"Ninten."

Lucas's voice. Ninten lets his train of thought slide away and shifts a bit on the too-small bed, where he's wedged comfortably against Lucas's left side with Claus already asleep on the right.

It takes a bit more work than Ninten would like, and a still-worrying amount of energy to move enough from where he's laying down so that his words won't be muffled into the fabric of Lucas's pajama shirt. But Ninten does manage it eventually. "…Yeah?"

"That—That is your name, isn't it?" Lucas's voice shakes. Ninten blinks, wondering what's the matter all of a sudden.

Then Ninten feels suddenly through the heart he's newly inherited a stab of guilt, devastatingly painful, piercing through Lucas on his own accord with every word. The sharp and painful emotion crept out of nowhere, in the middle of what had been a peaceful evening, leaving Ninten utterly caught off guard and pained himself trying to untangle the hurt of Lucas's sudden emotions from his own.

Ninten's too occupied to say anything as Lucas presses on, asking him insistently, "Your name is Ninten?"

Ninten blinks. Tries to recompose himself against the sudden wave of intense unhappiness that Lucas is apparently feeling. Why? he wonders. What does Lucas have to be guilty for?

Back to the question. He refocuses. Ninten. "That's the name my mother gave me," Ninten says uneasily, the same as he'd told them before.

Next comes the hard part, though, which makes it all the more difficult to be certain he's ready to speak without some slip of the tongue. "You…can call me whatever you want, though," Ninten says in what he hopes is a neutral tone of voice.

Ninten swallows. He is trying, not to let his own emotional reaction to this matter of simple fact seep into his tone, color the words with some unnecessary sense of self-pity or loss. Lucas's burden of pain is about as horrifically intense as Ninten can conceive of one person carrying, if not more so: that much is obvious from inheriting the boy's heart via the final Needle, even if Ninten hasn't yet learned that trauma's particular scale or shape.

The last thing someone in Lucas's position needs is to be worrying about Ninten's hang-ups. Not after the way Ninten already freaked out on him earlier.

"You have the right to do so, I mean," Ninten continues with a forced nonchalance, shrugging one shoulder in case Lucas hasn't gotten the message. Ninten finds he's rattling off the words rather mechanically so he doesn't think too hard about them, and feels a bit cross with himself for it. Lucas is a good person, Ninten reasons internally, scolding himself for being vain over something so relatively unimportant as a name. Not even that name, the CIA's cruel label a name: just any name.

Even if Ninten did something to make Lucas mad, or Lucas chose for him in a joking or foul mood, the worst the blond boy could come up with likely isn't anything to be afraid of.

"I'm more or less obligated to answer to whatever you come up with, so it's ultimately your pick," Ninten says blandly. Not smiling, not frowning. "Like I said. You're the one that decides stuff like that, if you choose. You pulled the last—"

"Stop it!" Lucas shrieks, startling Ninten at once dead silence and causing Claus to jerk from his fitful sleep to total wakefulness on Lucas's other side.

The blond keeps talking, practically shouting, heedless of his tone or that he's frightening anyone: "Stop, stop talking about yourself like you don't—like you aren't–!"

Lucas trails off in a wordless cry of rage. He tugs angrily at his blond hair with a half-scream and then a growl of misery-filled frustration. Ninten stares at him, completely at a loss. Claus grips at his brother's arm and demands to know what's going on. Receiving no answer the older twin glares accusingly at Ninten, demanding an explanation and laying blame squarely without having to say a word. Which is a logical enough choice, Ninten acknowledges in the back of his mind in distant bewilderment. It's just—Ninten doesn't know what he did to make Lucas so unhappy.

Even now he can feel a lance of guilt in the blond boy's heart that pierces like a needlepoint through Ninten's own.

He bites his lip. Meets Claus's angry glare. Without much idea of what else there is he can do…he turns his gaze inward to measure his strength of psionic will as a matter of habit, though it's not any difficult thing he's considering to try.

It's the most instinctive PSI ability he has. It's accounted for everything from his inexplicable grade-school popularity to surviving his first asthma attack away from home. It's so effortless Ninten half the time never realized as a child he was doing it, even as an adolescent sometimes slips into the habit unthinkingly for how little conscious will it takes. Even depleted to the last of his reserves, Ninten is quite assured he can afford this. Especially if it'll help him help Lucas.

And so his mind is made. Ninten tries Telepathy.

And—oh.

Oh. That's.

Oh.

Oh…

Ninten reels back a bit, dazed. Neither of the twins any of the wiser for the intrusion.

