Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

1.

sleep walk /

He had learned that the city was most quiet at this time of night.  His feet were tangled in his covers, too cold to get comfortable.  His knobby hands were pressed to his closed eyelids, in the way he had as a child.  Behind them he saw lights and patterns and toes.  He saw bones and tins of mints.  He saw starlight and he saw the things he'd never seen before.  Friday night.  The lights of a car pass by his open window but it's nothing, nothing, and Mob is lost to the world.   

***

"Brother," he says, honey on his voice.  

"Brother," he says, letting it slide off his tongue like a prayer.

"Brother," he says, and his cold hand is pressed to his brother's shoulder.  

"Hmm?"  Mob hums, eyelashes nearly touching his cheeks.  He looks around for a moment before seeing Ritsu.  His pupils dilate, a great round dot on his dinner plate doll eyes.  

"We're going shopping today," Ritsu says, smiling down at Mob.  His hair is cowlicked.  His bangs stick up, and his eyebrows, light against darker skin, are showing for once.  

"Mmm," Mob says, freeing his hands from his blanket.  He stretches, head to toe, feels the ache in his bones and wonders if Reigen could help him with that.   

"Get dressed, okay?"  Ritsu is about to walk out the room, close the door behind him.  Mob sends him a sleepy smile and Ritsu shoots one back.

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2.

hand holding / lip locking / Boy

He's happy that day. The sunlight is bright, warms the skin of his dark head. When he places his hand, flat palmed, on the top of his head, it's all parallel lines and soft heat. Like a tiny fire on his head. Like a blanket.

He closes his eyes for just a moment, feels them move against his eyelids. The halls are bustling and he's just a boy, alone, smiling to himself. School is ending and the Body Improvement Club is waiting for him. He grins just a little bit more than usual and walks, brisk, pretending Dimple is a tailwind and he's propelled forward, through hallways, past people, and he's still so, so, warm.

***

"Mob!" Tome says, smile on her face. President Musashi is gone, left to shrug a white tee over his broad shoulders. He's too kind, too shy, to even hastily change in the corner of the club room when Tome is there.

"Hi, Tome," Mob answers. He wants, so badly, to answer back with the warmth he feels.

"Kageyama-kun!" President Musashi exclaims, warm voice tumbling over the noise of the hallways. He's such a comforting presence. His hand is on Mob's shoulder and he's smiling, like he's not afraid of running out of them. Sunshine smile, lips curved, and it's at Mob, it's for Mob, it's a warm hug and Mob closes his eyes for just a moment. His eyelashes rest against his cheeks.

"Hello." His broad hand on his shoulder is nothing short of heavensent.

"You're just in time," Musashi says. His voice isn't booming, not in the way Tome's is. It's softer, almost musical. Comforting. "We're just about to start our warm-up run!" He smiles, even broader.

Mob looks up at him, minute smile, and Musashi can tell. His hand falls, upper back, follows the curve of his shoulders and Mob is so happy, so incredibly happy. He looks down at his intertwined hands, against the loose fabric of his running shorts. Thank you.

***

This time, Mob doesn't collapse until they're ten minutes in. Musashi is pacing everybody, real slow, and Mob is grateful. His heart rate is still going to fast, like the skittering of a child's hands over a piano, but it's a good sort of exhaustion when he falls, knee scraped, and Musashi does what he always does. Mob is in his arms, warm. Musashi's fingers intertwine with Mob's.

Musashi's chest is solid, warm. His heart beats with the cadence of the calmest metronome. How good it feels, to have friends.

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3.

Skin, so cold, it felt like something dead

It's rare for Mob and Ritsu to have a whole day to themselves. Dimple is there, of course, but it's just them. They walk down the sidewalk together, shoulders touching, knuckles sliding against eachother every once in a while.

Their breath, in unison, make two twin puffs in the air. Mob's mittens are wooly and warm. The black of them harshly contrasts the white world around them. Ritsu has the fancy ones, that crinkle a little when you take them off, and he doesn't want to say it but he knows Mob picked those woolen mittens because he didn't want Ritsu's hands to be cold.

