Chapter Text
The prison rose up in front of Miya Osamu like some kind of modernist castle. It looked strangely sedate, not like the dense fortress he imagined in his mind when he heard the word prison. There were windows. None of it was made of stone. The sort of reception area was plain but not overbearing. There was a grate separating the receptionist from the public.
“I’m here for a visit,” he said to the woman at the front. She smiled at him. For some reason he thought that everyone at a prison would be dour and angry. He expected it to be oppressive, but it was surprisingly light and airy.
He was directed to sit in a chair along the side and wait to be brought into the visitation room. For some reason, sitting in the chair spiked his anxiety. It swirled in his gut along with the shame that had pervaded his entire life since Atsumu had returned to Earth. Shame that even clouded the relief at Atsumu being alive.
It had been three fucking years and he hadn’t visited once. He’d been mad, but then the anger had waned, and then it had already been too long and he didn’t know how to explain it to Atsumu, and time had gotten away from him. And the shame had grown and grown because what kind of twin was he to not visit his brother in prison? Prison he’d gone to to save Osamu from the same fate?
He remembered how fun it had been, how strong they’d felt, following Black Jackal’s progress. Shoring up its weaknesses over nights, releasing it to businesses, managing to get it into the government. It had been exciting. They’d felt invincible. And then, somehow, they weren’t anymore. He remembered the drop in his stomach when police showed up in force, the hollowing out of his bones as the repercussions of their actions finally registered in his mind. He remembered the terror of knowing that he was going to go to prison for a very long time, the loss of what he’d hoped to do with his life.
Above all, he remembered finding out after questioning that while he’d said nothing, Atsumu had confessed to everything.
He remembered the white-hot, impotent rage, and Atsumu’s imploring look when they saw each other next. Let me do this, the look had said, and Osamu almost shot up to punch him. And then the shame had started, the seed of it that turned into a wave, because Osamu had stayed silent. He’d stayed silent and watched Atsumu take the fall and done absolutely nothing about it.
After a few minutes of spiraling in a hard plastic chair in the waiting room, the door next to the reception booth opened and a uniformed man came through. He was fairly short and didn’t have the expression Osamu expected from a prison guard. This entire place was far more sunshine-and-smiles than he’d expected. At least Atsumu wasn’t in an oppressive place.
Osamu didn’t want to imagine what being sent up to the fucking moon had been like. The terror of being trapped there. Making it back down, but only barely.
He misses you, he heard Sakusa Kiyoomi say in his mind.
“Here to visit Miya Atsumu?” the guard asked, voice friendly. Osamu stood and nodded.
“Yes,” he said.
The guard squinted at him and then smiled. “You guys twins?”
Ah. It had been a long time since he’d had one of those. His smile was a little crooked. “Yep,” he said. “Since the day we were born.”
The guard laughed. “Okay, let me just pat you down and then I’ll take you back.”
Osamu held out his arms and waited for the pat-down to finish. It was light and largely inoffensive, but it still felt invasive. He wondered if Atsumu had to deal with this kind of invasion of privacy every single day, or even more than this.
Then he was led through a keyed door and down a hallway to a remarkably casual room. A couple of tables, some chairs, a few couches. He stood awkwardly by the wall, unsure where he should go. He finally picked one of the couches, sitting and gripping his knees while he waited.
It was a couple of minutes of waiting in silence. He was the only one in the room and he heard the caged clock on the wall tick each achingly long second by.
Then, the door opened. He looked up, and his heart caught in his throat.
Atsumu stepped inside, followed by the same guard. They were chatting. Atsumu was in socks. Osamu stood, and Atsumu looked over at him, and they were both frozen in time for a moment. The guard left. Atsumu didn’t take a step closer. Neither did Osamu.
They stared at each other, and Osamu’s mind went wild. He was here, he looked so much the same, he was alive and Osamu could see him in real life, a cosmonaut Lazarus whose death Osamu had long mourned.
“Hey,” Osamu said, breaking the silence. His voice sounded too loud, even though it was high and weak. “What’re ya doin’ all the way over there?”
Atsumu bolted forward, nearly knocking Osamu over with his body. Osamu took a step back to steady them both and felt his nose immediately start to sting. Atsumu’s arms wrapped tightly around his chest and he returned the hug. Atsumu gripped hard at the back of his shirt and buried his face in Osamu’s shoulder.
