JE/NEWS- "Three Days’ Grace"
Title: Three Days’ Grace
Universe: JE ( Gov AU)
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG-13 for violence
Character/Pairing/s: NEWS
Warnings/Spoilers: OOC, bad police procedurals.
Word Count: 3,745
Summary: A short companion piece to “Counting Down”- on the other side of things, Massu and Kusano wait. And endure.
Dedication: I don’t know this is pretty bad. LOL
A/N: I started this as a possible b-day present for cynicalism last Sept and found it again in my unfinished fic folder on Saturday. It was so close to being complete despite the fact that it kind of has no point, so I figured I might as well fill in the one or two blanks that were left and throw it up and be done with it. Consider it a half-fic. LOL
Disclaimer: No harm is meant by this!
Prologue
It’s a flashbang that gets them on this mission.
They’re in the midst of a hasty retreat when it gets tossed into the second story room they’re in; Massu, Kusano, Uchi, and Ryo are all staying back blocking the entrance and laying plenty of cover fire so that Tegoshi, Yamapi, Shige, and Koyama can get to the emergency exit behind them and make it down the fire escape. From there, they’ll hopefully be able to find cover in the surrounding wilderness to regroup.
That had been the plan anyway.
Now there’s a flashbang in the equation, and it changes everything.
When Massu sees the familiar looking black canister come flying through the crack in the door he only has just enough time to push Ryo through the nearest window and out of harm’s way; he thinks Ryo will be okay because there’s a dumpster full of food garbage down below. He remembers that they passed it coming in and he can still faintly smell it from here, even now.
“Flash!” he yells in warning to Kusano as the grenade arcs above their heads. But Kusano already knows; he’s seen it and has already reacted by elbowing Uchi through the emergency fire escape before barricading the doorway with his own body. Massu knows he does it like that because even if the bomb knocks them both out and they get captured, if Kusano sits down there just like that in the meantime, it’ll take two more seconds for their pursuers to move his body out of the way to get through the door, and that means two more seconds on their teammates’ head start to safety.
All of this happens in the span of a breath.
And then, before either of them can properly brace themselves, the grenade goes off.
As it does, and as Massu’s vision and hearing both suddenly fade out in a stunning burst of white and bright, all he can think is that he hopes Ryo won’t be mad at him later, for pushing him into the garbage.
~~~~~
The flashbang gets them for fifteen seconds. That means they’re also down and helpless for fifteen seconds, and while that doesn’t sound like a lot of time it’s just enough to lose a fight in cases like these.
Massu feels it rather than sees or hears it when his arms are grabbed and he’s forcibly thrust up against the nearest wall face-first; some of the splintered wood that resulted from their earlier hail of bullets imbeds itself into his chin and his cheek.
His hearing starts to come back before his vision does, and the first thing he gets treated to is Kusano’s shouting and the angry murmuring of their captors. It’s all followed by something that sounds a lot like a punch and then Kusano’s pained grunt.
Massu wants to say something to his teammate to let him know he’s not by himself, that they’re- at least-here together, but before he can move to speak something metallic and heavy and familiar comes crashing down on him, right at the base of the skull.
Before he passes out, Massu thinks that it sucks to be assaulted with your own gun.
~~~~~
1.
When Massu wakes up he can tell that several hours have passed by how hungry he is; as it is, it’s his stomach that wakes him up and tells him (mournfully) that he’s missed breakfast.
That means it’s mid-morning now as far as he can tell, though he can’t be certain because there are no windows or natural light shining down into wherever dank place it is that he’s been taken to.
“I almost thought you wouldn’t wake up,” a voice says as he starts to blink his eyes open. Massu goes from groggy to alert in an instant because not only is it an unfamiliar voice, it’s not a particularly nice one either. “My men get a little zealous when it comes to taking prisoners. You understand.”
When Massu tries to move he realizes that he’s tied to a chair, the ropes tight around his wrists and ankles and biting into the skin there. He opens his eyes and ignores the voice, looking around for Kusano.
And then he hears a scream.
This time it’s a familiar voice that has the not particularly nice sound to it; Massu feels the muscles in his calves and forearms tighten on instinct when he hears it, like he’s thinking about snapping the ropes tying him down. Instead, they just dig into his skin a little deeper, a little rougher.
The unfamiliar voice laughs next, and when Massu turns his head to the right there’s a man there, who’s standing by the door smiling at him.
“Impressive, it took him two whole hours before he let himself scream once,” the man by the door murmurs to himself thoughtfully. “We thought we wouldn’t be able to crack him. Do you perhaps think that he was trying to stay silent so as not to wake you?”
Massu knows it.
He continues to ignore the man, looking around his surroundings, gaining his bearings, trying to find something to use.
He gets slapped across the face for not paying attention.
