Yakumo jolts to his feet the moment he materializes back at base, letting his mask and veil and weapon fade away as he strides down the ramp and makes a beeline straight for the area where Louis should be working, ignoring Davis’ considering gaze and Rin’s puzzled frown as he does.
His mouth tastes like ash, Erich’s words still ringing in his ears on repeat—
(“Is that what this is?”)
(“I hate to ask…”)
(“I doubt many people need help like this.”)
—and it’s all he can do to keep his face calm and his hands steady and the roiling, helpless fury in his gut from showing in anything more than his stride.
(He can’t believe— the clues were all there and he missed the obvious implications and so did Louis and fuck, fuck, how badly have they fucked both Erich and Io up just because they’ve been making assumptions and letting those two fumble their way through the dark when everyone should be helping— when everyone had already agreed to help—)
“Yakumo? Not that I don’t appreciate the hug, but is everything alright?” Louis asks with a frown, snapping Yakumo from his thoughts in time to realize that he’s already taken the couple steps up to the living area and practically bullied his way into Louis’ personal space.
He debates lying for a moment, before tossing the idea out the window and grunting a short, “No,” into Luois’ shoulder. Louis predictably tenses, head tilting towards the mistle and breath stuttering in his throat, and Yakumo mentally swears because he’s fucking this all up again, making more people worry when he doesn’t mean to, so he hastily mumbles, “S’fine, Erich’s fine, he’ll be here shortly,” into Louis’ neck.
“Maybe lead with that, next time,” Louis informs him a touch dryly, though Yakumo can tell it isn’t meant in anger or even annoyance but that— that just sends him spiraling right back into his head, because what would Erich read from a tone like that, would he even understand it?
How many of their conversations have simply confused the poor man even further?
“Yakumo, take a breath for me,” Louis abruptly prompts, fingers tapping a steady rhythm against Yakumo’s bare arm. “Focus on me, not whatever’s in your head,” he adds gently.
“Sorry,” Yakumo mutters, even as he forces himself to follow the rhythm Louis is tapping out. In for three, hold, out for three. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Until his head feels a touch clearer and his thoughts aren’t clawing at the walls like a pack of Lost out for blood. It’s even enough — if barely — for him to straighten up from his possessive curl and step a bit away, turning his attention to the rest of the room, looking for—
There. Io is hovering near the couch, her expression worried as she looks the two of them over and then glances towards the mistle in expectation.
And, right on cue, motes swirl up from the mistle, slowly coalescing into Erich’s form.
“Io,” Yakumo says quietly, drawing her odd, amber gaze back to him. “Make sure he gets some rest,” he tells her, then tips his head sharply towards the back hall where all their personal rooms are. “Go curl up with him in privacy and make sure he actually sleeps, okay?”
She stares at him for a long, thoughtful moment, before nodding sharply and turning away, heading down to meet Erich before he gets too far from the mistle. They talk quietly, Io reaching up to cradle Erich’s chin in her hand, and then Erich glances up, his own conflicted amber gaze landing on Yakumo—
Io tugs his head down and presses their foreheads together, clearly saying something to him judging by the way Erich’s shoulders slowly relax and begin to droop, exhaustion weighing him down. It’s not long after that she guides him away, leading him back towards his room and (hopefully) into bed so the poor man can actually rest and decompress after the shitshow that his conversation with Yakumo turned into.
“What happened?” Louis asks, voice a bare murmur as he turns to give Yakumo a once-over. “Did he remember something…?”
Yakumo grimaces and shakes his head. “It’d almost be better if he had,” he murmurs in response. “Let’s… go back to our room, before I say anything else,” he adds with a quick glance towards the others, noting the way Rin’s leaning against her counter and staring at him and how stiff Davis’ posture is; he has no doubt those two are curious as cats about what happened, but he’s also not in any mood to try and explain to everyone the things he’s still trying to process.
(If he even wants to.)
(It’s one thing to tell Louis — he suspects Erich knows that most anything Yakumo knows, Louis soon will, even if… even if the man probably doesn’t understand why — but everyone?)
(…he’ll ask Erich first, that sounds like a better idea.)
“Alright,” Louis agrees as he sets his pen down and steps away from the board, leaving his work without a backwards glance and taking Yakumo’s hand without a second thought.
