Das Beste.
Title: Das Beste.
Fandom: Cross University RPG.
Warnings: ANGST. DRAMA. ANGST. And of course, slash.
Characters/couples: Yuuri/Omi.
Summary: Omi’s greatest fear had been to forget how he and Yuuri met. He’s to learn that there’s a thing he fears more.
Rating: PG13.
Notes: *points towards srgt_s_venom side and goes to sniffle in peace.*
Das Beste.
“Tsukiyono-kun?” Yuuri’s voice sounds rough and creaky when he finally wakes up, and Omi has had three days of nothing but hell and no sleeping at all, waiting for his fiancé to wake up, but the use of his last name makes Omi freeze from where he had been just about to hold Yuuri again. “Where am I?”
“It’s… the hospital. You fell over the stairs and hit your head. Remember?”
Yuuri makes as far to try to shake his head before he winces, a soft whine over his voice as he takes his hand over his forehead, but Omi can’t move, can barely breathe at the look Yuuri gave him, as if he was a stranger.
“Ahh. No, I don’t… but see? I told you I was a complete clutz.” Yuuri says in embarrassment, as if he hadn’t been there to see all the ways Yuuri is a clutz, to be there to offer a hand up or help limp towards their home or to playfully kiss it better.
He swallows the lump of his throat and feels it drop directly towards his stomach.
“I… I’ll go get the doctor.” He says, nodding to himself, because any minute now he’ll wake up and this’ll be one of his nightmares and nothing more.
“Yeah…” Yuuri says distractedly, still rubbing over the bandages of his forehead. “Oi, Tsukiyono-kun?”
Never before has Omi hated his last name so much.
“Yes?” he says, turning towards where his best friend and loved one is over the bed, and his heart breaks at the grin Yuuri gives him.
“Thanks for worrying. You’re an amazing roommate.”
***
“How are you feeling?” the doctor asks Yuuri. Omi is outside of the room, leaning against the wall because anytime soon his knees will stop working altogether, eyes closed as tightly as he can, just focusing on breathing.
“Sore. And starving!” Yuuri laughs. “Um, how long will I be here?”
“We’ve to run you some tests. You were in a coma for three days.”
“Really? Wow.” And now Yuuri’s amazed.
((He knew what the doctor was telling him, knew it from trying for so long to find out who he was. He knew that head traumas occasionally caused amnesia and that many times it was temporary, until the swelling died out and that there wasn't any reason not to expect this one to also be that. He also knew, by painful personal experience, that many times it lasted forever.))
“I’d like to make you some questions, if that’s okay with you?” the doctor asks. Omi slips over to the floor, barely noticing when his shirt rides up and the cold of the wall creeps against his skin. He just keeps on breathing, eyes tightly closed, trying to ignore the bitter taste over his mouth.
“You’re the doc.”
“What’s your name and when’s your birthday?”
“July 19th, and I’m Shibuya Yuuri, Harajaku Fuuri. I MEAN! Sorry, no, my name’s only Shibuya Yuuri, I’m just so used at the other one as a joke.” Yuuri laughs again and the bitter taste over his mouth increases. Omi pulls his legs up and wraps his arms tightly around his knees, tries to take deep breaths to calm the nausea.
((Yuuri had been joking, when he fell down, about his birthday in two weeks, that all he wanted for a gift was Omi with a ribbon to unwrap and he had laughed too even if he blushed, playfully calling him a pervert.
He had kept all the ideas for the birthday a secret, and Yuuri had been going crazy trying to find out about them. Yuuri had asked for mercy, please, even the tiniest hint and Omi had laughed again while they climbed the stairs up towards their apartment and he had said no.
Next thing he heard was Yuuri’s startled scream and he turned around just to see his fiancé tumbling down a flight of the stairs, hitting his head harshly against the wall and staying there, bleeding from a deep cut over his forehead.))
“What year are you and what are you studying, Yuuri?”
“Freshman, and undecided yet. I wanted to be a baseball player but… oh well, I’m still trying to figure it out.” The doctor gives a soft ‘I see’, and Omi can almost picture him checking over Yuuri’s history.
“How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“And who’s the young man who was here before?”
“Hm? Oh, that’s Tsukiyono-kun, we just met, but he’s cool. Oi, speaking of him, did he go back to the dorms?”
It’s a direct hit against his chest that almost takes all of his breath away. Omi gives a shuddering hiss and tries to stop shaking and to stop the tears that are forming over his eyes.
