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Hinata startles awake at the crash of thunder, which shakes the ground so much that he mistakes it for a small earthquake until he registers the wind and rain battering the tent.
Blinking back the bleariness, Hinata feels around in the dark, finding nothing but the scratchy material of the empty sleeping bag beside him. Panic claws its way up his throat. He didn't fall asleep alone.
Lightning casts a dark relief of the forest against the walls of the tent, and Hinata sees Ushijima sitting where his feet had been, near the zippered entrance. Darkness falls once again, and thunder rumbles in the distance.
The metal bits of his sleeping bag press into his knees as Hinata crawls closer and reaches for Ushijima. He worries about the security of the tent only briefly before he realizes Ushijima is shivering.
Hinata is awake in an instant, and he scrambles for one of their blankets to drape around Ushijima’s shoulders and stave away whatever this is, whatever this awful thing is that’s happening.
"Wakatoshi." Hinata doesn't really know why he whispers his name. Something about the storm commands that he be quiet, but he defies it and repeats his name, this time louder.
As soon as he says it, lightning illuminates their tent again, followed closely by loud and lingering booms of thunder that sound far too close to their camp. Hinata feels more than sees Ushijima flinch. He’s facing away from him, with his knees drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around his legs.
He’s trying to be small, Hinata realizes, with a pang in his chest. Ushijima, who’s always been anything but small, is trying to shrink into himself.
"Go back to sleep, Shouyou." The hollowness in Ushijima’s voice is more frightening than the storm. He doesn’t look up or touch him back. “I will keep you safe and wait for this to pass before returning to bed.”
The way Ushijima keeps his hands clenched instead of reaching out for him makes Hinata ache, and he doesn't know if he's allowed to see and know what this is when he’s never seen Ushijima so terrified.
But Hinata pushes. Pushing got him this far, and he wants to fix this badly enough that it would kill him not to try.
"Hey," Hinata murmurs, soft and low. "Hey, Wakatoshi, look at me."
He gently takes Ushijima's face in his small hands, cupping his cheeks and brushing beneath his eyes with his thumbs, but his skin is dry.
“Was it a nightmare?” Hinata asks once Ushijima meets his eyes, a haunted look on his face. “Or something else? What’s wrong?”
Hinata’s instinct is to keep pushing and poking and prying until Ushijima tells him so he can get to the bottom of this, but he understands that Ushijima might still be processing himself. He’s spooked by Ushijima’s behavior for sure, but impatience won’t help here.
So Hinata pulls his hands away and waits, touching his toe to Ushijima’s foot to let him know he’s ready whenever Ushijima is.
The storm tapers off into a gentle shower. There’s no more lightning to interrupt the darkness, the sound of thunder replaced by their breathing, and then Ushijima’s voice.
“Dreams are not so scary when compared to life.”
Hinata tilts his head at the cryptic response, relieved that at the very least, Ushijima has chosen to let him in. It gives him courage, and he fusses at Ushijima’s hands until they relax from their invisible grip on whatever he’s struggling with, lacing their fingers together and squeezing.
"I do not have many memories of my father, and even less are good.” Ushijima pauses to take a deep breath. "But the night he left, there was a storm.
"He was already gone, but I ran out after him and got lost. When they finally found me I was ill for some time -- I do not remember exactly what the sickness was or how long it afflicted me, but my mother had to take time off from work to tend to me, which still weighs on my conscience."
“But she’s your mother! She’s supposed to --”
Ushijima doesn’t let him finish. “I should not have tried to chase him.”
The words are harsher than before, and Hinata can’t tell if the change in Ushijima’s tone is for the better.
“You were losing your father,” he says, bitter at the unfairness of it all. “And you were a kid so you couldn’t have known better. Someone should have stopped you.”
Ushijima sighs. “Neither you nor I can change the past.”
Hinata grumbles something to the contrary, but Ushijima continues over him. "Presently, I do not mind the rain, but storms -- the thunder, the lightning, the wind -- they are different."
Ushijima doesn’t have to explain further, but Hinata understands. Thunderstorms take him back to that time of grief and terror, and the wounds are still as fresh as on that day.
“Thank you,” Hinata tries to say, for telling me, but the world outside their tent flashes white again, and thunder rolls, silence falling for a few moments before the sky opens up again.
There’s no time for Hinata to be scared; he clambers forward into Ushijima’s space and wraps his arms around him underneath the blanket, reaching up to guide his head to the crook of his shoulder holding him steady as the storm carries on in its rage.
Ushijima latches onto him, his shaky breaths puffing warmly against Hinata’s neck.
“I’ve got you,” Hinata croaks. He’s more afraid for Ushijima than he is for himself or for their tent, which shifts with the gusts of rain but remains otherwise unmoved. “I’ve got you.”
Hinata would fight the stupid storm itself if he could, but instead he focuses on holding Ushijima together and getting him through this until the storm passes for good. He hurts for Ushijima, who’s held onto this hurt for so long. In all the time they’d spent together, which was enough that Hinata trusted Ushijima enough to take them camping, how had he never noticed this crucial detail?
He looks up at the feeling of wetness on his skin, thinking that there must be a hole in the ceiling of the tent, before he realizes that Ushijima’s breathing has grown more ragged and uneven.
He’s sobbing.
Hinata says nothing about the tears. He saves his breath for whispering into Ushijima’s hair, lips pressed to his scalp, alternating between kisses and promises.
"I'm here, I'm here, I'm here."
And all Hinata can do is hope Ushijima would hold on and believe him.