Work Text:
o/~
迷い込んだ 森の中で
君は道をなくした迷子
月のしずく 星の形も
見えないまま 君は泣いてるの
~/o
Ace can’t sleep.
This is not a new or notable problem, except that he’s more exhausted than usual and his most desperate desire is to lose himself to the sweet freedom of slumber. His entire body aches from too many squats and a weekend of sleeping on the hard ground, but even now that he’s safely back in his marshmallow dorm room bed, his mind won’t shut up and grant him some peace.
The blanket is pulled up almost all the way over his head and a favorite song is looping on his phone, but all efforts to lull himself into relaxing seem to be failing. It reminds him far too keenly of their very first week at school, which would make sense, considering that the whole experience has a definite slice of deja vu about it.
He doesn’t want to be thinking about the monster they fought this morning, but he also can’t get the image out of his mind.
Perhaps it’s a good thing that he hasn’t been able to fall asleep yet, though, because it means he’s not jarred awake by the sudden patter of footfall that comes from Deuce’s side of the room just before he nearly crashes into Ace’s bed.
Before Ace even has the chance to sit up, roll over or even say anything, Deuce lifts the edge of the blanket and crawls into Ace’s bed from behind. Ace doesn’t move as Deuce slides one arm around him, but he can’t help the sharp inhale of surprise at how cold Deuce’s hand feels against his stomach, even through the fabric of his shirt.
“...Deuce?” he whispers into the darkness of the room, barely audible over the soft music and the ever-present background noise of their snoring roommate.
“I’m sorry,” Deuce whispers into Ace’s hair, his breathing ragged and uneven as he clutches at Ace. “Please… don’t make fun of me.”
Deuce’s words have a vulnerability to them that Ace never sees by the light of day and any thought of mocking him dies immediately. Nodding enough for Deuce to feel it, he instead slides his own hand until it covers Deuce’s, interlacing their fingers.
It’s only then that he realizes that Deuce is shivering – shaking, vibrating – as he presses himself up against the warmth of Ace’s back. “You okay?” Ace murmurs softly, even though he already knows the answer is no.
There’s a beat of silence before Deuce finally huffs out a single word, his breath tickling the back of Ace’s neck. “...nightmare.”
Ace could prod his boyfriend further, but he knows Deuce well enough by now to be sure that the details will tumble out if he simply has a little patience. Even more so, he already has the sinking feeling that the nightmares rousing Deuce are the same ones keeping Ace from sleep, yet another echo from that first week.
Deuce is quiet for a long moment, willing his racing heart to calm down as Ace’s warmth slowly seeps into him. The dream had been so very vivid, far too uncomfortably real, but he can’t decide if talking about it will help or make him feel worse. Ace’s thumb is slowly stroking over the back of Deuce’s hand, though, and it gives him courage to take another breath and at least try. “In the mines…” he starts softly, swallowing once before continuing. “I… I was running… and it was chasing me.”
“Didn’t you just make a cauldron to hide in?” Ace’s tone is light, with just a hint of teasing he hopes will pull Deuce out of the ugly nightmare and back to reality.
“I… Deuce whispers, shivering again even as Ace’s words pull apart the fading wisps of the dream. “Yeah, I did, but...”
“But…?” Ace does prompt him this time as Deuce trails off again.
But Deuce doesn’t answer this time, and the combination of Ace’s genuine worry and curious impatience finally urge him into action. Suddenly rolling over, he takes both of Deuce’s ice cold hands between his two warm ones and hooks one leg over the other boy’s ankle, tangling them together.
Face to face with the blanket over their heads, there’s nothing in this little cave but the two of them.
The light emanating from Ace’s phone’s screen, tucked under the edge of the pillow, radiates just enough of a glow for Ace to make out Deuce’s face inside the tent they’ve now formed with the blanket. Deuce’s eyes are dilated in the darkness, with only the slightest sliver of green around the edges, and still possess a wild and startled fear he hasn’t quite shaken off yet.
Ace hasn’t forgotten how strung out Deuce had been when they’d found him hiding inside that cauldron, but he can’t help the sneaking suspicion that there’s more to the nightmare than just a repeat of reality. “It must have been really scary...” he murmurs, being purposefully vague with his words.
Deuce is used to Ace constantly giving him shit, but the softness in his boyfriend’s voice reminds him of the first time they’d ever shared a bed, on another night where neither of them wanted to be alone with their thoughts or feelings. He finally relaxes a little, honest feelings beginning to tumble out. “I was stuck there all night – terrified, exhausted, hungry, alone… without my phone, without my magic pen...”
“Having our magic pens taken away was the lowest of lows,” Ace mutters in agreement, squeezing Deuce’s hands, pleased when Deuce squeezes them back this time.
“The worst,” Deuce huffs back in annoyance. “I kept thinking that I maybe could have gotten out of that cave on my own, if I’d had my pen… but without it, I felt way more helpless than the night we were there with Grim and Yuu.”
“It was scary today even with half a dozen of our friends,” Ace gnaws at his bottom lip in a second of hesitation before admitting, “I can’t even imagine how much worse it would have been alone.”
“I thought about you.” The words are out before Deuce has time to overthink them, and his cheeks flush sharply as he scrambles to make it sound less sentimental. “Thought about… about how much you were gonna laugh at me, when you finally came to find me.”
