YEAR ONE.30 3/3 Reparation
Some people care too much. I think that's called love. ~Winnie the Pooh
When Shouyou's eyes drift open through the wisps of a headache, he blinks at the early morning sunlight that drifts through the large front room window. All he can see is a wrinkled shirt before he notices the blankets beneath him, a cat's warmth at his back, and gradually, it dawns on him: he's still alive, so Kageyama must also still be alive.
The steady rise and fall of the warm chest beneath his hand reassures him. He slowly blinks once more and notes a weight across the back of his neck, before sluggishly glancing up at his leveler.
Kageyama must have woken sometime during the night, because he's rolled onto his back. The color has returned somewhat to his face, but it's still drawn and pale. The pressure on his neck is, in fact, Kageyama's hand, and Shouyou can't keep the swell of nostalgic fondness from his gut. A dark object on Kageyama's shirt beside his thumb catches his gaze and he frowns slightly, his hand sliding toward it. His fingers close around it, light and scratchy, and as he focuses on it, his gut drops and his head rises with dread.
His eyes land on Kageyama's wings and Shouyou abruptly wants to weep, because nearly all of his feathers look like the scruffy fried one in his hand, many of them already having dropped from the featherbeds to scatter loosely around them.
The weight on his neck disappears and a heavy sigh escapes Kageyama, making Shouyou freeze. When he finally looks up at his leveler, Kageyama's hand is on his forehead, his cobalt eyes fixed firmly back on him with tired focus. Shouyou wants to fidget so badly, and he knows he's staring wide-eyed at the black-haired crow, but he can't help it.
He doesn't know what to expect. The last time they'd spoken, they'd been locked in an argument and attempting to kill each other via leveler bond. Kageyama blinks lethargically and Shouyou caves to his nervous tension, his jaw working to begin what he just knows will be a useless string of babble.
"Kageyama, I—"
"Water." He cuts him off with a scratchiness that's not unlike sandstone. Shouyou blinks before jerking upright.
"Right." He says, scrambling to fulfill his leveler's request. He nearly collides with Noya who's already holding out a glass.
"Yaku says six of these in the next three hours." He announces and Shouyou's jaw drops.
"Six?" The small crow nods.
"You didn't see the number of times he heaved yesterday and he sweat buckets. He'll need that and more." Noya says bluntly and Shouyou automatically reaches out to take the glass from him. When he turns back, Daichi is already helping Kageyama sit up, the motion dislodging more crisped feathers. It takes Kageyama a solid ten minutes to finish the glass of water, and Shouyou watches him in nervous silence the whole time, his hands clasped in his lap. When his leveler finally passes the empty glass off, the redhead looks down at his hands.
"Ano..."
"I'd like a bath. I feel gross." Kageyama says to Daichi, and Shouyou bites his lip and glances up at him feeling very much ignored. Their former unit leader simply nods.
"Shimizu and Hitoka already have one set up. Be sure to thank them." Kageyama nods as Daichi helps him to his feet… and it becomes very apparent how weak the black-haired setter is.
He can barely stand on his own without bracing himself against Daichi, the simple act of balancing under his own power draining what little color he's regained from his face. And Shouyou's pulse stutters as more feathers drop from his disheveled wings. Tanaka slides into place on Kageyama's other side to help support him and Shouyou jumps at a light touch on his shoulder. Suga pushes another glass of water into his hands without a word and gently pushes him forward after the other three crows.
He can't help but feel awful as he stares down at the cup in his hands, the water's reflection rippling with each uncertain step he takes. Kageyama hasn't hardly acknowledged him and Shouyou is positive he's still angry. It makes his stomach twist uncomfortably until he's sure he's going to hurl. Like before a Volley match only several times worse. Another scorched feather drifts by him and he pauses for a long moment.
Slowly, he turns and stares down the hallway they've just come through, his heart fracturing at the trail Kageyama is leaving behind. He's losing so many of them that Shouyou is sure he won't have any left by the end of the day. The sound of the bath door opening makes him jump and he hurries after the other three.
"Would you like us to leave?" Daichi asks and Shouyou wishes he hadn't, because Daichi's given Kageyama the perfect opportunity to banish him from the room.
