A/N: I shouldn't be reading so many angsty FF after I just finished reading the manga. I mean, really, This piece and the other one I just published are the only thing that could ever come out of that! I feel like a horrible person, trying so desperately to kill off my favorite character... I would really hate it if Break would die, but still...
Ok, so Gilbert angst ahead! And mentions of male on male... not too graphic but I still put it under M. And a little bit of spoilers. Nothing too definite, though.
Gilbert laid in the bed, damp sheets wrapped around his body and a warm blanket pulled over him. The heavy canopy of Break's bed falling over his head cast shadows that were since long ago all too familiar to him. The albino himself was breathing heavily next to him, shifting until he found the best position.
Gilbert wasn't entirely sure when this had happened. Neither was he sure what exactly this was. Struggling to look back, he could clearly remember the red eyed stares during their fights that had been there for years now. In the heat of the argument he would sometimes notice how the burning of that bloody gaze set within him a fire unlike that of the argument. It had been confusing and unnerving at first, but at a certain time he had noticed his own looks turning dirty, accompanied with a strange kind of satisfaction from the receiver.
Then, there had been the training sessions. Few people knew about it, almost no one really, but once he had finally acquired Raven he had went through hellish training with Break in order to build up enough knowledge and experience on controlling the Chain. And, since they were training anyway, the albino had pushed him through numerous spars as well. It had been present there, he remembered. It was in the way the older man would press into him whenever he threw him to the ground, how he would use any chance to push him against a wall.
And the looks were hotter then, the red eyes burning so close to his face. They were accompanied with the feel of the other's body against his, with the thin lips always just a breath away, with the wicked tongue that would dart out to lick them whenever he would fall under the spell. And that grin. That dirty, crooked, wide grin that never left the pale face. Gilbert was uncertain when that had started but at some point that grin began stealing his breath as much as the stares.
Just like that, one day a spar had morphed into something else entirely. Back then they hadn't said a single word about it. No confessions, no complications. The borders had been set between them a long time ago without either of them having to voice them. And what followed had been the next logical thing to come. They had both known it was coming, so there was no surprise, no fighting it. They just gave into the heat of the moment, let that fire consume them. Clothes had been ripped, nails scratched unforgivingly, teeth sank into soft skin.
It had continued from then, like everything else. Their relationship flowed like a river, starting from that one single spot in their life where they had stumbled upon one another and continuing down the slope of events, certain and unstoppable with only one destination in mind. Only Gilbert was afraid of reaching that destination, that end. Because with Break he could never allow himself to be swallowed up by such emotions.
Worse thing was, he feared he had been swept away too far already. The sea was just behind the horizon but the river was suddenly drying up, evaporating so quickly that he was unsure if he would be granted enough time to reach.
That he was afraid of even more. He had started noticing the signs lately. Not that they had been missing before, the more he thought about it the more he knew they had started a really long time ago. But he only started seeing them lately. Only after he realized Break was blind. It was strange how suddenly that had opened his eyes.
The older man rarely let it show, but Gilbert now looked deeper into things, tried to pry apart the truths from the lies and he found himself trembling every time he thought about it. Break was falling apart. It wasn't like his touches were less heated yet his fingers were always so cold. His caresses were growing slower, lazier. The burning fire was still there, but it was tossing and hissing now, dying slowly under the constant rain.
What scared Gilbert the most was how tired the other seemed as of late. He remembered at first, the times when neither of them would want to go to sleep all night. They would go at it again and again, and then lay awake and stubborn refusing to fall asleep before the other. The raven had finally given up on that and made it a habit to just let go and rest, but it had been only a couple of weeks ago that Break started falling asleep before him.
It struck him as strange how that though horrified him. It wasn't that the other hadn't trusted him before, or at least Gilbert wanted to believe he had. Yet somehow Break had always been the strong one, the one who could go for weeks without catching a blink of sleep, because he could always handle it. He would be the one to lay awake and watch over Gilbert. He was the one who never showed the vulnerability of his sleeping face.
But now here he was, wrapped in the heavy cover, red eyes closed, thin lips opened slightly and deep breaths sounding in the dark room while next to him the raven remained awake and shaking. Gilbert didn't want to admit his fears even as they were eating him up from the inside. He couldn't push aside the feeling that Break felt weaker every time, that he seemed more fragile, more tired. He was terrified that one of these times he'd open his eyes and be the only one to leave the bed on his own two feet.
A shaky hand reached out and combed through white bangs, as Gilbert buried his fingers deep into the messy hair of the albino. He moved carefully as not to wake him, turned on his side and wrapped the other free arm around his body. Even short after their heated actions, Break's body was shivering with cold. His complexion worried the younger man, it wasn't that he had grown paler now, but he was steadily losing the healthy paleness of his cheeks. He looked now drained, white as chalk and just as lifeless sometimes.
So Gilbert pulled him closer, wrapped himself around him even as he felt Break stirring and buried his face in that white hair. And he felt eyelashes brushing lightly against his neck and the warmth of the other's breath hitting his chest yet the fear burned into him, so he tightened his hold and squeezed as much as he dared, trying to share some of his warmth with the weakening body, to keep him so close that he could feel the heartbeat like it was his own.
And he felt his embrace being accepted, a hand snaking around him to clutch at his back, and the light brush of eyelashes was felt once more as Break closed his eyes and his breaths evened out quickly.
Gilbert didn't sleep that night, just held Break close and wondered when he had drowned in the sea of love and why the river hadn't dried up a bit sooner. Maybe then, it wouldn't hurt so much to know the other was dying in his arms.