The Mortal City

by MidnightRun42

(Post-SD2) Waking up is never the hardest part.

7. Empty Halls

"Strange as it may seem, I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily."
― Lemony Snicket, The Beatrice Letters

-ooo-

DAY THREE
-continued-

-ooo-

He was lost.

Lost and alone in the dark and his body ached in a way it hadn't in…

Days? Years? He wasn't sure.

He wasn't sure about anything anymore.

His arm was numb from the tips of his fingers to halfway up his forearm, he couldn't feel anything at all but a cold surety that there was something wrong with it.

It felt like he'd been lost in the dark for centuries and mere moments.

His head hurt and he felt dizzy, off-balance.

But he was also painfully turned on, as if he had just left a lover's bed unfulfilled.

It wasn't unusual, exactly. He'd had plenty of sex over the years since he had…

What?

That wasn't right.

He'd never…

He had… he'd been somewhere… he was…

Was...

Who was he again?

He giggled, weaving, lurching drunkenly forward and falling into empty space. He landed hard on a cold floor, catching himself on hands and knees, painful, before climbing unsteadily back to his feet and continuing to shuffle ever onwards.

Wasn't sure what he was doing, where he meant to go exactly.

It seemed as if he'd been in the middle of doing something important.

Doing someone important.

Funny.

Right.

The lover whose taste still lingered on his tongue, a taste that was sharp and bitter and new, a memory of warm smooth skin.

He must have been special. Important. Something. Beautiful, maybe. He rarely gave head. He didn't like people looking at him while... he didn't like it. Didn't like strangers tugging at his hair or touching his face. He usually just let them fuck him instead. It was easier. No one cared if he was crying if they couldn't see it. No one cared if he was laughing if he smothered that laughter in a pillow or choked it out as he bit down on his own arm or hers.

Strangers didn't care about the things they couldn't see. Why would they? That's what he liked about strangers who only saw his pale hair and delicate features. Who lied and said they liked his laugh. Who lapped up his honeyed words and sharp commands. They didn't worry too much about whether they were hurting him or whether he came at all, whether it even turned him on, whether he insulted them as they worked or grew bored with looking at them before they were done. And if they did care, all they usually did was leave, but that didn't happen often. He was picky about his choices. He always chose pretty, desperate, fragile, lonely strangers from quiet, empty weeknight bars. The sort who took instruction well, grateful enough for the attention not to make demands, not to ask too many questions, satisfied enough with just having a warm hole to stick it in even if he insisted that he only bared what skin he absolutely had to to get it done, that they take him behind, that they never touch him beneath his shirt. That they never attempt to hold his hand or kiss him. He had no use for those little intimacies from ordinary little people who were meant to be disposable.

He didn't want strangers to look at him. Didn't like the feel of eyes judging him. Didn't want them to feel his cold clammy skin or the press of his ribs against it, to be able to tell that his body was riddled with disease and wasting away to nothing because he'd been too nauseous to eat a proper meal in days, weeks. He wore bulky clothes to hide it usually and because he was almost always cold now, his circulation poor. But that was another good thing about strangers. Strangers didn't care about his wellbeing. Well, no one did, really. He wasn't the sort of person who was worth caring about, but that went double for strangers. All they ever cared about was that he knew what to say and how to smile to lure them into the dark and get them to fuck him until their bodies gave out. It was just… easier that way.

Easier to break them after, to crush fragile egos and feelings in the aftermath, to spread despair like a virus and watch with fascination as they shriveled up like dying spiders. Shattered beneath the barest pressure, tears choking them as he tore them down brick by brick. They'd never thank him, but he believed resolutely that hope would find them in the aftermath, that their hope for the future would be greater because of those brief transitory moments of despair. They'd never return to those seedy, quiet, pathetic bars looking for company, for young men like him who would salve their wounds, shore up their self-worth for minutes or hours, a bitter fix. Some would find their hope in death, that was probably true, but others would weather the storm and find themselves. Realize they were so much better than some skinny, half-dead bastard who told them they were worth less than nothing, who made them feel such terrible things. They'd be happier. They'd find a hope that would light up their dark worlds and give them the strength to go on, to value themselves, to be better men. Hope was hope. It didn't much matter to him how it manifested. Just that it did. Everyone hoped for different things, after all, in different ways.

And, if he were lucky it wouldn't be difficult to coax them to him before they left, to get them on their knees to wrap lips or hands around him until he came, silent and relieved, but never happy.

He was usually lucky.

Well, no, he was always lucky, he supposed, just… sometimes the luck was bad. But that was okay too, because even if they hurt him or left him aching and alone it meant that the next time would be much better than usual to make up for it.

Probably.

Maybe.

So, that was fine too.

Getting off wasn't really the point after all, just a perk and he wasn't terribly particular about when he got off so long as he did and it wasn't as if he could take care of it himself. He had sacrificed one hand to keep a token, a reminder, a piece of her with him, and the other….

Well.

Repetitive motion had become a challenge, one that was rarely worth the cost. His body was breaking down a piece at a time, after all. More and more quickly it seemed with each passing day.

No surprises there.

Some days were good.

Some were bad.

Just like his luck.

Of course, such hobbies had become impossible after Towa City. He had simply been too busy. Places to be and things to do and sculpting that miserable, wretched little girl… grooming her to be all he had promised was so time consuming.

Exhausting too since he'd had to stop sleeping altogether after the first time she tried to kill him in a fit of despair. A ridiculous affectation, but if his luck were bad it was one that would end him just the same. He didn't mind the idea of dying. Not really. Never had. But it would be too hopeless to die before he had even gotten to the level of a cheap cardboard cutout imitation. That wouldn't be the sort of thing that could really cause despair in any truly meaningful way. No great beautiful hope would come from that kind of thing.

It was just as well. He'd never slept all that well anyway, his muscles ached all the time and his dreams had long ago become mostly nightmares.

His head hurt.

Sometimes it seemed like he wasn't himself at all.

Like there was a world outside this one, a miserable world where he'd been something else entirely and there had been no Hinata. Where despair had become the only joke he was capable of laughing at.

There was a song that lingered in his head. A song he'd known a long time ago and he found himself humming it as he stumbled through the dark. His legs were stiff, brittle, like matchsticks.

He was probably off-key.

Music was not his talent.

Everything ached.

His skin felt stretched thin, his muscles ached. Even his bones were sore as a rotting tooth, anguish pulsing through them every few steps.

Why was he still alive?

Shouldn't he be dead by now?

Wasn't he? It seemed like… like there was something….

Did he want to be? He wasn't sure. The pain was constant, but he… there was something he wanted to see, wasn't there?

Something….

That taste was the strangest thing.

He licked his lips. They were… rough, chapped and they tasted… tasted…

He had looked down at him. At that beautiful, dark-haired boy, who seemed not to care that he himself was soaked to the skin, his clothes clinging and dripping as he ignored his own situation in favor of pressing a towel gently, thoroughly against Nagito's damp, bare skin.

His name was Hinata.

He knelt before him, sliding that towel down his legs, his hair a disheveled mess of points and spikes. Hinata was… quiet, contemplative, as he worked, but sometimes he would linger, absently, over some scar or other, trace it with his fingertips as if he were wondering where it came from or memorizing the placement, the feel. He didn't like when people looked at him like that, lingered. But it was… okay when it was Hinata. He didn't mind the way Hinata looked at him, the way Hinata touched him like he was something of value, something precious.

And he hated it too, hated him, because he made him want things, impossible things.

Terrible things.

Hopeless things.

It made him wish he hadn't….

That he was…

That's right.

Hinata Hajime.

Kamukura Izuru.

He'd met him on a ship at sea. His hair was long and dark, his eyes burning like hot coals in the shadows of their tiny cabin. His suit was neat, impeccable, clean and dark.

It made him feel small and dirty and terribly underdressed.

No, that wasn't… that wasn't right.

He was Hinata Hajime.

He'd met him on a beach. He'd been sleeping.

They'd been together on an island with many others, but the others had never mattered quite as much to him.

He'd met him again in the dark.

In a quiet cottage lousy with tacky figurines.

On a bridge.

In the rain, again and again.

They'd been together just now in a diner, in a dimly lit hall and he'd…

He'd...

Oh.

That's where that taste came from.

What a strange thing to forget.

Hinata had disappeared down the diner hallway.

That was why he'd gone after him in the first place, wasn't it?

He'd been sitting on that table watching in silence as Hinata disappeared down the hall and it had felt like he couldn't breathe, like Hinata had stolen all the oxygen from the room and taken it with him. That he would end up lying on the floor gaping like a fish, drowning in the air because he couldn't process it properly, because it wasn't the sort he needed.

Here lies Komaeda Nagito. He died as he lived: worthless and alone.

He'd felt really strange, completely out of sorts, since the beach house. Since Hinata had leaned in close to him and said all those words. Those beautiful, terrible words had made him feel like he was falling, that had slid inside him like a knife slipped between his ribs. If felt as if they'd been at work on him ever since, changing him, prying him open an inch at a time, making things worse and better all at once.

Special.

Special, he'd said. He was… special to him.

It shouldn't have mattered.

Nothing he said should have mattered. He wasn't real, he wasn't anything at all and he shouldn't want him or his company. It should have been a simple matter to say that after the beach, after the bridge, but ever since they'd fallen together he'd felt as if he were spiraling further out of control. As if with every moment he spent kissing him, speaking with him, touching him, being touched by him he was taking another step closer to the edge of an abyss from which he'd never escape. It should have been nothing to tell him he didn't want him, to tell him to go away, to tell him to leave, to just leave him alone.

But he hadn't been able to force those words past his lips.

Instead he'd said yes to him and they had left the beach house together and it had felt like surrender.

Everything since had been so surreal: the dinner, the lights, the music, the way Hinata kept trying to… protect him, even from himself. He… it made him feel so odd, light and soft and fragile, in a way he hadn't been in years and he hated it, but he didn't… he wasn't ready to lose that feeling just yet.

He'd practically flung himself from the table in his hurry to scramble after him when he'd vanished from sight, the taste of panic thick and cloying in his mouth. He'd heard the crunch of glass under foot, more brittle then it should have been, felt the pain in his feet and he hadn't cared about that. He just needed to stop him before he….

He had half-expected to turn into that hall and find it empty, find that Hinata had stopped existing the moment he was out of sight, but… no. He'd been there, just standing there, staring down the hall as if puzzled, frozen or broken.

