Thread by @starbeyy

pride month threadfic marathon🏳️‍🌈

DAY 11: #osakita // cowboys (but gay), friends with benefits ?, a touch of yearning

PART 2

https://twitter.com/starbeyy/status/1535368089839468545

Kita sighed. His warm breath brushed along Osamu's face. Then, he turned to look up at the sky.

"Don't go askin' questions you already know the answer to," he muttered.

"But what if I don't know the answer?" Asked Osamu, "What if it's never been enough?"

Kita's arm was still cradling Osamu's head, his hand now firmly gripping is shoulder. He pursed his lips together.

"I'm a cowboy," he said, "I travel."

For a brief moment, Osamu was satisfied. He was happy with that simple answer, the one he'd given to countless women who begged for his attention in his travels.

The difference was, he didn't care much for those women. Being a cowboy was an excuse.

Was it an excuse for Kita too?

Quickly, Osamu sat up and took ahold of his hat in his lap.

"I s'pose," he mumbled to himself.

"Hey," Kita's voice lowered, he sat up beside Osamu, "what would I have to stay for anyhow?"

Osamu dared to glare at him, take the time to turn his head and narrow his eyes.

/Me,/ his thoughts pled.

/You'd stay for me./

"It don't matter no more," Osamu huffed, hoisting himself up from the flattened rock.

"I thought we had an arrangement," Kita cut in as his eyes followed Osamu's movements.

Osamu's hand clenched around the top of his hat, the fabric squished beneath and between his fingers. He hardened his jaw, suppressing the shudder of anger that made him want to thrash around and scream.

"We do," he replied through gritted teeth.

"So what's the problem?" Kita prodded.

Osamu suppressed another wave of fury and self-pity, the kind that manifested in a choked-back tear and a fist against the wall.

Now, all the energy had to be concentrated in Osamu's vice grip around his hat.

"I can't do it," he admitted sourly, "this whole arrangement."

Transiently, Kita's hard-lined expression softened. His fingers tightened into fists as though something were slipping through them.

"What?" he asked, curt.

"I can't just--" Osamu motioned violently to the land around him, "wait out here for you to show up! What, a drink and a couple 'a quick fucks and you're back out on the road like nothing happened?"

Frustration flowed hot through Osamu's body. He was afraid the sheer overflow of it all would leak from his eyes. It stung; it was a dark and menacing cloud that had come upon him months ago.

"I don't get on my horse and forget, Samu," Kita stood, his eyes narrowed.

"Then /why/ do you leave?" Osamu cried.

Whether he was crying or not, Osamu couldn't care. All he could hear was the echoes of his own voice carrying through the open space.

Kita was only a few steps away from him, yet the distance felt greater than anything they'd known before.

"What alternative d'you propose?" asked Kita lowly.

Osamu's lips opened to speak. There was nothing there.

"Take stock o' the world," Kita hissed, "we'd be fools to think two cowboys could settle down in the same cottage and not raise suspicions."

A breath left Osamu's chest slow and steady through his nose.

The in-betweens of their partnership had rarely struck Osamu so heavily as now. At all other times, he had been too enamored with Kita--his body and his voice and everything else--to pay any mind to what others had to say.

"Who cares?" He eked out, even so.

Kita sighed and glanced off into the distance, a tight frustration building between them.

"Yer crazy," Kita muttered.

"Fine! I /am/ crazy!" Osamu shouted.

There was a feeling in his chest. It was warm. It was fire. It was comforting from a distance, deadly in close proximity. It was in Osamu and he was being eaten up.

"I wake up in the mornin', and I think about you," he stepped towards Kita, "every meal I make and every night I'm alone I wish you were there with me."

He saw Kita's hand twitch towards him out of the corner of his eye.

It was so natural for them to hold onto one another. They were reaching outside of their own consciousness, desperate to be as close as they had been before.

"I don't--" Osamu began to choke up, "I don't know if I'll ever grow out of it."

Osamu swallowed hard. Kita reached out for his face.

"I don't know if I'll ever grow out of needing you like this," Osamu whispered.

🌄🌄🌄

Kita's eyes fluttered closed. He bowed his head.

"Samu," he began.

"Don't do that," Osamu's voice wavered with a cry he would not allow, "don't be like this, not when you're leaving so soon."

With his own head bowed and his eyes closed, Osamu was reduced to the senses he had left: the sense of touch that let him know Kita's forehead was on his, the sense of smell that foretold rain.

The sensation in his heart that made him want to bury himself deep beneath the clay.

"What would it look like?"

Kita's voice was soft and clear. It was the river that had smoothed over every rock, caught on nothing in its path.

"What?" Osamu sighed.

"Life," said Kita, "if we could do anythin', no worries or complications, what would it look like?"

Osamu let out a slow breath. He could feel Kita's nearness, it brushed warm against his nose.

And in his mind, he saw it--

life.

It was the two of them in a meadow spotted with flowers. In the distance there was a cottage made of stone. It was something out of a painting, the kind those traveling salesmen peddled on their backs.

The air would smell like a fresh rain. They would be together, Kita's arm cradling Osamu's head, Osamu's lips on the column of Kita's neck.

They would be alone.

And there would be no wolves to fear, not a single howl in the nighttime.

Their hats would be hanging in the doorway. Their horses would be content with their oats and occasional rides down the cliffside.

They would be together, every day and every night. Osamu would wake up to Kita's skin prickled with sweat and his hair splayed like a halo around his head.

There would never be any reason to venture past their home. There would be no reason to be a cowboy ever again.

This was what Osamu told him in as many words as his feeble mind would allow. Whether it made any sense, he wouldn't know.