“We need to know,” the man says, voice low and right by Massu’s ear, “how much your little failure of a unit discovered while they were in here.” He smiles again. “And either you or your teammate is going to tell us. One way or another.”
In the background, Kusano screams again.
~~~~~
Six hours later, Kusano is still fighting.
Massu sits in his chair, muscles tight and sweat trickling down the back of his neck as he listens, chanting in his head pass out, pass out, pass out over and over again because if Kusano passes out then that means they’ll stop for a while, that they’ll turn to Massu instead because Massu is awake and Massu is fresh.
The door to the outer room opens on a particularly nasty sound and the man from before walks out, wiping blood from his hands with a white handkerchief. “I’m impressed,” he muses, “the whips, the fire, the razors… he won’t let himself close his eyes for even a moment.”
Massu glares and struggles again, the ropes burning into his skin. “He’s had enough!”
“He’s fighting very valiantly to stay awake. I wonder why.”
Massu thinks there are tears stinging the backs of his eyes because he knows exactly why. “Just stop,” he says, more quietly now, like he’s asking a favor.
“All you have to do is talk,” the man says.
Massu hasn’t always been the smartest cadet in the academy, but he knows a lie when he hears one; he knows that if he talks then they’re not valuable anymore and that means they’re dead. And if they’re dead, that also means that the enemy can focus more of their resources on finding his teammates out in those woods somewhere, where they’re undoubtedly hiding, tending their wounds, trying to think of a way to save their captured teammates.
Because they don’t leave anyone behind. It’s what he believes.
“I don’t know anything,” he replies after a beat, honestly. Because he doesn’t; Tegoshi is the one who did all the work at the computer console and even then, they couldn’t have been there for more than thirty seconds before they were discovered.
“That’s too bad,” the man says, clearly trying to gauge the validity of Massu’s answer. Then he smiles again. “I guess your friend really is your only hope then.”
He turns around laughing to himself, before motioning to one of the guards. “I always wanted to try water boarding.”
Massu bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood.
Day one is the worst because day one is spent listening to Kusano’s screams.
~~~~~
Kusano finally passes out sometime late that night; he gets dragged back into the main cell and tied to a chair next to Massu in the cramped quarters. “We’ll resume in the morning,” the guard tells him around a smirk and a lazy yawn, and Massu just glares silently and doesn’t move until the door is closed to the inner cell and they’re alone again.
After the coast is clear Massu turns towards his teammate worriedly; he can’t see too well in this overwhelming darkness but he can see just enough because he’s used to it now. Kusano’s cuts glisten and ooze in a slow bleed and his arm rests is at a funny angle. Massu can smell vomit and blood on him as he slumps in his chair, out cold-finally-but breathing still.
Massu notices all of these things and his chest starts to burn with something like anger with each new wound he finds; he wants to yell at his teammate for being so stupid, wants to demand, “Why didn’t you just pass out?” even though he knows exactly why Kusano didn’t, why he fought so hard all day.
They’re the team protectors, and that goes for one another too.
So he doesn’t yell, instead he shifts his weight towards Kusano a little, maneuvers against the ropes digging into his skin so that he can prop Kusano’s head up on his shoulder.
“They’re coming,” he tells his slumbering groupmate resolutely. “They’re coming so leave tomorrow to me.”
Kusano doesn’t respond, but Massu doesn’t need him to.
~~~~~
2.
Day two begins bright and early the following morning; it starts with the bone in Massu’s left index finger snapping.
He grunts but doesn’t shout and the guard who had brought Kusano back last night laughs at him. “An agency full of tough guys, huh?” he chortles, and grabs the thumb next. “You really won’t talk?”
“I don’t know anything,” Massu replies again, honestly.
His thumb shatters in the man’s hands.
Massu doesn’t scream.
“So considerate,” their captor with the unpleasant voice sing-songs near the back, where he’s sitting, watching the proceedings with interest. “You might as well talk; your team has abandoned you here.”
Massu glares but continues to stay silent; it earns him a punch in the face, right in the jaw.
He spits blood and knows he’s hearing more lies, because if the rest of the team had gotten out of here, then these people would probably be a lot more concerned about disappearing before they returned with reinforcements.
Because Massu knows that at the very least, his team-if not the agency as a whole- believes in never leaving a man behind.
His middle and ring finger break next and he bites his lip hard enough to bleed in order to work through it without making any noise.
He doesn’t want to scream because as long as he’s silent, it means Kusano-if he’s awake-won’t have to know exactly how much it hurts.
After yesterday, after what Massu felt while listening to Kusano get tortured for all those hours, he wants to spare his teammate what suffering he can.
Because his breaking bones somehow hurt less than what he went through the day before, knowing that he couldn’t help Kusano at all.