(Fuck, he loves Louis so much…)
They stay quiet as they walk down the couple steps and turn down the hall to their rooms, not pausing until they reach their own room and close the door behind them.
At which point, Yakumo promptly drops face-first onto their bed and buries his face in the nearest pillow with an exasperated groan; he can’t believe that he’s once again the one who managed to stumble head first straight into Erich’s issues. Is he cursed? It feels like he’s cursed. There’s no other explanation as to why he keeps doing this even when he doesn’t mean to.
“Not that I don’t appreciate the view, but you’re a bit too dressed to be in bed,” Louis says in amusement, as he grabs one of Yakumo’s feet and begins to unlace his boot.
“Don’t really care right now,” Yakumo mumbles into the pillow, though he doesn’t fight as first one boot then the second is pulled off. He even pushes himself up slightly to give Louis better access at the buckles holding his kit in place, letting Louis pull his supply satchels, hand gun, and belt off without fuss. “Shit, I can’t believe… ugh…”
Louis’ warm hand settles between Yakumo’s shoulder-blades and traces down his spine in a slow, smooth stroke. “Want to talk about it?”
Yakumo mutters a disgruntled, “No, not really,” even though his heart isn’t in it; part of him doesn’t want to talk about his newest adventure in blundering headfirst into Erich’s trauma, but the rest really, really does, especially with Louis. Maybe his partner can help him make sense of the whole mess, or at least help him come to terms with it.
(Especially if he’s going to end up as Erich’s emotion-discovery sounding board.)
(Shit, why did he make that offer?)
(He’s going to fuck the poor guy up even more than the man already is!)
Louis just hums in response, his tone amused, and begins to work Yakumo’s cargo pants off his hips and down his legs, clearly willing to wait Yakumo out on this; instead of asking again, he just starts tidying their room up and getting undressed himself.
It’s only when a warm hand begins to carefully work his hair tie free that Yakumo heaves a sigh and gives in. “I caught Erich by surprise a bit ago. Took his hand and… well…” he hesitates, thinking back on that first moment of contact, on the way Erich had frozen, face twisting with emotion and teeth bared defensively, before he had hastily shoved that reaction back inside. It reminded Yakumo of— of—
(No, not the time.)
(Not the time to consider similarities between Erich and himself or Emily or Miguel or any of the others after a stint in Mido’s… care.)
(Not the time to consider how fucked up it is that Erich had acted as if Yakumo’s casual contact had burned him.)
(Not the time, but…)
(Shit.)
Yakumo sucks in a slow breath and squeezes his eyes closed so hard it hurts, trying to erase the image from his mind and knowing it won’t work. “He doesn’t… didn’t, I guess it should be… understand touch hunger. So he never… when we were out, he never thought to attempt even casual contact, and I just— I just fucking let him. I let him do that to himself, Louis. I touched him and he flinched back and then he started to lean into it even if only a little, and I just… fuck…”
The breath catches in Louis’ throat and his hand freezes in Yakumo’s hair, fingers trembling slightly as he says, “I suppose that answers why you told Io to make sure she curls up with him for a while. We’ll… need to take that into account in the future. Hopefully now that he understands—”
“That’s another problem,” Yakumo interrupts as he pushes himself up, tugs his hair free of Louis’ hand, and the wraps an arm around his partner’s waist and yanks the man down onto the bed with him so he can tuck Louis against him and bury his face in Louis’ shoulder again. “Guess what we overlooked about his whole missing memories thing,” he mutters bitterly, before adding, “he even gave us a neon flashing sign that it was a problem, and we both missed the implications.”
“What…” Louis trails off with a noise of discontent, clearly wracking his brain to figure out what Yakumo’s talking about. Yakumo gives him a moment, another, and then grimaces at the sharp, shuddering breath that Louis sucks in. “No. Yakumo— no. Tell me that ‘hundreds of words I don’t even know the meanings of’ isn’t what you’re talking about.”
“Wish I could,” Yakumo mumbles in exhaustion. “He doesn’t actually seem to know the name of any emotion. Louis, he doesn’t… he knows that he’s feeling something, knows that things make him want to do specific actions, but he doesn’t… he doesn’t…”
“It’s just sensations to him,” Louis says numbly, his hands moving to grip Yakumo’s arms like a vice. “Which means he can’t express what he’s feeling, or even acknowledge why he feels a certain way, because he doesn’t have the words for it. Or the framing. And if he can’t do that…”
Yakumo hums in agreement and pulls Louis tighter against him. “He’s at least pretty good at not lashing out?” he offers weakly. “Didn’t hit me even when he said that he wanted to.”
