Work Text:
Nagito doesn't always know where he's at. On the bad days.
On the days when everything feels like it's on fire, and thirty different voices are swirling around in his head. The days when he doesn't know who's talking to Hajime: him or someone else.
Sometimes he wonders how it would go if he actually came around and told Hajime about his diagnosis. They'd noticed more than one thing when they figured out his lymphoma.
Was having thirty or so different people living within you different than what everyone else experienced? Nagito didn't think so, he thought it was normal. But maybe that was due to the fractured reality that he'd been living like this since he was five years old—a time he still didn't remember—and couldn't remember anything other than being like this.
He'd talked to his therapist about it. It was on his file. But his therapist was supposed to know these things about him, Hajime wasn't. Well, Hajime wasn't supposed to not know, but Nagito didn't want him to know.
Being lonely was enough. Being called delusional and forming attachments to people too quickly and having thirty different identities living within one body was enough. He didn't need Hajime to know. He didn't need Hajime to leave him.
He twiddled his finger with his thumb. The metal felt cold against his skin.
He could tell him now. He could blurt it out and come clean. Everything would be out in the open.
Or he could keep quiet. He could shut up, be quiet. Junko always liked that.
She was one of the voices that had been there for a long time. But she wasn't the first. No, she was nowhere near the first one.
Nagito took a sip of his lemonade.
"You should tell him," Chiaki said. She was another one of the voices.
"Yeah, things'll be easier if you do," Himari added from the back of Nagito's brain.
"But he'll think we're crazy," Nagito mumbled, sweat making his hands clamp up.
"He won't," Chiaki assured.
Nagito didn't know why Chiaki became one of the voices in his head. His therapist said that sometimes this could happen; that his brain could take people he knew and add them to his brain.
Chiaki was a nice voice. Junko was a bad one. Himari was calming. Nagito tried to ignore the others. He tried to ignore their begs to "take over," as they called it.
He was scared of them "taking over."
He was scared of the amnesia and the blackouts. Chiaki at least knew how to clean up after herself, and how to not lead Hajime on to herself.
Nagito sighed.
Hajime was coming home in an hour. He could tell him, or he could hold it in.
"You should," Chiaki said softly. She was the only voice now.
"But what do I say?"
"Exactly what the nice lady told you."
The "nice lady" was Nagito's therapist. She'd only met Chiaki, but Chiaki still didn't know her name.
"What, so I just blurt out that I have dissociative identity disorder and that he might not actually know me as well as he thought?" Nagito said, raising his voice. "Great plan, Chiaki, way to tell him."
Nagito rubbed his hands over his eyes to wipe away the newly-formed tears in them. Raising his voice was pointless, everyone could hear him no matter what he said.
"That is exactly what you do," Chiaki said sternly. "You tell him the truth, and you let him figure out how to handle it."
"Fine," Nagito mumbled, wiping his tears away with his sleeve. "Fine, yeah."
The doorknob to Nagito and Hajime's shared apartment began to twist. There was a small creak.
Hajime shuffled himself in through the door, work supplies in hand. Nagito was startled.
"Y-you're home early," Nagito stuttered, startled out of his mind.
"Yeah, got off work a bit earlier than usual," Hajime said, setting his stuff down by the door. "Anyways, I thought I'd make dinner."
"Oh, uh," Nagito mumbled. "Yeah, sure."
"Tell him," Chiaki pressed. "He'll listen."
"But what if he doesn't?" Nagito whispered to himself, even though Chiaki could hear him without him speaking.
"He wi-"
"Nagito, is everything alright?"
Nagito clasped his hands over his mouth. He hadn't meant to say that out loud, he hadn't meant t do that. Shit. No. This was bad, this was bad, Hajime was going to figure him out and he was going to lose him.
The only thing Hajime noticed was that his boyfriend was having a full-blown meltdown.
"Nagito," he whispered. "Hey, hey, is everything okay?"
"No!" Nagito yelled, slamming his fists against his chest frantically. "You're going to think I'm...you're going to think I'm crazy! And you're going to leave me, and-"
"I'm not going to leave you, Nagito, what in the world made you think that?"
"Junko did," Nagito said, not even noticing the words he just said. "She said, she said that you would leave me, and call me delusional and I would be alone and I can't do that, I can't do that again-"
It took a moment for Nagito to realize what he was saying. He stopped himself before he could continue, a shocked look forming on his face.
"Shit," Nagito mumbled. "I didn't mean to tell you all that, I should have prepared, I should have-"
Hajime stood there, astounded. "You should have talked to me."
Nagito started to tear up. Was Hajime saying that he was mad that Nagito didn't tell him sooner? Was he going to leave him?
"I, I'm sorry..."
"No, no, it's okay," Hajime said, seeing the look of a thousand different thoughts running through his boyfriend's head. "I just mean, Nagito, you can talk to me, about all of this."
"I know I should have-"
"No, I'm not mad at you, I'm just worried that you felt like you couldn't say anything."
"I was scared."
"I know, you told me," Hajime said, giving Nagito a worried smile. "Now, what's going on?"
Nagito stared at the floor, ignoring Hajime's gaze. "I have dissociative identity disorder."
Hajime looked calm. Calmer than Nagito thought he should have been, considering the situation.
"No response?" Nagito asked tentatively. "Shit, shit! I knew I shouldn't have said anythi-"
"Tell everyone that we say hello," Hajime said, smiling.
"We?"
"Other specified dissociative disorder - type 1b," Hajime said.
"You, you're like me?"
"I've always been."
Nagito hugged the life out of Hajime. He had someone. Someone was there, someone understood him, someone got it. Someone knew what it was like.
Hajime knew what it was like.
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