He was beautiful.

Whatever else he was, he was that.

He had scratches on his back, scabby little lines over his shoulders and across his shoulder blades, over his spine. He wondered vaguely if he was the one who'd put them there, he thought so, hoped so. It appealed to him, the idea of leaving traces of permanence on a body he knew was transient. He wanted to lick those scratches, worry at them till they bled again and again until he was certain they would leave scars behind.

He slipped up behind him and spoke softly, giggling at his reaction, at the way he jumped and spun and freaked out, sending his flashlight skittering down the hall with a startled yelp. "Ah, Hinata, did I scare you?"

"You know damn well you did."

And he had and it had been… relief and joy had gone to war with hate in his chest looking at Hinata's face, flush with embarrassment in the dark, his flashlight lost and broken, his feet still bleeding.

He looked so painfully ordinary.

Not like a delusion at all, not perfect at all, just an ordinary, normal, boring, talentless boy who was a little afraid of the dark.

It was cruel.

This Hinata was cruel for looking so… real.

He'd been glad when he'd seen him, relieved that he was still there. His imperfect, beautiful, ordinary, boring nobody, but… he knew it wouldn't last. That at any moment, between one breath and the next, Hinata could just poof out of existence and he would be left alone again here in the dark.

It was like a curse.

His luck always gave him the things he thought he needed, but in the end… it always stole the things he wanted.

Or maybe it was the other way around.

It was something like that, probably.

Maybe.

He couldn't quite remember, but the point was…

The point…

Nuts.

He stumbled, tripping over some unseen obstacle or his own feet and fell. He hit hard, moaned at the impact, the feel of cold tile burning his palm as he caught himself. He reared back immediately, but the burn followed him, fire ignited beneath his skin, smoldering and he clutched his seared hand to his chest with a sob.

Why…?

Hm. This hurts?

The doctor prodded his cheek, with a gentle finger and he flinched away from the touch.

It's another symptom of your condition I'm afraid. Your skin may become increasingly sensitive as the disease progresses.

No, no, no. It wasn't that bad. It hadn't ever been that bad… had it?

Had it?

Why did everything smell like burning peanuts? Plastic?

He didn't…

What?

No. I don't want to think about that. Don't think about that.

Look away.

What had he been…

Lucky.

Right, that's what…

He was lucky.

So lucky.

He struggled back to his feet again, swaying drunkenly as the fire in his hand banked and eased.

He just… had to be careful.

Careful.

His bare feet ached, but they didn't burn.

He'd been lucky to have Hinata there with him. He was a distraction from the monotony of that empty world. When he was with him it was easy to forget that he wasn't real. He was just so…

Revoltingly Hinata.

Was it strange that he should be able to remember him so vividly in some ways and in other ways, smaller ways… he seemed every inch the stranger, the bad copy. He supposed it made sense that he should like this version, his version, better than the original. That his sick, demented, hateful mind had been the one who made Hinata this way, that he'd made him, but he wouldn't let himself keep him.

Those were the only constants, the only certainties of this place, that he could never truly die, never really rest and that when he despaired, when he was at his most desperate, Hinata would come and offer him hope and then he would leave him and cause the cycle to begin anew.

Well.

He'd leave him or become that other one.

Either way it was still leaving.

He despised him.

His strange words and the way he touched him and his unwanted concern and the way their fingers had fit together like interlocking pieces of a complicated puzzle neither could solve alone.

He'd been fine before, mostly fine, pretty much mostly fine; he'd had despair and he'd had hope and someone to love and despise and that had been enough. Enough to see him through until his luck finally ran out, if it ever did.

What?

No, that wasn't… what?

Despair?

Why did that…?

Hope, yes, but despair? He'd been… he'd been in Ultimate Despair, hadn't he? He was… he was… he was…

He felt sick.

It didn't matter.

Loneliness wasn't so bad when you didn't know what you were missing.

He should have never woken him up on that beach.

He should have steered clear of him because Hinata… Hinata had been his doom from the very beginning. And, even now, even when he was only imaginary he would be the death of him one way or another. If it had just been death he could have been fine with that. He wasn't afraid of dying, not really. He even kind of liked the idea of Hinata being the one to kill him. But this… this wasn't that. Instead of killing him he had made him want him, however unintentionally, and that had been cruel, because this Hinata had been right: he didn't really find him boring, he never really had. He was confusing and gentle and terrible and weird and awkward and… he hated it.

Hated him.

But he wasn't ever bored when he was with him.

Still, he wasn't real and when he left this time… he was pretty sure he'd break, shatter into pieces, and he would never be able to find them all again. And there was no doubt that he would leave, it was only a matter of when.

"I did, didn't I? That's funny. It's so very dark back here. Like another world, if it were totally dark it would be like we didn't exist at all. No you, no me, just the black."

And that would have been better.

If he didn't exist- if they didn't exist- then he couldn't leave.

But if they couldn't cease to exist, than maybe it was better to just get it over with. Stop delaying the inevitable. Better that it happen sooner than later. If he was going to destroy himself, didn't it make more sense that he should choose the time and place and manner of the demise of the last shreds of what passed for his sanity?

So, he pressed him against the wall, dropped to his knees, because this, this was why he was still here, wasn't it? Why else? He'd vanished when he'd come last time, hadn't he?

"Hey, what are you…?"

It wasn't lost on him that he was unfastening his own belt, peeling open his own pants to find Hinata's cock. It made him faster, more sure than he would have been otherwise. It didn't… it didn't really look much like his own except that they were both cocks. It was darker, a little wider maybe, the head more pronounced… maybe. He wasn't sure. He didn't like to look at himself, he never really had. Too pale, too skinny, too sickly, scraggly hair, his eyes sunken and shadowed and shaded by too many late nights and early mornings.

No, Hinata was different. Different, but… good different, maybe, kind of pretty like the rest of him. It wasn't a bad way to go, all things considered.

"You're so slow, Hinata," he breathed, licking his lips, suddenly nervous, giant moths gnawing away at the butterflies in his stomach. He needed to do this, wanted to too, a little bit even though it felt like courting disaster, but mostly… mostly he just wanted him to go.

He just wanted it to be done.

He was tired of waiting for the other shoe to fall on his worthless head.

He took a deep breath and opened his mouth wide as he slid his lips over Hinata's cock and the sound was obscene. It was really kind of embarrassing and he thought there was too much spit or something because he didn't remember it sounding or feeling so sloppy and wet when Hinata had done the same to him.

But Hinata made a strange choking sound, like someone had punched him and there was a heavy thunk above him before fingers caught in his hair, pulling tight, reeling him in so that his nose brushed against springy dark hair. It tickled a little and he found himself smiling in spite of himself. He must have done something right. Probably.

Then Hinata's fingers had loosened a little, freeing him to move and he slid back before pushing up that length again. Hinata smelled good, really good, warm and sweaty and maybe a little bit like rainwater and burnt bread, which was strange, but still kind of nice. It had probably been some lingering scent from the diner. It had still been a little embarrassing, but with Hinata's fingers twisting in his hair and the soft little noises he was trying not to make, he hadn't felt nearly as silly as he had at first.

He had definitely liked the way Hinata's fingers felt in his hair, just tight enough to hurt, shiny little pinpricks of pain that made him want to suck harder, to force himself to take him deeper even though he just kind of choked and gagged when he did.

Suddenly Hinata's annoyance with him about what they'd done in the cottage made a lot more sense. It would probably hurt or at least be really uncomfortable if Hinata just shoved inside like he'd done with him. Though he might enjoy something like that, he could understand why Hinata wouldn't.

He looked up at him and almost choked again.

Hinata's eyes had been closed and his head had fallen forward, chin resting against his chest, expression strained and teeth white where they bit down on his bottom lip. He looked so….

He'd squeezed his own eyes shut, trying to concentrate on what he was doing, but his pants were uncomfortably tight and he had squirmed a little, whimpering. He hadn't dare reach down to ease the ache, because if he did he probably wouldn't stop until he was done and so he… he just wouldn't touch it.

He wouldn't.

It wasn't like he needed to or anything.

He didn't.

This wasn't about him… well, it was, but it wasn't.

Either way, he wasn't interested in getting off again so soon after the beach. If he thought about it, really thought about it, he was pretty sure that he'd maybe still be able to feel Hinata's hand on him and he didn't want to lose that just yet. It didn't even really matter if it had been real or not, it felt like it had been Hinata, his lying brain wanted him to believe it had been after all, so that was enough… that would have to be enough.

So, he had ignored it, ignored the desire to ease that tension pounding away in the back of his brain, and had just kept working on getting Hinata off.

Which he had apparently been really bad at because it had taken forever.

He had probably been terrible at giving head; he was terrible at a lot of things after all. Totally worthless, useless, awful and he really hadn't had the first idea about what he had been doing. He'd just wanted to taste him which was probably a terrible reason to attempt your first blowjob on your first imaginary sex partner.

He was so fucked up.

But he probably should have done it with his hand instead. It would have been faster and at least he would kind of, sort of have had experience with that, even if that had only ever been with his own….

He hadn't wanted to touch it, but she had smiled and closed the door and told him…

It felt weird.

Gross.

Dirty.

What?

No, that hadn't….

Nothing like that had ever happened, had it?

He… probably just saw it on television. Probably. Maybe.

He'd watched a lot of television in the hospital.

It didn't matter.

How different could it be, really? Jerking off was jerking off whether he was doing it to himself or someone else, probably. He could have switched it up. Hinata probably wouldn't have cared.

The blowjob thing had been a stupid idea really.

He wasn't sure if he'd even been doing it right, if it had actually felt good or if it was awful and Hinata had just suffered through his incompetence. It had mostly just seemed… kind of awkward, but he supposed he must have been doing something right since he couldn't quite manage the entire length in his mouth after a while without gagging and he thought Hinata was making the right sounds.

He'd seen enough porn that he knew he was getting the position right at least. He'd found a whole box of the stuff under his parents' bed after…

He'd shoved it back under the bed where he'd found and left it alone. It had made him feel weird to know it was there, but he hadn't been the house for too long after that. There'd been the kidnapping and then the hospital and when he'd gotten out he'd been sixteen and he'd gone back there one last time. In retrospect, he wasn't certain why he'd even bothered, why he hadn't had the house sold years before.

There had been nothing there he wanted.

