Chapter Text
Yamaguchi Tadashi has been best friends with Tsukishima Kei for long enough to know that the latter is scared of very few things. He can walk right into most situations that terrify Tadashi and walk right out again with his apathetic, sarcastic armor intact, mocking Tadashi for ever being scared in the first place. But there are weaknesses in his armor, places where it cracks and melts away, and Tadashi knows every hole.
The most obvious one is the one that the armor itself was created to hide; Tsukishima is terrified of caring too much, and all the disappointment and hurt it can lead to. Tadashi hates that this part of Tsukishima exists. It’s taken him years to break down Tsukishima’s walls enough for the other boy to really believe that trusting and loving Tadashi would be worth it. He’s still working on getting Tsukishima to believe that other people besides Tadashi are worth it too. He thinks he will, someday, with the help of Tsukishima’s brother and his friends from Tokyo. Tsukishima has a lot of support out there, if he’s willing to admit that it exists.
That’s the biggest fear that Tsukishima has, but he has a few other, smaller ones. For some of them, you’d barely know unless you were Tadashi and fluent in the language of Tsukki. For instance, his fear of fire is only manifested through his keeping a few inches farther away than everyone else whenever they go to a beach bonfire. For other things, though, his fear is… more obvious.
That’s why Tadashi knows exactly what’s happening when he wakes up in the middle of the night during training camp to the twin sounds of a loud crack of thunder and a soft, strained whimper. This has happened plenty of times before; not that often, since thunderstorms aren’t that common in their area, and not in front of the rest of the team, but Tadashi knows the protocol. He yawns slightly as he sits up his futon and steals a glance at the one next to him. As he expects, he sees Tsukishima’s eyes glinting back at him, wide open and filled with terror.
“Hey, Tsukki, it’s okay,” he says softly, trying not to wake the others. “It’s okay, I’m here, you’re safe.”
Tsukishima jerks his head in a stiff nod- it looks like he had to fight his frozen muscles to even move that much. Thunder booms again, and there it is, that strangled, panicked whine. Tadashi feels his face twist sympathetically.
“Hang on, Tsukki,” he says soothingly. He picks his way across the room to their luggage, barely avoiding stepping on Hinata’s and Tanaka’s outflung arms, and finds Tsukishima’s bag among the pile. He searches through the tangle of clothes inside the bag until he feels the hard plastic of Tsukishima’s headphones and pulls them out. Tsukishima’s iPod is charging in one of the wall sockets by his bed, so Tadashi tiptoes back over. Midway across the room, thunder rumbles again, and he squeaks a little, jumps into the air, and nearly lands on Ennoshita’s sleeping face. He’s not afraid of thunder, but his startle reflex is second to none.
He makes it back to the iPod without any casualties, keys in Tsukki’s passcode (he wonders how Akiteru would feel if he knew that Kei had never changed the code back from Akiteru’s birthday after Akiteru had changed it to that as a prank) and scrolls through the playlists. He picks one full of the loudest rock songs Tsukishima has, plugs the headphones in, and turns the volume as far up as he can without waking up the rest of the team. Then he slips the headphones securely onto Tsukishima’s head and turns the volume up the rest of the way, loud enough to drown up the continuing booms from outside.
Tsukishima has taken the futon closest to the wall, as always. Tadashi wedges himself between the wall and Tsukishima’s back and curls up there, embracing the other boy from behind. He can feel Tsukishima’s muscles, so stiff that they’re almost vibrating, start to relax from Tadashi’s touch. He knows the music is too loud for Tsukishima to hear him, but he keeps up a stream of whispered comfort anyway: “Shhh, it’s okay, I’m here, you’re safe, nothing is going to hurt you.” It makes him feel better amid the bright flashes and howling winds, anyway. Nothing is going to hurt Tsukki; Tadashi will protect him, even from himself.
“Pathetic,” he hears Tsukishima whisper amid the rain.
Tadashi won’t stand for that. He lifts up one of Tsukishima’s headphones just enough so the other boy can hear him and whispers fiercely, “No you’re not, Tsukki.”
“I’m sixteen years old and I’m too afraid to sleep because of a simple meteorological phenomenon,” Tsukishima whispers bitterly. “That’s pretty pathetic, don’t you think, Yamaguchi?”
“It’s just a phobia, Tsukki. Don’t blame yourself, that’ll only make you feel worse.”
Tsukishima doesn’t respond, just lies there, only marginally less stiff than he was.
“Hey,” Tadashi continues. “Tell me about dinosaurs, Tsukki.” He’s learned through trial and error that distraction works best on the fear; when his brain is working on telling you exactly what the diet of a Triceratops was, it seems to keep him at one remove from the animalistic panic that he gets trapped in otherwise. “When did the brachiosaurus live?”
