He feels like he 's going to die.

The breath in his lungs squeezes itself nonexistent; the wrung out feeling trembling his limbs is exhausting; the wild, frenzied mania shaking his eyes in his skull rattles around what little proper thought is left. He 's tired. He 's electric. He 's a gust of wind and a quiet desert, eclectic and haywire and silent and still.

'Where am I, '

he thinks,

'where am I, where am I, where am I, '

and then,

'is this real? '

He doesn 't know, god he doesn 't know. Pain doesn 't work, understood when he stares down at his legs and doesn 't see scars that might or might not be there depending on his perfection of his own prowess and powers. The dragging, scratching nail marks that might linger in faded pink lines carved jagged and shorn into the velvet skin of his thighs, if only the reversal of all his negativity might have stoppered in time to leave them. He doesn 't know if he let it. He doesn 't know if it did.

He knows he could make new ones.

The pinprick of nails into his skin as a suggestion is both less and more harsh than the sickly, wan light of night time and moonlight that trickles in through his window, parted by two curtains like the blinking of an eye. It stares as he leaves a clawed hand against thin and delicate skin, thick and sturdy muscle, tense and wired body, the artery he could slice through. He could leave new marks, but it wouldn 't be worth anything. There 'd be no meaning in doing it other than a resurfacing to a potential reality, one that might not even be the end of a delusion that might not be a delusion at all.

'Where am I, where am I, where am I, '

he thinks, the rapid bangs of thought loud against each other like the crack of boots beating down on the ground as they run. It could be real; it could be fake; it could be the dark and the dank and the quiet, the musty hell of that prison that reeks of the dead, that slowly rots him along with their molded bones and hopes and dreams.

Pain has never given him an answer before, because when one hallucination ends another just fills its place, and the cycle starts again. He 's woken up from a dream before to find blood and skin bunched under his too long fingernails, a tearing in his head clanging loudly and gouges in his body by his own hands.

'Am I real, '

he thinks, and doesn 't dare to wonder.

Instead, he stumbles unsteady, tipping steps down the hallway made of hardwood and chilly, drafting breezes, taking care to avoid the boards that were permanently squeaky once upon a time. Were they real, he thinks, once upon a time?

His world is tilted and flickering shadows, the impressions of people and a permanent strain on his eyes from fireworks of curses in the distance, visible despite the span of the walls of this dream stretched out in front of himself. He keeps walking, keeps putting one foot in front of the other no matter how badly he wants to just put claws into his jugular and get it over with, because another life he can 't have being ended is better than living knowing it 's fake.

'That one, that door, '

he thinks, and barely registers the thought before he 's swaying towards a door that 's long since been familiar, long since grown unfamiliar. He knows the sound it 'll make before he opens it, knows the slight stick of the hinges and what waits for him on the other side.

'A dusty, empty room, '

he thinks, and then,

'him. Him. Him. '

Quietly, the door whines, the hinges protest a little, a small beg against their movement that 's of no interest to him. He steps from cold hardwood onto soft carpet, one of many in the room that was dusty and silent and empty, kept because they made it less chilly. It isn 't dusty or empty when he finally pads inside, but it is silent. A long slice of moonlight catches off the windowsill and drags a moonbeam down the floor in broken pieces as it catches on furniture, clothing, books, items strewn about in a messy sort of orderly.

'A dusty, empty room, '

he thinks, eyes scouring the floor and all of its proof of life, and then,

'but it 's him, it 's him, he 's always been real. '

A shift of movement in the bed catches his eye, has him darting his gaze up from where he stands frozen at the threshold beyond the door, eyes catching and latching onto the figure that gradually reshapes itself from Frankenstein shadows into that of a person.

He stands, and he waits, and maybe, he wonders if what he will see will be the scientist, or the monster.

'... 'Toru? ' Suguru groggily mumbles, barely audible in the dead and the quiet of the middle of the night. He freezes, all the breath evaporating in his lungs as he stands still, stands quiet, stands in hope he refuses to let infect him, thinking,

'am I real, are you real? '

'Satoru? ' Suguru tries again, hands falling from where they 'd been rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He sits up fully, clear gaze becoming more and more visible in the dark as the drowsiness flights from his eyes, replacing itself with an awareness, a soft alarm. Dark brows lace together, a set of lips pinching thinner with them. 'Hey, ' he says, and his voice sounds real, sounds close, sounds like it might be hope that could crush him if he 's wrong again.

That hope is an infection that will see him dead sooner than the rot spreading from the leftover skeletons will. It 's gutted him before- he isn 't sure what it will do if given the chance to take more organs from his underbelly.

'Shit, '

Suguru hisses in a whisper as he slinks from his blankets and pillows and rest, sliding from his bed to pad softly and silent, closer, closer, closer. Back, back, back he steps in turn until wood hits his shoulders and his heels can 't go any further, and though he looks wildly with shaken, frenzied gaze for an escape, none comes. Suguru gets closer, closer, closer still, until he 's but a pace away, hands in front of himself like he thinks it 's placating instead of disquieting, when he doesn 't know that he might not be real.

