[ao3 mirror]
~420 words
bekuyuu
notes: character death. inspired by the shingetsu line in the preview for next week. (hover here for it if you don't know which one i mean!)
Because he’s soft, foolish. Because he was never meant to survive – Vector has learned about survival of the fittest and it strikes him as so perfectly right. Vector plunges a shard of crystal into Yuuma’s back and isn’t it natural, that he should do so? Isn’t it the way life is supposed to go in this world?
“But— I thought you were—”
“You thought I was what?” Vector is hissing then, twisting the crystal in further, and he leans his head over Yuuma’s shoulder until their cheeks are practically touching. “Redeemed? Your friend?”
“Shingetsu—”
“It’s Vector.” And that’s worth it to see some of the life go out of Yuuma’s eyes in a way that has nothing to do with the shard in his back or the blood soaking Vector’s hands. “I was never Shingetsu.” And it’s true, isn’t it? Once upon a time, maybe, in a life far from his, but the realisation that he was manipulated doesn’t simply erase every string that’s been pulled throughout his lives, does it?
Maybe once upon a time, there was someone like that mask. But that someone wasn’t him.
“But you— but—”
Vector snorts, then. Wrenches the shard free and catches Yuuma when he falls, tossing the crystal blade away to free his hands.
(when all is said and done he’ll go back and find that crystal and he will doubt, suddenly, but by then it will be much, much too late)
“But I told you a pretty little story?” he asks, turning Yuuma in his arms and tilting the boy’s head up toward him. “Cried for you? It’s not my fault you believed me again.”
There is blood beginning to drip from Yuuma’s mouth, now, or perhaps it’s only the stains that Vector’s fingers smear across his chin. And he is so very small, so very light in Vector’s arms, and Vector fears it rejoices in it.
“You helped,” Yuuma says, soft and hurt and so deliciously betrayed-sounding.
And so Vector hums, lips splitting into a smile as he brushes bloodied fingers over Yuuma’s chin, and when he speaks his voice is high and lilting; is Shingetsu rather than Vector.
“Did you think that made us friends, Yuuma-kun? ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’, and all?” He smiles wider and laughs, leans in close like he’s telling a secret. “Silly, Yuuma-kun. The enemy of my enemy is just an enemy of mine who’s too stupid to kill me first.”
[ao3 mirror]
~800 words
nasch; shark drake/ryoga
notes: set post-canon. contains canonical barian death and non-canonical character death.
If he sleeps at all, that is; for the rock shell resists and his firelight core burns so hard that it aches; resists being drowned in the crests and waves of sleep. Sometimes, though, he fights it. Clings to that one last little semblance of humanity, and allows himself to slip under.
And it whispers to him. Uses the name he abandoned and calls for him; calls him back to it and reaches with thick talons that seek to snuff out the star inside him, seek to damp down his fire in its darkness until he becomes for real the human he thought for so long that he was.
(or, at least, until Nasch the Barian is dead)
(it wants Kamishiro Ryoga back but he thinks it would satisfy itself with him dead, with what it sees as an imposter gone forever even if he leaves nothing in his place)
Ryoga, it calls, and closes claws around him until he jerks awake with his all-too-human body soaked with sweat and his eyes watering.
Every time, the human body. No matter where he chooses to take his rest, no matter what body he takes it in, he awakens weak and human-looking and filled with—
Filled with fear, though he doesn’t dare to think the word. Fear that it will snuff his flame out and leave behind a corpse or, worse, the person he thought he was for so long.
You could bring them back, Ryoga, it says to him. If you only gave in, the things we could do…
It’s lying. Has to be, and he knows that. That a simple Number could bring them back is inconceivable, because it had taken Don Thousand to do that the first time and he’s gone now. It can’t bring them back, can’t bring any of them back.
Not just a simple Number, it says, A Number in your hands, Ryoga.
