Originally posted on AO3 as a Trick or Treat gift for ghostflora :)
They flee through tunnels, through alleys, through the broken bones of cities. Even the quietest places bear scars and scorch-marks. Until they reach the edges where trees crawl over crumbled walls, and then the forest surrounds them. They walk and walk through the green-shadowed wilds. They are surrounded by living things, and he is not supposed to kill them.
Nano likes that.
As the daylight fades, he says, "We could sleep here." It is the first thing he has said all day.
Akira jerks to a halt and looks up at him. They have been running together for weeks, and he still has that wary look in his eyes. Nano wants to soothe it away, almost as badly as he wants to sharpen its edges. He wants Akira to love him. He knows Akira should fear him.
"There's supposed to be an old outpost ahead," Akira says. "Something we can secure."
Nano smiles. Tips his head back and closes his eyes and hears nothing but the wind and small things and Akira's steady pulse. "We're as safe here as we might be anywhere."
Akira sighs. "That's not reassuring." But he drops his makeshift pack anyway.
The night falls cool around them. Neither suggests a fire. Nano sits between the roots of the largest tree nearby. The bark is smooth and alive against his shoulders. The roots rise up on either side, as if to embrace him.
Akira walks over. Stray rays of moonlight catch in his hair. He is tired, and an expression Nano can't quite read softens his face. Something like fondness and sadness. Nano still has trouble seeing things that are neither strength nor weakness.
"I thought you were dead the first time I saw you," Akira says quietly. "Under the tree in Igura."
"I may have been."
Nano lifts his hand, and Akira takes it, and lets Nano pull him down. He twists around, so his back presses against Nano's chest, so his head leans against Nano's shoulder. They fit together.
Emotion is a dangerous thing. Nano closes his eyes and buries his face in Akira's hair. Breathes in the scent of the only thing that could destroy him. The risk is fair. To die means he has been alive, and this lightness in his chest has saved him already.