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otomehonyaku · 2 months

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Diabolik Lovers Grand Edition Tokuten Special Booklet Short Stories ☽ Mukami ver. ☽ The Rainy School Night Mystery

Original title: 雨降る夜の学校の怪 English translation by @otomehonyaku Click here for the scans (special thanks to @karleksmumskladdkaka!) Sakamaki ver. ☽ Year-End Pandemonium (coming soon)

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

This short story booklet was part of the limited edition release of Grand Edition! Keep reading below the cut for the second short story, featuring the Mukami brothers. I will translate the Sakamaki one at a later date!

Please do not reuse or post my translations elsewhere or translate my work into other languages without my permission.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Droplets of rain tapped against the window panes and quickly converged into small streams, drawing curved lines on the glass on their way down. The rain had started the day before yesterday and showed no signs of stopping anytime soon. Maybe that might have been why, by the time the oppressive humidity began to make everyone feel uneasy…

“Hey, Kitten. I need to talk to you. Do you have a minute?”

With a smile bright enough to wipe away any worries caused by the weather, Mukami Kou—the idol with a household name—approached Komori Yui in a friendly manner. His presence caused a stir among the other students around them.

Yui grabbed Kou by the sleeve of his uniform jacket and quietly uttered, “Kou, we’ll stand out if we talk here…”

“Alright!”

Yui was puzzled by Kou’s unusually good mood, but followed him to a spot that would keep them away from prying eyes.

“Kou… Did something happen?”

“I heard a very interesting rumour. I thought I’d ask you about it, too.”

“A rumour?”

“Yes! It’s a little strange for this time of year, but it’s about a ghost story. Apparently, most of the students and teachers are familiar with it. Have you heard about it?”

“No… What’s it about?”

As soon as he realised Yui was completely oblivious, Kou gleefully talked away..

“Apparently, when it’s very late on a night of endless rain, when most people have left the school… strange sounds start coming from one of the classrooms.” Kou lowered his voice in an attempt to stoke her fear. “Nobody knows exactly where the sounds are coming from. It could be an empty classroom, the art room… You can hear it from various places depending on the day.”

“And… it couldn’t just be a burglar?”

“That’s what I thought, too, but I haven’t heard anything about things going missing, and even if that were the case, wouldn’t the police have been involved already? There’s also rumours going around about it being the students’ own doing, but apparently there are scratch marks in the rooms where the sound came from. Like, in places higher up than the curtains, so people generally wouldn’t be able to reach that high.”

With the odds of it being a student prank getting smaller by the minute, Yui’s throat grew dry. She swallowed loudly.

There shouldn’t be any sounds coming from an unoccupied room. The first thing that came to Yui’s mind was an unscientific explanation—something she would rather not think about.

“So, you mean… it’s a ghost?”

“Yes, yes, exactly! People are saying it might be a ghost.”

“But couldn’t the sounds be coming from the building itself (1)? I heard that ‘strange sounds’ people hear inside their houses are usually just the rattling of the building.”

“But that’s so boring, Kitten! Ghosts are way more interesting than rattling houses! Besides, people think it’s a ghost for good reason.”

“W-what reason…?!”

The way Kou purposefully explained it to her with such kindness, patience, and in such detail, made Yui shiver. A broad grin spread across the vampire’s face as he pulled Yui’s body closer while surveying their surroundings as if he was afraid of being caught, and started whispering into her ear.

“Some students have already snuck into the building at night as a test of courage, and apparently they saw dark shadows along with the strange sounds they heard. If it had been only one or two students spreading the rumour, it wouldn’t be a very credible story, but when so many people have had the exact same encounter, it’s difficult to still call it a trick of the mind, right? There’s also some students who claim they saw arms wrapped in bandages emerge from the darkness, at the exact timing that the lightning struck outside.”

“Oh…”

“Hm? What’s wrong, Kitten? You look a bit pale.”

“It’s because of your strange story…”

“Hehe! How cute. It’s going to be alright, Kitten. I’ll be by your side, after all.” Kou met Yui’s frightened eyes and shot her a sweet smile to put her at ease. “I’ll protect you. So… it has been a bit boring with all this rain lately. Shall we do some nightly exploration of the school for ourselves so we can figure out the truth behind the rumours?”

“What?!”

“Come on, let’s go!”

“W-wait a minute! Where are we going?”

Kou, who would not have taken ‘no’ for an answer either way, grabbed Yui’s hand and hurried pulled her along, down the hall. He swiftly dodged the students who were already starting to head home at this hour.

“W-wait! Slow down…”

“But there’s no time like the present, right? Besides, if we don’t hurry, my fans will only try to pull me aside. Let’s go to the others quickly!”

Kou led her in the direction of a far-away third-year classroom.

When the two of them walked through the door, the other Mukami brothers were already there. Yuma was straddling a chair, Azusa lingered by the window, and Ruki stood leaning with his back against the wall, his arms crossed.

“Hi, everyone! Sorry to keep you waiting. I brought our little Kitten!”

“You’re late, Kou. I was this close to goin’ home, even though you urged us to stay here ‘n wait.”

The discontent was plain on Yuma’s face. Kou muttered a half-serious apology to him and let go of Yui’s hand.

“Eve… did you run on your way here? You sound… out of breath…” Azusa tilted his head slightly to the side in concern for Yui.

“I’m okay, Azusa. Thank you.”

“Kou… If you need something from us, why gather us on campus?”

“Hehe. That’s because I need you all to be at school for this, ” Kou said, still beating around the bush.

Ruki glared daggers at his brother. Knowing he could not hold it off much longer, Kou decided to explain the situation.

“I was talking with Kitten about this earlier, but I heard an interesting story and I’d like you to know about it too! Have you heard the rumour that a ghost is haunting the school?”

“The one that’s making strange noises at night? I heard my classmates talkin’ ‘bout it.” Yuma clearly just wanted to know what mischief Kou was up to, making the blonde’s shoulders droop in disappointment.

“Oh, so you already know. Word certainly travels fast among the third-years.”

Ruki had a glaring suspicion about Kou’s intentions and decided to drive the point home before his brother could do it himself. “I suppose you weren’t going to ask us to look for the ghost with you, were you?”

“Hehe, bullseye!” Kou smiled broadly.

“Seriously? It’s just a rumour, though,” Yuma replied, sounding exasperated.

“How old are you? Don’t get so excited about this, Kou. Ghosts do not exist.” Ruki was referring to the fact that when someone dies and the moment their body perishes, a peculiar thing called the ‘soul’ perishes along with it. Ghosts were merely ridiculous fantasies; illusions invented by humans. Only ignorant children would be afraid of them… right?

However, Kou had already expected this reaction from Ruki and did not back down.

“Heh… I don’t think it’s good to decide that ghosts aren’t real without confirming anything ourselves. Right, Kitten?”

“Huh…? M-me?”

“Do you really believe this nonsense?” When Ruki turned to her, Yui instinctively straightened her spine.

“Not necessarily, but… It sounds a little scary, I think, but whether they’re actually real is another thing…”

“Kou, do you… really think the ghost… will appear? It might have just been… a trick of the mind, you know?”

“Of course I don’t believe the ghost actually exists.I don’t sense any other supernatural presences around here either, besides ourselves and the Sakamakis. Doesn’t that make you all the more interested in the hype around this ghost story?”

Ruki’s curiosity was piqued, if only a little, at Kou’s words. “Hm… You do have a point.”

It was easy to dismiss urban legends like this right away, but if there was a reality to this particular ghost story, that would change things.

“And what if people besides us are purposefully stirring up a ruckus at the academy? We can’t let that slide, right? So, I want to expose the truth behind these rumours! It won’t be fun if it’s just the four of us, though, so that’s why I brought Kitten with me.”

“I-I’m not going! Walking around the empty building at night sounds scary enough already, let alone when an actual ghost shows up…”

If the Mukami brothers could barely even make sense of the situation, didn’t that mean there was an actual chance a ghost was haunting the premises? When Yui thought of it like that, a chill ran down her spine.

“Heh, sounds fun!” Yuma put a hand on the back of the chair he’d been straddling and stood up with great vigour. “If she’s coming, I’m in, too!”

Yui was taken aback by his enthusiasm. “Yuma?!”

“I knew you’d come around, Yuma! Hey, Ruki. Please join us!”

“Alright. I do not care for ghosts, but I agree that we have to find out who’s causing all this trouble.”

“Right? Azusa, you’re coming too, aren’t you…? Azusa? Hello—?

“...”

Even as Kou’s eyes intently watched Azusa’s puzzled expression, the younger brother still didn’t answer. He raised a hand to his mouth as if in deep thought. Thinking it strange, Yui instinctively called out.

“Azusa?”

“Huh? Ah, I’m sorry… If you’re all going… then I will join you.”

“Great, that settles it! Let’s wait here for a bit until the school empties out.”

“H-hold on a second… Don’t I get a say in this?”

“Your opinion does not matter. Were you thinking of going home all by yourself, then?” Ruki said.

“Oh…” Met with four stares that left little room for protest, Yui reluctantly went along with their plans.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Several hours passed.

By the time all lights in the academy had been turned off and the emergency exit signs were the only source of light in the halls, the five began their search. The building had fallen completely silent. Only their footsteps and the distant sound of the rain outside could be heard.

Kou pulled Yui along by her hand and walked slightly ahead of the others.

“Hey, Kou… I don’t like going first.”

“Why?”

“Because it’ll be even scarier if something appears…”

“It’s okay, really! You can lag behind if you want, but something might creep up behind you.”

“L-like what?”

“Who knows? But I’m right in front of you and Ruki and the others are right behind you. Don’t you think this is the safest position for you to be in?

Though Kou encouraged Yui to move to whatever position she wanted, she felt unable to do so. She decided to quietly follow behind Kou. They had been walking around the school for a little while now, but had not noticed anything out of the ordinary yet.

Fed up with their aimlessly walking around, Yuma began to complain. “Hey, Kou. Nothing’s happened so far.”

“You’re too impatient, Yuma. We haven’t even been walking around for that long.”

“I feel no other presences nearby, nor have I heard that particular ‘sound’ you were talking about. Do you think it’s wary of us?” Ruki whispered, frowning as he surveyed his surroundings.

“Hey… If this really is a ghost’s doing, what do we even do? It probably won’t worship us or anything…”

Ignoring Yui’s worries completely, Yuma clutched his stomach and could not keep from bursting into laughter. “Pff, haha! You dummy. Why’d it worship us?”

“Because—isn’t that what they say about ghosts? That they worship people?

“Then they’d only worship you.”

“What…?”

“They only worship people, right?”

Yui tilted her head to the side, not quite understanding what Yuma was saying right away, but Ruki filled her in.

“Because we are vampires, after all. Besides, I don’t understand why you would be afraid of something as abstract as ghosts.”

“But… You never know! They might worship vampires too!”

While Yui desperately clung to her theory, Azusa and Kou decided to rub salt in the wound.

“I think… we’re stronger than ghosts, though...”

“I know, right? I think they’d be repulsed rather than worship us.”

“Ah…” With nobody agreeing with her, Yui felt her position becoming more and more vulnerable. On top of being forced into this situation, she was the only one who was actually scared.

Kou watched her intently, an almost reproachful expression on his face. “Oh, this won’t do. Even if you pout at me that way, I’ll just think you’re cute. But hey, I’ll protect you whatever happens, so stay calm, alright?” He winked at her in a way only an experienced idol could.

When Yui thought about it, being surrounded by four vampires—former humans, but still—probably was the safest position for her to be in, oddly enough. There was no way vampires would lose to an intangible ghost.

However, precisely because they were dealing with something intangible made it difficult for Yui to suppress her nerves. She desperately fought to keep the fear from overtaking.

The five walked around for a little while longer, Yui securely in the middle, but nothing happened.

“This is weird… Maybe it really is wary of us, like Ruki said. I wonder if it doesn’t like being ganged up on by a large group of people.”

“How about we split up then?”

“Right! If we go in small groups, the ghost might be more motivated to come out.”

“What…?! I don’t like the idea of splitting up.”

