Summary: Daisuke knows and has always accepted his fate, but that doesn't mean that that knowledge is still an easy thing for a teenager to deal with. Set pre-manga. (Daisuke, Aoki)
Notes: How much do I love these two? So very, very much. Daisuke is one of the most human characters in the series, but he's also so young. I think it's that youthfulness that I wanted to get across in this piece, and how it makes the strength of will of his character even more admirable than it already is.

Bridges.
The phone call had come late in the evening, far too late to be about anyone else. His sister had been frantic, nothing like the calm, almost cold woman that Aoki had always known her to be, and that in itself would have been enough to spur Aoki into any sort of action if it hadn't been for the fact that the moment his cell had rung he'd already been halfway out the door.

"Aoki, you have to do something, I'm worried that Daisuke is about to do something stupid!" Aoki didn't point out that perhaps she should be more worried about the boy himself as opposed to his possible actions, but then Aoki had never been burdened in the same way his older sister was when it came to things such as clan politics. "He was such a mess when he came home. He's been getting into fights again, did you know that?" The accusation rang clearly in her voice, because naturally if anyone was to share Daisuke's blame it was Aoki. It wasn't that his sister saw him as a bad influence on her son, quite the opposite. However, whenever Daisuke didn't respond exactly as Miso wished him to, Aoki was accused of failing in a parental role as opposed to Miso placing any blame on herself or her husband.

But what Miso thought hardly mattered, what mattered was Daisuke. Young, rash, flawed Daisuke, who faltered only because he was far better a person than any of the other clan members, Aoki included.

"Do you have any idea where he went?" Aoki asked as he scrambled down the steps of his apartment and towards the train station. How was it that it was always far too close in the early hours of the morning when the trains would rattle the windows of his apartment, but never close enough when he desperately needed to be on the very first train available?

"Daisuke?" The harsh laugh held a tinge of hysteria. "Not any place any sane person would go, surely!" A sense of desperation slipped into her tone as she continued, making her momentarily sound like a mother as opposed to a strict, impersonal clan leader. "He hugged me, Aoki. He hasn't hugged me since he was a child. And then, and then he just fled, rambling on about how he was so sorry but he had no choice and he's going to do something stupid Aoki and you HAVE to stop him!"

He'd stayed on the phone with his sister even when the train had come and carried him far away from his nice little apartment in his nice little district, and deeper instead into the sorts of places that people who owned nice little apartments in nice little districts weren't supposed to know about. Why Daisuke ended up in such places Aoki still didn't know, there was nothing in the seedy streets and shady people that Daisuke personally felt attractive to, just as there was nothing in them that was in any way a reflection of Daisuke himself. Aoki feared that the reason Daisuke fled here was perhaps because it was where Daisuke felt he sometimes belonged. If that did happen to be the case, it meant that they'd all failed miserably.

The streets were not the kind that people like Aoki tended to visit during the day, and so they were especially not the kind that Aoki should have walked until just before dawn, tiredly asking junkies and prostitutes if they had seen his young nephew. He'd known that Daisuke wouldn't be in any of the racy clubs that littered the streets, as his nephew had learnt early on that smothering, crowded rooms were disastrous places for those who were more used to the expanse and openness that the wind offered. Aoki could still remember being called into Daisuke's primary school when he was still just a boy - Miso had been on official clan business as she often was, and besides, Aoki had been Daisuke's emergency contact practically since the boy had been born. Daisuke had been dared to crawl into a 'haunted' cupboard, and even back then Daisuke had never been one to back down from a challenge. He had somehow managed to lock himself in there, and even though a teacher had managed to free him relatively quickly, his young nephew had been a teary mess when Aoki had arrived. Still hyperventilating badly and sobbing in a way that Aoki had never again seen since, Daisuke had thrown himself into Aoki's arms. He had stayed there even when Aoki had found them a large, quiet field where there had been nothing but the breeze whistling through the grass. The winds had swept over them both as though they too were just mere, additional blades of grass, and while Daisuke's grip had never slackened, his young nephew had quietly turned his gaze to the gentle movement that had washed over the field, hypnotized.

If only he could still solve all of Daisuke's problems by holding onto him tight. Sometimes, Aoki still thought that perhaps he could, just as long as he was allowed to never let go again, but Daisuke was far too realistic to fall into such a trapping.

It was only when dawn was peaking over the horizon that he found Daisuke beneath a battered old cement bridge that rattled whenever the work trains ran across the top of it. Daisuke knew he was there instantly – had perhaps even known that Aoki was there before Aoki himself had first spied Daisuke, but his nephew ignored him. Instead, Daisuke simply took another drag of his cigarette, his gaze never wavering from the small ripples that ran through the strangely clean river. He wanted to gently chide his nephew for smoking, even though that was really the least of his problems right now, and what could he really say to the teenager that wouldn't be laughable? They both knew that Daisuke was never going to live long enough to suffer any of the side effects that came with smoking …

No. There was nothing Aoki could say, not about this, and, Daisuke didn't need to be told. With an almost wry grin, Daisuke glanced down at his cigarette before flicking it away with a shake of his head.

