#will smith poses at haruki and dewah cuddling: please look at them

[fistsoflightning]

lingering fears

there are simply some things that never truly disappear.

                          gatheredfates’ [30 day WOL challenge] | prompt: tomorrow

if anything this is my Peak Bullshit, if i had to pick out one fic that was the Top of my Bullshit. also, thank you to @to-the-voiceless​ for letting me subject haruki to this silly lilycat? he’s a Mess? anyways! slice of life content go!

a’dewah had waved syhrwyda and duscha goodnight from the floor of the basement library when the chronometer hanging delicately above elwin’s forge had read two bells to midnight, the golden bells chiming in time with syhrwyda’s little laugh. it was only slightly past when he usually retired for the night, so they hadn’t looked too closely into the fading darkness to a’dewah’s expression, playfully teasing him for being such a bookworm despite being the only two sharlayan scholars in the house.

(in hindsight, he probably should have asked one of them to stay, considering how his mind oh so loved to wander in the dark, stumbling upon landmines of memories until a’dewah finds his hands shaking hard enough to make turning on the miniature orchestrion beside him difficult.)

so when haruki stumbles headfirst into the walls separating the library and sitting room from the occupied bedrooms looking like an owl, a’dewah finds that the chronometer reads four bells past midnight. he’s clutching one of a’dewah’s pillows, the cloudsilk cover bunched up beneath his fingers as haruki rubs his eyes, squinting past the gentle blue light of the floral lamp after regaining his bearings.

“dewah, what’re you doing up? was about to go ask duscha if he’d seen you,” haruki mumbles, poorly stifling a yawn into his pillow. not the smartest of plans, really; duscha was much more of a fluffy, unshakeable cushion this late at night, and even all of haruki’s (currently missing) energy would have failed to rouse duscha from his spot among the comatose.

a’dewah can’t find the heart to tell him i had a nightmare where you detested me and i didn’t want to wake you over it, so instead he says, “i figured out what the problem with the… the enchantments i was testing earlier was, and i didn’t want to forget it, so i—” he makes a wide sweeping motion to the mess of books and parchment in front of him. “—er, have this mess now. it’s kept me awake.” it’s not so much a lie as it is a half-truth (he really did figure out how to enchant the new flowers he’d grown upon his return from the first in a last ditch effort to stay awake), but something in his stomach drops anyways, guilt feeding into his already spiraling control.

he makes some noise of ambivalent agreement—a mumbled ‘mhm’ of sorts—and steps over a’dewah’s fortress of tomes and scrolls to the clear spot beside him. a’dewah’s pillow looks… well, a little strangled, but otherwise haruki seems alright, leaving a’dewah wondering just when he woke up. haruki had convinced him to take a “nap” late that afternoon, so it wasn’t unreasonable for him to be awake… but it couldn’t stop him from worrying, now could it.

as soon as haruki gets himself situated by a’dewah’s side, he leans in, grabs a’dewah’s hand (that is currently clenched and resting on top of a small drawing), squints carefully at a’dewah’s face, and calmly says, “you’re lying.”

his ears absolutely do not flatten at that. “what—how—ruki, are you sure you—you’re completely awake?”

“yep, sure am,” haruki yawns, which is a sure sign that he’s an absolute liar if not for the strength of his grip around a’dewah’s clenched hand. “you probably don’t notice, but… well, you can’t see it, but here—” haruki reaches over with his free hand to poke lightly at the corner of his right eye, tracing down his lower eyelid to where the small scar sits perfectly vertical over it. “—whenever you lie, it kinda twitches and tenses up. plus; you start to stammer, which is both cute and your biggest nervous habit.”

“i—that’s.” a’dewah blankly stares into the slowly blurring parchment still in his lap while haruki yawns yet again (really, he should have just kept sleeping, especially since he and mune were going to see the moonfire faire fireworks in a few suns), because how was he on par with elwin on catching tells and his stammering is cute and it’s incredibly dark does he have some sort of night vision—

at some point during his slow descent into anxious madness, haruki had scooted over from a’dewah’s side to right behind him, one arm wriggling under his and the other over his shoulder, holding him firmly in place as haruki carefully nuzzles his horn next to a’dewah’s torn ear. the motion is so filled with reassurance, kindness, love that a’dewah stops thinking enough to melt into haruki’s chest, but not enough to stop him from jamming whatever semblance of purring was climbing up his throat back down. he is not prepared for the teasing that will come out of that, not this late at night… or early in the morning.

“there’s the soft, relaxed you,” haruki mumbles quietly, his face close enough to a’dewah’s ears to be clear despite the soft tone. “you were so tense i thought you might strain something. now that you’re not, though, d’you mind…”

“if you’re sure you want to hear it,” a’dewah sighs. resisting the urge to curl into himself is only second in difficulty to not feeling utterly sick by what he readies himself to say. “it’s just a silly nightmare, really; we were sitting in the one garden, k-kinda like this, just talking. it was nice until dream-you started to—he said things that weren’t really… well, you, like that you hated me and—and you n-ne…”

he finds himself just short on courage to say you never loved me because how selfish and hurtful would that be, to tell someone who loves you so much that they’d come looking for you in the middle of the night that the twisted, broken, and scared part of you was convinced you hated them? to say that you couldn’t trust them with your heart because they might actually break it even if that isn’t who they are at all? haruki would never say that, not for a joke and never for real; he’d somehow kept loving a’dewah even after all the waiting and worrying he was subjected to.

but, his mind whispers traitorously as haruki inhales slowly by his ear. a’dewah screws his eyes shut, letting his back tense up again as one of haruki’s arms moves to cradle his cheek. just because he wouldn’t now doesn’t mean he couldn’t later and what if he’s just tricking you like all—

“hey,” haruki says, knocking a’dewah from whatever number thought spiral this was of the night when he turns a’dewah’s head to meet his eyes. “breathe, sunshine; i’ve known you long enough to remember when your hair turned white. i don’t think i could hate you for being afraid.”

