KH Ship
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khship.bsky.social
KH Ship
@khship.bsky.social
They/Them 18+/ NSFW 🔞 pls/ Well-known for achieving the holy trifecta of sweetness, smut, and plot/ pfp header by @karmahope2713 ❤️ skts/ kghn/ Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KHShip/pseuds/KHShip
They hold each other, warm in their shared embrace. They don’t feel the cold, don’t even remember that the power’s out.

It’s just the two of them, and the vast, unending universe.

//fin//
December 9, 2025 at 4:26 AM
He’s swimming in a sea full of stars.

“Wow.” The cloud of Shouyou’s breath reaches for the heavens, but disappears.

Tobio wraps his arms around him, presses his chest to Shouyou’s back, rests his chin on his head. “Wow.”
+
December 9, 2025 at 4:26 AM
Hundreds, thousands, millions of stars.

The moon isn’t out, doesn’t overpower the view. The stars shine even more brightly, diamonds scattered across a jeweler’s velvet cloth, glittering and precious. Tobio feels the edges of black eternity, but it’s not empty.
+
December 9, 2025 at 4:26 AM
and as Tobio’s eyes adjust, he realizes that the fireplace isn’t the only source of illumination. A silvery glow lines the windows running along the front of the house.

Tobio leads Shouyou to the front door, and out to the porch.

They look up.
+
December 9, 2025 at 4:26 AM
Instead, he focuses on the positive. “We have the rental car. If anything happens, we can just… drive away.”

Shouyou grabs his hand, his thumb rubbing over Tobio’s knuckles. “It’s not that dark, I guess.”

They stand there in the gloom, +
December 9, 2025 at 4:26 AM
“You scared of the dark?”

Shouyou’s voice is small. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. Something could happen.”

Tobio doesn’t mention the fact that they could have stayed in an actual hotel in an actual town, and if he had been in charge of the trip, they would have.
+
December 9, 2025 at 4:26 AM
“Save your battery until the morning, then.”

“It’s dark.”

“Not completely.” The stove has plenty of firewood stacked up next to it, and even more outside. The light is orange and flickers unevenly, but they won’t be in complete darkness.
Shouyou shivers and Tobio can’t help a smirk. +
December 9, 2025 at 4:26 AM
“It’s near midnight,” Shouyou squawks. “I don’t want to be rude!”

Tobio doesn’t think they, the guests, would be rude letting the owner know that the cabin they’d paid a pretty penny for was electricity-optional. He grabs Shouyou’s phone and switches off the light.
+
December 9, 2025 at 4:26 AM
Someone’s /ancient/ cabin, with an old-fashioned wood-burning potbellied stove and a fuse box that seemed to have also been installed a hundred years ago.

“There’s no use.” Tobio steps back from the wall and gives up. “We’ll have to call the owner and explain.”
+
December 9, 2025 at 4:26 AM
But there’s a big difference between English in a textbook and English handwritten on a fuse switch.

Tobio fumes. Was any of this even his fault? He signed up for a trip, sure, but he thought they’d be staying at a hotel, not at someone’s cabin in the Colombia River Valley.
+
December 9, 2025 at 4:26 AM
“I did click them! To the right /and/ left! What kind of moron do you think I am?” Tobio yells back. “Keep the light still!”

Would it even help? The fuses are all covered in an intelligible scrawl, in a language they both kind of know. +
December 9, 2025 at 4:26 AM
one more added to the board, two more to go 😤
December 8, 2025 at 4:02 AM
Tobio could still see Shouyou, reflected in the window. He hadn’t experienced this honor alone. Forever, they would share this memory.

“The view was worth it,” Tobio smiled.

“Told you so,” Shouyou smiled back.

//fin//
December 8, 2025 at 4:02 AM
Tobio sat back into the chair. He’d literally been on the edge of his seat. He took a deep inhale and let it out, expecting to see his breath in the cold air.

But they weren’t in the mist, in the trees. They were in the temperature-controlled train car.
+
December 8, 2025 at 4:02 AM
and would be there long after he’d departed this earth.

It was comforting, somehow.

And then the view was yanked out of sight by a building, and another one, their strange, mystical trip to another dimension ended.
+
December 8, 2025 at 4:02 AM
Tobio should be scared by such a solitude, but it was more sublime than scary, more awesome than alarming.
He felt small in the face in the face of so much wonder, humbled to be in the presence of such majesty. Ancient, it had stood before Tobio was even born, +
December 8, 2025 at 4:02 AM
They were both whispering, even though it was unnecessary. They were alone.

But something about the moment seemed holy, sublime. For a brief interlude, they weren’t just the only two people in the observation lounge, but the last survivors in a world that had moved on.
+
December 8, 2025 at 4:02 AM
He couldn’t tell which were the ghosts, the fog or the trees. Who haunted who?

“It’s beautiful,” Shouyou said, taking his hand.
Tobio jumped at the sudden sound of his voice, then threaded their fingers together, felt the grounding weight of his touch. “It is.”
+
December 8, 2025 at 4:02 AM
The trunks stood sentinel, dark tombstones scattered over a graveyard. The light of the sun, not yet visible to the earth, curved its way over the horizon, the faintest glow amplified in the blank canvas of condensation.
+
December 8, 2025 at 4:02 AM
or a swamp hiding all manner of terrors.

Even through the glass, Tobio somehow felt the early-morning air, surrounding him like a soft down coat, chilling him instead of keeping him warm.

Then, out of the grey, the trees.
+
December 8, 2025 at 4:02 AM
But there were seats facing the large windows that offered the “view,” so Tobio had a seat and waited for the cafe to open.

That’s when he saw the trees.

It was mist, first. Gloomy yet gleaming in the pre-dawn. It clung to the ground, some sort of ancient bog, +
December 8, 2025 at 4:02 AM
It was nearly sunrise, and he couldn’t take it anymore. He decided to walk over to the café car, maybe get a cup of coffee, start his day, even though they were only halfway through the marathon trip.

The coffee wasn’t ready yet, not until six. +
December 8, 2025 at 4:02 AM