Work Text:
"Kai?"
"Hm?"
"What's that one called?"
They're on the Bounty's deck, huddled with their legs sticking through the rails.
Lloyd sits between Kai's legs, pulling at the edges of the blanket pulled around his broader shoulders and wrapped around them both.
Lloyd feels warm breath on his ear as Kai finds his star.
"… Dog."
"Dog?"
"Dog." Kai nods behind him, chin brushing his head.
Lloyd snorts. He dodges the hand shooting to ruffle his hair and groans as he gets hair in his eyes anyway.
Somewhere below, an owl hoots.
"… I always wanted a dog."
He sounds so wistful as they sit on the veranda, the sky rumbling beyond the courtyard.
"I could barely take care of Nya. But there was one dog… she took care of herself. And Nya liked her too."
Lloyd sinks in the water, too weak to do anything but drift anymore. Up there, Kai looks like an angel.
"So I called her Dog. Always thought she called me Boy. Nya hated it."
Lloyd watches as Kai swirls his drink around and swallows, green and poisonously bright under the bar lights.
"I told Nya she ran off. Didn't want her to... I guess I didn't want her to hate me."
Kai leans forward, bracing Lloyd in his arms as wind blows across the deck. Clouds drift above, obscuring the stars.
"She was sick. I had to put her down," he admits softly.
They slurp at their broth, jostled by the crowds of people slipping past their table and their elbows knocking.
"She just looked at me. She was ready."
His eyes are blued by water as he swims down, down, down, grabbing Lloyd's wrist and raising him up again.
"Lloyd, listen to me—"
He croons at a tearful Lloyd, rubbing tears from his red face as he bounces him in his arms.
"I'm ready."
As he starts to doze in Kai's arms, red light finally breaches the horizon, tinting the clouds drifting distantly.
"It's okay."
Kai covers Lloyd's hands with his own, making shadows on the blanket wall as they muffle their laughs.
"I'm okay."
They break the surface, air flooding back into Lloyd's lungs like glass. He clings to Kai as best he can, spots in his vision.
"I love you."
His dull eyes stare blankly at the overcast sunrise as a knife drops to the sand.
Trembling hands reach out to hold his cold ones.
Red stains his cracked lips.
He doesn't look so big, without his gi.
"… I love you, too."