“We’re not asking for your opinion. That said, you would be in trouble if we left you alone, so… Yuma?”

Yuma looked puzzled when Ruki called his name. “Huh? What, Ruki?”

“Keep her company. If one of us goes with her, we’ll be able to swiftly deal with any unforeseen situations.”

“Yeah, true… Alright, Kou. We’re switchin’.”

Kou complied with Yuma’s demand, though the displeasure was clear on his face. The blonde might have rebelled against this change if Yuma had been the one to ask, but Ruki’s orders, on the other hand, were simply to be followed.

“Ah, what a shame. I was looking forward to holding hands with Kitten for a little longer.”

Kou reluctantly let go of Yui’s hand and surrendered his spot to Yuma.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

After that, Yui and Yuma split up from the rest of the group and began exploring the school anew.

It’s so quiet when it’s just the two of us walking around… Not feeling brave enough to speak up, Yui kept quiet and followed Yuma. I hope we can meet up with the others soon… If the ghost comes out now, I wonder if we’ll make it to them if we run.

“Hey, Sow… Why’re you shufflin’ behind me the entire time? Go out in front.”

“What?! N-no! I can’t!”

“There ain’t no way in hell that ghost is real, so no need to be such a scaredy-cat. You’re only makin’ yourself look more like an idiot.”

“I-I don’t care if I look like an idiot…! Some things are meant to be feared!”

“Ha! There ya go again… If I wanna leave , I’ll leave!” As if to get the irritation out of his system, Yuma banged his fist against the wall beside him.

Yui’s eyes snapped shut for a brief moment, but she did not flinch when she returned Yuma’s gaze, his face suddenly much closer than before.

“But…”

“But what?”

“Don’t you think… if vampires exist, then ghosts might exist too?”

“Hm… Sounds pretty funny comin’ from you, but nah, they don’t exist.” One corner of Yuma’s mouth curved upwards into a mocking grin. He let out a laugh. He seemed pretty convinced that ghosts were not a thing of this world.

CLATTER—!

“...!”

A clattering sound suddenly came from one of the classrooms. It startled Yui, making her tremble. “That wasn’t… in my head, was it?”

A lick of ice-cold fear slid down Yui’s spine. She quickly hid behind Yuma.

“You… Why’re you hiding? You’ve got some guts usin’ me as a shield.”

“B-but…” She could not find the words to speak—she was simply too scared. She crouched in on herself behind Yuma in an effort to hide.

The sound seemed to have come from the empty, unused classroom near them. It was pitch-black. Nobody seemed to be inside.

“I’m gonna go look.”

“What?! W-wait, Yuma!”

Yuma ignored Yui’s pleas and opened the door to the classroom. He thoroughly inspected the room, but still, there was not a soul in sight. As though expecting someone to be hiding, Yuma set foot into the classroom.

“Y-Yuma, don’t! It’s dangerous!”

“Ha! You’re scared shitless, aren’t ya? Just wait here. I’ll only have a quick look inside.”

The only thing coming in from outside was the sound of the rain. Not even a sliver of moonlight fell into the room. The ominous darkness gradually swallowed Yuma’s form whole as he walked farther away.

Oh no… If something comes out at me, I’ll…

Yui’s heart hammered against her ribcage, and just when her eyes inadvertently fluttered closed—she felt something brushing up against her leg. Goosebumps rose on her skin. She couldn’t keep her voice from leaking.

“Eek!”

Yuma rushed back when he heard her cry out, but still found no traces of anything lurking in the shadows close to where Yui was standing, nor in the deserted classroom.

“Damn, don’t scream like that! I thought somethin’ happened!”

“B-but… something… touched my leg…”

“What?! What the hell was it?”

In the end, the two never figured out what it could have been. The sky, still clouded with heavy rain, slowly started to become brighter.

“Shit. It’s close to mornin’ already. Hey, Sow? We should get back to Ruki ‘n the others. We’re done for today.”

“For today? You don’t mean…” A heavy sense of dread fell upon Yui, but she did not need to finish her sentence.

The anxious look on her face made Yuma’s lips curl up into a sadistic smile.

“We’ll be back for round two tomorrow.”

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The next night, Yui was accompanied by Azusa on their rounds through the school hallways. Yui kept a tight grip on Azusa’s left arm and had no intention of letting him go.

“Eve… If you hold on to me like that… it’s a bit difficult to move…”

“Oh! I-I’m sorry, Azusa! I’m still not quite used to this…”

“...”

“Azusa?”

“Ah… What is it…?”

Yui was even more unsettled by Azusa’s restlessness. He’s been lost in thought the entire time, she thought.

“Hey, Azusa? Is something wrong…? You haven’t seen the… g-ghost, have you?”

“Huh? Oh, no… I haven’t.”

“Ah… That’s a relief.”

“Are you… really that scared? Then… here.”

“Huh…?”

Azusa came to a halt and pulled Yui into a hug with his other arm, gently patting her back as he whispered into her ear. “Eve… I’m here with you. Even if something comes after you… I’ll protect you. But… are you maybe worried… that it’s just me…?”

“No, not at all… Thank you. I think I might be a little less scared now.”

“I’m glad… to make myself useful.” Azusa smiled softly, but then his gaze quickly shifted to the window.

He really is worried about something… I wonder what’s gotten into him…

Once again, the night ended without them coming any closer to finding the source of the strange sound.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Along came the third night of exploring the academy.

Carefully calculating when the building would empty out, the five once again split up and made their rounds. The never-ending rain had abated into a drizzle for a brief moment, but before long, it was pouring once again. The weather showed no signs of letting up.

“It really won’t stop raining. It would be nice to be able to see the moon, though…”

The night sky was covered by heavy rain clouds. Yui had been looking out of the window while she was walking down the hall, but in the meantime, Ruki—who had been right next to her only a moment earlier—had already put several steps in between them. Yui half-ran to catch up to him.

“You seem awfully careless today. Have you already overcome your fear of ghosts?”

“N-not exactly, but… This is the third day already, so it’s getting a little… Ah!”

Maybe Yui’s attention slipped because she was relieved to walk beside Ruki again, as she suddenly stumbled and nearly fell over. Ruki immediately extended his arms, swiftly catching Yui and keeping her from falling.

“T-thank you…”

“If you let down your guard like that, bad things will happen—like this, for example.”

“Huh…?”

The ominous tone of Ruki’s voice caught Yui’s attention. She tilted her face upwards to look at him.

Ruki looked pointedly somewhere behind her, nodding in the same direction as if to urge her to do the same. Yui’s hands were braced on his upper arms as he held her, and her grip only tightened at the thought of something being at her back.

“I-is something there?”

Yui was hit by an indescribable wave of anxiety. Her breath involuntarily caught in her throat, but she bolstered her resolve and gingerly looked over her shoulder.

There was nothing but the long, dark, gloomy hallway stretching out behind her.

“N-nothing’s there, right? Wait, were you… Huh…?”

“You said you’d gotten used to it, right? I figured I’d test you. It seems like you don’t have your fear under control just yet, though.”

“Ah…!”

Yui’s cheeks flushed bright red. Had Ruki really been toying with her, even though he knew she was scared?

“That’s not fair…! You can’t just play with me like that… I’ve gotten a little more used to walking through the dark hallways, but you know I’m scared of ghosts…!”

Yui crouched down on the ground, her face between her knees, both mortified and scared beyond her wits. Any regular male student might have been worried, might have tried to calm her down, but Ruki showed no signs of showing her such kindness.

“Don’t make a fuss. How long are you going to sit like that? If you don’t feel like moving, I’ll leave you here.” Quickly dismissing Yui’s worries, Ruki did not bother to cast her another glance and began walking away.

“Oh… W-wait up!”

Not knowing where to direct her fear and frustration with being ignored, Yui’s head was full of chaos. Still, she would not be able to bear being left alone like this, and so she hurried back to Ruki.

Yui felt herself grow stiff while she walked behind him. Just then, a strange sound reached her ears.

“...Did you hear that?”

“It came from that classroom. Do you want to check it out?”

It was a different sound from the one she had heard with Yuma the day before yesterday. This one clearly sounded like someone was rummaging around… and it kept going.

“Ruki…”

“There’s definitely someone here.”

Ruki opened the door to the classroom with great force.

The moonlight did not quite reach the room because of the heavy rain—it was darker than the hallway had been—and the unoccupied desks and chairs were nothing but eerie silhouettes.

When Yui’s eyes had gotten used to the darkness, though, she saw someone standing there with her back to her—someone familiar. Recognition struck her.

“Huh… Azusa?” The words just slipped out.

At Yui’s surprised voice, Azusa slowly turned around to face them. He looked just as surprised to see them. “Eve… Ruki…”

“Azusa? What are you doing here?” Ruki took a step forward and had barely finished speaking…

And then, it happened.

“Found you—!”

Yui looked in the direction of the voice reverberating through the hallway, she spotted Kou running towards them. Their eyes met. Kou raised his voice as if he’d known all along how this would end.

“Grab it, Kitten!”

“What?!”

Yui followed Kou’s finger pointing ahead. A small, black shadow darted out in front of him. Kou had clearly ordered her to catch it, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it right away. While she stood there hesitating for a moment, the black shadow collided with her chest on its own.

Out of sheer reflex, Yui wrapped her arms around it immediately. It felt heavier than she’d thought, and softer to the touch. The unexpected sensation almost made her drop it, but she regained her posture and held it tightly.

“Nice catch, Kitten!”

Kou was out of breath, having run at full speed, as he pointed at the black lump in Yui’s arms. “That’s… the cause… of the ghost story… the source of the sounds… is that cat.”

Yui suddenly realised she was holding a black cat. Its tail pointed upwards, the fur fluffed up as it eyed Kou suspiciously. In an effort to calm down the evidently upset cat, she gently stroked its back. “It’s okay… Don’t be scared…”

“Wow… Have you seen the way it’s staring at me?” Kou breathed.

“Isn’t that because you were chasing it?”

“I had to! Of course it’s going to run if someone tries to catch it.”

“Hey, hey! What’s with all the—what the fuck! What’s that black thing?”

Yuma burst into the room after having heard the commotion. Yui had only just managed to calm down the cat a little, but in response to Yuma’s voice, the black cat’s tail fluffed up again.

“Whoa, that’s a pretty rough-lookin’ cat… But wait, what’s a cat doing on campus?”

A nod from Ruki confirmed his brother’s unspoken suspicions. “If this cat is the cause of the ghost story going around, I wonder how it managed to sneak into the academy and cause such an upheaval.”

If the cat had snuck in while the students and teachers were on campus, it could not have gone unnoticed. The fact that nobody was aware of a cat on campus must mean that it had snuck in sometime late at night, when the school was already empty.

However, that still begged the question how it came in. The campus was built in such a way that it seemed unlikely for the cat to have come inside easily. If that was the case, maybe someone had purposefully lured the cat inside and hidden it from everyone…

How did this little one even get here…? Yui was at a loss as she stared at the black ball of fur in her arms, but the only response she got from it was a loud meow.

Azusa, who had been quiet up until now, suddenly joined the conversation. “I’m sorry… Actually, this cat… is here because I was… looking after it…” He apologetically raised his right hand.

“Huh? Azusa, you’ve been taking care of this cat…?”

“Yeah… I’ll talk you through what happened…” Azusa began explaining the origins of the ghost story and how the cat had infiltrated the school. “About a month ago… I found this cat in the school courtyard, but…”

Azusa’s story went something like this: one day, he had found a weakened black kitten. He had given it something to eat and soon began to look after it. Even after it had mostly recovered, the heavy rain continued to fall, and Azusa had felt the need to keep checking in on it out of sheer worry.

As he suspected, the cat had fallen ill again after a while. Azusa had pitied the little black cat and made sure to gently stroke it and talk to it. Eventually, he brought it to this classroom so he could take better care of it.

“Oh, Azusa, you’re too kind,” Kou said, carefully approaching the cat so as to not startle it, and petted it. The cat seemed to have gotten a little more used to him. It was more docile now, allowing Kou’s gentle touch.

