ in my life! Can’t someone else do it? What about Kimura?”
Ikuta gives Jun a dry smile. “I think it’s become fairly obvious that he is not the most trustworthy or stable of our agents. And unfortunately, he was the only Shifter of any real talent we had. Before you.”
“But…” Jun says again. Before he can try for another argument, Aiba moves to kneel beside his chair.
“Please,” he says quietly. “Please, Jun-kun, just try. I think you can do it, I really do.”
Jun holds Aiba’s pleading gaze for a moment, then looks towards Nino for some help, but the other man is across the room and backed into a corner, worrying his thumbnail in this teeth and looking uncertain about the whole thing. He shrugs, and Jun turns back to Aiba.
“But I don’t know how,” Jun insists.
“You’ve been doing a pretty good job so far for someone who doesn’t know how,” Ikuta points out, and Jun glares at him. He holds up his hands, placating. “What did you do before? How did you make those things happen?”
“I don’t know,” Jun sighs. “I just…really wanted them to, I guess.”
Ikuta nods. “It’s about willpower, I think. And a certain amount of…faith, maybe. That something can become something else, that it has the potential to do so.”
“Right,” Jun says on another sigh. He wonders, not for the first time tonight, if this isn’t all just some bizarre dream. Maybe he fell asleep in the middle of writing his term paper and is drooling all over his keyboard right now. Honestly, it’s too surreal for him to even argue it anymore, so he just shrugs and holds his hands out to Sho, palms up.
“Give me your hands,” he says. Sho looks hesitant. “I know, I won’t be able to feel them, just…let me try this.”
So Sho complies, laying his hands atop Jun’s, and it is one of the strangest sensations Jun has ever experienced. There really is no feeling, no warmth, no solidity, nothing, like his own hands have gone numb. He tries to do what he did before, tries to want Sho to be alive, to have substance. Putting his thoughts into words had seemed to help before, so he does it again now.
“Live,” he says, with as much force as he can muster.
Several long moments pass, but nothing happens. Sho’s hands remain as untouchable as ever, and Jun can see the disappointment in his eyes, and Aiba’s, when he turns his head to look down at him, still crouched next to Jun’s chair.
“You have to want it, right?” Aiba murmurs, though he’s looking at Sho. “You have to really want it. Maybe,” and he comes to stand behind Jun, placing his hands on Jun’s shoulders. “Maybe I can help.”
“What-?” Jun begins, but Aiba’s grip tightens reassuringly.
“I’m going to help you remember now,” he says. “Remember Sho-chan.”
“Oh. Okay,” Jun says, uncertain. He stays facing forward, looking at Sho, gripping hands that he can’t feel, and at first that’s all. It’s just the quiet of the room, and everyone watching him still, and he thinks maybe this isn’t going to work either.
But then, something happens. It begins to come back to him, like a memory forgotten until it is triggered by a certain smell, or a song, or a place-something unlocks inside him, and the memories flow from that place in a rush.
-first time they meet, and Sho helps him fix the flat tire on his bike- on the soccer field and thinking Sho looks so cool, and Jun is only thirteen but Sho still talks to him like-throws his head back and laughs and laughs and claps his hands like he can’t contain-never being anywhere near the top of the class until Sho starts tutoring him after school-and Sho is everything Jun wants to be, everything he can’t be and Jun knows that he is maybe too adoring, too annoying, but-gets angry sometimes, really angry, but he never takes it out on Jun, on any of them-Sho coughing, coughing so hard he’s crying with the force of it, Jun doesn’t know what to do-smiles when he says, “I’ll get better soon”-it breaks Jun’s heart to hear Sho say he is scared of this, of anything, and Jun wants-when Sho goes limp under his hands, but Jun catches him, cradles him, cries and cries and cries because he can’t stop-
Jun gasps out of the vision like waking from a falling-dream, and his hands tighten around the place where Sho’s hands should be. He knows with a conviction he doesn’t understand that what he just saw was real, and he holds onto it, uses it.
“I remember you,” he says, and sees Sho’s eyes widen. There’s something there that Jun recognizes, a shimmer of deep affection, and he puts all his willpower into the idea of Sho alive, of this numbness becoming feeling. He imagines warmth, a heartbeat in Sho’s wrists where Jun’s hands are clasped and that beat, that blood, running through his whole body and into his heart. He imagines lungs pumping air, and the solidness of bones under muscle and sinew, he thinks of fingernails and kneecaps and the little hairs that stand up when it’s cold. He imagines skin, touch, feeling, being.
“Live,” he says again, and hears the note of pleading in his own voice.
He doesn’t know if it happens slow or all at once, and for a while does not realize the warmth under his hands is more than just his imagining and wanting. But then he feels Sho’s grip tighten, blood and bones and warmth and skin, and lets go in shock.
Sho is still staring down at his hands. After a long moment, he turns them over, curls his fingers closed, open, seeming utterly fascinated by the process. And something is different, somehow Sho looks more substantial-there’s a weight to him, a richness to the tone of his skin that Jun had not noticed missing before. Sho drops his hands to his knees, squeezes, and then takes a sudden deep breath, like he had forgotten to keep breathing during the past few minutes. When he exhales, the sound gets lost somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and when he looks back up at Jun, his eyes are shining and damp.
But, Jun realizes, Sho is not looking at him, but past him. He remembers suddenly that Aiba is still standing behind him, and feels Aiba’s hands trembling against his shoulders.
“Sho-chan,” Aiba says quietly, mostly a question. Sho opens his mouth to reply but nothing comes out, so instead, he just raises a hand. Slowly, looking scared and hopeful all at once, Aiba comes around to stand in front of Sho and reach for his hand. When his fingers meet real, warm flesh, his grip tightens and he moves his free hand up to touch Sho’s face, to feel the tears there, and then they are collapsing into a fierce, awkward hug that ends up on the floor.
Jun watches all of this silently, at something of a loss. Looking at Sho now he feels like he’s just found a friend he hasn’t seen in years, a best friend maybe, but he knows in his head that Sho and Aiba are strangers, in this lifetime. He also knows that he can’t imagine what this means for them, what it feels like, and he should step back and let them have their moment. But then they are both reaching for him and pulling him into the crush and where he would usually struggle free, he lets it happen. Something about it feels good, needed, missed.
