So, this is my first ship between two male characters aka Leo and Usagi.
Notes:
This made me cry while watching the scene okay? Heavily inspired from Titanic
Their white lifebelts bobbing in the darkness like signposts, the first bodies come into the torch's beam. The people are dead but not drowned, killed by the freezing water. Some look like they could be sleeping. Others stare with frozen eyes that were frozen in terror and fear for help at the stars for their souls to be saved moments before only for no help to come on time.
Soon bodies are so thick the seamen cannot row. They hit the oars on the heads of floating men and women... a wooden thunk. One seaman throws up from seeing so many deaths upon the sinking of the mighty ship that he felt sick to his stomach. Lowe sees a mother floating with her arms frozen around her lifeless baby. The sight just broke his heart. They should have turned back... But it's too late... They waited too long.
"We waited too long." Lowe said grimly as tears sting his eyes but they have to keep looking for anyone that might still be alive.
"We'll keep checking them, keep looking!" He shouted. He can't give up. There has to be someone that's still alive. There has to be!
"Is there anyone alive out there?! Can anyone hear me?!" He called out but there was no response.
Could they really be too late?
In a hovering downangle, Leonardo Hamato and Yuichi Usagi were floating in the black water. The stars reflect in the mill pond surface, and the two of them seem to be floating in interstellar space. They are absolutely still. Their hands are locked together. Leo is staring upwards at the canopy of stars wheeling above him. The music is transparent, floating as the long sleep steals over Leo, and he feels peace.
Pale like the faces of the dead as his lime green skin was a sickly pale green, he seems to be floating in a void. Leo is in a semi-hallucinatory state. He knows he is dying from the cold of the temperature and from the cold of the freezing water. His lips barely move as he sings a scrap of Usagi's song:
Leo: Someone holds me safe and warm...
The stars. Like you've never seen them. The Milky Way, a glorious band from horizon to horizon as if keeping Leo company for his final moments.
A shooting star streak across the sky, a line of light across the heavens as if crying for the lost souls that were lost to the cold waters.
Leo's mask is dusted with frost crystals. His breathing is so shallow, she is almost motionless. His hazy dark eyes track down from the stars to the water. The silhouette of a boat crossing the stars. He sees people in it, rowing so slowly the oars lift out of the syrupy water, leaving weightless pearls floating in the air. The voices of the men on the boat sound so slow and distorted but he can clearly hear someone calling out.
Then the lookout flashes his torch toward him and the light flares across the water, silhouetting the bobbing corpses in between. It flicks past her motionless form and moves on. The boat is 50 feet away, and moving past him. The men look away as if leaving
Leo lifts his head to turn to Usagi. We see that his head fur has frozen to the wood under him.
"Usa-chan?" Leo called him but his voice was barely a whisper.
"Usagi. Usagi. Usa-chan, there's a boat. Usagi." Leo said weakly but didn't get a response from his beloved.
Fearing the worst, he started to try and shake Usagi awake. Begging that he was still awake and with him.
"Usagi? Usagi." Leo called but he didn't stir or anything.
"Usa-chan! Usagi. There's a boat, Usagi. Yuichi?" Leo whimpered as his voice faltered as his eyes looked at Usagi with a mournful chirp.
He seems to be sleeping peacefully but he knows he is not asleep as he couldn't feel him breathing. Leo can only stare at his still face as the realization goes through him like a raging blizzard. All hope, will and spirit leave him as he laid his head on the door as silent frozen tears fell from his eyes.
He looks at the boat sadly choosing whether to stay or call out for them to come back. The boat is further away now, the voices growing fainter. Leo watches them go before he closes his eyes. He is so weak and there just seems to be no reason to even try. Before his eyes snapped open and he raises his head suddenly, cracking the ice as he rips his tail masks off the
wood.
"Come back. Come back. Come back. Come back. Come back. Come back, come back." He calls out, but his voice is so weak barely above a whisper that they didn't hear him.
The boat is invisible now, the torch lights a star impossibly far away. She struggles to draw breath, calling again.
"Hello! Can anyone hear me?" Lowe shouted.
"There's nothing here, sir." A seaman said sadly.
As he sighed in sorrow. They're probably too late...
"Come back. Come back." Leo weakly called out but knew his voice won't reach them.
Leo struggles to move before realizing that his hand was still in Usagi's frozen one. He looks at Usagi's face and kneels sadly but he has to do it. He has a promise to keep to Usagi and he vowed not to break it.
Shivering, he puts his lips against it and breathes on it, melting the ice a little bit for him and gently unclasping, their hands breaking away. It was gut and heart wrenching but he had to try and live for Usagi's sake.
"I'll never let go. I promise." He told him as he kissed his hand one last time before letting go sadly.
