Disclaimer: I own very little.
A/N: Because I have this weird fascination for old-fics, as evidenced by Victory. Character death.
Fading Away
Dan hasn't cried in years, not as far as Sengoku can remember, not since he was finally done crying his mother's death. Sure, his eyes sometimes tear up after a nightmare, especially those about his accident, but those tears don't count, not when they're shed in the middle of night as Sengoku holds him close and presses little kisses in the hair that is still thick and soft and dark as midnight.
His smiles are more serene now, no more the happy giddy kind that always reminded Sengoku of puppies and sparkles and bright-coloured rainbows, but still just as capable of making him feel strangely warm in the inside. He'll look at Dan's smiling face, and find himself smiling as well, because it's just impossible to see that warm, gentle smile and not return it, and he's proud to know just how many of those smiles are for him alone.
There are wrinkles around Dan's eyes, little ones that are marks from many smiles, and Sengoku sometimes wishes he could just kiss each of them, but he never wishes they'd go away because they only make Dan all the prettier. The signs of age on the once so childish face remind him of all the time passed, all the things they've gone through together, all the mornings he's woken up to find Dan by his side and all the nights he's gone to sleep with his arms around his lover. He wouldn't have any one of the wrinkles go away, not if it meant the loss of a single memory, a single moment of love and life and Dan.
It's amazing, just how far they've come together, after all those years and doubts and wonderings, and Sengoku has long since stopped wondering and just decided to go with it, to cherish what he has even though he isn't sure what he's done to deserve it. He's hardly Dan's ideal man, and Dan's not exactly what he'd always pictured his ideal partner as, either, but they're both strangely happy and that's all that matters in the end.
Sure, they've had their fights along the way, lots of them in fact, about jobs and love and cheating and a million little things, but by now they've forgotten such things and decided to simply go with the flow, life is too short to waste it by bickering, and if only they'd realized it sooner who knows how many harsh words would have been spared. But now they know it, and they know just how little they have left, and it's hard to be angry at each other when all you can think of is just how lucky you are that you still get to look over the breakfast table and see that beloved face looking back, wondering whether it'll still be like that tomorrow and knowing how much it'll hurt when eventually one of you won't be there anymore.
Dan always used to be the one to wake up first, always, but lately Sengoku's sometimes been the first to awaken and it terrifies him. Every time he wakes up and finds Dan still asleep, he'll franticly search for pulse and breath, scared oh so scared that this is the day, this is the one day he'll finally lose his happiness, the one day he finally loses Dan. It's the same fear he felt during all those long hours in the hospital, when he didn't know whether Dan would survive, when nobody knew, and yet it isn't the same at all. This time it isn't enough that he pulls through now, it isn't enough that he's stabilized and making a turn for the better, for even when he finds the steady pulse and light breaths he knows it's not over, the fear's not yet over, and the next morning he'll again wake up scared oh so scared to find his love still asleep.
Days pass so slowly now, yet they are over so fast, and sometimes as Sengoku sits on the couch with a half-dozing Dan leaning against him, stubbornly insisting he's watching that tennis match don't you dare switch channels Kiyosumi, he can't decide whether it's a good thing or a bad one. It's like they're wasting time, passing precious moments on trivial things like this, and afterwards Dan is as cranky as Dan will ever be as he's once again reminded of what was and what won't ever be again, but even as Sengoku holds his sobbing lover who wakes up in the middle of night to complain pains from injuries that will never truly heal he can't help but cherish every moment, the bad ones with the good, since soon there won't be anything ever again and that thought just breaks him.
Sometimes Sengoku thinks he can see the pain in Dan, a hint of it behind that beloved smile, a slight wince as he walks this way or reaches for that object, and he wishes he could make those pains his, for even though Dan has lost tennis so many years ago he'd have long since retired anyway Sengoku still would give anything to see him run again, to at least see him walk without pausing every few steps. That's not within his power, though, no more now than it was all those years ago, when all he could do was hold his weeping lover who claimed he should have just died in the stupid accident if he was to be left a cripple, and even if Dan only shows his pain during night time Sengoku knows it's always there, he just knows.
It had been difficult at first, getting used to the slow and unmoving Dan instead of the one always running around tirelessly, but by now Sengoku hardly even remembers anything else, age making the old memories fade so that he can only truly recall that energy while watching old recordings, bittersweet in the pain they cause. He's more accustomed to this now, to the Dan who's never in a hurry, the one who'll spend his time tracing delicate characters with a brush rather than working himself to exhaustion on the courts. Sengoku sits, and watches, and wonders just when Dan became so very patient.
The brush draws another stroke, and the skin of Dan's hand is just as white and thin as the paper he writes on, and Sengoku wants to turn his gaze away but finds himself unable to.
The comparison comes to mind again, though, again and again, more so every day as Dan gets thinner and paler even if he still smiles the same, and Sengoku wants to hug him tight and hold him close to keep him safe but knows it would be no use. He just watches, watches as the canvas gets smaller day by day, the canvas on which a mischievous little artist once painted the fate of his life with a couple of sunny smiles and an excited desu desu.
It's after bath one day that it hits him, truly hits him, and suddenly it's not just the knowledge that their time is drawing short but certainty, the most sure and uttermost certainty, that it won't be long anymore. Dan is lying on their bed, damp hair spread on the pillow, white bathrobe half open to reveal the pale skin underneath. Dan is all black and white and fine, fine lines, like a drawing in ink, or thin, bare twigs on pure white snow. Sengoku is almost afraid to reach out and touch him, thinking he'll break him, break the fragile image into a thousand shards that nothing can ever put back together, and even when the brown eyes open and break the illusion of black and white the frightening image lingers, impossible to shake off.
Sengoku wants to grasp on him, to never let him go, yet every day he sees Dan slipping further and further away, and sometimes it feels as though even the smiles aren't as much for him anymore as they are for something else, silent chuckles to some private joke he can't hear because he's not close enough, still too attached to life. It hurts so badly, to see those little flickers of distant ponderings in Dan's eyes in the middle of their ordinary lives, to know that there's nothing he can do to pull Dan back to himself. Yet at the same time he can't help but feel relieved; isn't this what Dan has been waiting for ever since the accident, the final end to the pains he has cried every night since, and if Sengoku's to be left behind so be it for wasn't he always ready to do absolutely anything to relieve his poor lover?
And then one morning it is there, silent and unannounced, and for the first time Sengoku doesn't panic because he just knows, knows with a chilling certainty that searching for the pulse will be of no use this time, that it's happened now and Dan is away and nothing can ever change that fact. Sitting up on the bed he looks to his side, eyes drawn to his lover, and though Dan seems to be simply asleep he knows it's not that, not ever anymore.
There is a smile on Dan's face, an unreserved, almost relieved one, and Sengoku hasn't even gotten close as he already has tears falling down his cheeks. Quietly reaching out a hand to brush it against Dan's cheek, lightly ever so lightly, he bows his head, whispering only a few words.
"I love you, Taichi," he says, and then presses a kiss on Dan's forehead, a tear falling down and leaving a wet trail in its wake across the pale skin, yet even as he cries he is smiling. "Always, Taichi."