Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Denji, this is a contract."

Power hadn't even voiced her terms, and she could already feel it taking effect. It made her heart swell up even as she felt her heart begin to spin. There was an element of pride to it that her blood would obey her commands so quickly, so obediently, but it went deeper than that. She knew that Denji was going to make her proud. He didn't need to verbally agree to the contract; the fact that her blood was already draining told her that he would take full advantage of the opportunity she was granting him.

Truthfully, she would know that she was making the right choice even if she couldn't literally feel it. Looking down at Denji's tear-stained face, she knew that he would find a way to make everything right, no matter how impossible it may seem.

She didn't expect Denji to see that, foolish, short-sighted creature that he was. The fear in his shining eyes told her that he was seeing the color drain out of her face as anemia set in. "Power," he whispered, a desperate plea telling her he was scared she might die.

She might. The thought didn't scare her anymore. Power didn't want to die, but all lives were equally insignificant - including her own.

All lives were equally insignificant, but Denji meant something more to her. He was her first friend. He and Aki were her family. As long as they were okay, then she was fine with disappearing.

Power didn't have time to waste on unnecessary words, but she had to do something to tell Denji that it would be okay. That he could do this. So she smiled, softer and sadder than she could remember having ever felt before, leaned in close, and said, "Take my blood and fight. Don't let Makima hurt us anymore."

Darkness claimed her before she could tell him to come home. As she collapsed into a pile of refuse and succumbed to unconsciousness, Power hoped that he understood. She hoped that she would be there to greet him when the time came.

And if she wasn't, she hoped that the people she left behind would be alright without her.

*

This household would fall apart without Power. It's a simple fact that she had accepted shortly after moving into Aki's apartment. Her companions are simply too dysfunctional to be left without her. They would make fools of themselves, and all would be reduced to shambles in an instant.

Something has made that weight heavier over the past few weeks. It feels more... real. Inescapable. It creates an itch under her skin and sets her heart racing, yet she cannot bring herself to shrug it off. As much as she hates it, the thought of what may happen if she refuses to bear the burden is even more repugnant. So she sets a good example, takes responsibility, and does her best to make sure that her group all acts like the functional adults that they're supposed to be.

They're broken enough that it isn't always enough, even with her fantastic abilities. There are times when she senses that her help will go unnoticed and unappreciated. On those occasions, she leaves her companions alone to wait for a better time to act. But she never pulls away for long. It would be dangerous for her to pull away for long lest a problem arises that only she can resolve.

There isn't anything to gain from staying away from everyone for too long anyway. Power's room - Denji's room, technically, but everyone knows that it's Power's too - is nice and comfortable. When Denji's with her and she knows where everyone else is, it's even peaceful. She hadn’t been a big fan of 'peaceful' in the past, but after everything, it settles into her bones and warms her in a way that it never did before.

It's not peaceful when Denji isn't there, or she doesn't know what everyone else is doing. At those times, it's just a place for her to catch her breath before the emptiness pulsating in her chest and the restlessness buzzing under her skin sends her back out. And she always goes back out. Being out and around the house, being the smart, sane, reliable one holding them all together, may cause pressure in her chest and weight in her stomach, but it's better than that.

Besides, she has responsibilities.

Power did her morning rounds before retiring to her room for a little while. Not because she was tired or anxious or burnt out or any of those weak, stupid feelings that she had never felt. She just went in there because there was nothing better to do. However, enough time has passed that it is almost time for her to tend to her afternoon duties. She pushes the door open and starts down the hallway with slow, plodding footsteps.

The house is quiet. It's always quiet.

The apartment was never quiet. She misses it, the yelling and the crashing and the clamor. It's easier to fall asleep here, but the sleep itself was better when the days were filled with laughter and arguments, her and Denji shouting and cackling at each other while Aki yelled at them both to stop it.

Now it's like she and Denji have been muzzled. There's never anything on their faces, but the effect is the same. And Aki...

There are three bedrooms in the house. Power's, which she barely ever spends any time in. Denji's, which plays host to both of them. It is the sight of the third bedroom that makes her stop. She hesitates for a moment before walking over to the door with slow, tentative footsteps. Her weight shifts from foot to foot as she stares at the door and gnaws at her lower lip. Finally, she raises her hand to grasp at the doorknob, only to lower it the second contact is made.

"'Tis not time yet," she mutters to herself. One of her responsibilities is maintaining some semblance of routine. There is no telling what chaos will erupt if that routine is disrupted.

Besides, he may get upset if she's too early. The last thing she wants is to make him even grumpier.

Power steps back and continues down the hallway. It isn’t very long; if she weren’t taking the time to be observant, she would already be out. But these are circumstances that call for careful observation, so it takes several minutes for her to make her way from her bedroom to the living room.

Upon entry, she is met by the same sight that greeted her when she woke up. Empty cartons of food from yesterday’s takeout cover the short table in the center of the room. A few have tumbled over to lay on the ground. 

Power sniffs. The scent of stale foodstuffs floods her nostrils. Allowing the garbage to fester overnight is harmless, but if someone does not clean it up soon, it will start to truly stink. If they leave it for long after that, there will be bugs and all of the other things that Aki would fret over for some stupid reason. It’s still stupid to fret over it. After spending the past year wishing that Aki would let them make messes, she doesn’t know why the thought of leaving this one alone makes her skin itch.

She doesn’t know why she can’t stop staring at it.

The feeling of a soft, warm body twining around her ankles pulls her attention away from the refuse. Power sighs as she bends down to pick Meowy up. “‘Tis nonsensical, isn’t it?” she asks. 

Meowy meows in response. She relaxes her grip so the cat can twist around to face her. A tiny smile crosses her lips when a small pink nose touches hers. “You’re right,” Power declares, “It is not my problem anyway.” She has many duties, but cleaning is not one of them.

Most of the time.

Denji has been trying to enforce a “chore schedule,” but it isn’t her turn to clean up after dinner.

Is it…?

Power casts the garbage a sidelong glance. She stares at it for a long moment and bites her lower lip.

“No,” she declares. There are other, more important things to do. She will not allow herself to become absorbed in something so pointless and stupid. Adjusting her grip on Meowy, she walks the rest of the way to the kitchen.

It is slightly less messy than the living room. The countertops are cluttered with boxes of food, supplies, and other things that no one could be bothered to put away, but the table is clear. There is nothing on the floor.

The mess has not stopped Angel from sitting on the countertop. His extended wings are carefully pressed against the wall in what she can only assume is a half-hearted attempt to avoid knocking anything off the counter. His left wing is blocking out the light streaming through the nearby window and casting the kitchen into shadows. He barely even glances up from the bun that he’s listlessly picking at when Power enters the room.

That’s fine. She barely glances at him before dropping Meowy in his lap.

Angel makes a disgruntled sound. “Don’t drop your cat on me when I’m eating.”

“You’re always eating,” Power counters, reaching onto her tiptoes and opening a cabinet beside his head. A meager array of snacks greet her. None of it looks satisfying. She squints at it anyway, willing it to turn into something better.

“So don’t drop your cat on me.”

“You should be honored to pet Meowy.”

It takes a suspiciously long time for Angel to respond. She looks over to find him staring down at Meowy, who’s settled down on his lap, but not making a move to touch her. The bun has been set down beside him.

“...Your behavior is an insult,” Power grumbles.

“Tough.” Angel looks at her for a moment, agitated, only to look away again an instant later. “I’m still not used to it.”

Power closes the cabinet. It makes a noise that sends Meowy jumping out of Angel’s lap. “Are you not meant to be working on that?”

Angel shrugs. “And you were supposed to clean up last night.”

Power opens her mouth. Closes it. “...T’was Denji’s turn.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Angel sighs, looking up at the ceiling. A roll of paper towels wobbles dangerously as his left wing twitches. The right knocks over a box of bland, tasteless crackers that none of them are going to eat. He looks over at it, blinking, before looking back at Power. “I’m too tired to argue with you about this.”

Power decides to take this as the victory that it is. The glaring absence in the room keeps it from being truly sweet.

“Where’s Denji?” she asks.

Angel shrugs. Again . The spark of agitation it sends through her is weaker than it would have been three weeks ago. After living with him for that long, she knows better than to expect any true commitment from him. That doesn’t stop the spark from blossoming into something hot and grasping when he says, “He went out somewhere.”

“You did not find out where?” she demands.

Angel frowns. “Am I supposed to keep track of him?”

Power opens her mouth, about to tell him that yes , they all need to watch each other. The words die before they even have a chance to form. She closes her mouth with a sigh and looks across the room, where Meowy is fishing a few kibbles from her bowl. It is nearly empty.

Just as Power has responsibilities, Angel has his own. The difference is that his are the result of choice rather than obligation. The Control Devil destroyed everyone around Power in one way or another; Angel is the only one who received any accidental kindness in the destruction, warped though it may be. Makima had no use for a pawn without arms, so she restored his. She demanded everything from him, so in the aftermath of her control, he was left with no powers to speak of.

Angel is now one of the weakest devils in existence. He is also, she knows, freer than he has ever been. If he made an effort, he could likely integrate himself into society. He could have a life beyond these four walls.

Yet he chose to stay.

But not for Denji and Power. They are not the ones he chose to shackle himself to. Therefore, he has no duty to them.

Power slinks over to the table. She pulls a chair out and flops into it, and although she doesn't say a word, her gaze remains locked on Angel. He stares back impassively.

Time ticks by.

Angel picks his bun back up and resumes picking at it. Occasionally he lifts a bit of the sweet bread to his lips, but it looks like he's pulling it apart more than anything.

Power glances at the clock hanging from the wall.

"It's not noon yet," Angel says.

"I know," comes Power's irritable response. It's close, but close doesn't make it noon, which means that it still isn't time.

Power goes back to watching Angel. He's too engrossed in the slow but brutal decimation of his bun to bother looking back at her at this point.

The gentle crunch of Meowy eating her kibbles comes to a stop. There's a mew, the sound of footsteps, and the next thing she knows, Meowy is rubbing against her calves, soft and warm. Power drops her hand down and feels her rub her face against it.

The door opens.

"I found Denji," Angel says as Power jumps to her feet.

"Denji!" she calls, racing out of the kitchen and over to the doorway.

Denji blinks when he sees her. His arms are full of plastic grocery bags, but her attention is drawn to the ones under his eyes. They seem bigger than they were when she last saw him. That shouldn't be possible, considering she only saw him a few hours ago. But the smile that he offers her is weak and wobbly, and it all but confirms to her that he is in an even worse condition than he was when she left him.

Fool. This is what he gets for taking the initiative and attempting a task without consulting her first.

...It is not entirely Denji's fault. She is the one who retreated when she should have made her presence known.

"Hey," Denji says, shifting his bags into one hand as he reaches back to close the door with the other. Why he didn't do that before going inside is lost to her. Probably another sign of his waning condition. "Is everything okay?"

Power crosses her arms. "You did not tell me you were heading out."

The door closes with a click. It is loud in the silence that falls after her statement.

"...I didn't?" Denji asks.

"No."

"I thought... I... Shit." Denji's smile, already so blatantly false, disappears completely. He drops his head with a tired sigh. "Sorry, Powy. Guess I forgot."

Power hums. "See that it doesn't happen again."

"Will do."

Denji starts forward. Power drops her arms to her sides and follows him.

"Hey!" Denji exclaims upon stepping into the kitchen. He raises a hand to point at Angel. "Watch the wings! You're gonna knock shit over!"

"Probably," Angel admits, not bothering to look up from his bun. A few more bites have been taken from it, but now he's down to turning it over in his hands.

"That means you should get off," Denji presses.

"Later," Angel mutters.

"You suck," Denji grumbles. And that's where he leaves in because the Angel Devil may be yet another thing that feels wrong most of the time, but his wrongness at least serves a purpose. He is there by choice - neither of them is willing to push too far and see if he might change his mind.

Especially Denji.

Denji dumps the contents of his bags onto the table one by one. All sorts of boring stuff comes tumbling out. Paper towels, soap, toilet paper, sponges, laundry detergent, the sort of things that he never would have bothered with a few weeks ago.

It is not important enough to warrant him worrying her.

Power wrinkles her nose. "You left us to get this?"

"This stuff's important, and we're running out," Denji says, utterly unenthusiastic.

"We have plenty of paper towels," Angel says.

Power and Denji look over to find him turning a roll of paper towels over in his hands. The remains of his bun sit abandoned by his side once again. Power only looks at him for a little while before turning to Denji, who is staring at him dully.

"...Well, now we have more," Denji eventually says.

Angel looks up. A frown crosses his face as his crimson eyes flicker over to the table. "What about the rest?" he asks. "Are you sure we needed all of it?"

"Yeah! I mean, we were..." The fire that Denji managed to summon at the beginning of his response falters. He looks at the pack of paper towels on the table. Finally, his shoulders droop, and he admits, "I don't know. I just saw that we were running out of some of this shit, and it all seemed to go together, so I just... got it all."

He drops into one of the chairs, props his elbows up on the table, and presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. "I mean, it's not like we can't afford it, right?" he asks. Power can't tell if he wants an answer or anything.

Angel gives him one anyway. "I guess it won't hurt."

"Right! Aki's will left us with great riches!" Power exclaims. She says it because the air will get even heavier if she allows it to go quiet, but the second the words leave her mouth, she knows that they are the wrong ones. The uncomfortable weight that she dreaded manifests as something truly unbearable.

Denji drops his face into his hands.

Angel pulls his wings in and looks down at his feet.

Power shoots a desperate glance at the clock. This time, luck is on her side.

It's two minutes past twelve.

"'Tis time," she says.

Denji grunts in acknowledgment.

Angel shoots Power a look that makes her hesitate. The moment of silent inaction comes to an end when he slides his way off of the counter. However, rather than moving to intervene, he offers Power a nod and walks over to the kitchen table, where he begins collecting some of the cleaning supplies.

Power feels her shoulders relax slightly. "I will be back," she murmurs.

Meowy is waiting for her at the kitchen entrance. She scoops her up before continuing on her mission.

It doesn't take her nearly as long to get back to the third door as it did to leave her room. She hesitates once again when she stops before it, but only for the short instant it takes for her to formulate the perfect plan of action. Before she knows it, her hand's gripping the cold metal of the doorknob. She turns and steps inside.

The room is practically pitch black. Once, daylight might have streamed in through the window, but now the curtains are drawn tightly shut. It takes a moment for Power's eyes to adjust to the darkness. She knows that she could start forward even without it. For all of the things that have changed, some at least have stayed the same, and the floor has been left clear of obstructions. Regardless, she waits until she can see the figure in the bed with some clarity, then she waits a little while longer, staring at him.

Aki's new appearance has never frightened her. Power does not so easily - nay, she does not startle at all. Yet even she cannot deny the feelings of disquiet that it sparked within her at first. He walked in looking like that, tore their home apart, and tried to kill them, completely separate from reality.

A weaker person would have been terrified.

Power had simply felt her stomach churn, struggled to breathe, took care of herself, and waited for Denji to fix the situation.

It very nearly turned into something worse. The horrible feelings tugging at Power's insides did turn into something else, something worse, and maybe... maybe she does feel fear after all. Just not for herself.

What she feels as she stares at Aki is neither the horrible sensation she experienced when she opened the door nor the horrible, cold, clawing thing that haunted her in the weeks that followed. Their house is cold and quiet, but it is still better now than it was then, so those feelings have been banished to the depths of her memory. What lingers is a weak yet unignorable ache. It forces her to pause and stare for a moment, to watch Aki's chest until she's sure that he's at least breathing.

She only pauses for a moment. That same ache also serves to strengthen her sense of resolve and responsibility. This is one of the most important of her duties, something that only she can do.

Power marches over to the side of the bed. Meowy squirms in her arms, doubtlessly aware of what is about to happen. She opts to provide instruction anyway. Grasping Meowy under her front legs, she turns the feline around to stare her down and says, "Wake him."

Then she sets her down on Aki's chest.

Meowy gets to work immediately. She pads up to Aki's face and paws at his cheek. He turns his head over but makes no other signs of waking. Naturally, Meowy takes this as a sign that more advanced measures need to be taken. She steps onto his cheek and leans forward to sniff at the gun barrel jutting out of his face. This elicits a groan, but it is not until Meowy begins licking the gun outright that he raises a clumsy hand to gently push her back down to his chest.

"Power," he blearily grumbles.

"'Tis noon," she says by way of explanation.

Aki's head turns in the direction of the tiny alarm on his nightstand, bright, glowing letters cutting through the dark like a knife. "...I see," he murmurs.

Aki slept for three weeks straight after Denji brought him back to his senses. Power is the one who was there when he woke up. Now, it is her duty to make sure that he always wakes up.

This marks her daily mission as a success. Now that he knows what time it is, he will pull himself together and rejoin the rest of the household. Power can safely leave and do whatever she pleases for a while.

She climbs onto Aki's bed and crawls on his chest. Meowy jumps off as she leans as close as he can without bumping her head against his face gun.

"Is everything alright?" Aki asks. He sounds more alert now. This would be a good sign if he didn't always sound more alert when he's worrying about them. Power's beginning to suspect that it doesn't mean much when the rest of the time it sounds like a part of him never woke up. Still, it's something, Denji and Angel say it's progress, so she takes what she can get.

Today, taking when she can get means groaning and burning her face in the crook of Aki's neck. She can feel the edge of steel where his gun arm meets his body through his shirt. It bothered her the first few times she curled up against him, back when he was still fast asleep. Now, she presses her cheek against it and says, "Denji and Angel are being stupid again."

"How?"

"They're just stupid."

"I see."

Power feels a hand gently running over her hair. She makes a pleased sound at the contact. After a few moments of this, she sits up, not scooting off of Aki entirely but giving him some room to sit up. "Do my hair," she demands.

Aki sighs. She knows better than to expect it to be the precursor to any true protest. Indeed, his voice is weak and half-hearted when he asks, "Shouldn't you ask someone with two hands?"

"No," she says, for the answer is obvious. The act of getting her hair done isn't the point, even if one of them's decided to act ignorant about it.

"Alright," Aki says. He sits up slowly. Despite the darkness, she can tell that his gun arm is unnaturally, uncomfortably stiff and still, in part because he always holds it like that. She's squinting at it when he reaches over to flick the lamp on.

Suddenly, she's too busy trying to blink the spots out of her eyes to look at anything.

“Ghastly behavior,” Power hisses, raising her hands to rub at her eyes. "You should have provided a warning."

"Sorry," Aki says. To his minimal credit, he genuinely does sound somewhat apologetic. "Are you okay?"

"Of course," Powers says, dropping her hands back into her lap. There are still spots in her vision, but she's trying to set a good example. A prolonged display of weakness is unacceptable. "But you are certain to blind yourself, swathing yourself in darkness with sudden bursts of light. You should open the curtains."

Aki hums. "Maybe."

He opens the nightstand drawer and takes out a brush. There are more blonde hairs woven between the brustles than black. Aki sets a moment brushing it off before pulling himself up. "Turn around," he says.

Power does as he says. Soon, the brush runs through her hair in smooth, rhythmic strokes. She closes her eyes and tilts her head back into the touch. Eventually, it is joined by the careful, unsteady touch of fingers attempting to separate her hair and weave it together. Aki is not very good at braiding, but he is getting better. Power is getting used to wearing a braid.

She knows when Aki is almost done without him saying anything. He lets go of the painstakingly woven braid, and she hears him rifling through the draw not even a second later. Finally, he wraps a hair tie around the bottom of the braid and announces, "Done."

Power stands up. She runs a hand over the braid, feeling the places where bits of hair are coming loose, or the twist is a little sloppy and nods her approval.

"Good," she says. "Come out within the half hour, or I will return to fetch you."

"Alright," Aki says. He's fishing through his drawer again, probably looking for his cigarettes. This entire room smells like smoke. Power probably smells like smoke too now, but it's fine. The smell will rub off before very long.

She turns around to head out, only to hesitate when she reaches the door. Turning back around, she adds, "Do not enter the living room."

Slowly, warily, Aki turns to face her. "What's wrong with the living room?"

"Denji has neglected his duties. I am being forced to clean it for him."

"...As long as it gets done."

"It shall," Power assures him, a remorselessly necessary promise that agonizes her to make.

Aki relaxes a bit. She takes that as her cue to leave.

She does not close the door behind her.

*

Power grabs a garbage bag and stuffs the empty take-out containers cluttering the living room inside. Every second is agony, but at least it doesn't take very long. She is soon left standing in an empty room with a full garbage bag and a sense of...

Not satisfaction. She isn't satisfied. The containers are gone, but the room isn't clean. She still smells the pungent aroma of old food when she breathes in, and some of it comes from the open bag leaning against the table, but a good portion of it emanates from the room itself. It shouldn't bother her. It wouldn't have bothered her a few weeks ago. But a few weeks ago, she wouldn't have picked up Denji's slack in the first place. Now that she has taken up the task, the lingering aroma speaks of unacceptable failure.

The answer is clear. Power must restore the living room to a perfectly pristine state.

She has no idea how.

Power contemplates the best way to tackle this conundrum when she spots Aki walking down the hallway. He starts past the living room, only to double back and stare at Power. His expression is...

She doesn't know. It was always Aki's eyes that revealed how he felt, and those are long gone. His jaw is slack, his human shoulder drooping and the other awkwardly stiff, but attempting to puzzle out how he feels from that makes a flash of frustration flare up in her stomach. It is followed by a whispered thought, that she's gotten better at reading Aki, but it still isn't good enough. What if she can never tell how he feels with a look again?

Power crushes the thought down and decides that Aki feels impressed and grateful. It's the only thing that makes sense, after all.

"Behold! I have remedied Denji's failure!" She crows, spreading her arms out wide. One of her feet jerks to the side a few inches, knocking into the garbage bag by her feet and sending it falling over. A stained brown takeout box comes tumbling out.

Aki and Power stare at it.

"...The mess has been left so long that it resists me," she sniffs. "Fear not. I shall force it into submission."

Aki looks back at her. Power stares back at him, for she may be unable to truly meet his gaze, but the fast few weeks have taught her that looking away is decidedly the wrong move. Finally, he offers a small nod. It makes his hair shake slightly, and that movement draws her attention back to the topknot that he can't wear anymore. She wonders if he misses it. It was stupid, but it was a part of him. She wonders how bad it would be if she asked.

"Good job, Power," he says, pulling her back to the interaction at hand. The praise comes low and empty. It still makes something warm and proud spark within her chest. It's a feeling that may have been pleasant enough to make up for the frustrating tedium of the mountainous task that she has taken upon her shoulders.

Aki departs, and she is left alone with a bag of garbage and a room full of stench.

For a moment, she considers leaving it. The smell really isn't that bad. She's fine with it. Angel probably will be too. Denji only has the pitiful senses of a human, so he probably can't smell it at all.

The trouble is that she's certain that Aki's senses are a lot stronger now than when he was human, even if he likes to downplay it. If Power can smell it, he can too, and he won't be okay with it. If it bothers him too much, he'll avoid the living room, which will lead to him spending even more time in that dark room that stinks of smoke. So the smell has to go away.

But Power doesn't know how to fix it.

Aki probably does, but if she asks, she suspects that she will receive a dull response from someone who sounds like they're barely alive rather than someone who sounds like Aki. She hates those interactions. They're the only time when she's grateful that he doesn't have eyes anymore, for it means that she doesn't have to see them full and lifeless.

That leaves her with one acceptable option.

Power stuffs the fallen takeout carton back in the bag and ties it shut. She drags it behind her on the way to the kitchen, hefting it into her arms when she enters.

Angel has the cabinet beneath the sink open. He's either sorting through something or fiddling with the pipes again. His semi-mantled wings block her view, so she neither knows nor cares which. Aki stands leaning against the counter beside him, head dipped down slightly as the two converse in hushed tones. This does spark some curiosity in her, but not enough to get her to neglect her current mission in order to eavesdrop.

The kitchen table is clear again. Mostly. Denji is still sitting there, but now his feet are propped up on it, and his chair wobbles as he balances it on its back legs. His head is tilted back as he shamelessly tries to listen in on Aki and Angel's conversation. He is her target at this instant.

"Denji!" Power calls.

He lazily looks her way.

Power throws the garbage bag at him.

Angel's head snaps around, red eyes wide and alarmed. His wings fluff up and draw it closer when he catches sight of the garbage bag sailing through the air.

Aki looks up and lets out a sound of disbelief or outrage.

Denji jumps to his feet with a strangled yelp, grabbing the garbage bag just in time to avoid it slamming into him at full force.

Silence reigns for a heartbeat. Then-

"What the hell!?" Denji explains.

"Don't throw garbage!" Aki yells, his outrage an aching, familiar sound that makes her decide that she will definitely be throwing a garbage bag at Denji again soon.

"Yeah! What if it broke on me?" Denji tacks on.

Power props her hands on her hips. "It would serve you right, leaving me to clean when it was your turn."

"No!?" Denji cries, dropping the garbage bag beside him in able to point at her. "It was your turn to clean, you gremlin!"

Power sniffs. "Nay, I cleaned on Wednesday."

Denji shakes his finger as if he will get anywhere by doing so. "Yeah, and there's thr- that means it was your turn to clean again!"

"You really didn't," Angel mutters at the same time. In the corner of her eye, Power sees him stand up and lean over to whisper something to Aki.

This is getting them nowhere.

"I tire of this conversation," Power declares. She steps forward to grab Denji by the crook of his elbow and drags him after her as she walks out of the kitchen.

"H-Hey!" Denji cries. He makes a feeble attempt to tug himself out of her grip, but comes with her all the same, so she doesn't bother acknowledging it.

"Later," Angel murmurs as they depart. Aki remains silent save for a hum.

Power takes Denji to the sliding glass leading to the backyard. She releases his arm to throw it open with a thunk. Her expression is expectant when she looks back at him. Unfortunately, he is staring at her with a dull combination of tiredness and non-comprehension, the garbage bag clutched loosely in his grip.

"Power-"

"Silence," she hisses, jerking her head toward the kitchen. His frown fills her with apprehension that is cut down when he sighs and steps onto the back porch. She walks after him, slamming the door shut behind her.

"The living room stinks," she says without preamble.

Denji blinks. "Well, yeah, probably." He walks down the steps of the back porch. Power follows him with an impatient huff.

"How do we fix it?" she demands.

"Dunno." Denji pauses to push open the gate leading onto the driveway. He holds it open for Power, then allows it to slam shut behind them. "You cleaned up, didn't you?"

"Yes, but that has not fixed the problem. It still smells."

They walk down the street, toward the little alleyway that houses the dumpsters. Denji remains silent until they reach them, at which point he hums and shoves the garbage bag inside one of the giant blue containers. "We could open some windows?"

Power scoffs. "A situation like this cannot be solved simply by opening a window. Perhaps..." She pauses, nibbling her lower lip as she considers her latest idea. It is brilliant, but will Denji appreciate her brilliance? Or will her attempts to hold their house together push them further into discord?

No. There is no way that her idea is anything less than perfect. Therefore, there is no way that it could make things worse. There's no way that she can make things worse, period. The insecurity haunting her is stupid and must be banished immediately.

A sharp grin crosses her face as she looks back at Denji. "What if we were to cover it with a superior scent?"

Denji's face scrunches up as he considers her proposal. "Like scented candles?"

"Exactly!" Power crows. "I shall retrieve the scented candles and burn them until the stench is undetectable!"

"Uh..." Denji raises a hand to rub at the back of his head. "I don't think we actually have any scented candles? I mean, we did at the old place, but they kinda went..." He pulls his hand back and mimes an explosion.

Power frowns. "Oh. Well... I shall retrieve candles then."

Denji's shoulders slump. "I don't wanna go shopping again."

"You don't need to. I will fetch them."

Denji is already frowning. Now, that frown grows deeper. He glances down the alleyway in the direction of the house. "Maybe we should just ask Aki..."

"No!" Power snaps. "Aki isn't..." She trails off. It isn't that she can't describe Aki's current condition. She is certain that she could capture it perfectly if she made an effort. The problem is that she doesn't want to.

Power isn't stupid. She knows that refusing to directly acknowledge the situation doesn't make it any different. It feels different though, and she is unwilling to let go of that feeling.

She changes her method.

"Don't you want to show Aki that we are capable housekeepers?" she demands, stepping closer to Denji. "Do you wish to drop another burden on him when we could take the chance to prove how much we have learned?"

Power doesn't sound like herself. The realization hits her as she is speaking. Judging by the off look he gives her, Denji notices it too. A few weeks ago, he would have called her out on it. He would have demanded to know what her "deal" was and pressed until he figured out what was going through her head. Now, the ever-present shadow of exhaustion clinging to his features prevents any such thing from happening. He sighs, soft yet heavy, and asks, "Are you sure?"

Power steps back and tries to look proud of her victory. It doesn't quite feel right, but she holds onto the look anyway. "Of course," she says.

"And you know how to get to the store and back?"

"Now you insult me."

Denji starts walking back to the house. Power falls into step beside him. "Alright, I'll get you some cash," he says. "And if Aki asks..."

"Tell him that I had important errands to run."

Denji shoots her a sour look. "You know that'll just make him ask more questions. Then he'll get pissed at me for not going with you." He frowns and looks ahead. "Maybe I should go with you..."

"No," Power says, blunt and unwavering. "We cannot leave him alone."

She regrets her statement as soon as she says it. It comes too close to directly acknowledging the things that she wanted to avoid, shifts the feeling in her gut to something deeper and darker. But it's too late now, and as Denji looks back at her, she knows that it's too late to backtrack.

"Angel's there," Denji points out.

"He's always there," Power retorts. "Do you wish for him to fall further into the habit of isolating himself with only the Angel Devil?"

"Of course not! But I mean..." Denji falters. His gaze drops down to his feet. "It's always gonna be just us and Angel for him from now on, isn't it? I mean, there's no undoing..."

"Denji."

"Yeah." He sighs, rolls his shoulders, and looks back up. "I'll tell Angel you're out getting candles. We can wait and see if Aki notices you're gone, and if he does... Fuck, I don't know. We'll find a way to make it sound like a good idea."

"It is a good idea."

"I mean, it's not the worst."

Power smacks Denji on the back of his head, gently, but loud enough to make a satisfying sound. Her first blow hits, but when she goes for a second one, he ducks his head and dances out of the way.

"'Tis brilliant!" she barks.

"You're just covering one stink up with another one!" Denji retorts.

"You could come up with no better plan!"

"Could!" He turns into their driveway, practically running in his attempts to stay out of Power's range. "I could..."

The energy visibly drains out of Denji. She can't tell if it's because he has realized the limits of his feeble human brain or because his hand has settled on the gate handle, meaning that they are officially back home. "Let's try your candle idea first, then I can figure out how to clean up your mess."

*

The emergency cash is stored in a box at the back of one of the kitchen cabinets.

Aki and Angel are talking at the kitchen table when they come back inside. It would be impossible to obtain money without drawing both of their attention. To circumvent this problem,  Denji slips Power the credit card with a warning to be careful with it.

Power assures him that it is in the most capable hands in the world. Denji's uneasy expression doesn't bother her; all that it means is that he will be left feeling like a fool for having had doubts. With a confident grin, she tugs on a hat, sneaks out the back door, and sets off on her quest.

Fetching the candles takes longer than she anticipated. Walking to the store takes no more than twenty minutes, but when she gets there, there's just so much stuff. She knew to expect it, of course, yet she can't help but find that venturing into the endless aisles alone is vastly different from scouting for supplies with Denji and Aki. Time slips away as she wanders beneath the fluorescent lights, staring at endless rows of boxes and cans and meat and produce. For a time, she forgets about the purpose of her visit completely.

Then she finds herself in front of a candle display, and not only does her mission come crashing back her, but a new conundrum presents itself.

There are so many.

The candles come in an overwhelming variety of sizes, scents, and colors. Power starts picking them up and sniffing them. Each and every one of them has a strong chemical odor underlying what she suspects they're supposed to smell like to humans. Her head starts to hurt after a few candles. She presses onward, and eventually, her head is throbbing and the aromas have bled into an indistinguishable mass.

Power still doesn't have any clue which of the candles is best for covering up the scent of old food.

In the end, she does the smart thing and buys one of each.

*

Walking home carrying over thirty candles is no easy feat, but Power is strong enough to make the trip with relative ease. Perhaps a sheen of sweat has formed on her brow by the time she makes her way up to the front door, five overflowing shopping bags in hand, but she knows that any one of her housemates would be in a far worse condition.

It doesn't occur to her that she should probably be trying to sneak in until she's already opened the door. Fortunately, it turns out to be a non-issue.

"She's home!" Denji calls out from the direction of the living room, half relieved, half triumphant.

Power can just make out Aki grumbling a response. Denji shoots something back, louder, but not loud enough for her to easily determined his words.

She is distracted from attempting to listen in on them by Angel padding into the kitchen. He freezes in the doorway, mouth parting slightly as he stares at the bags in her hands. Power holds them up with a triumphant grin. The faint strain in her arms is worth it for the way Angel's eyes widen in staggered admiration.

"I have obtained candles," she declares.

"I can see that," is Angel's breathless response. "How..." He cuts himself off with a shake of his head and holds one of his hands out.

Power moves to pass him one of the bags.

Angel snatches his hand and says, "The card, Power."

Power carefully sets the bags down, candles clinking and clacking against each other as they jostle around. With free hands, she slips one into her pocket to wrap her fingers around the credit card. "How do I know I can trust you with it?" she warily asks.

"Trust me?" Angel parrots.

"How do I know you will make responsible choices when given such a responsibility," Power clarifies.

"Responsible choices," Angel deadpans. "Like buying five bags worth of candles?"

"Did he just say five bags?" Denji's voice hisses from the other room.

Aki snaps something sharp and low in response.

Power tilts her head up. "What you see is a result of my superior decision-making skills. I was not willing to risk leaving behind the candle that would do the job, so I bought one of each."

Angel's face screws up. He opens his mouth to retort, and she braces herself to smack him down with her superior wit. Before either of them can get a word out, Aki calls, "Power."

Power glances toward the living room. When she looks back at Angel, he's holding his hand out once again.

A scowl erupts across her face. "You could do no better than I," she mutters. The words do not hit as hard as she wishes, for she pulls the credit card out of her pocket and slaps it down into Angel's hand.

"Thank you," he says, turning around and walking back into the living room.

Power wordlessly grumbles under her breath as she collects her candles and stalks after him.

The windows in the living room are wide open, and the room itself smells faintly of chemicals. Aki and Denji are sitting on opposite ends of their tattered couch, Denji with his arms crossed and Aki with his fingers drumming uneasily against the couch's arm. Angel stills the movement by sitting beside him and slipping the card into his hand. Aki sighs, murmurs a quiet thanks, and slips the card into his pocket.

"Hey, Powy, didya know that there's this stuff you can spray to get rid of bad smells?" Denji asks, tired and defeated. His eyes are not on her, but the bags of candles in her hands.

"...What?" Power asks.

"Yeah." Denji sinks deeper into the couch. "You just spray it where it stinks, open the windows, and boom, all clean."

"That's not how it works," Aki murmurs.

Power allows the bags of candles to drop down to the ground with a thunk. A few come rolling out. "Since when has this existed?" she demands.

"For years," comes Aki's tired mutter. "You've seen me use it before." Power looks his way to see him move his hand up to rub at his forehead. When it bumps against the barrel of his gun, he drops it like it's on fire.

Angel puts a hand on his shoulder.

"Yeeeeah, and also..." Denji uncrosses his arms and looks away. His voice has gone soft with shame when he continues, "Apparently, scented candles have like, a lot of chemicals. Most of them give devils and fiends really bad headaches. So we can't actually use those."

Power freezes. Then, oh so slowly, she looks down at the mountain of candles at her feet. "But my bounty..."

Angel stands up and walks over to the bags. Power steps to the side as he begins to rifle through them.

Meanwhile, Aki asks, "Do you have the receipt?"

Power shoots him a confused look. "What's a receipt?"

Aki turns his head toward Denji, who sinks lower onto the couch. His entire lower half is dangling off it by this point. Power would laugh at the sight if she didn't get the sense that Aki would not appreciate it.

"I hope you like scented candles," Aki says.

Denji sits up to protest, "But that's girl shit!"

"Then your room is about to smell very girly."

"Dude, no."

"She got thirty-four of them," Angel declares, looking up from the pile before him.

"Maybe you should have thought of that before giving her the means to buy thirty-four candles that only you can use," Aki mercilessly intones.

"I did not get them for Denji, " Power grumbles, sitting down to slump in between him and Aki.

"...I know," Aki says. "It's good that you're trying to be responsible. But next time you need help, please just come to me if you need help."

Power and Denji exchange a look. They don't need to say anything to know what the other is thinking, what they're both thinking.

Aki might be willing to offer help, but he's in no state to provide it. That much is evident in everything from the uneasy way he carries himself to the sound of his voice just now. It's soft, also wrong, exhausted and fractured where she can tell that he's trying to be reassuring. And this is on something close to a good day, when he has the heart and energy to at least try to fulfill his previous role and hold them together. What about the days when he can't even manage that?

If Aki can't see that he isn't okay when it's already so obvious, how are they supposed to tell him?

Neither of them has to say anything in the end. Aki rises to his feet with a sigh, and a muttered, "I'm heading to bed."

Power's head snaps up. "But it is not night yet?" True, the sun had been on the way to set when she walked in the door, but it is not yet truly night.

"I'm really tired," Aki says by way of explanation, as if that is an acceptable excuse. As if he isn't always tired these days.

"But we haven't even had dinner yet," Denji protests.

"You haven't eaten at all," Angel adds, rising to his feet.

Aki is not unmoved, he's just moved in the wrong way. It's with something bitter and aching that he says, "I can wait until tomorrow. It's not like skipping meals for a day will hurt me."

Angel frowns, looking like he wants to say something, and Power frowns but doesn't know what to do at all. Denji is the one who says, "You know that's not the point."

Aki sighs. "Denji, please. I'm not..." he shakes his head. "I'm not in the mood." Shooting one last glance at the candles, he adds, "Someone puts those away."

Then he stalks off back to the room of darkness and smoke.

None of them move for a while. The stillness is shattered by Angel, who bends down to collect the bags of candles. "Denji, order something for dinner."

"...Right," Denji says after a moment, rising to his feet. He only takes a few stiff steps toward the kitchen before he asks, "Uh, do you think you could do something about...?"

"I'll try. Just... Give him some time first."

"Alright, yeah."

With that, Denji walks off to order takeout for the seventh time that week.

Angel finishes gathering the candles and heads off to stash them somewhere.

Power melts into the couch and wishes things were how they used to be.

*

The rest of the day passes in the dreary slog that Power has become bitterly accustomed to. She and Denji chat and bicker throughout dinner, good quality takeout that she feels like she can barely even taste, but it feels like a hollow ghost of the dinners that they used to have. Angel picks at his food and watches them in silence for a time. Eventually, he takes his plate to the kitchen and slinks off to Aki's room. Power and Denji talk about playing a video game or watching a movie, but nothing sounds good. Eventually, they go to bed as well.

And Power sleeps.

For a while.

The room is dark when she wakes up. The familiarity of the situation isn't enough to keep her heart racing for a horrible, shameful instant as she regains consciousness. Power rolls onto her side and buries her face in Denji's shoulder, tugging him a little closer. He moans, but doesn't wake up.

She counts to ten before letting him go and peeling her face back.

The room is dark, but it isn't pitch black. A subtle glow from the nightlight in the corner casts gentle shadows in the room. Shadows that the darkness devil does not reside in, or Makima, or anything else. Power can't help but cast them a wary look as she sits up, but it is brief. She had more important things to check on.

Once her eyes have adjusted to the dark, she peers down at Denji. He isn't having a nightmare that she can see, but it doesn't look like he's having a good dream, either. His lips are pulled down heavily and his brow is creased. It reminds her of a softer version of how Aki tends to look when he sleeps. For a moment, she considers waking him up and seeing if he might have a nice dream if he tries going to bed again.

She dismisses the thought almost immediately. Denji's dreams have been bad or nonexistent since her and Aki's near-deaths. It's unlikely that this will be the night when that changes. The quality of his dreams doesn't really matter anyway. Slowly, with creeping dread and breathless hope, Power turns her attention to the steady rise and fall of his chest.

Denji is alive.

Power carefully extracts herself from the bed. Her footsteps are feather-light as she pads out of the room. The door does not creak when she opens it, and the floorboards do not betray her presence. It is with the utmost silence that she sneaks into Aki's room.

Aki has no nightlight. His room, always gloomy, is almost impossibly dark under the cover of night. She has to walk over to his bedside and squint down at him, struggling to make anything out. The wait is enough to make her stomach churn and her throat begin to constrict. She's considering shaking him awake when she finally sees him breathing.

Aki is alive.

It's not enough. There's still a part of Power that wants to wake Aki up, to make sure that he can wake up. Her hand is already reaching for his shoulder when she forces herself to pull it back.

Aki sleeps a lot. Probably too much, but she doesn't know that. It has been two weeks since he woke, but the injuries he endured during his fight with Denji were... severe. He might still be in a place where he genuinely needs the rest.

She hopes that he needs it.

But even if he doesn't, he will not appreciate being woken up in the middle of the night. It is Power's right and responsibility to wake Aki up, but it is not time yet. She needs to wait until it's time.

Aki's bed is empty, aside from him. She has one more stop to make before she can go back to bed.

Power reluctantly sneaks out of Aki's room and closes the door behind her. She allows herself to step a little more heavily as she heads into the living room. By now, she knows that there is no point in trying to be quiet for the next part of her nighttime routine.

Angel must have left Aki's room after she and Denji went to bed. He is nearly invisible from his nest of pillows and blankets on the couch. It does not stay that way for long. A groan arises from the lump as she approaches, and when she stops to stare down at him, he pulls the blanket down to glower at her blearily, a single crimson eye visible in the moonlight spilling through the window.

"I liked it more when you didn't care if I died in my sleep," he grumbles.

Power frowns. "I don't."

"Then stop doing this."

"No."

Angel groans and rolls over. Power knows that's her cue to go away. He's obviously alive, so there's no need for her to linger any longer.

She lingers.

Another groan arises from the blanket mountain. Angel turns back over with the laborious motions of someone making the greatest effort of his life. He stares at Power. Power stares back. Finally, he grumbles something under his breath and sits up, his folded, ruffled wings twitching slightly behind him as they emerge from the blankets.

"Did you need something?" he grumbles.

Power frowns. 'No,' she almost says. However, when she opens her mouth, she ends up closing it with an audible clack a second later. She ends up looking down the hallway without intending to do so.

"...How is Aki?" she asks, looking back at Angel.

Angel's expression is impassive, but she catches the way his wings and shoulders droop just before he shrugs. "Same as ever," he says. "Today wasn't a good day."

"But it was not bad," Power insists.

"No. But it wasn't good either."

A heavy, tickling weight in Power's chest does an uncomfortable flip-flop. It drags her eyes down to her feet, only to be pulled back up by Angel's heavy sigh.

"It's not your fault," Angel says. There is an earnestness to the dread in his voice, like the act of speaking honestly is draining him that much more. He can't bring himself to look at her, instead fiddling with his fingers as he continues, "There's only so much any of us can do. It'll probably take a while for him to..." He sighs, hands tightening into fists and falling dropping into his lap. "It hasn't been very long. If he's gonna get better, it'll take longer than this."

"He will," Power says without thinking. She doesn't need to think to know that she's right.

Crimson eyes slide over to her warily.

"He will get better," Power repeats. Correctly. She has to be correct. Not just about Aki, either. Everyone but her is a little broken right now, but that's fine. Aki, Denji, even Angel, all of them will get better. She knows they'll get better.

It can't be like this forever.

"...Sure, Power." Angel lies back and shuffles under the blankets, a tired exhale leaving his mouth. "Can I go back to sleep now?"

Power nods. "I shall see you on the morrow."

With that, she turns around, slinks down the hall, and crawls back into bed with Denji.

It is morning when she awakens again.

*

The morning is uneventful. It always is these days. Angel remains asleep on the couch while Power and Denji argue in the kitchen. He says that they should just have toast for breakfast, while she insists that he should try to cook.

Power wins. The results are disastrous. They end up eating toast.

Angel is less than impressed when he wakes up to find the mess they've made of the kitchen. He doesn't make as much of a fuss as Aki would have, just staring at them in faint, detached horror for a moment before warning them that they need to clean up before the fourth member of their household awakens. Efforts to get him to help clean fail miserably.

