Chapter Thirty-Eight - Impasse

I was an (over) active child, and an adrenaline chasing teenager. As such, I've never been a stranger to blood. But until the moment I saw Shingen trying to hide the blood he was coughing up, I'd associated blood with an obvious injury. From scraped knees to arrow wounds, blood was an expected outcome, and the treatment was a bandage or stitches.

There's no bandage, no treatment, for blood from some unspecified internal source.

Paralyzed with indecision -I tried to make myself think of… do… something… anything, until finally I rushed back to the corridor, grabbed the first page I could find and asked him to, "get Yukimura… or Sasuke… Kenshin… anyone." Then I hurried back to Shingen's side, put my arms around him and held on as if my embrace could shelter him from his disease.

"Sounds worse … than it is, Devil," he said as he gasped for air.

It wasn't the sound … it was the blood.

Yuki skidded into the room, took in the situation at a glance. "I knew it."

"What should I do for him?" This was so far out of my area of expertise that I was close to having a panic attack of my own… which would help no one. I gritted my teeth and promised myself that I'd find a private time and place to have a breakdown later.

"Get him to the futon." Yuki ducked under Shingen's arm to help prop him up.

Shingen grabbed enough air to disagree. "No." The protest was invalidated by the way he sagged against us…

…but it was still enough to cause Yukimura to lose his shit. "Stop pretending you're ok!" The fact that he didn't tack on a 'my lord,' spoke volumes.

"I'm not… Breathing is…. easier… when I sit up." Shingen finally stopped coughing, but it took him too much effort to get through a sentence, and that rattle in his throat had returned.

The three of us huddled for a long time, no one saying a word. It had been my hope that Shingen was getting better, but he'd obviously been suffering quietly. No. Quietly was not the word. Secretly. "How often does this happen? This can't have been the first one if you knew sitting up is better for you."

"Not very often." Shingen swept the blood-stained hand towel out of view, but I couldn't sweep it as easily from my mind.

"We both saw it." Yuki glared at his mentor. Then, belatedly. "My lord."

"I'm aware. That doesn't mean I want… to continue… looking at it," Shingen replied. Again, it took him too much time to get through a sentence. He turned to me and repeated, "not very often… at all."

"Specifically, how many days a week, and do you have more than one a day?" I wasn't going to let him get away with vague answers. I was too much of a master of that game to allow anyone else to beat me at it.

He swiped his hair out of his face. "Two, maybe… three times... usually when I … overexert myself."

That likely translated as three or four times a week… and he hadn't been exerting himself before this attack. He'd been sitting and reading. Yuki and I looked at each other with complete sympathy. I wondered if either of us would have the courage to point out the obvious.

"Both of you… stop that." Shingen ruffled Yuki's hair. Then he did the same to mine. Maybe he was trying to re-establish himself as the most adult voice in the room, but for the first time, I found his touch annoying, rather than enticing. "These spells are… intense but brief."

"We're allowed to care about you," Yuki said. He leaned over and put the burr puzzle back on the desk – oh that must have been what fell right before I came into the room. "You scared the hell out of Katsu. She was shaking when I got here."

Way to throw me under the bus, Yuki. Maybe he was right, but what if Shingen decided to go all brave and noble and send me away? If I was going to be scared, I was going to do it when no one could see me. "I was startled, that's all. Now that I have a better idea what to expect and what to do, I'll handle it better next time." Not that I wanted there to be a next time. But I knew there would be… maybe many next times.

"God. The two of you deserve each other," Yuki muttered. I know that was not a compliment. "This incident proves you need to be treated sooner, not later."

Ok, that was something I could and did agree with. "I've tried to talk-"

"I do know what my body can and cannot handle," Shingen said. "In the greater scheme of things, three months is not very long." He smiled at us both and put his arms around our shoulders. "And I'd prefer to spend that time with the people who are closest in my heart."

I pretended to smile, even as I felt something hot and burning behind my eyes. No, three months wasn't very long at all – especially if that was all the time he had left. And in those months, how many times would I find him holding a bloody handkerchief to his mouth? "I'm going to see if there is any willow bark tea in the kitchen." I leveled my best glare at Shingen. "When I get back, you will drink it."

