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“You awake?” he hears from behind him, Ash’s low voice quiet just beside his ear. The arms wrapped around him are sun warmed, dawn’s light crawling in slow through the window by the fire escape.
“Of course,” he replies, but doesn’t say anything more because there’s nothing left to say. His hands grasp the arms grasping him, a mutual gesture of I’ve got you and I won’t let you go.
“You won’t forget me, right?” another question, and Eiji can only imagine what their faces look like in this moment, shuts his eyes and pictures Ash behind him with his head resting just above Eiji’s on the pillow, looking for all the world as if he were asleep. “I can handle a lot of shit, but I couldn’t handle being forgotten by you.”
“How could I ever forget you, Ash?” and the words are heavy and painful leaving his mouth, just saying them makes him want to cry.
“You better keep all of those photographs I know you took, and you better hold on to them. And I want you to get some of the pictures of you that Shunichi took, so I can have a couple.”
Eiji only realizes the pillow is wet beneath his face when he notices the tears running over his face, crossing the bridge of his nose and dripping from his cheeks.
“I will, Ash, you can have them all.”
Ash sighs when he hears that and the arms around Eiji relax the slightest bit.
“Good. I need a part of you to hold on to, for when I can’t hold you.”
“You have me, no matter where we are or where we go,” Eiji tells him. He can feel Ash’s breath against his hair, soft and even. He wants to turn and face him, hold their joined hands to Ash's chest and tell him I am here, all of me is with all of you, but he can’t risk it, can’t kill this moment, can’t shoot and hit the mark.
“You know you have me too, right?” Ash tells him, and his voice is getting quieter. “You’ve got my heart. You’ve got my whole damn soul. Every part of me I’d never give to anyone else, every part no one could ever take.”
“When you go, take me with you.” Eiji doesn’t ask, but he knows his voice sounds like a beggar’s.
“I can’t,” Ash says, “the sun is rising. It’s time for me to sleep. And it’s time for you to wake up.”
“I will wait for you,” Eiji tells him, but Ash must already know.
The first morning light enters through the window by the fire escape, and Eiji wakes up.