A dark room. No, it is white. Everything's so bright...

In the middle of the room is a chair. Chained to the chair - a person.

You are that person. Your vision is blurry. It's hard to focus when you've been locked in a room for days, cold white lamps shining above you in an eternal day. Your eyes are swollen from tears and pain and not sleeping and abuse but you keep them open. You can't close them, not when he, he, he- of god he's coming.

You stay still and tense up when he locks the door behind him and strides over to you. You don't want to look at him, you're so tired, but you can't lose him from sight, not when there's no telling what he'll do this time-

He opens his mouth and you don't understand what he's saying, only the meaning of the words 'centipede' and 'ear' somehow reach your brain and you literally feel your whole body going numb as he tilts your head with one hand and holds something black and writhing in his other and -oh god no please- he lowers the hand-

Kaneki had nightmares so often. And they always felt so real, like the horror in his dreams would come with him into the world of consciousness.

Kaneki would wake up in the middle of the night, swimming in cold sweat, hyperventilating, horrified. But then a comforting warmth would shift weight next to him, turning to him, asking softly, 'Bad dreams again?' and when he nodded or rasped a 'yes', the warmth would disappear briefly, turn on the bedside lamp and say, 'Let's take a shower.'

And Kaneki would nod and get up, follow his warmth into the bathroom, silently start undressing.

'What was it this time?'

'Centipede.'

'Ah, that again...' And the warmth would get closer till two gentle hands are on his shoulders, and it's Hide, and he's looking into Kaneki's eyes, smiling softly, then he slowly moves closer till their foreheads touch.

'We shouldn't have watched that horror movie.'

'I don't think it's because of it...'

'Why?'

'I've had nightmares for much longer, you know that.'

'Well, we'll find out the source and stop them, don't worry.'

Then Hide would pull Kaneki under the hot water, help him wash his hair and massage that spot on his lower back that he knows constantly hurts him.

When both become clean and Kaneki feels grounded again they would wrap each other in soft warm towels and Hide would go change the sheets while Kaneki sits and thanks whatever force is up there that he has Hide, and that his nightmares are mere products of his mind.

Still... It really is strange how he only has nightmares with people he knows, and they started around the time he met this young woman with purple hair in the cafe he frequented.

But no matter how long he would muse on the nightmares, Kaneki never got any closer to the reason, and he certainly wouldn't reach it at 3 am on a workday.

So he and Hide would slip back under the covers, holding each other, sharing words of intimacy, and slowly drifting into calmer dreams.

Kaneki was almost 20 when the nightmares stopped and the back pain disappeared, and he couldn't shake the feeling of emptiness.

This one is kind of weird and I'm not even sure what I was trying to accomplish but here you go.

At least in this universe both of them live.

Edit: This is like a sister fic to Goodbye: Denied. You don't need to read it but if you want to suffer, be my guest.