Work Text:
Guilt.
He had looked up the meaning once, twice, too many times. He could recite it without an issue.
A feeling of worry or unhappiness that you have done something wrong.
The definition was incomplete. Undetailed. It didn’t include the pressure you felt in your lower stomach, like you had swallowed a rock and it was resting there at the bottom, heavy and always present. A pull in your windpipe, like something was blocking your airways, and breathing became harder. It was a feeling that Ty had become familiar with.
He was thinking about the word right now, as he was staring at Livvy in the seat in front of them. He could only see the strands of her hair floating in the air, as his vision was otherwise blocked by the back of her seat. Kit was sitting next to him, reading a pamphlet that was strapped in the bus seat as they had entered, including the instructions on all the services on the bus and how to behave. He was bored, probably. Ty wasn’t looking at him, but he could see his head sway alongside the movement of the bus.
The reason why Ty’s gaze was fixed on his sister was because she was lying to him, and he knew it. Logistically, they didn’t have much time to discuss how she was feeling while they had been on the road, but he knew when Livvy wasn’t okay, and when she was lying to him about it. “I love you”, she would tell him, just like she always did, but there was a tone in her voice that had changed, and Ty didn’t know what it meant. She was lying, and it was his fault. The rock lurched deeper in his stomach every time he thought about it.
The speaker in the bus let out a beep suddenly, followed by the sound of the driver informing the name of the upcoming bus stop. The beeping sound pierced through his ears in a grating manner, it was too loud, the frequency at a spot that was irritating to hear. Pins and needles. It kept ringing in his ears even after the announcement was over, echoing around his auditory canals painfully. He decided to put his earphones back on, to tune out the sounds. Hugged the backpack on his lap tighter.
Tearing his gaze away from the back seat in front of him–he wondered if the passenger sitting next to Livvy could sense that there was a ghost sitting right next to them–he refocused on looking out of the window. They had departed from Budapest, and were somewhere deep in the countryside of Hungary right now. Ty couldn’t see much out from the window, because it was so dark, but he was more interested in looking at the drops of rain sliding across the glass in a race, some molding into one another if they touched.
Suddenly, Ty felt a weight on his shoulder. He froze.
He knew what it was, obviously. It was Kit, resting his head there. He just didn’t know why Kit was doing that. He fought hard against his need to flinch at the touch, his hand gripping the backpack tighter, knuckles turning white. Then he glanced over, just slightly to not push him away–he wasn’t sure why he didn’t want to push him away, he just didn’t–and tried to see what it was that Kit was doing.
It was hard to tell, since from this angle he couldn’t see Kit’s face. He had spent time learning his expressions to be able to read him like he was able to read Livvy, but it was hard to understand Kit. Oftentimes, his face was like a wall, expressionless as ever, and he never told him how he felt so Ty could connect the dots. And he had lied to him a lot in the past, just like Livvy was lying to him now, and Ty just wished he knew how to dig out the truth from them, to know what they really feel right now.
To his surprise, however, Kit was very easy to understand at that moment. Despite not seeing his face, Ty could see he was breathing deeply, his temple pressed against Ty’s shoulder, heavy and calm.
Ty knew what it was. Kit was sleeping.
It made sense, he had seemed a bit droopy a moment ago. The bus was rocking back and forth in a way that would make some people feel sleepy, although for Ty, the air inside was already enough to make him feel uncomfortable. His fingers started tapping against the surface of his backpack.
He could wake Kit up. Move him away. Kit wouldn’t do this kind of a thing on purpose, would he? Kit never touched him. Ty had noticed it. There were moments where Kit would almost grab him by the shoulder, or poke his side to catch his attention, but he always flinched away from doing it like the thought of physically touching Ty would burn him. But Ty always saw it, and it hurt him despite being fully aware of why Kit acted like that.
It was because Kit hated him. He had told Ty that he was mad at him, that he wished he had never met him. There had been so much emotion on his face when he had said those things that he couldn’t have lied. It was the reality. They had made a deal when they left on this mission together, to pretend like they aren’t mad at each other, but Ty wasn’t stupid, he knew that Kit was just putting on an act for him before he would go back to hating him when all of this was over.
He should wake him up. It would be fair for Kit to let him know, so he could flinch away from him again. Ty deserved it, for what he did to Livvy, to them both. He should wake Kit up.
But he couldn’t possibly wake him up. Kit hadn’t slept well in a while, and Ty had noticed his undereyes had darkened. It was good for Kit to sleep, and it served their mission as well. If Kit wasn’t tired, he could fight better. Think more sharply. But more importantly, Ty didn’t want to wake him up because he was selfish.
He wanted Kit to touch him. He wanted Kit to lean onto him, to need his support. Every time he almost did it, Ty’s heartbeat would pick up, and he would feel a buzz all over his body, an expectant tension. He knew what it meant. And it was okay that it was one-sided. He didn’t need Kit to want to touch him for the same reason. At the end of the day, there wasn’t much hope for him in the first place. It was just how things were.
He could feel the warmth of Kit’s body through the hoodie he was wearing, and the feeling in his body deepened. It was all-encompassing, a pleasant kind of pressure that started from the back of his throat and pressed down all the way to the tip of his toes, humming in his body in the way it had done throughout all these years after Kit had entered his life. It was peaceful, having Kit lean on him, despite knowing it wasn’t for the reason he wanted it to be.
The beeping sound from the announcement came through again, muffled by the music coming from his earphones. Kit’s hair brushed against his skin in a way that tickled. It felt irritating, but he didn’t want to fix it. He had always thought Kit’s hair was really pretty; in light, the strands of his hair glimmered, kind of like rays of sunlight. Ty often wondered how the texture of his hair would feel like.
He decided then, that he wasn’t going to wake Kit up. He could punish himself later for it. Now, he was just gonna pretend like he didn’t notice him falling asleep on his shoulder, just like he pretends he isn’t mad at him. And later, when Kit would wake up, when the guilt would return, he would deal with it then. He just wanted to have this one thing now. Just this one thing.
So, he placed his free elbow on the tiny windowsill of the bus and looked outside, feeling how peacefully Kit’s body moved to the rhythm of his breathing against his body. It grounded him, anchored him down on his seat, and the bus didn’t feel so suffocating anymore. For that tiny moment, the rock in his stomach felt a little lighter, and he could breathe better again.