Stay Alive
Disclaimer: I do not own Junjou Romantica or The Road.
When Hiroki awoke he was alone. He lay for a moment, blinking slowly in the sooty daylight at the slightly disturbed patch of dirt and foliage where Nowaki had been when they'd laid themselves down to sleep the night before. He scrambled upright as quickly as his weakened body would allow, and looked around frantically. "Nowaki," he croaked. He didn't dare yell, but at a slightly higher volume he said it again: "Nowaki?" But the clearing around him was still.
No big deal. His lover had gone to relieve himself, maybe, or check the road ahead through the trees. He wouldn't leave him here.
But what if he'd been taken?
Drawing the thick wooly blue blanket which often served as their only protection against the elements tighter around his emaciated form, he shivered and tried not to worry. Nowaki could take care of himself. Of course they watched out for one another, but this whole end-of-the-world thing had confirmed for Hiroki what he'd essentially already known: that Nowaki was more than capable of watching out for the both of them, most of the time.
Still…
He sat there shaking as the morning crept on, and fell asleep with his head in his arms, crossed over his knees. He slept the restless, exhausted sleep of a man to whom sickness has become a way of life, the only one he knows or can recall. Suddenly there was a hand shaking him gently out of his doze and his head snapped up, narrowly missing a startled Nowaki's nose.
"Nowaki," he gasped, and threw his arms around the younger man, who seized him back instantaneously. The collapse of civilization and the struggle to stay alive had dulled Hiroki's once acute self-consciousness; the embraces and love confessions that had once been so few and far in between had become the staple of their existence.
He said nothing now, but Nowaki could guess that he'd been afraid. "I was just checking how far it is to the river from here," he murmured, combing his fingers through the other's hair.
"How?" sniffed Hiroki, palming a tear away quickly. Public displays of affection aside, he was still Kamijou Hiroki, and Kamijou Hiroki tried not to make a habit of crying in front of others.
"There's a hill further into the woods. It gave me a look over the country."
"Hm."
"I'm sorry for worrying you, Hiro-san."
"Yeah, well. Help me up."
Fifteen minutes later they were on the road again, the same road they'd been following for weeks, a dirty vacant snake of pavement where other travelers occasionally passed them by. Most of the time, nary a glance was exchanged between parties; sometimes there were vague greetings; but anything more than that put people on edge, so they rarely stopped moving while a stranger was in sight. Along with the clothes on their backs, their wooly blue blanket, several cans of food, and a scant few other necessities packed into a single backpack, Nowaki had a knife. Nowaki was as gentle and pacifistic a lover as one could hope to find – but in the face of danger, the protective side won out, and he would pull the rusted thing out of his jacket pocket in defense of Hiroki and himself. It had never come to draw blood in his possession, but it made them both feel safer to have it.
The road eventually became what was once a bridge, a bridge that crossed high over a still, wide river; but the bridge had collapsed and was impossible to cross now. The two men stood a safe distance from the broken edge, hands clasped together through ragged, dirty gloves. They both wore heavy jackets, Hiroki's overlarge, and beneath that, thick sweaters. On their feet, sturdy boots. Nowaki had a hood drawn over his head, and Hiroki had a wool cap pulled down over his ears. The frigid cold still bit at their faces and set their sickly bodies shaking, but some were not fortunate enough even to have warm clothes, so they were grateful.
"We have to get across," said Nowaki, simply.
"How? Swim?"
They stared anxiously at the broad black water.
"If we walk that way we might find another way across." Nowaki led Hiroki by the hand towards the steep rocky decline that led to the banks of the river. It was a temperamental climb, but it had to be done. They made their way down slowly, picking their way carefully over the fickle ground, and when a chunk of gravel gave under Nowaki's foot, he yelped, Hiroki grabbed his sleeve, and they rolled the rest of the way to the bottom clutching at each other desperately, arms and legs scrabbling for purchase.
"Are you alright?" demanded Nowaki when they'd rolled to a stop, picking himself up and crawling over to where Hiroki lay. He grasped Hiroki's shoulders and patted his body through his heavy clothes, anxiously feeling for any damage.
"Yeah, yeah. Help me up."
Nowaki tentatively lifted him into a sitting position, noting a wince from the older man, who grabbed at a pain in his side.
"Hiro-san!"
"What? I'm fine. Idiot, look at your face!" The thin, callused fingers protruding from the holes in his old black gloves probed at a long, dripping red cut on the taller man's forehead. "God, where are those bandages we used to have?"
"We lost them when you fell in the pond a week ago, remember?" Smiling softly at the memory ('Who puts a fucking pond in the middle of a forest?' Hiroki had ranted as Nowaki pulled him out of the water, stifling a laugh at his straggly, wet alley-cat appearance), Nowaki reached up to take Hiroki's hand in his own, and brought it down to his lips. "I'm fine, too, Hiro-san." He furrowed his brow and added, "I use 'too' abstractly."
"I'm just a little bruised. Really. Let's keep going."
Nowaki gave him the benefit of the doubt, and they continued along the length of the shore towards the distant tree-line.