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He's placed along the sofa, limbs tangled over each other, blonde curls over his collar bones, his cheeks. The lights are turned down low, this apartment finally silent. Mikey stares, Shuji returns it.
"You look good with your hair down"
Palpable hatred is at least quite an exciting emotion. It keeps you on your toes. Shuji can taste it in the air, even if Mikey's eyes are as empty as his own.
His only response is the way Mikey rearranges, bare feet on the floor now. His gaze sharpens on him, terrifying. Oh well, Shuji considers, takes out a cigarette.
"You can't smoke that in here" says a voice from the corner. Incessant fucking typing and a whining little tone. He doesn't look up, doesn't even look at Shuji. Kokonoi has a similar disposition to Tetta, he thinks. That natural ability to make you feel lesser and still look terrified of everything just behind their eyes.
The thought makes him vicious. He wants to spook him; tell him to run a mile, show him his own fate if he keeps playing games. Another part of him wants to kill him himself.
"Stop me, sweetheart"
Kokonoi's lip curls, his eyes rolling. He slams his laptop shut.
"Goodnight" he says to Mikey, ignoring Shuji.
"Night" Mikey murmurs.
And then they are alone. Mikey watches him carefully, extends a hand eventually. "Can I have one?"
"Didn't know you smoked"
"Don't" Mikey mumbles. "But you are so - I - don't want to just watch"
He lights it for him, places it between his teeth. He's bored already, if he's honest. Mikey is a terrible conversationalist. He swirls his hand around, motions to the apartment.
"This place is cute" he drawls. "pretty expensive for a gang"
Mikey takes a drag, features pinching. Blows smoke out his nose. "Kokonoi has expensive taste"
"It's busy, huh?" If Hanma's honest he barely knows half these fucks. The literal adult with some kind of oral fixation, those brothers, the one who's never not high. "Good selection to go up against Hanagaki and pals-"
Mikey watches him stumble, the words catching. He tries to grin, finds he can't. If he's honest, he's begun to see what Tetta found so terrifying about Hanagaki. Not that he’s afraid, he really couldn’t care that much, but he understands it.
"I know," Mikey says gently, his eyes closing. "I know. I think…"
"You do?" Shuji blinks. "Wow"
Mikey stares at him, stares and stares. Shuji watches the way his blank face shifts from indifference to something much more dangerous. Who cares. Good on Mikey, if he gets his revenge. On Shuji, on Takemichi - for whatever reason he has. Shuji has never been bored so numb.
"I liked Draken" he says, just to bait him. A fight would be good, wouldn't it? Better than this emptiness. "He was a good guy"
Mikey watches him carefully, gaze tight, apathetic. He always looks mazed before he takes a breath, like taking a bet, he shifts on the sofa.
"I liked Tetta-" Mikey returns.
Shuji laughs, vicious and tear inducing. "Oh fuck. No, you didn't. Alright. Let's not lie. I did like Ken, I thought he was fun. The whole thing was fun. This? it's embarrassing. Your brother's friend out there is like fucking thirty years old. If I'm doing this when I'm thirty I'll kill myself"
Mikey stands, crosses the space between them, stares down at him.
"Don't you hate him? He was there, wasn't he, when Tetta died"
Something itches in his chest, a horrible, far too familiar feeling. He swallows, looks up at Mikey, keeps a grin in place like Mikey keeps that wide-eyed dazed look.
"Who Draken? Nah, we fought. Anyway, no-one killed Tetta" and then he forces out the words. "Kid dropped his glasses, stepped out Infront of a truck. Victimless crime, baby. Died instantly"
Mikey tilts his head. "Did he?"
Oh, they're playing now, Shuji thinks. A dangerous game. He feels his teeth grind. "Did he what?"
"Die instantly" Mikey blows smoke in his face.
"Oh sweetheart" Shuji drawls. "Mikey, let's not, huh? It's late, don't wanna -" he lets his gaze graze over him. "Throw you around your swanky apartment"
Mikey drops down into his lap, so their eyes are level. There is nothing there, Shuji realises, nothing in his gaze. He thinks he understands now, really understands what Tetta meant about using him. He is so incredibly listless.
It would almost be tragic. If Shuji hadn't had enough tragedy lately for a lifetime. He is bored of melodrama already.