***
“Here we are.” Omi says quietly a few days later, after Yuuri was released from the hospital, pointedly not looking towards him as he gets inside their apartment, and he tries not to look at anything because every single part of it it’s so filled with memories of them both: the weight of being the only one that remembers them feels too crushing.
“So… this is our apartment?” Yuuri says. It had hurt, hurt too much to see Yuuri’s shock and surprise when he had had to tell him about the last two year, about who he really was, who they really were, and hurt even more when the man who he knew almost as well as himself recoiled from his touch at first.
“Yeah. We’ve been here over a year.” And they had been saving to get a bigger place, even if they still couldn’t afford a house, but they still loved their place, even if it had leaks and was too small and occasionally stuffy because it was theirs.
“Ah…” he sees Yuuri walk around the living room, limping a bit from his sprained ankle and he closes the door, trying not to wonder what will happen from now on. The Shibuya had seemed intent that Yuuri should stay with him: Jen had told him that he was so much of Yuuri’s life that there was no way he wouldn’t remember, but he doesn’t want to have his hopes up. “That has to be the ugliest couch I have ever seen.”
Omi does look up at that and laughs a bit, shaking his head. “Actually… you picked it.”
“What?! I did?!” and the way Yuuri’s eyeing the mustard couch with the cats’ pawprints on it should be funny, it really should be.
“The room’s over here: the doctor said you still needed to rest.”
“Okay…”
((Mornings over where neither of them would want to go out, being woke up by soft, teasing kisses and equally playful hands, watching movies only paying half attention to it, Yuuri’s smile and smell so mixed with his own that sometimes it was impossible to distinguish between them and…))
The cats are sleeping over the bed, and even then Aiko rouses immediately and goes towards the bed, and Conrad feigns sleep but he has an eye open and his tail is swishing. A pair of Yuuri’s tennis are over the bed, some sport magazines left open from the day of the accident: a shirt that had been originally Yuuri’s but that he had stolen to use at night over his side of the bed.
Yuuri’s voice is confused as he limps a bit inside of the room, giving a small frown: the cut is hidden away by both his bangs and a bandage, but Omi focus his eyes there instead of Yuuri’s blank eyes.
“There’s only one bed. Where d’you… oh.” Realization is clear on Yuuri’s face as he blushes and the knife twists itself deeper into Omi’s heart, even though he smiles a bit, shaking his hand.
“Don’t worry, you can keep it. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“On that thing?!” Yuuri shakes his head and Omi shares the wince. “No, no, it’s me the one that… ah… well, either way, it’s me the one with the trouble, I should sleep there.”
“You’re sick, Yuuri, it’s not… not as if you’re trying not to remember. Don’t worry, the couch is really comfortable, it’s no trouble at all.” And the fact that he’s defending Yuuri’s beloved and hideous couch when he’s usually complaining about it and saying they should get a new one, defending it against the same Yuuri is almost enough to make him cry.
***
The couch is comfortable. He knows it well enough: he and Yuuri have fallen asleep on that thing far too many times for him not to know it. He still can’t fall asleep, even with the shirt that smells like Yuuri, even when he tries to tell himself that at least Yuuri’s alive: there’s always hope as long as he’s alive.
((Yuuri asked about the necklace and the key. Omi didn’t answer; his throat had closed up and refused to work, for all the times Yuuri called them his lucky charms, when they had pressed against his chest as they hugged or kissed. He had apologized and left the room, and he didn’t dare to wonder if Yuuri still wore them or not.
Yuuri wasn’t wearing his ring. Omi had saved it for him when he had been unconscious, not wanting for it to be lost and then, suddenly, he didn’t have a reason to give it back. His hand feels heavy with his, just as most of his body does.))
Yuuri’s steps hesitantly getting closer make him open his eyes and turn to see him. Yuuri seems startled at this and Omi tries not to think about their telepathy, about how many times they knew what the other one was doing without even opening their eyes.
“Sorry, did I wake you?”
He shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. Are you okay? Do you need something?”
“No, no, it’s just that… the bed, it doesn’t feel right.” Yuuri says and Omi thinks that it should’ve been obvious because for Yuuri it’s a new, strange bed, but Yuuri keeps on talking. “Um… my brain doesn’t remember, but, maybe the rest of me does, y’know, remember and… you say we’re…um, never mind, Omi, I’m talking nonsense here.”
