I'm kind of trying to branch out in this fandom, if you haven't noticed - trying everything. I've done TezukaxShibasaki, DoujouxKasahara, GendaxOrikuchi, now I'm attempting some Tezuka brotherly love. I wonder what'll be next - maybe Komaki/Doujou friendship, or just something Komaki-centric.

Anyway, this little ficlet is supposed to take place sometime between the end of Episode 11 and the beginning of Episode 12, the night after the end of the battle for the art exhibit thingy in Ibaraki. Tezuka Satoshi is probably way out of character, but then again we don't get much material with which to form a concrete impression of his personality. So hopefully he's not totally unbelievable in this conscientious older brother role.

Warning: some slightly graphic content at the very beginning (in italics). But nothing much, at least not by my standards.

Disclaimer: I don't own Toshokan Sensou/Library War.

In Time

He felt the trigger tremble in his grip - or rather, those were his fingers trembling, his gloves sweaty, his shoulder aching fiercely from the weight. He was aware that he had never wanted to drop something as much as he wanted to drop this rifle, just let it fall to the ground, watch it splinter into pieces. But he took a breath, concentrated, fired - the noise deafened him for a moment, and he gritted his teeth as the backlash slammed into his upper body...

He stood there as the bullets discharged one after the other, BANG BANG BANG over and over again, and he watched as they thudded into Genda-san's chest, the big man staggering backwards into the glass sheet behind him. His face had been grazed, and blood oozed down his hard, square jaw, flowing faster as he grinned in fierce defiance. Kasahara had said she thought he could take on a bear...

He wasn't sure which came first, the explosion or Kasahara's panicked scream. Both were ear-splitting, both sent his heart to his throat and his stomach to his toes, both cemented him to the spot as he turned to see the building in flames, blocks of stone caving in. The ground vibrated, nearly jolting him off his already unsteady feet. The battle wasn't over and he didn't know where to look to avoid seeing the carnage...

Tezuka jerked up, his skull hitting something hard, and he let out a frantic yelp of pain. "Ah!" Straightening, he blinked and looked around wildly, panting. He was perched on the edge of his bed, where he had presumably dozed off leaning against the headboard. His breaths slowly evening as he calmed down, he reached up and ran a quivering hand over his forehead, damp with sweat, and through his mussed hair. He bent over, resting his fists on his knees as he tried to erase the stark, vivid images from his memory.

Then he sprang back up as he realized what it was that had woken him - a persistent synthesized buzzing, ringing shrilly in the dead silence of the Ibaraki prefecture residence bedroom. His cell phone. He crossed over to his bag, rummaging through it until he had located the familiar rectangular contraption, cool after a day without use. It took a moment for him to close his fingers around it and flip it open - he was still shaking.

Too frazzled to think about checking the caller's identity, he brought the device to his ear and said, "Hello?" The word barely emerged in a cracked whisper from his dry throat, and he coughed before trying again, more strongly. "Hello? Who is this?"

"Hikaru?"

He was already in such a state of shock that he nearly snapped the phone shut and ended the call immediately. Why would his brother be calling him? Especially now - he checked the time - now, in the middle of the night? If it really was his brother. It sounded like him; but then again it didn't. It was his voice - Tezuka was almost positive - but it wasn't his usual tone, with that smooth, supercilious slant on the words.

Maybe it was that difference that made Tezuka reply guardedly, "Yes? Do you want something?"

There was a pause on the other end of the line, followed by an equally guarded, "Nothing in particular." Another, shorter pause. Then, regaining some of his condescension but retaining that unusual softness, Tezuka Satoshi said, "Did I wake you? I apologize."

"You didn't," Tezuka replied curtly, feeling an inexplicable urge not to admit to the weakness of being tired after the battle.

There was a breathy noise that might have been a chuckle. Tezuka stiffened; he hadn't always disliked his brother's laughter, but lately it had meant nothing good for him. "I see," came the amused response. "I take it I can safely assume, however, that the fighting is finished."

"Yes," Tezuka said, doing his best to sound completely neutral and unaffected.

"I heard there were more casualties than anticipated," Satoshi commented, deceptively casual.

Tezuka was unable to bite back the instinctively defensive retort, painfully reminded of the injuries his own team had suffered. "So what if there were?"

"You don't care? You've become cold indeed, Hikaru."