'Satoru, ' Suguru tones, low and calm and a well of anxiety if he 's looking for it, 'you 're in my room. It 's night. Everything 's okay. ' He sounds uncertain, confident and yet unsteady with it, like he isn 't sure what 's wrong, like he doesn 't know, and he

doesn 't,

Suguru doesn 't know at all-

'Satoru, ' Suguru says again, and instead of the gurgle of a creek it 's the bark of a stream, sharp and harsh enough to catch his attention and make it stay there. Those dark eyes stare at him far too intently for a dream, and he can feel that infuriating infection spreading more, taking over his shaky limbs and pinning his eyes to that face that hasn 't been in so long, too long.

At an impasse, they stand and they stare, and he doesn 't waver his gaze, no matter how much the infection makes his lungs burn and his heart pound.

'This isn 't real, '

is a harsh drumbeat against his ribs that he doesn 't want to believe, and yet should if he wants to protect what little softness he has left. Suguru stares him down, down, down into the abyss of his resolve, and seems to find one of his own with the way he suddenly changes.

A movement he doesn 't look away to catch swings faintly in his peripheral, and then something dry is brushing against his hand with a warmth he doesn 't have. He freezes where he stands, wishing for the rush of breath or the drumbeat of his heart or the clacking march of his thoughts, but they vanish. The infection feels like a fever burning through him as if he 's a forest to set to flame; it 's addictive and tantalizing and, maybe, even real.

Like he 's a marionette fighting its maker 's strings, his head slowly turns, eyes falling down to stare at where another set of calloused fingers brush against his own. Pain has never given him an answer before, because when one hallucination ends another just fills its place, and the cycle starts again despite the blood clogging his fingernails and thickly coating his tongue.

For all his perfection, he 's never been able to re-create what he cannot have in that little black hell.

Suguru is only a determination in the corner of his eyes as he 's deliberate in his motions, gentle in how he clasps their hands like it 's an answer he 's found and refuses to let go of. Satoru stares down at flesh that isn 't decay or rot and isn 't his own, and then,

'this is real. '

His lips grow watery first, his eyes follow second, and then he 's breathing in air that feels like it doesn 't carry the reeking of death in its recycled currents. Satoru squeezes Suguru 's hand in his own, and tries not to remember the claustrophobia of the four walls that kept him within darkness and never ending eternity, trapped with nothing but the dead to keep him company, and his own hallucinations to pass the time.

'Okay? ' Suguru mutters, worry evident in his whispering tone, and Satoru finally closes his eyes against the sting, nodding as the silence of the room but the loudness of the world outside trickles back in. The creek of the cicadas, the faint sound of a river, the sway of the trees in the wind like a dim roar of the ocean. How he 'd ran, ran, ran, only to wander right back. When had he fallen asleep, he wonders?

'Mhm, ' Satoru hums, refusing to open his mouth for a sob to spill out, instead. He follows when Suguru tugs him forwards, blinks through hot, sight staining tears to follow footsteps that pull him in further to a room that isn 't dusty or empty, but only silent.

'C 'mon, it 's late, ' Suguru says, pulling him down into the strewn about duvet and mess of pillows, and Satoru follows, spilling next to him in the blankets like a melted liquid. 'Try and sleep, ' is mumbled near his ear as hands drag him down into the softness of a bed he remembers invading years and years ago, and then they 're dragging the blankets up too, and the warmth spreads through him like a fever.

The hands follow after it, running sparkling trails of shivers up his sides as they read him like a road on a map, running along the drawn on lines of his body until they make their way to his head to settle on the round of his cheeks, thumbs resting in the hollows below his eyes. It 's like an inferno, the heat they radiate into his skin, but they 're like touching bottled lightning, too; fizzy and tingling and electric where Suguru 's fingertips brush the edges of his jaw, the thin skin under his eyes he 'd clawed to ribbons, once.

Satoru welcomes it, despite how it makes him feel like a star about to explode. It's proof, it 's good, it 's not him wasting away in nothingness, wallowing in the waste of his own failures and regrets.

A thumb brushes a lock of white hair away from his eyes, before curling over his ear to settle on the back of his head, carding through soft strands like they 're water in the koi ponds to ripple without end. His nose is cold when it meets Suguru 's neck, and though he shivers, 'stay here, ' is what Suguru whispers when Satoru lets himself fall into him and his warmth.

He snakes his hands around Suguru 's body, holds on as tight as he dares, and chooses to trust what he cannot have again. He 'll lay here for as long as it takes until sleep or unconsciousness steals away the thoughts that, though silenced by the soft strokes of Suguru 's hands against his skin, his hair, still clamor as loudly as they can.

He squeezes tighter, presses closer.

'This is real, '

he thinks,

'this is real. '

Something pokes his cheek. Scrunching his nose, Satoru turns his head away. A voice murmurs, and then the thing pokes him again.

'Hey. I know you 're awake. ' He ignores that, choosing instead to sink a little deeper into his pillow. His hands are warm, for once, and his thoughts still feel syrupy slow.

