YEAR THREE 8/9 Cataclysmic
I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul. ~Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Tobio Kageyama can't break his gaze away from the older level pair even as his hands tighten further around Shouyou.
Kenma sits in front, still at the reins and next to him, Tanaka still holds Natsu who has yet to release her grip on his shirt, but Kageyama can tell that they're watching them anxiously, too. Daichi has Suga cradled against his front, the unconscious thrush's chest steadily rising and falling between bumps of the wagon. Suga's head rests against Daichi's neck, the larger crow careful to keep the arrow's tip and tail out of contact with everything.
The way he's sprawled against the larger crow, Kageyama can't see much of the knife cut, but Daichi's shirt is stained dark beneath him. Most disconcerting are the thin trails of blood that have escaped Suga's nose and mouth. Daichi had tried to wipe them away at first, but they'd kept reappearing, the drops slowly tracing lines down his chin to drip down his front.
Kuroo had caught up with them about an hour after they'd left, just like he'd promised, his face grim when he'd seen the thrush. The large cat has kept his eye on him since, carefully monitoring his state. The thrush's slack wings had started glowing an ethereal silver almost immediately, but no matter how Kageyama wants to place faith in that, Kuroo had said it wouldn't save him.
Daichi's gaze is nearly as haunting as the disturbing sight of the blood that accents Suga's lax expression. His brown eyes stare straight ahead, utterly lost and unseeing. He looks like a shell— as if he were as mentally suspended adrift as Sugawara is unnaturally limp. As if he were facing an endless abyss with no escape.
That is what it is to lose a leveler, he realizes. It's the end of everything.
Kuroo taps Kenma and the golden cat pulls them up next to an inn. Kageyama isn't sure how long they've been in this uncomfortable wagon, but the silence punctuated only by the occasional catch in Suga's breathing has made it seem like forever.
It's the middle of the night and the innkeeper is grouchy, but when Kuroo grabs him roughly by the collar, drags him over to the wagon and points at Suga, the man quickly nods. Once again, the cat calls on Kageyama to help haul the thrush inside before he's gently set on a table, the man's protests ignored. Kuroo inspects the cut for several moments before settling back.
"It's been close to four hours and I think it's slowed. The bolt needs to come out if he's going to live, but it's your call if you want to wait a little longer Sawamura."
"Take it out." Tanaka says quietly, still holding little Natsu, her almond eyes still wide. Daichi looks indecisive for a second before nodding.
"Does anyone know how to do that? We don't have Yachi or Kiyoko." Kageyama murmurs.
"I do." The black cat says and grasps the feathered end firmly.
"What are you—"
In one fluid motion, Kuroo snaps the arrow shaft with very little movement of the embedded side. Tanaka shifts Natsu to set her down but she whimpers. He kneels and places her on her feet.
"I have to help save Uncle Suga, okay? Can you stay with Sho?" Her eyes well up and Tanaka glances at the rest of them helplessly. Kuroo turns and taps her on the shoulder.
"We need your help, too, Munchkin. You want to help save Sugawara, right?" He asks and slowly, she nods, her wide eyes fixed on the black cat.
"Okay… I need you to keep an eye on your brother and Feathers. If one of them starts looking like they are going to fall over, you let me know, got it?"
"Kay." She whispers.
"Oh. I also need you to hold onto this." He says handing her the broken feathered end of the arrow shaft. "Can you do that?" She nods again and latches onto Shouyou's shirt with a lingering glance toward Tanaka as he stands to help once more.
Kageyama knows this will be tricky. The arrow is much thinner than the shaft that Bokuto'd impaled himself with, but it's hit a major organ. The thrush's leveler must be thinking the same thing.
"How many times have you done this, Kuroo?" Daichi asks, his voice strained.
"Three. Snakes favor crossbows."
"And they all lived?" He chokes out.
"Two did, so odds are in our favor… but none of them had remnants of yamakagashi venom in their system. I can't promise I can save him Daichi. All I can do is try." Kuro says and Kageyama's chest pinches at the contritely sorrow laced reply. The former sentry leader nods stiffly.
"I'll need pitch and a couple smooth clean leaves… Kenma can you find that?" Kuroo says hollowly, and the golden cat nods and darts outside.
"Shrimp, I need you to hold the light. Feathers, is your stomach going to hold out?" He asks without even looking at him, his hands deftly working to carefully cut Suga's shirt away completely.
"Going to have to, isn't it?" He asks, his throat already feeling dry. He definitely remembers getting light headed when they pulled the rod from Bokuto's chest. Kuroo remembers, too, because he cocks a brow at him skeptically before turning toward the anxious innkeeper.
"Please get us a couple blankets." He says and the crow setter frowns.
"What for?" Kageyama asks.
"So you can focus on the wound and not Suga. If you can't see the person you're working on, it's often easier to disassociate from them." Kageyama blinks.
"Ok?"
"Just tell us if you are gonna faceplant." Tanaka murmurs. He scowls. Akaashi was the one who did that last time, not him.
