i’ll take my heart clean apart (if it helps yours beat)
link to ao3
rating: t
archive warnings: none
relationships: takeomi akashi & haruchiyo sanzu
characters: takeomi akashi, haruchiyo sanzu
additional tags: hurt/slight comfort, angst, angst with a hopeful ending, angst with a happy ending, character study, relationship study, reconciliation, future timeline: bonten, dead kawaragi senju, crying, implied/referenced alcohol abuse/alcohlism, substance abuse, some mentions of sexual stuff but nothing explicit and nothing between siblings or anything, minor original character(s), gun violence, implied/referenced suicide, hallucinations
wordcount: ~4.7k
notes: title from two by sleeping at last!! also i've tagged this hurt/slight comfort but i wanna put emphasis on it again. the comfort does not make up for the hurt!! this is mostly sad with some hope okay
Senju is dead, Sanzu is falling apart in his drug addiction, and Takeomi... Takeomi feels so responsible and guilty for everything that’s happened in either of their lives. He tries to fix it, somehow.
Takeomi notices that the door to his room opens because of the quiet creak sound it makes. He turns his head, looks over—whoever he might’ve expected (probably Kokonoi, coming in to give him the monthly report on the finances, or Kakucho, urging him to stop working and to take a break for once), it certainly wasn’t his brother. Sanzu. His pink hair covers half of his eyes, wet with too much water to style. He must’ve showered recently because his suit is dry.
,,Why do you keep buying things I like and leave them in my room to find for me?’’, he asks, sharp gaze on his brother. His eyes look oddly dull.
Takeomi’s thoughts immediately race to Senju. To their sister. Their dead sister. She’d been shot, multiple times, and they’d both been there to watch it happen, too far away to help. He still blames himself. For not being faster. For not killing her murderers afterwards. For leaving her to die while he stared and stared and stared, unable to move. Losing his sister was the hardest thing Takeomi’s ever went through in his whole thirty-eight years of life. And he knows that he can’t bear losing his brother too. Even if Sanzu hates him, as long as he’s alive, somewhat stable; that’s all he needs. To know that he’s okay. But even that feels like too much sometimes.
Because I want to see you happy. Because I want to see you getting better. Because I want you to see how sorry I am, he thinks. But he’s not quite bold enough to say it yet, so he just shrugs and purses his lips.
,,How did you know that I’m the one doing it?’’, Takeomi asks. He looks at his brother, trying to figure out what’s going through his head. But his expression is blank, and his eyes restlessly wander through the room.
,,Who else should it be?’’, is all he answers. ,,And now tell me why.’’
Again, Takeomi’s thoughts go back to Senju. He hadn’t gotten any sleep the nights after her death, overly tired and starting to hallucinate from the lack of sleep. He’d seen her, glint of hate in her eyes, all the gunshot wounds bleeding, oozing red liquid that had stained the floor and had left behind a trail when he’d tried to walk away from her. She’d had a gun in her hands, had been pointing it at him. She’d never pulled the trigger though, not until he’d yelled at Sanzu for disturbing him when he’d finally been able to relax enough he’d felt like he could fall asleep. That was the moment she’d turned the gun to herself, and had pulled the trigger, and he had screamed, had shouted for help, had cried for Sanzu to help him because she’d shot herself dead. But Sanzu’d just left, and he hadn’t been able to stop screaming until his throat had been hoarse, dry, and he’d passed out squirming on the floor in agony.
,,I hate you, Akashi. I don’t want to be reminded of you anymore!’’, Sanzu says, voice getting louder with every word until he’s fully yelling, ,,I fucking hate you! Leave me alone. That’s the only thing you can do to help now, but you manage to fuck even that up.’’
With those words, Sanzu skips over the room with a glint of hate in his eyes one last time before he turns around, walks outside, and slams the door shut behind him. Only Takeomi remains.
