Iris. [SDRA2 Sannohashi Oneshot]
read on ao3 here if you please
plot:
and i don't want the world to see me 'cause i don't think that they'd understand when everything's made to be broken i just want you to know who i am.
syobai hashimoto has to fix the biggest mistake he's ever made in his life. mikado sannoji has to deal with what syobai leaves behind when he runs away. it was never supposed to go this far.
syobai-focused sannohashi, set in the "nuclear" AU. more explained inside. featuring trans!mikado and sora/syobai friendship. tw for mentions of suicide attempt in the beginning.
notes:
So to make a long story short, this series takes place after a huge nuclear war decimated half of the human population and fucked up a lot of shit with the environment and people's bodies. Everybody knows shit's fucked. The SDRA2 kids exist in the same universe as the rest of the canon Ultimates, and everyone's around the same age (THH and NDRV3 kids are about 22, SDR2 kids are 23, SDRA2 kids are around 20-21). So everyone's an adult. Don't come for my throat. Don't like it, don't leave a nasty comment, thanks! Bad and stinky comments will be placed inside the bee oven to atone for their sins.
It's not often that Syobai admits this, but this time, he's absolutely, completely, royally, fucked up. Badly. And normally he doesn't care, but this time is so very different. Sitting at a table in a nearly-empty diner at half-past noon is not where he thought he was gonna end up today, but here he is, with his head in his hands, staring down at his phone's lock screen, counting the minutes since Sora sent her "omw" text.
This diner serves whiskey. A lot of places serve liquor now, have since the war tore the world apart and left millions of traumatized people to deal with the aftermath, many of them turning to alcohol to cope. Syobai has been drinking since the ripe old age of ten, so that's not new to him, and the whiskey they have here is strong, and it's tempting.
It's so, so tempting. But if he does that, it won't end very well for him; first of all, Sora would likely -- definitely -- beat his ass into next week if she shows up and finds him drunk. Second, in the state he's currently in emotionally, if he gets drunk, all he's going to do is remember things, and when he remembers things, he ends up waking up on the bathroom floor at 3 AM in a puddle of his own tears with a bottle of pain pills in his hand.
So Syobai won't drink. Not today, anyway. But God damn, does he really want to smoke.
As soon as he starts to get up to go outside (the diner has a no smoking policy, which he thinks is stupid considering the fact that nuclear warfare has done shit to the air they don't even know about yet, but he's not willing to get kicked out and risk a beating by Sora yet again), the universe interferes with his life once more. Sora steps in through the door of the diner.
Well there goes that plan.
She spots him fairly quickly and strides over to the booth in the back corner, sliding into the seat like nothing's changed. Syobai remembers when they'd used to skip class every Wednesday and go down to the diner down the street from Hope's Peak, the one that served all the crazy Western food, and dare each other to eat the craziest shit on the menu as fast as they could without puking or choking. Sora, of course, would win every time, and "claim her victory for all of the lesbians out there."
It's enough to make him smile a little bit. The diner was abandoned when the war started, but they still hang out there sometimes.
"So, you wanna tell me what's wrong with you?"
Sora's voice breaks through his thoughts, and Syobai lifts his head to look at her. She's got her chin in her hand, and her elbow propped on the table.
"Elbows on the table? Not very lady-like," Syobai jokes. With her free hand, Sora flips him off, and he snickers. "I'm kidding, geez. Who says there's anything wrong with me?"
Sora points at the complimentary basket of chips the diner serves with every customer. "There's food on the table, and you haven't eaten it all yet to spite me. Now, I asked you nicely. Don't make me come over there."
Well. Looks like he can't stall his explanation anymore.
He lets out a long, heavy, slow sigh, and laces his fingers together in front of him on the table. Syobai turns his grey-eyed gaze down towards the surface of the table, before forcing himself to look up and meet Sora's eyes.
"I need your help," he says simply. "I fucked up."
"You do that a lot. Elaborate."
"I fucked up really, really bad." Syobai pauses. "With Mikado."
Sora tilts her head. "Last time I asked, you told me the two of you were "just sleeping together casually." Did you lie to me, Syobai?"
Syobai swallows heavily. He can hear his heart beating in his ears.
"Mikado is pregnant," he finally says. The words actually leaving his lips feel like the final blow in a fight, and he's just lost. "With my children."
"... oh." Sora blinks a few times. "So this was an accident, I take it? Whatever happened to high school Syobai Hashimoto who carried five different types of condoms in his wallet at all times just in case he met a hot guy walking home from school?"
