Chapter Text
Gen nearly dies once during the night, and Senkuu quickly realizes that he can't handle this alone.
The overdose was a mess, Gen convulsing on the bed while Senkuu panted and desperately blinked tears away so he could see what the fuck was happening.
Of course he’d researched this all before, of course he knows his way around an overdose, in theory, but he can recite chemical compounds all he wants and it still won't save either of them from the slurry of steroids and sedatives coursing through Gen’s veins right now.
When it’s all over, when Senkuu can finally step back and collapse next to the bed, the first thing he does is-
Well, the first thing he does is try (and fail) to hold back hot, frustrated tears. He can still feel the steady pulse of adrenaline buzzing through his body like an electric current, a cocktail of courage and fear that somehow got him through the last five minutes. As it ebbs, though, everything comes rushing back, and he’s left heaving and shaking on the ground. In a cruel way, he almost mimics what Gen was doing just minutes ago.
God, he had been so scared.
Too scared to think, too scared to feel anything else. So scared he wondered if he would die too, right alongside Gen. If he stops thinking for too long his mind replays Gen’s choppy gurgling sounds, undercut by the high tone of him flat-lining.
He wants to leave. He wants to get out of here and leave this mess to someone else, leave and pretend that this never happened. Ignore the bank statement, ignore his entire guest bedroom, ignore the stained sheets and the hand-shaped bruises around Gen's throat. He wants-
He wants his dad.
What are you supposed to do when your high school crush (almost) dies after you buy him at a fucking slave market? Call your dad? His thoughts from last night echo in the back of his mind, and Senkuu huffs out a sardonic laugh.
…
He can't go too far — if Gen was given any delayed-release medications his condition could rapidly worsen. It's okay to step into the other room though, Senkuu decides, and quickly leaves the room, phone in hand. He’s only leaving the room so he doesn’t wake Gen up, definitely not so he doesn’t have to look at the sullen, broken man, covered in his own vomit and hooked up to more machines than he can count.
The cold tile of his bathroom floor is comforting beneath him, so Senkuu takes a moment to just breathe. He draws his legs to his chest and drops his head down onto his kneecaps, feeling more like a frightened child than a capable, respected scientist. He had no idea something like this would shake him up so badly.
The phone rings once, twice, and then Byakuya’s cheery voice crackles in Senkuu’s ear. He sounds nervous but hides it well; Senkuu almost never calls him. “Hey, bud! What’s up?”
“Can you come over?” Senkuu rasps, not having the energy to tailor his words or voice or breathing to soothe Byakuya’s surely growing anxiety. “Something happened.”
Byakuya takes a deep breath. “Do I need to call an ambulance?”
“No, it’s not… no. I just can’t do this by myself.”
“Okay, got it. I’ll be there in a little bit, just hang in there.” The line goes dead, and Senkuu’s by himself again.
Logically, he knows that having Byakuya here won’t make things any easier; Senkuu is far more knowledgeable about medical treatment than his dad. Having to manage Byakuya’s worries in addition to his own might actually put more strain on him.
Senkuu thinks back to the few psychology courses he had to take in college; they were never as interesting as his regular classes, but a few lectures in particular enhanced his understanding of the world, of the way human beings are wired.
As capable as Senkuu knows he is, this is not his everyday experiment. Human beings are remarkably capable of adaptation to extreme circumstances, but are almost always better at it together. The presence of another person, regardless of expertise or skill, can be the deciding factor between making it through a disastrous situation and succumbing to it.
As much as Senkuu always tried to pretend that he was above it all, as logical as he prided himself in being, he was still human.
Gen probably knows way more about that stuff than I do, he asserts briefly, thinking back to high school and all the free periods he spent next to the window in his classroom, watching Gen entertain his classmates in the school's courtyard. He was always the center of attention, conducting the conversation as effortlessly as the moon controlled the tides.
Like it was just natural; like it was where he was meant to be.
Senkuu pushes the thought away. There’s no use daydreaming about the person Gen was in high school when he’s currently on the brink of death in the next room.
The last twelve hours have shaken Senkuu; he can feel his mind starting to fray. When the knock on his door comes less than twenty minutes later, the tightly-wound anxiety in his gut slowly begins to untangle.
