Broken Bones, Broken Hearts [Akashi x Reader]

Warning: Profanities

He finds himself just stroking the skin along her arms. She makes a snarky comment about his apparent arm fetish and he just laughs it off with a kind smile. Her skin is smooth and soft as he continues to run his hands from her wrists to her elbows, slowly. She makes another comment about how this current seduction technique of his sucks, in return he sticks his tongue out at her and she makes a face at him, amused that their relationship had managed to maintain its taunting attitude in face of everything that has happened to her.

            He’s silent when he finds small, almost unnoticeable scars along her skin. He pauses for a beat with a question balancing on the tip of his tongue. He waits for a sarcastic comment from her…he’s disappointed when he’s met with her silence. The skin around her scars are barely raised, and as he faintly grazes them with his fingertips. They’re feather light touches, ones that he remembers holding his mother's dying hands with, so that he wouldn't metaphorically crack your bones.

            Akashi feels her eyes lazily gazing at him and his mouth twitches, repressing a smile. For a moment he imagines what she sees: A teenager with bright red hair in a flawless black suit from a banquet that he left two hours ago to be with her.

            He had promised her cake and seafood and those little fruit tarts that she always managed to sneak into her bag before they retired for the night–she always took exactly eleven. He distinctly remembered inviting her last month...
            
            Last...month. One...month.

            So much can change it one month. One month ago she..she was…better. This time he doesn’t repress the sad smile on his lips. It’s a knowing smile, one that he can’t help but wear every time that he visits her.

            Finally, she speaks, and Akashi hangs onto every single word that she says, ingraining them into his memory, because they may as well be that last word she speaks.

            “What’s with the sudden fascination with my skin, Akashi?” Her voice is mocking and sweet and charming and taunting and he loves it. But all at once it’s weak and hoarse and frail and he hates it. He hates that this sickness is taking away her vitality and her life and her sucker punches…but isn’t that what all diseases do?

            He lets out a weak chuckle and goes to just holding her hands in his. 

            “You’d think I would have noticed these scars before, huh?”

            “Your observational skills are weakening, Akashi,” She says jokingly, she holds his hands tighter and he feels his heart beat a little faster. “But I guess it’s not your fault…” She trails off and lets go of his hands. She crosses them in front of her chest and glances down at her arms. “They’re relatively new…”

            He hears her voice catch and his stomach clenches. He hears the hesitance in the way she speaks that he never heard before. It scares him. No… it terrifies him. That with every day that she remains in this hospital, a bit of her is cut away. Soon, there’ll be nothing left that he can grasp onto and call his. Because she is his. And he is hers. And they can never forget that. Well…he can never forget that. Who knows? Maybe she’ll forget that in the next few weeks.

            She lets out a quick cough and Akashi can’t help but look up from his hands. She uncurls her arms from her chest and uses her arms to cover her mouth. She lets out a fit of coughs that are deep and raucous. He could hear the phlegm in her throat and feel the painful contractions of her chest with every frantic heave of her lungs.

            She mutters a quick, quiet apology and grabs an antiseptic wipe from her bedside table to wipe at the corners of her mouth, her hands, and her arm. She’s hasty as she drops the used wipe into the bin next to her. She’s not quick enough though, because Akashi managed to catch a glimpse of the red smearing the wipe. Blood.

            His eyebrows furrow in worry and looks at her. She doesn’t look back at him, instead looking at her hands as she rubbed them back and forth. If she keeps doing that her skin will be raw. He lets out a sigh.

            She doesn’t look at him for the next few minutes. Embarrassment is visibly shown by the red tint on the tips of her ears, the flush of her wan cheeks. Her finger flicks once, twice, three times at the IV stuck in her wrist, perhaps encouraging the flow of morphine into her veins to numb that pain away.

            Akashi and her settle into an uncomfortable a silence, her sickness hanging over their heads like nooses. She glares out the hospital room window and Akashi can’t help but follow her glare.

            It’s late. Light pollution from the bustling night life of the city below, with its neon signs and a few bulletin boards promoting PSA’s of ‘drink responsibly’ and ‘don’t drink and drive’, obscure that starry night sky that she loved so much.

            Akashi remembers when _________ would call him once a week past midnight to tell him what constellations and planets could be seen at the moment and he would just hum along as a response until her happy voice would eventually scare away his grogginess. Then they would just talk. He missed those calls, and he hoped that she missed them, too. Then his vision focused on the telescope next to the window. It was ten thousand yen and he saw it in the display window of an astronomy shop. He bought it for her four months ago. He managed to convince the hospital staff to turn a blind eye to it as he snuck it into _______'s hospital room. She used to use it every night.

    He saw scratches all along the telescopes body and cringed, thinking of what possible circumstances would it have fell over…or even pushed over.

    It now sat on its tripod facing the adjacent wall, forgotten, lonely, abandoned, and collecting dust.

            “Needles,” she whispered.

            Her voice cut through the silence and startled him. “Come again?”

            She let out a sigh and turned her head. Her eyes seem to rest on his face, this would be the first time that she actually made eye contact with him since he walked into her hospital room three hours and twenty two minutes ago. And this would be the first time that Akashi would see how much her sickness was slowly killing her.

            For the first time, Akashi noticed her haggard face. The gray blue bags under her eyes had only darkened with time, an unwanted and unnecessary reminder of her insomnia. Her once glowing beautiful skin was now wan and had acquired a slightly yellow undertone. It hits him in his solar plexus with the force of a tank: She’s sick. She’s so fucking sick.

            “Needles.” She repeats sadly.

            “What do you mean by that, ________?” But he already knew the answer to his own question. He doesn’t hesitate to grab her hands and hold them, this time tightly, in an attempt to make sure that she doesn’t wilt away.

            “The doctors have been increasing the dosage of my medication,” Her voice sounds bitter and desperate. “My father,” she pauses here. “My father…is even encouraging them to use experimental medicine.” She lets out a weak chuckle that rattles Akashi to his bones. “I’m so drowned in drugs that I can’t even see straight half of the time.”

            At that comment Akashi notices that her eyes—her warm, loving eyes—aren’t even looking at him straight. They’re cloudy and unfocused and looking to the side of his face. The reality of the situation makes his head hurt.

            "You can’t give up hope yet, ­­­_________,” He says to her. But the words are mostly for him, so that maybe he can trick himself into thinking you had a chance. “I’ll make sure you’ll get through this. We’ll get through this. I promise you with everything I have.”

            She’s teary eyed and shaking her head. She had already to accepted the reality of a leaving Akashi, but he can’t seem to wrap his head around a life without his dearest, his empress, his true love.

            He resists the urge to caress her face and make her eyes look directly at his, so instead he squeezes her hands. And he holds them so tight that he could break her bones.

            And he’s not sure whose hands are shaking more.