"Shigeo," Dimple whispers, voice all delighted, tongue glossing over syllables with all the sugar smoothness of a conman. "I'm hungry." He drags the words out, a complaining drawl.

"Go follow Reigen around then," Ristu snaps back. Dimple has a habit of making situations far less enjoyable.

"Reigen's a fraud." Mob is just watching, hooded eyes cast upwards where Dimple floats, expression blank.

"Reigen needs help then," Ritsu argues, making threatening motions with his hands. Dimple looks at him for a moment, unbelieving, before he catches a glimpse of Ritsu's eyes. Thin eyebrows, pulled together, thick eyelashes (Not as thick as Mob's, Dimple thinks) shrouding his eyes.

Dimple is gone in an instant, it seems.

Ritsu looks at Mob. Mob's looking forward with the same emotionlessness he usually has. Ritsu's and Mob's breath is out of synch now, a tuneless duet.

When they sit, Mob brushes the snow aside before sitting (And he brushes the seat next to him too, where Ritsu sits, and Ritsu wants to warm his brother's love calloused hands with his own)

Quietly, Ritsu pulls the mittens off Mob's chilly pink hands and holds his brother's hands in his. It's a shock of warmth, it's a surefire smile. It’s Mob.

Chapter Text

4.

Scathed / Unscathed

Mob's knee is scraped, all nasty, when he comes to the agency.   Reigen looks at it, just for a moment, before looking away.

"Mob."  Reigen's voice is soft, smooth, a thin stream of warm water from the shower head.  "What happened?"

Mob is quiet for an awkward three seconds.  He looks down.

"I fell."

"Have you cleaned it yet?"  Reigen eyes it and notices as Mob tries to cover the wound with his hand.  It's tiny.  Like the hand of a porcelain doll.  

Mob is silent.  Instead of an answer he lifts his hand and there's gravel and dirt and a smear of grass.  It makes a muddy green and red and brown mess.  Mob's eyes are the slightest bit watery, and Reigen isn't the best at recognizing Mob's emotions, but he can tell it hurts.

"You stay here today, Mob," Reigen says.  "Our client has an incredibly powerful spirit on her hands and I wouldn't want you hurt.  Deal with the small fries until you're as strong as me." It's a lie, all of it, it slides off his sugar smooth tongue.  He's not guilty, not when he leaves the office and checks his battered leather wallet.  There's enough change for a few band-aids and antiseptic.  

The corner store, a few blocks from the office, has a bell that chimes when Reigen pushes through the door.  It's all white, pretty, air conditioner whirring in the corner.  There's a freezer of sodas and water, overpriced, in the corner.   

Reigen walks through the aisles and finds what he needs.  The cheapest band-aids have flowers all over them, all pink and purple and green.  He fingers the little box in his hand and meanders further, to where he picks up a tube of antiseptic that's the size of his pinky finger.   He grabs a pack of condoms for good measure, even though he knows the quiet old man behind the cash register doesn't care.   He's the Greatest Psychic of all time.  He has a reputation to uphold.  (Even though sometimes he looks at Mob and Mob is all honey sweet, all calcified sugar, sharp and pointy and potent, and he wonders if everyone can tell that Reigen is nothing compared to the boy)

He wanders for an hour or so before walking in to the office to see Mob sitting on the couch and reading.  He still hasn't done anything about his knee.  

"Come over here," Reigen says.  

Mob looks up and doesn't make a move, so Reigen comes to sit in front of him.  He crosses his legs and washes Mob's knee until it's that pretty red and pink and white color.  He has to use two bandaids because one isn't big enough.

Mob smiles, just a little bit, but it's a lot more than Reigen is used to.  He smiles back.  

"Come on," Reigen says.  "Let's go get some yakisoba with all the money my client gave me."

"Okay," Mob answers, face all round and sweet and trusting.  

Reigen sneaks a look at his wallet.  There's just enough cash for the two of them.

Chapter Text

5.

