Voice
The sun rises and rises,
Taking with it the place where I am
I want to fall asleep in your arms…
That even wipe out my punishment…
---Tsukiko Amano, "Voice"
He had had a dream again.
That same dream…the bittersweet, tender thing that he couldn't shake, couldn't seem to get out of his head, no matter how hard he would try, or how hard he would avoid it…not thinking about it until he fell asleep, and saw it once again.
He had felt warm there…safe. Wrapped in an embrace he knew that he didn't deserve, or maybe didn't even want. Soft lips were pressed to his bare shoulders, and a tender sound was whispered in his ear.
Something like a familiar voice that he had forgotten—even though he had only heard it a few days before.
…
They had all started when Alfons had called him.
A few days before…from all the way in Transylvania, if one could believe it. Simple small talk…"Are you okay", "how are you doing", "did you find any answers yet"…things that normal men wouldn't think twice about, would brush off as friendly companionship and that was it. Worry—you know. The things that roommates did when their companions left to a foreign country to study a world that for all intents and purposes probably shouldn't have existed.
But it was the way the air had blown against the speaker that he remembered the most.
Light…
Gentle.
Al had always breathed without a sound when they were kids, even when he was scared or sobbing. Unable to hear—not like this, where he could almost feel it going through the speaker and brushing against his cheek…
But he knew that it was his own breath bouncing off the receiver.
Man, oh man…
He was going fucking crazy.
He would hear that sound…that voice everywhere.
In the clock when it ticked (Alfons would always say how the sound of a ticking clock was soothing, and good for research)…the shower when it ran down his skin (He had always said that he liked hotter showers…the vapors were good for his lungs)…even when the damn kettle went off in the kitchen (Alfons always preferred coffee to tea; tea was too light, too gentle of a taste for him).
He wanted it to go away.
He wanted the dreams to stop.
He wanted the voice to get out of his head.
He wanted to stop dreaming about the one thing he knew he couldn't have, shouldn't have…
But as long as that voice haunted his mind, he knew that he would have to suffer this sweet punishment still.