Between Power and Denji, it takes hours for them to clean up. They've just finished throwing the last dirty, batter-covered rag away when she glances at the clock.

It is noon. Time to wake Aki.

Chapter Text

Angel's powers were gone.

He didn't know exactly how he knew. It wasn't like he had touched anyone to test it out, and the thought of attempting to create a weapon made his stomach churn like never before. Angel just knew, the same way he knew that the sun would rise in the morning, set at night, and he was destined to hurt every life he touched. The loss of his powers didn't change any of that. It had come too late. He had only lost his abilities because Makima had drained him of all that he was worth as she used him as a weapon of mass destruction.

It didn't matter that Angel's once-deadly hands were now so close to human. They were covered in a thick layer of blood that could never be washed away.

Literally, he was covered in gore. It coated him practically from head to toe. At one point, it had been warm and wet. Now, it was cold, tacky, and growing more uncomfortable by the second. Angel supposed that he should try to find somewhere to wash off. However, whenever he considered moving, the thought sputtered and died, like Makima still had his mind in a chokehold.

She didn't. He had felt it when she had flickered out of existence. Angel's consciousness had roared back to life in a flash of agony that almost made him wish that the loss of his mind had been permanent. Horrible cuts and gouges covered his body. His left wing was halfway severed from his back. Yet it was the memories that made him collapse against a headstone. Compared to those, the pain barely even registered.

The blood clinging to his skin bothered him more. At least the injuries might kill him if he left them long enough. The blood was just itchy and dirty and annoying.

Just not annoying enough to get him to move.

He sat there for ages, gaze locked on the patch of bloody grass in front of him. Eventually, his eyes started to droop. When he caught it, he wondered if he would die if he sat there for long enough. It was the closest thing he could manage to a pleasant thought. Angel should have died back on the beach, with Aki. If he sat here until he succumbed to his wounds, he would just be setting right one of the many things that had gone wrong.

His wounds actually hurt really badly when he stopped to focus on them. He didn't think that he could move his left wing if he tried. It probably wouldn't take very long for him to pass.

Angel couldn't muster a smile. But as he tilted his head back against the gravestone, he thought that he might look peaceful, and that was close enough.

He closed his eyes and waited for oblivion to claim him.

Except there was no white light. He didn't feel a cold chill creeping up on him. Instead, there were footsteps.

Angel furrowed his brow, briefly wondering who else could be around, but promptly decided that he didn't care. The footsteps stopped in front of him, but he chose to ignore them regardless.

Then the newcomer offered a hoarse, "Yo," and Angel knew he didn't actually have that option. Angel slid his eyes open with a heavy sigh.

Denji was standing in front of him. He, too, was battered and covered in blood, just not quite as badly as Angel. One of his hands gripped tightly onto a bright red chainsaw, but it was held limply at his side rather than primed for action.

"You lived," Angel intoned.

"Yeah, you too," Denji said. He shifted slightly backward as he spoke, unable to completely hide his discomfort. Angel probably should have been happy that he wasn't activating his abilities, given the circumstances. Getting torn apart by a chainsaw would certainly speed up the process of dying, but it sounded like more pain than he wanted to go through.

It didn't feel very good to watch either, but that shouldn't matter. Nothing felt good right now. That familiar discomfort shouldn't bother him, especially not when it had just been proven that everyone was well within their rights to be scared of him. He should have just let it go without saying anything.

"You don't need to be scared," Angel sighed. "My powers are gone."

Denji's uncomfortable shifting stopped. "...Oh," he said. "Sorry."

"Don't be."

That should have been the end of it. Angel looked back down at the grass and waited for the footsteps to return and carry his former coworker away.

"Are you, uh, alright?" Denji asked.

Angel looked up to hit him with a wary glower. Denji didn't so much as squirm. Now that he knew that he was powerless, he was utterly unabashed as she stared at him with eyes that managed to be sad despite the horrible, haunted strain weighing down on them. His lips were pulled down in a worried frown.

He looked more like Aki than Denji.

Angel closed his eyes with a sigh. "Should you really be asking me that?"

"I don't see why not."

"You don't see why you shouldn't care about someone who tried to kill you?"

"I mean, that wasn't you was it? Makima was controlling you. The shit you did while that was happening wasn't your fault. Besides, Aki would... I mean..." Denji's words grew softer and more hesitant before trailing off. Angel wondered if his chest also hurt when he mentioned Aki. Then he decided that he didn't care.

"I don't think Makima's coming back," Denji tried again.

Angel hummed.

"I mean, there's a chance, but... I'm pretty sure my plan's gonna work."

"That's nice."

"...Yeah. I dunno what's gonna happen with Public Safety. I don't think Kishibe's gonna make me or Power go back. He might be willing to leave you alone too if your powers are really gone."

Once upon a time, Angel would have felt something upon hearing that. He might have even been happy. Now, any and all emotion was swallowed up by the cold, numb void in his chest, growing larger with every word that Denji spoke.

"You look like you're about to keel over right now though, so. Wanna come with me?"

"No thanks."

It took a few moments for Denji to sputter out, "I mean it, you're seriously going to die if you stay here."

"That's fine."

Denji made a strangled sound. "You heard what I said about Makima being gone, right?"

"How does that change anything?" Angel dully asked. "Everyone's still dead." He had either killed them with his own hands - even if only as a tool used to enact a far stronger devil's warped agenda - or blindly led them to their doom.

"...You know Aki's alive, right?" Denji slowly asked.

Angel's eyes snapped open. "What?" he demanded, sending a fresh wave of pain by mindlessly lurching forward. It screeched into the forefront of his mind in a way that it hadn't thus far and prevented him from standing up. It did not stop him from staring at Denji with a wild gaze that demanded answers.

"Yeah!" Denji exclaimed with an energy that couldn't have been more blatantly forced if he tried. "I mean, he's a fiend and in a coma, but... He stopped being insane at the end of our fight, so he's probably gonna be fine when he wakes up."

...No. There was no possible way that Aki would be fine.

But he was alive. Maybe only nominally, but if Denji was right and he was lucid; if there was a chance that he would wake up, that he might survive this...

Angel had hurt people. He had been hurting people for a long time. For a while, he had been able to push down the sickening guilt to some extent by distancing himself and claiming to hate humans, but he couldn't do that anymore.

Realistically, he didn't know if he could do better even if he tried. He didn't know if there was anything he could do to help Aki, even if he didn't wake up lucid and sane. But if there was a chance... If there was anything he could do to clean up this mess, he'd helped make, that was more important than dying.

"You know, I can't stand here all day," Denji cut in. "I have to start... something. If you really wanna die, I can't stop you, but Aki'd be pretty pissed if he woke up and found out I just left you here."

"...Help me up," Angel said.

*

"Don't do that."

Power looks up from where she's about to pour an entire box of chili flakes onto a chicken to scowl at Angel. "Why not?" she demands.

"Because that'll make it taste bad."

"Do you believe you could do any better?"

Angel opens his mouth to admit that he probably couldn't. He catches a gleam of something uneasy in her expression before he can say the words. It causes him to hesitate, uncross his arms, and finally sigh. "Maybe," he amends. "It'll taste better if you put something better than chili on it, anyway."

"Such as?"

Angel shrugs. "Sugar?"

Power's expression brightens. "An acceptable suggestion!" She slams the can of chili flakes down on the counter, the force of the impact causing a few of them to jump out of the open top, and rushes over to the third cupboard on the left. Figures. It takes her ten minutes to find a pot for the chicken and the haphazard mix of ingredients she'd grabbed to season it with, but she knows exactly where the sugar is.

Not that would have gone any differently if Angel had been the one to decide to cook. The big difference here is that he would never try to cook of his own volition in the first place.

...Then again, he would have said the same thing about Power a couple of weeks ago. It's getting harder and harder to use the word 'never' these days.

Angel watches boredly as Power pulls the bag of sugar out and hefts it over to the stove.

He feels much less bored when she tilts it over the edge of the pot and pours all five pounds in.

A few swift steps carry him over to the stove. A frown crosses his face as he stares down into the pot. He's greeted by a lopsided white lump, the chicken completely buried beneath a massive pile of sugar.

Beside him, Power hums and crosses her arms. "That should be enough, yes?"

"...Probably," Angel says. "It'll taste good, at least. But I'm not sure it'll cook well like that."

"Why not?"

Angel shrugs. "I don't know. I'm not a chef."

"Then why do you doubt my masterful cooking?"

"Why did you ask me to help you if you didn't want to be doubted?"

Power lets out an offended squawk. "I did no such thing!" comes her blatant lie. Although, he supposes that it might not be a blatant lie, considering that she didn't ask for his help so much as demand that he come to the kitchen with her.

Angel scrubs at his eyes with a sigh. It's only six in the evening and he doesn't think  he would be able to sleep if he tried, but oh, he is tired . "Look, I don't know why, but I have a feeling that it might cook better if it had some sort of liquid. Make it a sweet chicken stew or something."

He looks over at Power and finds her rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "It is in a pot..." she muses.

"Yes," Angel says because he has no idea where she's going with this, but figures that it's better to nudge her toward some sort of conclusion than risk her falling back into complaints.

"...Pots are for stews..."

"...Yes."

A grin falls across Power's face as she gives a victorious nod. "I shall procure liquid!" She declares with zeal and excitement of someone who came up with a brilliant idea all on her own. Angel walks over to the side and leans against the counter as she begins rifling through the cabinets alone. After a few minutes of searching, she comes out with a box clutched triumphantly in her hand.

Angel squints at it and reads, "Chicken broth?"

"Broth with which to boil chickens," Power corrects.

That doesn't sound right, but Angel wasn't lying when he said that he isn't a chef. He takes a step back to let Power through and watches as she pours the broth into the pot. It sinks into the mountain of sugar and reduces it to an off-white sludge. Angel wrinkles his nose at the sight, but opts not to comment. So what if he doesn't look like any sort of broth he's ever seen? It's better than nothing, plus with that much sugar, it has to taste good.

More importantly, it isn't worth getting Power worked up.

Power grabs the metal lid sitting on the countertop beside the stove and slams it on top of the pot. It slides into place with a loud, metallic clang. She spends a little while pressing down on it for good measure before reaching across the stovetop to set the burner to its highest setting.

That done, she plants her hands on her hips, turns to Angel, and orders, "Remove it from the stove when it's done."

Angel blinks. "How would I know when it's done?"

Power's overconfident mask falters. She slaps it back in place with a scoff. "Of course, I should have known better than to expect such things from you. I shall keep an eye on the chicken."

"You do that."

An odd, almost nauseating feeling flickers in his chest as he strides out of the kitchen. He pushes it down with prejudice. He has plenty to feel bad about, but not doing more to help Power with dinner isn't one of them. She isn't the person he's here for, nor is she the one he owes. It isn't his responsibility to hold her hand and make sure she doesn't make a mess of things.

So why does it feel like he was going just that?

Why does he almost want to do more?

It's a dangerous feeling. Even if he tries to get involved, it's doubtful that he'll be able to do much to help. Angel is an individual with very limited uses - fewer now that he doesn't have his powers. He's made his peace with that, and as long as he's able to be helpful to at least one person, he doesn't see any reason to try and change that. It's probably too late to change it anyway.

Angel is torn out of his miserable train of thought when he enters the living room. Unfortunately, he is pulled out of it and once again reminded of how tired he is.

But apparently not as tired as Denji, who lies asleep on the floor beside the table.

At first, he considers leaving him to it. The thought dissolves like ocean spray on a bright summer morning. With a forlorn sigh, Angel shuffles forward to nudge Denji in the ribs with his foot.

Denji groans.

Angel nudges him again, harder.

"Whaaaat?" Denji grumbles, peeling his eyes open.

"Sleep in your own room."

Denji groans for a third time, simultaneously louder and far more tired, and throws his arm over his eyes. "No thanks," he grumbles. "We don't need to have two of us locked up in our rooms all the time."

Angel frowns. At another time, he might have said something about it. On a better day. Today, however, Aki allowed himself to be dragged out of bed at noon and only spent a measly three hours out of his room before going back in. He deserves a disparaging comment or two at this point. Besides, it's not like he's around to see Angel defend his honor anyway.

That leaves Angel with nothing to say other than a muttered, "Sleep on the couch, at least."

Denji drops his arm to his side to frown blearily up at Angel. "I wasn't trying to fall asleep," he grouses. "I just laid down for a bit, and..."

Suddenly, it's too difficult to look at Denji directly. Continuing this conversation at all is difficult, but he can't quite bring himself to walk away. What he does is walk over to Denji's feet. This is where he sits down with his back pressed against the table, legs pulled up against his chest, and his chin resting on his knees, crimson eyes staring off at nothing.

"You still aren't sleeping well, are you," he says.

"Guess not."

Just like that, Angel is out of things to say. This isn't the sort of thing he was made for. He makes for a shitty Aki. That's probably for the better; he shouldn't be trying to fill his role, nor does he have any intention to. What he's doing is just... a stopgap measure. A pathetic, half-hearted, temporary thing until Aki pulls himself together enough to go back to looking after his disasters full-time.

Angel wishes he had some idea of what will come after that happens, but he doesn't. All that he can see when he tries to think about his future is one big question mark. It's one of the reasons he doesn't like thinking about it, and one of the many reasons why he hates conversations like these. Denji should really know that he isn't any good at them by now. But somehow, they just keep happening.

One bright side to their stilted, miserable, semi-frequent heart-to-hearts is that Denji has learned to recognize when Angel isn't going to be able to continue a conversation on his own. It would be better if he'd get off the ground and drop it outright, but he supposes that he can accept the effort Denji is making by asking, "How about you?"

"I'm doing better than you," Angel says.

His lips twitch at the sound of Denji sitting up. It isn't enough to be visible, let alone count as a simple, but the tingle of triumph that triggers it is somewhat pleasant. "I wouldn't say that," Denji protests.

"I would."

"You were sitting there waiting to die when I found you."

"That's normal for me," Angel says. "How many times did you pass out on the floor last year?"

"Asshole," Denji groans, flopping back down onto the ground with a thud.

Angel hums in agreement. Yes, he is an asshole. It's probably especially assholish of him to say something like that. If it turned out that Aki was evil and he was forced to kill and eat him, it would probably take a while for him to recover as well.

Unfortunately for Denji, empathy has never been one of Angel's strong suits. The analogy may be able to help him muster more than he would have felt otherwise, but its effectiveness is limited by the simple, undeniable fact that Aki is nothing like Makima. More importantly, Angel's already running himself dry using all of his care and delicacy on the person who actually needs it. He isn't about to make the extra effort for a boy who he suspects could use some tough love.

Tough love is still love though, and Angel just isn't equipped for that. Even if he does owe his life to the sad mess lying across from him - for however much that's worth.

"...Once," Denji says out of the blue.

"Excuse me?" Angel asks, turning his head to face him.

"I fell asleep on the floor once last year," Denji clarifies. He looks up at the ceiling and gestures expansively as he speaks. "After all the stuff with Katana Man and the snake chick. Aki made a really nice dinner, we were in a good mood, and we stayed up late chatting, and we all fell asleep around the table."

You know that's not what I meant, Angel thinks to say. The words die on his tongue. "That's nice," he murmurs instead, wrapping his arms around his legs and pulling them closer to him.

"Yeah," Denji sighs. "Maybe..."

Angel can hear the wish he's about to make. He hears it fade before he can get anywhere close to expressing it. There's a moment where a draining, creeping quiet begins to sneak in before Denji suddenly sits up, ramrod straight.

"Shit!" he cries. "I need to order dinner! What time is it!?"

"Three A.M."

"Fuck!" Denji jumps to his feet. "You should have gotten me up earlier. No one's gonna be up, no-"

Denji abruptly cuts himself off when he looks at Angel and spots the tiny smirk that's woven its way across his face.

"Ass. Hole," he repeats.

"It's a little past six," Angel says, standing up and stretching. His wings spread out at the same time that he reaches his arms above himself, the tips of his feathers quivering. Dropping his arms and folding his wings back in, he adds, "Power's cooking."

Denji frowns. "Power's..."

"Cooking, yeah."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Probably not," Angel admits. "But I wasn't going to stop her."

Denji looks toward the kitchen uncertainly. "Maybe I should order something anyway..."

"If you wanna deal with that tantrum, sure."

Denji whines, high-pitched and stressed. "Aaah, man..." His expression is one of blatant desperation when he turns back to Angel. "Do you think what she's making will be any good?"

Angel shrugs. "I helped her, but I don't know if I'm any good either."

"That's not helpful, dude."

"I'm not here to be helpful."

"Do you think she'll at least let us order something if it ends up looking like it'll poison us?"

"Probably not." Denji's shoulders slump, driving Angel to do something that's probably stupid by pointing out, "But you'd be letting her win if you didn't."

Denji perks up. Something about it seems empty and half-hearted, but it's good enough for Angel. "Yeah!" he exclaims. "Just 'cause Aki's-" A pause, marked by flickering eyes and a faltering smile. After a second, he pushes it down and plows on, "I can't go letting her think she's in charge now! If what you guys made isn't any good, I'll order something we can actually eat."

"Sounds like a plan."

"Yeah! So..." Denji allows his enthusiastic mask to slip away as he asks, "How long 'til it's done?"

"How would I know?" Angel asks.

"Oh." Denji pauses, shuffling uncomfortably in place. "...Wanna watch a movie?"

*

In a testament to Denji's stubbornness and Angel's general inability to give a damn, the chainsaw hybrid manages to cajole him into watching some cheesy comedy with him. The bright, cheerful atmosphere of the film clashes horrendously with the reality around them. 

One look at Denji, staring at the screen with the hungry desperation of someone trying to get lost in a better world, is enough to stop him from complaining. With a low groan, Angel slumps back against the couch, resolving to tune the movie out while putting on the vaguest guise of focusing.

Eventually, Power wanders into the room, declaring herself bored with cooking. Denji shoots back that she probably just wasn't any good at it. This devolves into some silly argument that Angel can't be bothered to pay any attention to. He does keep half an eye on them to make sure they don't start physically fighting, but when the confrontation ends with Power dropping down on the couch, he sets that concern aside.

Angel scoots down to the end of the couch as Power presses herself tightly against Denji, who's sitting on the opposite end. It leaves a comical amount of space between them, yet it doesn't feel like enough. Angel doesn't think it will ever feel like enough. It doesn't matter that he's only been free of his powers for three weeks. There are some things that he can't see himself recovering from. Other people, maybe, people with more heart and enthusiasm, and willpower, people who truly want to live, but not him.

Denji and Power's bickering dies off after a little while. Silence descends upon them once again, broken only by the cheesy jokes and cheerful voices coming from the television speaker. Angel doesn't absorb any of it, allowing his mind to drift off into an empty, thoughtless state that's almost relaxing.

He's jerked out of the abyss by a sharp, acrid scent floating into the living room.

"...Power," he slowly says, turning his head toward the Blood Devil. She has pulled away from Denji, who is staring at her with a similar look of dread and alarm, and smiling uneasily.

"Yes?" she asks, voice too close to innocent and demure to be anything but glaringly suspicious.

"You took the chicken off the stove, right?"

It's a stupid question, but he supposes that he has to give Power some credit. She doesn't lie to his face. "Why would I take it off?" she asks, puzzled. "T'was still cooking?"

Angel and Denji share a brief look, then shoot to their feet. Denji speeds toward the kitchen like something's on fire, which, in his defense, it may well be. Angel follows at a more sedate pace, because if something is on fire, he'd rather leave Denji to deal with it. Power trails a few paces behind him, her feet shuffling heavy on the ground as she drags herself along.

That demeanor shifts the second they enter the kitchen. Denji is already at the stove, turning the red-hot burner off and shifting the pot off of it. Smoke rises from the edges of the lid. Power races toward his side while Angel leans against the archway. Even from this distance, he can see that the bottom of the pot is charred black even from his distance. That alone is enough to tell him that he doesn't want to get any closer.

His plan is challenged when Denji looks over at him, wrapping his hand around the lid of the pot. "Arencha gonna come any closer?" he asks.

Angel raises an eyebrow. "Why would I?"

"So we can hold Power accountable for whatever's in this thing."

Power gasps. "'Tis not my fault!" she cries. "This is Angel's creation!"

"You're the one who wanted to cook," Angel reminds her.

Power scoffs. Planting her hands on her hips, she opens her mouth to release some nonsensical retort, only to visibly hesitate before she can see anything. She casts a sidelong glance at the pot and drops her arms to her sides. "...I do what I must to look out for the household," she says. "However, if my attempt at cooking turns out imperfect because you provided me with flawed advice, that makes it your responsibility."

Angel has to give her some credit. The explanation is only half nonsensical. There's a grain of truth to it, at least. He is the one who stood by and watched Power fuck around with cooking, not to mention the person who decided to leave her to watch the stove. That still doesn't make it his fault; dinner isn't his responsibility, and Power certainly isn't, but he guesses he should entertain her for making a half-decent argument. Especially since somewhere in that argument, it sounded like she might be coming close to taking responsibility.

Plus, he might be a little curious about what's in the pot.

"Fine." With a great, put-upon sigh, he peels himself away from the wall and walks over to stand next to Denji.

He regrets it the moment he takes the lid off the top.

The room fills with a terrible stench and a plume of dark, ashy smoke shoots up to the ceiling. Power and Denji jump back with exclamations and curses, clasping their hands over their mouths and noses. Angel wraps one of his wings over his face and coughs into his feathers, the other wing flapping frantically in an attempt to clear away some of the smoke.

"What on earth?" he chokes out.

"I-I don't know," comes Denji's sputtered response. He sounds like he's tearing up, but Angel isn't about to lower his wing to check. He certainly is. "What did you put in that thing?"

"Sugar and chicken broth."

"You put sugar on chicken!?" Denji sputters.

"As if you would not have eaten it," Power chimes in.

The sound of shuffling prompts Angel to lower his wing enough that he can see. His vision is blurry and the room is still filled with smoke, but he can see Power peering into the pot, eyes wide and mouth open in a perfect 'O'.

"What is it?" Denji demands from his place a few feet away.

"Destruction..." Power whispers.

Today must be a day for making stupid decisions, for morbid curiosity drives Angel to pull his wings back in, allowing the stench of burned sugar to flood his senses, and step forward to look down into the pot. He is greeted by...

...Destruction.

The walls of the pot have been stained black. It reaches all the way from the top to the bottom, which is coated in a mixture of fine gray ash and chunks of thick black substance that looks almost rock-like. At the center of it all sits a bright gray chicken skeleton, void of a head or feet but otherwise perfectly preserved.

Angel slowly reaches a hand into the pot to poke the pile of bones. It's hard as a rock.

"What the fuck," Denji breathes from over his shoulder, right next to his face. Angel pulls his hand back and shifts to the side with a scowl.

"What have you done?" Power asks, staring up at Angel with wide emploring eyes. So much for taking responsibility.

"What did you do?" Aki cuts in.

Power shrieks. She tugs the pot up to her chest. "Do not look at it!" she cries, racing past where Aki is standing in the archway and out the back door. He turns his head to watch her go. Meanwhile, Angel watches him, a frown on his face.

"It was her and Angel," Denji hurriedly says. Angel snaps his head around to stare at him. He doesn't even look his way as he sets about opening the windows.

"You could have checked on her yourself," Angel points out.

A sigh cuts through the room. Angel follows it back to Aki. He's leaning against the side of the archway with his head tilted down, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and pointer finger. "What happened?" he asks.

"We fossilized a chicken," Angel says.

Aki drops his hand and snaps his head up. "What?"

"Like Pompeii."

It isn't possible for Aki to truly stare anymore, but that's the impression he gets. His lips part, a whisper of something brighter crawls across features that have been dark for too long, and for a breathless moment, Angel thinks that he might laugh.

Then he says, "I see. How'd you manage that?"

Angel holds back his sigh and tells himself that he'd be foolish to be disappointed.

Denji lets out a pleased grunt as he flings the window open, having had to fight the lock into submission. "They poured a bunch of sugar on a chicken and left it to burn, apparently," he says. He walks across the room to get to the other window. This one slides open with ease. "I'm gonna order in again. Want anything specific?"

Angel knows how this conversation is going to play out. He can see it in the way Aki inches backward and takes a second too long to respond. Before it can go that way, he says, "Seafood."

With that, he walks over to grab Aki by the wrist. "Come on," he says, ignoring his noise of protest as he drags him into the living room. "Denji was making me watch a really stupid movie."

"And?" Aki asks. He sounds tired and defeated, but it's the exhaustion of someone who doesn't have the energy to resist, not someone who's about to run away. It cannot be called a victory, but it's better than the alternative.

"Show me something to make me forget it."

*

Angel has been in love twice in his life. 

He doesn't know which is more tragic; the romance that ended with a touch or whatever it is that he has with Aki. 

Aki stays out of his room for dinner tonight. He doesn't eat very much, but it's something. Afterward, he's convinced to stay out to finish the movie he put on at Angel's pestering. It's a painfully dull historical fiction film about the great war, the sort of thing that only Aki would really appreciate, but no one complains. They even try to pay attention. Sure, Denji falls asleep slumped against Power's side, not even stirring as the Blood Devil asks incessant questions throughout the film, but an attempt is made.

In the end, they manage to keep Aki up until nine in the evening.

Angel waits an hour before getting up.

He leaves Denji and Power curled up together in the corner of the couch, one fast asleep and the other rapidly dozing off, and pads into the kitchen. It still smells of burnt sugar; something tells him that they'll need to leave the windows for more than a few hours to get rid of that scent. He writes it off as a problem to be dealt with later as he retrieves a pint of chocolate ice cream from the freezer and two spoons from the drawer.

Angel never knocks before entering Aki's room, and tonight isn't going to be an exception. He's greeted by the scent of smoke. It's far from the worst thing he's smelled today, but he still wrinkles his nose on principle.

"You're going to get ash on your bedsheets," he says, because 'those things will kill you' has been rendered worse than pointless.

There's a gentle clinking sound. Once his eyes adjust to the dark, Angel is able to make out the silhouette of Aki holding up the ashtray on his nightstand.

"Well, I still don't like the smell," Angel says, walking across the room. Aki sets the ashtray down as he climbs onto the bed.

A week or so ago, he would have told Angel that he could leave if he didn't like it. Now, he shoots back, "I don't like the smell of you and Power's cooking."

Angel opens the ice cream and sets it in Aki's lap. He makes a surprised noise from around his cigarette.

"That's what you get for leaving us to feed ourselves," Angel says. He reaches over to grab the cigarette; Aki leans back to hold it out of his reach. "Put that thing away."

"Hold on a second."

"No. Ice cream is more important than your nicotine sticks."

Aki lets out a huff. It's a soft, irritated, almost-fond sound, the sort of thing that he would often hear from him before all this, generally paired with a roll of his eyes. It makes Angel's heart twist in a vindicating ache, a vindication that grows stronger when Aki snuffs the cigarette out in the ashtray. A second after the dull orange glow flickers out, he turns the bedside lamp on, bathing the room in a dull yellow light.

"It's good that Power's trying to cook," Aki says. Angel shoves one of the spoons into his hand as he speaks. "She could use that sort of life skill. You all could."

"We fossilized a chicken," Angel reminds him. He nudges Aki's hand. When he finally takes a spoonful of ice cream, Angel offers himself a quiet congratulations and takes a spoonful for himself. The chocolate is rich, creamy, and tainted by the faint aftertaste of cigarette smoke.

"Maybe you'll only severely burn it next time," Aki says. He goes for a second spoon of ice cream, thus keeping Angel from having to pester him. It does not save him from his frown.

"Aki."

"I mean it. Practice makes perfect."

Angel pauses, his next spoonful of chocolate inches away from his mouth. He points it at Aki and says, "We'd do better with someone to teach us."

Aki's head shifts subtly to the side, telling Angel that he isn't looking at him anymore. "Maybe," he murmurs.

A frown creases Angel's face. He puts the spoon in his mouth and holds it there, staring thoughtfully at Aki. At moments like these, he almost wishes that he could read his mind. Almost. A part of him suspects that he knows what he's thinking well enough without any sort of telepathic abilities. Worse, there's a part that fears that the things going through his head may be worse than he could even imagine.

If he really can't do anything to help Aki, then maybe he's better off not knowing. He'd rather try fruitlessly for the rest of his life, frustration and grief and exhaustion mounting, than feel that spark of hope flicker out. If he loses it, he'll truly have nothing left, and Angel is a selfish individual at the end of the day. He would rather live in a lie and continue pestering Aki pointlessly than face such a reality.

Aki sighs, tilting his head back. "I should be more ashamed, right?"

He takes another spoonful of ice cream. Angel tilts his head to the side, silently urging him to continue.

"We're eating ice cream in bed in the middle of the night." Aki makes a vague gesture with his spoon. "That has to be a new low."

" You're eating ice cream in bed in the middle of the night," Angel corrects him. "I'm keeping you company."

Aki snorts. "Gee, thanks."

Angel shrugs. "At least you're eating."

And talking.

And leaving his room.

Miserable though Aki's condition may be, the fact remains that he's doing better now than he was when he woke up two weeks ago. It's a fact that Angel clings to when the worry or doubt starts to become too much. He doesn't need to find a way to force Aki to start moving forward, only to make sure that he keeps moving.

Only. As if this isn't one of the hardest things he's ever done.

The lull in conversation threatens to drag on for a little too long. Angel brings it to an abrupt end by adding, "Remember that time you came into work sick? You kept sniffling during the patrol, the alpaca devil spat on you, and then you threw up on the way to the train. That was more pathetic than this."

Aki's lips twist into a grimace at the memory. Then he brandishes his spoon at Angel and says, "I got that cold from you, and you refused to work for an entire week."

Angel nods, unashamed. "And I stayed in bed eating ice cream. This isn't the most embarrassing thing that either of us has done."

"I guess not," Aki murmurs.

For a moment, Angel wonders if he's going to say anything else. He hopes that he'll say more. In a way, it's progress for Aki to acknowledge that inherently pathetic nature of sitting in bed eating ice cream straight from the carton. It means that it bothers him to at least some degree, and being bothered is the first step toward doing something about it. 

But Aki stays quiet, and Angel dismisses the thought of the flight of fancy that it was. It isn't like he did this in the hopes of shaming Aki into functionality anyway. Shame isn't going to be useful no matter how he plays it. Aki already has enough of that, and all it's doing is dragging him further down. Sometimes, it feels like it takes all of his, Denji, and Power's combined efforts to keep him from succumbing completely.

There's a part of him that resents Aki for that, for making him love him enough to make an effort. For becoming someone who can make him continue living when it would be so much easier to give up and slip into oblivion. For forcing him to pick himself up and work and care, all because he can't bear to see Aki lose himself the way Angel once did.

They eat in silence for a while longer. When they finish the ice cream, Angel sets the empty carton down on the ground and slumps against Aki. He hesitates for a moment, then wraps his human arm around him. When he finds himself drifting off, he forces himself to sit up and pokes Aki in the shoulder.

There is no need for words. Angel stands up while Aki pulls the covers back from the bed. They stink of cigarettes, but Angel's gotten used to the scent by now, even though he fully intends to keep giving Aki shit about it. He gets in first, keeping his wings pressed tight against his back and generally trying to take up as little space as possible. It's when Aki gets in bed and turns out the light that he allows himself to spread out. He wraps his arm around his torso and buries his face in the crook of his neck. After a moment of hesitation, he feels Aki's human arm wrap around his shoulders, pulling him closer.

Physical affection still feels weird. Maybe it always will. But for Aki, Angel's willing to make an effort.

Chapter Text

Angel wakes up entangled with Aki. The combination of the blankets and his body heat leaves him swathed in warmth, the sole exception being the cool metal pressing lightly against the top of his head. He doesn't need to look up to know that Aki's head is inches away from his own, tilted down just enough for the barrel of his rifle to brush against his scalp.

He doesn't open his eyes. For a good, long while, Angel doesn't move at all. To open his eyes would be to acknowledge reality and allow it to chase away the precious feeling of comfort and warmth. To get out of bed would be to face whatever fresh challenges the day may bring. This morning, as with every other morning like this, he allows himself some time to lay in bed and pretend that everything's okay.

If only it could stay like this forever.

It can't. He tried exactly once. For all that getting up on his own is a miserable affair, it beats staying in bed until noon and getting woken up by Power. Besides, someone needs to set a good example for Aki. And make sure that Denji and Power don't accidentally burn the house down when he isn't looking. And do all of those little things that he doesn't want to do and isn't actually any good at, but someone needs to do.

When he starts to feel like he might drift back off to sleep, he reluctantly peels his eyes open. The room is still dark, only the faintest hint of sunlight creeping in past Aki's thick black curtains. Angel is lying on his side with his wings sprawled out behind him, clunky but generally out of the way. That's a relief. Last time, he woke up with one of them pinned under Aki's arm and had to wake him up to squirm out from under him. The time before that, he woke up with his wing covering his face. He's pretty sure that only one of them slept well that night, even though Aki never complained about it.

Extracting himself is an easy matter this morning. Angel just has to pull back the arm that's still latched onto Aki's chest, extract the one that wormed its way under his neck at some point in the night, and carefully tug himself out of the weak grip that he has on his shoulders. Aki doesn't so much as twitch when he sits up. His rousing may have woken both of them the last two times they slept together, but this morning he is fast asleep.

In the darkness of the bedroom, Angel can just make out the way Aki's hair falls across his face, for once free of tension. He looks peaceful.

Angel stares for longer than is strictly necessary before picking his way out of bed.

He tenses at the creak that echoes through the room when his feet touch the floor, but the sound isn't enough to wake Aki. With careful steps, he picks up the empty ice cream carton and leaves the room, closing the door behind him with a gentle click.

Outside of the quiet darkness of Aki's room, the house is already noisy, just not as noisy as he suspects it used to be. Angel follows the clamor of chatter and clattering dishes into the kitchen. Power is sitting at the kitchen table, munching on some flat, burned pasty that Angel suspects is supposed to be a pancake. Denji stands at the kitchen sink, sluggishly washing dishes.

He makes it four steps into the kitchen before Power points at him and declares, "You are late!"

Angel squints at her, then looks up at the clock. It reads 10:43. It's about two hours later than he usually wakes up now and at least two hours later than he would wake up when left to his own devices before all this.

"I don't abide by your schedule," Angel grumbles, shuffling across the room to drop the ice cream carton in the garbage. He remembers to grab the spoons a few seconds before they can join it in the rubbish.

"Hey," Denji murmurs when he walks over to drop them in the sink.

"Hey," Angel returns. He leans against the counter and sighs heavily, knowing that there's probably something that he can and should be doing, but content to put it off for a few more minutes. And how fucked up it is that he's only putting it off for a few minutes.

"There are pancakes in the fridge," Denji says.

Angel frowns at the charred thing that Power is chewing on. "Pass."

"Aki told me you eat rotting corpses."

"Corpses are better than burned human food."

"That sounds like bullshit."

"Wanna get a corpse with me and find out?"

Some of the color drains from Denji's face. Angel finds himself fighting back a grimace, wondering if he might have overstepped. He wants to look away but finds himself trapped in a moment of uncomfortable eye contact, unsure of if acknowledging it will make things worse.

They're both saved by Power's loud, obnoxious scoff. "I would expect less judgment from one who has eaten vomit."

"Power!" Denji cries, whirling around to face the Blood Devil with eyes wide with betrayed, devastated dismay. Said Blood Devil looks at him dead in the eyes and smirks, utterly unashamed.

"It's fine," Angel says. "Aki already told me about the puke kiss."

The strangled, choking sound that leaves Denji's throat is almost drowned out by Power's laughter. "Your humiliation is complete!" she crows.

"Yeah, well..." Denji whirls around to point at Angel. "You slept in your clothes!"

"You're changing the subject!" Power shrieks.

Yes, he is, but Angel is feeling merciful enough to allow it this morning. He blinks blankly at Denji and points out, "I saw you wear the same clothes for four days in a row once."

"That was three weeks ago! You're the one who probably stinks now!"

"You're wearing the same clothes that you were last night."

Denji falters. "Yeah, well..." Trailing off, he lifts his shirt to sniff under the collar.  Despite a valiant attempt, he isn't able to hide the grimace that forces its way across his face.

Angel lets out a huff at the blatant display of stupidity. "I'm gonna go take a shower," he announces, turning to walk out of the kitchen.

"H-Hey, wait!" Denji calls.

"Can't," Angel calls over his shoulder. "I stink, remember?"

*

Angel takes his time in the shower. Except for those early morning moments, showers are one of the few moments of true respite that he gets these days, and comfortable ones at that. It would last longer and feel even better if he made it a bath instead, but he can't bring himself to take that step. His hatred for the guilt that keeps him from indulging and the sense of irrational, indebted responsibility that fuels it do nothing to keep them from controlling him. The longer he is in the bathroom, the longer Aki's brats are on their own, and the more likely it becomes that something will happen.

Not that Angel is likely to be able to stop any sort of disaster, even if he decides to intervene. Denji's waning personal hygiene is the better reason for him to hurry up. Angel wouldn't be surprised to find out that he smells even worse than he did. Now that he's shown interest in showering, making him wait any longer than necessary is cruel and unusual for everyone.

All in all, he takes about an hour in the bathroom. The first forty-five minutes or so are spent in the shower itself, at first scrubbing away the stink of the past few days, then standing under the warm spray and forgetting the world to the best of his ability. Before the water can begin to run cold, he turns it off, wraps himself in a towel, and steps out. He puts his pants on and spends the next ten minutes wringing water out of his feathers. This is a purely selfish, unnecessary indulgence. Back in Public Safety, where showers had a time limit, he would have to go outside with wet wings and endure the uncomfortable process of them drying in the cold air. It was recent enough that he's probably still used to it, but now that he has the opportunity to towel them off in the comfort of a steamy bathroom, he's going to take it. Getting them completely dry in any reasonable timeframe is impossible, but he can at least make it so that it won't be so bad when he goes back outside.

The final five minutes are spent preparing himself to reemerge.

He's about to walk out when someone bangs on the door. "Yo!" Denji calls. "You done in there yet?"

Angel's eyes narrow. For a heartbeat, he's tempted to say no, just because he can. However, that would delay Denji getting his own shower, and the rest of the household has done nothing to deserve that.

...He and Aki have done nothing to deserve that.

Pulling the door open, Angel remarks, "You should shower without other people reminding you, you know."

Denji narrows his eyes. "I shower plenty without people reminding me."

Angel hums. It sounds like he isn't convinced, but honestly, he just can't recall if he does or doesn't. Is that something he should be keeping an eye on? Is Aki going to ask him if Denji's showering without being reminded someday? He already asks about his and Power's well-being fairly often, but is he going to get that specific?

"And you only showered because I told you to!" Denji adds.

That one's too easy. "Yeah, but I'm a really low bar to pass."

"You don't know how to do laundry."

"You've ruined three loads since I moved it."

Denji grimaces. "Has Aki noticed that yet?"

"No, but he's going to eventually if you keep walking around in shirts with bleach stains."

"I'll run out of shirts if I throw out all the stained ones!"

"Get new ones."

"You think me buying clothes won't make him more suspicious!?"

"Then I guess you're fucked."

Denji lets out a dramatic groan. It makes Angel feel enough pity to step out of the doorway. "It's all yours," he says.

"Thanks," Denji says. He steps in and moves to shut the door, only to peek his head out and add, "Put a shirt on. Aki's still asleep."

Angel narrows his eyes. "I will if you haven't destroyed them all."

Denji makes a face, pulls his head back inside the backroom, and closes the door.

Angel walks away with a snort.

Technically speaking, he does put a shirt on. It just isn't his. Most of the clothes he retrieved from his shoddy little public safety apartment are due to meet their fate in the wash, and for all of the trouble that he gives Denji, he isn't about to try and figure out the washer and dryer. He ends up sneaking back into Aki's room. By now, he doesn't need any light to find the dresser, nor is he worried that he'll wake him up if he doesn't step carefully enough. Opening one of his drawers and fishing around for a shirt is an easy affair. He can't see what he pulls out, but it's not like he ever cared about appearances.

Angel glances at Aki before he walks back out. He hasn't moved a muscle.

Whatever. It'll be noon soon. Once Power drags him out of bed, he's going to make sure that he stays that way. He's trying to be understanding about Aki's state of mind, to be compassionate, but there comes a point where showing someone compassion starts to turn into enabling them. Lately, he's been wondering if he's reaching that point.

On one hand, he has been making progress, and most people would need more than two weeks to start truly recovering from someone like what happened to Aki.

On the other, Aki has never been like most people.

Angel dismisses the thought with a shake of his head, pushing it to the back of his mind as another misery to dwell on later. He leaves Aki to his final minutes of rest and pads into the kitchen. Power is sitting at the table, eyes locked on the clock. He offers her a quick nod before walking, opening one of the draws, and pulling out a pair of scissors.

"Is that one of topkn- Aki's shirts?" Power asks.

"Yep."

Power hums, but doesn't do anything to stop Angel from cutting wing holes in the back. It takes a few minutes. He's just finished the second one when Power abruptly stands up and hurries off. Angel doesn't need to look at the clock to know it's exactly twelve o'clock.

He pulls the shirt on, his wings sliding easily through the holes he's cut, and sets about finding something to eat. Denji's pancakes are not an option. From the few times that he's attempted to cook, Angel will reluctantly admit that Denji has started to improve, but not enough for him to be willing to indulge him. After a few minutes of rifling through the cabinets, he grabs a macha-flavored sweet bun and sits down at the table.

He's halfway through the bun when Power storms back into the kitchen, face warped into a distressed scowl. "Topknot is being resistant!" she cries.

Angel's heart sinks. He grabs onto it before it drops too low and locks his expression onto one of impassiveness. His voice is level as he asks, "What do you mean?"

Power grabs the chair nearest him and roughly drags it out from under the table, the legs scraping loudly against the tiles of the kitchen floor. She drops down in it, arms crossed, and locks her scowl onto Angel. "As if you do not know by now."

He does, but he doesn't want to be right.

"I don't want to make assumptions," he says.

"Aki is refusing to get out of bed," Power says, some of her fire dimmed by the weight of subdued resignation. There is no surprise to be found. Angel wishes that she were surprised. He wishes that he were surprised. A miserable routine is being followed, one where every good moment or a bit of progress seems to be accompanied by a step backward. Two weeks have not allowed it time to become a longstanding one, but every day where the pattern is followed makes it that much more solid.

Angel looks down at his half-eaten bun. He decides then to try to have faith in Aki while also preparing for the likelihood that he's being naive by doing so.

"Did he say that he isn't going to get up?" he asks.

"No, but I got the message clearly."

Angel sighs. He lifts the bun to his lips, hesitates, and sets it down on the table. "Give it a little while," he says. "If he isn't up soon, we'll do something."

Power slumps backward in her chair. There's a stubborn look on her face that makes him suspect that she's going to reject his help. It passes by after a moment of hesitation. "Fine," she says, looking away. "I suppose you have a plan?"

Angel shrugs. "Something like that."

What falls between them can't quite be called peaceful, but it's something in the proximity of it. They are at peace with each other, if not the situation. Angel goes back to eating his muffin. Power sits there and waits with patience that he wouldn't have expected of her. Part of him wonders if he should say something about it, commend her, or something. The understanding that it isn't his place stops him from saying a word.

Eventually, a loud set of footsteps clomps into the room. Angel doesn't bother looking away from where he's staring out the window. There are a pair of crows sitting in the tree in the backyard.

"Angel, you barely left any warm water! It got cold in like ten minutes!" Denji complains.

"Take shorter showers or clean yourself without needing to be reminded," Angel says. He looks at the clock.

It's forty-five minutes after noon. Aki still isn't up.

"You take longer than m-"

"Denji."

Angel stands up to find Denji frowning. All the annoyance and bright, teasing joy have fled from his face, replaced by heavy worry. Angel allows himself to feel a twinge of guilt at the sight. Denji may not be his problem, but he can stand to at least try to be nicer to the person who responded to a murder attempt with undeserved kindness.

"Yeah?" Denji asks. "Is everything okay?" He looks at Power, who looks at Angel in turn. He shakes her head before she can shine a light on the elephant in the room.

Angel sighs. "You don't know how to drive, right?"

Denji furrows his brow. "Uh, no. I wouldn't be walking to the store all the time if I did."

Angel nods. "Yeah. That's really inconvenient." He turns toward Power. "What about you?"