The box had been covered and sticky with dust when he'd remembered it and pulled it back out when he'd been discharged from the hospital the last time years later. He'd sat on the expensive rug in his parents' room late into the night, watching those old, faded films on the video player. Watched men and women dressed in stupid outfits, saying ridiculous things to each other before- and sometimes while- they got each other off. He'd jerked off again and again and marveled at how he felt nothing at all. Not amused, not happy, not sad or even mad. He'd just felt sort of… empty. He'd come again and again as the night wore on, but there was only sort of a strange feeling of tired satisfaction each time as if he'd completed a chore or a task that needed doing rather than an act that was supposed to bring pleasure.

The people on the screen of his parents' clunky old television had looked as though they were having a much better time. Even the ones who were only helping themselves looked they were enjoying it at least. He hadn't really gotten it. He thought maybe he remembered having found that sort pleasure when he was younger, when he used to wake up in his hospital bed, damp and ashamed and he'd used a towel to clean up with frantic, panicked motions. Afraid that one of the nurses would come in and know he'd been having dirty thoughts, dirty dreams. That he was…

Dirty. Filthy. Unclean.

He'd touched himself a few times while he was in the hospital, late at night or in the shower when he was alone, but the good feelings hadn't ever lasted very long and the clean up had always made him feel like he'd done something wrong. He'd seen the disgusted look one of the nurses had thrown him one time when she'd come in on him late at night to check on him and caught him in the act.

He cried for a long time after she left.

Or at least he thought he had.

He hadn't done it again.

Not for a long time.

Not until he'd started to go wrong, to spoil like milk left out of the fridge for too long. Until he started not to care so much about things, people. When feelings had begun to stop mattering whether they were his or those of others. The world had seemed to become so much… simpler. Duller too. He'd known there was something wrong with him, beyond the illness that was in remission, but he hadn't told anyone. He'd believed in his own luck.

That was all he believed in.

He'd been lucky that nothing had come up on his scans. They probably would have made him stay. There would have been more tests to run, more needles to prick his skin, more of those pills that made him feel sick and numb or nervous. Pills that made everything taste like chalk or made him not want to even look at food, food they'd make him eat anyway whether he wanted it or not.

He didn't want any of that, didn't need it.

So, his luck kept his scans clear, his disease in remission. Of course, his luck had also made him… worse. He ached, he always ached, and he couldn't usually eat much and the emotions… those came and went on strange tides.

Bad luck and good.

Good luck and bad.

He could have told his therapists or his doctors about it. About how wrong he felt sometimes, but he was so tired of being in the hospital. It was boring there and the nurses all hated him though he didn't blame them. He was just an awful patient. He hadn't meant to be, not really, but sometimes he couldn't remember why he wasn't supposed to say the things he was thinking or do the things he wanted to do. He hated the smell and the food and the sheets that felt too rough on his skin. He could handle things on his own. And the things he couldn't he had enough money to throw at them until they stopped bothering him and that was good enough.

So what if there was no one around to care if he cared about things, if he felt okay, if he threw up for two days straight or if everything ached or if sometimes he only wanted to drink coffee and if sometimes he just needed… things. He hadn't needed someone like that. Someone to care. All he had needed was his luck and the belief- the hope- that things were going to be better at Hope's Peak.

He'd been really lucky to be accepted and he wanted to cling to that hope that there would be a better life to be found there. That everything would be different, that he would be different there. That he'd be able to….

He'd fallen asleep leaning against the foot of their bed with one of those tapes still playing in the background, the slap of skin against skin and sleazy, loud moans following him into his dreams. The next morning he'd woken up sticky and sore and sick. Everything was gross and he'd vomited at some point during the night so the room smelled rank and awful. He hadn't eaten anything in a few days so he probably could have cleaned it up, but what was the point? It wasn't as if he ever intended to come back there again.

He hated that house.

He tossed the videos in the burn pile out back along with the expensive rug he'd ruined. It had been exhausting hauling it down to the window and throwing it outside, hauling it across the yard, but he wanted it gone. He'd made a pretty good start on the pile the day before with the stiff, lame family portraits and all those old clothes that still smelled like his them. By the time he was done pulling and hauling and screaming and tossing things at the pile it was almost taller than he was. The challenge in the end had been keeping it burning, since a lot of the things in the pile weren't all that flammable, but he'd eventually discovered that just about anything would burn if you took the time to drench it with enough gasoline.

The stench of burning plastic hadn't made him feel any less sick and it had lingered in the air for days, but at least it had all been gone melted into a pile toxic black junk. It had all been gone and there was something satisfying in that.

But since he'd watched all those videos before he'd burned them, he was pretty confident that he at least knew how a blowjob was supposed to look and he knew he'd done a passable imitation of that. He hadn't using his hand around the base, but he thought that part probably wasn't very important. Wasn't the point of a blowjob to be in someone's mouth, after all? Of course, he was pretty sure he was messing up the suction thing, because ever time he tried that, he couldn't really move his head very well and so maybe the sucking part was a kind of misnomer or something. Mostly it just felt weird and he hadn't really been able to tell if Hinata had been enjoying it or if maybe he had just been taking pity on him or if maybe any warm, wet place would do in the end and it didn't much matter what it was or who was doing it.

He almost wished Hinata would just shove into him like he'd done to him, if he'd just shoved in and been done with it he wouldn't have had to worry about it, but he hadn't.

Of course, he hadn't.

Hinata was too good for that, too kind. Sometimes he really, really, really hated him. But he liked the way he tasted too when he started leaking a little, the little noises he made, like he was too excited to breathe properly.

He dragged his mouth along the length of him, choking a little when he went too deep, trying to remember and imitate the way Hinata's tongue had flickered against him. He'd liked that a lot. And he just… he just kind of liked the way he felt on his tongue, kind of smooth and a little rough maybe here and there. He'd wanted to commit every bump and ridge to memory, but he knew it was probably useless and, really, he was trying to get him off, not dry a mental map of his cock. Still, he'd swept his tongue around the head, feeling out every vein and fold as he went, unable to resist the urge. It was messy, really messy and he knew he had to look kind of weird and grotesque, but the darkness of the hallway and Hinata's whimpers had kept him going when he wanted to pull back, to ask, to be sure that he was doing it right, to make sure that he didn't look stupid, to find out if Hinata still wanted him at all when he was obviously the absolute worst. To maybe wipe the drool off his chin, because he knew that really wasn't sexy at all.

It seemed like he had been at it for a really long time and his tongue and jaw had ached fiercely. He hadn't wanted to stop, not really. Of course, sometimes he hadn't particularly wished to continue either. Especially when those softer emotions would slip away, dirty bathwater spiraling away down a filthy drain, and he would be left wondering why he was bothering with this, but then he'd remember that it was at least partly in the service of getting rid of Hinata sooner rather than later and he'd continue.

And sometimes, most times, Hinata's fingers were gentle in his hair, but sometimes….

Sometimes they hurt and there were words, like static, that made his stomach flop and seize, his cock pulse and twitch and leak. It was so like the cruel words and harsh grip from the bridge and in those moments, brief and fleeting as they had been, it was like a shadow had passed in front of the sun, and he'd felt like maybe he had been someone else too.

Someone who knew what he was doing. Someone who turned awkward enthusiasm into artful intention, who drew back and raised his gaze and offered sly, cutting remarks that he could feel, but he couldn't quite hear.

It felt like he had been dreaming a stranger's dreams as he imagined himself as older, wiser, too far gone to care.

He'd felt himself smile and laugh, amused by everything and nothing as he went back to work, scrapped his teeth, harsh and just skirting the line between pleasure and pain, over the length of the flesh in his mouth.

He dreamed he was someone in love with the despair Hinata's-

Kamukura's- words caused because of what hope might blossom from them. And in that dream his left hand had felt strangely numb.

And then those moments would pass, the sun would emerge, and they were themselves again and he would wonder if maybe he'd just imagined it as he had imagined so many other things.

Delusions within delusions.

And if he wasn't….

Hinata had made a soft needy, frustrated whine, greedy fingers curling and clutching in his hair, canting his hips, and it felt like he was begging and it brought him back to himself. It made him moan around him, emotion flooding back in like a tide as he squeezed his eyes shut tight and slid his hands back, digging his fingernails into Hinata's hips, eager to leave marks on this boy he hated and adored.

It had been easy enough after that to lose himself again, this time to the rhythm, pressing forward and easing back, imitating the subtle suction he'd managed in that fractured dream of moments before. Soft sounds echoed around him, his own and Hinata's, desire and need pulsing through him like a heartbeat. Soon enough Hinata was talking to him, warning him and he hadn't cared or he had cared too much, maybe. He pulled back and thrust forward, teeth scrapping lightly across the shaft in his eagerness and he moaned as Hinata's fingers pulled at his hair his voice frantic. And he'd felt as frantic, panicked as Hinata sounded because, in the end, he hadn't wanted to let him go.

He wanted him to stay.

He had wanted to beg, to delay, to bargain, to plead and since he couldn't do any of those things, he had at least wanted to taste him, feel him inside him all the way to the end. He heard his name, sudden and panicked as liquid, salty and bitter, flooded his mouth and Hinata was suddenly inside him and all around, holding him so tightly, arms locked around his head.

He couldn't breathe again, but it was glorious instead of terrifying and he could feel his own hips jerking and twitching, desperate for a friction he couldn't supply even if he wanted to. His hands had been locked to Hinata's hips, intent on staying like that for as long as he was allowed, even if it was only a single moment longer; unable to breathe, wrapped up in Hinata's grip. He didn't come, in the end, but it was good, better, that way. He didn't want to. He wanted the desire to linger the way the taste in his mouth would linger, like the feel of Hinata clinging to him so desperately would linger. He had swallowed hard, proud of himself for not choking or leaking or anything like that.

He felt so good when he was with him that sometimes that he wanted to forget. Forget everything and just lose himself in it, just keep on living in those brief perfect moments forever even though he knew they would never last, that neither his mind nor his luck were so generous, that there was always a price to be paid.

He'd expected Hinata to leave, to disappear then or in the moments that followed. That was why he had done that, not that he hadn't enjoyed it; he had, very much, too much, but pleasure hadn't been the point. The point had been that Hinata would leave on his terms and maybe he would be ready and maybe it wouldn't hurt so much, but….

Hinata hadn't left.

