Hi everyone! Another short oneshotey thing, kind of a companion to "a world in four years".
Enjoy! and please review, I love knowing what you think :)
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The first time Hikaru sleeps with Pavel- curls up next to him in bed and just sleeps, because they stayed up until 3AM watching a movie, and Pavel was loath to leave- the whole world sort of shifts. He hadn't expected this to be mind-blowing. This had appeared as just a convenience, because when 3AM rolled around, sending Pavel off down the bleached white corridors wasn't something HIkaru really wanted to do. He proposed it, pointing out that he'd have to wake Pavel up at seven thirty and that he understood if that sounded like torture, but as much as he claimed sympathy, some part of him ached at the possibility of losing Pavel for those few hours, like letting Pavel out of his bed would leave it cold and empty and endless, like his body had already fixated on the feeling of Pavel sleeping next to him, warm all night long.
Pavel stays, curled up against him like he fits there, tucked in against Hikaru's side. Hikaru has never felt particularly tall or broad by any means, but Pavel's so small, that he feels different. Something in the way he can wrap Pavel up in his arms, curl in around him completely, makes him feel protective and capable of protecting. And the way Pavel traces his fingertips over Hikaru's hand, that little smile that appears on his face when Hikaru kisses the back of his shoulder, Hikaru has never felt more wanted.
(A year from now, Pavel will glance over his shoulder when Hikaru kisses him there, and tell Hikaru that the first time he did that, Pavel just knew this was going to be something special and lasting).
The way Pavel feels is something else that took Hikaru by surprise. The feeling of Pavel's hands on him never leaves, like there's always going to be this ghost of an imprint on his skin. He can feel it, always, the way Pavel's hands skim over his arms, across his back, idle and distracted while Pavel focuses on the movie, his breath on Hikaru's ear making Hikaru squirm in distracted pleasure. It's like Pavel's left some mark on him, deep in his skin, that remembers his touch and keeps the memory stored there, something that will always be a part of him.
Hikaru moves around a lot when he sleeps, and the unexpected lack of empty space in his turning wakes him. More than once during the night, he blinks awake to find that Pavel's still next to him, half crushed under him, curls tangled against the pillow. Before falling asleep, Pavel had mentioned being kicked out of bed for being too much like a heater, by a cousin when sharing a bed on vacation. Despite the fact that Hikaru was hot enough to need to keep the air conditioning on, like a cold night breeze, and threw only a light sheet over them, he doesn't mind the radiating heat. It's some kind of mesmerizing, the feel of foreign warm pressed all along him, like heat's radiating from within him, outside of himself. He keeps feeling like this- like somehow, he's split himself and part of him is with Pavel; whenever he kisses Pavel's neck and Pavel moans in delight, Hikaru feels a spark of pleasure in himself too, like it was Pavel touching him, like one can't be affected without the other feeling the same.
(Three years from now, Pavel's grandmother will pass away, and it will hurt Hikaru too. When Pavel cries late at night, Hikaru will hold him and finally realize that even though it's because they're so close that Pavel's pain hurts him too, it also makes him one of the only people who can make him feel just a little better, and that makes it worth it).
It's six AM when Hikaru is next stirred from sleep, woken by Pavel's shifting around on the bed. The image in the simulated window is a sky that's pale and twinkling with vanishing stars, underlit with the golden glow of streetlamps. Hikaru's favourite bedroom was the one in his tiny apartment, and this was the view from the window. He only missed the cold mornings once they were gone. Beside him, Pavel moves slightly; the mattress is like foam, and Hikaru's weight makes an indent that Pavel slides down, leaving him bumped up against Hikaru. Hikaru once heard that if you turn your head while sleeping, your dream will change direction, too. He wonders what Pavel's dreaming, and he can't ask him, not now, not while Pavel still looks at him like he does: ready for this, this teetering on inevitability, to happen for real. It's already happened, everywhere but in their admitted words; if this ended tomorrow, Hikaru would never be the same. It's already too late. It's something Hikaru knows he's going to have to accept, accept that he'll throw himself wholeheartedly into this, and that it would hurt if it went wrong. No matter where they go, he's past the stage of apathy and indifference. Pavel wouldn't be some passing fling that never got off the ground; he'd be the love of Hikaru's life that wasn't merely waiting to happen, but was on the verge of being everything, all the time. So Hikaru can't ask yet ask Pavel what he dreams of, but there's a comfort in knowing that, someday, they will share things so intimate as this.
(Four years and seven months from now, he will. Pavel dreams in confusing nightmares and when he stops to think rationally, he says it makes him scared to go to sleep. He says he can't remember anything but nightmares, and then he says that the memories go away faster when he wakes to Hikaru's touch. Pavel says he wishes he had beautiful dreams).
Hikaru wakes up at seven, and doesn't try to fall back asleep. He turns towards Pavel, now lit by the early morning sunlight, his face buried under the pillow between them. Hikaru slides an arm over him, the first real touch of all night, and Pavel nudges in closer towards him, one hand over Hikaru's wrist. The room's absolute stillness erases all memory of the world outside this room, and even the walls beside the bed are too far away to be part of this. Gently, Hikaru moves away the pillow covering Pavel's face, and the first thing he feels is disbelief, seeing the sunlight on Pavel's cheeks, the curve of his eyelashes, the soft pink of his lips. His skin is impossibly smooth under Hikaru's hands, light touches he can't help, hopes won't wake Pavel. When Hikaru shifts to lie on his back, Pavel stirs enough to move to pillow his head over Hikaru's heart, and his weight on Hikaru's chest is like nothing else. It's being grounded, like finding his core and knowing that this, here, is the thing he can never let go of. It's comforting to know that this- no matter what happens, ever- this can never be taken from him.
They lie together for a while, before Hikaru's blaring alarm forces him to move across the bed, makes Pavel curl under the sheet with a pillow over his head.
"Told you it would be early," Hikaru says, almost softly, because he's not ready to admit it, but this just melts him, this sleepy Pavel who should never leave his bed, never. Pavel has scooted up towards the simulated window, looking at the image beyond it, and Hikaru wonders what Pavel's thinking, as his head spins from the way Pavel's sprawled on his bed, sheets tangled around him.
Pavel looks at Hikaru over his shoulder, sunlight on his face, and this is an image Hikaru needs to keep forever, something that will stay imprinted on him for the rest of his life. If all the world were to tomorrow fade, this is what Hikaru hopes will be the last thing to go: this memory of Pavel, looking at him with that smile, the one that always makes Hikaru remember when Pavel said you're perfect, the first time Hikaru ever believed it at all. This is all Hikaru needs, what he has to hold on to the longest, because this is the moment he saw that Pavel is changing him, changing everything. And in this changing world, Pavel is the universal constant, the one thing that Hikaru knows will steady everything, until all the whirling colours form something beautiful, because it always looks right when he has Pavel, because there's no version of the world where they aren't together.
(Pavel will be Hikaru's world forever, always as vibrant as this morning that Hikaru never forgets).
(And Pavel, part of Pavel will always be there, because meaning the world to Hikaru is all he wants, because if the whole world fades, the one thing Pavel needs to keep until the very last moment is the way Hikaru looks at him, like Pavel's finally, finally found the place he wants to be).
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