“That’s not… true… In the end, I only… ended up scaring the cat…”

“What do you mean?”

“When the cat became healthier… I got a little careless… After it escaped from this classroom where I’d been taking care of it… I lost track of where it went…”

“So that means this cat roamed the school at night, and the kids mistook the sounds it made for a ghost… and that led to the ghost story?”

Azusa nodded in response to Yuma’s question. “I think those sounds… must have been the cat running away or playing around… and when I couldn’t find it for a while… it must have been hiding somewhere… because it was scared…”

“Yeah, that’s fair… It’s pretty scary to be chased around, after all.”

Kou nodded exaggeratedly, but the brothers’ reactions were pretty mild overall, as though these kinds of things happened on the regular. Yui thought it strange, but tried to gloss over it by shooting Azusa one more question.

“The students were talking about an ‘arm wrapped in bandages’ poking out from the darkness… So that was…”

“Yeah… They must have seen… me. As soon as I heard the rumours about the ghost… and knowing about the cat, it just clicked… so, lately… I’ve been looking for it by myself…”

“Ha… so that’s it. That ghost story was brought to life just ‘cause of Azusa and this black cat.”

“Good grief… You certainly caused trouble.”

With all questions answered, Yuma and Ruki looked even more exasperated than before.

“Azusa… Of all places to take care of a cat, you should not have done it at school. If you’d just taken it home, it wouldn’t have caused such a stir.” (2)

“I thought it might… bother you…”

“Well, that’s Azusa for you. But this wouldn’t have inconvenienced us at all! We’re brothers, right?” Kou said light-heartedly in an effort to cheer up Azusa, whose eyes were downcast.

“Of course. Don’t be so reserved, Azusa.”

Touched by the kindness of his brothers, Azusa smiled cheerily. “Yeah… Thank you, all of you…”

“So, uh… What do we do with the cat?” When Yui handed the cat over to Azusa, it began loudly purring in his arms.

“How about we bring it home with us?”

“I don’t mind either.”

The cat could suffer a grim fate if we leave it here like this and someone else finds it… What if it becomes weak again? What if it dies?

“Ruki… Would it be alright if we took it home?”

Everyone’s eyes naturally shifted to Ruki.

“We can’t decide that so easily. If the cat belongs to someone who lives somewhere around the campus, shouldn’t we return it to its home? Don’t they say that dogs tend to be attached to their masters, and cats are attached to their homes?”

Ruki had a point, but Kou was not yet convinced, especially seeing how Azusa felt for the cat he’d been taking care of for so long. “But look how attached it is to Azusa…”

“Thank you, Kou… I’m alright… The cat’s happiness is… the most important, after all…”

“Well, if Azusa’s fine with it, then I’m fine with it… Ah, I’m so tired from chasing the cat. Hey, Kitten. Can I lay my head in your lap (3) when we get home?”

“What?!”

The subject of the conversation shifted from the cat to something else so quickly that it almost gave Yui whiplash.

When Yuma joined in as well, it became even more confusing. “Hey, Kou. You’re not the only one who’s tired! You don’t get to keep all the fun for yourself.”

“But I worked really hard, you know? Don’t you think I deserve to ask for a small reward?”

“I don’t. I ran pretty damn hard myself! Hell, I was the only one who actually ran.”

“What? How do you know? I definitely ran the hardest!”

“Nah, I did!”

“I’m telling you, I did!”

Kou and Yuma’s bickering escalated quickly, neither of them realising their fight was getting farther and farther away from the issue at hand.

“Christ, this is not worth fighting over.”

“But… it’s kind of fun, isn’t it?”

Ruki averted his eyes, clearly fed up with his brothers’ antics, while Azusa warmly watched over the two.

It would be nice if they forgot about the laying–his-head-in-my-lap thing, too… Yui thought. When her gaze flicked to the window, she noticed that the rain that had plagued the city, pouring incessantly for days on end, had let up.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

A little while later, the black cat left the campus, and the ghost story that had haunted the academy quickly receded into the students’ and teachers’ memories.

THE END

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

家鳴（やな）り：Lit. the ‘rattling of a house,’ meaning things like creaking windows, the air vents, the sounds you sometimes hear when the walls or window panes expand due to moisture or heat, things like that.

Not a translation note but Ruki, sir, with your history of ‘taking care’ of cats, I’m not sure if that’s a good idea…

膝枕（ひざまくら）: Lit. ‘knee/lap pillow,’ meaning to use someone’s lap as a pillow, laying your head in someone’s lap.

#this story was so fun to translate omg. azusa my BABY!!!!!#and i also want ruki to scare the living daylights out of me tbvh..... please......#i tend to take some (small) creative liberties when translating longer texts just to make the story flow better btw #so other japanese-speaking people: pls don't come for me haha #also i'm sorry for being so slow this week my summer break is over and i had to get back to work again so i've been a little tired aaa #next up is something very exciting though............. which i'll also be able to release in smaller parts!#diabolik lovers #dialovers #diabolik lovers translation #diabolik lovers translations #diahell #otomehonyaku #my translations #mukami ruki #ruki mukami #mukami kou #kou mukami #mukami yuma #mukami yuuma #yuuma mukami #yuma mukami #mukami azusa #azusa mukami #diabolik lovers grand edition

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blood-mocha-latte · 3 months

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ONE TOO MANY MORNINGS | 13K | RATED T

the last part of @dontirrigateme’s summer exchange gift! (part one and part two), i hope you enjoy <3. special thanks to @lamialamia for such a stellar beta, and thanks to absolutely everyone. wishing a lovely rest of summer to all ☀️

Web’s smile was warm, happy. He had a butterfly bandage at his temple, carefully placed, a cup of jello in one hand. He was, it seemed, fully intact. “Hey, Lieb.” He said as soon as he saw him, and didn’t even spare Joe the dignity of waving at him.

Joe leaned against the doorframe of the room, realized for the first time that he was wearing his left shoe on his right foot and vice versa. “I’m going to fucking kill you.” He said, heart still trying to beat through his chest.

(The fifth time they broke up, it was final. It was over, because Web put his foot down and Joe was half-convinced that their fate was to murder each other. They still didn’t change their emergency contact information.)

READ ON AO3 (RECOMMENDED) OR BELOW THE CUT

FEBRUARY

He got the call on a Thursday.

“I just don’t get it.” Chuck told him, and sounded entirely too exasperated over the phone. “You two are, like—”

“Chuck, can you cover me or not?” Joe interrupted him, pausing his subsequent ripping apart of the couch to adjust his phone against his ear, shoving his feet into his shoes with a free hand.

Chuck’s sigh sounded long-suffering. “Yeah, yeah.” He muttered, the receiver muffled. “But only for the morning, and then you’re on your own.” Joe was barely listening to him, already in the hallway, grabbing his jacket.

“Thanks.” He said, and hung up before Chuck could continue to explain, at length, what a bad idea this was.

He ended up on the street in a record two and a half minutes, nearly running by the time his feet hit the pavement.

He’d never, and he knew it certainly, been so goddamn grateful to live so close to the hospital.

The closer he got, the quicker his breathing echoed in his chest. It seemed like a side effect of everything from Joe’s sudden onslaught of worry and the aftermath of the phone call beginning to catch up to him.

A car crash. Jesus Christ.

Joe dragged a hand down his face as he found the front desk of the hospital, located the nurse behind it and nodded at her. “Hi.” He said, rather hoarse. “I’m, uh. Emergency contact?”

The nurse blinked at him. Joe grimaced at her, which was as close to a smile as he could manage. “Do you have a name?” She asked.

“Web.” He said without thinking, then blinked. “Uh, Webster. David. He’s — Kenyon.”

The nurse’s eyes found the screen in front of her, and Joe cleared his throat, pushing his hair away from his forehead and looking vaguely over his shoulder, catching his breath. He could feel his phone vibrating against his leg as someone (probably Chuck) kept texting him about something or the other. Joe didn’t necessarily care.

“Joe Liebgott?” Joe’s gaze snapped back to the woman behind the desk.

“Yeah.” He said absently and she nodded, pointing with her nose down the hall.

“You’ll see him.” She said, which seemed rather vague. Joe wasn’t sure if that was par for the course or not. “He’s definitely noticeable.”

And out of everything that Joe could think about hearing in a hospital, he’d have to think that would be one of the worst.

“Thanks.” He said, dry, and his own voice seemed to echo through his ears like coming from the end of a tunnel. Everything seemed to echo; from his breathing to his footsteps against the linoleum.

A car crash.

For all that Joe thought it over, it barely made any sense at all. Ridiculously, the only thing he seemed able to focus on was how they ended it.

His footsteps still echoed.

Joe was going to kill him.

Joe was going to fucking kill him.

David’s smile was warm, happy. He had a butterfly bandage at his temple, carefully placed, a cup of green jello in one hand. He was, it seemed, fully intact. “Hey, Lieb.” He said as soon as he saw him, and didn’t even spare Joe the dignity of waving at him.

Web made a face at him, dipped his spoon back into the jello. “Please.” He said, dismissive. “Don’t be so dramatic. It’s not like I—”

“Dramatic?” Joe demanded over him, already beginning to see red again. “I get a fucking call at six in the goddamn morning saying that you’ve been in a crash and that you’ve been hospitalized—”

Web’s eyes flashed a brighter blue as he sat up slightly against the reclined hospital bed, brows furrowing. Upon a second glance, he didn’t seem as unharmed as previously thought, white gauze covering one of his collarbones and one of his fingers splinted.

“I didn’t ask you to come!” He said, voice breaking around his own upset, and Joe can’t be bothered to care, spluttering and pointing at him in the bed, astutely not in the full body cast that he’d assumed he’d be in, with all limbs still attached. “They called you before I could say that I just haven’t changed my info—”

“It’s been a month!” Joe said, pointing vaguely at nothing over his shoulder. “How the hell haven’t you changed—”

“Have you?” Web demanded over him, cheeks a brighter red than before, flushed and neck turning a blotchy red.

That gave Joe pause. “I…” He started, pressing his lips together, frustrated, and dropping his hand to point at Web, instead. “That’s besides the point.” Web’s eyes widened, and he pointed back at Joe, who was quick to drop his hand as soon as he realized how stupid they must look.

“You haven’t changed it either!” He said, sounding some strange mix of enraged and enthused. “So ha! How can you expect me to—”

“Don’t ha me.” Joe interrupted him, wrinkling his nose. “And I wasn’t in a fucking crash, so I think it’s slightly fucking different—”

“You could have been!” Web’s still red, fingertips tracing around the gauze at his collarbone as he watches Joe, eyes wide, crystal. “And then they would have called me, and it would be the same exact scenario.”

Joe leaned heavier against the doorway, pinched the bridge of his nose between his index finger and thumb. “Jesus Christ.” He told his hand, suddenly exhausted, and Web snorted, suddenly derivative. When Joe looked back up at him, he’d crossed his arms over his sternum, leaning back in the bed.

“So there.” He said, entirely too smug. “You try to remember to change your emergency contact after six years.”

Joe stared at him. Web stared back for about fifteen seconds, and then grimaced, leaning further back to press his palm flat against his collarbone, breathing through his nose. “Fuck.” He muttered.

Joe sighed. As elaborately as he could, neatly enunciating, he said, “Are you okay?”

Web frowned at him. “I mean.” He said. “Yeah. They’re just a couple of scratches.” Joe frowned back.

“Okay.” He said finally, pushing away from the doorway. “When are they releasing you?”

Though only fractionally, Web’s eyes widened as he shook his head, pointing at Joe again. “You are not taking me home.” He said, sounding entirely too contemptible. Joe just raised an eyebrow, held his arms out.

“Is anyone else coming for you?” He asked, which may have hit the nail on the head, as Web just paused, mouth still open, and Joe nodded. “Yeah.” He muttered, hand coming up to rub across the nape of his neck. “I’ll talk to the desk. Get your shit together.”

“Joe.” Web said, suddenly more pitiful than before, some sort of game that he always took entirely too seriously. “Please don’t take me home.”

