Work Text:
Breathe in, two, three, four…
Out, two, three, four…
In, two, three, four…
Out, two, three, four…
Thoma doesn’t know what hit him. He is sprawled across crimson-stained grass, the tall blades tangling together over his face in the breeze.
At first, seconds pass. Then minutes. Then hours, for all he cares to know. Time becomes one. A being watching, waiting. A clock with a set alarm.
A scarlet pool is taking shape all around him, constantly fed by a stream of his own making. Slowly, carefully, Thoma tries to sit himself up. He makes it a moment before crashing back down, head hitting hard against the rugged ground.
Pounding. Of his head, of his heart. Closing his eyes, gritting his teeth, he musters all the strength he has to roll over onto his arm. He manages to flop to his side, a large sigh escaping his lips as he does so.
The pounding only intensifies.
He is trapped, then. A pound of flesh for the taking, frosted red and left on display. Despite the way his body screams, his mind screams, he is useless, growing limper by the second.
Thoma curls up as best he can, legs folding halfway to his chest. His only company now is the beat, beat, beating of his heart — but even that is starting to fade. Which is why, perhaps, he is able to make out the frantic footsteps rushing to his side so well.
At first, he assumes the sound to be a foe coming to finish him off. It’s not like they would be in the wrong for doing so, at this point. However, instead of cool steel reigning in his demise, he is met with a hand now far warmer than his own grasping his exposed shoulder.
Thoma cocks his head to the side, daring a glance at the hand’s beholder — a glance that is all too quick to turn to a blurry stare.
The world around him is starting to fall away, with edges so shiny sparkling, spiraling, into the vast nothingness.
Death’s hands, he knows, are creeping closer.
How funny it is, then, that the last bit of light those draining poison eyes can see is in the shape of his lover’s hands reaching towards him — holding him.
Though gloved, Ayato’s hands feel even warmer on his face. Calmer, in their own right.
Not as warm as the blue-haired man’s lips on his own, though. Not as calming.
Thoma sinks at the embrace, finally drifting out to sea as he was surely meant to do all those years before. But this time, he finds it different.
This time, he still shakes, arm lifting despite the exhaustion. But this time, it is not to swim. It is not to fight. It is to tug the water closer, soak up what he can. Drown in him.
The ever swaying pendulum that controls time may have snapped for his clock, and no amount of duct tape or glue could ever hope to repair it. But Thoma has decided that, here and now, if he is to suffocate, this is how he’ll do it: buried face first into the only man he’d ever willingly drown for.