When he looks back to Nino over Sho’s shoulder, Nino is just staring and staring at them. His arms are wrapped around his middle in a way that almost looks unconscious, like an embrace, like he’s not aware he’s doing it.
But then, Jun thinks, Nino might not be the one doing it.
*
It worked.
Nino thinks it to Satoshi, like Satoshi can’t see it, like he isn’t watching just as avidly as Nino. Something in him pricks with unreasonable jealousy at the sight of Jun hugging Sho and Aiba, but it passes quickly, overwhelmed like everything else by the thought that, soon, it will be Satoshi in a body of his own.
For a moment, Nino has to close his eyes, close out everything else but Satoshi. Ever since last night, Satoshi’s presence in his mind and body has been nearly all-consuming, more open then ever before. He knows Satoshi needs a body, and Nino wants him to have one, but he also knows it means never having this kind of closeness ever again.
He feels reassurance like a warm breath against his skin, and Satoshi doesn’t have to say everything will be okay for Nino to know he’s thinking it.
You’re so sure, Nino thinks like a sigh, how can you always be so sure?
Because we’ll still be together. A thoughtful pause. All of us, this time.
Nino opens his eyes again, just in time to see Sho coming towards him before Nino is pulled into a hug. It takes his breath away, not just because of how tight Sho is holding him, but because Sho really is there-warm and solid and smelling so strangely familiar. Nino finds himself hugging back and thinking about all of them, together. Finds himself thinking that maybe it will be okay.
“Kazu,” Sho says into his shoulder-and it’s a little shock, because Nino had forgotten, is suddenly remembering, that they all used to call him that, not just Satoshi. “It’s good, Kazu, it’s…” But Sho trails off, apparently unable to really express what he’s feeling.
“You can just call me ‘Nino’,” Nino says on a little laugh. “Most people do, nowadays.”
“Sure,” Sho agrees, pulling back. He sniffles a little, still a mess of happy tears, and Nino laughs again. “It’s your turn, now,” Sho says.
Nino nods. “I-yeah. Okay.”
Ikuta, who has been standing back and quietly watching everything unfold, ushers them into the next room. It is hard to believe it has been less than a full day since the last time Nino was here. It looks just the same as the first time Nino did this with Sho-the same small room with a curtained window and sparse furniture, the two chairs in the middle of the room, the eerily still Host body, though there is no Transfer machine this time.
Nino pauses in the doorway, his eyes fixed on the Host. After a moment, Jun comes up behind Nino and lays a hesitant hand on Nino’s shoulder, and Nino glances back at him.
“Are you okay?” Jun asks, and Nino gets the distinct impression that Jun is asking both of them-him and Satoshi-and it makes him smile and reach up for Jun’s hand on his shoulder. He only catches the first two fingers, but he holds on anyway.
“Jun,” he says instead of answering the question. “How much did you remember, just now? Was it just Sho, or…?”
Jun’s gaze goes distant for a moment, as he thinks about it. “It’s all connected, I think,” he says finally. “It’s coming back slowly. Bits and pieces. But I remember enough-I know how important this is for you.”
Nino feels his heart swelling and breaking a little at the same time-and Satoshi’s alongside it-at the sincerity in Jun’s voice, in his eyes. Maybe Jun doesn’t know that Nino knows what Jun is giving up with this gesture, but that just makes it all the sweeter.
“Thank you,” Nino says, squeezing Jun’s fingers.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Ikuta murmurs from somewhere behind them.
After another deep breath, Nino steps into the room with Jun close behind. Sho and Aiba join them a moment later, and Aiba is holding onto Sho’s hand like he doesn’t plan to let go. Maybe ever. Nino sits himself down in the chair across from the Host body, then glances up at Jun when the other man speaks.
“So, how do we…?”
“Satoshi-kun will need to be inside the Host before you Shift it,” Ikuta answers. “So, Ninomiya-kun, if you would just-”
“I can’t-” Nino begins with a shudder, a bit more forcefully than he means to. “I-I have to kiss it, right?”
Ikuta nods. Perhaps it is unreasonable now that Nino has seen Sho safely moved to a real, living body, but the Host still makes his skin crawl. Or maybe it’s the idea of Satoshi being that far out of his reach for very long.
“I mean,” he tries again, “could we, sort of, at the same time…?”
“I’ll do what I can,” Jun says after a moment. He walks around behind the Host and lays his hands on its shoulders, a rearrangement of the scene that just happened with Sho and Aiba. He looks up at Nino, and waits.
Nino tries not to hesitate, but it takes a few deeps breaths, a few moments of staring at the Host, glancing at Jun, the others, a few moments of closing his eyes and letting Satoshi tell him everything will be okay again before he can lean forward and press his lips to the Host’s mouth.
Somehow, Nino knows instinctively to part his lips just a little, that a soul rides out on a breath. He feels nothing from the Host and knew he wouldn’t, but it’s just as strange and disorienting as ever, and he squeezes his eyes shut. He does feel Satoshi moving, outward and away, and there is a pull this time like there was last time, but the difference is that, now, Nino is the only one holding on.
It’s okay¸ Satoshi whispers to him, like he is gently disengaging clinging fingers, I’ll be here. I’ll still be here.
Nino cannot reply, cannot voice even in his thoughts, how terrifying this is and how much he wants it at the same time. This closeness is so important, but the memory of real, physical touch is still strong. Satoshi finally slips free, and Nino keeps his eyes closed, pulls back just enough to choke out: “Now.”
He hears Jun gasp and knows if he looked he would see Satoshi looking back at him, shaping the Host’s appearance, but Nino doesn’t open his eyes. After a moment, Jun murmurs something, low, and Nino thinks he can hear the entire room holding its breath.
He feels hollow, gutted, maybe not so shocking as last time because he knew what to expect, but still just as painful. While he waits, he fills the echoing space inside his mind with memories of Satoshi as he was, in that last life-the sleepy cadence of his voice, the soft hairs at the nape of his neck, his crooked smile. Little things that will all be his again, in just a moment, surely. Very soon. What’s taking so long?