And Nasch wonders, truth be told. The last Barian (barring one, but the fact that the other survivor was him is—) the one who’d never managed to get himself killed in the war even though he’d been the one who’d wanted it most of all. He wonders, whether it would be better to give in. Whether there’s some truth to Shark Drake’s words.
Ryoga, the dragon says, closes his claws around Nasch’s rock body until he feels so very brittle and fragile in its grip and shows him the things it promises him.
(they could bring Merag back, it shows him, they could bring Rio back; he could have his twin at his side, and end the terrible loneliness that sings in his starlight)
(they could bring Durbe back, could bring all of the Barians back so that his guilt over their deaths would be assuaged)
All you have to do is give in, it says, and Nasch thinks of an end to all this and opens himself to it without a word. Lets it sink its claws into the starlight core until he feels as though he’s nothing but the flames; lets it twist and claw and maim the very depths of him because what’s the pain to him when it would mean getting his sister back? When it would mean making up for yet another group that died for him? What is the pain and the pleasure that crests too high until it too loops over to become pain once more?
So let it have him. Let it take away his core and bend the stars to its will, because Nasch has never wanted to be Barian anyway – let Vector be the last of him, let him burn alone until the end of time – and he can still be Nasch even if he’s human.
(he’s given up too much to be Ryoga once more)
And everything pauses when he thinks that.
Just for one single moment; one breath in which the claws around him slacken before they’re pressing deep, deep into the fire and star-song that’s all of him now. And that voice is saying Ryoga again, and the claws press deeper and deeper and in the midst of his pain Nasch hears, somewhere in the recesses of his mind, that name spoken in a different voice and wonders – for the brief moment before the fire becomes too intense to think straight – where exactly Shark Drake came from.
I deal with Ryoga and only Ryoga, it’s telling him then, I will destroy you if it’s what it takes to retrieve him, or else to avenge him, and then Nasch can’t hear anything at all because the claws are too deep into his fire and it hurts it hurts it hurts—
(in the depths of Barian World a card flutters to the ground, singed around its edges, and then there is only silence)
[ao3 mirror]
~480 words
mostly gen; vague hints of bindshipping (astral/yuuma/96) and all component ships.
notes: contains pre-fic character death. for a prompt on the fillathon that was as follows
Yuma/Astral- "Yuma, what is wrong with you?!" Astral felt a chill run through his being as Yuma gave an evil chuckle. He lifted his head, revealing mismatched eyes of red and black, and said in a voice that was Yuma's and Black Mist's combined, a tone cold as ice, two words that seemed to make time slow to a standstill.
"Yuma's dead."
[ao3 mirror]
~1300 words
vyuu; references to past bekuyuu and vkai
notes: i started writing vyuu for yoomz like. forever ago but i think it is probably safe to say i am never getting this finished so i might as well post the wip up right since it left off in an abrupt but nonetheless Okay place. age difference ship obv and underage since yuuma's not aged up - this comes postcanon, but just barely. nothing more than kissing, though, although there's some implied past dub/noncon.
You made me watch you and III die! Yuuma is yelling, and, well… it’s true, isn’t it? Only he’d not thought of this, not thought of a broken child who’d been made to watch a friend die, and Chris isn’t his friend but Yuuma had had to watch him die too. And Chris hadn’t thought of it in terms of the aftermath because he’d not thought further than joining Thomas in hell, so now he stands here and looks at what he’s wrought and doesn’t know what to do, at all.
(he’d never quite known what to do with Kaito, either, never quite reconciled the boy he left behind and the man he’d come back to; he’d come to have some affection for Kaito the man, true, but truth be told he’d never really stopped looking for Kaito the boy, the one he’d left in the rain all those years ago)
He settles for reaching up to pat awkwardly at Yuuma’s back, eyes turning desperately to the others, and then Yuuma is pitching into him and sobbing; great, hitching sobs that don’t stop even as Kotori and another woman – Yuuma’s sister? – manage to gently prise him away from Chris and lead him away.