He can’t help but let his head fall down, resting his forehead on his wooden table. The impact hurts, and he tells himself that it’s because of the physical pain when his eyes overflow with tears. He tells himself that it’s because of the back pain from excessive desk work. That it’s because of his chronic joint pain. He can’t decide on an excuse, and he angrily slams his fist down beside him because he doesn’t want to be so upset about Sanzu hating him, especially because he has every right to do so. But, in the end, he will always love his little brother, and seek for similar feelings in him. Because he can’t let go of the past. And he can’t let go of the only person he has left, even if they hate him more than anyone else, and will likely never want to have to do anything with him. He swears to himself to try again. Again and again, to try more, to try harder. Until he’s dead.
Takeomi turns his head, looks at his hand with blurry sight. There’s red. Blood. He forgot that he’d held a glass of water when he slammed his fist down on the table. There’s splinters everywhere in his flesh, and the liquid is dripping off the edge, slowly pooling on the floor. He hisses when he lifts his hand, takes a closer look at all of the blood. It’s going to be a pain in the ass to clean out his wounds. He sighs in resignation, and turns his head back towards the tabletop, letting his hand hang down beside his body. He’ll clean it sometime later. Or maybe Kakucho will.
Kokonoi ends up removing all of the glass splinters from Takeomi’s hand, and then wraps a bandage around it after gently applying some ointment. Turns out he’s quite used to patching up Inupi—even if Inupi’d always insisted that he doesn’t need any help. Takeomi, on the other hand, had simply turned his head towards the door when he’d heard it open, and had raised his hand when he’d seen that it was Kokonoi standing there. In all honesty, he’s glad that Kokonoi was the one to find him. Anyone else would’ve either ridiculed him or would’ve made a fuss. Even if he’s still more inclined to let Kakucho handle his injuries, he adds Kokonoi to the list of people he trusts with his wounds. Especially the fatal ones, that is. In the worst case scenario, he’d be able to trust pretty much anyone with minor injuries, though certainly not the ones that are required to have good care to heal nicely. Sanzu isn’t on the trusted list.
Takeomi’s enjoying (or, rather, trying to enjoy with his dominant hand being practically useless, and eating spaghetti turning out to be a lot more difficult than anticipated like this) dinner when his phone rings. He sighs, assuming it’s yet another late call from Manjiro, and takes a few seconds to calm himself before he accepts the call. But the voice he hears very much isn’t his boss’s.
,,God, took ’m long enough to pick up!’’, some girl says, apparently to someone on her side of the phone, followed by, ,,Hey, idiot. Ya gotta get your lil bro. ’S lying in a club’s bathroom, drunk off his ass, the dipshit. In the women’s bathroom.’’ There’s giggling in the background, and he can also make out some groaning before he hears someone puke and someone else yell in disgust. Takeomi would rather have to go on another stupid late night mission, that’s for sure.
,,Yeah, yeah, I’ll come get him. You got an address? Get him outside the building, if possible, but don’t leave him alone.’’ After a second, he adds, ,,Please’’, just to be sure the woman won’t do anything stupid. Because, after all, he couldn’t live with himself if anything bad would happen to Sanzu.
The woman laughs some more, gives him the address and agrees to keep watch over Sanzu. ,,Thank you’’, Takeomi says, ,,Thank you. I’m on my way.’’
He arrives twenty minutes later, driving through Tokyo’s streets at twice the speed limit. It doesn’t matter to him, though, he’s confident enough in his abilities. And, a quiet voice in the back of his mind adds, he’s worried for Sanzu. He is, yes. It’s pretty easy to admit that to himself now, as long as he doesn’t have to tell anyone else.
The woman he assumes he’s talked to on the phone is sitting outside the club, leaning against the wall with her knees held close to her chest. She isn’t dressed for the cold of the nightly breeze there is in that time of the year, so Takeomi takes off his jacket and holds it out to her. ,,Here. You’re freezing, and I want to repay you for looking after him somehow.’’
She nods, thankfully accepting the piece of cloth and covering her bright red mini dress with the black material. ,,You’re welcome. ’S a fun guy, y’know, your lil bro. Let me snort a line on his tits.’’
During that moment, Takeomi’s just glad it wasn’t Sanzu’s dick because knowing him the sentence led up to exactly that premise. He asks the woman for her name. ,,Natsu’’, she replies, ,,No need for last names. Hope to see ’m ’gain soon.’’
