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Sousuke had considered himself a pretty level-headed guy for the most part, able to swim effortlessly through the waves that life makes, but now he remembers the fear of drowning. He remembers that the sharp, stinging ache in his shoulder is a heavy anchor, dragging him down into the murky depths, down to the endless dark that clings and chokes on the ocean floor. His heart aches with all that he has lost as he reaches up for the sun, arms trembling and weak, shoulder burning red hot like lava as he fights for air. He fights with the water that once embraced him, once made him stronger, and now chokes him. It wraps it’s cold, unforgiving fingers around his ankles and pulls – and before he had been strong, his arms strong enough to keep propelling him forward with the brunt of all his dreams upon his shoulders, now they are weak. The pain in his shoulder sears through him, tearing him apart and branding him as a warning tale for those who do not take care of themselves properly.
‘See, Yamazaki there? You don’t want to overdo it, or else you’ll wind up like him!’ they whisper, their voices ricochet around the hallways of his school like bullets, and they echo in his nightmares as he kicks and screams, fighting for a dream he doesn’t think he ever had a chance to achieve.
Sousuke lies to Rin because lying is easier than breathing in all of his failures, of acknowledging that he will never stand up tall enough to match the way Rin perceives him. He did get scouted in his other high school, there is no lie in that, but that was right before the knife had burrowed its home in his shoulder and stayed there – and after that, well, there’d been nothing left for him except for his nightmares. He lays awake at night on his top bunk, eyes stinging at the ever present pain in his shoulder, listening to Rin’s gentle breathing below him and wondering what Rin dreams about. He wonders if Rin dreams about the Olympics, of looking to the side and seeing Nanase on his right and the world below their stage. The ache in Sousuke’s heart joins the ache in his shoulder as he thinks about five years spent standing in front of a mailbox that would never again hold a letter from Matsuoka Rin and a world stage that he doesn’t belong on anymore.
Rin is a bright beacon of hope in his nightmares, his hand always reaching out to Sousuke. He smiles and beckons, his voice resonating through the water that threatens to fill Sousuke’s lungs,
‘C’mon, Sousuke, stop messing around. They’re waiting for us!’ and Sousuke wants to scream out that he can’t, that he’s trying so hard but he can’t anymore and he wants to know who would be waiting for him after all his failures and mistakes. He wants to sob as the pain in his shoulder burns through him, burning away every last piece of him despite the freezing cold water dragging him under. He reaches for Rin’s hand as his smile grows mocking and snide, his laughter haunting him as he taunts,
‘You're so slow, it's no wonder I left you for Haru!’ and Sousuke tries, struggling against the anchor sitting on his shoulders and the icy tendrils of his failures wrapped around his ankles like shackles, yet he cannot reach.
The pain is deafening, like a roaring hurricane that spins him around and around until he can’t see straight, can’t walk straight. He’s always had an awful sense of direction, but his feet lead him to the showers in the empty locker room, and he turns the water on the highest setting and slumps down onto the tile floor, not caring that it might not be the cleanest. His head is clogged up, filled with thunder clouds and lightning strikes along his whole body, echoing out from around his shoulder. It goes up his neck, around his rib cage like a vice, down his back and seeps into his legs, settling like an insistent ache that makes the tears spill from his eyes. He has no knowledge of time except for the way the water turns cold, soaking into his skin and into his jammers. He thinks of drowning, thinks of how long he’s struggled against his own fate, and realizes that he knew it was futile all along. The relay with Rin and Ai and Momo was a pointless endeavor, a dream too far out of his reach. He shivers, chilled down to his aching bones, while his shoulder burns and tears him apart.
Rin finds him before the relay, feet pounding on the floor and coming to an abrupt stop when he sees Sousuke huddled in the shower corner, shivering and grasping his right shoulder. He comes into the spray and curses, turning it off and then kneels in front of him, eyes wide and worried. His hair is too bright under the fluorescent lights, everything about him is too bright like the sun. Magnificent and blinding all at once, leaving an imprint on his retinas long after his eyes have closed at night.
“Sousuke, what’s going on?” He asks, voice steady despite the fear in his eyes. Sousuke bites his lip and shakes his head, shuddering against the grimy tiles and unable to stop the tears from running down his cheeks. “Sousuke, for fuck’s sake, answer me!” Rin snarls, hands shaking as he touches Sousuke’s drawn up knees gently.
“My shoulder,” Sousuke manages to get out, trying to keep his teeth from chattering as he shivers and grips his shoulder tightly against the pain. Rin’s eyes widen even further, which seems an impossible thing in this moment, as he takes in this knowledge.