So for the rest of the day Massu cries a lot- from the pain and the exhaustion and the hunger and the worry- but he doesn’t scream once.
He tells himself that all he has to do is stay awake and stay quiet, while he waits for the others to arrive. A stubborn guy like him can definitely make it, as long as he puts his mind to it.
Several hours later-he thinks it’s nighttime but he’s not sure-his tormentor eyes him in tired disgust and gives up for the night. “Those wounds,” the man says, as he throws Massu back into his cell alongside Kusano, “will hurt more in the morning. We’ll resume then. Probably with your friend.”
Massu manages to crawl next to Kusano in the back of the room, and the two of them huddle for warmth through the night.
~~~~~
3.
When Massu wakes up, it’s because Kusano moves.
Massu’s eyes are gummy when he opens them and the inside of his mouth tastes horrible. His stomach tells him he is three days without proper food; the sounds it makes are loud and plaintive in his ears.
“Are you awake?” Massu hears Kusano whisper weakly, his lip too swollen to move very well. “Are you okay?”
Massu grunts. “I’m awake,” he admits. “I’m okay,” he lies, and thinks that maybe it’s believable here in the dark.
Kusano snorts humorlessly, and upon closer inspection, Massu suddenly realizes that Kusano can’t see at all regardless of dark or light, because his eyes are nearly swollen shut. “My turn today,” Kusano murmurs anyway, face turned towards the sound of Massu’s voice. “Yesterday I thought they killed you.”
“Not dead.”
Kusano nudges him a little, and it’s the weakest touch that the younger agent has ever shared with Massu. “You have to scream. Once in a while, just a little bit,” Kusano murmurs. “Stop being such a tough guy and let it out.”
Massu thinks that Kusano can say things that because he doesn’t know how horrible it is to have to hear your teammate cry out loud like that.
Kusano senses Massu’s hesitation maybe, and pushes on. “You have to scream once in a while, so I know that you’re still alive,” he clarifies. Then, more softly, “Because yesterday, I thought they killed you.”
Massu decides that screaming or not screaming, staying awake or passing out, all of it is bad. All of it makes someone suffer.
He wants to go home.
“My turn today,” Kusano repeats tiredly after a beat, and shakes his head a little to clear it up. “I’ll scream once in a while. When I stop I might be dead.” He smiles lopsidedly.
Massu blinks, opens his eyes a little wider. “It’s still my turn,” he counters, “you can go back to sleep.”
“No fair, you can’t go twice,” Kusano protests. He tries to prop himself up. “That’s cheating.”
“My turn, since I’m older,” Massu insists, pulling rank. He hisses every time he has to breathe and talk at the same time. He thinks he should maybe not make it open to argument anymore, so that they won’t have to talk anymore either. “Close your eyes. They’ll come soon.”
“I’m invincible, remember?” Kusano tells the older agent. “I’ll scream, to let you know I’m alive.”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Massu answers flatly, and squirms a little so that he can prop himself a little higher up against the wall. He pushes his hands-still tied behind his back-as far up as they’ll go. “Close your eyes and dream the rest.”
Kusano looks irate. “Screw that, I…”
Massu uses the wall as leverage and lunges forward. By pushing his arms up like he is, he manages to get his elbow to jut out a little, and he uses it to clock Kusano on the side of the head as hard as he can by whipping his shoulders to the side.
The younger agent promptly slumps to the floor.
Massu’s lungs burn as he falls back against the wall; he thinks he jostled a broken rib the wrong way when he did that.
Tears sting the back of his eyes as he tries to catch his breath again after that, but he doesn’t have time to regret his actions because less than five minutes later, he hears the sound of the cell door unlatching.
When it opens and he sees the shadow of the man with the unpleasant voice enter the doorway holding a cattle prod, Massu thinks that this time he’s probably going to have to scream a little, even if he doesn’t want to.
At least it will let Kusano know he’s alive.
~~~~~
That morning, all of the fingers on Massu’s right hand get broken too. He doesn’t scream for that part because he’s used to it already; in fact, it isn’t until they bring Kusano in and tie him up on the other side of the room that Massu finally finds something painful enough to shout about.
“Please don’t!” is all he manages, before they throw water on the younger agent and he is forced-sputtering-awake.
A moment later Kusano is hit with the tazer, and he screams loudly, at the top of his lungs.
Massu has to look away when he hears it, as he repeats, “Please don’t, please don’t,” over and over again, with as much strength as he has left.
Their captors laugh. “Not so tough now, huh?” they ask on Massu’s heartbroken expression, and prod each of the agents again. “Sounds like it hurts to me. All you have to do is talk and we’ll make it stop.”
“Fuck you, it doesn’t hurt!” Kusano shouts stubbornly at the man torturing him in-between shocks, the younger agent gasping for air. “It doesn’t hurt; it’s just to let Massu know I’m alive. It doesn’t hurt.”
