For some reason, people seem to like my OT6 fics so. Here you go.
Warnings: Language. I don't know. Life.
[I carved my heart into your heart, stranger]
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He wants to know, really, what makes a person broken. One of his theories is that he did something wrong. In another life, he was callous and cutting. He took his desire to conquer to the extreme. He hurt people. And now he's paying for it. There are other notions, passing conspiracies, but none of them stick. Ryoma is left with the reality that it is no one's fault. There's no one to blame. It's just who he is and how he's always going to be.
Tezuka's glasses are on his face and he's looking for them. His face is drawn tight, frantic. His meeting is in ten minutes and he's going to be late if he doesn't find his glasses. Finally, after inspecting the kitchen, he turns around, irritated.
"Ryoma, could you at least be courteous enough to help me find them?"
When you lose something important, you have that period of time where you're filled with this sense of dread. And then days pass by and you replace those pretty, linen pair of gloves with another, and if you ever find the old ones, you set them aside. That's just how things go.
He reaches up from his place on the counter and brushes the clear lenses. Tezuka pulls back. Then, sighs.
("I think we need to get him put somewhere. It'd be the best thing for him.")
"Why didn't you tell me that before? I've got to go. Remind Keigo it's his turn to cook this week. Bye."
He stares at the sink, and says, "Bye." The door closes as the faucet drips. He's been lost.
Atobe catches him in the doorway a minute after he comes inside Jiroh. For a second, he almost seems surprised, but then he just shakes his head and pretends. Goes back to brown hair and, more so nowadays, a sad grin. Bones almost as fine as Yukimura's.
Sometimes he wonders how much pressure he'd have to apply to snap Jiroh in half. He also wonders if Atobe would put him back together. Piece by pretty piece.
"Hey, Ryoma." Jiroh greets as he heads out, waving a hand cutely. How someone twenty manages to be cute is beyond him.
He nods back. "Have a nice time?"
The man doesn't even blink. Just grips the satchel around him tight like a racquet. Except this a game he doesn't need to win because no one else is playing.
"Yep. I'll be back next week. Same as always." Always. He watches the other leave. Sure.
People say always and they don't mean it. I'm going to be here for you lasts for about a year and you always do that is a observation by someone who's only known you for five seconds. He stares at the onion Atobe is cutting (if someone had told him six years ago Atobe Keigo would be good in the kitchen he would have gone into shock). His eyes are burning, but he likes the way it feels.
"Ryoma," Atobe's voice is controlled. Everybody says his name like they're about to spit. He finds it funny, though he knows it's not.
("I could find a place. I have the contacts. But, maybe we should wait.")
"This thing with Jiroh is-" Complicated is the same as always. Take the simplest thing you can imagine and tie it with strings, until you can barely see a strip of what it once was. That's complicated. No one's fault but your fucking own.
"I don't care." He says quietly, and when the feet patter, announcing the arrival of the rest of them, Atobe stops looking at him and continues dinner.
He has his good days. But then he has his bad. And Sanada locks him in the guest bedroom when those spin around.
There are times when he can be fine with it. He'll find his way into bed. Go to sleep. By the time he wakes up its late and someone has left him tea that fills the room with the spiciness of lemon. Everyone has forgiven him like the saints they are.
Today is not one of those times.
"I don't want to be here. Let me out. Let me out. Let me out. Let me-" Sanada is ever patient, ever kind. "You need stay in there. Something could happen."
To me or you? He wipes his nose on his sleeve, banging against the door knob. He's crying. "Please, Gen. I can't breathe. Please."
"Ryoma, you're being irrational." Usually, when Sanada uses that line on him he lets it go. Cries for hours until Seiichi comes home and talks him down to blissful emptiness. Now, though, he feels his face scrunch into some form of disgust.
"I'll show you fucking irrational."
Trashing a room is the most satisfying experience you could ever have. Because you've taken something apart that was so deftly put together. And no one can take that from you. It's all yours.
The door opens when it starts to get dark. He stares at the ceiling fan, entranced.
"I hope you know that you're going to have this room clean by tomorrow." It isn't Lover Sanada, but Vice Captain, You're- Getting- Soft Sanada. Both of them can fuck off.
He snorts. "Yes, father." Ryoma keeps his eyes wide open when a kiss is brushed against his forehead.
"I don't know what else you want us to do. We're all trying to figure it out."
("I agree. We'll take preventive measures to make sure he doesn't hurt himself or anyone else.")
He falls asleep in destruction.
Yukimura and Fuji are more in love with each other then they are with anyone else and he can't even find it in himself to be upset about it.
"Don't use that knife. It's too sharp."
"I'm perfectly capable of using a knife to butter my toast, Syu."
"I don't want you getting hurt, Sei-chan."