Blue isn’t just Bruises

It's a sweltering summer day. The Body Improvement Club has already come and left. Mob's hair is slicked down from a quick shower afterwards, to get that sticky achy feeling off his calves and thighs. His skin smells fresh, like fabric softener.

"Brother?" Ritsu asks, knocking on his brother's door. Mob approaches the door after pulling on a clean pair of shorts. His chest is still bare, warm with that sticky fresh feeling after a shower. He pulls the door open, to see Ritsu about to knock again. Ritsu's face softens when he sees his brother. His crescent-curved lips beam at Mob.

"Could you help me paint my room?" Ritsu asks. Mob looks at him confusedly for a moment before stepping out of his room. He gives the door the smallest tug. His door swings smooth on oily hinges and there's just a crack left.

"Why?" Mob asks.  Mob glances at Ritsu's hands for a moment, making his point clear without even having to speak. He's not being rude or contemptuous. But he knows that Ritsu could paint his whole room without the lift of a finger.

"I just wanted to spend time with you." Mob maintains eye contact with Ritsu, so that Ritsu can see the softening in his pretty eyes and that faint smile.

"Okay."

Mob doesn't bother to put on a shirt, instead letting the blue paint splash his fair skin. His fingertips are something like cerulean, the splotches on his stomach are great paint splatter constellations.

Ritsu gets a laugh out of him, when his hands leave prints on the wall, when he accidentally (on purpose) swipes his paint-sticky finger above his lips.

He writes things on the wall, for just Mob's eyes. Mob's thumb traces the words in reverence. His eyes are crinkled, smiling, as he looks at Ritsu.

He writes things back, for just Ritsu. They're hearts, they're words, they're things Ritsu knows Mob would never say aloud. His rosy cheeks and paint-smeared fingers are a record of Mob and his full-hearted love. So bright and so full that it spills onto ceilings and walls and embeds itself under fingernails and, even after you shower, you still have the faintest blue splotch over your heart like a badge of courage. Mob, it says, it says Love, it says Kageyama Shigeo, it says There Is Love On Your Tongue, that blueness of the heart.

The words become so many that they become unreadable. Crossing like railroads and backalleys. Ritsu and Mob fill in the gaps with the last of the blue paint.

***

That night, Ritsu swears he can see those words, written in his skin and on his walls that Mob wrote for him, and him only.

He sneaks out his cracked door, down the hallway with hushed footsteps.

Mob isn't asleep. His eyes reflect the lights of passing cars. His face is a white wall, the car headlights brushing over his face.

Mob looks at Ritsu and closes his eyes. Like he was waiting for him.

Ritsu slips under the covers and feels Mob's smooth hands, stretches his fingers against his brother's hands. They share breaths and Ritsu feels his brother's moist exhalations against his cheek.

He smiles, lips curving against the shared pillow. When he falls asleep, he feels safe, and even though he can't see his newly painted blue wall he can tell Mob is so full of love from that constant beat-beating of his heart. 

Chapter Text

6.

(ouch)

Mob sees Asagiri for the first time after Mogami Keiji attacked him, just three months later.  (He has to remind himself that it isn’t nine months later.  Nowadays he loses track of time easily).  She is peering through a bakery window, hair pinned back, wearing a short dress and long socks.  Her nails are painted yellow.  Mob’s favorite color.

He wouldn’t usually be in this part of town, but today Reigen has given him a few folded bills and a sticky note, to go buy them some food.  This district has specialty shops and small, quiet cafes.  And, Reigen’s favorite: cheap food.

However, the bakery that Asagiri stands in front of is expensive.  He can tell from the soft pastels of the pastries, from the carefully iced cakes.  Of course, Mob knows, she can pay for it.  He remembers the two million yen offered to exorcise Mogami from Asagiri.  He remembers those six months.  Sleepy eyes and that pit in his stomach that still hasn’t left, his fingers bloodstained, the feeling of his stomach rupturing and his intestines being pierced.

He gulps and looks away, trying to feel something other than terrible.