Massu hears him from all the way across the room, even when his voice gets fainter and fainter as the day drags on.
And even though each scream lets Massu know that Kusano is alive, Massu doesn’t think they can take much more of this before they’re not.
~~~~~
But somehow, they manage to live.
Somehow they make it to nightfall, to the end of their tormentors’ shifts and to the sound of the dinner bell outside. They’re alive despite the broken bones and the blood loss and the slight delirium from the pain and dehydration and lack of food or proper sanitation.
They get thrown back into the small cell in the back of the room when the day is over, half-dead but still, unbelievably, half-alive as well. “Enjoy it while you can, agents,” one of their captors sneers at them anticipatorily, “because tomorrow, one of you is going to die.”
Massu doesn’t pay attention to the man or his threats, because right now there’s no time to think about tomorrow. Right now-tonight-they’re still alive.
Cold and wet and hungry and miserable, but somehow, alive.
He takes that for what it is and settles down next to Kusano, taking Kusano’s limp weight against his shoulder.
He does his best to keep them that way.
He tells himself that help is coming. He stays awake waiting for it.
~~~~~
He’s right.
Help comes that night in the form of several loud explosions from the outside, which are promptly followed by gunfire and the sound of the compound’s alarm systems going into red alert. Massu hears it faintly through the walls and thinks that they’re here, that it can’t be anyone else but them.
The rest of NEWS is finally here.
Several minutes later, his great hopes are confirmed when there is a spark and a blast from the other side of the steel door, followed by a muffled voice that sounds a lot like Ryo saying, “Koyama, the hell?!” in a highly agitated sort of way.
When the door opens in the next moment, the first face Massu sees is Koyama’s, looking terrified and lost and on top of all of that, very, very glad to see Massu and Kusano both alive. Massu smiles and thinks he feels as relieved as his teammate. “Koyama,” he breathes in happy greeting, “you’re here.”
And just like that, the last of his strength suddenly leaves his body, and he’s suddenly falling forward, right into Koyama’s arms. “Sorry,” he murmurs softly, “tired.”
All he can think as the world fades out around him is that they made it.
They’re alive.
~~~~~
Epilogue
Massu doesn’t remember much about what happens after that; vaguely he can recall the sounds of Koyama’s voice in his ear and the sound of gunfire, the smell of burning. Then it’s the whirring rotor of the helicopter and the wails of sirens and he’s out again, because his body knows it’s safe now, and his body is too tired to stay conscious when it’s somewhere safe, when it’s somewhere he can rest.
Even after that it’s mostly a blur; he wakes up once after surgery and sees everyone there, sees Koyama’s sad, helpless smile on the other side of his hospital room’s window.
Something about Koyama’s face in that moment makes Massu worry; and before he knows what he’s doing he’s smiling reassuringly at his older teammate and raising his hand. "It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt. I’m alive," Massu wants to say, but doesn’t have the strength to do anything but think those things instead.
When Koyama raises his hand in return and gives Massu a small, relieved looking wave, Massu thinks that his teammate got the message anyway.
He falls back asleep soon after, to the sound of Kusano’s gentle laughter and the quiet, reassuring murmurs of their teammates.
~~~~~
He wakes up the next day for real, without being groggy or in too much pain. Mostly, he is hungry.
When he blinks his eyes open he sees Kusano on the next bed over, happily eating tapioca pudding. “You just missed everyone,” the younger agent says when he realizes that Massu is finally awake. “You missed lunch too. Soup and ham sandwiches.”
“Nngh,” Massu replies eloquently, and earns a laugh from his younger teammate. Massu looks longingly at Kusano’s pudding.
Kusano pretends not to notice. “Nishikido-kun says you owe him dinner once we’re out of here,” he reports, seemingly at random. “I told him I’d tell you so.”
Massu blinks. “Eh? Why?”
Kusano grins around his spoon. “For pushing him into the garbage.”
Massu groans. “He remembers that, ne.”
Kusano laughs. “Yup!”
Massu sulks a little at the thought, and eventually Kusano takes pity on him and tosses him the fruit cup sitting-untouched- on the corner of his lunch tray.
Massu lights up at the prospect and somehow manages to catch the fruit cup between his two heavily bandaged hands; a moment later, he also finds a really effective way of peeling the lid open with his teeth.
Kusano watches him work-clearly impressed at Massu's inherent ability to survive no matter what-and after a minute or so, grins helplessly and raises his half-eaten pudding cup in some sort of bizarre toast. “It’s good to be alive,” he declares, in all seriousness.
Massu looks down at his fruit cup and smiles. “It’s good to be alive,” he agrees, and means every word of it.
He proceeds to have the most delicious fruit cup that he has ever tasted.
