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Wrists and knives and bed frames and cameras around necks and—his knees shake and his body trembles and there’s laughter laughter his own voice begging to be heard—
Ash flings himself to a sitting position, practically heaving. Disgust and fear and visceral anger and so many things he doesn’t have a body big enough to feel—
Eiji’s bed is right there, his frame practically glimmering with yearning in the dark. His shoulders, and his neck and arms and his hair and his hands that can card through Ash’s adversity with the gentleness of a golden comb—
Ash flips onto his back and stares at the ceiling. Eiji. His heart is still pounding, and he wants to talk to Eiji about it. He wants to shake him awake and cry and sob into his arms, and have him tell him it’s all gonna be alright—that he’s loved—that this pain is manageable.
He sits up again. There’s a chunk of mattress that Eiji isn’t taking up. Ash could curl up quietly by his side, warm and safe and okay under the blankets.
Maybe he’d hold you. Ash thinks, and the thought of anything like that happening makes tears spring up into his eyes. Maybe he’d hold you close, and stroke your back, and tell you that this is nothing. That it’s alright. That this doesn’t scare him, even if it scares you.
Ash is stronger—he’s more of a catalyst to safety than Eiji—but sometimes Ash wants to play dumb and curl up into a ball and cry for Eiji because he’s older and softer and he can protect me too if I ever asked him—
That’s it. Ash sits up in bed. The mattress shifts, and his hesitance is coming in waves. One second he can do it—and the next? He’s pink down to his collarbone, worrying his lip between his teeth.
Ash stares at him in the dark for a few seconds longer, before swinging his legs over the side of the bed and crossing the space between them. He lifts the edge of Eiji’s blanket, and slides in. The warmth is almost immediate—it’s hot, and soft, and Eiji stirs the very second Ash’s head touches their suddenly shared pillow.
“Ash?” He’s in too deep now. Whatever. Ash keeps his head down, like that’ll make any difference. His crown is pressed up against Eiji’s shoulder, and Eiji shifts to his side.
And puts an arm around him, drawing his face into his chest.
“What happened?” His voice is so tired—but soft. And his hands—ah. Ash shivers. His hands are so warm, stroking up and down his back. Eiji’s heartbeat is steady. Ash moves closer.
“Just another nightmare.” Ash swallows, embarrassed at how small he sounds. Eiji hooks a leg over and around his hips—his body—they’re so close—it’s getting hard for Ash to formulate any coherent thoughts. Eiji makes him stupid. Eiji makes it hard to think. Eiji makes him nervous, with the urge to calculate every single one of his thoughts in order to control his image like a motherfucker—but the inability to think over the sound of his own pounding heart.
“What was it about?” Eiji asks, and it sounds so genuine, like he cares. Non judgmental and painfully sweet. Ash squeezes his eyes shut to try and formulate a response.
“Was it like—“ Eiji shifts to draw him closer, and it makes Ash’s face hot. He can barely hold it together when Eiji hugs him, or touches his arm. He’s always torn between wanting more and wanting to run off out of shyness like a little boy. He hasn’t been shy about the most intimate of things since he was seven, but when Eiji looks in his direction it’s the most embarrassing thing in the world. “Was it about something going on right now? With banana fish? Or was it something that happened when you were little? Or something unrelated like an anxiety dream?”
Ash clears his throat.
“It was—when I was a kid. But not an exact memory, it was in the same room? But—there were different people. It just all blends together into things that are happening or about to happen,” Ash shuts his eyes to explain, face in Eiji’s pajama shirt. The arms around him tighten, but there’s a beat of silence. “And now you’re not saying anything. Haha.”
“I wanted to make sure you were finished,” Eiji promises, reaching up to smooth his hair back. “Do you want to talk about what was happening?”
“Uh—“ Ash’s throat tightens, so much that he can hardly breathe without crying. He’s soaking tears into Eiji’s shirt, and he hopes Eiji doesn’t notice. “Well—I—“
There aren’t any words, most of the time. It’s not something he can just describe clinically, with actions or past reflections—he can’t ever capture the burning, and the ache, the feeling of absolutely nothing at all. He just lets out a sob, and Eiji leans down to press his lips to the top of his head.
