Fic: Snow Angels

[rikke_leonhart]

Title: Snow Angels
Pairing(s): Ohno/Nino
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 4,044
Disclaimer: Do. Not. Own. Unfortunately.
Summary: AU. A quick reaction, a saved life, a chance encounter and Nino is left breathless. Maybe angels do exist.
Notes: An early Christmas present to those who kept me sane this year; Suvi, Vanessa, Gati, Nhi-chan, Sarah and Zan. Merry Christmas, darlings ♥

*
October
He didn’t hear the sound of screeching tires, didn’t hear the warning shouts or the gasps and screams from the people who saw.

He didn’t hear the hush and alarm going through the onlookers by chance and circumstance; he only felt the powerful impact of a body colliding hard with his own, sending him tumbling to the asphalt, knocking the wind out of him. Pain flared from his hips and back from the force of the harsh landing, and he breathed hard, trying to force air back into his lungs. When he looked up, he looked into a pair of frightened eyes, and then he saw the parted lips move, but he didn’t hear it.

“You okay?”

He frowned. Why wouldn’t he be?

He opened his mouth to answer but suddenly realized that he was shaking and fingers came up to touch his face, and he felt more than saw them come away damp.

Then sound came back to him full force. People running over to them, hefting the man on top of him off, and then himself, and they dusted him off, asking him if he was alright, what he was doing and hadn’t he seen the car?!

He trembled as realization dawned.

“I’m fine,” he said, his voice shaky, “really, I’m fine.”

The young man who had pushed him out of harm’s way seemed worried, looking at him with wide, concerned eyes, but Nino didn’t get to see more than that, because the moment he blinked, the young man had turned and was walking away.

Nino never saw him properly or got to know his name.

*
December 22nd
Nino was awoken very early on the 22nd by his alarm clock. Aiba.

“Snow!” Aiba shouted into his ear, making him flinch away. Aiba jumped on his bed on his knees. “It’s snowing!”

Nino grumbled and hid his head under the pillow, adopting the tactic of an ostrich – if he couldn’t see Aiba, then maybe Aiba couldn’t see him either.

His blanket was shoved off and the cold air hit his body.

No such luck.

“Aiba-chan,” Nino tried to sound threatening, but his voice was obscured by the pillow, making Aiba laugh at him.

“It’s been snowing all night! We’re going to play in the park!”

“No, we’re not,” Nino denied, stretching, and he opened his eyes when Aiba removed the pillow from his head.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s cold!”

“That’s why we have winter jackets!” Aiba soldiered on, hopping off of Nino’s bed, bouncing slightly. “Come on! Maybe Sho-chan wants to come, too! And Matsujun!”

At that, Nino snorted. “I doubt it, his perm will be ruined.”

“It won’t,” Aiba grinned, “because my mom knit him a hat!”

Nino laughed. If anyone could get Jun to wear something like that, it was Aiba, and Nino figured watching that particular battle would be worth getting outside in the cold for.

He swung his legs out of the bed and got to his feet, and he walked over to his desk to look out of the window. Aiba was right, it had snowed a lot during the night; the entire surface of the world from his window was covered in white.

Nino smiled a bit.

Maybe Aiba’s birthday wish from last year of a white Christmas would come true this year.

*
As it turned out, Aiba didn’t have much luck with putting the hat on Jun’s head.

Nino and Sho spent several minutes laughing themselves sick at Aiba flailing wildly because of the snow Jun shoved down his shirt. Aiba then declared snowball war on Jun and got them all involved in the process.

Nino was out of breath, his cheeks flushed with the cold biting at them, but he was laughing and secretly thanking Aiba for getting him outside. He looked over the snow that had been perfect when they arrived, but now it was ruined completely.

A snowman built by Aiba’s eager hands stood and watched them, looking positively scandalized.

Boys will be boys.

“Take that!” was all the warning he got before a snowball hit his neck and he whipped around, lips curling into a menacing grin as he eyed both Jun and Aiba.

“Now, who is going to die?”

Aiba’s eyes widened and he pointed at Jun, who rolled his eyes and calmly pointed at Sho hiding behind them. Nino smothered a grin.

“Sho-chaaaan,” he drawled, crouching to gather the snow. He rolled it slowly between his hands, taking his sweet time, holding eye contact with Sho the entire time.

