Hi everyone! I want to apologize for not being active with this story. I hope you all like it. Thank you to those of you who have been patient waiting for this chapter. Hope you all have a nice day where ever you are. Thank you for the follows and the favorites on the story ^_^ Warning: Boyxboy, swearing, some scenes of violence and ratings may be turned up later. This chapter will be Nagisa getting a small glimpse into Charlie's life. Hope you enjoy!


Charlie glares as his head was lolled against Nagisa's chest, his fingers exhaustively clutching on as tight as they could to the boy's thin white shirt. Their soft brown tone was turning pale from the intense grip. But of course it was only his way of trying to escape the pain which rushed through his body. His teeth slashed into his lip as he tried to keep the whimpers of pain from escaping.

He didn't want this.

None of it.

It meant drawing attention to his weakness. That was not an answer that he needed. He needed it to stay quiet. Stay in the shadows and keep head low. If he kept his head low, that meant that no one else would be able to see the damage, both physically and other wise. He was a monster. That meant he was stuck to the shadows. He wasn't meant to stand in the sunlight with the others. He was supposed to be cast low. Forgotten. Crushed away and repressed into the limbo of memories. He was meant to be forgotten.

He always thought of himself like that. Better lost. Better forgotten.

Better dead.

"You're just hurting yourself!" Nagisa whispered softly, like he would to a cornered animal. He watched but said nothing as he saw the fleeting movements as Charlie would moved his clawed hand around his wrist, not really seeing what the boy was really doing to himself, but only visually seeing him bite his lip and let blood drip down the side of his mouth, splashing onto Nagisa's skin.

His blonde hair brushing against the edge of Charlie's cheek gently, not helping him as he tried to stop blushing at the situation that he seemed to be captured in. Of course the reality was enough to knock some sense into him. But between the heavy medication, the morphine burning through his veins, the agony of the pain which seemed relentless. It seemed pretty much impossible to focus on anything that wasn't even the slightest or smallest bit of comfort.

The long winding halls of lockers around him seemed to be some kind of horrid paradox staircase. It just seemed endless! Like eternity was stretching out the distance between him and the nurse's office. Like the whole world wanted him to suffer just for those longer minutes.

Time. Such a fleeting thing to his mind. A stretch of incredible madness which seemed to only coil in his waking and pained moments like a cancer.

Charlie had barely even begun to realize that he was trembling till Nagisa looked down at him with shocked and worried eyes, pulling his arms tighter around the boy, noticeably picking up his pace towards the nurse's office but still trying to be light in his steps as to not hurt the poor boy in his arms. Charlie looked so fragile. So small, even if they were just about the same height, the boy just looked so hurt and helpless in the state he was in.

Charlie however was growing more frantic as the pain was overwhelming his mind, crushing sense and reason behind a veil of medicine. His chest stuttered with each labored breath he took into his lungs. The pain, clambered through his body like a fire. Claiming and destroying all as it passed by. He began to struggle, almost violently trying to break away from Nagisa's grip. He needed to get away! Get back to the shadows! Safe inside shadows! Shadows protect us! They keep us safe!

But the red eyed blond just let out a silent hushing sound, cooing softly like he would to a child. His arms rolled closer trying to at least make the other boy secure as they finally came outside to the door. "Shush now." He whispered. "It's okay. You're going to be okay now." He repeated over and over again, reaching out a hand and slowly stroking across Charlie's brow, staring sadly as he watched the boy churn like he was fevered.

He reached out quickly and knocked on the door with a persistence till finally a tall dark haired woman answered with a frown. She was dressed up in the usual uniform. A white over coat with a thermometer in the front pocket while around the room, various cupboards and other counter spaces were decorated with various other pieces.

"What is going on here?!" The nurse frowned deeply, shaking her brown hair over her shoulder, her hazel eyes gazed curiously over Nagisa before finally locking on Charlie and widening. "Oh my god. Young master Jones!" She exclaimed.
"Young master Jones?" Nagisa repeated with a frown, but was pulled out of his thoughts as the nurse pulled him inside the room, walking around quickly gathering various pieces. "Are you the new one? I'm surprised the brother even let you near him." She shook her head.
"Uh, still holding him here." Nagisa stated, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes right. I guess it's part of your job. I'm not willing to get into another argument with Mrs Jones or that little-" She paused for a moment seemingly to realize that she was still in front of the boy, no matter how fevered or delirious he may be.

But most of all it left Nagisa frowning slightly as he looked between Charlie and the nurse,not entirely understanding what exactly was going on around him. Was there something that he was missing?

"Please just rest him over here." The nurse asked, laying a fresh roll of paper out across the bed and adjusted it for Charlie to be slightly propped up.

