Oneshot: Invincible

[andrew_in_drag]

Title: Invincible
Author: andrew_in_drag
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Reita/Ruki
Warnings: mild slash, and barely-there hints of broken homes or difficult pasts, I suppose. At just over 600 words, this is also the shortest piece I have ever written.
Synopsis: If everything gets lonely, I can be my own best friend.

Invincible

You were young when you left home.

I never quite found the words to tell you that it would all be alright, so instead I watched you sit and put on your make-up. Trying to be pretty like a girl, because you didn't yet realise that you could be pretty like a boy; like a man.

In those early days I let you empty my cigarette packets and sleep on my couch. I let you drink all the coke in my fridge and wear my clothes.

Yeah, you were so young. Sweetest, toughest punk I knew. Bleaching your hair and cursing a storm; wearing lockets and leather; screaming your anger to your audience whilst in your head, you whispered love songs. You were young.

But I was young, too.

That was all quite a few years ago now. Time's got a way of winding you down, like the punches it's pulled don't bruise until it's too late to really remember why. That's all I've got, now; times you laughed and cried with me. A hundred little bruises.

There was a night in the February of 2001, more than a full year after you'd come to live with me, and I don't know; maybe the stars were especially cold or hard or faraway that night, or maybe the hours were especially long or the sound of the rain especially sad – I don't know. But you woke me up, your sweet sad face level with mine and your voice so close in the dark: hey, you whispered, hey, I...

You must have been on your knees by the bed. Two o'clock in the morning and you were my sweetest dream.

Reita, what if I never get home?

I sat up, sleepy and warm, and pulled you into my arms before I had time enough to think any better. You slipped under the covers with me and I held you close, felt your tears on my neck; thought about how everything that seemed a million miles away in the daylight could suddenly fly so close in the darkness.

“If you promise to stay awake,” I said quietly, “I'll try to do the same.”

You were quiet, but I knew you weren't asleep because you smiled against my skin.

I know I told you this once or twice, but I was young when I left home.

The first time I told you I watched your face and your soft eyes as you took it in; as you saw our twin cores like we were growing from the same tree.

You're the lyricist. I couldn't ever find the words to say what I wanted to.

But it's always the people who look so frail like you; it's always those people that look so easy to push around and break up that are the toughest of all. I tried to tell you that, but I guess I didn't get too far.

But I liked it, you know. I liked how you looked at me. Liked how I could touch you and see your spirit rise.

So I remember how one time you said to me, “If everything gets lonely, I can be my own best friend,” and without thinking I sat back and gazed at you and said, “You look invincible.”

And you got up and you wrapped yourself around me, put your warm hands on me and your gentle lips to my ear.

Tumbled to the ground with me. Lost your clothes with me.

Smiled with me and cried with me and let your lips brush mine; touched me carefully and whispered, “I am.”

A/N: Ya know when you're too tired to sleep, and you have ideas, and they end up just coming out? I honestly have no idea if this is any good (or even coherent) right now, but I'm getting some patchy wifi signal for once (fanks, neighbour) so I thought maybe it'd be worthwhile posting anyway. Just so I can post something. Although I did manage to get up a new chapter of House of Cards today, which I'm pretty impressed with. Who says you need internet to use the internet?