potosi | i was born with lightning at my heels

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!2016

i was born with lightning at my heels

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[ When Ryousuke was a kid, entrusted with his baby brother at the park for an hour just down the street, he remembers meeting someone with tattoos and piercings. He remembers finding him weird, and the kind of intimidating that meant there was more bark than bite, usually, but he also remembers the way that he'd teared up the second he'd seen him. It'd taken a little boy mere minutes to decide that he was harmless - and if he wasn't, even at six, he could've taken him out at the knees - and to bully him into helping him with his little brother.

He remembers, at twelve, having the stranger - who he'd affectionately nicknamed stalker-kun, because when he was around he was everywhere - clean up his scrapes and bruises from a fistfight that he'd won like a wildcat against a pack of dogs. He remembers him teaching him how to throw a fist so that he could pack more of a punch behind it, with his small frame. Around that age was when he'd started feeling more, this weird sense of deja vu every time he looked at the man.

Ryousuke remembers, during his high school years, feeling like there was a void at his side. The short stop he played with didn't have a cackling laugh that he found annoying, before he fell in love with it. They didn't have amber eyes and a crooked nose. Whoever they were, his mind replaces them with the wide-eyed stare of his personal guardian, the day that Ryousuke had pinned him against a wall with only his fingertips and kissed him at sixteen.

(Whoever that short stop was, they're gone now, as things are mended in a way that feels right. It's as if Kuramochi Youichi was always there, every day of his life. In a way, he was - but with a slurry of memories, of kissing at his graduation, of sending Kuramochi to work, of being pushed in a swing, of dragging him down with him for an emotional first time together in a world where he and Haruichi aren't fated to die before his stalker-kun disappeared for years and years and years.)

Oblivious as he is to everything, save for a peculiar dream, Ryousuke curls up into a tighter ball. He just wants to soak up the warmth of the body next to him, the body that isn't his stupid cat ("I would name a cat Lovecraft"). He stirs a little, sniffling under the blanket and rubbing his head up against the nearest part of Kuramochi, as if he can burrow into him.

Even asleep, it's just right. ]

[ for a brief moment, youichi feels the urge to do just what ryousuke's doing--to roll back over and curl back up, go back to sleep. torn between the feeling of things being perfectly right and the terrifying thought that this was just another dream, things about to go perfectly wrong, he's left stranded for a moment, just looking down.

that's not just ryousuke--he would know ryousuke anywhere, has seen him in ten different ways now, twenty different ages, from five to fifty. their lives have been intertwined together from day one, from ryousuke at six years old bullying him into watching haruichi (to kuramochi pretending his throat wasn't thick with tears as he held a four year old haruichi on his knee and saw him alive, tiny and shy and going to bloom into a professional baseball player and a good kid, one of the best he's ever known) to ryousuke on a different death bed entirely, old age and sleepy half squinted eyes telling kuramochi he wasn't allowed to follow him to the grave.

the first time he didn't, even if for a week or so, he wished he had. he'd gotten this, instead, a chance to fix things and make his lifetime the right one, where they were together like they'd always been, playing catch in the yard, kuramochi's wedding ring banging against his chest on a chain every time he leapt for a catch, just because. he still wears that now, the one relic he was allowed to take back with him when he woke up in another lifetime with ryousuke calling him stalker-kun.

he can still remember the last time he flashed into what he's sort of been calling the 'main' timeline, the one where he never ages but ryo does, goes through fights for his brother and baseball school, university and a promising career ahead of him, the one where he and ryousuke had originally been scouted to the same university because of the promise of their perfect 'iron wall'. the last time he was here, ryousuke was 22 and graduating college and kuramochi held him in his arms and said he was sorry, because he knew in the morning he'd be gone.

and now he was back. and things were back to normal.

he stares at ryousuke with something like wonder in his eyes, feels himself getting choked up and has to shut his eyes tight to stop from crying as he opens his mouth to speak to the bundle that's moved against his chest--all he can do is hook his left arm around his shoulder and then his right, holding him tight to make sure he's real and alive and there, he's right here, like nothing ever went wrong. ] S-- [ he starts, breathes, squeezes. ] Sorry, Ryo-san.

[ his voice sounds husky even to him, ridiculous and full of tears, and he ducks his head and presses a kiss to the top of his pink head and then drops his own back, squinting his eyes shut tight to keep from crying. ] Y'can go back to sleep.

[ From day one, Ryousuke had tried to figure out what Kuramochi was about. What he was up to. He doesn't like secrets, and he doesn't like it when he doesn't know something that should be so obvious. With every sense of deja vu, of trying to understand him, understand something, his frustration mounted and mounted, until it nearly had snapped. Especially given how he'd be gone for weeks, months, years. (He missed his high school graduation, and Ryousuke had held fast to a bitterness at the back of his throat until he could throw something at Kuramochi's stupid head the next time he saw him, no longer bleached like when he was in junior high.)