END
EDITS?
Universe: JE ( Gov AU)
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG-13 for violence
Character/Pairing/s: NEWS
Warnings/Spoilers: OOC, bad police procedurals.
Word Count: 3,745
Summary: A short companion piece to “Counting Down”- on the other side of things, Massu and Kusano wait. And endure.
Dedication: I don’t know this is pretty bad. LOL
A/N: I started this as a possible b-day present for cynicalism last Sept and found it again in my unfinished fic folder on Saturday. It was so close to being complete despite the fact that it kind of has no point, so I figured I might as well fill in the one or two blanks that were left and throw it up and be done with it. Consider it a half-fic. LOL
Disclaimer: No harm is meant by this!
Prologue
It’s a flashbang that gets them on this mission.
They’re in the midst of a hasty retreat when it gets tossed into the second story room they’re in; Massu, Kusano, Uchi, and Ryo are all staying back blocking the entrance and laying plenty of cover fire so that Tegoshi, Yamapi, Shige, and Koyama can get to the emergency exit behind them and make it down the fire escape. From there, they’ll hopefully be able to find cover in the surrounding wilderness to regroup.
That had been the plan anyway.
Now there’s a flashbang in the equation, and it changes everything.
When Massu sees the familiar looking black canister come flying through the crack in the door he only has just enough time to push Ryo through the nearest window and out of harm’s way; he thinks Ryo will be okay because there’s a dumpster full of food garbage down below. He remembers that they passed it coming in and he can still faintly smell it from here, even now.
“Flash!” he yells in warning to Kusano as the grenade arcs above their heads. But Kusano already knows; he’s seen it and has already reacted by elbowing Uchi through the emergency fire escape before barricading the doorway with his own body. Massu knows he does it like that because even if the bomb knocks them both out and they get captured, if Kusano sits down there just like that in the meantime, it’ll take two more seconds for their pursuers to move his body out of the way to get through the door, and that means two more seconds on their teammates’ head start to safety.
All of this happens in the span of a breath.
And then, before either of them can properly brace themselves, the grenade goes off.
As it does, and as Massu’s vision and hearing both suddenly fade out in a stunning burst of white and bright, all he can think is that he hopes Ryo won’t be mad at him later, for pushing him into the garbage.
~~~~~
The flashbang gets them for fifteen seconds. That means they’re also down and helpless for fifteen seconds, and while that doesn’t sound like a lot of time it’s just enough to lose a fight in cases like these.
Massu feels it rather than sees or hears it when his arms are grabbed and he’s forcibly thrust up against the nearest wall face-first; some of the splintered wood that resulted from their earlier hail of bullets imbeds itself into his chin and his cheek.
His hearing starts to come back before his vision does, and the first thing he gets treated to is Kusano’s shouting and the angry murmuring of their captors. It’s all followed by something that sounds a lot like a punch and then Kusano’s pained grunt.
Massu wants to say something to his teammate to let him know he’s not by himself, that they’re- at least-here together, but before he can move to speak something metallic and heavy and familiar comes crashing down on him, right at the base of the skull.
Before he passes out, Massu thinks that it sucks to be assaulted with your own gun.
~~~~~
1.
When Massu wakes up he can tell that several hours have passed by how hungry he is; as it is, it’s his stomach that wakes him up and tells him (mournfully) that he’s missed breakfast.
That means it’s mid-morning now as far as he can tell, though he can’t be certain because there are no windows or natural light shining down into wherever dank place it is that he’s been taken to.
“I almost thought you wouldn’t wake up,” a voice says as he starts to blink his eyes open. Massu goes from groggy to alert in an instant because not only is it an unfamiliar voice, it’s not a particularly nice one either. “My men get a little zealous when it comes to taking prisoners. You understand.”
When Massu tries to move he realizes that he’s tied to a chair, the ropes tight around his wrists and ankles and biting into the skin there. He opens his eyes and ignores the voice, looking around for Kusano.
And then he hears a scream.
This time it’s a familiar voice that has the not particularly nice sound to it; Massu feels the muscles in his calves and forearms tighten on instinct when he hears it, like he’s thinking about snapping the ropes tying him down. Instead, they just dig into his skin a little deeper, a little rougher.
The unfamiliar voice laughs next, and when Massu turns his head to the right there’s a man there, who’s standing by the door smiling at him.
“Impressive, it took him two whole hours before he let himself scream once,” the man by the door murmurs to himself thoughtfully. “We thought we wouldn’t be able to crack him. Do you perhaps think that he was trying to stay silent so as not to wake you?”
Massu knows it.
He continues to ignore the man, looking around his surroundings, gaining his bearings, trying to find something to use.
He gets slapped across the face for not paying attention.
