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Makoto knew it was going to be a bad day when he awoke from dreams of a paper ballerina and a tin soldier burning in a fire.
He gasped for air as his eyes flew open, and it took him several moments, several lung-fulls to realize that there was no smoke in the apartment. Instead, the scent of lavender hung thick in the air, due to the sachets that Layla had made back before they met, when she’d struggled with her sleep schedule and sleep-walking.
He was alive. She was alive. They were both safe at home, no sign of the Doctor or any ghosts.
He closed his eyes and let himself sink back into the plush sheets. He tightened his embrace around Layla, feeling the warmth of her soft skin, the tickle of her blue curls on his face.
She was here. She had stayed. In spite of everything.
Insecurity crept in as he rested his chin on the crook of her shoulder.
It’s only a matter of time before she leaves. Why would she stay with you?why would she love you? She doesn’t love you—better to leave before she does, before you’re betrayed again, betrayal is inevitable—
No.
He still remembered the night he’d told her the secrets of his past. Of what he’d done, of what he truly was. She didn’t run. She didn’t pull away. She’d stayed and listened—and gods, she’d stayed.
And his chest didn’t feel hollow for it.
As if she sensed his inner turmoil, she shifted in his arms. “Makoto? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he whispered into her hair. “Just a nightmare. Go back to sleep.”
She turned to face him, to pull him closer. Her amber eyes were still clouded with sleep, not quite in the waking world yet. He hated to pull her from it, given how hard she’d fought to have her dreams.
Her hand rested on his face, and he had to resist the initial urge to pull away. Because a voice in the back of his head reminded him that he didn’t deserve this, that it wouldn’t last.
Shut the fuck up.
“Won’t be long before my alarm goes off, you know,” Layla mumbled as he closed his eyes.
“Didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I don’t mind.” She was so earnest, so insistent. There were so many words unsaid. It was like poetry, in a way. Where the truth lay between the chosen words.
He pulled her closer, focusing on how his fingers fit around her collarbone and the swell of her hips. They could at least enjoy the moment for a little longer. And Makoto could push away the thoughts of eternity and all that it implied. Layla was mortal, she would someday die like Hisahide and the child did.
But it wouldn’t be for a long time yet.
After all, these moments had a way of stretching into their own small eternities.
Was this what it meant, to be loved?
He and Hisahide had found their own eternities once upon a time. When he was a kabukimono, before he was Kunikuzushi or Scaramouche or Belial. When he didn’t have a care in the world.
He did not love so openly now, nor was he so easily loved.
She smelled like lavender and coffee, the skin on her back was so soft, he wanted nothing more than the sensation of it all to consume his thoughts rather than the gathering storm clouds, the internal howling wings. How she was here and she stayed and she was here—
But it wasn’t long enough, when the alarm clock went off, when Layla had to get up and leave. She was the first to leave this semester every morning, and it was a reminder that she would always be the first to leave, and Makoto would be left to outstretch his arms and open his hands for someone who couldn’t come back.
When she left, he buried himself back in the bed, his face in the pillows. Pathetic.
What was wrong with him? After all that he and Layla had gone through, to be together, he thought he’d conquered his own demons, left the shadows of his personal history behind for good.
He thought he’d come to accept what would come with his new life.
So why was he struggling with it today?
He sighed and rolled onto his back. Layla had hung a crystal light-catcher by the window that she’d bought at the market last week. It caught the early morning light and sent soft rainbows onto the ceiling.
He couldn’t stay here. To sleep was to decay, to be forgotten, to be abandoned. Images of the pavilion flashed in his mind’s eye and he swallowed back a scream. He forced himself to his feet and went through the motions of getting dressed, getting ready for another day.
But he couldn’t go to class, not today.
Instead, he needed to do something, feel something. And he needed to be by himself to do it. He didn’t want her, or anyone for that matter to see him as he probably always truly was.