When Senkuu opens the door, they avoid the whole song and dance of greetings and formalities, though Byakuya does spare a moment to pat Senkuu on the shoulder. There’s no doubt in Senkuu’s mind that he looks like he’s been hit by a truck, but he still can’t find the energy in himself to comfort the old man. “C’mon. He’s in the spare room,” Senkuu sighs.
They stand in the bedroom doorway for a solid minute; Senkuu gives Byakuya however long he needs to take the scene in. His son’s spare bedroom, crowded with monitors and buzzing with the low electrical hum from the machines. A man on the bed, his thin skin a canvas of watercolor bruises and too-real-for-TV wounds.
“What happened?” Byakuya breathes.
“I bought him.” Senkuu cringes immediately at his wording.
“At the-?”
“Yeah, the Sixth Ward. This club with a big stupid sign out front. I was just trying to get some materials from another shop but he—” He draws in a shaky breath. “I knew him from high school. I couldn’t- couldn’t leave him there.”
Byakuya nods sagely, like that clears everything up.
Maybe it does, because the next words out of his mouth are, “Okay, what do you need me to do?”
They spend the rest of the (very) early morning cleaning Gen up with a damp cloth and rearranging the machines so they can move around a little easier. Afterwards, Senkuu does some research and double-checks last night’s blood tests while Byakuya scrounges around Senkuu’s kitchen for anything resembling a potential ingredient; he’s never been the best cook, but he’s still lightyears better than Senkuu.
Senkuuu can tell that Byakuya is itching to chew him out about the state of his cupboards, but he doesn't.
With the help of a pack of stale noodles, some barely-good vegetables, and a stock starter he found in the back of a drawer, Byakuya actually manages to make a fairly passable soup. It’s warm and light and comforting, and Senkuu gets the impression that it’s just as much for him as it is for their patient.
For the most part, their meal is spent in silence, until Byakuya finally finds his words. “What are you going to do when he wakes up?”
Senkuu shrugs, even though he’s thought about that quite a bit. “Obviously I’ll try to get him to stay here for at least a few more days. I want to be able to monitor his withdrawal from whenever they had him on for a little while longer.” The comedown from that cocktail of hard drugs could be anywhere from disorienting to deadly; it’s imperative that Gen is monitored carefully for the next few days. “I have no idea what his situation is like outside of this, though. He might need a place to stay.”
Byakuya nods. “Yeah, I don’t know if I’d even feel safe going back home after something like this. He was that magician kid that was two grades above you, right?”
Senkuu nods. His brain never framed it like that before, but he supposes Gen was a magician kid, always equipped with a deck of cards and some tricks stashed up his sleeves. Senkuu has always just thought of Gen as the sly, pretty upperclassman that always caught his eye.
The older man takes a sip of his soup, sadness on his face as he sets his spoon down. “I talked to him a few times at school events. He was always so polite and lively. His parents never seemed to be there though.”
Thinking back, Byakuya is right. Gen his always had an audience, but an audience isn’t a group of friends. Even during his graduation ceremony, he seemed to be on his own.
Maybe he still is. Maybe Senkuu won’t need to do much to convince him to stay.
Of course, if Senkuu was a different kind of person, he has ways to make Gen stay.
Most people who participated in this trade had exorbitant amounts of money and resources at their disposal to control the people they bought. The traffickers themselves, though, had their own standard procedures. Massive advancements in microchip capabilities from a few decades back eventually led to widely-available shock microchips. Top shelf ones even had GPS locating capabilities. These were legally supposed to be for pet owners, but some experts estimated that up to a third of the microchips sold are used on human beings.
The Wishing Well gave Senkuu a remote control along with a guide to setting up a variety of digital remote options. The commercialization of it all was nauseating.
They also handed over all of Gen’s personal and financial information — their “whole life package”, the fatal-looking sales woman from the Well informed him with a wry smile. Senkuu tries not to think about the fact that there were ten other people sold alongside Gen, who are all almost certainly facing much crueler fates right now.
