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He knows where he is because everything around him is red.
Stupid, he knows. He surrounds himself in scarlet and crimson in every day of his life as if in defiance of his past. As if by confronting it, by facing it, by cloaking himself in it, he'll somehow inure himself to the red of his nightmares -- or, at the very least, that he'll be able to shield himself from it somehow.
Of course, it doesn't work. Whatever he does in his waking hours never has any effect on his sleeping ones. Even though Aoba went into his mind and Scrapped him, broke the inky tendrils chaining him to the guilt and hurt of the past, Koujaku has continued to have nightmares.
It'll never be over. He looks down at his shaking hands. They're smaller, his wrists thin and bony, and the katana he holds trembles violently in his grip. Swallowing, he steadies his grasp on the hilt and looks around. He's back in that room in his father's house, the place from which his mind will never be able to truly escape. The walls are spattered with blood, glistening gouts of it spread across every surface. Here and there, he sees a handprint as if someone was trying to use the wall to get to their feet. Not that it did them any good.
Bodies are piled around him, two or three deep. All of them are dressed in dark suits, all of them faceless (literally: no eyes, ears, mouth, just smooth skin from hairline to chin); when Koujaku shifts a foot, he finds himself ankle-deep in their pooling blood. He shudders, a visceral disgust rolling through him. He did this. He did this.
He tries to take a step away. Something behind him squishes, soft, unpleasant. He turns and sees he's stepped on someone's hand. Revulsion rises up in his stomach and he lurches forward to vomit, but nothing comes out.
Somewhere, a woman sobs inconsolably.
That sound makes Koujaku straighten up, turning towards its source. He has to help her. It's not too late. Somehow, he finds the strength to step over, or past, or sometimes on, the corpses in his path. He slides open a door, steps into an empty room -- almost empty, that is, save for a futon laid out along the far wall. A cloth is spread out by it, bottles of ink and a dish placed tidily alongside a traditional needle.
His stomach turns, if for other reasons this time. For a moment, an image of a young man stretched out on that futon flickers before his eyes: himself, a blanket laid over his lower half, his back exposed. Above him, a figure in a blue kimono leans over him, fox-grin stretching eerily wide across his face. Ryuuhou's laughter rings in his ears, overwhelming him; he drops the katana in his hands, clutches his bloody hands to his ears for all the good it does.
"Just a little more," the thing that looks like Ryuuhou purrs. "Just a little more, and my flower will begin to bloom. I can't wait to see how it grows as you do. So magnificent..."
A scream emerges from Koujaku's throat, rattling the panels of the walls around him. The thing raises its grinning face. Another moment, and it's beside him, surrounding him like smoke. Too-gentle fingers trail down his back, over the freshly-tattooed skin, making it pulse and throb with pain -- and worse, with pleasure. The hands touching him feel good, cool and soft on his heated back. That sly voice croons into his ear.
"You'll never escape me," it tells him, whispering, tickling, slithering, making him shudder involuntarily. "Even though you killed me. I'll still be here, Koujaku. I'll always be here. Your little boyfriend won't be here to help you. No one can take me away from you."
"You're wrong," Koujaku hisses. "You're wrong--" He shoves Ryuuhou away, hard, stumbling back at the same time. Hands grasp at his shoulders again, but this time the hold is firm, substantial. A different voice, urgent in his ears, implores him to wake up.
The bedroom is dark, lit only by the faint amount of light that penetrates the blinds from outside. Koujaku blinks up at the ceiling. His chest is heaving; he can feel sweat beading on his skin, cold enough that he shivers violently.
"Koujaku? Koujaku, it's all right. You were having a nightmare." This voice is familiar and welcome; Koujaku pushes closer to the man beside him in an instinctive, unconscious gesture, pressing himself into Aoba's arms. He's still gasping for air, but air doesn't seem as important as reassuring himself that Aoba is here with him, real and present and alive.
Aoba's arms come around him; Koujaku nuzzles into the soft skin at the base of Aoba's throat, breathing in the scents of his lover's skin: faint sweat and soap from his shower before bed, the ineffable warmth of Aoba that he'd recognize blind or dead. He breathes Aoba in as if he could somehow restore the hollowness inside him, the empty places where his soul used to be.
