Chapter Text
Matt threw the unprofessionally bound book in the corner with an angry snort. It had arrived in his P.O. Box today packed in a pretty brown envelope. The address had been handwritten with a delicate inscription card inside. Matt didn’t even read it…
„Calm down, Yamato“, his best friend urged worried. He was sitting at the dinner table his hands clinging to a half empty shot glass. “I can’t believe he did that!” The blond snarled. “It’s just a script, Matt, just… relax” The brunette took the bottle of booze and refilled his friends cup. He took a stern look at the enraged young man. “Just sit down already”, he said focusing to keep his voice calm and pushed the chair next to him back with his foot.
Matt walked two aimless circles around the room, before finally sitting down with a sigh. “Astronaut and politician, Yagami!”, Matt practically shouted just enraging himself more. “He made you a fucking suit!” Tai just downed his liquor and filled both glasses again.
“It doesn’t even bother you?” the older one questioned with a raised brow. He leaned back in his chair, leaving the booze for just a Moment. Tai shrugged. “It does,” he admitted. “But it’s TK you’re talking about. Just tell him it bothers you… He’s your brother after all.”
Matt snorted and emptied his cup, just to let himself fall back into the chair again. “Yeah, that’s the problem…fuck! Why does he even make up shit like that? I’m doing fine with the band and all, and he’s still ashamed of me”, Matt stated and focused on Tai’s eyes for a long Moment as if they held the answer.
“Matt…” Tai started, but was quickly disrupted. “No. Don’t even!” He wasn’t in any mood to be comforted right now, he wanted to be angry. That’s why Tai was here in the first place and the booze nearly empty by now.
“Have you read it yet? TK really put some effort into it”, the younger one kept trying to appease the other and just earned himself a piercing gaze.
“I don’t need to read it”, Matt hissed raising his voice with every word. “I was there! We all were and he didn’t even think about asking us, if we were ok with this!”
“You act like he published it.”
“He printed it! Devil knows how often and for whom!” Matt countered and didn’t even bother to refill his glass. He took the bottle.
“Use your head again for a second and calm down. You drink too much.”
“Yeah, and that’s why you’re here”, Matt claimed and grinned madly before emptying the bottle with a big gulp. The booze burned less than it should have… he was too used to it. No wonder he drank at least two thirds of it by himself and didn’t feel much more than a light dizziness and a comforting heat in his stomach.
“That’s not ok”, Tai worried shaking his head and averting his eyes for a moment. He already expected things to go this way when he had heard Matt’s voice through the phone. “That’s what you say now”, Matt purred and put the bottle down. He stood. “Come on”, he demanded touching Tai’s shoulder for a fleeting moment. “Matt, I won’t do this again. You’re destroying yourself.”
Tai didn’t move an inch, when Matt turned and left for the bedroom. He didn’t move a muscle and Matt didn’t turn to look, because both of them knew exactly how this would turn out. Still they had very different outcomes in mind.
“Come on… or are you chickening out?”, Matt’s voice boomed from the hall, making Tai flinch for a moment. “I’m not doing this, Matt”, he called back clinging to his glass with both hands, his gaze pinned on the table in front of him.
The brunette hat fought with himself for a long time. This thing had gone on for so long, it developed… but the route Matt took these last few months were… too much. Maybe it had started as a game, a funny past time they both enjoyed, but lately… Tai closed his eyes, listening to the silence.
Shit he didn’t even know what went down between the brothers. He looked up when he heard steps coming his way. He deflated, when he met Matt’s blaming gaze. “What?” Matt puffed arms akimbo. Tai didn’t answer. He let go of the glass and stood nervously pushing his chair back.
“What?” the blonde screamed taking a step closer. They were barely another step apart. Matt was a little smaller than Tai, but in this instance that didn’t show. Tai was afraid. He was since the moment he had decided on ending this. “Matt… I can’t bear to see you like that anymore.” His voice was stronger than he expected, but it failed to provide any emphasis.
“You’re ashamed now, too?” Matt fumed, dropping his arms and closing his eyes. But his fists were still clenched.
“You’re wearing yourself down”, Tai implored and forced himself to look Matt in the face.
“So you had your fun and now you think you can just drop me?”, Matt hissed his voice growing cold and threateningly calm. “Because You’re fucking afraid!”
Tai didn’t react, realizing he needed to focus now. Use his head, because somewhere along the way Matt had lost his. Matt just took the silence as confirmation, so the next thing he threw at his friend was a fist. He hit his head, spitting whatever his drunken mind had to throw at the other man. The second punch hit Tai’s defending arms instead of his cheek.
“Afraid of what?” The third punch hit the younger one’s side hard.
“As if anything ever happened to you!” Matt screamed kicking for the knee, knocking the younger one to the floor. Tai didn’t hit back, he barely tried to defend himself from what was thrown at him.
“As if it ever hurt you!” He kept kicking his friend, puffing and shouting, but his energy faded fast. His last sweep was stopped by Tai grapping his leg and bringing him down to the floor beside him. He stayed where he landed, just lying there.
It was silent once more, until Tai sat up coughing and groaning. He took a long look at the blond. “Calmed down now?” he asked, voice hoarse and used his jacket to clean some blood from his face. Matt just snorted.
A few minutes passed before Matt got up without taking another look at Tai and left for the bedroom again.
