[Author's notes: These are some drabbles that resulted from a tumblr prompt thing. More to come as I finish writing them.

Chapter 1: Ryoji/Minato - The Last Kiss

A Makoto Yuki version is available at Dreamwidth at the following address:
angevon dot dreamwidth dot org/36275 dot html
Every 'dot' should be a '.'

Please enjoy!]

"Hello," Ryoji said. "It's been a while, hasn't it? So much has happened since our last meeting."

He gazed upon Minato, but it was hard for Ryoji to look at him now. He found himself picking at his scarf to avoid doing so.

"I just wanted to thank you," Ryoji continued quietly. "You know. For not killing me when you had the chance."

Ryoji remembered it clearly: how he'd nearly been in tears trying to convince Minato that his death was the best choice. How he'd shown him his horrifying true form, Thanatos, and how although Minato had been startled, his resolve hadn't budged an inch.

"I gave you an easy way out, but you didn't take it." Ryoji paused. "It scared me, you know," he confided. "How unafraid you were of death. It scares me still, if I'm perfectly honest."

He stared down at his shoes. He scuffed one shoe against the other as he shifted his weight.

"You're amazing," he whispered.

His shoes didn't answer.

Neither did Minato.

"I knew from the moment I'd met you that you would do great things," Ryoji said. He felt his cheeks warm, but he didn't understand why this admission should affect him so. "When we first met on the Moonlight Bridge, I mean. I wonder if you remember that. You were just a child, after all."

He waited for an answer he knew he wouldn't receive.

Ryoji breathed in, then out. "You didn't have a choice, but you were all I had. Thank you, for letting me share your life."

And such a curious life it had been. Growing up, Minato had been such an inwardly-focused boy, but he hadn't been without a sense of humor that only his closest friends could appreciate. There'd never been many such friends, though—at least not until his second year of high school.

Ryoji absently put the edge of his scarf in his mouth while he thought. "I should have believed in you," he mumbled through the cloth scarf. "I didn't think you could do it. You knew what you were getting into, and yet..."

He shook his head, and in doing so, noticed that his fist was clenched so tightly around his scarf that the knuckles were white.

He just didn't understand.

He didn't understand how Minato could be so...

so...

so selfless.

Ryoji lifted his head to gaze up at Minato. "I'm so proud of you!" he shouted, tears of said pride welling in the corners of his eyes. "Look at what you've done."

Blinking away his tears, Ryoji floated upwards until he was right in front of Minato, the stone boy chained to the Great Seal. He set his hands on Minato's shoulders with care, as if he was afraid the stone might crumble. He stared into Minato's single visible eye, amused on some level that even like this, his hair still covered the right one.

"I'm so proud," Ryoji whispered again.

Ryoji leaned forward, pressing his lips onto Minato's cold, unyielding stone lips. He wrapped his arms around Minato's body, not even noticing how his clothing and scarf caught on the barbed wire, tears flowing down his face.