"You know what's scary?" Mikey breathes, face inches from his. "I keep thinking Kisaki might have been my best bet. I think -"
"Stop," Shuji says, deeply underestimating the impact of talking about him like this. It makes him nauseas. Makes him think of his smile, the sound of laugh, or every little moment where Shuji found him enthralling. Like any of it matters anymore. He’s got a new master now, anyway.
And he thought Tetta was cruel.
"No, no" Mikey coos. "He told me, I remember, he said 'you need me' and I think, now, with him gone, maybe I did -" then he leans close, lips to Shuji's ear. "And It wasn't instant. He begged to Hanagaki, cried, all twisted up and Hanagaki didn't help, didn't call -"
Shuji's fist impacts his cheek without any real thought, it just happens. Mikey's head snaps to the side, hair covering his cheek, his reaction.
He has to control his breath, all frantic and intense. Oh Mikey's got his fucking heart rate up, good for him. He puts out his cigarette on Koko's rented sofa. Just to spite them all. Fuck his deposit.
"Why'd you tell me that, huh?" He asks, with a smile. "Huh? That's low, Sano, even for you"
He watches Mikey check his lip, swipe the blood away. "Because I was wrong"
He cannot hear this, literally can't. The idea everything could have been avoided, that it's ended here; Draken dead, like Tetta first wanted, Mikey in charge. Like he - he didn't matter, like it was all inevitable anyway. It's horrifying really and Shuji doesn’t horrify easily.
"Because I should have trusted him" Mikey breathes. "If Ken was going to die anyway, at least then - at least - everyone else -"
"Oh shut up. You don't -" Shuji snorts. "You don't know that"
"No, I do" Mikey says and then he laughs, almost hysterical, brokenly. "I do - cos Hanagaki can - can -" he traces his palm, stares at it. "Fuck"
Shuji shakes his head, laughs at the fucking ridiculousness of it all, admits; "He adored you"
Mikey's gaze flickers up.
"God he would've done anything for you. He was fucking obsessed. That's your issue, Sano. You - everything about you" He sits up a little, Mikey pushed back on his lap. "You know exactly what to be for people. You fill them up, then you fuck them over"
Mikey doesn't even look upset, just - stares. Blinks slowly.
"So yeah, Hanagaki probably didn't call an ambulance and Draken fought me while I should've been with him. But you, you drove him crazy. He wanted you so badly. So don't - don't -" he seethes, grips Mikey's little wrist in his hand. "Sit on my lap and tell me you wished you'd chosen him"
"Do you want me dead?" Mikey asks, wets his lip and tilts his head.
Shuji strokes his hair back. "Baby, you overestimate how much I care about you"
Mikey smiles, empty. "Because Tetta didn't hate me? So you don't?"
Shuji makes a face, pats Mikey’s cheek like and grins crookedly. "Do we wanna play this game?"
Mikey shrugs. "Is it really a game?"
"You know who told me all about you" Shuji grins. "Hanemiya Kazutora, Baji Keisuke, god - Izana, too, had some choice words for your brother. So, Mikey, if we wanna dig around in each others chests to feel something; let's"
"Maybe I'm just telling you the stakes" He says.
"Honey" Shuji sighs. "You don't need to convince me to hate Hanagaki. Think the only person you need to convince is yourself"
Mikey's gaze sharpens. "I broke his fucking arm"
"Poor guy" he strokes the side of Mikey's lip. "Last in a long line of sad, lonely boys who put their whole hearts in your hand, right?"
Mikey flinches back, a flicker of uncertainty across his features. "You -"
"You know I'm right," he grins. "Though I'm sure you don't know why you do it. God, Tetta had you all worked out. Hanagaki doesn't; thinks there is something worth saving in you" he leans closer, Mikey leans back, he whispers conspiratorially. "Don't wanna pop his bubble but there isn't"
And then, without missing a beat, Mikey grips his hair, tight enough he has to bite back a whimper. "Hanagaki can time travel. Did you know? He must've seen something worth saving somewhere"
Hanma laughs, freed through the pain. Mikey startles at the sound of it, searches his gaze like he expected anger. Shuji is past anger, he’s past anything. He and Mikey are similar in that regard. All it means to Shuji is that Tetta was right, Tetta was always right. He feels insane, truly unhinged. He wants Mikey to kill him, wants him to beat him senseless. Tetta was right.