Instead, he had stayed, held him to him in those moments and just after, hands in his hair, arms curled around his head as if he were… important, treasured, needed, wanted. Then he'd sprawled out beside him, on him, with him and it had been… perfect. Intimate. He'd felt warm and safe and almost something like happy, pressing his fingers against Hinata's cheeks, seeing the smile that curled his lips that echoed the one on his own.

How he hated him for that.

It should have made him angry, but it didn't, not really. He was growing accustomed to the idea. The utter lack of control he had over anything, anything in this horrible place. He felt like a wet towel being wrung out, twisted up into a weapon. His skin was too hot, too tight, he ached both inside and out and he could almost convince himself that he liked it. Liked feeling this way.

He thought about jerking off there, lying on the floor with Hinata. Might as well. It was foolish and sentimental and asking for trouble trying to hold on to a memory, a souvenir, of something that wasn't real, wasn't anything, that didn't matter to him at all.

The tide was well and truly back out again and he wondered idly what Hinata would do, how he would react or whether he would truly care at all.

Would he be disgusted? Just blush and flush and shove him away, leave him to find pleasure all alone in this dark and lonely hall?

Would he like watching him get off? Would he watch him with avid, greedy eyes, lick his lips? Would he hate it? Tell him to quit.

Would he help? Put a hand over his own, fingers threading together as they pulled him over the edge or maybe he'd just lean over and kiss him instead, soft and biting?

Take over and pull him through himself? Push his hand aside and replace it with his own hand, his own mouth, press him down against the tiles and stare into his face as he twisted and writhed beneath him?

Would he tell him to stop? Would he mean it, if he did? Or would the protests be token and insincere?

Would he tell him how to do it? Guide him through with roughly spoken commands? Would he become like that Hinata on the bridge again, lewd and cruel and terrible and endlessly compelling?

He could almost hear his voice, the haughty scorn of it: "You like this, don't you? Getting off on a filthy floor? That's perfect for worthless trash such as yourself."

That had at least been a Hinata he could stand to lose. That was a presence he wouldn't miss after, a presence he almost wanted now, because there was something soothing to be found in the simplicity of cruelty. To have a Hinata who wouldn't stroke his hair or kiss him so sweetly or smile at him or seem to care so much, too much. One who would just whisper hate and contempt to him as he sought pleasure in spite of them, because of them, as he let those words stir something dark and familiar inside him, something screaming and tattered and broken that wanted out, out, out.

He thought he could feel it there, even now, that strange phantom presence, that darkness, jittering like a muscle spasm in his chest, stroking things, intimate and hidden, lighting him up from the inside. He was hot and cold, soft and hard. He wanted relief, to forget again, to just allow those delusions to swallow him down. Cruel words or kind hands, it didn't really matter which. Either would do. Both. It didn't matter.

The tide had been broken, crooked and warped and strange, slipping in and out for minutes, seconds at a time. He felt everything and nothing and his memories were like broken glass strewn across the floor of his soul and the music had made it worse.

Infinitely worse.

Was this why Hinata had brought him to this place?

Had he brought him for the songs? Had he known that they would make it all worse? Make those memories rattle free of the moorings and rise within him? Worse, so much worse, because they were his songs, beautiful songs that he loved, loved so much, but they… he hated them too.

And that last song… that had been the worst of them all.

He'd been able to ignore it initially, because he'd been touching Hinata's skin and sitting with him, warm and close and carelessly sprawled together, Hinata's blood, their blood maybe, had been wet and dark, smeared across the floor and the taste and feel of him still so fresh and new in his mouth. It has been easy enough to ignore the way the music made him feel, to not acknowledge how antsy it had made him. The way his body had begun to twitch with the need to move, to pace, itchy and unsettled. The memory of that day that had been summoned by that song, that was like a ghost teasing fingers through his hair until Hinata asked him about it, brought it to his attention, forced him to hear it, because of course he did. Of course, he couldn't just leave it alone.

Hinata was his heaven, but he was his hell too, in so many ways.

It was like his luck, both good and bad.

He remembered the wind in his hair and the music in his ears, those tiny, expensive little ear buds that had been shoved in his ears to keep him quiet, to keep him calm, to stop him from being such a whining, ungrateful little brat. The player was small, grey and sleek, and he could tuck in his pocket or hold it in his hand and it had been playing that song when it started.

When the meteor hit and then it was a sound he could just barely hear at all over the rush of air and the roar of the engines and the screaming… it seemed like there had been a lot of screaming. He should have been reaching for his special mask, like they'd told him to in case of emergency, but that part of the plane had ripped away, peeled back like a cheap tin lid and there was nothing to reach for, nothing to hold on to but the seat in which he was strapped and the little grey player in his hand. His mind was flooded with the song he couldn't hear because he'd heard it so many times before and then there was the crash and everything was black. He assumed later that he'd been knocked unconscious by the impact, because the next thing he'd been aware of was waking up, bruised, but alive and still strapped into his seat and that music had been so loud, so very loud in his ears.

'Love is the power, oh yeah, it will be today, yes, and it will be here tomorrow…'

It must have been on repeat, must have gotten stuck that way during the crash or he'd hit a button by accident when he'd squeezed it, because the song should have been long over, but it wasn't. He remembered in a vague sort of way clawing those earbuds from his ears; that they had been cast away by his frantic fingers and fallen to the rock and churned earth in which his section of the plane had landed. He also remembered immediately wishing that he hadn't.

He could still hear it, the music, a soft, tinny sound, but he could never be sure how much of that was just his brain playing tricks, filling in information he thought should be there. Still, it had seemed as if he could still hear it clearly enough in the background beneath the crackle of fire and the pitiful moaning, whining, incoherent cries of the dead and dying. The air had been hot, scorched by the fires that were raging all around, heavy with smoke and the smell of charred meat and burning fuel. He coughed, hacking, and mewling pitifully as he struggled, yanking at his seatbeat weakly with bloody fingers, panic beating steadily in his chest as he realized it was stuck, that he was stuck. His mother had cinched it so tightly across his lap, saying he would squirm free if she didn't and she couldn't have him embarrassing them. He'd been bad enough on the flight out, he would behave this time, he would be good until they got home or there would be consequences. He was meant to stay there, stay just there and not move until they arrived at their destination. He was lucky they had brought him along at all, luckier still that they didn't just leave him on the island with the hired help and send someone to come back and get him later.

He'd tried to explain. To explain that he was afraid, that the airplane made him nervous, really nervous because nothing had happened on the flight out so it only made sense that something twice as bad would happen on the way back. He'd begged to be left behind. He was afraid. His mother had only told him to behave and then she'd been gone and he'd been alone.

Only he'd been crying, because he was still afraid. He was afraid and the lady in the uniform (flight attendant, he knew now) had fetched his parents back to coach from first class because she'd been worried.

He'd looked sick, she said.

She'd stood aside, concerned and regretfully, as his parents argued in the aisle about what to do about him. Whether they should pay the difference for an extra seat in first class so they could keep an eye on him and then… then there was the hijacker interrupting them, interrupting everything. He was shouting and waving a gun and his parents looked like they wanted to be anywhere else, but they weren't permitted to move. And he'd been sitting in his seat, legs pulled to his chest, fingers tight against his knees and he was trying, he was trying to stop crying like his father asked, to smile like he wanted, to not whine, but he was scared of being so high, he was scared of the man with the gun, he was…

And just like that they were just…

Just gone.

One minute there and the next… a flash of warmth and they were gone along with the flight attendant and a chunk of the seat beside him and the wind was in his hair, whipping it around his face in a frenzy. It was darker then than it was now, he thought pointlessly, his hair had been strawberry blonde then, the same color as his mother's.

He wasn't sure how he'd forgotten.

Wasn't sure why it mattered or if it even did really.

It hadn't been like that for a long time.

He'd been lucky.

It had been such extraordinary good luck that he hadn't been killed immediately like they were or in the crash after.

He had been incredibly unlucky.

Because his parents had and he was…

He had extraordinary bad luck and then extraordinary good luck. That was how it worked, wasn't it? It balanced.

It must balance. Everything had to balance. His luck was never quite an even exchange. The good luck always outweighed the bad because otherwise it would never be worth it. So his life had been worth more than the lives of his parents, of all those other passengers and crew people. That was proper though, wasn't it? They were just… ordinary, boring parents and people and he… he was special.

Lucky.

He'd pried and yanked at the seatbelt, wriggling as the warmth of the fire leapt from seat to seat, the sickening chemical smell of burning upholstery filling his nostrils in place of the charred meat smell and it was both better and worse. He pulled and pried at the metal and the rough stitched cloth of the belt with his fingers only vaguely aware that he was weeping, wailing as he struggled frantically to free himself. He could hear the crackle and smell the stench of his own hair singeing as he finally struggled free, having managed to loosen the belt just enough to squirm from the seat. He scrapped his bare skinny bruised and bleeding legs painfully as he fell forward and out, tripping and smashing face first into the dirt. It hurt. Everything hurt and he coughed and spat dirt and blood as he crawled away down the aisle, or what was left of it, and away. One leg was almost useless, bright, sheering pain shooting through it every time he tried to use it to help push himself along. He managed to drag his aching body out and away from the plane to collapse in a heap nearby. He knew he was still too close, that he should keep going, but he was too tired.

The silence erupted in an explosion of fire and light and a stinging, ringing sound and he clapped his palms over his ears, sobbing into his bent knees as he felt something hot and horrible scrap across his back as he was peppered with sharp pains and that terrible roaring, ringing sound continued and it seemed like the whole world was igniting around him.

The air was hot, burning white hot and terrible around him.

And then it wasn't.

Then he was cold and his knees ached from kneeling on the tile floor, as if he'd been there for hours, days even, and his ears were still ringing and he was alone in the dark.

He'd been with Hinata, hadn't he?

They'd been… had there been a diner?

He'd been afraid and he… he wasn't… wasn't sure how he'd gotten here.

Or where here was, only that it was dark.

Very, very dark.

"Hinata?" He whispered, his voice soft and broken, little better than the whimper of the child he'd been calling for someone, anyone. Only… not just anyone would do, not anymore.

Pathetic.

And, of course, no one answered.

No one was there, not Hinata, not anyone.

No one had answered then either.

There was no one to answer him, there never had been, and even when there had been, they never had, he'd always been alone. He laughed, soft and self-deprecating, as he picked himself up off the floor and stumbled forward through the black of the hall. He swayed, off-balance and careened into a wall, laughing just that much harder, because it was funny. He was just the lowest, most vile creature to ever crawl the earth, wasn't he? Losing himself in his own delusions time and again and always so surprised when they turned out to be just his desperate desires given life and breath by a lifetime of practice.