What he did know was that the taste on his lips was tears. He hadn't been able to stop them in time.

"That sounds mighty nice," Kita hummed, his hand holding the back of Osamu's neck.

"Don't it?" Osamu chuckled.

"Jus' you n' me," Kita's voice got quieter.

"Me n' you," Osamu parroted.

Kita hummed again. Osamu found it within himself to look up. He seemed at peace like that, like he was in the middle of praying.

"I reckon we should head back," Osamu muttered as the orange light overtook them.

Kita said nothing. He simply released Osamu from his grip with a slow slide of his hand and set his hat back atop his head.

The shadow was deep against his face.

Osamu followed close behind, wiping at his tears with his sleeve before putting his hat back on his head. They mounted their horses.

Kita reared his horse until they were facing one another. The animals allowed them a significant distance.

"Ya can't stay just one night?" Osamu asked weakly.

Kita's smile was small.

"I'm afraid if I did, I'd get stuck in yer bed," he teased.

Osamu smiled at the thought.

Kita wrapped the reins around his hands once more and glanced out to the horizon.

"Reckon it'll rain?" He asked.

"That bother you?" Osamu asked in return.

Kita shot him a narrowed glare.

They were both stalling with needless conversation, it was obvious. Neither wanted to be the first to say it.

"Until next time, then?" Kita finally called out.

Osamu hesitated for a moment. He wished that pause would last forever.

"Till next time," Osamu replied, "partner."

With a solemn tip of his hat, Kita turned his white speckled horse and raced off towards the west.

Osamu turned his horse east.

He felt like crying again. Perhaps he would when he was back in the safety of his home. Something about the wind and the sheer velocity of his horse was keeping the tears at bay.

"Yah!" He shouted, urging his horse to go faster.

His knuckles were flushing white around the leather reins. Osamu's insides were disintegrating. He swallowed down the same knot in his throat ten times over.

All the while, his mind flashed with the future he'd imagined. It was all so clear, the cottage and the meadow and Kita beneath his tough.

He wanted them safe.

The only other thing he could imagine was wolves.

"Gahdamnit," he hissed to himself as his horse ran even faster.

Ten minutes, twenty minutes, a half an hour--

so little time had passed since their parting, but Osamu was already a man starved.

Even if Kita had stayed the night, it wouldn't have changed anything. Osamu's hunger would've been the same.

Storm clouds collected up ahead.

"It's gonna rain," Osamu muttered to himself.

An invisible hand seized his heart. He glanced over his shoulder to the setting sun in the west.

/Can't,/ Kita's voice echoed in his mind.

/Can't stay./

/Can't stay here with you./

The wolves. The wolves would come at night. Osamu settled down to avoid them, gave up his ways to see to his own safety.

But he would endure it all again for Kita Shinsuke. He would ride right through a pack of them if it meant one more night.

Osamu's horse had finally slowed to a stop. Winds whipped his hair against his forehead and pulled against his hat.

With careful motions, he guided his horse to face west.

"Let's go," he commanded.

Even faster than before, his horse raced off in the opposite direction, towards where Kita had ridden away.

There was such a little chance he'd even catch up. Osamu had been riding the other way for thirty or so minutes. In fact, it was impossible that he would catch him like this.

Still, he held the reins like life itself and raced through the plains. Even as the rain began to beat down upon his neck, he rode.

And he rode.

And he rode.

Kita Shinsuke made his mind spin, made him think and do crazy things like this. Kita Shinsuke made the unpleasantness of his dampened clothes worthwhile.

"Shin!" He cried through the downpour.

There was no answer. He was a fool to assume there would be.

"Shin!" He shouted again in desperation.

His horse never ceased. They raced between rock formations and across sharp thickets as the rain turned to a gray sheet all around them.

"Shinsuke!" He screamed over and over, rainwater catching against his lip every time he did.

Osamu began to lose hope as the storm thickened.

But something passed by him, a flash of white that was going even faster than he was.

"Woah!" He called to his horse, both of them spooked by the sudden appearance.

Osamu glanced over his shoulder.

The rain was so thick, and if the horse was a few feet further, he wouldn't have been able to see it at all.

But it was there. Osamu saw it.

A white horse--spackled with black.

Kita Shinsuke was riding atop him, racing in the opposite direction--

chasing after Osamu.

"Samu?" His voice called through the plowing rain.

"Shin!" Osamu replied, turning his horse and advancing on the sound.

The closer they got, the clearer Kita's face became. It was streaked with tears and rainwater. His eyes pled. He panted.

"Samu," Kita sighed.

The rain let up slightly, only enough for their voices to be heard.

Almost simultaneously, the two of them dismounted their horses and stuck the heels of their steel-toed boots in the wet clay.

They bounded towards each other, hands outstretched.

It wasn't clear who grabbed who first nor who kissed who first, but it didn't matter in the moment.

What mattered was the now: Osamu and Kita locked in a warm embrace.

If they'd gone a mere step further in their insistency, someone's nose might've snapped clean off. But everything was slick from the rain, their lips and noses and palms.

"I'll stay," Kita huffed against his lips.

"No," Osamu replied, "I'll go."

"We fixin' to fight again?" Kita chuckled.

Osamu laughed too.

It didn't quite matter, not when they were together.

Because they had all the time in the world.

They had today, and tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that and--

you get the idea.

🏔🏔🏔

here's the very tippy top of the thread, thank you for reading :33

https://twitter.com/starbeyy/status/1535352777215451136?s=20&t=6tc8XeeA0P8Ta-dF9P6GvQ

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