Archive of Our Own ^beta

It was warm inside at least. The heater was on, and he sat in bed with a blanket over himself and his computer in his lap, perched on a pillow instead of directly on his legs. Even with today being a small break, he had a headache from trying to catch up on school work and papers, but he still sat with his hands on the keyboard, typing very slowly.

Akaashi walked in with a cup of coffee in his hand, a small book tucked under his arm. He paused to let his eyes flit over Suga as he dumped his book on his desk. "Shouldn't you take a break?" he asked. 

Suga rubbed the back of his head with a tired smile. "I'm almost done."

"You've been in bed for hours. At least move to the library," Akaashi said. He returned Suga's tone with his own grumble, although Akaashi wasn't tired at all. He was tired of Suga's stubbornness, but he was personally well rested and didn't have anything to work on. 

Suga shifted on the bed, his neck bent to look at his screen. His mouth twisted in a guilty, knowing, small smile for a moment after Akaashi said that. It pressed back together in a concentrated line as his eyes returned to his laptop.

Akaashi stepped forward and hovered his hand over the top of his computer. "Really. Take a break." He lowered his hand and tilted the laptop down at a sharp enough angle to obscure the screen.

Suga looked up with a frown pinching his mouth, straightening defensively. "I'll stop in a little while!"

"You never mean it." Akaashi closed it completely and nudged it to the side. 

Suga watched and let Akaashi push it away, still frowning. "Why'd you do that?" 

Akaashi walked away to sit at his desk, sipping his coffee as he pulled the chair out to sit. Suga saw him study earlier, so he probably didn't intend to do that right now. He sat down with the coffee in hand, chair slightly facing Suga. Akaashi was more intent on turning on his own laptop than giving Suga proper attention.

Suga slumped in bed. Sometimes he did his work at his desk, too, but he got sore from sitting in a stiff wooden chair, and he relocated to his bed with pillows behind him to prop himself up. He slid down in his bed further, chin dipping down to awkwardly rest on his chest.

"Where'd you get the coffee from?" he asked in a murmur.

"Daichi was making some in the kitchen."

Very few people used the shared kitchen for their floor, but Daichi was one of them. The fridge was small, and it was a hassle to carry supplies back and forth, so only dedicated people--or people who hated the dining hall food--put up with it.

"He should start charging. That's the second time this week he gave you coffee," Suga said. Suga rolled over on his bed, flopping his arms and burrowing them in the blankets. He was embarrassed when Akaashi first saw that he secretly loved having his bed full of blankets and pillows, but Akaashi had to find out eventually. It was impossible to keep things from his roommate that were in plain sight, like the pile of pillows that were moved around to adapt to sleeping or sitting. The rest of their room was clean, especially compared to other college students, but his bed was still a puffy mess. 

"Oikawa told me a bunch of people are playing board games down stairs. Do you want to go?"

Suga shook his head, his chin rubbing against the sheet. "If I go, I'll end up wasting a few hours."

He flipped over to curl up a bit, pulling a blanket around his legs and tugging a pillow to his chest. Suga's head felt clearer now that he wasn't staring at a lit screen, clearer and sleepier. He didn't notice that his eyes were heavy until he closed them, and now he was sinking into his bed with dazed awareness, sighing and groaning, his arm moving to lie near his head.

Suga didn't snap to wakefulness right away. He slipped back into it with a shiver, and when he sat up  to rub his eyes, he realized that he wasn't imaging anything, it was freezing.

He stumbled off the bed with bleary vision, but he still reached for the heater knob. His hand automatically twisted it to a higher setting, hesitating when it wouldn't go any higher. It was already turned as far as it could go.

"Akaashi, what's wrong with the heater?"

When he didn't get an answer, he lifted his head and saw Akaashi asleep. Akaashi was quiet, his body moving with deep breaths underneath a blanket. He only had one pillow, and his hand hung over the edge, his other hand resting with a loose grip on the blanket. He was shivering a little, too.

"Akaashi, wake up." Suga shook him by his shoulder. Akaashi was still warm to the touch, pleasantly, in a way that held Suga's hand in place until Akaashi stirred. 

Akaashi craned his head with a squinted blink, and he scratched his arm in a short weak rhythm. "Why's it so cold?"

"I think the heater broke."

Akaashi fell back with a groan. "Great."

Suga pressed his hand against his head and walked to his desk. "I'll put in a request to fix it, but I think it'll take days." 

He turned on his computer and yawned, the screen glowing in a blur until his eyes focused on it. He typed for a few minutes and clicked to send it in right away, even though it wasn't going to make much of a difference if he took his time. Afterward, he turned to see Akaashi curled up in his bed, his blanket tightened around him and feet pulled close. 

"Akaashi, do you want to borrow a blanket?" Suga asked.

"…Please." Akaashi twisted his head to glance at him.