Sho looked like he was about to pee in his pants.

“Sho-cha~an,” he said again, drawing out the syllables as long as he could and matching them with his best evil voice.

“I’ll hold him!” Aiba volunteered and shrieked when Sho threw snow at him in attempt to get away. They landed with a muted oomph in the snow and Sho flailed at the cold.

Jun bent over laughing and holding his stomach.

Nino grinned before looking down at the snowball in his hands. Perfectly rounded, not too light and not too heavy, but the perfect weight to carry perfectly through the air and hit his target. He could already imagine Sho’s girly protests.

“Aiba-chan,” he called, signaling for the boy to get off or he’d get hit instead, and with Aiba’s weight gone, Sho scrambled to his feet, somewhat hindered by his heavy boots, and Nino took aim.

The snowball hit Sho perfectly on the side of his face and his yell was every bit as Nino had imagined. He threw a fist in the air in victory and was about to congratulate Aiba on a job well done, when a snowball hit him from Jun’s direction.

Nino took a deep breath.

The war was far from over, it seemed.

*
Nino’s cheeks strained from smiling so much and his stomach hurt from laughing. He was beyond spent, his legs aching with how he’d run through the high snow, his arms from throwing and from wrestling, and somehow, he knew that that was what Aiba had been planning on.

Nino wasn’t complaining.

*
Ohno smiled at the snow in front of him, where it had been marred by careless and hurried feet. He looked at the snowman that had been left to fend the snow off and watch over the deserted battlefield.

It was beautiful, Ohno thought, raising his camera and capturing the now empty scene with a click, happy he’d got a shot of it before and now.

Echoes of happy voices.

He looked up at the darkening sky and closed his eyes as the snow fell gently on his face.

*
“What did you get Aiba?” Nino asked when Aiba and Jun had left to get some movies.

Sho shrugged. “Jun-kun has bought a year-long membership of the zoo.”

Nino nodded. That was very thoughtful. Very Jun.

“I got him that soccer game he’s been raving about for months,” Sho continued. “It was very obvious. You?”

“I don’t know,” Nino admitted, ignoring the look settling over Sho’s face that told him that Sho wasn’t even surprised. “I haven’t had the time.”

Sho’s eyes were knowing and he didn’t comment on that. “So, you still haven’t found him.”

Nino shook his head, but looked determined. “I’ll continue until I find him.”

“Nino, do you even remember how he looks?”

It was a valid concern and one Nino admittedly had addressed himself. In all honesty, he’d seen the guy for less than a minute, it was possible that Nino had forgotten how he really looked and were now searching for the phantom of a face. However, Nino was convinced that he’d never forget the concerned and warm eyes that had stared down at him as he lay there on the asphalt.

“I will find him,” Nino said with conviction, nodding to himself. He was nothing if not stubborn.

He’d vowed to find that person who’d risked his life to save Nino’s, only to turn and leave as if he hadn’t even been there in the first place. Nino owed his life to that man.

The least he could do was find him and say thank you.

But that was easier said than done. Ever since that day in the chilly autumn of October where he’d been walking one minute, and suddenly he’d been flat on the ground, Nino had been back at that street, looking, searching tirelessly through the crowds and throngs of people. It was a busy street, so maybe the man came there often.

The busy street also meant that Nino might just as well have overlooked him all this time.

Perhaps he didn’t want to be found, maybe that was why he’d turned and walked away before Nino could even open his mouth.

Sho, Aiba and Jun had helped him look, kept him company on the days they could, and Nino himself had been back every single day as soon as he got off from work.

He still hadn’t found him.

“Sho-chan, will you help me look later?”

Sho smiled softly. “Sure.”

*
The street was crowded, people still shopping for Christmas presents. People hurrying, people laughing, people holding hands and belonging to someone and with someone.

Ohno shivered slightly. His neck was cold.

The people around him faded out until he couldn’t hear them anymore – concentration.

Ohno raised his camera, angled it and clicked. He looked at the image displayed on the small screen.

Two searching faces.

Maybe this Christmas wouldn’t be like the others.

*
Across the street, Sho turned to Nino, resting a hand on his shoulder.

“Maybe tomorrow?”

Nino nodded, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Maybe tomorrow.”