He releases him and he sinks into the black water. He seems to fade out like a spirit returning to some immaterial plane as he watches with soft sobs as he watches his soulmate, first love, disappear and sink under the cold depths of the water.
Grunting, Leo rolls off the floating door and plunges into the icy water as the chilly water instantly makes him shiver and shake from the cold but he can't stop now as he swims to Chief Officer Wilde's body and grabs his whistle. He starts to blow the whistle with all the strength left in his body. The sound slaps across the still water. He hoped that it would work. It has to. For Usagi. He has to live on for Yuichi's sake.
On the boat, Lowe was feeling dejected for not being able to save at least one life before he heard a faint sound. His eyes widened as his heart filled with at least a bit of hope before he whips around at the sound of the whistle.
"Come about!" He suddenly shouted as the rowers looked surprised but all heard the whistle as well and started to row back as fast as possible.
Leo keeps blowing as the boat comes to him. He is still blowing when Lowe takes the whistle from her mouth as they haul him into the boat. He slips into unconsciousness and they scramble to cover her with blankets to keep him warm
Back in the present as we see Leo's ancient, wrinkled face as he tells them the story of what really went on in the titanic. He was there. He could never forget those memories of his youth. Of his first love. His beloved Yuichi Usagi Miyamoto.
"When the Titanic sank from under us. There were 20 boats floating nearby and only one came back. One. Six were saved from the water myself included. Six... out of 1,500. Afterward, the 700 people in the boats had nothing to do but wait-wait to die, wait to live... wait for an absolution that would never come." Leo told them with a wistful yet saddened look as his eyes and mind went back to those last moments.
As he speaks, across the faces of Casey and the salvage crew on KELDYSH. Judy, Donatello, April, the others as Mikey whimpered while listening to the tale as Raph wrapped his arm around him as Cass wiped the tears from his eyes as April covered her mouth from the shock as tears welled up in her eyes as the reality of what really happened here 84 years before has hit them hard like never before. With his story, Leo has put them on Titanic in its final hours and for the first time, they feel like graverobbers.
Donatello, for the first time, has even forgotten to ask about the diamond or its whereabouts.
Leo continues his tale of the aftermath of the sinking of the Titanic as he remembered how the rescue ship with him and the survivors arrived in New York as one of the police were asking for names as one came up to him.
"Can I take your name please?" The police asked as Leo took his eyes off the Statue of Liberty for a moment.
"Usagi. Leonardo Usagi." He said before looking back at the statue as the officer wrote it down before walking off.
"We never found anything on Yuichi Usagi. There's no record of him at all." Raph said as Leo just smiled softly.
"No, there wouldn't be, would there? And I've never spoken of him until now. Not to anyone, not even your grandfather." Leo said as he looked at Mikey and Raph before looking at the sash he got from Yuichi. He still kept it until now.
"A person's heart is a deep ocean of secrets. But now you know there was
a person named Miyamoto Yuichi Usagi and that he saved me in every way that a person can be saved. I don't even have a picture of him. He exists now only in my memory." He said with a soft sigh.
Casey gave a shuddering breath and gave his sensei and adopted father a hug. He never knew what he went through but now he does.
Later that night after Leo told them the through story of what happened on the Titanic, they were all taking a break as the submersibles made one last pass on the ruined ship before resurfacing, taking its light with it, leaving the Titanic once again in its fine and private darkness.
A desultory wrap party for the expedition is in progress. There is music and some of the (co-ed) Russian crew are dancing. Hypno is getting drunk in the aggressive style of Baker Joughin.
Donatello stands at the rail, looking down into the black water. April comes to him, offering him a beer. She puts her hand on his arm.
"I'm sorry." She apologized as Donnie just sigh but gave a smile.
"We were pissin' in the wind the whole time." He said as he took a small sip of his beer.
Somewhere at the stern of the ship, Leo was walking towards it while holding something in his hand. He climbed on the railing slowly as it brought back memories of his first meeting with Yuichi.
Donnie notices a figure move through the lights far down at the stern of the ship but he never fails to recognize the blue mask.
"Oh shit." He gasped before running to stop him with April following.
Leo walks through the shadows of the deck machinery. Her his jacket blows in the wind. His feet are bare. His hands are clutched at his plastron, almost as if he is praying.
Donnie and April were running down the stairs from the top deck hauling ass to stop Leo from doing what he was gonna do.
Leo reaches the stern rail. His aged fingers wrap over the rail. His ancient foot stepped up on the gunwale. He pushes himself up, leaning forward. Over his shoulder, we see the black water glinting far below as if waiting to welcome him.
Donnie and April run up behind her.
"Leo, wait! Don't-" April shouted nervously.
Leo hus her head, looking at them. He turns further, and we see he has something in his hand, something she was about to drop overboard back to where it truly belongs.
