[There's something really uncomplicatedly nice about feeling him relax and knowing she pulled that off by her own actions.
Weird thoughts aside...]
Mmm.
[Good timing. Her expression is somber, and contemplative, but mostly painted over with tired. In multiple senses of the word. Sleep is potentially a more permanent goodbye - now she can't shake the image of knocking out and waking up next to a dead body or nothing at all - but it is also vitally important and very, very compelling.
Erika gently disengages and lies down on her back, then immediately changes her mind and rolls onto her side, lifting her arm and waiting for Hajime to settle in.]
[It goes both ways. What if he wakes up and she's a statue that crushes him to death?? Then someone would have to find both of their bodies. Gross.
He lets her arrange herself first, waiting to see how she wants to position herself before climbing in next to her. If she's on her side, he'll lay down on his back, scooting a little closer as if to encourage her to lay against him. It's nice to think about cuddling face-to-face in theory, but in practice it's just too awkward for him, and it just ends up being way too warm to sleep.
He opens his mouth, about to say something along the lines of if something happens-- but stops himself. She already knows that. If something happens, she'll let their friends know.]
The setup is pretty perfect, though. Not stifling, but plenty of contact; not weird, but actually that's less because of the setup itself and more because they've brute-forced this into no longer being weird. Funny how that works. (Good thing it works that way.) She drapes her arm across him, taking pressure off her aching shoulder (here's hoping he stays tangible enough for that at least), and puts her face in his collarbone with a little huff of relief.]
[No promises that his chest will stay solid through the whole night; already, if she listens closely, she might be able to tell that there's something missing, though not to the touch. His chest still feels solid, muscle and bone, but where there should be a by-now-familiar heartbeat, there's just-- silence.
But that's probably nothing to worry about. Organs seem to be optional right now, limited time offer.]
Good night, [he murmurs, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and just letting his arm drape over hers. He might be disappearing, but he's not feverish, and he's not in pain. Just for now, trying to get some sleep, hoping this isn't the last thing he ever does... that should be enough, right?
But the thought that this is the last thing he'll ever do just lingers in his mind, tenses fingers that are more muscle than flesh against her shoulder. There's so much he wants to do, that he just-- can't. And might not ever get the chance to.]
[Three months felt like forever and like no time at all. This feels like the close of a dream, the good and the bad. Nothing at all could happen. Everything could happen. That's life and death; this is the strange peace you make with it, wishing to wish for nothing more.
Erika doesn't let herself think about home. She thinks about one kind of silence, and two kinds of silence, and the right-here-right-now importance of Hajime's presence. She stays awake until he's asleep or still enough to pass for it, puts her hand on his arm and runs her thumb back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.
[He is awake when she starts to rub his arm; he hadn't moved, not wanting to disturb her if she were falling asleep, but wrapped up in his own thoughts. About death, about things he wants to do before he disappears completely. Then there's her thumb on his arm, and there's something confusing, yet comforting; confusing, in that he never expects something like that from her, but the steady rhythm, the thought that if she thinks he's asleep, that she's doing something like this to help her is... nice. That he can be of some help, even indirectly.
It does help him, though, lulling him to an uneasy sleep. It's hard to sleep well when formless dread sparks equally as formless nightmares, but it's better than if he were alone. Erika's body next to him is more reassurance than anything his brain can conjure up. At some point during the night, he takes her hand in his, fingers resting atop the back of her hand in a loose hold.
But once he is actually asleep for good, he's an incredibly heavy sleeper. Erika will probably wake up before he does.]
[A good bit earlier than they usually, wake, to boot.
Erika's dreams go strange places. When she drops out of them at some indeterminate hour of the morning, three things rattle her awareness.
The first is weight and pressure and constriction. The stiff points of her shoulder and her ankle are now indistinct and unbearably heavy, pinning down her leg, her torso, locking movement between them like the claws of a vise. Breathing is hard; her left side is sewn together tight, pressing in, piercing if she wheezes too deeply.