"God do you wanna, Mikey? Are you waiting for him to save you? Be his good little house pet, huh Mikey? Throw the fight -"
Mikey's hands close around his throat, his jaw clench, nose scrunched up.
"Like hell" he breathes. "He came back after I told him to leave me alone. Saved? What a joke, Shuji. You are so funny, we are so fucking far past that-"
His chest expands, toes curling, drool at the side of his mouth. Mikey's hands only tighten, thumbs pressing into his windpipe. Stars in his eyes, ringing in his ears.
"I'm going to kill him. Like I wish I'd had the chance to kill Tetta before you whisked him away. Hanagaki told me, told me after Emma, all these futures he had seen and you, you and him, got your happily ever after in every single one" Mikey snarls.
Mikey watches that truth flicker across his features. Him and Tetta. Fuck. The boy knows what to say, he really does. He begins to see the truth in every rambled out, hysterical speech Kazutora would give him about Sano. He sees it all now. He is so dangerous. Shuji can taste blood, can hardly see though he knows his eyes are open.
"There was one," Mikey continues and his hands tremble, violent, loosening his grip just an inch. "Where Emma was fine, where Keisuke was alive-" he cuts off, hands dropping limp, exhausted. He rubs his hair out his eyes. "God, I miss him so much," he whispers.
Shuji gasps for breath, cold hand to his throat, tries to swallow.
"If Ken-chin was going to die anyway," Mikey says listlessly. Hair covering his face, blonde curls touchably tangled. "Then they all - without Takemichi -"
"Would've been fine" Shuji finishes for him, hacks up a lung. Mikey nods.
"So why" Mikey breathes, and there is such confusion in his eyes, under the rage. "Why would he do this to me?"
"Beats me, honey" Shuji croaks.
"Tell me" Mikey demands. "What Kisaki's plan was. What it would have been like if it were just us three like - like he wanted"
It's not a question. Shuji looks at his own constricted yellow gaze reflected in Mikey's.
"Now, now Mikey" he clears his throat. "You're giving me all these mixed signals. Did you wanna fight him or fuck him?"
"Funny" Mikey says, gaze unwavering. "How those lines can blur"
Shuji takes a breath, tucks Mikey's hair behind his ear. He watches, almost amazed, how Mikey leans into it so soon after such violence. Tetta said he would; would go easy to true affection. That he was starved for it, wanted to have it unreservedly.
It's uncanny.
"He thought losing Draken would break you" and he wasn't wrong. Mikey shudders at the mention, shutters a reaction of his face and lets his eyes close. "Would, uhm, become your number two in his place. Your closest friend or - or - I think he would've been anything you needed" he admits and suddenly the room feels cold and the fight leaves them both.
He was good at that. Shuji thought, at first, Tetta was the most sociable boy he'd ever met; could make a friend in a heartbeat, a group out of nothing. It took knowing him to see he was exhausted by it, mad with it. It was never a game to Tetta, like it was to Shuji. It was a calculation.
"Yeah?" Mikey breathes. "He would've been - would he have-"
Shuji watches him carefully, shifts his weight so Mikey can lean on his shoulder. So Shuji's lips are by his ear, practically hugging.
"Looked after you?" Shuji guesses because it was always the words Tetta used. Never control, or use, never even watch over. Shuji never quite got why someone like Mikey would need to be looked after. Till he understood Tetta did too. Not that Shuji managed in the end. Failed him quite spectacularly there. He does not regret getting involved, meeting Tetta, meeting Mikey but this a long fucking tunnel and he thinks the likes of them have lost the light.
"Yeah, Mikey," He murmurs. "He would've. I dunno, maybe you're destined to be miserable but he would've done his best, he always did his best"
He was just a kid though, Shuji always thinks, even if he never seemed like it. He held him, the night Sano kicked him out of Toman. Felt how he shuddered, didn't cry, just shook. All pent up with anxiety. Shuji had stroked his hair, let him drift off on his chest. He'd kill him for that, hands itching where he's stroking. He thinks that's when Tetta stopped thinking straight, when he found Izana, when he first said, feverishly 'I think Hanagaki can time travel' and Shuji had laughed in his face. Oh the irony.
