It's well past midnight when the bedroom door creaks open. Akane doesn't look up from the book he's been not-reading for the last two hours; he doesn't need to see Clay's face to know what expression the other boy is making.
"Glad you finally decided to emerge," he says, making a show of setting an unneeded bookmark between the pages before he snaps the book shut. "I thought you'd never come out."
"I was trying to sleep," Clay says, his tone dropping into habitual defensiveness at Akane's teasing. "We should get some rest before tomorrow."
"But you weren't," Akane says, setting the book aside so he can look up instead. Clay is leaning against the wall of the hallway, slouched in sideways with his arms crossed over his chest like he's cold in spite of the warmth in the air. There's a crease in his forehead, unusual strain caught at the corners of his eyes and mouth, and if Akane hadn't already known his weapon partner was tossing and turning in the other room rather than sleeping the stress across his features would tell the story itself.
He slides back a little farther on the couch, aiming for the appearance of relaxation since he can no more manage the reality than Clay can. "Come here."
Clay comes. Usually he'd come around the edge of the couch, drop to slump over one arm or maybe stretch out to tangle himself with Akane; it's a symptom of the tension in his shoulders that he sits beside it this time, leaves the line of his shoulders and the back of his neck for Akane's gaze while he tucks his knees up to his chest and presses his face into their cover. It doesn't offer him much defense from Akane's understanding, but then, it's not Akane he's hiding from.
"I'm scared," he mumbles into his knees.
Akane doesn't sit up. What he does do is turn sideways, shift his weight so he can half-curl around Clay's bowed head. When he reaches out to brush his fingers against yellow hair Clay sighs, a shuddery gasp of air like he's just now remembering how breathing is supposed to work.
"I tried to sleep," he says, confession spilling unprompted from his lips. "I really did. But I was lying there in the dark thinking about tomorrow and I-"
There's a pause, a catch in Clay's words that doesn't allow for coherent continuation. Akane wants to offer comfort, wants to tell him that it'll be alright, that they'll be fine, that they'll both come home safe and whole. But his throat won't work, the lie of certainty is too big for him to put voice to, and all he can offer is a harder press of his fingers, a tight hold against the back of Clay's neck like he's holding him steady while his own heart pounds itself into resonant adrenaline to match Clay's.
"I don't want to die," Clay says into his knees, a tiny, childish plea that makes him years younger all at once, the wide-eyed wheat-haired child he was when Akane met him, and something in Akane snaps into a keening note of pain. "I don't want you to die."
"Clay," Akane says, and then that's all he can manage, because his throat is closing up and his eyes are burning hot with the threat of tears.
"I don't." Clay's shoulders are trembling, the motion running all up his spine to where Akane's fingers are braced against him, but they're not steadying each other out, it's just making the motion worse. "I mean I don't want anyone to die but I can't - Akane, what if I can't protect you?"
"What if I can't protect you?" Akane blurts, and Clay's head comes up at whatever note of agony is in his throat. He didn't mean for that, he didn't want the clear trust in those blue eyes to see him shatter but he can't call it back now, even ducking his head isn't enough to hide the sudden spill of tears across his cheeks. "What if the Madness gets to me and I...and I…"
He can't say it. There's too much darkness there, too many nightmares realistic enough even before the Kishin's awakening. It's in his blood, the legacy he can't shake off, printed clear across his eye for anyone to see, and he can't breathe, panic is choking him and his vision is going blurry and-
There are arms around him, a desperate grab at his waist. Akane sucks in a choking gasp of air and the world clears, enough to show Clay pressed against his shirt and breathing long stuttering inhales against the fabric.
"You won't," Clay says, the sound muffled by the cloth and broken by his choppy breathing but clear nonetheless. "We'll be alright, we have to be."
Akane's touch at Clay's hair is harder than he means it to be, desperation written into the tension of his fingers and strain in his arm. But Clay takes it as it's meant, the encouragement Akane can't speak for the ache in his throat, and when he moves again it's to rock up on his knees and press himself in against Akane as he drapes the majority of his weight over the other boy.
Neither of them speak much, after that. For a while Clay breathes with the catch of panicked sobs against Akane's neck while Akane tightens his arms around the other boy like he can keep the danger of the morning at bay by the force of his hold. Eventually Clay does drift into sleep, deep enough to keep him from the nightmares Akane expects for himself if he gives in to unconsciousness.
Akane doesn't sleep. He keeps his too-tight hold around Clay's waist, clinging to him until his arms are shaking from the effort, breathes in the sun-hot smell of blond hair and the faint damp of tan skin like he's breathing clarity into his blood, heat to push back the darkness of his thoughts. He doesn't know if he'll still have this tomorrow, but for right now he does, and for right now, it's enough.