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It’s the nights when everything catches up to him.
It’s the nights, when he lies awake in bed, wondering if he’s deserving of anything he’s ever had. If he’s enough for everyone, because he barely even knows himself and what does that say about the people he loves? If he doesn’t know himself, he can’t be himself around those he loves and it makes everything feel like one big lie. A scheme. A con.
But then again, that’s what he’d been born to do. Gain peoples’ trust, get close, then break the connections. Nothing to anchor him down, nothing to keep him from his tasks.
So why has this one been so hard?
Rosho’s bed is small, but Sasara is asleep more on top of Rei than next to him, curled up like a large cat that somehow snores louder than he talks. The gentle pressure keeps him grounded, and Rosho’s even, quiet breathing next to him completes this perfect image of warmth and comfort. The kind of comfort that, however briefly, would allow him to forget just how and why he’d met Sasara and Rosho and that, just like everyone else, they would leave him too.
God, what he wouldn’t give to forget that for the rest of his life.
His thoughts are dangerous when they run wild like this. He carefully nudges Sasara off his chest and towards Rosho; right at his side where Rei can’t hurt him by accident. His heart tries to tear itself out of his chest, ashamed by all he’s become. Everything inside him twists, claws, pounds at him like it’s repulsed by the man whose body it inhabits. He shares the same sentiment.
He misses her. He misses his sons, too. He misses things he never had, and things he can barely believe he has.
Rei misses.
He stands in the doorway of Rosho’s bedroom, leaning against the doorframe, eyes focused on the brightness of the moon. Rosho is the moon, Sasara is the sun. They’ve always likened themselves to night and day. So what is he? Is he the inevitable end of it all? The catastrophic event that will bring the universe to its close, where the cycle of night and day will cease to exist? He refuses to let himself be that, or at least manages to lie to himself enough that he won’t. He won’t, can’t, ruin this, this perfect union he’s cultivated with his own two hands and somehow, by some divine miracle, been allowed to be a part of.
“Come back to bed.” It’s hoarse, thick with sleep, and yet it pierces through the air like a sharpened arrow. Rei doesn’t meet Rosho’s gaze. “It’s too early. Or late. I don’t know.”
“Why am I here?” Rei asks, staying planted in the doorway. “You two are night and day. The perfect dynamic duo. Why mess that up?” His voice cracks on the last sentence despite his best efforts otherwise.
Sasara’s awake by now, sitting up next to Rosho and seeming distraught as he looks at Rei. “Rei…hey, come here.”
He does as asked of him, awkwardly sliding back into his spot in the bed. Rosho reaches for his hand, squeezing gently but firmly, tethering him to the bed. It’s terrifying. It’s the safest he’s ever felt. “Yer not the only one here who’s felt like he’s outta place, so get that thought outta your pretty head. Back in the old days, I was always thinkin’ that I didn’t deserve a guy like Rosho. But guess what, ya big lug? Rosho loves me. And he loves ya too, and so do I, so man up an’ accept it already!”
Rei says nothing, but feels Sasara curl back up on him, and Rosho leans closer into him, like he’s the one who feels safe with Rei. It’s a horrifying prospect. “Thanks.” A simple word, easier than telling them all his thoughts. Sasara smiles against him, leaning up to kiss him before landing back against his scarred chest. Two scars, a reminder; of what, he’s not sure. A time before he knew these two. A…darker time, but one with little specks of light and hope that kept him going. A time so similar and yet so different to now.
“You’re our star.” Rosho whispers, nearly inaudible. “You wanted to know why you’re here, when we’re the sun and the moon. Well, we may not always be the most in sync, but our world is certainly that much darker without you. It wouldn’t feel complete,” he pauses to bring up Rei’s hand where it’s intertwined with his, pressing the briefest of kisses to it like Sasara had done moments ago, “without you.”
“You sure know your space stuff, teach.” Rei tries to joke, damning his voice for coming out unsure and watery. Rosho laughs, quiet but bright and blanketing the room in its sound. Sasara’s laugh joins the sound, his bright and warm like a summer day. It should clash, contrast, but instead it’s a harmony. And Rei finds himself unable to keep from laughing, and he doesn’t quite know how to describe the way he laughs because most of his have been forced little chuckles, but this isn’t. Even in the dimly-illuminated room he can see Rosho smiling at his side, hand lightly over his mouth in surprise.
“I’ve never heard you laugh like that.” he says, awestruck. Sasara nods in agreement, grinning widely. “It’s beautiful. It suits you.”
“We gotta make ya laugh more!” Sasara proclaims, sitting up from his spot on Rei’s chest to sleepily pump his fist in the air before flopping back and reaching for Rosho to kiss him gently. “Don’t we, Rosho?”
“We do.” he replies, laughing again as Sasara tries to assault him with affection. “But we’ve got plenty of time, I think.”
“We do.” Rei agrees quietly, finally letting his body relax. He’ll make sure of that. Otome, Ramuda, Chuuohku, fuck all of them; he’d give all of that up in a heartbeat for these two. Because he’s finally loved again, even if it’s taking some time to fully know that.
“All the time in the world.”