“Brachiosaurus,” Tsukishima mutters shakily, “that was the late Jurassic period…”
“What did it eat?” Tadashi prompts when Tsukishima trails off. He needs to fill the silence, to keep Tsukishima talking and thinking straight.
“It was an herbivore,” Tsukishima replies. “It probably ate leaves from tall foliage like trees.”
They pass the night like that, Tadashi racking his brains for species of dinosaurs, speaking in a voice that’s soft and gentle and more and more frequently punctuated by yawns. He feels Tsukishima relaxing slowly against him as the storm dies down, comforted by the twin stimuli of the music in one ear and Tadashi’s voice in the other. After an hour or so, the storm has passed, and the two of them are calm again.
“I can go back to my futon now if you want, Tsukki,” Tadashi says, making to rise, but Tsukishima grabs his wrist.
“No, stay,” he mutters, his voice still trembling slightly.
“Sure,” Tadashi yawns, settling back in and resting his head on Tsukishima’s shoulder. He turns his head in and kisses Tsukishima’s neck. “G’night, Tsukki.”
The storm is gone now, with nothing but a few soft rumbles in the distance and the smell of rain to remind them that it was ever here. Tsukishima is warm and strong and perfect in his arms as always. Tadashi drifts off to sleep with a small smile on his face.
***
He awakens to the flash of a cell phone camera and stifled giggles.
“I’m gonna use it for blackmail,” Tanaka says above them.
“Don’t use it for blackmail, Tanaka,” Suga scolds.
“But look. The blond icicle has feelings after all,” Tanaka says, snickering.
“Who would have thought Yamaguchi would be the big spoon?” says Noya.
Tadashi surfaces from sleep slowly, pieces of information bubbling into his consciousness one by one. He’s still curled around Tsukishima, holding him in a loose embrace. Tsukishima’s arms have come up to his chest and are holding onto Tadashi’s arms, drawing him closer. His headphones got knocked off sometime during the night, but the playlist must have ended, because Tadashi can’t hear any music. They’ve woken up like this many times… just never in front of such a large audience.
“Good morning, everyone,” he says sleepily, looking up and blinking the sleep out of his eyes. They’re ringed by most of the team, he finds; at least half of them have their cell phones out. This probably isn’t good.
“Oh my god, he’s so adorable it’s making me feel guilty,” he hears Tanaka whisper quietly. Tadashi can use this.
“What’s making you feel guilty? What are you doing?” he asks, gently shaking off Tsukishima’s hand from his wrist so he can use his hand to rub his eyes. Time to play up the cuteness factor.
“N-nothing,” says Tanaka guiltily, sticking his phone in his back pocket.
“We were just… you two were sleeping on the same futon and we…” Asahi says nervously, scratching the back of his head.
“Oh, that,” smiles Tadashi. “There was a big storm last night and it was scaring me, so Tsukki let me sleep next to him!” He doesn’t mind the team thinking he’s afraid, really; not nearly as much as Tsukki would mind letting his weak spots show, anyway. He’ll protect his boyfriend’s honor.
“Yamaguchi, what-” Tsukishima says blearily. Tadashi can hear his voice vibrating through his bones from the places where they’re pressed together.
“Oh, Tsukki, I was just telling them what a good boyfriend you are,” he smiles brightly, and the faces of the rest of the Karasuno boys all fall slightly. Tadashi smirks inwardly; the innocent act has claimed its newest victims.
Tsukishima just groans a little, brain still trying to process the fact that he’s expected to be awake. “What are they doing here?” he asks grouchily, pointing up at the rest of the team.
“I don’t know,” says Tadashi innocently. “Maybe they’re just wishing us good morning?” He blinks up at the team extra-sweetly as they shuffle their feet.
“Go get ready for breakfast, everyone,” says Daichi brusquely, and the team disperses, leaving the two alone at last.
Tadashi sits up, yawning a little. “Come on, Tsukki, we should get ready too,” he says.
Tsukishima pulls on his sleeve. “Yamaguchi, you told them you were afraid of thunderstorms instead of me?”
Tadashi didn’t think Tsukishima was awake enough to hear that, oops. “Yeah,” he says. “Sorry, Tsukki!”
“No, it’s fine,” Tsukishima says slowly. “That was… nice of you.”
Tadashi smiles. “Thanks, Tsukki!” Compliments from Tsukishima are like unexpected bursts of sunshine seen through a storm cloud. He cherishes each one all the more for their rarity.
Tsukishima sits up too, turns to Tadashi, and captures his lips in a short kiss. He wrinkles his nose as he pulls away. “Go brush your teeth.”
“Hey, you have morning breath too, Tsukki,” Tadashi giggles, but he stands up to comply.
Tsukishima grabs him one more time as he turns away from the futon to go get ready for the day. “Hey, Yamaguchi… thank you. For last night.”
“Any time,” Tadashi says, and smiles. He’ll deal with Tsukishima’s fears any day. They’re worth it, if it means that he gets Tsukishima.