Natsu stands up, winking at Takeomi before she says, ,,Or ya. You’re just as handsome as he’s cute’’, and turns around to enter the club once more, his dark coat leaving with her.
Takeomi shakes his head, and finally looks at his brother. He’s half lying on his back, half leaned against the wall. His eyes are squeezed shut, and his eyebrows are lowered as if he was angry or very concentrated. Occasionally, his body twitches.
,,Come on, Haruchiyo’’, Takeomi mutters while carefully pushing an arm under Sanzu’s legs, and another under his neck to support him. With ease, he lifts him off the ground, his limbs loosely hanging in the air. Sanzu stirs and groans, then coughs a few times, and spits onto the floor. He reeks of alcohol and puke, and while Takeomi isn’t bothered by the smell of it, the fact that he stinks of those things, like every other night, upsets him. Sanzu should find better coping mechanisms than drowning his struggles in drugs all day. He himself isn’t totally clean either, no; but he makes sure to savour it in measured amounts. And while in a safer environment.
,,Let’s get you home’’, Takeomi explains more than commands, and hisses when Sanzu shakes his head in his drunken state, causing unnecessary movement for his injured hand.
,,Stop moving.’’
Sanzu opens his eyes, moves them so they’re resting on Takeomi’s face, but his wide blown pupils stare right through his head and into the distance. Takeomi sighs and walks over to his car, placing him on the passenger seat, and securing his seat belt after lowering the back rest a little. He shuts and locks the car door, just to be sure.
When he’s finally sitting on the driver’s seat himself, he looks over at Sanzu. He’s mindlessly staring into space, drunken grin on his face. Takeomi sighs once more and rests his forehead on the steering wheel for a minute before starting the engine, and driving them both back to the headquarters. He’d drive them home, but there hasn’t been such a place to him in years.
Takeomi takes his time driving back, even turning up the radio and quietly humming along with the songs. Every other minute, he looks over at Sanzu, makes sure he’s okay. He is, and he somehow manages to stay conscious throughout the whole ride.
After they arrive, Takeomi stays seated in his car for a while, trying to relax. ,,Please call me yourself next time. Before some random stranger needs to call your emergency contact to get you home’’, he quietly says. Sanzu’s still staring into the distance, odd smile decorating his lips.
,,Haru?’’, Takeomi calls.
Sanzu turns his head towards him. His eyes are still unfocused, but he manages to get a word out. ,,Senju?’’
,,No’’, Takeomi sighs, voice laced with grief. ,,It’s me, Takeomi, not her. I just... wanted to ask you to call me before you’re too drunk to walk next time, please.’’
Sanzu peeks at Takeomi with half-lidded eyes, trying to focus on him. He doesn’t seem to come to a conclusion. ,,Will... will she- Will she be happy if-- if I call you? Senju?’’, he babbles, words hard to understand in his intoxicated state. But Takeomi gets what he wants to say.
,,Yes’’, he whispers, nods. Sanzu grins at him, even if his gaze goes right through him. Takeomi’s happy enough that he might be more inclined to call him earlier now. Sometimes, he’s found, drunk Sanzu with nothing but Senju on his mind truly is an advantage. And sometimes it’s more of a curse than anything else. Today it’s both.
Takeomi leaves the car, and opens the door next to Sanzu, gently lifting the smiling man up the same way he did earlier. He pretends that he’s the cause of his brother’s happiness while he carries him upstairs, safely bringing him to his room, and lays him down on the bed before he leaves him alone with a glass of cold water and an extra blanket.
Back in his own room, Takeomi looks at his bandaged hand. Shit. There’s blood. Recklessly driving a car, and carrying a fidgeting person didn’t do his injuries any good.