Jun gasps again, but Nino can’t be sure why, and he hunches in on himself a little. He won’t, he can’t, open his eyes to a Satoshi he can’t touch, not again. He’ll wait, until he knows for sure.
“Kazu,” says a voice, very familiar and very near. Nino gives a full body shudder, all his hair seems to be standing on end, but he waits. “Kazu, I’m right here.”
And then there are hands against his face, gentle and warm and real, and he lets out a noise almost like a whimper as his eyes snap open.
Satoshi is looking back at him, his eyes bright and liquid and his smile nearly blinding.
*
When they finally find themselves back outside Kitagawa Clinic, the sun is just starting to rise. There is only a faint hint of blue in the strip of sky visible between the tops of the buildings on the deserted street. The air is crisp and seems to burn through Nino’s lungs, but it’s a good burn, like maybe it’s the first real breath he’s ever taken.
He looks to his side, to where Satoshi is standing, and wonders if the other man feels the same. Satoshi’s expression as he looks around is quietly intent, a little smile playing around his mouth. He looks up when Nino squeezes his hand.
“Yeah,” he answers without needing to be asked. He takes a deep breath and smiles a little wider. “Yeah.”
On Satoshi’s other side, Jun lets out a tired sigh. “Well,” he says, “and now…?”
“Back to business as usual, I guess,” says Sho, stepping up next to Jun, with Aiba in tow. Aiba has finally let go of Sho’s hand, but he stands close, close enough to occasionally reach out to rest a hand on Sho’s back or elbow, and they keep glancing at each other, as if they are both making sure the other one is still there.
“Johnny said we could keep working here,” Aiba shrugs, bumping shoulders with Sho. “It’s not a bad gig, really. Although I always wanted to be a pro basketball player…”
“Don’t quit your day job,” Nino mutters, and Sho laughs with his head thrown back, like he’s never heard anything funnier. Nino hears Satoshi’s little chuffing laugh.
“Will you?” Jun asks Nino, who blinks in confusion. “I mean, you could work here instead of all those random part time jobs you’re always complaining about.”
“Hell no!” Nino retorts, adding a “No offense,” for Sho and Aiba. “If it’s all the same to you guys, I’m planning to stay off ASD premises until Johnny makes us come back for one of his secret missions or whatever.”
“I might have to come back just to remind myself this was all actually real,” Jun says, glancing back at the sign over the door behind them. “Although I guess I’ll have proof of that living in my own apartment.”
Nino exchanges a quick look with Satoshi, and they both know this is a tricky situation. “Is it okay?” Nino asks, leaving the question vague so Jun can interpret it how he wants.
Jun looks down at his feet, back up again with an earnest nod. “It’s fine. For as long as you need to. For as long as you want to.”
Before Nino can say anything, Satoshi reaches over with his free hand and catches Jun’s. “Thank you,” he says with a smile.
The younger man looks stunned for a moment, but then he smiles back. A little awkwardly, maybe, but he smiles and doesn’t drop Satoshi’s hand right away.
“How about you?” Aiba asks Jun. “After you finish school?”
Jun ponders that for a moment, watching the metal doors of the tofu shop across the street go up. “Well, I was thinking about going into show business management, but…if the ASD has benefits and a good pay scale, I could always try out office management.”
Sho laughs again, maybe just leftover giddiness, maybe excess of happiness. Nino thinks maybe they’re all feeling it, even Jun. It’s not just Sho, not just Satoshi being back in a body, there’s something about the five of them together like this, something thrumming in the air around them, full of possibility.
“Satoshi-kun, what about you?” Sho asks a moment later. “What will you do?”
Satoshi looks around, still smiling. Like an echo of their old connection, Nino thinks he can feel Satoshi’s excitement, his overwhelming joy at being able to experience the world again. When he looks back at Nino, at the others, that feeling of possibility is almost tangible.
“Everything,” he says happily. “Everything.”
END
~*~*~*~*~
Epilogue
“Look, mom, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about dropping out of school,” Nino says exasperatedly into his cellphone as he aimlessly paces a messy loft apartment. The sun comes in at a low angle through the row of windows along one wall, casting elongated fuzzy squares of light on the floor through the frosted glass.
“Hey, at least I’m saving money on school loans, right?” Nino pauses in his pacing by the little linoleum-topped table outside the kitchen, straightening the mess of brushes, resin and glue littered across its surface. On the windowsill behind the table, a row of tiny hand-made figurines grin at him maniacally.
“No, it wasn’t a girl, but you’re getting warmer.”
Resuming his wandering, Nino passes a pair of fishing rods propped in the corner, runs his fingers idly over the neck of a guitar in a stand nearby, and over the keys of the electric keyboard next to it. On his way to the curtained-off corner where the bed is, he trips and stumbles over a scrap piece of wood that’s escaped from a pile of the same against the wall. He kicks it back towards the pile, where it causes a minor avalanche that nearly buries a stack of gaming magazines.
“No, you don’t know him,” Nino says, flopping down onto the bed. “Not exactly.”
Outside in the hallway, Nino hears the faint jingle of keys, followed by the rattling lock and the click of the door opening.
“I’ve gotta go, mom. I promise I’ll explain everything later. Love you, too. Bye.”
After hanging up, Nino tosses the phone in the direction of the pillows and throws an arm over his face. He listens to the continued sound of shuffling by the doorway, something that sounds like a bag being dropped onto the couch. The fridge opens and closes, then there’s a soft pad of feet across the hardwood. There’s a smile creeping onto Nino’s face when the curtain slides open a little farther and the bed dips under a weight settling next to him.
“’M home,” Satoshi says.
“Welcome ba-oomf!” Nino’s reply is cut off as Satoshi flops down on top of him, heavy and warm.
“You stink,” Nino opines, even as he savors the good, clean hard-work smell.
“Was dancing,” Satoshi says unnecessarily. Nino knows perfectly well that Satoshi’s been at dance practice, like he always is on Mondays. “Hear anything from Johnny today?”
Satoshi asks this everyday, and like most days, Nino’s answer is just: “Nope.”