“Alright, alright,” Rin nods at him, mouth a thin, determined line, “I’m gonna help you stand up and we’re gonna go get you to a doctor, but you’re gonna be fine, okay?” Sousuke stares at Rin and thinks of how excited Rin was this morning, how he had smiled at Sousuke and laughed on the bus ride over. He thinks of every moment he’s spent with Rin, the lies clawing at the back of his throat. His lies that would filter in through his words or sit heavy in his pointed silences whenever they were together, and they were always together – from early morning to late evening side by side.
“Rin, please, I-” Rin snarls, interrupting him,
“No, whatever you have to say can fuckin’ wait, Sousuke, c’mon we need to get you to a doctor.” Sousuke nods and allows Rin to maneuver him gently until he’s got Rin’s arm wrapped around his waist, helping him up until he’s leaning heavily against his side, legs shaking and unsteady. Rin helps him take a few steps forward, each one jarring – making it feel like the knife in his shoulder is burrowing deeper. He lets out a breathless whimper in pain, biting his lip halfway through it to stop it. Rin helps him walk forward, voice soft and soothing as he mutters,
“It’s okay, you’re okay, I’m sorry, just a few more steps, Sousuke, just a bit more.” Sousuke feels the sharp pinpricks of needles all along his lower back and legs, but they are a secondary thing to the way Rin feels against him, like a flame against his side that does not burn, only evaporates the cold water that seeps into his bones.
They make it out of the locker room after what feels like ages, and they quickly get swarmed by the Iwatobians, as well as Ai and Momo and several of the other Samezuka swim team members that had been roped into searching for him. All their voices clatter over one another in their concern, bombarding questions at him and Sousuke. Sousuke clenches his jaw against the suddenly sharp pain that aches deep in his bone marrow when he’s jostled by a few of his worried teammates.
“Back up!” Rin shouts as Makoto helps hold Sousuke up on his feet with him. Sousuke casts his gaze down on the floor, feeling like he’s been laid bare and bleeding in an ocean of predators as they all stare at him. He bites his lip to keep it from trembling in a way it hasn’t done since he was very young, gnawing at the tender skin of it anxiously. “Can someone call a doctor?”
“Excuse me, let me through,” a voice calls and the group around Sousuke, Rin, and Makoto parts to reveal two paramedics wheeling a gurney over to them. “Here, set him down on this.”
As soon as Sousuke manages to lay back on the gurney, they wheel him over to the entrance where the ambulance is parked haphazardly. Rin walks alongside him, holding his hand the entire way. The announcer comes on over the PA speakers, announcing the relay race between him and Iwatobi swim team. Sousuke manages to force out the words with his voice steady and even,
“Go, Rin, you have to do the relay race.” Rin shakes his head, mouth open to yell at Sousuke but this time he cuts him off before he can get started, “Please, Rin, for me.” Rin stares at him, eyes filled with too many questions and too many emotions. Sousuke squeezes his hand gently and Rin nods, squeezing his hand briefly before letting go.
“Don’t leave without me yet, I’ll be right back,” Rin tells the paramedics and runs off as fast he can get away with on the tile floors.
He doesn’t know how long it takes as he’s sitting in the ambulance, hooked up to an IV bag and trying to keep breathing steadily through the pain that’s shredding its way through him, but Rin comes back all of a sudden, wearing his Samezuka jacket and holding both of their bags on his back. Rin leans forward and grasps his hand gently, crimson eyes dark and serious in the too bright lights. Sousuke holds onto his hand tightly, like a buoy keeping him afloat in the middle of a storm. For the first time in a long while, he feels the shackles of his mistakes loosen their grip from around his ankles, feels the cold retreat as the warmth of Rin’s hand soaks into his like the sun. The branding heat of his shoulder becomes secondary to the way Rin’s fingers fit snug between his, like they’ve always belonged there, and how Rin squeezes and holds his hand just as tightly. He closes his eyes against the lights of the ambulance as it roars its way through the streets like a bull, heading towards the hospital, and for once, it doesn’t feel like defeat.
“Sousuke,” he hears Rin whisper, voice sharkskin rough and gentle like the low tide. He gives a quiet hum in reply, opening his teal eyes to stare into Rin’s crimson ones. Rin smiles, wobbly and in danger of crying, “Everything is gonna be okay.” Sousuke stares at him and thinks that Matsuoka Rin can do anything he sets his mind to once he’s decided. He thinks about how long he’s felt on the edge of drowning, how long he had before he’d given up. Now he looks at their entwined hands and thinks about finally being able to breathe in for once, to finally be able to pull his head above the water with Rin’s fingers wrapped around his own. He smiles and squeezes his hand again, letting himself believe it. Rin’s smile widens and he keeps holding his hand the entire way to the hospital, eyes never looking away from Sousuke.