Mob walks past the bakery and Asagiri doesn’t spare him a glance, preferring the beautifully made pastries.  Mob doesn’t blame her.

He’s sort of hoping she remembers him.

He tries not to look at her.

They make eye contact, Mob’s face reflected in the bakery window.  Her eyes widen with some feeling akin to recognition.  Or guilt.

“Do I know you from somewhere?”  she asks to him.  Her dress swings around her thin legs and her thick-soled shoes thump against the pavement.

“No,”  Mob says.  “No, I don’t think so.”  He smiles thinly and turns away, even though Asagiri’s eyes are still pinned on his back.

(ouch).

Chapter Text

7.

Dimming

Leaving Mogami's world was strange.  He was different, in his own body.  

Reigen took him back home afterwards and Dimple looked at Mob worriedly, often, but Mob didn't want to be looked at.  He just wanted to be clean.

Now he sits in his bathroom, examining himself as the bath fills slowly.  Excruciatingly slowly.  

When Mob presses his hands against his ribs and stomach, it doesn't feel like his own body. He feels a disconnect from the self that he has known for six months, seeing his own fleshy skin and unscarred hands.

On his palm, there used to be a long white scar that reminded him of rope. It cut through his life line and love line, bisecting them.  He had wondered at the time if that meant something for him, if that rope-like scar had cut his life short.  But now his hand is scar free and it doesn't feel like it belongs to him.

His legs used to be covered in dark scars, too.  Those were his own fault.  During the night and at home, Mob scratched.  He scratched his legs and his arms and his face.  Scars from his own nails healed differently than other scars.  Instead of a gleaming white raised scar, there was only a patch of skin slightly darker.  His legs and arms used to be very dark, and very patchy.  

The hair on his head is thicker now, too.  Like his arms, he picked at his hair and pulled out chunks for no reason.  Or maybe for a reason. When it first started he didn't notice that it was his own hands pulling and scratching at his scalp.  He thought it was just stress.  And now his hair is thick and shiny and healthy and wrong.  

The Mob in the mirror that he stares at stares back, but Mob does not think the reflection is him.  It feels wrong.  It feels like he is there but he is not, like everything in his house has been moved just a centimeter to the left.  

The tub fills and Mob climbs in, slowly, and for once, the water does not turn red with shed blood.

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8.

He Has A Sandpaper Throat

He does not eat very often anymore.  When he does it is by the kilogram.  When that happens, he feels too much, too slow, too full, tired and overused.  He wonders if that feeling is better or worse than the ache of hunger.  He is delicate on the inside.

Today he fainted again, and Musashi held his frail body in his warm arms.  

"Kageyama, are you alright?" Musashi asks after practice, while handing Mob a water bottle.  Mob doesn't like how concerned Musashi sounded.  People's worries feel like heavy weights on his shoulders.

"Oh no, it's nothing," Mob says, turning away.

"If you're sure," Musashi says, and he still sounds worried.  

It really is nothing.  

Mob is nothing, after all.  

"Kageyama!" Ryohei shouts, clasping a large hand on Mob's shoulder jovially.  "You're getting smaller than usual!  You been drinking your milk?"

Mob gets pale very fast and the contents of his stomach churn.  

She spilled milk on him very often.  

It made him smell like rancid flesh and his hands felt sticky.

His hands shook around his carton of milk, and when it slid down his throat it sat heavy on his tongue and throat and it came back up.  

Mob's eyes are wide and he looks around.

It is easy to forget that the people around him don't mean to bring up things like that.

If he stops thinking, it feels like Ryohei brought it up on purpose and the thoughts well up in his head like great big drops of blood and Mob shakes and shakes and shakes.  

He can't cry.  

Musashi is speaking but he can't hear it over his own labored breath.  

What sort of a friend makes his friends worry?

A boy who doesn't deserve friends.

Musashi’s hands grasp his and it brings him out of his trance.  Weirdly enough, his hands are warm but dry.  They remind Mob of a blanket.

“You can tell us if you aren’t okay,” Musashi tells him.  Mob hears the sincerity in his words and he thinks that he loves Musashi for it.  And that Musashi loves him too.  

