Three

Rin woke up when he heard voices and footsteps coming from the upper floor, but Bachira didn't. Rin considered pretending he was still sleeping, but decided against it. He needed to see their unfiltered reactions. He considered waking Bachira up next, but decided against that too. He needed the sleep.

And maybe he didn't need to see their unfiltered reactions.

"Rin?" Isagi said upon stepping into the room, louder than he needed to.

What the fuck was he so surprised for, anyways? This was his house.

Rin shot both Isagi and his stupid brother trailing behind him a look. "Wake him up and I'll kill you."

Rin took a brief second to wonder if that was very boyfriendly, but before he could decide for sure, Isagi was looking down at said him with an expression that told him very clearly that he knew without seeing his face who that him was, and suddenly all of Rin's energy was dedicated to interpreting what Isagi was making of all this.

He looked surprised more than anything, but he stopped right mid step and stumbled through his next one. Over Isagi's shoulder, Sae took the slightest side glance at him before returning his eternally unimpressed expression to Rin. But Rin didn't care to interpret what Sae made of all this. He could discern that for himself later.

Despite the warning, or maybe because of it, Bachira started stirring anyways. He lifted his head, rubbing the sleep out of one eye with the heel of his palm, and looked over into the rest of the room.

"M-" Isagi started, but caught himself. "Bachira?"

Not off to a bad start, Rin thought.

"Isagi?" Bachira said back, questioning it, like he was trying to figure out whether or not it was actually him standing there. Once he decided it was, he asked, "What are you doing here?"

Not bad, Bob Cut, Rin thought next.

"I," Isagi started, but his words fell off again.

Bachira shrugged and lay his head back on Rin's chest, facing away from them. Isagi noticed. This was incredibly awkward in all the best ways, Rin decided. This stupid fake dating plan was actually working. And best of all, Sae looked irritated. Why, he couldn't quite tell yet, but it was a promising sign either way.

"I-I don't owe you that," Isagi answered anyways, turning away from the room.

Isagi and Sae headed towards the front door. It was just out of sight from where Rin was, but it was close enough to hear even soft conversation, so Rin decided all was well while he held his breath and waited.

Unfortunately for him, as if Sae could telepathically tell what he was thinking, Rin heard him slide on his own shoes and say, "I'll say goodbye to you outside."

The door closed behind the both of them, leaving the hallway empty.

"I'm so sleepy still," Bachira whispered. "How'd I do?"

"I think you did perfectly," Rin said, genuinely meaning it.

"Do you think he looked sad?" Bachira asked.

"Shh," Rin said. "We'll talk about it later."

The warning was timely, because not two seconds later, the door opened again and let in a single pair of footsteps. They stopped right at the entrance of the room and there stood the shittiest brother in the world, arms crossed and his expression looking even more disapproving than usual.

"This is pathetic," Sae said. "Even for you."

Sae didn't know anything, Rin decided, as he gave his brother a two finger salute.

"Right back at you," he said, deciding this was a dig that simultaneously admitted nothing.

Sae didn't say anything else before making his way back upstairs.

"Should I go?" Bachira whispered.

"No," Rin said, lifting a hand to rest between Bachira's shoulder blades, without really thinking about what he was doing. "It'll blow our cover if you leave right after Isagi."

"Okay," Bachira said. "What do we do now?"

His voice was back to the sad version of it, which Rin loathed, but it also sounded exhausted, which was a problem Rin could deal with much more readily. He suddenly noticed his hand on Bachira's back, the one that was holding him into place where he was still laying on top of him, and pulled it back.

"Come on," Rin said. "Let's go upstairs."

Up in Rin's room, Bachira was looking around like the space was really something to see. Rin watched him do this for a while, even letting him poke around through his bookshelves and trophy case and whisper oh and hmm to himself for what must have been five minutes before he eventually needed to know what all the fuss was about.

"What?" Rin asked.

"This isn't what I expected is all," Bachira said.

Not that he'd heard Isagi say much the same thing to Sae earlier, but Rin had, so he wondered what the hell these guys actually thought of the Itoshis. What about them was so unexpected? And what kind of line was that anyways?

"It's just a normal bedroom," Rin said.

"Exactly," Bachira said. But he stopped poking around and looked up at Rin. "What should we do now?"

Rin had brought Bachira up here for a reason, in fact. One that was going to kill two birds with one stone. He motioned to the bed. "Lay down."

"Ooh!" Bachira exclaimed, his yellow eyes going wide. "We're getting very boyfriendly all of a sudden, are we?"

"What? No!" Rin spat back, taking an involuntary step back as well. After that, the thought couldn't help but cross his mind. Had he and Isagi...? He banished the thought from his mind and motioned back to the bed, more harshly this time. "Get some sleep. You clearly need it."