They do visit the ASD, of course, from time to time for training-Nino would prefer to figure things out on his own, but they did make a deal and Johnny has been making sure they keep it, even though they’ve only had one or two assignments in the eight months since.
“Got more photos developed,” Satoshi says, sitting up a little and brandishing a packet from the convenience store down the street. “And I brought bread, from the shop.”
“Did you make it, or Yoko? Yours is always better.”
“I made it. You like cheese-bread, right?”
Nino makes an affirmative noise and takes the envelope of pictures from Satoshi-who flops back down across him-and flips through them briefly. These are a bit old, from the summer: there’s all of them at the fireworks festival, several blurry shots of Sho and Aiba in a booth at a badly-lit soba shop, and Satoshi and Jun at the haunted house.
“What a bizarrely normal life we lead,” Nino muses when he’s done, dropping the photos somewhere near his cellphone. “All things considered, I mean.”
“That’s a very good description,” Satoshi says vaguely.
They lie together quietly for a few long minutes, and Nino ponders their bizarre, normal life. For all that he still has mysterious soul-swapping powers and regularly spends time at a secret agency, Nino finds that the patterns of his life really haven’t changed that much. He still works a dozen part-time jobs. He still scribbles away at his score sheets on occasion. He still plays video games until all hours of the night, and tries to call home every other week or so. Although there is one, very important difference.
Eventually Satoshi stretches, running his palms from Nino’s shoulders all the way down his arms till their hands meet and tangle. They breathe out at the same time, moving impossibly closer, and Nino loves this-loves feeling Satoshi pressed into every inch of him, solid and reassuring.
It had been hard, at first, to even let Satoshi out of his sight. Where are you going? What are you doing? When will you be back?-eventually, it had been Jun who had suggested Nino give Satoshi, and himself, a little space. Moving into a new apartment had been even worse: when Satoshi wasn’t there, Nino had been terrified by the silence, lost in the solitude. It took time, but he had eventually learned to appreciate the freedom of singularity, and how much sweeter the coming together was after a long parting.
Here and now, Satoshi presses a kiss into the skin just under Nino’s jaw. It is a question, and Nino turns his head to answer it with his lips against Satoshi’s.
They move together slowly, easily, exchanging short smiling kisses at first, that soon get longer and deeper. It’ll be better, Satoshi had said, once upon a time when doing this had been a past-life memory, a beckoning possibility. Nino hadn’t really been able to imagine it at the time, but then, kissing Satoshi is not something any imagining could compare to. He kisses Nino like every time is the first time, could be the last time, tender and demanding and gentle and overwhelming all at once. His touches are the same, like he’s mapping Nino’s body in his mind, like he can’t get enough even though he’s known it his whole life, longer, for countless lifetimes.
For Nino, too, this is all still new and wonderful-Satoshi’s taste, the feel of him and the sounds he makes, the way they almost seem to bleed together, breathing in, breathing out, as the pace grows more desperate. Soon they are skin to skin, and Nino could swear he feels his own hands tingling with the sweep of Satoshi’s fingers across his back. All the places they come together seem to echo against one another, reverberating and building until Nino is left sweating and panting and trembling on the edge of release.
He looks up at Satoshi above him, close enough to see his own reflection in Satoshi’s dark, dilated pupils. A heated, open-mouthed kiss, and for a moment it’s like he’s looking down at himself from Satoshi’s eyes. For a moment, he can feel Satoshi as close as they used to be, but closer still because like this they are connected in the flesh, too-
Here, Satoshi says, a confirmation. “I’m right here.”
Their hands are still clasped above their heads, and Nino can only tighten his grip and arch his back, pressing his head back into the mattress. The angle changes just enough, and suddenly he is coming, with Satoshi only seconds behind him.
Nino wakes up later, when the light from the windows has moved from the floor to the wall, only realizing now that he had fallen asleep. Satoshi is next to him, breathing deep and even, but they are both clean so Satoshi must not have fallen asleep quite as quickly. Nino watches him in the dusky light, and listens to the faint whistle of air through his nose.
Nino wonders if it will ever stop being a shock, a delight, to be able to look at Satoshi. To be able to touch him, to trace the curve of his shoulder and feel how warm he is. He wonders if this is really so different from just plain being in love.
“I love you,” he tries out loud, softly. He hasn’t said this to Satoshi yet, not since the transfer. He’s still not used to needing to say it for Satoshi to know. But then again, maybe he doesn’t need to.
Next to him, Satoshi smiles in his sleep.
Author's Note: so here we are, a year and a half after i posted the first chapter...and what a long, strange journey it's been ~ ! thank you to the various betas who have helped me through this monster fic, and the many others who just plain listened to me bitch about it ♥ thanks, also, to everyone who has stuck with this through my very untimely updates and empty promises of promptness -_-;; and to those just joining us: welcome! i hope you enjoyed the ride :)
i feel like i ought to say more here, but mostly i am just feeling relief and accomplishment at actually being finished with this. i look forward to hearing your comments - critique is, of course, welcome.
rating/genre: pg; au (sci-fi), drama, romance
pairing(s): ohmiya, sakuraba
words: 5,042
summary: nino doesn't think he's crazy, but he doesn't tell anyone about satoshi anymore. because how could you tell anyone that you have another person living in your body?
disclaimer: FICTION.
notes: finished. for really real. read on for the dramatic conclusion...
Chapter 1| Chapter 2| Chapter 3| Chapter 4| Chapter 5| Chapter 6| Chapter 7| Chapter 8| Chapter 9>|Chapter 10
“Shifters alter their surroundings-things, objects, never people,” Ikuta is saying. “But the Host isn’t really a person, it is an object, and as such, can be Shifted.”
“But why does it have to be me?” Jun asks.
They are back down in the clinic, or the office, or whatever it is, the same place Jun found himself when he woke up after being taken from the apartment. On the second floor, the rooms lose the police station feel of the upper floor and are homier-the one they are in now looks something like a home office or library, with drab wallpaper and overstuffed armchairs. Jun is seated across from Sho, with Aiba hovering nervously, hopefully.
The deal Johnny struck with them is still ringing in Jun’s ears.
