This is my attempt on my first fanfiction. There's probably going to be a minimum of two chapters if I have motivation to write a second chapter
My "main" language isn't English so prepare for typos, and stuff that might not make sense etc.
I haven't read past arc 5, but I know a little about what has happened so excuse me if I get some things wrong.
Basically this is my guess on what would happen and how the camp members would react.
The cast are from arc 4-5 time skip.
This is supposed to have a wholesome ending.
Happy.
That was the word Subaru would consider this day.
Everyone was happy, everyone was laughing, everyone was having a blast as they should.
That's how every day should be according to Subaru. He was the only one allowed to suffer, no one else, not a single soul.
The day started as almost any day would. Him and his nightmares...
"AAAHHHHHHHH"
Subaru instantly sat up from his bed, sweating badly and breathing like he had just ran a race.
"SUBARU!" Someone yelled next to him, Immediately hugging Subaru.
"B- Beako?" Subaru breathing quickly and heavily was happy to know that he wasn't alone anymore after the nightmare he just went through.
"You're okay, you're okay, just breathe I suppose." Beatrice tried to comfort Subaru. This was a routine at this point every morning for Beatrice.
Subaru instantly found warmth from Beatrice and started crying
"A- I- ahg-" Subaru tried speaking but his crying would not let him.
"Shh… shh.. You're safe here with Betty in fact." Beatrice hugged Subaru even tighter to make sure he was okay.
"W- when will it end? When will the darkness go away…" Subaru was begging Beatrice to make the nightmares stop, make his darkness go away, but no one could ever help him.
Is anybody there? Am I truly alone?
Beatrice just looked at Subaru like a sad loving sister, trying her best to help Subaru with his mental state.
Subaru began hugging Beatrice even though he was as weak as a fly at the moment. He needed this no matter what.
As they embraced one another, Subaru eventually stopped crying and came to his senses.
"Another nightmare I suppose?" Beatrice asked
"Mm" Was the only answer Subaru could give right while swiping his tears away
Subaru started scratching himself out of instinct and Beatrice immediately took response, taking his hands apart from each other and looking him in his eyes.
"This isn't going to help you, please just stop."
"I- Look I need this. I need to do this alone." Subaru responded ashamed of himself.
"NO, you don't. I'm here with you, I want to help you in fact." Beatrice said while looking at him, almost crying.
"Thank you Beako, I appreciate it. But this is a problem I have to face alone, okay?"
"W- alright, I suppose…" Beatrice looked downwards, disappointed at herself for not being able to help her contractor.
Beatrice soon after rose up from their bed and said "I need to go freshen myself so just don't go do anything stupid now."
"Mmhm" Subaru responded as he tried to smile for Beatrice.
As Subaru was left alone in their room. Alone in his thoughts he began thinking about anything to distract the dark thoughts in his head, but it never helped as his dark thoughts overcame his happy ones. He was literally in his own hellish mind, in reality he was only staring at a wall doing nothing but breathing slowly. He could do this for hours when he was alone.
All his thoughts were either about his friends, allies, parents. Or most of the time his deaths.
Stabbed by a thug
Getting sliced by Elsa two times
Being frozen to death
"-aru?"
Getting maced by Rem, a person he loves.
Getting tortured by Rem and then getting mercy killed by Ram.
"Subaru?!"
His suicides, jumping off a cliff, stabbing himself in the throat.
Getting killed by Felis and Julius after getting possessed.
GETTING EATEN BY RAB-
"Subaru!" Beatrice said while shaking him to try and wake him up.
"Ah- oh what?" Subaru immediately responded looking at beatrice with a dumb founded look.
"Is everything alright I suppose? You weren't responding so I got worried. If you're not feeling like doing anything today, we could just spend it together in fact!" Beatrice excitedly said, as she only wanted to be with her contractor, she didn't need anybody else she thought.
"Oh sorry I was just stuck in thought. But as much as I would love to spend time with my friends as well, it's important for you to also talk with them since we're a family remember?" Subaru looked at Beatrice trying to make her understand.
"That's what you always say but I only really need you I suppose."
Subaru only smiled and patted Beatrice on the head as he truly felt happiness the first time since this morning.
It was now time for Subaru's turn to freshen himself in the bathroom.
He looked at himself in the mirror trying to assure himself that the nightmare he just dreamed of, was only a nightmare and nothing more.
"It was only a dream, everythings fine, they're fine, they're alive..."
Eventually Subaru was finished and was ready to leave with Beatrice to start this day and spend time with his friends.
Friends…
That was almost the only thing that helped Subaru. That was basically his therapy, even if it wasn't healthy not speaking about his problems, he couldn't really do anything about it as no one could ever understand the pain he had gone through.
The day went as any day would usually go. His usual parkour training, talking with everyone, getting bullied by Ram, helping everyone, flirting with Emilia.
