Finished reading Air Gear up until the newest chapters. Agito/Akito is the only reason I got that far.
This fic is basically a series of drabbles in no particular order, but can be loosely held together with a very bad plot.
Agito smiles and it is reflected back in the cold gleaming metal of the kitchen counter. Their face is a battleground with one side of their mouth twitching up while the other jerks down; a boy suffering from a seizure he thinks with a laugh. Akito is the one who surrenders first to nobody's surprise.
See? Agito seems to say, his white teeth flashing and his wild eyes burning and his sticky blood flowing slow through steel pipe veins.
Akito sinks his teeth into his bottom lip and mumbles.
Fucking shut up and listen! Agito snarls. His hand flexes once and clenches into a fist, forces sharp fingernails to break through the translucent skin of their palm. It is not fair, Akito thinks with a wince, that they share the same body but he is the only one who cannot stand the pain. He is weak. The worst part is he does not even mind. Agito grins and the twisted look on their face makes Akito shudder.
Did you change your mind yet? Agito asks sweetly, words slipping out like honey or blood. His smile feels razor-sharp and sewn on (badly).
Akito grits his teeth and whispers, "No"; tries to prepare for the inevitable explosion as best as he can.
Somebody screams but the sound is drowned out by piercing sirens, rapidly approaching and closing in. They leave minutes before the police arrive.
X
"The fire," his brother says. One bony hand is tapping dangerously against a leather holster and Akito can see that the fingers are twitching with the urge to draw. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about it, would you?"
"Me?" Akito says, punctuating the word with a jaw-creaking yawn. He tucks his knees against his chest and looks up, making his eyes wide and innocent. "No, Nii-san. I wasn't there."
Lies come to him much easier than most people think.
His brother hums lightly and flicks out a cigarette, starts to hunt around in his many pockets for a lighter as he says, "Of course it wasn't you." A sharp barked laugh. "Silly me." Kaito gives up quickly and advances towards the cage with a lazy smile on his face, the cigarette he never wanted lying on the ground behind him. The air is crackling with barely suppressed energy, anticipation before the hunt.
Akito presses himself back against the wall but cannot help the shudder. He can feel Agito fighting to get out, hears the word Fuck! yelled so many times it is starting to sound like a chain of prayers, tries hard not to scream himself.
"Akito?" Kaito says softly, one hand closing around the iron bar of the cage. His fingers are white and cold and beautifully sculpted as they twist the gray metal bar and the cage creaks in protest.
"…Y-yes, Nii-san?"
A pause. Akito's heart clenches in terror. Agito shrieks, half-mad with the terrible wrath of being helpless.
"Try to get some sleep," Kaito tells him.
He is gone in the next instant and only Agito - spitting and swearing and hacked off beyond belief - is left. Akito relaxes and lets his head fall back against the wall with a heavy thump.
"Don't leave me?" Akito mumbles sleepily. His limbs are aching from the cold confinements of the steel enclosure, but there is no mattress or blanket to dampen the icy feel of metal. A trivial punishment for another botched job. He wraps his arms around himself and pretends it is Agito.
Dumbass, he hears. It is spoken affectionately and a crooked smile creeps onto his face.
"Mmm?"
Just go to fucking sleep, Agito mutters, adding absently, Fuck…
Akito bites back a laugh because now he has two brothers telling him the same thing. He ignores the flash of irritation coming from Agito at the comparison and settles down for the night. Kaito is one room over, trolling through his laptop with cold calculating eyes for tomorrow's job, and Agito is hovering just beyond his fast-fading consciousness, waiting impatiently for him to come so they can meet in a dream.
Fucking get over here, dumbass.
Akito drifts off feeling loved.
X
He paints a pretty picture in his white lacey dress; the flimsy frills and the pale ribbons and the clinging fabric fit him as well as the straightjacket did, especially when they are both covered in slippery wet blood.
Agito cannot stop the laughter from spilling out from his lips as he watches a gasping man trying to drag himself away from the carnage, both legs shattered and twitching convulsively. "Please," the man begs. There is drool and snot dribbling down his white face. "Please!"
Agito stands over him and bends down. "Hah?" he sneers. "What was that?"
"Don't kill me!"
Akito watches distantly as Agito lifts up his dress to peek down at his AT's. They are starting to crack around the heels, a few superficial parts already flaking off. "Fuck!" Agito cackles, and takes a step forward. He can hear a car pulling up outside and the squeal of brakes, a couple of voices drifting in. His time is almost up.
"Wha-?"
The man drops like a stone, his forehead bleeding. Agito does not bother stepping over the body as he flies across the room to greet Ikki.
You didn't kill any of them, Akito notes. It is not a question.