“We need to know,” the man says, voice low and right by Massu’s ear, “how much your little failure of a unit discovered while they were in here.” He smiles again. “And either you or your teammate is going to tell us. One way or another.”
In the background, Kusano screams again.
~~~~~
Six hours later, Kusano is still fighting.
Massu sits in his chair, muscles tight and sweat trickling down the back of his neck as he listens, chanting in his head pass out, pass out, pass out over and over again because if Kusano passes out then that means they’ll stop for a while, that they’ll turn to Massu instead because Massu is awake and Massu is fresh.
The door to the outer room opens on a particularly nasty sound and the man from before walks out, wiping blood from his hands with a white handkerchief. “I’m impressed,” he muses, “the whips, the fire, the razors… he won’t let himself close his eyes for even a moment.”
Massu glares and struggles again, the ropes burning into his skin. “He’s had enough!”
“He’s fighting very valiantly to stay awake. I wonder why.”
Massu thinks there are tears stinging the backs of his eyes because he knows exactly why. “Just stop,” he says, more quietly now, like he’s asking a favor.
“All you have to do is talk,” the man says.
Massu hasn’t always been the smartest cadet in the academy, but he knows a lie when he hears one; he knows that if he talks then they’re not valuable anymore and that means they’re dead. And if they’re dead, that also means that the enemy can focus more of their resources on finding his teammates out in those woods somewhere, where they’re undoubtedly hiding, tending their wounds, trying to think of a way to save their captured teammates.
Because they don’t leave anyone behind. It’s what he believes.
“I don’t know anything,” he replies after a beat, honestly. Because he doesn’t; Tegoshi is the one who did all the work at the computer console and even then, they couldn’t have been there for more than thirty seconds before they were discovered.
“That’s too bad,” the man says, clearly trying to gauge the validity of Massu’s answer. Then he smiles again. “I guess your friend really is your only hope then.”
He turns around laughing to himself, before motioning to one of the guards. “I always wanted to try water boarding.”
Massu bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood.
Day one is the worst because day one is spent listening to Kusano’s screams.
~~~~~
Kusano finally passes out sometime late that night; he gets dragged back into the main cell and tied to a chair next to Massu in the cramped quarters. “We’ll resume in the morning,” the guard tells him around a smirk and a lazy yawn, and Massu just glares silently and doesn’t move until the door is closed to the inner cell and they’re alone again.
After the coast is clear Massu turns towards his teammate worriedly; he can’t see too well in this overwhelming darkness but he can see just enough because he’s used to it now. Kusano’s cuts glisten and ooze in a slow bleed and his arm rests is at a funny angle. Massu can smell vomit and blood on him as he slumps in his chair, out cold-finally-but breathing still.
Massu notices all of these things and his chest starts to burn with something like anger with each new wound he finds; he wants to yell at his teammate for being so stupid, wants to demand, “Why didn’t you just pass out?” even though he knows exactly why Kusano didn’t, why he fought so hard all day.
They’re the team protectors, and that goes for one another too.
So he doesn’t yell, instead he shifts his weight towards Kusano a little, maneuvers against the ropes digging into his skin so that he can prop Kusano’s head up on his shoulder.
“They’re coming,” he tells his slumbering groupmate resolutely. “They’re coming so leave tomorrow to me.”
Kusano doesn’t respond, but Massu doesn’t need him to.
~~~~~
2.
Day two begins bright and early the following morning; it starts with the bone in Massu’s left index finger snapping.
He grunts but doesn’t shout and the guard who had brought Kusano back last night laughs at him. “An agency full of tough guys, huh?” he chortles, and grabs the thumb next. “You really won’t talk?”
“I don’t know anything,” Massu replies again, honestly.
His thumb shatters in the man’s hands.
Massu doesn’t scream.
“So considerate,” their captor with the unpleasant voice sing-songs near the back, where he’s sitting, watching the proceedings with interest. “You might as well talk; your team has abandoned you here.”
Massu glares but continues to stay silent; it earns him a punch in the face, right in the jaw.
He spits blood and knows he’s hearing more lies, because if the rest of the team had gotten out of here, then these people would probably be a lot more concerned about disappearing before they returned with reinforcements.
Because Massu knows that at the very least, his team-if not the agency as a whole- believes in never leaving a man behind.
His middle and ring finger break next and he bites his lip hard enough to bleed in order to work through it without making any noise.
He doesn’t want to scream because as long as he’s silent, it means Kusano-if he’s awake-won’t have to know exactly how much it hurts.
After yesterday, after what Massu felt while listening to Kusano get tortured for all those hours, he wants to spare his teammate what suffering he can.
Because his breaking bones somehow hurt less than what he went through the day before, knowing that he couldn’t help Kusano at all.