He excuses himself once Yuuma is gone, takes long moments to find a bench out of the way that isn’t destroyed and sits himself down, closing his eyes to try to ward off the oncoming headache.
Perhaps that’s why he doesn’t hear anyone approach until a quiet voice asks, “V-san?”
Chris looks up to see Kotori stood there, chewing on her lip a little, and when she gestures to the bench in a silent question he nods wearily, shifts over a little to let her perch beside him.
“I—I’m sorry about Yuuma,” she says once she’s sat down. “I don’t really think he knew what to do first. Everything happened so fast, you know?” She stops then, reaches up to tug nervously at the back of her hair. “Um, and Astral left after the duel with Shark – or, well, Nasch, but he was Shark at the end I think – and Yuuma said he was going to be okay with that but I—well, I think mostly he said that so that Astral wouldn’t worry, you know?”
She stops again and looks to Chris, waiting until he nods her on before she speaks again. “Sorry, I’m probably rambling, aren’t I? It’s just… well, like I said. Everything happened so fast, and everyone was gone, and then—then the Barians were turning on each other, and we had to get past them so that Yuuma could duel Don Thousand, and it…” Kotori looks down at her hands and seems to steel herself. “Yuuma was very brave,” she says, and her voice shakes but stays firm. “Him and Astral defeated Don Thousand. They nearly died, but they beat him. And then Shark came, and he wanted to duel Yuuma. And Yuuma kept saying that they didn’t have to fight now, that Don Thousand was gone so they could work something out, now, but Shark wouldn’t listen to him.
“I don’t think he wanted to win, really. He was very sad. And he… he said thank you, when Yuuma beat him.”
She falls silent then, with an air of finality this time, and Chris watches her for a few long moments; thinks about the broken boy from a few minutes ago, shouting about the people who’d already come back, and wonders if that was only to justify the tears for those lost for real. Thinks, too, about this small, sad girl, who sits beside him having seen so much but cares only that he not hold that outburst against Yuuma, that he knows that Yuuma was brave.
(you’re brave too, he wants to say to her, but the words stick in his throat and in the end he only nods and then looks away, awkward)
They sit like that a while longer, in silence, and then Kotori stands up and takes a few steps from the bench before looking back at him.
“Thank you for listening, V-san,” she says, voice stiff and brittle in a way that betrays her own exhaustion, her own sadness. “I’m going to go check on Yuuma now. I think he’d like it if you visited him later too, perhaps. If—if you wouldn’t mind.”
And then she’s turning fully and walking away, leaving Chris to stare half-bewildered after her.
(why the hell would Yuuma want to see him?)
***
Perhaps it’s cowardly of him, but Chris doesn’t go to see Yuuma even after that. He makes excuses to himself – what would he say to Yuuma? He doesn’t know him, after all, not really – and asks after him when Michael has been to visit, but doesn’t ever go to visit himself.
So he certainly doesn’t expect Yuuma turning up on their doorstep one night, much later than he probably ought to be out. It takes him a few moments to quite register that, yes; Yuuma Tsukumo is standing there and staring up at him.
“I—I’ll get Michael for you,” Chris starts, but Yuuma cuts him off.
“I, uh, I’m here to see you, actually,” he says, looking around almost nervously. “Can I come in? S’cold out.”
And, well, it’s not like he can just leave Yuuma stood outside. So he beckons him in, and Yuuma stands there and doesn’t speak, only glances toward the living room door and flinches a little when he hears Michael laugh from within. Which, okay. So whatever he wants, it’s… private, Chris supposes.
(he’s not cut out for this, he thinks to himself, too old and too young all at once to be dealing with the problems of middleschoolers – but when was the last time anyone from this war got to have normal problems?)
“Come on,” he says after a moment, “You can come to my room. They won’t interrupt us there.”