Nothing unusual this day or any other day. Yet.
And so it was time for a group dinner. Everyone from the camp was there, and as everyone was gathering around Subaru and Beatrice always arrived last compared to the others as they were always busy spending time together.
As everyone greeted each other, Interacted with each other, whatever they usually do, they began enjoying the dish Frederica and Ram had made.
Meanwhile when everyone else was eating Subaru was explaining something about his world to Beatrice, Garfiel and Emilia, of course everyone else was secretly listening due to it being so interesting and rare for Subaru to reveal something about his really weird nation/world and so they couldn't let this opportunity pass by.
"Yeah our buildings are way different compared to yours, I mean we do have a similarity but I guess we're just a bit more ahead you know?"
Beatrice was a tad bit jealous of his home and wished she could live with Subaru at his home due to it sounding so beautiful
Garfiel just looked at Subaru, stars in his eyes full of excitement to hear more about his cap'ns world.
"But what do you mean a bit more ahead?" Said a confused Emilia. She was happy since she saw how happy Subaru seemed. There wasn't a single day where Emilia wasn't happy or at least smiling, she was like an angel according to Subaru.
"Ahh well exactly what it sounds like I guess, Our buildings are built way faster and the architecture is way cooler Emilia-Tan!" Said Subaru proudly of his home
"We even have really tall buildings called skyscrapers which usually are up to 300 metres, but the tallest one reaches up to 600 metres."
The camp was almost blown away by this information. Even making Roswaal choke on his tea.
"The style is basically called "Minka" And-" Subaru immediately stopped as he felt a weird tingling, almost burning sensation on his right arm fastly becoming more and more painful as the milliseconds went by.
Subaru heard a small thud as Petra yelped loudly at the same time.
"Ah- What-" as the pain grew stronger and stronger he finally realized what was going on.
Petra had tripped and accidentally poured really hot, almost boiling tea on subarus right arm.
Subaru immediately started panicking trying to take off his jacket. To be said everyone else was panicking way more than Subaru but he didn't have the time to notice things like that.
As he finally succeeded in removing his jacket and throwing it on the floor. He started patting and rubbing his arm in a desperate attempt to help with the burning sensation.
He looked up from his arm to see everyone with wide eyes, open mouths not a single word coming out of them. Subaru was smiling thinking this was just a normal accident. "Guys I'm fine, It's nothing to worry about really."
As he got no answer he decided to examine what they were all looking at and-
"Umm… Why are you all looking at my arms-..." Subaru's eyes widened. There they were two forearms. Scar marks on every single inch, going in every direction and in different shades of red and different sizes big and small, long and short, wide and thin. He hadn't realised that his completely scarred forearms would be shown if he took off his jacket. He was beginning to panic inside and trying to hide his arms from his friends.
"AH- Do- DON'T LOOK!" Yelled Subaru wishing this situation wouldn't have happened and that he could just rewind time...
"Oh- Oh my god... S- Subaru? What- Why?" Emilia was the first one to say anything as she fell on her knees. Now with even wider eyes unable to even think why anyone, especially Subaru out of all the people in the world, would do this to themselves.
Garfiel was unable to say anything due to the fact that he only really was a kid and he had to see his captain, his hero, in such a destructive state. He could do nothing but open his mouth to try and say something, anything but not a single word came out.
Otto was starting to cry and hate himself due to the fact that his best friend has been hurting himself and he hasn't helped him.
Beatrice just looked at Subaru with a frown as she was the only one who has known so far.
Frederica only looked away out of respect for the boy and also because she wanted to be able to look at his eyes after all they've been through.
Petra had fear in her eyes as she didn't understand why Subaru had these kinds of scars, but she partly blamed herself as she thought she was the reason Subaru had them.
"Barusu why the hell would you do such a thing?" Ram said as she was really concerned for the boy as she truly did care for him. But also she was angry at him because he had so many people who cared for him, so many people who wanted to spend time with him, and he just decided to suffer by himself and make others worry about him by a thing like this.
There was one person in the room who felt something the others didn't and that was Roswaal. Disgust and guilt. Roswaal felt disgusted. Not at Subaru, but at himself as he was partly the reason this boy was broken like this. But he had to continue no matter what to finish his goal, a little guilt wont stop Roswaal.
"N- No- Y- Y- You weren't supposed t- to find out." Subaru said with full on panic in his voice now.
They weren't supposed to find out.
They weren't supposed to find out.
They weren't supposed to find out.
They weren't supposed to find out.
I don't want them to know.
"Subaru, wh- why do you have those scars?" Asked Emilia with tears in her eyes, her whole body shaking trying to walk forwards to Subaru. She wanted to know why this dearly lovable boy had done this to himself.
"Uh uhh- I…" Subaru couldn't think of anything to respond that could be the most logical answer that wouldn't make them even more sad.
