[INCEPTION] Fic: A place that I know well (Robert/Saito)
A place that I know well
Robert/Saito
For the inception_kink prompt: There's an old Japanese belief that if lovers think of each other at night, they will see each other in their dreams.
The phone rings at a quarter to three in the morning. Robert is already asleep but he stirs at the first crisp echo of his phone vibrating on the bedside table. He opens his eyes, but he doesn’t move.
The room is dark, save for the slats of bright Sydney light filtering in from the windows.
The phone rings, several times.
Then it stops.
Robert shifts underneath his blanket, sighing softly at the comfort of something soft and warmed by his body easing the ache of a very long day.
He closes his eyes, and starts to dream.
The phone rings again.
Frustrated, Robert pushes himself roughly on one elbow and fishes his mobile. Things clatter to the floor, heavy and messy, and Robert’s ire deepens.
This better be worth it.
“What?” He answers, roughly, but his voice is too heavy with sleep to manage anything more than a hoarse whisper.
A pause on the other end.
Robert opens his mouth, ready to berate whomever it is that had bothered to disturb him in an ungodly hour, when-
“You were already asleep?”
Saito.
The familiar baritone eases the ire from Robert’s system. He almost smiles. Rubbing wakefulness back to his eyes, clearing the loose hold of sleep around his throat, he falls back against the pillows.
“I really hope you know what time it is here,” is Robert’s way of forgiveness and at the slight crinkle of laugh over an ocean and thousands of miles, Robert knows that Saito is relieved.
“I just wanted to call you,” is Saito’s way of explanation. He always speaks in riddles, vague truths, and vivid images. Robert is surrounded by litigators and lawyers, people whose definition of light conversation are numbers. Statistics. Facts and figures that paint very dismal images in Robert’s head. Listening to Saito is like thinking in color; photographic; images, whitewashed, against the grayscale of monotony.
Robert nods, but the mobile pressed against his cheek is enough of a reminder that Saito won’t be with him for a longer time still to see it.
“Don’t sleep yet.”
Robert grunts, a soft rush of air out of his nose, and Saito replies with a light chuckle that rushes into his ear in waves, a tender lapping at the shore that tickles the hair at the back of his neck. Tingles the pads of his fingers against the mobile’s hard plastic.
“Robert?”
“I’m still here,” Robert reassures him.
“Good.”
They ‘re quiet for a little while. Robert imagines Saito sitting on the bed, or standing by his window.
Saito’s house is traditional; all wood, mostly paper, glass only in the kitchen, only in the bathrooms where mirrors are few and lights glow warmly against the off-white walls. Saito still in his suit, with his tie undone, and his shirt unbuttoned. Robert imagines Saito, tired lines on his face, amidst the wood, and the glow, and the smell of dewy grass he’d always come to associate with Japan, and Robert feels a pang in his chest.
His bed is large. The other side is undisturbed, almost pristine. He refuses to glance at it, even if the ache burns dimly underneath his skin.
I miss you, Robert doesn’t say, but closes his eyes. His hand moves slowly from the warmth at his side to a stark and shocking cold on the other side of the bed.
“I want you think of me.”
“It’s very hard not to, when you’re keeping me awake,” Robert says. But it’s difficult, he finds, around the sudden lump in his throat. His voice is hoarse but his eyes are dry and Robert wonders if this is what it feels like, to really know that you’re alone.
Years spent at in his father’s shadow, Robert was never alone; he had several other shadows, and all of them had worn his face, all in shades of success and competence and everything that Robert never really was.
Alone now, in a bed too big, with only his body keeping his pillows warm underneath his head, it’s a different feeling. The shadow that cools the air around him is not of anything else but of someone who isn’t there.
“I want to be the last person you think about before you dream again,” Saito replies, and with Robert’s eyes closed, he pretends that it’s a whisper against the shell of his ear. That the breeze that ruffles his hair doesn’t come from the open window above his head, that the warmth around his chest is not the rush of breath from his nose, or the ache that gnaws at his heart.
The call ends, a soft click that nudges Robert into dreams of wood, and dewy grass, and Japan, and discarded suits on the floor, a soft smile that greets him from the door, and warm, strong arms, that wrap around his back and pull him closer and closer until the air is no longer cold, and the blankets are no longer pristine, and the room becomes much, much smaller until all that’s left is him and Saito and a bed that is not so large anymore.
