Disclaimer: I don't own Sengoku Basara or its characters.

A/N: Second in the Loved/Beloved series. You know where to find Loved!

Prompt: Ends

Premise: On the Road

The one thing Yukimura regretted most – of all the many, many, many things he regretted about their many arguments on that topic – was not asking again.

But that, the young man mused, wouldn't do any good. I did ask him one last time.

Begging had been closer to it. Yukimura had begged Masamune to be careful, and nothing had come of it.

Clearly I am regretting the wrong thing. I should have confiscated the keys.

And that would have ended with Masamune ploughing him down as he trashed their apartment in a frenzied, furious hunt for them, muttering all the time about "impractical" and "stupid" and "what the hell was I thinking, moving in with a naïve bimbo?" and "what next, Red, bubble wrap?"

And Yukimura would have listened with a lumpy larynx, ashamed and terrified of his own fear as much as he was terrified because of the fear. He would have eventually handed the blasted keys over to his partner, surrendering to the higher authority of needing to go to work and earn money to contribute to their bills. When what I really should have said in such a situation was "Yes! Bubble wrap! Teflon body armour too!"

It was a little late to order the special protective gear now. Masamune might have enjoyed the irony of being waved off in such an anachronistic getup, but all he really needed anymore was a simple white sheet.

Perhaps I shall make it a blue sheet. His favourite colour. With red bands at the edges to remind him to wait for me.

Except that Yukimura wasn't certain at all if Masamune would agree to wait. The one-eyed young man was forever in a hurry, blazing through his day like he hadn't a minute to lose, not on anything.

The only time Masamune ever slowed down, Yukimura thought with a frisson of aching pleasure, was when night fell and they had each other all to themselves. Only then, reclining in bed, limbs and hair entwined, would Masamune take it slow and thorough and savouring till he had brought them both to the same quivering, impatient edge of completion. And then he would fling them over with hard, rough precision, reveling in Yukimura's cries for more and harder and deeper and faster and everywhere and please, please, oh please. Finally, when they lay together, condoms in the wastebasket to prevent a mess, Masamune would snuggle him like a teddy bear and tease him about his "need for speed" till Yukimura was ready to tear his hair out in irritation, afterglow be damned.

And then his exasperating lover would kiss him on the cheek with a sorry blue-grey eye and call him "silly Red" for having such "silly fears."

There certainly wouldn't be any more of that, Yukimura thought viciously, scrubbing away tears he couldn't afford to let fall yet. Masamune could take his "need for speed" and hang with it. In fact, the minute he got up there himself, he'd make sure Masamune did. It wouldn't hurt the man physically...but it sure might knock some sense into that thick, half-blind skull.

Yukimura shoved aside a pygmy piece of common sense that couldn't resist pointing out the immense satisfaction of a simple "I told you so." He was in the mood for overkill, and "I told you so" was a little too subtle for what he wanted to put across to the man he loved, even if arranging a hanging in the afterlife might prove a little daunting and more than a little troublesome. Masamune would probably struggle in protest, and Yukimura hated resisting the challenge of a physical battle with him.

But before he could get to it, there were some goodbyes he had to say. Mustering up the will to get out of the apartment and give his final words was harder than he had thought it would be. It would not have been an easy task in any dimension or circumstance, even if what he felt for Masamune had been hatred and not this marrow-deep devotion that chose to grow stronger at the exact moment it lost the object of its ardour.

So perhaps we were both fools. He cared too little for me. I care far too much for him.

It paralysed his heart to acknowledge such bitter medicine. Nevertheless, Yukimura repeated it greedily, making it a constant loop in his ears. Better numb and dazed than heartbroken and aware of it. A tic pulled at the edges of his mouth. In another lifetime, it might have been a smile. If I'm numb, why do I know I'm heartsick? What contradictions...

"Stupid Red," he whispered through cracked lips, mimicking his lover's speech patterns. "You should have protected him regardless."

Because that was what more love should have done. It should not have cowered in the face of real life and accepted the need for some risks.

Life-threatening risks.

Now, life-snatching risks.

If you weren't gone, Masamune, I would kill you myself. This minute. Bare hands. Well, perhaps a cleaver or two.

Because Masamune deserved it. Because now he wouldn't be able to go out and say goodbye to his body, kiss those chilly, still, unresponsive lips and bury his face in the hollow of that corded throat, bumping his nose against the Adam's apple that was Masamune's most erotic spot. Because Masamune had hurt him too much, too badly, and if Yukimura left the apartment he would likely climb onto his lover's motorcycle and drive himself into the nearest tree at the highest speed he could produce on the machine. Just to see what the reckless man had found so addictive about it.

The only problem with pulling such a stunt, Yukimura mused, was that it came without the guarantee that it would kill him. He had thought it over, and living as a cripple when he just wanted out was not on his post-funeral agenda.

But since his heart wouldn't move his legs to the car – and that was the problem, the car and the road – and the funeral home and back again...and what he really wanted to say could be said better to Masamune's face...

Yukimura considered it for a moment, to weigh how badly he needed to punch Masamune in the nose.

Very, very badly, he decided.

After that, he wanted to make love with him on a blue-and-red sheet. But it might be bad luck to do it on a sheet which was once a shroud.

So yes, why go to the funeral home at all? All he needed was right there at home.

Well, not all. Just the means to get to that all.

Suddenly, his poor insensible heart couldn't move him fast enough to the kitchen, to the knife and the arteries and all the blood in his body.

As Yukimura lay on the cold tile floor, he tried to rehearse his speech, the follow up to the punch on the nose and the hanging and the angry, desperate make up sex and the pleas to love him just a little bit more next time they lived and loved, just enough to live like a housebound hermit, because Yukimura wouldn't be able to take the thought of another round of fearing for Masamune's life and having those fears justified.

But his blood was eager and quick and his life was swift to leave, and all he could think was, That "need for speed"...I'll bet that's the first thing you'll say to mock your carelessness, mock your death to me when I fall into your arms, up there.

"Say it, then," he mumbled as the final flicker of pain left his eyes, "say any...just...say..."

To clarify a little: I have an extreme fear of accidents, especially road accidents. I received news yesterday that my younger sister was followed home by some creep who has been stalking her, and I started freaking out, thinking about the consequences of her speeding or driving rashly to get away from him. And so on and so forth…and it had to come out like this, because talking about it makes me feel more panicky. This story is basically me writing my fears out.

So yes, Masamune died in a bike crash because he never listened to Yukimura's fears, never bothered to take care. And this is Yukimura dealing with what comes after.

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