my brother's keeper
rin+yukio; shura
pg; ~1600 words; violence and some colourful language
notes:
+ written for the prompt: forgiveness
+ AU following the events of episode 24. sort of a character/relationship-study featuring a somewhat ptsd!yukio and rin trying on the big-brother shoes.
and the lines blur out of focus
good intentions and where they end
how much human and how much other
mother, father
and he who will never be your father
how much yourselves and how much each other
and how much of you will never be anything else
xxx
His brother stands with a gun to his own head and Rin thinks, I swear to god, Yukio. I swear-
It could have been Rin, could so easily have been Rin, and he knows that too. He knows that he would have done the same and maybe Yukio would have let him. He doesn't think about that though. Yukio would have let it happen for the greater good. He wouldn't have been selfish like Rin is being selfish but in this moment, Rin doesn't care. The world can go up in flames, blue and blinding, but he cannot lose the one thing he has left. It doesn't matter if it's him against the goddamned devil, not on his watch; not now, not ever.
x
It settles down. He does not know how it settles down but only that there is a hell of a lot of blood and ash everywhere, the smell of it thick in the air.
The sky is blood-red to match. And yet, in the wake of the apocalypse, Rin smiles, hand encircling his brother's wrist like back when they were five, seven, nine, ten...
He could collapse with relief but instead, it is Yukio who collapses, very literally, and Rin thinks he may have forgotten how to do this, be the one with his head on straight, provided he ever knew at all.
x
From the moment he comes to, Yukio is apologizing, something like constantly, profusely, for everything of course because he is painfully conscientious like that, and Rin can't help but wince every time. He would smack his brother upside the head if he wasn't already banged up bad enough.
He wants to say: Remember all those ninety-thousand times I fucked up your life, pretty much from the day we were born, and you didn't bat a lash, didn't say a word? Well, not counting that one time you tried to kill me in the classroom.
The important thing is that it ends, for now, in a manner of speaking. No. The important thing is that they made it out alive. Focus on that, he tells his brother, tells himself, nails digging deep into Yukio's skin.
x
Rin doesn't let him out of his sight for days.
Yukio has finally stopped apologizing so at least there is that. Much like Rin has finally decided to stop telling him to quit being an sullen crybaby and start being Yukio again even if he'd done so in different words.
He'd said, "Remember how you went from little shrimpy kid to badass just when no one saw it coming? Well, we need him back. the sooner, the better."
Now, Rin is mostly just fidgety. He hates walking on eggshells as a general rule. It's not his thing, least of all with his own twin brother. The gate to hell is closed but there is enough damage from the crossfire, the academy taking the worst of it, not to mention, too many stray spirits and all the chaos of the aftermath. Rin wants to remind him that they need to give it everything they have, all they've got up their sleeves, and, even if it pains him to admit it, You are one of the best we have.
But he'd gotten nothing back then and he doesn't think he'll get much now because after his initial guilty-freakout-meltdown, Yukio has just been silent these days and this is a different, dulled out silence so unlike him. There are no smart-mouthed retorts to any of Rin's baiting, no sharp glares or knowing smiles.
Rin gets that this is how he punishes himself and even if Rin wants to knock that out of him (very literally), he thinks, Apocalypse, and Satanic possession, and, Fine, you win this time, four-eyes, but he will only allow his brother to wallow in peace for so long.
Mephisto had been generous and given Yukio the month off, offered him a fully-paid sabbatical if needed.
Rin is less so.
(It's only fair, he thinks, considering what a hardass Yukio has always been with him.)
He's giving it a week.
x
Shura pulls him into a corner the following night, says, conversational, "So you're finally playing the part, huh? Being the big, bad nii-san." She smiles, and it is, for once, not entirely menacing.
Rin says nothing and can think of nothing to say. Her fingers are tight around his shoulder and it takes him a moment to register the gesture as comforting in its intent.
She adds, "It's a good look on you," and then, softly, "call me if you need anything. Anything," before she takes off.
Neither of them is very good at this but she's trying and he's trying and somewhere in his head, somehow, Yukio has been trying in his own stubborn, stupid way. Rin thinks of the old man. Shura knew him longer than Rin, maybe even better. She also grew up with Yukio, tortured and harangued him but possibly loved him too.
The three of them have never had a proper family but, in a roundabout way, this is all they have and this is what they share.
x
Yukio has nightmares that he bears in stiff silence. Rin can feelit. His brother's eyes stagger open and Rin knows without asking. He lies awake while Yukio tosses and turns, haunted by himself, in the bed across the room.
Rin's not patient, not by a stretch; his first instinct to deal with anything that upsets him is physical and very often violent. This, however, he can't strike or hack or fight his way though.
He wishes he'd stopped Shura earlier and asked her what the hell is he supposed to do but he bites down the feeling and wishes it away.
There, of course, comes a point where he can't take it. He gets out of bed, leaves to the kitchen for a drink and comes back to find Yukio sitting up.
He sets a glass of water on Yukio's desk, and says, "Tomorrow." He takes a seat on the floor by Yukio's bed. "Let's go home tomorrow."
Yukio nods and they leave it at that. He seems to sleep better this time, and, as far as Rin remembers, doesn't wake until the morning again.
Somewhere around dawn, by the foot of Yukio's bed, Rin falls asleep.
x
They return to the monastery and maybe it's something about being home butRin doesn't stop to question it.
It takes no more than a week before Yukio picks up a gun again.
If his hands shake a little, Rin pretends not to see.
x
"Hey," Rin says to him after dinner the next night. "Come out for a walk, yeah? You've been stuck inside forever."
Yukio looks up at him. "At this time?" It's dark out and cold.
"Yeah, at this time. Don't be a baby," and Rin throws him his coat and sprints out the door with Kuro in tow before Yukio can get in another word.
x
Rin's definition of outside turns out to be several miles away on a snowy hill far from home.
Yukio stands and stares once they get there. "A bit too early for Christmas trees, isn't it? And if you wanted to decorate-"
"Some people are impossible to please," Rin grumbles, conspiratory, to Kuro at his shoulder. "It's target practice, moron." Even with Kuro's help, it had taken him hours to set up, not to mention copious amounts of string and paper and bags salvaged from this and that, dangling them off the trees with adequate spacing and varying heights, enough to be a challenge for his stupid gunslinger of a baby brother. "Happy early birthday while we're at it."
Yukio lets the smallest of smiles slip, first one in days, and says, "Way too early," but the smile reaches his eyes and there's genuine warmth for all of a split-second before Yukio resumes being Yukio, the smug bastard, once again.
"I'm not out of shape, in case you're wondering."
Which is just as well because Rin has missed him. "Then prove it to me."
"I didn't bring-"
"Two steps ahead of you," Rin cuts him off. He takes it out of its holster and steadies the first gun in Yukio's hand.
His brother's eyes shine bright and Rin catches the spark in them now. It's been gone for too long but now it awakens, suddenly, startlingly alive.
He thinks he gets it now.
Yukio, all his life, has been about control, razor-sharp and fine-tuned. For him, having to lose that must have meant-well, Rin gets it, and it's enough.
He inhales deep, lets the chill of the night air burn clean through his lungs. Often, all they can count on are small pleasures, well aware that their lives will never be close to normal, light-years away from ideal at best. Rin had decided long ago that he would probably lose his mind in slow agony if he had let all of that weigh him down.
When Yukio fires, the shots light up the woods, echo like a thunderstorm ringing deep into the night.
And, for a moment, this is everything that matters.