Disclaimer/Notes: Hoshino Katsura owns these dudes. This fic assumes that Devit and Jasdero did exist as two people before awakening as Noahs. Maybe someday we'll find out if that's actually true. Dammit.
*
Right now he's real heavy into one of those dreams you've gotta save yourself from. You let someone else wake you up and you're fucked for the day; it's like you just got born, or maybe you just died; they're shaking you awake saying you're late or what do you want on your toast or are you crying but you were down so deep you forgot how to talk, so you don't have an answer. You're blinking like you're alive, but you're still under. Your mouth's still full of that other world.
"Fuuuuuck," Devit had managed once, and hadn't his mother been thrilled about that.
Everything about this dream feels big except for Devit's goggles, which are way too tight. They're conspiring with his suit (too big, yeah) to make him as physically uncomfortable as possible. The ocean, that's big, it's big left and right and up because he's real far down. Down here the sun looks like a fossil, a fleck of discolored bone buried in the mud. You'd miss it if you weren't looking for it. Devit doesn't think he's getting out of this dream alive. His lungs begin what feels like a slow crawl up his throat, like they're gonna climb out and wrap around his neck and squeeze.
The fish are small, but the schools they swim in are big. Hundreds of identical silver fish form a curtain around Devit as he passes through one unnoticed, they part around him for an instant and soundlessly glide on; it's their fucking world, not his, and they know it, and all at once it pisses him off and he'd spit at them if it weren't literally a drop in the ocean and if he were sure he wouldn't be spitting out a chunk of lung. I need that, he thinks vaguely. He swallows around a mouthful of it. His goggles feel like they're cutting into his face. They're really way too tight, or maybe his head is just expanding with the crush of blood that his lungs are forcing into it, making it throb. Water or blood is seeping into the spaces where his thoughts should be. It's forcing them out into the world. Fuck this place. Fuck these fucking fish. Devit's goggles bite in. Fuck these, too. The ocean isn't any place he wants to see anymore anyway. He doesn't need to look up at the baked bone sun to know he's down too deep. The goggles dig in like piranhas or maybe like toes in the sand of that beach he's never seen, not in this dream, and he's sure as hell not getting there now, with his head so full of blood that a thin stream of it is leaking out of his nose along with the last of his thoughts. Fuck this place, fuck these—fucking—
And it's Jasdero pulling him out of it, not suddenly, because it's one of those dreams you've gotta save yourself from and Devit hadn't done it, so it's more like a slow resurfacing. Jasdero is shaking him awake; Devit must have been crying or whining or something; Jasdero's whimpering and quivering like he's terrified. If he's making words, Devit's still too far down to understand them, and he's still too far down to reply. But he's not sure if Jasdero is making words. Maybe they've both forgotten how.
"Nnnn?" Devit manages. What's wrong, yeah, that's what he'd meant. He tries to remember how to move. He's still so fucking tired. Like he hadn't gotten any sleep at all. Finally he manages to lift one of his arms; he gingerly touches his face where the goggles had bitten into him. It still hurts. When he presses his fingers to his forehead, they come away bloody.