Tomorrow's Medals, Underwear, and the Miraculous Power
part 3
Ice, Nightmares, and Contentment
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Kisses and more!
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On their return trip from one such walk, Ankh collected on Eiji's promise of one popsicle bought for any mention of his little meltdown, however indirect. He found Ankh reclining on the bank of the river after getting a Calpis pop for him, which he extended a hand to receive without a word of thanks. It was owed to him, after all. Eiji settled next to him, knees tucked up under his voluminous shirt. He watched the river roll by while Ankh watched the sky so intently that every stolen glance at his face chewed the lining of Eiji's stomach.
“Is this really all right?” he asked after several aborted attempts at speech.
Ankh didn't even look his way. “I like Calpis ice.” He took a pointed bite of his treat and fell back on the grass.
“That's not what I meant.” Eiji squirmed under his shirt and unfolded himself to crane over Ankh and search his expression. Ankh searched his in turn.
“Being grounded, you mean?” Ankh nipped the exposed stick of his popsicle and scoffed. “I don't mind it as much as you think. The way I was, what that creep wanted for me...” He let his head loll to the side to see around Eiji's. “I wouldn't have had that ever, probably. And if I did, I wouldn't have anything else. So I'll take everything else and leave that up there.”
“Ah.” Eiji didn't move, held in place by the return of that soft, wistful look on Ankh's face. He looked so warm and soft in that instant, open and calm and at ease. The setting sun reflected off his eyes and his hair and the sweet sheen on his lips. “I'm glad.”
Some of that delicacy drained away when Ankh narrowed his eyes at him. “I answered your question, so what are you boggling at me for?”
Eiji swallowed. His throat crackled. A terrible, shameful, selfish idea had sprung up in his mind. He fought the urge to pull away and mutter nonsense. “Give me the last bite of that and I'll buy you another,” he said, forcing the words out so quickly they nearly lost meaning.
He could see Ankh working out his net gains once the annoyance left his face. He held the dripping ice pop out after a moment's thought, smirking. “Fine. It's got my spit all over it anyway, so enjoy.”
If Eiji hesitated, he knew, it would just melt down his fingers while he sat there in indecision. He stripped the stick bare and set it in the grass. The single bite was alternately creamy soft and jagged icy in his mouth, subtly sweet and sour. He held it delicately between his tongue and the roof of his mouth and leaned over Ankh again, closer. Ankh flinched, stiffened, and quickly calmed. The sun was sinking fast and hidden cicadas had begun to sing. Ankh reached up to lightly touch Eiji's side, then his back. Eiji hoped that meant he got the idea.
He leaned in and let their lips touch, let his part. The ice passed between them and Ankh started at the sudden chill. It melted from the combined heat of their mouths and Ankh reflexively parted his lips to keep the thin rivulets of stickiness off his face. His tongue flicked out and Eiji let his meet it. Ankh shuddered hard and closed his fingers tight around a fistful of Eiji's shirt. Eiji swallowed and Ankh gasped. His spine curved upward as unused synapses sparked. When Eiji brought a hand down on his chest to soothe and still him, the blossoming burn in his skin cut right through his thin t-shirt. The back of Eiji's neck, where his hair fell heaviest, burned just as hot. His heart pounded just as hard.
It ended with mutual sighs in the gathering dark, Ankh's softly voiced and questioning. He looked lost, lying there breathless with his wide eyes and damp, parted lips. The taut skin of his chest burned and trembled under Eiji's hand. Eiji offered him a shy smile, wanting immediately to swoop in and fix whatever discomfort he'd caused. Ankh returned it with one of his rare secret smiles, the subtle ones that showed better in his eyes than on his lips. Those eyes shone brightly again, highly reflective, but there was no fear in them.
“Yeah,” Ankh said, his gaze not wandering from Eiji's face. “This is enough.”
Until that night, they slept apart. Eiji told himself there was no practical reason for that to change, that Ankh's occasional light-footed descents from his perch to stand at the foot of the bed were the product of curiosity or the desire for his attention. So he went on lying still through the subtle sounds, through the long silence between them.
That night, a different sound pulled him from his light sleep. A plaintive sound squeezed through a constricted throat, so familiar it made him sick and brought him swinging and scrambling out of bed instantly. His legs tangled in the sheets as he dove for the sound his half-dreaming mind had only begun to identify.
The floor shook and a pained yelp split the air the instant Eiji's hand brushed the light switch. The overhead lamp flickered to life and brought Eiji out of his vague past terrors and into the present moment. Ankh curled up tight on the floor at the foot of his perch, breathing hard, clutching his shoulder, his eyes shut tight. His face contorted in rage as he thrashed to one side and sobbed, simultaneously acting within and reacting to whatever dream had hold of him. Eiji's knees hit the floor hard, but he wouldn't feel the pain signals shooting up his spine for hours after. He touched Ankh's shoulder lightly. It was warm under the thin pajamas Chiyoko had smothered him into wearing. It would bruise, if nothing else.
“Ankh.”
Ankh uncurled all at once, kicking away to press himself against the wall. The shelf over Eiji's bed shuddered. Ankh's body rippled with an all over tremble and tucked in on itself again before he started to come around. He gulped air and behind his fluttering eyelids his eyes were pink and wet. Eiji dared to move closer again, slowly, hand outstretched.