There was never... where his friends talked about dating and jostled one another about people they liked, there had never been anyone in his mind's eye that wasn't his stalker. A definite sentence that should never be spoken aloud, given how it sounded, but there simply wasn't. Especially not when he finally got some answers, some understanding, of what was going on. Maybe not everything, but enough that he wasn't so dumb to what he was up to, why he followed him, why he acted the way he did. Why everything seemed so nostalgic to Kuramochi.

Having it all prefaced with "is Haruichi all right?" had been enough to get him to take it seriously.

And here they are, now. Haruichi is probably curled up much like his brother, in his own apartment, using his stupid bear as a pillow. But he's probably actually asleep, unlike his brother. ]

It's too early, Youichi. [ It comes out in a faint hiss against Kuramochi's chest, nose rubbing into his collar as he cuddles closer. At first, that's all he intends on doing, saying - because going back to sleep sounds heavenly, and feels natural, encircled like this. But then he goes tense in his arms, eyes snapping open, his fists uncurling from where he's got them trapped between them so that he can set his worn palms against the firm wall of muscle, finding the warmth of tanned skin and nicks and scratches from an adventurous childhood. The chain.

That's all it takes for him to jolt upright, staring down at him, pink of his eyes visible in disbelief. Lovecraft, offended by all of the disturbances, skulks off to wait them out, but Ryousuke doesn't even register it. All he feels is the sudden tightness in his chest, one that explodes into a warmth that tangles itself all the way through his ribs as he curls his fingers a little against Kuramochi, like he can sink hooks and tethers into him just with the blunt edge of his nails. ]

Youichi. [ His voice is hushed, soft, as if he doesn't want to break what ever spell this might be. ] Youichi.

[ the hardest part of this was not telling ryousuke anything. if there is one thing kuramochi knows about kominato ryousuke, it's that he hates secrets. he's so used to being read by an open book by him that it was hard to try and lock up walls that he'd never once had--and he could tell that it was frustrating for ryo, too. still, it made him a bigger puzzle, which kuramochi figured in some weird way, ryo might enjoy a little. their relationship had been built on trust and loyalty, a hard earned path that kuramochi fought for every step of the way. ryo closes up around people in ways that kuramochi never has, and learning him a second time felt like it evened the playing field--but earning his trust the second time around was just as difficult.

but, just like the first time around, when he did, god, it was so worth it.

now, he just curls his arm tighter around ryousuke and holds on, feels a heavy warmth bursting out of his chest from the tip of ryousuke's nose rubbing into his skin, from the familiarity of the entire situation. kuramochi knows ryo like he knows the back of his hand, knows that he hates mornings and that he's selfless, so unbelievably selfless, that even with his terrible sense of humor and mean teasing, he's got a kind heart. he knows the color of his eyes and the curve of his smile, the way his cheeks flush if kuramochi kisses him right, warm as his brother's, knows that he loves haruichi more than he loves life itself.

even in this second life, this second chance, all of these things have been true. it would have been impossible for kuramochi not to fall in love with him. again and again, over and over. he'd do it a thousand times if it meant he could have this, the way ryousuke sits straight up and curls his hand in his chest.

it's all he can do to manage a smile that he knows is watery, because ryousuke has, and always will be home, and home is what he's been searching for years. ]

Hey. [ he chokes, and the smile that breaks over his face is brilliant, and he knows it's stupid but it's all he can say, so overwhelmed with happiness and the soft timbre of ryousuke's voice. ]

[ There's this urge, to pinch himself. Ryousuke can usually differentiate dream from reality, has very little trouble with it given the quality of his dreams - either bizarre because of the books he reads before bed, or relating to his brother, to this man underneath his hands - but it's the latter that gives him pause. He wants to dig his fingers into him, to make sure he's real and there and his again, instead of lost to some stupid game of temporal leapfrog. Everything about this feels like it should be impossible, right from the beginning to this very moment.

Something in his heart aches, because it's been years since he last got to have this. The warmth of Kuramochi with him, despite the fact that he's felt constant frustration with secrets and half-understood explanations and guesses. But he's known, since that first day, that he was supposed to meet him. No matter when, where, or how, Kuramochi Youichi was meant to be in his life.

He doesn't want to let go of him, but he does, ghosting rough palms up along his skin as he takes him in, maybe a little more wondrous than he'd be in any other situation. A kind of reverence follows his touch, because this is the person that knows him better than anyone else ever has or could. The person that he's had by his side, but is the missing piece he's been missing all these years. Despite his constant frustrations, the heartache he couldn't explain, everything has been worth it for now. It's all been built up, a constant puzzle he's been trying to figure out, a mystery that he can't just skip to the end to learn the answer. He's been waiting, and it's paid off, finally.

As his hands trail up to cup his face, Ryousuke lets out what's probably a watery sounding laugh, shaking in the back of his throat - and then he claps his palms, sharply, on Kuramochi's cheeks as he ducks down to kiss that smile, bumping their noses and teeth clicking together because they're both smiling so much, beatific, giddy. ] Hey, he says. How romantic, Youichi!

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i was born with lightning at my heels

gurgles

gently does reward tags while i work

rubs hands on this

♥

hbd ryosan