He remembers now, the contents of his heart.

Ritsu loves him.  Dimple loves him.  Reigen loves him.  His mother and father both, they have a special place for him in their hearts.  Musashi, Sagawa, Ryohei, Tome, Inugawa, Hanazawa.  He names them in his head and he counts them on his shaking fingers.  He pretends the fine creases in his skin are tally marks for each person who has ever loved him.

“Thank you, Musashi,” he says.  He knows his voice is shaking and his eyes are welling with tears but it’s okay.  Aren’t tears just proof that yo uhave loved?

Musashi hugs him in his large arms and claps his broad hands against Mob’s shaking back.  The other club members take him in their arms as well until Mob is surrounded on all sides and he is so warm.

He hugs them back, as much as his small hands can.

Mob smiles and then laughs, shaking softly with subdued peals of laughter.  His tears roll down his cheeks and drop on Musashi’s shoulders.  They fall in great pearly drops.  

The proof that he has loved.

Chapter Text

9.

make it better.

Dimple does not need to share Mob’s body to know that he is a barely breathing specter of the boy he once was.  Following Mob’s escape from the world within Asagiri, Dimple was glad to vacate his host but now, he is not so sure.  He almost wishes he could live side by side within Mob’s body, if only so that he could take care of it in the boy’s place.

He does not eat very well anymore, and when he does it is so that others don't worry.  Sometimes he throws up and Dimple watches him flush the toilet again and again, scrub it until his knuckles are raw and then flush it again, as if Mob can not rid himself of the filth.  When Dimple appears, Mob forces a sad smile and pretends he is alright, so Dimple watches from out of Mob’s sight, hoping that somehow, Mob’s obsessive cleaning and empty stomach are some breed of catharsis.  

Mogami hollowed out the boy’s guts, chewed on his sticky sweet capillaries, took handfuls of his pink-gray brain matter.  Dimple watches in terror as what is left devours itself like a sickening ourobouros.  

Today, Dimple manifests himself as Mob sleeps, watching the boy sadly.  He has a hard time sleeping and drifts in and out of consciousness.  Each time his eyes open, Dimple hides himself.  He wishes he could be a comfort to Mob.  That when his eyes shoot open, Dimple could be there and Mob would smile and his heart would slow and he would rest.  He wishes, he wishes, he wishes.

The next night is the same.  Mob’s breathing hitches and his eyes move wildly and his limbs tense.  His short fingers grasp at his sheets and his mouth opens, with half choked cries and muffled shouts.  

Dimple can not take it anymore.  He's reluctant to admit it, but it hurts him somewhere he did not know existed to watch Mob like this.  

“Shigeo,” he whispers, reaching a shaky, barely there arm out to touch him.  He focuses his strength to his fingertips so that it is tangible and warm.  It is all that he can do to comfort Mob like a person might.  

“Asa–” Mob pleads, mouth half open, eyes scrunched and brows furrowed.  The half spoken name ends with a frantic breath.  Dimple does not need to guess to know who Mob speaks to in his mind.  

He focuses again on his hand, pushing against Mob’s face.  His hands sink into Mob’s soft cheeks and Mob’s eyes open from the pressure.  They are big and dilated, his breathing panicky.  Dimple’s hand remains against Mob’s face and he can feel his staccato heart.  

“Sorry,” Mob says. “Did I disturb you?”  His eyes are drowsy and they frantically look somewhere that is not Dimple.  

“Shigeo, worry about yourself for once.” Dimple keeps his hand against Mob’s cheek.  It warms.  

“It must have been your stink that woke me up,” Mob says very suddenly.  His tone is different and softer. Dimple’s hand slackens and he squints, trying to decipher the boy before him.  Mob lays down and Dimple sees a soft smile on his face.  His eyes are warm.  

Dimple retracts his skinny limb. All of a sudden, in that unnameable place, he is feeling warm and comfortable.  

Mob turns in his sleep, and lets out a soft sigh.  It is a content one.