Power hesitates, then puffs herself up. "Of course, I know how to dr-"

"She's real good at crashing," Denji interrupts.

Angel nods. "Alright then." He starts out of the kitchen. When Power and Denji start muttering to each other, he calls over his shoulder, "I'll be right back."

It's with even less care than earlier that he pushes the door to Aki's room open. He doesn't bother trying to squint and spot him in the darkness, nor does he give him a moment to acknowledge his presence. "I'm going to teach Power and Denji how to drive," he announces.

A pause. Then Aki says, incredulous and grave, "Angel, you don't know how to drive."

"We'll figure it out."

Angel closes the door and walks away.

Upon returning to the kitchen, he finds Denji standing in the archway, his expression a dangerous combination of excitement and nerves. "Did I hear that right?" he asks. "You told Aki you're gonna teach us how to drive?"

"Yep." Angel shoulders past Denji.

"Smart, but don't you think he's gonna call your bluff?"

Angel grabs the car keys off the counter and turns around to look Denji in the eyes. "Who said I was bluffing?"

Power lets out a whoop of excitement.

"Holy shit," Denji breathes.

Angel walks toward the front door, Denji and Power trailing after him excitedly. "Okay, but, not that I don't want to drive, but what if we crash?" Denji asks.

"Then we crash," Angel says with a shrug.

"But we could destroy the car?"

Angel pulls the door open and steps outside. "It's not like anyone's using it anyway."

"A worthy sacrifice to our education!" Power crows.

"You just wanna destroy another car," Denji says.

"No," Power protests. "The car is useful. With Aki incapacitated, it only makes sense that I step up to-"

Angel blocks out her rambling and Denji's responses. He feels oddly numb as he walks over to the black minivan parked in their open garage. He's never driven a car before, having had neither the interest nor the opportunity prior to this. It would be a lie to say that he's interested now. He still spends a few minutes fumbling around with the keys before finding one that fits the keyhole in the car door.

It unlocks with a click.

"We're really doing this," Denji breathes, the words breaking through to Angel despite his best attempts to tune them out.

"It's not like this is the most dangerous thing you've ever done," Angel grumbles.

"Yeah, but this is-"

"Aki would not be pleased," Power murmurs.

"Yeah, but Aki isn't telling us no, is he?" Angel pulls the car door open and climbs into the driver's seat. A few moments later, Denji opens the passenger door and climbs in, Power clambering into the back.

It takes a few more minutes for Angel to find the ignition key. When he does, it slides in easily, and the car comes to life with a roar that quickly settles into a purr. With an unsteady breath, he grabs the wheel, fingers tapping anxiously at the edges, and... waits.

After about a minute, Denji says, "Uh, Angel?"

"Wait a minute," Angel says.

"Okay, but... What are we waiting f-"

There's a tap on the window.

In that instant, it doesn't matter that Aki has a gun in the place of his eyes. His glare is clear as day. Angel meets it with a shameless grin.

"Good morning," he says, opening the door.

Aki jerks his head to the side. "Get in the back."

"Don't have to tell me twice," Angel says, climbing out of the car. It's only then that he realizes that he didn't bother to buckle himself in. He doesn't think that any of them did.

"You too, Denji," Aki grumbles as he gets in the driver's seat.

"W-What did I do?" Denji sputters.

"Aside from the obvious? If we're doing this, we're starting with Power."

Power lets out a triumphant cheer. Angel has to step to the side to avoid her running into him when he opens the back door. A few seconds after he sits down, Denji slides into the seat beside him, muttering under his breath.

Angel keeps his eyes on Aki as he brings the car out of the garage. He notes the tenseness in his shoulders. He catches the way he slumps down in his seat when they reach the road. If Aki still had eyes, he knows they would be flicking to the side every few seconds, wary of one of the other drivers looking out their window and spotting the Gun Fiend.

It's pointless if you ask Angel. Most humans - most people - are too self-absorbed to bother looking at the other drivers. Odds are, every other driver on this road is too caught up in where they're going, what they're doing, and their plans for the day to even remember that the cars around them have people in them. On the odd chance that one of them does look, they'll probably assume that Aki's in some sort of costume. Who ever heard of a fiend calmly driving down the freeway when they could be going on a murderous rampage? Certainly not your average civilian, who generally knows next to nothing about devils. There's still a risk to what they're doing, but it's minuscule. It's small enough that Aki shouldn't be worrying about it at all.

Aki starts tapping his fingers against the wheel in a sharp, rapid pattern.

It's stupid for Aki to worry, but he's worrying anyway, and there's nothing that Angel can do to make it any better. If anything, he's probably- no, he's definitely responsible for his latest source of distress. It sends a twist of nausea through his stomach that's almost enough to make him regret his scheme. The necessity of the situation serves as a shield that prevents him from saying anything as severe as guilt. This ploy of his may be too uncertain for him to confidently say that it's for the better, but at least there's a chance that it will get better. Letting Aki loiter in his room would have guaranteed another day of stagnant melancholy.

Of course, there's also the chance that Angel's wrong and Aki isn't worrying over nothing. That would suck. It's too late to backtrack, though, and unlike Aki, Angel knows better than to stress over things that he can't do anything about.

With a sigh, he turns his head to look out the window.

It's a dull, dreary day. The freeway and the buildings beyond it pass by in a muddled mess of grays, only occasionally interrupted by a bright car driving past. (Another reason Aki shouldn't be worried, there isn't even much traffic today. Angel wishes he could say he'd known that would be the case before they set out, but he's willing to take credit for a happy coincidence if pressed.) Eventually, the cars stop coming and the gray of the city fades into shades of green and brown.

Denji speaks up before Angel can question the change in scenery. "Yo, dude, where are you taking us?" he barks.

"Somewhere we won't be seen," Aki says. "And where we won't have to worry about hitting any another car." Angel looks forward to see that some of the tension has left his shoulders. He has turned his head slightly toward Power, who has been rambling incessantly the entire ride. She's either completely oblivious to Aki's tension or has noticed and has been trying to fill his head with enough nonsense to force him to forget it, and at this point, Angel doesn't have any clue which.

Now, however, she falls silent with a huff.

Denji snorts. "Not sure how much that'll help if you're still gonna let her drive first."

"You sawed the roof off our last car," comes Aki's response. Angel isn't sure if he's imagining it or not, but he thinks that he sounds a little more at ease than he did an instant ago. Not light, but a little more like himself.

That, and perhaps some misplaced, poorly thought-out sense of pity for the grumbling teen beside him, drives Angel to point out, "You mean the car that you almost ran the Bomb Devil down with?"

"...That was one time," Aki grumbles, definitely sounding closer to the Aki he remembers.

"It was only a little while before Denji destroyed the roof."

"Yeah!" Denji crows. "We ruined that car together!"

"No, it was definitely just you."

Aki turns off onto a small dirt road. As trees close in around them, the car falls quiet again, save for Power, who resumes chattering. She pauses when the car finally pulls into a large, empty parking lot, only to demand, "What is this place?"

"A parking lot," Aki says.

"A parking lot in the middle of the woods?" comes Denji's dubious response.

"It's a park," Aki says, putting the car in idle. "It isn't very popular most of the time, and I figured that no one would be out on a day like today."

"Are you sure a parking lot will be enough space to teach them how to drive?" Angel asks.

Aki twists around to face Angel. "Were you going to let them loose on the road?" he asks in a tone that could be incredulousness or unsurprised exasperation. It's too vague and muddled for him to tell. Maybe it's both.

Angel shrugs. "I don't know what I was going to do."

Aki sighs. "I figured." He turns back around to face Power. "Switch seats with me."

From there, things devolve into a state of controlled chaos. Power makes a surprisingly admirable attempt to listen to Aki's instructions. However, no amount of effort on her part can make up for the damning fact that she's Power. Angel loses all sense of time and balance as she shoots the minivan up and down the parking lot, periodically trying to turn and sending them all into yet another tailspin. She drives over the dividers at the edge of the parking lot and nearly slams them into a tree before Aki grabs the wheel and announces that she's done for the day.

Denji is marginally better. He doesn't try to speed in a space that can't be more than a few hundred yards in either direction. At first, he even does a good job of listening to instructions. Alas, Denji has a brain roughly the size of a hummingbird, meaning it's only a matter of time before he starts to get bored. He asks Aki if he can drive faster, and when that ends in him reminding him of the disaster they just avoided with Power, Denji asks if he can try driving on the road. When that is thoroughly shot down, he sighs and slumps down like a little kid denied a cookie.

Eventually, Aki tells him how to park the car. Once it's been tenuously eased into one of the parking spots, Denji lets out a groan.

"Good job," Aki says.

"Driving is boring as shit," Denji grumbles.

"'Tis only boring because Aki's a bad driver!" Power declares.

"Driving isn't meant to be fun," Aki corrects.

Then he turns around.

Angel automatically looks over at Power, preparing himself for the possibility that she's about to get a second shot at the wheel. Instead, Aki says, "Angel. Your turn."

"...What?" Angel asks, blinking.

"It's your turn to drive," Aki repeats.

"...No thanks."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"This was your idea."

"I said I was going to teach Denji and Power to drive, not that I wanted to learn myself."

"Is that how it is?"

"That's how it is."

"I see." The corner of Aki's lip twitches very slightly. It makes Angel feel something dangerously close to hope, but does nothing to change his mind. Angel is lucky that his plan panned out and saved him from having to drive the several-ton death machine. He isn't about to let that luck go to waste. He is not driving that car.

*

"I hate you," Angel grumbles.

"I'm sure," Aki intones. "Try to turn here."

It's hard for Angel to turn the wheel with his white-knuckled grip on the thing. He has to make a concentrated effort to relax his fingers before dragging his hands back. With stiff, awkward motions, he turns the wheel to the side, easing his foot off the pedal as he does so.

The car turns to the side with all the speed and grace of frosted molasses.

"You drive like an old lady!" Denji jeers from the back seat.

"Shameful!" Power adds on. "You put on such a disappointing display, yet you intended to teach us!?"

Aki looks over his shoulder to say, "There's nothing wrong with a little caution. Although he could stand to go a little faster."

Angel shoots him a dirty look and presses his foot a little harder down on the gas.

The car lurches forward.

Angel snaps his gaze forward, tightens his grip on the wheel, and pulls his foot up.

The car rolls to a stop.

"They have a point," Aki murmurs.

Angel shoots him a look that says that teaching Denji and Power how to drive was never the point, and he knows it.

"That was a dirty trick," Aki says, now whispering. He has to lean forward to be heard.

"It worked, didn't it?" Angel whispers back.

Aki hums.

"You've had your revenge, can we stop now?" Angel prods.

Aki frowns, pulling back. "You were right, it's important that you know how to drive."

"Denji was doing fine. Isn't that enough?" Angel argues.

Aki's lips purse. His head tilts downward ever so slightly, and Angel gets the sinking feeling that it isn't his human arm he's looking at. "It's better to have more than one person who can drive," he says.

"...Fine," Angel sighs. "But can we wait to do it without the gremlins around?"

When Aki looks back up, he stares at Angel for a long moment, utterly unreadable. Then his lips twitch, faint enough that Angel might think he imagined it if he weren't paying such close attention. "Alright," he agrees.

"Alright."

For all that driving itself is a nightmare, turning the car off is easy enough. He's opened the door and is about to step out when Aki calls, "Angel."

"Hmm?"

"Is that my shirt?"

Angel glances down at the shirt, light grey with a deep green silhouette of a tree on the front. Looking back up, he smiles slightly. "You noticed."

*

Aki doesn't go back to his room when they get home.

They don't do anything noteworthy. Power practically clings to him at first, a whirlwind of excitement that only starts to die down after half an hour or so. At that point, she drags him into the living room and demands that he watch some animated movie about talking animals with her. Normally, two stupid movies two days in a row would be too much for an Angel. Even now, he has half a mind to demand that she choose something else or find something else to do. But Aki's up and going along with it, so Angel finds himself trailing after them, feeling...

He doesn't feel pleased with himself, exactly. This is too minor of a victory to make him truly happy. 'Relief' is a better term for what he feels. He is relieved that his gambit didn't fail or backfire. If he goes a step further, he may even be hopeful that some actual progress may have been made today. But even if that is going a step too far, at least he can stay that he didn't allow Aki to slip further backward.

Which means that Angel hasn't failed his partner today.

The feeling isn't overwhelming. It doesn't make it that much easier for him to breathe or erase the numerous past failures that sit heavily on his shoulders. What it does is let him slump into the armchair - a battered, stained, push, red thing that Denji dragged in from the alleyway when he realized that the couch wasn't big enough to fit four people - and turn his head away from everything wrong with the world for a little while. It lets him get something close to comfortable.

That's probably why he doesn't notice Denji slipping out of the house. But in his defense, Aki doesn't catch it either. They're both blissfully unaware until the front door slams open with a clamor.

"I'm home!" Denji calls.

"Yes!" Power cries, launching herself off the couch and racing toward the kitchen with way too much enthusiasm to pass as innocent. Angel glances at Aki, who is staring after Power with a frown. He can already hear noise from the kitchen, loud, gleeful chatter, and the clamoring of dishes.

Aki's frown melts into something softer. Finally, he sighs. "I'm going to go see if they need any help," he murmurs, standing up.

Angel's chest twinges in a way that threatens to pull at his lips. He plays it off by twisting around in the armchair and lying sideways across it. With his head hanging off one arm, legs dangling off the other, and his wings sprawled out haphazardly beneath him, he says, "You do that. I'll wait here."

"Do you want me to bring you dinner?"

"That'd be nice."

Aki reaches out to grab Angel's wrist with a snort. Invisible sparks run up his arm where skin touches skin despite the gentleness of the touch. "Come on," he says, giving a gentle tug.

Angel stands up with a performative grumble. "If they're getting into some nonsense, it's your turn to take care of it," he says.

Aki's already heading into the kitchen, but he pauses to shoot him a look over his shoulder. The furrow of his brow hints at some sort of emotion - skepticism, if he had to guess. His lips part, and Angel's heart beats a little faster, eager to get to guess confirmed, to possibly see another glimmer of emotion and recovery and life from Aki. However, he closes his mouth and turns back around without saying anything.

Angel trails after him and tries not to feel too disappointed.

The kitchen is only a little more of a disaster than it usually is. As always, the counter is cluttered with food and supplies that no one could be bothered to put away. The main difference is that the table is now covered in takeout containers and a handful of white bags. One of those bags is sagging down against tall, cylindrical shapes.

Angel breathes in deeply and catches a faint, muffled whiff of alcohol.

"Denji," Aki calls. Angel doesn't need to look to know that he's staring at the "mystery" bag.

"Yesssss?" Denji asks from where he's crouched down rummaging through one of the cupboards. Beside him, Power leans against the counter snickering. Aki's head twitches toward her, and she covers her mouth with her hand. It fails to completely muffle the sound.

"Where did you get that?" Aki asks, careful and slow.

"The chicken place around the corner. Duh," Denji shoots back. He stands up holding a roll of paper towels.

Aki's eyebrow twitches.

Angel pulls out a chair and sits down at the table, elbows pressed against his knees and his chin resting on his clasped hands. He has no clue how this is about to play out, but given Aki's current state, he's more than content to stand by and see what happens.

"I meant the alcohol," Aki says.

Denji sets the towels down on the table and smiles innocently. "What alcohol?"

Power snorts loudly.

"Denji," Aki grits out.

"Alright, alright!" Denji walks over to the plastic bag and pulls out a bottle of vodka. "You know that scuzzy little store behind the chicken place?"

"No," Aki intones.

"Well, it turns out they have some pretty good deals."

Aki moves to cross his arms. The rifle arm only rises a few inches before he jerks it back down to his side and sets his human hand on his hip instead. "And they're willing to sell booze to minors," he says.

Denji frowns. "I'm seventeen, dude."

"You're seventeen," Aki repeats.

"You were smoking when you were my age!"

"Yeah, well..." Aki's head shifts slightly toward Angel, who raises an eyebrow. "I didn't drink," he finishes.

"You could have, though," Denji stresses. "Seventeen is practically an adult, no one would have given you shit."

Aki presses his lips together.

"Come on," Denji whines. "It's not like I'm planning on becoming another Kishibe. I probably can't get drunk anyway."

Aki's human arm drops back down to his side. "What?"

"'Tis true!" Power exclaims. "Intoxication is a pitiful human ailment. I have never once experienced it!"

"Yeah! Devils and fiends can't get drunk, so I probably can't either!" Denji exclaims. "Pleeeease, Aki? There's no real harm if none of us can actually get wasted!"

*

Several hours later, Aki sits on the living room floor with his back against the couch, head lolling to the side as he loses the battle to stay awake. Laid out in his lap, Denji rambles loudly, making expansive gestures with his hands as he illustrates one nonsensical point or another. Every once in a while, he pauses and pokes Aki in the chest or shoulder, at which point he snaps out of his stupor to mutter a vague response.

Angel might be tempted to laugh under different circumstances. As the only person in the household with common sense, he stopped drinking when his head started buzzing on his second drink and he realized that Power was probably full of bullshit. His current status as a babysitter prevents him from finding too much humor in the situation.

Of course, he isn't the only sober person around. Power had more to drink than either of the messes sprawled out on the floor, yet she remains as sober as the morning dawn. Currently, she sits at the edge of the couch, entranced by the cartoons prancing across the television screen. She'll occasionally glance in the direction of her disastrous siblings. If she deems that one of them has gone too still or quiet, she pokes them to make sure that they haven't died.

Angel supposes that this counts as her helping to watch them. It probably means that he can go to bed. Except that it doesn't, because while Power may have matured from the horrible little gremlin he first met, he isn't quite ready to leave them alone with her in this state. As such, he's stuck watching, waiting for the drunkards to lose consciousness.

Aki's probably going to clock out first. He looks like he's right on the edge. Denji doesn't look like he'll last that much longer earlier.

No sooner has Angel thought this than Denji abruptly sits up. "Aki," he murmurs, reaching forward to grab his shoulder.

Aki groans and laboriously lifts his head up from where it's flopped on the couch.

"Aki," Denji slurs. "Are you... I'm..." He groans and slumps forward, wrapping his arms around Aki's torso and slumping his head against his shoulder. "'M glad yer Aki."

If it's hard to read Aki when he's sober, it's outright impossible when he's drunk. He stares forward blankly for a long instant. Denji letting out a low whining noise against his shoulder sends him into motion. He slumps forward against him, wrapping his human arm around him and awkwardly thumping him on the back with the rifle arm.

Denji groans.

Aki drops his gun arm back to his side. "Sorry," he whispers.

Denji's miserable sounds turn back into words. Angel is just able to make out a garbled, "Don't die."

He isn't able to hear Aki's response. Thankfully.

Angel looks up and away. He's met with the sight of Power staring at the pair. She lasts for a moment longer before turning away to meet Angel's gaze, her yellow eyes raw and aching in a way that he isn't prepared to deal with right now. They only stare enough other down for a moment before he looks at his lap.

The room slips into silence after that. Aki slumps back against the couch. Denji slumps against Aki, clinging to him even as his consciousness slips away. Power watches her show. Angel doesn't watch anything aside from short glances.

Eventually, the snoring starts.

Angel watches Aki and Denji for just long enough to confirm that they're both asleep, then stands up and stalks off into the living room.

Quiet footsteps follow him.

Boxes of chicken and rice are still laid out on the table. He should probably put that away at some point, since every semi-respectable person in the household is currently non-functional. Power will try, but he doesn't trust her to do it right. That's a problem for later though. For now, he pulls a glass from the cupboard and pours himself a glass of water. He drains the entire thing before setting it down on the counter and turning around to find Power watching him from the entrance to the kitchen.

They stare at each other for longer than is strictly necessary. Angel's just starting to feel vaguely uncomfortable when Power shifts her weight from one foot to another and offers, " I cannot get intoxicated."

Angel snorts. "So the Blood Devil has a high alcohol tolerance? Who'd have thought."

Power crosses her arms. "'Tis not my fault that Denji and Aki are so delicate."

Angel tilts his head back with a sigh. The ceiling is clean, at least. It would suck if the ceiling got dirty at some point. He, Denji, and Power might be able to ignore it, but he just knows that Aki will make a fuss i- when he pulls himself together enough to start caring about stuff like that again.

"Never said it was," he murmurs.

Truly, he doesn't blame her. Denji and Aki should have been smart enough not to blindly believe something Power said. And yeah, okay, maybe that's expecting a little much from Denji, but Aki should have known better.

"Then we agree!" Power exclaims. There's a hint of cheer in her voice, but it's largely tired and subdued. Angel only gets to dwell on it for a moment before he hears her starting forward. Turning his gaze back to her, he finds her picking up one of the mostly-full takeout containers, her expression a dangerous mix of confusion and determination.

So much for cleanup being a problem for later.

"Hold on," Angel sighs. "I'll take care of that."

Power frowns at him. "I am capable of cleaning up a simple mess."

"Never said you aren't," Angel responds. "But you're tired, aren't you?"

"As if you are not as well."

Angel's lips twitch mirthlessly but don't form a smile. "I am, but I slept well last night. Did you?"

Power looks away, which only serves to drag his attention to the bags beneath her eyes. He finds himself suspecting that he may have stumbled across something real in the midst of his placating bullshit.

After roughly a minute passes without her responding, Angel decides to take her silence as acquiescence. He steps forward and begins preparing the takeout to be put away. It's an easy process, all he has to do is fold down the tops of the containers, then he'll find room for them in the fridge. There should be plenty of room, given that takeout is pretty much all they've been eating ever since the disaster that is their current living situation started.

He's almost done when Power softly asks, "Why do you care?"

"I don't," is Angel's automatic response.

"Then why are you here?"

Angel pauses as he folds up the final box of takeout, shoulders tense and wings quivering. He doesn't want to respond, but it's Power who's asking, and there's a little voice in the back of his mind telling him that it will only get worse if he doesn't say anything. If he answers now, he has some control over how he's perceived, at least for a little while. If he waits, it's only a matter of time until they can see through him completely.

He wonders what it is they'll see when that happens. Right now, he supposes it doesn't matter. So many things have reached a point that is beyond his control over the course of his life. His image may as well become one of them.

"...Denji didn't let me die," Angel says, picking up a few boxes and carrying them over to the refrigerator. "You know that."

"Liar," Power murmurs.

Angel doesn't respond beyond a hum. Does a partial truth truly could as a lie? He doesn't think so, but he can see what she's getting at.

There are three entire empty shelves in the fridge. He sets the takeout boxes on the second one and leaves the door open as he turns around to retrieve the rest.

"How did you become so attached to Aki?" Power asks.

"...You're feeling nosy tonight, aren't you?" Angel asks, because he can't believably claim that he isn't attached at this point. That bit of plausible deniability evaporated the second he stepped into this house.

"I'm not complaining about it," Power says, just hushed enough for him to believe that she means it. "I simply wish to understand."

Angel doesn't respond until he's piled the last boxes in the refrigerator and shut the door. Then he leans against it and stares up at the clean, spotless ceiling.

"There's not much to say," he murmurs. "Everyone told me that Aki Hayakawa hates devils more than anyone in Public Safety, but he never acted that way. Even when he was cold, he still treated me like a person."

Angel isn't blind to his situation. He may still have his wings and halo, but those traits aren't too difficult to help, and Denji said that Kishibe is willing to pull some strings and do some favors for them. With his powers gone, he could integrate into society with minimal difficulty. For the first time, there's little to nothing stopping him from living a normal human life.

But what does it matter? The rest of the world would still see Angel as a monster if not for Makima. Aki wasn't scared to get close to him, even when his touch meant death. He treated him like a person even though he didn't have to, even though no one else did, even though Angel himself didn't believe he deserved it. Angel isn't going to abandon him now that he's the one who's going to be seen as a monster.

Besides, what would Angel want from a society that would turn its back on Aki after all he's done for it?

"You are in love with him," Power surmises.

Angel doesn't deny it. Power doesn't say anything else. For a little while, it's just them standing in the quiet dark of the kitchen in the weight of a statement that, while true, doesn't necessarily change anything. Then Angel looks up at the clock.

It's one in the morning.

"You should go to bed," Angel murmurs, looking over at Power.

Power frowns at them. In that instant, her exhaustion bleeds through, telling him exactly how correct he is. She still says, "I cannot."

"Why not?" Angel asks.

Power looks toward the living room.

Angel sighs. "I can watch them."

Truthfully, he had planned on doing that regardless of Power's presence. One of them might as well get some sleep.

Rather than agreeing, Power gives him a long, uneasy look.

"Don't you trust me by now?" Angel prods.

"...You have proven yourself," Power admits. "Are you certain?"

"Go to bed," Angel says by way of an answer.

"...I shall rest on the couch."

Power says it as if she's doing it reluctantly, like she'll lay down but won't actually sleep. For a little while, Angel's worried that that's exactly what's going to happen. He's proven wrong when she lays down and starts snoring almost immediately.

The night passes slowly. Angel snags some manga from Denji's room and reads it as he watches the slumbering trio. It's mindless action nonsense with only the thinnest excuse for a plot, but it helps keep him conscious as sleep creeps forward and threatens to cloud his mind. Eventually, light creeps in through the windows, but the Hayakawas remain fast asleep.

It's ten in the morning when Aki groans. It is the sound of someone in for a very regretful morning.

For once, Angel doesn't wait around or dawdle. He walks into the kitchen, retrieves two glasses, and fills them with water. When he returns, Aki hasn't moved, but Denji has rolled off of his lap and is lying on the floor with an arm flung over his eyes. Or maybe Aki pushed him off. Either way, both of them are laying there pathetically.

Serves them right.

Angel sets one glass down on the table. The other he holds onto as he steps over Denji. Crouching down beside Aki, he rests one hand against the back of his head, fingers brushing the butt of the gun that protrudes there, and holds the glass up to his lips when he coaxes him to lift his head up. "Drink," he instructs.

Aki groans again, but listens. After taking a few sips, he pulls his head back, catching himself only a few seconds away from flopping back on the couch, and asks, "What happened?"

"Power said that fiends can't get drunk. And you chose to believe her," Angel deadpans.

Denji lets out a groan that reminds Angel of a garbage disposal. Fittingly, when he speaks, he sounds like he's been gargling razors. "Y'make us sound stupid when you say it like that," he grumbles.

Angel tears his attention away from Aki, who is pulling himself upright, to shoot Denji a flat look. "You are."

Denji peels his arm back to squint at Angel. He moves to open his mouth, only to tighten his jaw as a wave of discomfort crosses his face. Something that sounds an awful lot like 'oh god' makes it past closed lips.

"There's water on the table," Angel offers.

Denji forces himself upright and snatches the water off the table. He takes a few desperate gulps, gasps, and asks, "So you're only gonna fawn over him, huh?"

Angel narrows his eyes.

"Shut up, Denji," Aki grumbles, taking the glass out of Angel's hand and taking another sip.

Denji snickers. "I'm just sayi-" He cuts off abruptly, slapping a hand over his mouth.

"I mean it," Aki says, lowering the glass. "I have a heada- Denji?"

Angel looks between Denji, who's starting to turn green, and Aki, who looks like he's about to rush to his side despite his own face growing pale. His indecision lasts for only a moment before he turns to Aki. "I think we have ibuprofen. Should I...?"

Aki shakes his head. "This isn't my first hangover."

He jerks his head toward Denji, who clutches the side of the table, one hand still clamped over his mouth. Angel watches him fight against his body for a second before looking back at Aki and making a disgruntled face.

"Please?" Aki rasps.

At that moment, Power lets out a groan and rolls over. Angel's gaze snaps over to her, taking note of the way her eyes roam beneath the lids. She tosses one of her arms over the side of the couch, the hand resting inches away from Aki's head. Her fingers are twitching. It looks like she's about to wake up soon; surely it wouldn't be a problem if Angel woke her up early and had her deal with Denji's hangover.

He glances back at the miserable wreck of a hybrid and heaves a put-upon sigh. "You both owe me for this."

Except not really. Angel's the one with the debt that can never be prepared, and every word he says to the contrary is so empty that he can't even fool himself.

"Thank you," Aki murmurs.

Angel does bother responding beyond a scoff. He wraps Denji's arm around his shoulder and allows the beanstalk to rest his weight on him, and he hoists him up and begins the laborious process of dragging him to the bathroom.

They're almost there when Denji makes a gagging sound.

Angel freezes, staring up at him with anticipatory horror.

Denji swallows tediously and offers a shaky thumbs-up. "All good," he croaks.

"...Good," Angel says. "Because I will kill you if you vomit on me."

"'Should probably go a little faster then," Denji groans, leaning more heavily on his shoulder. Angel struggles not to stagger beneath his weight.

"You did this to yourself," Angel reminds him as they cover the final stretch to the bathroom.

"Yeah, yeah," Denji mutters. "Aki's gonna give me enough shit already."

"Aki doesn't have a leg to stand on this morning."

"Yeah, but he's gonna anyway."

"...Probably."

Their conversation is cut short by their arrival in the bathroom. Denji all but throws himself at the toilet. He starts vomiting the second he wrenches the lid up. Angel takes a step back at the sight, nose wrinkling in disgust. However, as the minutes pass by and Denji continues heaving, disgust morphs into disgusting, ill-advised concern.

When Denji continues heaving past the point of having emptied his stomach, Angel steps forward to crouch beside him. Tentatively, he reaches his hand out to rub gentle circles on his back.

"What did we learn?" he asks.

"Don't f- Don't fucking believe Power," Denji chokes out.

Angel nods. "That's right."

They stay like that for several minutes later. Finally, Denji lets go of the toilet and slumps down beside it with a groan. Angel considers telling him to flush his vomit. However, a glance at the pitiful misery written across his face drives him to close the lid and flush it himself. Once the refuse has drained away, he flushes one more time for good measure. Once that's done, he nudges Denji with his toes and says, "Get in the shower."

Denji squints up at him. "Why?"

"It'll probably make you feel less like you're going to die."

Plus, he smells like vodka and vomit, but if Angel has to point that out then they really are beyond hope.

Denji rises to his feet with a laborious groan. Angel nods his approval and steps back. "Don't take too long," he warns as he heads out of the bathroom. "Aki needs to take a bath."

"You gonna pester him about it too?" Denji asks. He sounds worse than Aki on a bad smoking day.

Angel hesitates for a moment. "I'm hoping that I won't have to." With that, he shuts the door and heads over to Aki's room.

The sound of a blender reaches down from the kitchen. Angel pauses at the sound, but promptly dismisses it as something to worry about later.

Aki has the light on for once. He's rummaging through his dresser, which Angel knows for a fact is starting to run low. None of them have been doing enough laundry lately. Unless Aki gets it into his head to do something about it, between Angel and Power's unwillingness to touch the washing machine and Denji's reluctance to ask him for help, their clothes are effectively damned.

Another problem for later. Angel's already making more of an effort than he has since- he's trying more, caring more, than he has in a very long time. He isn't about to start fussing over things that can still be put off for a good while and devolve into a total neurotic mess.

Especially not when he's so fucking tired.

Exhaustion crashes over him in an unforgiving wave as he flops down on the bed. Angel spreads his wings up and stares up at the ceiling. He does not close his eyes despite the burning pressure weighing down on him. Consequently, the ceiling starts to spin, darkness clouding in on the edge of his vision and casting patterns across the white expanse.

"Angel?" Aki calls.

"You shouldn't change your clothes until you've had a bath," Angel mutters without looking up.

"That's what I was planning on doing." The bed dips down by Angel's feet. Aki's voice is closer as he asks, "Did you stay up all night?"

"Someone had to make sure you didn't choke on your own vomit," Angel murmurs. His eyes slide shut against his will.

"You really didn't."

"Power would've stayed up if I didn't."

Aki hums. A second later, a hand grabs the tip of his foot, slowly wiggling it from side to side. Angel peels one eye open and tugs it out of his grasp. "Stop that."

Aki's lips twitch. "Thank you, then."

Angel hums and lets his eyes slide back shut. "Don't let me fall asleep. I don't wanna... Can't end up nocturnal."

More accurately, he can't allow himself to slip back into his old sleeping habits. Back in Public Safety, he had been asleep pretty much whenever he wasn't with Aki or being forced to work. This house is too much of a disaster without him letting himself slip back into that. Besides, forcing himself into a semi-respectable schedule upon moving in with the Hayakawas had taken too much effort for him to let it go to waste.

"How am I supposed to know if you're asleep?" Aki questions.

"Dunno. Pay attention to my breathing or... something."

"What if I just let you sleep for a little while?"

Angel hums. "Dangerous."

"Maybe," Aki says, and his voice is soft enough that Angel almost opens his eyes to see his expression. If he hadn't been awake for over twenty-four hours, he would. "I think you can be trusted not to totally revert to old habits."

Angel opens his eyes.

Aki is smiling. It's faint and delicate, reminiscent of the way he would look at Denji and Power after a particularly tiring battle, but with some tangible, indescribable difference, but it's there.

"Whatever happens next is your problem," Angel warns.

"I think I can handle that," Aki says.

Angel hums and allows his eyes to slide shut once more.

Despite their discussion and his tiredness, he doesn't quite fall asleep. It's more apt to say that he floats, not quite conscious, but not lost in the depths of slumber. Distantly, he's aware of the sound of rummaging around the room. It's comforting in a way that pure silence wouldn't be.

He doesn't know how much time passes that way. It probably would have been a lot more if not for the overpowering meat stink that draws him back to the waking world.

"Aki?" Angel groans, sitting up and scrubbing a hand across his face. Upon lowering it, he sees that Aki, who had been rooting through his closet, is frozen, head turned toward the door.

"For fuck's sake," he sighs after a moment, closing the closet door.

"You don't know that it's anything bad," Angel says, uneasily sliding off the bed. He flares out his wings to keep himself from wobbling and manages to stabilize himself within a few seconds.

Aki sighs. "What are the odds that it's anything good?"

Angel shrugs. "Maybe a miracle will happen."

"Oh yeah?" Aki tilts his head toward him. "Can you cause those now?"

Angel wrinkles his nose. Obviously not, he wants to say. If he were anything close to actually divine, Aki would be human and happy, every other human he's ever loved would be alive, and touch wouldn't be so new and novel that he can only bear it from one person. He settles for a simple, "Don't."

Aki makes a sound that could be a sigh, or possibly a huff of something close to laughter, but is ultimately too faint to make out with any reliability. He sets off toward the kitchen, Angel hot on his heels.

The sight that greets them is... well, it's not good, but it could be worse.

The first thing Angel notices is the blender, albeit because that's where the barrel on Aki's face is pointed. It is sitting beside the sink, its clear exterior revealing insides coated in a thick pink sludge. Angel breathes in deep and is once again greeted by the overwhelming stench of meat - which is a perfectly reasonable, albeit horrifying, explanation in this case.

Tearing his gaze away from the meat blender, Angel looks over to the table. Power is sitting there and looking at him and Aki with a proud smile. In front of her sits what Angel can only describe as a creation.  

It's a cake pan filled with a block of mysterious meat. An oily sheen covers its mottled surface of brown and pink, occasionally interrupted by a small pool of blood. The heavy, greasy odor arising from it can only be described as baked meat. Angel can't smell any sort of seasonings in it, and although he tries, he can't tell if it's supposed to be pork, chicken, beef, or any other sort of identifiable creature that Power may have gotten her hands on through unknown, probably nefarious means.

Angel casts an anxious look back at the blender.

It's a big pan that she used.

With the sense of a horrible revelation looming on the horizon, he looks back at Aki, who's still stuck staring at the blender in what is now blatant horror. Angel frowns and elbows him in the ribs.

It does the trick. Aki steps forward to pull out a chair at the table. "Power," he carefully begins as he sits down. "What have you made?"

"A meat brick!" she cheerfully exclaims.

Angel blinks. Then he grabs the chair beside Aki and sits down, suddenly wide awake and morbidly curious. "Tell me more."

"What more is there to say?" Power asks. "'Tis a brick of meat!"

Angel glances at Aki. His jaw is slack and his head is tilted slightly upwards. If he had to guess, Angel would say that he's somewhat pained, and he doesn't think it's because of the hangover. He takes a deep breath, straightens his shoulders, and looks forward before asking, "How did you make the mean brick?"

Some of Power's confidence wavers. "Well, I-"

"Oh, what the fuck?" Denji cries. Angel looks over to see him standing in the archway, pointing at the meat-filled cake pan as if it's personally offended him.

"It's meat brick," Angel helpfully provides.

Denji shifts his finger to point at Angel. "Did you-"

"You think I had the time and energy to do this?" Angel interrupts.

"Denji," Aki calls. "Power was just about to tell us how she made... this."

"You should be grateful!" Power chimes in. "I have provided us with breakfast!"

Denji walks over to slump into the seat on Aki's other side with a groan. His face pales as he stares down at the cake pan filled with indistinguishable mystery meat. For a moment, Angel thinks that he's going to puke again. It's a concern that is mercifully averted when he folds his arms on the table and drops his face on top of them. "You've provided us with something," comes his muffled voice.

Indignity flashes across Power's face. Before she can start up on the rant that's destined to come, Aki coaxes, "Power. You were going to tell me how you made… meat brick?"

"Right!" Power straightens herself up with a grin. "First, I took a variety of meats-"

"What do you mean by a variety?" Aki interrupts.

"Uhh..." Power's smile wobbles, but she manages to keep it largely in place. "Everything we had?"

"So you used everything in our freezer."

"Incorrect! I used everything that I could thaw in an acceptable period of time."

"Alright, so most of our freezer." Aki's hand flutters upward, but falls back into his lap before it can make contact with his face. "Go on."

"Once I had procured the meat, I put it in the blender-"

"Raw?"

"...Yes?"

Aki's hand rises again. This time, he does not stop himself from pinching the bridge of his nose. "You put raw meat in the blender."

Power crosses her arms, the flicker of shame that had been forming on her countenance giving way to defensiveness. "I do not see the problem," she declares. "We are all-"

Angel clears his throat.

Power blanches. "We are all aware of food poisoning and other such diseases, which you have warned us about many, many times," she reroutes. She sounds wooden in a way that keeps her from being even remotely convincing, but Angel can at least appreciate that she's making an attempt. Unfortunately, the stiffness of Aki's shoulders and jaw tells him that he knows exactly how that sentence was originally going to end.

"I had hoped that baking it would effectively spare us from any sickness," Power finishes.

"...Thanks," Aki sighs, dropping his hand back into his lap. Angel wonders if he's thanking her for the explanation or the transparent attempt to spare his feelings.

"So you blended the meat," Angel prompts, as much to steer the conversation away from the fumble as out of genuine curiosity.

"I pureed the meat," Power corrects. "I knew I could not expect it to congeal if I merely reduced it to chunks."

Denji groans into his arms. In the corner of his eyes, he sees Aki fighting a grimace. Meanwhile, Angel nods. "Of course," he says, as if he is hearing someone relay the most reasonable recipe known to man. "And then?"

"I added eggs!" Power cheerfully exclaims.

"Eggs?" comes Denji's muffled voice.

"Binders," Aki supplies, hollow and defeated.

"Correct!" Despite the general lack of enthusiasm in the room, Power is beaming. Angel wonders if it's genuine or if this is her attempt to recover from her earlier misstep. "I have learned much from observing you over time."

Well. Angel wouldn't say much. However, Aki offers a soft, "I suppose you have."

Power's smile softens. Now, Angel is certain it's real, even if it only lingers in that form for a heartbeat before morphing back into something proud and smug. "Anyway!" she continues. "Once the batter was prepared, I poured it into the largest pan we have, cooked it to perfection, and now it is ready to serve!"

"Pass," Denji grumbles without looking up.

"You would deny the food I so kindly prepared?" Power asks, sounding more challenging than hurt.

Denji shifts his head to look up at her. "'M not really feeling meat these days."

"But you bought chicken last night?" Power questions.

Angel shifts his gaze back to the pan. At a second glance, the bloody pink splotches that he had initially written off as a natural consequence of a mystery meat concoction strike him as decidedly raw. She's cooked it enough to draw a good amount of grease to the surface, but that's about it. He bets it would bleed if he poked it.

"I bought you guys chicken. I had vegetable curry," Denji corrects.

Angel glances at Aki out of the corner of his eyes, then reaches his pointer finger towards the pan.

"Oh..." Power murmurs.

"Don't," Aki hisses.

Angel turns to face Aki and presses his hands together, the tips of his fingers brushing against his lips. He stares at him for a few heartbeats before tilting his hands forward so his fingers point at him and asking, "What do I need to do to get you to try meat brick?"

"That's not happening," Aki intones.

"There's nothing I can do to convince you?"

"Nothing."

"But I have done such a good job," Power whines.

"Yeah, Aki, she even remembered binders," Angel chimes in.

Aki presses his lips together. Angel can envision the way his eyes would narrow into an accusatory glare if he still had them.

"Yer still hung over, aren't ya?" Denji asks.

"...That's right," Aki says, turning his head toward Power. "I'm sorry, but I'll probably get sick if I try to eat that."

Power snorts. "A pathetic excuse." Then she turns her attention to Angel, eyes wide and imploring. "Angel?"

Angel looks down at the chunk of greasy, bloody meat and heaves a sigh. "Sure, why not."

He's had corpses that didn't taste that bad. Surely he can handle meat brick.

Power jumps to her feet and rushes off to gather a knife and plates with a cheer.

"You sure, dude?" Denji asks, low enough to not be heard by Power.

"He's eaten worse," Aki says, just as low.

Angel shrugs. "Meat is meat, right?"

"Exactly!" Power exclaims, slamming a plate down in front of him. "And my meat is the best meat!"

She's practically vibrating with excitement as she carves a chunk out of the meat brick. Blood oozes up around the knife. The piece that she cuts only barely holds its form. As she lifts it out onto the plate, chunks fall off and back into the pan in a series of moist splats. In the corner of his eye, he sees Denji trying not to wince.

"Oh," Power murmurs when she has the meat chunk on the plate. "I forgot forks."

"Don't worry about it," Angel says. He pulls the plate over to himself and carefully picks up a piece of moist pink meat. It is soft and pliable in a way that reminds him a little too much of cat food to be appetizing. Up close, the smell of grease and stale blood is even stronger. He only lets himself linger on it for a moment before plopping it in his mouth.

Angel is immediately hit with an overwhelming wave of copper. The taste of fat comes next, greases rendered in a way that makes them too overwhelming to be truly flavorful. It's only after he's powered through those sensations that he tastes the unnatural intermingling of pork, beef, and chicken. He could see it being pleasant if prepared correctly, but as it is, the meat brick is not doing itself any favors.

All of this is viciously overshadowed by the texture of the thing.

"...How is it?" Denji asks.

Angel forces himself to swallow. "Wet," he chokes out. "It's wet."

Even rotting corpses have a certain amount of stability to them. However, the presence of eggs have done little to hold the meat brick together. It dissolves as soon as it enters his mouth, leaving behind a mealy goo utterly saturated in stale, half-baked blood.

"Are you saying it's bad?" Power asks. He thinks that it's supposed to come across as a demand, but she can't quite hide the disappointment in her voice.

"It's good that you're taking initiative," Aki hurries to assure her.

Power brightens up. "Then I shall make another attempt tomorrow morning!"

"No," Aki says. "Do not do this again."

Power sinks down into her chair. "What am I to eat then?"

"Wait, am I the only one who's going to try the meat brick?" Angel asks and is summarily ignored.

"There are leftovers in the fridge, right?" Aki asks.

"Yes," Power replies with all the enthusiasm of someone who's been eating takeout for the past five weeks.

"Alright," Aki says. "Have those for now, and... I'll cook tonight."

Angel's heart gives a hopeful stutter.

Denji sits bolt upright. "For real!?"

"For real," Aki confirms.

"And you'll keep cooking?"

Aki hesitates. His head shifts slightly, turning between Denji and Power, and he finally sighs. "We'll see."

Angel and Denji exchange a look.

It isn't much, it isn't a promise or guarantee that there won't be another step backward soon, but it's something.

It's progress.

Chapter Text

Aki stumbled.

They were careening toward the end. Denji knew what he had to do, just as he knew that it would tear him apart in a way that he would never recover from. He was doing it even though he knew that he would never be able to forgive himself. With tears in his eyes and a scream in his throat, chainsaws rendered flesh, tearing through the Gun Fiend before he could continue his reign of terror. Before he could continue to warp the memory of the person he was supposed to be. It looked for all the world like it was too late to turn back, too late to change the path they were on, too late to hope for anything but death.

And then Aki stumbled.