"Nope," Agito agrees cheerfully.
Out in the real world, they are both learning.
X
Akito breathes against the mirror and watches his breath cloud over his features, leaving them hazy and unfamiliar and perfect. He ignores Agito's confusion and runs a finger down one obscure cheek. It comes away wet.
Akito?
"Yeah?" Another swipe of his finger and a patch of reality shines back; harsh and terrible and clear-cut in its focus.
What the fuck are you doing?
"I wonder…" Akito murmurs softly. He lays one cheek against the cool surface and breathes out, watches a wave of white spread across it like a virus.
Akito… Maybe it is a warning or a question or a confession; Akito ignores it.
He presses his lips to the glass and Agito screams.
X
Ikki's road is the wide open sky. His wings are enormous and strong enough to lift up the whole world if they would only let him. Agito knows this because he has experienced Ikki's power first-hand.
"We don't need your help!" he spits out, a few flecks of blood landing on his jacket collar. Ikki smiles down at him and tightens his grip.
"Sure," Ikki says. They are two feet away from smashing Akira's face in; the sound of the roaring wind near-deafening in their ears. The bloody fang has turned into just another breeze for the crow to fly on, and Agito does not have the decency to feel pathetic- not when he is this close to leaving his own mark on the world, blood rushing through his veins and every inch of him straining forward-
The impact feels far too much like a frightening type of freedom.
It is not until later that Agito realizes that they had been carried like a fucking princess to victory. All the time he scrubs the blood off of his scrawny body, he waits for the shame to set in; ugly and worthless and hot. It never does.
He doesn't miss it when Ikki glances over at them during dinner that night, with everyone on the team - and maybe the whole fucking city - crammed into his little hospital room to celebrate. Like that stupid near-victory was even worth celebrating. Agito ignores the piercing look and stuffs a mouthful of rice down his throat, pretends the red staining his cheeks are from choking.
Fuck if they both fall for an idiot.
X
They go to the zoo one day on a whim. Akito's whim, obviously, because Agito would rather die than admit he wanted to pay money to stare at some fucking animals when he could watch them on TV for free. Killing each other.
What the fuck are we doing here? Agito snarls. He is sick and tired of the attention they are getting; a crowd of girls armed with camera-phones have been dogging their steps ever since they arrived two hours ago. Akito does not answer and dangles his legs over the lion pen. They revel in the heady rush of adrenaline that accompanies the wobbling metal railing when a strong gust of wind hits it.
"Eye-patch-sama!" one of them yells. Her hair is dyed horribly pink and she has the nerve to run over and touch Akito's arm with a poorly manicured hand, pulling him down to land safely on the asphalt ground. She lets out a breath of relief and shoots him a bright smile. "Take a picture with me?" she asks, as if she doesn't already have two hundred shots of the back of his head. Fucking shameless, Agito thinks.
Akito smiles up at her and asks, "Why?"
"Ah?" His sincere eyes are a weapon nobody stands a chance against. She is obviously not immune, and a deep flush instantly blooms on her face. "Because I want to remember you!" she blurts out.
Akito looks down at the ground and says, "Is that all?" He sounds disappointed.
"Huh?"
His hand shoots up to his face and the eye patch slides over faster than she can blink. She takes a step back when a gold eye narrows cruelly at her, betraying cold anger and disgust that has been barely concealed.
"Fuck, I hate girls," Agito tells her, and grins like a shark.
Akito will not tell him what they were doing at the zoo that day, not even after they get home and are lying down in bed, staring up at the ceiling and trying hard to fall asleep.
"An experiment," Akito murmurs eventually, sleepily, worn down from Agito's tireless questioning. "I wanted to see what would happen if you were left by yourself. In a normal setting. You know, without AT's."
A zoo is not a normal setting, Agito tells him angrily. And you could have just asked.
Akito snorts. "We may share the same body, but we can still lie to each other. Kind of like how everyone lies to themselves." It sounds like Akito really thought this one out while Agito wasn't paying attention. The stupid fucker.
I would never lie to you.
Akito hums noncommittally and stretches out his limbs. "Yeah," he says. "Okay."
They are both still so terrified of being left alone or forgotten it is really fucking pathetic.
X
Ringo glares at them in the morning. Every morning, without fail.
"I don't know what you are up to now, but I'll find out," she snaps, pushing up a pair of glasses that he knows are fake; fake but cute. "I want you to know that." It is a little sad how hard she tries to get Ikki's attention when the crow did not even notice her haircut last Monday. Akito knows for sure that her wardrobe has not stayed constant ever since they moved in here. Plus, she has started to wear make-up every day now.