“s-sure,” a’dewah says, even if he doesn’t fully believe it and it sounds like he’s lying again. he breathes anyways, broken heart strangling itself inside his chest as he nearly chokes on air.

haruki’s eyes scrunch up at the corners in pity as he somehow pulls a’dewah closer, thumb tracing up his cheek to wipe just under a’dewah’s burning eyes and oh gods he’s crying isn’t he why is he like this. he nearly pulls out of haruki’s touch to curl up into the smallest ball he can, but haruki leans forward first, tilting his head carefully so he doesn’t gore a’dewah on his horns.

“i’ll love you today—” haruki presses a kiss to a’dewah’s forehead. “ —and tomorrow—” a second, on the bridge of his nose. “ —and tomorrow—” a third on the scar trailing down his cheek and a’dewah pushes him away this time to bury his face in his hands since he can already feel the flush spreading across his face.

“ruki, that’s just…” he trails off, still being peppered with kisses in his hair, because of course he’d know just what was haunting him. his eyes are still screwed shut and hot but his heart feels full and stong, untwisting itself under “you shouldn’t have to reassure me all the time but—how are you so…so—” kind, caring, observant, bold—

a’dewah stops stammering in time to sneeze; a quiet thing, drowned out under the soft hum of the miniature orchestrion playing next to them, but with haruki’s arms wrapped around his chest and the way his ears had shot back up in surprise…  

honestly, he should have expected haruki’s reaction.

“i—ruki i wasn’t done writing—don’t knock over that pile, those are dusch— wait put me down!”

“nope! now that we’ve cleared that up, time for bed,” haruki says triumphantly, his energy finally regained from cuddling as if that were a proper form of rest. before he knows it, haruki’s cradling his legs and back atop the pillow he’d dragged from a’dewah’s bedroom and swiftly picking him up before he can even try to stop his absolute menace of a boyfriend. “and this time, no leaving—wake me up next time dream-me is all weird, okay?”

“...mhm, but—the books and the parchment and the orchestrion—”

“whoever wakes up first can deal with the orchestrion, and the mess won’t go anywhere, sunshine. i’ll help you clean up, tomorrow.” haruki shifts his arm to put a hand on a’dewah’s head, fingers running over his ear in a soothing scratch. he says tomorrow like a promise, so warm and sure that a’dewah stops fighting back, content to let the drowsiness he’s been warding off catch up as haruki quietly walks back to a’dewah’s room.

he must have been more tired from gardening yesterday than he thought; he barely reacts when haruki gently rolls him off the pillow into bed, nor when he’s jostled around to be lying on top of haruki instead of the bed, a blanket wrapped around his waist. honestly, he really should go clean off his facepaint, but the warmth of the blanket and haruki’s arms combined make the executive decision to stay here before his brain catches up.

he does, however, escape sleep long enough to talk, especially since one thing is still bothering him. “hey, ruki?”

“...something still up?” haruki yawns into his fist, and from here a’dewah can see the dark circles beginning under his eyes. gods, he hoped he didn’t keep him awake and that it’d only been a few short minutes since haruki came and found him.

“i was thinking… why did you come look for me? it’s the middle of the night.” or too early for the morning, but that was all perspective.

“i thought…” haruki pauses, and his next breath comes out as a resigned sigh. “i thought you left—farther than i could follow, kind of left.”

a’dewah’s breath catches, if only a bit, since that was a turn of phrase sometimes reserved for the dead. he knows he couldn’t have gone and died in a single night, but the thought of leaving haruki wondering if a’dewah was even alive makes his stomach turn; they’d both already had their fair share of dead family for a lifetime.

haruki resumes tracing idle patterns into a’dewah’s back without really waiting for any response as a’dewah quietly remembers that, well, he did leave haruki without a word for over a year and then told him he didn’t have any grasp on when, how, or if he’d be coming back. that alone would be enough to send him into a fit, so… maybe he wasn’t the only one with nightmares, between the two of them.

“never again, not if i can help it,” a’dewah promises in whispers, as if the gods were listening and if they heard would do everything to prove him wrong. he’ll fight hydaelyn if it means keeping it, sacrilege be damned. “you’ll just, well, have to wait a few moons before you can safely follow me, since…”

“garlemald, right,” haruki says with a crescent-moon grin, his eyes warm and glowing with golden light, as if he were staring right at the sun falling past the horizon and the sunlight was smiling back. belatedly, a’dewah realizes that haruki is staring right at his face, which in any other circumstance wouldn’t be such a problem but he just compared himself to the sun like who would honestly do that—

he pulls the throw blanket over his head, curls a bit into himself and squeaks out, “g’night ruki love you!”

“love you more, dewah.”  haruki whispers back, even though his warm chuckle and a hand combing through his hair is more than enough of a response. he doesn’t even try to pull the blanket from his head, merely closing his eyes and drifting off. his hands don’t move from where they’re rested under a’dewah’s cardigan, warmth defined and seeping through the thin shirt like a soft brand.

once a’dewah’s fairly certain that haruki’s fully asleep, he shifts around enough so he can twine his tail carefully around haruki’s, finally letting sleep take him while he prays that he wakes up first tomorrow.