I believe in you Complete/Closed

[sleepy_fire]

Characters: Ace, Machi
Setting: Moving around, then Cricket Bedroom
Time: Day 14 about midway through
Summary: Ace find clothes and a little bit of plot before returning home. Startish point of weird CR.
Warnings: Machi, Ace. Though Ace is unlikely to say a curse word in this

Comments

[machitobaye]

Machi lay sleeping under the bed, the darkness and shelter offering small comfort against the wracking pain, but exhaustion perpetually dragged him down through the pale edge of consciousness and he curled in on himself, agony and grief buried by the emptiness of sleep. The others were gone, leaving him a rare period of true rest, marred by the expectation of their eventual return and the pressure and strain of their constant, inexporable physical presence. He drifted in and out and his breath rose and fell, a slow, steady motion that kept rhythm silently against the cacophanous chorus of phantasmal crickets. Hours passed before it was broken, before something--dust or saliva or air or horror--touched the inside of his throat and caught it, seizing memory and injury as the muscles spasmed and closed, raw, the hypersensitive reflex sealing it, cutting off his air and pulling at his esophagus. Suddenly he couldn't breathe--he strangled, choking on nothing, tearing back awake with a surge of terror and memory and panic and--

--he jerked upwards, striking his shoulder on the underside of his bed as he gagged and curled inwards, choking, desperation and fear seizing his body as his heart raced, hammering painfully in his chest, the agony of muscle and bone hitting him all at once as he struggled for breath, for air, gasping in terrified silence, wrapped in the hollow protection of his coloured blankets.

He shut his eyes against the darkness, fighting back the thought of tears.

Shit.