He snapped. "Shut up! Of course I care! Some of those casualties were my own doing, and some of them involved people who are important to me. You're the one who doesn't care. You've never cared." He winced as his last statement registered - he'd been trying to stay impersonal, keep history out of this conversation, out of all their conversations. But somehow all those old hurts kept coming back around.

There was another silence, during which Tezuka became aware that he was breathing hard directly into the mouthpiece, and he held the phone a little farther away from his head. Satoshi's reply was quieter than before. "Those casualties weren't your doing."

"Of course they were," Tezuka contradicted him bitterly. "I was shooting, after all."

"Everyone was shooting." Satoshi's voice was as aggravatingly level and silky as ever, but it was also perfectly composed, and Tezuka found himself listening, not just listening but wanting to listen, wanting the reassurance that he had so often in the past received - so often missed recently - from his older brother. "And the blame for that does not lie with you. Even your sense of responsibility, Hikaru, however absurdly overdeveloped it is, can hardly extend so far as to attempt to include that."

Without realizing it, he'd been holding his breath during that small speech, and he exhaled tensely, feeling lighter for it. "Don't patronize me," he retorted, but it came more as an automatic reflex than anything else.

"Me? Patronize you? I would never do that to my little brother," came the response, but try as he might Tezuka couldn't detect that note of malice he'd grown to expect in the mockery. Rather, there was almost a warmth to the teasing, a tinge of long-lost affection.

Trying to shake off his new confusion, Tezuka inquired sharply, "What exactly did you call me for? It can't have been nothing."

That pause returned, and Tezuka finally recognized it as slight reluctance and hesitation on his brother's part. How strange; the Satoshi that he knew, at least lately, always had a ready answer.

"Well," his brother drawled at length, "I suppose I wanted to assure myself that - as the expression so crudely puts it - the 'good guys' won."

Tezuka stiffened - did that mean what he thought it meant? What he could hardly allow himself to wish it meant? The phone shook slightly once again in his grip, but this time for altogether different reasons. It was a moment before he could speak again, and when he did, he was alarmed to find himself a bit choked up, daring to hope. "I don't know," he managed hoarsely. "Did they?"

His brother's voice was gentle. "I think you'll find, in time, that they did."

Tezuka swallowed. He wondered if the media would think so, and if the public would think so. But his brother thought so, and he couldn't deny how much that meant to him.

"Hikaru," Satoshi prodded him, perhaps concerned by his silence. "Are you all right?"

It had been an incredibly long time since Satoshi had asked him anything like that, asked him about himself and his life, so honestly. There was so much more he wanted to say, but all Tezuka could think of this second was, "Yes. I'm - I'm fine."

"In that case, get some rest." Satoshi had the ability to sound both wheedling and commanding at the same time - he'd possessed it since childhood.

"I will. And..." Tezuka broke off awkwardly, then steeled himself and continued. "...Thank you." Fearing once again that he was showing too much weakness, baring himself for his brother to see and poke holes in, he hastily added, "For the information you gave me, I mean. It helped."

"Ah," was all Satoshi said, but for once, the satisfaction in his tone didn't anger Tezuka. "I'll bid you a good night, then, Hikaru."

"Good night," Tezuka replied with only slight hesitation, and discovered that he was exhausted. He let out a half-sigh, half-groan of fatigue before remembering that he was still on the phone, and he thought he heard his brother's familiar chuckle crackle down the line before the click of his hanging up.

Tezuka decided he could reprimand himself for that slip later, and tossed his phone back into his bag as he crawled on top of his covers and closed his eyes. His brother's words were still swimming around in his consciousness...those casualties weren't your doing...never do that to my little brother...Hikaru...and for the first time in a long time, he didn't resent their presence in his overcrowded, weary mind.

Eventually, the repetitive droning of those phrases faded and wound down to a dull, comforting hum somewhere at his core, and Tezuka descended into slumber, the nightmares kept at bay by a persistent murmur of Hikaru - the good guys won.

A/N: Thoughts? Opinions? Criticisms? All of the above?

I have a thing for brothers, whether they're the warm and affectionate kind or the...well, not so warm and affectionate kind. Whenever I see them, in manga/anime or in normal books and movies, I tend to fixate on them. Bizarre, since I have little interest in sisterhood. But the fact that Toshokan Sensou has a pair of complicated brothers just makes it even more perfect for me. :)