They stayed like that for a long time, Atsumu’s breaths growing increasingly ragged. Osamu sniffled himself, holding back tears but only just.
“Ya big crybaby,” he said, choked.
Atsumu laughed wetly and held him tighter. When was the last time they’d hugged like this? There was a point in elementary school where they’d become too cool for that sort of thing, and it had started happening less and less. They still hung out all the time, of course, but they argued more than they didn’t and their hugs were short and largely one-armed. Osamu thought the last time they did this might have been when they’d gone off to different universities.
They were 29 now. More than ten years, three of which they hadn’t seen each other at all. Fuck. Osamu took a shaky breath.
“I missed you so fucking much,” Atsumu said, muffled by Osamu’s shoulder.
No where were you? No why didn’t you come see me? Nothing but the warmth of their hug and the tears dripping onto the shoulder of Osamu’s shirt.
“Me too,” Osamu said. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t,” Atsumu said.
“We gotta sit,” Osamu said. “C’mon. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
He wouldn’t blame Atsumu for not believing him. Atsumu reluctantly let him go and he finally saw Atsumu’s face up close. His eyes were red-rimmed and wet, his entire face flushed.
“Yer such an ugly crier,” Osamu said.
“Beats bein’ ugly all the time,” Atsumu retorted.
Osamu smiled. “Fuck you.”
Atsumu smiled back and huffed out a laugh. They sat on the couch, Atsumu pulling up his knees to sit cross-legged. Like they used to do on the bottom bunk of their bed when they played games late at night.
“So how’s it goin’?” Atsumu asked. Osamu shook his head.
“I’m fine, the restaurant’s great, me ‘n Rin are great,” he said. “We’re not talkin’ ‘bout me. How’s fuckin’ prison?”
Atsumu laughed. “Here or the moon?”
“Both.”
“Well,” Atsumu started. “Here’s great. If I look at a computer funny they tase me but other than that it’s swell. Good room, pretty good food. Like a luxury hotel after where I was livin’ with Omi.”
Osamu raised an eyebrow and Atsumu blinked. “Oh, yeah. Sakusa, I mean. Tall guy, curly hair, looks like he’s gonna kill ya. I heard ya met him.”
“He came by the restaurant,” Osamu said. “We talked.”
“Ya wanna hear somethin’ wild?” Atsumu asked. “Remember that guy I wouldn’t shut up about after that one convention? With the gloves?”
“The guy you wanted to step on ya.” Osamu grimaced. “How could I forget when it was all ya talked about?”
“Yeah,” Atsumu said. “Well, same guy.”
Osamu blinked. “No fuckin’ way.”
“Fuckin’ way.”
“How can you be the luckiest and unluckiest bastard in the world at the same time?” Osamu asked. “Ya thirst after this guy like you’ll die if ya don’t, then ya don’t see him again. Ya go to prison, get shipped to the moon, and not only is he there, ya bag him.”
Atsumu laughed, echoing in the empty room. “He did say he told ya. Well, I feel pretty lucky.”
“When our egg split in half I’m glad I got the boring genes.”
“That’s not even how that works.”
“Yer a freak of nature so yeah, it is.”
“Anyway, to answer yer questions, prison on the moon fuckin’ sucked, and I had to go out in a spacesuit and break up rocks half the time. The rest of the time I was fuckin’ around on the…” Atsumu looked around. “Shit, never mind. On the nothin’.”
Osamu raised an eyebrow.
“I’ll tell ya in sixteen years,” Atsumu said.
The number sobered Osamu and he pressed his lips together. “You gonna remember?”
“I’m gonna remember everything,” Atsumu promised. “Everything.”
Osamu didn’t know what to say. “You’d better.”
Atsumu smiled. He just looked at Osamu for a long moment, his smile wide and real and warm. “I’m glad ya came.”
Osamu felt the roar of shame once again, the monster that curled around his insides and squeezed them until there wasn’t room for anything else. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Nope!” Atsumu cut him off. “Not doin’ that.”
“‘Tsumu--”
“Shut up,” Atsumu said. “We’re not gonna do that! I don’t give a shit. Yer here now.”
Osamu swallowed. The shame wanted him to apologize. To beg forgiveness, if only so Atsumu had a chance to get mad at him. Anger was what the shame wanted. It wanted to be validated and chastised and kicked around until it hurt more. That would be catharsis. Osamu wanted it.