Once they’re in there, Yuuma only sort of drifts aimlessly about, half-heartedly examining the miscellaneous space-rocks and miniature models Chris has on display while Chris himself sits down on the edge of the bed and watches him. Watches and wonders where exactly the Yuuma he’s heard so much about and seen a little of himself has gone, because this quiet wraith drifting about the place certainly isn’t that Yuuma.
Is this, he wonders, the difference that Astral made? That Ryoga Kamishiro made, and the rest of them?
“V?” Yuuma begins abruptly then, so that Chris starts a little and looks over to him and—ah. When did he get so close? Chris doesn’t answer aloud, only nods and stares at him curiously, and so Yuuma goes on, “Will you kiss me?”
Which. What?
“I don’t—”
“Just. It doesn’t mean anything,” Yuuma interrupts. “I want to… know I can? That it’s… okay.”
He won’t meet Chris’ eyes, but he drifts in even closer. Close enough to put a hand on Chris’ face, to slot their mouths together. And there’s hesitance in it, yes, but it’s something Yuuma has so clearly done before and Chris wonders and aches somewhere inside him. Yuuma kisses with the brokenness of someone who’s been hurt badly and Chris wonders how he keeps finding the ones like this; how, too, Yuuma is the first that he didn’t make that way himself.
(one day he’ll ask who and Yuuma will say Vector and then, instead, Shingetsu)
wow this ended up more grossly gay than i expected goddamn UH general hunger games warning ig mostly just violence and even that's not terrible in this so
(he gives them hope)
By all rights, the Capitol should chew him up and spit him out, but somehow, somehow, it doesn't seem to affect him at all. Leaves him just as bright and full of hope as he started out, until he infects everyone he touches with it and for the first time, the people of the Districts begin to believe in something beyond the Hunger Games. Begin to wonder if maybe there's something for them, out from under the thumb of the Capitol.
Yuuma is fifteen when he volunteers for the Quell. His voice rings out loud and clear before they've even finished reading the name of the eldest male victor from his District, and on his way up to the stage he grins at the old man like it's nothing at all.
(Chris, who'd hesitated until Thomas had been halfway to the stage, whose voice had cracked on his first attempt so that he'd had to try again and whose knees had shaken with every step forward, watches his bright confidence and can't quite hold back a hot flush of shame at his own fear)
Even before they reach the arena, the plan is set in motion. Even before they reach the arena, Chris is prepared again to die.
But again, he finds himself fighting. Not even just for his own life this time - not when Michael insists that Chris team up with Yuuma from the very beginning - and that's... different. Leaves him aware of what he's doing in a way he'd never been during his own games, leaves him unable to simply black out when he makes a kill.
He feels shame, again, when he turns away from the woman from District 7 who'd tried to bury an axe in Yuuma's shoulder, and sees Yuuma staring at him with wide, scared eyes - but then Yuuma smiles up at him and perhaps it's hesitant but Chris still finds his heart jumping. Still hates himself a little because he's getting attached and it's bad, it's the stupidest decision he's ever made but--
epsilonalioth asked you: thomas has a sexuality crisis over a hot older woman (guess what ship this is)
didn't really end up managing the sexuality crisis part at all but thomas is nonetheless gay as the night is long besides this so points for effort right. part-r63 burnshipping (iv/fem!heartland), contains underage drinking and also thomas getting pegged thanks
(even with someone who - even now - doesn't exactly know what he's supposed to do with a woman, doesn't even remotely want to know where anyone but her is concerned)
She'd just laughed, again, and the next thing IV had known he'd been on his hands and knees. She'd filled him up with fingers and then made him beg, until she'd been satisfied enough to fill him with a toy instead, and if it hadn't been as good as the real thing she'd certainly made sure he'd forgotten that.