The innkeeper quickly returns with towels and a couple blankets and Kuroo lays them out across the thrush until the only part of him Kageyama can see is the section where the arrow pierces his ribs, his head poking out above, and the ends of his wings that stick out around the edges.
And strangely… Kuroo is right. Unable to see the rest of Suga, it's almost easier to pretend that there isn't actually someone beneath that blanket— or at the very least, someone else.
Handing a towel to both Tanaka and Kageyama, Kuroo follows the same procedures Yachi had and has them prepare to stem the blood flow while he removes the arrow. Grasping it by the barb from Suga's back, he neatly pulls it out in one smooth sweep and hands it to Natsu who jumps and reaches for it uncertainly. He presses his towel to Suga's chest and marvels, because while he can't see a body in front of him, he can feel the rise and fall of the thrush's chest as he continues to breath.
Kenma stumbles back in and quickly hands Kuroo a few large leaves and a bit of wood with a smattering of pine sap. Five minutes pass, and to keep himself from thinking about the slow warmth blooming under his hands, Kageyama watches Kuroo smear the sap carefully across the leaves in a curious almost-square pattern. Kuroo has Tanaka raise his towel first and instructs the crow to make the same three-sided square pattern around the hole in Suga's back while he places yarrow on it. The leaf is set across the arrow's exit point, matching up the two sap patterns perfectly.
"Ano… what does that do?" Hinata asks curiously and Kageyama looks at the cat, because he wants to know, too.
"The lung has been punctured. If it isn't cared for correctly it increases the likelihood that it collapses and he'll die." Kuroo explains patiently as he motions for Kageyama to lift his towel and do the same thing Tanaka had. The black cat continues as Kageyama smears the sticky substance across Suga's smooth skin.
"Leaves will suck down against the skin and prevent him from pulling air in through the chest wall when he draws a breath. And when he breathes out, it will allow excess air still in his chest but outside the lung a way to escape." He murmurs placing his leaf over Kageyama's clumsy three-sided sap square.
"We need to keep an eye on him now. If his breathing changes or if you notice his lips or fingertips start turning blue, we need to take those off because they are failing and he's collapsing a lung anyway. We will just have to try to control the bleeding if it comes to that." Kuroo says tiredly.
The black cat arranges a room for them to stay in and they carefully maneuver the unconscious thrush off the table and out of the entrance. The innkeeper seems a little mystified, and Kageyama stays back a few minutes to help clean up the table and mess. By the time he gets to their room, everyone except Hinata is settled into place.
The most worrisome pair was naturally given the bed and Daichi carefully cradles the thrush who already glows once more, the larger crow's eyes exhausted and distant. Tanaka sits against the wall across from them wrapped in a blanket, Natsu balled up in his arms and already drifting off, sheltered and safe inside the curl of the bald crow's wings. Kuroo lazes at the foot of the bed by Daichi and Suga's feet, Kenma pressed closely into his side.
"You guys can crash for a while. I will keep an eye on Sugawara for the first few hours." Kuroo says quietly and Kageyama merely nods, though he doubts he'll be able to.
Hinata is settled beside the bed, watching him with a vacant look and the crow setter wants to sigh. He remembers what it had been like to kill for the first time, and he's well aware that today's price on their mental state had been, and will be, high. He's positive it will have lasting ramifications for his leveler, and Suga's uncertain state— and by extension, Daichi's as well— will only compound that.
He isn't sure either of them will find sleep tonight, but grabs a blanket and drops beside Shouyou all the same. The redhead automatically invades his personal space and honestly, Kageyama is grateful; with the tentative state of the level pair beside them, in no way does he want to be alone right now himself. His arms automatically cage the smaller boy against him, his wings itching to circle them and hide Shouyou away from all the dangers in the world, protect him from anything dark or evil.
It had been… agonizingly nerve wracking, being away from him for the two short stints today during their rescue, and using him as the lure as they cased the holding point had been no better. He's infinitely grateful the redhead wasn't hurt. A slight frown mars his face. If he has any say in the future, that most definitely will not be happening again.
Tanaka sighs lightly, a sound that announces that, while no one else might find rest tonight, the bald crow will. Kageyama nestles a little more around Shouyou, pressing his face into the loose orange curls. Being so close to a level pair that may or may not be with them in the morning works wonders for making him treasure his own leveler that much more.
A soft oath draws his attention and his eyes slide open. He blinks as Shouyou shifts and drags in a quiet gasp, the smaller boy going rigid in his grasp. He frowns and looks up… and freezes.
"Freaking blue catballs, you gotta be kidding me." Kuroo mutters. The bizarre curse is confirmation that Kageyama is indeed seeing things correctly.
Across the room, a soft glow emanates, two colors brightly competing to throw the greatest light into the darkest corners. Tanaka's wings glow a deep green as he slumbers, the kind of the oldest maples that flourished emerald after the last kiss of frost. In his lap, also fast asleep, Natsu's pitifully hacked wings throw off a vibrant orange that is perhaps a little lighter in hue than Hinata's glow, more the color of apricots. Kageyama sees it, knows what it means, but he can barely believe it.