Nagisa laid him down as gently as possible but he still managed to hear the boy whimper. The nurse walked over taking Charlie's wrists and turning them out making Nagisa stare widely. "You should have stopped him when he started!" The nurse snapped angrily, glaring slightly at him, but the soft haired blonde was just staring down at Charlie's wrists which had long stretching lines of nail marks where he had scratched open the skin and was bleeding in long crimson streams. "This is going to need stitches, but it's best to get the worst of it out the way first." She nodded. "So any idea how this all happened?"
"W-we, well I- ran into each other and-"
"Don't say you caught his bloody leg!" She sighed, glaring down at him. "Cheers, thanks for the extra load of work!"

She paused for a long minute. "Where's the brace for his leg?"
"Uh, what?" The soft red eye boy frowned, folding his arms self consciously as he noted on his pure white shirt where the streaks of red were left. He tried to ignore the warmth of it left on his skin and tried not to shudder under the staining touch of it.
"You might want to look away." The nurse suggested taking out a small knife.
"Whoa- what are you going to-"
"GET IT AWAY! GET IT AWAY FROM ME!" Charlie screamed.
"Restrain him." The nurse demanded, effectively activating Nagisa who launched forward, grabbing the boy's arms as he held him down.

Nagisa's small fingers clamped around Charlie's wrists, making him wince and the other boy cry out. Damn it! His clumsy hands shifted to get a better grip on the boy's arms and pin them so they were either side of his head. Nagisa crouched slightly next to the bed to keep them on level, trying to hold the boy's gaze. Who is he? He wondered over and over again. "Hey, come on! I'm here." He said, though that probably didn't mean much to the pained boy. He realized just how pathetic it sounded as he said it and wanted to face palm.

But giving a small glance over to the nurse who had an eyebrow raised was more then enough as she look at him with a skeptical look. "Seriously? That is the best that you have?"
"Well I only-" Nagisa had tried to say 'I only had met him this morning! I don't know that much about him! Plus, does it look like we're that close? Really?'
"Never mind. Like I said, you may want to look away now."
"Why-"

But then he began to understand as she cut away at the skinny jeans around the boy's leg, cutting just above the knee in a perfect circle.

To reveal the ravaged and damaged skin beneath which was coated and soaked thickly in blood.

Nagisa paled drastically as he stared. He couldn't have done all this to the boy, really?
"DON'T LOOK! DON'T LOOK!" Charlie screamed over and over, thrashing on the bed, trying his best to break away from both of them.

Nagisa however could only just stare on. Looking at the way between the oozing and large streams of blood which washed down the boy's leg and various scars, something seemed crushed into the skin. A metal brace of some kind, well he only assumed it was from the way that it was laced around... actually, 'into' would be a better description for what he was looking at right now, when he studied Charlie's leg.

The metal seemed to have cut into the skin, tearing apart a few layers and being imprinted just bellow. It didn't look too deep, but still, Nagisa didn't know exactly what it was. He just knew that he was staring at one piece to a long story.

A story which had caught his attention.

Fully.

"Okay, I'm going to need you to distract him. I need to clean the area and remove the problem." The nurse said, visibly gone pale but her eyes looking strangely familiarized with what was in front of her. 'Does that mean that she has seen this a lot? Or does it mean that this happens a lot with this boy? What is that thing- wait a minute. She said, brace.-
"Hello!" She snapped.
"Fine." Nagisa said, thinking for a moment. 'How to distract this boy. He's half out his mind, trying to punch me in the face... a surprise. A shock maybe... what was that thing they did in Doctor Who, to deal with shock? When David Tennant got poisoning... what was it that Catherine Tate did to shock him?'

"Okay, I'm going to go on the count of three." She slowly pulled on a pair of white gloves and eased her hand around Charlie's leg, a loud clicking echoing in a series.
'What did they do in that episode...' Nagisa frowned to himself, trying to think remember.
"One." The nurse said, her voice slightly shaky.
"NO!" Charlie screamed.
"Two- For god's sake, will you do something!" The nurse barked.
"Oh! I remember now!" Nagisa smiled brightly.
"Three-"

Charlie's scream felt like it could have ruptured the walls and shattered the glass windows in the small four by four room. It was such a sound of pure anguish that Nagisa was pretty sure that he would never be able to get it out of his mind for as long as he lived. But he only lent forward and slowly placed his lips against Charlie's making the boy's scream falter in his throat and muffle his whimpers as their eyes closed.

Long tears streamed down Charlie's cheeks and the boy continued to whimper softly with pain but Nagisa only cupped his hand against the boy's cheek softly. Moving their lips slowly and together in a rhythmic motion, like he would when he was outside swimming. His lips worked carefully, brushing so slightly but just moving a bit deeper as he stroked a hand as softly as he could with as much comfort as he could, his finger tips drew light patterns slightly as they glided across the smooth skin.
"There we go."
Charlie's whimpers continued as soft sobs but Nagisa only hushed him softly, brushing the tears away with his lips before continuing the soft caress of their lips, his eyes closing like Charlie's though they only opened when the nurse cleared her throat loudly.