His voice is barely above a whisper as he speaks, remembering Yuuri’s grin all the times he had told him before that, if he ever got to know him there was no way he wouldn’t know that they belonged; of all the times Yuuri thanked him for making him complete.
“You… want me to sleep with you?”
Yuuri blushes, so much that even in the half darkness Omi can see it, before he nods awkwardly, unable to shift from feet to feet for his injured leg.
There are tears stinging over his eyes again but Omi doesn’t say anything as he gets his pillow and stands up, letting Yuuri go first into the room and following in silence, letting his fiancé get into bed first and then carefully moving the cats out of his side and towards the feet of it and then curls over, giving his back to Yuuri because there’s no way that he can see his back and not curl over it, wrapping an arm around Yuuri’s waist and kissing his neck and he knows he can’t push it: if Yuuri has to remember, it will happen on its own.
“Um… g’night, Omi.” Yuuri says in a small awkward voice. It’s a step, he tells himself. It’s hope.
“Good night.” He whispers back and lets the lingering warmth of Yuuri’s body sneaking towards his side lull him to a restless sleep that’s half filled with nightmares of he running over a dark hall, but now at the end of it there’s also finding the bloodied body of Yuuri against a wall. Even so, there’s always Yuuri’s voice comforting him over all his fear saying ‘I’m still here’.
***
At times it feels as if nothing had happened, as if it all had truly been just a bad dream.
((Yuuri asleep over their bed, curled more over his side, holding his pillow against his face, or he waking up to see Yuuri sleeping calmly, or being in the living room watching TV and eating pizza, because even if Yuuri didn’t remember their telepathy still worked; and Omi always kept it in silence how much it meant when Yuuri, without even taking his eyes from the TV, would give him the napkin he had been just about to ask.))
But other times it hurt so much and was so real that Omi had to repeat himself that there wasn’t anything anyone could do; that all they could do was wait.
((Like Yuuri getting angry and hurt because he couldn’t remember about the pictures they had in their apartment and then hurt and frustrated, that he almost always ended up crying when he tried to force himself to remember and that he was unable to hold him, that the only thing he could do was leave the room and press the heels of his hands over his eyes and take deep breaths; that even when they slept on the same bed or sitting together he still couldn’t reach to touch Yuuri’s face)).
Jennifer calls almost every day, most of the time to talk with him and give him strength and if Omi hadn’t already loved the woman before, during that time it grew up until he didn’t have to think to call her ‘mom’, because Jennifer kept on giving him hope.
“Omi?” at least Yuuri had stopped being so awkward when they went to sleep; Omi had taken up to hold a pillow to avoid trying to touch him, forcing all his self control unto that.
They were friends. It wasn’t the same, nothing could compare to it, but at least Yuuri didn’t hate him, and he was still there.
“Mmm?”
“Eh… you don’t have to answer, or anything, but… eh…”
He turns over his back and then to his side to see Yuuri. He’s over his back, eyes firmly glued over the ceiling and blushing: it was a question about their relationship then, and he braced himself for it: Yuuri always behaved like that when it was a personal question and, even if it was unintentional, Omi always felt his heart breaking up a little more with each one of his questions.
“You can ask, really.”
Silence for a bit. He leans again over the bed, blinking slowly, until he sees Yuuri wetting his lips.
“You… you’re wearing a ring.” His hand immediately curls over and he pulls said hand underneath the sheets, closing his eyes. Yuuri continues. “We’re… engaged?”
“… yeah, we are.” He murmurs softly, eyes still closed. He’s getting better at keeping his voice even.
There’s more silence and then the bed’s shifting. When he opens his eyes Yuuri’s looking at him softly, hurt over his eyes.
“I’m hurting you.” It’s not a question. He doesn’t try to deny it, so he shrugs one shoulder.
“It’s not your fault.”
“Neither is yours.” Yuuri says softly, and Omi can’t close up his eyes to try to will the tears away, just feels his breath catch over his throat when, ever so hesitantly, Yuuri reaches to touch his face. “It’s not fair.”
He can’t answer even if he agrees, because yes, it’s not fair. He can’t answer because Yuuri’s hand is warm and familiar and he has missed its touch so much. He lets out a slow deep breath that ends up sounding almost like a sob and gives a small nod. The bed shifts again and suddenly Yuuri’s arms are around him, awkward and stiff but they’re Yuuri’s and Yuuri’s chest and Omi hugs him back tightly even when he’s biting over his lip to try and not to cry, trembling as he tries to control his emotions. Yuuri’s embrace loses a bit of it’s awkwardness as it tightens around him; Omi’s not sure but he thinks he feels small kisses pressed against his hair.