There was no hope in such things, only despair.

How many times did he have to do this before he stopped clinging to that desperate hope? Wrapping it around him as he wrapped himself in this soiled, bloody shirt to guard against the harder truths. That great ill fated hope that he wasn't alone?

That he was… that he'd ever been wanted, needed, necessary?

By anyone?

Ever?

It was funny. Really funny and it made him laugh and laugh and laugh, the sound echoing around him down the empty corridors of the hospital, because of course it was a hospital.

He leaned more heavily against the wall, suddenly exhausted, letting his cheek press against the bulletin board, the smell of cork mixing with the disinfectant and decay smell of the hospital hall.

He despised places like this and he felt the most at home there as well. It was a dangerous conundrum. It didn't matter how he'd gotten here or how long he'd been here, did it? It could have been moments or years and it wouldn't have mattered.

Maybe he'd never really left at all.

Maybe he'd always been here.

Maybe Hope's Peak had only ever been in his head.

The island and the murders and all those special people and dying and… Hinata.

Maybe Hinata wasn't real, had never been real.

Or maybe he had been and he was still dead and this was just another delusion. Another facet of the hell he'd found himself in.

Maybe this was just the next phase of his bad luck.

Maybe he was being stupid.

It was just a hospital. Just a hospital so why…

Panic and bile rose in his throat and he moaned, dragging his fingers down the board, ripping rivets in the cork with his fingernails, knocking pushpins and papers this way and that.

Two realities went to war in his head.

He was still in the hospital and everything else had been….

He was dead and he'd reached a new level of Hell….

He laughed, hating and loving the way the sound rattled in his chest and echoed in the hall around him.

That salty taste on his tongue wasn't truly real and even if it was it was probably because he'd jerked off and licked the salty, sticky fluid from his own fingers.

Disgusting.

There was no Hinata at all.

Or there was no Hinata here.

Either way, he'd only ever been playing with himself.

And games were never much fun without someone to play them with, were they?

"How many times does that particularly idiotic hope have to be dashed across rocks or the floors or your stupid, worthless, pathetic head before you understand that there is no hope to be had in hell? That all that lingers here is despair?"

She whispered the last, fingers trailing down his back over his spine and he moaned, squeezing his eyes shut. To block out her darkness with more darkness, "You're not real. Go away. Go away. I don't want you here."

And he didn't. He didn't. If had to see things, he wanted to be him, not her. Never her.

Not anymore.

"You don't think he's real either, but you seem eager enough for his company," she replied, her voice even and measured.

She grabbed him, spun him and shoves him hard down the corridor. He hit the floor hard on his hands and knees with a startled yelp. Her heels were loud on tile, click clack, in the dark. She stopped behind him and he felt her weight settle against his back. Her breasts pressed against him, as she leaned forward to shove her fingers into either side of his mouth, digging her thumbs into his cheeks and pulling his lips back, a painful parody of ventriloquism: "Oh, Hinata, I wuv you sooooo much. You feel soooo good, I want you soooo bad!" He could here the sneer in her voice, her fingernails dug painfully against his cheeks.

"It's just pathetic the way you pant after him, but then you know that already, don't you?" Her voice was sly and the fingers of her left hand slid over his tongue before she jammed them sharp and sudden down his throat. He gagged as her nails scratched against the back of his throat, drawing back quickly as he vomited. The taste of bile filled his mouth and he coughed and heaved. It splattered against the floor as she laughed, as she drug her fingers down his sides, settling her hands against his hips. He flinched and whimpered, his fingers curling, scrapping against the tiles, but he didn't move to dislodge her.

Couldn't.

He wasn't sure why.

"Pretty fantasies, but you know he doesn't want you. Who would? Your very existence is reason enough to despair. No one loves you, no one cares, no one ever has and no one ever will. You know that, don't you? You know you're not worthy of affection, not even from that boring, ordinary boy. This is why you're all alone, Nagito. Why you're alone here, why you were alone before, why you'll always be alone. That's why no one every stays. It isn't your luck, you know, it's just you. You're filthy trash that just isn't unworthy of anyone's time, or love, or hate. Heck, you're hardly even worth sparing a thought for at all."

She laughed, so loud and echoing that it drowned out the frantic whine of his hysteria, but he still couldn't move. He could barely breath past the casual cruelty of her words. They shouldn't have bothered him, they shouldn't have. He'd had these thoughts a hundred times himself, a thousand, she wasn't telling him anything he didn't know, anything he hadn't whispered to himself at night with his knees tucked up against his chest, his world in shambles around him, alone in that big, big house. That he hadn't thought as he shivered in that trash bag after he'd been dumped, too weak and thirsty and depressed to even bother clawing his way out of the bag. What would have been the point?

"He lives in that big huge house and you're telling me there's no one willing to pay for him. Not even the servants. Not even a guardian?" The man who had kidnapped him had been incredulous, had even kicked the bag in his frustration, but he hadn't been surprised. He'd known all that.

He didn't even blame them. It only made sense. He was an annoyance, always underfoot and pestering them for things and too loud and nothing like his parents had been.

They'd even inherit a portion of the estate if he predeceased them and they'd never liked him very much in the first place. He'd known that. He wasn't very likable. They didn't hate him, didn't feel strongly enough or need the money badly enough to kill him. Though he thought that might change someday.

Sometimes, when he'd first began attending Hope's Peak, when he'd had a particularly poor day, he'd thought about docking or withholding their pay altogether to see if they'd do it. If they'd care enough to come after him, to set his dorm on fire or something, but in the end he never did.

But he'd thought about it often.

He wasn't as if he had blamed them. He'd thought about firing them after he'd come home, but they'd just gone on the way they'd always been as if nothing had happened at all. After the police had found him, while he was at the hospital for treatment, he'd found out that they'd notified the police that he was missing. A day after he'd disappeared, but it had been more than he'd expected. More than he'd deserved. He'd been forced to endure a battery of tests he hadn't asked for and then allowed to go.

After he collected his lottery winnings and added them to the bank account that was already full of far more money than he knew what to do with, he thought again about firing them. Telling them to go.

In the end, he hadn't bothered.

They took care of the house well enough. As long as they did their jobs, he didn't really care. He'd cared even less after the tests had come back and the doctor had informed him of the diagnosis and advised treatment.

He'd been eleven and he'd been scared of the surgery, scared of not waking up or the follow-up care and treatments that sounded awful. The long list of possible side effects and complications that sounded even worse. He'd seen all those bald-headed kids when he'd passed through the children's ward. He hoped he wouldn't be bald. He didn't hate his hair.

He'd seen their beds surrounded by dead-eyed stuffed animals and too many flowers. Their rooms often crowded with tired parents and worried relatives. He could imagine his own room: empty.

He'd gone to his appointments alone, packed his bags alone, taken a taxi to the hospital. He'd checked in alone. His lawyer had already signed all the paperwork for him days ago. He'd closed his eyes alone and woke back up aching and alone with pieces missing. He rubbed a finger of the stitches and the skin had been a little tender. He didn't even really know what a lymph node was. He doubted it was something he'd miss.

He'd been right about the empty room.

No one visited.

He had stayed in the hospital and begun chemotherapy. There was no point in leaving, in going back to that house; there was nothing for him there after all. The first few weeks were okay. He read a lot. He'd ordered dozens upon dozens of books so that his floor and tables were piled with them. They made the room feel less empty and they calmed him down and made it easier to forget that he was lonely. He liked the way the pages smelled. He often ordered books used when he could get them.

One of the nurses had asked him about one once. She'd just been trying to be… nice. Polite, maybe, but she had been the first person to ask him something about them and he'd… been a little over-excited. It had been a mystery and he'd gone on and on about the killer's methodology and how he'd admired the killer's commitment and patience and the remarkable restraint he'd shown in taking the time to observe the victim's every move for months before acting. Planning his murders down to the smallest detail and how astonishing it had been when able to slip into the heroine's life so seamlessly. He hadn't meant to freak her out. He'd just been… excited to have someone to talk to.

It was always like that. Things hadn't really changed when he'd gone to school. He'd wanted them to, he'd hoped they would, but they hadn't. Not until… Hinata.

He shuddered and blew out a breath, clutching Hinata's name to him like a talisman. It made him feel… better. Stronger, maybe. Even if none of it was real, even if nothing had changed. He had changed… at least a little.

She was still laughing, still half-sprawled across his back, and she sounded so much like that stupid bear. That… Monokuma.

I always hated that stupid bear.

"Get. Off," he rasped, his voice flat and unimpressed.

She ignored him.

He wasn't surprised.

"And here I was thinking all this time that you'd never even be able to get it up with that weak body of yours. All those aches and pains, all that medication, but that boy crooks his finger at you and you can't lose your pants fast enough," she slid a hand down and around to settle against him, cupping the bulge that lingered there. The sound that escaped him was embarrassingly loud.

Why was he so scared?

"Or maybe it isn't him. Maybe it's just you. You certainly did like getting off for the cameras on the island, didn't you? You're so embarrassing. I have no idea how you don't die of shame just living in your own skin. You could get off just like this, couldn't you?"

"No," he whispered, shivering beneath that touch. Her hand was so cold, even through layers of fabric. So unpleasant, just like her.

Who was she?

Why was she….

Why couldn't he just shake her off?

Why is he so afraid?

Why was he letting her… why was he letting her when he didn't want…?

"Don't touch me," he managed finally, but it sounded weak, more whine than protest. He sounded like a child and it just made her laugh again, that same horrible, irritating laugh. "Just go away and leave me alone."

Pupupupupu... he hated that sound. Hated it.

"Oh, Nagito, I've seen the way you let him touch you, you little freak. Sticking his fingers inside you? Licking your wounds? You're defective, maybe dying broke something or maybe you were always into that kind of thing. What do you think? Were you always that big a pervert? Was he? I especially liked when he jerked you off on the beach. Not so much when he was trying to choke you to death, though I suppose that was fun in its own way, but afterwards when you were both weeping like a couple of babies."

He doesn't want to think about that.

He doesn't want to, but the dark makes it impossible to think about anything else. He thinks, briefly, about bashing his head in against the tiles.