Joe was already turning around in half of a circle, patting down his pockets as he tried to find the mental checklist for exactly what he needed to find. “Get your shit together, kid.” He said a second time, finding his phone in his back pocket.

Goddamn it. He walked here. They’d need to Uber back to Web’s place.

“One step at a time.”

“I’m not a fucking invalid.”

“Okay, so get out on your own.”

Web shut his mouth real quick after that, and Joe went back to thinking absently about something else entirely. Like how he should have thought to make Web change his emergency contact information while they were still at the hospital.

The Uber driver was patient as Joe tugged Web out of the backseat of the car as gingerly as he could and the other elected to barely help at all. As soon as he was standing, Web groaned, one arm coming to wrap around his ribs, and Joe ignored him completely to tip the driver and thank him.

When he turned around, Web was in the same place he deposited him, dip between his eyes heavy, breathing steady. “What’re you waiting for?” Joe asked him, moving forward enough to get to the apartment's fancy gate, gesturing at it impatiently. “Get your bitchass keycard and key us in.”

Web frowned at him. The corner of his mouth was slightly bloody, Joe was unsure if that was new or he just hadn’t noticed it before. “You’re so mean to me.” He said, voice taking on the same edge he’d use when they were together, when he was trying to make Joe feel like an asshole about something.

They weren’t together anymore, though. Joe just pointed at the gate again, raised an eyebrow. “I don’t have all day to baby you.” He said.

He didn’t have to feel like an asshole anymore; they weren’t together.

(He still kind of did. God fucking damn it.)

Web’s fancy apartment building had an elevator, and Joe ushered him into it before he himself stepped in, pushing for floor eight with his knuckle and leaning back against the wall.

Web leaned against the wall as well, still frowning at him. Joe ignored him.

“I still came and picked you up.” He said, after a moment.

“Don’t try to score brownie points.” Web wrinkled his nose. “I didn’t want you to.”

Joe took a very deep, calming breath. “Who else would’ve come for you?” He asked again, hypothetical but also entirely not, as Hoobler was out of town and it was Monday morning.

Web looked away and pressed his lips together. “It’s embarrassing,” He said, overly articulate, “To have to have my ex come and pick me up.”

Joe snorted. “How do you think I feel?” He asked, the elevator opening again with a ding. He pushed away from the wall to herd Web out of the elevator before he himself departed from it.

Web just huffed. “My only solace is that I’m pretty sure everyone thought you were my dad.” Joe pushed at his back with two fingers, a careful prod to make him move quicker to his door. Web grumbled but complied, limping slightly.

“Hardy-har.” He said, dry, as Web fumbled with and subsequently jiggled open his apartment. “I should have told more nurses that we used to fuck.”

Web’s cheeks were rosy, when he turned around. Probably a side effect of whatever painkillers they have him on. “That would simply be too humiliating for me.” He said. “I could hardly admit that I knew the arthritic that came over looking like he had just started smoking crack cocaine.”

Joe raised an eyebrow at him, but closed the apartment door behind him nonetheless. “Did you get meaner, since we broke up?”

Web frowned at him, eyes still bright, arm still wrapped around his ribs. “No,” He said, “I just got my brains back.”

Joe was already wandering towards Web’s kitchen as the other stayed standing, leaning against the wall, eyes half closed. “Stop repeating lines from shitty rom-coms.” He said, and Webster spluttered, already protesting.

If there was one thing he missed, Joe supposed, it was this sort of thing.

“Yeah, well, you’re old.” Web said, lackluster. Joe figured he couldn’t think of a better insult.

“That just makes me wise.” He said. When he looked over at Web, the other was glowering at something over his shoulder.

Joe was pretty sure that meant he won.

“You need to eat something.”

“Joe, you’re only old enough to be my dad. You’re not actually—”

“Make that joke all you want, we’ll both be in our thirties in four years. You’re gettin’ on, too.”

“There’s a big difference between twenty-six and thirty-three—”

“Yeah, the thirty-three year old is used to driving, and therefore didn’t absolutely get his shit wrecked this morning—”

“Lieb.” Web said over him, voice taking on the same whining edge that he knew that Joe could hardly stand, and still did anyways. Like some sort of Pavlovian response, he shut up. It might have something to do with the fact that Web just looks so goddamn miserable, sitting at one of his stools at the kitchen counter, cheek resting on his arms and eyes a glassy, unfocused blue.

Instead of flipping him more shit, Joe turned around, opening the fridge. The avocado spread was in the same place it always was, always had been, and he pulled it out, setting it on the counter. The bread was kept in the cupboard under the counter – which Joe had always hated, and he pulled it out and tossed it down next to the avocado, raising an eyebrow at Web as he turned to the toaster.

“You’re a millennial, right?” He asked, and Web groaned, head still in his arms.

“You’re the worst person I’ve ever met.” He said, muffled. He was still in the same clothes that Joe had made him change into when they were at the hospital. “Change your emergency contact information.”

Joe dropped two pieces of bread into the toaster, turned the thing on, and turned back to Web, back to the counter as he crossed his arms over his sternum.

“You first.” He said, sort of a joke. Web just furrowed his eyebrows at him, still frowning.

“You.” He said.

“You.”

The toaster dinged, already done. Joe turned back over to it and tossed the bread onto a plate, which he’d found easily enough in yet another cupboard.

“That’s another thing.” He said, absent. “You have terrible taste in toast. This isn’t even toast, it’s warm bread.”

Web scoffed, a little damp. “Well, I just don’t like eating hockey pucks, unlike you.”

He could feel Webster’s eyes on him as he knifed some avocado onto the bread and pushed it across the counter to him, dropping the spread back into the fridge and not bothering to tie back up the bread before putting it back on the cupboard.

“Eat your goddamn warm avocado bread, Webster.” He said absently, and Web snorted, picking up one of the pieces anyways.

“I’m not gonna change my contact until you do.” He said, overly childish for no absolute reason as he took a grudging bite out of the toast. Annoyance sparked easily in Joe’s chest the same way it always did.

“Okay.” He said. “Well, I’m not, either. I’m the one who had to drag myself down to the hospital to get your melodramatic, miserable, shitty driving self, so the least you can do is change it first.”

“I did not ask you to take me home!” Web said over him, voice slightly higher. He had green on his cheek, and Joe had to stop to watch him for a moment, the corner of his mouth crooking up, amused.

“You’ve got shit all over your face.” He said, and Web wrinkled his nose, scrubbing the back of his hand across his cheek. He somehow missed the avocado.

“I did not ask you to take me home.” He said again, slightly less enthused. “In fact, I think I did the opposite of that—”

“When are the painkillers gonna kick in?” Joe asked over him, half-ignoring him, and Web spluttered, unbelieving.

“Oh, yeah, slip the wounded ex a mickey—”

“Hey, I’m just saying, you’re getting very wound up and I think a little bit of valium would help—”

“Fuck you, Joe, that’s so fucked up.”

Web took another angry bite of warm bread. Joe still watched him, had to look away before he actually started smiling.

“They give you vicodin?” He asked.

“You’re such an asshole. Change your emergency contact information.”

“Not until you do.”

The problem with even seeing Web was that they argued.

Joe didn’t know how he felt about the arguing. Never did. It wasn’t necessarily good, or bad, or anything in between. It was just entirely who they were, and who they were was two assholes that couldn’t stay together because they were both entirely too reactive.

“Just—” Joe started and cut himself off with a snort, slightly derivative. “One foot at a time. There you go.”

“Don’t patronize me.” Web grumbled into his shoulder, steadfastly not helping Joe remove his jeans. “We’re not even going to fuck after this.”

Joe managed to get Web’s waistband over his hips and dragged them off of him, tossing them into the corner of the room as Web leaned further back into his mattress, groaning.

“Nope.” Joe told him, searching around for nothing in particular. “That is what broken up means.”

Web wrinkled his nose, staring at the ceiling. Joe found a dusty afghan in the corner of his room and tossed it over him absently. Web pretended not to notice.

“For our collective mental health.” He said, maybe a mimicry of themselves a month ago. Then, in a thoughtful addition, “And those of our friends.”

“Bless their souls.” Joe said absently, and smacked Web’s thigh — who groaned — as he passed him. “Okay, your drugs are in the kitchen. Go to sleep. I gotta get the fuck to work.”

He flicked off the lights in Web’s room as he passed the switch. “Joe.” Web said, when he was outside of the doorframe.

Joe only turned around halfway, raising an eyebrow. Web’s eyes were dark, tired.

“I’m going to change my emergency contact info.” He said, and Joe watched him for half of a second before knocking his knuckles against Web’s door frame, stepping further away from the bedroom.

“You do that.” He said, and Webster nodded, like it was final.

He could hear Web snoring before he was even fully out of the apartment.

MARCH

“It’s fine.” Joe said. “Shit from the shoulders up always bleed a lot.” Chuck looked over at him nervously, fingertips tapping against the steering wheel.

“Uh-huh.” He said, and didn’t sound convinced. “Please don’t get blood all over my seats.”

Joe grimaced, adjusting the bundled up wife beater at his neck. It caused blood to squelch between his fingers and he winced at the feel. “This is your fault.”

Chuck kept his eyes on the road. “Well.” He said. “If anything, I think it’s your own fault.”

Joe closed his eyes, letting his head thunk back against the headrest. “You’re hurrying, right?” He was starting to feel his heartbeat in his eyes, which probably wasn’t good. He closed them, and everything behind his lids were a fuzzy white.

“Yeah.” Chuck said, but sounded slightly warped, strained. “Jesus Christ. Stay awake, Joe.”

“I’m awake, fuck you.” Joe said, and kept his eyes closed. Everything was still a fuzzy white.

“Oh.” He said, and sounded like he was coming through a tunnel. “Web will probably show up, by the way. We’re playing gay chicken with our emergency contact information.”

The last thing he heard before everything cut out altogether – like a lost radio signal – was Chuck swearing.

Joe hated IV’s. They were itchy.

So was the bandage, but that was less so. “So help me god,” He said, slowly, elaborately. “I am fine. Someone just get me the fuck—”

He started reaching for the IV again and had his hand promptly smacked away from it again by David, who smoothly crossed his arms over his sternum again, stubborn face set.

“You’re staying here.” He said, smacked Joe away from the IV for the fifteenth time. “You lost a lot of blood, you’re going nowhere because if you do, you’ll die. Stop it with the IV, Joe, it’s not that bad.”

Chuck had to leave, and now Joe was stuck with Webster, who’d promptly filled out whatever paperwork that Chuck hadn’t had the knowledge to complete and then gone to immediately bothering Joe.

“I’m not gonna die if I leave the hospital.” Joe said, but didn’t reach for the IV again. “You just like me being miserable.”

Web was watching him, eyes bright and pale under the LED lights of the headache of a room they’d stuck him in. “Does it hurt?” He asked, voice rather tenuous. Joe rolled his eyes at him.

“No, David, I got stabbed in the neck and am ready to go run a marathon.” He said. “Be fucking serious. And get me out of here.”

Web dropped into the chair beside the bed with a sigh, which wasn’t exactly promising of a jailbreak. “You’re so mean.” He said. “Everytime I see you in person again I remember why we broke up.”

Joe turned to look at him, raised an eyebrow. “I almost died an hour and a half ago and this is how you choose to comfort me?”

Web frowned. “I’m seeing my therapist again.” He said, pointed. “She said it could help to tell you what I’m thinking of as closure.”

Joe frowned, eyes cloudy, and squinted up at the ceiling. “Is this the one with the nose ring or the one with the bad haircut?”

“Nose ring.”

“Huh. Well tell her that your unsocial dumbfuck ass decided that this was the perfect time to tell me that.” Web huffed, gentle and slightly quiet.

“No.” He said. “She’d probably take your side.”

“That’s because it’s a stupid thing to say. What’re you gonna tell me next? You went out on a date?”

Web hummed, thoughtful. “No.” He said. “Though I did get asked out, the other day.”

“You can do better.” Joe said, immediately. Web’s laugh seemed slightly lighter, than before. When Joe managed to turn to look at him, slightly gingerly, he was watching Joe with sparkling eyes, feet tucked up under him.

