Ritsuka knows he's fallen into a dream when his cell phone trills happily and the inset light flashes that fateful red. Soubi doesn't need to call him even a fraction of the previous amount of before, not when he can simply lift his had from the color of his canvas and watch the younger absently toy with his tail across the room as he reads. Not when, with increasing availability these nights, all the further communications have to travel is from Soubi's mouth to the back of Ritsuka's bed-mussed head. No need to send dirty text messages when you can enact them, if in vain. Also, the touch of Soubi, drowsy and overworked after having just pulled an art all-nighter, a blistering, rough thing, where he had fallen asleep on Ritsuka's knee, is gone.

He lets it take him willingly. After all, it's a Friday night, and they have nowhere to be and no one to consider until Sunday at six. Falling asleep, without brushing his teeth or setting an alarm, can't hurt too much tonight. So when the dreamy phone rings, Ritsuka does not lurch back to the surface of his mind, but reaches forward and answers it.

"Hello?" He needn't ask—he knows it's going to be Soubi's voice, like a cello's music.

"Ritsuka."

"Soubi," he answers. He can't fight the tiniest sign of a smile. "Did you want something?" Ritsuka vaguely recalls it as a conversation before moving into Soubi's apartment, one of those blooming, multiplying days that are only bright and beautiful when he remembers them now. Soubi calling him, not demanding, not forced—but happy, mundane, wanting.

"I just wanted to see you, Ritsuka."

The word "Okay," is out of his mouth before he can remember how to say it. The corners of the world are blurred but pleasantly so, the colors blending like straying watercolors. He puts both hands on his cell phone, holding it closer, and flops backwards onto his bed, smiling at the ceiling in secrecy. He listens to Soubi's voice as it drifts off into strange, but comforting dream circles, talking about nothing, just lilting like music. And, for once, he falls into a dream in eagerness, surrendering himself completely to it.

His dreams have never been very welcome things—always twisting and hurtful and there to remind him of all the terrible things in his life. But to simple dream of talking to Soubi is a welcome change.

"Do you want to go to the park?" Ritsuka is pushing into the phone with a barely-contained joyfulness, when he hears the click of the door as the lock shifts, withdraws, and it swings wide. He hesitates and his voice, once echoing against the misty walls of his memory, realizes and dies low in his throat.

He'd locked that door.

Ritsuka begins to turn his head when his mother speaks, but flinches, and turns it back. She's full of venom, a gun without the safety. "Who are you talking to?" He stares blankly at the paisley pattern of the blanket, and fear paints them bright red and disorientating to the eye.

"No one," he lies. But he does not dare disconnect the line.

Though he knows his mother will soon catch the silky sound of Soubi's voice, calling tentatively across the silence for him, love undeniable in that tone, in that wanting plea, he won't do it. In a place that has suddenly has no corners to hide in, he won't separate himself from the small comfort that is Soubi's projected voice cradling the side of his face.

"Who is it?"

It sends chills down his spine to hear his mother's tone. It's empty, but just waiting for a spark to unleash the wild violence that waits at the bottom of her heart.

"…it's no one, Mother—"

She hits him as hard as she can, knocking him forward. His forehead hits the wall, his nose promptly filling with a protest of blood. The colors flicker and blur around him, his mouth goes dry and his tongue swells painfully in his mouth, and the cell phone falls away from him. He cannot see where it goes, sucked away into a darkness that jumps out from the paisley pattern and lashes at him again, screaming and accusing and slapping.

Liar! I KNOW! I know what you are! You are not my Ritsuka! My Ritsuka would never

not with a disgusting

never!

It is today, of all days, that she decides not to quit. The day she will not relent, either satisfied with his blood on her hands or finally repelled by it, and he will wake up at the sound of his mother shrieking, Soubi's palm hard against the side of her face. But for now, he is mired in the worst of it, miles away from long, willow arms around him and the promise of salvation.

The edges of his watercolor world now warp, jumping at each connection of angry flesh, turn copper, and bleed out into the dark. For a moment, all he is fear and pain, multiplying and echoing within his mind. But then, he is waking up, and he feels the pieces of himself click safely back into their places. He bubbles back up into existence and his throat and face is tight from crying, and warmed by Soubi's broad palms holding the sides of his head.

The color of Soubi's hair is dim through his bleary eyes, and the gleam off his glasses flashes a little too brightly, but he feels all that fall second to safety as he realizes where he is now. "Soubi," he sniffles out, reaching forward to grab at his clothing.

"Shh," comes the answer, and Soubi pulls him close. Ritsuka crawls gratefully into his lap, that warm, arching curve that has long served as a shell of comfort. He's growing slightly too lanky and tall to fit as comfortably beneath his chin and on his thighs as he used to, but he collapses into that familiar space like a marionette after a long night of dangling. And in a way, it had been.

Soubi chuckles against the top of his head, something Ritsuka is glad for. His laughter lightens the load. "Bad dream," he says.

Ritsuka is busily nuzzling his nose into the fighter's sternum, which seems to act as a magnet to the electronic remnants of his memory-turned-nightmare and scramble them pleasantly. The smell of distant oils, and the rich, natural fragrance of Soubi's worn clothes help wash it away as well. "It was good at the beginning," he says sleepily, and lifts his head from Soubi's chest. He only smiles gently down at him, patting his hair back into place.

"What time is it?"

"Almost nine." Soubi's mouth curls with a quirk. "Do you want to go back to sleep?"

Ritsuka half-smirks at him, and leans back a bit. "I'll sleep in a bed, thank you. You're too bony, Soubi."

"Oh, am I?" His eyelids fall in content over the blue-lavender of his eyes, a color that shifts as easily as his true emotion. When Ritsuka first attempts to break the circle of their embrace and stand, Soubi gives him a playful tug. "Prove it."

"No!" Ritsuka says, in a short, bright laugh. "I'm going to go read, so let me go."

For a moment, Soubi's soul seems to bend toward the command, a mistake of wording that slips from Ritsuka's work. Mostly, he loathes the steely, pleased color that floods Soubi's eyes and voice when he commands him, robbing them of their natural beauty and installing instead the idea of beauty someone else has (probably) beaten into him. There is a little flutter in his stomach, though, wondering just how true the claim of 'I'll do anything' really is.

He's tried to ask, to request, to want, rather than command, but sometimes he forgets all about Soubi's rough edges when he smiles at him so. They now adopt the same familiar color, flashing for a moment, and Ritsuka can see the recognition in his eyes, and then the resistance. He waits, still holding him, even when Ritsuka knows all the electricity in his body is telling him to let him go. He waits almost tortuously until Ritsuka remembers, "Please," and his arms almost collapse away.

"Thank you, Soubi."

The fighter blinks at him, as he backs away so they can look fully into each other's faces. "What for?"

Ritsuka surges back and kisses him, pushing him, twitching his mouth happily against Soubi's, until a little, curly sound of happiness answers him. He smiles as he pulls away, flattening his ears for a purr, and says, "For not letting me go."

It's just too cute to resist.

The color of his eyes turns again, this time twirling about into the deeper shades, which mean one thing. "If that's all, then…" He snatches Ritsuka back, happy to disobey this time, biting at his ears until Ristuka starts squealing and pushing and issuing ticklish commands.