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Kokomi's nightmares are quiet.
Kokomi knows they are, because Sara has told her so. She will groan slightly, grimace uncomfortably, but otherwise give no indication as to what's going on until she wakes with a gasp and then spends the rest of the night staring a hole into the roof to avoid seeing the faces of those lost in the corners of her eyes.
Sara's, in contrast, are loud. She will mutter, twist, beg for forgiveness, the whole deal. Not infrequently she will end up rolling over Kokomi or slapping her with her limbs as she tries to grab something only she can see
Kokomi only have nightmares sometimes. They are unpleasant, of course, and she'd much rather not have them, but she can handle them as they come.
Sara faces them far more often.
Kokomi, as much as she is praised for leading the war for Watatsumi, is a strategist before anything else. She makes plans, she stands on the side-lines to direct troops and give order. She only engages personally when it is strictly necessary.
Sara only ever leads from the front. She ahs always refused to order anyone to do anything she is not demonstrably willing to do herself. Where Kokomi fought the war in a clinical way, from afar, Sara fought it with her own two hands.
Kokomi knows that it haunts her, how she will sometimes feel blood on her hands that have been washed away for months and years, see faces and hear voices that belong to people she herself made stop breathing.
"I only know how to fight enemies that are actually real", Sara told her once, hollow eyed and staring into the distance, and even though Kokomi might not agree that nightmares are not real, that makes them no less intangible.
She wishes they were, though. Like many nights before, Sara has started thrashing beside, her, murmuring how she's sorry and twisting uncomfortably, as if to escape whatever it is she's seeing behind her eyelids.
"Sara", she says, rolling over to place a hand on her arm before the twisting and turning escalates. "You're dreaming again. Wake up."
It gives little solace, most likely, if Sara can even hear it in her sleep, but neither of them know what to do otherwise. Lumine has insisted that talking about it will help, but Sara is hesitant, and Kokomi will not force her.
Sara's face twists into another frown, and Kokomi leans down to place a kiss on her forehead. For all that it is worth, it makes Kokomi smile to see that Sara's own lips turn upward and the creases on her forehead smoothens out.
Then, with a short gasp, her eyes open, and for a moment they stare is silence.
"Sara."
It is a short acknowledgement, one that would no doubt seem cold and out of place to anyone else, but Sara is Sara, and now is right now.
"Kokomi." she answers back, and then blinks heavily before sighing.
Again there is silence, tense and uncomfortable, and Kokomi wants to reach out or say something, but experience makes her know that Sara needs time to collect herself, and that disturbing her will only make her anxious.
"It was Nazuchi beach again. That boy."
Kokomi knows exactly what she's talking about. She'd seen it with her own eyes as it happened. A young fisherman that had joined the resistance just weeks prior managed to catch her enough to leave her no time to draw an arrow or her sword, so she'd simply used her hands to tear open his ribcage in a spray of gore and bone instead.
It had been terrifying to watch, enough that several others stopped fighting to stare, and enough to make Sara look at her own bloody hands in shock afterwards, but then everything had just continued on as if nothing happened in the blink of an eye
A stark reminder that even though she may look human, Sara is a Youkai when cornered. An equally vivid reminder of her humanity since, that she has never claimed anything but regret at the way his life was lost in the sand like so many others.
"He begged me to stop this time." she continues. "But I could not. My hands moved on their own, and all I could do was watch as I gutted him."
There's a shudder in her voice, the kind that she only ever allows herself in private.
Kokomi knows, of course, that there is no simple talking out of this. Sara is hardly the only one who left a piece of herself beyond her blood and sweat on the battlefield.
Instead, she leans closer, just as Sara turns away to hide her face, like she always does, and kisses the back of Sara's neck, just beneath her hairline. Like she expects, Sara freezes up immediately, because she is still Sara, and that gives Kokomi time to wrap her arms around her body.
We cannot change the past, she wants to say, but Sara likely isn't open to either reason nor acceptance, so she does not. Instead, she trails another kiss off of Sara's shoulder, just above her shoulder blade, and when Sara shudders Kokomi sees her opening to wrap her arms around her body.
"I know that you don't want to talk, but I'm still here. You don't need to face this alone."
Like you always try to lingers in the air.
Sara sighs, and then turns around until they are face to face.
She looks haggard, tired, beyond physical exhaustion.
"This is my burden to bear"
Kokomi sighs in turn. This is an argument they've had many times, as much of a stalemate as all their battles of will.
"You say that about every burden, Sara."
Sara blinks, slowly, like the birds her feathers always brings Kokomi's mind to.
"Because they are mine to bear. I am the one guilty of the deeds, so I am also the one that must shoulder them."
She turns around again, stubbornly, no doubt pouting, and Kokomi wants to say that she is the one that led them there, that she is no less guilty than Sara is for anyone losing their loves on any of those beaches.
She does not. Instead, she draws herself closer.
"Just because you are the one carrying the burden that doesn't mean you can rest those shoulders every now and then. I know you don't like to, but I can attest that it's really nice."
She lays her cheek against Sara's back as she speaks, feeling the way Sara tenses up again against her skin.
Then she relaxes.
". . . but you are the one reasting against my shoulders, though. . . "
Kokomi almost splutters out a giggle, but that would be to admit defeat, so instead she burrows in closer.
"Yes. They are very comfortable. A bit too muscly, though, you should relax, so they are soft instead of tense and hard enough to grind flour on."
Sara huffs again, but Kokomi can feel her grow more lax.
"You like my muscles. . . "
Kokomi hums again, running her hand along Sara's back and delighting in the shudder beneath her fingertips. "That I do. I like them most when they're relaxed and comfortable and not blaming themselves, though."
Sara takes a deep breath, as if in exasperation, but then she deflates, and scoots back into Kokomi.
For a long while, they simple lay there in silence, Sara's breaths growing slower and Kokomi settling in against the comfortable warmth of skin against skin.
"Thank you.", Sara breaks the silence in a whisper. "I know I am not very good at conversing about this."
That would usually warrant a "you're welcome" or "of course" or some other variety of acknowledgment. Not with Sara, though. Kokomi knows that she thinks it's embarrassing to rely on others, and that her awful clan convinced her that it makes her weak and that she still hasn't really broken out of it yet, so she just hums and draws herself even closer, until she's pressed against Sara's back.
This time, Sara does not freeze. Instead, she relaxes even more.
"You smell like the sea. . ." she murmurs, and then her breathing evens out.
"Dream of nicer beaches than Nazuchi, Sara.", Kokomi whispers into her back.
Even if she does not, even if the nightmares remain, Kokomi will be there too.