“You don’t even know who it is.” He said, smile a gentle curve. “But I said no, anyways. It doesn’t matter.”

Joe turned back to stare blearily at the ceiling again. He was thinking that the button by his bed actually worked, as his eyes were starting to get fuzzy again.

“Shoulda said yes.” He said, and at Web’s soft snort, rather derivative, and he blinked, protesting. “Did nose ring want you to say yes?” Web hesitated, before answering.

“Yeah.” He said, slightly quiet. Joe yawned. It probably should have hurt his neck, but he was pleasantly numb, and everything just felt slightly strange.

“Why didn’t you?”

His hand was laying, palm up, against the scratchy sheets of the bed, and Web’s fingertips were gentle against the inside of his wrist, trailing over Joe’s fingers before settling there lightly.

“Why do you think?” He asked, quiet and slightly hoarse.

Joe didn’t respond, kept his eyes on the ceiling. He was going to fall asleep, he thought absently, strangely, like he was taking note of it. The pads of Web’s fingers were still tracing along his own.

“Change your emergency contact information.” He said, dizzy. Web laughed, it sounded from a tunnel.

“You first.” He said, like a dare.

He could actually leave a day later, and Web came back to the hospital, because of course he did.

“I hate your hair like that.” Joe told him, wincing as he pulled his fingers away from his neck, from where he’d been testing the gauze pressed there. “You look like fuckin’... John Travolta from Grease.”

David sighed. “God forbid someone try a new thing.” He said, hair slicked carefully away from his face. He was lingering near Joe gingerly, like someone would suddenly expect him to play goalie for a soccer game of life or death, and Joe didn’t look at him.

“Yeah, he’d better.” Joe retorted.

Chuck had to go back to work, and had only texted him twice since what Webster was already referencing as The Incident.

Web hesitated, at the hospital exit, looking back at Joe. He had his phone out, probably to find an Uber, since he didn’t have a car anymore.

Joe raised an eyebrow at him. “What.” He said, ignoring the pain in his neck to focus on his distaste of Web’s hair.

“Do you…” Web started, and hesitated. “Want to go back to my place? Just so I can—”

“Exes, Web.” Joe said over him. “I’m not going back to your place, don’t be fucking crazy.”

Web sighed, but followed him outside. “Last time we broke up we still went over to each other's places.” He said, edged with protest.

“Yeah.” Joe said. “Last time we broke up. Not this time, last time. Which means that we needed to break up again, after that. Because going to each other's places did not work.”

Web sighed. “Yeah.” He said, rather dejectedly. “It was fun, though.”

“It was fun.” Joe confirmed, felt his mouth twitch up at the thought. “For the first, second, and third break-ups, too.”

Web huffed a laugh. “Maybe fifth is the charm.” He said lightly, and Joe had to look away from him before he did something stupid.

Neither of them mentioned the contact info. Joe didn’t really want to bring it up. His neck hurt.

APRIL

Joe was still sore most days, but his neck was starting to messily scar over in a mess of uneven skin and red staining, so he left it alone and ignored it to the best of his ability.

He’d have to assume, as it had been two months, that Web’s subsequent injuries from the crash (he still didn’t have a new car, Joe was certain, and he was curious about the fallout of the accident. He hadn’t heard a goddamn thing about it.) had healed completely when Joe had gotten the call.

The call, in question, being from the hospital. Again.

“Jesus Christ, go fucking slow—” He said, holding up more of Web’s weight when the other leaned into him with a groan, edged with some semblance of complaint.

“I’m okay.” Web said, and made to touch the side of his face — mottled all colors of green and purple and black — before Joe smacked his hand away. “My face hurts.”

From what Joe had gathered in the scant few hours he’d learned of Web’s slight misfortune — which had been lucky enough to happen on a Saturday, so he didn’t have to worry about work, thank god — was that Hoobler had hit him in the face with a skateboard in what was probably an accident (somehow) and then skipped out on him to study for some class final.

“People in college are fucking insane.” Joe muttered, in reference to that. Web just made a soft sound, protesting, still prodding gingerly at the side of his face.

“At least I didn’t lose any teeth.” He said, wincing when the pads of his fingers grazed his cheekbone, already pooling in such a dark purple that it looked almost black.

“Yeah, then you wouldn’t be pretty anymore.” Joe agreed, then batted his hand away again as he slung the other's bag over his shoulder. “Stop touching it, Jesus Christ. You’re lucky you didn’t break your fucking face.”

Web swayed slightly where he stood. Joe ignored him in order to turn around once, trying to find anything Web would have forgotten. “The doctor says I have contusions.” Web told him.

“The doctor said you have a concussion.” Joe returned. Web hummed, swaying slightly again. Before he could fall, Joe hooked a hand around his elbow as he moved forward. “C’mon, let’s get you home.”

“Ready to change your emergency contact yet?” Web asked him, going with him easily, and Joe hummed, looking back at him enough to raise his eyebrow.

“Are you?” He asked, wincing slightly at the way that Web tilted his head, as if to ponder the question. It turned his face towards the garish overhead LED lighting of the hospital, making the bruising look even worse, darker tones of putrid green and purples. “Jesus Christ, kid.”

Aware of Joe’s eyes on his face, Webster’s fingertips came up to poke at his cheekbone again. “My face hurts.” He told Joe a second time. “What drugs did they give me, again?”

He’d turned his hand over at some point, fingers shifting to hold onto Joe’s. Joe gripped him back absently, easily, and they hit the sidewalk outside of the hospital in the next heartbeat.

“I called an Uber.” Joe told him. “It’ll be here in a minute. And all of them, apparently.”

Web huffed a laugh, coming to a stop next to Joe, fingers shifting slightly in his grip. “Okay.” He said, his same, ever-crooked, ever-ridiculous smile slightly lopsided as his hand came up to his face again, and Joe smacked it away for the thousandth time, gripping the fingers of that hand as well.

“Stop touching it.” He said again, and Web made a soft noise but just shifted enough to hold onto Joe’s hand with both of his own.

“My face hurts.” He said. Again.

“I know.” Joe told him. “Your roommate hit you in the face with a fucking skateboard.”

Web looked at him, solemn. “It wasn’t on purpose.” He said, and Joe raised an eyebrow at him.

“I figured it wasn’t.” He said. “Care to tell me what it was, exactly?”

Web wrinkled his nose, winced when it moved the bruised side of his face. “He was late, and the skateboard was in his bag.” He said, like it made all the sense in the world. “And he turned around too fast. I was eating breakfast, so I wasn’t quick enough on my feet.”

Joe hummed. “Warm avocado bread, hm?” He asked, and Web rolled his eyes, brilliant and blue and reflecting off of the sky.

“Alright, alright.” He murmured, swaying again. Joe moved closer to him, Web held onto him slightly tighter. “You have me pegged, smartass.”

Joe looked back towards the street. Hoped the Uber would come soon. “I would hope so.” He said dryly. “We’ve known each other for six years.”

Web was quiet. When Joe looked over at him, the corner of his mouth was quirked upwards, all dopey and warm. “Did you have raisin bran this morning?” He asked, then flushed, proud, when Joe remained quiet. “Ha!”

Joe sighed. “I hate the ha, you know that.” He muttered, and Web just made a face. “And it’s not that impressive, wiseass.”

“Yeah.” Web agreed. “We’ve known each other for six years, after all.” Joe turned to see him again, watch his profile. He felt a sudden rush of relief, that Web hadn’t broken anything, and told him so.

“I’m glad Hoobler didn’t fuck up your face too bad.” He said, as an Uber pulled over at the curb and he pushed Web towards the car. “I’m less eager to help ugly people.”

Web spluttered, undignified and protesting, as he dropped down into the car. Joe shut his door and walked around to the other side of the car absently, exchanging a few absent words with the driver before getting into the back himself.

“You’re a horrible person.” Web told him, and reached for his hand again. Joe snorted, closed the car door with his free hand.

“Only for you.” He said dryly, and wound their fingers back together.

Web sat on the couch with an ice pack over his face, feet tucked up under him, and he watched Joe move around in the kitchen unhelpfully. “I had dinner with my parents scheduled for next week.” He said, sounding utterly miserable.

Joe turned to look over his shoulder at Web, turning off the tap and turning around with a glass of water. “You can still go.” He said. Web made a face.

“No.” He said, shifting the ice pack over his cheek as Joe moved around the counter bar that separated the kitchen and living room, handing him the glass of water absently. “I don’t want to see my father when I look like this.”

Joe looked at him, unimpressed. “It’s not that bad.” He said, which was just an outright lie. Web sighed.

“Don’t bruises get the worst about a week in?” He asked, glass of water still in hand, and Joe pointed at it.

“Drink that.” He said. “And yeah. But I’ve met your dad. He’ll probably just respect you for getting the shit beaten out of you.”

Web groaned, slouching further into the couch. He brought the glass to his lips absently, sipping at it clumsily. “It’s embarrassing.” He said. Joe dropped onto the couch on the opposite side of him, pulling out his phone absentmindedly.

“You say that everything is embarrassing.” He said dismissively. “And I don’t think you’ve ever been embarrassed in your life.”

Web’s eyes bore holes into the side of his face, though Joe wasn’t even looking at him. “When are you going away?” He asked, sounding irritable. Joe turned to look at him, unimpressed.

“You have a concussion.” He said. “I gotta stay here. I’m your emergency contact, dumbass.”

Web frowned at him, and looked so wholly miserable, face a hot mess, feet tucked up under him, slouched into the couch, icepack in one hand and water in the other, that Joe almost laughed out loud.

“Go away.” He said, and Joe went back to his phone. He had texted Chuck about Web being in the hospital, and was left on read.

“Once Hoobler gets back.” He said, and Web groaned.

“Change your emergency contact.”

“Not until you do.”

When Hoobler finally got home, Web was out cold, breathing soft but steady against Joe’s shoulder as he scrolled mindlessly through his phone and did next to nothing.

The door creaked open, Hoobler’s bag over his shoulder, and when he saw them on the couch, he didn’t seem necessarily surprised.

“Oh.” He said. “Hi. How’s…”

Web had fallen asleep on his shoulder, hand hooked under Joe’s arm, leaving the bad side of his face on full display. Hoobler winced when he got closer, dropping his bag on the floor.

“Eugh.” He said. Joe raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah.” He said. “Concussion, contusions, nothing broken.”

“Gross.” Hoobler offered, but dropped down into the sofa chair that sat next to the couch anyways. “Thanks for staying here. Are you two. Uh—”

“Still broken up.” Joe confirmed, not really in the mood for the conversation on why he was here. He shifted against the couch, pushing up onto his feet.

Web went with him with a groan, other hand joining his first at Joe’s arm. Joe shook him off easily.

“You’re being a clingy bitch.” He said, and Web dropped down onto the couch, hand coming to cover his eyes. He winced when he did so, apparently having forgotten about the bruises.

“So mean.” He mumbled, and Joe ignored him.

“Drugs in the kitchen.” He told Hoobler, nodding to where he’d dropped the bag the hospital had given him on the counter. “Call me if you have to leave, or some shit.”

His neck was starting to hurt again, it was making him slightly more irritable than usual. Hoobler, probably reading that on his face, just nodded and let him pass.

Joe didn’t bother to turn around, knew that Web was already out cold again.

“Oh.” He said, halfway to the door, turned on his heel just enough to find Hoobler and point at him. “Take care of him.”

He didn’t tack on the or else, knew it wasn’t necessarily his place, but he must have implied it, based on Hoobler’s expression.

“Yeah, man.” He said. “‘Course.”

Joe nodded and turned back around.

When he checked his phone, out on the street, Chuck had left him on read again. Joe was starting to think that was maybe justified.

MAY

“This is your fucking fault.”

“Oh, please, as if—”

“You ran your mouth, so I had to kick your ass, and now we’re—”

“Oh, you kicked my ass? That fuckin’ gash isn’t very ass-kicking—”

“Fucker, if you think that—”

“Okay!” Chuck yelled over both of them, and Joe shut his mouth with a click. Next to him, Guarnere did as well, nursing a rag over the side of his face. “You were both dumbasses. Let’s leave it at that. You both need stitches, you’re both winners. Or losers.”

