Mercury
Prologue
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If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep.
Dale Carnegie
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Tamaki peered over Haruhi's shoulder groggily, being jolted awake by a muffled whimper from the girl only a moment earlier. She hadn't been sleeping well this week, and thus he hadn't been either. Perhaps it was all the stress at school. After all, her finals were coming up, and it was nearly the end of high school for her. Of course she would be nervous! She was a young, delicate flower finally being transferred to the blooming garden of the world to spread her radiant petals and—
"Ta-tamaki, did I wake you up?" her groggy, sleepy voice hushed his inner monologue.
"Yes, are you alright? I heard you, uh, whimper." He asked, nuzzling against the nape of her neck and hugging her around her stomach more securely. In truth, he'd been awake a few minutes earlier, trying to figure out exactly how much longer he could possibly stand the sweet torture of his arm underneath of her body before he would have to move it, or risk losing it from lack of circulation.
"Yeah, I guess so. I just had this really weird dream. It was kind of—" She yawned, "Creepy..." Haruhi cupped her hands over Tamaki's, and he tried not to squeal from the immense pain of pins and needles driving themselves into his poor, flawless skin. As she realized that one of them was rather cold, her expression went from worry to chagrin, and she looked back from the corner of her eye to her boyfriend, his puppy-dog eyes already about to drench her in tears from self inflicted torture. "Move your hand, Tamaki, you dummy." She griped. Turning to face him on the bed, she hoped that he wouldn't try to molt his arm again this week just to help her sleep. It wasn't really working anyway, and they both knew it.
"What was your dream about?" Tamaki asked drowsily, his raspberry scented body wash assaulting her nose as he snuggled in closer once more. She could tell that he was just trying to get out of trouble, but she needed to talk about it anyway. It had really creeped her out, and she didn't know what in the world it meant.
After a moment she sighed, curled her legs in closer to her body, and began. "Well, I guess it starts with me just standing in the middle of a big sunny field, and I can see everyone—I mean, the host club, and we're just running around and having fun—"
"That's not a nightmare, Haruhi!"Tamaki said rather loudly, and she pressed a finger to his soft lips, stifling a laugh. "Shut up, you idiot, I'm sure Shima would kill you if she knew I were sleeping in here in your bed." Haruhi scolded, and then took [present affirmative] the finger away when the blonde let out an impatient huff.
"Well, it's not as if we're doing anything that two innocent lovers would do!" He pointed out, looking hurt.
"Oh, right, the things you were doing earlier were so innocent, Suoh…" She was trying not to laugh.
"I'll have you know, Miss Fujioka, that I only entertain the most blissful, innocent scenarios for us."
"Really? I would've called it raunchy and deviant." She was stifling the louder giggles at this point, pulling the blankets up to her mouth and wriggling with laughter. Tamaki looked flustered and blushed, pulling a pillow to his face in frustration and pouting audibly.
Haruhi sighed after a long moment, calming herself down and then sidling up to the charming young man. "Come on, Tamaki, I wasn't finished with my dream." Her big, chocolaty eyes caught a glimpse of his frosty lavender ones over the mountain of white he'd compiled between them. The boy huffed.
"You called me deviant…" his lips pouted.
Haruhi rolled her eyes in the dark. "No… Your gestures are loving and innocent…" and like that he was done, pushing the goose down comforter back to where it belonged. He squirmed closer to the brunette then, a hand lightly touching her cheek and then sliding to gently fiddle with a lock of stray hair between his fingers and his thumb.
"So, what happened after that?" he asked quietly, looking curious. Haruhi smiled, and then continued on.
"Well, we're all just messing around and running… and then we all stop. I think everyone turned and looked at something, but I couldn't see it, I was watching them… It really worried me…" Her eyes looked down at the powder blue sheet, contemplating the scene and what came after. Tamaki said nothing, but he moved his hand to brush the line of her jaw, softly gliding it up and then cupping his hand on the back of her neck, waiting for her to go on.
Haruhi looked back to her boyfriend's concerned eyes. "I guess after then everyone just kind of melted. It was like they were made of water or something, but all of the grass turned red and it died—it was awful… But that's not the worst part, Tamaki…" She said, her words getting softer and softer as she went on. She was still quite tired, and was about to doze off again, her eyes already languidly closing themselves in the early morning dark. Tamaki was just glad that they had the long weekend to help her recuperate.
"What else happened, my dear?" He asked quietly, wondering whether she would go on.
"You came back for me…" She half smiled. "But you weren't you… You're eyes were different, they were metal… It worried me." She said again, her brow furrowing. Tamaki lightly traced his thumb along her eyebrow then, muttering something about wrinkles. She smiled again. "But you were still you, Tama… You came back…" She was mumbling cutely in her sleep after that, finally quieting down after a few seconds.
Tamaki watched her a while longer, starting to worry himself. He couldn't get back to sleep, but he didn't want to lie in the dark anymore… and Haruhi had to go back to the guest room. So, the blonde slid out of bed, quiet as a cat, and then went to the other side, picking Haruhi up like a child and carrying her out of his main bedroom, then to his sitting room where the twins and Hunny were dead asleep in front of his television with a videogame title sequence cycling on the screen. He walked down the hall past the other rooms, and then leaned his back on the door at the end, opening it.
As he put her down on her rightful bed, he contemplated her nightmare, then pulling the comforter over her and tucking her in. after a minute the creased in his brow subsided, and he walked out after a minute, coming back with Beary and setting him beside her under the covers. Suoh smiled grandly, then leaving the room and closed her door quietly before marching back to his own room triumphantly—and practically letting out a loud scream as he rounded the corner of his sitting room. All that came out was an unintelligible squeal however, because he realized that it was Kyouya who was standing next to his window in the dark. He looked lost in thought.
"Kyouya, I thought you were asleep." He said quietly so as not to wake anyone.
"I was… But something woke me up. I think that the commoner food you ordered did something to my stomach." Kyouya said pessimistically, though, in a way they both knew why they were awake.
"Hey… do you think something strange is going on?" The blonde said, coming to stand next to his friend, looking out of his window and looking at the vast Tokyo skyline. Kyouya nodded, but said no more. "I guess it must be nothing. I mean, we've been under some stress with work and school, we must just be a little addled, right?"
Kyouya nodded again. "I'd agree." He remarked, his tired eyes half closed. "But I can't sleep, I feel restless." The brunette let his back fall against the taupe and mocha striped walls, his arms crossed and his face in a perplexed expression.
"You'll get wrinkles that way, Kyouya." Tamaki smiled, "What do you say we go eat some more of that konpeitou… I'll even let you try my tasty buddhas!" Tamaki suggested, trying to lighten the mood that had been shadowing over their daily lives for a while now.
"A lot of us just call it umaibo, Tamaki, but I'll try the curry ones, if that's all right." The brunette grinned, then looking toward the unnecessarily large pile of assorted commoner snacks on the coffee table.
"Could we play that videogame that the twins were playing earlier?" the other asked.
With a sigh Kyouya nodded, and the two set about with their carefree shenanigans. They set their problems aside for the night, and prodded the twins and Hunny awake to play with them, finally having some fun after their 2 a.m. conversation, hoping that they wouldn't have to deal with that nagging feeling again. But oh, they would, and it would be disastrous.