"You shouldn't try it," she whispered, voice soft and deadly. "I'll just have to patch you up and we'll need to start all over again. Y-You'll have to forgive me, I wouldn't wish you any unnecessary pain, but sometimes a painful cure is necessary to combat a deadly virus. Did you know?"

She sounded different that time.

Different somehow and he…

"You dove off the bridge with him and you woke up in the water," she whispered the words and the memory is flaring to life all around him, swallowing him back down into those moments.

Falling.

He's on the bridge, stepping over the edge with his arms around him. The memory of that moment is like a gaping, chattering wound filled with Hinata's- no, not Hinata's, Izuru's voice whispering in his ear. He had promised dark and secret things, things that he wanted and despised in equal measure and he bit his lip until it bled to keep from crying out or answering. How next time they met, he might not want to escape him, that Hinata's absence would have left such a terrible, ragged hole within him that he'd let anything, anyone, fill it up.

Even him.

Even her.

It had felt like a promise.

And a warning and he'd felt sick.

So sick.

He woke up on the beach, in the water, choking with the feel of Hinata's hands on him, holding him down, stroking him through, and it was hard to tell if it was ecstasy or agony. He was certain he'd died again and again, drowning beneath the waves and being reborn, that maybe he'd come again and again beneath that cruel parody's rough touch. A seemingly endless, inescapable cycle of pain and death and pleasure and he wasn't even sure if he wanted to escape as his body had renewed itself over and over again.

Sometimes he 'd been real and present and horrified and other times he'd been lost to sensation, his hips bucking up into that touch, seeking more, more, faster, rougher and all of it now. Wanted it to hurt enough to blot out the sun, to erase the feel of the cold, cold rain and the ocean waves. He screamed and choked and died and was born again, his body seeking what it needed, what it craved and for a long time there was only that. He merely floated through the pleasure and the pain over and over again, fresh and new each time, but familiar all the same and he's nothing like a person in those moments. Not really and that's fine. All he needed were those crazed drunken moments of screaming, sheering ecstasy.

Then that rough, sure touch vanished and his body was devastated, rendered in stark lines of agony at the sudden loss.

He crashed to earth, empty and wretched.

He was Komaeda Nagito, alone once more.

The world was put to rights and it feels as if he's teetering on the edge of an abyss and all that awaits him within is an eternity of despair and he could fall into it willing and never care.

And maybe he would have, but before he has a chance to consider it, there had been hands, gentle and firm, searing and too hot against his oversensitive skin, pulling him up and out of the water, urging him away from the ocean waves and onto the shore.

He stumbled forward, allowing himself to be guided, his numb fingers clutching desperately at his pants and belt to keep them from falling away and being lost to the ocean waves. It was habit rather than any desire for decency that made him cling to them, he'd never been decent and he'd been more than aware that his cock was, like the rest of his skin still too-sensitive, every step hurt as the cloth brushed against him, half-hard and poking awkwardly through the slit in his wet underwear. He didn't care about that. Not really. All he really cared about was the arm caught up tightly around his waist, the hands supporting him, keeping him from falling until they finally tumbled together onto damp, hard-packed sand.

His Hinata.

It had to be, because who else would bother to save him from himself, from his own desires, but this perfect fraud? A hand whacked down sharply against his back as he'd hacked and coughed and vomited cold, briny, nasty water across the sand. There were apologies and confusion and questions asked in Hinata's soft entreating, panicked voice and he didn't have any answers to offer. He didn't really even hear have of the things he said. Most of it sounded like gibberish, everything was too strange, too loud, too…

"Are… you okay?" He'd asked.

Okay? Really?

Really, Hinata?

Certainly not that, never that, he wasn't sure he'd ever been okay. Maybe once a long, long time ago when he was small and the world was… different. Before all this, before everything he'd become and everything he hadn't. Maybe he'd been okay back then, but he didn't think so.

He didn't think so.

His body felt like it was smoldering, a fire banked but ready to flare to life once more at any moment. The need, the urge to finish what had been started was overwhelming. He could do it himself. It wasn't as if Hinata hadn't seen him at his lowest, at his worst, what was a little post-death jerking off between….

Whatever they were to each other.

Did it even matter what he called it?

He could just do it to himself, but his muscles ached. His hands felt huge and swollen and numb, more like a flipper than hand almost. Useless, just like the rest of him.

He ached and Hinata was there, so close, and it was his fault he was like this anyway.

What did it really matter? He was already so low. What did it matter if he sunk a little lower? It wasn't as if Hinata could really think less of him, after all. If he didn't want him, he could reject him. What did he care? It wasn't as if he wasn't used to that, worthless trash that he was.

He wanted to be close to him.

Needed to be close to him.

It felt like he was going to shatter to pieces any moment as he slid his hands across the sand, pressed them against Hinata's knees. He wavered there, waiting for the inevitable rejection, for the disgust, something, anything, but it never came. It never came and so what else could he do but move closer? To finish what he'd started by pulling his aching, traitorous body across the distance between them, oozing across the beach like sludge, a revolting blob of want and need and aching pain that crept slowly and reluctantly into Hinata, sliding his arms up around his neck.

His breath had come in reluctant gasps, heavy wet little spasms of sound as he settled himself across his lap, wrapped his legs around him in slow, pained movements and pressed the aching length of his cock against Hinata's cold, wet shirt-clad belly. The buttons are like chips of ice against the length of him, but it hadn't really mattered. Just being close to him made him feel good, better. His skin was still too sensitive, but it was settling slowly becoming less painful. It was awful and wonderful at once and he wondered vaguely if he should be embarrassed.

He's not, but he thought maybe he should be ashamed of the things he wants. A better person would be. A person would be. But he's… just… his hips stuttered, shifting against Hinata, unable to stand the waiting any longer. He shifted and tightened his legs around Hinata's waist, pushed closer, seeking relief.

Any moment Hinata was going to realize. He was going to realize what he was doing, what he wanted, and he was going to shove him away, disgusted.

Only he doesn't.

He feels Hinata's breath shudder against his cheek and then he's pressing shaking hands against his back, holding him, bringing him closer and everything seemed to collapse beneath the gentle, tentative press of those hands.

It's so good.

He's so good.

He had sobbed, great, heaving gulps of sound that had shaken out of his chest like wails as if he'd been holding them in for days or years and he cried harder and louder than he'd done in… ever, probably.

It was like pressure releasing, like Hinata had turned some relief valve within him and years of… rage and hate and sadness were bleeding away leaving him a stranger in the aftermath. Had those been his? He didn't remember ever being so angry or sad or… any of those things. He'd always just been….

He's not sure.

It doesn't matter.

When he starts moving against Hinata in earnest he murmured an insincere apology as he tightened his grip seeking greater friction. It felt illicit, sleazy, as if he were stealing something even though he'd just been given a gift. He wasn't sure if Hinata heard him or if he even cared. Hinata wasn't real after all. So why should he care about his feelings? What did it even matter if Hinata held him? Why shouldn't he just use him as he saw fit? What did it matter? What did anything matter?

He could hear himself whimpering distantly, his body becoming increasingly frantic, quaking and shivering and bucking and writhing and nothing he does is ever quite enough.

And then Hinata's voice was in his ear, rough and soothing, giving him permission to misbehave, to continue. Hinata threading fingers into his hair and pressing the flat of his hand more firmly against the small of his back, a rhythmic pressure that moved with him, urged him on. He moaned into it, into that strange welcome feeling of acceptance and it warmed him, made him impossibly harder, and he wanted to get off, wanted to dirty Hinata's pretty white shirt, twin of the one he wore if one didn't qualify the blood stains. He whimpered against his shoulder and he imagined he could feel the hard line of Hinata's cock pressing up against him, as if he were bearing down against the head with each downward sweep of his wayward hips, had a vague half-formed wish that there were no clothes between them, just bare, clammy skin. He moved faster, thrusts short and abrupt and it was okay, but it wasn't quite what he needed. The more he moved, the further away the target seemed, he sobbed again, frustrated. Was going he going to fail even at this? He shifted again and again, anxious and annoyed and exhausted. Everything hurt. He just wanted to get off. Why was this so difficult? Why couldn't he just? He was so tired. So tired. What was wrong with him that he couldn't even…?

Worthless.

He was the worst. Hinata shouldn't have to humor him like this. Shouldn't have put up with his urges, the pathetic whine of his voice.

It was sick, wasn't it?

Wanting to get off like this. If he wanted to get off so badly, he could have just jerked off, numb flipper hands or no. He could have muddled through. It would have been just as effective apparently. But no, not him, no, he wanted to hold him, to wrap himself around him, hump him like he was… like he was an animal. Like he was everything that other Hinata- Izuru -had called him.

And, of course, he was alone.

So what was he actually doing? Not jerking off, right? His hands still felt strange and numb, like they weren't even his, so he's not sure he could effectively even if he wanted to. So what then?

The sand, maybe? He managed to suffocate himself with it once or twice, so why not? Good enough to choke on, good enough to fuck?

Or maybe it was one of the palm trees? Maybe he was unknowingly chafing himself raw, destroying that part of himself against a palm tree?

Between the slats of a beach chair? No, that was just silly. He'd never be able to get off that way. It would be like trying to hump vertical blinds, ridiculous and useless all at once.

Of course, he wasn't getting off this way either, so….

Maybe he was just tucked and squeezed uncomfortably between his own thighs? Would that even work? Probably not, that seemed… painful. Pointless.

Did it even matter really what he was doing? How he was doing it? He was revolting. He was sick and pathetic. Such a hopeless, worthless, utterly useless piece of garbage. He wasn't the least bit worthy of his own attention much less the attentions of anyone else.

And then he could hear Hinata's voice again and it seemed like he'd been speaking for a long, long time and every new word felt pelt against him like hail, chipping away at him, cracking a fissures of pleasure open within him. Hinata's words beat within him like a symphony and there's desperation to them that he can't understand or he doesn't want to understand. But that doesn't matter. Not really. It's enough that they slip within him like water on parched, cracked soil.

"No, no, you're okay. I've got you. God, Komaeda, come on. Just come for me, please? I want you to… just… come on, I need you here with me, okay? Yeah, okay, like that, yes, that's... uhnn... good, you're good, don't stop, okay? I want you to, okay? Oh god, you feel so good. I'm so... I'm sorry, I... is it bad that I... oh god, Komaeda, come on, that's it, like that."

