Work Text:
Hold me at the crack of dawn;
Even fleeting fragments of hearth in the morning may mend my mind and brace my bones for the endless hours to come.
Hold me at the dawn of eve;
Lamenting in loneliness serves no soul solace, so share my bounty of boundless burdens as I settle for slumber.
Hold me like I’m built of glass;
Cherish each chisel of my constitution, for the ticking toll of time that I must weather will wear me down and I will shatter.
Hold me like I’m made of dust;
Cradle me close but clench me not, lest I tumble through the faint fissures between your fingers.
Hold me until I sprout and bloom;
Persuade me to prosper in your gratuitous grasp so my fruit-bearing buds may blossom around your body.
Hold me until I wilt and fade;
Withering weeds in the noiseless night know not the nutrition of fulfilling their fate in the arms of an angel.
Were I as much of a romantic as you, I’d likely have two or three times as many lines to whisper under my breath into the smooth curves of your shoulder blades. I don’t know if anyone else has told you just how pretty you look when you’re asleep, but if I haven’t done so then I’m clearly doing something unforgivably wrong.
When I look at you I see true inner peace. Such high tolerance for those around you that there’s almost no room left for hate. Such sheer sympathy for the turbulent-minded that you manage to tame the relentless beast in my head, without even knowing it.
Beacons of light are flagships for people to follow, but even the stars will eventually perish. In fact, they shine their brightest as supernovae, right before a black hole is formed. The reality is that no one ever asks the stars if they need a break. I love what I do and I wouldn’t trade it for archonhood. I belong to the seas and the seas belong to me, and I don’t believe I could live without travelling the continent on a regular basis. But is my purpose really, truly, only to
guide
?
Stars are inconceivably torrid balls of pure fire. While they are commonly used as
guides
, no one ever tries to get too close to one, lest they disintegrate in a spectacular blaze. I could only ferry people from an unsatisfactory starting point in their lives to their necessary destination. I wasn’t supposed to be a companion. Yet here you were, always by my side at an arm’s length, looking out for me at every step of the journey, elevating me in body, mind, and spirit with your every breath, every touch.
When I made you a crewman I couldn’t possibly have foreseen your lavender-coated words of comfort, or the unmistakable golden glow of raw affection sparkling in your eyes every time your gaze fell upon me. I couldn’t have prepared myself for the nerve-numbing waves of warmth you sent down my spine with your embrace. I was powerless in anticipating the fall I would take into a pit deeper than the oceans themselves, head over heels for every fibre of your being.
Like I said, I’m no rose-tongued wordsmith like you. I don’t have the romanticism to properly put into words the extremity of your effects on me. All I can do is offer my honesty.
So I shift my arm out from beneath the blanket, reaching across your body. I find your abdomen, carefully drawing you even closer to me, so that my chin may rest on your shoulder and your chest may rise and fall in tandem with my own breaths, our bodies so tightly nestled together a microscope may not be able to see between our respective skin. I did to you exactly as I yearned for you to do to me, but alas, you were too stubborn to pursue your feelings, and I was… afraid. Everyone in the crew relies on me to be their unwavering light, the core mechanism in their internal compass. What would happen to them if I showed any of them just how much my own faith in myself was wavering? I couldn’t even bear to imagine the scenario this train of thought took me to.
I was afraid, and you were sound asleep in my arms. Do you have even the faintest idea how desperately I seek to be in your position, with you — and only you — in mine?
But I was afraid. All I could muster was a kiss to the side of your forehead, and a hopeless request from the deepest abyss of my heart that I almost instantly regretted after it expelled itself from my mouth.
“Stay with me, Kazuha.”
I’m afraid. Please stay with me. I don’t know how I can bear to wilt without your embrace.