“Shit”, Tai cursed before he even heard the clattering. He stood with shaking legs heading towards its source. “Matt”, he screamed stumbling through the hall. He gripped Matt’s arm once he reached him, standing in midst the mess he had made on the bedroom floor.
“What? If you’re fucking afraid, I’ll have to do it myself!” he shouted back and tried to free himself. The resistance made Tai’s chest hurt, but he didn’t flinch.
“Stop it”, he tried again, this time calmer. Yet another fist aimed at him, but this time he didn’t just take it. He pulled Matt to the side, sending his friend falling onto the bed, the punch hitting nothing but air. Tai ignored the pain in his side, when he lay down next to the fallen fury.
“Matt, I don’t want to hurt you anymore”, he explained himself finally. Matt’s eyes filled with tears.
“You don’t get it!” he screamed shutting his eyes turning his face away from his best friend. Tai tucked himself around the blond and just pulled him closer to his chest. “I won’t leave you”, he whispered, feeling a weak hand trying to hit his chest. “But I can’t go on like this”, he added. He sat up pulling the other man with him in his embrace.
Matt didn’t resist. He felt week and was busy fighting the tears with all there was left in him. But they just came out with all those warm feelings of hatred and anger and deep, deep sorrow. He just let Tai do whatever, sitting in his embrace like a lifeless puppet... “I don’t need your pity”, he growled without any heat behind it.
“No, Matt, I know you don’t”, Tai agreed with a sigh before silence took over the space again.
It didn’t take long for Tai to doze off. Matt’s warmth near his chest and his own body being busy fighting the pain with numbness. His eyes just fell shut and his head dropped, burying his face in Matt’s hair. Naturally his grip loosened.
Matt was wide awake. He freed himself from his friend as soon as he noticed him not moving anymore. He put a pillow beneath the brunette’s head, laying him down gently. The war inside of him was only contained by a thin blanket of detachment. He let his gaze wander his friends frame.
He had beaten him up pretty bad.
If Tai had decided to fight back, Matt would have lost, but the younger one had just took the beating. He carefully started to open the buttons on Tai’s shirt and took a look at the bruises that were starting to form.
He didn’t worry about waking the younger man, unlike himself that guy slept like a stone. Carefully he started feeling his friend’s ribs for anything… off. His biggest concern was that he might have caused more than just some bruises. He didn’t find anything, he was no medic of course, but the examination was enough for him for now. Tai hadn’t even twitched, when he had applied pressure. The other just sleeping peacefully was enough to calm Matt for now.
He just sat there watching the Younger one’s chest rise and deflate with cold eyes. Their relationship wasn’t normal. Matt didn’t want it to be and the anger was still dwelling in his stomach. He didn’t mean everything he said, and his conscience joined his emotions in their endless war. It didn’t seem to do too well though.
He was just getting up, when Tai moved behind him. The brunette sat up, gasping for air, as he did. “Where are you going?”
“Water”, Matt answered dryly, getting up and leaving without looking at his friend. Tai lay down again. His head hurt and there was an ugly pain in his side, also the uncomfortable feeling in his chest persisted.
Tai turned, when two things shook the bed in short succession. There was a bottle of water next to him. He forced himself upright again to take a sip. Matt was sitting on the edge, his eyes fixed on Tai. They were so cold. His face finally started to move, when Tai lowered the bottle and gave it to him. He took it, but just let his arm drop again.
“So… what now?” Matt asked first, his voice calm and controlled but Tai felt a hint of his old friend in there. The friend he was here for. “I don’t know”, Tai answered and moved towards the top end of the bed, leaning against the decorative bars. “You’re the one complaining about how things are now”, Matt reproached. He took a small sip from the bottle before closing it and setting it aside.
“I’ve trouble watching you… helping you… destroy yourself”, Tai repeated.
Matt snorted.
Tai’s head dropped. “We’re going to do this equally or we aren’t doing it anymore”, Tai spoke, his voice firm and his gaze once more fixed on Matt in determination. The astonishment was written all over the older one’s face, before he managed to put on that cold, untouchable mask again.
“What do you mean?” Matt asked holding Tai’s gaze.
“It’s easy”, Tai claimed and felt a nervous heat rising to his face, because he knew perfectly well that it wasn’t easy at all. “Flip a coin or something. I just won’t keep doing those things to you like this.”
There was a long pause in which Tai tried to fight the blush about to bloom on his cheeks and Matt to make sense of his thoughts and the matter over all.
“You’re serious?” he asked skeptically, finally coming to the conclusion that his first interpretation of this seemed to be the right one. Tai gave a nod.
“I like what we have and I will not just go and leave you for someone else… but we need some new rules to play by, if I still want to be able to live with myself”, Tai proposed calmly, trying to make more sense of what had been troubling him.
“I know you don’t really like it… I need it, why would we switch?” Matt asked and looked down at the Toys spread across the floor. The things there were just what they were talking about… about no longer only using them on him. He doubted then and there if he would ever be able to be like that to Tai.
“It’s that or nothing”, Tai drew his friend’s attention back to himself.
“I won’t hold back, just because it’s you”, Matt threatened without real heat, not able to look at those brown eyes.
“I know”, he said, recognizing the same troubles he had faced lately in the way Matt could no longer stand his gaze. Tai wasn’t just doing this to prove a point. He was nervous, even scared, but he was determined and confident about this being the right thing to do.
Matt had fallen silent, so it was Tai’s turn to force himself to speak again. “So, Head or Tails?” he said swallowing his doubts about what was to come.