'Wake up. ' He frowns when it comes again, more muddied than the first time. Twitching at the silence that follows, Satoru tightens his hold on the blanket. Where did it '

'I said wake up, ' rings shrill in his ears, clanging like a church bell as a miasma swallows his sense of smell, sharp and sour enough to have his eyes flying open.

He trembles where he lies, staring out at the abyssal void of nothing, fingernails digging into the dusty thing that isn 't quite like ground below him, long since decorated with the charred, molded remains of old bones that stain the walls of the hell he 's known well for too long now.

'It was real, '

is all he can think, before the burn starts up in his waterlines.

'But it was real. '

He opens his eyes without any breath in his lungs, all the air chased out by the fear that creeps in and takes its place, thick and cloying, choking when he tries to breathe in again. It 's familiar when his hands find his throat, the hollow at the base where he digs his thumbs into, leaving crescent groove marks underneath every finger that finds skin. He 's never suffocated before, even though stealing his own consciousness is an old game. He 's spilled enough blood by now to know it usually never works, but he 's always kept trying.

Watching the black spots pop and fizzle in his vision is almost sort of entertaining past the burning feeling, swallowing up his lungs in hungry, desperate tongues of flame. They blot out the soft light filling the room, a place he used to know once upon a time. He hopes somewhere in his scattered head that somebody 's been dusting it.

His eyes get a little heavier as the stars start to prick and sparkle in his sight, beginning to remember how to forget to fight as his fingers press harder, harder, harder into his skin. A ringing starts up, nearly washing out the sound of footsteps. That 's weird, he has the time to think, before the face of the hallucination is appearing across the room.

It isn 't the first time he 's seen Suguru while on the edge of a false death. It probably won 't be the last, either.

Except, this one is different. Instead of smiling, or laughing, or looking away, this Suguru furrows his brows, and then he 's shouting, lunging forwards to cross his small bedroom in a stride or two when it 's always Satoru chasing after him.

'That 's weird, '

Satoru has the time to think, before something hot is pressing down onto his wrists and his arms are being forcibly ripped away from himself- a gasp tears from his mouth as some of his skin goes with them, caught under his nails and leaving ugly trails in their wake that would bead ruby red if they 'd been even a little bit deeper.

The pain isn 't new; he 's used to that. Suguru 's hands don 't leave his wrists, but clench even tighter where they keep a bruising grasp on his bones as he pins them at his sides on the rumpled duvet. Pain is old. Suguru is new.

'-at you

doing?! '

Is the same shrill thing in his ears as the ring of the church bell of what must have been a dream. 'You idiot! You were about to black out! ' Suguru looks harried above him, hair wild around his head and eyes even more so.

'Oh, '

Satoru thinks, remembering the sobriety of last night.

'Oh, this is real, too. '

He doesn 't say anything. He can 't really get his lips to work, not when Suguru hovers over him, pinning his arms to the bed and tangible to his own touch. Real and solid and actual, unlike the filaments that like to bother him when his fingers get a little too slick and his skin a little too torn.

'Well? ' Suguru says, and his voice is thin, reedy almost. 'Say something. '

Satoru furrows his brows, trying to remember where exactly he 'd left his tongue. He 'd torn it out, hadn 't he? Or maybe- no, he remembers, as he swipes it across his teeth, it 's still somehow there, probably. He ignores the shadowy figure he can see in his peripherals as he uses it.

'Uh, ' he mutters, the sound a touch raspy. 'Something? ' He says, wincing at the drag against his esophagus. How hard had he squeezed?

Above him, Suguru shuts his eyes and draws in a long, pained looking sigh. 'You 're the worst, ' he mumbles, 'the absolute worst. '

'I know, ' Satoru whispers back, and slowly takes a shard of awareness for the rest of himself. He 's tangled in Suguru 's blankets, overwarm from leftover body heat, and weirdly whole for it. He has no deep cuts that he can feel; there 's no bones poking into his legs; his fingernails don 't feel like there 's gore stuffed up under them.

Considering his tongue is in his mouth again, he must be dreaming.

'No, '

he thinks, shutting his eyes as he tries to drag everything back into order inside his head,

'that 's not right. '

He 's been at the tech school again for 'two days now? He hasn 't been in that hell.

'Yesterday, Suguru and I ate lunch together, '

he thinks, and tries to remember what he 'd eaten. What was it? He can't recall.

'I saw Shoko. She was fifteen. '

He had, and she is. Still smoking and still cynical, but not yet a pack a day, and not yet peppered with nihilism, not yet a part of the world he knew.

'But isn 't she twenty-eight? '

Flashes through his head, and then he 's frowning again, because Shoko is twenty-eight, but he saw her yesterday and she was younger, but that isn 't right either-

'... 'Toru? ' Suguru murmurs above him, and Satoru blinks his eyes open again, trying to make sense of the inky black that tumbles over and down narrow shoulders, missing the width he knows they 'll grow into eventually.

