𝑳𝑬𝑺 𝑭𝑹𝑨𝑮𝑰𝑳𝑬𝑺 •𝒃𝒙𝒃•

hell down here ~ 48

AN: The French language will be used later on and I put translations. I apologise if the French is incorrect, for I am not someone who speaks French and Google Translate is not really reliable when it comes to some words, but I did try my best, but also feel free to correct me!

Also, not edited at all, so if there are any mistakes, also correct me. It's really late and I can't be bothered in checking for spelling errors.

For how long they sat like that, he didn't know.

It was odd, somehow, to Yuma; but, again, he didn't know for what reason. Perhaps it was unusual for him to feel this...calm and peace—this reality he never saw as attainable.

This sole feeling—content—was not a thing he was used to, no matter how hard he tried to convince himself that he was. He felt everything but content; as it was in its purest form as of now—as compared to before, under Gabriel's iron hold and watchful eyes. The sensation of Shouto's skin against his own, the roughness and gentleness of his palms, the trembling of his hands; it was all...too unattainable before—something meant for dreamers and not for Yuma.

Because Yuma never was a dreamer.

To dream was to want more, and he was never allowed to have more. Gabriel, Kyoya, that was all he had, that was all he was permitted to have, but Gabriel was never something Yuma had. The man was always out of his reach, no matter how much Yuma reached out his hands, or how fast he ran; none of it mattered because Gabriel never wanted to be caught.

Kyoya. He...was caught, he allowed himself to be held with uncertain and frightened hands, he allowed Yuma to hold on for dear life; to hold on until he fully depended on him, until he could not handle anything without him, until he was all Yuma had.

And then Kyoya let him go.

Would it be too much to say that Shouto was Yuma's saving grace? Maybe it was, but Yuma was not a fair judge of things like that. To be treated with unkindness for a long, long time, one act of kindness was enough to shift his perception. Maybe Yuma was being too dependent again, maybe he was jumping into things; but he didn't care.

The peace, the safety, the content was not something he could abandon or let go of, no matter how much his hands could burn.

Beat after beat, Shouto's heart jumped against his chest. Beat after beat, Yuma felt it against his own.

To let go was something he could never do.

"Serre moi fort," he whispered, afraid to even utter the words in a way Shouto would understand, "Ne me laisse pas partir," No matter if he disliked it, or how much it reminded him of his unruly past, it eased him to know he could say anything he wanted to, open himself wide and bleed out the rawness that kept choking him, "Ne me laisse pas partir, s'il te plait."

(Hold me tight. Don't let me go. Don't let me go, please.)

As if understanding, as if the way Yuma said it made it so, so obvious, Shouto tightened his arms around him. That one, single act made his insides constrict, made them twist in a pattern that pulled the nausea at the pit of his stomach back up. It swirled around and made his lungs throb, made his chest ache.

It made the vines around his ribs that much tighter, and he wondered if flowers would bloom where the thorns laid.

"Ça fait mal," His words came out quieter than planned, but it didn't matter, "Ce bonheur fait mal."