Senkuu would never use any of these, of course. The fact that he could, though, that that kind of power is literally at his fingertips, has his stomach churning with anger and guilt. What does this make him to Gen now? His owner? And even if Gen chooses to stay, if he has no one else and accepts Senkuu’s offer because of it — is choosing to stay here because he has no other option really that much better than being forced to stay?
Even if Gen believes Senkuu when he tells him that he doesn’t want to hurt him, if he ever, ever found out that Senkuu liked him… there’s no doubt in Senkuu’s mind that it would completely negate any genuine good will that Senkuu has towards Gen. The gravity of those sorts of feelings would outweigh almost anything else.
“I know you probably feel like you’re messing everything up,” Byakuya says, pulling Senkuu out of his thoughts. “But you’re pretty good at this. Better than I am, at least.”
Senkuu snorts. It feels good for something resembling a laugh to leave his lips. “Exactly how many times have you done this, old man?”
“I don’t mean this-” he gestures vaguely around them. “I mean dealing with a crisis, something that changes everything. You should’ve seen how I was when I first adopted you, I have no idea how I got through it.”
Senkuu hums and sips on another spoonful of soup. “How did you get through it?”
Byakuya stops and puts his spoon down, his gaze drifting in the direction of the bedrooms; he has a distant look in his eyes, like he still hasn’t quite figured it out himself. He huffs out a quiet sigh, and then, “I think I just took it one crisis at a time. I convinced myself that everything would be okay, even though I didn’t have any proof that it would be.”
Senkuu swallows. Ignoring the odds, the proof presented to him… he’s never operated like that before.
“I think it worked out, though. You turned out pretty damn good, so I’d say I did an alright job.” Byakuya gives Senkuu a blinding grin. Senkuu smiles into his soup, shaking his head fondly. Stupid old man.
Senkuu's turned out to be an okay adult, an okay amount of the time. His cupboards are full of junk food and he hasn't had a regular sleep schedule in years, but he keeps himself alive well enough. He's never been the most social person, but at least he has Taiju and Yuzuriha… even though they're moving to another city. And Chrome, even though they've never spent time together outside of being partners at the lab.
At least work is something Senkuu can truly be proud of. He's quickly gaining recognition for his contributions to aerospace engineering. Byakuya loves to brag about him to anyone he meets, like Byakuya himself isn't a well-known, well-beloved astronaut.
None of this is enough to untangle the dread in Senkuu's stomach, though.
He just bought a person.
Before he can stop himself, Senkuu's curling inward, hands raking through his greasy hair. "Fuck, what have I done?"
"Hey, no, you haven't done anything wrong," Byakuya immediately counters.
Senkuu lets out a humorless huff of laughter. "Except give money to fucking human traffickers!"
"And save someone's life!"
"Hopefully," Senkuu adds wryly. They're not out of the woods quite yet.
Byakuya fixes him with a sorry look. He sighs. "Listen, unless you plan on becoming an activist against the industry and dying mysteriously the moment you start to make waves, you're doing the most that anyone can do about this. We're going to get through this together, okay?"
Senkuu has to proof that Byakuya is right, and even though his exhausted brain is attuned to expecting the worst at this point…
…he finds himself believing his dad, despite everything. Byakuya's words ring again in his mind in response to his fears.
"…Okay," Senkuu agrees, and turns his eyes back to his soup. Out of the corner of his vision, he can see Byakuya smile softly and do the same.
It’s nearly 10 PM by the time Byakuya finally gets going. They’ve crossed a bunch of stuff off Senkuu’s list; fully inspecting and dressing Gen’s wounds, getting him into looser clothing, reviewing the packets that the Wishing Well sent home with Senkuu, even making a grocery list (a mandatory task, after Byakuya saw the state of Senkuu’s cupboards).
Nothing roused Gen. He slept deeply through it all.
“He probably needs the rest,” Byakuya reminds Senkuu when he sees his worried expression. “It was touch and go for a while, but there’s a good chance he’ll pull through. Don’t let that overactive mind of yours get the better of you.”