'Where 's your gauges? ' Is what he blurts, still a little stringy and rough from where he 's torn up his throat. Suguru makes a face like he 's said something weird, and Satoru doesn 't think he has but he 's also probably lost most of his marbles, even though he 's certain that Suguru had gauges to match his ugly robes-

'I- What? ' Suguru stumbles, still giving him that look edged in a wary sort of concern. 'I wear studs. '

Satoru parts his lips to respond to that, only to let the words die on his tongue, because that 's also right, he remembers.

'Suguru started wearing gauges in second year, '

whispers some old, forgotten part of his mind, and he swallows down the thing he can 't remember the name of that crawls up his throat.

'Oh, ' he says. It 's quiet.

'Jeeze, ' Suguru softly mumbles, letting go of one wrist to bring his hand up. He presses it to the back of his forehead, an action Satoru can 't remember the meaning of, and tacks on, 'maybe you have a fever, or something. You are running kind of hot, and you were confused last night, too. ' He seems to be talking more to himself than anyone else, and with a conflicted look back down at where Satoru lays, he sighs.

'Can you just-

not

do anything while I run to the bathroom for a minute? ' Satoru furrows his brows, taps his fingers together where he left the hand that Suguru let go of in the same place it was pinned.

'What? ' He asks, and Suguru makes another face.

'I mean don 't

do

anything. Don 't- get up, or, hell I don 't know, try to suffocate yourself? ' He says, the words sharp and accusatory. Satoru frowns, and opens his mouth to respond with something snarky and annoying, before he shuts it with a click of his teeth.

'...Yeah, ' he mutters, and tries not to look cowed. He doesn 't want Suguru to know of that place. It 's better for now if he keeps it to himself. This is real, it 's

real,

but it would be such a pain to tell him and have him whisper away again into nothing.

The suspicious leer he 's given is the farthest thing from belief that Satoru can probably get, but Suguru takes him at his word when he rolls his eyes.

'Fine, ' he says, short and stiff.

'Don 't

move. I 'm gonna grab the thermometer. ' The bed dips as Suguru takes the weight of his knee off of it, swaying up to stand and giving him one last glance over his shoulder before he 's padding out of the room again, marching down the hall at a hurried pace.

Satoru watches him go, staring at the flickering of energy that follows him through the walls and lights the rest of the world up like a firework, something that had only sparsely manifested itself inside the prison. It 's dark in Suguru 's room; it 's bright outside of it. Sighing down into the pillows, Satoru drags his gaze back up to the ceiling, tracing the old paint with eyes that feel heavy. Had he dug his fingers into them too, or had that also only been dreams? He can 't remember.

'It 's weird having a tongue again, '

he thinks, for what isn 't the first time he 's woken up and realized it 's in his mouth instead of on the dusty, bone muddled ground. He decides that he hates waking up, laying in Suguru 's old dorm bed and out of place with his own reality, as much as he savors it. All of the memories of the world he 's in wash away like the tide and leave him with nothing but the scum and the scud on the sand underneath.

How had he torn it out, again? Had he bit it, or clawed it, in the fit of mania that had encouraged him to? It had been enough to put him into nothingness for what must have been a few days, he remembers, or maybe it had been minutes or hours that had just felt like days. Tearing out his jugular had made the nothing last longer. The sight of his tongue on the blackness of the ground by his feet when he 'd woken up might have beat that, though, for how long he 'd just sat and stared at it. When did pain turn into a game of unconsciousness, he wonders?

'Okay, ' Suguru calls from the doorway, twirling the mercury thermometer between his fingers like a pen as he pads back into the room, dark hair swaying behind him. Satoru watches him as he comes to sit on the side of the bed at his ribs, tapping the glass before looking down and raising one thin brow.

'I didn 't move, ' he says, and Suguru makes a face.

'Thanks, ' he responds, dry, and then reaches out to tap the underside of his chin with the glass. 'Open your mouth. '

Satoru does, and the glass is cold when it touches the inside of his cheek. 'Hey, ' he says, before Suguru can tell him to shut up and let it sit, 'I still have a tongue, right? '

'What? '

Suguru says, the word an off-kilter hiss between his teeth as his brows contort into a myriad of emotions on his face. 'Yes? Why the hell wouldn 't you? '

Satoru looks up at the ceiling, and gently bites down on the glass. ' 'Dunno, ' he mumbles.

'...Right. Keep that in for at least a minute, ' Suguru sighs, and once he 's made sure Satoru has it where he 's supposed to, he flops back onto the bed and subsequently his stomach. The weight is 'alien, almost. Absently, he remembers to draw a breath in through his nose, and quietly marvels at Suguru moving along with his ribs.

He stares up at the ceiling, and doesn 't look when he slowly moves one hand. Suguru 's back, he just said not to move while he was gone. He 's not gone. Right? It 's easy to find one of the hands that don 't belong to him, but a little harder to nudge it with his own. He feels it on his skin where his shirt 's ridden up to expose his stomach when Suguru blinks, before he hooks their two smallest fingers together where Satoru can 't. It 's a lot like last night.

Satoru breaths out, curls his fingers around Suguru 's own, and tries to settle.