A pang of dismay cut through Denji's overwhelming grief as he slid off his chainsaws and staggered backward. Having to chase after him would mean dragging this out longer than necessary, which would mean cutting into him for longer, which would mean hurting him for longer than he wanted to. If there was enough of Aki left inside the fiend for him to feel, he didn't want to- He couldn't-

He had to.

A sob tore free from Denji's throat as he stepped toward Aki, preparing to race after him.

But Aki was in no state to run. Blood cascaded down his head and chest as he took another stumbling step back. Denji forced himself to raise his arm even as he cried and shook, preparing himself to bring it down and end it all. He didn't look like he would last very long at this point. That was- that was a good thing. He could end it quickly.

Aki let out a pained groan and started to shake his head.

Denji hesitated, something too desperate and clawing to ever be called hope tearing at his insides.

Aki raised his remaining hand to the side of his head. His fingers were slick with blood when he pulled it away a second later. He held his hand in front of him, seeming to stare at it, before looking back up.

He wasn't smiling anymore.

"Aki...?" Denji whispered.

"Denji...?" Aki said, and he had the Gun Fiend's face, but it was his voice. It was hoarse, pained, and unsteady, but it was him. Suddenly, Denji realized that the thing he was feeling might be hope after all.

Why did it hurt so much?

"What..." A harsh cough tore out of Aki's throat. Flecks of blood spilled past his mouth to coat his lips. Those flecks soon turned into a stream. Denji lunged forward the second he started to wobble, catching him before he could hit the ground.

"Hey, it's okay," Denji said, trying desperately to sound bright and happy and hopeful, because hope was supposed to be bright and happy and good. It wasn't supposed to feel like a lie waiting for a chance to tear you open as it forced you to watch the end of the world, and whatever was going wrong in his brain, he wasn't going to let it reach Aki. "Everything's gonna be fine. You're gonna be fine. You just... You just need..."

Aki needed help. He needed a doctor. He needed someone to do something about the blood pouring out of the giant cuts in his chest and head, the wounds that Denji had made. He needed-

Blood. He was a fiend now, he needed blood.

Denji felt his chainsaws melt away as he lifted an arm to his mouth, keeping the other one wrapped firmly around Aki. As he tore into his wrist with his teeth, he heard him choke out, "Denji..."

"Hold on, just a sec," he said, muffled around his wrist. A second later, he felt a burst of pain, tasted copper on his tongue, and pulled his bloody wrist back.

Aki sluggishly reached his human hand up to grab his wrist before he could shove it in his mouth. His grip was weak enough that Denji could have torn out of it easily, yet he faltered.

"What..." Aki started coughing again. Denji was about to tell him to save his breath when he pulled himself together enough to ask, "The... Gun Devil. What... Happened?"

A wave of dread crashed over Denji. He did not let himself drown in it; Aki's questions and the horrible conversation they would bring could wait until he wasn't dying. Because he wasn't going to die. Now that he had himself under control again, Denji wasn't going to let him die. He couldn't.

Another sob tore wrenched free from his chest, bringing with it a fresh wave of tears.

Aki let go of his wrist. Blood-soaked fingers reached up to brush against his cheek. "Why are you crying?" he whispered.

"It's okay," Denji repeated, grabbing onto his hand. "I'm just bein' stupid again. Everything's gonna be alright." Or it would be soon. Aki was sane again and he was going to live and everything would be fine. Sucking in a rough, uneven breath, he lowered Aki's hand to his side and shoved his wrist in his mouth. "Drink."

In a small act of mercy from the universe, Aki didn't ask why he was forcing him to drink his blood. Denji watched with bated breath as he swallowed. He stared at the horrible tears in his flesh, watching impatiently as his skin began to stitch itself back together.

He noticed the instant that his breathing began to slow.

His heart dropped when his wounds, only partially shut, stopped healing.

When he stopped swallowing the blood trickling down his throat, Denji pulled his wrist back and gave him the gentlest shake he could manage. "Aki?" he breathed.

A weak groan was his only response.

Denji brought his wrist back up to his mouth and bit it again. And again. And again. A current of blood was streaming down his arm when he shoved it back in Aki's mouth. "C'mon, Aki, just hold on a bit longer. How stupid would it be to die now? Please, don't..."

Denji sobbed.

"Don't die."

Aki didn't say anything. He didn't swallow. Blood trickled past his lips, and his wounds closed up a fraction more, but there was no reaction.

"Aki?" Denji whispered.

He was still warm. His chest was rising and falling. There were still jagged cuts carving him up, but his head was in one piece, and aside from all of the blood he had lost, his insides were mostly in.

So why wasn't he moving?

"C'mon," Denji croaked, pulling his arm back to gently shake his shoulder. "Get up, we've... We've gotta go."

No response.

"Please get up."

Denji was still bleeding. Aki was too, but only a little.

It didn't matter. He was alive, but he wasn't moving. He was alive, but he wasn't okay.

And it was Denji's fault.

"I'm sorry," Denji sobbed. He hugged Aki close to his chest and began rocking back and forth. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sor-"

*

Denji wakes up with a gasp.

He doesn't realize that he's awake at first. He never does. For a horrible instant, he's still kneeling in the street, holding Aki's unconscious body and spewing apologies, unable to consider the possibility that he'd regain his mind only to leave him, yet too terrified to bring himself to hope.

Then he feels an arm wrap itself around his shoulders. A second later, another wraps around him and pulls him close. The embrace is too tight to be truly comfortable, but it is a comfort all the same. It's stabilizing in a way that few things are these days. With a shaky breath, Denji places a hand on one of the ones pushing tightly against his chest, just to remind himself that it is there.

"Which was it?" Power eventually asks.

"Aki," Denji murmurs.

Denji always knew that he wasn't a very smart person, but he at least figured that he was clever enough to come up with good nightmares. Apparently not, because whenever he has a bad dream - which are most of his dreams these days - it's always one of the same three things. Aki falling into his coma, Makima killing Power, or him killing Makima. They aren't even proper nightmares. They're just memories, stuff that he's gotten pretty good at not thinking about when he's awake, but can't get out of his head when he's asleep.

"Do you want me to get him?" Power asks.

"God, no. It's the middle of the night, ain't it?" Not to mention that Aki has enough shit clouding up his own head without feeling like he needs to worry about Denji's... whatever's going on with Denji.

What follows is an awkward and uncomfortable maneuver as Power tries to look out the window without letting go of Denji. There's no point; the curtain was open when they went to bed, Denji can see that it's still dark. At another time, he'd probably say as much. Right now, his heart is heavy, his head is moving even slower than usual, and he can't bring himself to give a damn.

"'Tis two hours 'til morning," Power declares with the reassuring, unwavering confidence of an egomaniac who has no idea what she's talking about. Unless she already got up and checked the time while she was sneaking around, but that seems unlikely. It was shocking when she started paying attention to the time to wake Aki up; anything more than that would be a miracle. However, it brings another question to his mind, the closest that he'll let himself get to what he maybe actually w ants to ask.

"You already do your rounds for the night?"

"Yes." Power lays back down and adjusts her grip on Denji. "Aki and Angel are sleeping together again. Both are well."

The relief that washes over him is stupid. Of course they're fine; they're all safe and at home. Unless some horrible new devil shows up, there's nothing that's going to put them in any danger. That stupid relief still makes him sink deeper into the bed as some of the lingering tension leaves his body. While not enough for him to have any hope of falling asleep, it is enough that he nearly relaxes into Power's embrace and allows himself to drift out without uttering so much of a word in response.

He only catches himself at the last moment. With a grunt of acknowledgment, he says, "Good. Y'know, you don't have to cuddle me."

It was nice when she started doing this in the aftermath of Aki becoming the Gun Fiend. After everything with Makima, they needed each other more than ever before. Now... it's still nice. He doesn't know how long it would take for him to pull himself together after his nightmares if he woke up and Power wasn't there. The trouble is that Power's been trying to do too much, pushing herself harder than she ever has before, and the more she frets and worries over the rest of them, the more wretched Denji starts to feel.

Yet it is undeniably easier for him to breathe when Power scoffs. "Be quiet and accept my comfort," she commands.

Denji doesn’t respond at first. Then he turns around to face Power. She makes a disgruntled noise at the movement, and in the darkness of the bedroom, he can just make out the scowl that she levels at him. The corners of his lips twitch weakly at the sight. “Relax,” he whispers. “I just figured you could use some attention too.”

Power’s scowl morphs into a small, pouty frown. “I am fine.”

“Right,” he says, because he knows that she’ll only argue if he points out that she hasn’t been sleeping much better than him, even if it is for completely different reasons. “Well, maybe I wanted to hug ya.”

“...Acceptable,” Power declares.

Denji manages a tired grin as he wraps his arms around Power, her own grip on him tightening once again. It loosens a few minutes later as she drifts back off to sleep.

There’s no going back to sleep for Denji. There never is after one of those dreams. However, as he holds onto Power and waits for morning to come, he manages to feel something close to peaceful.

*

He gets out of bed at the crack of dawn. Power is disturbed by his movement, but insists on following him out despite his protests and her visible exhaustion. They make their way into the kitchen, where they chat about nothing important while Denji makes toast. It’s a quick process made slow by the intangible pressure weighing down on his body and mind.

Power doesn’t comment on how it takes him over an hour to get eight pieces of bread toasted and covered in jam. She does whine about how they’re out of her favorite blood-red raspberry jelly, but a disgruntled look is enough to get her to stop that shit.

Angel drags himself into the kitchen while they’re eating. He flops into the chair across from him, eyes puffy and feathers almost as ruffled as his hair. This is nothing abnormal; it didn’t take Denji long to figure out that Angel isn’t a morning person. Even his halo seems a little dimmer when he’s just woken up. When he doesn’t respond to his greeting, Denji settles for wordlessly sliding the plate of toast over to him.

Angel hesitates for a moment before selecting the pieces covered in what is possibly the sweetest combination of jams known to man. This, too, is no surprise. Aki had once said that his partner has the ‘palette of a fruitfly.’ Denji was able to confirm that this was true within a week of him moving in.

The morning gets marginally more exciting after that. Power yammers all through breakfast. Once he’s no longer totally dead to the world, Angel starts responding. Within an hour, the conversation is flowing. Denji almost joins in a few times, but doubts himself and bites his tongue before he can get more than a few short comments out. It’s for the best. Neither Power nor Angel are precisely cheerful, but they’re in a good enough mood. Meanwhile, Denji is… Denji is blah. It’s a blah day for him. Talking would probably just drag them down to his level, so it’s better that he just stay quiet and listen.

He sits there listening for a stupidly long time before realizing that he should probably be doing something useful.

Power and Angel have slipped into a heated debate about whether cats are smarter than dolphins by the time Denji stands up. “I’m gonna go do some laundry,” he declares.

“You mean you’re going to destroy some laundry?” Angel asks with faux-innocence.

Power cackles.

“No,” Denji says. “I know what I’m doing by now.”

Angel gives an unconvinced hum. “Sure.”

Power leans over, reaching across the empty chair separating her and Angel, and loudly whispers, “I do not believe him.”

“Me either,” Angel says, not even trying to be quiet. “But if he’s telling the truth, maybe we can finally replace all the clothes he’s destroyed.”

“One, fuck you both. Two.” Denji crosses his arms and shoots Angel an unimpressed look. “I thought you’d just take Aki’s clothes.”

“Yeah, but eventually, you’ll destroy all of Aki’s stuff too,” comes Angel’s easy response.

“I’m not gonna destroy anything else!” Denji exclaims, throwing his arms up in the air. “Also, barely any of your stuff has been destroyed. You’re just too lazy to wash your own shit.”

“I mean, that’s what you’re here for, right?”

Power’s laughter intensifies. Meanwhile, Angel stares at him impassively, utterly shameless.

“You two suck,” Denji says. There’s no heat in his words. Power continues laughing, and Angel’s wings twitch with what he suspects is amusement.

Denji turns around and walks away with a sigh. The sound of the cats versus dolphins argument reigniting follows him down into the basement. It makes the weight in his chest a little lighter. Unfortunately, it does nothing to help with the daunting task before him.

He has to get the laundry done right after that conversation. It’s not an impossible task; only three of the five loads he’s done in the five weeks since the incident have come out stained and discolored. That means that there are two that came out something close to right. The problem is that he doesn’t remember exactly what he did to make them turn out that way.

Denji stops in front of the massive, overflowing laundry hamper sitting beside the washing machine. Another hamper sits beside it. This one is filled with clothes dyed shades of sickly pink and vivid rust orange by his last attempt at doing the laundry. He should probably throw them out, but for now, they sit there, a visible reminder of exactly what is at stake. 

“Fuck,” he sighs.

With that, he gets to work. In this case, ‘getting to work’ means walking over to the bookshelf next to the hamper and sorting through the containers of soaps, chemicals, and miscellaneous other items stored on its shelves. He still doesn’t know exactly what most of them do. He and Power had watched Aki do the laundry enough times to recognize them all as laundry stuff , but that doesn’t tell him what does what, what shouldn’t be used when, or why they have so many different laundry things in the first place.

His rotten brain can’t even remember what he used last time to make the colors go all wild.

As Denji waffles around with chemicals, the sound of arguing from upstairs gradually evolves into a ruckus. Or half of a ruckus. He only ever catches hints of Angel’s voice, never leaving the same subdued tones, but Power starts getting loud. It eventually reaches a crescendo of noise before cutting off abruptly.

Denji snorts. He’ll have to ask Angel what he did to make that happen. 

With the chaos brought to an end, he focuses fully on the laundry materials, picking up a bottle of detergent and squinting at it as he tries to read the label on the back. He’s made it about three lines when heavy footsteps start down the stairs.

“Are you gonna help, or are you just coming down to talk shit?” he asks without turning around.

“Excuse me?”

Denji nearly drops the bottle.

He spins around to find Aki standing at the bottom of the staircase. "Shit!" he exclaims. "I didn't realize it was noon yet."

How much time did he spend trying to figure out which detergents to use? Damn it, he thinks. Angel's never gonna let me hear the end of this if he finds out.

"It's not," Aki says, pulling him out of his thoughts. "But there's no sleeping through some things." His head turns back upstairs, and Denji lets out a snort.

"Yeah, that tracks," he says.

Turning back toward him, Aki asks, "What were you saying about giving you shit?"

"Oh." Denji shrugs. "I thought you were Angel."

"Angel helps you with laundry?" Aki asks. He sounds puzzled. It sends an aching pang through Denji's chest because the sound of his voice is all he has to go by. Before, he would have furrowed his brow, maybe squinted a little, but now...

He'll get better at reading him in time. At least Denji doesn't find his appearance scary anymore. Three weeks spent feeding him blood in an attempt to get him to heal enough to wake up from his coma had done a lot to eradicate the lingering fear he initially felt upon seeing him. His despondent state during the first week after waking up made it impossible to look at him and see the fiend that had tried to kill him.

Now looking at him hurts for a completely different reason.

"Not really," Denji says, looking back down at the bottle. "He comes down and tells me what he thinks I'm doing wrong sometimes, but I don't think he actually knows what he's talking about."

"He doesn't," Aki says.

Denji snorts, putting the detergent back on the shelf and picking up a different one. Now that he has it in his hands, he thinks this might have been the one he used last time. Maybe? "I knew it," he scoffs.

"Do you know what you're doing?"

"Of course!" Denji exclaims. "Who do you think's been doing the laundry while-" he bites his tongue. Opening the bottle, he sticks his nose in and takes a deep whiff.

He comes up gagging.

"And has the laundry been going well ?" Aki asks.

"That shit burns," Denji wheezes, waving the bottle at Aki and squinting at him through damp eyes. Shit, is the laundry poison really going to make him cry? That'd suck. On the bright side, now that he's smelled it, he definitely recognizes it as the stuff he used last time. Ergo, probably not something that he should try pouring it in the laundry again.

"Denji," Aki pushes.

Denji allows his eyelids to flutter shut. It provides enough comfort to his burning eyes for him to force the tears back. When he opens them, he pops the lid back on the bottle of misery fluid - he's pretty sure it's bleach - and puts it back on the shelf. With his back to Aki, he pushes down the feelings churning in his gut and says, "I'm trying."

A moment of silence stretches on for long enough that Denji thinks that he might be able to win the battle against his insides and stop himself from feeling shittier. Then footsteps echo across the basement. Aki sighs, tired, worn, and undeservedly guilty, and says, "I know you are."

Denji doesn't think. He doesn't acknowledge any feelings telling him that responding would probably be a bad idea. His head is swept back into the dream and his heart is seized by the desire to not let Aki feel worse. Turning around, he says, "Hey, don't be like that."

Aki comes to a pause a few feet away from him. "What do you mean?"

Denji falters. He knows exactly what he means, but all of a sudden, he doesn't know how to say it. His throat is closing up, and although it isn't actually hard to breathe, it still feels like he's suffocating, just like he has every time he's tried to talk to Aki about anything remotely serious or emotional or important over the past two weeks. It's stupid and ridiculous and he hates it; Aki is one of the people he loves most in the world, one of the only people he loves. He should be able to talk to him.

But how do you talk to someone you almost killed?

"When's the last time we got groceries?" Aki asks.

Denji doesn't know if the sudden change of subject came for his sake or Aki's. He doesn't know if he's frustrated or grateful for it. He doesn't acknowledge it regardless.

"I dunno," he says, rubbing the back of his head. "I got household stuff a few days ago, but actual groceries... I think that was about a week and a half ago? Maybe two?"

"And Power just emptied the freezer," Aki murmurs. He mulls it over for a moment before walking over to stand beside Denji. "I'll take care of the laundry," he says, grabbing one of the bottles off the shelf. It's a small one that Denji hasn't so much as touched over the past five weeks. "You take Power or Angel and go shopping."

Denji blinks. "Are you sure?"

Aki nods. "There's a lot more to do. The kitchen's a mess, the living room still stinks, and the bathroom needs to be scrubbed..." He sighs, setting the bottle down on the washing machine and picking up a larger container of detergent. This time, it's the one that Denji picked up the first time. "It's going to take hours. We might as well restock at the same time."

Denji wants to say that he shouldn't blame himself for not taking care of that stuff sooner. Anyone would be down in the dumps after what Aki went through, and it's not his fault that Denji, Power, and Angel are shitty housekeepers. They should have done a better job of listening when he talked about that stuff before.

"Y'got any preference on who I take with me?" he asks instead.

Aki snorts. "Do you think it would be easier to get one of them to help clean?"

Denji thinks about it for a moment. Aki might have a good chance at getting Angel to help considering that it's him asking. That said, he can tell that Power's been trying real hard to be helpful after... everything. Both will complain at first, but both of them will also probably give in in the end.

"I have no clue," he says.

"Take whoever will go with you," Aki says, walking over to the hamper. "If it's Angel, don't let him spend more than 6,500 yen on ice cream."

"...6,500 yen?" Denji dumbly repeats.

"That's about how much I bought for him weekly while we were patrolling," Aki explains as he awkwardly hefts the hamper onto the top of the dryer.

"His ice cream budget is 6,500 yen!?" Denji squawks.

"...Yes?" Aki says. With the way he pauses and awkwardly shifts, Denji gets the sense that he may be starting to realize that he said something weird. Which is too bad for him, because Denji is not letting this go.

"Aki, what the fuck? How did this happen!? That's like... That's what I used to spend in a month!"

Aki stills. "That's all?" he asks. The shock in his voice isn't as significant as it would have been when they were first getting to know each other, but the pained concern is far more notable.

Suddenly, Denji's willing to drop it after all.

"Good luck with the laundry," he says before taking off back up the stairs.

Angel and Power are still sitting at the table, but their argument has turned into what sounds like a fairly subdued conversation. Denji doesn't bother figuring out what they're talking about before walking over and asking, "Who wants to go shopping with me?"

He is met by two unenthusiastic looks.

"Pass," Angel intones.

"Why would I assist you when my last voyage to the store was met with such ingratitude?" Power demands. "I would be within my rights to let you flounder!"

"If that's how you guys feel." Denji clasps his hands behind his back and rocks back onto his heels, a grin crawling across his face. It comes easier than any of the others that he's managed today, fueled by the knowledge of what's about to come. "But just so you know, Aki's in a cleaning mood, and whoever stays behind is gonna have to help him with that."

Angel and Power exchange a frantic look.

"I am a fantastic shopper!" Power cries, standing up and slapping her hands down on the table.

"You'll just get a bunch of useless junk again," Angel scoffs. He leans forward, shoulders resting on the table, and looks Denji dead in the eyes. "Aki's taken me shopping before. I'll actually be helpful."

"Hey, I don't care who comes with me. You two can figure it out yourselves. But..." He pauses for dramatic effect. "I've gotta get going soon. If you don't figure it out in five minutes, I'll tell Aki that you both want to help him clean."

It's a blatant lie and Denji's being a bit of a dick by saying it. If he actually tried to do that, Aki'd probably just get pissy with him for not doing what he said and decide who's going himself. Judging by the way he narrows his eyes, Angel knows it, too. However, the world feels a little less shitty when Power lets out a dramatic gasp and whirls on Angel, so he can't bring himself to feel too bad.

"We shall settle this through rock, paper, scissors!" Power declares, slamming her fist on the table.

Angel groans and rolls his head. "Do we have to?"

"Yes! Failure to play is to forfeit! Now, engage me and prepare to meet your doom!"

*

They play three rounds of rock, paper, scissors.

Power plays rock every time.

Angel plays paper every time.

Denji can't tell if he figured out that Power always plays rock or was just too lazy to come up with a more complicated strategy.

*

A significant problem makes itself known soon after they reach the grocery store.

Neither Denji nor Angel knows what the fuck they're supposed to buy.

Okay, that's a little too dramatic. They have some idea of what they're supposed to get. Denji's gone to the store with Aki enough times that he's picked at least some stuff up, and Angel isn't a moron like him. They know what staples they're supposed to get. Meat to replace everything that Power wasted, milk, eggs, some sort of vegetables. The problem is that they don't know what sort of vegetables to get. Or how much they need of anything. Or what else to get to create something that could be debatably called a balanced diet.

Angel looks up from the bundle of frilly leaves he's examining and asks, "Does Aki use kale?"

"Man, I don't know." Denji slumps against the cart and groans. "This sucks."

Angel glances down at the kale, shrugs, and puts it in a white plastic bag. "I don't know why you're so stressed out about this," he says. "You've gone shopping before, having you?"

"Yeah, but I haven't done any serious food shopping. We haven't been having all that takeout just because I can't cook for shit." He sighs and drags a hand down his face. "We should've asked Aki for a list before we left," he murmurs.

"We could go back and ask him for one," Angel suggests. He frowns a second later, like he just said something distasteful. Considering that doing that would mean walking all the way back to the house, then back to the store, then back home again, he probably did from his perspective. Which, good. Denji doesn't exactly like the idea either.

"Nah," Denji murmurs. He straightens up and jumps down from where he'd been standing on the back wheels of the shopping cart. "Don't wanna make life harder for him."

Angel stares at him unreadably for a second. Eventually, he turns around and starts walking down the produce aisle with a hum.

Denji pushes the cart after him. "What?" he demands.

"Nothing," Angel says.

"That wasn't nothing."

"How would you know?"

"You aren't as hard to read as you think you are."

"Yeah, well." Angel throws him a look over his shoulder. "Neither are you."

"Well, whaddya think you read?" Denji asks.

Angel comes to a stop. With a sigh, he walks over to an apple stand and picks one up. He stares dully down at the bright red fruit. Denji stares at him staring for a few moments before reclaiming his perch on the back of the cart. "I'm not gonna forget just because you take a long time to answer," he says, crossing his arms over the handle.

Angel sighs again. "You're obnoxiously stubborn."

"Well, yeah. Now spill."

"I'm just thinking..." Angel glances at him out of the corner of his eye. "Maybe you don't want to go back and ask because you don't want to talk to Aki."

Ah. This is going to be one of those conversations. He probably shouldn't be surprised; this is how shit just seems to keep going with them. A smarter person would have seen it coming and wouldn't have pushed. All Denji can do is lamely point out, "I talk to Aki plenty."

Angel sets the apple down and looks at Denji properly. His expression is tired and pointed. It makes him think that he doesn't want to be having this conversation either, but now that it's begun, he isn't going to let Denji worm his way out of it. "You know that's not what I mean."

"Yeah, well..." Denji looks away with a huff. "It's not easy to talk about the serious stuff with him."

"It might get easier if you actually tried," Angel points out.

Denji glances at him warily. "Are you talking from experience?"

Now it's Angel's turn to look away. His shoulders slump and Denji can make out a faint twitch beneath the jacket covering his wings. "Sometimes," he says. "Mostly, I've been trying to make sure he doesn't get worse."

"Well, maybe you should be the one to talk to him about serious stuff," Denji suggests. "You and him have..."

Truthfully, Denji doesn't know what Aki and Angel have. He knows that it isn't straight, but he doesn't know exactly what sort of thing it is or how far along it is, or even if they're both aware of it, and right now, he really doesn't want to push.

"...Whatever you have. You'd probably have more luck than me."

Angel's gaze is sharper when he looks back at him. It makes Denji squirm, which he channels into rocking on the back of the cart. "Why?" he asks. "Do you seriously think I'm more important to him than you?"

Denji falls still. His gaze drops down to his hands, and for a moment, he could swear they're stained bright red. "...You should be," he says.

"Oh," Angel murmurs, soft enough that Denji almost doesn't hear. He isn't sure that he's supposed to. The strained tone with which the syllable is uttered makes him think that he's gonna leave it at that.

He's wrong. After a long, tense moment of quiet, Angel surmises, "You're scared that he blames you for the coma."

Denji swallows a mouthful of nothing. He closes his eyes so he doesn't have to see the hands that still feel like they're coated in blood. A second later, he opens them so that he doesn't have to see the images flashing through his mind. Yet despite his best attempts, he sees Aki's bloody body as she stares at the fruit stands. He hears the regret and exhaustion that's in his voice half the time he talks these days. It overlaps with an image of what he was like before, and his stomach twists in a way that's almost hard enough to make him queasy. If this were two or three weeks ago, it would have.

"That's not it," Denji says.

There's only one path left for this conversation to take, and neither of them wants to go there. So they don't. Denji jumps off the back of the cart again and asks, "Didya know that we can spend 6,500 yen on ice cream?"

The back of Angel's jacket rises a little as his eyes widen. Denji thinks that he sees a faint glow peeking out from his white beanie as well, its ability to hide his halo challenged by the prospect of a massive amount of ice cream.

"Seriously?" Angel asks.

Denji nods. "Aki said."

Angel wakes over to the cart, peers down, and declares, "We have enough fruit and vegetables."

Their cart contains a bundle of kale, some lotus root, a head of broccoli, and no fruit to speak of, but for the sake of a distraction, Denji's inclined to agree. They can always double back for more healthy stuff later.

*

They do not double back for more healthy stuff.

They do, however, stop in front of the scented candle display.

"Angel?" Denji asks when the devil picks one of them up.

He stares at it thoughtfully for a moment before looking up and asking, "How long do you think it would take Aki to notice if we got one of these every time one of us went out?"

Denji only needs to think about it for a moment. "Let's find out."

*

It's windy on the walk home. The cart is weighed down by meat, snacks, eight cartons of ice cream, and it's still hard to keep it from rolling away. It would probably be easier if Angel actually helped Denji push instead of clinging to the front, but he knows better than to expect anything else from him.

On the bright side, it gives him an idea.

They're about halfway home when Denji asks, "What do you think would happen if you stood at the back of the cart and spread your wings out?"

Angel, who had been poking at one of the grocery bags, pulls his hand back and blinks up at him. "Do you mean just holding onto it, or standing on it?" he asks.

"Standing on it, like you are now," Denji eagerly explains. "If it's windy like this, it'd work like a sailboat, wouldn't it?"

"I... guess?" Angel tilts his head to the side with a frown. "If the wind's strong enough to push the cart, I don't think I'd be able to control it at all."

"But that wouldn't matter if we got set up at the top of a hill or something."

"Denji. No."

"I haven't even asked anything yet?"

Angel looks at him flatly.

"C'mon, it'd be fun! You can't tell me it doesn't sound fun!" Denji presses.

"It doesn't sound fun."

"Liar." That or he's even more of a buzzkill than he lets on. It would explain why he and Aki get along so well, except he knows that Aki would like cart surfing if he gave it a chance, and he's willing to bet that Angel is the same.

Angel rolls his eyes. "Aren't we going to return the cart anyway?" he asks. "Aki's already going to complain about us borrowing it."

"Not if we don't tell him," Denji counters. "Besides, we can go cart sailing and then return it."

"If you wanna go sailing, get a sheet and figure something out yourself," Angel says. He turns his attention back to the groceries, pulling a carton of shortbread cookies out of one of the white plastic bags.

"You suck," Denji sighs.

"Yep," Angel agrees.

They lapse into silence, Angel munching on shortbread and Denji doing all the physical labor.

They're almost home when Angel says, "Denji."

"You're the one who couldn't wait until we got home; if you're out already, you're shit out of luck," Denji says without looking up from the cracked section of sidewalk he's trying to maneuver.

He gets a piece of shortbread thrown at his forehead in response. Denji snatches it and tosses it into his mouth before it can hit the ground. He prepares to slap a grin across his face when he looks up at Angel, only to let it fall away when he's met with a serious, pensive look.

"What's up?" he asks, feeling a bit like he'll regret asking.

"I'll go cart-sailing with you if you talk to Aki," Angel says.

"...Ah." Denji looks away. The tips of his fingers are starting to feel cold, which he supposes is better than sticky and warm. He flexes his hands around the cart handle to force some feeling back into them and tries to pretend that it's just the cold wind. He fails miserably when he has to go on and say, "That's not a fair trade."

"It isn't, but you need to do it anyway. At least you get something out of it this way."

Denji's mouth tastes like copper. He swallows, but it doesn't go away, because there isn't actually anything to make it taste that way. "I'll think about it," he says.

"Don't spend too long thinking," Angel warns. "He'll notice you're avoiding him eventually."

Is it horrible that Denji's first thought is that that might not be a bad thing? Horrible on his part of just a horrible situation, he doesn't know, but he can't help but think that Aki might be happy that the person who almost killed him is avoiding him. It can't be nice to see the person who tore him to shreds and sent him into a coma all the time. Besides, it's not like he hasn't been doing more than his own fair share of avoiding. Maybe part of the reason he's cooped up in his room all the time is that Denji hasn't been avoiding him enough.

The problem is that he doesn't have any way to know that. If he's wrong, he might be hurting Aki more than he already has.

But if he's right, then any sort of serious conversation with Aki is just going to hurt a lot in general.

It occurs to him that it might be a little easier to make sense of it all if he tries to talk to someone about it. As he glances at Angel, staring at him with stoic seriousness, he understands he'd probably listen if he talked to him. Yet when he opens his mouth, all that comes out is a subdued, "Yeah. Alright."

*

Aki isn't surprised by the results of their shopping trip, just disappointed. Fortunately, Denji and Angel are both immune to that shit by now. As he scolds them over the mountain of meat, ice cream, sugary snack foods, the near-total absence of anything plant-based, and borrowed grocery cart, he completely fails to notice the single scented candle at the bottom of said cart.

He does, however, remember that Denji hasn't been eating meat for the past few weeks. Aki asks how Denji plans on sustaining himself on only snack foods, which spirals into a heated conversation full of big, scary words like 'scurvy' and 'constipation.'. Angel watches the whole thing in amusement, as if he is not a significant part of the problem. It only comes to an end when Power barges in to whine about all the cleaning Aki made her do. That's when Denji notices that the house actually does look a lot nicer than it did when he left it. It's also when Aki tells Power that she needs to take a shower, having spilled cleaning solutions on herself several times over the course of the day, which leads to a whole new ordeal.

All in all, the evening is lively and chaotic. In the midst of it all, Aki finds it in himself to cook for the second night in a row. Dinner itself is a loud affair - mostly him and Power arguing over stupid shit, but Aki sticks around for the whole thing, and he figures that that must count for something.

It's not exactly nice, but it's something more important than that. It's familiar. For a moment, Denji can almost pretend that the last few weeks never happened and everything is like it's always been. He's been telling himself over and over again that things will get normal, that they'll go back to normal, and that everything will be okay, but for a little while, he feels like he can actually believe it.

That feeling, combined with Angel's voice lingering in the back of his mind, drives him to run after Aki when he sees him slipping out of the living room. "Hey, wait! Aki!" he calls.

Aki slows down, but doesn't stop immediately. Denji's heart drops into his stomach as he prepares for things to go wrong before they can even begin. They're a few feet into the hallway when Aki grants him the small mercy of stopping and turning around. "Is everything alright?" he asks.

"Ye-" Denji begins and immediately hesitates. He doesn't know how he's going to have this conversation, but he gets the feeling that starting it with a lie isn't the way to do it. The truth is painful enough that he's barely even been able to think of it, which means that actually talking about it is bound to hurt like a bitch, but they might not even get anywhere if he doesn't do that much.

Denji takes in a deep breath, allows his shoulders to slump, and feels like he's cutting into a fresh cut of red, bloody meat as he says, "Not really. Can we talk?"

Aki's mouth purses slightly, and Denji can't tell if it's concern or annoyance. One of them is more like him, but it doesn't stop fear from sparking in his chest. That fear is soothed slightly by the softness in his voice as he says, "Sure."

He starts toward his bedroom, and Denji winces. If he's going to do this, he definitely doesn't want to do it locked up in Aki's misery hovel. "Actually, can we go outside instead?" he asks.

Aki only hesitates for a moment before nodding.

Their house has a small back porch overlooking a decent-sized lawn. It's swatched in shadows, but Denji can make out a few of the long prickly weeds filling it in the moonlight. The porch itself doesn't have any chairs for it or anything, but the cool night air makes it a little easier for Denji to breathe, even if it pricks at his skin a little. He and Aki stand there in silence for a few minutes before Aki asks, "What did you want to talk about?"

Denji swallows. It feels like his throat is filled with rocks, but he needs to talk quickly, before Aki can decide that he isn't going to entertain him after all. His haste makes his voice come a little too fast and far too unsteady as he says, "You. How are you doing?"

Aki's head turns a little closer to him. Denji looks out at the garden to keep himself from imagining what sort of expression he'd been making if he were still capable of human expressions. "That's not an easy question," he slowly says.

"Yeah, well..." Denji shrugs and leans forward against the railing, trying to lend an air of casualness to a situation that is anything but. "I probably should have asked sooner."

A heavy sigh leaves Aki's mouth. "You wouldn't have liked the answer you got," he murmurs.

Denji's chest constricts. It feels like a well-manicured hand is gripping his heart. "And now?"

Aki takes a shuffling step closer. Denji gives into curiosity and glances at him when he leans against the railing, only to find him staring out at the lawn, just like he had been a moment earlier. "Can you get a little more specific?" he asks.

"Sure," he says, even though what he wants to say is no. He'd rather eat his own chainsaws than try and spell this out. But he would eat a chainsaw for Aki's sake. He owes him that much. Denji owes him way worse and way more than he could ever hope to repay. So he rakes his brain over hot coals in an attempt to find the words he needs and, after a few moments of one of the most agonizing silences of his life, chokes out, "How do you feel about the fight?"

"The fight," Aki numbly repeats.

"Yeah," Denji says. The words burn his tongue, but he pushes forward to say, "The one where I almost killed you."

Silence. Except it isn't really silence, not when Denji can so clearly hear the pounding of his heart and the slow, quiet whispers of Aki's breathing. He tries to focus on that part. Denji almost killed Aki, but he didn't. Aki almost died, but he's alive.

He's hurt and permanently changed and alive, and the more time passes, the more Denji wonders if-

"I'm not mad at you," Aki says.

Denji blinks. "You're not?"

"No." Aki doesn't look away from the lawn, but something in his tone tells him that he's being honest. Maybe it's because of how much his voice hurts. "You did what you had to do. It was the right move for the situation."

And Denji should be happy to hear it. He should be able to breathe easier now that he knows that Aki doesn't hate or blame him. The tension should be gone, this whole miserable affair should be over, and he should be saying or doing something to push the whole thing under the table so that they can move on with their lives. Instead, his stomach is twisting, his throat is burning, and he can barely breathe at all. Because Aki says that Denji did the right thing by almost killing him, but he almost sounds like he'd cry if he still had eyes, and he's been so miserable, and-

And Denji doesn't want to say it. He doesn't want to even think about it, let alone ask and allow it to become a reality.

But he has to. Now that they're talking, he can see that Angel was right. This is one thing that he can't expect to get better if he doesn't acknowledge it, and he'll be damned if he's about to let it get worse.

"Yeah. That's not it, though. Aki..." Denji wants to look away again. He doesn't let himself. "You don't wish I'd killed you, do you?"

Aki's shoulders tense. His human hand, braced on the railing, grips it so tightly that his knuckles turn white. Denji feels the hand in his chest again, scratching and tearing and preparing to crush his heart into so much gunk. But before it can get that far, Aki looks down and says, "No."

Denji straightens up with a jolt. "No?" he repeats, hoping that he heard right but not quite prepared to believe that he did.

Aki turns to face him with a sigh. "No. I..." He looks away again, just for a heartbeat, but forces himself to turn back. "I did for a while, but it's gotten better lately."

"And it's gonna keep getting better?" Denji asks, breathless in a way that should be reserved for battle and the sort of horrible shit that he's already escaped from, not... whatever this is.

It takes a long time for Aki to respond, long enough for Denji to start feeling cold in that horrible way that has nothing to do with the wind, no matter how much he tells himself that's what he's feeling.

"I don't know," Aki finally admits, and as a tired, dread-filled ache overtakes his body, Denji has to acknowledge that at least he's being honest. "I can try, but..."

"But you aren't going to... to do anything?" Denji asks, because he doesn't know if it's the right thing to say, but he needs to say something about that. He needs to know how scared he needs to be, what he has to look for, if he's going to lose him after all.

Aki frowns. It's stern, disapproving, and generally unimpressed.

Denji never thought he'd be happy to see that frown.

"I don't like existing like this, but I'm not suicidal, Denji," Aki says, as if it's obvious. As if Denji shouldn't have felt the need to ask. As if it isn't something he'd consider.

He hasn't been considering it.

Denji can't stop himself from letting out a relieved gasp. He slumps forward like a puppet with its strings cut, and Aki moves forward to put a steadying hand on his shoulder.

"You've been really worried about this," he murmurs.

"No shit," Denji says. "Everything's been..." His eyes are burning. His throat is tight. Denji is not going to let himself cry, not here, not now, not in front of Aki, but he still sounds decidedly weak and defeated as he says, "Everything sucks."

Aki pulls him into a hug, and Denji clings to him like a lifeline. "I know."

*

Denji has a meeting with Kishibe the next afternoon.

'Meeting,' like it's all official and shit. What it is is him going to the park, sitting on the bench, and waiting for the old man to show up. Then he'll ask him some grating questions and leave when he's content that no one's about to go insane or keel over. Personally, Denji would prefer to skip the whole thing, but he doesn't want to find out what the old drunk would do if he did that. Aki's active enough this morning that he also suspects that he'll have something to say if he finds out, and while it's nice to see him starting to act more like himself, he doesn't feel like getting scolded this morning.

Denji's coat is right where he abandoned it when he got back from shopping, sloppily draped over the back of the armchair. Half of it is trapped under Angel's back. The devil looks up to shoot him an agitated look when he pulls it out from under him, which quickly turns into mild amusement when he takes in his bedraggled expression. Denji scowls at him before turning his attention to Aki and Power, who sits perched at the end of the couch surrounded by video games. It looks like she's trying to get him to play something with her.

Aki hasn't touched a game since he lost his arm, which means that they haven't had a chance to play together in basically forever. The temptation to abandon his chores and race over to join them is strong enough to make Denji's throat sore. But no, he has to be responsible, or else Kishibe might decide that their situation isn't stable enough to leave alone after all. Pulling his coat on, he calls out, "I'll be back later."

Power's head snaps his way, eyes wide and sharp with an edge of panicked alarm. Her posture tenses, like a cat coiled to spring, only to soften when Aki asks, "Kishibe?"

Denji groans in response.

Angel scoffs. "None suffer such as you," he intones, stretching out sideways over the armchair.

"I know," Denji says.

He zips his coat and notes that Aki and Power are already going back to what they were doing. Assholes. He's glad to see it.

"Angel's in charge if I die," he calls. Aki's head snaps toward him, and he's pleased to find that he can tell he's disgruntled by the implication that Denji is in charge. Denji plants his hands on his hips and stares him down, daring him to try to reassert his authority after the past few weeks have been what they were.

Aki purses his lips.

Denji smirks, just a bit, because they're all assholes here.

Meanwhile, Power argues that she is in charge, which Denji ignores. What he can't ignore is Angel's groan and protest of, "Don't do that to me."

Denji looks down at him. "None suffer such as you," he mocks.

"Bitch," Angel grumbles.

Denji reaches down to whack his halo. He's barely tapped the warm, surprisingly soft surface before Angel reaches out to swat his hand away. This devolves into a stupid little slap fight that comes to an end when Aki calls, "Denji."

"Right, right." Denji steps back with a sigh. "Can't keep the old bastard waiting." With one last reluctant wave to his family, he walks out the door with a muttered, "Later."

It's a short walk to the park and a long wait for Kishibe to show up. He spends that time trying to wrangle his stupid fucked-up brain into some semblance of functionality. There's nothing to keep him distracted in the park, just himself, his thoughts, and the dread that comes from waiting for a conversation that he knows will send them somewhere dark. That's the worst thing about these conversations. No matter what sort of mood he's in before their talk, he knows that he's going to feel like shit by the time they leave.

Denji shouldn't let himself get too upset about it. He owes Kishibe way more than a few shitty conversations. It's because of him that Power and Aki aren't in danger of getting hauled off by Public Safety. He's the one who didn't argue or even make him do much explaining when he asked if Angel could be released as well. That alone would have been plenty, but the old drunk's been talking about putting Denji in school. Power too, maybe. He's even mentioned seeing about getting them some sort of limited rights and identification so that Power and Angel can go in public without having to worry about hiding their devil traits too much. Aki's scary enough that he's kind of fucked, but Denji's working on a plan there, and he knows that Kishibe would do more to help him if he could.

The old drunk cares a lot more than he lets on. Denji knows that he wouldn't be able to do this without his support. If these depressing little check-ins are what he asks for in return, then fine. Denji can sit around and feel like shit for a few hours every week. It's whatever.

When he spots Kishibe shuffling his way, he is surprised to see a little girl with him.

The surprise lasts for a few seconds before Denji shoves it aside. He doesn't know what's up with the kid, but he doesn't really care. It probably isn't going to be his problem anyway. Instead, he forces himself to hope that maybe this meeting will be easier than the others. Kishibe will want to know how Aki's doing, which always sucks to talk about, but this past week was better than the one before it. He can give the report quickly, and if he's lucky, maybe he won't push. Maybe he'll mostly want to talk about school and Denji can actually be happy and excited about stuff.

Kishibe lowers himself onto the bench beside him with a heavy sigh. It sends a sinking feeling through Denji's chest, telling him that, no, he was stupid to hope. This is definitely going to suck.

Except it doesn't. Not at first, at least. Kishibe asks him about everyone and Denji gives him a short rundown of what's been going on. He leaves out the aching bits; his early morning wakings with Power, the talk he had with Aki, and every miserable conversation he's had with Angel, but offers enough information for him to get a picture of how things have been going. It doesn't hurt as much as it did last week. Kishibe doesn't push about anything. Neither of them mentions the girl, and eventually, Denji forgets that she's even there.

Then when she gets too close and he moves to ward her off, she bites his finger.

She bites his finger and it feels like- "Makima!?" he cries.

Every thought in Denji's head stutters to a halt. All he can do is stare at the look girl before him. She stares back, playful and impassive, with dark hair and moles, and she would look nothing like Makima if not for her eyes. Denji would know those mesmerizing golden swirls anywhere. He had loved those eyes, feared those eyes, stared into them as she tried to break his heart in every definition of the term.

Denji had loved - loves? - Makima. He loves her, and he killed her, ate her, wiped her from existence. She's a part of him and he'll knows he'll never be able to forget her, just like he'll never be able to get her taste out of his mouth. She'll always be with him, but she's gone - she's supposed to be gone, except this girl is in front of him and-

Kishibe's talking.

"This kid was found over in China, so I stole her over here," he says. "And she's not Makima anymore. She's the Control Devil."