“You all retain your abilities and work for me. Field agents, as it were-you can go back to your lives, receive training with us in the meantime, and help with any situations that arise that require your particular skills. In exchange I can of course pay you, but more importantly, I can supply Vessels for the two of you currently without corporeal form.”
“Um, sir,” Sho had said, “I don’t really…have a life to go back to.”
“I’d thought of that, yes,” Johnny had replied. “Satoshi-kun, too, suffers that same unique problem. But, we have people here who can create backgrounds for you, at least enough to get by, assuming you don’t get yourselves arrested or anything like that.”
“What if we don’t want to take the deal?” Jun had asked, finding all eyes turned to him again.
Johnny had watched him thoughtfully for a moment before replying. “For you, it would only mean the loss of your abilities. Not such a great thing to lose, perhaps?”
Strangely, Jun had had no answer to that.
“But, wait, how will we get bodies?” Sho had pressed. “I thought you said there were none.”
“I said the agents never knew how to make a living Vessel,” Johnny corrected. “I didn’t say it couldn’t be done.”
The problem had arisen when Johnny had explained just how it was possible. And that is the very problem Jun is dealing with now.
“I don’t think I can,” Jun says. “I mean, I don’t even-today was the first time I’ve ever ‘Shifted’ in my life! Can’t someone else do it? What about Kimura?”
Ikuta gives Jun a dry smile. “I think it’s become fairly obvious that he is not the most trustworthy or stable of our agents. And unfortunately, he was the only Shifter of any real talent we had. Before you.”
“But…” Jun says again. Before he can try for another argument, Aiba moves to kneel beside his chair.
“Please,” he says quietly. “Please, Jun-kun, just try. I think you can do it, I really do.”
Jun holds Aiba’s pleading gaze for a moment, then looks towards Nino for some help, but the other man is across the room and backed into a corner, worrying his thumbnail in this teeth and looking uncertain about the whole thing. He shrugs, and Jun turns back to Aiba.
“But I don’t know how,” Jun insists.
“You’ve been doing a pretty good job so far for someone who doesn’t know how,” Ikuta points out, and Jun glares at him. He holds up his hands, placating. “What did you do before? How did you make those things happen?”
“I don’t know,” Jun sighs. “I just…really wanted them to, I guess.”
Ikuta nods. “It’s about willpower, I think. And a certain amount of…faith, maybe. That something can become something else, that it has the potential to do so.”
“Right,” Jun says on another sigh. He wonders, not for the first time tonight, if this isn’t all just some bizarre dream. Maybe he fell asleep in the middle of writing his term paper and is drooling all over his keyboard right now. Honestly, it’s too surreal for him to even argue it anymore, so he just shrugs and holds his hands out to Sho, palms up.
“Give me your hands,” he says. Sho looks hesitant. “I know, I won’t be able to feel them, just…let me try this.”
So Sho complies, laying his hands atop Jun’s, and it is one of the strangest sensations Jun has ever experienced. There really is no feeling, no warmth, no solidity, nothing, like his own hands have gone numb. He tries to do what he did before, tries to want Sho to be alive, to have substance. Putting his thoughts into words had seemed to help before, so he does it again now.
“Live,” he says, with as much force as he can muster.
Several long moments pass, but nothing happens. Sho’s hands remain as untouchable as ever, and Jun can see the disappointment in his eyes, and Aiba’s, when he turns his head to look down at him, still crouched next to Jun’s chair.
“You have to want it, right?” Aiba murmurs, though he’s looking at Sho. “You have to really want it. Maybe,” and he comes to stand behind Jun, placing his hands on Jun’s shoulders. “Maybe I can help.”
“What-?” Jun begins, but Aiba’s grip tightens reassuringly.
“I’m going to help you remember now,” he says. “Remember Sho-chan.”
“Oh. Okay,” Jun says, uncertain. He stays facing forward, looking at Sho, gripping hands that he can’t feel, and at first that’s all. It’s just the quiet of the room, and everyone watching him still, and he thinks maybe this isn’t going to work either.
But then, something happens. It begins to come back to him, like a memory forgotten until it is triggered by a certain smell, or a song, or a place-something unlocks inside him, and the memories flow from that place in a rush.
-first time they meet, and Sho helps him fix the flat tire on his bike- on the soccer field and thinking Sho looks so cool, and Jun is only thirteen but Sho still talks to him like-throws his head back and laughs and laughs and claps his hands like he can’t contain-never being anywhere near the top of the class until Sho starts tutoring him after school-and Sho is everything Jun wants to be, everything he can’t be and Jun knows that he is maybe too adoring, too annoying, but-gets angry sometimes, really angry, but he never takes it out on Jun, on any of them-Sho coughing, coughing so hard he’s crying with the force of it, Jun doesn’t know what to do-smiles when he says, “I’ll get better soon”-it breaks Jun’s heart to hear Sho say he is scared of this, of anything, and Jun wants-when Sho goes limp under his hands, but Jun catches him, cradles him, cries and cries and cries because he can’t stop-
Jun gasps out of the vision like waking from a falling-dream, and his hands tighten around the place where Sho’s hands should be. He knows with a conviction he doesn’t understand that what he just saw was real, and he holds onto it, uses it.
“I remember you,” he says, and sees Sho’s eyes widen. There’s something there that Jun recognizes, a shimmer of deep affection, and he puts all his willpower into the idea of Sho alive, of this numbness becoming feeling. He imagines warmth, a heartbeat in Sho’s wrists where Jun’s hands are clasped and that beat, that blood, running through his whole body and into his heart. He imagines lungs pumping air, and the solidness of bones under muscle and sinew, he thinks of fingernails and kneecaps and the little hairs that stand up when it’s cold. He imagines skin, touch, feeling, being.
“Live,” he says again, and hears the note of pleading in his own voice.
He doesn’t know if it happens slow or all at once, and for a while does not realize the warmth under his hands is more than just his imagining and wanting. But then he feels Sho’s grip tighten, blood and bones and warmth and skin, and lets go in shock.