*
Lying on the floor of the darkened living room, staring at the ceiling and listening to Aiba breathing wasn’t how Nino usually spent his nights.

“Today,” Aiba said from where he was lying on the couch. “Today was nice.”

Nino nodded even though Aiba couldn’t see it from the couch.

“Do you think it’ll still be snowing tomorrow?”

“I don’t know,” Nino said lowly, but imagined how Aiba’s face was looking like in the dark, so he added, “I think so. It’s snowing right now, right?”

Aiba made a sound of the affirmative and Nino scratched his stomach before rearranging his arms under his head. He closed his eyes; all he saw on the back of his eyelids was a pair of soft and worried eyes.

“Perhaps he likes snow,” he wondered aloud, and he heard Aiba shift on the couch, probably to face Nino.

“Perhaps,” Aiba joined in, “he’s outside making snowmen.”

“Or he’s sleeping.”

“Or out drinking with some friends.”

Nino was silent for a bit. “Maybe he’s alone.”

Aiba reached out and touched Nino on the shoulder. “Or wrapped up in a warm blanket, looking out on the snow.”

Nino smiled, his eyes still closed.

“Maybe he’s looking for you,” Aiba’s voice said slowly.

Nino smiled wider in the dark. Maybe.

“We’ll help you find him,” Aiba promised, “We’ll find him for you.”

Turning and facing Aiba, he nodded.

How did you fall so desperately in love with a person you only saw in such fleeting moments of happenstance?

*
December 23rd
“My fingers are frozen,” Jun said, his brows knitted in a mixture of being uncomfortable and being snappish. “I think they’re about to fall off.”

“You can go,” Nino said and meant for it to sound reassuring, but it fell flat, especially to his own ears. “I’ll be fine.”

“It’s still early,” Aiba said from the other side of Nino, leaning forward in an exaggerated show of looking at Jun. “We’ll stay.”

“Jun-kun,” Nino said with a nod, “really, you can go, even if it means leaving us here freezing to death.”

“I’ll be back later,” Jun promised, not taking the bait and blowing at bit on his frozen fingers as he turned to leave.

“Bring mittens,” Aiba advised with a grin and Jun showed him the middle finger in response.

Still grinning, Aiba slung an arm around Nino’s shoulders, and Nino rolled his eyes before shoving him off. “It’s snowing!”

Nino smiled wryly. “Like yesterday.”

“Could we go and see if my snowman still stands?”

Nino looked around one last time for now, searching the street, seeing everyone but recognizing no one. “Sure, why not?”

Aiba’s hand briefly slipped into Nino’s and tightened, and Nino grasped back. Sometimes it’s okay and enough.

They didn’t talk on the way to the park, the sounds of their feet in the snow as if they came from far away, falling dully on the blanket of white.

It was pretty like this, Nino decided, grinning at Aiba as he ran forward when he spotted the snowman. Admittedly, it had been dark when Nino last saw the snowman, but it looked different now. What Aiba lacked in artistic skills, he made up for with enthusiasm, and the snowman had looked a bit wobbly, but the crooked grin and the eyes of stones had made it look every bit like a snowman should.

Now it stood straighter, the arms made of branches were more on equal level now and most noticeably, a scarf was wrapped around it.

Someone had thought it was freezing. Nino smiled and the smile became a full blown laugh when Aiba skipped up to it and threw his arms around it.

“Look,” Aiba shouted with wonder, “he’s happy!”

Nino nodded, but cautioned not to hug it too much, lest it’d melt.

“I made him for you,” Aiba said, not looking over at him, but clapping the snowman as if to make the snow sturdier.

“For me?” Nino snorted. “Nice, but I can’t bring him home.”

“Just, a substitute until you find him,” Aiba murmured and Nino thought that it wasn’t fair how Aiba always did the sweetest things and seemed so unaffected by it, too.

Nino wasn’t sure he could get his voice to work without breaking, so he nodded and was convinced that Aiba knew just fine what he meant.

“It’s not really cold,” Aiba said to the snowman, wrapping the scarf tighter around its neck. “Just imagine you’re somewhere warm.”

“Then he’ll die,” Nino deadpanned and crossed his arms in attempt to get warmer.