Makima was the Control Devil, once. She controlled Aki into becoming the Gun Fiend and doing things that he'll never be able to forgive himself for. She controlled Angel into obeying her whims and destroying any happiness he may have had in his past. She tried to control Power, and may still be if she had been successful.

Denji loves Makima, but she isn't the only one. She tried to make it that way though. Makima tried to destroy his family - did destroy it in a way - and even if it hurts to think that he might never feel the way she made him feel again, he wouldn't go back even if he could.

Makima will always be a part of him. Denji never wants to see her again.

But the Control Devil is standing in front of him now, and her bite is the same and her eyes are the same, and Kishibe is still talking. He knows he should be trying harder to pay attention, but he barely manages to process it as he says, "Makima is dead. None of her remains in that kid. No memories, nothing. However, if we leave her in the hands of this country, she'll become like Makima again."

"Right..." Denji says, hollow and shaken. "Uh, I really don't wanna eat any more meat for a while, though..."

Kishibe continues on as if he hadn't said anything at all. "So, Denji, I'm leaving this kid in your responsibility."

That snaps Denji back to his senses. It isn't enough to completely clear out the fog in his head, the fear crawling up his spine, or the familiar, burning ache in his heart, and it certainly doesn't make him any smarter, but it does get him to snap his head toward the old man and blurt out, "Wha?"

"I'm going to be real busy from now on, so I figured leaving her with you would be the best option." He takes a swig from his flask and shoots and baleful glance at the kid. "Have Hayakawa help you. He could probably use something to do in his house arrest."

Denji looks back at the kid. He focuses on her inky black hair, the mole beside her mouth, the innocence in her expression, and everything about her that isn't Makima. It takes some straining and squinting, but he thinks, he can see it as long as he avoids the eyes.

As he stares at the girl, he thinks that he could reach a point where he can look at her and not see Makima at all.

But it's hard. If it's hard for him, who was immune to Makima's powers, who loved her so deeply, who still loves her despite everything, when what is it going to be like for the others? How will Aki or Power or Angel feel when they look at this kid and see the eyes of the person who reached into their minds?

Hot, angry indignation flares up in Denji's chest. His family has already been through enough. They've been through too much, and it doesn't matter how much he's doing for them, it's bullshit that Kishibe would turn around and drop the new Control Devil on them.

"Fuck no," Denji says, turning to face Kishibe. "No fucking way- huh!?"

The old man is gone.

The old man is gone and the kid is staring at him.

"Kid" is definitely the right word. She looks like she can't be any older than ten. Maybe she could be a small twelve, but personally, Denji's pretty confident in his guess as ten. She's old enough that she can be left alone for a while, but not old enough to fend for herself completely. Denji knows what it's like to be her age and completely on your own, knows how it can fuck you up, and he wasn't even completely alone. He had Pochita with him. This kid has no one. She's just here  unceremoniously dropped on Denji when she should be with an actual caretaker.

He could walk away. It would be so easy to walk away. His family would be happier for it. What happens to this kid shouldn't be his problem, and after everything, he seriously doubts that anyone would blame him for wanting to stay away from the Control Devil.

But the Control Devil is just a kid. She's a kid and-

Makima is dead. None of her remains in that kid.

Denji slumps down onto the bench.

Power's gonna be terrified. She might try to hide it, but she will be.

Aki isn't going to take this well. He's probably going to go back to hiding in his room. Who fucking knows how long it will take him to start making progress again.

Angel might actually kill him, lack of powers be damned. 

"Uh... Hey miss... What's your name?" he awkwardly asks.

The girl hops up onto the seat next to him. Bold little thing. He hopes that it doesn't make the situation even worse. "Nayuta," she says. She says it so earnestly, staring up at him with bright golden eyes that look just like Makima but also, in that second, impossibly don't.

No one will blame him if he walks away.

No one but himself.

Denji sighs. "Nayuta. You want anything to eat? Besides meat."

"Bread," Nayuta says without hesitation.

Despite everything, Denji manages to crack a small smile. "You're a devil who eats cheap, eh."

*

Nayuta may eat cheap, but eating cheap means eating at home, where Denji will have to deal with looks and questions and a conversation that he really doesn't want to have.

He takes her out for ramen. They talk and take their time, but even as he watches the sun set out the window, he knows that he can't put it off forever. All he can do is bury down his dread in the hopes that it doesn't upset the child he's suddenly settled with. His lateness getting home is bound to make the others worry, but right now, that's at the bottom of his priorities. When they leave the restaurant, he takes the long way home just so he can have a little while longer to think about how he's going to do this.

By the time they reach the house, the sky is dark, and Denji thinks that he might know what to do.

It doesn't make him feel any less sick as he knocks on the front door.

The first sign something's wrong is that he knocks in the first place. Denji never knocks on the door before entering his own damn house. He barely has a moment to ponder his mistake before Power rips the door open, hair wild and eyes frantic.

"Denji!" she cries. "Where have you been!? Was that old man tormenting you!?"

Denji swallows heavily. "Sorry Powy," he says, words that are meant to be cool and casual coming out as a hoarse croak. "Kishibe had something he needs me to take care of. Someone, actually."

Power's eyes narrow. It takes a moment for her to look down and spot the little girl by his side. It takes a moment longer for her to notice her eyes, but he catches it the instant that she does. Power staggers a step backward with a hiss, clutching the door frame and looking frantically between Denji and Nayuta. "This is--"

"-Not Makima," Denji rushes to say. "Her name is Nayuta, she's the new Control Devil, and she needs someone to take care of her."

There is no missing the terror on Power's face. It brings him back to how she would cower in fear of the Darkness Devil, except it's worse, because that was an irrational terror born of trauma. The fear she's feeling now is completely reasonable, and he's the one forcing her to experience it. He wants to say something to make it up to her, but he knows that there's nothing he can say or do to make it alright.

He'll just have to hope that they forgive him in time.

And that he's making the decision.

And that, if Nayuta doesn't turn out to be some sort of monster, he doesn't fuck her up too badly.

Right then, Denji wishes that fiends could form contracts with devils. It would be great if he could just ask Aki how all this is going to turn out. All of the unknowns make him feel sick to his stomach. It's a feeling that he has to shove aside because his discomfort is probably - no, it's definitely the least important thing going on right now.

Denji only hesitates for a few seconds, but those few seconds are still long. Power takes an uneasy step back into the house, and Denji blurts out, "I'll explain everything later. I've gotta get Nayuta settled. Can you- Can you tell Aki and Angel?"

"Tell them that the Control Devil is here?" Power asks, voice high-pitched and wobbling.

Denji suspects that it isn't possible for him to feel any more dread than he already does. He isn't sure he'd be able to function if it was. "Tell them that there's someone Kishibe needs us to look out for," he corrects.

"But she is the Control Devil," Power insists.

"She isn't Makima," Denji insists right back. He's caught off-guard by how insistent he is for someone who's only known Nayuta for a few hours, but doesn't let himself dwell on it. "Please, just... trust me? You know I'm not being controlled or anything. Her powers never worked on me in the first place."

"What about the rest of us?" Power whispers.

Denji's heart lurches. He looks down at Nayuta, who stares up at him. Her face is confused, and her eyes make his stomach churn, but the longer he looks, the more he thinks he sees a glimmer of something sad in them.

This isn't fair to any of them.

Fuck Kishibe.

"I won't let anything happen," Denji says, looking back at Power. "I promise."

Power stares at him for a long moment before racing into the house, shouting for Aki. It doesn't make him feel particularly hopeful, but she doesn't slam the door on them, which he supposes is something.

Denji looks back down at Nayuta and lets out a sigh. "Okay," he says, leading her into the house. He can hear urgent, worried voices drifting in from the living room. He tries to ignore them and hopes that the kid does as well. "Let me show you your room."

Nayuta doesn't respond. She's staring toward the living room, full of fraught voices belonging to people who are probably going to decide they hate her without even meeting her.

"Nayuta," Denji calls.

Her attention abruptly snaps back over to him. "Will I get my own room?" she asks.

Denji forces himself to smile. "Yeah," he says. Technically, it's something that he should talk to the others about, since they only have three bedrooms, but he doesn't see how it'll be a problem. Power sleeps with him every night, and Angel's always with Aki or in the living room. At least the third room won't be going to waste this way. "Ain't that cool?"

Nayuta sniffs. "No."

Denji's grin disappears. "No?"

Nayuta grabs her forearm, hugging it close to her chest, and looks away. "I don't want my own room," she says. "Let me sleep with you."

That will cause a problem. Denji opens his mouth, intent on protesting, and hesitates. Nayuta is shuffling uneasily from foot to foot. He can't see her face properly, but he sees enough to catch that her eyes are pointed at the ground and her lips are wobbling a little.

For the second time that day, he is sent back to Power's fear in the aftermath of hell. He thinks about how she couldn't sleep alone without having nightmares, and how he has no idea what Nayuta's been through before ending up with him.

"Fine," he sighs. "Come on."

The ruckus in the living room quiets down as he and Nayuta walk past it, only to start up again once they're in the hallway. It's only completely blocked off when he opens the door to his room, ushers Nayuta in, and closes the door behind him.

"Alright," he says, looking uneasily around. "I've only got one futon, so-"

"That's fine," Nayuta murmurs. She sits down at the end, crosses her legs, and rests her chin in her hands. "We can share."

Denji nods. "Cool. Do you need anything?"

Nayuta shakes her head. "Okay, great. So, uh, I'm gonna need you to stay here while I-"

"Denji."

He pauses, swallowing down the cold, hard lump in his throat. "Yeah?"

Nayuta stares at him uneasily for a moment before dropping her gaze down to her lap. "Was Makima bad?"

Denji's heart is pounding in his chest. It's in his chest, but it wasn't always. He'll always feel her wrapped around it in so many ways.

He loved her.

She never saw him.

He loved her.

She's gone. He killed her.

He needs to make sure that she stays gone. Which means making sure Nayuta doesn't end up like her. Which means making sure that she understands the things Makima didn't.

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, she was."

"And she was the Control Devil before me?"

"Yeah."

"Your friends are scared of her."

"Yeah, she-" Denji has to pause for a moment to take in a deep breath, to figure out how to explain this to Nayuta in a way that won't permanently fuck her up. "She hurt them really badly."

"And now they're going to be scared of me."

"Probably," Denji admits. "But it'll get better when they realize that you aren't her."

Nayuta nods. For a second, it looks like that is going to be that. Then she squares her shoulders, looks up at Denji, and asks, "What happened?"

Denji opens his mouth. Closes it. If he wants to make sure that Nayuta doesn't end up like Makima, he needs to tell her about her so that she won't make the same mistakes. So that she'll understand why things are going to be hard for her at first.

Closes it. Nayuta is a kid, and even if he has to tell her this stuff, he doesn't want to hurt her. But he doesn't know how to tell her without hurting her, not with his heart pounding and his head filled with guilt and overwhelmed by everything that still needs to be done.

"I'll tell you later," he swears. It's an excuse, a way to duck out of a difficult situation, but right now, it's all that he can do. "I've really gotta talk to the others right now, so just- hang tight, okay?"

Nayuta looks back down at her lap. "Alright," she murmurs.

Denji feels absolutely rancid as he leaves her alone. There's no avoiding it; if he doesn't work things out with the others right now, shit's gonna get bad right when it was starting to get good.

...Ah, who's he kidding. He just brought the new Control Devil into a house full of people who were recently fucked up by the Control Devil in a variety of horrific ways. Shit's gonna get bad no matter what he does. All he can do is damage control to try and keep bad from becoming worse.

They've quieted down by the time he starts toward the living room. He kinda wishes that they hadn't. If everyone was still worked up and on the verge of shouting, he could just focus on that. Now, there's nothing to distract him from the tension filling the air. It feels like he's walking through a layer of fog as he steps into the living room.

That's really all it takes. One step and suddenly, everyone's staring at him. Denji freezes right there in the doorway, awkwardly clasping his hands together, only to drop them down to his sides a second later. "So..."

Angel is standing in the center of the room. His glare is murderous, and beyond that, maybe even a little betrayed. Denji can only look at him for a few seconds before shifting his gaze a few feet over, toward Aki, who isn't suicidal but doesn't really want to live either. The half of his face that he can see is blank and impassive, but Denji catches the tenseness of his shoulders and the way he's standing half in front of Power, who looks no less scared than she did a few minutes ago. She's clinging to his arm. It's the rifle arm, and for once, neither of them seems to give a shit.

"She doesn't have any of Makima's memories," Denji says, because if he has to do this, he might as well get right to the important stuff. "Kishibe said that there isn't any Makima in her."

"Is that supposed to make it alright?" Angel asks, and Denji supposes that he should be grateful that he's at least trying to keep his voice from turning into an outright snarl.

At the same time, Power demands, "How do you know she is not just manipulating him!?"

"Of course it doesn't!" Denji cries. "And I don't know! Makima was never able to manipulate Kishibe, was she? I-" he runs a hand through his hair. "She's a kid, guys. I couldn't just abandon her."

"This is no place to raise a child, Denji," Aki says, low, even, and detached in a way that sends a pang through his chest. His head tilts slightly toward his rifle arm. Power adjusts her grip on it and peers up at him at the motion.

"Don't act like that's the main problem," Angel grouses.

"Of course not," Aki says, turning toward him. "But it's worth saying."

"Well, who else is supposed to take care of her?" Denji demands, even though there's a part of him that definitely agrees with Aki. "Kishibe said that if the government gets their hands on her, she'll end up just like Makima."

Angel shakes his head. "I don't know. I don't care. He should have dropped her on someone else. Anyone else."

Denji throws his arms in the air. "I tried to say that, but he ran off before I could say no!"

He realizes that he's made a mistake the second he says it. It only takes a second for Aki to say, "Then get in touch with him and tell him we can't keep her."

Power nods insistently. "Get rid of her!"

"...I'm not sure that'd be a good idea," Denji admits. "See, the thing is, the more I think about it, I'm starting to think... maybe Kishibe has a point?" He crosses his arms and, seeing the upset flash across Angel and Power's faces, doesn't give them a chance to say anything before rushing to add, "What if someone comes after her? He can't drop her on just anyone - she needs someone who can protect her, so Public Safety or whoever-the-fuck can't drag her away and turn her back into Makima."

"So you think she's going to bring us trouble," Angel grimly intones.

"No!" Denji cries. "It's just- if something does happen, isn't it better for her to be around people who can stop it?"

"...So that's it then," Aki says.

"...Yeah, I guess," Denji admits, dropping his arms to his side.

Aki hesitates, then nods. "She's yours to take care of," he says, firm and unyielding. "Leave Power and Angel out of it."

Denji nods. His entire body feels numb. "Sure. I can do that."

Aki's voice grows a shade colder as he continues, "If she uses her powers on anyone, you need to call Kishibe and tell him that he needs to take her back."

Denji's throat constricts. He doesn't know why. "Right."

"Where have you put her?" Power hesitantly pipes up.

"She's in my room," Denji says.

Hurt flashes across Power's face. She pushes it down, but not quickly enough for him to miss it entirely. "Will she stay there?"

"I mean, not all the time, but she's sleeping with me, yeah." He doesn't say that he thinks she's scared to sleep alone. It might make them a little less scared of her, but feels too much like something that he shouldn't share without permission.

Powe tugs at Aki's arm. He pulls it closer to himself, but allows her to keep clinging to him. "I shall join you and Angel tonight," she announces.

Angel looks over at her with a frown. "'And Angel?'"

"I will not allow you to sleep in the open with the Control Devil in the house," Power says.

"Great," Angel sighs. "This is going to be. Fun." He shoots Denji a dirty look before moving to walk out of the living room.

"Angel-" Denji begins.

"Do not talk to me right now," he snaps. A second later, he disappears around the corner.

Power whispers something to Aki. He nods, and she scurries out of the room, hot on Angel's heels.

Denji doesn't know what to say. He can't say nothing, but when he tries to speak, his brain fails him, and all that he manages is an uneasy, "Aki..."

Aki sighs and shakes his head. "I hope you know what you're doing." With that, he walks away, leaving Denji standing alone in the living room.

"Me too," he whispers.

Chapter Text

Nayuta stared up at Kishibe. She knew that he noticed, but she had to stare for a long time before he finally acknowledged her. When he did, it was with the sort of heavy, reluctant sigh that made her suspect that he was going to reach for his flask. The fact that he didn't made her suspect that it was already empty. That or he was saving his alcohol for the meeting later on, which made it even more important that he answer her questions. Not that he had the option of not answering. If he'd kept on ignoring her, she would have asked out loud and gotten so loud that he'd have to answer.

She might still have to. Just because he was looking at her now didn't mean that he'd give her any useful information. It was almost surprising when he spoke before her, even if it was just to ask, "What?"

He sounded broken down and tired. Not in the way that would make her think that he had just been through something really bad, but in the boring old fuddy-duddy. Typical Kishibe stuff. That was good, it meant that she didn't have to stop and try to think about his feelings. Nayuta wasn't good at that stuff on a normal day. Right now... She wasn't sure she would be able to do it at all right now, no matter how hard she tried.

That was embarrassing to admit though, so she wouldn't say it. She wouldn't talk about any of the embarrassing feelings that made her fingers twitch and her stomach flip and her heart pitter-patter, either. It would make it hard for her to ask her questions, but not impossible. She would learn what she needed to know and do it with dignity.

"Who are the people you're leaving me with?" she demanded.

Kishibe sighed and looked back toward the park trail sprawling out ahead of them. "We've already been over this," he said.

He said it like it was a stupid question. That was stupid of him, Nayuta didn't ask stupid questions. And he wasn't going to get out of it just because he didn't want to say the same thing again; especially since she wasn't making him tell her the same stuff again. He was the pea-brain who couldn't see what she was asking.

Nayuta stopped walking. "No we haven't," she insisted. "You've only told me their names and what they are."

Kishibe came to a reluctant stop a few feet ahead of her. He gave her a piercing look over his shoulder, the sort that reminded her that he wasn't just a boring old pea-brained fuddy-duddy. "I've told you more than that," he pointed out.

Nayuta hesitated, because that was technically true. He'd told her how Denji, the Chainsaw hybrid, was a "hair-brained kid", but had a good heart and became more responsible lately, which was why he trusted him with her. He told her that the Blood Devil was an unruly brat who really cared about the people close to her, the Gun Fiend wasn't as scary as he looked, and the Angel Devil was too sad and busy pulling his own life together to cause her any problems. But he hadn't told her what she needed to know, so she had to ask again.

She just... Needed to figure out how to ask.

Unfortunately, it didn't look like she was going to get the time she needed to figure out the right way to ask, because Kishibe sucked. He asked, "Well?" in an impatient tone that told her he'd start walking again if she doesn't speak up soon. And this time, if she didn't walk with him, he'd scoop her up and carry her. He'd done it twice before and something in his eyes told her that he was about to do it again.

She couldn't let that happen. Not in public. So instead of trying to figure out the most elegant, dignified, flawless way of asking her question, she took a jittering step back and blurted out, "But why would they take me?"

Kishibe frowned. Well, he was already frowning, but his frown changed, shifting from irritated to thoughtful. She wasn't sure that she liked it. She definitely didn't like the way his voice softened ever so slightly when he asked, "You nervous?"

"No!" Nayuta cried, fisting her hands by her sides. "I'm just making sure you've thought this through! It would be really embarrassing for you if you tried to drop me on this Denji and then he didn't take me home."

Kishibe snorted. "Sure." He ignored the way Nayuta bristled as he raised a hand to rub his chin. It was just an act; his face didn't have that tense, distant look that he got when he was seriously thinking about something, which meant that either he had already thought about it or he was a bunch of bullshit.

"They're going to take you because they're good people," Kishibe eventually said, dropping his arm back to the side.

Nayuta couldn't tell if it was bullshit or not. She wanted to ask how he knew, to force him to provide a reason, but that would make it look like she cared too much. It would make her sound nervous. She didn't want to sound nervous; she wasn't nervous. So what if she was going to live with a bunch of strangers? That was nothing that she couldn't handle. She was the Control Devil, she could handle any challenge thrown her way!

She just... wanted to know a little bit more first. To be prepared. It was smart to be prepared.

"Will they be good to live with?" she asked. It was a safe question. Her stomach might have twisted when she thought of it, but her voice didn't wobble when she asked it, and that was the part that mattered.

"They'll be better than the way you were living before," Kishibe said.

"That doesn't mean much," Nayuta muttered. She looked off to the side, where a brown bird was pecking at the grass in search of bugs. It probably ate better than she had before Kishibe found her. With its soft feathers and ability to fly away, it was probably more comfortable than she had ever been while wandering the streets of china. Was the bird lonely like she had been? Or did it have feathered friends and family that it could fly back to?

Kishibe wasn't much, but he was something. If he left her with Denji and his group, would she go back to being lonely again?

"Will they be better than living with you?" Nayuta asked.

Kishibe sighed again. Nayuta tightened her fists until she felt her nails digging deep into the palm of her hand. The sound of her heartbeat nearly drowned out the approaching footsteps. She didn't look up when they came to a stop, and it was only reluctantly that she listened when he said, "Look at me."

Kishibe had crouched down in front of her. His expression was blank, but that was alright. It was better than soft or sad. If she tilted her head and squinted, it was almost peaceful, like a wordless assurance that everything would be okay. Of course, it wasn't actually that, so she listened closely as he said, "It's going to be rough at first. This group has some history with the Control Devil, and it won't be easy to get past that. But Denji'll be on your side, and the others will come around in time."

Nayuta looked away again. "Do you promise?" she asked.

If it wouldn't make her sound silly and scared, she would have asked if they would love her.

"I'm not promising shit," Kishibe said, jerking her attention back to him. "But I know what I'm talking about. I expect you to trust that."

"...Okay," Nayuta said. It came out quieter than she wanted it to. Softer, shakier, weaker. She made sure to be louder when she said, "I'm trusting you, so you'd better not be wrong."

She trusted Kishibe, even if he was abandoning her with a bunch of strangers.

It was fine. She was fine. She was the Control Devil, she could handle anything.

Kishibe stood back up with a snort. "Then let's stop wasting time."

He started walking toward the meeting spot without another word. Nayuta hesitated for a moment before following him. As she walked, she cast one last look back at the bird. It was the sort of creature that could make anywhere its home.

Maybe she could be the same.

*

Nayuta wakes up with visions of dumpsters plastered onto the backs of her eyelids. Her body is warm and heavy. It tells her to give in to the tiredness clinging onto her and drift back off to sleep. Her mind screams at her not to do that. She's still half-asleep, but she's been here so many times that she knows better by now. The memories that she'd been dreaming are still lingering on the surface of her mind. If she goes back to sleep, she'll slip right back in. If she goes back in, she won't just be rooting around in the dumpster, she'll be eating garbage. Then her stomach will be hurting. And then-

"Nayuta?" someone calls. It is accompanied by a gentle hand shaking her shoulder.

Ah, right. She didn't just wake up, did she? Someone woke her up. Not Kishibe. That voice, while rough, is far too soft to be him. The futon underneath her is too thick to be the one he gave her. The blankets on top of her are too soft. The air doesn't smell like stale booze and she can barely detect any blood at all. Mostly, she smells linens, salt, and cat fur.

The events of the day before sink in all at once. Nayuta ignores the way her stomach twists and focuses on the big, confusing thing. She can smell a cat, but she hasn't seen a cat. Why hasn't she seen the cat?

"Denji?" Nayuta murmurs. She sits up slowly and finds herself squinting into a dim, blurry room. Frowning, she tries to rub the sleep out of her eyes, but the room remains blurry and unfocused. She has to blink a couple of times to realize that it really is that dim. With a few more blinks, Denji comes into focus. He's sitting a few feet away from her with an uneasy grin on his face. Nayuta stares at him for a few seconds before looking toward the window.

The sky is caught somewhere between dull gray and deep blue. Light has begun to shine faintly on the horizon, but the sun is nowhere to be seen. The dusky moonlight pouring in through the window is the only thing illuminating the window.

Setting the matter of the missing cat aside for a moment, Nayuta looks back at Denji to ask, "Why are you waking me up so early?"

"I thought you might want breakfast," Denji says.

Nayuta opens her mouth to ask why he didn't wake her up for breakfast later. The words die in her mouth. If she kept sleeping, she would have ended up having the garbage dream again. Eating actual food is ten times better than dreaming about eating garbage. Especially food that she gets to see someone cook. She doesn't know if Denji can make anything better than the udon they had last night, she doesn't know how good of a cook he is at all, but her stomach is begging to give him a chance.

Anyone can make something better than dumpster food.

"Will it be hot?" she ends up asking.

Denji falters for a second. Then he grins. "Yeah!" he exclaims. "How do you feel about oatmeal?"

"I've never had it," Nayuta says.

Denji stands up, mind made up. "You'll love it," he says. "It's just oats and shit, which is fine, but when you add sugar and dates and stuff, it gets really good."

Nayuta smiles. Just a little. "It sounds good," she says, standing up and following Denji out of the room.

"Yeah!" Denji exclaims. "And hey, if-" He lowers his voice as they head out into the hallway. "-You don't like it, I can make it again."

"How many times?"

"Many as it takes to get it right."

Nayuta's eyes widen, and for the first time since showing up at this place, her stomach bubbles with an emotion that she's willing to name. Excitement . Her smile grows, and she tilts her head down so that Denji can't see it, just in case he thinks to look back. "Try to get it right the first time," she instructs.

"I mean, I don't want to spend all day cooking, so that was the plan."

They trail into the kitchen. While not quite as pungent as the bedroom, the smell of cat remains. It combines with stray white hairs dotting the kitchen table and chairs to bring this urgent matter back to the forefront of Nayuta's mind. She stops in the doorway and asks, "Where's the cat?"

Denji pauses about three steps away from the cabinet. He's clearly trying and miserably failing to hide his unease when he looks over his shoulder and asks, "Cat?"

"I can smell a cat, but I haven't seen one," Nayuta explains. "Where is it?"

"Aaah, that's..." Denji turns to face her, but steps further away, only stopping when his back is pressed against the counter. One of his hands rises to rub the back of his neck. He drops it back to his side and starts tapping against his leg when he continues, "It's probably gonna be a little while before you see Meowy."

Nayuta frowns. "Why? Is Meowy shy?"

"Not really, but his owner, Power, she's... protective."

Nayuta's stomach starts to hurt like she just took a bite of bad garbage. "She doesn't want her cat around me," she surmises.

"...No." Denji sounds defeated. More than that, he sounds like a cornered animal, shoved into some horrible situation that he really doesn't want to be in. "She doesn't."

"Because of Makima?" Nayuta asks. Her voice doesn't quaver, her hands don't shake, and she looks straight at Denji, but her stomach twists a little harder.

Denji looks away. "...It doesn't matter," he lies. "You aren't Makima."

Nayuta should call him out on the lie. But her stomach jerks like she knows it would have if she'd continued with that dream, there's a lump in her throat, and she just wants to be done with this conversation right now. It's weak and pathetic, but as long as Denji can't tell that she's being weak and pathetic, it can be her secret.

"Alright," she says, and it's a lie for a lie, because it really isn't alright, but that doesn't matter. She's the Control Devil. She can handle any challenge. As long as she keeps saying it's alright, then eventually it will be. All she needs to do is keep moving forward. And right now, moving forward means that she gets something called oatmeal, so she really needs to keep going.

She walks over to the kitchen table and carefully takes a seat. Denji offers her a shaky smile, then sets about cooking. Neither of them speaks while he cooks, and the silence isn't comfortable, but Nayuta isn't going to complain.

It's worth putting up with the discomfort, anyway. The oatmeal is really good. Far better than anything she ever got from a dumpster.

The meal passes in silence. Denji cleans up afterward. Nayuta doesn’t offer to help and he doesn’t ask her to. She remains seated at the table, alternating between watching him wash the dishes and looking out the window. The sun feels like it is rising slower than it is. By the time he finishes, the horizon is orange-red and rays of dull golden red are streaming into the kitchen. 

Denji pulls out the chair across from her and flops down with a sigh. “So,” he begins, crossing his arms over his chest, leaning back into the chair, and propping his legs up on the table. “What do you wanna do today?”

Nayuta blinks. Instead of letting herself waffle and risking looking like she doesn’t know what to do with free time - because she definitely does - she asks, “What is there to do around here?”

A grin crosses Denji’s face. “Well, we could-” The grin disappears. It returns when he sits up and drops his arms to his sides, but it’s duller, less vibrant. Fake. “We should probably keep to ourselves today, but there’s plenty of stuff that we can do with that. Probably also a lot of stuff that I… Need… to do.” 

He slumps back into his chair with a sigh. “I don’t suppose you know what you need?” he asks. Nayuta can’t tell if he sounds hopeful or hopeless.

She decides to take it easy on him. “I don’t need anything.”

It’s the truth. For as long as she can remember, she’s gotten by with nothing more than what she could find in the streets. Her memory isn’t very long and Kishibe found her after a while, but that still has to count for something. It’s not like the old man spoiled her either. As long as she has food and a place to sleep, she’ll be fine. That’s already way more than she used to have. 

Denji doesn’t look convinced.

It’s a weird sort of unconvinced. He doesn’t look like he doesn’t believe her. If anything, he looks at her with an understanding that says he believes her completely. The problem is that he looks sad. His eyes soften and dull, his lips pull down, and he lets out a sigh that sounds like defeat. He believes her and is unhappy about it. He knows that she can go without, and instead of being impressed by her perseverance, he has the face people make when they listen to sad songs.

Nayuta has to fight the urge to squirm in place. She can’t stop herself from looking down at her hands. They’re hands that have the power to control the whole world. So why does she feel so small?

“I don’t care if you don’t need much,” Denji says after a long moment, drawing her attention back up to him. He looks more solid now, like his mind is set on a goal that only he can see. “You deserve to have a happy life. You should be able to have things that you want too, like games and good food and clothes that aren’t falling apart.”

Nayuta blinks. “You mean me?”

Surprise flickers across Denji’s face. “Well, duh. Who else would I be talking about?”

Nayuta shrugs. It’s a stupid question when he puts it that way. Still, she decides to go ahead and tell him the truth. How is she supposed to explain that it sounded kind of like he was talking to someone else? He’s been nothing but nice. How is she supposed to tell him that she can’t shake the feeling that she doesn’t belong, that there’s a shapeless stormcloud called Makima hanging over her head, telling her that she isn’t supposed to be here?

Denji takes it upon himself to bring an end to the silence that’s fallen over them. “Think about the stuff that they have in the stores. Is there anything you want?”

Nayuta allows her gaze to drop back down to her lap. “I don’t know what they have in stores,” she murmurs.

Denji sighs. “Right. Shit.” A moment passes in uncomfortable quiet. Nayuta warily glances back up at him. Not a second later, he straightens up again, a fresh, bright smile blossoming across his face. “How about this? I’ll talk to A- uh, someone, see what you’re supposed to have, then when I go out, I’ll get you some stuff that it’ll be nice to have too. It’ll be a surprise! What do you think!”

“...Alright,” Nayuta says, because anything else would be too much or too little, and she doesn’t know Denji well enough to risk pointing out that it won’t be a surprise now that he’s told her about it.

Denji frowns. “Hey.” He leans forward, one arm sliding across the table toward her. It stops about a foot too far away for her to reach out and touch it. “I know this ain’t easy, but it’ll be okay. We-”

He’s cut off by the sound of footsteps. Nayuta breathes in the scent of devil. This isn’t one of the nasty devil smells. It’s light and salty, like a sea breeze, but without the garbage smell of the old harbor she used to hang out around. There’s nothing scary about the smell, but Denji’s eyes widen and he sits up like he’s been stabbed with a hot poker. 

Nayuta follows his gaze toward the doorway, where a petite redhead with big, feathery wings is looking at her like a bug.

Nayuta knows that she should stand tall and proud. She is the Control Devil; she fears no one, needs nothing, and can face any challenge. But when she tries to look him in the eyes, the disgust that she finds makes her shrink back. Nayuta isn’t a bug, she has nothing to fear from this little guy, yet she finds herself looking down at her lap, shoulders drawn in, and feels like the smallest thing in the world.

“Angel,” Denji begins, urgent and hesitant and unsure but still desperately trying to do something. “Do you-”

“No,” a bitter voice snaps. “Not a word.” 

Heavy, stomping footsteps storm out of the room, and the smell of sea breeze fades away into a lingering memory. Nayuta wishes that it would disappear completely, then she could pretend that it didn’t happen. But that isn’t an option, isn’t it? The devil who looked at her like a disgusting thing - the Angel Devil - lives here. She’s in his territory. She’s going to have to see him again, and he’s going to look at her like that again, and she’s just going to have to deal with it, because if there’s one thing that Kishibe made sure to drill into her head before leaving her, it’s that bad things will happen if she uses her powers on these people.

Nayuta hadn’t thought about it too much. She’d figured that he meant that these people were strong and it’s cause problems for him if she got into trouble. Now, she suspects that it’s more stuff that she doesn’t understand and no one wants to tell her about, the big, glaring, obvious secret called Makima.

“Well, that went about as well as it could have,” Denji bitterly mutters.

“He doesn’t like me,” Nayuta says, even though it’s so obvious that it’s stupid.

She wouldn’t like it if Denji lied to her. A tiny, thorny thing in her chest still shivers when he admits, “No. He doesn’t.” It feels like it’s tearing at her insides, making her prickle and bleed in a way that not even she can control. It’s just a small droplet of blood though, so it doesn’t matter that it doesn’t help anything when Denji hastily adds, “But who cares? He doesn’t know you yet anyway?”

Nayuta knows that it’s a dangerous question, but she can’t stop herself from asking, “Will he like me when he gets to know me?”

Denji’s eyes slid off to the side. “I couldn’t tell ya. But!” He snaps his gaze back to her, another fake, stretched-out smile crossing his face. “Who cares what that guy thinks?! He doesn’t like anyone but Aki anyway.”

Nayuta swallows.

Do you like me? Or are you just doing this because Kishibe left me with you?

“Oh,” she mutters.

“Come on,” Denji says, rising to his feet and leading her toward the hallway. She already knows that he’s going to take her back to the room. “I’ve gotta do some stuff, then I’ll go shopping for you. I’ll get you set up with some stuff to do until then.”

Nayuta follows him without a word.

*

Denji doesn't go shopping that day.

He does pull out a deck of cards and teaches Nayuta how to play a single-player card game. Once he's content that she has a way to pass the time, he ducks out of the room to talk. He doesn't tell her what he's doing, but she knows that he's talking to the other people in the house. She listens to them as much as she can. They're too far away for her to pick up any words, but she can hear the tense, raised voices, bitter and sharp and biting.

Denji tries to act like everything's fine when he ducks back into the room.

"Sorry 'bout the delay," he says. His grin is wide and fake, but the hand that he's running through his hair is stiff and stressed. "There's some stuff goin' on, but I should be ready to go in a bit. I just need you to hang out a little longer."

Nayuta nods and decides that he doesn't need to know that she heard the angry voices and can see the way his eyes keep flicking toward the door. He isn't being completely honest with her, so it's fine if she isn't completely honest with him either. "It's okay," she says. "The game is fun."

She hasn't been playing the game at all.

Denji grins like he believes her and goes back outside.

There are more voices for a little while. Then Denji says something, sharp and snappish, and everything shifts into quiet. Footsteps are the last thing she hears from outside the room, two sets accompanied by the low, angry hiss of a girl's voice and the muttering of someone who she thinks she recognizes as Angel. After that, it's quiet for long enough that the twisting in Nayuta's stomach starts to settle. Once it's died down enough to be ignored, she starts to get bored and tries playing the game.

A little while after that, Denji comes back into the room with a plate in his hand.

"I'm almost ready!" he exclaims. He sets the plate down in front of her - it has a sandwich and chips on it. "You're gonna need more stuff than I realized, but I think we're pretty much ready, so-"

He's cut off by a horrible crashing sound beneath their feet.

Denji's face goes pale. He looks between Nayuta and the door, indecision wracked across his features.

"Go," Nayuta murmurs.

Denji nods once and takes off.

Things get boring after that. Nayuta has to sneak out to use the bathroom once, but it isn't as exciting as she worked herself up to thinking it might be. She doesn't run into anyone and is back in the bedroom in a matter of minutes. A bunch of stopping, clanging, and yelling from downstairs tells her that something's happening, but she has no clue what it is. She's pretty sure that it doesn't have anything to do with her, so she can't say that she really cares, either. Two arguing people go stomping past the door once, but they're saying something about pipes and recklessness and water damage, which definitely doesn't have anything to do with her.

Nayuta watches the sunset through the window. It's kind of pretty.

The sky outside is dark by the time Denji slips back into the room. His clothes are soaking wet and his expression is utterly exhausted. Nayuta stares up at him, trying to figure out what happened, and that exhaustion turns into guilt.

"Power broke a pipe in the basement," he says. "A big pipe. There was a flood."

"Oh," Nayuta says. "Was there water damage?"

Denji leans against the door and slides down with a sigh. "There might be," he says. "Plumber took care of the pipe, but we might need to get some basement... checker... guy to come in."

Denji lets out another sigh, mutters something under his breath, and scrubs his hand across his face. He stops with it over his eyes and lets it stay there for a long time before slowly dropping it down to his side. "...I'm sorry about today," he says.

The twisting feeling returns to Nayuta's stomach. She shrugs. "I've had worse days," she murmurs.

Denji grimaces. Then he grins. "Well, I'm still gonna make it up to you. You ever had fried chicken?"

Nayuta shakes her head.

"Then let's have that for dinner. You'll love it."

She does love it. But it doesn't do anything to make Denji look any less worn down. When she catches bits of the other voices around the house, they still sound angry and on edge. Hearing them makes Denji more on edge, but he clearly doesn't want her to notice, so she pretends that he doesn't. He's smiling when he hands her an oversized t-shirt for her to change into while her clothes are being washed. She can’t make herself return the favor, but at least she holds back a frown.

They're settling down to bed for the night when Denji asks, "Hey, Nayuta. You got any dreams?"

Nayuta thinks about how cold and hollow she felt on the streets of China. She thinks about the way it went away, just a little, when she was with Kishibe. She thinks about the things she almost let herself hope for when she was brought to Denji, things that she doesn't even know how to describe properly. She thinks about the angry voices of this house and the painful, twisting feeling in her gut.

This isn't a family. It isn't a home. Denji's nice, it's cold and lonely, just like she's always been.

She wonders what it would be like not to feel that way.

It doesn't matter. She's the Control Devil, she can handle anything.

She looks over at Denji, curled up on a pile of blankets beside the futon, and says, "No.”

*

Denji does keep his promise the next day.

He wakes her up early in the morning for breakfast. It's cooked quickly and Nayuta, noting the strain in his shoulders and the way he keeps glancing toward the doorway, makes sure to eat even quicker. Denji doesn't bother eating anything himself. Before she knows it, she's done and is shuffled back into the bedroom.

The sun has only just started to rise.

"Alright," Denji says, dropping backward to flop heavily onto his blanket pile. It doesn't look soft or thick enough to be a comfortable fall. His wince tells her that she's right. However, he only lets it slow him down for a few seconds before continuing. "I'm gonna be gone for a few hours. You'll need to stay in here while I'm away. Can you do that?"

Nayuta frowns. "What if I need to use the bathroom?"

It occurs to her a second too late that she probably shouldn't have asked about that. If she needs to go, she can just sneak out like she did yesterday. Luckily, asking doesn't cause any trouble for her, because Denji sits up and says, "You can go to the bathroom if you need to. But I need you to be in and out real quick, and stay in here the rest of the time. Alright?"

Slowly, Nayuta nods. She hates that she nods - this whole thing sucks, and nodding means that she's going along with the sucky thing. But what else can she do? She's the Control Devil, but this is... she doesn't know why, but she knows that all of this will become worse if she acts like the Control Devil, and if it sucks now, she doesn't want to see what it will be like if it gets worse.

Denji's tense, worried expression softens. "I know today's probably gonna be pretty boring, but we can do something tomorrow."

Nayuta sits down, cross-legged, on the edge of the futon. Part of her wants to ask if she'll be sent back into the room after they're done doing whatever he has planned. But there's another part of her, small and quiet, but growing louder with every hour, taking her breath away and making her feel a restless, tickling itch just beneath her skin. That part is wondering if it's even worth leaving the room, if it will mean wandering into a house filled with people who don't like her.

How stupid. She's the Control Devil. It doesn't matter if a bunch of random people like her or not. That's why she doesn't say anything, because it's stupid to worry about what it's like outside of the room and it's even more stupid for her to act like she can't handle being kept in a room for a couple of days. This bedroom definitely isn't the worst place she's been in. If she starts getting really bored, she can make Denji find something for her to do, but for now... It's fine. She doesn't need him to think that she can't handle something as inconsequential as this. She's fine.

"Nayuta?" Denji asks.

She looks up to see him leaning toward her, brow furrowed.

Nayuta straightens her back out and tilts her chin up. "What? I can follow your stupid instructions. Go get me stuff."

A small, ragged smile crosses Denji's lips. "Alright. Got anything specific you want?"

Nayuta doesn't have to think about it. "Bread."

The smile twitches faintly. "I do owe you bread. But do you want anything besides food?"

Nayuta fights the urge to look away. She doesn't bite her lip. She doesn't catch herself fisting her hands into the sheets beneath her until it's too late. It's not like it's a hard question. It's not even a surprising one, this is the second time he's asked, she's had time to think about it. But when she thinks about what she wants, all she can think about are things that she already has, and when she tries to think about what else there might be, her head is empty, and-

"Don't worry about it." Denji reaches out to ruffle her hair. She lingers under the gentle warm touch for a second before thinking to pull away. When she does, she wishes that she hadn't, but it's too late by then. Denji is already lowering his arm and saying, "The original plan was for me to surprise you, right? I'll just stick with that."

"Make sure to get me good stuff," Nayuta says.

"Now that you've said that, I'm just gonna get you crap."

Nayuta scowls. "Don't you dare! I'll-" No. She can't threaten him. Nayuta is the Control Devil, and that is a bad thing with these people. Denji's been nice to her, but he can't be that much of an exception. "You'll feel bad for doing something so scummy."

It's probably true, too. He seems soft-hearted enough for that.

"Guess I don't wanna feel bad." Denji languidly rises to his feet, stretching his arms high above his head. He pauses with his arms held up and hands clasped together and leans to the side. When he straightens back up, he drops his arms down to the side and says, "Alright. I'll get you good stuff then."

"Good."

"Is there anything you need before I go?"

Nayuta shakes her head.

"See you later, then."

Denji walks out the door. It clicks shut behind him, and Nayuta is left behind in an empty room. She looks out of the window to see a blackbird sitting on the windowpane. It runs its beak against the wood, feathers glimmering sleekly in the early morning light. As it bounces about, it looks wild and free, happy to be alive.

And Nayuta…

Nayuta is tired. All of her is tired. Her insides feel heavy and slow in a way that she can't think to describe as anything else. She would ignore it if not for the fact that her body is tired too. Her eyes are heavy and stinging, and as she watches the bird hop around, her eyelids start to droop.

It doesn't take her long to decide what to do. Denji's probably going to be gone for a long time, and the people who talk about her in hushed, angry voices probably aren't going to come see her. There's no harm in taking a nap.

Nayuta falls asleep fast and wakes up faster. When she opens her eyes again, the room is warm, bright, and boring. With no one around to see her, she doesn't bother hiding her frown or fighting to keep her shoulders from drooping. Her limbs feel heavy as she drags herself out of the futon and over to the bookshelf, where she left the deck of cards.

The game Denji taught her isn't actually very fun, but it helps her pass the time.

Until it doesn't.

Nayuta gets through three rounds before she finds that she just can't play another. Leaving the cards sprawled out on the ground, she sets about exploring the room in a way that she hadn't bothered to yesterday.

There isn't much to look at. She hasn't seen much television, but from what she’s gathered, bedroom walls are supposed to have posters and stuff on them. This one doesn't have any. There's a dresser full of clothes, but nothing is interesting about Denji's clothes. She doesn't know what most of the stuff in the closet is, which keeps it from being worth paying that much attention to. The bookshelf full of manga looks like it could be interesting, but when she squints at the spines, she finds that she can't read any of the text.

Nayuta is trying to figure out if it'll be worth looking through them anyway when she feels a tightness in her bladder.