And... well. She's hardly difficult to come back to, after all. Not when she treats him like he's actually worth her time, and perhaps it's only to use him for information - doesn't he know by now, after all, that Heartland is aligned with Kaito, with Faker? - but he's been a tool for so long and somehow, it's hard to care at all. So he comes back to her willingly, again and again, and somewhere along the way he knows full well that there's no more information she can get from him - and if he knows now, she'll have known long ago - but she still invites him back, and it's... nice.
(sometimes in the dead of night she calls him by the name he gave up when Tron appeared, and he doesn't ask how she knows it - because Heartland has her methods, doesn't she - only leans into her and breathes yes the way he never would if anyone else used that name for him now)
anonymous asked you: I'm not sure If you'll write this but crossfireshipping (Alit/IV) of any sort.
cw: spoilers and summary spoilers, references to barian deaths (both canon and non-canon) and iv's death, gemsex. set post-canon.
He stays there, hides himself out of the way as the others battle it out; as the war is won and lost around him with his part already played even if some force doesn't seem to realise it. Doesn't emerge until it's all over with, and then he goes straight to the human world, only remaining in the burnt-out remains of this world long enough to scavenge for a lapis.
(he knows, somehow, that he'll need it)
He doesn't dare go home, though, not when he'd hung back even after the others had returned. Not when he's... this.
So he drifts, and whether by chance or by some kind of magnetism he ends up before Alit. Alit who takes one look at the lapis hanging around his neck and flinches but then moves in to seize him, to pull him close and push fingers into the gem until IV and Mascitar become one and the same and there's no more of the strange disconnect between them; only IV, Mascitar, the last living Barian pressed against the last of the Lords, IV burning bright while Alit will never burn again.
(they're two of a kind - IV the only Barian whom Alit can burn vicariously through now and Alit the only human who has been Barian before and can understand the feeling of a star burning through one's veins - and perhaps that, in the end, is why IV stays there, lets Alit run fingers over the gems of his Barian form and does his best, when Alit asks, to thrum out the song of the stars in his voice, on instruments, and holds him when he cries for the pain of knowing that Mascitar's attempts at it will never come close to the songs that were silenced for him)
[ao3 mirror]
~1200 words
chris/michael
summary: when they regain their souls, he's still missing something.
notes: this started as venting through the medium of michael arkwright, and ended up working along the idea of his crest - since he was the only one who got his amped up by tron - becoming more linked to his numbers than chris or thomas'. and then canon kind of happened to the end of it. oops. (canonical character death, sibling incest, self-harm)
Wrong? No, that’s not quite it.
Empty, perhaps. Missing something important.
He dreams of fire burning in stripes across his body, and wakes to a hollowness in his chest and to blood on the back of his hand; to flesh and blood beneath his nails where he’s clawed at where it ought to be. Where he’s marked up the skin, even if he can’t mark it with what’s supposed to be there.
Neither of the others feels the same. He asks them about it, and sees in their eyes before they even answer that neither of them knows what he’s feeling.
I can speak to tousama, Chris tells him, and nothing has ever sounded more terrifying.
No, he breathes, no, no, and Chris drops it but doesn’t drop it; Chris will wait, and he’ll say nothing for now, but he’ll be watching now and too many hints of something wrong will send him straight to their father.
(their father? is he?)
So he draws in on himself. Hides it.
Aren’t they all broken, to the last? What difference does it make how that shows?
He hears Chris pacing in the night. He hears Thomas screaming when he wakes from his nightmares – or perhaps it’s IV, because he sees the way his brother’s mouth twists whenever someone calls him by his name.
He sees Tron, and he…
Well. Tron is his own disaster, isn’t he?
IV, Thomas, whatever he is he won’t look at Tron. Barely even says two words to him, unless he has to.
(is this really the family they were fighting for?)
In the end, he has to tell someone. So he turns to Chris – better to let him hear exactly what’s happening, isn’t it, than to let him draw his own conclusions.
I need the Numbers back, he tells him, and he claws at where the crest used to sit until Chris moves forward to pull his hands apart, to wash and dress the mess he’s made of his hand.