'This is real, '

he thinks, his newest mantra.

They lay together without a word for a while. Satoru doesn 't know how long, because he stopped bothering with counting forever ago, and lost the ability to tell time just after. It 's surprising when Suguru shifts, stretching just far enough to tug the end of the thermometer from between his teeth, holding it up above his head to look at.

'Huh, ' he murmurs, and Satoru tugs on his hand. Dark eyes dart up to his face, before looking back at the glass where the mercury inside shines bright red and high. 'You actually are running hot. It 's right above thirty-seven. ' The thermometer is held out for him to see, and Satoru catches the red resting half a millimeter above thirty-seven degrees celsius.

'Oh, ' he says, and it doesn 't really mean much. Maybe that 's why he 's so warm, but what else does he really care? 'Okay. '

Suguru pokes him in the side with the butt of the glass before he 's reaching over to set it on his nightstand, and he 's lightly glaring when Satoru looks down at him to complain about it. 'Okay? You 've got a fever, dumbass, ' he chides, and then mutters below his breath, 'maybe that 's why you 're so out of it. '

Underneath him, Satoru shrugs. 'It 'll go away eventually. ' Fevers always did, he can sort of remember. They 'd evaporate out of him at some point when he 'd been a kid. Maybe spelled off by whatever bullshit the trainers had him doing.

When he looks back at Suguru, there 's something accusatory in the look in his eye, at war with the disbelief written on his face. 'Is 'eventually ' getting up and doing what we were supposed to today, or laying here? ' He asks, eyes narrowing, and Satoru tenses, knowing that there 's a right answer but feeling like it 's not the one he has.

'Getting up? ' He tries, because that 's what he 'd always done back at the estate, before he 'd left, developed a permanent Limitless, and stopped getting sick. That 's what he 'd always done as the only on-call special grade, the strongest everybody else relied on. That 's what he 'd always done, when everybody always needed him, until he 'd been unable to be needed.

'You 're useless if you 're not working, '

he thinks, the echo ingrained into his head even decades later.

Still lying on top of him, Suguru buries his face in his arm. 'Wrong, ' he says, muffled into the crook of his elbow, and Satoru scowls.

'I 'm not laying here all day, ' he grouses, and Suguru picks his head up. Setting his chin on his arm, he ticks one brow high, gaze flat and steady.

'Oh yeah? ' He challenges, and Satoru frowns.

'Yeah, ' he retorts, and Suguru flicks his eyes up and down over him in the most judgmental thing he thinks he 's ever seen.

'Okay then, ' he gives, 'get up. '

'T-that 's not fair, ' Satoru stutters, slipping at the prospect of being stuck like this. 'Get off. ' The words leave him before he can think about it; he does not, in fact, want Suguru to get off. He also does not, in fact, want to lay here. God, what if he falls asleep again? He doesn 't particularly want to wake up and not remember where he put his tongue. He just found it.

'No. If you want to get up so badly, then just do it, ' Suguru mocks, leaning further over his stomach. Satoru glares at him, lifting one foot to shove at his side in retaliation, only to get an obnoxious closed mouth smile and drawling, haughty words for it.

'Oh nooo, ' Suguru says, inflectionless, as he shuffles more onto the bed, 'I 'm moving. ' He reaches out to shove away Satoru 's ankle when he 's kicked, batting it down to make room for himself. Shoving his thighs flat into the mattress, Suguru swings his leg across his body to sit directly on top of him, choosing to pin rather than weigh down so that he 's got Satoru resolutely stuck in place. He looks smug as he does it, coy and pleased and like he 's just terribly clever. Satoru cannot believe him, cannot fucking believe he ever missed this.

'This is so terrible, ' Suguru deadpans. 'Oh no. '

The glare he gives Suguru is probably lethal, and yet he still doesn 't have the decency to keel over and die. 'What, ' Suguru says, smirking when Satoru doesn 't say anything, leaning forwards with the heaviness of their combined weight dipping the whole mattress further down to murmur right by his ear, dark hair tickling his cheek, 'are you trapped? ' Suguru 's knees squeeze his hips, one of his hands resting on the ridges of his ribs, direct attention focused entirely on him and provoking a reaction.

'Oh, god, '

Satoru thinks as his hands fly up to cover his face, heated even to his own touch and probably scarlet red with how hard he must be blushing. He 's going to implode and die. Forget his tongue, forget the prison,

this

is the worst thing to ever happen to him, dream or real or real or dream.

'Is that a yes? What a shame, ' Suguru tsk 's as he leans back again, sitting upright as he stares out of the window to their left for a moment when he doesn 't respond, a miasma of energy Satoru can see through his closed fingers. 'Whatever, it was going to rain anyway. Not a whole lot of point in going out. '

'I 'm going to die, '

Satoru thinks, the combination of everything making his head spin,

'I 'm seriously going to die. '

When was the last time he really touched somebody? Suguru 's been tactile with him since the meltdown a 'day ago? But this is different, he nearly squeaks, when the hand on his ribs trails down to rest on the flat of his stomach. It 's like how it had used to be, and then never was again. Maybe he 'd let everyone else think he 'd spent his weekends whoring around, but it had only ever been a farce meant to make him less respectable, and therefore less fear worthy. He 'd only had Suguru and his body for a little while.