"What will you give me if I do?" He gave me one of those looks, the ones that hinted at wickedness and fun… but all I felt was a fear that smothered out everything else. Without another word, I hurried out of his room. This time, when I got ten feet away, I didn't turn around. Instead, I walked faster. I was going to go have my private breakdown now.

By the time I was on my way back, with a jar of the tea, my eyes were dry.

Yuki met me in the corridor. He must have been lying in wait. "Sorry I drove you out."

"You didn't." I shrugged. "Besides, I needed a moment alone probably as much as you needed one with him. Did he change his mind?"

He shook his head.

Damn it.

The tears threatened to return… no… not threatened. There they were. Crap. Sorry Yuki.

Seeing my face, Yuki looked panic stricken. He patted his clothes, eventually withdrawing a stained handkerchief, which he thrust in my direction.

It looked like it had his breakfast on it and smelled like "boy" but I wiped my eyes on it anyway. And in fact, that normal everyday smell steadied me. "Sorry. I'm not usually like this." I handed it back. "I guess there's no changing his mind. If he doesn't want to go at Honno-ji, we can't make him." I was sure Sasuke would help me prepare as much as possible for what to do upon going through at Togakushi. Hopefully Yuki and I could keep him alive until then.

"I'm not really to give up yet." Yuki raked his hands through his hair. "Maybe Kenshin can talk him into going with Sasuke."

Kenshin was more of a threaten-to-kill sort than a talk-you-into-something diplomacy sort, and it wasn't as if threatening to kill Shingen would be that much of a threat in this case, but it at least was true that Kenshin could talk to Shingen on a peer-to-peer basis. "Worth a try."

With a brief bow, Yuki headed off, presumably to recruit Kenshin to the cause.

When I returned to Shingen's room he was sitting at his desk, looking at a report as if nothing had ever happened. The bloodstained hand towel was not in evidence. How many times I had walked into this calm scene? How many times had it been staged?

Silently I prepared the tea and set it by his arm. I might not be able to fight him over our travel itinerary, but I would go to the mattresses over this tea.

"You're angry with me." He gave the tea a suspicious look. "Because I don't want to go with Sasuke."

"I'm angry with you because you've been hiding how bad it is." And at myself for not realizing. I thought I was a lot better at spotting lies. Maybe I'd just been lying to myself.

Shingen patted the cushion next to him, but if I walked over there, he'd find a way to distract me. Not this time. His health was too important. "I thought to spare you exactly that kind of scene."

He thought to spare himself from the discussion – that's what I thought. "You can't shield me from everything. There's no need to! I can handle things – if I know to prepare for them" I wasn't lying, but I wasn't entirely confident that I could handle everything. But I would rather be prepared than not. "Drink the tea. I know you don't have a fever, but it should help with the pain."

He sipped the tea. "At least it's not as awful as chewing on bark."

I waited until he drank the entire pot of it, before once again trying to bring up the idea of getting treatment in modern Japan. "Am I understanding correctly that you don't have an objection to going to the future for treatment, but only to the timing of the journey?"

If I weren't in the picture, would he choose to go with Sasuke through Honno-ji next week, instead of postponing treatment for at least three months?

He hesitated a moment, before nodding. "Yes, that's it exactly."

That's what I had been afraid of.

He once again patted the space next to him. "I drank it all. Where's my reward?"

There it was again. Distract instead of discuss. If I went over there that would be it for the night. I needed some time to think. "I'm sorry… I need to be by myself for a little while." I gave him a quick kiss – my way of promising that I would be back. Eventually. Then, once again, I hurried out.

"Katsu… is it ok if I come in?" Yuki knocked on the door a couple hours after I had fled to my old room.

"Sure." Well, I would rather have been alone – but it wasn't as if playing a game of shogi with myself was a necessary activity. Yuki wouldn't have disturbed me without a really good reason. "What's up?"