"Please." The other boy says simply.
Shouyou's gut sinks, his shoulders hunching as his eyes hit the floor. He isn't sure what he expected; he'd rendered his leveler unconscious, he should probably be thankful Kageyama hasn't tried to kill him. He sets the glass within easy reach of the setter and turns to follow the other two back out, sincerely struggling to keep the burning sensation behind his eyes from spilling over.
But he doesn't get more than a step away before one of Kageyama's larger hands closes on his arm. It doesn't bear the usual bracing strength, but it freezes him on the spot and his head snaps up to look at the avian heir.
"You will stay." Kageyama says in a flat voice, his cobalt eyes dully fixed on the wall.
So Shouyou stays.
Kageyama makes a sour face at the lukewarm water in the basin, but doesn't complain as Shouyou helps settle him in. His leveler has yet to look him in the eye since he'd initially woken and he can't decide if that's a bad thing. It's awkward and the redhead has no idea what to do with himself in the building silence, but he will stay no matter how uncomfortable, because Kageyama told him to.
His fingers itch with nerves and he absently picks up a washcloth and tentatively runs it over one of Kageyama's shoulders. His leveler doesn't balk and he takes it as consent… or at the very least, indifference. The contact eases his tension just a bit and his movements grow more sure; the cloth dips into the water and across his shoulder again, then down his arm and across his back.
"Hinata." The sound of his name from his leveler makes him flinch and his hand jerks back.
Shouyou can hear it in his voice; Kageyama is done. He isn't sure what he's all done with, but he knows he is tired and he is through. Everything has failed, so Kageyama is resorting to bared words with all the forward precision of a scalpel but all the searing pain of a blunted blade. And Shouyou cringes because he knows his heart will probably sob before his leveler is finished, but he dares not interrupt.
Kageyama's face turns toward him slightly, but his weathered gaze still doesn't seek him out. Shouyou can feel himself holding his breath, afraid of what the other boy will say.
"You never ask about my nightmares, so I never ask about yours," he begins quietly, his voice an even flat tone and Shouyou's chest constricts with dread, "but… in mine, I'm always waking up under an oak tree, frantically wondering where you are. I'm always stumbling across a crumpled shattered wing, blood flecked across crushed feathers and red against the grass. I'm always running out of daylight to see by, and I'm always seeing blood tinted water. And always, I'm racked with the sense that I won't make it there in time like I did before."
"Kageyama, stop!" Shouyou begs, scrambling to prevent him from speaking another word. He doesn't know if he can take this brutally honest and forthcoming version of his leveler; Kageyama didn't do confessions and his voluntarily voicing something they both avoid somehow feels inherently wrong.
"You don't have to tell me." He says quickly.
Kageyama's admission prods the limits of his own emotional endurance— and he doesn't think he could return the favor and tell him what he dreams of. He doesn't think he could ever tell Kageyama that one of his nightmares all but played out verbatim yesterday and the remnants of it still linger now.
"I think I do, because you need to know." His leveler says emotionlessly and Shouyou shakes his head.
"I do know, Kageyama." He reassures, earnestly trying to keep him from continuing. Unfortunately, luck has fled him today.
"I don't think you do. I can't just let you go. It's not just that I don't want to, or that I hate it, or that it makes me nervous— it's that I physically can't. I've tried, Shouyou. I've reminded myself of the consequences, know I'll pay for it later, but it makes no difference. I've told myself that I won't care, that I'll leave it alone, or that it will be fine, but it's always a lie. There is no fiber of my being that is alright with even a remote possibility that you might be in danger and I'm not there. There's no part of me that will ever be okay with that."
Shouyou's mouth has dropped. Never mind the fact that Kageyama's probably said more in that one breath than Shouyou can remember in the last several centuries, the redhead is left mentally spinning at his leveler's blunt revelation.
"Kageyama, I—"
"I know you need people, I get that you have to have interaction and variety. I know that the same thing day in and day out will make you crazy. But this isn't the solution...it can't be, because I can't do it. I can't stand the thought that you might need help and I won't be there." He says, his brow creasing between his eyes, as if it's something he'd never intended to feel let alone admit but he's resolved. And Shouyou can't stand that uncertain look, is instantly trying to reassure him with his next breath.