“Ankh,” he said again, slipping his fingers under Ankh's to pry the hand away from his shoulder. It grabbed his wrist hard, yanked on him. He let himself be pulled, let Ankh press his hands all over him as if searching for something. It nearly broke him to realize the motivation behind the grasping, the frantic pawing, the alternating rage and terror he felt coursing through the body balled up against him. Ankh was reassuring himself that Eiji was here, whole, safe. Eiji put his arms lightly around Ankh, one hand resting on the back of his curly head, and softly said all the things he had learned to tell himself. “It's all right. Breathe deep. It's over. You're home. It's all right...”
Over and over, until Ankh's hands stilled and his breaths came slow and even. He met Eiji's eyes for a long moment, searching as he had with his hands. Eiji chilled seeing such unmasked fear and pain in those eyes, things Ankh had only allowed him to briefly glimpse before.
“I'm okay, too,” he said. He carefully took one of Ankh's hands and smoothed it over his stomach. “See? You can't feel anything, can you?”
“No.” Ankh flicked his gaze to the side and reeled his hand back against his own chest. He pulled back into himself, folding inward. “No. Nothing.”
Eiji leaned forward as Ankh reared back. “You're hurt.”
“I know better than you do,” Ankh sneered. He rolled his shoulder and grimaced. “It's fine. Go back to bed.”
“Not until I'm sure you're okay.” He reached one arm out, not touching but inviting to touch. Ankh didn't accept.
“I had a bad dream and bumped my shoulder. I'm not really hurt.” Ankh drew himself up onto his feet and hissed through his teeth. “Even you can tell the difference.”
Eiji sprang up and moved toward Ankh, hands at his sides. “Come on, I know that much.” He reached for Ankh again, touching his bare elbow first with his fingertips and then the breadth of his palm. Ankh clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes. “Did you wanna talk about it?”
Ankh jerked his arm away and the tenuous physical link between them snapped. “Why would I?”
“It can make it less real, sometimes,” Eiji offered patiently.
“It's not real in the first place.”
“You're staying in the bed tonight.”
Now Ankh deigned to look at him. His expression momentarily softened before the chilly mask returned twice as thick. “No way.”
“Humor me,” Eiji said, tipping his chin up. He could go without mentioning Ankh's secret visits to the foot of his bed; he would let Ankh believe he asked for his own benefit. “You already fell off once and I'm worried, so stay in the bed tonight.”
“Worried?” Ankh's eyes narrowed and Eiji could see anxiety flickering behind them, the hot-cold alternation between raw want and the malice with which Ankh preserved and insulated himself. He gave a short, caustic laugh. “What for?”
“For you, now stop being a pain and get in bed.” Eiji closed the distance between them in one stride and dipped down to sweep his arm behind Ankh's knees. Ankh, unprepared, crumpled and fell heavy in Eiji's arms. Though Eiji was prepared to huck a squawking, lashing mess of teeth and fingernails onto the bed, he found it wasn't necessary. Ankh winced when Eiji's hand closed against his bruised arm, but that was his sole protest to being scooped up and laid out of Eiji's bed.
“You're too stubborn for your own good.”
Eiji nodded with an exaggeratedly thoughtful expression and switched the light off. He bunched the sheets up in his arms and scattered them on the bed, and Ankh, before slipping under them himself. Face up, hands above the covers. He took a breath through his mouth, tasted the false floral scent lingering in the sheets, and closed his eyes. It's all right. Breathe deep.
Ankh stirred, sighed, thumped the wall with his fist, and finally rolled over to rest against Eiji's shoulder. Eiji flinched, which Ankh took as an invitation to tuck up next to him. He'd seen Ankh sleep curled up on his couch, but was that really necessary with the leg room a bed afforded? He touched Ankh's head.
“Hey.”
Ankh huffed. “I like sleeping like this,” he said. “If you're going to make me practically sleep on the floor, I'll do it how I like.”
“Ah.” Eiji turned onto his side and slipped his arms under the sheets and around Ankh. Ankh accepted the unspoken invitation to curl in closer. Shampoo scent crowded out the fresh washed fake flower smell. “This is nice.”
“It is.” The relish in Ankh's voice, though muted, didn't escape Eiji's notice. How long had he wanted this and waited for Eiji to spare his pride and make the decision for him? Now, removed from responsibility for the situation, he began to open up again. He lay silent for a few minutes, until Eiji started to nod off. “You're not the only one who worries. Don't delude yourself.”
“I know,” Eiji said, encroaching sleep muddying his voice. “I just worry harder is all.”
Ankh was quiet again, but the gray light from the skylight illuminated his pensive, active face.. He hadn't said the right thing.
“There are some things that I can't stop thinking about, sometimes.” The words spilled out, tumbling over one another.
Eiji willed himself to be still and serene. “Me too.” He ran a hand over Ankh's tight back. “Did any of those things wake you up tonight?”
Again, the thoughtful silence, the weighing of risk versus reward. Ankh tucked his head against Eiji's chest, perhaps to his it from sight. “Maki, by the ocean. It didn't go well.” His chest swelled with a big breath and he made the croaking sound of an aborted word before falling silent again.
Eiji shuddered. “Don't say anything you don't want to.”
“Mm.” Longer breaths now, deep and even.
“But don't keep things from me to look stronger.”
No reply. The tension had left Ankh's face. Even then he looked very much himself, somehow. Eiji smiled to himself. He had three, maybe four hours left in which to familiarize himself with that face and catch some sleep before Chiyoko came looking for them.
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