"No way." Hinata sums up his sentiments in two choked words. "That's… that's my sister…" He sounds like he's swallowed sand.
It takes Kageyama a moment to remember that technically, they are both 'injured' so to speak; Tanaka took an arrow through a wing and Natsu's been pinioned. He supposes this discovery was only a matter of time… but it is still somehow mind-blowing.
"I suppose that's something we should wait a few centuries to tell them, huh." The black cat says wryly drawing a dirty look from the redhead in his lap.
"She's still a kid." Shouyou grumbles, "I'll freaking kill him."
While Hinata's not entirely correct—she's nearly an adolescent, Kageyama can totally see where he's coming from. Comparatively, they aren't that far apart in age and in another six or seven hundred years, it probably won't even be a sticking point, but…
"Hinata, you're a fool…" the barest whisper from the bed has them snapping their heads toward the stricken thrush and crow.
Daichi stares at his leveler in anxious awe, because Suga's grey eyes are cracked open and sparking with comprehension, his mouth turned up just the slightest bit. The silver-haired setter commands their collective attention, because he's lucid for the first time since he fell unconscious after leaving the nest.
"You're a moron… if you think he'll be anything other than what she needs him to be." He rasps out, the sentence fractured and laborious, but a quiet sparkle in his eyes, nonetheless.
"Brother, friend, mentor—" Suga's face twists in pain and Daichi looks ready to whimper. "... or even a partner someday… he will only ever fill the role she demands of him. He's one of the best of us. There is no one better you could entrust her to." The thrush finishes with a weak, wan smile, his face pale. His grey gaze finds Daichi and it slips.
"Sorry Dai." He says with a touch of sorrow, his eyes growing watery, and Kageyama instantly feels like he's intruding on a private exchange. He wishes he could give them a moment alone if only to shake off the feeling that he is seeing something that was never meant for him. He isn't the only one feeling the gravity that descends between the older level pair; Shouyou shifts uncomfortably in his lap.
"Suga, it's okay." The crow says, his voice cracking, but the thrush gives the barest shake of his head.
"I don't regret it. Stars blink in and out of the sky all the time. A star for a new little sun is a fair trade, right?"
"I haven't lost the star yet, so no deal." Daichi murmurs hoarsely, pressing his forehead to Suga's.
Kegayama wants to be just about anywhere else, the intimacy— the pain etched into this moment overwhelming him and making his chest ache. This… Kageyama knows what this is, because he's seen it before. There's a bitter incident in his memory bearing frightening resemblance to this scene, a final exchange shared between his parents the night his mother left this earth with his infant sister. This—this is a farewell to a future lost, and he can almost see its dissolution.
His eyes sting and his gaze blurs.
He blinks in shock and brings a hand to his face. Hinata notices the motion and looks up at him with red weepy eyes of his own. Without a word, the redhead reaches up and brushes the wetness from his skin before burrowing into him all the more, desperate to both give and receive what little comfort the action can provide.
I've only ever seen you shed tears once— the day you buried your mom.
He almost never wept. It wasn't something he did. Hinata had said it himself; for him to cry, something major had to happen that affected him personally. As he glances back at the other pair, Daichi's composure long broken and his eyes leaking a steady stream as he gazes resolutely back into the thrush's under the soft leveler glow from the two on the other side of the room, Kageyama feels more tears escape when Suga's face pulls into a serene smile even as he, too, weeps.
In an instant, he knows: losing these two people… people he can't arguably call anything but family— brothers even… won't be just major.
Losing Daichi and Suga will be earth shattering.
A/N: Waaah, I'm sorry for how late this is! I got roped into night skiing (read snowboarding) with friends and then they all decided we needed to get food afterword. I was like 'yeah, no, we really don't' but ended up overruled. I apologize :( I'm usually asleep by now, so I'm sorry if I missed errors or it's not as clean as others. And I've been through it enough that the emotional impact no longer affects me so I hope it succeeded in that area, too.
OH, RIGHT. OK... I feel like I'm really hitting on a potentially VERY controversial idea, but I love the idea of Tanaka and Natsu being 'linked'. Most of my Haikyuu ships are pretty standard, but I have a couple that are atypical- this is one of them. Like, in an alternate universe, I keep imagining them meeting YEARS later when she's in like college, back on a weekend and she stops into his family's cafe that he now runs or something, and he'd totally just DROP for her. Given his disposition toward Hinata, I feel like he'd find Natsu to be completely enthralling, and they are only what- sixish years apart? My SO's parents are twelve years apart, my brother seven from his wife, and one of my friends from HS married someone eight years their senior... six years isn't that large a gap. My gut feeling on Tanaka has always been hetero, and I am unable to really get into the Tanaka/Ennoshita ship without him feeling like he's departed massively from his personality- apologies if that is a turnoff. In Craziiwolf's AU, levelers don't necessarily have to be lovers, and if you prefer to read this as if they will only ever be close friends/allies, please feel free! ^.^ Ok, well, off to see how this impacts the ratings XD Have a splendid (late) evening, guys!