So for the rest of the day Massu cries a lot- from the pain and the exhaustion and the hunger and the worry- but he doesn’t scream once.
He tells himself that all he has to do is stay awake and stay quiet, while he waits for the others to arrive. A stubborn guy like him can definitely make it, as long as he puts his mind to it.
Several hours later-he thinks it’s nighttime but he’s not sure-his tormentor eyes him in tired disgust and gives up for the night. “Those wounds,” the man says, as he throws Massu back into his cell alongside Kusano, “will hurt more in the morning. We’ll resume then. Probably with your friend.”
Massu manages to crawl next to Kusano in the back of the room, and the two of them huddle for warmth through the night.
~~~~~
3.
When Massu wakes up, it’s because Kusano moves.
Massu’s eyes are gummy when he opens them and the inside of his mouth tastes horrible. His stomach tells him he is three days without proper food; the sounds it makes are loud and plaintive in his ears.
“Are you awake?” Massu hears Kusano whisper weakly, his lip too swollen to move very well. “Are you okay?”
Massu grunts. “I’m awake,” he admits. “I’m okay,” he lies, and thinks that maybe it’s believable here in the dark.
Kusano snorts humorlessly, and upon closer inspection, Massu suddenly realizes that Kusano can’t see at all regardless of dark or light, because his eyes are nearly swollen shut. “My turn today,” Kusano murmurs anyway, face turned towards the sound of Massu’s voice. “Yesterday I thought they killed you.”
“Not dead.”
Kusano nudges him a little, and it’s the weakest touch that the younger agent has ever shared with Massu. “You have to scream. Once in a while, just a little bit,” Kusano murmurs. “Stop being such a tough guy and let it out.”
Massu thinks that Kusano can say things that because he doesn’t know how horrible it is to have to hear your teammate cry out loud like that.
Kusano senses Massu’s hesitation maybe, and pushes on. “You have to scream once in a while, so I know that you’re still alive,” he clarifies. Then, more softly, “Because yesterday, I thought they killed you.”
Massu decides that screaming or not screaming, staying awake or passing out, all of it is bad. All of it makes someone suffer.
He wants to go home.
“My turn today,” Kusano repeats tiredly after a beat, and shakes his head a little to clear it up. “I’ll scream once in a while. When I stop I might be dead.” He smiles lopsidedly.
Massu blinks, opens his eyes a little wider. “It’s still my turn,” he counters, “you can go back to sleep.”
“No fair, you can’t go twice,” Kusano protests. He tries to prop himself up. “That’s cheating.”
“My turn, since I’m older,” Massu insists, pulling rank. He hisses every time he has to breathe and talk at the same time. He thinks he should maybe not make it open to argument anymore, so that they won’t have to talk anymore either. “Close your eyes. They’ll come soon.”
“I’m invincible, remember?” Kusano tells the older agent. “I’ll scream, to let you know I’m alive.”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Massu answers flatly, and squirms a little so that he can prop himself a little higher up against the wall. He pushes his hands-still tied behind his back-as far up as they’ll go. “Close your eyes and dream the rest.”
Kusano looks irate. “Screw that, I…”
Massu uses the wall as leverage and lunges forward. By pushing his arms up like he is, he manages to get his elbow to jut out a little, and he uses it to clock Kusano on the side of the head as hard as he can by whipping his shoulders to the side.
The younger agent promptly slumps to the floor.
Massu’s lungs burn as he falls back against the wall; he thinks he jostled a broken rib the wrong way when he did that.
Tears sting the back of his eyes as he tries to catch his breath again after that, but he doesn’t have time to regret his actions because less than five minutes later, he hears the sound of the cell door unlatching.
When it opens and he sees the shadow of the man with the unpleasant voice enter the doorway holding a cattle prod, Massu thinks that this time he’s probably going to have to scream a little, even if he doesn’t want to.
At least it will let Kusano know he’s alive.
~~~~~
That morning, all of the fingers on Massu’s right hand get broken too. He doesn’t scream for that part because he’s used to it already; in fact, it isn’t until they bring Kusano in and tie him up on the other side of the room that Massu finally finds something painful enough to shout about.
“Please don’t!” is all he manages, before they throw water on the younger agent and he is forced-sputtering-awake.
A moment later Kusano is hit with the tazer, and he screams loudly, at the top of his lungs.
Massu has to look away when he hears it, as he repeats, “Please don’t, please don’t,” over and over again, with as much strength as he has left.
Their captors laugh. “Not so tough now, huh?” they ask on Massu’s heartbroken expression, and prod each of the agents again. “Sounds like it hurts to me. All you have to do is talk and we’ll make it stop.”
“Fuck you, it doesn’t hurt!” Kusano shouts stubbornly at the man torturing him in-between shocks, the younger agent gasping for air. “It doesn’t hurt; it’s just to let Massu know I’m alive. It doesn’t hurt.”