Sho is still staring down at his hands. After a long moment, he turns them over, curls his fingers closed, open, seeming utterly fascinated by the process. And something is different, somehow Sho looks more substantial-there’s a weight to him, a richness to the tone of his skin that Jun had not noticed missing before. Sho drops his hands to his knees, squeezes, and then takes a sudden deep breath, like he had forgotten to keep breathing during the past few minutes. When he exhales, the sound gets lost somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and when he looks back up at Jun, his eyes are shining and damp.
But, Jun realizes, Sho is not looking at him, but past him. He remembers suddenly that Aiba is still standing behind him, and feels Aiba’s hands trembling against his shoulders.
“Sho-chan,” Aiba says quietly, mostly a question. Sho opens his mouth to reply but nothing comes out, so instead, he just raises a hand. Slowly, looking scared and hopeful all at once, Aiba comes around to stand in front of Sho and reach for his hand. When his fingers meet real, warm flesh, his grip tightens and he moves his free hand up to touch Sho’s face, to feel the tears there, and then they are collapsing into a fierce, awkward hug that ends up on the floor.
Jun watches all of this silently, at something of a loss. Looking at Sho now he feels like he’s just found a friend he hasn’t seen in years, a best friend maybe, but he knows in his head that Sho and Aiba are strangers, in this lifetime. He also knows that he can’t imagine what this means for them, what it feels like, and he should step back and let them have their moment. But then they are both reaching for him and pulling him into the crush and where he would usually struggle free, he lets it happen. Something about it feels good, needed, missed.
When he looks back to Nino over Sho’s shoulder, Nino is just staring and staring at them. His arms are wrapped around his middle in a way that almost looks unconscious, like an embrace, like he’s not aware he’s doing it.
But then, Jun thinks, Nino might not be the one doing it.
*
It worked.
Nino thinks it to Satoshi, like Satoshi can’t see it, like he isn’t watching just as avidly as Nino. Something in him pricks with unreasonable jealousy at the sight of Jun hugging Sho and Aiba, but it passes quickly, overwhelmed like everything else by the thought that, soon, it will be Satoshi in a body of his own.
For a moment, Nino has to close his eyes, close out everything else but Satoshi. Ever since last night, Satoshi’s presence in his mind and body has been nearly all-consuming, more open then ever before. He knows Satoshi needs a body, and Nino wants him to have one, but he also knows it means never having this kind of closeness ever again.
He feels reassurance like a warm breath against his skin, and Satoshi doesn’t have to say everything will be okay for Nino to know he’s thinking it.
You’re so sure, Nino thinks like a sigh, how can you always be so sure?
Because we’ll still be together. A thoughtful pause. All of us, this time.
Nino opens his eyes again, just in time to see Sho coming towards him before Nino is pulled into a hug. It takes his breath away, not just because of how tight Sho is holding him, but because Sho really is there-warm and solid and smelling so strangely familiar. Nino finds himself hugging back and thinking about all of them, together. Finds himself thinking that maybe it will be okay.
“Kazu,” Sho says into his shoulder-and it’s a little shock, because Nino had forgotten, is suddenly remembering, that they all used to call him that, not just Satoshi. “It’s good, Kazu, it’s…” But Sho trails off, apparently unable to really express what he’s feeling.
“You can just call me ‘Nino’,” Nino says on a little laugh. “Most people do, nowadays.”
“Sure,” Sho agrees, pulling back. He sniffles a little, still a mess of happy tears, and Nino laughs again. “It’s your turn, now,” Sho says.
Nino nods. “I-yeah. Okay.”
Ikuta, who has been standing back and quietly watching everything unfold, ushers them into the next room. It is hard to believe it has been less than a full day since the last time Nino was here. It looks just the same as the first time Nino did this with Sho-the same small room with a curtained window and sparse furniture, the two chairs in the middle of the room, the eerily still Host body, though there is no Transfer machine this time.
Nino pauses in the doorway, his eyes fixed on the Host. After a moment, Jun comes up behind Nino and lays a hesitant hand on Nino’s shoulder, and Nino glances back at him.
“Are you okay?” Jun asks, and Nino gets the distinct impression that Jun is asking both of them-him and Satoshi-and it makes him smile and reach up for Jun’s hand on his shoulder. He only catches the first two fingers, but he holds on anyway.
“Jun,” he says instead of answering the question. “How much did you remember, just now? Was it just Sho, or…?”
Jun’s gaze goes distant for a moment, as he thinks about it. “It’s all connected, I think,” he says finally. “It’s coming back slowly. Bits and pieces. But I remember enough-I know how important this is for you.”
Nino feels his heart swelling and breaking a little at the same time-and Satoshi’s alongside it-at the sincerity in Jun’s voice, in his eyes. Maybe Jun doesn’t know that Nino knows what Jun is giving up with this gesture, but that just makes it all the sweeter.
“Thank you,” Nino says, squeezing Jun’s fingers.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Ikuta murmurs from somewhere behind them.
After another deep breath, Nino steps into the room with Jun close behind. Sho and Aiba join them a moment later, and Aiba is holding onto Sho’s hand like he doesn’t plan to let go. Maybe ever. Nino sits himself down in the chair across from the Host body, then glances up at Jun when the other man speaks.
“So, how do we…?”
“Satoshi-kun will need to be inside the Host before you Shift it,” Ikuta answers. “So, Ninomiya-kun, if you would just-”
“I can’t-” Nino begins with a shudder, a bit more forcefully than he means to. “I-I have to kiss it, right?”
Ikuta nods. Perhaps it is unreasonable now that Nino has seen Sho safely moved to a real, living body, but the Host still makes his skin crawl. Or maybe it’s the idea of Satoshi being that far out of his reach for very long.
“I mean,” he tries again, “could we, sort of, at the same time…?”
“I’ll do what I can,” Jun says after a moment. He walks around behind the Host and lays his hands on its shoulders, a rearrangement of the scene that just happened with Sho and Aiba. He looks up at Nino, and waits.
Nino tries not to hesitate, but it takes a few deeps breaths, a few moments of staring at the Host, glancing at Jun, the others, a few moments of closing his eyes and letting Satoshi tell him everything will be okay again before he can lean forward and press his lips to the Host’s mouth.