The second thing; a noise on the edge of hearing, high-pitched and insistent. It pulls her out of sleep in long, jagged steps. She realizes that the noise is her own voice, a whine that starts to crest to a sobbing wail when she comes to, coming and going according to the breath on her lungs and according to -
- the third thing, the pain, seething at the surface and boiling over into shocking clarity when she wakes. She's familiar with pain, but not like this; flesh welded to metal and screaming at the contact, all up and down one useless arm and one useless leg and the infection digging roots into the tissues between her organs and around her spine and up the back of her neck. Petrifying, paralyzing, searing.
It hurts so much. It hurts so much. She can't think, and doesn't, scattered into a simple loop: feel, hurt, cry out, gasp for breath, repeat.]
[Even Hajime can't sleep through that. Her cries filter into his dreams, tightening his chest and furrowing his brow as it drags him slowly to wakefulness. He wasn't sure in the dream if it had been his own voice, but now that he's starting to become more aware, it's painfully obvious that it's not just a dream.]
E-Erika?!
[He tries to shift, realizes abruptly that she's heavy, dragging a grunt of confused pain from his lips as he turns his head. His hand comes up to try to hold her shoulder, touch her cheek, something, but there's nothing there. The faintest outline of a hand passes directly through her, doing absolutely no good at all.]
E-Erika, can you breathe? L-let me get you to the clinic, c'mon...
[He tries -- tries -- to wiggle out from beneath her, progress hampered by one (1) missing hand.]
[And then I let this sit for two weeks on writer's block so here's an extremely graceful montage scene transition to a different and less depressing part.
There's no getting to the clinic. There's setting up once more for a day of crisis - with the music the threat was less clear, raving madness and then something, but here the weight of death is tangible.
Erika manages - barely - in the bathroom once early in the day, and avoids having to do it again by not eating. The thought of trying is unappealing. It's probably not possible once the virus progresses. She tells Hajime where her tiny personal stash of pain medication is, takes a dose before her stomach goes, and the rest of the day...
It's still bad.
Being immobile doesn't leave her much to help Hajime with. She talks, mostly. Or coaxes him to. Make some noise, so you know where you are. Can you sing? Have you ever tried? Even kids' rhymes. So on and so forth, into existential terror and back.
And then.
And then the clock ticks over, and people die, but Erika doesn't. She wakes up from a groggy near-sleep, and once again expects Hajime to be gone. Once is hard, and twice is harder.
She doesn't try to call out at first. When she does, she finds that the top of her tongue went copper in her sleep. It hurts - but not the way it did yesterday. It's an aching, pulling pain, instead of a stabbing one. It could mean literally anything.]
...Hajime? [She slurs it out clumsily, not moving her neck, not trying to look around. If he's gone - he's gone. Once more, with a little more clarity in her voice, above a mumble.] Hajime?
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no subject
Weird thoughts aside...]
Mmm.
[Good timing. Her expression is somber, and contemplative, but mostly painted over with tired. In multiple senses of the word. Sleep is potentially a more permanent goodbye - now she can't shake the image of knocking out and waking up next to a dead body or nothing at all - but it is also vitally important and very, very compelling.
Erika gently disengages and lies down on her back, then immediately changes her mind and rolls onto her side, lifting her arm and waiting for Hajime to settle in.]
no subject
He lets her arrange herself first, waiting to see how she wants to position herself before climbing in next to her. If she's on her side, he'll lay down on his back, scooting a little closer as if to encourage her to lay against him. It's nice to think about cuddling face-to-face in theory, but in practice it's just too awkward for him, and it just ends up being way too warm to sleep.
He opens his mouth, about to say something along the lines of if something happens-- but stops himself. She already knows that. If something happens, she'll let their friends know.]
At least... we can still sleep, huh?
no subject
The setup is pretty perfect, though. Not stifling, but plenty of contact; not weird, but actually that's less because of the setup itself and more because they've brute-forced this into no longer being weird. Funny how that works. (Good thing it works that way.) She drapes her arm across him, taking pressure off her aching shoulder (here's hoping he stays tangible enough for that at least), and puts her face in his collarbone with a little huff of relief.]
