Lost and Found (Wild Adapter, Kubota/Tokito, Theme set: Epsilon)
Title: Lost and Found
Author: macavitykitsune
Fandom: Wild Adapter
Pairing: Kubota/Tokito
Theme set: Epsilon
Rating: 16+ for implied Things. No warnings.
A/N: Mostly Kubota-POV. Because writing Tokito makes my brain hurt, love him though I do.
#1 Motion:
Kubota knew Tokito had accepted him fully the day his eyes stopped tracking his every motion, wary and wounded.
#2 Cool:
Tokito went to ridiculous lengths to cool himself; Kubota once found him in front of the air conditioner, naked except for boxers, eyes closed, leaning into the blast of air like he’d seen dogs lean out of car windows.
#3 Young:
Tokito has a ruthless practicality to his nature that makes him seem older than he is, and a naïvete that makes him seem younger - but really, he’s just Tokito, no more and no less.
#4 Last:
He stabbed his fork into the last fry in the box a second before the other fork did and glared triumphantly at Kubo-chan - who’s mister oh-so-great-reflexes now?
#5 Wrong:
Meeting Tokito was like wearing glasses for the first time - brief disorientation, and then the world clicked into crystal reality, blurred edges and dizzying drops replaced by clarity and certainty, everything wrong erased in an instant, bittersweet and addictive.
#6 Gentle:
It could tear through metal and punch through wood as if it was paper, but Tokito’s hand was almost unbearably gentle as it stroked over his chest, and Kubota sighed and arched into his touch.
#7 One:
Their first anniversary, so to speak, went by without anything remarkable to celebrate it - Tokito didn’t know the exact date and Kubota didn’t want to remember, so they sat on their couch and played video games and it was normal, like they’d done that forever.
#8 Thousand:
Kubota found Tokito’s unflinching acceptance of everything he did or could do stunning; he could kill a thousand men and probably only be yelled at for not making dinner on time.
#9 King:
‘I’m king of the WORLD!’ Tokito yelled for the eighth time, flinging his arms wide on the balcony and throwing his head back, and Kubota chuckled as the neighbour screamed to shut up already, it was two in the morning.
#10 Learn:
There’s something fierce in his stray - the way he fights, the way he lives, with blazing intensity, even the way he watches daytime TV, learning (and then promptly forgetting) social graces from soap operas with a tiny frown of concentration creasing his forehead.
#11 Blur:
It was as rare for Kubota to remove his glasses as it is for Tokito to remove his glove - he hated seeing things in a blur, but if what he wanted to see was close enough, he didn’t mind.
#12 Wait:
The girl who was waiting on them in the little café was flirting shamelessly with him; Kubota waited for the low, eerie snarl that Tokito saved for these occasions, and was not disappointed.
#13 Change:
He only realised he was snarling when Kubo-chan got that little sparkle in his eyes that said he was laughing even when the rest of his face was poker-faced as ever, so he stood up, picked up all the change - no tips for her - and stomped out of the restaurant, knowing Kubo-chan wouldn’t be far behind.
#14 Command:
It was something everyone who knew them even a little noticed - Sanada, Kasai, Kou - but Kubota knew, before any of them did, that he had always been Tokito’s to command.
#15 Hold:
He had gone so long waiting and searching for something worth holding that when he found someone who found him worth clinging to, it sent him spiraling down into joy and obsession.
#16 Believe:
There was reverence in Tokito’s hands when they touch him, smooth furred hand and rough human hand both, devotion in his eyes behind everything else, faith in his words - he could almost believe in himself just because Tokito believed in him.
#17 Vision:
Hope was the most dangerous thing of all, but that crystal-clear vision of dying, alone, forgotten, ripped apart by unknown forces in an uncaring world - these days, it was blurring at the edges, just a little.
#18 Attention:
Tokito had a tendency to give things His Full Attention, and Kubota, who was used to sinking into the background and being looked around or through, was deeply unsettled by it.
#19 Soul:
He had no idea where Tokito and Saori could have run from the hospital, and later he didn’t explain how he’d found them so quickly; it was a pull at his soul, a calling, he thought - but that would have been an unsatisfactory answer to anyone but Tokito.
#20 Picture:
He can’t picture Kubo-chan at school, even if he squints and closes an eye, it’s just too stupid an idea, because he’s Kubo-chan and Kubo-chan doesn’t go to school, damn it.
#21 Fool:
The water’s pleasantly hot on his body and stinging, screaming pain on his hand, pins and needles multiplied by a thousand, and Kubo-chan’s on the other side of the door less than two minutes after he staggers into the shower; even though he was fast asleep when Tokito left him, even though he was trying real hard to be quiet.
#22 Mad:
Tokito had zero respect for personal boundaries, but he had a fine sense of people’s moods - Kubota was notoriously hard to read, but Tokito always knew when he was acting cold and when he was really pissed off.
#23 Child:
Tokito was painfully naïve at times, almost childlike in his simplicity - it was something Kubota knew would not last once he recovered his memories, and which he knew he would mourn.