Robert/Saito
For the inception_kink prompt: There's an old Japanese belief that if lovers think of each other at night, they will see each other in their dreams.
The phone rings at a quarter to three in the morning. Robert is already asleep but he stirs at the first crisp echo of his phone vibrating on the bedside table. He opens his eyes, but he doesn’t move.
The room is dark, save for the slats of bright Sydney light filtering in from the windows.
The phone rings, several times.
Then it stops.
Robert shifts underneath his blanket, sighing softly at the comfort of something soft and warmed by his body easing the ache of a very long day.
He closes his eyes, and starts to dream.
The phone rings again.
Frustrated, Robert pushes himself roughly on one elbow and fishes his mobile. Things clatter to the floor, heavy and messy, and Robert’s ire deepens.
This better be worth it.
“What?” He answers, roughly, but his voice is too heavy with sleep to manage anything more than a hoarse whisper.
A pause on the other end.
Robert opens his mouth, ready to berate whomever it is that had bothered to disturb him in an ungodly hour, when-
“You were already asleep?”
Saito.
The familiar baritone eases the ire from Robert’s system. He almost smiles. Rubbing wakefulness back to his eyes, clearing the loose hold of sleep around his throat, he falls back against the pillows.
“I really hope you know what time it is here,” is Robert’s way of forgiveness and at the slight crinkle of laugh over an ocean and thousands of miles, Robert knows that Saito is relieved.
“I just wanted to call you,” is Saito’s way of explanation. He always speaks in riddles, vague truths, and vivid images. Robert is surrounded by litigators and lawyers, people whose definition of light conversation are numbers. Statistics. Facts and figures that paint very dismal images in Robert’s head. Listening to Saito is like thinking in color; photographic; images, whitewashed, against the grayscale of monotony.
Robert nods, but the mobile pressed against his cheek is enough of a reminder that Saito won’t be with him for a longer time still to see it.
“Don’t sleep yet.”
Robert grunts, a soft rush of air out of his nose, and Saito replies with a light chuckle that rushes into his ear in waves, a tender lapping at the shore that tickles the hair at the back of his neck. Tingles the pads of his fingers against the mobile’s hard plastic.
“Robert?”
“I’m still here,” Robert reassures him.
“Good.”
They ‘re quiet for a little while. Robert imagines Saito sitting on the bed, or standing by his window.
Saito’s house is traditional; all wood, mostly paper, glass only in the kitchen, only in the bathrooms where mirrors are few and lights glow warmly against the off-white walls. Saito still in his suit, with his tie undone, and his shirt unbuttoned. Robert imagines Saito, tired lines on his face, amidst the wood, and the glow, and the smell of dewy grass he’d always come to associate with Japan, and Robert feels a pang in his chest.
His bed is large. The other side is undisturbed, almost pristine. He refuses to glance at it, even if the ache burns dimly underneath his skin.
I miss you, Robert doesn’t say, but closes his eyes. His hand moves slowly from the warmth at his side to a stark and shocking cold on the other side of the bed.
“I want you think of me.”
“It’s very hard not to, when you’re keeping me awake,” Robert says. But it’s difficult, he finds, around the sudden lump in his throat. His voice is hoarse but his eyes are dry and Robert wonders if this is what it feels like, to really know that you’re alone.
Years spent at in his father’s shadow, Robert was never alone; he had several other shadows, and all of them had worn his face, all in shades of success and competence and everything that Robert never really was.
Alone now, in a bed too big, with only his body keeping his pillows warm underneath his head, it’s a different feeling. The shadow that cools the air around him is not of anything else but of someone who isn’t there.
“I want to be the last person you think about before you dream again,” Saito replies, and with Robert’s eyes closed, he pretends that it’s a whisper against the shell of his ear. That the breeze that ruffles his hair doesn’t come from the open window above his head, that the warmth around his chest is not the rush of breath from his nose, or the ache that gnaws at his heart.
The call ends, a soft click that nudges Robert into dreams of wood, and dewy grass, and Japan, and discarded suits on the floor, a soft smile that greets him from the door, and warm, strong arms, that wrap around his back and pull him closer and closer until the air is no longer cold, and the blankets are no longer pristine, and the room becomes much, much smaller until all that’s left is him and Saito and a bed that is not so large anymore.