Joe made a protesting noise in the back of his throat. “Oh, c’mon, Chuck.” He said. “I’m less of a dumbass than he is. He had to go and say some—”

“I am not the only one at fault here—”

Chuck cleared his throat and they both shut up again. Stuck in the backseat of the truck, elbow knocking against Guarnere’s own, Joe glared at him. “Okay.” Chuck said. “Lieb is slightly more in the right than Bill is, here.”

“Ha!” Joe exclaimed, then grimaced. He hated the ha. Bill huffed.

“Fine.” He muttered. It was quiet, for a beat. “Sorry.”

Joe grunted. “I won.” He said.

“It was a tie.”

“No, I won.”

That was the first thing he told Web, too, when he arrived. “I won.” He said, and Web blinked at him, hands in his pockets.

“I can see that.” He said. The bruising was starting to fade into yellows and greens instead of purple and black, and the ugly green that spread across the right side of his face made his eyes stand out even more. “Stitches?”

“Twelve.” Joe told him. “Guarnere needed eight more, so…”

The dip between Web’s eyes deepened. “Is he okay?” He asked and Joe snorted.

“He’s fine.” He said. He’d never even needed to change, still in the white shortsleeve he’d shown up in when they’d fixed his arm. “He’s a tough fucker. ‘Sides, he deserved it.”

Web hummed. He was leaning against the hallway wall, watching Joe turn in a half circle and collect whatever he needed to. “Chuck told me about that.” He said, light, and Joe hummed.

“What, want to talk shit about that?” He asked, slightly defensive. The corner of Web’s mouth ticked up, amused, and Joe paused, watching how it made his eyes sparkle and his bruises slightly more shadowed.

“On the contrary, if we were still together, I think I’d suck you off.” Web told him, looking entirely too proud. Joe hummed.

“Yeah.” He said, low, starting his way down the hall. “If we were still together.”

Web followed him, close on his heels and obviously thinking about something or the other. “Want me to go with you to your place?” He asked, simple, hands in his pockets.

Joe hesitated, but didn’t stop walking, turning just enough to look back at Web. His neck still almost hurt more than his arm did.

“What the hell.” He said. “I’m injured, right?”

Web still didn’t have a car, and Joe didn’t necessarily need one, so they called another Uber and Joe watched Web, realized what was up with him.

“Finals season?” He asked. Web was leaning back against the seat of the car, cheek pressed to the headrest, and he opened vivid, vivid eyes to watch Joe balefully before huffing.

“They’re out to get me.” He told him. Joe huffed, looked back towards the front of the car.

“Yeah, I’ll bet.” He said.

“I’m serious. I’m quitting college.”

“You should. It would make you more bearable.” Joe told him. Web stared at the side of his head some more. Joe could tell from the itch at the back of his neck.

“Do you want to know what my therapist said about you?” Web asked him, and Joe snorted, looking back towards him with a raised eyebrow.

“The one with the nose ring?”

“Yeah.”

“Did she say to tell me?”

Webster hesitated, eyes sparking in fits and stops. “No.” He said, forever sounding at least slightly contemptible. “But she didn’t say not to, either.”

“I think because it’s implied that people don’t tell their exes about what their therapist says about them in therapy.”

Web ignored him, sitting up straighter against the seat and sighing. In the front of the car, Joe caught the drivers eyes cutting to the mirror, listening to them. Slightly awkward.

“She said that you still care about me.” Web said simply, almost certainly leaving some details out.

Joe blinked at him. Of course I do. He thought, and didn’t say. I think I always will. That’s why I’m in this goddamn car at all.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t say a goddamn thing and maybe didn’t need to, just looked back towards the front of the car. The driver was quiet.

“Don’t come up to my place.” Joe said. “Thanks for paying for the ride.”

Web’s voice was small, maybe thin, when he said, “okay.”

JUNE

David couldn’t stop crying, which Joe knew was just a side effect of someone breaking their nose, but it was still putting him on edge.

“It’s okay.” He said awkwardly, rubbing the heel of his hand in absent-minded circles against Web’s back as the other leaned against him, head tucked under his chin as he held Joe Toye’s button up to his face.

“Motherfucker.” Web said, muffled and nasally, and Joe looked up from him to raise an eyebrow at George Luz in the passenger seat of his car, instead.

Luz just raised his hands in the air, eyes widening in some picture of innocence as he looked back at them.

“I did not know he’d be standing there.” He said, for at least the tenth time. Toye, who was driving, just snorted.

“Let’s hope we can scrape together enough to pay for his goddamn medical bills.” He told Luz, sounding hoarse but not necessarily annoyed, and Luz winced.

“I’ll figure it out.” He said, like some sort of apology.

“It’s fine.” Web said, shifting against Joe, who was still sweeping a hand up and down his back. “I can pay for them, it wasn’t, like, aggravated assault.”

He sounded congested, like it hurt to speak, wincing when Toye hit a speed-bump and jostled them.

“Sorry.” Toye said, immediately afterwards, and Web just grimaced.

Joe was used to meeting David at the hospital; when he was semi-put together. Not when he was actively in pain and bloody, and it was sort of freaking him out.

What had happened, in layman's terms:

Webster had agreed to help Luz move him and Toye into their new apartment; which was bigger than before and in a better area.

Joe had agreed to help Toye fix Luz’s car, since between the two of them, they only had one, which was turning out to work out poorly when they had jobs on opposite sides of the city.

Joe wasn’t aware that Web was also going to be at the apartment until he’d seen him helping Luz move a potted plant.

(Side note, but also important: Joe didn’t think that Toye knew that Luz was having Web come over, either, from the look he shot at him and the way that Luz had smiled back.)

After figuring out what was wrong with Luz’s ancient Honda Civic, Joe had gone up to their apartment and washed his hands.

He’d emerged from the bathroom at exactly the right time, which was to see Luz putting away pans in the kitchen, pick up another before turning to say something to Joe, and, moving so quickly that Webster, who was walking from the kitchen to the living room, was caught directly in the face by the brunt of it.

Joe was fairly certain that, in the now, Web was bleeding all over his shirt.

“Jesus Christ.” He said. “How the hell did you fuck him up so badly on accident?”

Luz hummed. “It’s a special skill.” He said as Toye switched lanes, looking absently over his shoulder. They lived further away from the hospital than either Joe or Web did, and the extra dozen minutes seemed to stretch on for days. “Along with the shit that comes out of my mouth and what I put in—”

“George.” Toye said, perfunct, like a warning, and Luz shut up. Joe was glad for it, because he wasn’t sure how much longer he’d survive being in the back of this car, and he wasn’t even the one with the broken nose.

Speaking of Web, the man in question groaned again, shifting the shirt at his face. “Remember when you said you wouldn’t help me if I was ugly?” He asked, still ever-nasally, and Joe patted his back absently.

“You’ve taken both a skateboard and a pan to the face, I can forgive you for being an uggo.” He told Web, solemn. Webster’s laugh sounded a bit more like he was choking to death.

“I mean.” Luz said from the front seat. “If it makes you feel better, it’s not that big of a deal. This one broke his nose and it just made him sexier.” He pointed over to Toye, who kept his eyes steadfastly on the road.

Joe made a face. Web groaned, again. It sounded painful.

“At least this time, they don’t have to call me.” Joe told him, after a moment. Web sighed.

“And my face just healed, too.” He said, sounding entirely put-out. Joe turned his face enough to smile into his hair, not exactly amused, but finding it funny enough to figure to hide it.

“Let’s just pray that nothing happens to your mouth.” He said grimly, but turned his hand over easily when Web reached for it, still bowed over and trying to stop the bleeding under Joe’s chin. “The one good quality you’ve got left.”

The sound Web made was slightly choked, Joe thought it could maybe be a scoff. “Thank you, Lieb, for your astounding and loving support in such painful times.” He said, all in one breath. “Y’know, when Tipper got hurt you were nice. Or when Tab got hurt—”

Joe winced. Autoshop work was, often and quite usually, dangerous. Everyone had at least one story; Joe’s neck twinged at the thought. “Tip broke his entire ass leg, Web.” Joe told him. “And Tab was impaled.”

Web made a soft sound that sounded nigh on upset. “I broke my fucking nose, like, fifteen minutes ago!” He said, still muffled. Luz cleared his throat.

“Again.” He said. “Really sorry about that.” Joe ignored him, just pressed his mouth to the crown of Web’s head absently.

“Alright, fine.” He said, still rubbing Web’s back absently. “Poor baby. You precious rhinestone. The world truly collapses with your agony. Do you want me to kiss it better?”

“I hate you.” Web told him. For the second time in three minutes, Joe smiled into his hair.

“Probably should change your contact info, then.” He said.

Web was steadfastly not happy about the two black eyes.

The first thing Joe said (after the obligatory you look like a raccoon) was, “They could bring out your eyes, in the right lighting.”

Web stared at him like he was trying to set Joe on fire with his mind. “I don’t know how, and I don’t know why,” He said. “But this is your fault.”

“Uh-huh.” Joe said absently, looking over Web’s face carefully. “What’s the verdict on the aftermath?” He held out a hand warily, unsure of how good Web’s hand-eye coordination and depth perception would be after that.

Web took his hand, anyways, curling his fingers around Joe’s own and allowing himself to be tugged forwards. He shuffled, a bit, against the linoleum. “They said that it was, and I quote, a freak accident.” He said, and his voice was still slightly nasally. “But not too bad. It shouldn’t change, like, my entire face.”

“That’s good.” Joe said absently. “I like your face.”

“Thanks.” Web said, arid. “Next time, I’d prefer to just lose a leg.”

Joe snorted. Toye and Luz had already left the hospital, as it had been a couple of hours and Joe had been starting to think that he was going to die if they stayed. Now alone, he’d already called the Uber and guided Web absently.

“You planning on telling Toye that?”

“Do not tell him I said that.”

“Mm. Poor fucker broke the nose and then lost the leg.”

“And then his fiancé broke my nose.” Web said miserably. Joe hummed.

“Think they’ll go through with it?” He asked, Web’s fingers tightening around his own as he checked his phone again.

“What, the wedding?” He asked, like he was surprised. At Joe’s nonverbal affirmative, he huffed. “Of course they will.” He said. “They’re crazy about each other.”

He didn’t know why he said it. He didn’t even realize that he’d said it, maybe, until it was out of his mouth and too late. “So were we.” He said, and immediately winced.

They must have put Web on some sort of painkiller or whatever else, because he just hummed, rather quiet. “So were we.” He agreed, soft. “But we broke up six months ago, and you held me while we drove to the hospital, and waited for me, and are now holding my hand and taking me home.”

Joe blinked. “Using that literature degree already, huh?” He asked after a moment, hoarse. Web’s hand spasmed around his, sudden, and Joe dropped it like it was hot.

“Yeah.” Web said. “I guess so.”

The uber pulled up. Joe pushed Web inside of it, and hesitated for half of a second before sliding in himself.

It was silent for half of a second. They were moving by the time Joe thought of something else to say, feel more like himself again. “That has to be one of the douchiest things you’ve ever said to me.” He said suddenly.

Web’s laugh was nasally, tired. “I try.” He said, and would probably add an insult for good measure, if he didn’t seem to be so pained.

JULY

After it happened for the sixth time in as many months, Joe was starting to think that at least one of them had been cursed.

“It’s not that bad.” Joe said, and winced when Chuck switched lanes too quickly. “It’s just a bruise.”

“It’s broken.” Chuck told him, and sounded both entirely sure of his words and utterly exhausted. “Jesus Christ, how do I keep ending up here? Did you piss someone off?”

Joe contemplated the multitudes of people he’d managed to fuck over for half of a second. “Probably.” He said.

Out of getting clipped in the neck by a carburetor and getting into a fight with Guarnere, getting his foot run over was probably the stupidest reason that Joe would have to go to the hospital on account of himself.

Webster, who insofar had gotten into a car crash (and still hadn’t bothered to find a new car after his previous one was totaled), got smacked in the face, and had broken his nose, could afford to be a bit choosier.