Bachira's face fell again, but this time, Rin hadn't been expecting it. That was hardly mean. He was just stating a fact. Bachira's fists balled at his sides and he looked down at his feet, which he started lightly bouncing around on, like it just gave him something to do.

"I can't," Bachira said.

Rin sighed. "And why's that?"

"I have a hard time sleeping," Bachira said, his feet still moving, his eyes still watching them.

"You didn't seem to have a problem with it downstairs," Rin fought.

"Yeah, but," Bachira said. His feet stopped, but he didn't look up. "That's because I was with you."

Rin didn't say anything. He didn't know what to say.

Bachira continued without prompting. "I'm not very good at sleeping alone. I'm not used to it anymore."

Neither of them said anything else for a while. Bachira continued to watch his feet and Rin continued to watch him, stuck between hoping he'd say more and wondering what he should say. The silence was not filled with speech, however, but instead the next sound in the room was a sniffle, followed by two tears hitting the carpet.

"Are you crying?" Rin asked. He hadn't meant to sound so awful, but he was surprised, and it just kind of came out that way.

"Yeah," Bachira answered, rather casually, like Rin had asked a perfectly normal question and he was giving his equally normal answer.

"Oh God," Rin said without really meaning to.

"It's funny," Bachira said. "I've never been much of a crier. But now it's like it happens all the time."

Rin found himself relating to that. The first part, anyways. He still wasn't much of a crier, and didn't know what to do in the face of it. "What do I do?"

"Beats me," Bachira said, shrugging. And then he laughed, but it was somehow the saddest sound Rin had ever heard. "Just ignore it until it stops, I guess. That's what I do."

As much as he wished he could do just that, it didn't sit right with Rin. He watched Bachira cry for a few seconds longer, and then found his feet were approaching him all on his own. Rin knew his movement was jerky and awkward as he took Bachira into his arms, but it didn't stop him. Bachira didn't either. He didn't resist at all, actually. He curled right into him like it was instinct and Rin was thankful for it because at least it was muffling some of the sobbing.

It was hard to tell who was shaking more.

"Thanks, Rin-chan," Bachira said at one point.

"Don't worry about it," Rin said. "It's going to be alright."

"Really?" Bachira asked, his voice full of this childlike disbelief.

"Yes," Rin answered, immediate and solid.

Rin couldn't be sure of this, obviously, but that hardly mattered. Sometimes people just needed to be told that everything would be alright.

It helped. Either that, or it conveniently coincided with the crying stopping. Bachira sniffed a few final times and moved to step back, so Rin let go of him. He nodded a couple times, but he still wasn't looking at him. Which was all and well, because Rin was more concerned with changing out of his tear and snot soaked shirt as soon as possible.

He pulled it off without thinking much of it, tossing it into the laundry bin and moving over to his dresser to grab a new one. He pushed the drawer closed and was unfolding the shirt when he looked back up to check on the state of his guest.

He sure was looking at Rin now.

"What now?" Rin asked.

Bachira shrugged.

Rin didn't press the subject any further. He pulled the shirt on and went back over to the bed.

"Lay down," he said again.

"But I," Bachira started.

"Lay down," Rin said, harsher this time, pulling back the covers.

Bachira looked doubtful, but he didn't fight him anymore. He crawled onto the bed, tucked himself under the covers like a child, caught Rin's eye, and stuck his tongue out at him. He did, however, look surprised when Rin climbed in after him.

He offered no explanation beyond, "I'd be a pretty shitty boyfriend if I let you keep walking around looking like a zombie."

Rin lay down, extending an arm out, ready for more thrashing and elbows to the ribs and whatever other bullshit this would likely entail, but Bachira had clearly changed his tune. Because he just kind of shuffled over and curled right into him. Rin actually thought it kind of nice, until Bachira reached up to put his neck in a death grip and wrapped one of his own legs in his own with a grip just as tight.

How does anyone learn to sleep with this thing? Rin found himself thinking.

"This is awfully nice of you," Bachira said with a giggle.

"You are so annoying," Rin said back.

There was a pause, and then Bachira's grip loosened slightly as he said, "I know."

It hit Rin in the ribs worse than any elbow could of. It was back to that small voice, said with the tone of someone who had been told before, definitely more than once, and did indeed hold this knowledge as absolute truth. Rin put his free hand over his face, wondering when he was going to get a hang of where all these landmines were.

"I don't know why I said that," he said. "I didn't mean it."

"You did," Bachira said back. "It's fine."

"No, I," Rin started, before realizing there was probably a better way of doing this besides blind denial. "What I meant was you're a lot to handle."

Bachira chuckled. It wasn't as sad, but it's not like it sounded happy. "Let's maybe stop talking for a while."

That was fine by Rin, because he but a breath away from following up his clarification with but I can handle it, and he felt as if that might be going too far, even if he took the whole fake dating thing into consideration.