"You'll always be there. Sheru Bay really isn't that far, you can cover a league in—"
"And I'm telling you I can't do it. It will only take one passing sentry to notice you and everything goes to hell." He says, his voice still flat and… resigned. Shouyou lets out a heavy breath and tentatively raises the cloth to resume his task of assisting Kageyama with his bath.
"I'm not helpless, Tobio. I think I can hide from one sentry." He says softly.
He already wore a cloak to conceal the feathers that would give away the fact that he'd been grounded; it was part of the original plan to help keep him less recognizable. With the mantle, it was possible to pass himself off as something other than avian. And he could handle himself in a brawl, that incident at the fish shop last year notwithstanding. He'd had all the same combat training as Kageyama and the others.
But the way Kageyama's head tilts is a dead giveaway that he just rolled his eyes. Shouyou frowns slightly; his leveler obviously thinks he's said something stupid.
"They won't have to see you to notice you, idiot, all they'd have to do is hear you." Kageyama murmurs. It's still devoid of most emotion, but Shouyou can hear an echo of annoyance and he reaches for it like a lifeline.
"Pfft, yeah right." He says with a skeptical huff, a corner of his mouth twitching. Kageyama's cobalt eyes finally flicker his way and he catches his breath.
"I'm serious. You have one of the clearest voices I've ever heard. It has a pure sound that carries and I doubt anyone in my father's military would forget it." He says and Shouyou's face is abruptly heating, because the way he says it with the tips of his ears flushing— Shouyou's sure that this is something Kageyama somehow finds appealing.
"Eh… I don't think—"
"Besides... if it gets back to the rookery that we're in Sheru Bay, they will trace us back here and it won't be just you and me and our unit under fire; it will be the cats, the owls, the girls, and Yamaguchi and the blond bastard—- everyone. If my father decides to bring a whole battalion of sentry units after us, I doubt even all of us together could stop them.
"You know my father, Shouyou— his track record with cats isn't good, a unit that's committed treason by desertion won't fare much better, and skies only know what he'd do if he got his hands on owls. You and I might survive if he doesn't haul off and eliminate you at the outset, and our outlook wouldn't be bright in any case. No matter how I spin it, I can't see that going down without at least a few casualties." Kageyama's royal blue eyes tiredly focus on the wall again with a dark frown. "Everyone already assumes the risk of being connected to us; I don't think we have the right to ask them to shoulder more when it could get them all killed."
Shouyou blinks as the conversation gains back all of its weight once more, and glances down at his hands.
He's always known the things Kageyama says… but he's not sure he's ever really thought about them. Kageyama's primary reason for not wanting him to leave the beach house might be personal, but he'd also assessed the potential impacts of Shouyou's choices with regards to the others— which was more than he'd done. He'd been so desperate to get out and do something that wasn't the same thing he'd done for the last year, that he'd never considered the peril for everyone else. Kageyama is doing the same thing now that he'd done at the rookery— trying to keep them all safe.
"You're right." He says softly. "They already place everything on the line as it is."
Kageyama shifts a wing stiffly, bending it around in front of himself to absently examine the ragged feathers, his brow creasing in thought. The redhead allows himself to do what he's been avoiding since coming to the bath and really looks at his leveler's wings. His lungs burn and he swallows hard.
The once beautifully pristine wings sag with fatigue, the feathers crisp and brittle where they once flexed with smooth recoil. Kageyama is missing a mass of primaries and secondaries, creating a choppy outline where they are already gone. The ones that remain are so tattered, they look as if they'd been drug under a whetstone, the delicate vane fibers that line their shafts separated and kinked. It looks like Kageyama got way too close to an open bonfire with the melted appearance of the down near the wing beds, the covert feathering no longer lying sleekly against them. Instead, the small plumes stick out haphazardly, refusing to fall into any semblance of alignment and creating something of a pinecone effect. Kageyama's spectacular wings, from his shoulders to the spread of the pinions… have been reduced to twisted remnants of frayed and frazzled feathers. Shouyou blinks as his vision threatens to water over.