He decides to unwrap the bandages in the shower, with warm water running, so the dried blood doesn’t stick. Watching the open wounds bleed and the red liquid mix with the water on the white floor reminds him of Senju again. How she’d been standing there, dirtying every room he’d entered while trying to escape his hallucinations. But it also reminds him of the day Sanzu got his diamond shaped scars. How the blood had oozed out of the corners of his mouth whenever he’d had to change the bandaids on them. How Sanzu’d always done his best not to cry because of the pain, but how Takeomi’d still been able to see the unshed tears in his eyes. How he hadn’t been able to soothe him in the first few nights, neither of them ending up with any sleep—one because of the pain, the other because of the guilt. He knows that he technically isn’t at fault for those scars, they’re one of the few things about Sanzu that he isn’t responsible for, but he still feels so guilty. For having left Sanzu with Mikey so often. For not having been there for him. For having treated him so wrongly. He knows he can never make up for anything he’s ever done to him, and that’s arguably the worst part of his life. That he seeks so desperately for forgiveness he knows he doesn’t deserve.
Just three days later, he’s sitting in that same club he picked Sanzu up from. It’s the last Saturday of September, so Kakucho, Kokonoi, and him are on their monthly visit to a bar or club, goal being to forget their reality. Even if it’s just for a night.
Takeomi pats Kokonoi’s shoulder in encouragement when he walks off with a blue eyed blondie glued to his arm. She looks suspiciously similar to Inupi—like all the women and men Kokonoi takes home on those nights. Takeomi isn’t quite sure if he should be happy or sad about Sanzu now having his hair dyed pink all the time, and his eyes having a hint of green in them. Because, like that, he doesn’t fit into Kokonoi’s standards anymore. Though, maybe that wouldn’t matter much. Sanzu is in a place too dark for him, and most other people anyway. Rindou and him are still kind of trying somehow, but Takeomi doesn’t have much faith in whatever their relationship is.
Not much later, Kakucho decides to leave and go home. He’s never there to fuck, rejecting every invitation that goes further than drinks or a dance (though those invitations aren’t too frequent; the scar on his face scares off quite a bunch) and only talking with strangers to drown his struggles in a made up dream. His life has a different story every month, but in all of his lies, his parents and Izana are still alive, and Izana and Manjiro love each other the way brothers are supposed to. Izana works at an orphanage, Kakucho helps him out, though has his own little book shop somewhere in Roppongi, too. He talks about his books, and the way he’s decorated the shelves, and the empty space as if it was real, but Takeomi knows that it isn’t. Once or twice, he’d tried to talk about a made up life with a stranger before, too, inspired by Kakucho—it’s never worked. He’d broken down crying every time.
Like the kind friend he is, he asks Kakucho if he should go with him, if something’s wrong. He doesn’t usually leave this early. Kakucho says no, thank you. The way he lets his fingers brush over the tattoo on his chest is suspicious. Takeomi knows what it means. He misses Izana too much, he wants nothing more than to see Manjiro and pretend. The same tattoo on his own back tingles. He shakes his head, and calls Ran after Kakucho leaves. ,,Give him some insomnia meds, he needs them tonight’’, he says, and he relaxes when Ran sleepily agrees. At least there’s one thing he can always trust him with.
,,Hey there, Sanzu’’, a voice calls from behind, and Takeomi’s head snaps around way too quickly.
,,Ohh, eager to see me?’’, the woman smiles and sits down at the counter beside him. He recognises his own coat on her shoulders. Though, today her dress is black, and she’s highlighted her lavender eyes with dark liner. He realises he knows her name. She’s called Natsu, the woman from three days ago.
,,My name isn’t Sanzu. It’s Akashi Takeomi.’’ He sighs. Explaining why they’re brothers and choose not to wear the same family name is always a struggle. Even if they’re both legally bound to Akashi... It feels wrong to call his brother anything but Sanzu Haruchiyo. And it feels wrong to call their sister anything but Kawaragi Senju. Sometimes he wonders why they didn’t choose the same last name. They’d always loved each other more than him.
Natsu nods, gently places her hand on his thigh. ,,Difficult family business, can relate. Don’t wanna tell anyone my last name ’cause it’s tainted by hate.’’
Takeomi is glad that he doesn’t have to explain for once. Doesn’t have to search for an excuse. Natsu orders drinks for both of them, and he lays his hand atop hers. He doesn’t want the warmth to leave.
,,Trying to forget something too, huh?’’, he jokes when the order arrives and he sees that it’s a shot of Vodka for them each. She laughs at that, and Takeomi joins her soon. Natsu is better at cheering him up than he’d thought possible.