"Hey, in my defense, I usually still have condoms." Yes, they're a bit harder to find nowadays, as is almost everything, but up until now, he's always managed to have one on hand for when the two of them start feeling frisky (which tends to happen at least once a day). "To answer your question, though, what happened is Setsuka decided to get hitched."
"The party," Sora gasps, remembering suddenly. "Oh, my God. So you two did fuck in the bathroom! Emma owes me five thousand yen."
"Yes, we did do that," Syobai mumbles. It's not totally his fault, he thinks. It's not like Mikado wasn't grinding on him half the night, begging him to fuck him as hard as he could against the wall. It's no doubt the best sex he's ever had in his life.
And, of course, it's the one time they fuck without a condom and without pulling out. Not that that's guaranteed to help anything, but hey, it might have? Maybe it's just wishful thinking on Syobai's part.
"So what's the problem?" Sora continues. "Does he not want the babies?"
Syobai looks away. "I, uh. I don't know."
Sora's eyes narrow dangerously. "You didn't talk to him about it?"
Syobai gives a dry laugh. "Well, ya see, that's where the whole "I fucked up really bad" bit comes in."
"What'd you do." This isn't spoken as a question, somehow, as Sora's voice deepens. She's already pissed off, great, and Syobai has a feeling she won't be any happier when he tells this part of the story.
"Um." Syobai swallows again, more nervous this time. "I... I ran off."
Silence. "Excuse me?" Sora says. "You wanna run that by me again?"
Syobai still isn't meeting her eyes. He recalls exactly how the exchange went, just about two hours ago now.
"I'm pregnant."
The world stops turning.
Mikado's holding his hands over his stomach, gloved fingers gripping the fabric of his shirt so tightly his hands shake. Syobai, on the other hand, just. Stands there. Staring at Mikado, completely speechless.
Before he knows it, his body is reacting all on its own. Syobai opens his mouth, trying to form an intelligent response, but all that comes out is two words he'll regret deeply:
"I can't."
Before Mikado reacts to that, Syobai yanks the front door open and takes off down the street, running and running and running until he can't, falling to his knees behind the 7-11 -- how the hell did he get there, it's a mile from the house -- choking and coughing before he inevitably pukes from the strain of running so far, so fast.
This all goes through his head in the span of about two seconds. "I just stood there like an idiot," Syobai finally says. "I -- I said I can't and then I ran." His hand curls into a fist. "I ran like the dumb fucking coward I am." He brings his fist down on the table as hard as he can. Sora doesn't jump, instead staring at him evenly. "Go ahead and say it. I know you want to."
"You're right for once. What the hell is wrong with you?" Sora snaps. "I know that taking responsibility for your numerous fuck-ups is completely foreign to you, and usually you get away with it with no consequences because that's just how it is when you deal with people you don't care about and criminals, and hey, I can let it go when it's some nameless Yakuza dude who got assassinated with a gun you sold someone 'cause I don't care either," she begins. "But then, you turn around and do this shit? To Mikado? To someone we all know, and yeah, he might be a rat, but he doesn't deserve to be left high and dry and pregnant and scared because you --" And here she points at him, Syobai flinching as every word cuts deeper, "-- are a fucking coward. You're God damn right you screwed up."
"I was scared," Syobai says, his weak attempt at a protest surprising even himself.
"You were scared?" Sora laughs, and it's bitter. "That's funny. It's funny that you were scared. How do you think Mikado feels right now? Alone, facing the possibility of having to raise more than one child by himself after the man he's spent half of high school madly in love with, and the man he's been sleeping with for the past six months, ran away when he told him he'd gotten him pregnant?"
There's really nothing he can say to that. Syobai sighs shakily. "I wasn't just scared because he's pregnant," he finally says. "I was scared because..."
He shuts his eyes.
"Because I love him. I love him, so much that it hurts, and I may as well have just stabbed him right in the chest."
"And you're not used to that," Sora says. "You're not used to caring for anyone except yourself. But as long as you kept telling yourself it was just for fun, and there were no feelings involved, you could shrug it off. Maybe a part of you thought Mikado felt the same way, like it was just a game. Then he started to make your world wider, you started to get comfortable with it, and you got scared. Then he came to you, and told you that it wasn't just him anymore, and you panicked. You couldn't handle it. But instead of staying there and talking to him about it like an adult, you were just cryptic, and then you ran away."