Suga trudged to his bed and collected a bundle of blankets in his arms to dump on Akaashi. Akaashi's welcoming grunt was his only response for the first few moments, muffled by the heap on him. Akaashi moved to wrap it around himself with slow movements, mumbling and shifting underneath to get comfortable. 

Akaashi woke up in the dark. The air was freezing, but the stifling amount of blankets locked in plenty of heat. He vaguely remembered the heater problem now that he was awake enough to feel cold. Akaashi felt a little lost drifting his eyes around without any light, black blobs for the shapes in the room, and he noticed with his wriggling that the extra blankets felt different from his own. Different, as in, he he was suddenly very aware that they had a noticeable scent.

They smelled like Suga. Not a specific kind of smell, not vanilla or fruit or another typical laundry detergent, but just warm. He couldn't place the indescribable quality to it, but it was warm, and it made him feel warmer in his bubble of plush heat swallowed up in the blanket cocoon. 

The thought left him uncomfortable enough to turn onto his other side, his face rubbing into his pillow. The sound of his skin scratching the pillow cover was loud to his ears, but the rustling was still nothing compared to the howling wind outside. That made Akaashi fully appreciate being indoors, even if he couldn't see and he was still shaking from the cold a bit. The temperature made the room feel hollow, collaborating with the low shrill of wind as if the rushing gusts were echoing and hollowing out the side of the building.

Akaashi rolled around in bed to jog more heat. He jostled the blankets more, and a flap landed on his face, carrying the same soft scent from earlier. His lethargy was still dulling his thoughts, since it was the middle of the night and he was just groaning to himself to fulfill his tired confusion, so he didn't think through anything until morning.

Morning, when it was still grey and cold outside, and when he could actually react to the gesture of Suga handing him blankets to survive the night. Akaashi felt the sleep-flush in his skin that normally kept him from waking up right away, since he liked wallowing in it and flopping over more to drift in and out at the edge of a dream, but now he was sharply aware of the loaned covers stretched across him. Suga slept with these, he knew that Suga liked to bury himself and burrow into them sleepily, and Akaashi didn't know how he felt about being in contact with the same ones that Suga nestled against. They didn't carry the same bodily warmth directly from Suga, but the implication was enough to make Akaashi tighten his hands in a blanket. 

Suga eventually stirred, and he fell to his feet as Akaashi lied awake, unmoving. 

"Morning, Akaashi," he slurred. Akaashi didn't say anything, so he didn't think Suga suspected he was actually awake. 

From the whirring flurries outside, Akaashi knew Suga wasn't going to leave the building. Suga returned half an hour later with the sound of plastic crinkling, and when he finally sat up, he saw Suga chewing on a cookie. Suga was wearing a hooded jacket to keep warm, an oversized one thrown over his pajamas and topped off with slippers.

"Courtesy of Asahi," Suga mumbled. He dipped his arms down to reveal the package more. "Want some?"

Akaashi got to his feet to accept the offer, a blanket held around himself to keep warm. He bit into the chocolate chip cookie with pieces of it crumbling off. It was soft and easy to chew, perfect for another lazy morning of more canceled classes, and he took a couple more and carried them to his desk to eat. Suga leaned against his chair to nibble at the cookie raised to his mouth.

"I think we're going to starve if this weather keeps up," Suga said. "I didn't buy any food for this. I just have water."

"I have some cereal, ramen, and pasta," Akaashi said with a smug swell in his chest. Aside from milk and sauce, he didn't really need to refrigerate any of the ingredients, and he could just borrow cooking supplies from other people. "That's what I ate yesterday."

Suga rubbed at his neck sheepishly. "I didn't think about buying for an emergency."

Akaashi returned his gaze with a lifted twitch in his mouth. Suga never really got that flustered. He held some embarrassment in his voice sometimes, and he made small hand movements if they weren't busy with something, but he still remained pretty calm on the outside. That was something Akaashi admired about his ability on the court back in high school, with Suga substituting as their replacement setter. Akaashi didn't know how he'd feel if he was the more experienced setter replaced by a younger, more talented one.

"This isn't that much of an emergency," Akaashi said. "But I'll give you some."

"That makes us even, then, since you took some blankets when the heater broke." Suga held his own smile, but his point eroded at Akaashi's grin.

"I wasn't that cold."

Suga tilted his head. "You're using mine right now."

Akaashi coughed and shifted in his seat, his now cookie-less hands gripping the hem of the blanket to tug it around.

"So, are you going back to homework now?" Akaashi asked.

"That's the plan. And yes, I'll take a break, don't worry," Suga said with a teasing lilt. He took his laptop back to his bed to huddle in his nest of pillows.

Akaashi spent some time studying in the room as well, the blanket tucked around himself since he didn't feel like getting up and rummaging in his closet for a jacket. The sound of the blizzard was pleasant anyway, conducive to focusing, and the grey light from the clouds was bright enough to not need a lamp.