"Uh umm. These are from the Ulgram dogs that's all. Ahaha aha." He laughed in a desperate attempt to make them think that the scars he had were not self inflicted.
Emilia only looked with confusion as she had seen Subaru's scars after the Ulgram incident. And they didn't look similar in the slightest.
Subaru knew he had to distract them somehow, them knowing about his scars would only bring unneeded worry.
I need to make them smile, make them laugh. Take on their burdens.
"Look, these are old scars, it's no biggie. I just wished you wouldn't have seen them since they look so ugly..." he said trying to smile but only failing miserably.
"Stop lying to them I suppose." Said a sad voice in an attempt to help Subaru
Subaru just looked at Beatrice with fear in his eyes.
No no no no no no no Betty not now. Stop this. Don't do this please.
"Thos' aint' even look like bite marks so why 're ya lyin' to us? huh! cap'n!?" Garfiel said, tears in his eyes.
Everyone was looking with a displeased look. Only wanting for Subaru to tell them about his scars so they could understand and help the nasty eyed boy.
"Did you do those to yourself?"
"Did you only pretend to be happy with us?"
"Why wouldn't you trust me with this?"
"Are you like this because of me?"
"Why?"
The stress was becoming too much for Subaru as everyone was asking multiple questions in an attempt to understand him.
Every voice he heard was starting to become muffled, his vision started to become blurry for him. He had tears in his confused eyes and as he was walking backwards due to the stress wanting him to escape the situation.
He felt a door behind him and instantly taking advantage of the situation he turned heels and ran as fast as he could.
He ran faster than he had ever ran before, almost tripping every other step. It didn't matter where he ran, he just needed to be alone.
"Subaru!" Yelled a silver-haired half-elf reaching her arm in an attempt to catch the black haired trouble maker while he ran out of the room.
"Barusu…" Ram was ashamed of herself. She always belittled the boy, always gave him a hard time. A couple of times telling him to kill himself. But she never truly wanted him to feel so badly of himself, to go to the point of hurting himself like this. Her constant belittling could have been a reason for his mental state and she would need to treat him better, she thought.
Everyone else just looked at the opened door with confused and tearful eyes. Wishing for answers, they turned to Subaru's closest person.
Beatrice. Whom was watching the floor looking like she was disappointed in herself, crying because of her useless self.
"Beatrice Could you… Um- Tell us, why does Natsuki-San have those scars?" Otto was the only one unafraid to say anything, the only thing that was repeating in his mind was "Help him"
"B- Betty doesn't know herself either…" She said crying even more.
"What do you mean? You're the closest one to him and you sleep with him every night don't you?"
"SUBARU WON'T TELL ME EITHER!" Beatrice yelled at Otto and at the same time to herself, tears escaping his eyes.
Otto only walked a step or two backwards, fear in his eyes, not wanting to anger the great spirit who could kill him in a second he decided to keep his mouth shut.
"He can't fall asleep without anyone holding his hand, and even with that he only has nightmares every single night and every morning he pleads for the darkness to go away, even though I want to help him he only pushes me away..."
She began rambling louder and crying even more.
"Those scratches that you saw were not even half of the ones I find myself healing at night while he suffers in his dreams, just for them to appear again a few days later!"
Everyone looked at Beatrice with their mouths open, confused why didn't Subaru just tell them. Why did he insist on keeping this to himself, just suffering by himself. Not letting anyone help or know about his situation beside Beatrice.
"Arggghh- Cap'n was suppos'd t' be awesome, n- not like this! Sis... was 't becau'e mine self?" A golden haired Garfiel said, scared of the thought that he might be the reason behind this.
Frederica couldn't look in her brother's eyes after what she had just heard.
"Garf, I'm sure he isn't like this because of you. You are his best friend after all." Frederica tried to reassure his sad little brother.
"He always always looks so happy. Everytime I look at his face, I see a smile. I- I don't understand."
"C- Could it be that Barusu was only pretending to be happy?" Ram thought.
"W- What do those scars mean? Why does Subaru have them?" Petra asked silently.
As everyone was drowning in their self pity for not seeing Subaru's real mental state, one person came to a conclusion.
"Let's help him." Otto said with all his might.
"How could we help him, I suppose?" Beatrice said tiredly as a result of her crying.
"I mean- I guess… I don't know… But what I know is that we can't let this continue, we have to save him from his unhealthy methods."
Emilia looked up with hope in her eyes.
"I'll go talk to him. I need to understand him more. I need to save my knight no matter what. I owe it to him."
Everyone only looked at Emilia and nodded, entrusting the important duty of saving Subaru Natsuki to Emilia for now.
As she stood up and started walking out of the room, determination in her eyes ready to help her knight. She had a plan for how to save him. First by making him know that he was loved.