Warnings: Blood mention, implied death, themes of suicide and self harm, and sort of panic attacks. Spoilers for AS.
They didn't come frequently. Most nights were quiet, peaceful, with small giggles and hushed conversation and teasing pouts. Most nights ended in chaste kisses and held hands, small promises and shared dreams. So simple and domestic and sickeningly sweet, they made Tomoya think that maybe, he'd be alright from now on. Maybe he could live like this forever, in this dreamlike bliss. Maybe, they wouldn't come back.
But they always did.
What would trigger them, he couldn't say. Couldn't remember, not behind the burning hot memories of, of-of all of it. Himself, mostly. This monster he couldn't recognize, yet couldn't deny being.
Sometimes Nagisa doesn't remember either, after the adrenaline has all come and gone and blurred the evening into a scared, dangerous haze.
This time, poetically enough, it's when he awakens from a dream that it starts. A dream of his mother's memory, a fog that he reaches for but can't close his tiny hand around without it slipping through the gaps of his chubby fingers. A dream of his father's drunken frown, towering above him and too close, too close, too damn close until his skin is crawling with anticipation and his stomach churns with anxiety and he tries to run away from it all but he can't get anywhere. Tentacles of words creep up from the ground and trap him by the ankles, tripping him and holding him into the ground.
I'll never escape the past, they say, loudly in his voice as he's suddenly sinking, slowly yet all too quickly all at once, into the soggy, unforgiving ground. The past will come back, just like it always does, and tear everything apart. And it's what I deserve, it must be, because it's only a matter of time. Maybe I should just give it up now. Maybe I should just give it up.
It's dark when he wakes up, heart pounding, ears ringing against the apartment's empty silence. In the black, angry colours swirl and try to grip at him, and he rises into them. His whole body tingles, or maybe it's burning or itchy but it really doesn't matter, because the point is he needs to move, and he's not and it's a problem and it's killing him.
He's at the door, considering taking a baseball bat, when Nagisa wakes up. He must have stomped, he registers vaguely, and he only does so as a connection to the regret he feels, because Nagisa's voice calling his name questioningly is so sweet and cautious and concerned and loving and absolutely Nagisa. Nagisa, who just happens to be the opposite of himself. An angel opposing this monster he always is truly, hides it as he tries.
He tries to sound normal as he tells her to go back to sleep, everything's okay, but they're engaged and there's no way in hell she's going to believe that. She rises, just on the uncertain, clumsy side of elegant, and approaches him slowly. He isn't an animal. She doesn't have to approach him that way. Or maybe he is, because he growls, fucking growls at her as she does.
He hates himself. Hates how close Nagisa creeps, because he loves her and wants to keep her absolutely safe, and the safest place for her has always been as far away as possible in every regard.
"What's wrong?" Her voice is as light as it's always been, high with question, and he gets so much angrier at himself for dragging her into his life. This isn't fair to her. This has never been fair to her, and god damn it he has to get away for his sake and hers and just because he just does. That must be how he ends up out the door, but he can't be sure.
There's no bat, no shoes, just the pounding of feet on asphalt in rhythm with the the blood somewhere above his. He doesn't know where he's going, doesn't care, because he just needs to get away. Without fear, he realizes he would stop existing right now if he could. End whatever it is he's so regrettably started, or make it so it never started in the first place. Streetlights blur, and he wonders if he's crying. He doesn't think so.
The wall he crashes into, maybe on purpose, is ridiculously hard and it hurts like hell but it hurts good, it hurts like a punishment he deserves and it doesn't erase the guilt or the hatred or the anger, but it clears his mind.
Slam. He knows what he's doing. Slam, and he knows who he is. Slam. He's a monster. Slam. Slam. Slam.
He's waging a raging war against himself and the only way he can win is to fight and he can't think and he doesn't care.
Something gentle touches his back. He hears crying. He didn't realize he hadn't been able to hear anything before, but now he definitely hears Nagisa crying his name softly into the night.
No, it's not right, it's not fair to him, he doesn't deserve it, doesn't deserve her, and she doesn't deserve it either and he has no idea how this happened but it's wrong. He shoves her away, as gently as he can muster. Slam.
And then he's on the ground, with her light form shaking on top of him, desperately trying to hold him down. It's stupid, he's far stronger than her, she's small and scared and she doesn't really think this is going to work, does she?
"Stop it, stop it, I love you. Please Tomoya, please. I love you." He stops, dead still under the weight of her words, and life pauses for a moment. It comes back slowly, one disconjointed moment at a time. He still hasn't pushed her, or flipped them, even gotten his wrists out from under her delicate hands. He doesn't know why. Tears collect on his night shirt. He still can't think, but now he can't move, either. "Please stop this, my Tomoya."
After an hour he's back to normal, hugging Nagisa tightly on the floor of their apartment, terrified of himself. It's over, but not really. Whatever part of him which came out, he can still feel inside the back of his mind. He's still a wolf, even if he's now returned to his sheep's clothing. He knows it, and it scares him more than he's ever been scared in his life.
His thoughts sound childish to himself, but he just doesn't want Nagisa to be hurt by anything, including him. He's supposed to be protecting her, and tonight he failed her, and what if it happens again?
And it does, once more before they marry, and a few times after they do. Only occasionally, but it happens, and it leaves him bloodied and bruised and absolutely broken. Nagisa seems to think it doesn't leave him any more broken than he started, that he just has a few demons to fight.
"I'll fight them with you, Tomoya. Even if it scares me when you get like that, I know it's just a passing moment. It's just something we'll get through together, okay?" Her eyes shine when she says that, turning away from the sunset to look at him. His heart only recently stopped pounding from his latest… episode, but Nagisa is softly smiling and laying her hand gently atop his.
"You are too good for me, Nagisa," he can't help but murmur, and whether it's leftover from his monstrous side or not, he isn't sure.
"Don't be silly, Tomoya. If anything, you're too good for me," she says quietly, and looks back out their doors to the pastel sky.
She always believed that. This wasn't the first time they'd had this exchange, and it wouldn't be that last, and no matter what he said, she always believed this with stubborn conviction, right up until the snowy night and all of the hope and love stole her away.
Now, he crashes into the wall, and there is no one to stop him. All he can think about is how wrong she was. Slam. Completely, utterly, stupidly wrong. Slam. The wall was white, and so was the snow, and now it's all dark red and freshly wet and painful against his open wounds. Nagisa rarely let him get this far, always did something, showed some quality that calmed him, silenced him, stopped him. Brought him back down into reality. Now it's impossible to tell what's real and what's fake and he doesn't particularly care. It really doesn't matter anymore.
All that matters is that he was right, all along. It was all too good to be true. He's almost mad at her, for making him feel like a liar whenever he said things would end up this way. For convincing him that this wasn't inevitable. She'd given him so much love, and with it so much hope, which he'd never had before and swore he'd never had again because the wall didn't feel like anything compared to how painfully that betrayal dug into his very self.
She was never so wrong about anything as she was that they'd get through things together. That they'd be alright, happy even. That it would last. That she loved him too much to leave. He believed every promise that fell from her lips. He's an idiot, he supposes, as he collapses into the snow. An idiot for ever letting her trick him. An idiot for letting this all happen, an idiot all along and now most of all, a useless lug left with nothing to live for.
She doesn't come and scrape him off the ground, doesn't calm him down. Doesn't grant him any more false promises. She doesn't come back, she's never coming back, and he can't decide who the real monster is anymore.