It 's probably too much all at once, when he catalogs the tremor in his hands, the ditzy feeling in his head, the stuffing of cotton in his ears. It 's just like how everything else has been since somehow finding a way out of that dark hell, big and loud and too much, a taunt or a promise or both. Simply seeing the sun brought him to his knees. He wonders, what would this do if he were standing, when Suguru shines even brighter?

'...Satoru? ' A hand tugs at his wrist, and just like how Suguru alone can walk unbroken through his infinity, Suguru alone can pull his guard away from him. He lets one eye be uncovered, lets himself be scrutinized, even though he doesn 't really remember how to exist under someone else 's gaze anymore, lets Suguru do whatever he wants.

'Wasn 't that how we got into that mess in the first place? '

He wonders, and rips the thought apart as soon as it comes. He dithers for a moment after, stuck in between the softness of the duvet and Suguru 's stupid strong thighs. He opens his mouth, shuts it, opens it again, just for nothing to come out. He gives up when his eyes start burning with the combined force of what are probably tears, the strain from being unused to his own sight, the world at large, and general humanity. When the dizziness hits him, he just closes his eyes and lets it have at it.

'Hey. Are you okay? ' Suguru asks, energy snapping around him and tone leveling out with the quiet of the room now that he 's decided not to be an ass. Satoru lifts his shoulders in a wordless shrug. Already hyper-aware of the fingertips that rest halfway on his stomach where his shirt 's still rumpled, he wishes he was more exhausted so he could handle it better when the pad of a thumb presses a small circle into the palm of the hand that Suguru lifted from his face. Does he know? He has to know. He doesn 't know he 's not real.

'This

is

real, '

he thinks, almost reflexively at this point, and doesn 't doubt it. The prison was disgustingly underwhelming; this is entirely overwhelming. He doesn 't really remember how to do this anymore. He thinks he forgot a long time before he was sealed, when he forgot how to live without wishing to die. Instead of saying anything about it, though, his tongue stays stuck glued to the roof of his mouth, and Satoru sits with the faint spinning of his vision and the too much bubbling up his throat, all spilling out behind his teeth.

A gust of wind hits the window, howling faintly behind the glass as Satoru watches from behind his hands at how Suguru 's cursed energy flickers and twists. He 's anxious. Megumi 's energy does the same thing. 'Do you feel bad? ' Suguru asks, letting his hand go to push his hair back again, resting the backs of his knuckles against the skin of his forehead.

Slowly, Satoru shakes his head, scraping for just a few words, the majority of them rattling around loosely in his skull. 'No, ' he mumbles from behind his hands, peeking through cracked fingers, ' 's just loud. '

Suguru tilts his head, eyeing him for a long moment, before he moves again. 'Loud? ' He asks quietly, tapping the shell of his ear, partly hidden behind dark hair. 'Or loud? ' He says again, moving his hand to tap below his eye.

Satoru breathes out a jerky breath, and can 't help the smallest sort of fond smile from curling around his lips. 'Loud, ' he murmurs, setting a finger just below his own eye, before moving his hand back up again to cover it. Looking through just one is enough.

Suguru winces sympathetically as he reaches over to tug the shades a little more closed. 'You probably would feel better if you just went back to sleep, ' he says, and he 's both right and incredibly wrong because he doesn 't

know.

'No, ' Satoru rushes to say as the fear skitters up his spine like a chill, and then sinks back into the pillows as that feeling he can 't remember the name of swims through him again, settling into something cool at the bottom of his stomach. He doesn 't like it, but he doesn 't like the heat that emanates from his skin more. 'I don 't want to. Can 't. '

He hears more than he sees Suguru sigh, shifting a little where his weight pins him into the bed. 'Why not? ' He mutters, skimming fingertips down his arm until he 's pressing the pad of his thumb into Satoru 's unused palm, again. 'You were fine last night. '

'No, ' he grumbles, rubbing at his temple where the spinning feeling is beginning to pound into a headache. He was only fine because he 'd been too exhausted to weather anything else. 'I can 't sleep. I just found my tongue, ' he worries, and Suguru 's cursed energy snaps with a little flare of confusion.

'You really are out of it, ' he says, and somehow manages to make it sound concerned and condescending both. Just because he can, Satoru sticks his tongue out at him, a jitteriness making his hands feel numb. 'For the love of- put it away, ' Suguru chides, lifting off the hand he has on his stomach to flick at his cheek, 'I thought you just found it. Put it back before you lose it again, weirdo. '

'Good point, '

Satoru almost snorts, and it 's probably a good thing he doesn 't say it out loud, because he thinks hearing it might dissolve him into a fit of hysterical giggles, or maybe tears. He doesn 't need any more dissolving; he 's practically a puddle where he already is.