The thought of holding it in is dismissed as soon as she has it. Even if she's able to hold it for a while, she'll need to go eventually, and she isn't hopeful that Denji will be back before that time comes. Besides, he said that it's okay if she goes out to use the bathroom, and it's not like she hadn't done it before. It will be fine. Nayuta will be quick, do what she needs to do, and be back in the room before any sort of trouble can happen.

The big, boring, room that she's going to be stuck in for the rest of the day.

Nayuta's heart pitters faster than it should when she steps out into the hallway. It also makes it a little easier for her to breathe in a way that's just ridiculous. The room is better than biting cold or gnawing hunger or dodging away from people who'll kick her ‘cause she's scruffy, but now that she's out, she finds that she doesn't want to go back in. She shoves down that impulse and tells herself that she has to go back in as she shuts herself in the bathroom. Going to the toilet is a quick process. Her resolve stands firm throughout it, and when she steps back out into the hall, she truly is planning on doing what she's supposed to and going back into the room.

Then she sees the cat.

It's sitting a few feet away from the bathroom door, staring up at her with big amber eyes that aren't too different from her own. It's floofy like a cloud but also majestic like a lion. All of that floof makes it look really soft.

Nayuta isn't thinking as she crouches down across from the cat. Her movements are automatic as she reaches her hand out and wiggles her fingers. The cat blinks at her, then steps forward to sniff her fingers. She stops moving them so that it will have an easier time getting a feel for her. When it's completed its inspection, it lets out a happy trill of a meow and steps forward, rubbing its cheek against her hand.

It's even softer than she had hoped.

"Hi," Nayuta whispers. She rubs her fingers against the side of the cat's face, eliciting a purr from the creature. The corners of her lips twitch upward. "I'm-"

"Meowy!" a voice shrieks in horror.

Nayuta scuttles backward, pressing herself against the wall as the Blood Devil comes charging in. She scoops the cat up and clutches it tightly against her chest. Nayuta finds herself paralyzed as the devil murmurs worried reassurances to the feline. She knows that she should move, but she can't, which means that she's still sitting right there when the Blood Devil lifts her head to glare at her like she's the most disgusting thing on earth.

"Makima," she spits.

Nayuta is the Control Devil. She has nothing to be scared of here.

She tries to move further away, only to find that she can't press herself any closer to the wall.

Her throat feels like it's full of rocks, but she still finds herself swallowing, even though there's no real reason for it. No matter how hard she tries, she can't keep her voice steady when she says, "I'm not-"

"Silence!" the Blood Devil shouts. "You may have Denji fooled but you won't trick me!"

Nayuta wants to argue - she's supposed to argue. But her throat feels like it's closing up, and when she opens her mouth, all that comes out is a useless croak. Her fingers twitch, the chains of her powers right within her reach, but she isn't supposed to use them, using them will make this worse, and they feel all tangled up anyway, like if she reaches for them she'll free and the Blood Devil will attack - maybe she's already going to attack, but she'll definitely attack then, and-

"Power?" a voice calls, sharp with stress and anxiety. Footsteps trail into the hallway, and Nayuta feels like her neck is made of steel, but she still manages to turn it.

The Gun Fiend is standing a few feet away, staring at- she can't tell where he's staring, but his jaw is slack and his head is turning ever so slightly, so he's probably looking between him and the Blood Devil.

He's her friend, right? Nayuta doesn't know him, this is the first time she's ever seen him, but Kishibe said that the people in this house are all close. So... He can't be happy to see her either.

"Aki!" the Blood Devil cries. She takes a step back, but Nayuta can't be happy about it, because now the pistol on the Gun Fiend's face is pointed at her. It isn't the gun itself that makes her heart thunder harder than it had any right to, but the human parts of him, the thin line of his lips and the hard set of his shoulders.

He's angry at her, too. She hasn't even done anything, but he's still angry.

"I found this beast accosting Meowy," the Blood Devil continues. "We must-"

The Gun Fiend holds his human hand up. "We don't need to do anything," he says.

Nayuta's chest is getting tight. She barely remembers to force herself to breathe as the Blood Devil tries to argue, "But-"

"I'll take care of this," the Gun Fiend says, interrupting her again. "Why don't you go make sure Meowy's okay?"

The Blood Devil looks between her and the Gun Fiend, hesitantly starts to move away, and then stops at the last second. "No," she declares. "I won't leave you alone with her."

The Gun Fiend turns his head toward her. For a moment, it's a staring match, or as much of a staring match as is possible when one of them doesn't have eyes. Then the Gun Fiend looks away, sighs heavily, and crouches down in front of Nayuta.

"What were you doing?" he asks. His voice is low and steady; another person may have been reassured by it. But Nayuta isn't another person. She's the Control Devil, and she catches strain beneath his voice. She can't tell if it's anger or fear, but it's bad, and his jaw is clenched, and his muscles are tense, and if he had eyes, she's sure they'd be glaring.

His voice is still kind though. Or at least, it's kinder than the Blood Devil. It makes Nayuta's throat relax enough to let her say, "I was just petting the cat."

The Blood Devil mutters something venomous under her breath, sending Nayuta a glare that feels like it should melt her skin off her bones. Meanwhile, the Gun Fiend nods.

"You're supposed to be in your room," he points out.

"I know," Nayuta says. She tries to snap it, to show that she isn't scared, but even though she digs and scrapes and pushes, she can't reach it. "I was going back."

"Go now," the Gun Fiend says.

Nayuta should argue. It's embarrassing to roll over and give in to the commands of some random fiend - she should assert herself, do something to regain control, prove that neither he nor the Blood Devil can push her around.

She stands up and scrambles back into the room without needing to be told twice.

The door slams shut behind her. She can feel the vibrations shaking through the air as she drops onto the futon and pulls her knees up to her chest.

She isn't scared; she's just trying to make sure that nothing bad happens. Denji would be upset if he got home and found out that she didn't listen to him.

Not that she's scared of that either. There's no reason for her to be scared of anything. Even if Blood Devil or Gun Fiend were to try something, she could take them. So what if she's small? Who cares if they know how to use their powers better than her, or they can use those powers without bad things happening? Nayuta is the Control Devil. None of them can touch her. None of them can hurt her. No one and nothing can touch her, and that is a good thing. It means that there's nothing that anyone can do that she needs to be afraid of.

Nayuta is alone.

That's a good thing. When she was on the streets, she was just alone because there was no one else there, but now she's alone because she's strong. So strong that she isn't supposed to use her powers, so strong that she has nothing to be afraid of. Isn't that the most important thing? It should be - no, it is. Who cares if no one but Denji likes her? She's strong enough to handle it.

Everything is fine and Nayuta is happy.

Everything is fine and Nayuta isn't scared. She's holding her knees to her chest because it's comfortable, she's staring at the door because there isn't much else to look at, and her breath is coming fast because she likes to breathe really quickly sometimes.

A lot of time passes like that. At least, she thinks it's a lot. There's also a chance that it isn't more than a few minutes. Time passes weirdly while she stares at the door. It isn't until someone knocks that it goes back to normal. Nayuta curls up tighter in on herself with a gasp.

It's not Denji. Denji smells like bread and jam and a bit of wet dog. This person smells like smoke and ash and the faintest hint of apples. It makes Nayuta increase her grip on her legs, only for the feeling of her nails digging sharply into the skin of her legs to remind her that she isn't supposed to be acting like that. She should let go of her legs, stand up, and go answer the door, because there's nothing for her to be afraid of and this whole thing is stupid.

Nayuta doesn't move.

"Nayuta?" Someone calls. They're tense; not angry, but not happy to be talking to her either. Trying to be soft, but not quite able to manage it.

It takes a moment for her to connect the voice and scent to the Gun Fiend. When she does, she buries her face in her knees and scowls.

There's a sigh from the other side of the door. "Can I come in?" the Gun Fiend asks a moment later.

She wants to say no. He isn't going to be any happier to see her in the room than he was out in the hall, and she doesn't want to talk to someone who doesn't want to talk to her. But Kishibe told her that Denji’s close to all of the people in this house, especially the Blood Devil and Gun Fiend. He might already be upset with her for making the Blood Devil angry by trying to pet that cat. Will it be worse if she turns the Gun Fiend away?

Probably. And it doesn't really matter if Denji's upset with her, but... she doesn't have any reason to tell the Gun Fiend to go away, does she? She isn't scared of him. But if she says that he can't come in, it will seem like she is, and that would be embarrassing.

Looking like a coward would be way worse than Denji being mad at her.

Nayuta pulls her hands back and stretches her legs out. There are little bloody dots where her fingers were digging into her skin. She wipes them away with her hand, tucks her legs under herself, and straightens out before she calls, "Yes."

Nayuta hears the Gun Fiend fumble with the door for a moment before he gets it open. A plate balanced precariously in the crook of his elbow. With the door open, he awkwardly maneuvers it into his hand before walking into the room. His steps are slow and cautious in a way that reminds her of a mouse approaching a cat. It makes her stay extra still as he walks over to the futon and sets the plate down on the floor beside her.

"I thought you might be hungry," he says in the same strained, almost-kind voice as before.

"Thanks," Nayuta murmurs, glancing over at the plate. He's brought her curry. It looks nicer than the stuff Denji's made and reminds her that she hasn't eaten since breakfast. She is hungry, but at the same time, she isn't. Her stomach is tight and aching, but the thought of actually trying to eat makes her feel kinda queasy.

She doesn't move.

Neither does the Gun Fiend.

"...Are you alright?" he asks after a long, awkward moment.

"Yes," Nayuta says, and it sounds honest because it is. To drive the point home, she asks, "Why wouldn't I be?"

The Gun Fiend turns his head away from her with a sigh. "I don't know." He pauses. It's a long pause, long enough that she can tell it takes a lot of effort when he turns his head back toward her. It doesn't even last for long. For a few seconds, the pistol on his face is pointed right at her, then it moves a few inches to the left.

"Denji should be back soon," he continues, a little more casual than before, but still not okay. It sounds like he's trying to pretend that this is a perfectly normal conversation with someone he's perfectly okay talking to and she hasn't figured out how to tell that he's not looking at her. He probably doesn't even know, seeing as he isn't looking at her. "He got caught up in something and ended up running late."

Nayuta forces herself to ignore the heavy thing settling in her chest and focuses on the faint prickle of curiosity that the fiend's words generate. "How do you know?" she asks.

The Gun Fiend's lips press together. "There was a devil attack. It was on the news," he says, sounding a little bit tighter, a little more on edge, and a lot more restless. She wonders if he knows how he sounds.

Nayuta decides not to bring it up. Someone who doesn't want to be talking to her in the first place won't appreciate her pointing stuff out to them. Instead, she nods, and says, "Kishibe said he's Chainsaw Man."

"Yeah."

"Was the fight cool?"

The Gun Fiend's pistol snaps back to her, his lips twisting into an angry scowl. "Devil attacks aren't cool ."

If Kishibe said that to her, she would have called him old and boring.

If Denji said that, she would have pointed out all of the ways that devil attacks can be cool.

The Gun Fiend says it, and the heavy thing inside of her chest starts to ache.

Nayuta looks down at her lap and murmurs, "Oh."

The room goes quiet until the Gun Fiend sighs. "Do you need anything?" he asks, and he really does have a kind voice, but there's still a jagged edge to it that tells her that the kindness isn't meant for her, not really. Not that she expects any different. Not that it matters.

"No," she says.

"...Alright," the Gun Fiend replies. "I know it must be boring, but I need you to stay in here until Denji gets back. The others aren't ready."

Nayuta lifts her head up to level him with a look that says neither are you, but he isn't looking at her to see it. Maybe that's for the better. If he was looking, he might be able to see through the part of her that wants to ask when and if they'll ever be ready to talk to her, and she shouldn't be worrying about that in the first place.

"Okay," Natuya says. "You can leave me alone now."

The Gun Fiend nods.

And then he leaves her alone.

Chapter Text

Denji says that he isn't angry when he gets home.

And maybe he isn't. He looks at her with warm amber eyes and speaks to her in a soft voice. Frustration bleeds into his tone when he talks about the Blood Devil - Power, he calls her - acting out, but that isn't aimed at Nayuta. It still doesn't make her feel any better. It can't, not when the bags under his eyes are worse and his shoulders have gone tense and there's a strain woven into his voice that reminds her of the Gun Fiend. There's nothing he can say or do that will really make her think it's okay when he looks and sounds like that.

Just like Nayuta knows, there's nothing she can say or do to make him feel any better.

So she decides not to think about it at all. And why should she? Maybe Denji is angry about what happened today, but that doesn't mean that things are bad. All she did was try to pet a cat. It doesn't make any sense for her to feel bad because he looks even more tired than normal. Besides, he's the one who agreed to take her in. He should have been ready for stuff like this. Maybe she wasn't listening to him when she tried to pet that cat, but she's here because she's been doing what she's been told. She hasn't used her powers and she hasn't done anything wrong outside of trying to pet that cat. She shouldn't have to apologize just for existing, and Denji would probably tell her that she doesn't have to if she asked, and-

She needs to stop thinking about it. None of it matters anyway. It's all too small and insignificant and beneath her to get caught up in.

Besides, Denji got her stuff. It's much better to focus on that.

It's good stuff, too. Denji got her a whole bunch of clothes. They're warm, soft, colorful, and nicer than anything she's ever owned. So are the blankets and pillows he got her, along with a futon of her very own. Once she's sorted through them, he pulls out a small pile of stuffed animals. There are cats, dogs, birds, and even a few creatures that she doesn't recognize. Finally, he apologetically tells her that he can't afford to buy anything else yet, but he plans on getting her a handheld game system when he gets the chance.

She’s never had so much stuff in her whole life.

It should make her happy.

Actually, it does make her happy. There's a tingly, warm feeling in her chest as she goes through all her gifts, and while she has to fight back a weird burning behind her eyes, it doesn't feel like a bad burning. When she smiles at Denji and tells him, “thank you,” she means it. The creeping, tickling ache that sets into her heart as she gets ready for bed that night doesn't mean anything. She's probably imagining the way that her eyes start to sting again.

Nayuta is fine. She is the Control Devil. She has nothing to fear. She has food to eat, a roof over her head, and clothes that she can wash before they get too stinky.

When she stops to look at the facts of her situation, it’s obvious that her life is better than it's ever been before. That is the only thing that matters.

*

Denji takes her to the park the next day.

She doesn't care that Kishibe brought her to the same park only a few days ago. It's nice to visit it again. The air is kinda chilly, but not enough for Nayuta to ask to go back and get her jacket. In a way, the chill is kind of nice. It prickles at her skin and makes the air taste fresher and makes her feel alive. The sensation is intensified by the feeling of the sun shining down on her skin and the sight of the clear, cloudy blue sky stretching out overhead.

She’s sort of glad that the old fart dragged her through the place so quickly. This time, she has the chance to explore . She doesn't understand how the other park visitors pass through so quickly when there's so much to look at. The sky - unburdened by smog and gloom - is constantly changing in small, subtle ways that she needs to watch closely to keep track of. She can smell flowers, light and sweet, just like the sound of the birds chirping in the distance. The grass beneath her is soft, springy, and couldn't be more different from cement. She's tempted to take her socks and shoes off and wriggle her toes in it. Nayuta settles for laying down on her back and running her fingers through it, occasionally pulling out a blade of grass.

Denji's sitting on a bench a few feet away. He smiles at her when he sees her looking at him. When he doesn't catch her, he looked sad and tired. Nayuta tells herself that it's just boredom and opts not to do anything about it. She's had to put up with plenty of boredom since getting left with him, it's only fair that he has to deal with some of his own.

There are patches of flowers a little ways behind them. Beyond that, there's a thick patch of trees with a path leading through it. She'll probably have Denji take her over there when she's done looking at the sky. For now, she's content just to lay there and absorb it all.

Clouds drift by, taking her mind with them as she tracks their journey. Trying to figure out what they look like as they morph into different shapes combines with the pleasant sensations of the park to keep her from getting bored. The world around her fades away into an indistinguishable blur as she lets herself get lost in the sky.

Then a big, fuzzy, golden head shoves itself into her space and starts licking her face.

Nayuta lets out a surprised yelp. She's met with a happy woof, followed by more licking. It's hard to press her lips shut tightly enough to keep the tongue from getting in her mouth when her lips are tugging up into a grin big enough to make her face hurt and even harder when she starts giggling. Nayuta braces her hands against the grass and tries to push herself upright. She's able to level herself a little bit off the ground, but isn't able to sit up completely before the dog squirms into her lap with a joyous woof. It leans heavily against her torso, and Nayuta finds herself tumbling back into the grass with a laugh.

"Hi," she says, weaving her fingers through thick golden fur. "I'm Nayu-"

The dog leans in to lick, and she has to turn her head to the side to keep it from getting inside her mouth. Closing her mouth isn't an option anymore - she's grinning too widely and breathing too hard.

She only registers the sound of people talking when she notices two pairs of legs standing a little ways away. One of them has Denji's ragged jeans and tattered sneakers. The other set is dressed in tight leggings and really nice running shoes. These legs probably belong to the woman's voice she hears, low, frantic, and apologetic.

Nayuta starts paying attention too late to hear what the lady's saying, but she does catch Denji saying, "Really, it's fine. She likes dogs."

"If you're sure..." the lady laughs uneasily. A second later, she's walking over to Nayuta. She catches a glimpse of a stressed, smiling face before she grabs the dog by its scruff, hurriedly tugs a collar onto it, and leads it off on its leash.

They're gone before Nayuta can think to tell them they don't have to leave.

Nayuta sits up and stares at the lady's shrinking back. With a frown tugging on her face, she asks, "Denji?"

"Yeah?" Footsteps accompany the response, already walking back to his bench. He doesn't look especially tired when she looks back at him, but he must be if he's already sitting back down.

Or maybe he's just lazy.

Shoving thoughts of Denji into the back of her head, she proceeds with the important conversation that they need to have. "Can we get a dog?"

"I'm not sure that'd fly." Denji rubs the back of his head. "I almost adopted a buncha dogs a while ago, but Angel said that Aki wouldn't be happy when he woke up, and he kinda had a point."

Nayuta furrows her brow and finds herself wishing she'd paid more attention back when Kishibe told her everyone's names. Angel is obviously the Angel Devil, and she's pretty sure she remembers Denji calling the Blood Devil Power, which means... "Aki's the Gun Fiend?"

Denji sucks in a sharp breath. He holds it for a moment, eyes flitting from side to side, before letting it go and slumping back against the bench with a sigh. "Yeah. Don't call him that to his face, but... Yeah."

Nayuta nods, swearing to herself that she'll remember this time. Then, because the names were the least confusing part of what Denji just said, she continues, "What do you mean when he 'woke up'? Does he sleep a lot?"

Her frown deepens as soon as she asks. It sounds stupid even to her own ears; even if someone slept for half the day, there's no way they could miss someone they live with adopting a bunch of dogs. And from the way Denji says it, it sounds like he would have missed it so badly that he wouldn't be able to do anything to stop it from happening. But who naps for that long?

It's a nonsense problem that makes her ask a stupid question. Yet Denji reacts to that stupid question like he's been slapped, his face contorting in aching pain and a dull sheen overtaking his eyes. Nayuta blinks and lurches to her feet, only for him to shake his head before she can take a step forward.

"Shit," he mutters. "I shouldn't have said that."

Nayuta swallows down the pointless apology that rises up from the bottom of her throat. Her arms feel heavy as she crosses them, and her throat feels like someone's rubbing it with sandpaper when she points out, "You still said it. You can't do that and not tell me what it means."

Denji sighs. His expression has shifted back into something unbothered and casual by now, but his lips still twitch in a weird way that definitely can't be called a smile as he says, "Guess I can't. I mean, you're gonna find out one way or another."

He's looking at her, but he sounds like he's trying to convince himself. Worse, for a moment, it looks like he fails. Denji slumps a little further down the bench, his shoulders curling in on himself, and looks down at his feet.

Nayuta is trying to decide if she should give him a little nudge when he sucks in a deep breath and, without looking up, says, "A lot of stuff happened a little while ago. Aki was hurt bad, and he..." Denji pauses, swallowing heavily. "He was in a coma for a while. That's, uh, that's when someone gets hurt so badly that they fall asleep and can't wake up for a long time."

It's a bad answer that leaves Nayuta with even more questions than she already had. Frustration prickles at her fingertips and makes her tongue tingle with the urge to demand that he tell her what actually happened . But his voice cracks as he gives his vague explanation, and when he finishes, there's an indescribable heaviness in the air that makes her hold back.

"...Oh," she murmurs. And that's all for a little while. Just a little while. Before long, the urge to drive away this heaviness has her asking, "But he sleeps a normal amount now, right?"

Denji gives one of his strained, empty smiles. "More or less."

Okay.

...It's not really okay. Denji's somehow managed to provide a confusing response to a very simple question. He doesn't look like he can handle much more poking or prodding though, and Nayuta doesn't want to risk him deciding to take her back to the room. The threat of getting stuck back in there is what stops her from asking if they can at least get one dog, even though she really wants to.

The best thing to do is probably to change the subject completely. A change of scenery would probably help with that, too, and she supposes she's spent enough time looking at clouds now, so…

Nayuta walks over to Denji and grabs his hand. "Come on," she says, tugging his arm until he stands up. "I wanna go look at the trees."

Denji's expression flickers and settles into something a little more relaxed. "Lead the way," he says.

*

The sun is setting by the time they leave the park. Denji says that he's going to take her out for dinner. Nayuta suspects that it's mostly to keep her away from the rest of the house for a little while longer, but it means getting good food, so she isn't going to complain.

They're halfway to town when a confusing thought flits across her mind. It's boring enough that she doesn't see any harm in asking about it and annoying enough that she's unwilling to let it go unspoken either way.

"Denji?" Nayuta asks, tugging on the teenager's hand and looking up at him.

"Yeah?" Denji asks, looking down at her.

"How did you know that I like dogs?"

Denji jaw goes slack. His eyes shift away from her, first staring off into an unseeable distance, then sliding off to the side. Finally, he shuts his jaw and looks away. "It was a lucky guess," he lies. "I mean, who doesn't like dogs?"

Nayuta opens her mouth. No words come out. Suddenly, it feels like her question isn't so harmless after all. She doesn't know what could have been wrong with it, and it shouldn't have been wrong for her to ask; it makes sense for her to be confused. Denji's only known her for a few days, he shouldn't know these things about her. He shouldn't know these things about her. Unless... Maybe…

A chill runs up Nayuta's spine. She looks away.

They don't talk again until they reach the restaurant.

*

The next day is boring. Nayuta isn't disappointed by it. After all, it's impossible to be disappointed by something you already expected. Denji spends the entire day going in and out of the room, apologizing every time he returns. It doesn't do anything to make it suck any less, but she does decide not to give him any trouble about it.

For now. She can tell that he's trying really hard to keep her from getting bored or upset, but her patience is still starting to wear down, like a cardboard box slowly melting in the rain. Her niceness is slowly melting away with it, and Nayuta isn't a very nice person in the first place. That is why, while she decides not to harass or yell at Denji, she isn't going to stop herself from asking questions anymore.

It just takes a little while for her to work up to it.

Still, she gets there eventually.

Specifically, she gets there when Denji opens the door and steps back into the bedroom for the fifth time that day. She hears the click and jingle of the doorknob as he closes it tightly behind him. Nayuta looks up from the pad of paper she'd been aimlessly drawing on and shoots Denji with the most unimpressed look she can muster. She knows that if she looks at the alarm on the bedside table, she won't be able to tell what it says, but she doesn't have to. The room is bright and warm and the sun outside is starting to sink in the sky, which means that it's late in the afternoon, and this has been happening all day.

Denji's smile grows sheepish. "Sorry," he says for the fifth time that day.

Nayuta doesn't scowl, but she does put her pencil down and look at Denji like he's a weirdo. "What do you do all day?" she demands.

Denji walks over to sit down on the edge of the futon. Nayuta sits up, crosses her legs, and turns around so that she can look at him better. A few beats pass before he awkwardly says, "Well, I'm Chainsaw Man."

Nayuta narrows her eyes. "So you're fighting a devil every time you disappear?" she asks, not even trying to hide her disbelief. It feels like she should be rolling her eyes. Still, she supposes that he could have fought five devils today. But... shouldn't he be more tired if that were the case? And at least a little beaten up? Kishibe talked a whole lot about how Chainsaw Man is just another person, and even if it isn't actually like that, his clothes aren't made of any sort of special fabric from what she knows. Shouldn't they be all ripped up and dirty?

Even though she isn't willing to write the possibility that Denji's been fighting all day off as impossible, it's still vindicating to watch him sigh, shoulders slumping. That is the look of someone who's been caught in something almost like a lie, which means that she was right about it being a silly idea. More importantly, it also means-

"You haven't," Nayuta accuses, pointing at him.

"No," Denji admits.

"Have you fought any devils today?"

"There was one this morning!" he defends himself.

"What kind?" Nayuta asks.

"Weasel devil."

"How long did it take you to kill the weasel devil?"

"...Not very." Denji turns to look out the window. His eyelids lower, and for a moment, it looks like he's going to close his eyes. He catches himself at the last second. His fingers flex against his knees before balling into fists. Finally, he looks back at Nayuta.

"Things haven't been good around here for a while," Denji explains. "They've been getting better, but it's slow, and if I'm away for too long, something could happen and it'll get bad again. And everyone else'll w-" His lips purse into a tight, thin line as he cuts himself off. It takes a moment for him to pull himself together and continue, "We've been doing a lot of talking lately, and I need to be around for it."

Nayuta knows what they're talking about. It's her. It's Makima. It's the dark, unmentionable cloud hanging over the house, keeping Aki from looking at her and Power from letting her pet her cat and making Angel stay away from her entirely. It's the reason Denji keeps her in this room whenever she's not outside or using the bathroom. Nayuta knows , but she still finds herself asking, "Talking about what?"

"Boring stuff," Denji lies. Does he realize how much he's been lying to her? Does he know that he knows, or is he just hoping that she won't call him out on it?

If she's hoping that she won't say anything, she guesses that's smart of him, because when Nayuta opens her mouth, something stalls in her chest, and the words don't come out. She doesn't manage to say anything at all until she redirects and asks, "Are you talking or arguing?"

Denji's lips tug downwards. Before it can get all the way to a frown, he turns his head to look out the window again. "Does it matter?"

Yes. Nayuta doesn't know how to explain exactly why, but it matters. She knows that it matters because of the way it makes her chest hurt, like someone's shoved their hand into her ribcage and is squeezing her heart. It matters because the thought of them arguing over her has her stomach twisting like she ate something so rancid that even rats won't touch it and her throat closing up on her. She doesn't know why she's feeling this way, especially since she knows that she shouldn't be, but she is, and that means that it matters.

The Control Devil shouldn't say something like that. It's small and sad and weak and too likely to cause trouble. She doesn't know how to make this horrible feeling go away, but if she makes things worse, that will make the feeling worse, right? That means she should try to avoid causing problems. Which means that it's her turn to lie.

"I guess not," she says, looking down at her lap.

The air is heavy and tense, the sort of atmosphere that drives her deeper into her feelings. That's the last place she wants to be right now, so after a few moments without Denji saying anything, she looks back up and asks, "What else do you do?"

For a second, Denji brightens. "Well, I'm gonna be-"

The second passes. Denji's tiny, tentative smile disappears, and he slouches down with a sigh. "I was gonna be starting school, but I'm thinking it might be better to let that go," he corrects.

"Oh," Nayuta murmurs.

She doesn't need to ask if it's because of her. She knows. It shouldn't bring the taste of garbage to her mouth, but it does.

No wonder he doesn’t like spending time with her. Having her around is making his life worse.

Stop it, she scolds herself. You're the Control Devil. It doesn't matter.

The words feel more hollow than her stomach on her hungriest day.

Nayuta snaps out of her thoughts when Denji crouches down next to her. He's forcing himself to grin as he asks, "Want me to draw with you? We've got some markers in the kitchen, I could go get 'em."

Nayuta swallows and forces herself not to feel the things that she shouldn't be feeling. "Sure," she says.

Denji doesn't leave her again that day.

Her stomach is still hurting when she falls asleep.

*

She doesn’t sleep for long.

Nayuta wakes up terrified. It's the kind of terror that scrambles your insides and makes it impossible to move. Something is rattling inside her mind, a nightmare too far away to touch and too close to ignore, and it reduces everything to a nonsensical feeling of loneliness and fear. She tries to fight it in the only way she can, by gripping the bedsheets as tightly as she can, breathing fast and low, and reminding herself that nothing is happening.

Slowly, slowly, the fear starts to sting less sharply. First, her racing heart slows down a tiny bit. Then, she finds the strength to unclench her fists. Finally, she starts to notice things about the room around her.

The windows are rattling. It takes her a moment to realize that it's the wind. Her first sensible thought of the night is that a storm must be coming. However, when she sits up and looks, she finds that moonlight is still streaming in through the window. The moon is big and round and there are no clouds to be seen.

She stares at it for a moment before looking at Denji. He's curled up on the pile of blankets on the floor beside her. A beam of silvery light illuminates his face as brightly as it can. His eyes occasionally twitch beneath his eyelids as the trail of drool leaking down his cheek, and the gentle rise and fall of his chest. He looks almost peaceful like this. It's the first time she's ever seen him looking peaceful.

Nayuta isn't going to disturb that peace.

But she can't stay still, either. The thing that woke her up is still inside her, making her skin itch and squeezing at her lungs until she struggles to breathe. It tells her that she needs to get up, to move, or else it will compress her into a tiny little ball.

She knows that won't actually happen, of course. Only a devil could do something like that. She’d be able to smell it if a devil were attacking. She also knows that she shouldn't leave the room. She doesn't have to use the bathroom and isn't actually in trouble. Nothing is really wrong. But if she gets up, she might run into someone, and then there will be problems. Denji will be sad or hurt or upset, maybe all three, and his life will get harder, and there will be nothing that she can do to fix it.

Nayuta should stay right here and try to go back to sleep.

But the next moment, she's standing in front of the door. She doesn't remember standing up or walking across the room. Every second is scorched into her brain when she lays her hand on the doorknob though. She is acutely aware of the sound of the hinges creaking open and her feet softly padding across the carpet. Both are quieter than the wind that slams on the windows and makes the entire house creak, but they sound like thunderclaps in her ears, every tiny noise making her wince anew.

It doesn’t slow her progress. Nayuta may have to step carefully, but she still continues forward, aimlessly wandering for the single purpose of soothing the itch beneath her skin. She makes it almost to the end of the hallway before something catches her ears. At first she thinks it’s just the clattering of the wind and summarily pushes it aside. But it grows louder with the three steps she has to take to reach the end of the hallway. With the final steps, she realizes that what she’s hearing are voices.

Nayuta scuttles over to press her back against the wall. She stands there for a long moment, eyes wide, heart pounding, and fingers curling to scratch harmlessly against the drywall. As she stands frozen, the voices continue on, oblivious to the new observer. Oblivious to her. They’re too far away for her to hear them properly, there’s no way the people speaking can see her. It’s a realization that is followed by a dull bloom of embarrassment. She pushes it aside quickly, reminding herself that at least no one is around to see her act stupid.

The question is if she’s going to keep acting stupid.

Well, not stupid. Nayuta would never do something stupid on purpose. She’s too smart to be doing stupid things at all. But disobedient? Maybe.

Just like Nayuta knew earlier that she should have stayed in bed, she knows now that she should turn around and go back. Wandering around the house would have been risky enough when she thought that everyone was asleep. Now that she knows someone’s up, it’s outright dangerous. Especially since Denji isn’t up to help. Things almost went bad the last time she spoke to one of his people without him. What if things actually go bad this time? Something might happen, something connected to that big, hulking shadow that made Kishibe act odd around her, put bags under Denji’s eyes, and keeps everyone else at of distance. Nayuta doesn’t know exactly what might happen, but she knows that it must be bad to make all of them so scared.

She knows that following the voices is the worst thing she can do right now.

She knows that she should go back to bed and pretend that she never got up in the first place.

Except she can’t. There’s still an ache in her chest and the thought of going back into that room makes her chest hurt even worse. Her shallow breath starts to come a little faster and her eyes sting for no good reason at all. As the whispers reach her ears, a cold sensation begins to wash over her skin, causing a subtle shiver. But it also sparks curiosity in her; might, bright and warm enough to distract from everything else. She knows that if she chases it, she’ll be able to hold onto it for long enough to push the other feelings aside completely, and then everything will be okay.

Besides, what’s the real risk here? Nayuta is the Control Devil. The house is dark and the wind is louder than her, so it should be easy for her to sneak around and listen in for a while. She’ll just listen to the familiar strangers talk until she starts to get tired, then she’ll sneak back into bed, everything will be alright, and no one will need to know that she ever left the room.

Nayuta keeps all this in mind as she peels herself away from the wall and steps out of the hallway. She blinks a few times to adjust to the sight that greets her. Most of her surroundings are still swathed in shadow, but she can see a faint yellow light coming from the direction of the kitchen.

Her first impulse is to walk toward it. She catches herself at the last second; if the lights are on in the kitchen, then it will become ten times easier to see her. Not going into the kitchen means that she won’t be able to see the people talking, but that’s probably alright. The top priority needs to be making sure that she isn’t seen. As long as she can at least hear what they’re saying, her mission will succeed. Of course, that means that she can’t stay too far away, or she won’t be able to make out what they’re saying and this whole thing will have been pointless.

Nayuta negotiates by letting herself get as close as the entrance to the kitchen. There’s a little corner where the foot or so of drywall that forms the archway merges with the wall. That is where Nayuta tucks herself, swathed in shadows and thoroughly hidden from everyone’s gaze.

The good news is that they keep talking like they have no idea she’s here. The bad news is that she doesn’t have any clue what they’re talking about.

“They are fools to expect me to be as calm as you,” someone growls. It’s a girl, which means that it has to be the Blood Devil. Power.

“You think I’m calm?” someone else intones. The voice is too distant and angry to be Aki, so it has to be the Angel Devil. Angel. It isn’t a very creative name, but right now, that’s the least important thing that she could decide to focus on.

“You aren’t angry,” Power protests.

“Power, I’m furious,” Angel snaps. “But what’s the point? Denji’s sold on her, and Aki still feels too guilty to say no to him.”

“Denji’s judgment is suspect,” Power mutters. “He is being manipulated.”

The cold layered over Nayuta’s skin grows worse. It seeps inside her and condenses into a heavy, sinking feeling.

“You think that kid’s able to manipulate him? Even that young?” The earlier fire has fled from Angel’s tone, leaving behind a tired dullness. He sounds uncertain, but also like he wouldn’t be surprised if the mystery child turns out to be a master manipulator.

Mystery child. There is no mystery to be found; there’s only one child in this house. They’re talking about her. They’re talking about-

“I would put nothing past Makima’s reincarnation.”

Nayuta doesn’t know why her legs give out. She tries to keep standing, but all she’s able to do is slow her descent so that she doesn’t make a loud thud when she hits the floor. The house isn’t cold, but she is cold, which is why she hugs her legs to herself and tucks her chin on her knees.

It doesn’t matter what they’re saying. So what if they don’t like or trust her because of whoever she used to be? She doesn’t need them to care about her.

“I know she’s waiting for the chance to try and kill us again,” Power continues.

It doesn’t matter. So what if she said ‘again’? Nayuta didn’t do anything. There’s no reason for her to feel bad. There’s no reason for her to care about any of this. So what if no one but Denji can stand to be around her? Who cares if she’s making his life worse? It doesn’t matter. It’s not like she needs any of them. She is strong, untouchable, and so much better than this, because she is-

“She’s the Control Devil,” Angel says, dark and heavy with hatred. “She’ll do far worse than kill us.”

Nayuta’s heart stops. Except it doesn’t. She can feel it in her chest, pounding faster than ever, but it feels like it’s stopped. Her body is cold and the world is frozen, everything except for those two, who keep on talking.

“We should kill her before he gets the chance,” Power mutters, quiet enough that Nayuta almost doesn’t hear. She wishes that she didn’t.

Angel’s sigh is louder, but his voice is almost impossibly faint when he says, “I don’t want to kill a kid. Denji wouldn’t forgive us, either.”

“Then you are no better than them.”

A snort. “Did you think I was? I don’t think this will end well, but I’m not going to go against them.”

“...Do you think they’ll see sense?”

“Who knows. We can try to-”

And Nayuta can’t hear anymore. She can’t - the words have grown jumbled and unfocused. The feeling from before has returned to destroy her from the inside out, crushing her down until she is completely hollow. And cold. Nayuta is so, so cold. Yet she still manages to remember that she can’t let herself be seen.

Of course she can’t be seen. She isn’t supposed to be here at all.

It’s hard to stand up when she can barely feel her legs. She manages somehow, because she’s- she manages, and staggers back to the room, Power and Angel’s conversation fading into incomprehensible whispers, and then nothing.

Denji is still fast asleep when she crawls back into bed.

Nayuta doesn’t fall back to sleep that night.

*

It takes a long time for Denji to wake up. A lot longer than it usually does. She keeps expecting him to wake up and tell her that it's time for breakfast before the sun rises, like he has ever since Kishibe left her here. But the sun beats Denji this time. It isn't a bright sun this morning; the sky is gray and cloudy, and the wind is still rattling at the windows like it's going to break through the walls and blow them all away. Still, that dull sunlight is enough to make Denji blink in bleary confusion when he finally sits up.

"...Nayuta?" Denji murmurs, slowly turning to look at her. By the time she realizes that she should probably lie down and pretend to be asleep, it's too late. He can already see her sitting up with her back against the wall. She only holds his gaze for a few seconds before looking down at the stuffed rabbit in her hand. It's fluffy like a rabbit and bright pink like no rabbit she's ever seen - not that she's seen many rabbits to begin with. Some of the soft fibers that form its fur have come off on her fingers where she's picking at it.

"Why didn't you wake me up?" Denji asks.

Nayuta shrugs. "You looked like you needed sleep?"

"Since when do you care if I need sleep?" is Denji's response. She cautiously glances up, finds him frowning at her, and looks back down.

Right. It makes sense that he doesn't expect her to care about his well-being. She's the Control Devil, and the Control Devil is something bad. She is the reincarnation of Makima, and because of that, the people in this house only expect her to do bad things. And isn't she, in a way? Everyone's life is worse because she's here. The only one who likes her is Denji.

Or does he? He's better at acting nice, but what if he feels the same way Power, Angel, and Aki do? What if he's just going through the motions because Kishibe told him to? It would make sense; she doesn't want to upset the old man either. She can't blame him for it.

But can he blame him for the rest? How bad must Makima have been, for Power to look at her like she's disgusting and Angel's voice to be laden with hatred and Aki's kindness to find a limit?

Power said that Nayuta was going to try to kill them again.

"Nayuta?" Denji prompts. He's moving to stand now, and Nayuta should pull herself back together before he can get too worked up. She should push all of these heavy thoughts back into her mind with all the other things that don't matter and go about her day like normal. Maybe she could make Denji get her something really good for breakfast. After sleeping in for so long, he probably feels bad enough that she could get him to. Whatever she does, she shouldn't dig deeper into this... whatever this is.

She should just let it go.

Denji crouches down at the edge of her futon. Nayuta looks up to see his lips parted to ask some question, catches the worried glimmer in his eyes, and blurts out, "Who was Makima?"

The worry made Denji's eyes soft. They don't exactly harden now, but they do go darker, and she finds that the effect is close enough. Although he manages to force his voice into the forced-casual lilt of a liar, he can't hide the strain when he says, "She was Control Devil before you. You know that."

"But what else?" Nayuta demands. It's a fight to make sure that she only sounds demanding, but she thinks that she does a decent enough job. At the very least, Denji doesn't look especially suspicious. It allows her to feel a little confident as she continues, "What kind of person was she?"

And that is a mistake. It's not a mistake that Denji can catch onto; Nayuta is sitting perfectly still and making direct, unfaltering contact. Her fingers are still picking mindlessly at her rabbit, but she's been doing that the entire time and it would probably be weirder to stop now. It isn't a mistake in the sense that Denji can't handle it. His eyes slide shut for a moment and he takes in a deep breath, but he opens them again soon enough. The hurt that she sees there isn't enough to make her think that he's going to back away from her question. If anything, it looks like the sort of pain that someone feels because they know that they're going to talk about something they'd rather avoid.

The question is a mistake because it catches and tugs on her insides. There's a fresh lump in her throat, and while her breathing doesn't get any faster, she can feel her heart speed up. Just because she's strong enough to hide the physical signs doesn't mean that it's not happening. It doesn't mean that she'll be able to keep it up forever, for there's a cold, dark feeling creeping in on the edges of her consciousness, a realization that she can feel creeping ever closer even though she isn't willing to acknowledge it just yet.

Nayuta shouldn't have asked that question. There was no point. She already knows the answer.

Makima was bad.

Nayuta wishes that she hadn't asked, but that doesn't matter. Denji doesn't know what's going on in her heart and head. She supposes that she could tell him that she doesn't want to know after all, but that would make him concerned and suspicious. She can't let that happen. All she can do is take advantage of the long, painful moments Denji spends trying to formulate a response. Nayuta prepares herself for an answer that she won't want to hear despite how much she needs to. She prepares for something that will crawl under her skin, wrap itself around the one thing she had to be proud of, and turn it into something bad.

Because these people say that being the Control Devil is bad.

Because Makima was the Control Devil before her, and Makima was-

"Makima was lonely," Denji says.

Nayuta blinks. "What?"

"Public Safety got ahold of her as a little kid. They thought she'd be a powerful weapon, so they treated her like one. She had power and a lot of nice stuff, but she didn't have anyone to hug her, and..." Denji pauses, looking down at his lap. He sucks in a deep breath before looking back up at Nayuta and continuing. "Makima was a really smart, fancy person. Everyone loved her, but most of that was just because of her powers. She relied on them too much, I think, got so caught up in being the Control Devil that she forgot she was a person. It made her look down on everyone, so she couldn't form any real friendships, so she was just... kinda stuck being lonely."

Lonely. A lonely Control Devil who thought that being the Control Devil was the best, most important thing about her.

Nayuta can understand that. She doesn't disagree with that. And that should be fine.

So why does she feel like she's about to choke?

"And she was evil," Nayuta says, because it needs to be said. There's no point in talking about Makima if they aren't going to get to the heart of the matter, the thing that left a big, gray, unstoppable stormcloud hanging over all their heads.

Nayuta might not know what Makima actually did yet, aside from trying to kill everyone, but she's smart enough to read the signs. Everyone wouldn't be acting the way they are if she wasn't evil.

Yet Denji says, "I don't think so. She did a lot of evil stuff, but she was trying to do good. It's just that... She..." His mouth screws up as he tries to find the words for what he's trying to say. Nayuta wants to interrupt and tell him that he must be wrong, but she forces herself not to, afraid that interrupting might make him stop speaking altogether. After a few moments, Denji sighs, shoulders slumping, and continues, "She wanted to make a perfect world. She didn't realize that what she was doing was screwed up, 'cause she couldn't understand what made the world good in the first place."

It's not what Nayuta wants to hear. It's not what she needs to hear. At least it was helpful to know that Makima was kinda like- that she was lonely and thought that being the Control Devil was important. Knowing that Denji doesn't think she's evil is useless. It doesn't matter what sort of excuses he makes for her, because it won't do a thing to change the house that they're living in, the feelings of the people living in it, or the shadow hanging over Nayuta's head.

"But what did she do?" Nayuta presses.

Now Denji's eyes narrow, that suspicion that she's been keeping an eye out flaring to life. There's a wary edge to his voice as he asks, "Why do you want to know?"

Nayuta can't tell if he's worried about her or scared of her.

It doesn't matter. All that matters is that she gets her answers and can finally understand this situation she's found herself in.

"No reason," Nayuta says, shrugging.

"Nope." Denji shakes his head. "I know you aren't asking about this stuff for no reason. If you want me to keep going you've gotta tell me why you wanna know."

Nayuta's hands curl into fists, her knuckles pressing into the soft fluff of her rabbit. "But that's not fair!" she protests.

"How's it any less fair than you asking me to dig up this shit without telling me why?" Denji challenges.

Nayuta purses her lips and glances off to the side. There's a stuffed cat sitting a few feet away from her. A brown tabby. She pulls it into her lap and clings to it tightly, since she needs something to do with her hands and the rabbit isn't cutting it anymore for some reason. "I need to know," she mutters.

"Why?" Denji presses.

"Why do you need to know?" Nayuta snaps, turning to glower at him.