Somehow, Nino knows instinctively to part his lips just a little, that a soul rides out on a breath. He feels nothing from the Host and knew he wouldn’t, but it’s just as strange and disorienting as ever, and he squeezes his eyes shut. He does feel Satoshi moving, outward and away, and there is a pull this time like there was last time, but the difference is that, now, Nino is the only one holding on.
It’s okay¸ Satoshi whispers to him, like he is gently disengaging clinging fingers, I’ll be here. I’ll still be here.
Nino cannot reply, cannot voice even in his thoughts, how terrifying this is and how much he wants it at the same time. This closeness is so important, but the memory of real, physical touch is still strong. Satoshi finally slips free, and Nino keeps his eyes closed, pulls back just enough to choke out: “Now.”
He hears Jun gasp and knows if he looked he would see Satoshi looking back at him, shaping the Host’s appearance, but Nino doesn’t open his eyes. After a moment, Jun murmurs something, low, and Nino thinks he can hear the entire room holding its breath.
He feels hollow, gutted, maybe not so shocking as last time because he knew what to expect, but still just as painful. While he waits, he fills the echoing space inside his mind with memories of Satoshi as he was, in that last life-the sleepy cadence of his voice, the soft hairs at the nape of his neck, his crooked smile. Little things that will all be his again, in just a moment, surely. Very soon. What’s taking so long?
Jun gasps again, but Nino can’t be sure why, and he hunches in on himself a little. He won’t, he can’t, open his eyes to a Satoshi he can’t touch, not again. He’ll wait, until he knows for sure.
“Kazu,” says a voice, very familiar and very near. Nino gives a full body shudder, all his hair seems to be standing on end, but he waits. “Kazu, I’m right here.”
And then there are hands against his face, gentle and warm and real, and he lets out a noise almost like a whimper as his eyes snap open.
Satoshi is looking back at him, his eyes bright and liquid and his smile nearly blinding.
*
When they finally find themselves back outside Kitagawa Clinic, the sun is just starting to rise. There is only a faint hint of blue in the strip of sky visible between the tops of the buildings on the deserted street. The air is crisp and seems to burn through Nino’s lungs, but it’s a good burn, like maybe it’s the first real breath he’s ever taken.
He looks to his side, to where Satoshi is standing, and wonders if the other man feels the same. Satoshi’s expression as he looks around is quietly intent, a little smile playing around his mouth. He looks up when Nino squeezes his hand.
“Yeah,” he answers without needing to be asked. He takes a deep breath and smiles a little wider. “Yeah.”
On Satoshi’s other side, Jun lets out a tired sigh. “Well,” he says, “and now…?”
“Back to business as usual, I guess,” says Sho, stepping up next to Jun, with Aiba in tow. Aiba has finally let go of Sho’s hand, but he stands close, close enough to occasionally reach out to rest a hand on Sho’s back or elbow, and they keep glancing at each other, as if they are both making sure the other one is still there.
“Johnny said we could keep working here,” Aiba shrugs, bumping shoulders with Sho. “It’s not a bad gig, really. Although I always wanted to be a pro basketball player…”
“Don’t quit your day job,” Nino mutters, and Sho laughs with his head thrown back, like he’s never heard anything funnier. Nino hears Satoshi’s little chuffing laugh.
“Will you?” Jun asks Nino, who blinks in confusion. “I mean, you could work here instead of all those random part time jobs you’re always complaining about.”
“Hell no!” Nino retorts, adding a “No offense,” for Sho and Aiba. “If it’s all the same to you guys, I’m planning to stay off ASD premises until Johnny makes us come back for one of his secret missions or whatever.”
“I might have to come back just to remind myself this was all actually real,” Jun says, glancing back at the sign over the door behind them. “Although I guess I’ll have proof of that living in my own apartment.”
Nino exchanges a quick look with Satoshi, and they both know this is a tricky situation. “Is it okay?” Nino asks, leaving the question vague so Jun can interpret it how he wants.
Jun looks down at his feet, back up again with an earnest nod. “It’s fine. For as long as you need to. For as long as you want to.”
Before Nino can say anything, Satoshi reaches over with his free hand and catches Jun’s. “Thank you,” he says with a smile.
The younger man looks stunned for a moment, but then he smiles back. A little awkwardly, maybe, but he smiles and doesn’t drop Satoshi’s hand right away.
“How about you?” Aiba asks Jun. “After you finish school?”
Jun ponders that for a moment, watching the metal doors of the tofu shop across the street go up. “Well, I was thinking about going into show business management, but…if the ASD has benefits and a good pay scale, I could always try out office management.”
Sho laughs again, maybe just leftover giddiness, maybe excess of happiness. Nino thinks maybe they’re all feeling it, even Jun. It’s not just Sho, not just Satoshi being back in a body, there’s something about the five of them together like this, something thrumming in the air around them, full of possibility.
“Satoshi-kun, what about you?” Sho asks a moment later. “What will you do?”
Satoshi looks around, still smiling. Like an echo of their old connection, Nino thinks he can feel Satoshi’s excitement, his overwhelming joy at being able to experience the world again. When he looks back at Nino, at the others, that feeling of possibility is almost tangible.
“Everything,” he says happily. “Everything.”
END
~*~*~*~*~
Epilogue
“Look, mom, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about dropping out of school,” Nino says exasperatedly into his cellphone as he aimlessly paces a messy loft apartment. The sun comes in at a low angle through the row of windows along one wall, casting elongated fuzzy squares of light on the floor through the frosted glass.
“Hey, at least I’m saving money on school loans, right?” Nino pauses in his pacing by the little linoleum-topped table outside the kitchen, straightening the mess of brushes, resin and glue littered across its surface. On the windowsill behind the table, a row of tiny hand-made figurines grin at him maniacally.
“No, it wasn’t a girl, but you’re getting warmer.”
Resuming his wandering, Nino passes a pair of fishing rods propped in the corner, runs his fingers idly over the neck of a guitar in a stand nearby, and over the keys of the electric keyboard next to it. On his way to the curtained-off corner where the bed is, he trips and stumbles over a scrap piece of wood that’s escaped from a pile of the same against the wall. He kicks it back towards the pile, where it causes a minor avalanche that nearly buries a stack of gaming magazines.