Ninten feels the world has been spun on him several rounds too fast and knocked him off his feet where he thought he'd stood comfortably in this arrangement with this new would-be home among Lucas's family.

It turns out Lucas is, in fact, a much better person than Ninten's given him credit for.

…And this is after inheriting the very heart in him, for cripes' sake.

Ninten can't help himself. He crumples a bit at what he's seen in his savior's thoughts, not noticing the look of confusion Claus is giving him. It's the furthest thing from his mind, in fact.

Ninten breathes in and out to keep from crying. He musters up what strength he has left and takes a deep breath, and then with some difficulty he sits up on the bed, turning guiltily to Lucas.

Lucas glares balefully at him through his hands. On the surface and beneath his eyes are angry and accusing, and in them Ninten alone can read the screams, of how–

how can you stand to be near me i'm no better than Porky you were trapped and i used you you didn't have free will and now you're telling me to go and just–

give you a name like you're some pet on top of probably killing yourself giving me everything i ever wanted why just for finding you first just for being born with rare PSI like i'd never figure out the source of the world coming back really was you why are you letting me do this, please i don't want to hurt anyone else you're the same age as Claus you're the same i'm doing it again you're the same–

i'm doing what they did to him all over again–

—and. And.

Ninten's face screws up. Maybe, from misplaced hurt, or guilt, for not realizing sooner, probably a million other little things he failed to do for someone that he wanted to help but hadn't bothered to even look at properly and so failed in every, every way.

Lucas's raw glare wavers at Ninten's distress. The blond boy is still upset but unshed tears glisten through his angry stare. And helplessly Claus stares back and forth between them both.

Ninten's breath hitches. Without warning he reaches forward, blindly. And then he's hugging Lucas as hard as he possibly can.

"N-Ninten. Please. Ninten. Call me Ninten," he says, too desperately, too quickly. Emphatic and emotion-choked, and his own voice cracking embarrassingly in his own ears. "P‑Please, just…call me Ninten, okay? That'll make me happy. 'S all I want…I swear…"

Ninten feels Lucas stiffen with shock against him at the unexpected embrace, but he doesn't push him away and Ninten doesn't let go of him either.

Ninten's face stays buried in Lucas's shoulder and he doesn't budge from that spot as he digs through his brain to find the right words, or maybe he can't move even if he wanted to. Ninten's whole body won't stop shaking, in fact—no one's cared what he thought or wanted so deeply for so long, not even himself, not even over his own name…

It actually kind of hurts.

Lucas makes an odd noise in his throat near Ninten's ear that conveys six kinds of disbelief. This even as he reaches up with his own arms to tentatively hug Ninten back. He lets go for a moment to tug Claus closer, too, on the other side; not that Claus has much idea what's going on.

"Stop it. That can't be all you want," Lucas eventually says, targeting Ninten in a rather bitter tone. It's not a bitterness meant at Ninten himself, as evidenced by the next thing out of his mouth being the very singular gesture that Ninten had asked for. His name back. "…Ninten."

For anyone that hasn't seen his thoughts, Lucas is still for all the world accusing, glaring down teary-eyed at the top of Ninten's head. As if daring the black-haired boy to somehow take on and disprove every self-deprecating thought running now through Lucas's mind.

Well, Ninten thinks. He's tackled worse.

"I don't hate you. I'm not scared of you," Ninten says, in the mumbled tones of one reading quickly from a laundry list. He still has not budged an inch from Lucas's shoulder, perhaps to preemptively spare himself some measure of embarrassment. Speeches like this tend to get gushy, at least among his friends (he hopes the twins are his friends. or that they can be), no matter how matter-of-factly Ninten tries to make his point.

"Not anymore, at least," he hurries on, barely enunciating the words with the intent of getting them out that much quicker. "I'm sorry about before I just don't like…th-that one word and when you said it; I'm sorry for being a freak like that, it just happens sometimes. I wasn't thinking about you or anyone, I, I can't really explain it better right now.

"But the rest of it—nobody made me, at least not after the Needle. I wanted to. I wanted to help and come with you, and then try to get to know you, so I could help you. You and everyone you wanted to save, you…you didn't have to. But you did. I'm glad it was you, anyone else, that would have, and I couldn't even believe it at first, that after you were in that much pain you still…I was scared you'd just be ready to end it with asking to make it stop, b-but then you gave 'em a second chance. You gave everyone a chance.

"That's why I think you can do it, y'know?" Ninten finishes hoarsely, not certain or really caring whether he's made a bit of sense. "You're…You're the best chance this world has."