It was the real "Heart of the Ocean". The treasure of the Titanic.
Donnie sees his holy grail in his hand and his eyes go wide. Leo keeps it over the railing where he can drop it anytime.
"Don't come any closer." Leo told them as Donnie looked at the necklace and at him in shock.
"You had it the entire time?!" He exclaimed in shock.
Leo smiles at Donnie's incomprehension as he remembered how he almost forgot about the necklace.
"The hardest part about being so poor was being so rich. But every time I thought of selling it, I thought of my ex fiancee And somehow I always got by without his help." Leo said as he held it out over the water.
Hypno and a couple of the other guys come up behind Donnie, reacting to what is in Rose's hand.
"Holy shit." Hypno gaped in shock.
"Don't drop it, Leo." Donnie pleaded as he looked at the necklace and Leo.
"Rush him." Warren said but Donnie glared at him.
"It's his, dum-dum." He said before turning back to Leo with a pleading look.
"Look, Leo, I... I don't know what to say to a guy who tries to jump off the Titanic when it's not sinking and jumps back onto it when it is... we're not dealing with logic here, I know that... but please... think about this for a second." He pleaded as Leo just gave a soft smile.
"I have. I came all the way here so this could go back where it belongs." Leo told him.
The massive diamond glitters. Donnie edges closer and holds out his hand.
"Just let me hold it in my hand, Leo. Please. Just once." Donnie pleaded. He has to at least hold it. Just once so he can feel like he accomplished his goal and dream of why he truly came here.
He comes closer to her and Leo blinks and he sees Yuichi in Donnie's place as he gives a small yet sad smile.. It is reminiscent of Yuichi slowly moving up to him at the stern of Titanic.
Surprisingly, he calmly places the massive stone in the palm of his hand, while still holding onto the necklace. Donnie gazes at the object of his quest. An infinity of cold scalpels glint in its blue depths. It is mesmerizing. It fits in his hand just like he imagined.
"My God." He gasped in awe as he felt like he completed something.
His grip tightens on the diamond. He looks up, meeting his gaze. His eyes are suddenly infinitely wise and deep.
"You look for treasures in the wrong place, Mr. O'Neil. Only life is priceless, and making each day count." Leo said as Donnie smiled softly before his fingers relaxed.
He opens them slowly and gently slips the diamond out of his hand. He feels it sliding away. Then, with an impish little grin, Leo tosses the necklace over the rail. Donnie gives a strangled cry and rushes to the rail in time to see it hit the water and disappear forever. Back to where it truly belongs
"Aww! That really sucks, old man!" Cassandra shouted.
Donatello O'Niel goes through ten changes before he settles on a reaction... he laughs. He laughs until the tears come to his eyes. Then he turns to April.
"Would you like to dance?" He jokingly asked as she just grins and punches his shoulder.
Leo smiles before he looks up at the stars as if Yuichi was smiling down at him.
In the black darkness of the ocean, the diamond sinks, twinkling end over end, into the infinite depths.
Much later that night in the cabin, across Leo's shelf of carefully arranged pictures:
Leonardo as a young actor in japan, radiant... a theatrically lit studio publicity shot.
Leo and his husband, with their two children.
Leo with Casey at his college graduation.
Leo with his children and grandchildren at his 70th birthday. A collage of images of a life lived
well.
Leo, circa 1920. She is at the beach, sitting on a horse at the surfline. The Santa Monica pier, with its rollercoaster, is behind him. He is grinning, full of life and joy.
We then see Leo, warm in his bunk under the warm blankets. He is very still yet with a peaceful smile on his face. He could be sleeping or maybe something else entirely. He did it. He finally fulfilled his promise to him.
The wreck of Titanic looms like a ghost out of the dark. It is lit by a kind of moonlight, a light of the mind. We pass over the endless forecastle deck to the superstructure, moving faster than subs can move... almost like we are flying.
The echoing sound of distant waltz music is heard. The rust fades away from the walls of the dark corridor and it is transformed back to its true beauty.
We emerge onto the grand staircase, lit by a glowing chandelier. The music is vibrant now, and the room is populated by men in ties and tails, women in gowns, even yokai and mutants. It is exquisitely beautiful as they greeted someone with warm smiles.
We sweep down the staircase. The crowd of beautiful gentlemen and ladies turn as we descend toward them. At the bottom a man stands with his back to someone... he turns and it is Yuichi. Smiling he holds his hand out toward someone and that someone is Leonardo as he holds his hand.
Leo smiled happily as Yuichi Usagi wrapped his arms around him and vice versa before they both shared their long awaited kiss as everyone applauded and cheered for the happy and reunited couple.
"Always remember... Though we may have been apart for a long time and that fate tore us away, love is eternal. Our love will always live on as the love in our hearts... will always... go on for eternity…