“Don’t cry. I’m sorry, Omi; please, don’t cry.” Yuuri whispers against his hair in a desperate voice and Omi nods against his chest at the same time he shakes his head no, and the sting of tears is so much that he can barely breathe: He has craved for Yuuri’s touch, smell and warmth for too long. “I want to remember. I need to. I don’t feel like me anymore. It’s as if… as if I’m torn in half, and someone tried to stitch me together but didn’t put all the pieces. I don’t want to hurt you anymore. I miss you and I don’t know why.”
“Not your fault.” He chokes with his words, trying to stop the sobs he can feel forming over his throat, a tear trailing its way from his eye towards Yuuri’s neck: others follow it. “It’s not your fault.”
“Omi…” Yuuri’s voice is also filled with sorrow and tears and it’s more than he can stand, the last of his patience that has been straining itself thinner and thinner since the one day he allowed himself to cry after he found out Yuuri didn’t remember him, for all the times he has seen Yuuri getting angry and frustrated and hasn’t been able to hold him, and he looks up, pressing his lips against Yuuri’s and slipping his tongue between his lips to steal his sorrow and his pain; he feels Yuuri doubt a moment before he kisses back, and it’s as if it was their first kiss again, awkward and a little clumsy but then one of Yuuri’s hands curl over his waist and one of Omi’s get inside his nightshirt and neither of them stop kissing or saying each other’s name, even when they taste each other’s tears.
***
When he wakes up, his head is against Yuuri’s arm; his own is wrapped around Yuuri’s waist, and he closes his eyes as he remembers the previous night and snuggles closer against Yuuri’s naked chest, taking a deep breath, waiting until Yuuri wakes up.
He wonders if it’ll be awkward. It was awkward, when they woke up after the party, the first time they had sex. He had never thought there’d be another time he’d have to worry if having sex is going to cost him a friend, or if this will be the end of him and Yuuri. He’s so tired he can’t muster even the strength to cry, but he does wrap his arm tighter around Yuuri, presses his head against his chest to hear his heart beating and tries to stop himself from thinking this might be the last time he does it.
“Mhnn…” Yuuri shifts a bit over the bed: curls the arm that had been his pillow until his hand reaches his head and strokes slowly, softly. Omi debates himself into saying something and moving or waiting until he wakes up, risking up Yuuri flailing about this.
“Yuuri?” he asks softly, without moving from where he is but tensing a bit in case he has to move.
“Nnng. Headache.” Yuuri says softly, his fingers still threading through the back of his head and over his neck. Omi closes his eyes and tries not to think or hope or focus on anything other than the thump of Yuuri’s heart against his ear, of how his chest slowly moves in and out, up and down.
“Do you want me to go for some aspirins?” he asks softly and wonders when will Yuuri realize in what position they are and just how he’s going to react.
“Nnng. Stay.” Yuuri says so Omi relaxes a bit, even dares to reach up to touch the side of Yuuri’s face. He’s surprised when he feels Yuuri leaning against it, and the kiss he feels pressed against his wrist. “How much did we sleep?”
He opens his eyes to glance towards the clock, and then towards Yuuri. His eyes are still closed and he’s breathing slowly: other than his face leaning against his hand (and the hand that’s still stroking his hair), there’s no other thing that would say that he’s awake.
“Few hours. Why?”
“Feels longer.” Yuuri mutters, leaving another kiss against his wrist, yawning and stretching before he finally opens his eyes. He knows Yuuri’s eyes so well that he’d know them everywhere, but now he also recognizes the look Yuuri’s giving him, more than the one he’s been giving for the past few -eternal- weeks and his breath catches over his throat again as he pushes himself up with his forearm to look towards Yuuri’s face, trying not to let his hopes up.
"'s weird. Had some kind of dream… I could see you but I couldn’t touch you." Yuuri’s thoughtful frown when he says that dissolves as he smiles at him, soft, warm and loving and known as he reaches to touch his face without any kind of doubt or hesitance. “Would it be weird if I said I missed you?”
He sees Yuuri’s kind face turn into a startled and worried one as the tears start rolling down his face, even if he is smiling and shaking his head no at the same time before he collapses against Yuuri’s chest, hugging him tightly, sobbing that “It’s not weird” and “I missed you too.”
