just unearthed some old prompts. hope you enjoy this drabble :) please feel free to leave a review!
disclaimer: i dont own hq!
whisper to me, in a voice so soft,
at the hour when we are trembling with tenderness,
on the days when we lay broken from defeat,
a reminder that we are here, together,
our lives, shared
in this space of borrowed time –
mine with you,
yours with me.
He's in the water again today.
It's nothing new, nothing strange. Tooru's always been in the water, just mindlessly floating along; lets the waves lap against his ears and his eyes flutter closed, body rocking with the flow of the current and swaying in a way like a hammock does in the breeze.
Sometimes, the water pulls him in. When it does, he doesn't struggle, doesn't put up a fight. Instead, he lets it. He lingers in the feeling – submerged, relaxed – for a while. Long enough to keep him busy, satisfied, overpowering the roar of thoughts that scream so loudly in his head. Here, submerged in the deep and wide blue, it is quiet. Tooru can think. Gather his bearings. Organize his thoughts. Pull himself together and recharge to survive the rest of yet another day.
It's a welcome change.
By the time he resurfaces, Tooru feels normal again. He feels that he can function. And thus, so, he returns to his days. He returns to the harried mornings, to the eight-to-five clockwork, to the sleepless nights. The everyday routine.
But the idea of staying in the water is tempting, Tooru thinks, if he were to ever be honest with himself. He toys with the proposal, pondering on the option whenever his legs are too tired to keep on kicking upwards, when his arms feel too weak to glide him to the shore.
Still, he knows he shouldn't stay longer than he should. So he doesn't.
Usually.
(He tries.)
There are times, though, when his will is weak and he gives in to the temptation, when the crash of tides are enough to pull him in and he decides to dive down even deeper without hesitation. Tooru swims and swims until his ears pop from the pressure of the water and blocks out the sounds of the rest of reality out. It feels good at first – unique, dreamlike. Foreign, but not unwelcome.
Sometimes, though, he forgets his limits.
Sometimes.
(Sometimes, sometimes, he drowns.)
It is in those times when he feels his lungs tighten, his chest constrict, his mind drawing itself into a blank. It's almost as if Tooru stops breathing. His limbs go numb and his body starts feeling boneless and all the blood stops rushing all to his head.
This is the point when the sea that was once a comfort suddenly becomes all too much. It turns frigid and murky and endless – a shapeless yet tangible question – and he doesn't know if it is worth it to take the nature of its uncertainty, its mystery, its promised infiniteness as a welcome invitation. So he stops; reigns himself in. Pushes the feeling back into his feet and lets his legs propel him back up into the surface, spluttering and gasping as he is thrown back into the world, back into the living.
Hajime is there when he wakes up first.
Out of his daze, Tooru makes out his figure looming indefinitely beyond the horizon. Indistinct. The hazy blur of his form resembles an old photograph Tooru recalls: two gangly boys long tucked away between halcyon years and bygone days, like the distant echoes of a fond yet oft-forgotten memory lost in the ruthlessness of the unforgiving sands of time.
"Swam in too deep?" his gruff voice asks, quiet. A question tossed out to him by the mercy of the sea.
There's a nod at first, a quick assent, though at this point Tooru must have had swum off into the far end too often for him to tell. He settles for a simple, "Probably."
The world stops, shifts; stills in a moment captured in frosted windows and foggy breaths. They lie awake together – two bodies leaning against each other for support, cocooned in blankets and revelling in the heat of a fire. Hajime moves closer first, grabs his wrist with his hand and brushes another against his cheek. He kisses him, once. Then, a whisper:
"Stay with me tonight."
"Mm," Tooru murmurs; he hums, voice brittle, before he speaks. Tooru lifts his head out of the water for a moment and forces himself to breathe – in for two seconds, out for three. "Okay," he says at last, and he answers the other breezily, "okay, I will."
Hajime makes love to him that night.
Their bodies are pressed close, flushed warm against each other, breaths mixing with sweat as they lay tangled in the sheets. Tooru's tears stain Hajime's pillowcases. But that's fine, the latter says to him, honestly, it's never been a bother to him anyway.
Their limbs are intertwined; their movements fluid and in step. Hajime dances with him with the rhythm of an Argentine tango. Passionate and volatile and greedy as it builds up into a climax before they fall back into a pace that is more steady than it is familiar.
Tooru leaves love bites like tattoos on the nape of his neck, the curve of his legs, the broad of his back, the crevice that dips in the space just a little above his clavicle. Hajime lets him. He matches his pace. More than anyone else, it is he who understands Tooru best. He who had always known just how exactly to keep up.
Later, when they sink into the sheets and lay flat across the bed, bodies spent with exhaustion,
Hajime arches his body and wounds himself around the curve of Tooru's back. Strong arms wrap around his thin frame. Hajime holds him gently, like a treasure carved out of glass, delicate and fragile; peppers soft kisses against his cheekbones and ghosting touches that dance across his skin. There's a hand stroking his hair and it relaxes him. Sleepy and content, Tooru lets out a sigh.
At this point, Hajime stops talking. Just cradles him in an embrace and takes him by the hand. Hajime holds him tighter, pulling Tooru close until his shoulder makes contact with Hajime's ribcage and his head rests in the space right next to Hajime's heart.
Hajime's heart beats loudly in its cage, blood pumping nice and steady and oh so strong. It sends a message that is clear: Hajime is alive. Tooru doesn't have to strain his ears much to hear it. He likes that about him. Tooru likes that very much. He listens to Hajime's heartbeat the way he does his favorite song.
Then, Hajime repositions his arm and takes Tooru's hand that he is holding, moves to place it wordlessly over the left side of his own chest. Tooru takes in the rhythm of his pulse, feels the beat of it thrum beneath his fingertips. It is fainter than Hajime's and so much weaker too but it is there. It is there, nevertheless.
You are here, it tells him simply, a quiet message that is spoken in a way that is both warm and reassuring. A reminder that he, too, is still meant to keep on living.
Hajime takes Tooru's other hand and drapes it back over the space of his chest, holding it into place. Tooru curls up against him, and Hajime lets the brunet's head rest on the space right next to their stacked hands.
He takes in the rhythm of his pulse, the steady rush of blood that dances beneath his calloused fingertips. Tooru presses an ear against Hajime's chest and listens to the loudness of his heartbeat, the way it sounds the same way it feels, the way it tells him that Hajime is here and Hajime is real and Hajime is very much alive.
I'm here, too, it reminds him. It comes to him more like a fact than it does a promise and, to Tooru, that alone is enough. It is more than enough.
Because promises are risks. They are uncertain – an open question that lies for the future, like a bond threatened that it may someday break. Facts are just facts, nothing more and nothing less. Undisputable and unassuming, they are altogether easy. Facts keep him grounded. They are rooted in reality. Imbued with truth.
So when Hajime pulls Tooru in closer into his arms, Tooru will bury himself into the crook of other's neck and let him hold him, careful and tender; the way a lover does. They do this on days when Tooru struggles to stay afloat, until his pulse evens out into a slow and steady cadence, until Tooru falls asleep to his thoughts with the ghost of a smile, eyes fluttered shut and contentment spread across his face, until their breaths fall into sync, hearts moving in rhythm, a steady beat that reminds him how Hajime will always be by his side.
because sometimes love isn't enough.
it's not the golden ambrosia,
a cure for all ails;
nor a perfect solution.
(but it helps.)