[ Eclipsed in the half-moon of Yu’s arms, he draws nearer, the hand at his back acting upon him like a tidal force. Here, between the cradle of slim shoulders and the steady, unwavering strength in the limbs braided around him, he feels so impossibly alive in spite of the weakness settled into his bones. It’s at once a sense of being adrift and anchored, of being lost to the undulating currents of the seas yet buoyant enough to stay afloat.
Being alive, he finds, is not a singular experience or emotion, and it’s not entirely pleasant and it’s not entirely perfect, but the edges of fear and the worries of reason only serve to make the moment more startlingly real.
Lavi loosens his grip, hands sliding away from taut muscle to find a new home along the tops of shoulders, his arms lifted weakly to thread around Kanda’s neck while delicate kisses feather against his face. The fire in him still burns for that which he is far too weak and far too broken to satiate in his current state, but more than the siren call of lust, it’s this tender intimacy that he craves most deeply.
This tender, strange, really quite absurd intimacy. Laughter, soft and subdued by stark comparison to his usual bright ring, rises at the wet glide of a tongue, a weak smile hugging his lips as he makes a show of trying to dry his cheek off on the cloth of his raised shoulders.
His mirth dies short at the whisper, at first out of sullen acknowledgment – he hasn’t eaten properly in days and he can feel the frenzy of his mind stirred beyond its normal limits with the continued fever, but even so…
Lavi opens his mouth to offer the ill-conceived and admittedly petulant arguments, the first whisper of interjection scarcely past his tongue when the last words strike a terrible, shrilling chord within him.
"…not this time."
Because there will be other times, won’t there? Just as he has done in the past, he will surely build those barriers again, pouring the walls around him as deep and stalwart as he can. Even burned and muddled out of his right mind, he knows this to be true, knows it as a student of historical patterns and with his own small, tremulous thread of self-awareness.
His eyes sting again, vision blurring with the fresh rise of unbidden tears held at bay by lashes.
Lavi can offer nothing by way of rejoinder for that, no oaths upon his tongue that would ring anything but false.
All that he can offer is this moment, this confusing, painful moment. Head dropping down in an effort to contain his unruly emotions, Lavi buries his nose under Yu’s ear, chin settled in the cushion of his own arm as he chokes back the urge to sob and wills his voice not to break. ]
I.. I won’t. Not right--not now.
[ Softer, swallowing hard against the lump settled in his throat— ]
Please don’t let me disappear, even if I beg you. I don’t want to lose this feeling.
[ But he will, though forgetfulness will smooth out the brunt of it, hollowing him out and imparting only the vague sense that there was a time, that there was this moment, where he knew what it was to be whole. ]
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Being alive, he finds, is not a singular experience or emotion, and it’s not entirely pleasant and it’s not entirely perfect, but the edges of fear and the worries of reason only serve to make the moment more startlingly real.
Lavi loosens his grip, hands sliding away from taut muscle to find a new home along the tops of shoulders, his arms lifted weakly to thread around Kanda’s neck while delicate kisses feather against his face. The fire in him still burns for that which he is far too weak and far too broken to satiate in his current state, but more than the siren call of lust, it’s this tender intimacy that he craves most deeply.
This tender, strange, really quite absurd intimacy. Laughter, soft and subdued by stark comparison to his usual bright ring, rises at the wet glide of a tongue, a weak smile hugging his lips as he makes a show of trying to dry his cheek off on the cloth of his raised shoulders.
His mirth dies short at the whisper, at first out of sullen acknowledgment – he hasn’t eaten properly in days and he can feel the frenzy of his mind stirred beyond its normal limits with the continued fever, but even so…
Lavi opens his mouth to offer the ill-conceived and admittedly petulant arguments, the first whisper of interjection scarcely past his tongue when the last words strike a terrible, shrilling chord within him.
"…not this time."
Because there will be other times, won’t there? Just as he has done in the past, he will surely build those barriers again, pouring the walls around him as deep and stalwart as he can. Even burned and muddled out of his right mind, he knows this to be true, knows it as a student of historical patterns and with his own small, tremulous thread of self-awareness.
His eyes sting again, vision blurring with the fresh rise of unbidden tears held at bay by lashes.
Lavi can offer nothing by way of rejoinder for that, no oaths upon his tongue that would ring anything but false.
All that he can offer is this moment, this confusing, painful moment. Head dropping down in an effort to contain his unruly emotions, Lavi buries his nose under Yu’s ear, chin settled in the cushion of his own arm as he chokes back the urge to sob and wills his voice not to break. ]
I.. I won’t. Not right--not now.
[ Softer, swallowing hard against the lump settled in his throat— ]
Please don’t let me disappear, even if I beg you. I don’t want to lose this feeling.
[ But he will, though forgetfulness will smooth out the brunt of it, hollowing him out and imparting only the vague sense that there was a time, that there was this moment, where he knew what it was to be whole. ]