Notes: Set post-series. Just needed some kind of canon 'verse closure with more of a focus on a road towards healing. I lost the original draft of this twice so it's not 100% what I initially wanted it to be but then, I could write novels about this particular subject and still not be over it, not to mention how it took roughly four months to arrive at a point where this could be written.
Title from Gracious by Ben Howard.
This is bigger than life and death.
He says it out loud, hovering over the basin before preparing himself for bed.
We were always bigger than that, weren't we? Of course, you'd laugh if you could hear me now.
It's easy enough to picture Suoh rolling his eyes.
x
In essence, they are conversations, entirely one-sided but not so different from most of their talks in Suoh's lifetime.
It's easy enough to fill in the hums and chuckles, small sounds of surprise and one-word non-answers. It's almost convenient given that Suoh was never really the talkative type. There was usually some calculated deliberation within the lazy stretch of his silences but Reisi finds himself grateful for those silences now seeing as they are still far easier to replicate.
They're a lot like unsent letters except never written. Besides, Reisi thinks that the art would have been lost on someone like Suoh.
x
He can't explain it but they help somehow, can't quite remember when they started either, just that they made it more bearable somewhere along the way, let him come as close as possible to forgetting, even if momentarily.
Surely, he thinks, there must have been some stretch of weeks at the very least in the time that elapsed from then to now. There are dates on file, of course, pages worth of reports on the Ashinaka incident that he had personally dictated to Awashima, face kept impassive while he carefully separated what was relevant from what was his.
Still, time is always so different in his head, feels like it's gone on forever, feels like it won't go fast enough. It's better now than it was before with respect to that horrid air that had filled up both the inside of his head and crept into his breathing space, better than conjuring up scenario after scenario of impossible what ifs, playing the ugly game of ricocheting blame back and forth and back and forth with no end in sight.
It's not fair and you know that, he'd said that first time into the emptiness of his office, no bite in it, just bone-deep exhaustion. But then, you never played fair to begin with.
And soon, it wasn't at all difficult to picture the other party smiling back at him from some untraceable place, some guilt mixed in with the stubbornness now, perhaps for leaving Reisi with the brunt of the damage. Typical.
x
Once, he would drink to help take the edge off but now, there's something different about it, a kind of stillness in the ritual itself.
He doesn't frequent his old haunts but brings the bottles home instead, pours out two glasses and drinks only one.
Sometimes, he opens all his windows and lets the breeze in, says, I'm never going to be a fan of this stupid whiskey of yours, Suoh,but welcomes the heat of it anyway.
x
(Sometimes, he almost slips, almost calls him by his given name instead, but always catches himself in time.
That would be cheating, he knows, never mind that the rules for this game are already taking a toll.)
x
He tries to save the cigarettes for the more difficult days, when all his senses need immersion, when the curve of Suoh's lips forming the smile that was always reserved just for him are slipping away faster than he can conjure it.
Some days, he'll go through a pack, breathing him in and breathing him out, almost frantic, almost desperate, because he doesn't know how to hold on to him without losing him to the air.
And those days are worse than waking up with the pervasive scent of blood that has taken up residence inside a corner of his head, worse even than every time he has to look Kusanagi Izumo in the eye or meet with Gold to discuss the prospect of the next Red King.
x
The shift isn't slow by any means. Like everything these days, like Suoh himself, it makes its way without any warning.
It's the sight of a sunset, blood red over Tokyo, that does him in. It breaks something down inside of him and makes him smile involuntarily, away from an audience and outside the uniform, for the first time after the fact.
He couldn't shake it out now if he tried, the image that comes to him unbidden: fire incarnate, his shock of red hair and the gold of his eyes, smile so bright it lights up his face.
It's breathtaking, beautiful, and it's a look he can't remember seeing Mikoto wear before.
He's chuckling quietly to himself through the tears, feels old beyond his years when he finally says:
It's good to see you again, old friend.
x
He lights up his last cigarette that night, breathes him in; he breathes out only empty smoke.