"Ano… what do you think we should do?" Shouyou asks, hating the silence. One of Kageyama's hands lifts to brush lightly across the disarrayed black quills, his frown deepening slightly.
"Not this again. And find another way… one that keeps us both sane." He says quietly. His fingers close around one crisp feather that gives to the pressure far too easily; it's on the verge of falling out as well.
"Do you have any ideas?" Shouyou asks, feeling helpless to fix the tension that has yet to disappear between them.
"Nothing realistic yet." He murmurs and tugs the shabby feather free. The action makes Shouyou flinch violently.
"Kageyama, what—"
His leveler deftly pulls another and the redhead's calm abandons him.
"Tobio, don't!" He yelps, a hand latching onto his arm, but his leveler shakes him off.
"They're all going to fall out anyway." He says and reaches for another. Shouyou doesn't have a reason for his blinding panic.
"No!" He barks anxiously, reaching out like lightning and slapping the menacing hand hard enough that it smacks into the water with a splash.
It takes a moment for his thoughts to catch up with his actions and he sucks in a sharp breath and yanks both hands back to his chest in horror. Kageyama's head slowly rolls in his direction, his gaze flat in a look that Shouyou can't read.
"S-sorry." He whispers, terrified of having made things that much worse. Gods know, him hitting Kageyama now can't possibly have made anything better. His gaze drops and his shoulders hunch in around him.
"Sorry." He murmurs again, his gaze blurring and he blinks. "It's my fault we're so broken, huh? I… I've really messed things up, haven't I. I'm sorry, Kageyama."
There's a quiet slosh and then a fierce grip closes on his shirt and yanks. He collides with Kageyama with a gasp, his shirt instantly sticking to wet skin as his leveler cages him into an uncompromising embrace. As the water soaks into the material, the avian heir's hold tightens even more, trapping his arms between them.
"I don't care how broken we are or how we got here. We've gotten through everything else, we'll make it through this." Shouyou's breath catches.
"Do you still want me to go?" He whispers. If it's possible, the redhead thinks Kageyama's grip cinches a little more.
"Only if you think you'll still be invincible." He says, his voice sounding scratchy. "But that's not what I want." Shouyou hiccups, a silent sob rising through him.
"Me neither." He rasps.
Kageyama doesn't let him go.
He's half soaked from his leveler catching him up mid-bath, and he's choked with tears, but he's grateful to any deity in existence that Kageyama still wants him to stay beside him. A long thumb rubs up one of the ridges on Shouyou's back, his leveler quiet for several long moments. Shouyou takes the chance to try and collar his emotions again, so that when Kageyama does release him, he'll be able to meet his gaze fully. His leveler lets out a sigh that puts him on alert.
"Shouyou… I'm going to pull the dead feathers." He murmurs against his back and the redhead tenses.
"Don't. Please don't pull them."
"The new ones grow in slower if I don't. If I leave them in, it will take longer before I can fly again." Shouyou jars.
"That's not true." He says shakily. Kageyama's hand comes up against the back of his head.
"It is. I've been through this enough times by now to know. I'd be hard pressed to get off the ground already and they'll only keep dropping. If I pull them, they'll start coming in again in about a week from now. In the meantime, I'll get to experience what you go through every day being confined to the ground."
"I don't want you confined to the ground. Besides, if you pull them all, your wings will be bald!" He whines and he hears a slight huff of amusement.
"I'm already confined to the ground so that's a moot point. And just so you know," He murmurs and Shouyou feels a burning pinch in his back.
Kageyama finally loosens his hold and leans back, raising a scruffy feather in front of him. The hint of a smirk creases a corner of his mouth.
"I won't be the only bald one. You're losing yours this time, too."
A/N: This one is pretty close to it's original rough write. A little bit of bittersweet Kagehina for you all. While I think Hinata would cave in a fight first, I imagine that Kageyama, when pushed to his limit, would be the more drastic personality swing.
Apologies for the late update... I was obligated to engage in human interaction and went for dinner with a friend. Thank you all for sticking with me, you are all amazing. Have a stellar evening, guys!