One of Aoba's hands strokes gently over his hair, damp as it is with sweat. Koujaku feels so unclean, so dirty. Part of him wants to push away from Aoba, to deny himself this comfort, but the rest of him needs to be held too badly to let go. How can Aoba even look at him? His hands are still stained with his mother's blood.
"Koujaku," Aoba murmurs, and his voice is low and gentle, but his tone is warm, full of affection and concern. "I'm here," he says, "it's OK, you're all right." He continues to say the same things over and over, soft, occasionally pressing a kiss into Koujaku's hair as Koujaku works to count his breaths and steady himself.
As he finally feels the tension draining from him, Aoba reaches down to pull the blankets up around them again. This helps, too, sometimes: Aoba tucks them in tightly. It should feel constraining, but somehow Koujaku can relax this way, secure and close.
"There." Aoba draws Koujaku in again. Koujaku thinks that he should feel ashamed by the way Aoba holds him, by the way he needs Aoba to hold him, but he needs this comfort more than he can say. Shame is long past him, ever since he fell in love with Aoba and had to re-learn everything about what he thought it meant to be a man. Aoba's hands soothe him until his breathing is slow and easy and the sweat has dried on his skin.
He lifts his head, tilting up so that he can meet Aoba's mouth for a soft kiss. Aoba hums, his smile gentle, hand cradling Koujaku's cheek. "Better?" he asks, and Koujaku nods, his throat working.
Here, in the soft half-light of the bedroom he shares with Aoba, he knows the nightmare for what it was. It can't hurt him, not now. Ryuuhou is dead and gone; he can't hurt either of them anymore (physically, anyway). His father's house is a place he'll never see again, inside or out. His mother...
Koujaku closes his eyes and pushes his face into the hollow of Aoba's throat again. He's shaking as if he never stopped. Aoba's voice sounds in his ears, fainter than before, calling his name over and over. Hot tears burn his face. He'll never be forgiven for this. He doesn't have the right to be forgiven for what he did to her.
"Koujaku. Koujaku!" Aoba's voice is harsh in his ears suddenly; Koujaku chokes on a sob, startled back into the present moment. Aoba's fingers dig divots into his shoulders and his voice rasps, throaty; Koujaku can feel Aoba's heart hammering in his chest.
He swallows hard, shoves a hand against his eyes. "I'm sorry," he gulps. "I don't-- I don't know what..." That's a lie, he does know what happened, but it doesn't really matter. The nightmare still has its fingers deep in his skull.
"It's all right. Don't apologize." Aoba curls a hand around Koujaku's and pulls it away from his face. His lips press to Koujaku's eyelids, one and then the other, a touch as soft as a sacrament. "I'm gonna get you some water. I'll be right back."
Koujaku's other arm tightens around Aoba's waist. "Don't go," he rasps, and Aoba, on the verge of pulling away, stills instead.
"OK," Aoba says. "OK. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere." His hand finds Koujaku's hair and begins to stroke him again, as if he's an animal to be soothed. That's what he is, anyway, so it only fits.
He closes his eyes, lets himself breathe. Aoba's started humming some soft melody, something he doesn't recognize. The faint vibration of his chest eases something in him.
"It's all right, though," he hears Aoba murmur some time later. It pulls him back a little from the doze into which he'd begun to fall. He doesn't move; he's not sure if Aoba meant to be heard or not. Aoba's fingers toy with a long lock of hair, letting it slide through his fingers over and over again, lifting it, twirling it around his middle finger; Koujaku's hair is too fine to keep the curl even for a moment, and it slips away only for Aoba to repeat the process over again.
If Aoba has noticed him, he doesn't say anything; he just goes on, as if musing aloud. "It's all right to be scared. Nothing like that's ever going to be fixed that easily. Doesn't change how I feel." Something goes tight in Koujaku's throat; he squeezes his eyes shut. "I love you," Aoba says, and it's so easy when it comes out, not like other times when Aoba has struggled to express himself or get the words out. "I love you so much. You're safe with me, I promise, you always will be. No matter what. I've got you."
"Aoba," Koujaku chokes out, pushes up to kiss Aoba. He can't not, not after that. "Fuck, I don't fucking deserve you," he mutters against Aoba's mouth.
Aoba's hands cradle his face. "You do," he whispers. "I'll tell you every day until you see it." He pulls Koujaku over him, lets actions take over where words aren't enough, and afterwards Koujaku sleeps deeply, restful, in his lover's arms. If he dreams, he doesn't remember.