Fandom: Cross University RPG.
Warnings: ANGST. DRAMA. ANGST. And of course, slash.
Characters/couples: Yuuri/Omi.
Summary: Omi’s greatest fear had been to forget how he and Yuuri met. He’s to learn that there’s a thing he fears more.
Rating: PG13.
Notes: *points towards srgt_s_venom side and goes to sniffle in peace.*
Das Beste.
“Tsukiyono-kun?” Yuuri’s voice sounds rough and creaky when he finally wakes up, and Omi has had three days of nothing but hell and no sleeping at all, waiting for his fiancé to wake up, but the use of his last name makes Omi freeze from where he had been just about to hold Yuuri again. “Where am I?”
“It’s… the hospital. You fell over the stairs and hit your head. Remember?”
Yuuri makes as far to try to shake his head before he winces, a soft whine over his voice as he takes his hand over his forehead, but Omi can’t move, can barely breathe at the look Yuuri gave him, as if he was a stranger.
“Ahh. No, I don’t… but see? I told you I was a complete clutz.” Yuuri says in embarrassment, as if he hadn’t been there to see all the ways Yuuri is a clutz, to be there to offer a hand up or help limp towards their home or to playfully kiss it better.
He swallows the lump of his throat and feels it drop directly towards his stomach.
“I… I’ll go get the doctor.” He says, nodding to himself, because any minute now he’ll wake up and this’ll be one of his nightmares and nothing more.
“Yeah…” Yuuri says distractedly, still rubbing over the bandages of his forehead. “Oi, Tsukiyono-kun?”
Never before has Omi hated his last name so much.
“Yes?” he says, turning towards where his best friend and loved one is over the bed, and his heart breaks at the grin Yuuri gives him.
“Thanks for worrying. You’re an amazing roommate.”
***
“How are you feeling?” the doctor asks Yuuri. Omi is outside of the room, leaning against the wall because anytime soon his knees will stop working altogether, eyes closed as tightly as he can, just focusing on breathing.
“Sore. And starving!” Yuuri laughs. “Um, how long will I be here?”
“We’ve to run you some tests. You were in a coma for three days.”
“Really? Wow.” And now Yuuri’s amazed.
((He knew what the doctor was telling him, knew it from trying for so long to find out who he was. He knew that head traumas occasionally caused amnesia and that many times it was temporary, until the swelling died out and that there wasn't any reason not to expect this one to also be that. He also knew, by painful personal experience, that many times it lasted forever.))
“I’d like to make you some questions, if that’s okay with you?” the doctor asks. Omi slips over to the floor, barely noticing when his shirt rides up and the cold of the wall creeps against his skin. He just keeps on breathing, eyes tightly closed, trying to ignore the bitter taste over his mouth.
“You’re the doc.”
“What’s your name and when’s your birthday?”
“July 19th, and I’m Shibuya Yuuri, Harajaku Fuuri. I MEAN! Sorry, no, my name’s only Shibuya Yuuri, I’m just so used at the other one as a joke.” Yuuri laughs again and the bitter taste over his mouth increases. Omi pulls his legs up and wraps his arms tightly around his knees, tries to take deep breaths to calm the nausea.
((Yuuri had been joking, when he fell down, about his birthday in two weeks, that all he wanted for a gift was Omi with a ribbon to unwrap and he had laughed too even if he blushed, playfully calling him a pervert.
He had kept all the ideas for the birthday a secret, and Yuuri had been going crazy trying to find out about them. Yuuri had asked for mercy, please, even the tiniest hint and Omi had laughed again while they climbed the stairs up towards their apartment and he had said no.
Next thing he heard was Yuuri’s startled scream and he turned around just to see his fiancé tumbling down a flight of the stairs, hitting his head harshly against the wall and staying there, bleeding from a deep cut over his forehead.))
“What year are you and what are you studying, Yuuri?”
“Freshman, and undecided yet. I wanted to be a baseball player but… oh well, I’m still trying to figure it out.” The doctor gives a soft ‘I see’, and Omi can almost picture him checking over Yuuri’s history.
“How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“And who’s the young man who was here before?”
“Hm? Oh, that’s Tsukiyono-kun, we just met, but he’s cool. Oi, speaking of him, did he go back to the dorms?”
It’s a direct hit against his chest that almost takes all of his breath away. Omi gives a shuddering hiss and tries to stop shaking and to stop the tears that are forming over his eyes.