"I fell asleep in class again today. Yesterday. Whatever." Daisuke still didn't turn to him, but Aoki had a feeling that even if they had been standing face to face that Daisuke still wouldn't have seen him. "It was stupid. I guess I'd stayed out a little too late the night before, plus the class is boring enough to put anyone to sleep." Daisuke laughed then, a small, slightly hysterical laugh that sounded so much like his mother's. "Besides, it's not as though I'm ever going to need to know the history of Europe." Aoki closed his eyes briefly at that, his fists involuntarily clenching. "I … I'm sorry Aoki," Daisuke continued softly, dropping his gaze to the pavement. "I didn't mean to cause you any more trouble."

"You never cause me any trouble, Daisuke," he replied warmly, desperately wanting Daisuke to know that he meant every word. A tiny, disbelieving grin curled at Daisuke's lips at that, his gaze briefly flickering deliberately up to the roof of the bridge as another train rattled above.

"Yeah. I'm sure my mother agrees." There was no bitterness in Daisuke's reply, just a heavy weariness that was out of place in someone so young. "Do you think that she'll be mad when she finds out that we both knew how I …" Daisuke broke off momentarily, before forcing himself to continue on. "That we both knew how this was going to end?" Not mad. Miso believed they all had specific fates and that fighting them was pointless. "I had a dream – a nightmare, I suppose – in class. It … it wasn't a very nice dream. Nightmare." Daisuke had never been an eloquent speaker, yet somehow he managed to say more in those few words than those who could spin together sentences in silver. Aoki could only watch helplessly as Daisuke self-consciously wrapped his arms loosely around himself, looking for once like the 15 year old he really was.

"Daisuke-"

"It's stupid, you know?" Daisuke rambled on, talking more to himself than to Aoki. "Because, I don't mind. I really don't. I would make that sacrifice a hundred times over - I would do it right now if I had to. It's not a problem."

And it wasn't. At least, it wasn't for Daisuke who knew that this was the one, major contribution he could make to saving not merely someone he cared about, but the world itself as well. But all the honest conviction in the world couldn't change the fact that Daisuke was still so very, very young.

"It's ok, Daisuke." He said softly, and for the first time Daisuke turned to him, youthful eyes desperately seeking out his own. "It's ok to be-" scared was the correct word to use, but even though it radiated from his nephew, Aoki knew it would be the wrong thing to say. "It's ok to think of such things."

It could never be ok to have to think of such things. But Daisuke, Daisuke …

Daisuke had never been given a choice. Whereas the rest of them would battle for an unknown outcome, Daisuke hadn't even been allowed a slither of hope that things could turn out well. And Aoki knew that Daisuke was no longer a five year old who needed – sought – physical comfort, just as he knew that surely Daisuke would at least be a little embarrassed to be hugged in a place such as this. But right now, more than anything it was Aoki who needed to wrap his arms around his young nephew, a reminder that Daisuke was still here, was still his.

Knowing the fate of someone you loved was always a double edged sword. On one hand, it meant that there were things you could only ever know as opposed to influence, but on the other hand it meant that you never, ever allowed things to pass into regret. Daisuke didn't seem to mind too much when Aoki closed the gap between them and wrapped his arms tightly – perhaps just a tad too tightly - around him. His nephew felt so warm and so very much there that Aoki eyes closed rebelliously as his fingers clenched possessively in the fabric that covered Daisuke's back.. Daisuke said nothing at first in return, simply lowering his head against Aoki's chest as small tremors ran through his frame.

"It'll be ok, Aoki. I promise." Daisuke murmured eventually, his soft words causing Aoki to tighten his grip. "I'll, I'll protect her. And she'll protect you. It'll all be ok." And it shouldn't be this way. It shouldn't be Daisuke who was worrying about protecting them all when it was he who needed the most protection, just as it shouldn't be his young nephew providing comfort when Aoki had meant to be offering it return.

But Daisuke had always, always been exceptional.

"Your mother won't be mad, Daisuke." He said quietly. "But she will be heartbroken. You are very dear to her." Aoki didn't dare look down at his young nephew, not when the front of his shirt became wet with silent tears. Instead, he loosened his deathlike grip on Daisuke's shirt and slowly ran his fingers soothingly down his back, quietly murmuring empty, meaningless words that still somehow meant the earth to Daisuke.

There was nothing else he could possibly offer.