,,Yeah, baby boy’’, she says, and the petname makes Takeomi feel oddly warm and soft inside, ,,Tryna forget why I come here every night to escape.’’
He nods, relates to her statement. They’re a lot more similar than he’s initially thought. Takeomi raises his glass, and the two down their shots before starting to laugh again.
,,Wanna dance?’’, Natsu asks, smiling at him. She squeezes his thigh playfully.
,,No, sorry. I don’t dance’’, Takeomi answers, but he grins when she pulls him off his barstool. They make their way over to the dance floor. When they arrive, Natsu guides one of his hands to her shoulder, holds the other one in hers. She holds his waist with her free hand.
,,I’ll lead, just follow my steps.’’ She smiles, pulling him closer. They start to move, and Takeomi awkwardly does as told. He starts to get better after a while, and Natsu even spins him around. A slow song comes on, and they move closer and closer to each other, until she lets go of his hold to cup his cheeks and pull him into a kiss.
Takeomi is surprised at first, but decides to move his lips alongside hers, moving his now free hand to rest on her hip. He opens his mouth when she prods at it to deepen their kiss.
Soon, they part again, panting just inches apart, staring into each other’s eyes. Takeomi is the first to look away, faint blush on his cheeks that disappears soon after. He thinks about Sanzu, how Natsu had found him lying on the bathroom floor—the women’s bathroom floor, to be precise—half conscious. How she’d called the emergency contact on his phone, how he’d been on the other line. He thinks about all the time he’d taken to get there, and wonders what Sanzu’d had to experience meanwhile.
,,Did you do that to my brother too? Did you kiss him? Dance?’’, he asks, suddenly overrun by his memories.
,,Nah’’, Natsua laughs, ,,Already too drunk to stand when I found him. Consent’s hot, you know.’’
A shudder of relief washes over Takeomi. He still has no clue what happened before Natsu found Sanzu this time, but he’s glad that Natsu’s fine. For some reason, he quite likes her. They could be friends, he thinks. Maybe.
,,I’ve got to go’’, Takeomi says. He doesn’t quite know why, but he feels the sudden urge to be alone. Natsu nods. She pulls him back down again, presses another kiss onto his lips.
,,Bye, baby boy. Hope to see ya again!’’ She winks, and waves after him, smiling. His black coat is still hanging off her shoulders. He’ll have to buy a new one.
,,Goodbye. See you sometime, hopefully.’’ Takeomi turns away and leaves. Only now he realises that neither of them have asked for the other’s number. Maybe he just isn’t destined to have nice things, he concludes.
Takeomi’s sitting on his couch, typing something into his laptop. Sometimes he swears because of the pain in his hand, even if he took pain meds. The chronic joint pain in his wrists isn’t helping. He’s working on the stupid finance report for Kokonoi when the door opens.
Sanzu’s standing there, door handle in hand. ,,I want to talk’’, he says, and it sounds more like a demand, like a command than anything else. But Takeomi is surprised enough by his words.
,,Are you drunk? High?’’, he asks, looks up from his laptop. Sanzu shakes his head. Takeomi closes his laptop, moves to the edge of the sofa and pats the cushion beside him. His brother follows the instruction and sits down on the far end of the couch, knees pulled up to his chest.
,,You don’t mind, do you?’’ Sanzu takes out a bottle from the pocket in his hoodie, opens it, and takes out a pill. He looks at Takeomi.
Takeomi sighs. ,,Don’t. I want you to be clean if you want to talk.’’
Sanzu shrugs, throws the pill into his mouth, and swallows. ,,I don’t think I’m strong enough for this without drugs.’’
Takeomi looks at him, jaw clenched. This hurts him more than it should. He opens his laptop again, decides to ignore his brother. He wants to fix their relationship somehow, desperately. But he doesn’t want to only fix his relationship with Sanzu on drugs because that’s the only state he can tolerate Takeomi in anyways. It wouldn’t change much. He fights back the tears, and starts to type away on the finance report again.
,,Are you crying?’’, Sanzu whispers, quietly. Takeomi shakes his head. He can feel his brother’s stare on him, eating up every of his tiny moves as if he was being studied. ,,Don’t lie. You are.’’