***
“Here we are.” Omi says quietly a few days later, after Yuuri was released from the hospital, pointedly not looking towards him as he gets inside their apartment, and he tries not to look at anything because every single part of it it’s so filled with memories of them both: the weight of being the only one that remembers them feels too crushing.
“So… this is our apartment?” Yuuri says. It had hurt, hurt too much to see Yuuri’s shock and surprise when he had had to tell him about the last two year, about who he really was, who they really were, and hurt even more when the man who he knew almost as well as himself recoiled from his touch at first.
“Yeah. We’ve been here over a year.” And they had been saving to get a bigger place, even if they still couldn’t afford a house, but they still loved their place, even if it had leaks and was too small and occasionally stuffy because it was theirs.
“Ah…” he sees Yuuri walk around the living room, limping a bit from his sprained ankle and he closes the door, trying not to wonder what will happen from now on. The Shibuya had seemed intent that Yuuri should stay with him: Jen had told him that he was so much of Yuuri’s life that there was no way he wouldn’t remember, but he doesn’t want to have his hopes up. “That has to be the ugliest couch I have ever seen.”
Omi does look up at that and laughs a bit, shaking his head. “Actually… you picked it.”
“What?! I did?!” and the way Yuuri’s eyeing the mustard couch with the cats’ pawprints on it should be funny, it really should be.
“The room’s over here: the doctor said you still needed to rest.”
“Okay…”
((Mornings over where neither of them would want to go out, being woke up by soft, teasing kisses and equally playful hands, watching movies only paying half attention to it, Yuuri’s smile and smell so mixed with his own that sometimes it was impossible to distinguish between them and…))
The cats are sleeping over the bed, and even then Aiko rouses immediately and goes towards the bed, and Conrad feigns sleep but he has an eye open and his tail is swishing. A pair of Yuuri’s tennis are over the bed, some sport magazines left open from the day of the accident: a shirt that had been originally Yuuri’s but that he had stolen to use at night over his side of the bed.
Yuuri’s voice is confused as he limps a bit inside of the room, giving a small frown: the cut is hidden away by both his bangs and a bandage, but Omi focus his eyes there instead of Yuuri’s blank eyes.
“There’s only one bed. Where d’you… oh.” Realization is clear on Yuuri’s face as he blushes and the knife twists itself deeper into Omi’s heart, even though he smiles a bit, shaking his hand.
“Don’t worry, you can keep it. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“On that thing?!” Yuuri shakes his head and Omi shares the wince. “No, no, it’s me the one that… ah… well, either way, it’s me the one with the trouble, I should sleep there.”
“You’re sick, Yuuri, it’s not… not as if you’re trying not to remember. Don’t worry, the couch is really comfortable, it’s no trouble at all.” And the fact that he’s defending Yuuri’s beloved and hideous couch when he’s usually complaining about it and saying they should get a new one, defending it against the same Yuuri is almost enough to make him cry.
***
The couch is comfortable. He knows it well enough: he and Yuuri have fallen asleep on that thing far too many times for him not to know it. He still can’t fall asleep, even with the shirt that smells like Yuuri, even when he tries to tell himself that at least Yuuri’s alive: there’s always hope as long as he’s alive.
((Yuuri asked about the necklace and the key. Omi didn’t answer; his throat had closed up and refused to work, for all the times Yuuri called them his lucky charms, when they had pressed against his chest as they hugged or kissed. He had apologized and left the room, and he didn’t dare to wonder if Yuuri still wore them or not.
Yuuri wasn’t wearing his ring. Omi had saved it for him when he had been unconscious, not wanting for it to be lost and then, suddenly, he didn’t have a reason to give it back. His hand feels heavy with his, just as most of his body does.))
Yuuri’s steps hesitantly getting closer make him open his eyes and turn to see him. Yuuri seems startled at this and Omi tries not to think about their telepathy, about how many times they knew what the other one was doing without even opening their eyes.
“Sorry, did I wake you?”
He shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. Are you okay? Do you need something?”
“No, no, it’s just that… the bed, it doesn’t feel right.” Yuuri says and Omi thinks that it should’ve been obvious because for Yuuri it’s a new, strange bed, but Yuuri keeps on talking. “Um… my brain doesn’t remember, but, maybe the rest of me does, y’know, remember and… you say we’re…um, never mind, Omi, I’m talking nonsense here.”