I’m missing something.
When they went away I think they took my soul.
He’s not soulless, Chris tells him. Weren’t they all without their souls? Didn’t they all awaken, souls intact?
Not intact, he thinks to himself. Present, perhaps, but not intact.
He wonders if it’s worth saying something. Decides against it.
Settles, instead, for pressing his lips to Chris’.
I’m empty, he insists. Take it away. Fill me up again.
Chris can’t do that, really. Not when the emptiness is so very deep, like a rot to the core.
But Chris tries, and there’s that. Protests at first but is so easily convinced to try to fill the gap physically, at least. To use mouth and fingers and cock until there’s at least a momentary reprieve from the emptiness in the sharp, high moments where his orgasm blanks it all out and leaves him, briefly, complete.
So it goes on, and he pretends.
Yes, niisama, he says, it’s better now. You’re helping.
He’s not, but what difference does it make to lie? Telling the truth would only hurt Chris.
So he pretends, yes. Sleeps with a thick glove on his hand, so that he won’t claw at where the crest was. Fakes smiles and tries to remember to eat as much as he’s supposed to, to sleep and clean himself and just live when he feels like there’s a hole in his chest.
They do things, together. Try to reclaim the family that even he can see now is far beyond their reach. And once upon a time that would have cut him to the core but now he only views it distantly, dispassionately; what need does he have for a family when he doesn’t even have all of his soul?
So when they go out together, when they visit places or eat dinner together or all of the other things families are supposed to do that don’t involve their father stripping their souls from them or using them as pawns, he plays at family like the rest of them do. He smiles until his cheeks hurt and Thomas-IV-Thomas deigns to look at Tron a few times and Chris bites his lip until it bleeds so as not to get angry at anyone.
It’s family. It’s what they fought for, and it makes him sick.
(after one outing he finds his skin darkening with a tan, except for the stripes that cover his body that remain as pale as anything, and it takes everything in him not to scrub himself until all of his skin is pink and raw and the stripes blend into the rest of it even if they’re not really gone away)
And then it all begins again, and truth be told it’s hardly unexpected. Had any of them really expected to ever escape all of this?
So they wait, and they watch, and they don’t save Astral but when Yuuma is alone Chris sends him out, finally. Decides, finally, that it’s time for them to move.
He’s sent off with kisses and touches and made to promise that he’ll stay as safe as anyone can in the midst of this all.
Yes, niisama, he promises in soft exhalations into Chris’ neck, I’ll do my best.
And perhaps he doesn’t mean it. Perhaps he doesn’t quite intend to make it out of this. But a war is a war and when they count the casualties, nobody ever stops to wonder which of them walked too fast into the line of fire.
He doesn’t mean it, but he’s been pretending to live for long enough that he thinks he can pretend he wanted to when his end comes.
And then, stood before him, Yuuma hands him his Numbers. His Numbers, and nothing has ever felt so right in his hand.
Yuuma gives him back his numbers and gives him back what he lost, and for the first time since he woke up he feels truly awake. Feels truly alive.
He’s alive again, whole again, and he’ll fight for it and mean what he promised Chris.
And he does. He fights, inasmuch as he can. He’s there for Yuuma, really present, and with his Numbers in hand he burns so bright in every way that he can. There’s so little that he can do, in the end, but he throws himself into it nonetheless. Yuuma gave him his life back and so he throws that life into doing what he can for Yuuma.
When it comes, the end, he sees it coming. It doesn’t take Chris to tell him that they’re heading to their deaths.
He should be afraid. He knows that. But he’s not. Can’t be, not really.
He goes to his death with Chris at his side and Yuuma protected by their sacrifice, but more importantly he goes to his death from a life that burns bright again and so he does not, cannot, regret it.
(let’s go see Thomas, he thinks at the end, and though their hands never quite touch he knows that Chris is reaching back towards him when he reaches out in the face of the final attack, and somehow that’s enough)