After a few hours, Akaashi felt a stronger chill in his legs and arms. It crept in his hands and made them tremble a little, disintegrating the lines of his penmanship into messier scribbles. He dropped his pen and sat back.

"It's really cold now," Suga said quietly.

Akaashi looked up and noticed that Suga reclaimed his blankets and crumpled them all around him, his computer abandoned on his desk.

"You took them back?"

Suga's cheeks puffed. "I needed them!"

"What am I supposed to do, then?"

Suga tugged a bundle closer to himself and shrugged, his eyes slipping to the side with petulant guilt. "I don't know."

Akaashi stood up and shuffled to Suga's bed. "Give me one," he said.

"Put on a jacket."

Akaashi reached for the edge of the closest blanket and pulled. He wasn't fast enough, and Suga's grip held on. The blanket tied around Akaashi fell, and he let go to pick it back up when he was washed with the freezing air.

"Suga, it's really cold. You just said so," he said, struggling to not stutter from the shaking.

"Go get a jacket, or just get up here. They're not leaving."

Akaashi's lips pressed together. He didn't think that was an option, but… Sharing them wasn't a terrible idea. He'd be more critical of that thought if he wasn't freezing, but he was, he was shivering more now that he was standing up.

Akaashi shoved the blankets around to make way for himself, scooting to Suga and bumping into his shoulder. Suga didn't even seem surprised that Akaashi gave in and joined him, he leaned to the side welcomingly to meet Akaashi's side.

"I'm guessing you're cold?" Suga asked, cocking his head with silent triumph shimmering in his eyes.

"Be quiet." Akaashi huddled in on himself and tightened the blankets back around them. He wasn't keen on being squashed together for warmth, he wanted tentative contact, but Suga's squirming rubbed their shoulders together. Suga ducked down to himself, too, for warmth, wrapping his hands around his arms and frowning.

"It's a little darker," Suga pointed out, gesturing to the window with his head. The window was on the wall to the side of them, so Akaashi turned to glance out as well.

It was still as windy and frosted out as before, snow furring the air and coating every inch of ground and every tree leaf. Ice glazed part of the window glass, glistening under the dim light and fragmenting their view a little. It really was darker out, though, thicker snow flurries and more grey clouds.

"I think it's lunchtime," Akaashi said. "I'm hungry."

"I don't want to leave. I'm too cold." Suga leaned over and reached his hand under a pillow, and he pulled out the cookies from before. 

"That barely made a good breakfast."

"You don't have to eat any."

Suga brought one to his mouth and took a bite. Akaashi didn't feel like grabbing one, but he watched Suga eat a cookie, his eyes skimming over Suga's face as Suga quietly nibbled. 

Grey suited him, Akaashi noticed. The room's light wasn't grey, but the sky was dark, and grey still fell over the room in the same way that the chill made them shudder and the wind made Akaashi feel small and quiet. Neither of them wanted to get up and turn on the light, so the furniture cast shadows on the floor from the window's light. That amount of darkness alone made the room suffer in low light, and Akaashi didn't like that. He didn't like that edge of unfamiliarity in darkness that made his heartbeat quicken, and that same tone of color in the room reminded him of Suga. There was supposed to be something romantic about dark light, and he didn't understand that double-sided edge, why he could fumble around in the dark and be terrified from being lost in it, and also feel his heart thump from sitting silently next to someone under the same circumstance of light.

When Suga finished his cookie, he noticed Akaashi's silence, and he raised his head to redirect his attention. "You look like you want a cookie." He picked one up and waved it to Akaashi's face.

Akaashi felt his stomach twist. He was still hungry, so he accepted a piece and chewed, but he did it absentmindedly. He remembered Suga's warmth bleeding into the smell of his blankets, and he shifted uncomfortably from the memory and from the dark closing in on the room. Their shivering was dying down, and the trapped warmth between them was enough to deter the cold, but it was close and private in a way that gnawed at Akaashi.

Suga slumped over, his arms resting on a pillow and his head limp on Akaashi's shoulder. "I'm already tired of eating this."  

Suga sighed and rubbed his eyes. He was taking a break from studying, at least, his eyelids fluttering sleepily. Suga was pretty accepting of casual contact like this, and he looked ready to fall asleep on Akaashi's shoulder. His weight on Akaashi shimmied with the rhythmic rise and fall of his breathing. Suga was warm, but the affected warmth in Akaashi was stronger, the flush in his neck and pulse in his chest very present. 

Akaashi gave him a light shake, hoping Suga was awake so he could push Suga away to get up and try making food, but Suga didn't respond. If he was asleep, then Akaashi didn't think he could muster the heart to wake him up. Akaashi fell back in his seat and let Suga rustle against him from the movement, biting his lip quietly.