Warning: contains spoilers past the Shogun Assassination Arc. Written at the beginning of December (and posted on AO3 back then) so it's canon-divergent now, but enjoy anyway!
When Takasugi came to, he wasn't able to assess the situation he was in quite immediately. His vision was unfocused and his surroundings were merely a blur. How long had he been unconscious? The last thing he remembered was his fight with Gintoki and the excruciating pain that came shortly before he blacked out. He hissed when the feeling of being pierced all the way through his liver told him that the pain was not just a bad memory but still his reality.
He tried to regain his vision and gingerly reached up to the left side of his face. As he suspected, the bandage was gone. Someone must have removed it, but who? The Kiheitai? Had they saved him? He started groping around with his hands, still too weak to at least sit in an upright position, but his katana didn't seem to be anywhere in his reach. He heard something akin to rustling of material. His hands stopped moving and he waited for something to happen – for something to make a sound, but nothing did. He almost thought he'd been mistaken, but then finally someone spoke.
'Are you awake?'
The voice had come from his right and he didn't immediately process the question. An unsettling feeling in his stomach, so much different from the pain in his side, was trying to tell him something but he couldn't put his finger on it.
He knew the voice but it didn't seem right.
The voice … who?
Takasugi opened his mouth to say something, but the only thing that came out was a raspy breath – and then he coughed violently.
He felt his torso being raised by strong arms and he found it easier to breathe in this position. Someone was holding him against his chest. He might have protested if he'd had more energy but right now it would be rather futile. He couldn't really speak.
'Drink.'
He didn't even think to ask why he should. Something about this voice … something …
I can trust him.
I can trust him.
I can –
He put the proffered glass against his lips and obeyed without a word.
'Good.' There was a smile in that voice.
He knew it. He knew that he knew, but at the same time he didn't.
His head ached, but his vision was beginning to become clearer.
It was dark. It was cold. He shivered and for the first time noticed he wasn't even wearing his usual kimono.
The voice resounding in his head.
So stupid.
He turned to face the other man.
'Sensei …'
Was it his voice? His voice that had said that?
So stupid.
It couldn't be him, even if his voice sounded similar and his face looked familiar.
A doppelgänger.
Takasugi was still delirious. He felt like laughing.
'Well, well. Rise and shine.' The other man's lips widened in a familiar smile. 'Takasugi Shinsuke.'
'You …' managed Takasugi in a hoarse voice. 'A dream …?' He stared in the man's face. 'No … Then who?'
The sphinx-like smile didn't disappear from the man's face at Takasugi's confusion. 'I'm not who you think I am,' he said. 'Yet at the same time, I am who you think I am.'
What a farce, thought Takasugi with a wryly amused smile as his right eye closed again.
I must still be dreaming.
It was cold.
Cold unlike the fingers brushing his hair away from his crushed left eye. Takasugi snapped his other eye open in alert.
That man who looked a lot like Shouyou was touching his face and smiling all the same. He could feel him. He could feel …
'Who are you?'
The man narrowed his eyes lightly, but his smile didn't falter. 'They call me Utsuro.' There was a certain hollowness to his voice. 'But you wouldn't be wrong to call me Shouyou either. Think what you will, Takasugi Shinsuke.'
Takasugi didn't know what to make of that ridiculous statement. The corner of his mouth twitched up in a smile. '… I see.'
It was getting him nowhere.
'Where am I?'
'Does it matter?'
Did it? He didn't know.
'Shinsuke.'
Takasugi felt a mixture of anger and longing well up in his chest and clenched his teeth, his torso rising as he inhaled deeply.
Utsuro's thumb brushed against his lips. 'Do you hate it?'
The other fingers tilted Takasugi's chin up so he was looking at Utsuro. He wasn't smiling any more, but Takasugi didn't know what to call the expression he was making.
In the end, he said nothing, the question forgotten somewhere along the way.
Utsuro's other hand travelled to Takasugi's chest and slid underneath the fabric of his clothes. His palm brushed over the skin so briefly it was almost like phantom touch.
Takasugi shivered.
'Do you hate it?' asked Utsuro again.
And between the warmth of the solid body beneath his back and the ghost-like touch against his lips and chest, Takasugi found the answer.
'No.'
Without a warning, Utsuro's fingers grasped Takasugi's right nipple and pinched it hard, making him hiss. Utsuro smiled deviously and said: 'I'm not as gentle as Shouyou, though.'
Takasugi let out a derisive laugh. 'Gentle?' he repeated with amusement. 'That man wasn't like that at all.'
Kind-hearted – but not gentle. Vicious when protective. Calm on the outside but fierce on the inside. Someone Takasugi had vowed to destroy but ultimately never managed to.
Destroy or be destroyed.
He hadn't chosen to attend the Shouka Sonjuku merely for education. After all, what had really mattered to him back then was –
Destroy?
Be destroyed –?
'Shinsuke.'
Takasugi jolted with excitement.
'I want to maim you,' he heard Utsuro say.
So strangely enticing.
'Sensei.'
'Shinsuke.' A breath inside his ear.
'Shouyou-sensei.'
Utsuro smiled.
And bit.
Author's Note: There was initially supposed to be more but I like it more the way it is. I'm very unlikely to continue this (though who knows).
Sorry if it was confusing but I tried to go for a more realistic approach to waking up from a coma and it is Takasugi's POV.