Louis snorts. “Wanting to hit you but refraining isn’t very unique,” he jokes just as weakly, before letting go of Yakumo’s arm and rubbing at his face, body radiating exhaustion. “I guess if he told you that, you were… trying to help him?”
“Yeah, for what good it’ll do,” Yakumo says, thinking back to the defensive posture Erich had begun to take as their conversation had went on; he has no idea if the man will even want to keep talking with him about emotions but… he hopes Erich will at least turn to someone now that Yakumo’s theoretically opened the gates. “Not sure he was so thrilled with my answers at the end, there.”
“It was… likely very stressful, to suddenly confront things like that,” Louis tries to offer, though his words don’t really make Yakumo feel any better. “Regardless, we can’t do anything more until he approaches— no, I suppose that probably isn’t the best course of action, is it? If he didn’t think to approach you about wanting touch until he was nearly starving for it…”
Yakumo gives an awkward, one-sided shrug. “Not so sure that was because he didn’t want to, didn’t think to, or just didn’t have the words to understand what the hell he was starting to feel. Could be any of them, really.”
“I suppose.” Louis takes a moment to think, then sighs and continues with a gently amused, “Still, we can’t do anything more right now, since you sent him to bed.”
“I did not send him to bed,” Yakumo huffs in exasperation. “I suggested that Io take him somewhere private where Erich could relax. That’s not sending him to bed.”
Louis has the gall to snicker at him in response, so Yakumo feels entirely justified in rolling onto his back, hauling Louis onto his chest in the process, and then keeping the motion going so that they continue rolling over. Louis squawks as he’s pinned under Yakumo, one arm flailing out to smack Yakumo’s side in retaliation, but there’s little he can do without using one of his Gifts and they both know it.
(And Yakumo might be just a tiny bit hungry for touch as well, reveling in the feel of their bodies so close together, in the feel of Louis shifting under him until they’re both comfortable, in the feel of Louis’ warmth searing along his front—)
(He didn’t exactly reach out to Erich for only the man’s sake…)
“Fine, I was wrong, telling Io to drag Erich to bed was not sending him to bed, it was simply a request for Io to send him to bed. I see the difference now,” Louis says, his voice soaked in as much pure mockery as he can manage.
“You’re so lucky I love you,” Yakumo grumbles into Louis’ neck, forcing his own amusement back in order to sound as tetchy as possible, because yeah, Louis might be right, but that doesn’t mean the man has to rub it in so much.
Louis chuckles, hand patting awkwardly at Yakumo’s hip, before he wiggles a bit and says, “And I love you. Now let me up, you monster, I’m being crushed and I’m starting to overheat.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Yakumo murmurs fondly, even as he pushes himself up on one elbow and rolls back over onto his back next to Louis—
Only for Louis to immediately sprawl across his chest like some sort of heat-seeking octopus, his breath warm against Yakumo’s neck as he pulls them close.
“Thought you were overheating,” Yakumo jokes softly, hand lifting to thread through Louis’ hair.
Louis just grunts in response, one hand clenching Yakumo’s shirt, and refuses to budge, and, well… Yakumo gets it, he really does; for the longest time, almost since the point Louis first befriended him, it was just them. If Louis went out somewhere, Yakumo was almost certainly the one at his side protecting him, and vice versa. But with Erich joining them – capable, skillful, mysterious Erich – and with Louis finally starting to get the breaks he needs to discover the Source, things are… changing.
Not that Yakumo’s complaining, exactly, because he isn’t, but he and Erich had been out reviving mistle and bloodsprings for almost a week without returning home for more than a half hour here or there to check in on Louis’ progress, and that’s… that’s a long time to be mostly apart, considering he and Louis have practically lived in each other’s pockets for years.
So… yeah. He gets it. Appreciates it, too, what with the way Louis’ weight is finally starting to quiet the restless buzzing in his nerves.
(They’ll have to finish their conversation later, figure out what to do about Erich, how to approach the man without chasing him away, but… that’s for tomorrow.)
(For now, the only thing he cares about is soaking in his partner’s warmth and relaxing at last.)
(It’s good to be home.)