Titolo: Make this go on forever
Fandom: Free!
Personaggi: Rei/Nagisa, Gou
Genere: romantico, slice of life
Avvertimenti: future!fic, hurt/comfort, in inglese
Parole: 1569
Note: robina tirata fuori perché feels (obrigada Ilana, isto é para voçe <3) e buh. Era da tanto che non scrivevo (almeno un mese. UN MESE.) e niente, è sempre bello scrivere sul canon. Anche se un rewatch non sarebbe male. Cmq vbb, via, ste 1500 paroline ca. ce le ho. È qualcosa.


Small, fragile fingers clutching at his hand as if he was a life saver. Plump lips, wet and glistening from all the time they spent kissing in between breaths. Cheeks dusted with red and glittered in tears, despite the attempts to show a smile.
"I don't want it to-to be over," he stutters, shaken by little childish sobs and the intense emotion filling his chest, his stomach, giving him a headache and a lot of fears.

What if Rei forgets about him? He'll be all the way to the other side of the Ocean, leaving him there. But that is not something Nagisa is going to resent him for. If it really ends, then it can't be helped.
But they spent such a beautiful summer, hand in hand, Nagisa dissolving any and all resistance, wrapping himself around Rei in a warm and familiar scent, with touches so light and so kind that soon the other young man almost began wishing he'd never move on from that town. That he would never run after his own dreams. And Nagisa would lie if, despite his ever pure feelings, he would not admit he sort of wanted Rei to stay, to keep him company, because yes, he wants to move forward, but life after school never sounded this scary.
What if Rei meets someone else? If he does, once again it's something Nagisa has no control over. And Rei would not have any control over Nagisa's own life. But still, would it not feel like something was left incomplete, without closure? Would it not be a bunch of what ifs, and maybe something to knot regret around like an ever-lasting reminder?
When Rei held Nagisa's hips between his own hands, while sitting on a mattress and lifting Nagisa's shirt just a little, as much as he needed to in order to leave soft little kisses all over the other's small tummy just to hear him laugh. Would that become nothing but a meaningless memory? Because Nagisa does remember that in moments like that there was something pure and strong, something that did not need explaining and he did not even want to explain. When Rei's lips touched him, they felt different from anything else. The one only for me.

So now, while they stand in the airport's toilet booth, with Nagisa shaking in Rei's arms, tears finally spill over, wetting the taller's shirt as he gets held tighter to hide them.
"I don't want you to go," Nagisa admits, finally, with a crackling shiver in his voice. "I don't want you to forget about me–"
Rei's hand rests on his head, while his eyes are closed and wet again.
"Nagisa-kun, does it look like I am going to forget you?"
Rei's voice is unexplicably calm, soothing even, as he holds Nagisa tight against himself, and then it settles on his light, sarcastic and soft tone like when he has to point out the obvious.
Nagisa's eyes flutter open, and from his rightful spot against Rei's neck he looks up, meeting the other boy's warm gaze. Steady, and calm, even though some signs of pain appeared around his eyes too.
"Do you think I am not going to check my phone maniacally as soon as I land, to check for your hundreds of messages? Nagisa-kun, I didn't think you would be so unaware of what you did to me," he sighs, light and tender despite the knot threatening to constrict in his throat.
"Rei-chan..."
"Nagisa-k... Nagisa," Rei goes on without leaving any openings for objections and a shiver runs down his back as he drops the honorifics - and it would be about time, actually. Nagisa's eyes light up with surprise too.
"Nagisa, I take myself seriously, and I analyzed my feelings for you deeply before accepting to call myself your, ah, lover," he explains, letting his hands brush down Nagisa's arms as he lets him go. "You should know I do not play around, and I do not like to get hurt either. You should be aware that when I do something and involve other people, I am serious. Actually, I am mortally serious," he goes on, calm, composing himself. "Being far from one another does not mean a thing. Our planet is so small, and our distances are so laughable. If you think about light years and how far off anything is in space, all of our problems round up to zero. It is nothing we cannot overcome."
Nagisa's eyes stopped watering at the confidence Rei says these things with. Of course, reality is a lot more complicated than that, Rei is fully aware of that. But the sight of Nagisa crying pushed his heart into doubling its strength, because if Nagisa cries then Rei will have to compensate for it. And if Rei ever crumbles from missing the other too much, he knows Nagisa will take it upon himself to be strong for both of them.
"But-but Rei-ch... Rei-chan, what if you meet someone else?" Nagisa asks, with a tiny fearful chirp, shaking soft and vulnerable like a little chick still blind to the world's horrors and beauty.
"I will meet lots of people. I shall drink tea with them and sometimes share meals with them. I will talk to them. I will make friends with them."
Nagisa's lashes flutter again, this time in confusion. Surely Rei didn't misunderstand what that meant?
"Rei-chan, I mean... what if you find someone else to–"
"I will never find another you, Nagisa. I am absolutely positive. You know that thing I told you about Plato's myth about love, right? Do you remember?"
It was probably a conversation they had at some point. To be entirely honest, Nagisa only remembers the gist of it: once there were perfect beings with two faces and four arms and four legs and they were whole and strong, then they picked a fight with the gods and the gods cut them in half and made them weak; so from that moment on they wander around earth looking for their respective half to be whole again.
"Mm, I-I think so? What does that have to do with us?"
Rei looks down at him, as they stand cramped up in a small space into an airport's public toilet, and finally a warmth seems to spread across his body, up to his face, clearing it from all doubt and even pain, if only a little.
"Nagisa, do you not get it?" Rei asks, soft but confident, while brushing his hands up against Nagisa's arms again until they reach the other's humid cheeks.
Finally, his arms tie around Nagisa's body, and his shoulders tense with the effort of infusing all of his warmth into the smaller young man.
"I found you," he states aloud, and he expects surprise, maybe a laughter. He does not expect more sobs, but that is what he gets. However, as soon as he glances down to Nagisa's puffy red face, a smile lights his magenta eyes again, and stretches across his face with the same serenity and love that have their natural place on it.
It's like he forgot. Like he somehow stopped reminding himself that he has a responsibility towards Rei, and that Rei relied on him as much as he relied on Rei. That he never had to run in order to keep up with Rei, that Rei let him change him. In a way that he never allowed others to do, no matter how close. It's like he forgot to remember that if they are together, it is a choice they made in two and were always both absolutely firm about. Their feelings were not a choice, doing something about them definitely was despite all the trouble they were bound to bring. Compared to them, this is really not the worst fear they ever faced.
"Okay."

When their hands finally untangle and they exit the toilet, Nagisa seems to walk on five inches of air, and Rei's voice whines at some joke the other told him.
When Gou looks at them as her own luggage leans against her legs, she sighs with her eyes rolling.
"You're late!"
"Sorry, Gou-chan," Nagisa peeps with an absolutely not sorry look on his face. "Me and Rei-chan just had a lot of things to say. But anyway, quick and get on board!"
"It's not like I wanted to be here waiting for you two to do... whatever it is you did," she retorts, with a light blush on her cheeks.
"We did nothing much," Rei says right away, with his own face on fire now.
"Sure~ let's go," she replies rolling her eyes and then finally giving Nagisa a smile before hugging him tight with a little sway. "I'm gonna keep an eye on him," she whispers, and he smiles amused with a nod.
"Bye, have a good flight!" He replies, simply, and looks at Gou with so much calm and faith - which he did not have upon arriving at the aiport - she sort of blinks puzzled by it, but then as soon as she looks over at Rei she finds more or less the same kind of expression on his face, which makes her understand it probably took less than she expected for them to figure out, this is not the end.
That despite the first cold breezes, surely summer is not over for them.