Certain as the sun

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"Wake up Yuuri."

"Yuuri, wake up."

"I said WAKE UP."

Yuuri blinks owlishly at the clock on the beside table. 9 AM, the arms indicate, the thinnest following its course and thumping at every mark with enough strength to break the silence filling his mind. It's too early or too late, too bright for English countryside. He misses most of it though. The shape on his back shadows most of the morning light, and his pillow pressed to his cheek drowns the rest. The corners of his eyes feel dry, glued together, his eyelashes shielding him.

"Wake up Yuuri! Breakfast is waiting." his mother's voice chimes, a distant memory he hasn't heard or thought of in ages.

When did he last hear it? Face to face, phone to phone, screen to screen?

Heaven knows. The lilt of her voice, her dulcet tones, lost to the static and the breeze, shrill and reduced to a music note he can thump on countless times on the living room piano. Out of tune like the rest of the house, otherworldly. Lost in time and space.

Has he slept at all? He wonders. The drowsiness he had been feeling these past days – or rather what feels like weeks, months even – has progressively evacuated his body through the night, yet lingers. Tension keeps him frozen and trapped where he is, eyes heavy with knowledge and the weight of what they saw unravel before them. Even the screams in his head are dulled background noises, the prick of a needle that has lost its sting but keeps him on his toes. His legs, his arms nestled in the king-sized bed float on the mattress, tip-toeing on the edge of water and earth. Gravity pulls at him from all sides. Either he drowns or he falls. Neither outcome is particularly welcome.

Victor ruffles the covers slightly as he drifts to consciousness, his voice no more than a grunt of protest muffled against Yuuri's shoulder. The movement brings him closer to the Japanese man, left arm tightening around Yuuri's waist and the other brushing the crown of his black hair. His right hand is close enough for Yuuri to see, right next to his temple. Large, calloused and dirty, the palm and nails smeared with dust. It looks awkward on the silken pillow, the stain on an otherwise perfect tableau, and yet it belongs there. Coarse and emerging from the depths like a sea monster, snow-white limb on the hunt.

They lie in bed, huddled together in the comfort of the bed sheets and duvet.

Normally the warmth seeping through his body would be most welcome. Yuuri had spent countless nights sleeping next to someone before, not as often as he would have liked, but often enough for the gesture to reach a degree of intimacy that he can only share with certain people.

Like Mari, his big sister who had opened her arms to him many times in the past when the nightmares kept him awake.

Like Phichit, whose tentative embraces became more self-assured as years passed by, as their relationship morphed from simply roommates to friends to something else, unlabeled. Enough for Yuuri to discover that the juncture between his collarbone and his neck was his most sensitive spot, that he liked to be held from behind, that he felt protected enough for physical contact to be deemed acceptable and pleasant.

Like Yuri, who would put his arms around him in that rather brusque manner of his, almost af if he were forcing himself. But Yuuri knew better. Yuri, who would gradually relax against him whilst also holding onto him like a lifeline.

Who wouldn't be touching him anymore in his way of loving him.

The arms that surround him, however, are loving. If only a parody of the feeling.

Yuuri nearly jumps when Victor's hand brushes his shoulder. He internally congratulates himself on not moving, still as a dead man under the covers.

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