For everyone who prefers hearing the story there is an audiobook version at the bottom of the chapter.
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"Mori?"
Yaku hadn't even heard the steps behind him or otherwise noticed the person approaching. The voice of his boyfriend broke the silence and he could feel his heart shatter with how broken he sounded.
When he turned around he barely recognized Lev.
He was a wreck. Almost as bad as the kitchen. There was nothing left of his usually so carefully maintained appearance. The silver-haired looked sickly pale and tired. He seemed to have lost quite an amount of weight so that his pyjamas were hanging loosely from his body.
Yaku could see that it must have been days since he last showered and slept judging by the bags under his eyes.
The worst of all, however, was how empty his eyes looked.
As if he had lost all will to live.
Even now that they were widened in shock the emotion didn't seem to get through to him.
"Lev? Wha-what happened?" The libero's voice quivered. He was at a loss for words.
Yaku had expected all and nothing but, not this.
"Mori..." Lev repeated softly as though he didn't see his panic at all.
"Yes, it's me. I'm here. Now please tell me what happened to you!?"
He could feel tears building up in his eyes.
Yaku had never felt this helpless in his entire life before.
He didn't know what to do. He thought if he would just find Lec everything would turn out fine, but this... this wasn't fine. This was so much worse.
He didn't understand what was happening or how to deal with it.
"Answer me!" he demanded in a desperate attempt to make sense of things.
The taller slowly closed the distance between them, his eyes still empty as if he wasn't even looking at him.
He carefully stretched his hand out and placed it on Yaku's cheek, gently caressing the skin.
"Lev, you scare me," Yaku tried again, his voice growing weaker. "Please talk to me!"
"It feels so real..." the other whispered under his breath.
"What...?" his voice broke.
"You feel so real."
This was wrong.
This was so wrong.
Lev sounded too calm.
What was he saying!?
"I AM real," Yaku insisted. "Please Lev, tell me what is going on." He could feel his tears spilling over, could feel the hot tracks they left on his skin and how Lev gently wiped them away.
"Please don't cry, Mori. I want to remember your smile," Lev pleaded softly, still oddly calm.
"Remember my...?" Yaku was stunned. "Lev, I'm right here. I'm real please, please talk to me!
"You are scaring me, Lev. You hear me!?"
Slowly but surely the fog seemed to fade from Lev's eyes.
"What...?"
He blinked a couple of times rapidly to fight his own tears from clouding his vision.
"You are scaring me, Lev," Yaku repeated as he saw that it was getting through to him. "What happened to you?"
"Mori?"
His voice was thin almost gone.
"Yes, I'm here. I'm right here."
The taller backed away a little, but Yaku closed his hand around his wrist before he was out of reach again.
"Lev?"
"But you were... You can't be here," he whispered. His inner turmoil reflected in his eyes.
"What? Of course, I can be," Yaku insisted. "I am here!".
"But the accident..."
"That was weeks ago. My body healed and I'm better now. They released me from the hospital." Yaku was desperate to make him understand while searching the emerald eyes for answers as well.
A strangled sob tore from Lev's throat.
"I-I thought you were..."
"What Lev?" he asked carefully.
"Gone... It sounded like you were gone."
Yaku was too stunned to reply as his brain tried to comprehend this information and put everything into perspective.
It made sense. Everything made sense now and it horrified him.
"I'm not," he insisted pleading for him to see the truth in his words. "I'm not dead—" Lev flinched "— I'm alive and I'm here. With you! Please look at me!—" He already did "— I'm not leaving. I'll stay.
"I'll be by your side until... until... forever okay!"
The words sounded harsher than intended.
"You're not getting rid of me anytime soon, so deal with it!"
Silent tears had started falling down Lev's cheeks.
The tension lingered for a moment between them.
Yaku was breathing heavily. He didn't know what else to say anymore when suddenly Lev wrapped his arms around him in a tight embrace.
"Thank you...
"For coming back to me," he whispered between sobs against his neck.
"Of course..." Yaku whispered back.
"S-stupid Titan, I love you!"
Lev's cries got louder and louder as he broke down in Yaku's arms. His body was shaken violently by sobs.
Yaku tried to ground him just as much as he held onto Lev for support.
The gravity of the situation was slowly sinking in and the more it did the worse it got.
Lev thought he was dead. He lived thinking he was dead for weeks. He isolated himself out of grief.
Yaku couldn't even begin to imagine how horrible that must feel. Every thought about what if the situation had been reversed, if he had been the one thinking Lev was dead, sent him spiralling.
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"Lev?"
"Hm?"
The taller weakly tightened the hug.
"Come on, we need to get up."
It seemed like he wanted to protest. The silver-blonde shook his head slightly and hid his face against Yaku's neck.
"We have to," the libero insisted. "Here I'll help you."
Yaku slowly got up to his feet and pulled Lev with him.
