BREAK THE LIMITS: 19a/33

[andrew_in_drag]

Title: Break the Limits
Author: andrew_in_drag 
Pairing: Yoshiki x hide
Rating: mature
Warnings: foul language, yaoi, rock 'n roll excess
Genre: AU to bandfic
Note: I first wrote this fic about three (?) years ago, when I was still hallelujah_hide. Oddly enough, I still like it, so I thought I would move it here to my new journal. 
Synopsis: May 1998: Yoshiki Hayashi breaks down in a temple as he tries to take in the news that has changed his life forever - Hideto Matsumoto, the man he has been in love with for seventeen years, is dead. As the other mourners try to comfort him, Yoshiki finds himself falling back through history - to the day when it all began; the day when he met a boy who would, truly, break the limits...

CHAPTER NINETEEN [A]:

“We stood side by side, each one fighting for the other
We said until we died, we'd always be blood brothers.”

– ‘Blood Brothers’, Bruce Springsteen

He was so close, but I couldn’t touch him.

I adored him, but I couldn’t be with him.

We were in love, but that meant nothing.

With every day I was forced into his company, the ache inside me grew like an abscess – and yet, it was a torture that I couldn’t allow to stop, because even the agony of being unable to have him was better than the numbness that had overtaken me when we’d been separated entirely, all those years ago. I felt a lot older than my age: I had turned twenty-three that past November, 1988, but I felt ancient. I felt like a plant that withered and rotted: he was my sunlight, permanently behind a cloud. He was my water, my life fluid, but it never rained anymore.

That winter, the winter Toshi went home for a month and left me alone with my thoughts, it was the driest winter in years. The streets crackled with ice and the wind howled around the bare, stark bones of the city. There were mists; deep, frightening, unsettling fogs that lasted for hours and never condensed. I had the curious feeling that the unforgiving weather was sapping Hide of his vitality: as the winter got deeper, and the fogs rolled thicker, he appeared more tired and pale and drawn than I had ever seen him. I wasn’t the only one aging, perhaps.

That December, Hide turned twenty-four, and I decided that it was an occasion worth braving the cold for – for better, or for worse.

Scarf tucked in; coat zipped up; even a hat on – there was no escaping the fact that it was fucking freezing in the corridors of Hide’s apartment building. I knocked with my gloved hands before reluctantly pulling them off and letting my bare knuckles strike against the wood; from within his apartment, I could hear music, and my hand against his door sounded like the rattle of bone. I sensed him coming closer, I don’t know how: maybe the air got warmer around him, or my stomach simply dipped automatically. His door quavered on its hinges and I quite clearly heard the sound of soft fists hitting it from the other side; the music didn’t stop or lower, but I caught Hide’s muffled curses as he wrestled with the door. I had planned the words I would use when he greeted me; when he finally got the stubborn door open, however, they died in my throat and I simply stared at him silently. 

“Happy birthday,” I gabbled suddenly, nervously, and he bowed his head, but not before I saw his smile. Jerkily, I held out my gift as if it were a ticket into his apartment: perfunctorily and rather uselessly.

“You didn’t have to do this, Yoshi.”

“I know,” I blurted, wishing I weren’t so breathless, “I…I wanted to, though.” I shrugged awkwardly. “Can I come in?”

He hesitated for just a moment. He had a hand raised to his chest, and I wondered if his heart was pounding as hard as mine.

“Yeah,” he responded at last, “Yeah, come in. Can you stay?”

Of course I could stay. His apartment looked lit up with a rosy glow; it was warm in there and Hide’s record player was playing Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here album. I remembered him playing that album in my bedroom. In a dream I wandered inside, and his hands shed me of my coat while I removed my shoes and gloves and hat – and he clung to my scarf for a minute, raising it to his face before setting it down on top of my coat.

“It smells like you,” he told me, with a strained little smile, and I felt the bottom drop out of my universe.

