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Samatoki wakes with his heart in his throat.
It beats once, twice, three times when Samatoki finally remembers to breathe. He inhales - a pathetic, ragged thing that doesn’t quite make it to his lungs but dislodges his heart. The beating sinks to his chest, pounding and pounding that it’s all Samatoki can hear - the wretched realization that he’s still alive, barely, and unfortunately to some.
He fell asleep, for once, and he wishes he hadn’t.
Fractured images play behind his eyes even though he hasn’t closed them, staring into the darkness of his bedroom. Samatoki remembers the warmth of blood, how real it had felt against the rugged skin of his palms. The warmth lingers.
He lifts his hands from the sheets.
They aren’t stained, not today, and drops them back down to his bed.
Breathing gets easier, then, air filling his lungs through stuttered inhales and exhales.
Whoever said nightmares get easier over time is a liar. Samatoki doesn’t believe in some pipe dream where the past never haunts you, anyway, but it’s still a lie.
His heart still pounds, still reminds him - you’re alive, asshole .
Everyone in his dreams aren’t.
There’s no point in rolling over in bed, not when he knows that sleep is just as unattainable as that pipe dream some people believe in. Samatoki welcomes the night’s chill as he pulls himself out of bed and flicks the bathroom light on.
He looks in the mirror, and for a second, Samatoki thinks there’s someone else staring back at him. The same blood on his palms is caked on the hollows of their cheeks, matches the red of his eyes. He blinks, then it’s just him, and Samatoki tears away his eyes. It wouldn’t be the first time Samatoki’s hungered for the nightmare that stares back at him rather than his own reflection.
The water is cool against his skin when he turns on the tap and splashes his face, relieved yet disappointed that it does not come back red.
Strange how he hates the night’s that are spent washing away blood that may or may not be his own but yearns to see it now; maybe not his blood, but the bastard’s blood diluted and swirling down the drain much like the direction the rest of his life has gone.
He towels off and sits on the lip of the tub, hunching over so his arms rest against his thighs.
Samatoki resists the urge to stare at his palms again, not sure if he’s hoping that they’re crimson and warm and he’s still stuck in his mangled conscious. That he’ll open his eyes a moment later to find that it’s morning and he slept through the night.
His palms are clean and calloused when he finally gives into the urge.
“You look like shit.”
And you’re still here , is what Samatoki doesn’t say when he turns his focus upwards to find Ramuda, whose eyes are just shy of bloodshot, leaning in the doorway of the bathroom.
Ramuda’s wearing just his boxer briefs and a faded, oversized lavender t-shirt that he may have left in Samatoki’s dresser; the t-shirt Samatoki came across the other day and thought that this - they may mean something.
Ramuda, usually, doesn’t spend the night after they have sex, so maybe they do.
Samatoki doesn’t know if Ramuda’s presence and the half-smoked cigarette perched between his fingers is a continuation of his nightmare or a grace from whatever God that took his family, his friends. He doesn’t know, isn’t sure he wants to when he’s like this.
“You mean those two rounds weren’t enough to knock you out for the night?” Ramuda raises an eyebrow, voice a cross between smug and disbelief.
“I don’t see you sleeping like a baby,” his voice comes out rougher, more tired than he intended
Ramuda crosses the threshold and extends the cigarette out to him.
A grace, then.
Samatoki burns through the rest of the cigarette with a single inhale, holding the smoke in his chest until it feels like his lungs will burst and blaze like a forest fire. The smoke furls past his lips in a rush, bathing Ramuda in it until it clears. He flicks the butt of the cigarette into the toilet.
Or Ramuda is a continuation of his nightmare, because he reaches out, cradles Samatoki’s jaw in his hands like he's something precious and forces him to meet his eyes. This close, he can see the exhaustion etched into Ramuda’s features from so many sleepless nights.
Ramuda’s touch is gentle, but his words and eyes are sharp, “Seriously, Samatoki, you act like using a moisturizer is going to kill you.”
You will. You can.
“Too much fuckin’ work,” he sighs, exhaustion still creeping behind his voice.
Ramuda’s thumb brushes underneath his eye, touch feather-light. Again, it’s too gentle, and gentle isn’t something they do. Samatoki watches as Ramuda ever so slightly parts his lips, only to close them. Ramuda’s not going to point out his dark circles even if the phantom swipe of Ramuda’s thumb beneath his eye had said it for him.