His voice is barely above a whisper as he speaks, remembering Yuuri’s grin all the times he had told him before that, if he ever got to know him there was no way he wouldn’t know that they belonged; of all the times Yuuri thanked him for making him complete.
“You… want me to sleep with you?”
Yuuri blushes, so much that even in the half darkness Omi can see it, before he nods awkwardly, unable to shift from feet to feet for his injured leg.
There are tears stinging over his eyes again but Omi doesn’t say anything as he gets his pillow and stands up, letting Yuuri go first into the room and following in silence, letting his fiancé get into bed first and then carefully moving the cats out of his side and towards the feet of it and then curls over, giving his back to Yuuri because there’s no way that he can see his back and not curl over it, wrapping an arm around Yuuri’s waist and kissing his neck and he knows he can’t push it: if Yuuri has to remember, it will happen on its own.
“Um… g’night, Omi.” Yuuri says in a small awkward voice. It’s a step, he tells himself. It’s hope.
“Good night.” He whispers back and lets the lingering warmth of Yuuri’s body sneaking towards his side lull him to a restless sleep that’s half filled with nightmares of he running over a dark hall, but now at the end of it there’s also finding the bloodied body of Yuuri against a wall. Even so, there’s always Yuuri’s voice comforting him over all his fear saying ‘I’m still here’.
***
At times it feels as if nothing had happened, as if it all had truly been just a bad dream.
((Yuuri asleep over their bed, curled more over his side, holding his pillow against his face, or he waking up to see Yuuri sleeping calmly, or being in the living room watching TV and eating pizza, because even if Yuuri didn’t remember their telepathy still worked; and Omi always kept it in silence how much it meant when Yuuri, without even taking his eyes from the TV, would give him the napkin he had been just about to ask.))
But other times it hurt so much and was so real that Omi had to repeat himself that there wasn’t anything anyone could do; that all they could do was wait.
((Like Yuuri getting angry and hurt because he couldn’t remember about the pictures they had in their apartment and then hurt and frustrated, that he almost always ended up crying when he tried to force himself to remember and that he was unable to hold him, that the only thing he could do was leave the room and press the heels of his hands over his eyes and take deep breaths; that even when they slept on the same bed or sitting together he still couldn’t reach to touch Yuuri’s face)).
Jennifer calls almost every day, most of the time to talk with him and give him strength and if Omi hadn’t already loved the woman before, during that time it grew up until he didn’t have to think to call her ‘mom’, because Jennifer kept on giving him hope.
“Omi?” at least Yuuri had stopped being so awkward when they went to sleep; Omi had taken up to hold a pillow to avoid trying to touch him, forcing all his self control unto that.
They were friends. It wasn’t the same, nothing could compare to it, but at least Yuuri didn’t hate him, and he was still there.
“Mmm?”
“Eh… you don’t have to answer, or anything, but… eh…”
He turns over his back and then to his side to see Yuuri. He’s over his back, eyes firmly glued over the ceiling and blushing: it was a question about their relationship then, and he braced himself for it: Yuuri always behaved like that when it was a personal question and, even if it was unintentional, Omi always felt his heart breaking up a little more with each one of his questions.
“You can ask, really.”
Silence for a bit. He leans again over the bed, blinking slowly, until he sees Yuuri wetting his lips.
“You… you’re wearing a ring.” His hand immediately curls over and he pulls said hand underneath the sheets, closing his eyes. Yuuri continues. “We’re… engaged?”
“… yeah, we are.” He murmurs softly, eyes still closed. He’s getting better at keeping his voice even.
There’s more silence and then the bed’s shifting. When he opens his eyes Yuuri’s looking at him softly, hurt over his eyes.
“I’m hurting you.” It’s not a question. He doesn’t try to deny it, so he shrugs one shoulder.
“It’s not your fault.”
“Neither is yours.” Yuuri says softly, and Omi can’t close up his eyes to try to will the tears away, just feels his breath catch over his throat when, ever so hesitantly, Yuuri reaches to touch his face. “It’s not fair.”
He can’t answer even if he agrees, because yes, it’s not fair. He can’t answer because Yuuri’s hand is warm and familiar and he has missed its touch so much. He lets out a slow deep breath that ends up sounding almost like a sob and gives a small nod. The bed shifts again and suddenly Yuuri’s arms are around him, awkward and stiff but they’re Yuuri’s and Yuuri’s chest and Omi hugs him back tightly even when he’s biting over his lip to try and not to cry, trembling as he tries to control his emotions. Yuuri’s embrace loses a bit of it’s awkwardness as it tightens around him; Omi’s not sure but he thinks he feels small kisses pressed against his hair.