It feels as if he's creating a new wound within him, a secret place deep inside, just for him, where he can push the lie of those words inside him like he'd pushed fingers in last time and to similar effect. He's a panting, mewling mess against him, so close that the world narrows down to the places their bodies join. He knows they aren't true, can't be true, none of them, but he can't bring himself to reject them.

He's so pathetic.

"Hinata?" He whispered, turning his mouth against Hinata's cheek, it's cool and wet beneath his lips.

Why is he doing this?

Why is he saying all those things?

Why doesn't he push him away?

Why?

Why?

"Ssh, Komaeda, it's okay. You're okay. I won't let you go. You're gonna be okay. I want you, I-I need you. So, just... just stay with me, okay? Yeah, okay, that's it, that's good, like that, please, please, come on, Komaeda, please," And he's certain he's sobbing still, his entire body feels raw, ripped wide open and he can feel words shaking from him one after another, but he has no idea what they are. He knows only that they feel filthy and that he has no right to ask for any of it, to say those words to Hinata at all. That any moment Hinata is going to cast him aside, shove him to the dirt, disgusted, reject him, and he wants that, wants it to happen, but the moment never comes. The moment never comes and Hinata never stops talking, his voice soft and hurried and almost frantic, "Anything. Anything you want. Come on, just keep… god, I want you to come, please, you feel so good, so good. Yes, oh god, you feel so… I'm so… love you. You're so... why can't you just... I hate you, god, you're so... Come on, don't stop, Komaeda, oh god, Komaeda, whatever you need, please, please… just let me... let me."

And he's so close, so close, so close and then Hinata's fingers are there, curling around him, his grip almost painfully tight.

As soon as he touches him, wraps around him, it's like a circuit has been completed and his body is strung tight like a bowstring and the only word on his lips is yes, because this, this was what he needed, what he wanted, what he'd been waiting for. And it's as it was in the water and completely different too. His Hinata. His. Not that cruel impostor. His Hinata. And that makes all the difference.

He loves him.

He hates him.

He could spend the rest of his life in this moment, on this precipice, teetering above the fall, the word 'yes' wound round and through him, binding him up in this moment until Hinata finally deigns to pull him over. And his voice a rasp of sound in his ear that he'll hear every time he closes his eyes for the next hundred thousand years.

But it doesn't feel like 'yes', it feels like 'mine' and he slips, spilling, spinning, sobbing that word over and over as he does like to the time of the beat of his frantic heart and he hears it echoed in Hinata's voice. He's coming and every pulse feels like a brand in his veins like Hinata has scribbled his name within him, down in the deepest, darkest pieces of his tattered, filthy soul and it's utterly inescapable and unavoidable and even if he could, he wouldn't want to save himself from this feeling of being branded, owned, complete.

And then the moment is gone and the word is still whispering between them, but his skin is too chafed, raw, oversensitive and he twitches his hips away on a gasp of 'too much' and Hinata is nodding, understanding, when he tells him which he both loves and hates. Hinata's hands are gentle as they tuck his cock away, back into cold, wet briefs that sting against his skin, and he has to bite back a moan because it's right on that razor's edge between too much and not enough and he almost wants him to continue, to drag a second orgasm out of him or at least try until he begged for him to stop.

But he wouldn't.

Not this Hinata, his Hinata.

Not him, with his soft words and gentle reassurances or that hand that lingers in his hair, careful, as he'd leaned back to fasten his pants with clumsy fingers that are still feel swollen. He shivers, cold inside, bereft and empty and maybe a little guilty in the aftermath. He bites his lip and fumbles the buttons, but keeps at it because he needed… he really needed to not be naked anymore.

He could still feel the hard line of Hinata's cock against his fingers as he wrestled with the fastenings on his pants. He wanted to touch him, slip his hand around him, his mouth maybe, he wondered what Hinata would taste like on his tongue, how he would feel pressed against the inside of his cheek, what it would be like to have him thrust into his mouth as freely as he'd once thrust into his.

Would he choke, would he be able to take it, to swallow it down, would he come again just from the feel of him there?

He wanted to find out, he wanted to, but fear held him back, gave an additional tremble to his hands and the words came slipping out before he could think to stop them, "Hinata, don't… leave. Don't..."

And he hadn't. He'd kissed him instead and it had been unbearably pathetic and so good, so very good.

And terrible too.

Like everything about Hinata was terrible. Because he had wanted to kiss him forever, to let him fuck him as they knelt on that beach in the pouring rain, to feel the slap of skin on skin, to feel bruising fingers on his hips and he hadn't cared that he wasn't real. Hadn't cared about any of that in the moment, because real or not, he wanted him.

"I'm not…" he whispered, trailing off, uncertain what he'd intended to say. He didn't want to talk about Hinata with her, not with her, no.

Hinata was his.

Not hers.

Never hers.

"Oh, c'mon, Nagito, you don't think he's really into you, do you? You were on that island together for ages and you never actually even made a move on him, you little stalker. Though I saw how often you'd just chafe yourself raw with his name on your lips." She laughed and it was mocking and sharp, almost a cackle and he longed to feel nothing, but instead shame swamped him, self-loathing seeping through the cracks in his composure. Cracks that memory had left wide open.

He makes you weak and vulnerable.

"I kept expecting you to sneak into his room or up to his window at night and beat off over him while you watched him sleep. Everyone knew, you know. Everyone laughed about your little crush behind your back. Little psycho like you thinking you had a chance with the hero of the piece? Who wouldn't laugh at that?"

"And that was before you even knew the truth about each other: that you let yourself fall into despair and that he is nothing more than ordinary."

"I'm sure he hates you, if he even thinks of you at all, which he almost certainly doesn't. You killed his little girlfriend, you know. That pretty girl that he'd been chasing all around the island, the sleepy one with the backpack."

"Nanami," he supplied, trembling, swallowing hard. He remembered all too well Hinata's harsh words and exasperation on the beach. "Nanami Chiaki."

"Hm, that's right, I'd forgotten. Nanami. You had to know he liked her. She liked him too. They were together before the end. I saw everything that happened on the island, you know, every single, dirty little thing. The way she'd slide her hand into his pants in the dark." Her fingers slipped up over him, flicking on the top fastening on his pants and dipping, edging inside.

He whimpered, shame and desire going to war. Remembering the beach had made him ache again. He didn't want her to touch it; he didn't want her to say these things, because he could picture Nanami's hand, the expression that might cross Hinata's face. "Please don't."

"Don't worry, he's a boring lay. He'd just sit there, beat red and embarrassed and she'd open his pants up just like this, pull his cock out at breakfast and jerk him off and have him gripping the table and trying not to groan as he came before anyone else even noticed anything was happening."

"That never happened," Nagito murmured, swallowing hard trying to ignore the nails scrapping across him, wrestling the fastenings on his pants open.

Why wasn't he stopping her?

Why couldn't he?

Why?

"Didn't it? How would you know? What can you even remember? What do you know about what's true? What's real? You're dead, remember? Your synapses aren't firing, they're just fading and chunks of memory are positively leaping off you and falling away into the abyss. There's no telling what you've forgotten so far. I'm trying to help you, you know. You should be grateful for my time. And you can picture it, can't you? So, who's to say it isn't real? That it didn't happen? The know the way he'd look, don't you? The way he'd bite his lip, just like he did in the hall just now, the way his fingers would clutch the tabletop? All white and red splotchy and the way his breath would quicken and maybe you're imagining that he'd sneak looks at you, like he's thinking about your hand on his dick instead of hers. You'd like that wouldn't you, hm? Of course, it's more likely he's just looking at you because you're making him uncomfortable since you won't stop staring at him, you little freak. Either way, it probably wouldn't really matter to you. You'd lick your lips, meet his gaze, and then he came. You could see it in the flutter of his eyelids and the parting of his lips and the way his fingers twitched like he wanted to reach out and you were sitting across from him, and the tables are narrow, so narrow that your knees knock together underneath. So when he came, some got on your pants. You felt the impact and he stared at you, clearly spent, but maybe interested too."

"He slipped beneath the table, pretending he dropped a fork or something, and saw the mess he'd left behind and licked it off. You could feel him pull the fabric taunt and hear the scratch of his tongue against the rough fabric of your pants. You're hard, right? How embarrassing. It's probably a little bit because he's licking your pants, but mostly because that's the closest anyone outside a nurse giving you a sponge bath has ever been to your dick. His hands are on your thighs, thumbs tracing the inner seams up to your crotch and then there are hands on your belt, unfastening it and you wanted to move, but you couldn't, because you knew it was him and you were so nervous you almost came right then, but you managed to hold back. You just let it happen. Let him unfasten your pants, slide your dick out and you're sweating a little, panting, almost feverish. Just having someone, anyone at all, who is willing to touch you, to put their hands on you like that, but maybe it's also a little bit because it's him."

He knew it wasn't real, that none of it was real, that he was on the floor in that pitch black hallway, but he was also sprawled in that chair, at her table, all the same. He was trying not to look at Nanami who had fallen asleep, her arms pillowed beneath her head on the tabletop, the fingers of one hand wet and a little shiny. His hands were splayed wide on the table and the others were nearby, unseen, but close enough that he could hear their conversations like flies buzzing at the back of his head. He can feel them there, but he doesn't care about them. All he cares about are the hands on him, how it almost hurts having them fumble him free of his too-tight pants. How one hand continues to press against his thigh like there was any chance he'd close his legs now, while the other presses past his dick, fingers seeking his balls, fingers sliding over forcing the fabric wide. He hears it rip and yelps, the hand against his thigh pinning in him in place when he would have moved. The constricting pressure of the fabric eases and those fingers are able to cup his balls fully, fondling them as a warm mouth locks around the head of his dick. "He suckled at it like a babe at a tit. And it felt so good, didn't it? You weren't quiet it either. You were like the thing that wouldn't shut up. Even though they were all there. They were all watching you, they all knew what you were doing, and they were all disgusted by you. You were ashamed of yourself, weren't you? Ashamed, but still too turned on to care."

"Yes," he whispered, because he knew that was his line. That he had a part to play and it didn't matter if this was real or fantasy, he was just a puppet meant to dance on her string. He curled his hand in Hinata's hair, coaxed him closer, to take him deeper and Hinata came willing and silent, eager for it. He sucked dick like he was born to do it. "But he drew back, fought free of your grasp, panting. You can feel his breath, warm and moist and he's tell you to take off your pants."

"But…"

"You don't want him to stop do you? He'll stop if you don't lose the pants, dummy."