Funny, how Ramuda and him are cut from the same cloth.
They don’t always say things with words; instead, it’s a lingering touch outside the bedroom or the extra ashtray Ramuda keeps at his place or the sweet breads in his pantry that are not bought for himself.
“And stop actin’ all high and mighty,” he’s relieved when he sounds a little more like himself, “it’s not gonna kill you to stop eating so much damn candy.”
Relieved, once more, that Ramuda’s voice carries it’s usual tinny, “That’s the pot calling the kettle black, ya’ know? You smoke a pack a day, and I’ve never seen you eat something green.”
“You too, asshole.”
“How bold of you to assume, Samatoki. I could’ve had a salad before coming over,” Samatoki rolls his eyes at the absurd scenario, “always gotta keep my energy up with you.”
“That’d be the funniest shit I’d heard all year if you were tellin’ the truth,” he snorts.
One of Ramuda’s hands may comb through his fringe, push it out of his face, and Samatoki may lean into the touch.
A grace. A nightmare. He’s still not sure.
Samatoki can’t tell if Ramuda is joking or not when he stares down at him, eyes empty, “Guess we’ll have to see who kicks the bucket first.”
That’s when whatever illusion this is starts to crack like a rock thrown at a windshield. Samatoki knows it when his palms feel the warmth of blood again, heart stuttering in his chest. Ramuda knows it, too, when the hand in his hair twitches and falters between moving or staying. It was the wrong thing to say. It was the wrong way to react, because now it’s there - a moment to be honest; a moment to not pretend that Samatoki dreams of the death that follows him in his waking life; a moment to not pretend that Ramuda’s on borrowed time.
There’s the t-shirt Ramuda wears, that had been set on top of Samatoki’s own shirts like it was meant to be seen.
The illusion shatters, and he can hear the shards of glass crack and hit the bathroom floor in his ears.
Samatoki slumps forward, out of hands that can help or hurt him, and presses his forehead into Ramuda’s middle. The t-shirt has the faint smell of his detergent and something so distinctly Ramuda.
They don’t say anything, but that’s just them, isn’t it? This is how they’re meant to be, nothing more.
He feels Ramuda hand card through his hair, through the fine strands at the nape of his neck, down the bare skin of his shoulder. Ramuda repeats the sequence like he’s taming a startled, feral cat. It’s a little too raw, too tender, for him and for Ramuda. Though it’s not like Samatoki really knows if this is barring on too much for either of them, considering they’re rarely honest.
They aren’t meant to be honest, aren’t meant to be more yet Samatoki swallows down the budding realization that when they are, it’s like they were destined to peel each other’s skin back until there’s just bone.
It scares him more than the dreams and the death that follows him like a loyal dog.
“You’re lucky you even fell asleep,” because sometimes, that’s why they seek each other out like moths to a flame, hoping that an orgasm or two is enough to fall asleep.
“Wouldn’t say I’m lucky,” he mumbles against Ramuda, “but I’d be lyin’ if I said you didn’t look like shit, too.”
Samatoki wants to ask why Ramuda stayed if he didn’t fall asleep, but he doesn’t - shouldn’t.
Ramuda’s hand deviates from the sequence and moves back to cup his jaw, tilting Samatoki’s face up to meet blue, red-rimmed irises once more. It’s the second time where Ramuda falters, lips parting just to close again just like Samatoki had held back asking why.
“Wanna get black-out drunk?” is what Ramuda does say, and that pulls a laugh out of Samatoki’s chest.
It’s like time rewinds and the shattered glass floats up and off the floor and is pieced back together, made whole again and stronger than before. Samatoki supposes that’s for the best, for now, at least.
“What time is it?” Samatoki humors him, resisting the urge to lean into Ramuda’s touch.
"Does it even matter?" he hears a tiny crack in the glass when Samatoki thinks there's a fondness in Ramuda's laugh.
"No, guess it doesn't."
The warmth of Ramuda’s palm against his jaw lingers when they move to the kitchen, but Samatoki doesn’t try to dwell on it. It’s easier, after all, to pour themselves a glass of whiskey than it is to be honest.