Atsumu was never going to give it, he knew. It was selfish, anyway. What did it matter, if it was just so Osamu himself could feel better about the situation? He’d fucked up, lost years of time, time he couldn’t make up. He couldn’t make it up, and Atsumu getting angry at him wouldn’t make it up, either. It was gone, and he had to mourn that and move on with the time they did have.
But still, it churned within him. “Please just let me say I’m sorry. For me,” he said.
Atsumu gave him a hard look but didn’t cut him off. Osamu continued. “I shoulda come see ya. I stayed away because I’m a fuckin’ coward, as always. There’s no excuse.”
“Good thing I’m not lookin’ for one, then,” Atsumu said. He paused. “Yer not a coward. I fucked up, too.”
“I wish you’d’ve talked to me,” Osamu said. “Before.”
“I’d’ve done it anyway,” Atsumu said. “No matter what ya said.”
“And that’s why I’m a coward,” Osamu shot back. “I let ya.”
Atsumu, unexpectedly, laughed a little, though it was weak. “You’ve never let me do anything. Yer not dad.”
“I coulda said somethin’.”
“Not the place for this conversation,” Atsumu said, and Osamu remembered all at once that they were, in fact, in a prison, and discussing the crimes they’d jointly committed was probably not in either of their best interest.
“Then we’re never gonna have it,” Osamu said.
“Good. I don’t want to. It’s over and all we got is now.”
“Yer the most self-sacrificin’ asshole I’ve ever met,” Osamu said, his voice hard, forming the words into an insult.
“Nah,” Atsumu said. “Ya met Omi, too.”
Osamu listened with muted horror as Atsumu told him about the concussion, about Sakusa taking care of him, about nearly dying on the surface of the moon and being saved by Sakusa’s quick thinking.
“I probably had another ten, fifteen seconds,” Atsumu said. “I wasn’t gonna suffocate--the rapid decompression woulda killed me first. That’s when the pressure gets so low yer blood boils at body temperature.”
“So he gave you his oxygen,” Osamu said incredulously, ignoring the very real twinge in his chest when he thought about Atsumu dying on the surface of the moon.
“Yeah,” Atsumu said, “because he’s a piece of shit who never thinks about himself. It’s fuckin’ exhausting likin’ him so much.”
It wasn’t the big “L” word, but the way he said it sounded close, and if Atsumu noticed his face didn’t betray it. Osamu smiled a little, involuntarily.
“Ya finally settle down and it’s with a guy from the moon.”
“I’m not settled,” Atsumu said. “Can’t do that for another decade and a half.”
Osamu’s smile dropped. “I guess not. He comin’ to see ya, though?”
“Yeah,” Atsumu said. “He came last week.” And Osamu thought he’d put in the paperwork quickly. Atsumu’s face was delicate when he talked about Sakusa, but his expression hardened a little as he continued. “It’s...I mean, it’s not gonna last. No way it can.”
“He not want to?”
“No, I think he does,” Atsumu said. “That’s the problem. He’s got a whole life out there and I can’t keep him hung up on a guy he can only see a couple of times a month. For sixteen years? No fuckin’ way.”
“Talk about it with him, at least,” Osamu said.
“He’s gonna say he doesn’t care,” Atsumu said. “He’s gonna go all self-sacrificial on me again and say that he’s fine stayin’ with me for however long, that he’s gonna wait for me, or whatever. Even if he doesn’t mean it, it’s the kinda shit he’d say.”
“Ya don’t wanna keep seein’ him?” Osamu asked, wondering idly at what point this conversation had become relationship counseling, and how he could get back out of it.
“I do,” Atsumu said, a surge of some kind of emotion pushing it up and out of his throat. “Obviously. I do.” He looked down at the table. “I...Jesus, I don’t know what I’ll say about it in ten years but I think I’d wait. I think I would, for him.”
“He really that special?” Osamu asked. “Sixteen years kinda special?”
“Lifetime kinda special,” Atsumu said, voice low.
Atsumu always had a penchant for the dramatic. He liked being the center of attention. His emotions made him fly high and fall hard. But when he spoke now, Osamu felt it in the center of his chest. He swallowed.
“You’ve known this guy what, two months?”
“I know,” Atsumu said. He laughed. “It sounds fuckin’ crazy.”