Massu hears him from all the way across the room, even when his voice gets fainter and fainter as the day drags on.
And even though each scream lets Massu know that Kusano is alive, Massu doesn’t think they can take much more of this before they’re not.
~~~~~
But somehow, they manage to live.
Somehow they make it to nightfall, to the end of their tormentors’ shifts and to the sound of the dinner bell outside. They’re alive despite the broken bones and the blood loss and the slight delirium from the pain and dehydration and lack of food or proper sanitation.
They get thrown back into the small cell in the back of the room when the day is over, half-dead but still, unbelievably, half-alive as well. “Enjoy it while you can, agents,” one of their captors sneers at them anticipatorily, “because tomorrow, one of you is going to die.”
Massu doesn’t pay attention to the man or his threats, because right now there’s no time to think about tomorrow. Right now-tonight-they’re still alive.
Cold and wet and hungry and miserable, but somehow, alive.
He takes that for what it is and settles down next to Kusano, taking Kusano’s limp weight against his shoulder.
He does his best to keep them that way.
He tells himself that help is coming. He stays awake waiting for it.
~~~~~
He’s right.
Help comes that night in the form of several loud explosions from the outside, which are promptly followed by gunfire and the sound of the compound’s alarm systems going into red alert. Massu hears it faintly through the walls and thinks that they’re here, that it can’t be anyone else but them.
The rest of NEWS is finally here.
Several minutes later, his great hopes are confirmed when there is a spark and a blast from the other side of the steel door, followed by a muffled voice that sounds a lot like Ryo saying, “Koyama, the hell?!” in a highly agitated sort of way.
When the door opens in the next moment, the first face Massu sees is Koyama’s, looking terrified and lost and on top of all of that, very, very glad to see Massu and Kusano both alive. Massu smiles and thinks he feels as relieved as his teammate. “Koyama,” he breathes in happy greeting, “you’re here.”
And just like that, the last of his strength suddenly leaves his body, and he’s suddenly falling forward, right into Koyama’s arms. “Sorry,” he murmurs softly, “tired.”
All he can think as the world fades out around him is that they made it.
They’re alive.
~~~~~
Epilogue
Massu doesn’t remember much about what happens after that; vaguely he can recall the sounds of Koyama’s voice in his ear and the sound of gunfire, the smell of burning. Then it’s the whirring rotor of the helicopter and the wails of sirens and he’s out again, because his body knows it’s safe now, and his body is too tired to stay conscious when it’s somewhere safe, when it’s somewhere he can rest.
Even after that it’s mostly a blur; he wakes up once after surgery and sees everyone there, sees Koyama’s sad, helpless smile on the other side of his hospital room’s window.
Something about Koyama’s face in that moment makes Massu worry; and before he knows what he’s doing he’s smiling reassuringly at his older teammate and raising his hand. "It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt. I’m alive," Massu wants to say, but doesn’t have the strength to do anything but think those things instead.
When Koyama raises his hand in return and gives Massu a small, relieved looking wave, Massu thinks that his teammate got the message anyway.
He falls back asleep soon after, to the sound of Kusano’s gentle laughter and the quiet, reassuring murmurs of their teammates.
~~~~~
He wakes up the next day for real, without being groggy or in too much pain. Mostly, he is hungry.
When he blinks his eyes open he sees Kusano on the next bed over, happily eating tapioca pudding. “You just missed everyone,” the younger agent says when he realizes that Massu is finally awake. “You missed lunch too. Soup and ham sandwiches.”
“Nngh,” Massu replies eloquently, and earns a laugh from his younger teammate. Massu looks longingly at Kusano’s pudding.
Kusano pretends not to notice. “Nishikido-kun says you owe him dinner once we’re out of here,” he reports, seemingly at random. “I told him I’d tell you so.”
Massu blinks. “Eh? Why?”
Kusano grins around his spoon. “For pushing him into the garbage.”
Massu groans. “He remembers that, ne.”
Kusano laughs. “Yup!”
Massu sulks a little at the thought, and eventually Kusano takes pity on him and tosses him the fruit cup sitting-untouched- on the corner of his lunch tray.
Massu lights up at the prospect and somehow manages to catch the fruit cup between his two heavily bandaged hands; a moment later, he also finds a really effective way of peeling the lid open with his teeth.
Kusano watches him work-clearly impressed at Massu's inherent ability to survive no matter what-and after a minute or so, grins helplessly and raises his half-eaten pudding cup in some sort of bizarre toast. “It’s good to be alive,” he declares, in all seriousness.
Massu looks down at his fruit cup and smiles. “It’s good to be alive,” he agrees, and means every word of it.
He proceeds to have the most delicious fruit cup that he has ever tasted.
END
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