Work Text:
He jerks awake, hand reflexively rising before his face as though to ward off a blow. He stares at the sight of his own hand, his mind still a few seconds behind and caught in the dream.
"Saionji."
Touga's voice is deep and rich and amused and far too self-composed for—what time is it anyway? Saionji looks over at the wall, but there's no clock there. There's just a painting of a tree with spreading arms. It's odd; he thought that there used to be a different painting there, a butterfly, but perhaps not. It's hard to tell in the dark.
Touga's voice—fuck. He's slept with Touga again.
"Touga," he says, and lies down again. Next to him, weight shifts and then settles on the bed; the room is dark but Touga's features eventually clarify before him as his eyes adjust to the lack of light, memory sharpening and filling in for whatever the darkness still obscures. Touga's pupils are so dilated that his eyes look black.
"You were dreaming," Touga says calmly.
"How very astute of you," he retorts, and turns his face away so that he stares upwards into the canopy that covers Touga's bed. He doesn't like to have things over him as he sleeps; it makes him feel as though he's being buried alive.
"What were you dreaming of?" Touga asks. His hand lazily reaches out and strokes down Saionji's chest; Saionji permits it because, despite its large size, there is nowhere else on the bed to move to. They must have started out on opposite sides of the bed, some sort of equality, but somehow in the night, Touga moved into his half. It does not surprise him.
In the dream, he had been in a kitchen. He had been cooking something. Touga had come into the room and Saionji had been turning to say something to him. Touga said something back. There were oven mitts on his hands, ridiculous ones shaped like lobsters, and Touga was laughing at him and the oven mitts. In the dream, Saionji was laughing as well.
This isn't uncommon; he seems to sleep more than ever these days, even though he's not tired. He simply lies down on a bed and wakes up hours later. Something is coming and he needs to be rested for it. His dreams are bright and vivid; they confuse him when he wakes up, but they always make perfect sense while he is still in them. Although his dreams are fragments, they feel like part of a larger whole, as though somewhere he is living another life. Perhaps he is. Perhaps in another life he has a job that he enjoys but doesn't love, and perhaps he teaches kendo on the weekends which he does love. Perhaps Touga is there as well, and does something terribly strange for a living just to annoy his father. They live together because they can, in an apartment with mismatched furniture but a very large bed. They eat a lot of takeout but on the weekends they cook, mostly ramen because it's cheaper.
Perhaps, maybe, probably, in this life they are happy.
"Lobsters," Saionji finally says, because Touga is still waiting. He stares at the wall; the painting really is a butterfly.
"Mmm," Touga says, and stretches luxuriously; his knee brushes Saionji's thigh. Saionji holds himself rigid so that he won't fall off the bed. No room at all and yet miles of sheet between them. "Have you ever seen a lobster cooked in boiling water?"
"No," Saionji says.
Touga's voice is more detached now. "They writhe. It's said that they don't feel pain; that they can't understand it. It's only a reflex." His hand drifts away from Saionji's chest. "Good night, Kyouichi."
If he squints, he can turn the painting of the butterfly into a blurred suggestion of a shape. It could almost be a lobster. He closes his eyes before the painting can look like anything else.
Eventually he sleeps again, and he doesn't remember what he dreams.