“No, he won’t,” Aiba returned airily as if it was glaringly obvious. “Just imagine. If you believe something nice, you might feel it.”

I believe I’ll find him, Nino’s mind whispered and in that moment, he looked up and saw a person, just standing there.

Nino looked back at Aiba, who was also staring at the other person.

“He has a camera,” Aiba mused before grinning. “He can take a picture of Mr. Snowman!”

Before Nino even had a chance to register that, Aiba had jogged off, making a beeline for the man. Nino felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, and he dug it out.

“Aiba,” Nino called after him, glancing at the ID of the caller, “I’m going back, okay? Jun-kun is waiting for us!”

Aiba waved in his direction and Nino turned, leaving the park and the snowman and everything behind.

*
The thing about knowing that you’d been about to be hit by a car but for some reason just hadn’t, Nino mused, was that he didn’t know what would have happened if he’d been hit. Would he have died? He doubted it. Hurt severely? Probably. Get away unscathed? Highly unlikely.

With the odds leaning in favor of getting hurt or getting killed, someone had pushed Nino out of harm’s way.

Nino was grateful. His mind had been entirely occupied and he’d crossed the street without watching and thinking.

Now when he thought back – he hadn’t been thinking of something important. But he was now, he thought, because what was more important than staying alive to find the man who’d saved his life?

*
Jun was kind of pissed that Aiba and Nino had left without texting him, but Nino knew he wasn’t really mad, because he gave him the warm coffee he’d brought with him, along with Nino’s DS.

Nino took it and told him thank you before slipping it into an inner pocket, looking up to see Jun’s calculating eyes.

“Not right now,” he informed Jun, “because then I wouldn’t be looking properly.”

And that would be a waste of time.

He thought of Aiba and when he told Jun of Aiba’s mission, Jun said the exact same thing that Nino had thought.

“And how does he expect to get the picture if it’s not his own camera?”

Nino smiled the smile that meant ‘it’s Aiba’ and just shrugged. He’d given up trying to explain Aiba almost a decade ago.

But when Aiba came up to them, cheeks red from the cold and with a smile so wide that his teeth were showing brilliantly, Nino thought that Aiba really didn’t need explanations.

“He promised to print the pictures and give them to me.”

“And how will he find you?” Jun asked, holding out the coffee for Aiba to take.

Aiba shrugged. “He just said he would.”

Jun looked like he was going to say something, but he snapped his mouth shut and looked down.

“He was really nice,” Aiba said and scooted closer to Nino, jumping on the spot to keep his toes warm.

“Don’t spill it,” Jun urged as the coffee in Aiba’s cup slopped around dangerously.

“It’s hot,” Aiba stated cleverly after taking a sip and Nino blurted a laugh, cradling his own mug between his mittened hands.

Jun suddenly stood on his tiptoes to look over the crowd, but after almost two months of searching, Nino’s heart didn’t constrict in hope anymore. When Jun stood firmly again, shaking his head almost imperceptibly, Nino just shrugged Aiba’s sympathetic look off.

“The pictures are really good,” Aiba said, “I can’t wait to see them again. I even got a picture with him.”

Jun looked at him in disbelief. “So now you have a picture of a complete stranger, why?”

“It was only fair,” Aiba defended, “it was his camera after all.”

“And I suppose you then got someone else to take a picture of you and the stranger?” Jun quipped.

Aiba rolled his eyes. “Don’t be silly.”

Nino reminded himself once again, and Jun with a telling look, that Aiba didn’t need explanations. He just was. Instead, he nodded, because Aiba’s enthusiasm was contagious.

“So,” Nino said, somehow, for some reason, feeling lighter than he had in a long time, “you’ll find who I’m searching for, and someone looking for you will find us.”

“And when we get home, Sho-chan has cooked lunch for us,” Jun informed them, looking less pained than he perhaps should at that thought.

Nino and Aiba laughed.

“Cooking as in cooking or cooking as in Chinese take out?” Aiba was still chuckling.

“Take out,” Jun returned and the added, “I like my life as it is.”

Yeah, Nino thought, so do I.

When midday arrived, Jun and Aiba tried to drag Nino with them, but he insisted, just half an hour more, and then he’d be back for lunch. Credit due to them, because they knew when it was a lost cause arguing with him, so they left him there, leaving with his promise of thirty minutes.