He can't even be bothered to be baiting, to try and get a reaction. He feels so tired. As tired as Mikey feels in his arms. "None of your damage was ever anything to do with him, was it?"
"No," Mikey admits emptily. "It wasn't"
He thinks he knew that, knew Kisaki wasn't corrupting him, even if it was a funny thought to consider. He spent enough time holding Kazutora through nightmares to know Mikey was fucked before he ever met Tetta. He should have warned him then, probably. After Baji, when it was beginning to be clear Tetta's plans weren't really plans at all; just desperate attempts but he'd been high on the thrill for the first time in his life. Happy, maybe.
"What are we doing, Manjiro?" He asks the ceiling.
"I don't know anymore" Mikey replies, soft against his collar. "I don't even think I care"
There is ash all over the leather sofa, the cigarette he forgot he gave Mikey burnt to nothing in his hand, fingertips cinder black.
"That makes two of us," he admits, can't even really bring himself to smile. WIth Mikey tucked against his shoulder though, he feels like he doesn’t have to. Alone here, it’s obvious what will happen, where this will go.
It’s strange to think Mikey might be the first man in since this all began he’d fuck without Tetta’s command. Though, really, wasn’t it always building to this?
“Did you ever get to kiss him?” Mikey asks, soft. His ice cold fingers draw patterns over Shuji’s cheeks, over the shape of his lips, his eye tracking the movement with equal frigidity.
“Nah” Shuji admits.
“But you loved him” Mikey asks again, simply.
“Like you loved Keisuke, honey” He returns. Mikey regards him, looks down at him, seems to consider his words.
“I loved them all,” He says. “When I first met Tetta I loved him too. I think he needed loved, didn’t he?”
Shuji grits his teeth against the swell against the back of his throat. There is no winning with Sano, he needs to realise, only complete submission. He is an unstoppable force both in body and in spirit. Knows the exact words to get you to snap, even if he says it in the tone of a child. Shuji watches how his brows knit, his shoulders falling forward.
“I -” Mikey looks confused, for a moment. “I try to give people what they need, I just wish - they’d - listen to me”
“I think -” Shuji swallows, tentative now his throat is purpling. “I think he listened to begin with. He - you hurt him, when you took him out of toman”
Mikey blinks, looks down. “That was Hanagaki”
No, Shuji wants to say, it wasn’t. But Mikey is setting battle lines in his head and he won’t be the one to stop him.
“Sure” Shuji concedes.
“He didn’t need to - to -” Mikey shakes his head, sounds all soft and mazed like a child who’s lost a toy. “Go so far did he?”
Shuji considers lying. Though in the end, they are so far past that and Shuji cares so little now, that he can’t bring himself to. Mikey can choke him again, if he needs to. “It’s what you do to people, Mikey. I think you seem perfect to them and you say what they need to hear and then your rejection or your - your hate sends them over the edge”
“Do you” Mikey asks, stares into his eyes. “Think I’m perfect?”
Shuji laughs. “Frankly? I find you kind of dull”
And Mikey smiles, a glistening, wet- eyed thing and laughs with him. “Good”
Their kisses are for other people, that much is obvious. Mikey is 5”3 and blonde and Shuji’s too tall for the sofa with tattoos in unemployable places. It’s easy to pretend.
“Would he -” Mikey breathes. “Would he have kissed me?”
Shuji feels his brows twitch, his hands around Mikey’s waist. Mikey’s hands are in his hair, tight and controlling. He's not sure what they're pretending anymore.
“Tetta?” He asks between kisses, gets a jarred, uncertain nod against his chin. “Maybe, probably - if you’d’ve let him -”
“I would’ve” Mikey gasps. Though, who he’s trying to convince Shuji is less sure. “Did he like me? Or was he just using me?” He gasps when Shuji strokes through his hair, leans back against his palm desperately. “Did Takemichi, do you think -”
“Don’t compare them” Shuji warns him, kisses the junction of his neck.
"No" Mikey demands. Bats his attempts to calm him away, pins his arms. "I want to. What else, tell me all about him. They are both so good at fucking with me -"
It's such an awful, malignant twisting feeling; to remember him exactly how he wanted him, exactly how he has Mikey, and to know he is gone. Mikey’s tone is bitter now, vicious.