I plan on it. [Mutter mutter.]
no subject
But that's probably nothing to worry about. Organs seem to be optional right now, limited time offer.]
Good night, [he murmurs, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and just letting his arm drape over hers. He might be disappearing, but he's not feverish, and he's not in pain. Just for now, trying to get some sleep, hoping this isn't the last thing he ever does... that should be enough, right?
But the thought that this is the last thing he'll ever do just lingers in his mind, tenses fingers that are more muscle than flesh against her shoulder. There's so much he wants to do, that he just-- can't. And might not ever get the chance to.]
no subject
Erika doesn't let herself think about home. She thinks about one kind of silence, and two kinds of silence, and the right-here-right-now importance of Hajime's presence. She stays awake until he's asleep or still enough to pass for it, puts her hand on his arm and runs her thumb back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.
(Something for both of them to count. It helps.)]
no subject
It does help him, though, lulling him to an uneasy sleep. It's hard to sleep well when formless dread sparks equally as formless nightmares, but it's better than if he were alone. Erika's body next to him is more reassurance than anything his brain can conjure up. At some point during the night, he takes her hand in his, fingers resting atop the back of her hand in a loose hold.
But once he is actually asleep for good, he's an incredibly heavy sleeper. Erika will probably wake up before he does.]
no subject
Erika's dreams go strange places. When she drops out of them at some indeterminate hour of the morning, three things rattle her awareness.
The first is weight and pressure and constriction. The stiff points of her shoulder and her ankle are now indistinct and unbearably heavy, pinning down her leg, her torso, locking movement between them like the claws of a vise. Breathing is hard; her left side is sewn together tight, pressing in, piercing if she wheezes too deeply.
The second thing; a noise on the edge of hearing, high-pitched and insistent. It pulls her out of sleep in long, jagged steps. She realizes that the noise is her own voice, a whine that starts to crest to a sobbing wail when she comes to, coming and going according to the breath on her lungs and according to -
- the third thing, the pain, seething at the surface and boiling over into shocking clarity when she wakes. She's familiar with pain, but not like this; flesh welded to metal and screaming at the contact, all up and down one useless arm and one useless leg and the infection digging roots into the tissues between her organs and around her spine and up the back of her neck. Petrifying, paralyzing, searing.
It hurts so much. It hurts so much. She can't think, and doesn't, scattered into a simple loop: feel, hurt, cry out, gasp for breath, repeat.]
no subject
E-Erika?!
[He tries to shift, realizes abruptly that she's heavy, dragging a grunt of confused pain from his lips as he turns his head. His hand comes up to try to hold her shoulder, touch her cheek, something, but there's nothing there. The faintest outline of a hand passes directly through her, doing absolutely no good at all.]
E-Erika, can you breathe? L-let me get you to the clinic, c'mon...
[He tries -- tries -- to wiggle out from beneath her, progress hampered by one (1) missing hand.]
no subject
There's no getting to the clinic. There's setting up once more for a day of crisis - with the music the threat was less clear, raving madness and then something, but here the weight of death is tangible.
Erika manages - barely - in the bathroom once early in the day, and avoids having to do it again by not eating. The thought of trying is unappealing. It's probably not possible once the virus progresses. She tells Hajime where her tiny personal stash of pain medication is, takes a dose before her stomach goes, and the rest of the day...
It's still bad.
Being immobile doesn't leave her much to help Hajime with. She talks, mostly. Or coaxes him to. Make some noise, so you know where you are. Can you sing? Have you ever tried? Even kids' rhymes. So on and so forth, into existential terror and back.
And then.
And then the clock ticks over, and people die, but Erika doesn't. She wakes up from a groggy near-sleep, and once again expects Hajime to be gone. Once is hard, and twice is harder.
She doesn't try to call out at first. When she does, she finds that the top of her tongue went copper in her sleep. It hurts - but not the way it did yesterday. It's an aching, pulling pain, instead of a stabbing one. It could mean literally anything.]
...Hajime? [She slurs it out clumsily, not moving her neck, not trying to look around. If he's gone - he's gone. Once more, with a little more clarity in her voice, above a mumble.] Hajime?