Senkuu nods. Byakuya is right, ultimately. It’s not uncommon for people to sleep for days at a time after their bodies have undergone this much strain. The scales are slowly tipping in Gen’s favor, even if Senkuu doesn’t feel all that confident about it. “Thanks, Dad.”
That draws a big, goofy smile from Byakuya. He pulls him into a hug, and Senkuu doesn’t resist, for once. “No problem, kiddo.”
Senkuu rolls his eyes. He’s nearly thirty now, but he supposes he’ll always be ‘kiddo’ to Byakuya.
His father turns back towards Senkuu's door once before finally walking off into the night. He'll be back within the week, Senkuu's sure of it.
The documents that were sent with Gen are still strewn across the kitchen table. Senkuu's stomach turned at the thought of just digging through all of Gen's personal and financial information, so he focused on the medical papers and information recorded by the Well. It wasn't much more comfortable to read.
Gen's currently a few centimeters taller than Senkuu and weighs much less. He has situs inversus, which Senkuu figured out last night when his equipment was going haywire. Gen was born female, which the document included quite a bit of information about, with unsettling implications. He has a tattoo on his left hip and one along his spine. Gen was abducted by someone who knew him and pawned off to the Well as compensation for a debt.
Byakuya had scanned over the information provided about Gen's personal and financial history, a grimace pulling the corners of his mouth into a deeper and deeper frown. His eyebrows furrowed as he flipped through the pages.
"Can't believe they just give you a folder with all of this, like you're buying a new car or something," Byakuya had muttered with venom in his voice. Learning about the type of world that operated just behind closed doors was disturbing.
Now, Senkuu just stands next to the table and gazes down at the folder. He could indulge himself, dig through every inch of Gen's bought-and-sold personal life, the hidden secrets of this alluring enigma served to Senkuu on a manilla platter, but…
A crash from the other room makes Senkuu's head whip around.
He races towards the back bedroom, ready for another disaster — images of Gen convulsing with blood and bile running down his chin immediately have Senkuu’s heart pounding in his chest. Not again, not again—
Senkuu throws open the half-closed door, and—
—and there’s Gen, kneeling on the floor, the lamp and medical equipment that was on the nightstand now scattered around him.
He must have tried to stand, but his sense of balance hasn’t quite returned to him. One look at the onjects strewn across the floor tells Senkuu that he took out everything on the nightstand on his way down. Senkuu's first instinct is to scold him for even attempting to get up, but—
Gen looks up at Senkuu, his red-rimmed eyes frantic. Senkuu watches as his arms tremble from the exertion of holding his body up.
Gen's eyes dart to the door behind him.
He has no idea what's happening, where he is, what Senkuu's intentions are — this is probably terrifying for him.
Senkuu backs away slightly, holds his hands palms-out in the universal stance that says ‘hold on, it’s all okay.’ Gen's eyes follow every millimeter of movement, completely frozen.
“I'm not going to hurt you,” Senkuu says, tone pleading. “I swear, I swear on everything.”
Gen doesn’t respond. His breaths are quick and shallow.
“Does anything hurt?” Senkuu tries.
Nothing.
“Did… do you need to use the bathroom?”
Gen holds Senkuu’s gaze for a moment before nodding his head almost imperceptibly.
It's a start. it’s something.
“Do you want help?” Senkuu asks. “…you almost died. I won’t make you stay or anything, but seriously, don’t push yourself. I want to help you.”
Gen’s lower lip quivers slightly. his eyes dart back towards the door before turning downward. He seems lost in his own head, like he’s fighting to stay on the same plane as Senkuu.
He doesn't meet Senkuu's eyes when he finally speaks. “The bathroom, please,” Gen says, though his hoarse voice only becomes audible halfway through the second word. “It's hard to walk.”
Senkuu nods and slowly approaches him. He makes sure to position himself on Gen's left side so he doesn't even have to touch the broken wrist, but when Senkuu’s fingers wraps around even the unbroken wrist, a nearly-imperceptible jolt tenses every muscle in Gen's body.
Senkuu freezes.
Pain evokes a much bigger reaction, particularly from sick people. This was fear, and Gen was doing his damnedest to hide it.