"I'm not five." But, despite the protest, Yukimura puts the silverware down in favor of something less cutting. Ryoma smiles at their adoration. He is so jealous.
Fuji catches his smile and mirrors it to perfection. "How's my little cactus doing?"
He swallows. They are so nice. He wants to tell him that he's so sad he could bury himself in it. He wants to tell them he doesn't understand when it got to the point where he isn't sure he loves himself, much less anybody else. He wants to tell him he's sorry that all he does is ruin their beauty with his selfishness. But, they are so nice.
So, "I'm fine. I wondered if you could tell me about your show."
They get into it. Detailing how everyone reacted to their art and the pieces they sold. At one point, Yukimura stops talking and Ryoma catches how those blue eyes absorb the passion Fuji is so calmly filled with in awe. Somehow, he gets misplaced somewhere in their air.
"Ryoma," He blinks. They're both watching with concerned stares. "Are you alright?"
"Tired. Could you hold me until I fall asleep?" He's almost embarrassed to be asking, but his pout is enough to have them melting. Yukimura takes another bite of his toast, patting his mouth with a napkin like the Prince he is, and ushers him to their room with a hand around his waist.
("Anyone else? Ryoma would never hurt anybody.")
They whisper stories to him. Fuji's parts are saturated with violence and Yukimura's are dripping with love. They kiss his neck, his cheek. His heart. With their soft, pink lips. And Ryoma lets them. Even when they stop to laugh over each other's trip ups. He lets him hold his heart in their own just to watch them break it.
("Not on purpose, of course. But I do agree if that's what's best for him we'll have to do what we have to do.")
Because he has to take what he can get.
"You need to get your attitude adjusted, Tezuka, because it's starting to become a problem."
Tezuka actually snorts. His glasses are askew. Hands clenched.
"And you think you have the right to lecture me about attitude, Atobe?"
Blood rushes underneath relatively pale cheeks. "Excuse me?"
Ryoma glances over to Sanada, whose fork was still scraping his plate very few seconds. He looked like he could care less. Yukimura was staring at the floor while Fuji watched the proceedings with had to be amusement. He shakes his head. Weirdoes. He tunes back into the conversation just in time.
"- You can barely keep Ryoma under control and you're lecturing me."
"I am not a dog." He snaps, sliding off the counter.
Tezuka places his hands on his hips and appears for all the world like he's praying for patience. "No. You're weak."
They're not bad people. They're not. At the beginning, it was fine because they were young and they didn't understand that having fun, being in love, could turn into a gate keeping you away from the outside. They didn't understand that maybe one day they would turn into adults that still believed they were children.
Ryoma forgives them. He remembers when Yukimura got sick again and would go days without speaking. He can press his finger to his thigh and brush the scar Atobe gave him when they used to fuck so hard they could hardly move. Fuji crying on his shoulder because of something Yuuta said. He's seen Sanada and Tezuka make out in the living room like the teenagers they used to be. No, not bad people. Not good people. Just human beings trying to figure it all out. It doesn't make what they do right. It just makes it real.
So he musters the way his stomach used to electrify when one of them kissed him and says, "I'm not weak. I'm sad. Not everyone can be like you with your Pinnacle of fucking Perfection."
Tezuka rears back, hazel eyes glinting. But he hears a choking sound behind him and- Fuji is laughing. His gaze is light and caring. "Pinnacle of fucking Perfection. He's got you there Mitsu-chan."
"I want that engraved on a necklace." Yukimura joins and everyone is chattering, again. Making such bad jokes even Tezuka's mouth starts to twitch.
For the first time in a long time he feels apart of something.
Hope is awful. Wonderful, but awful. Even when you don't want to fall into it, you do. He wants to believe that he is going to get better. That this is just a phase. But, it's not. It's really not.
He backs up when Sanada starts toward him. "I'm not going in the room. I don't want to. I don't need it."
"Ryo-chan, you're hysterical." Fuji's arms are around him and he struggles. He can't fucking breathe and they're just making it worse.
"I don't want to. I don't want to- Let me go." He kicks someone. Hard.
The hiss of pain is easily ignored in place of the rush in his ears. "Are you okay?"
"Sei, go find Atobe. But don't come back in here." Ryoma doesn't know what's going on but his chest hurts. There are too many limbs over his and he still can't breathe.
"Please. Please let me go."
"You need to calm down. You're going to be fine." Someone purrs in his ear. He can smell scented lotion and tea tree oil and it's way too much. Way too much. Open your eyes.
"Please." He tries again.
"Keigo, he doesn't want to move and I don't think he should have to."
"I'll go get some blankets. Why is he so pale? Are you bleeding?"
"I'm fine. Ryoma, you need to talk to us okay? Tell us what's going on."
"Ryoma?"
He wakes up to a room with white walls and white sheets and doesn't hope anymore.
Thanks for reading.