Angry—pathetic—undeserving—
The closest thing he could figure for that description was to make his way out into the forest and look for leftover Fatui camps. The Doctor had long left Sumeru for good, but that didn’t mean that those under his command had.
And there was nothing that cleared Makoto’s head more than the adrenaline of some well meted-out violence.
There was a troubling thread of thoughts, an observation that nagged at the back of Layla’s mind throughout her routine of classes and research. She could tell that Makoto had been distant that morning, even if he hadn’t said much.
The fact that he lingered in bed after she woke up that morning was evidence enough.
But she grew concerned when she didn’t see him in the hallways, or the House of Daena during her break, or in the cafes on Treasures Street for lunch, like they usually did.
It wasn’t that she was worried that he didn’t like her anymore, even if there was a small voice in the back of her head that posed that question.
No, she knew Makoto well enough to know that he was a cat. He came and went as he pleased, and any attempts to encroach on his space were not welcome. He showed his affection in his own ways, and that was usually enough for her. He knew how to show her the depth of what he felt.
What concerned her about all of this was that she knew Makoto well enough to know that like a cat, when he was hurting, he withdrew. He isolated himself and that only made things worse in the short term. Before, she’d been able to draw him back out.
But he hadn’t disappeared so completely like this before.
She’d ask Nahida, if she knew where he’d went after her last class.
“Makoto?” Nahida tilted her head as she considered Layla’s question. “I think he said he’d heard about some Fatui camps in the jungle up north, not too far from where your village is.”
Nahida’s expression twisted in concern. “I haven’t heard from him since this morning. I would have expected that he would have returned by now.”
Layla’s stomach lurched. “Do you think he’s alright?”
“He’s probably fine, he’s faced many enemies over his long lifespan.” Still, Nahida looked troubled. “And the Doctor will never return to Sumeru, thanks to your efforts. But I would still appreciate it if you went to check on him. I suspect he might appreciate someone coming after him, too.”
Layla caught the double-meaning at the end of Nahida’s request. “You sensed it too, right? That he wasn’t right this morning?”
“I did.” Nahida looked up at her with those wide, grass-green eyes, in stark contrast to the rest of her moonlight-pale features. “You two didn’t get into an argument this morning, did you?”
“No, we barely spoke.” Layla shook her head. “He did say he had bad dreams, though.”
“Ah.” Nahida nodded sagely, recognition glimmering in her eyes. “Healing isn’t a linear process. Sometimes when climbing a mountain, a traveler must take switchbacks and back-track in order to make it to the summit.”
Layla nodded. She supposed she was the same way. Sometimes it could be terribly Sisyphean with the matter of her self-confidence in academia. She would be so confident and feel like she had finally gotten on top of things—only for it all to cascade on top of her and overwhelm her.
And yet, despite his infamous sharp tongue and short temper, Makoto was patient with her. His bluntness was reassuring, as she knew he was never sugar-coating when he told her that she could do it, that she was good enough. And sometimes, when he knew his words wouldn’t be the right thing, he would show up in more silent ways. Candied nuts and coffee left on her desk. Her favorite meal left in the kitchen after coming home late. Or how he’d walk with her up mountains and carrying her equipment for star-charts and night sky mapping.
She would do the same for him, then.
“Do you know where he last went, then?”
Nahida tilted her head, and her eyes went blank for a moment. When she came back into herself, she looked more concerned. “Yes, and he hasn’t been careful. You should go bring him home before he gets himself hurt any further.”
“I will,” Layla promised. She’d brought him home before and she’d do it again.
So the fight hadn’t gone ideally. Makoto supposed that he had been. . . distracted. But he hadn’t expected to get hit while in the sky by one of the Pyro Skirmishers, or by a spell from one of the Cicin Mages.
His right knee twinged wrong when he stepped, and there was a burn that reeked where the brief sliver over skin showed on his arm. He hadn’t felt any of it in the moment. But it was as he was hobbling back to Sumeru City, too exhausted to walk, that he was realizing exactly how much trouble he was in.