Takeomi snaps his head to the side, looks him dead in the eyes. ,,And what if I am? Will you throw up those goddamn pills and finally have a heart to heart conversation with me when you’re not so drunk I have to carry you around because you can’t even stand anymore?’’ His words are harsher than intended. He feels like a wounded animal, cornered in the back of a cave. There are too many things he’s feeling.
,,You hurt me’’, Sanzu states, responding to Takeomi with a sentence that sounds almost carefree but holds so much sadness, ,,You hurt me a lot. When I was younger. It still hurts.’’
At first, Takeomi doesn’t know how to react to that. He knows. Of course he knows. It’s all he can think about every second of his life. The ever-consuming guilt, the regret, the hate he holds for himself. He thinks about it all the time. He’s tried to wrap it around, turn it in his head, tried to come to a conclusion that doesn’t make him responsible for everything that’s ever happened in Sanzu’s life. But no matter how hard he’d tried, he’d always ended up with himself at the center of fault. Himself, and nobody else. Not even Sanzu.
,,I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been sorry for years’’, he eventually settles on. He closes his laptop again.
Sanzu purses his lips, stares at his face. ,,Why did you never say anything?’’
Takeomi wishes he knew. Maybe he was too afraid, to scared. Maybe he didn’t have any hope. Maybe he thought he didn’t deserve it. Maybe he hated himself too much. Maybe he thought that Sanzu would be better off without him. Maybe it’s all of that, he realises. It’s why he’d subtly tried to help for all those years. He shrugs.
,,Do you love me?’’, Sanzu asks, ,,No, wait. Did you ever love me? Because I never felt any of that.’’
Yes!, he wants to scream, Yes, I’ve always loved you! And I was such a stupid fucking abusive piece of shit to you, and I’m so sorry. I’d do it all differently now if I could live my life again. His breath hitches as he whispers, ,,Yes.’’
,,Then why did you never show it? Why did you act as if you hated me my whole childhood long? I just... I just want to understand. All I ever wanted was for you to love me. All I ever did was so you would.’’ Sanzu looks away, stares at the dying potted plant in the corner. The dry leaves are what remain of Takeomi’s efforts to care for it.
,,I wish I knew that. I wish I knew why I made so many mistakes. I would undo them all if I could. I would go back in time and love you, if there was a way to do that. I swear’’, he says. It’s the most heartfelt thing he’s managed to get over his lips in decades. ,,I love you, Haru.’’
Sanzu turns his head, stares at him again. His eyes are watery. ,,I hate you. But I think... I think I want to love you again.’’
Takeomi looks at his brother’s eyes, tries to find the hateful glint he’s seen in them for years, the same one he’d seen in Senju’s all those years ago when he’d had hallucinations of her. He can’t find it. ,,Oh?’’, he whispers, voice cracking and nearly an octave higher than normal. This is better than he’s ever imagined his life to go. Sanzu wants to love him again. His brother wants to love him again. He wants to. Even after all he’s done to him.
Slowly, reluctantly, Sanzu nods. ,,Neither of us will get better if I continue to hate you, and you continue to... seem like you hate me.’’
Takeomi nods. He shuffles a little closer to Sanzu, but he isn’t bold enough to reduce their distance to less than a foot. Sanzu stays where he is.
,,Takeomi?’’, he asks, whispering. It’s the first time he doesn’t use his last name in years.
,,Yeah?’’, Takeomi whispers back, glances at his brother.
,,Please call me Haru again. It reminds me of being loved’’, he mumbles.
It reminds him of being loved. Of being loved by Senju. Of the happy part of his childhood. Takeomi knows that they can finally fix whatever they have now, he’s sure of it. Maybe he can make up for how he’d treated his brother in his childhood. It’s too late to make up for how he’d treated Senju, since she’s long dead, but he’s had to live with that for over a decade already, and he can do it for another one, and another one. But he’ll do his absolute best to make Haruchiyo happier, even if he knows he will never completely forgive him. But that’s okay. As long as Haruchiyo is stable, as long as he’s happy, Takeomi can live with that.
,,Of course, Haru. I love you’’, he whispers back.