As nerve-wracking as the last day has been, somehow this particular dilemma is the most jarring to Senkuu. He’s prepared to care for a sick person; he signed up to do that by purchasing someone so badly injured.
It quickly becomes apparent, though, how unprepared Senkuu is to reconcile the difference between the mysterious, chipper boy he knew in high school, and the damaged man on the floor of his guest bedroom.
A lot can change in ten years, Senkuu reminds himself, though it only serves to make him feel more helpless.
"I'm going to put your arm around my shoulders so you can walk," Senkuu warns Gen — maybe warning him before he touches him would help.
It seems to, somewhat. Gen doesn't respond, but doesn't flinch violently when Senkuu's fingers wrap around his wrist again. Progress.
There's a bathroom just outside of the bedroom, thank goodness, but the trek is still a slow one. Each step Gen takes is wobbly and unsteady; he's out of breath by the time they get there. Thankfully, he can hold himself upright on the toilet, so Senkuu sets to preparing materials for a proper sponge bath.
Bringing Gen back to bed is similarly difficult, but the most disheartening part is the crash Senkuu hears again once he goes back to the bathroom to retrieve his supplies. He comes back to the bedroom to find Gen on the floor again, only having managed a few steps in the direction of the door, his eyes fixed downwards.
Senkuu freezes, unsure how to proceed without scaring Gen more.
…would helping him back to bed feel like trapping him here? He clearly can't walk by himself though, too weak and exhausted to get further than a few steps.
From across the room, Senkuu finally speaks. "I promise I won't force you to stay here. I'll give you all your information and get you out of here as soon as possible. But your body is at its limit right now, so please…" Gen still isn't looking at him. "Please, just stay and rest for a few days."
Gen only responds with silence for a few moments.
"Could you help me back to bed?" he murmurs eventually. It's not an agreement, but it's something.
Senkuu nods and crosses the room, hooking his arm around Gen's waist like he did before. This time, Gen's arm automatically raises to rest across Senkuu's shoulders.
It's something.
Gen doesn't speak while Senkuu's washing him, only positions his body according to Senkuu's requests the best he can. Unfortunately, washing his hair isn't in the cards for them right now — maybe in a few days, depending on how Gen is feeling.
Senkuu hadn't examined them too carefully when he was changing Gen's clothes with Byakuya earlier, but the tattoos are intriguing. Across his left hip is an abstract design that almost looks like dark, purplish smoke curling in the air. A tattoo of a realistic spine extends down the valley of Gen's back, with short, uneven spikes jutting out to look like a rib cage. When Senkuu looks closely, he sees delicate flowers curling in between the gaps of the tattooed spine.
They're beautiful, Senkuu thinks, though he's never particularly cared about tattoos.He wonders what made Gen get them.
Now that Gen's awake, he can participate in a more thorough examination. Senkuu runs through all the basics again — listening to the heartbeat and the lungs, checking pupil dilation, looking inside the ear canal. Everything is starting to look slightly better than it did last night.
"Besides your wrist, does anything else hurt?" Senkuu asks after completing the basic physical examination.
Gen is stock still for a moment, then his brows furrow slightly. "…my ribs, in a few spots. I can breathe fine though."
'Fine' isn't exactly the word that Senkuu would use, considering how Gen's lungs still sound, but it's good to know that it's not bothering him too much. "I'm going to feel your ribs for a moment," Senkuu says, and Gen nods, holding his arms out slightly further.
There's bruising, for sure, but no breaks that Senkuu can feel. "Anything else?"
Gen shakes his head. "Nothing that you can't see for yourself." Fair.
"Is there… anyone I can call? Anywhere I can give you a ride to?"
Gen is quiet for a minute, still not meeting Senkuu's eyes. From this angle, the long side of his hair completely obscures his expression.
"…no," Gen says, his voice little more than a whisper. "There's no one."
Senkuu swallows thickly.
"Are you hungry?" He asks after a beat.
The question seems to surprise Gen for a few moments, his muscles tensing briefly, before he's letting out a huff of incredulous laughter. When he speaks, Senkuu can hear the ghost of a grin in his voice. "Absolutely arving-stay."
A smile tugs at the corners of Senkuu's lips. It's something.