"I talked to Kenshin. Well. Sasuke and I both talked to him." He paced back and forth across my room, almost ricocheting off the walls like a cat with the zoomies. That wasn't especially indicative of anything – even in the best of situations, Yuki had trouble standing still. "We've come up with a plan to save Shingen."

I dumped the shogi pieces back into their box. "I'm listening… or is Sasuke on his way to help explain?"

Oof. That didn't come out the way I meant it too. But luckily Yukimura was so familiar with foot-in-mouth syndrome that he didn't take offence.

"You rang?" Sasuke popped out of the ceiling. "Apologies for the delay. Kenshin wanted to kill me first. He claims he wanted to get in a few spare slayings to save up while I'm gone."

None of that was news. "What's the plan?" I plopped down on my futon to give them my full attention. Yuki was still pinging off the walls – Sasuke looked characteristically neutral… but something about his posture worried me. "What do you need me to do?"

There it was… a hesitation from Sasuke. Was he not on board with this? Or was he not sure it would work? Yukimura jumped in first. "Kenshin and I will do most of the work. All we need from you is…"

I tossed and turned in my own futon, my normal insomnia compounded by missing Shingen. We'd only been sharing a bed for a couple of weeks, but that had been more than enough to get used to… to get comfortable with snuggling up to him in the night. I might have been able to get through the snuggle-deficit (it wasn't as if we hadn't banked a lot of it of late), if Yukimura and Sasuke hadn't given me way more to think about than I needed.

So, here I was, tossing and turning and awake and…

Their plan was ethically dubious – though it seemed like only Sasuke had reservations than about it. It would potentially save Shingen's life. Potentially many lives, because Sasuke confirmed that the Zutsumi had not yet been built. And, technically, I wouldn't be asked to do much more than what I had done dozens of times before.

Lie.

Should be easy. But I wasn't feeling like my old life was like a comfortable coat I could put back on for the winter. Now I had to deal with concepts like ethics and feelings and…

Loneliness.

If Shingen's illness turned out to be incurable, I didn't have that much time left to spend with him. If it was curable, but he didn't get treated in time… same conclusion. If Yukimura's idea turned out to be an unforgiveable act… same conclusion.

So why was I wasting the time we had left alone in my room?

Yes, I was still angry. But I'd rather be angry in his arms than angry by myself.

I got out of the futon, grabbed a candle, and padded through the corridors back to his room. He was asleep – obviously no tossing and turning for him.

After stepping out of my sandals, I blew out the candle and crawled under the blanket. He didn't wake up, but even in his sleep, he rolled over and folded me up in his arms. Peacefully wrapped up like that, it didn't take me long to fall asleep too…

It was not yet sunrise when I found myself in that zone that wasn't quite awake or asleep, and so perfectly comfortable and content to remain hovering between both, until I became aware that Shingen was speaking to me.

"Are you sleeping?" We were so tangled together he must have heard me stirring.

"Half."

"Do you want to be sleeping?" He ran his fingertips over my closed eyelids.

"That depends on the other options." Come to think about it, I'd missed dinner and I was a bit hungry. But it seemed too early for breakfast and I wasn't awake enough to move.

"I do have another option," he said, as he lazily traced a circle around my stomach.

Hm… maybe I was awake enough to move after all.

I rolled over and pulled him closer.

No one who had been privileged enough to experience them (and I understand that was a substantial number) would argue that Shingen had mad skills in bed – but our languid half-awake coupling before dawn was something… different. We were no longer urging each other to greater heights.

This almost felt – relaxed was not the word … maybe I would think of a better word later when I was more awake, or maybe there was no word for it. In spite of the fact that neither of us were completely conscious, I felt like we were both one hundred percent present. That instead being a goal to give each other pleasure, we were just giving ourselves.

It felt so simple and natural to embrace each other as our breath eased into a long sigh. As we drifted back to sleep without untangling, I realized that I might – possibly – be able to live without ever again experiencing the kind of pleasure Shingen knew how to bring, but it would be far more painful to live without ever again experiencing this.