"Okay," Akito says. He stirs his oatmeal and tries not to fall asleep in it. "Oh," he says, looking at a point just above her shoulder. She stiffens suddenly at his next words: "Hey, Ikki."
"Wha-?" She whirls around, hair whipping everywhere, surprised because she did not sense Ikki's presence. "Ikki, I-"
There is no one standing in the hallway.
Akito is gone by the time she turns around so he cannot see her pretty face flushed and twisted in bitter resentment. He cannot bring himself to hate her, not when they are both losing to a new force in Ikki's life that is impossible to compete with.
Kururu will save Ikki in a way they never could.
X
Agito knows how this will end, their story, the one with the shark trapped in the well - or was it a frog? His mind is a mess. His body fucking hurts. And.
Akito still knows nothing.
Kaito told him something once, a lifetime ago, back when his biggest fear was surviving into another day and AT meant the thrill of the hunt with none of the attachments that came from having weak comrades. It was back when everything in his world began and ended with Akito.
"You know, don't you?" Kaito had said, blowing a circle of smoke through the bars of the cage. Agito flinched back involuntarily from the harmless fumes, clutching his injured limb to his chest. "You know what will happen if two minds live in the same body for too long?" Akito was far gone, shrunk back into the farthest recesses of himself, so only Agito could hear the taunt.
"What?" He forced the word out of his throat, felt it rip past his bruised vocal chords and into the cold sterile air. It hung there for a while as they sized each other up, eyes narrowed and filled with hate. They were not terribly unalike.
"He will die," Kaito said simply.
That day, the words Agito had been expecting for so long unexpectedly broke him.
X
"You will never understand," Agito mumbles, blood spilling out of his lips and onto the cold metal floor. His limbs are growing stiff with each passing moment and he knows he will have to end this battle soon or risk killing them both.
Akito is terrified.
Run, Agito! We can't take him on our own. Give up this battle and we'll-
"Shut up!" he screams. Everything rests on this moment, this fight, this next step. Akira looks amused as he struggles up to his feet once more, vision blurring and limbs trembling. His AT's are still in one piece, thank god, so his plan isn't completely worthless yet.
The reason Agito leaves his road on the bodies of others is not because he enjoys their pain, like so many believe. It is so that no one will ever forget his name, his face, his existence, even after his mind has disappeared and only Akito remains (not alone, though, Ikki is there).
"Fuck!" he laughs, and nothing about this is funny at all. His muscles are screaming and tensed for the final step; he is so ready for the end (has been looking forward to it for years) - the plans and the plans and his plans cannot fail now.
A-Agito?
"I'm so fucking sorry," he gasps, and runs forward just as the sky splits apart at the seams.
X
"You planned it all out?" Ikki asks him, much later, during the celebration party for the stupid win that Agito never wanted a part of in the first place (was not supposed to be a part of). They are hanging around the fire escape because they dislike the noise. Ikki is there because - they're not really sure why. "You planned to die then," Ikki says quietly, "in that match with Akira. Right?"
"The fuck does it matter?" Agito drawls. He swings his legs over the metal railing and tilts his head up to the pitch-black sky. "Since when did you start caring about us?"
Ikki doesn't say anything for a long while, just watches him with his dark eyes until Agito can't take the itchy silence anymore and snaps, "What?"
"Nothing. I'm just glad I fucked it up."
There is a moment of silent incredulity before Agito starts to laugh, only it sounds more like a shark trying to breath on dry land (gasps and coughs and too many fucking tears).
"Fuck off," he manages to choke out, dragging a sleeve across his eyes. "My plans have been fucked since the moment I met you."
"I know," Ikki says, even thought the stupid crow really doesn't. Oh well. They watch the clouds smother the moon in silence. The sound of laughter and tinkling glass washes over them from the bright world inside.
"Is it really okay if I stay here?" Agito asks. He knows it isn't, knows it will all end one day soon, but right now he just wants to hear the words. Just this once.
Ikki leaps up from his seat like he's been burned. The passion burning in his eyes is a little surprising, although they should know better by now, and maybe they do. "Of course, dumbass! I need you for the new kick-ass team I'm forming. Get this – I was thinking about a team name, and I came up with something really cool. What do you think about...?"
They listen to Ikki babble on about nothing and Agito realizes they are both royally fucked. They have fallen for a bird that cannot help but leave them behind in the dust someday, choking on the dry powder and always, always reaching up for more. (fish can't fly, and Ikki's wings were always far too large-)
…Agito?
"Yeah, I'm still here."
"Where else would you be?" Ikki asks, like Agito's the crazy one, and then pulls them inside the building where they can finally breathe.
X
Forever is how long this will never last.