Note: Warnings for violence, language, aaaangst; possibly a too-close-for-comfort sibling relationship (but not really incest?) aka Standard List of Warnings/Disclaimers whenever I write anything in this fandom. Also, this is set in something of an alternate universe where Rin does not have full control over his powers and everyone is waiting on the inevitability of him losing it completely.
x
It's like looking into a mirror, except everything went wrong.
The ink gets smudged and you forget who were, who you could have been, if he was different, if you were too.
They say he's more trouble than he's worth and you'd be lying if you said you hadn't thought of it too, when you'd been young, upset, and then when your father had died. Time and time again, when you'd thought: let me tear your heart out like you have been tearing out mine.
The problem is, he's worth it, and then some. And it kills you because you know this and are often the only one who knows this, wish so much that you had a way to show it to the world but maybe it's for the best that you can't; another secret for Yukio and Yukio alone.
x
Sometimes you make the mistake of forgetting to be careful and he catches you frowning before you can catch yourself. He says, Let loose, Sensei, shoves your shoulder and then he's off. You're left shaking to your core, angry at his carelessness, angry at your own.
You've been doing double time for ages, so long that it's almost become habit. What you never expected was for it to take its toll.
He's irresponsible, you want to tell him, again and again. And you should be used to it but you're not. Once you thought you'd get there, but now, with everything that's at stake, with everything that will always be at stake, you're not so sure.
The powers above you no longer trust you with him. It's running out, your time and his time, and pretty soon, it's going to go to hell, maybe in a more literal sense even. Mephisto can only keep them at bay for so long. The bigger problem is perhaps that no one can really keep Rin at bay for very long.
(Un)fortunately, Rin too is starting to realize this.
x
It's something like a pact, a promise to a dead man, and a silent one, to a living boy, a demon, a beautiful monster and blue, blue flames.
It's written in your blood, just like it is written in his. And when you look at one another (though now, you seldom do), it's written there in spades.
x
Hey Yukio, he says, close to your ear.
He's made his way into your bed in the middle of the night. It's been years since he's done that but you suppose old habits die hard. You used to be the one who was afraid of the dark, used to wonder if anything scared him at all.
(Sometimes you still do; there's a fine, fine line between idiocy and fearlessness after all.)
What's more troubling is that this is not the idiot-Rin talking, not the Rin that's full of it or angry or showing off. This is your brother at his most serious. This Rin makes an appearance every once in a blue moon but this is the Rin that's not kidding, never kidding, and when he speaks, you listen; you can't not listen.
And this Rin says to you now:
If there's ever a time where you need to- I trust you to do it, okay? You and only you.
Shut up, you tell him, please. It's a word you rarely use, and rarely this sincerely. You turn your face, bury it in the pillow like it will make a difference.
He doesn't and he won't. He's often brash, destructive, but also the farthest thing from cruel most of the time. Right now it's hard to say.
You shut your eyes and try to block out the noise. This is the sound of your big brother telling you to put a bullet in his brain if that day ever comes. You know him well enough to not make him say it. And though you can hardly bear it, you make yourself listen.
He's got his nose pressed to your cheek. Promise me, he says, a whisper, a secret, more a movement of the lips against your skin than actual words. And because he's a fucking thorough bastard, he adds, On the old man's soul.
You fist your hands in his shirt and you've never hated him more. You want this to end and so you nod, a barely-there movement, but it's enough because he relents, gives you some space (and it's always far too much and never quite enough).
He keeps his head on your pillow, stares at the ceiling. You look at him, can't look away.
You're Yukio so, of course, you will do what needs to be done. If anyone has to, it will be you, always you. Doesn't mean you have to like it but that came with the job description and stopped mattering some time ago.
x
When they come for him, he smiles at you, says, You've taken care of me my whole life, four-eyes. Now it's my turn, okay? So please listen to your nii-san just this once.
Yeah right, you think. As if, but he holds out a hand and you're paralyzed in your place, wind knocked out of you along with everything else. You cannotremember him ever being able to do that before, not with this kind of power.
This isn't funny, you cry out. I'm going to-the words die in your throat and you think, I hate you so much right now and never more than in this moment.
You hope to hell he can hear you too because he's always been able to hear you.
And I love you too, he says with his eyes.
(It's not fair. It's not fair at all.)
His teeth may be sharp but his smile is soft.
-and you wake up from the nightmare, shaking, shaking.
x
At practice with Shura, your hands on the trigger are steady; the rest of you feels like it is alwaysshaking these days.
the nightmares you can deal with, have dealt with for a long time now. You've seen your father die, over and over, in reds and blacks and blues and even that is safe because, at the very least, it is over.
And then there is Rin, like a blade to your throat, hilt against your heart, just waiting and waiting, a ticking time-bomb-
Shura barrels against your shoulder without warning. it's supposed to be a nudge but, with her, nothing is ever that subtle. She says you're off your mark today and you don't need her to remind you, don't need her to keep an eye on you either, which is what you both know she is not saying but doing. You don't say as much although sometimes you want to tell her, whatever she owed your father, she does not have to pay it forward with you.
Still, she smiles like she knows something, like she wishes she didn't. It is troubling and comforting. You don't question it anymore.
x
And there comes a day where it is no longer just a dream, a nightmare, never mind how much you wish it were and would rather relive the nightmare a hundred thousand times than witness the time-bomb now, on it's last few seconds, the hilt of the blade bruising you hard.
Yukio, he screams, in the few seconds he has left to scream while his body is his own. He holds your hand in his and shoves the barrel of your gun straight to his heart. Remember. You promised-
Rin has always been the action and you have been the plan. Perhaps, it's the only reason the two of you have ever worked to whatever extent you ever worked. You know that he is counting on this now, counting on you, like he has never counted on anything before.
Just as they are all counting on you, to make the choice once and for all, to save the world from your brother or save your brother from the world.
(And yes, you are Yukio, but you don't always do as you're told.)
You tear your hand away from him and his unimaginable strength. You take his face in your hands instead and look the blossoming devil in the eye.
Against everyone's better judgment, you whisper a secret, a lesson, an age-old memory:
I will not fight my brother.
And you rip the world apart.
x