“Don’t cry. I’m sorry, Omi; please, don’t cry.” Yuuri whispers against his hair in a desperate voice and Omi nods against his chest at the same time he shakes his head no, and the sting of tears is so much that he can barely breathe: He has craved for Yuuri’s touch, smell and warmth for too long. “I want to remember. I need to. I don’t feel like me anymore. It’s as if… as if I’m torn in half, and someone tried to stitch me together but didn’t put all the pieces. I don’t want to hurt you anymore. I miss you and I don’t know why.”
“Not your fault.” He chokes with his words, trying to stop the sobs he can feel forming over his throat, a tear trailing its way from his eye towards Yuuri’s neck: others follow it. “It’s not your fault.”
“Omi…” Yuuri’s voice is also filled with sorrow and tears and it’s more than he can stand, the last of his patience that has been straining itself thinner and thinner since the one day he allowed himself to cry after he found out Yuuri didn’t remember him, for all the times he has seen Yuuri getting angry and frustrated and hasn’t been able to hold him, and he looks up, pressing his lips against Yuuri’s and slipping his tongue between his lips to steal his sorrow and his pain; he feels Yuuri doubt a moment before he kisses back, and it’s as if it was their first kiss again, awkward and a little clumsy but then one of Yuuri’s hands curl over his waist and one of Omi’s get inside his nightshirt and neither of them stop kissing or saying each other’s name, even when they taste each other’s tears.
***
When he wakes up, his head is against Yuuri’s arm; his own is wrapped around Yuuri’s waist, and he closes his eyes as he remembers the previous night and snuggles closer against Yuuri’s naked chest, taking a deep breath, waiting until Yuuri wakes up.
He wonders if it’ll be awkward. It was awkward, when they woke up after the party, the first time they had sex. He had never thought there’d be another time he’d have to worry if having sex is going to cost him a friend, or if this will be the end of him and Yuuri. He’s so tired he can’t muster even the strength to cry, but he does wrap his arm tighter around Yuuri, presses his head against his chest to hear his heart beating and tries to stop himself from thinking this might be the last time he does it.
“Mhnn…” Yuuri shifts a bit over the bed: curls the arm that had been his pillow until his hand reaches his head and strokes slowly, softly. Omi debates himself into saying something and moving or waiting until he wakes up, risking up Yuuri flailing about this.
“Yuuri?” he asks softly, without moving from where he is but tensing a bit in case he has to move.
“Nnng. Headache.” Yuuri says softly, his fingers still threading through the back of his head and over his neck. Omi closes his eyes and tries not to think or hope or focus on anything other than the thump of Yuuri’s heart against his ear, of how his chest slowly moves in and out, up and down.
“Do you want me to go for some aspirins?” he asks softly and wonders when will Yuuri realize in what position they are and just how he’s going to react.
“Nnng. Stay.” Yuuri says so Omi relaxes a bit, even dares to reach up to touch the side of Yuuri’s face. He’s surprised when he feels Yuuri leaning against it, and the kiss he feels pressed against his wrist. “How much did we sleep?”
He opens his eyes to glance towards the clock, and then towards Yuuri. His eyes are still closed and he’s breathing slowly: other than his face leaning against his hand (and the hand that’s still stroking his hair), there’s no other thing that would say that he’s awake.
“Few hours. Why?”
“Feels longer.” Yuuri mutters, leaving another kiss against his wrist, yawning and stretching before he finally opens his eyes. He knows Yuuri’s eyes so well that he’d know them everywhere, but now he also recognizes the look Yuuri’s giving him, more than the one he’s been giving for the past few -eternal- weeks and his breath catches over his throat again as he pushes himself up with his forearm to look towards Yuuri’s face, trying not to let his hopes up.
"'s weird. Had some kind of dream… I could see you but I couldn’t touch you." Yuuri’s thoughtful frown when he says that dissolves as he smiles at him, soft, warm and loving and known as he reaches to touch his face without any kind of doubt or hesitance. “Would it be weird if I said I missed you?”
He sees Yuuri’s kind face turn into a startled and worried one as the tears start rolling down his face, even if he is smiling and shaking his head no at the same time before he collapses against Yuuri’s chest, hugging him tightly, sobbing that “It’s not weird” and “I missed you too.”