"I -" he breathes. Mikey pulls his cock out with complete, black-eyed indifference. Settles across his hip, white starched cotton all Shuji has to grind against. "Just - let me kiss you or something, Shit. Why're we playing games? I can make this good -"
Mikey leans down, hair tumbling over his shoulders. He grips Shuji's cheeks in his hand. "I don't want your pleasure, Shuji. From what I hear you're very disarming" and then, he snarls. "I'm sure Tetta would've swooned"
He's not sure. He wouldn't have treated him like this. Tetta loathed vulnerability. He wouldn't have forced it out of him, not like he did Hanemiya - though, they forced that out of each other. He thinks he just wants Mikey a little tamer, a little more cooperative. He's not getting it clearly. Clearly Mikey just wants to be difficult and mean.
"Well" Shuji shrugs, grins. "Can't fuck all your siblings murderers can I? -"
Mikey backhands him so hard it makes his gaze go white, makes his teeth rattle in his mouth. Fuck, he does not take a joke well. He blinks, room refocusing. Chandeliers and leather and everything a 18 year old would find rich instead of down right gaudy.
"You're still hard," Mikey says emptily, tilting his head. "That's pathetic, Shuji"
"You're hitting all my kinks, honey" He breathes, dazed. His ears are ringing.
Mikey does not kiss him, just places his lips against Shuji's, unresponsive. Hanma stills under him, feels like prey; a gazelle under a lion. They breathe each other's air, nothing more.
“You look pretty terrified,” Mikey says.
“I look pretty terrified or I look pretty terrified?” Shuji clarifies. “Cos you are pretty terrifying but I am also quite pretty -”
“Do you talk when you’re nervous?” Mikey asks.
“I’m not nervous” Shuji says. If only he were, that at least is an emotion. “Just like you’re not angry. Can I kiss you now? Or do we wanna draw this out longer?”
Mikey nods, aborted and shaky. These dips between vulnerability and violence, it feels like vertigo. Hanma's not sure he can handle them alone, misses Tetta more than he thought he ever could. Oh how far he's come, he thinks, letting Mikey control the speed of their kiss, muse his hair and grip his jaw. Kisaki would be proud. This was what they were after, wasn’t it?
"How does it feel?" Mikey breathes, pulls off his own clothes messily, arms catching in his t-shirt, jackets slipping off his shoulders like a caress. "To be so alone, Shuji -"
Shuji strokes his hair back, tucks it behind his ear, pulls free the hair band keeping it back and watches the blonde strands frame his face. "I think you know, Manjiro"
He lets Mikey push him back then, crawl over him, a leg between his thighs and a hand on the arm of the sofa. Mikey splays his weight over him, lashes fluttering. It’s strangely stilted, performative. Shuji wonders if he’s the first Mikey has done this with; this siren act or if every man here has had a piece of him, been gifted his grief all wrapped up and shiny. If this is a performance that's been done to death or is new and unsure. Maybe Shuji is just the only one stupid enough to get this close.
Maybe him and Draken are cut from the same cloth, really, just very different materials. Desperate to protect people who are unprotectable. Or maybe it’s unfair to compare them, not that Shuji cares about anything as lofty as morality nor goodness, but Draken was a good man. Hitched himself to crazy, that’s all. They have that in common, if nothing else. Little blondes with madness in their eyes. Killers and fuck-ups. Hanma never wanted to change Tetta though. Maybe Draken didn't want to change Mikey either.
Mikey shifts back, settles over his thighs, breath uneven and eyes so dark.
He reaches out to touch him, to stroke some of that tension out his body but Mikey’s hand grips his cock so hard he bucks, toes curling in his shoes.
“Fuck -” He gasps. “Fuck -”
“Don’t forget you work for me” Mikey breathes. “And we play by my rules”
“Right -” Shuji’s eyes flutter. “Sure. No touching”
He was used to that anyway.
Mikey puts his knees on Shuji’s wrists, pins them to the leather and something unsettling close to panic flares excitingly in his chest as Mikey lowers his head to his thigh, presses a kiss like a lover might.
“You’re a mindfuck” Shuji laughs, tilting his head back to stare at the fear focused cornices above him. “God -”
At least fear tastes close to a thrill. Mikey's mouth is fucking terrible, sucks cock like it's amateur hour. Shuji's toes curl in boots from a nostalgia that never was. The wrong shade of blonde, the wrong feel.
