Work Text:
Warm. Pressure. A voice.
“Reigen? Reigen, please–”
There’s a gray mass in front of him. A glowing green behind that.
He blinks. The world goes dark for a bit, and brightens again. He blinks again, and the same thing happens. This time he makes the connection between action and consequence.
The voice – voices – are still talking. He makes out words. “Possession”, “exorcised”, “is he okay?”, “…I don’t know”. He’s not sure what they mean.
He’s more interested in the gentle weight at his hands and back. It’s gotten stronger. Feels good.
He wants to know why. So he squeezes back. Whatever it is, it’s very soft. And warm. He likes that, too.
The soft warm thing draws back. There’s a commotion, more words, more movement. The pressure comes back, tighter than before. Gray engulfs his vision, presses up to his cheek. He closes his eyes and relaxes to the steady pulse of it against his ear.
“Okay, that’s, that’s a good sign. I think,” says one of the voices. “Let me try…”
Something cold slides into him, a chill that squirms its way from his right shoulder through his whole body. He struggles to resist – he doesn’t want it here.
“Hey, hey, relax, Reigen. It’s just me. You know, your good friend and extremely powerful spirit advisor Dimple?” echoes the voice that was speaking before. It resonates through his head, in the empty spaces where he should be. It takes him a while to realize the voice is speaking to him. A little more to realize: that word – ‘Reigen’ – that’s him.
There’s a nervous laugh, pitched high with incredulity. “So maybe you don’t know. All right. That’s… fine. Just great,” the voice mutters. In a lower tone, it continues, “Glad Shigeo’s not here to see this.”
As quickly as it entered him, the voice retreats, sliding out in a flash of green.
Now that Reigen’s got a name for himself, it’s easy to make the next logical leap in reasoning. Put a name to the green blob with the red cheeks and furrowed brows hovering in the corners of his vision.
Dimple. Reigen knows Dimple.
And if one of the voices belongs to Dimple, then the other must be…
Reigen frowns. Here he faces a conundrum. Unlike with Dimple, he doesn’t have just the one name dangling from the tip of his tongue; he has two.
He mulls over his options as the voices continue their discussion above his head, blanched denial rising over heavy-hearted tones.
“I’m not saying he can’t get better; the memories are still rattling around in there, but listen, he didn’t recognize his own name at first, you have to admit that’s pretty bad–”
“Dimple, stop. I can’t, please, Reigen–”
The lights are flickering, and that’s not fair at all, he thinks, annoyed. He’d thought he’d figured out the trick to it earlier, but he’s not blinking any faster and it’s happening anyways.
It doesn’t distract him for long, though, because the voice with two potential names is trembling now, frantic, shuddering gasps shaking him through the fabric. The grip across his shoulders grows uncomfortably tight.
Something wet drips onto Reigen’s cheek. For some reason, he finds this unacceptable.
His insistent tugging on the gray cloth in his hands to make it stop goes unnoticed, and he’s not sure what to do after that effort fails. He doesn’t have the words yet to make that intolerable wetness go away, those are still beyond him.
Except, no, he does have the words. He has two. He just has to pick one. So he does.
“Katsuya,” he mumbles. It doesn’t fit quite right in Reigen’s mouth, the syllables rolling over his tongue without the taste of familiarity to guide them.
But it works. Everything stops. The distressed rocking of his body, the flickering of the lights, the quiet halting mantra of ‘no, no, no’ from the voice he’s named Katsuya. It all stops.
He’s shifted up, his face turned in gentle hands to meet Katsuya’s, which is nice because he hasn’t yet figured out how to do that for himself. Katsuya’s staring at him now, his eyes wide and hopeful and best of all, not crying.
“Katsuya,” Reigen repeats. The name comes more easily this time, but he’s still not confident it’s correct; maybe he should have gone with the other one.
Then he’s being hugged, and it’s just like before, that wonderful blend of softness and pressure and warmth, made all the better by the ring of Katsuya’s incredulous, hiccuping laughter in his ears.
Reigen settles in, content that even if he hasn’t chosen quite the right word, he didn’t choose the wrong one, either. It’s made Katsuya happy, at least, and with Katsuya happy and here by his side, he’s sure: everything is going to be okay.