A Weakness Coming On.

The collar tightens itself around his neck and Ritsuka gasps a little, swallows in instinct, tries not to wince at the way his breathing almost hurts. Soubi keeps his hand around his shoulder and squeezes just a little. Ritsuka leans against his side, grateful and doing his best to ease his worry and fear and focus on the battle.

Soubi's long, knotted fingers keep on his shoulder, tucking him against his side. Ritsuka looks up, follows the faint glint of the chain and focuses on the collar that is tight around Soubi's own neck.

This pain is their own, double and the same. Ritsuka breathes in and then he opens his eyes, let's the fear melt away.

"Get them, Soubi."

Soubi squeezes his shoulder and from the way he's pressed against him, Ritsuka can feel how his stance shifts.

"Yes, master."

Soubi sleeps on his side, a hand curled by the side of his face, his other arm soft by his stomach. It makes Ritsuka think that Soubi is waiting to hold someone, and that thought makes him blush and look away for a few moments.

When Soubi sleeps like this, it's almost easy to forget how he is and what he does and why Ritsuka always feels angry around him. He reaches softly, traces he air above Soubi's face, afraid of waking him up, and then he keeps on looking.

He is a different Ritsuka when he's around Soubi, a different one from who he was when he was with Seimei, a different Ritsuka than the one his mother keeps on waiting for.

Ritsuka isn't sure he likes that Ritsuka either, but he doesn't know how not to be him. The Ritsuka that gets angry at Soubi and scared and who wants Soubi to always be there sometimes feels like the real one.

But what does he know about reality anyway.

There is a bruise curling around his neck, from where the spell had caught them. Ritsuka takes notice of the purple bruising as he takes a bath and he winces a little when he touches it.

The same marks, he knows, should be around Soubi's neck, as if they could hide the marks of his brother's name on Soubi's neck. Ritsuka touches wet fingertips to the mirror's surface as if he could touch Soubi's neck like that before he pulls his hand back.

His fingertips feel sensitive, as if burnt, and he doesn't care to think much about that.

When he comes out of the bath, wearing one of Soubi's shirts – too big and Soubi will say something stupid when he wakes up, he's sure – his Fighter has rolled onto his stomach, arms curled around a pillow as if holding it. He's breathing in and out slowly, and Ritsuka stays, mesmerized for a moment, watching how he sleeps.

When he gets close again, he shifts on top of the bed, carefully, and then he dares to touch Soubi's back, right between his shoulder blades.

When Soubi says nothing and does nothing, Ritsuka dares breathe again. Then he touches Soubi's hair, carefully moves it from the nape of Soubi's neck and – there, purple on the soft white skin of Soubi's neck, the same bruising that Ritsuka feels on his own neck.

Before he can think much about it, Ritsuka – the Ritsuka that appears with Soubi, the Ritsuka that wants to believe what Soubi says when he says that Soubi belongs to him – leans down and kisses Soubi's nape, as if he could heal Soubi just like that.

Soubi shifts at that, murmuring his name in a deep, throaty moan that makes him blush and fall off the bed, and then he's yelling at Soubi to go back to sleep.

"Yes, master," Soubi says with a smile, head still pillowed on his arms, hair over the soft, almost kind amusement in his eyes.

Ritsuka blushes and glares before he stalks to Soubi's side – and this is not him, not really, but he pushes the blankets away as he gets inside the bed.

"You better not try anything perverted!" He orders at Soubi, his heart threatening to come out of his chest, hands curled tight over the pillow he has decided to steal.

Soubi answers a brief 'yes', amusement still deep in his sleep-deep voice before he curls around him, body warm and close, the cloth of his pants against his bare thighs, his arm around his body, hand close to his heart, thumb brushing over his collarbones, a little below where the bruise is, as if Soubi knew that it's there.

Ritsuka closes his eyes tight and he breathes in and out. Soubi seems to melt around his body, pressed against his back, his breathing stirring his hair and he's so close that Ritsuka thinks he can feel his heart beating along with his, as if the collar that had been around their necks before remained, as if they were truly linked.

That makes it easier to calm down, somehow, and Ritsuka falls asleep with Soubi's warmth surrounding him, no fear and no worry at the moment.