"God you're -"
Mikey slaps his cock. Eyes wide. "Shut up - shut up, don't fucking speak. Just let me - me…'' pretend, Shuji knows. His wrists ache under Mikey's knees, his body bruised, his eyes wide from the pain.
"Alright" he laughs, tongue on his teeth. "Alright, Sano"
Mikey's eyebrows pitch together, despairing as he laps an apology up his thighs. His hand is on Shuji's stomach, grasping at the muscle. His eyes squeezed shut as he hollows his cheeks. Eyebrows pinched in vicious determination. The light in his eyes gone, just black.
He’s tense, so tense it hurts, so tense it’s almost not pleasurable. Mikey is so unpredictably violent and Shuji is stupid enough to have let him put his cock in his mouth. His hands are up by his head, a vulnerability to himself he’s never experienced. By the top corner of the ceiling the wallpaper is peeling. It’s not as expensive as it claims to be, he thinks. His heart is beating fast. Embarrassingly fast.
Is this fear? Actual fear? It feels primal, this mixed desire to push his hips ups - know it will be rewarded by punishment - or stay still in this purgatory. Mikey seems content just keeping him hard, lapping at his cock with no real intent.
“God mikey please -” He hears out himself, sweat on his brow and breath uneven.
“Say you’re mine” Mikey says, like a demand but somehow sweet. “Shuji, say you’re mine -”
“Who the fuck isn’t these days -” He breathes, hysterical and so close to the edge his hips are shifting, his cock jumping in Mikey’s lose grip. Mikey moves up in, so there lips can almost meet. “Jesus” He breathes, against his chin. “C’mon Mikey - You know -”
You know I can’t.
Mikey pouts. “He’s dead. So what does it matter. Say it”
It’s the morbidity, the fear, how fucking long it’s been since anyone touched him, it sends him over the edge before he can help it, cumming into Mikey’s palm like he’s some desperate, touched starved teen. Maybe he is. Mikey spreads his fingers, looks intently at it before he smiles, almost angelic.
“You’re fucking pathetic, Shuji” He laughs softly and Shuji finds his lips curling up, between half gasps for air, he begins to laugh too.
“You’re fucking insane” He gasps, hand on his chest to calm himself. “You’re actually bananas” He sits up, leans across to pull Mikey down. “Lemme return the favour -”
Mikey catches his wrist. “Touch me and I’ll kick your teeth in”
And the humour is gone, the air is cold. Mikey regards him the same way he did before, a danger in his eyes. Shuji isn’t sure he can be bothered to be hit again. He puts his hands up slow in surrender.
“Easy, Tiger” he says,a stupid fucking muscle memory. “We’re all on the same side”
Mikey’s head tilts consideringly, his eyes half lidded. “Is that what you told him?”
Shuji grits his teeth, a smile so tight it hurts. “Hah, something like that”
Mikey rubs his cum soaked fingers across Shuji’s face, leaving him covered. “How could -” He begins breathlessly. “Someone so fucking pathetic, take so much from me?”
Hanma chuffs. Does he really need to ask?
“Same way Draken made you think you were a good person, Mikey” He grins. “Love makes us all fucking dumb. Makes a good guy like Draken see something in you, makes a smart kid like Tetta fall in with me” He rescues his cigarettes from the table by the sofa, wrestling his lighter out.
Mikey’s jaw is trembling, his face pale. The fight has left him, leaving looking ill and painfully young. He stands shakily, shucks his huge emblazoned jacket around his shoulders.
“Is that why we lose them?” He asks, back turned. The heat has gone, leaving Shuji feeling sick with himself; needless pleasure, needless violence. He hates how nothing gives him anything.
“Maybe” He says, tips his head back in apathy. Mikey’s bare footsteps retreat, then stop. Shuji inclines his head to watch him, his hung head.
“Once Hanagaki leaves me alone” Mikey begins. “It’ll - I’ll - it’s…I’ll get better”
Shuji grins, listless. “You really believe that?”
Mikey’s head tips back. Shuji watches a tear on his cheek, follow it down his chin, the line of his neck.
“No” Mikey breathes, practically a whisper.
“Yeah,” Shuji mutters. “Me neither”