“If ya mean it, ya mean it,” Osamu said. “Maybe he’ll wait, too. Not that you’re special.”
The mood lightened a little. “It’s a treat to even know me,” Atsumu shot back. “Let alone get to fuck--”
“Jesus christ, shut the fuck up!” Osamu cried, talking over a laughing Atsumu and kicking him in the knee. “Keep that shit out of my ears. I’m not gonna talk about Sakusa-san anymore.”
“He wanted me to call him Sakusa-san so bad,” Atsumu mused. “I think I did maybe once.”
“Yer always a little shit,” Osamu said.
The conversation pivoted then to the restaurant, how it was going, any fun stories Osamu had. Atsumu was always trying for nonchalance, but Osamu could tell he was desperately grasping at any news from the outside world. Osamu didn’t know what it was like to be locked up like this, but he knew that if it was this bad after a year, Atsumu wasn’t going to survive sixteen more.
The thought made his stomach turn. What would Atsumu be like after all that time, when he was (hopefully, if he was a good boy) paroled and released? Would the spark in his eyes have dulled? Would the drive that kept him moving forward have stalled? He was hungry for everything--information, skills, people. Would his hunger fade to cope with constant starvation?
Osamu didn’t want that to happen. He just didn’t know how to stop it. He had to come visit as often as he could. He couldn’t let it slip. He couldn’t have a month where he thought I don’t know, maybe I’ll skip. He had to be there for Atsumu as long as he was needed. Hopefully Sakusa Kiyoomi would do the same, and mom and dad would come whenever they could. Osamu could get Atsumu’s friends from high school and college to come, couldn’t he? He could keep Atsumu’s spark alive.
It was daunting, but not more daunting than facing at least sixteen more years in prison himself. He reminded himself of that and his determination reified.
“I love you, ya know that, right?” Atsumu said, apropos of nothing, after a lull in their conversation.
Osamu stared at him and then looked away. “Ya gotta make it serious, huh?”
Atsumu laughed. “Well, sorry I love my brother.”
“I love you too, asshole,” Osamu said. “Fuckin’ obviously.”
Was it obvious, when he’d stayed away so long? He had to make it so. He’d make it so obvious Atsumu wouldn’t have any reason to doubt. He’d come as often as he could. If there was a commissary he’d give Atsumu money. He’d make sixteen years go by like nothing.
God. If he and Rintarou ended up adopting, he could have kids by the time Atsumu was free. He couldn’t imagine having children who didn’t meet their uncle before they met anyone else.
These were the thoughts keeping him up when he got a text from Sakusa Kiyoomi, a short thing asking if he’d be willing to talk. Privately. It was urgent.
So he agreed. He had to get to know this Sakusa if he was going to be a part of Atsumu’s life long-term. It was the least he could do for someone Atsumu had called lifetime kind of special.
Sakusa showed and they talked and for a moment it was awkward. Then, without much preamble, Sakusa said:
“I’m going to get him.”
The world opened up in front of Osamu’s eyes. Things he hadn’t even considered, and here was a person who loved Atsumu so much he was willing to do them. They planned together, Osamu gave him the RFID scanner he’d used at the security conventions he and Atsumu had gone to together in their early 20s, and they found Atsumu’s passport among the things Osamu had stored for him. With every step they completed, Osamu’s heart rate jumped.
There was no way this was real. There was no way this guy was going to actually go through with it. It was a nice thing to think about, but in practice it wouldn’t work. It was a pipe dream, the fantasy of people in mourning. The denial stage.
He went to see Atsumu a few more times and kept his big mouth shut, reminding himself that he couldn’t let on about anything. He couldn’t jeopardize it, in the crazy instance where Sakusa actually followed through, and he couldn’t get Atsumu’s hopes up if it wouldn’t work. He went home from one of these visitations and put together a suitcase full of Atsumu’s clothes and new toiletries. It sat in their guest room, waiting. Osamu felt it staring at him through the walls.
Today, Sakusa Kiyoomi texted him.
Then it was radio silence.
Osamu chewed all of his nails off. He paced. His hands jittered as he worked on Onigiri Miya’s budget. He burned pancakes and Rin asked him what was wrong.
“Somethin’ crazy might happen,” he said. “If it does, don’t freak out.”
Three days later, as Osamu was turning on the TV and settling in with a plate of curry and rice, there was a knock on his door.