'If you can 't sleep, ' Suguru starts, and Satoru 's nervous smile falters where it 's slipping on his face into something else, 'then can you at least just rest? ' He opens one eye to look up at where Suguru sits on top of him, lovely and living and worry creased into his pretty features. 'No unconsciousness required, ' he promises, hair trailing a dark river down his shoulders.

'Unconsciousness isn 't the same as being asleep, '

Satoru thinks but doesn 't say.

'Sleep is worse. '

'...Okay, ' he agrees, subdued at the idea of doing nothing but resting. He 's never rested a day in his life. Absently, he wonders what it 's like. Suguru leaves his leg hooked over his waist, head held up by his elbow, hand resting under his chin as he slides his weight away. His hair is long like this, though still short compared to how he remembers it, cascading down in a wavy shadow that almost looks like it should be moving with the way the wind shrieks outside.

It reminds him of lazy afternoons as teenages, the only time Suguru had ever let it down. It reminds him of edged meetings in twilit hours, always tense and yet something relieved after he 'd started wearing it loose, and Satoru hadn 't been allowed to see him anymore.

He shivers as the hand on his side curls around his ribs and tugs him a little closer, encouraging him to fall a little more onto toned shoulder. The calluses on Suguru 's palm from weapons training drag roughly along the divots of his ribcage, strange after so long unfamiliar, leaving little sparks of stars in their wake.

'Actually, ' Suguru says, and then stops mid-sentence as he seems to think something over, eyeing the nightstand over Satoru 's shoulder.

'Huh? ' He mumbles, brows furrowing when Suguru leans over him, stretching to grab- oh, the thermometer. He turns again to momentarily set it on the windowsill while he leans over for a second time to nab his tissue box. It 's closer to where he lays and in much easier reaching distance than the nightstand, Satoru realizes, as he 's effectively squished a third time while Suguru digs around in his bedside drawer. He can vaguely recall that he used to have bad allergies.

'If you spike over thirty-eight I 'm making Shoko deal with you, ' Suguru informs him, finally leaning back over again to set everything on the windowsill, and Satoru doesn 't quite manage a scoff.

'Mean, ' he mutters, subdued, wondering if he actually could get rid of the temperature spike with reversed cursed. It 's probably his body being a dick and trying to attack itself, since he knows it 's not viral from his lack of symptoms. It 's something internal, maybe even from how different his cursed energy seems to be from when he was originally fifteen. It 's darker, now; heavier even. More potent with his rage and pain and insanity.

'You 'll have to forgive me for not wanting my best friend to cook his brain like an egg, ' Suguru snarks overly-politely, his stupid closed-lip smile menacing with his eyes narrowed to fake happy slits.

'Maybe I wanna boil alive, ' Satoru says, tilting into Suguru 's shoulder and inhaling the faint scent of the lavender body wash he uses, wondering if it might be a preferable death to choking on his own blood. 'Haven 't tried that before. ' He 'd used to take showers that would scald his skin red; would it be similar?

'That implies you 've tried other horrible things, ' Suguru responds, not knowing just how true the words are.

'Here, ' he murmurs a long few moments later, slipping his fingertips under his chin to tilt his face up. The glass is colder than before from resting by the window where the temperature 's dropped with the coming storm, and it sears against the soft flesh of his mouth oddly when he lets his lips part. Maybe he is sort of burning up after all. 'Keep it under your tongue. '

'Yes, mother, ' Satoru mocks, though it sounds more like,

'ye 'th, moth 'r, '

with the glass in his mouth. He only registers Suguru 's too excited grin too late. 'Wait- ' he starts, only to be interrupted with two waggling eyebrows and a look steeped in the feeling of vicious revenge.

It 's almost sort of amazing how easy the old banter is, even though it 's been years and a lifetime apart. It 's almost sort of depressing how simple the old banter is, when it 's been taunting him like a poltergeist every time he sees Suguru 's smiling face in the dark.

'Kinky, '

Suguru gloats, with all the glee of someone constantly on the end of a shitty sex joke. 'Tell me, what do you do with your free time? ' Satoru doesn 't immediately respond, busy covering his face with his hands to hide how he swallows thickly. This is real, he reminds himself. It

is

real.

'Fuck you, ' he mutters tiredly between his teeth, something like contentedness coated in sadness and heavy with a melancholic pain sitting like lead on his sternum, 'you 're laughing. I 'm on my deathbed and you 're laughing at me. '

'Try again when you actually hit thirty-eight, ' Suguru says, instead of the things he always does, (

'I laughed at you when I was on my own- '

), settling back into his side of the small twin and the one pillow Satoru hasn 't stolen sometime throughout the last six hours.

'...Guess I 'll have to, '

he ends up thinking, and then lays quietly for a moment over the realization that he was still twenty-eight when he was sealed, unknowing of how old he was when he died in the prison 's unmoving pace of time. If he is dead. He doesn 't really know where he is. A dream? A nightmare? A life he isn 't sure how to live? He 'll figure it out eventually, but he is pretty sure he died. How else would he have escaped that unending darkness?

'Satoru? ' Suguru murmurs, trailing fingers through his hair, worried because he 's silent, and he shakes his head just enough to get the motion across.