And I softly repeated myself, “Happy birthday.”

His present was vintage whiskey of the type he’d always seen and admired in my father’s private collection, and it brought colour to his cheeks before he’d even opened it.

“This must have cost a fortune!”

I kissed his cheek gently, not wanting to answer and reveal just how much I’d stupidly spent on him, and stuck out an arm to catch him when he tripped over his own feet. He was leading me into the bedroom: the biggest room in the apartment with its three beds laid out like a dormitory; where the music was loudest and he could sit me down on his bed like a good host.

“I knew you liked it,” I told him by way of a response. “Blue Label’s supposed to be pretty good. It’s what my dad used to drink. Where’re Taiji and Pata?”

He suddenly looked very guilty.

“Out. I said – well – they might have got the impression, through…certain misleading things, that I was ill tonight; too ill to go out. But I didn’t want to ruin their fun evening! Though Pata was all for staying.”

My mouth felt strangely dry.

“Should I go?” I asked delicately, and a slight blush dusted his cheeks.

“I didn’t get them to go because I wanted to be alone.” He smiled anxiously. “Drink with me?”

I could have mourned his smile. What he gave me now was bare and stretched thin, like butter over too much bread, and concealing so much – because like me, he looked like he felt he could cry, and we were both just pretending for the other, because that’s what we had to do.

“In ten years’ time,” he mused, “I’ll be thirty-four.” He closed his eyes and shook his head gently.

“We’re rockstars,” I reminded him playfully, “We don’t age. Besides, you haven’t changed a bit since I first saw you at sixteen – not a bit.”

He smiled at me gratefully. The record played on; Have a Cigar faded out and was replaced with Wish You Were Here. He mouthed along with the words for a few lines, taking a sip of whiskey at the end, straight from the bottle, which made me laugh. He grinned bashfully and fetched two glasses from the kitchen, pouring us each a measure.

“Here’s to…” he held his glass in the air thoughtfully, and his gaze slid to me. “To you, Yoshi. To the best – the best band leader there ever was.”

“And to you. My blood brother and the best guitarist in the world.”

We drank.

The sky darkened and as the hours grew later, time found us both sprawled on Hide’s bed, holding hands as the music continued to play; Dark Side of the Moon, now, and the last track, Eclipse, wound itself to a close half sad and half jubilant.

“There is no dark side of the moon really…matter of fact, it’s all dark.”

Hide sighed long and low and started to get up to change the record, but I clasped his hand in mine.

“Hide,” I asked urgently, “What’d you do those years I was gone?”

He turned his face to me, his cheek resting on a fan of his own hair, and smiled.

“Not a lot. Beauty school, of course. I didn’t last long in your school—”

“Our school,” I corrected out of habit.

“Our school,” he repeated dubiously, “Not after you were gone. Everyone else, they talked about me. They thought I was the reason you’d gone…well,” he bit his lower lip, “I guess I was. But not in the way they thought. I was there maybe a month or two after you’d gone and then I left. I just wasn’t that strong, see, to stick it out when I didn’t want to be doing it anyway. If I’d wanted it…” he shook his head. “You should have seen the head screw in that place, day I said I was leaving. Probably got an erection for the first and last time in his life.”

I chuckled lowly, taking his hand in mine before I realized that I shouldn’t. “And then?” I asked.

“Then…you know how mum and I got evicted from the apartment shortly after I started in beauty school. That was pretty miserable. And living with my grandparents was kinda nice, but…”

“But?” I prompted when he fell quiet, and he shrugged.

“Dad got parole. And when he came to stay, I – I thought he would have changed. I really thought. But I was kidding myself that was ever going to happen. He bashed the side of my face up first day he got back; Mum was so happy to have him back she just, didn’t care, I guess. Or…” he grimaced, “Didn’t care enough. So I moved out.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.” He looked over at me, “Are you shocked?”