Nino rocked a bit back on forth on his feet, doing his best to maintain a semblance of body heat, and the next thirty minutes was spent in his as of yet fruitless search for a face he’d only seen in a momentary glimpse. Minute number thirty two rolled around and he turned and walked off in the direction Jun and Aiba had left.

*
Across the street, reminiscent of the day before where he’d been standing in the exact same spot as he was now, Ohno watched the figure walk off, and he looked down on the envelope in his hands.

Then he looked up and stared at the spot the lonely figure had been standing in for so long.

He looked down. And he ignored the warning bells that rang in his mind as he started walking.

*
Nino heard someone shuffle behind him, but he paid it no heed. He was as good as frozen and he was looking forward to the warmth of the waiting apartment. His fingers were cold, even in the soft and wooly mittens.

He breathed out and watched his breath in the cold air.

He stiffened in surprise when a hand tapped his shoulder, and he turned.

And lost his breath.

He felt something in him break loose, and he enveloped the figure in his arms in a crushing hug even if his fingers and arms hurt from the cold.

*
“I’m worried,” Sho said, his brows furrowing as he looked out the window at the snow still falling. It fell gently and left the impression of a wonderland, a land of miracles.

Aiba said, “Don’t be,” and his smile added, he’s just in love.

If Nino had been there, he’d been touched by Aiba’s unwavering faith in him, but as it was, Nino was thoroughly preoccupied by something else.

*
Rationality told him to get a grip on himself, but Nino didn’t want to open his eyes yet. If it was just an illusion of the cold snow and a figment of his imagination, he wanted to keep it for just a moment longer.

The body in Nino’s arms vibrated gently as the voice in it said something.

Nino dared to open his eyes, and his vision was filled with hair.

Nino held tighter and felt arms go around his waist. He didn’t even have any words, because he hadn’t dared thinking this far in his dreams of meetings and distance diminishing.

“You’re warm,” the voice said gently in his ear, “thank you.”

Don’t thank me, Nino thought and closed his eyes again, breathing deeply. I owe you everything.

The man in his arms wriggled a bit and Nino let go rather reluctantly, but he kept his hands on him, lest he should disappear. In a flash, Nino was reminded of the sight of the man’s retreating back on that day.

Nino was met with a gentle smile and even gentler eyes – eyes warmer than he remembered. He realized with a fluttering heart that he hadn’t remembered correctly at all.

This man was more precious than what his memory had pieced together for him.

“Ohno Satoshi,” the man said and Nino remembered how to breathe as he needed it to introduce himself.

He let his hands slide down Ohno’s shoulders and arms until his fingers found Ohno’s. He linked their hands as well as mittened hands could.

“Don’t walk away from me,” he managed to get out, his voice shaky with cold and emotion, but he didn’t feel cold, because Ohno was warm.

Ohno’s hand squeezed his and Nino felt alive.

He started walking and Ohno walked beside him.

*
December 24th
“I’m home.”

“Nino,” Aiba called, leaving the kitchen followed by Jun’s exclamation of “who’s watching the food?”

Aiba stopped short.

Nino’s face was flushed, his eyes twinkling under that mop of black hair with snow in it.

Nino was glowing.

Aiba’s eyes followed the hand linked into Nino’s and he came face to face with a man he’d met before.

The man held out an envelope. “Happy birthday.”

“Aiba-chan,” Nino said, a smile playing on his lips. “This is Oh-chan. He’ll stay for a while.”

Aiba took the envelope and looked into it, seeing pictures. He smiled.

“Welcome home.”

*
Nino didn’t know Ohno yet, but Nino didn’t care. Their shared night had been beautiful, and they still had all the time in the world.

Because Ohno’s hand fit into Nino’s.

And it was a liberating thought that he could look out for Ohno when Ohno looked out for Nino. The thought made Nino’s heart oddly light, even if he regretted not knowing until now that he was supposed to look out for him.

He squeezed Ohno’s hand as they watched Aiba preparing to blow out the candles.

Ohno squeezed back.

*
And Aiba closed his eyes and made a wish, not feeling the least bit guilty about not telling Nino about his true wish for last year.

*
/End

AN: Merry Christmas, y’all, and thank you for this amazing year ♥