Work Text:
3-5-15
Prompt: Handle with Care
Pairing: Marinka
Rating: G
It wasn’t all that unusual, the day Makoto came home to find Rin laying in bed with a suspiciously Haru-shaped lump. Makoto met Rin’s eye and sighed quietly, dropping his bag and shucking out of his pants to crawl in on the lump’s other side, wrapping his arms around it without a word. Rin leaned across the lump to give Makoto a kiss hello, and then the three of them lay perfectly still for what could have been a few minutes or a few hours before the lump moved.
Haru poked his head out of the sheets and wriggled around until he could reciprocate his lovers’ embrace. He lay back against Makoto’s chest, holding his arms out for Rin to snuggle up beside him, which he did without question.
“Are you feeling up to eating something?” Makoto whispered into Haru’s hair. Haru nodded slowly. “It’s okay, I know you don’t want to cook,” Makoto assured him. “We’ll order some takeout in a minute.” Haru nodded again, releasing Rin as the redhead stood. He returned a moment later with a glass of water which he offered to his boyfriend.
“Thanks,” Haru murmured, barely audible. Rin just hummed in response and climbed back into bed. They spent the rest of the night there, eating takeout and holding each other, not really talking or doing anything at all. When Haru fell asleep, the other two exchanged a tired, worried look before pulling the covers up and following him.
It had started when they were all still in high school. Rin had seen it coming even before that disastrous race at regionals, but he had hoped that the trip to Australia had helped him get over it. It wasn’t until almost a full year later, when Rin was home visiting for a bit of the summer that he realized that Haru’s problem went much, much deeper than what could be fixed with a little trip. He had canceled his registration for the next semester in Sydney and enrolled in a school in Tokyo, moving into Haru’s apartment without a word to him or to Makoto. The fight it had sparked had been legendary. Makoto had started crying ten minutes in and hadn’t stopped until he’d fallen asleep with his head in Rin’s lap that night. Haru didn’t say a word to Rin for a week, but he eventually allowed not only Rin, but Makoto as well to drop themselves into his apartment and the most intimate parts of his life.
Rin and Makoto had made a deal, a week after they had moved into Haru’s place, never to talk to Haru about his depression when he was having a particularly low day or when he was in a particularly good mood. They saved those talks for the in-between days, the quiet times when the three of them acknowledged what they were as individuals and as a trio. It was on one of those nights that Makoto, a little drunk and a little sleep-deprived, had stumbled through a rather impressive confession of his feelings for both of them. Rin and Haru had watched him, silent and amused, until he finished his speech with an Amakata-esque finger in the air and flopped down on the floor in front of them.
“You’re going to do that again when you’re sober.” Haru had spoken first, and Rin was proud to say he could hear the smile in his voice.
“He’s right, but thank you for doing it drunk first,” Rin had laughed. Makoto had just smiled up at them in that child-like way of his.
The next afternoon had been the first of the blanket lumps. Rin had been planning a rather spectacular night out, if he didn’t say so himself, when he had swaggered his way into the bedroom to find Haru under all the covers and canceled all their plans immediately. That was the night they considered their real anniversary, when all three of them were entirely too sober and entirely too solemn, but they had hashed out exactly what they were to each other and then spent the night watching a sappy romance movie that was 100% Not Rin’s.
Haru woke the next morning before either of the others, waiting for the usual weight of guilt to settle in. Every time it happened, he knew he was pulling Rin and Makoto down with them, taking them away from their otherwise normal, happy lives, but he knew better than to mention this to either of them. Makoto’s serious lectures were rare, but they were not to be taken lightly. He also knew about the little velvet box stashed at the back of Makoto’s sock drawer, had overheard his and Rin’s conversation the day they had bought it.
“I know, Rin,” Makoto had whined, “but I want to ask him now.” Rin had chuckled, the noise warming Haru’s heart.
“I know, babe,” Rin had answered. “But it’s important. We need to handle it with care. It’s our forever, after all.” Haru blushed at the memory, thinking that forever was starting to look pretty damn good. So he slipped out of bed and grabbed the box while the other two slept on, slipping the ring with the blue stone inlaid onto his finger, waiting for them to wake so they could get started on it.