I was, but I shook my head. I had guessed years ago; found the truth in the heavy words he had given me, but to hear his sweet voice saying it was something different. I found myself wanting to hold him, touch him; wanting him to find soft security in my embrace.

In reality he just sighed.

“So after getting my own place, I started hanging around that part of town. Kids would come up on motorbikes and hang around outside the music stores that dared to play rock and metal loud, so loud you could hear it outside – and I just, joined them. And it was…it was like something magical, it really was, and I wished you could have been there. Kids would be huddled on the beach in the mist by morning, and I met the guys in Saver Tiger, and I thought, why not?”

“And then?” I whispered, smiling, wanting to hear the rest – to remind myself that it was true, and that I had him again, close to me.

“And then I got a call from a band who invited me down to their basement to play.”

“That’s true.”

“And I knocked on the door.”

“Go on.”

“And I heard this voice say, ‘come in’, and I knew it wouldn’t be who I’d first thought of – couldn’t be – because it was rougher round the edges and not…just not your voice at all, but it was at the same time. And I pushed open the door and it was all dark, and through the gloom there was you. Staring at me with this expression on your face like I was some kind of miracle. And I still…” he faltered. “And I thought I was dreaming. That it couldn’t be you, sitting there, looking like you did. But then you said my name, and I knew.”

He sat up, looking at me. “And now here I am,” he finished unnecessarily, watching as I sat up too. He seemed a little embarrassed by his outburst, but he should have known that he never needed to feel ashamed with me. I loved him too much. All my life, I loved him too much.

I slid my hands around his waist and we stared at each other for a long, long time, and just when I thought I couldn’t go a minute longer without kissing him, the corridor outside creaking Taiji and Pata’s arrival home.

Hide flung himself into bed, fully dressed as he was, and guided my hand to his forehead with a flash of pleading eyes just before the door to the bedroom opened.

“Yoshiki!” Taiji heralded, whilst Pata gave me a slow, familiar, doped smile. “Are you looking after Hide?”

My eyes slid over the now slightly-less-full bottle of very expensive whiskey that stood on Hide’s nightstand, and then back to his beseeching gaze.

“Yeah,” I managed, “He started feeling worse but didn’t want to ruin your night out, so he called me. And I…I took his temperature and it’s pretty high, so I think he should come back with me, because there’s less people to infect at my place. While Toshi’s visiting his parents, anyway.”

Silence for a minute, as if they were shocked. I was shocked myself. Where had the lie sprung from; the elaborate lie? But I felt better, as if an itch in my veins had been scratched.

“I d’no,” Taiji slurred, “It’s cold out and public transport ain’t running like it should.”

“Why not?” Hide asked, and I wasn’t sure if the weakness in his voice was real or feigned.

Pata concentrated. “Snow,” he told us.

And snow was almost rain, wasn’t it?

“I wanna go with Yoshiki,” Hide mumbled, his voice exhausted, and when I looked closely there were beads of sweat standing out on his forehead.

“We’ll wrap up warm,” I said, more as a promise to Hide than to the others, “And I’ll get a taxi, and if we can’t then, fuck, I’ll carry him. Guys…” I turned reluctantly to Taiji and Pata, who wilted in the doorway. Taiji was poised forwards as if caught partway through a lunge (putting him at great risk of falling over); Pata was slumped against the doorframe with his head lolling almost out of sight. Cautiously, Hide eased himself out of bed, but Taiji and Pata seemed unfazed by his attire. “What do you need?” I demanded, jumping into action, but Hide simply shook his head tiredly.

“No…I don’t care about any of it. Let’s just go. I can sleep in my boxers, can’t I?”

I could hardly nod. Of course he could.

Looking back, we were clearly drunker than I’d thought, because it seemed like only minutes before we were gasping great lungfuls of the frozen air; air so cold it felt like each breath could slit your throat. I gripped his hand tightly in mine as he shivered, and for a moment we watched the snow falling before beginning our journey under the moonlight.