“It hurts to speak?” He asks, and Ash just sobs again, crying a little harder. Eiji urges him on, twining a hand in his hair and letting him hiccup and gasp in earnest. “Oh, Ash. Ash—it’s okay. It’ll be alright—“
Ash just shakes in his arms, tell me it’s not that bad. Tell me I can get through this.
“You’re so strong.” Eiji murmurs, his lips close to Ash’s ear. Every few seconds, he exhales, shifting and pressing a few kisses to his cheek, right by his jaw. They’re so so close, and Ash doesn’t know what it means, but dear god if he doesn’t want it—
He whimpers, body trembling, and part of him wants to say “this is what I look like when I cry, Eiji. Are you going to stay?” But the answer is more horrific than the vulnerability. The fear that Eiji won’t playfully quip back and forth with him when the morning comes—fuck. Ash’s face is wet, throat thick from crying. Heart pounding and body aching and Eiji might as well be looking directly inside of him like his skin is made of glass.
“I’ve got you—“ he doesn’t stop with the comfort, reaching a hand down and physically hooking one of Ash’s legs over his own waist. Rubbing his palm up and down it. Touching his waist, his arms, his face. If Ash wasn’t crying, he’d be speechless with fluster, red from sparks and crush rather than tears.
“I’m not going anywhere. You’re safe with me—“ Eiji always knows what to say to make Ash melt a little bit inside. He lets himself be touched, embraces kisses to his cheeks, his forehead. Let’s himself pretend Eiji’s right, that he could possibly be safe somewhere, with someone, and that there’s just the smallest speck of a chance that Eiji loves or cares for him at all.
His chest rises and falls, and he’s settling down. It feels good, crying to someone that isn’t yourself in the mirror. Being held by arms that aren’t your own, wrapped around you— don’t look at me— it’s good. Ash is calming down. Eiji is scratching the back of his head.
Eiji is still there, after his final cries and gasps. Eiji stays once his breathing evens out. Eiji kisses the top of his head again, inhaling sharply against his hair like he wants to be close to Ash too.
“It’s going to be okay,” Eiji promises, and Ash holds onto his words like gospel. Because he has to. “I’m going to stay here, with you, no matter what.”
“Please,” Ash can’t even recognize his own voice, it’s so desperate, “promise?”
“I promise.” Eiji tilts their foreheads together, and Ash has a flicker of a school girl crush’s thought about their lips brushing. About passion, about being young and close and with a stutter in his heart. Their breathing mingles, but Eiji keeps a distance so they can look into each other’s eyes.
Ash looks away, out of shyness, because if Eiji could read his mind he’d melt. If Eiji saw his pupils flare, his face flush when merely being held by him, Ash would have no choice but to surrender to the feeling.
Love is such a guilty word.
“Look at me,” Eiji breathes, and despite having no choice but to look away, Ash’s eyes always dart wherever Eiji tells them to. Wrapped around his finger, cutting off his circulation. “It’s going to be okay. We have each other. You will get through this.” Eiji states every sentence like it’s a face, and Ash breaks a little bit more after each one.
“Okay.” He nods, and Eiji cups his cheek, shutting his own eyes.
“Let’s go to sleep, okay?” Ash would do anything Eiji asked him to. He’d sleep soundly for the rest of his life if it was in his arms. He’d never cry for his mother again.
“Okay.” Ash answers, and Eiji strokes behind the shell of his ear.
“I love you, Ash.” It’s honest, and Eiji somehow looks at him when he says it, like he’s not afraid of anything at all. Who is protecting who? Ash is weak. Ash is rubbing their noses together, but can’t bring himself to kiss Eiji without an excuse.
“I—“ he can’t quite say it back. It hurts to speak. “Again?” He asks, selfish, but Eiji doesn’t see it like that, bringing himself closer, like he’s whispering a secret.
“I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you. I love you. I—“
The sun always rises.