Joe still hadn’t changed his contact information.

It didn’t seem to matter, anyways, because Web somehow met him at the hospital. Joe was in too much pain to care about the how or the why of it.

“What did you do?” Web asked before Joe had even managed to open the passenger door of Chuck’s truck all of the way, then looked to Chuck himself and demanded the same thing. “What did he do?”

The driver's side of Chuck’s truck opened and slammed shut again before Chuck answered, sounding both rather harried and annoyed in the same breath. “He ran over his foot.” He told Web.

Web, in turn, looked back to Joe, who was still trying to get out of the truck without jarring his foot. He was starting to think the adrenaline was wearing off, if the burning was any hint about it.

“You’re a fucking idiot.” Web told him.

“What was it that you were giving me shit about when you broke your nose?” Joe asked back, grimacing as his uninjured foot hit the ground. Web was quick to grab his arm and Joe leaned on him grudgingly, keeping the broken foot a good two feet above ground. “I was being mean.”

“Yeah, well, we work for a reason.” Web retorted, arm wrapping around his waist absently. “And breaking your own foot is more moronic than a friend breaking my nose.”

Joe grimaced. He’d forgotten to put the goddamn car in park, and he was never going to hear the end of it. He knew better than to say that to David. He wasn’t necessarily in the mood for old man memory loss jokes.

“If I’ll still help you when you’re ugly, will you help me when I’m crippled?” He asked drily as Web helped him limp into the hospital, Chuck already at the front desk.

“You’re already crippled.” Web told him. “Remember when we drove down to DC and your back gave out?”

“Yeah, and you left me in the truck to go see the National Archives?” Joe retorted, and Web sighed.

“Yeah, but afterwards I pulled you into the hotel room.”

“And then you left me there for another four hours.”

“We were in DC, I wasn’t going to stay in the room the whole time—”

“I couldn’t move!”

Webster was smiling, when Joe looked over at him. It was strangely endearing, underneath all of his annoyance, and he looked away just as quickly.

“I seem to remember that you forgave me when I got back.” He said, ran the tip of his tongue along his bottom lip, as if to seal his point.

Joe snorted. “Yeah, well.” He said, dry. “When you get old and lose your looks, that shit won’t fly.”

“Oh, don’t worry.” Web told him, lowering his voice as Chuck finally finished talking to the desk about whatever, turning to point back at them. “You’ll be long dead by then.”

For basically crushing his foot, Joe thought, it wasn’t too bad.

Web was curled up in the uncomfortable chair next to his bed, bottom lip caught between his teeth as he texted someone back. Joe watched him absently, feeling slightly lighter from whatever they gave him, cheek pressed into the flat pillow under him.

“I can feel your eyes.” David murmured after a moment, looking up at Joe, who didn’t look away.

“Good.” Joe told him, hoarse. “That means you’re not entirely inept at social interaction.”

They’d deigned that Joe could leave the hospital on the same day he arrived, which was good, because he’d sooner eat a cockroach than stay for much longer. They’d also afforded him crutches, which Joe steadfastly did not want to see the bill for.

“All my injuries seem superficial next to yours.” Web told him, as Joe stood up, rather wobbly, but got the hang of the crutches quickly enough. Joe snorted.

“What, being stabbed in the neck and getting into a fight and breaking my foot compared to you getting wacked in the face by a skateboard, and then a frying pan?”

Web made a face. His nose looked, at least to Joe, exactly the same. He still had gray-green shadows under both of his eyes, remnants of the bruises that had bloomed there from the subsequent breaking, but looked fully intact all in all.

“You’re forgetting the car accident.” Webster told him, following close behind Joe as they made their way out of the hospital for what felt like the thousandth time. They were always in different rooms, or beds, or areas, but leaving always felt the same.

“Oh, yeah.” Joe said, arid. “The shitpot that started this horror. Did you make a deal with a witch? Did you get us bound by pain or some shit?”

“For your information.” Webster said, neatly enunciating and snorting a little around his words, already laughing at a joke he hadn’t even told yet. “It was a blood oath.”

“You’re too much of a pussy to make a blood oath.” Joe shot back immediately. Web laughed more fully, and Joe couldn’t tell if it was at him or his own joke.

“Everytime I get home, Hoobler asks if we’re back together.” He said, so entirely out of left-field and painfully clear that Joe almost paused for a moment, could feel the sharpness of it against his ribs.

“And what do you tell him?” Joe asked, already outside, knowing that Web had already called an Uber. Web, in question, came up behind him, eyes sparkling bright and grin as stupid as ever. He didn’t look at Joe, tried to bite back his smile.

“I don’t know.” He said, rather quiet. “What does having a best friend look like?”

He turned to look at Joe, so Joe looked away, cleared his throat. Not this. He thought, with some semblance of hurting. It doesn’t look like this.

“You have more wrinkles.” Web said, immediately after that, and the nostalgic ache behind Joe’s ribs went away like Web had smacked him in the face with a cold, dead fish. “Around your eyes.”

“Your nose is crooked.” Joe said back, raising an eyebrow. “You look like Owen Wilson.”

Web’s laugh was quiet, clear, ducking his chin down and watching the floor quietly, the corner of his mouth crooking up as he kicked his heel against the ground absently.

Joe wondered, for the first time since he’d seen him earlier in the day, how in the hell Webster had been at the hospital before them.

Before he could think on it too long, the uber pulled up, and Web swore under his breath, apparently caught in some semblance of off guard, and moved forward to greet him.

Joe pushed the thought to the back of his mind to instead watch how Web’s thighs and ass flexed when he bent over enough to speak to the driver.

He was maybe a little loopy.

When they were back in Joe’s apartment, and Web was with him, for the first time in seven months (somehow), he realized what they were.

They were a car wreck, they always had been. And Joe could never look away.

Webster pushed him down onto the couch immediately, kicking up the legrest and propping Joe’s foot up, already talking about something that Joe didn’t care about and therefore didn’t listen to, moving into the kitchen.

“Fuck.” He said, eloquently. Web’s laugh was hushed, warm as he moved back into the living room, held a half-filled glass of water out to Joe and dropped onto the couch.

He was laughing a lot more than Joe was used to, and it didn’t sound exactly happy. He decided that it was probably because of George Luz, who only had one coping mechanism, which Web seemed to be emulating. Joe couldn’t believe they still spent time together, after the nose incident.

When Joe looked more fully over to him, turning his head against the overstuffed headrest of the couch, Web’s bottom lip was in between his teeth again, worrying it as he stared at nothing.

They were thinking the same thing, Joe knew.

“This is torture.” He said, out loud. Web jumped slightly when he spoke, like he wasn’t expecting it. Joe didn’t look away, just raised an eyebrow, rather unimpressed, and Webster cleared his throat and pushed forward against the cushions, eyes dropping somewhere to Joe’s threadbare rug as he got back to his feet.

“Yeah.” He said, and Joe knew that they were thinking of the same thing. Car wreck. “I should go.”

The problem with car wrecks is that some are salvageable. And as with any accidents, one can never look away from them.

“Okay.” Joe said out loud.

This was another part of it: of them being a car wreck. If Joe was going to blame why they kept doing this, when everything concerning their relationship was a thousand times harder than it would ever need to be, he’d point a finger at the fact that both of them knew they were salvageable and neither of them wanted to look away.

One of them would change in some small thought, or idea, or plan, and the other wouldn’t follow it. Web had thought of something, just barely, and Joe had missed it.

“Okay.” Web said back, quiet. He watched Joe, for half of a second, before looking away. “Have fun watching I Love Lucy. It’s a little after your time, but I think you’ll like it.”

The corner of Joe’s mouth curved up, independent of the rest of his body as he huffed a laugh, pushed a hand through his hair. “Fuck you.” He said, warmer than he’d like.

Web’s eyes were both freezing cold and burning, when he looked back, hesitant. Still, he elected to not say anything.

Car wrecks can be salvageable, Joe reminded himself, and the thought was unwelcome.

SEPTEMBER

It took two more months, in which nothing happened, and then Chuck slipped.

Or, technically, Hoobler slipped, but Joe was slightly too panicked to really give a fuck who, in specifics, gave the whole fucked up, horrendous mind game away.

He wasn’t still sure on the specifics. Didn’t really give a shit about the specifics, anyways, just felt the same thrum of panic that always settled under his skin whenever something happened that felt too real. Too serious.

What he did know:

Hoobler had gotten back to his and Web’s apartment, and Web wasn’t there. He waited approximately three hours, and then, for some godforsaken reason that Joe hadn’t seen (at the time) had called Chuck.

Chuck had, in turn, because of course he did, called Joe.

“Have you seen Web?” He’d asked, and Joe had paused, immediately knew something was off. If not by the way that Chuck sounded than for how he seemed to hesitate, for how absolutely anything about Web seemed to raise some sort of instinct.

“No.” Joe’d said back, rather slowly, apprehensive. “Why?”

Chuck had been slow to answer, the static of the phone filling in his absence, Joe already putting the phone on speaker and moving to text Web. “Uh.” Chuck said, after a moment. “Hoobler can’t find him.”

“What, he can’t find him at the apartment?” Joe sent the text to Web and turned his full attention back to Chuck.

“He can’t find him anywhere.” Chuck said, tone something that Joe was having trouble reading. “He won’t answer his phone, apparently. We figured that maybe he was with—”

It was midnight, and his curtains were still open. Light pollution managed to illuminate the entire city outside of his window, and Joe watched the cars pass absently. Tab was out of town from May until September, some sort of familial visit, so Joe’d had the apartment to himself for possibly too long. He felt the absence acutely when Web didn’t respond, and Chuck kept hesitating.

“Why the hell would he be with me?” Joe interrupted, not wanting to wait for him to finish, then paused for half of a second. “Wait, we?”

Chuck sounded invariably uncomfortable when he said, tone of voice marred over the phone, “well, after how quick he’d been to get to the hospital last month, and how he’d barely asked any questions over the phone—”

And.

Wait a minute.

“What the fuck do you mean over the phone?” Joe demanded, pushing away from the window to bring his phone closer to his ear, making a split second decision and moving over to the door, finding his shoes.

“Fuck.” Chuck said, which wasn’t promising, then, after a moment of contemplation, said, “okay, so it was Hoobler’s fault, but no one could figure out why in the hell you split this time ‘round, and he had this idea—”

“Have you been pretending to be the hospital?” Joe shoved his feet into his shoes and slid the lock on his door, barely thinking to grab a jacket and his keys before slamming the door shut behind him and barely sticking around long enough to lock it. Chuck just cleared his throat.

“You’re not stupid,” He started, voice low, and Joe thought his laugh might have been slightly frantic as he skipped down the steps of the apartment building, jacket tossed over his shoulder. His foot still ached with it, ever slight, and he ignored it. “So I’m not gonna bother lying to you—”

“You pretended.” Joe said again, slowly, as if to properly digest the words. “To be the hospital.”

Over the phone, Chuck cleared his throat. The receiver crackled. “In our defense.” He said, “We didn’t call the first two times. And we didn’t think you’d come so easily.”

“What the fuck.” Joe said out loud, maybe still not properly digesting everything that had happened in the past five minutes. Web was missing. Chuck’s been lying, for some godforsaken reason.

“I’m so fucking sorry.” Chuck told him, at least seemed to have some modicum of remorse, like he realized like he was doing suddenly, all at once. “It was so fucking dumb, but you two always showed up, and it was easier to leave you at the hospital if Web was there, or vice versa for Hoob—”

“What the fuck.” Joe said, hitting the ground floor at the same time, already moving towards the parking garage. He didn’t use the fucking car a lot, knew that he should probably sell it before something happened to it and he had to sink some godforsaken amount of money into it. Still, he couldn’t exactly call an Uber, and unlocked the car easily.

“And it was easy to just change our voices slightly, and you never seemed to fucking notice, and the first two times were actually the hospital, but we were—” Chuck kept talking, like he was trying to explain what had to be one of the most fucked up things he’s ever done.