Syobai opens his eyes and looks over at Sora. He somehow looks even older than he usually does. "Yeah. Yeah, you got me there." He swallows, heavily, and his mouth tastes like copper from how hard he's been chewing on his inner lip. "It was just supposed to be for fun. It was never supposed to be serious."
"Yeah, well, tough shit," Sora shrugs. "Mikado's pregnant. You're gonna be a dad. You could run all the way to America and it wouldn't change a thing. The only difference is, Mikado has to live with what you gave him forever. You've got two choices: you can drag your sorry ass home and show Mikado you're sorry, or you can keep running away. But, I'll have you know..." And here, Sora's voice darkens, and she looks more dangerous now than she ever did before even with a gun in her hands, "If you leave him like that? And if you ever run away from him like that again? And dare to show your face in Japan again? I will personally hunt you down and make you beg for me to kill you. Understand?"
"... yeah. I understand," Syobai replies. He runs a hand through his hair while Sora takes a couple of breaths to calm herself down. "I don't want to leave him. But I don't think I'm ready to be a father. Or much of anything, really." He looks down at his hands, rough and calloused and forever stained with the blood of so many that only he can see. "What if I can't love them?"
"If you love Mikado as much as you say you do, you'll fall in love with those babies way before they're ever born," Sora tells him. "Listen. This world's gone to shit. It's gonna be hard to raise a family like this. That's why Yoruko and I are waiting. But it's a little too late for you to do that, so all you can do is suck it up and do everything you can to make sure they never have to be a part of what we were."
Sora's words seal Syobai's decision.
---
He tries calling Mikado to tell him he's coming home for an hour, and gets absolutely no response. A part of Syobai is worried, desperately hoping Mikado didn't do something stupid and end up hurting himself, and wants to get home as soon as he can, but...
The other part of him feels like if he just shows up at home with no warning, it'll only make the situation that much worse.
So he calls, and calls, and calls, and gets sent to voicemail over and over, until finally, there's an answer.
"Fucking Syobai Hashimoto," a voice that is decidedly not Mikado's comes through the speaker. "I ought to skin you alive and wear you like a fur coat. How dare you."
Syobai sighs and frowns, rubs a hand over his face. "Hello, Nikei."
"Don't you hello, Nikei me!" The furious man spits over the phone. "Ever since Mikado told me you two were a thing, I've been looking for a reason to shoot you and make Why Syobai Hashimoto's Death Should be Celebrated as a National Holiday an article on the front page news for a month straight! Now I finally get a reason and I can't even do it because Mikado wants his kids to know their scumbag father!"
Syobai pauses. "... he wants me to come back?"
"I want you to come back, too," Nikei starts to say. "So I can beat you to death with a baseball bat." It sounds like he wants to say more, but then Syobai hears a very quiet, muffled voice in the background. It has to be Mikado. He strains to hear, but it's no use, because the phone doesn't pick up exactly what he's saying. A few seconds later, though, he hears Nikei give a heavy sigh.
"Alright, fine. Mikado wants to hear you out, so I won't be here when you get back, sadly," Nikei mutters. "But I can be there in ten minutes tops if he calls me back, and I'd love to see you try to outrun my bullets."
"Point taken." Syobai closes his eyes and lets out a slow breath. "Tell him to leave the door unlocked. I'm coming home."
---
It takes a little under an hour for Syobai to get home. He has to walk all the way there, after all, and he's already tired, but he pushes through. By the time he makes it to the driveway, it feels like his legs are about to fall off.
Then he gets to the front door, puts his hand on the doorknob, and hesitates. It's like all of the exhaustion evaporates, replaced by pure adrenaline and the urge to turn around and start running again.
No. He's made up his mind. Syobai closes his eyes, the mental image of Mikado laughing brightly in his arms appearing to him with no trouble at all, without him even needing to think about it.
God. All the things he would do to make that smile come back to Mikado's face. All the things he would do to forget the look of heartbreak he saw for just a split second when they were standing in the living room.
He turns the doorknob and walks inside the empty living room. His feet land in the same place they were, and he lets the door close behind him as he takes a few shallow breaths. The nagging little voice in the back of his head says you should've ended this a long time ago, Hashimoto. You always knew you'd never be man enough for him, to protect him, to care for him. You're just a coward.
Syobai ignores it, pushes through the pain and walks over to the door of the bedroom he and Mikado have been sharing. Technically, it's Syobai's room, because this is his house, but his sheets smell like Mikado, and it's his and Mikado's clothes on the floor in that room, and there's a picture of both of them hanging on the wall.