A hint of irritation has worked its way onto Denji's features, but he isn't cowed. "So I can be sure that telling you won't mess you up," he tightly says.

Nayuta deflates. Just a little. She looks down at the cat in her arms and the rabbit sitting in her lap, squeezes the first one a little tighter, and mutters, "I have a right to know why everyone hates me."

Something flashes across Denji's face. It could be guilt. It could be grief. It could be something else entirely. Right then, there's too much of a storm raging in Nayuta's head for her to try to make sense of it either way.

"We don't hate you," Denji says.

"Don't lie." The words come out duller than she wanted them to, so she pours a little more forcefulness into her voice as she continues. "Maybe you don't, but I'm not stupid. I know that no one else here likes me." And it's so, so much stronger than not liking her, but her tongue feels weirdly heavy when she tries to repeat that they hate her, so she settles for that.

The suspicion in Denji's eyes flares brighter before settling into something soft and sad. "What happened?"

"Nothing," Nayuta says, turning her head to look out the window. Now that she looks closer, the clouds are greyer than they would be if it was just normal overcast grey. She's willing to bet that it's going to storm tonight.

"If someone-"

"No one did anything," Nayuta interrupts. "I just want to know why." She pauses for long enough to force the aching thing in her chest to sit still and forces herself to look back at Denji. "It's not like they'll change their minds any time soon, so just tell me."

Denji's shoulders curl in on themselves a bit. He leans back, hands braced against the floor, and looks up at the ceiling as he says, "You don't know that."

"Denji," Nayuta says, so dangerously close to begging that she has to reign herself in, yet still sounds half-choked when she adds, "Please. Even if they don't hate me-" - but they do, they do, they do - "-You all hated Makima. I want to know why."

"I don't hate Makima."

It's said so quietly that Nayuta wonders if she imagined it at first. But no, it's there, ringing in her ears. It's just... she couldn't have heard that right. Denji couldn't have said that. She must have heard wrong.

Nayuta's grip on the stuffed cat tightens. "What?" she asks.

"I don't hate Makima," Denji repeats. "I never did." His eyes slide shut beneath the weight of his confession. "I loved her."

"...What?" Nayuta whispers.

"She was the first person to ever treat me like a person," Denji whispers back. "She made me feel like I had a future and helped my dreams come true. I know it was all so she could get what she wanted, and all she ever saw when she looked at me was Pochita, but it still meant something." He pauses, swallows his eyes, and sits up to look at Nayuta. "She still means something to me."

Nayuta doesn't know what to say. Maybe that's a good thing. There's a new pressure in her chest that feels like it could be less agonizing than everything else that's taken root there, but it's too late to hold a candle to the strength of everything else coursing through her system. It is not worth dwelling on. Denji's personal feelings of ill-advised love are not enough to overshadow everyone else's hatred, nor do they do anything to change the past.

A past that is still unclear to Nayuta.

"You still haven't told me what she did," Nayuta points out.

"I guess I haven't." Denji starts to look back up at the ceiling, but catches himself and turns back to her at the last second. "Are you sure you want to know?"

"I wouldn't be asking if I wasn't," Nayuta says, making sure to be irritated because it's the best option available to her right now.

Denji droops. Exhaustion overtakes his features, his fingernails dig into the skin on his knees as he curls his hands into fists, and he looks for all the world like he wishes that she had said anything else.

But he tells her.

He doesn't tell her everything. Nayuta has no way of knowing what's supposed to go in the gaps of his story, but she knows that they're there. She also knows that she doesn't need to know. The vague, hole-ridden story is more than enough for her to form a picture of the monster that she sprung from.

Denji never calls her that. In between all of the horrible things, he tells her little nice things about Makima, the things that allowed him to see her as a human even though she never was. He might as well have saved his breath. There's absolutely nothing he can say that will make her any less of an evil, wretched, irredeemable thing.

Because he tells her about how Makima only ever saved him because she wanted to take his heart and use it for herself, to get rid of everything she disliked about the world and turn it into one she deemed perfect.

He tells her about how she gave him a family just so that she could take it away. These parts of the story are the vaguest, but Denji tells her that Power used to be a fiend until Makima destroyed her original body while trying to kill her. He tells her that she was the one who turned Aki into the Gun Fiend. He explains that she brainwashed Angel and made him do terrible things.

Denji tells her about a devil who claimed to love the world but never loved anyone in it. And while he does everything that he can to avoid saying it out loud, everything about his story tells her that he was the exception. No one loved Makima for real. That's a good thing. Makima was unlovable, she didn't deserve it.

Nayuta knows that she'll regret it, but as Denji trails off into a heavy silence at the end, Nayuta can't help but ask, "Why did you take me in?"

Denji says, "Because I wanted to give her another chance."

And Nayuta feels the tattered, flimsy walls of her world crashing down around her.

But she is strong. She is- she's strong. She's strong and Denji looks like he's been pushed to the very edge, so she smiles, sits up a little straighter, and ignores the way that she can feel everything inside of her collapse into a gaping hole. "Thank you," she says.

"No prob," Denji says. He smiles, and it's frail and fragile, but it makes him look a little stronger than he did a moment ago. He uses that strength to stand up and stretch his arms out high above him. "I'm hungry," he says. "Wanna go out for breakfast? We can get something nice."

There's a gaping hole where Nayuta's heart should be.

She fills it up with muddy determination and tells herself to be strong for a little while longer. She just needs to hold herself together for a few more hours. Then she can do what she must to make everyone's problems go away.

"Sure," she says.

*

Nayuta gets through the day. It isn't a nice day. Her energy keeps dropping and it gets harder and harder to keep the dark thoughts out of her head as it wears on, but every time Denji starts to get suspicious, she tells him that she's tired and he seems to buy it. He agrees to her request to go back to sleep when they get back from breakfast. From there, all that she has to do is lay in bed.

She doesn't actually sleep at all that day.

She doesn't sleep when she's laying in bed, in bed, trying to keep the heavy thoughts at bay. There will be time to go over them and think about what she's supposed to do with herself in the future. Right now she needs to make sure that she's capable of taking the next step.

She doesn't sleep when Denji comes back to the room for the night. She does have a brief conversation with him. He asks if she's feeling well, brow furrowed and voice heavy. Nayuta says that she doesn't. That is the truth. She's lying when she tells him that her throat hurts, but it gets him to let her go back to "sleep" without poking at her any further. The knowledge that she's doing the right thing keeps her from feeling any guilt.

It's not that she isn't tired. Nayuta's eyes start to sting more and more as the day drags by. By the time Denji's gentle snoring fills the room, they're practically burning. It doesn't matter though. She's gone a lot longer without sleep before. She knows that she'll go a lot longer before she gets another chance to sleep. Maybe it will be the longest that she's ever gone without sleep by the time that happens. That doesn't matter.

All that matters is that Nayuta fixes this mess before something bad can happen.

Nayuta can barely hear Denji snoring when she climbs out of bed. He's drowned out by the sound of pouring rain and raging wind slamming against the window. The ferocious storm clouds blotting out the sky have cast the room into pitch darkness. She has to squint to pick her way across the floor, and even then, it's mostly memory that allows her to make her way to the doorway. The apprehension in her chest keeps her from letting out a sigh of relief once her hand is resting on the doorknob, but she feels a dull prickling that could almost be called victory.

She doesn't allow herself to linger on it. There's still so far to go, and these are only the first few steps. She can't risk getting a big head and messing it up.

Nayuta starts down the hall. She doesn't look back; she can't afford to doubt or second-guess herself.

Her footsteps grow faster as she breaks out of the hallway. She can't afford to hesitate; every moment that she spends inside this house is a moment where she makes somebody's life worse.

Her breath is rapid and shallow and her eyes are stinging like nothing she's ever felt before, but she doesn't let it get any further than that. She can't let herself be scared; it won't help her or do anything to change what she needs to do.

Nayuta makes it all the way up to the front door. She reaches out for the doorknob, and the second she makes contact with cold metal, she realizes that she forgot to grab her shoes from Denji's room.

Her breath catches in her throat. The socks on her feet are warm and thick, but she can hear the way the rain slams against the walls of the house. They'll be soaked to the bone the second that she steps out there. It's going to be cold and wet, and there's no telling how long and far she'll need to wander before she can find anywhere dry to hide, let alone warm, and-

It doesn't matter.

Nayuta may be a stupid little girl, but she's lived on the streets before. This won't be her first time being cold and wet. She can survive it. And if this time is worse, if the streets of Tokyo are worse than the streets of China, if something happens and she doesn't make it…

It doesn't matter.

Because she's the Control Devil.

And the Control Devil is evil.

At least by leaving these people alone, she can do one good thing.

Doing something good doesn't feel like she thought it would. The doorknob is rattling where her hand shakes against it, the burning in her eyes is getting worse by the second, and she keeps switching between breathing too fast and struggling to breathe at all. She clings to the knowledge that she's doing the right thing regardless, forcing driving it deep into her being so that it makes her spine and shoulders stiffen.

Nayuta opens the door.

She's met by a wall of freezing rain. The wind blows the rain in through the door, buffeting her face, blowing her hair back, and stinging against her skin. Without meaning to, she lets go of the door and staggers a step back. A flash of lightning cuts through the sky as she raises a hand to shield her eyes. Second later, thunder rolls through the sky, loud enough to rattle her bones and makes her ears ache. She steps back, but stops herself before her foot can touch the floor.

Nayuta takes a deep breath and forces herself to move forward.

She only makes it two steps before someone calls, "Nayuta?"

Nayuta's blood runs cold. Suddenly, she's paralyzed, except she can't afford to be paralyzed. She needs to run out that door and get as far away from here as she can as fast as possible. Her toes are already wet from the rain pouring in the door, but that shouldn't be enough to stop her. She should go now. She needs to go now. But when she tries to lift her foot, it feels like it's made of lead, only rising one shaky centimeter before landing back on the ground with a thud.

She’s only frozen for a few seconds, but those few seconds are far too long. Footsteps draw closer to her. They're slow for the first few steps - tired or hesitant or maybe scared - but then they're steady and solid. "What are you doing?" someone asks. That low voice could be exasperated or confused or scared or angry or furious and she wouldn't be able to tell. She hears the question, but she doesn't hear it, too caught up in the way her heart is pounding and sharp pinpricks of ice are reaching out of her veins to tear at her insides.

Nayuta needs to go. She needs to go now. She needs to end this before-

Aki's tall form steps in front of her and moves to close the door.

"Wait!" Nayuta cries. She bolts forward, very nearly slipping on the wet floor as she races for her door. Her hand tightly grasps the sodden wood and yanks it with all her might. She flings the door off to the side the second she feels it tear out of Aki's grasp. With freezing rain pouring down on her face and lightning flashing in the distance, Nayuta dives forward.

A hand grabs her shoulder in an iron grip before she can reach the porch.

"What are you doing!?" Aki shouts.

Nayuta doesn't look back as she struggles and flails in an attempt to break free. "Let go!" she screams.

She can barely hear Aki's sputtering over the thunder. He has to shout to be heard. "No! You need to come back inside."

"No, I don't!" Nayuta shrieks. "You don't want me in there!"

Aki's grip on her shoulder tightens. "What?"

She can't explain. There's no time, the words won't come together right in her head, and there's no point in even trying. He knows what he means. He has to know what she means. Those are his people in that house. He has to know how they're feeling. He has to be feeling it too. They'll all be happier with her gone. Everybody wants her gone. Nayuta wants to go.

She feels another scream begin to rise out from her lungs, mouth dropping open. What threatens to tumble out isn't a shriek, but something dangerously close to a command. The memory of a woman- devil- monster she never met stops her in her tracks. Her stomach jerks painfully, and while she thrashes harder, her mouth snaps shut with a strained whimper.

Everyone in this house hates Makima. Nayuta was Makima - she's still like Makima. But she can do this one good thing that Makima never did. She can leave them alone. Everyone will be happier if she disappears. She'll be a little less like Makima if she disappears.

She has to disappear.

"Let me go," Nayuta sobs. Her voice isn't as loud as her heartbeat. The strain in her throat is less uncomfortable than the feeling of her eyes burning, burning, burning with the worst itch that she's ever felt in her life. She knows that the rain isn't the only reason everything looks blurry and distorted, but it doesn't matter, since Aki can't see her face. He probably wouldn't believe that the Control Devil can cry anyway. Monsters don't cry.

So why is Nayuta crying?

Maybe it's just the storm after all.

"Nayuta..."

Aki doesn't let go of her shoulder. His grip slides and adjusts as he carefully maneuvers to stand in front of her. The torrent of rain pouring down on her is blocked as he crouches down in front of her, his hand sliding down to rest on her forearm. Rain soaks his hair in a matter of seconds, plastering it to the barrel of his pistol and the sides of his face. A flash of lightning illuminates his face just enough for her to see the way his lips pull into a frown. He speaks so softly that the following rumble of thunder almost drowns out his voice when he asks, "What's this about."

"Nothing," Nayuta chokes out. Her voice hitches at the end of the word, and she can feel the tears streaming down her cheeks. Now that he's blocking the rain, it won't be long before Aki can see them, too. She needs to make this fast. "Just let me go." A sob wrenches its way free from her throat. "Please."

Aki's hand trembles against her arm. "Not until you tell me why."

Nayuta doesn't want to have this conversation. She doesn't want to talk, doesn't know if she can. But she has to, she has to go, she has to end this, and if telling Aki what he already knows will make that happen, then that's what she needs to know. Her chest is heaving and her breath is rough, but there's nothing that Nayuta can ever do that will make her not be the Control Devil, and even if that means she's an evil thing, it means that she's able to force it down for long enough to speak.

"Everyone wants me gone." Her chest heaves. She forces it to stop.

"It's better if I do." Her breath hitches. She forces it to be even.

"You don't want to live with M-" Her hands start shaking. She fists them into her pajama pants and continues on.

"I-I don't want to make you-" A sob explodes from her chest. She cuts it off early by holding her breath, but that just makes her shake harder. She opens her mouth to offer a solid, undeniable, eloquent explanation that will make Aki get out of her way, and-

"I don't want to be Makima!"

Nayuta's control shatters. Tears pour down her face, sobs pour out of her chest in an unending stream, and her legs give out beneath her.

Aki grabs her before her knees can hit the ground. The next thing she knows, he's holding her against his chest, his human hand tangled in her hair. "I'm sorry," he says.

Nayuta blinks. "W-What?" she whispers, trying and failing to make sense of it.

"You're a child," Aki says. "We should have been kinder to you. I'm sorry."

All thoughts vanish from Nayuta's mind. She wraps her arms around Aki's neck, breathing in the scent of smoke, and sobs. The cold wind howling around her, the cold rain pouring down on both of them, every urgent thought and fear that had been pulsing through her mind just a moment ago, it all disappears for an instant.

Aki hugs her, and for a moment, she feels a little less lonely.

Chapter Text

Aki woke up and wondered if he was in hell.

It didn't happen immediately. He regained consciousness at a slow, agonizing pace that forced him to build himself up to being able to think. His first hint of awareness came in the form of pain, an insistent, bone-deep ache that slowly but surely tugged him out of the warm oblivion that he had been floating in. Next came the heaviness of his limbs. It was a feeling that he would normally associate with tiredness. This time, that heaviness was accompanied by restlessness, a ceaseless urge to act, even if all that he could manage was something inconceivably small.

Aki was no stranger to struggling to wake up. At that moment, with his mind still hazy with sleep, he did not possess the brain power to think back to his many hospital visits. However, the sensation was familiar enough that it did not cause any sense of panic or worry. No, that only came when he began to process what he was looking at.

His first thought, riddled with childlike confusion, was that it wasn't snowing.

As his mind slowly pushed through the pain and drowsiness, he registered that he wasn't in the hospital either. Hospital rooms were neatly sanitized and brightly lit. It could be the middle of the night and there would still be some sort of nightlight to illuminate the room. This place would be pitch black if not for a faint stream of dull light in the edges of his vision. Aki sluggishly tilted his head toward it and saw a sliver of moonlight peaking past the edge of a curtain that was close to being drawn shut.

It wasn't much. He had worked with less before. Aki spent the next several moments staring dully at the window, too tired to try to make sense of what was happening. His tiredness grew worse even as his vision adjusted, threatening to pull him back into the comforting haze of oblivion.

He probably would have given in if he hadn't heard something moving in the corner of the room.

Aki's mind snapped to the closest thing to high alert that it was capable of. The indescribable sluggishness that had taken hold of his body meant that turning his head toward the sound was a slow, sluggish process. Slow, sluggish, and frustrating, for once he was facing the sound, he found that his current angle didn't let him see beyond the foot of his back. His body protested at the mere thought of trying to sit up, but the electric current of alarm pulsing in the back of his mind would allow no other course of action.

As soon as he sat up, he knew that something was wrong. His head was too heavy. One of his arms was too stiff. They were realizations shoved to the back of his mind as soon as they surfaced. The sound that he had heard before, murmurs and soft, shuffling movement, was getting louder now that he was sitting up. If he didn't pull himself together soon-

He didn't know what would happen. He didn't know what was happening. What had happened before this? How did he get here? Where were Denji and Power?

The storm of questions that flared to life in Aki's head sputtered and died almost as soon as it manifested, for as soon as he managed to wrestle himself upright, he spotted the devil sitting at the foot of his bed.

The creature's hulking form took up most of the room. Even in the dim light of the bedroom, it was clear that it was a gruesome thing. A pointed, horn-riddled, skull-like head sat atop a neck that was thick with a wild mane. It was curled up on itself, keeping Aki from getting a clear view of its head and torso. Its hand-like paws were tipped with wicked, scythe-like claws, and the tail curled over them ended in a sharp barb.

He didn’t have any idea where it had come from, what it was doing at the foot of his bed, or how he had even gotten in this bed. There hadn’t been anything like this devil at the beach-

The beach?

A poisonous bolt of alarm surged up his throat. The need to vomit and run merged together into one awful feeling. The devil at the foot of the bed only accounted for a tiny portion of it. Aki doubled forward, unable to hold back a sharp, jagged gasp. He knew better than to take his eyes off the mystery devil, but as the memories came pouring into his head, he couldn’t help it. The threat of that devil was nothing compared to the vision the Future Devil had shown him. It was nothing compared to all that had followed his conversation with Angel. The walk to the beach, Makima, the contract, the Gun Devil, and-

And what?

What had happened then?

He was raking his mind, but all he could remember was snow.

No, not just snow. Snow and blood. Snow and blood and- Taiyo? Denji?

Had he died?

Aki looked back up at the devil, seeing it in a new light. If he had died and woken up to a devil, then… was this hell?

Why would he be in hell?

The back of his mind shook with a half-buried memory. Snow and bullets and laughter and chainsaws; he was in hell because he had-

Aki wrapped his arm around his stomach as he fought the urge to gag. He didn’t get very far. It was far, far heavier than he remembered. Except… Hadn’t he lost that arm?

Dread coiled in the depths of Aki’s gut, but before he could piece together the scattered shards of his mind, let alone force himself to look, a formless murmur made his attention snap back to the devil.

The devil was twitching restlessly in its sleep. As he watched, its shadowed eyes parted slightly, only to snap all the way open when it caught sight of him. It reared up to reveal a neck thick with sinew. The thing's chest was no better, with an exposed ribcage and glistening, dangling organs. Aki ignored the pulsing pain in his chest and forced himself to sit up again as it opened its mouth to reveal razor-sharp teeth, already wondering how he could get out of this. In the back of his mind, he wondered if there was even a point, if he was already dead and damned.

Yet when it spoke, a familiar voice came out, albeit in a faltering, frightened whisper, unlike anything he had ever heard from her. "...Aki?"

"Power?" he asked in a weak croak, voice worn and hoarse from disuse.

"Aki!" The devil - the Blood Devil - scrambled upright. Aki automatically flinched back when she flung herself forward, sending a fresh volley of aches through his torso, only to end up watching in stupefied fascination as her form morphed midair. In the less than a second that it took for her to jump onto the bed, her massive form shrunk and contorted into a familiar humanoid shape. It was undeniably Power who wrapped her arms around him and held him close, breath rapid and shaking.

The movement jostled Aki's heavy arm. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of black. Except... why couldn't he feel his eyes? He couldn't remember opening them when he woke up. Out of desperation, he tried to think, only to find that he couldn't.

"Denji! Get in here!" Power shrieked. It was right next to Aki's ear, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He was too caught up in the sensation of his heart sinking down to the bottom of his stomach. His mind was filled with visions of snow, playing with Denji and Taiyo. But that wasn't right, was it? There had never been a snowball fight. It had never been a game, not to anyone but him. The reality was the bloodshed buried beneath the snow, the sound of bullets ricocheting through the air, Denji's tears streaming down his face as Aki's body finally shut down.

Aki and Angel had gone to the beach. He had made a contract with Makima, the Control Devil. And then... He had…

Aki clutched at Power's sleeve with the only hand that he dared look at. Something kept him from turning his head to look at her fully, a deeply buried but rapidly surfacing understanding that he shouldn't. It would probably scare her because he was... His face…

This had to be hell. He had to be in hell. But if he was in hell, why was she there?

"Power," he choked out, throat tightened by desperation and a sense of grief that he couldn't even begin to describe. "Are we dead?"

Where Aki hadn't been able to look her in the face, Power held no such reservations. She pulled back for an instant, staring him down with a furrowed brow and worried crease of her mouth. A second later, she pulled him closer, arms wrapping around him so tightly that it was almost painful. Aki didn't have the strength to keep himself from falling against her, the side of his head buried in her chest.

"Denji!" Power howled again. "He's awake!"

Denji. Oh god, Denji. Had he...?

"Denji's dead too?" he whispered.

Distantly, Aki heard the sound of glass shattering.

"No!" Power exclaimed. She tilted her head down so that her chin rested on the crown of his head and began rocking from side to side. "Everyone's alive! Denji saved you, I saved him, he defeated the foul Makima, and now all will be well."

The tightness in Aki's chest increased tenfold.

Denji and Power were alive. He hadn't killed them. Makima hadn't killed them. They were, presumably safe.

...And Aki was…

"You're alive," Power murmured. "You're safe. I shan't let anything happen to you."

Rapid footfalls started toward the bedroom. Aki barely heard them above the sound of Power's humming and the sobs tearing free from his chest. A warm hand started carding his hair, awkwardly maneuvering so as to avoid the back of his head.

"You're alive."

Aki wasn't in hell.

He should have been.

*

Aki closes the door and carries Nayuta away. She doesn't resist, wrapping her arms tightly around his shoulders and burying her face in the crook of his neck. The ache pulsating through his chest had nothing to do with the old wounds that had stopped hurting just days after he awoke. Instead, it traveled up his spine, morphing into a frustrating surge that forced him to fight the urge to grit his teeth. The sorrow he felt for the little girl clinging to him was matched by the exasperation that brewed within him, fueled by the realization of how dire he had allowed the situation had become.

Nayuta is a child. A Control Devil, yes, but a child, young and innocent and far more observant than people tend to give them credit for. A child had been dumped in a household full of people who saw her as the ghost of the person she used to be, and instead of anchoring himself in that reality, Aki had let himself get lost in self-pity over what that ghost had done to him.

This was all avoidable. He could have stopped it so easily. If he had been more proactive, if he hadn't been selfish enough to leave the burden of a frightened child on the shoulders of a traumatized teenager, if he had made a routine of checking in on her while Denji was away, if he had just talked to her-

Aki shuts the thoughts off as he enters the bathroom. He knows all too well that dwelling over the past won't do anything to change the present. That won't stop him from pouring over it later, but right now, he needs to focus on Nayuta.

Turning the bathroom light on while holding Nayuta is difficult, but he manages. Despite his lack of eyes, the bright yellow bathroom light blinds him for an instant. Nayuta makes a surprised mewl, but doesn't give any other indication of having noticed it. Aki rubs her back with his hand, trying not to think too heavily about the composition of the "arm" that he's using to support her, before pulling the door shut behind them.

"C'mon," he murmurs, taking care not to look in the mirror as he sets her down.

"What now?" Nayuta murmurs, more defeated than tired. But there is tiredness in her voice, enough that Aki would let her go to bed if she weren't soaking wet.

"We need to get you dried off," Aki says, already scanning the room. The towel hanging on the rod fastened to the wall is visibly sodden - probably Angel's doing. Denji or Power wouldn't have even bothered hanging it up. Aki knows that there are dry towels in the cabinet in the hallway, but as he casts a wary glance at Nayuta's clothes, he recognizes that they won't be enough to dry them off. She needs to be changed completely, but even that won't do anything to warm her up.

It takes a second for him to process Nayuta’s words when she says, "I'm fine staying wet."

Aki shakes his head as he starts toward the bathtub. "You'll catch a cold."

Nayuta sniffs. It sounds like a purely physical reaction, and although she sounds haughtily doubtful, she can't quite quell the tremor in her voice as she says, "Devils can't get sick."

"They can, rarely," Aki counters. He thinks about the cold that Angel came down with a little over a week into their partnership, the way he'd been more concerned with his partner's ability to do his job than his well-being, and has to hold back a grimace for a number of reasons. "I'm not willing to risk it."

He turns the faucet on and holds his fingers out under the running water, periodically adjusting the tap as he tries to get it to the right temperature.

"You're going to dry me off by getting me wetter?" Nayuta asks, dry and dubious.

"This is to warm you up while I get you a change of clothes," Aki corrects. The water settles into a comfortable warmth. He wastes no time in inserting the plug in the bottom. "Do you need help undressing?" he asks, looking toward Nayuta.

Nayuta scowls. It might be a fierce expression if not for her trembling form and the redness of her eyes and nose. "I'm not a baby," she grumbles.

Aki nods. "Take your clothes off and get in the tub," he instructs. "I'll get something warm for you to change into."

He isn't aware of the tension in his shoulders until he feels some of it dissipate when Nayuta gives a small, hesitant nod and starts toward the bathtub. Aki stands up to walk across the room. He's standing by the door, about to grab the handle, when he thinks to look back and ask, "If I leave, will you stay here?"

Nayuta's already stripped out of her shirt when he looks back. She stares at him, mouth opening and closing, before tossing her shirt at him. He catches it reflexively.

"I won't run away without my shirt," she mutters.

Aki nods. Despite the reassurance, he lingers for a moment longer before dragging himself out of the bathroom.

He briefly considers entering Denji's room to get clothes for Nayuta, but dismisses it almost immediately. It's inevitable that he'll need to explain this whole mess to Denji and create some sort of plan going forward, but it will have to wait until Nayuta's settled down. Right now, time is of the essence, and there'll be no getting Denji off his back if he finds him rifling through the dresser in the middle of the night.

The layout of his bedroom is familiar by this point. Aki doesn't bother turning the light when he opens the door. He leaves it open as he strides over to the dresser, sliding the second drawer open as quietly as he can. As he rifles through his shirts, trying to find one that could possibly double as a dress for Nayuta, he congratulates himself on keeping the noise level to a minimum. But just as he starts to feel accomplished, there's a click of a lamp, and the room floods with a gentle yellow light.

"Aki?" Angel's drowsy voice calls. "What're you doing? ...Why are you wet?"

If Aki still had eyes, he would close them. As it is, his shoulders tense as he takes a deep breath and tilts his head up toward the ceiling. A moment later, he exhales, forces his shoulder to relax, and turns around to face the bed.

Angel's hair is a tangled red mass framing his head, a few errant stands coming close to reaching his halo. His eyes are only half open, yet he still manages to convey a look of intense suspicion as he peers at Aki. He's sitting up as much as he can with one of Power's arms still stubbornly wrapped around his waist. Her head is flopped down in his lap, the tips of her horns digging into his shirt. She remains fast asleep if the gentle snoring filling the room is anything to go by.

Aki keeps his voice low to make sure she stays that way as he assures Angel, "It's nothing that you need to worry about. Go back to sleep."

Technically speaking, it isn't a blatant lie. Angel wouldn't be worried if he knew that Nayuta is in distress.

Angel purses his lips. "Funny. I'm seeing something really worrying right now."

Aki shakes his head. "Don't. It's raining, that's all."

Angel's eyes widen. "What were you doing outside?" he hisses.

Aki runs his hand through his hair. When he goes a little too far back and bumps against the hard metal of a pistol's handle, he pulls it back abruptly, stuffing his hand back in his pocket. Angel's gaze doesn't stray from him for even a moment as he does this. If anything, the shadow of concern lingering over his features grows more intense.

His first impulse is to say that it's nothing important, but he knows that he's going to need to talk to everyone about Nayuta, at which point it would be revealed as a blatant lie. However, telling him about Nayuta's attempt to run away right now isn't an option. Angel is no saint. He won't be happy about him being around her, let alone caring for her. The thought of leaving Nayuta alone for as long as it will take for Aki to work him down makes his stomach twist.

In the end, there's only one option.

"I'll tell you in the morning," he promises him. "For now, trust me when I say that I'm okay."

Angel does a poor job of hiding his worry as he stares Aki down. It mingles with uncertainty and fights a stressful battle across his features, leaving a bitter taste in Aki's mouth as he actively avoids thinking about what he might have done to provoke such scrutiny from Angel. He's unable to push back the fear that the events of the past several weeks - the past months - have completely killed his faith in him.

It makes his relief that much stronger when Angel lays back down with a heavy sigh. "Change your clothes before coming back to bed," he mutters before flicking the light back off.

Aki doesn't tell him that he won't be coming back to bed. He does change his shirt, Angel's comment making him aware of the frigid water against his skin. That done, he takes one of his largest shirts out of the dresser and slinks out of the room without bothering to close the drawer, shutting the door behind him as quietly as he can.

He doesn't hear the faucet running when he reaches the bathroom. His stomach tightens in alarm as he awkwardly shifts the shirt to drape over the thing that isn't an arm and fumbles with the doorknob. A thick wall of damp warmth hits him when he opens the door, chasing away some of the chill clinging to his skin, but doing nothing about the churning of his insides. That doesn't come until he spots Nayuta.

Aki has to hold back a sigh of relief. The tiny Control Devil is sitting in the bathtub, slouched down so that everything beneath her nose is submerged in the water. She sits up when Aki closes the door. "I turned the water off," she says, bold and challenging in a way that might have been convincing if she hadn't been sobbing less than an hour ago.

"Good thinking," Aki says. "It would've made a mess if it flooded."

Uncertainty flashes across Nayuta's face for about three seconds before she manages to push it down. Aki opts to pretend that he didn't see it, laying his shirt out on the counter. It has long sleeves and tends to be a little large on him when he wears it. Based on that, it should be about the right size to cover Nayuta and keep her warm without slipping off, but he can't claim to be an expert on this stuff. If it isn't... He'll cross that bridge when he gets to it.

"Take as much time as you need," Aki says, flipping the toilet lid closed and sitting down on it. "I can-"

"I'm ready to get out now," Nayuta says.

"...If you're sure." With that, Aki stands back up within ten seconds of sitting down. He crosses the bathroom to grab the towel off the rack. "Can you dry yourself off?" he asks, looking over his shoulder at Nayuta.

Nayuta scowls. "What kind of question is that?" she demands.

The amount of effort that it takes to avoid feeling embarrassed is embarrassing in and of itself. Aki redirects it toward a more appropriate emotion; irritation. He only allows himself a little bit of it, since he is dealing with a child, but it's enough to have him pointedly saying, "I'm trying to be considerate."

Nayuta snorts like that's the stupidest thing she's ever heard, which, if nothing else, is better than hysterical sobbing. "Have you ever been around a child in your life?" she asks, lips curling up into the beginnings of a laughing smirk.

"Of course," Aki says. He spent plenty of time around children back when he was a child, back before... "I live with Denji and Power. That's close enough."

Nayuta's smile falls. Aki's mentally scrambling to figure out where he misstepped, if she's truly feeling that wretched about the other residents of the household, while Nayuta leans over the edge of the bathtub and holds her hand out. "Gimme the towel," she murmurs.

Aki hands her the towel. While she stands up and wraps it around herself, he walks back to the counter, grabbing it from where it's sitting by the sink. "I didn't want to wake Denji up, so I got one of my shirts for you to wear. Is that alright?"

"Sure."

Aki turns around to give Nayuta the shirt. She grabs it, only to hesitate, hold it up to her face, sniff, and wrinkle her nose.

"What's wrong?" Aki asks, trying his damndest to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach, telling him that he already knows what the problem is.

The attempted ignorance does him no favors, because Nayuta frowns up at him and says, "It stinks."

"Sorry," Aki sighs. "I'm a smoker. All of my clothes probably smell like that."

Nayuta makes a face like she isn't entirely convinced. Aki finds himself scrambling to remember the last time he took a shower and has to resist the urge to sniff under the collar of his shirt.

It's a moot point in the end. Nayuta drops the towel and pulls the shirt on without another word of protest. The sleeves of the shirt come down to the tips of her fingers and the bottom ends just past her knees. It's definitely loose on her, but it doesn't look like it's about to slip off, which is good enough for now.

"Is it warm enough?" Aki asks.

Nayuta nods, her gaze dropping back down to the floor.

"Alright," Aki says for the sake of saying something to buy him a few seconds as he figures out what to do next. It's late enough that Nayuta should be asleep, but one look at the girl tells him that isn't going to happen quite yet.

The problem isn't that she doesn't look tired. Dark rings sit heavily under her eyes, and if he looks closely, he's pretty sure that he can see her wobble where she stands. The problem is that her eyes themselves, despite the brave face that she is trying so hard to put on, are caught somewhere between frantic terror and dull misery. It's a look that he's seen too many times; on Power after the Darkness Devil, on Angel at the beach, in the mirror back when his face could convey emotions like that. He can make her lay down and close her eyes, but unless he calms her down some more first, there's no way that she'll actually sleep.

"...Do you like tea?" he ends up asking.

Nayuta looks back up at him. "I've never had it."

Aki forces a small smile. Nayuta's expression shifts subtly, but not clearly enough for him to tell if it's a good or bad thing. He settles for not trying to read into it at all. "Come with me," he says.

He waits long enough to see Nayuta nod before heading into the kitchen.

She doesn't need to be told to take a seat at the table. It's somewhat heartening to see. There's still a long distance between that and her actually being comfortable in the house, but it gives him hope that she isn't damaged beyond repair

The surreality of the situation strikes Aki as he turns the stove on and prepares the kettle. He hasn't done anything like this since-

It's been a while since he's done something like this.

Or maybe it only feels like it's been a long time. A handful of weeks weren't enough for him to forget what to do. Aki finds that as long as he pretends that he only has three limbs, he's able to go through most of the process relying on muscle memory. He only has to stop and think when it's time to choose which tea to make, and even that hardly takes any effort. Caffeine is the last thing that Nayuta needs right now, which rules out roughly half of his options. Peppermint and chamomile are probably the most soothing blends of the remaining choices.

It isn't much of a decision. Aki's always made a better peppermint, and Nayuta's already feeling bad enough without him feeding her subpar tea.

He allows his mind to drift off as he prepares the tea. Perhaps it is irresponsible of him, considering how much there is to think about right now, but he can't help it. These moments, fraught as they may be, might be the last seconds of true peace that he's able to grab in the next several days. He's going to be selfish and savor them before he has to deal with the changes that need to be made.

A cynical, biting voice reminds him that it will be his first time actually dealing with anything in a long while. He chases it off before it can summon any feelings he doesn't have time to deal with right now.

His moment of respite comes to an end after a few scant minutes. A dollop of honey dropped into a cup of peppermint tea is his signal to come back to reality. Carefully, Aki carries it over to the table and sets it down in front of Nayuta.

"It's hot," he warns her. "You'll want to give it a few minutes to cool off."

Nayuta frowns up at him. "Aren't you going to have any?"

"I'm not very thirsty," Aki says.

Nayuta's frown deepens.

Aki fights back a sigh and walks back over to the counter. He doesn't bother adding any honey to his tea, nor does he fill it more than halfway. It's still enough to earn a small, contented nod from Nayuta when he returns to the table and sits down across from her.

"The only reason people don't eat their own cooking is because it's bad," she says.

Aki opens his mouth to say he just has no appetite. He doesn't know why the words die in his throat. It feels almost like self-consciousness, even though he doesn't know why he would feel that way. This isn't the time to examine it, either. His attention drifts back down to his cup as silence seeps into the room. When the steam wafting from the top starts to diminish, he lifts the cup to his lips and forces himself to take a sip.

He barely registers the flavor. He does, however, take note of Nayuta mirroring his actions.

"It's not bad," she murmurs around her cup.

"I'm glad," he says, setting his cup on the table. "Maybe next time you'll actually like it."

Nayuta hums. She moves to set her own cup down, but stops just short of putting it on the table, wrapping her hands around the sides and pulling it up to her chest.

"Do you want to talk about what happened?" Aki asks.

Nayuta looks down at her lap. She lifts her cup to her lips and takes another sip. When she pulls it back, she murmurs, "No."

"Is there anything that you do want to talk about?"

"No."

Aki nods. He won't deny that there's a bit of frustration in knowing that he won't be making any more progress tonight, but it's not worth pushing her. Besides, he doesn't even know what he's making progress toward, just that things need to get better. Nayuta deserves to live in a home where she's comfortable. He needs... he needs to be better than this.

A heavy feeling in his chest tells him that neither of those things will be happening tonight. Maybe they don't need to. He doesn't know exactly what to do yet, so maybe it's for the best that he just leaves it be. At the very least, he doesn't need her to spell out what drove her to try and run away. Aki can figure that would perfectly well all on his own.

They sit in the quiet of the kitchen for what feels like a long time, Nayuta slowly drinking her tea and Aki occasionally sipping from his cup to encourage her. Eventually, her already heavy eyes begin to droop lower and lower.

"Are you ready to go back to bed?" Aki asks.

Nayuta jerks upright and shakes her head sharply. A tiny bit of tea sloshes over the edge of her cup. "No!" she exclaims. "I don't-" she falters, bites her lower lip, and looks off to the side. "I don't want to wake Denji up."

"Alright," Aki slowly says. "Could you sleep on the couch?"

Nayuta looks at him, lips parted slightly. Her hands are trembling as she sets her cup down. "Alone?"

Aki's heart twists painfully. You let this happen, a cold voice whispers.

"I'll stay with you," he promises.

Nayuta nods.

Aki doesn't bother collecting the teacups as he stands up and walks away from the table. The squeaking of a chair and sound of gentle footfalls inform him of Nayuta following him. He keeps his ears peeled for them as he makes his way into the living room, flicks the light on, and pauses to survey the room. It's with relief that he spots a blanket piled up at the edge of the couch.

"Hold on," he informs Nayuta, glancing over at her. She stands at the edge of the room, watching him with a mix of hesitancy and exhaustion. He can feel her eyes boring into him as he gathers up the blanket and a couple of throw pillows. It doesn't take him long to arrange them in a makeshift bed. However, when he turns around and gestures for her to get in, anxiety flashes across her face, promptly buried beneath forced belligerence.

"You said you'd stay," she points out.

"Right," Aki sighs.

He awkwardly settles himself down on the edge of the couch. He planned to sit in the chair, but if Nayuta's this on edge, he doubts that she'll accept that sort of distance.

It's still a surprise when Nayuta completely ignores the pillows he set up. She pulls the edge of the blanket up, but curls up beside Aki. He stiffens at the sensation of her small form pressing up against him. When she doesn't show any signs of pulling away, he carefully wraps his arm around her shoulders, taking a moment to be thankful that she's on his more human side.

Nayuta leans into him with a heavy sigh. "You really stink," she murmurs.

"Sorry," Aki whispers.

Nayuta lets out a wordless sound of acknowledgment. He watches as her eyes flutter shut. A few moments later, she's gone completely limp. She starts snoring soon after that.

Aki looks at the light switch starting at him mockingly from across the room. The heavy weight of the tiny devil leaning against him tells him that turning it off is a lost cause.

He tilts his head back against the couch with a quiet sigh. Neither his mind nor body are tired; a consequence of having spent so much of his time asleep lately, he supposes. In this case, it's probably for the better anyway. There's too much that he needs to figure out before the others wake up.

Aki does not sleep that night. He sits on the couch and thinks about his family. And Nayuta. What Nayuta needs from his family. What needs to happen before they can provide it. He thinks about what he can do to make that happen... and what he needs to change before he can do that.

Aki does not allow himself to get lost in the onset of shame. He does not think about how he has allowed himself to get so lost in self-hatred, self-pity, that he's failed his family almost as thoroughly as the girl clinging to his chest. If he does that, he'll sink back into the same dark place that he's been doing a slow, miserable job of climbing out of ever since he woke up, and he cannot do that right now. Every time one of those thoughts threatens to arise, he focuses instead on one of the many things that he needs to do - and god, there's so much that needs to be done.

Somewhere in the back of his mind lingers his awareness of the passage of time. Nayuta slumps further and further across his chest as the night wears on, eventually collapsing onto his lap. He tenses at the sight, waiting to see if she stirs, but Nayuta remains peacefully asleep. The clock mounted over the television reads 4:58 at that point.

It's 6:27 when the first pale rays of morning light trickle in through the window.

At a little past seven in the morning, a loud curse erupts from Denji's room. Aki steels himself, only for the anticipation coursing through his body to shift into something more akin to annoyance when the sound of a slamming door reverberates through the house. Loud, thundering footsteps start down the hall, and Aki looks down at Nayuta, frowning when she shifts uneasily in his lap.

"Nayuta!" Denji hollers. "Where are ya? Nayuta!?"

Aki opens his mouth, closes it, and bites back a curse before hissing as quietly as he can while still having his voice carry, "Denji! Shut up!"

Denji barrels into the living room, only to freeze in the doorway, staring at Aki in Nayuta in pure, stupefied shock. He opens and closes his mouth a few times before eventually forming the words, ‘What the hell?’

Aki sighs and looks down at Nayuta, weighing his options. He doesn't know if moving will wake her, but she'll definitely wake up if he has his conversation with Denji right here and now. Putting it off isn't an option. Not after the events of the night, not when there's a chance that the situation will get worse before it gets better.

In the end, he opts to carefully shift Nayuta over onto the couch. It's a slow, painstaking process that sees his breath catching in his throat when she turns and mutters something indistinguishable. He doesn't dare let out a sigh of relief when her breathing evens out again after a few minutes. Aki walks across the living room as quietly as he can manage, grabbing Denji's forearm with his human hand and pulling him into the kitchen with him.

"Seriously, what the fuck?" Denji hisses as they pass through the hallway. "I thought you didn't want anything to do with her."

"The situation's changed," Aki murmurs. As he says it, it occurs to him that it would be more accurate to say that the situation has spiraled. It spiraled because he didn't want anything to do with Nayuta, and instead of acting like an adult and pushing through his discomfort, he gave into his own selfish impulses and left Denji to face an impossible problem.

Aki lets go of Denji's arm when they cross the threshold into the kitchen. "Are Angel and Power awake?" he asks.

Denji shakes his head. "Probably not. Your room was quiet earlier, and those two can sleep through anything."

"Alright," Aki murmurs. "Wake them up and..." he pauses, glancing toward the living room. He doesn't want Nayuta to wake up alone, but between how late they stayed up and how exhausted she seemed last night, she should be down for a while as long as they don't make too much noise. "...Meet me on the back porch," he finishes, looking back at Denji.

Denji keeps looking toward the living room. He's frowning when he looks back at Aki. "I could put Nayuta in my room if you're worried about waking her up," he offers.

Aki holds back a bitter scoff. "You mean the room she's been stuck in since Kishibe dropped her off?" He shakes his head. "Don't put her back in there today."

"Uh..." Denji casts another glance toward the living room before looking back at Aki, brow furrowed. "I'm not saying no. It'd probably be good for her. But what about...?"

"They can deal with it," Aki bitterly says. Unfortunately, this visibly worsens Denji’s confusion.

Aki lets out a sigh and allows his shoulders to slump. "I'll explain everything," he promises. "Just get Angel and Power first."

"If you say so," Denji says with uncertainty. He hesitates for a moment before heading off toward Aki's room.

Aki allows himself a moment to wonder what the fuck he's doing before walking onto the back porch. The sky overhead is gray and moisture clings to every surface, but the storm is passed, and all of them can handle getting a little wet. He leaves their handful of mismatched chairs open, leaning against the railing while he waits.

After a few minutes, Denji walks back out, a visibly tired Power and Angel trailing behind him. The sight of them reminds Aki that all four of them are still in their pajamas; a thought that he quickly dismisses as utterly unimportant.