It was starting to make more sense, now. Joe didn’t know why he didn’t think to question it before: why they’d call Web if he just needed a few stitches and knew who he was. Why Web was at the fucking hospital before he was. Why they called him in when Hoobler hit Webster in the face, which led to another realization.

“Chuck.” He said, cutting the other off as he dropped into the driver's seat and started the engine, already looking over his shoulder. Something was cold, floating around his ribs, and Joe ignored it, pressing his mouth together impatiently. “Did Hoobler hurt Web on purpose?”

Chuck’s response was slow, unsure what Joe was talking about. Every slight turn Joe had to make with the car was slightly jerky. “With…” He started, and Joe had pulled out by the time he’d dragged on the word.

“With the skateboard.” Joe said, and knew where he was going. Knew where Web was, almost, except for it was more of a gut feeling than anything else. Web was, if not anything else, a predictable bitch. “Did he fucking—”

“Jesus Christ, Joe, no. Of course not.” Chuck said over him, immediately, the moment he realized what Joe was getting at. “It was psycho enough to call you like that to come to the hospital, we weren’t about to commit a felony—”

“Why the hell wouldn’t you just call us normally?” Joe pulled out onto the main road — which was still just as crowded as ever, even at nearly one in the morning. “Because it seems like that is illegal, Chuck. That straight up sounds like a crime.”

Chuck cleared his throat, again, before responding. His silence, it seemed, was almost as goddamn telling as the fact that Hoobler couldn’t call Web. “To be honest,” He said, low. “I didn’t think that you’d come if one of your friends called and told you.”

“So, what, you arrange a – a parent trap—”

“It wasn’t a parent trap! It was just—”

“You don’t even like Web!”

“I—” Chuck hesitated. “He’s alright.”

Joe breathed, once and very deeply, through his nose before changing lanes, which was a mess. “So why in the hell,” He said, very elaborately. “Would you—”

“No one can figure out why you broke up, this time.” Chuck said. “I — you’ve broken up five times, Joe, and you’re both miserable, and you’re both clearly so—”

“So your immediate reaction, instead of sitting us down and talking, was to pretend to be the hospital?”

“Would you have listened to us if I’d sat you down and said you’re fucking miserable and I can’t figure out why you broke up with the same person for the fifth time?” Chuck asked him, and Joe was going to have a heart attack.

“Oh my God.” He said. “What the fuck.”

Chuck didn’t say anything, for a moment, the line going static again. “Do you know where he is?” He asked, rather quiet. The question made Joe, somehow, madder than he’d been before.

“Yeah, I know where he fucking is, and I’m not about to tell you.” He said, looking over his shoulder to make a turn. “And tell Hoobler to go fuck himself, he can sweat it out. Does Web know about this shit?”

Chuck hesitated for the thousandth time. “I don’t think so. It — it seems like he just left.”

“What, and you can’t just leave him alone? He’s a fucking adult, for Christs’ sake.” Chuck made a noise at the back of his throat, sounding somewhat affronted.

“Okay,” He said, “So why are you going to go get him, then?”

Joe, who didn’t necessarily want to tell Chuck that absolutely zero amount of executive thought went into setting out to find Web, made an electoral decision and hung up on him.

As far as unbearable places on the face of the earth (the parts that Joe’s visited, anyways) go, Penn’s Landing was pretty far up on that list.

Web loved it, though. Always had. Probably always will.

It’s not really like the ocean, he’d told Joe four years ago, sounding like such an utter douche that Joe had to laugh at him, a little bit. But it’s water. It’s nice.

Penn’s Landing was also fucking huge, so Joe was glad, at least, that Web always went to the same spot.

There was nothing special about the spot. It wasn’t better than anywhere else in the landing, it wasn’t necessarily even more interesting. It was just where he went, every time, for all the six years that he’d had dragged Joe to it.

Joe could see him immediately, the entire landing busy but Web somewhat by himself, leaning against one of the metal railings, his back to Joe.

“Your roommate’s worried about you.” Joe said, as he got closer. It was a testament, maybe, to how they are as people that Web didn’t even bother to turn around.

“What,” Web murmured, eyes on the water, lit by nothing and still glowing, somewhat. “Is he worried I’ll break my face for a third time?”

Joe came up to him, leaned up against the railing next to him. He watched the water. There was nothing enlightening about it. It was rather boring, actually.

“D’you know those fuckers were lying to us?” He asked, as casually as he could, and felt Web look over at him. “After my neck. They started calling us and pretending to be the goddamn hospital.”

Web was quiet for a moment. To his testament, he didn’t even seem slightly alarmed by anything that had happened so far, from Joe showing up to everything else. “I had a suspicion, maybe.” He said, low. “It’s — I dunno why they’d call me for stitches. When my grandfather died they only called my dad when he stopped being responsive.”

Joe blinked. “Why the fuck didn’t you say anything, then?” He asked in the moment after that, near demanding, and David didn’t look at him. His bottom lip was caught between his teeth, again.

“Why do you think?” He asked, entirely hypothetical. Joe knew the answer. He watched him carefully.

“Web.” Joe said, and when Web didn’t look at him, cleared his throat and tried again. “David. It was your idea to break up.”

Web laughed, and it wasn’t happy. He wiped his palm down the side of his face, and Joe realized too late why his eyes seemed to shine. “I’m so fucking stupid.” He said, twisting his lips together before smoothing his expression out, some sort of warped display of upset. “I’m such a moron.”

“You’re not stupid, you’re fucking crazy.” Joe told him, and moved closer to him anyway. Web kept his face turned out towards the water, lit by nothing but the slight glow of the city.

“I just got lazy, I think.” Web said, the moment after Joe finished talking, which made no sense whatsoever. “It’s — it’s just so hard, with us. And all we do is fight, and then break up, and then we’re miserable, so we get back together, and then it’s just the same thing. This was — this was supposed to be some sort of clean break.”

His bottom lip quivered slightly as he talked, and for a moment, Joe was so blindingly, frustratingly furious with Chuck and Hoobler and whoever else was involved for fucking with Web and fucking with his head that he had to breathe, for a moment.

“That’s not lazy.” Joe told him, low. “That’s not lazy, that’s normal. That’s you trying to fix whatever—”

“I love you.” Web interrupted him, so, so quiet, and he finally turned to look at him, hands curled together with his arms propped on the railing, eyes shining and bright for all the wrong reasons as he found Joe’s face. “I love you, and I always will, and it makes me fucking miserable because we work, but it’s like we just take everything too far and it’s—”

He cut himself off with a shaky breath.

Joe realized, in the second after that, that he had no idea what to say. What to do. What could he do, necessarily, when Web was right, when he hit the nail on the head on how they’d broken up five times in six years but, in all that time, only actually dated each other.

“It should be easy.” Web said, perfunct, emphatic, like he was trying to remind himself of something. “But it never, ever is.”

Joe hesitated, for half of a second, before speaking. “When they called me for the first time.” He said, quiet, and let his eyes leave Web, finally, going out to the water instead. “The first time. Not — not afterwards, or anything, but when it was actually the hospital. When you crashed. Hearing them say that shit was the most scared I’ve ever been, I think.”

Web let out a breath, soft and short, like an exhale, like some sort of a snort.

“It’s true.” Joe told him, still watching the water. “And it’s slightly pathetic. But they called me, and I was getting Chuck to cover me and fucking going by foot down to the hospital in under ten minutes.”

“Joe.”

“Web.” Joe turned, looking back towards him. Web’s face was the same as it always was; too open, too guarded. “I’m fucking serious, okay? Because it’s one thing to break up, but if you’d been—” He paused, for a moment. Watched Web’s eyes.

Web didn’t say anything, just watched him, but something in his face flickered, like he was thinking the same thing Joe was. Maybe about Joe’s own accident, with this neck.

“If something had happened that was permanent, I would’ve been there.” Joe said, and the words tasted rather like sawdust. “No matter what, no matter if we’re broken up or not, because I’ve loved you for six goddamn years and I’m gonna keep doing it, because I don’t know how to do anything else, at this point.”

Web’s expression was carefully held, carefully kept, and gouged wide open. “That was—” He started and stopped, swallowing like his mouth was dry. “That was strangely romantic, for you.” Joe made a face.

“Never expect it again.” He rasped. “But that’s how it is. It’s not — it ain’t like I stop loving you each time we break up.”

Something in Web’s expression twisted. He rubbed a palm against the side of his face again with a huff. “I don’t want to keep doing that, though.” He said, hoarse. “I – I mean, how fucking miserable were we, that Chuck got involved?”

Joe couldn’t help his smile, small and wry and slightly painful. “I’m still not sure if he committed a crime or not.” He said, hoarse, and Web laughed, just on the edge of too loud and too bright, fingertips coming to press against his chin, just below his lips, as his gaze dropped back out to the water.

“I’m fucked up for this.” He said, like a warning, and Joe watched his profile, the curve of his jaw, the hair that curled at the nape of his neck. The color of his eyes off of the water. “But it’s — I almost looked forward to getting hurt, because then I could see you.”

Something in his gaze wavered, slightly, and Joe’s mouth felt dry. He remembered breaking his foot, why it didn’t feel, necessarily, very big. Why nothing else really did, either.

Just another reason why they worked, he supposed. They were both fucked up.

“C’mere.” He said, hoarse, after a moment. Web turned just barely to look at him, not really moving, and Joe pushed away from the railing, one of his hands finding the nape of Web’s neck and tugging him forward by it. “C’mon, c’mere, you idiot.”

Web went to him easily enough, reaching a hand out back to him, tangling it with Joe’s free one and laughing, slight, when Joe tugged carefully at the hair at his nape, leaning further forward.

Kissing him, Web tasted like a caramel frappe.

Joe grimaced and pulled back. “You have the shittiest taste in coffee.” He said, half a joke, and Web’s smile was brilliant, crooked and dopey.

“Don’t taste it, then.” He said, quiet, and pushed forward to kiss Joe again.

“Mm.” Joe said, anchoring his fingers more fully into Web’s hair, tapping his thumb along the back of his hand. “It’s almost two in the morning, why the hell are you drinking caffeine?”

He kissed Web again, deeper, running his tongue along the seam of his lips as Web made a noise at the back of his throat, some sort of protest and sigh in one.

“You taste like beer.” Web mumbled against his lips. “You’re not one to talk.”

Joe almost smiled, and Web took the opportunity to lick into his mouth, tangling their fingers tighter together. “Guess not.” He murmured.

They would talk, in the morning.

About what this meant. About what they meant: because it got tiring, after a while. To keep going. To have to keep repeating the same section of life over and over again as everything else went on.

They were work. They always would be. But they could put in the time. Joe knew they would.

(They could be salvageable.)

For now, Joe just drove back along and away from Penn’s Landing, one hand on the wheel and the other on the console, tangled with Web’s own.

The other was half asleep already, caffeine crash hooking into him, cheek pressed against the headrest, mouth open, eyes watching out the windshield blearily. He looked, Joe thought affectionately, like an absolute moron.

He gripped Joe tight, one of his feet tucked up under his thighs, hair stuck up in all directions.

Joe watched him whenever he could, whenever he could take his eyes away from the road, neck aching slightly and foot slightly more, and couldn’t care less.

He’d read somewhere (or, more likely, Web had read somewhere and Joe had osmosed the knowledge by proxy) that pain always put things into perspective. That risk always did.

Perspective had changed since February. Had become more about Web and the future than of Web and the now. Than of whatever stupid fucking hill they’d decide to overreact and die on.

Joe hit a speed bump a little harder than he meant to and Web made a soft noise in the back of his throat, protesting. His fingers twitched slightly, where they were entwined with Joe’s, opening his eyes again, groggy.

Joe huffed a laugh, eyes on the road again, resisted the urge to do something stupid that Web would never let him live down, like lift their tangled fingers and kiss the back of his hand.

Yeah. They would talk in the morning.

He was still going to fucking kill Chuck and Hoobler, though.

#rie writes #again i hope you enjoy i had to take some. creative liberties lol <33 #band of brothers #joe liebgott #joseph liebgott #david webster #webgott #hbo war #hbowarsummer24

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