Syobai bites his lip so hard he tastes blood, then knocks three times on the door. He contemplates saying something to announce his presence, but finds it better to keep his mouth shut for right now.
At least, until the door opens up, and it's Mikado standing before him, with no mask, his face clearly streaked and stained with tears. Syobai forces himself to look at his face, look him in the eyes, because Mikado deserves that, at least. He deserves so much more than what Syobai's given him.
Neither of them really knows what to say at first. Then Syobai takes a shuddering, shallow breath.
"I'm sorry, for what I said," Syobai finally says. "I said "I can't." That was a lie. I - I can, I just... didn't want to face it."
"I really hope you didn't come all the way here just to say I'm sorry and expect me to forgive you," Mikado says, his voice barely above a whisper.
Syobai shakes his head. "I'm not asking you to forgive me right now," he murmurs. "I just want you to hear me out. Then you can do whatever you want. I swear. Please."
Mikado bites his lip and looks down at the floor, contemplating. "Fine. But I'm not doing this for you."
"That's okay." Syobai closes his eyes for a moment, then looks back evenly at Mikado as he slowly gets to his knees, now looking up at him. Mikado doesn't hide the look of shock on his face as Syobai starts talking.
"Listen. I'm not gonna make excuses. I'm a coward, and I'm a fool. I broke your heart. When things go beyond my intentions, I try to own up to them. Today I ran away instead." He swallows heavily, watches as Mikado shuts his eyes tight. "I - until you told me this morning, I was a man with nothing to lose. Nobody but myself. Then I went from that, to having everything to lose in two words. All my life, I never cared about what happened to anybody but myself. I didn't give a shit. And now..." He looks at Mikado's stomach, where he's resting one of his gloved hands, as though he isn't even thinking about it.
"I realized no matter how far I ran, or for how long, I'd never be able to forget that. I couldn't change it. I can't go back in time and stop what happened." Syobai sighs. Mikado's hands tremble. "The more I thought about it, the more I realized: I don't want to stop what happened. I don't want these kids to not exist."
"Then why did you run away? Why'd you leave me?" Mikado chokes out.
There's no turning back now. Syobai looks at Mikado right in the eyes, grey meeting pale brown, Syobai finally ready to say the words that could make or break him.
"Because I love you, Mikado Sannoji," Syobai says, clearly, sincerely, the only words that have ever come from his mouth with complete purity. "I love you, and it's real and it's raw and it scares the living hell out of me, because I didn't think I could until you walked into my life." He reaches out, fully ready for Mikado to push him away. Instead, he's pleasantly surprised when his cold hands are wrapped in Mikado's warm ones. He hasn't looked away from him, not for a moment, watching as more tears spill down Mikado's face despite him trying to fight them. "I got through life by putting up paywalls, literally, and I knew no person in their right mind would ever wanna get past them." He gives a little laugh. "I didn't count on you, coming in and blowing holes through them."
"Hey, I only blew a hole in a wall once, and that was an accident," Mikado laughs and cries at the same time, his body trembling. By now, Syobai's shaking too, but he's still fighting his own tears.
"Well, you sure got rid of mine," Syobai says. He lifts one of his hands to his lips and kisses his knuckles. "To be honest, I'm still scared. I don't know what I'm doing, not with you, not with the kids we made, not with my life, but I do know one thing: I wanna figure it out with you, and nobody else."
His voice cracks. Syobai swallows heavily, one last ditch-effort attempt at holding back his emotions.
"Will you let me stay here, right here, by your side?" Syobai asks, voice strained. "Will you let me become the man you deserve?" He sniffs, his last words coming in a quiet sob:
"Will you let me be a father?"
Mikado nods, squeezes Syobai's hands, his decision made as soon as he sees the tears -- so very real, undeniable evidence of Syobai bearing his soul to Mikado for the first time -- coming down his face like rain.
"Yeah. Yes, let's do it," Mikado whispers. "Oh, my God. We're gonna be fathers."
Syobai leans forward a little, rests his head against Mikado's belly, presses their still interlocked hands against the small, barely-noticeable swell, evidence that their children are safe, growing, and healthy. He doesn't say a word. He doesn't need to, as he rolls up the bottom of Mikado's shirt and kisses his skin, so gently he's afraid he imagined it at first.
Syobai Hashimoto doesn't so much fall in love with Mikado Sannoji; instead, rather, he stumbles into it, clumsy and foolish and with no grace at all. But he falls in love with their little ones in a split second, a moment in time he'll never forget.