“I would have come sooner,” Ace assures him immediately, his lips quirking down in a sharp frown. “I absolutely would have noticed a hell of a lot sooner if I hadn’t been on the other side of the mountain.”
“Yeah, I know...” Deuce says, trailing off awkwardly, eyes askance despite their faces being only inches apart, sharing the pillow.
“What?” Ace snaps back sharply, wounded. “You don’t believe me?”
“No, I do… I… “ Deuce stammers, a sudden wave of guilt washing over him. “I just feel awful that I didn’t notice you were missing that first night.”
“Psh… some boyfriend you are...” Ace grumbles, but he can tell he’s finally sufficiently distracted Deuce – his hands are warmer and he’s no longer shaking. “Come on, I know how busy Vargas was keeping everyone.”
“I am sorry, though...” Deuce murmurs again, drawing one of Ace’s hands up to lips and kissing his knuckles, enjoying the way it never fails to make his boyfriend fluster.
“I thought about you, too, y’know,” Ace finally admits, pulling his hand away from Deuce’s as he feels the sudden flush in his cheeks spread down his neck. “When I was stuck doing squats, and setting up another fuckin’ tent by myself...” Ace has the nerve to give Deuce a cheeky little grin before concluding. “I thought about how much you were gonna mock me for getting pulled out of the training camp.”
Deuce finally cracks a smile in return. “It’s your own fault for being a slacker.”
“Meh,” Ace scoffs. “I hadn’t even actually goofed off yet. I was merely considering it as I traipsed through the woods and then…” He trails off with an embarrassed little rumble. “And then Vargas scared the shit out of me.”
“Wish I coulda seen it.”
“No, you don’t.”
Deuce is snickering softly now, trying to keep from being too noisy. “Definitely better than hiding all night from… from...” But he suddenly sobers as his train of thought circles back to his nightmare, closing his eyes and swallowing hard before finally blurting out the truth in a choked up little whisper. “I was terrified I was going to overblot. Without my pen.”
“Oh…” Ace feels his heart rate pick up a little at the thought, his chest tightening with the flash of memories of the overblots of their fellow students that they’ve witnessed so far. “I… I guess I hadn’t really thought about it in that way...”
“That’s… that’s what my nightmare was about,” Deuce finally confesses, shivering again with the memory. “The monster broke my cauldron. It found me and I tried to fight without my pen and I… I was alone, so there was no one to stop me and I - ” Deuce shakes his head, stricken, unable to continue, pressing his curled up fist to his mouth.
“Hey….hey, deep breath,” Ace whispers, lifting one hand to pry Deuce’s hand from his face. “You’re not alone anymore. It’s okay, you don’t have to – I get it – I – you – you’re not the only one who’s had bad dreams about overblotting, okay?”
“You have?”
“Of course I have...” Ace closes his eyes briefly, letting the memories rise to the surface, unpleasant as they are. “Especially that first week, when we were up close and personal with Riddle when he overblotted? Watching people literally high on magic, losing themselves to their own power, their own inner demons? You really think I haven’t ever had nightmares about that? Or about overblotting myself?”
It’s more than Ace even means to say because he’s kept it bottled up for ages and this time it’s Deuce’s turn to reach out as Ace’s whispered words reach a fevered, almost panicked sort of cadence. Finding Ace’s shoulder with one hand, he squeezes hard and nods fiercely in understanding. “I don’t wanna believe that it could happen, but - ”
“But we’ve seen far more powerful mages than us lose control,” Ace finishes their shared thought and shudders out a sigh, grounded again by Deuce’s touch.
“...maybe we should be glad we’re not that powerful yet?” Deuce attempts to smile, but it comes out more like a grimace.
Ace groans softly and knocks their foreheads together. “But someday, Deuce... someday we’re gonna be. You have to believe that as much as I do or...”
“Obviously,” Deuce murmurs, the hand on Ace’s shoulder moving slowly until his fingers curl into the hair at the nape of Ace’s neck, pulling them apart until their eyes meet again. “But tell me, if I ever did… overblot…”
Deuce doesn’t even need to finish the question for Ace to have the answer. Eyes narrowing, he meets Deuce’s gaze and whispers. “I’d kick your fucking ass.”
“And I’d kick yours,” Deuce smirks, sharp and determined. “Should it ever come to that.”
“Then it’s a promise?” Ace grins back, eyes fierce and bright in the dim glow of their shared space.
Deuce finds Ace most irresistible when there’s fire in his eyes and he uses the hand in Ace’s hair to draw him closer as he answers. “It’s a promise.” Their lips brush together with the whisper of the words before he seals them with a kiss.
Ace kisses him back – soft, but certain – and then they melt into all of the comfort and connection and reassurance that they’d been unable give each other while apart.
This. This is what they’d both held onto to make it through long, lonely, scary nights. This is what will chase the nightmares away and this is what will see them through, again and again, when harder nights undoubtedly arise.
Deuce’s hands card through Ace’s hair as Ace’s arms slide around him, fingertips seeking now-warm skin where shirt and pants meet.
Ace mouths the words of the song playing on a loop and then they meet again, open-mouthed and breathy, losing themselves in a kiss that slows out until they fall asleep sharing the same air, utterly uncaring if anyone finds them together this way in the morning.
o/~
Baby don’t cry
そばにいるよ
僕の声よ届いて
baby, my love, love, love
So you can try
涙を拭いて
君はもうひとりじゃない
I'm with you
~/o