NB: Sometimes I can't get things under 500 words. Sorry. It won't happen again. Also, please read through the end before you sharpen your knives. I'm not nearly as cruel as I'll seem.
Akari once thought he had no heart. This was an erroneous supposition—he feels it shattering tonight, into a million crystalline splinters, each as sharp and biting as the last.
The doctor seldom sleeps. Typically, his thoughts whirl too wildly for him to drift off. On evenings spent together, Hirato can assuage this. Even so, the researcher stirs a mere hour later, fully sated and rested, but wakeful nonetheless. If he's feeling productive, he'll slip from the bedroom to work. If he's feeling wistful, he'll watch the moonlight play along his bedmate's skin. Usually, his beautiful dreamer senses that appraising gaze and wakes. Akari always kisses him before he has opportunity to speak. Charming though he may be, the captain is uncommonly efficient at spoiling the mood.
Tonight, Hirato receives an emergency summons. The blond guesses the occasion; he was at Round Table, after all. It's an inordinately dangerous mission, and his unerring calculations predict the sort of failure that will leave him bereaved and haunted. They've made promises to one another, he knows—promises not to interfere in professional matters. But Akari isn't concerned with promises right now.
"You're not going," he orders with pretended authority.
Long fingers have already threaded through his hair as the brunet kisses one of the doctor's now-closed eyes. "I have to." And the other. "We talked about this."
Coral-colored irises meet violet, but they aren't narrowed in ire. They're begging, almost. Akari's words, however, are exceedingly acerbic. "If you leave, so do I."
The commander only captures his lips in response. It's a kiss bearing a trace of seduction, yes, but undemanding in its passion and unyielding in its sentiment as well—a gesture expressing words left unsaid. And before the physician realizes it, he's crushed against the other man, a warm palm sweeping along his back and into his hair again. The sudden intimacy beguiles him into believing that he's succeeded. He's rarely wrong twice in succession. "I'm so sorry, Akari."
Hirato leaves.
Later, memories of the operating room come to mind like fragments of a dream that dissipates upon waking. Akari recalls loathing himself for touching his lover with cold, clinical hands, even though he entrusted Hirato's life to no other at the time. He remembers feeling like his ever-whirring brain had abruptly stalled, as if the universe, once an enticing puzzlebox that revealed itself to him without fail—as if that universe had lost all coherence. The world's axis had tilted, skewing his balance and dulling his perceptive faculties.
Despite this, his colleagues take note of perfectly steady hands and an immaculately executed surgical procedure.
Afterwards, he gazes longingly at a heavily sedated patient through glass. Hirato is sleeping soundly, his body in tatters—to say nothing of his mind. But he's very much alive. For that, Akari is deeply thankful. He's going to miss that crafty bastard, he thinks as a dull ache thrums through his tired limbs. He could stay, of course. But he'll not stand idly by as Hirato rushes headlong into every conceivable danger. Perhaps witnessing from a distance will be no easier, but at least it won't feel like he's been slighted. He won't feel like the one who's broken.
He's lost in contemplation when Tokitatsu approaches. "If you want to be angry, doctor, be angry with me. I'm the one who sent him."
Almost involuntarily, the physician's fingernails scratch impotently at the glass. A breath catches in his throat. He can practically feel his fingers wrapping around the bureaucrat's neck and squeezing mercilessly. He's not given to violence often, but these circumstances warrant it more than any in his experience. Akari shakes his head to dispel some of the fury long enough to speak. "You'd risk the life of your own brother? What kind of monster—"
"—the kind that hunts monsters." Tokitatsu's response is measured, but his eyes are sorrowful as they linger on the form just beyond the windowpane. "But don't think for a minute I sent him lightly. I care for him too, you know." He offers a wry smile. "He was the only one who stood a chance." To his credit, he does look heart-broken. Not a trace of the mischievousness he shares with his sibling marks his demeanor. Still, there's a fleeting sparkle in his irises as he turns to Akari. "If you worry, then give him a reason to live, some motivation to make it back in one piece. You'd be doing me a favor."
The doctor doesn't respond, opting instead to walk away, towards his laboratories, towards his corner of the world wherein everything is comprehensible, controllable. He's also similarly indisposed when Hirato is discharged. Naturally, there's plenty of fanfare with two airship crew and a whole host of celebrants, but the physician would be remiss in thinking he isn't missed. Even Tsukitachi looks crestfallen. Amethyst eyes search for a flash of strawberry blond hair or a swirl of lab coat, but Akari is nowhere to be found.
Instead, he is waiting aboard the second ship.
"I didn't expect you to be here." The brunet is uncharacteristically wary as he regards his lover. This doesn't suit him, Akari finds. Manipulative bastards should be irritatingly insolent and superficially polite.
"I didn't expect to be here." It's honest—brutally so—but no one ever accused him of sugarcoating anything.
"Akari, I—" the words are barely voiced before they're smothered by very intent lips. The commander is nearly rendered breathless by their fervor.
"No," the blond breathes between increasingly desperate kisses, "stop." He's certain he's being too forceful, that Hirato must be in pain, but Akari can't get close enough, can't touch enough, can't taste enough. "Just... don't do anything that I can't fix," he pleads, tangling his fingers in inky hair. "And come back. Always come back."
Hirato's laugh is exhausted, not as mellifluous as is its wont, but it's like a panacea for all the doctor's ills. "With so enthusiastic a welcome, how could I not?"
Akari has no heart, it's true. Hirato broke it when he didn't stay. But the physician thinks that possessing the captain's is more than adequate recompense.