WARNINGS: Vomiting, talk of death
For a long time I've had the headcanon that Sakusa's germaphobe tendencies stem from him being chronically ill and immunocompromised, and while listening to this song a bit ago inspiration struck! I don't really have him fitting a certain illness here, just a set of symptoms really
Song is Youth by Daughter
Shadows settle on the place, that you left
Our minds are troubled by the emptiness
Destroy the middle, it's a waste of time
From the perfect start to the finish line
In an alternate universe, maybe Sakusa would've been able to get on the Black Jackals team. He would be the ace, and his boyfriend of 4 years, Atsumu, would be his setter. It was what they were planning on, before his health took a turn.
He'd always had trouble with his lungs, and heart, and brain. It was a genetic illness, he was born with it and he'd die with it, he'd long accepted it. He'd also accepted, soon before graduating, that he wouldn't be able to carry on volleyball after high school. It was getting harder and harder to run for an entire game, to jump up over and over without getting dizzy, and he'd had to take more frequent breaks. He wasn't very close with his teammates, but he'd been dating Atsumu since second year and both of the twins were great supports, as well as his mother and older brother.
It was hard, he still cried about it some days, when the pain was bad and he couldn't catch his breath and he coughed until he vomited, right on their bed because he couldn't stand up without getting light headed, but it was the card he was dealt. He couldn't change it, and the bad days were far outnumbered by the good ones (he still was able to play small games with Atsumu, Bokuto, Akaashi, Hinata, and Kageyama, and nobody made a fuss when he could only play one game, but they didn't baby him either), and he could still thrive and have fun.
And if you're still breathing, you're the lucky ones
'Cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs
Setting fire to our insides for fun
Collecting names of the lovers that went wrong
The lovers that went wrong
He decided he wanted to do online college. It was hard to find an accessible school, and honestly he'd always hated public school. So many germs, so many people that came sick (even just a cold, in him, could quickly become the flu and bronchitis), so many annoying assholes that insisted on talking to him for whatever reason. It also meant that he could travel with Atsumu for international games, instead of staying with someone else.
Even online schooling had problems though. He was majoring in sports medicine, something he'd always had quite an interest in, and as such got told a lot about exercising.
And also got shamed for his lack of "proper" exercise.
"If you get less than an hour of exercise a day, you need to do more. No excuses. Exercise doesn't mean walking up the stairs once a day, it has to be something that makes you sweat and tired. We did the form on how much exercise you did last week, and if you did less than 5 total hours of approved exercise, stay. Otherwise, you may go." Sakusa stayed, listening to the rambling of his teacher as she basically called him and the two other students lazy, sugar coating it as if they wouldn't get her true meaning. He bit his tongue so hard it nearly bled, because for him going up a few flights of stairs was hard exercise, just waking up could make him sweat and vomit and faint on a bad day after however many hours of laying down to do nothing but sleep. He had been starting a new medication, and it was doing remarkably so far, but the only exercises that counted were the ones on some sheet she gave (running/biking/swimming at least _ miles or for at least _ minutes, playing a sport for at least _ hours, etc) and the only one of those he could do on a regular basis was the last, and even then he only did 5 half hour games. He stretched as much as he could, regularly did yoga as it was the easiest way to keep himself in shape, but it was "cardio week" so that didn't count because they needed "variety in their exercise."
Atsumu had listened to him rant for an hour and a half that day, about how the teachers knew he couldn't do all that stuff and still pulled the "no excuses" and "we can't give you special treatment" cards.
We are the reckless
We are the wild youth
Chasing visions of our futures
Often times, ready for a doctors appointments the hospital waiting room, he looked back and wished he had taken more advantage when he was younger. He'd always loved volleyball, hell he became the nations top ace through hard work more than skill, through the long hours he spent fucking around in the gym when he didn't want to let up for the day. He knew he spent almost too much time practicing in high school, but he couldn't help but think that he could've done more, taken advantage of it for longer.
One day we'll reveal the truth
That one will die before he gets there
And if you're still bleeding, you're the lucky ones
'Cause most of our feelings, they are dead and they are gone
We're setting fire to our insides for fun
He was on an IV antibiotic for a month and couldn't go with Atsumu to his game, so he sat in his childhood home, migraine pounding at his head and nausea overriding any hunger, but he was used to it. It hurt like a bitch, no experience could take away the pain, but it wasn't shocking and he could ride it out easily. What he couldn't ride out, were his feelings. He missed Atsumu, badly. He hadn't been on IVs without the constant support of his boyfriend since he was 15, and he terribly missed the corny jokes, gentle doting, and backrubs from the blond. He'd always had a bit of separation anxiety (his early school days were accompanied by lots of tears and tantrums at drop off), and he'd gotten so used to Atsumu's constant presence that the house (and his heart) felt empty without him, even with his mom and brother looking after him most of the time.
Collecting pictures from the flood that wrecked our home
It was a flood that wrecked this
And you caused it
And you caused it
And you caused it
When Atsumu came back, he walked in to find his boyfriend getting in his mom's car to be brought to the hospital. It wasn't all that odd, and he noticed a text saying there would be a quick admission due to blood being coughed up (not very rare, for someone like Sakusa), but the man himself was in distress because of it. He hated the hospital, no matter how used to it he was, and he was, frankly, terrified of going without Atsumu. He knew it would be just a day maximum, a quick appointment to make sure it was normal and didn't carry on too long, but he felt like everything was out of control and he needed some sense of normalcy.
Well I've lost it all, I'm just a silhouette
A lifeless face that you'll soon forget
My eyes are damp from the words you left
Ringing in my head, when you broke my chest
Ringing in my head, when you broke my chest
It was just a day later when Sakusa woke to his boyfriend hyperventilating and crying. He knew without words what had happened, sitting up and bringing the blond into a tight hug, laying his head on his chest so that Atsumu could hear his heartbeat.
Atsumu had his own fear of abandonment. For a long time, he really only had his twin, and even now it was mostly just the two of them that the setter could rely on consistently. He had never told his boyfriend what his nightmares were about, but Osamu had. He knew he dreamed of waking up and finding Sakusa dead, of Osamu leaving, of moving away again. He knew that they could leave Atsumu nonverbal and unable to function, and while he hated that he had to deal with this he also liked being able to help Atsumu for once, help the man who was there when he passed out and vomited and couldn't reach the bathroom in time among a coughing fit and everything else. It helped him with the insecurities calling him a burden.
And if you're in love, then you are the lucky one
'Cause most of us are bitter over someone
Setting fire to our insides for fun
To distract our hearts from ever missing them
But I'm forever missing him
They both knew that one day it wouldn't be a dream, not completely. They knew Sakusa's life expectancy was much lower than a healthy person, even as much as Atsumu tried to ignore it.
And you caused it
And you caused it
And you caused it
Those were the worst nightmares, the ones that could, and will, come true.
[A/N: I haven't a clue what this is I just wrote in my school google meets. Ahsfhajkgafdjak I'm really making these two (and Chrona, if you read my Soul Eater works) suffer today.]