'Nothing, ' he mumbles, and unclenches his jaw when Suguru reaches for the thermometer. He taps the glass as he looks at it, frowning but not scowling.

'It went up like, point two degrees. You 're still at thirty-seven, ' he says, and Satoru drags a hand down his face, wincing at the feeling of his own clammy skin. 'You 'll probably sweat it out soon if it 's this high, ' Suguru sympathizes, and sets the glass back on the windowsill before he settles down onto the pillows again.

'Or I 'll cook myself, ' Satoru grumbles, and tentatively turns into Suguru 's collarbone, feeling overly hot when his forehead meets a slip of skin bared under his old, draping sleepshirt.

'Or you 'll cook yourself, ' Suguru agrees, winding fingers up into the hair on the back of his head, pulling him a little closer from the leg still hooked over his hips, the heel settled in the crook of his bare knees. His other hand comes to sit on his ribs again, sliding down his side until it pools in the divot of his waist, warm, but not warmer than himself.

'...Keep talking, ' Satoru mumbles, almost a plea when Suguru doesn 't say anything else, leaning into the press of his body and desperate for more of it, even as it scatters him. ' 'W 'nna stay awake. '

'That 's wishful thinking, ' Suguru snorts, and then wheezes slightly when Satoru socks him in the stomach with one pulled back fist.

'Fine,

fine, ' he grumbles, annoyed, even though his hands stay lax and gentle where they rest along his skin. It 's one of the many reasons he 'd loved Suguru. He 'd been gentle just as he 'd been sharp, and perfectly aware of which to be when.

'Had he, though? '

A stray voice hisses, and he ignores it, just as he ignores the memories of being told about finding two little girls in a cage years down the line, the memories of dark eyes glittering with confidence and uncertainty both.

'How about ' ' He falls silent for a long moment as he searches for something to say, and Satoru refuses to close his eyes, even as he curls his hands into the front of Suguru 's faded band shirt. It 's disgustingly cozy, like this. He doesn 't know who he is, like this. 'Oh, I know. How about I list all the reasons why Pok 'mon is superior to Digimon? '

'Digimon is better, ' he refutes, the words a little weaker as exhaustion makes his limbs heavy, and Suguru sighs like he 's a wayward soul who needs to be saved.

'Digimon is a rip-off, ' he protests. 'Pok 'mon, however, is the original cool pocket monster game. '

Satoru listens to him talk, staring out at nothing and half of the world from where he 's made himself a home by Suguru 's heartbeat. It 's loud in his ear, but not enough to drown out the soft patter of rain that kicks up sometime when Suguru starts in on how Pok 'mon Silver is objectively the best game out of all of the infinite Pok 'mon adventures. Satoru 's always thought he just likes Lugia, personally, but he 's happy to mumble arguments against something inane.

He remembers silly things a lot more than the serious ones, laying here like he 's just fifteen and slightly ill, and not a prisoner in his own body. It 's probably backwards, but it 's the small, stupid memories that come back to him. Suguru 's emo ponytail bands all colored in black, a favored one worn into snapping; Shoko 's glitter stickers she 'd slap on their foreheads after she 'd healed them following a rough mission, gold stars and red shiny hearts; Tsumiki 's ridiculous socks, always patterned in all sorts of animals, things, and weather. How Megumi had held onto his beat up old DS for years, despite all the temptation of newer models.

He feels jumbled. Like all his puzzle pieces were scattered, some filed down, some snapped in half, and when he went back to put them all into place again, nothing fit anymore. It doesn 't help that he doesn 't know what everything looked like when he left, doesn 't know the date, who 's alive, what happened in Shibuya. He doesn 't even remember if it was years in that hell or mere weeks.

He sort of hopes it wasn 't weeks. It would be rather pathetic to know he could be reduced to whatever snapping, desperate thing he 'd become in just weeks.

He 's clueless, something he 's never been before, except maybe with Suguru- although, at least he 'd understood what Suguru had been trying to do back then. On some level, one that 's probably a lot closer to the surface than he likes to admit, he can empathize with the insanity that he 'd fallen down into. It doesn 't help him now, really- not yet, if this dream plays out as a life that he 's already lived like he thinks it might.

It sort of feels real, probably is real, but it still feels like a dream, too. Something untouchable, ethereal, unable to be grasped because it 'll slip right out of his fingers if he tried. No matter how surreal it feels, though, he 's going to try to live it; to be a person with a beating heart and a thumping pulse that doesn 't walk through life as little better than an animated corpse. He doesn 't really remember how to live, not happily, not properly, but if the dream keeps going and Suguru 's still here, then maybe he 's willing to try to learn.

At some point, he ends up closing his eyes. Suguru 's hand carding through his hair is hypnotically tiring, and he 's warmer than he 's been in a long time, fever notwithstanding. He doesn 't know if he drifts off, either, just that at some point, the world goes quiet save for the rain pattering along the window, the thump of the heartbeat below his ear, and the howl of the wind outside.

It 's the closest to peace he 's been in a while.