#24 Now:
‘Now,’ Tokito smirked, casually pinning Kubota to the couch, ‘let’s see who’s ticklish this time.’
#25 Shadow:
‘You have such a shadowy past,’ the woman says on TV, and he looks at Kubo-chan and thinks he’s not the only one.
#26 Goodbye:
When Kubo-chan cut him off from contact and told him not to go home, it didn’t feel like a goodbye, it felt a little like the end of the world; so Tokito did what he was best at - got hopping mad and dragged him back.
#27 Hide:
From the way Anna was looking at him, it was pretty obvious he wasn’t hiding his jealousy well, but he didn’t care.
#28 Fortune:
Kubota unwrapps the fortunes inside the cookies, reads them, chuckles a little and leaves them on the plate; Tokito throws them away without bothering to look.
#29 Safe:
Safe, he thought, dropping his head on Tokito’s shoulder, feeling the tension shiver through them for a second before they relaxed into each other - and he didn’t know which of them he was referring to.
#30 Ghost:
The ghost of Tokito-who-was haunts them both, triggered by the most innocent things - afraid, angry, lashing, despairing like a dying animal.
#31 Book:
Another book thrown carelessly over Tokito’s shoulder to thud to the ground, and Kubota sighed as he was tackled onto his back yet again.
#32 Eye:
Tokito scratching at his stomach and rubbing his eyes sleepily was…cute, even if Kubota wasn’t normally in the habit of noticing such things.
#33 Never:
Not that he would ever actually tell him that.
#34 Sing:
Tokito in the shower was a source of endless amusement for Kubota - whether it was his loud, cheerful, off-key singing, his vitriolic rants at the hot-water tap, which never quite worked long enough, or the way he yelled at Kubota when he realised he was standing there laughing at him.
#35 Sudden:
Tokito was used to following Kubo-chan around, it wasn’t a big deal even when he’d wake up suddenly at three in the morning and announce that he wanted pizza; at least, Tokito knew he wasn’t allowed to say it was a big deal unless he wanted to go shop instead.
#36 Stop:
They might as well have been virgins - Tokito had no experience of physicality that he could (or wanted) to remember, and Kubota was a stranger to any sort of emotional connection - and yet it felt too natural, too real, too right, to ever even think of stopping.
#37 Time:
He’d drifted through life in a haze of ennui and detachment, and that deep buried feeling of time running out had never really mattered, because he’d been as indifferent to death as to life; and now he was learning to clutch at every second and hate the future anew.
#38 Wash:
Everything about Kubota was transient, fluid, colourless, indefinable, alien, as if it would wash away with old skin and new mornings - and then there was Tokito, who was all bold presence, loud words, overwhelming personality, absolute determination and passionate love of life.
#39 Torn:
He wandered in a dull grayscale wash of nonreality; then Komiya had ripped his heart wide open with his death, and Tokito had barged his way in through that torn, ragged wound and demanded acknowledgment, attachment, devotion, love, everything.
#40 History:
Kubota has learned to roll out of the way and fast if he doesn’t want a clawed hand ripping at him as his cat struggles through his nightmares - and every time he does so (and he’s sleeping lighter lately so he doesn’t have to explain cuts and bruises away in the morning) he becomes that much more determined to painfully slaughter whoever Tokito dreams of at these times; it’s good motivation to find him.
#41 Power:
Kou enjoyed discussing Kubota’s "cat" with him, just to watch Tokito bristle, but he never said that he thought Kubota was like an attack dog - ferocious, protective, utterly possessive, violent and deliberately brutal - and like every other of his breed, completely under his controller’s power.
#42 Bother:
Tokito wouldn’t have been too bothered by that statement, though - it wasn’t news to him.
#43 God:
The raw, total and unflinching way Tokito believed in him, as if he would stand by his side even if he fought the gods themselves, unsettled him and awed him at the same time.
#44 Wall:
More than anything, even whoever it was did this to him, he hates the walls that are thrown up between them every time some reminder of the past comes back to haunt him.
#45 Naked:
Tokito never hesitates to call him a pervert, even when it’s just perfectly normal hormones prompting whatever remark or action set him off - but Kubota’s not the one who pads around naked in every heatwave.
#46 Drive:
The worst thing about finding precisely what you’ve been looking for is the way the necessity of keeping it drives your every thought, word and action forever after.
#47 Harm:
Kubota would die to keep him from harm, but Tokito doesn’t intend to allow him that sacrifice.
#48 Precious:
There was Anna, who touched him with desperation, seeking comfort; Sanada, who kissed him with lust, seeking domination; Tokito, who sought him with love, made him feel as if he was precious to someone - it took him time to realise that, because he had never known the feeling.
#49 Hunger:
Tokito was fiercely focused on Kubota when they were making love, open hunger in his eyes, too pure and too beautiful for him to touch without fearing for his soul, without wondering if he would disintegrate under the sheer intensity of that gaze, and yet…he didn’t dare not to.
#50 Need:
He wouldn’t say Tokito’s precious to him; air, water, passion, truth, colour, beauty, reality - these are not things that can be valued, placed at such and such a price, for in their absence is death.