Nagisa blushed and pulled back slowly, Charlie's hand coming out carefully and lacing their fingers together. His eyes were completely glazed over from the medicine already in his blood system. He had absolutely no idea what was going on. To him this was probably all just some weird dream which he wouldn't remember... probably for the best actually. If he remembered some crazy boy kissing him to distract him from the pain of-

"You son of a bitch. Get the fuck away from my brother."

Now Nagisa was pretty sure that he knew a lot about faculty. Which meant he was pretty sure that they couldn't say something maybe like; "oh you're in the shit now." Like the nurse had said.

As she had held a crimson dripping leg brace, bathed in blood.

"Jack." Charlie whimpered softly.

He turned slowly not sure where to look. Between the boy on the bed crying softly with tears still moving softly down his cheeks who was now calling him Jack for some weird reason. But the fact that the scary older brother from earlier was now stood in the doorway with black eyes as livid as fire, he was pretty sure that he was about to end up like that leg brace... broken and soaked in blood.

"J-Jack? What's wrong?"

The older brother stopped dead in his tracks, his teeth gritted tightly while his eyes blared like fire. Oh I'm so dead. Nagisa thought. Okay so he had kissed the boy. But in his defense, it actually had worked! He had managed to at least calm the boy down slightly! Even if now he was strangely calling him- "Hang on, what?"
"That will be the morphine I gave him." The nurse said, gently pushing the rest of the liquid inside the needle into the shredded skin of Charlie's leg.
"Oh Charlie." The older brother said softly.

Nagisa rose an eyebrow. "Why does he keep calling me Jack-"
"He thinks he's in Titanic." The older brother muttered with a slight glare though he seemed to be keeping his voice soft for the sake of his brother. "As for the other thing." He hissed, glaring at the nurse ferociously. "Why the hell did you allow him in here!" He snarled.
"Young master Jones, you need to speak respectfully-"
"You allowed a student in here to watch my brother nearly get half his leg torn off!" Jonathan snarled, his words hissing through between his teeth. The nurse flinched back turning pale. It was such a strange sight for Nagisa to witness, but still he stood quiet, studying them.
"Wait?" Nagisa smiled, trying not to laugh. "What? Is this some prank? Some elaborate theatrical prank-"
"GET THE HELL OUT!" Jonathan screamed, making Charlie flinch up and pulls his wrists close to his chest. The eldest brother's eyes locked on the angry red lines down his brother's wrists and Nagisa sighed, watching the pain move through the boy before he turned down to his sibling. Charlie just kept his eyes on Nagisa as though suddenly he couldn't be ripped away from him.

A look which reminded Nagisa not only too much of someone he had just recently left behind.

"Jack where are you going-"
"There's been a bit of a disturbance on deck." Jonathan said smoothly and softly.

His eyes like Nagisa's were watching out the corner of their gazes at Charlie's leg. The long and deep impressions of torn open and bleeding flesh which were being cleaned by the nurse, making Charlie cry silently as he writhed. "Don't take my Jack away- What is going on!"
"It's okay." Jonathan said gently, reaching out, not breaking the dream brought on by the medicine for fear of his brother's embarrassment at a later time. He only said quietly. "My brother likes Titanic, okay? So whenever he's in pain he likes to think about it, but because the medication often sweeps him off, he gets caught up in a dream... it's quite ironic that of all things it's Titanic." Jonathan muttered.
"Oh... well." Nagisa reached around and rubbed the back of his neck.
"Is everything okay?"
"Don't worry Rose." Nagisa smiled, earning a vicious glare from Jonathan but a questioning one quickly replaced it as he felt himself being studied, evaluated. Jonathan's eyes moved deeply through him while Charlie's glazed over golden orbs just looked at him with a sad wistful nature of hallucination. "Never let go." He said softly and Charlie for the first time brought on a slight smile.
"I'll never let go Jack." He promised.
"Rose come on now, we need to get you back to your cabin." Jonathan said softly. His eyes snapping back up to Nagisa with a glare. "Back in first class."

With that and a slam of the door, Nagisa found himself shoved back out into the cold of the hallway staring at the door with a look of curiosity and a slight frown as he pondered on what had just happened.

On the sight of Charlie's leg of torn flesh and blood.

On the way that he on impulse had kissed the boy. It wasn't as though he had never kissed a boy before. Plus he was used to being spontaneous and impulsive! Just as he was used to being clumsy but that was another thing all together.

Who was this boy.

Nagisa pondered for a moment. He had something to figure out. It looked like there was a long story ahead of him.

Who was this boy. Who was this strange boy with eyes so broken and sad.

Who ever he was.

Nagisa made it his mission right there and then that he would be the one to put those pieces back together.