title: wire hum
summary: the brothers pick up their pieces. — set between S1 E12 and S2 E01; canon-compliant.
raw word count: 1180
notes: cross-upload from my AO3 account. part one of three in a series of "in-between" vignettes.

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They sneak into the house, even though there is no real need to do so; both of their parents work long night shifts, seaming most days together like patches in a quiltwork. It is one of the many reasons their mother insists so vehemently on family dinners: she likes cooking, likes seeing them all just being, at ease with themselves around the table.

"Are you alright, Ritsu?"

He can't quite bend to undo the laces on his sneakers. "Yeah, I—I don't think anything's broken."

"That's a relief," Shigeo says, crouches to untie his brother's shoes without needing to be asked.

Ritsu doesn't say anything. His mind is whirring; softly, slowly, like the electronic hum of an intricate machine. There are so many thoughts. So many apologies.

He bites the inside of his cheek. "Say, brother."

Shigeo is already halfway inside, turning on the lights without contact, an absentminded flick of his powers. Ritsu looks at him and thinks: Even now, he cannot see himself. He never will. Not really. "Hm?"

He lets all words he had thought to say fall off to the side somewhere and wither there, like smoke dissipating in the early morning air. It is not the first time; and not the last one, either, though he would like to remain optimistic. There is a lot of emotion he has left unfulfilled throughout his admittedly short existence, and every pebble of it had rolled together over time to construct the road that had eventually divided them. The road that had led to this.

He bites the inside of his cheek, again. Smiles. "Would you mind if I took a bath first?"

"Oh!" Shigeo beams. It hurts to look at him. Ritsu doubts it will ever stop hurting. "No, not at all."

In the bathroom, he examines himself: nothing is broken, fortunately, but most of his torso is swollen an angry red which he knows will be blackened by the time he wakes up in the morning. I can't let mom see this, he thinks, and it is a lot easier said than done; though there are things she acutely prefers to ignore, their mother is keenly observant. His limp doesn't help matters.

"Damn it," he pronounces, too tired to even try for eloquence. He lathers and rinses, pausing every so often to steady his breathing. It all hurts like a right motherfucker — and Ritsu is not one to be so uncouth, unless such foulness is truly called on by an equally foul situation.

The hot water helps, a little, once he hisses his way through the terrible soreness. I need to ice this.

His brother has much of the same idea, it seems. Ritsu walks downstairs to find him filling ice-bags, something warm heating up on the stove. "Curry?"

"Mom left a pot," Shigeo supplies. The attached card floats into Ritsu's hand: It's fresh. Eat up! He would not be able to tell you why, were you to ask him, but it makes his eyes well up. "Ritsu? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," he says, blinks the glaze away. After a moment, more for himself than for his brother: "Really. Let's eat."

Shigeo refrains from pressing, but there is a careful concern illuminating his eyes. "If you say so," he says, drawing the chairs out for both of them. It's awkward, being coddled like this — but it is also rather nice.

"We're going to need new uniforms," he observes over the rice.

"Yeah," Shigeo assents. "That guy from Claw blew my jacket to pieces." He doesn't sound as annoyed about it as he should be, though there is a refreshing hint of discontent woven through the words.

"I was going to ask where you got the clothes," Ritsu says, observing the blue shirt.

"Ah! Teru-san lent them to me."

"I didn't know you two were friends."

Shigeo beams. "Me either. He kind of—he seems to have decided it by himself." A pause. "But I don't mind. Is that strange?"

"A little," Ritsu says, smiles with genuine fondness. "But I wouldn't expect anything less from you, brother."

"Ahah...somehow, I feel like that's mean..."

"A little," Ritsu echoes.

The rest of their dinner passes in companionable silence. They split up the dishwashing tasks; Ritsu is put on drying duty, which he manages with a little more difficulty than he would like. His left shoulder is more injured than expected.

"The bags should be frozen by now," Shigeo observes, not quite looking at him. "Ritsu, um."

"Please don't apologize," he says, setting the last plate down on the rack by the sink. "None of this is your fault, brother. It's mine. It's all on me."

"No," Shigeo says, shaking his head vehemently. "No, don't say that."

"But it's true."

"It's not," Shigeo insists. "As your older brother, I should have...I should have noticed." He fumbles with his words, fingers clenching into half-fists at his sides. "I should have known. Ritsu, your back—you always looked so lonely. And I didn't see it. Or I made myself think I didn't see it. Or—" he pauses, fumbles, breathes. He unclenches his hands. "It's my fault, too. So please don't say that. Please don't think that. Okay?"

Ritsu has never heard his brother speak so much in such a short amount of time, let alone so passionately. "Okay," he says, more than a little taken aback. Gratitude is a bird, spreading her wings in his chest, covering the love that he already feels. "Okay." The ensuing silence stretches over them like a blanket, a touch too uncomfortably warm. He has the odd sense that he should stick his leg out, toe at the air. "Are we...should we tell mom and dad about this?"

"No," Shigeo says. He frowns. "I don't like hiding things from them, but this—they'll just get needlessly worried."

"Okay," Ritsu says. He crosses his arms over his chest, panning out the bones of a plan. "I will have to take a few days' leave of absence from school, since people will eventually notice I've been in a fight if I change for gym." Worse, they might I'm being abused at home. "We'll just say I caught a cold."

Shigeo nods. "Ah, this reminds me—master Reigen said that if either of us needed medication, he could help."

In truth, Ritsu doesn't really want to take drugs from a conman, but he knows that a few painkillers would go a long okay. "That'd be great," he says, tone carefully neutral.

"I'll send him a text in the morning, then," Shigeo says, and Ritsu lets himself be helped up the stairs.

Such a fusser, he thinks, and there it is again: that great wave of gratitude, engulfing the love and shame and penitence he feels toward his brother.

He squeezes the helping hand he's been offered a little harder. "Brother?"

"Hm?"

"Thank you."

For everything goes unsaid, yet it is, nonetheless, understood implicitly. Shigeo squeezes back, smiling his soft, shy smile. "Always, Ritsu."

Outside, night seems to soften at the edges where it presses up against the windowpanes.

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fin,