If this disjointed speech has made any impression on the twins, they say nothing for the better part of a minute. Ninten's set in on regretting himself and is trying to think of the best way to backpedal and redo things more slowly, when:

"That's not true," Lucas says, "and wh-why would anyone think so? Because I can use PK Love?"

He shakes his head and buries his face in a hand. "That's just a fluke, Ninten. It could have been anyone but me an' Claus—"

"Because you're a good person!" Ninten snaps back, finally looking up at him, surreptitiously wiping his own eyes furiously with the back of one hand. "And, whatever you're scared of…I guess, knock it off, Lucas, okay? Because you're not like that. Remember, you gave me your heart and all that junk when you pulled the last Needle out that was making me sleep, I can feel when you're sad or guilty or mad or hurting, or if you had somehow been evil or selfish this whole time, so you can't fool me otherwise even if you wanted to. Ask him if you don't believe me."

Claus huffed. Ninten doesn't have to point his way for the intended recipient of the phrasing to be clear.

"Is this some…some legend-destiny-fulfilling thing that the rest of us aren't in on?" Claus asks, feigning annoyance over his concern as Lucas slowly glanced away from Ninten to look at his twin in kind. "Because I have no idea what you two are talking about. But, if you want to help Lucas out, I guess you must be all right."

Lucas stares at Claus for a while in return, contemplative. He turns Ninten's words over in his head and sniffles a few times, deciding it may be all right to cry if he doesn't go and linger on it for too long.

"This is…this is all that's left of humanity we're talking about. I couldn't even save my own family," Lucas whispers in the dark. The words are so soft that everyone in the room has to strain to hear.

Ninten squeezes his hand.

"I couldn't either," he says thickly. "But, you—this is another chance, okay? Your mom, your brother…I can still do that much in this world. Please."

He rests his head on Lucas's shoulder again, and this time it is not from exhaustion. Not the physical kind, at least.

"At least so it doesn't have to have all been for nothing, Lucas," he whispers. "Please…"

Lucas looks at Claus, struggles to make out his twin's face through the darkness, and his own tears. Claus says nothing but he leans in close to Lucas's other side, holding his brother in a silent embrace. It is a small thing, but it seems to impart whatever nebulous forgiveness Lucas feels he needs.

Lucas holds Claus and Ninten tightly. He nods, not certain what he's promising to them or himself, in this moment of impulse, only that he'll do his best. He won't give up if they need to hold onto hope for something. Even an anchor as unsteady and exhausted as him.

Downstairs, Hinawa and Flint speak together in muted, exhausted tones. Their hands are clasped in a gesture of love, even as they wade through a murky topic of conversation that sits heavily across their familiar kitchen table.

Together, as are many couples in this evening dotted throughout houses finished or otherwise in Tazmily, the travel-weary husband and wife speak on equal terms, weighing the pros and cons of a decision their neighbors want to vote on in the coming days. One regarding the Hummingbird Egg, and the problem of what to do now that Leder's now-public confession to the townspeople has informed them all of what they never knew they left behind…

Upstairs, Claus, and eventually even Lucas fall asleep. They're still lying on the bed with Ninten nestled in alongside them, not having ever bothered to ask him to return to his own.

Ninten is glad for it. He's always been a touchy-feely person, has missed more than words can express being part of a group or a family where he can reach out for the familiar warmth of another person with his hands or his PSI on a whim, just to know he's not alone.

These two aren't his sisters, not his closer-than-self companions that waded with him through the darkness at Holy Loly. But Lucas and Claus are what Ninten has. They're his friends, if they'll have him. Ninten cares about them. He cares about their family. Their village. Their world, as small and limited as it is.

It really might not be as much world as the small, tightly-knit family that took him in like this deserves. But, Ninten vows, he won't let their home of these Nowhere Islands die again, won't let them be subjected to so much pain here like that another time if he can help it.

Not so long as Lucas lets Ninten keep trying to build this world, at least, into one that Lucas could be happy in. The villagers here all trust Lucas and his decisions after saving them, Ninten reasons. The villagers believe thanks to him the world can be made better this time around.

Why shouldn't Ninten believe the same?

Long after the twins have dozed away, Ninten ruminates on this, and other things. He stares open-eyed at the ceiling late into the morning hours and still doesn't try to sleep. He's had enough of that for one lifetime, he thinks.

He closes his eyes and concentrates instead.

When the residents of the new Tazmily wake the following morning, it's to the welcome sight of a weak, but shining sun.

end.