Work Text:
Io took a sharp breath as he was pulled forward into a sitting position gasping for the air that didn’t seem to want to fill his burning lungs. The lingering of images of the previous dream now slowly faded into the darkness of his room but even with the images gone, the unsettling feeling deep inside his stomach was still threating to consume him from the inside out. Grasping his arm out, he grabbed his phone of the nightstand. 1:30 am, he had only been asleep an hour and a half. It had been hard enough to fall asleep before and now sitting up in the bed he knew laying back down would do nothing. If he laid back down either he would spend the night watching the ceiling above his bed or falling back into that same nightmare as before, neither of which seemed like an appealing offer.
Sliding off his bed, he grabbed his shoes from underneath, sliding them on without bothering with socks. He grabbed his jacked from the hook by the door before quietly making his way downstairs and out the door being careful to avoid the squeaky third step and the creaky door that always let out a moan if pulled too quickly. The air outside was cool enough that his jacket provided enough body warmth, but it did make him wish he had taken the time to put on a pair of socks. After debating a moment he briefly considered going back and putting on a pair of socks, but before he could even decide his feet were already moving away from his house and down the quiet night street.
On an average day, it would take Io roughly fifteen minutes to get from his house to Ryuu’s apartment, but even though he didn’t have his phone to judge the time it couldn’t have been more than eight minutes. Reaching out, Io knocked on the door before realizing how stupid that was considering how his mom might have been sleeping or he could have been sleeping. Ryuu should be sleeping after such an exhausting day. Io should have been sleeping, not showing up at his friend’s house in the middle of the night wearing nothing but a coat and his pajama pants.
“Mom did you forget your keys again?” Ryuu laughed from the other side of the door, but there was a tired tone to his voice. The door swung open to show an equally tired face, though his smile had dropped and his head had tilted to the side with a raised eyebrow. “You’re not my mom.”
Io shifted slightly, trying to hide how awkward he felt standing there in his pajamas. “Hi.”
Ryuu laughed softly and rolled his eyes, “did you forget your keys?” He asked, leaning against the doorway, his body practically buried by the extremely fluffy robe he was wearing.
Io looked down at his pajama pants, they didn’t even have pockets for keys. “I guess I did.” He admitted, wondering why he didn’t think to grab his keys off his desk before he left. They had been sitting right there on his desk and more importantly it had Ryuu’s apartment key on it.
“Well come on, my feet are getting cold standing here.” He complained, with a small annoyed scowl as he looked down and wiggled his bare toes. Without waiting for a reply he grabbed Io’s arm and dragged him back to his tiny bedroom. Io kicked off his shoes and sat down on the bed as Ryuu stripped off his robe and flopped back down on the bed next to him.
The two sat in silence for a few moments before Io turned to Ryuu and looked him over carefully. “Are you okay?” There were a few good bruises on his arms and legs from earlier but that didn’t mean there weren’t some things that he couldn’t see.
“You came over here in the middle of the night to see if I was okay?” Ryuu asked, sitting up on his elbows. It sounded stupid and childish when Ryuu said it out loud. If it had been anyone else he would have asked them in the morning. What made Ryuu different? Of course this was partly his own fault, he had pushed him knowing very well Ryuu was never one to keep his emotions in check, especially when he was hurt. Maybe that was why it felt different. Or it could have been because if the roles had been reverse, he was certain Ryuu would have been texting him non-stop asking if he was okay.
“Hey.” Ryuu said, grabbing his hand and giving it a small squeeze, drawing him out of his thoughts. “I’m fine. Just a few bruises.” He brought their still locked hands up to show Io the purple colored bruise on his wrist. “I’ve had worse.” As if that made it better.
Looking down at the bruise on his wrist, he brought his free hand up to stroke the bruise as soft as possible. “I should have protected you better.”
“Stop that!” Ryuu nudged him with his shoulder. “You saved me. Nobody else. It was you.”
There were only a few times Ryuu was ever truly serious, so it was times like these that Io felt like the most important person in the world because he was one of the few people who could see how serious Ryuu Zaou could be. It was almost too surreal to think that if he hadn’t gone back, if he had kept walking, he could have been seriously hurt, or worse. Thinking of those metal claws wrapped around Ryuu made him shutter. “I don’t know if I could have lived with myself if something had happened to you.”
Ryuu tilted his head to the side confused. “It was a tickle machine. Yeah it sucked, but it wasn’t going to kill me or anything.”
“You don’t know that!” Io snapped. “I had dreamed it had keep going and slowly dissected you. What if I had left for good? What if I came back and you were gone and that thing had killed you before I got a chance to save you? I couldn’t handle that. I would have lost you and it would have been my fault because I left!” His breath was running short and he could feel himself gasping for breath. He knew Ryuu was next to him breathing but just repeating the dream had him back in the middle of the courtyard with Ryuu laying there cover in blood.
“Hey.” Ryuu said softly tightening his grip on his hand. “Is that what this is about? A bad dream?” Io nodded, looking down at his lap. Reaching out, Io felt Ryuu lift his chin with his free hand and turning it to face him. “It was just a dream, isn’t that what you always tell me? You came back, you didn’t leave. You made the right choice.” He reminded him before adding. “It took you longer than it should have, of course, but you came around.”
“Yeah, I did.” Money was nice, but money couldn’t comfort him from nightmares or remind him he was doing the right thing. That was just Ryuu. Ryuu was a lot of things, but something that could be bought wasn’t one of them. “I love you.”
Leaning forward, Ryuu kissed him softly on the lips and he closed his eyes taking in the moment. After a minute he pulled back as Ryuu leaned forward to rest his head on Io’s forehead. “Does that mean we can finally go to sleep?”
With a smile, Io leaned back against the bed, pulling the light cord as he did, allowing the room to be lit by just the city lights outside the window that lit up the room like artificial stars. Io wrapped his arms around Ryuu who snuggled into his chest, his pink hair falling in every which way around him. With the cold pit in his stomach replaced with the warmth in his chest, he finally allowed himself to close his eyes and allowed sleep to creep up on him again. Or at least he would have if there hadn’t been a loud knocking coming from outside the apartment followed by “Ryuu sweetie, I think I forgot my keys”.
Ryuu buried his face in Io’s chest with a long whine. “You people really need to learn to use you keys.”