Fandom: Prince of Tennis
Characters/Pairings: Fujicest if you squint.
Genre: Dream, light shounen-ai.
Notes: Written for spurious at pot flashfic, over on LiveJournal.
"What did you dream of last night, Yuuta?" Pleasantly said, with a sincere, if unsure, smile.
A deep frown in response. Bitterly: "Beating you."
The smile fades. "Oh. I see."
--
The first night that Yuuta is away from home, at the St. Rudolph dorms, Syuusuke has fitful dreams of being a falling angel with black wings. He falls and falls and falls through the bleak gray fog that surrounds this noplace and his wings won't open and he can hear the ground rushing up towards him and then he lands, crashes against the marble with a jarring, painful thud that breaks every bone in his boy. And Yuuta just stands over him and watches and says not a word to Syuusuke, who lies there, weak and broken and utterly destroyed.
It is only after he finally walks away, into the oblivion, that Syuusuke wakes up to Yumiko's gentle but insistent shaking.
--
After that, his dreams are usually falling dreams; four or five times in a week, Syuusuke closes his eyes and falls or watches others fall, be it Yuuta or Yumiko or Mizuki or, hell, Kirihara. Sometimes there are feathery angel wings, sometimes leathery dragon wings (because Yuuta never did like angels half as much as dragons), and sometimes no wings at all. Sometimes they plummet to the ground and sometimes they land on a puffy, cushioning cloud.
The only constants are the falling and Yuuta.
Because Yuuta is always in these dreams -- always there and always silent in a manner that always frustrates Syuusuke to no end because it reminds him that he can control the dream-Yuuta no more than he can control the real Yuuta.
--
The night after Syuusuke beats Mizuki for Yuuta's sake, Yuuta finds himself in the park where he and his brother spent the better part of their early childhood. Aniki sits on a swing and Yuuta is behind him, hands on the chains that suspend the seat above the ground. He is pushing his brother lightly and as the chains creak loudly, he finds that he can't quite remember how or why this arrangement came to be. Then:
"I did it because I love you, Yuuta," Aniki says softly into the dimming evening, and his brother's arms halt in their motions. "And I love you because you're my brother. You understand that, don't you?"
Yuuta begins to move again and his eyes fixate on the long trail of ants by his feet.
"I guess," he tells his brother, but as soon as the words leave his mouth, he finds that it was all a dream anyway.
--
After that, Yuuta dreams of Aniki often. Sometimes he's in the forefront, sharing profound (if usually ridiculous) ideas with his younger brother in a mischievous undertone that immediately puts Yuuta on guard. But for the most part, he stands in the background, shooting Mizuki-san uninterested glances or looking stiffly, politely impatient as Yanagisawa tacks on his 'dane'-s to the end of every sentence.
Yuuta even kind of thinks it's funny when he dreams that Aniki is a tropical birdman that he and Kisarazu pass as they trek through the jungle in search of Mizuki-san, who has been captured by Akazawa-buchou and his loyal minion.
Except not really, because the look on Aniki's face is the same blank, wrathful look that he wore during the Kirihara match, and it feels to Yuuta like his brother is untouchable, up on his high perch.
--
It is two more years -- two long, fitful years -- before Yuuta moves back home and starts at the same high school as his older brother. Things are not the way they were when the boys were small children, but that's okay because they're older now and close enough, and that's all that matters.
Syuusuke almost thinks that the dreams will stop now, that he'll start seeing something different behind his eyelids late at night; it is the most logical thing that could happen. They started when Yuuta left; they should stop now that he's back.
He doesn't, and after a night of watching Tezuka crash to he clouds after professing his undying love to both Echizen and Yuuta, Syuusuke gives up his dreams as a lost cause.
--
Yuuta half-expects his brother to ask him, "What did you dream about last night?" the way he used to ever since they were little kids. He waits for it at the breakfast table, as they hitch a ride to school with Nee-san, when they walk home from tennis practice, while they do their homework after dinner.
He wonders what he should say; whether he should lie comepletely or only leave out Syuusuke's presence in the dreams. Actually telling Aniki would set off a whole chain of teasing and softly spoken innuendo that Yuuta doesn't want to face -- can't face, honestly. But Aniki has mastered the art of seeing through Yuuta's lies completely, and, well...
But the question never comes. Yuuta wonders about it a little, though in the end -- in the end, he realizes that somewhere along the line, Aniki must've grown up, too.
And for once it feels like Yuuta is the one being left behind.
--
It is a few weeks later that Syuusuke dreams of Yuuta hurtling fown from the heavens without so much as a pair of gauzy purple fairy wings. He falls and falls and falls until he hits the granite floor with a sound that makes them both scream.
Syuusuke wakes up in a moment of shock and pain and -- worst of all -- grief.
He is inside Yuuta's room, pillow clutched in his hand, before he knows it -- before he can think of what he's doing, before he can remember that Yuuta won't like it. He sighs and laughs a little to himself before he clears a spot on the floor of his brother's perpetually messy room. Tonight, he is not aiming for sleep but rather for rest, for peace. He intends to be gone before Yuuta wakes.
The noise, however, makes the figure in the bed turn over and open his eyes.
"Aniki?" Yuuta asks uncertainly, and to Syuusuke's surprise, he looks wide awake. "Wht's wrong? Why're you in here?"
Syuusuke swallows the wods he wants to say, fights back the things he wants to do, and says, "It's nothing. Just a dream I had." Then, stronger: "Can't sleep?"
Yuuta reluctantly shakes his head and his eye catches sight of the pillow in his brother's hand. "Hey. Were you gonna sleep in here or somehing, Aniki?"
Fuji smiles. "Maybe."
"'Cause the floor's dirty."
"I suppose."
They stare at each other in the darkness, insomniacs and boys and brothers and maybe something in between. Syuusuke is still smiling, which only makes Yuuta frown deeply. Finally, the younger of the two gives a huff, turns over, and makes space for the elder.
"You'd better not do anything weird in your sleep," Yuuta grumbles, pulling up the covers viciously so as to cover up his embarrassment.
Any falseness in Syuusuke's smile melts away as his shoulers relax and he draws nearer, climbing into the bed and settling in as though he belongs there.
"Weird? I wouldn't dream of it," comes the silky rejoinder in Yuuta's ear. The boy swats his brother away impatiently, with a hissed "Aniki!", and Syuusuke only laughs.
The extra warmth is a little uncomfortable, particularly considering that it is the middle of July and during a heatwave to boot, but neither of them minds much. They merely lie in the heat and breathe, waiting patiently as sleep graually inches closer. Then, in the darkness:
"Yuuta?"
"Nn."
"I love you."
"Yeah?" Yuuta asks drowsily.
"Mm."
"Why?"
"Why?" Syuusuke repeats, and shifts. "I love you because I love you."
"'S not an answer."
"Really?"
"Really." Yuuta snuggles closer into the pillow. "You're so weird, Aniki."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Good night, then."
"'Night."
Silence.
"Hey, Aniki?"
"Hm?"
"You're not so bad yourself."
--
"What did you dream of last night, Yuuta?"
A pause. "Nothing much. What about you, Aniki?"
A smile, small and a little lopsided, but sincere. "Falling."