The silver-haired allowed Yaku to drag him upstairs and onto the bed. He gently wrapped him in a blanket and tenderly brushed the silver strands from his face.
He turned around but was immediately stopped by a hand closing around his wrist.
"Don't leave!" Lev pleaded, pain bleeding back into his voice.
"Shh, don't worry I won't."
Yaku put on some comfortable clothes and lay down next to him. He would just shower later and prepare a bath for Lev while he was on it.
As soon as he climbed into bed next to his boyfriend he was pulled into a tight embrace, ignoring how some of his still healing bones and tissue protested the action.
Lev held onto him as if his life depended on it.
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It felt like hours until the taller was finally able to relax.
The tension in his muscles remained but it subsided at least a bit. And he finally had a somewhat peaceful expression on his face.
Yaku, however, couldn't sleep at all.
His mind was racing and he went through today's events over and over again. He reconsidered everything that happened in the past weeks and it made him agitated.
The irrational feeling of guilt overcame him and the thought he might have been able to somehow prevent all of this.
On the one hand, the liberi was more than glad that Lev was... okay. Or rather that he wasn't physically injured or sick.
He was glad that the lack of contact wasn't a result of a fatal accident of any kind, something similar to his situation, or a change of heart.
Lev still cared about him a lot and wasn't mad or indifferent towards the fact that Yaku got hurt.
But on the other hand... this was barely any better.
And Yaku honestly wasn't sure how to deal with it.
He got restless and couldn't bear to stay still any longer.
He got to and started cleaning the kitchen. At least this was something he knew he could change and improve.
It didn't take long though, maybe an hour or one and a half, until a loud crash caught his attention and had him running upstairs again.
He found Lev sitting huddled up in a corner next to the bed shivering and shaking. His eyes widened in terror.
"Lev!" Yaku immediately called out to him in shock.
A strange sob escaped from the taller's throat as his eyes met Yaku's.
"Hey, shhh, I'm here. You are alright. Everything is okay."
The libero hugged him tightly and gently netted his back.
"I-I thought it... You..." Lev stammered fighting for air and composure. "I thought that your return was a dream
"Nothing more than wishful thinking."
Yaku gulped.
"I couldn't handle that... Not again."
His voice broke and so did Yaku's heart over and over again.
"It wasn't," he reassured him, his own voice wavering. "I'm here and I'll stay. Forever if you want me to."
"Promise?"
His grip on him tightened.
"Promise!" Yaku agreed.
It was unbearable seeing him like this and the libero wished desperately for any kind of easy fix that would restore things.
Something that could heal the pain this stupid receptionist or whoever had caused his boyfriend, but there was no such thing.
Yaku's death had been an undeniable irreversible part of Lev's reality for weeks. It shook his world to the core and fractured his perspective on life itself.
For all this time it felt like he was alone in a dark and cold place. As if he had been swallowed by a lake of darkness taking him and pulling him forcefully under the surface far away from every bit of warmth and light.
And he didn't fight it.
Time, responsibilities, friends and family, everything seemed to have lost its meaning to him.
He was aware that it wasn't fair to them, that maybe in theory, those people, whose existence he ignored for weeks, could help him but he didn't have the energy to reach out or answer their call.
The dark matter engulfing him made him blind towards any other source of light and love than the one he deemed lost.
...
But he wasn't...
Yaku wasn't lost.
He was right here in his arms.
Safe and sound.
"I'm sorry..." Lev whispered but Yaku shook his head.
"Don't," he disagreed. "Don't apologize. None of this is your fault."
Lev chuckled a little. It was far from his usual laughter but it was something. Progress.
"Really? You don't think I'm being a bit overdramatic?" he joked weakly but to Yaku, it wasn't a joke.
"No," he insisted. It broke his heart. "Lev, you aren't being overdramatic. This is perfectly... normal... If- if I-"
"Mori?"
"If I had been... If the situations were reversed... I wouldn't know what I would have done. If I would have been able to do anything." Yaku's voice threatened to break but he continued. "Y-you kept yourself alive. That- that..."
"Shh, Mori," This time it was Lev soothing him. "I'm... I'm going to be fine. As long as you stay with me, I'll be alright."
"Of course!... Stupid Titan."
He chuckled again more real this time and Yaku lived for it.
"I think I know what you would have done."
"Huh?" he looked up at him confused.
"If the situation had been reversed I mean."
Yaku raised an eyebrow at him.
"You would have haunted me down and brought me back to life so that you could scold me for leaving without a warning and provable missing practice as well."
Yaku gave him a small amused smile before it fell again.
"You realize though that I'm not really dead, right?"
Lev nodded.
"And I couldn't be happier about it."
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That concludes this two-shot yay 🥳
Though I have some ideas for bonus scenes so tell me in the comments if you would be interested and if I should write them as well.
How fitting though that this came out right after the YakuLev chapter in "If I'd die..."! 😆
Check that out too if you like!
And don't forget to check out the podfic version on my YT, it would help me put a tone!