Indeed, he needed to get into the city before nightfall. He’d hate to be out with gods-knew-what while he was in this condition. He was pretty sure nothing could kill him. But he wasn’t exactly looking for a miserable time, and Layla—
Oh, he hadn’t realized he’d hit his head that hard when he’d been knocked out of the sky. Whether it was the first or second time that had given him a concussion, he wasn’t sure. But he definitely had a concussion, because he was hallucinating and seeing—
“Makoto!” Layla shouted as she ran up to him. She stopped just short of him, leaving him to stumble into her arms.
How he wanted to pull away, her softness and warmth was unbearable in how he wanted to touch her, to be with her, but he felt repulsive in his own skin.
She doesn’t really want you, whispered the voice in the back of his head. No one wants you, your own mother didn’t and neither did Tatarasuna—
“I’m covered in blood, you really don’t want to touch me right now,” he managed as he forced himself to stand despite the screaming pain of his knee.
“Is it yours?” Layla touched his shoulders anyway.
“Some of it is.” He tried to pull out of her grip. But for a scholar who stayed inside all day, she was surprisingly strong. Or he had gotten weak. One of the two, anyway. “I’m fine, really. I can walk on my own, you know.”
“Makoto.” Layla sounded like she was sighing and chiding him all the same.
She pulled him closer and he tensed up, because that was his last defense. He was overwhelmed with the smell of lavender and coffee, her softness, the way that her feelings hung in the air somehow tangible. He was fighting the ever-increasing urge to sink into her touch, to just let her in, but something stronger and older in his head was insisting to keep up his walls, to keep out everything that had the potential to hurt—
“It’s okay, I’m here now.” She didn’t just mean about his injuries, he realized as he wrapped his arms around her, clinging to her like a life buoy in a raging storm.
His cheeks were wet, and he tasted salt. He could see it now, in impending clarity like a tidal wave, how he’d been hurting Layla, blinded by his own hurting. He couldn’t help but feel ashamed of it. He thought he had been past this, he thought he’d gotten further than this—but he hadn’t. And he’d lashed out again.
“It’s okay.” Layla ran a hand through his dark hair. It was as if she could somehow hear his racing thoughts, read his mind in the same way that Buer could. “I’ve got you. I’m not leaving.”
She wouldn’t, not for a long time yet.
He wasn’t sure how long he had embraced her for, a small eternity in and of itself. Like the flash of lightning, the magnificent thunderstorm that only lasted a second, but the memory would last forever in true transcendence.
“Let’s go home,” he finally said.
She’d helped bandage him up, when they got home. He tried to insist on cooking, but Layla had stubbornly refused. He needed to rest, she said. He hadn’t gotten injured all that often before, so he didn’t exactly have experience with that. The few times he had, his only option was Dottore, so naturally he’d usually chosen to soldier through and walk it off.
To have someone else care for him, it was different. . . it was nice.
Still, he wasn’t sure what else to do with his thoughts as he sat in the living room of their apartment, a mostly-ornamental blanket wrapped around his shoulders at Layla’s insistence. He’d left various sewing supplies on the low table in front of the couch—and seeing them there reminded him of the dolls in his pocket. One had been made by the boy who died, and was of him. The other was the one he’d learned to make from a merchant in Sumeru and it resembled the boy who might have once been his family. An idea sprang into his mind like a lightning strike. He picked up the needle and thread and began to work.
By the time Layla joined him with mugs of steaming black coffee and plates of biryani, the shape of a little soldier with a big hat and ballerina with blue curls had started to take shape. He’d carry them with him too, as a reminder that for all that would not change—for that was the way of the world—one thing had.
Not everyone would leave him. He wasn’t unlovable, instantly rejected by all.
He was loved, and he loved Layla. And he would not leave her.