“No, you don’t know him,” Nino says, flopping down onto the bed. “Not exactly.”
Outside in the hallway, Nino hears the faint jingle of keys, followed by the rattling lock and the click of the door opening.
“I’ve gotta go, mom. I promise I’ll explain everything later. Love you, too. Bye.”
After hanging up, Nino tosses the phone in the direction of the pillows and throws an arm over his face. He listens to the continued sound of shuffling by the doorway, something that sounds like a bag being dropped onto the couch. The fridge opens and closes, then there’s a soft pad of feet across the hardwood. There’s a smile creeping onto Nino’s face when the curtain slides open a little farther and the bed dips under a weight settling next to him.
“’M home,” Satoshi says.
“Welcome ba-oomf!” Nino’s reply is cut off as Satoshi flops down on top of him, heavy and warm.
“You stink,” Nino opines, even as he savors the good, clean hard-work smell.
“Was dancing,” Satoshi says unnecessarily. Nino knows perfectly well that Satoshi’s been at dance practice, like he always is on Mondays. “Hear anything from Johnny today?”
Satoshi asks this everyday, and like most days, Nino’s answer is just: “Nope.”
They do visit the ASD, of course, from time to time for training-Nino would prefer to figure things out on his own, but they did make a deal and Johnny has been making sure they keep it, even though they’ve only had one or two assignments in the eight months since.
“Got more photos developed,” Satoshi says, sitting up a little and brandishing a packet from the convenience store down the street. “And I brought bread, from the shop.”
“Did you make it, or Yoko? Yours is always better.”
“I made it. You like cheese-bread, right?”
Nino makes an affirmative noise and takes the envelope of pictures from Satoshi-who flops back down across him-and flips through them briefly. These are a bit old, from the summer: there’s all of them at the fireworks festival, several blurry shots of Sho and Aiba in a booth at a badly-lit soba shop, and Satoshi and Jun at the haunted house.
“What a bizarrely normal life we lead,” Nino muses when he’s done, dropping the photos somewhere near his cellphone. “All things considered, I mean.”
“That’s a very good description,” Satoshi says vaguely.
They lie together quietly for a few long minutes, and Nino ponders their bizarre, normal life. For all that he still has mysterious soul-swapping powers and regularly spends time at a secret agency, Nino finds that the patterns of his life really haven’t changed that much. He still works a dozen part-time jobs. He still scribbles away at his score sheets on occasion. He still plays video games until all hours of the night, and tries to call home every other week or so. Although there is one, very important difference.
Eventually Satoshi stretches, running his palms from Nino’s shoulders all the way down his arms till their hands meet and tangle. They breathe out at the same time, moving impossibly closer, and Nino loves this-loves feeling Satoshi pressed into every inch of him, solid and reassuring.
It had been hard, at first, to even let Satoshi out of his sight. Where are you going? What are you doing? When will you be back?-eventually, it had been Jun who had suggested Nino give Satoshi, and himself, a little space. Moving into a new apartment had been even worse: when Satoshi wasn’t there, Nino had been terrified by the silence, lost in the solitude. It took time, but he had eventually learned to appreciate the freedom of singularity, and how much sweeter the coming together was after a long parting.
Here and now, Satoshi presses a kiss into the skin just under Nino’s jaw. It is a question, and Nino turns his head to answer it with his lips against Satoshi’s.
They move together slowly, easily, exchanging short smiling kisses at first, that soon get longer and deeper. It’ll be better, Satoshi had said, once upon a time when doing this had been a past-life memory, a beckoning possibility. Nino hadn’t really been able to imagine it at the time, but then, kissing Satoshi is not something any imagining could compare to. He kisses Nino like every time is the first time, could be the last time, tender and demanding and gentle and overwhelming all at once. His touches are the same, like he’s mapping Nino’s body in his mind, like he can’t get enough even though he’s known it his whole life, longer, for countless lifetimes.
For Nino, too, this is all still new and wonderful-Satoshi’s taste, the feel of him and the sounds he makes, the way they almost seem to bleed together, breathing in, breathing out, as the pace grows more desperate. Soon they are skin to skin, and Nino could swear he feels his own hands tingling with the sweep of Satoshi’s fingers across his back. All the places they come together seem to echo against one another, reverberating and building until Nino is left sweating and panting and trembling on the edge of release.
He looks up at Satoshi above him, close enough to see his own reflection in Satoshi’s dark, dilated pupils. A heated, open-mouthed kiss, and for a moment it’s like he’s looking down at himself from Satoshi’s eyes. For a moment, he can feel Satoshi as close as they used to be, but closer still because like this they are connected in the flesh, too-
Here, Satoshi says, a confirmation. “I’m right here.”
Their hands are still clasped above their heads, and Nino can only tighten his grip and arch his back, pressing his head back into the mattress. The angle changes just enough, and suddenly he is coming, with Satoshi only seconds behind him.
Nino wakes up later, when the light from the windows has moved from the floor to the wall, only realizing now that he had fallen asleep. Satoshi is next to him, breathing deep and even, but they are both clean so Satoshi must not have fallen asleep quite as quickly. Nino watches him in the dusky light, and listens to the faint whistle of air through his nose.
Nino wonders if it will ever stop being a shock, a delight, to be able to look at Satoshi. To be able to touch him, to trace the curve of his shoulder and feel how warm he is. He wonders if this is really so different from just plain being in love.
“I love you,” he tries out loud, softly. He hasn’t said this to Satoshi yet, not since the transfer. He’s still not used to needing to say it for Satoshi to know. But then again, maybe he doesn’t need to.
Next to him, Satoshi smiles in his sleep.
Author's Note: so here we are, a year and a half after i posted the first chapter...and what a long, strange journey it's been ~ ! thank you to the various betas who have helped me through this monster fic, and the many others who just plain listened to me bitch about it ♥ thanks, also, to everyone who has stuck with this through my very untimely updates and empty promises of promptness -_-;; and to those just joining us: welcome! i hope you enjoyed the ride :)
i feel like i ought to say more here, but mostly i am just feeling relief and accomplishment at actually being finished with this. i look forward to hearing your comments - critique is, of course, welcome.