He's vaguely aware that he's struggling out of them, of how slow and clumsy his movements feel as he wrestles his way out of the fabric. Unhelpful, unwanted hands smooth over the bared skin beneath, sliding over his scars, the tips of fingers catching against the wounds on his thighs. And it feels wrong, wrong, horrifyingly wrong. He winces, shrinking away from those fleeting touches, but his head is too foggy and strange and a moment later he can't remember why he found it so disconcerting in the first place. The strange faded watercolor memory of Hinata kneeling between his legs, unseen, breathing – a little creepily if he's honest – against him beneath a cloth covered table is fading, becoming less distinct with every passing moment, less real with every moment of silence.

Then as if she knew, or as if he'd said the last thought aloud, her voice is back in his ear and those images take on weight and meaning again, life and color returning to the world. "He's got his mouth locked back around you the moment you do, arms around your waist, taking you all the way to the hilt again and again. You barely have to do anything because he knows exactly what you want, how you like it, his tongue in your slit like before and sweeping in rough circles around the head, his fingers sliding around to squeeze the base and the suction is perfect. And you're so close, so close, but he won't let you come. It goes on for hours, hours until it's more pain than pleasure, but still he won't grant you reprieve. You've been pleading, begging, sobbing all that time and still he continues, still you're not allowed completion. You're desperate. You'd do anything, be anything, if he'll just grant you release. Finally he draws back and asks you to do one little thing, one tiny thing and he'll give you what you want, anything you want."

"Yes, please, please," he can barely manage to choke the words out. He knows, knows, or at least he's pretty sure, that he's kneeling on the floor, his forehead pressed against his folded arms on the floor. He's broken fingernails against the tile, curled up defensively as fingers slide up his back, delicate fingers and he hates them, wants to rip them off and shove them down her throat, but if he moves… if he moves…

His shorts are damp, his pants gone, but he can't… he can't… because he's on the floor of the hospital in the dark, but he's also at her table, caught in her narrative like a fly in a web of lies. "Please… anything… just…."

"You're so close, aren't you?"

And he was and it was awful.

And it was exhilarating.

This… despair.

Because he wasn't… he wasn't….

"Take off your shirt."

"What?" He sobbed, confused, aching, wanting nothing more than to run, but he couldn't… he couldn't run, not like this. Not while his body was so pathetically weak and wrong and sick, almost as if it wasn't his at all.

Something was different.

Something was wrong.

Something was really, really wrong.

"Take off the shirt, Mister Komaeda." She ordered again, giving the cloth a violent tug.

"No," he snapped, feeling strangely childish in his denial. He clutched the fabric with aching fingers, "Don't want to."

"Yes, you do, of course, you do. You love him now, don't you? As much as something like you can love anything? And when you love someone you'll do anything for them, won't you?" She whispered and there was something… different about it. The voice was still familiar, but it wasn't hers. "Anything at all? Even for someone like him? Even for someone as mundane and forgettable as Hinata Hajime? Even for someone who isn't our beloved? You want him to love you so you'll crawl or beg or plead if he asks you. You'll take everything he'll give you, every slight and hurt and you'll beg for more, won't you? You're not even good enough to lick the mud off his shoes or the come off his girlfriend's hand, but you'll do whatever you have to so that he'll look at you. So, he'll see only you. Isn't that how it is? Isn't it? So, take off the shirt, Mister Komaeda. It's not like he's asking you to lasso the moon. It's just a shirt. J-Just a dirty old shirt."

"No, I… I'm not… I don't…."

"Do you want him to hate you? Do you want him to stop?" Her voice was snappish, impatient, frustrated, maybe. "H-He won't forgive you if you don't obey. I-If you don't do what you're told."

That strange broken memory was whiting out, burning up like a overheated filmstrip flaking away in blackened pieces all around him. The others were gone, their faint voices warping, bending, a metallic moan of sound. The table faded and Nanami along with it, her glistening fingers the last to go. The Hinata that knelt before him was nothing more than a faceless ghost, lacking in substance and easily dismissed.

Laughter bubbled up in his throat, loud and hysterical, "Yes, I want this to stop. I don't want this. This isn't what I hope for. You're thinking of someone else. And you don't know him at all either. Hinata is what I want, but he's so much more than this."

"W-Why are you still saying his name?" She hissed, her fingers tight and painful in his hair as she dragged him upright. "You know that the greatest hope can only truly come from the greatest despair. How many times have you said that? Like a thousand times. So m-many times that I'm sick of hearing it. Only she can give you what you want, what you n-need. He's not even real. He never was. He's just a memory. He shouldn't even exist," she stomped her foot like a child throwing a tantrum. She stumbled a little and gasped, startled. It sounded like the heel of her shoe had broken.

Funny.

It was really funny.

"You're jealous," he managed, his laughter growing with the realization.

"What?" she replied, flat and incredulous.

"He's made things difficult, hasn't he? He gummed up the works. You thought it would be so simple, that it wouldn't matter, but it did. That ordinary little nobody beat you, didn't he? That's why you're down here in the dark with me. He made all the difference in the world and your despair was smashed by the brilliance of the hope within him." His laughter is wild now out of control, raging like a fire across a dry field and he's a bystander, content to just watch it all burn. As if he is merely watching the action from the sidelines as someone else reads his lines, an understudy taking his role for the moment.

"Oh, honey, I haven't lost anything yet."

The laughter died and dread unfurled in his stomach like a flower blossoming in that charred field. "What?"

She smiled, smug and satisfied, like a cat in cream, "Oh? Did poor, sweet widdle Nagito think his paltry, precious widdle hope would win so easily? Did you really think that was the only plan? That we only know how to play one game? How boring. Why would we go through all this effort without having contingencies in place? Why do you think you're here? What do you think this is? Hell? How quaint, how simple, how very like you, though… I suppose that it is true in a way."

"I don't…" He wanted to say he didn't understand, but… but he was beginning to think he did. That everything was… was…

His hands were shaking.

Why were his hands shaking?

Was he afraid?

"You can't hurt a delusion," he whispered and he could hear the smile in her voice when she next spoke, spreading slow and sinister, the beginnings of despair.

She moved fast, sudden and he felt the air move around him as she did, heard the limping click of her non-broken heel somehow more sinister than it had been there were two. He can feel her breath on his face, her fingers beneath his chin as if she can see him even in the utter black of the hall. As if she wants to watch the truth break him. "Didn't you know? This isn't a dream, Nagito. This isn't even your hell. It's a nightmare. It's his nightmare."

And he did know.

He'd known all along, maybe, deep down beneath it all.

He just hadn't….

He'd been kneeling at the edge of the water.

The strange water on the beach that had swallowed Hinata whole, eaten him alive and he'd been kneeling in the muck. There had been no reason to reach in that puddle, no reason at all because Hinata was just… and yet he'd done it anyway.

He'd known then.

He'd known the moment he plunged his hand in that grimy water and caught his hand, reeled him in.

He'd let himself forget for a little while afterwards, but he'd known.

Because from that moment on he'd felt strange, off, there had been moments, so many moments, when he wasn't himself, when he'd just been a spectator in his own head. And he'd been remembering things, so many things and Hinata had been…

Hinata was….

"He tries so hard not to think about that. About the way you said his first name. About how much it turns him on. "

"I'm just the boy who woke up on the beach and began going through the motions, but even if I'm not special to you, you're special to me."

Hinata Hajime.

"Then what am I?" He whispered, more reflex than intention. He wished he could every word, every touch, every strange, disingenuous comment that had made him so unaccountably angry because he'd thought he was being cruel. But then honesty was often cruel.

"You're just a remnant. Just a ghost caught in a machine, clinging to him desperately, like a rat to the hull of a sinking ship. You're nothing. Barely even worth my time or his, but you're surprisingly resilient."

"And your breath stinks," he replied, sitting up, sitting back on his heels, finding the strength to draw away from her at last. "If you touch me again, I'll rip your arm off. Oh, wait, I already did, didn't I?"

She laughed.

Pupupupupu…

"Isn't it a bit late to be finding your spine, Nagito?"

"Maybe, but it's not too late for me to find yours," he laughed. He wasn't afraid of the darkness or of his place in it. "I could wear it is a scarf. Would you even have one here? If I'm a ghost, what does that make you?"

"Why, I'm surprised you hadn't already figured that out. I'm the machine, little rat, and I'm going to smash your hope to pieces."

And then she was gone as if she'd never been there at all.

And the worst thing is that he wasn't certain she had been.

He feels like himself again and the hall is not so dark as it had seemed before. He can see the tiled floor on which he kneels, the shiny damp puddle where he had thrown up. The vague sinister shape of discarded wheelchairs and gurneys, the walls and doors that bank the corridor. Thunder booms overhead and he can hear the patter of rain against the roof, the windows.

How did he get here?

Had he been here the whole time?

Where was Hinata?

Had he ever been here?

Was everything a lie he'd told himself?

Where the heck were his pants?

Had all that been just another delusion? The girl is the hall? Girls? Hinata? The bridge? The beach? The diner? Were any of those things even a little bit real? Had he come here because they getting worse? More complex? Was he getting worse? Finally breaking down into bits and losing pieces like he'd thought he might?

Had all of it been in his head? Most of it? None of it? Some?

Panic joined with dread in his stomach and he felt like he was going to throw up.

He heard a terrible soft, grating, wheezing horrible sound and he bent over, his stomach seizing and twitching and he realized the sound was coming from him. That he was laughing. That he couldn't stop.

Was he real? Was anything? Was Hinata?

Did he even care if it was?

If he was?

Did he care about any of it?

He was shivering and damp and alone and half-naked again and laughing in the dark. He thought he could hear Hinata calling to him from some distant place.

"If you want him so badly, come and get him," he called back, still laughing as he flopped back to lie on the cold dirty tile floor beneath him.

It was cold.

The thought.

The very thought of Hinata calling his name over and over, sounding so concerned. He might never be able to stop laughing.

He was so fucked up.

"Komaeda?" Hinata's beseeching query.

He called back in a voice that cracked and ached: "Come find me and see for yourself, if it matters so much to you."

What else was there to do?

His hand felt numb.

His arm ached.

So did his heart.

Whatever was left of it.

-ooo-

NOTES: As usual chapter notes are found on the Archive of Our Own version of this chapter (the link is in my profile and on my tumblr). Comments are always appreciated, but never required. Thanks for reading. :)