Denji lingers by the door, staring at Aki with unabashed anxiety. Meanwhile, Power only casts him a brief glance before flopping into one of the chairs with a dramatic groan, heedless of the droplets clinging to it. Her eyelids start to droop down, only reluctantly pulling back open when Denji reaches over to flick the back of her head.

Angel is another matter entirely. His bedhead is even worse than it had been in the middle of the night, but a keen alertness makes its way sparks in his eyes as he stares at Aki. "You stayed up all night," he accuses.

"There was a situation," Aki says by way of explanation.

"A situation involving Nayuta?" Denji asks.

"Nayuta?" Angel incredulously parrots.

All eyes are on him now. Everyone looks worried, but the exact nature of that worry varies wildly between Denji, Angel, and Power. Aki doesn't allow himself to wonder how their expressions will shift once he tells them what happened. It will only make it harder to speak, and this is something that he cannot afford to put off.

Aki steels himself and says, "Nayuta tried to run away."

He means to say more than that. Sitting with Nayuta, sleep, rest, and relaxation so far from his mind as to be impossible, he had planned out everything that he was going to say. Aki would tell them exactly why she had tried to run away, how they had pushed her to it, where they had failed, and what they needed to do better. He wouldn't let any of them get a word in until he was done.

That plan dies as soon as the first sentence leaves his mouth. He is firmer than he's been in some time, but where he spent the past several weeks floating along blind to how he sounds, today he is acutely aware of the difference between now and if he had said the same thing a few months ago. His voice is soft in a way that has nothing to do with kindness or concern. The words themselves come with the slowness of someone who has fallen out of the habit of speaking. It is the sound of a weak, broken individual trying to be strong, the sort of voice that leaves plenty of room for interruption.

And interrupt they do. All at the same time.

Denji slumps across the side of the house and slaps his hands over his face. "Fuck!" he exclaims.

"And you stopped her!?" Power cries, dismayed.

"I don't see how that's your problem," Angel mutters.

Aki allows himself to balk for half of his second. "Yes, I stopped the child from running away into a thunderstorm!" he exclaims, voice raising to something a little louder, a little firmer, a little more alive. Aki cannot bring himself to find any satisfaction in it. Instead, he finds himself hoping that Power and Angel can sense his shame and disbelief as he looks between them.

"You shouldn't have," Power grumbles. She lifts her head to look at Aki with a heat that forces him to fight to keep from looking away; a fact that generates a fresh burst of shame when he catches it. "We would all be better off without that monster under our roof."

"We're making an innocent child feel unwanted."

"What is innocent about the Control Devil!?" Power explodes, scrambling out of her chair and up to her feet. "Have you- You can't have forgotten what she did to us! You are still..."

Power cuts herself off as the breath catches in Aki's chest. Her eyes shift toward Angel, but she does not look away outright. However, when she looks back at Aki, her expression is marginally softer, possibly even apologetic. "I am trying to protect us," she murmurs.

Something about the way she says it - or maybe the other thing she said - reminds Aki of how tired he really is. He wants to go back to his room, draw the curtains shut, smoke until he falls asleep, and try to forget about all of the things that have turned him into something he doesn't want to be. He wants to go to sleep and wake up as himself again. A glance at Denji, face still buried in his hands as he agonizes over the terrified little girl in the living room, reminds him that this isn't something he can run away from.

He's spent too long blocking the world out as it is.

Aki is unable to keep the exhaustion from his voice, but he does at least find the energy to say, "You don't need to protect us from her. Nayuta is a child, Power. She's the vulnerable one here, not us."

"So?" Angel cuts in. "I still don't see what that has to do with me - or you. Chainsaw brought her here. She's his problem to deal with."

Aki doesn't do anything to hide his disappointment as he looks toward Angel. Despite the thing taking up half of his face, he suspected that it get across, for the devil shuffles his wings awkwardly before looking away.

"She's a kid, Angel," Aki repeats.

"You've already said that," Angel mutters.

Denji drops his hands to his side. "Is she alright?" he asks.

"Of course, she isn't alright," Aki bites out. "It took over two hours for her to fall asleep and she was too worried about waking you up to go back to bed."

"Fuck," Denji breathes. "Fuck!" he turns around to slam his fist against the side of the house. He lets it linger there after it comes slamming down, leaning heavily against the cheap white paneling.

"Careful!" Aki snaps. "You won't be helping anything if you wake her up."

Denji's shoulders rise as he draws in a deep breath. They drop back down as he turns around to face Aki. "Alright," he says, words ringing hollowly with exhaustion and frustration. "What should I do then?"

Why are you asking me? Aki thinks on impulse. He swallows the words down before they can surface. It feels like the entire speech he'd planned is shattering into a thousand tiny pieces now that it's actually time to voice it, but he can't let himself give up so easily. Not this time. Besides, Denji should be asking him. He probably would have already come to him to ask for help with Nayuta if this had happened back before... if it had happened before.

If Aki hadn't been so damn pathetic, he would have already come to him in spite of everything.

He decides to start simple. "We can't keep her in your room all the time anymore."

Power lets out an affronted sound. "But-"

"-No," Aki interrupts, rounding on her with more heat than he intended, but a one that the situation may necessitate nonetheless. "You and Angel are both grown devils. If you don't want to be around Nayuta, it's up to you to avoid her. Keeping her in that room constantly is inhumane."

"What else was I supposed to do!?" Denji exclaims, drawing his attention back to him. He's pacing back and forth across the porch now, running one hand through his hair in frustration. "I know it's shitty of me, but none of you wanted anything to do with her, and you said-"

"I know. I'm sorry."

Denji's head snaps toward Aki, amber eyes wide. "What?"

Aki only manages to hold his gaze for a moment before looking off to the side. "Expecting you to take care of this on your own was unfair to you both. I should have offered to help from the start. I'm sorry."

"...Are you saying that you're gonna help with her now?" Denji tentatively asks.

Aki has to force himself to look at Denji. "Yes."

"But why?" Power demands. "Why would you help him care for the Control Devil?"

Aki wishes that he still had eyes, if only so hecould close them and escape this scene for a moment. As it is, the closest that he can get is taking another deep breath. Before turning to face Power, he looks at Angel, only to find that he still isn't looking at him.

Fine. If it's going to be that way.

"Because she isn't Makima," Aki says. "What I saw last night..." He almost tells them what happens. He almost tells them about Nayuta's tears, her desperation not to hurt anyone, the all-consuming terror that she had expressed at the notion of being like her predecessor. Something stops him in the knick of time, an unwavering feeling that those tears aren't his to share, not with people who won't understand. "Makima never would have said or done what she did," he says inside. "She's an innocent child who we've been punishing for something we can't control."

Power opens her mouth, closes it, bites her lower lip, and looks down at her feet.

"...That's nice," Angel says, finally looking back at Aki. "She's still the Control Devil. What if getting close to her gets you hurt again?"

It's impossible to make eye contact with someone without eyes. Yet as Angel stares him down with blazing crimson eyes, it feels like he's found a way around that.

Aki wants to say that he won't be, that from even what little he's seen of Nayuta, he knows that she wouldn't, but one look at his partner tells him that it won't be enough for him. So he says the only thing that he can. "She's a young, inexperienced Control Devil. If anything happens, I think it's safe to say that I can handle myself."

Angel frowns, uncertainty glimmering across his face. No, not just uncertainty - worry.

"Makima wasn't just dangerous because she was the Control Devil," Aki points out. "She did what she did because of who she was as a person. Nayuta isn't like that yet. She isn't as dangerous."

"Yet," Denji mutters. Aki frowns at him, only to find him leveling Power and Angel with a hard, tired stare. "Y'know Nayuta knows you don't like her, right?" He pauses, glancing at Aki before looking back at the other two, who are both staring him down uncertainly. "Makima ended up the way she did 'cause she was only ever treated like a tool. Nayuta could be a completely different person if she had people who actually cared about her. But treating her like shit's just gonna end up with her ending up all fucked up again."

Angel looks down at his feet. Meanwhile, Power frowns, then opens her mouth, about to argue. Aki cuts her off before she can get a word out.

"Denji's right," he says. "All we're doing is digging our own graves."

"So we're supposed to just forget about everything?" Angel bitterly asks, looking back up.

"...No. I'm asking you to tolerate her, and give her a chance to prove that she isn't Makima."

"And if she is?" Power challenges.

"Then we'll cross that bridge when we get there. But you can't make that judgment when she's always locked in Denji's room."

"...Fine," Angel sourly mutters, looking away again. "Do what you want. But don't expect us to get anywhere close to her."

Power makes a sound of bitter agreement.

The statement tears through Aki's insides like a bullet through tissue paper. They're not what he wants to hear. They're not what he needs to hear. But they're all that he's going to get right now, so he pushes down the heartache and forces himself to focus on the next step in front of him. Then the one after that, and the one after that, for however long is necessary to keep himself functional.

"You should go sit with Nayuta," he tells Denji. "I don't want her to wake up alone."

Denji blinks. "Alright," he says. "What about you?"

Aki resists the urge to sigh. "I..."

Don't know.

Want to go back to bed.

Need to do better.

"...Need to take a shower."

Chapter Text

Aki doesn't spend long in the shower. The steam is warm and the water would be calming at another time, but he can't get past the feeling of moisture seeping inside the parts of him that shouldn't exist. It's not painful, but there is a wrongness to the sensation, an unignorable reminder that he has become something other and the matter of his existence is one that will never be set right. So he washes his hair, scrubs himself off, and dries himself off within five minutes.

It's fine. It's good. It's healthy. Time isn't something that he can afford to waste right now. The sooner he's back out and working, the better. Ideally, he'll have everything sorted out by the time Nayuta wakes up.

It's an optimistic thought that disappears almost as soon as it manifests. He would like to be able to move that quickly, but considering the size of the task ahead of him, the odds of it actually happening are less than zero. That doesn't mean that he should dawdle. This urge to get as much done as quickly as possible has him wondering if he should skip brushing his teeth; the self-conscious prickle up his spine as he tries to remember when he last did so and the memory of Nayuta saying you really stink has him reluctantly approaching the vanity.

Aki looks at himself in the mirror for about three seconds. Those three seconds are the unfortunate result of his not thinking to look down quickly enough. Even warped and obscured by steam, the image in the mirror churns his stomach and makes him clench his jaw. It starts to ache from the pressure as he blindly reaches forward to slide the mirrored cabinet open, only looking up once the reflection is pointed firmly away from him. He grabs his toothbrush - hardly used since purchase - and the communal tube of toothpaste and turns his attention back down to the sink before closing the cabinet again.

Brushing his teeth is fast and easy in a way that makes the shame return. He shoves it into the back of his mind, where it cannot impede him as he attempts to function. And what does it say about him, that a series of once-routine tasks can only be performed as attempts? It brings on a wave of disgust. That, too, is locked away to where it cannot reach him, at least for now.

There is a time and place for those sorts of thoughts and feelings, now that he cannot lock them away completely. In his room, in the dark, far away from everyone else - or as close to that as the others will let him get. Today, that is a space that he will not allow himself to occupy until nightfall, once everyone else has already retreated to their beds. Today, and probably tomorrow, and the day after that, and…

Anxiety. Dread. Both are shoved aside, not ignored, but delayed.

He used to worry about Denji's tendency to push through disaster after disaster without stopping to feel or fight with the feelings that he knew must be festering within him. Now, he thinks that everyone would be better off if he were a little more like Denji.

Aki rinses his mouth and puts the toothpaste and the toothbrush away without looking in the mirror. He hears two low, bickering voices drift down from the kitchen as he pads through the hallway; Angel and Power. The exhaustion threatening to rise up within him prevents him from even trying to make out what they're saying. He has an entire day to get through. He can't let himself get worn down now.

Even now, getting dressed is more or less an automatic process. He faintly registers the smell of cigarettes clinging to his clothes and distantly notes that the smell definitely won't be faint to anyone who isn't used to it. It adds another task to his list, but one that will have to wait a little longer. Washing all of his clothes thoroughly enough to purge them of the smell of smoke is a process that will take hours, and those are hours that he can't afford to spend until the current situation is a little more stable.

So maybe it will be more than a 'little while' until he can purify his wardrobe. Still, he can't help but feel vaguely, pathetically, like he's accomplished something just by deciding that he's going to do it.

Once he's dressed, he takes a step back to survey his room. He takes in the clutter, the smell of stale smoke hanging in the air, and, most damningly, the fact that he can barely see anything. The blackout curtains allow enough light to avoid tripping over anything when he walks through it, but that's as far as it goes. He knows that he could just flick on the light by the bedside table, or perhaps even the overhead light, but... that would go against the point of doing this, wouldn't it?

Fighting back the unease curdling in his stomach, Aki walks across the room, leans across his bed, and tugs the curtains open. The sky had cleared up since he came inside. Instead of being greeted by a dull overcast morning, warm sunlight comes streaming into the room, making it clear how much of a mess it really is as it is subjected to the damning light of day.

Angel was right about smoking in bed. First, he notices that his light blue blankets are stained by scattered bits of light gray ash. It makes him wonder how Angel's avoided getting it in his wings, and then, with a twinge of guilt, if he has and just hasn't complained about it.

It only gets worse when he looks away from the bed. Despite the ashtray sitting on his side table, more than a few cigarette butts have made their way to the carpet, which he suspects will need to be properly washed before it stops stinking. Certainly, the empty food cartons, wrappers, and plates scattered across the floor don't help. He's able to take some comfort in the fact that it isn't all his mess. He isn't responsible for the three empty ice cream cartons that he counts, and while most of the dirty clothes lying in scattered piles are his, only about half of them were last worn by him, and those are definitely Power's fuzzy pants dangling off the corner of the bed.

Aki did not do this all on his own.

But he is the one who allowed it to reach this point.

"Holy shit," a soft voice breathes from the doorway. Aki looks to find Angel leaning against the doorframe, wide crimson eyes taking in the disarray that is their bedroom with something between disgust and awe. His eyes flick back to Aki as he demands, "Close the curtains. I like it better when I can't see it."

Aki snorts. "I'm going to clean it."

Opening the window is far more awkward now than when he had both arms. That doesn't mean that it isn't worth it. The burst of fresh air makes his bedroom's dull, festering stench much more apparent. It's going to take days for the smell to air out. Days of waiting, plus air freshener, scrubbing the carpet, washing all of his bedsheets, and washing all of the dirty clothes scattered about the room - he might as well just get all of his other clothes while he's at it.

"Ew," Angel says.

Aki moves to shoot him a flat, judgmental look before remembering that there isn't much point these days. Instead, he idly points out, "You could help. Part of this is your mess."

A laughing scoff. "Did you really expect that to work?"

"I'm allowed to dream."

You've already been stepping up a lot, is what he doesn't dare say, unwilling to risk the conversation it could lead to.

"As long as you don't expect it to come true," Angel says. He sits down on the edge of the bed, wings twitching faintly as he surveys the mess that's become of the room. Aki watches him for a moment before sitting down beside him.

"You're going to have to move so I can wash the blanket," he points out.

Angel hums. "I think you'll need to wash more than just the blanket. This entire place smells like an ashtray."

"You're making my point for me," Aki sighs.

Another hum. Angel frowns up at him with big, pleading, beleaguered red eyes, looking like existence is a cyclone of perpetual torment, and he is the innocent victim trapped in the center. However, his voice is paradoxically caught between firm and apathetic when he says, "You can start with something else."

Angel's always been bad at begging. It makes it that much more pathetic that Aki almost always gives in.

"I don't know where to begin," Aki mutters, resisting the urge to press a hand against his temple. It's a true, if humiliating admission. Every time he thinks of one thing he should do, another springs up to take its place, and suddenly he's back to prioritizing. It's a familiar feeling. However, in the past, he could always cut through it, prioritize, and push his way through to contend with even the worst disasters. But that was when he was always moving. Now he has weeks of inaction piled up on his shoulders. It weighs him down even as it drives him forward, making everything seem more overwhelming than it has to be.

How ridiculous. If he can just pull his head out of his ass and-

"You're going to have to stop smoking."

"What?" Aki asks, looking down at his partner.

Angel isn't looking at him, his gaze locked onto a pair of dirty socks wedged into the corner of the room. Going by the bright golden dogs patterned across them, he's pretty sure they're Denji's socks, making their presence in Aki's room a total mystery.

"It doesn't matter how much you clean if you keep smoking in here. Besides." Crimson eyes briefly slide over to glance at Aki, then focus back in on the sock. "You're doing this for the Control Devil, right?" It's phrased like a question, but Angel says it like a statement of fact. "Denji says she has a sensitive nose. You'll smell bad to her unless you quit completely."

Aki opens his mouth, but he can't think of a single thing worth saying. So for a while, he doesn't. He and Angel sit in total silence. Despite the warm sunlight streaming in through the window, it manages to be more uncomfortable than the silences that had fallen over them in the stale, suffocating dark. The grief that had often defined those moments is absent, but there is a strain in their companionship that hadn't been there before.

It is a desire to ease that strain that eventually pushes Aki to ask the first innocuous question that comes to his mind. "What do you think?"

Angel glances at him warily. "About what?"

...Perhaps it wasn't an innocuous question after all. "About my smoking," he clarifies.

"It's gross," Angel immediately answers. "You smell disgusting and the ash gets everywhere."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

Angel glances off to the side and shrugs, feathers rustling with the movement. "Wasn't worth the effort."

It's a half-truth at best, but Aki knows better than pushing to get the full story. Right now, he doesn't think he has the right. "I probably should have quit a while ago," he says.

"You should have quit a lot of things a while ago," Angel murmurs.

Aki looks down at him, watching as he pulls one of his legs up onto the bed and rests his chin on his knee.

"...Maybe," he admits. "But I don't regret most of my vices."

Quitting smoking will mean significant discomfort for a while. Quitting Public Safety would have meant losing Denji and Power. It would have meant losing Angel.

The corners of Angel's lips twitch. "It doesn't always seem like it."

Aki's stomach twists. "...I know," he says, so soft that it barely qualifies as a whisper. "I don't blame any of you for any of it. If I could go back in time, I wouldn't..." His hand closes into a fist around the fabric of his pants, struggling to find the words for the truth. "There are a lot of things I'd do differently, but I wouldn't-"

"I know," Angel interrupts. "You'd martyr yourself as long as none of us ended up worse off. You and Denji have the same problem; you don't blame people for hurting you even when you should. You haven't stopped caring. You've just been too caught up in your own head to remind yourself not to act like me."

Aki stares.

Angel smiles weakly. "I know all about what's going on inside your head, Hayakawa. I just don't..." his smile disappears. "Why her?"

Now it's Aki's turn to look at the socks in the corner. "I don't know what you mean."

"Bullshit," Angel says. "You've been getting better, but this... Why was the Control Devil the one who got you to start trying?"

It would be so easy for him to just deny that being the case. But how can he, when Nayuta's breakdown is what it took for him to resolve to clean this mess of a room and stay up all day? Angel deserves better than for him to tell a bald-faced lie. Yet honesty is difficult, because no matter how hard he wracks his mind…

"I don't know," he admits.

"Tell me what happened," Angel presses.

"I already did," Aki points out, and maybe that is his answer. Nayuta was a distressed child who needed help. Maybe that's all that there is to say about it, all the explanation he needs to give.

For someone else, it might have been. Angel is not someone else. He's a stubborn creature for all of his laziness, and now that he's decided to worm some answers out of Aki, he isn't going to give up until he gets them.

"You never told us what she said."

Aki sighs, looking down at his hands. Hand. The one that he has left is sitting in his lap, while the thing that's taken the place of his missing arm is sprawled out behind him. It isn't the most comfortable position, but it means that he won't have to see it as long as he doesn't turn his head the wrong way, and that's what really matters.

It still doesn't feel like his place to tell anyone what Nayuta said. However, if there's a chance that doing so will get Angel to tolerate her better, possibly even give her a real chance, can he really afford not to?

"Nayuta tried to run away because she thought she was hurting us by being here," Aki says. "She started to think she's a monster, and because she doesn't want to hurt anyone, she decided that her best option is to disappear completely." He pauses to look back at Angel. "I know she isn't Makima because she's terrified of being like her."

Angel stares at him for a moment. Then he sits up and flops over, not leaning on Aki's shoulder so much as slowly collapsing into it. He stretches his wing out behind him, murmuring, "I think I understand now."

"Care to share your insight?"

"Nope."

Aki wraps his arm around Angel's shoulder with a sigh. The devil squirms for a moment before settling into a more comfortable position. It is an easy silence that settles over them this time. However, it doesn't last more than a few moments before Angel mutters, "I still don't want to go anywhere near that kid."

"I know," Aki says.

But maybe, in time, that will change. For the first time since their little intervention, Aki allows himself to hope that it will.

*

Time passes in quiet comfort. Eventually, Aki pulls himself away from Angel and starts the work of actually cleaning. The devil makes a show of grumbling and groaning but allows himself to be roped into helping with what honestly amounts to minimal prodding. He isn't much help, but he fetches Aki garbage bags and cleaning supplies when asked, which is about as much as he expected from him.

Aki cleans the bedroom by focusing on the most pressing matter first, which becomes pretty obvious once he fights down the anxious need to do everything immediately. He can't hope to force the bedroom back into some semblance of respectability if it's a struggle to walk from one side to the other. Therefore, he starts by cleaning up the garbage strewn across the floor. It's a task that requires two garbage bags; one for the dirty clothes and one for the literal garbage.

"If you're using garbage bags for everything, how will you know that you aren't throwing out the clothes?" Angel asks at one point.

"You mean like Denji's been doing?" Aki asks, stuffing an ice cream-stained shirt into the already-overflowing clothes bag.

"We didn't think you'd noticed that," Angel says.

Aki huffs. "Of course I noticed." He just didn't care. "The garbage smells worse than dirty clothes."

"You mean you're noticing bad smells now?"

Aki looks up to glare at Angel, only belatedly remembering that he can't do that these days.

Angel reacts like he used to anyway, so he stares impassively back at him, utterly unmoved and unapologetic. As Aki holds his gaze, the corners of his lips subtly twitch with the first hints of bastardly mirth.

Aki grabs a garbage bag from the box sitting by the foot of the bed and tosses it at him. "If you have the energy to be mouthy, you have the energy to clean."

"Slave driver," Angel huffs.

"Yep."

With a tremendous groan, Angel steps away from where he’s been leaning against the wall and starts picking up garbage, which officially puts him in the territory of doing more than was expected of him.

They get the floor clear within about ten minutes between the two of them. That isn't to say that it's clean; the ash, dirt, and assorted other debris clinging to the carpet is clear even to the naked eye. Aki turns to eye Angel warily, trying to gauge how much more labor he can squeeze out of him.

Angel saves him the effort of asking with a dramatic sigh. "Just tell me," he commands.

Aki barely resists the urge to comment on how uncharacteristically helpful he's been today. "Take the garbage bags out to the dumpster and the clothes into the basement," he says instead. "I'll start vacuuming."

Angel nods, slowly looking around the room. "You aren't going to actually try and scrub it down, are you?"

"If I want to get rid of the scent-"

"You'll be in here all day if you do that," Angel interrupts. "Vacuum and start the laundry, then take a break for the day."

Aki frowns. "I'm going to finish the laundry."

"Sure, if you can finish it by..." Angel pauses, glancing at the characters glowing on the face of the alarm sitting on Aki's bedside table. "Six. If you aren't done by six, I'm going to have Power irritate you until you give up."

"Why six?" Aki asks, because he can't quite bring himself to point out that spending all day cleaning is surely better than wasting the day doing nothing at all.

"Dinner will be late if you take longer than that."

"When did I say that I was making dinner?"

"You're indebted. You know that Power's going to make me sleep with her and Denji if you keep the Control Devil in here, right? I'm going to have to listen to so much nonsense, I deserve a good meal."

Aki frowns. "I never said-"

"You're predictable, Aki."

"I'm going to give her the choice," Aki corrects. "It's up to her where she wants to sleep."

Angel rolls his eyes with a quiet scoff. "And it's really likely that she'll choose the room she's been trapped in for over a week."

"So you can see why I'm doing this."

Angel narrows his eyes. "Six o'clock," he declares. "If you aren't done by then, you leave the rest for tomorrow, or we take care of it Denji style."

Aki sighs and waves him off, which they both know by now is as good as agreement.

The two of them part ways with that, Angel clearing out the various bags and Aki hunting down the vacuum cleaner. It takes longer than he would have liked to find it and even longer to actually vacuum the floor. He has to stop, empty out the vacuum, and resume cleaning before the carpet finally reaches a point that he can in good conscience describe as acceptably clean.

It’s not enough. The room still smells of stale cigarettes, the sunlight streaming in through the window doesn’t feel as warm as it should, and Aki can’t shake the sensation that he should be doing more. He has to forcibly remind himself that he should finish one task before starting on another in order to drag himself out and down into the basement.

Two garbage bags full of dirty clothes are waiting for him, leaning innocently against the dumpster. Angel is nowhere to be seen, which somehow manages to make him feel something along the lines of fondness. It seems he has hit his limit of helpfulness for the day.

That’s fine. Right now, Aki finds that he would like to take a moment to think about nothing.

And he does. He can feel the dark, heavy thoughts lurking beneath the surface of his mind, threatening to drag him down with them, but rifling through the clothes in the bag allows him to keep them at a distance. The clothes are sorted into four piles; his, clothes that were once his but have since been purloined by Angel, Power’s, and that stray pair of Denji’s socks, which get lumped in with Power’s clothes after a moment of consideration. Altogether, they make three mid-sized loads of laundry. Perhaps it’s not the most efficient way to do this, but the longer he works, the more he finds that he doesn’t mind being a little inefficient right now.

Or at least, he is up until it’s time to stand around and do nothing. Getting the clothes ready to be washed is a time-consuming process; each item needs to be treated with deodorizer to purge it of the smell of cigarettes and garbage. He finishes the first load of laundry and gets halfway through the second before he has nothing better to do than stand around and wait. When that happens, the thoughts lurking beneath the surface of his mind threaten to rise up and drag him down.

Aki starts moving again before they can get the chance. He grabs an empty basket and heads back upstairs to fetch more. The thought of starting on his bedding is quickly dismissed; he doesn’t doubt that Angel’s willing to follow through on his threat, and he doesn’t want to start something like that if he can’t finish it today. However, he can at least start purifying the rest of his wardrobe.

He begins with half of his shirts and another half of his pants. That number is significantly smaller than before Angel moved in, but it takes time when one stops to consider that each item needs to be treated almost as thoroughly as the clothes on the floor. Aki gets about halfway through before it’s time to take the first load of laundry out of the dryer, move the second into the dryer, and put the third into the washer.

He’s almost done preparing the next batch when the door slams open and heavy footsteps come thundering down the stairs.

“That is enough!” Power cries. “The hour is six! You must feed us!”

“Must I?” Aki asks, not looking away from the shirt he’s scrubbing in the sink.

“Yes.” Power marches over to grab his arm, the force with which she yanks on it making him abandon the shirt in the sudsy water. “Denji has been with the Control Devil all day. In the living room. I have been forced to skulk on the outskirts of the house all day. With Angel. For that, I demand compensation.”

Aki sighs and turns to face the rowdy demon clinging to his arm. “You need to get used to her,” he says. “You don’t get rewards for things you’re supposed to be doing anyway.”

“But I have gone above and beyond!” Power squawks, shaking his arm. “They set up in the living room, and I let them! I have obeyed your nonsensical command to tolerate her presence! And I am speaking to you even though I am furious with your horrible judgment.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes! I should shun you until you apologize, yet I have kindly decided to grace you with my presence!”

Aki peers down at Power’s stubborn expression, a peculiar combination of fondness, resignation, and exasperation churning within him. She still hasn’t done anything that she wasn’t supposed to be doing already. However, he does have to acknowledge that he is asking a lot of Power, considering what she’s been through and everything that the Control Devil represents to her. That she’s actually listening to him is nothing short of remarkable.

Of course, he isn’t going to tell her that when she’s acting like a brat.

“I was going to make dinner anyway,” he says, stepping back and pulling his arm out of her grasp.

Power pumps her fists in the air and lets out a whoop of victory, either seeing through his bullshit or willing to accept a completely unearned victory. Both are equally likely options at this point.

Angel is waiting in the kitchen when he makes his way upstairs. He barely glances up at him before turning his attention back to the cat-fancier magazine he's reading. "I did warn you," he impassively says.

"I was going to come up soon," Aki argues. The words sound dull and unconvincing even to his own ears, but he still scowls when Angel makes a disbelieving sound. He flicks at the top of the magazine as he walks past and asks, "Since when do you read cat magazines?"

"Since Power left this in the living room."

Power breaks away from her place in Aki's shadow to launch herself at Angel with an affronted squawk. His attempt to dodge amounts to shuffling a few inches to the side, leaning back, and trying to hold the magazine out of her grasp. Aki watches the scuffle play out, a peculiar mismatch of energetic and lethargic, before turning his attention to the actual task of cooking.

Angel and Power's squabbling fades into background noise as he starts prepping. It's too distant to actively distract him, but loud enough to keep him from getting lost in his own thoughts. He wouldn't go as far as to call it nice, but it's certainly better than wandering around an empty kitchen with nothing to distract him but the mess in his head. It's... grounding.

After losing an arm in hell, he had enough time that trying to cook with one arm isn't a totally unfamiliar process. Heck, he's cooked twice over the course of the past week, three times if he counts making lunch for Nayuta after the incident in the hallway. Trying to maneuver with a massive rifle in the place of an arm isn't quite as difficult as it was the first time. However, it still isn't easy.

When the sound of squabbling fades into a relatively sedate conversation, he glances toward the kitchen table and risks calling, "Is there anything stopping you from helping?"

Power leans back in her chair, tilts her head back, and sniffs impudently. "I thought I was forbidden from cooking."

"It's different when I'm supervising," Aki says.

"I do not need to be supervised by an ungrateful fool who is prioritizing the Control Devil."

Annoyance surges up within Aki. He pushes it down, reminding himself that Power is doing relatively well for the circumstances. She's trying, at least somewhat, which is a necessary first step toward patching this household into something functional. And he needs to make it functional, for Nayuta's sake. So he pushes the annoyance down, tells himself not to tear into her unless she really earns it, and grinds out, "Is that so?"

"Yes." Power shoots him a glowering look. "You will need to do more to regain my good graces."

Aki sucks in a breath through gritted teeth. "And you?" he asks, turning to Angel.

Angel hums, setting down the magazine that he has apparently managed to keep away from Power. Of course, she snatches it back the second it touches the table. He frowns at her in response, but rather than put up a fight, he looks to Aki and flatly says, "I don't think my hands grew back right."

"What."

"Yeah. They don't feel right. I think they'll stop working if I use them too much." Angel holds an arm out and opens and closes one of his hands.

Honestly, it's not the worst excuse in the world. Aki might have been inclined to worry if Angel had said a word about his hands not working right at any point in the past month, hadn't said it with the inflection of a tone-deaf seventy-year-old commenting on the weather, and Power wasn't actively snickering. As it is, he says, "Maybe cutting vegetables will get some feeling back in them."

Angel groans, slumping against the back of the chair and allowing his head to loll over to the side. "Really? Haven't I done enough work today?"

"No. Come over here and help."

Angel shoots him a dirty look, but reluctantly walks over and follows his instructions as he works on the meal. It's curry with significantly more vegetables than meat, which he knows is going to earn him a good deal of whining from Power. However, Denji's recent trauma-induced meat aversion is more important than Power's "vegetable allergy." He wants to start Nayuta on a healthy diet, and most importantly, Power does not get to dictate the menu when she's currently one of the biggest sources of strife in the household.

Still, he should try to do something nice for her soon, to make sure she doesn't start associating Nayuta's presence with further negative connotations. He also needs to make sure that she doesn't think that he's forgotten about her, or that she isn't a high priority anymore, or pursue any of the numerous toxic paths that her mind could start wandering down.

The lack of conversation between Power and Angel is made up for by the sound of Angel working alongside him, the instructions he offers the devil and Angel’s various noises of acknowledgment and complaint. Eventually, tiny paws pad into the room, and the sound of Power talking to her cat joins the cacophony. He's admittedly a little surprised by her lingering in the kitchen after he stole her conversation partner, but he can't say that he doesn't appreciate her company, even if he doesn't know if her continued presence has more to do with him or the voices that he can hear coming from the living room when he strains his ears.

Those voices make him think about what he's going to do once dinner is ready. Truthfully, there are only two options, and he already knows he will try for the more difficult option. The mere thought of it makes him feel exhausted on a bone-deep level, but it will be a step forward if he can pull it off, and right now, he needs to stay focused on moving forward.

He hopes that this doesn't lead to another argument.

In all too little time, the food is ready and it's time to face the music. Aki opts to address the situation like tearing off a band-aid, like he isn't saying anything noteworthy at all. "You two set the table while I get Denji and Nayuta," he says.

Angel and Power's attention snaps to him in an instant.

Power is the one who looks more worked up, but it's Angel who incredulously asks, "We're eating together? All five of us?"

Aki wants to say yes, to phrase it like an order, to try to regain some normalcy by acting the way he used to. To make them adjust to their new reality by forcing them all forward. It takes a conscious effort for him to take a step back, to remind himself that just because he has reached a point where he needs to force himself forward regardless of the pain doesn't mean they're in the same position, that he cannot allow himself to tear their wounds open in a desperate attempt to cauterize his own.

"If you're willing to, I would appreciate it," he cautiously says.

Power makes a strangled sound. She exchanges a look with Angel, who would successfully hide his agonized expression if Aki couldn't read him so well. An unspoken communication passes between them that has Power slumping her shoulder and Angel turning back toward Aki with a heavy sigh.

"Fine," he says. "But if it goes badly, remember that this was your idea."

Aki doesn't know if he should smile, thank them, or cry. He settles for walking out of the room with a simple, "Noted."

The living room is a mess of papers, pencils, and scattered markers. It sparks a flash of irritation within Aki that is almost immediately quelled by the sight of Denji. He is lying on his stomach, the tip of his tongue sticking out of the corner in front of his mouth as he focuses on the paper in front of him. All that Aki can see of it from his angle is a black and orange blob, but he can tell from the look on Denji's face that he's putting a lot of effort into it. He wonders if whatever he's drawing might actually turn out good if he's left to it.

Nayuta seems to be of a similar mindset. Sprawled out across from Denji, she is propping herself up with her arms folded beneath her stomach, her own piece of paper completely disregarded in favor of watching Denji. In turn, Aki leans against the doorframe and spends several long, lingering moments watching them. It lasts until Nayuta takes in a delicate sniff, and her amber eyes dark toward Aki.

"Where were you!?" she exclaims, abandoning her observation of Denji in favor of scrambling to her feet and pointing at him.

Aki steps back from the doorframe and holds his hand up in surrender. "Sorry," he says. "I had a lot of cleaning to do."

Denji sets his pencil down with a snicker and looks up at Aki with a horrible, obnoxious, childish smirk of a grin. "So what you're saying is-"

"Shut up."

"- after all the shit you gave me and Powy about keeping our rooms clean -"

"Denji, I swear to god-"

"- Aki Hayakawa let his room get dirty."

Aki's mouth twists as he forcibly bites back the curse on his tongue. He's supposed to be trying to pull himself together, trying to set a good example for the child staring intently at him, and that means not breaking down shouting and cursing at the smug brat peering up at him. No matter how much he deserves it. However, there are other things that Denji deserves, things that Aki can say in front of Nayuta.

Forcing his lips into some fractured semblance of a smile, he says, "Thank you for volunteering to do your own laundry from now on."

Denji scrambles upright while Nayuta lets out a cackling laugh. "Wait, shit, I didn't-"

"Didn't what? You're right. You're so much cleaner than me now. It's about time you start taking care of your own messes."

"No, you asshole! I was just giving you shi-"

"Nayuta," Aki interrupts, turning his attention to the child who actually deserves it right now. "How was your day?"

Nayuta falters. First, her eyes drop down to her feet, then she looks off to the side. Finally, she shrugs stiffly and looks back at Aki. "It was okay. I had more fun than yesterday."

There is no misery in her voice, but it's still dull and unenthusiastic, which is enough of a red flag to make Aki look back at Denji, whose expression has shifted into something between concern and self-consciousness.

"...What would you like to do tomorrow?" Aki asks, turning back to Nayuta.

A spark lights up in Nayuta's eyes. "Can you take me shopping!?" she asks. "And to a food court! I wanna try pizza."

Aki ignores the way his chest seizes and swallows down the knot threatening to form in his throat. "I can't leave the house, but what if Denji takes you and I make something you'll like for dinner?"

Nayuta's brow furrows. Something stings the back of Aki's throat as he anticipates and dreads her asking why, the concept that he might have to voice the obvious explanation that might not be so obvious to a child. His breath doesn't come easily until she shrugs it off and proclaims, "I want chicken karaage and ice cream!"

Aki nods. "What vegetables do you want?"

Nayuta makes a disgusted expression. Denji covers his mouth with his hand, but fails to hide his snickering, and Aki knows what's about to happen even before she exclaims, "I don't want vegetables!"

"I'm not going to feed you nothing but junk food," Aki sighs.

"Denji says the Angel Devil only eats candy," Nayuta protests.

Aki frowns at Denji, who at least has the decency to look regretful.

"Angel's a grown adult," Aki says, turning back to Nayuta. "You're a growing child. You need nutrition."

"Angel's super short too," Denji chimes in. "He's probably like that 'cause he didn't eat good when he was a kid."

Nayuta's look of disgust deepens. "Did you make vegetables tonight?" she asks Aki.

"Yeah, 'cause he doesn't want you to turn into a midget," Denji says.

It's stupid, but Aki can't help but feel a little grateful.

"If you eat your vegetables tonight, I won't make as many tomorrow," he tries.

"Fine," Nayuta huffs. "Where are-" She pauses for a second, eyes flickering between Aki and the hallway, and fails to hide the glimmer of anxiety in her eyes. "Am I eating in Denji's room?"

"No," Aki says, trying to ignore the increasingly rapid pounding of his heart. "We're all going to be eating in the kitchen."

Nayuta's lips part slightly, and there's no ignoring the way Denji's questioning, doubtful gaze bores into him. "All of us?"

"Power and Angel promised to behave," Aki reassures her.

Nayuta stares at him for a moment longer before looking away with a huff. "Whatever. I don't care what they think anyway."

The blatant lie reminds Aki so strongly of Power that he almost smiles. "Then you should go into the kitchen." He pauses to look at Denji, hoping against hope that he'll be able to catch the hint to go ahead of her.

He gets it. With a tiny nod to Aki, he rises to his feet and walks into the kitchen, Nayuta hesitantly following after him.

That dinner is one of the most uncomfortable that Aki's experienced in a very long time. Barely a word is spoken, he is continuously prepared to need to jump into action to prevent some sort of disaster, and consequently, his heart is hammering fiercely the entire time. It doesn’t begin to settle until they’re nearing the end of the meal without incident. Aki’s barely touched his meal, but his appetite has been nearly nonexistent since he woke up. What matters is that Denji, Power, and Angel have mostly cleared their plates. Nayuta has only gotten about halfway through hers, but she’s getting restless in a way that tells him that he can’t keep her at this table for much longer in good conscience.

It's good enough.

"Nayuta," he calls.

The little Control Devil, who had been listlessly scraping her fork against the side of her plate, looks up at him.

"Do you want to sleep with Denji or me tonight?" he asks.

Nayuta's eyes widen. She glances at Denji, who nods, and looks back at Aki. "You," she says. "I'm sick of that room."

Power makes a disgusted sound. Aki whips his head around to level her with the closest thing to a glare that he can manage, and she crosses her arms over her chest, pressing her lips into a thin, bitter line. "Relax," she grumbles. "I was merely considering the logistics of fitting myself and Angel in Denji's room."

Angel slumps back against his chair with a groan. "Or you could just let me sleep in the living room," he points out.

"No!" Power exclaims. "This is-" she looks at Nayuta, who is pointedly looking away, and visibly struggles to reign her snarl back into a scowl. "-Not up for debate."

Aki takes in a deep, slow breath, counts back from ten, and looks at Nayuta. She definitely doesn't look happy, but she doesn't seem on the verge of a breakdown either. She's doing better than they were the day before. Power and Angel are handling her presence better than they have since her arrival. This is progress. They're making progress. He-

He just has to hold himself together for a couple more hours, then he can go to sleep.

"Denji, can you move Nayuta's futon into my room?" he asks.

"Sure," Denji says, already standing up. He collects his plate as he goes, which shouldn't be as much of a relief to Aki as it is.

He takes a moment to pause, counts to ten, and then switches his attention over to Nayuta. "Do you need anything?" he asks.

Nayuta shakes her head. "I'm going to get ready for bed," she murmurs, slipping away from the table. Aki notes that she sounds far more subdued than she had in the living room and tries to tell himself that it's just because she's tired. When he fails to convince himself, he watches her walk out of the kitchen and allows himself to hope that he hasn't made a terrible mistake by forcing her, Angel, and Power into each other's proximity.

It can't have been that bad, right? It was only about forty minutes, and it's not like they can avoid each other forever. He knows that he needs to strike a balance between letting them get used to each other at their own pace and not letting the distance and resentment fester, but he couldn't have fucked up that badly, could he?

...Of course he could have.

The full weight of Aki's exhaustion comes crashing down upon him at the same instant that a gentle hand reaches out to his shoulder. "Are you okay?" Angel murmurs.

"Yeah," Aki says without looking back at him. "I just... need a moment."

Angel and Power exchange a worried look. Aki pretends that he didn't see it as he walks out onto the back porch.

The cool night air is a balm on his nerves for a few minutes. He leans against the railing, stares up at the stars, dim enough to be barely visible past the light pollution, and forcibly clears his mind of everything that plagues it.

For a moment, there is peace.

Then his fingers start to twitch.

The craving sneaks up with sudden but relentless force. First, it manifests as the sensation that he should be doing something with his fingers. Then he craves the taste of smoke in his mouth, the feeling of it curling in his lungs and nicotine flooding his system. The next thing he knows, his hand is shaking and his head is hurting in a way that has nothing to do with the tiredness steadily catching up on him.

Aki tilts his head forward with a groan and, for what must be the twentieth time today, wishes that he could close his eyes. He wishes that he could go to sleep and block it all out for a little while longer. He wishes he were the person that he used to be. He wishes…

He wishes for a million things that just won’t happen. It's about time that he stops drowning in them.

Unfortunately, the realization does not provide any clarity or serenity. Only the continued pounding of his headache, a vicious reminder that he really shouldn’t have started smoking again after he woke up. It's quiet, though, and that's something. He can't afford to stand out here for long. He has to get ready to go back in and push through to the end of the day. Cravings be damned.

Just a little while longer.

At some point, Aki starts anxiously drumming his fingers against the railing. As he taps, he counts pointlessly, getting all the way up to twenty-seven before he is interrupted by the sound of the door sliding open.

He looks over his shoulder and is met with Angel's sad smile. "I figured you could be alone with me here," he says.

Aki looks back forward with a non-committal hum.

Angel accepts it as an invitation it is and walks up to stand beside him.

Realistically, his presence doesn't change anything. It shouldn't have any effect on Aki's system. Yet when the edge of his wing brushes gently against the side of his arm, he finds it a little easier to breathe. When a hand creeps across the railing, reaching over to still his tapping fingers, a shiver runs up his arm. He tilts his head slightly to the side, an unknown, indescribable force leaving him unsure of whether or not he should look at Angel, whether he should try to say anything.

Something is pressed in his hand before he can decide.

He looks down to find himself holding a pack of nicotine gum.

"What?" he asks. Suddenly, he can't do anything but look at Angel, who is staring straight out at the yard. "When...?"

"You were in the basement for a long time," Angel says.

Aki swallows. "I see."

Angel doesn't say anything. Aki tears his attention away from him and focuses on opening the packet of gum. It's a clumsy process, but he manages to put a piece in his mouth and slip the rest into his pocket. It isn't instant relief by any means, but as the minutes tick by, his headache begins to die down and the cravings fade into something manageable.

At some point, a warm hand slips into his.

"Do you know what time you'll be waking up tomorrow?" Angel asks.

"Early," Aki says.

"Maybe it's a good thing I'm sleeping with Denji and Power."

"You can keep them for as long as you like."

Angel makes a sound that could almost be a laugh. Aki looks down and sees that he isn't quite smiling, but he isn't frowning either. He looks... Content. Peaceful.

Angel looks up at him, and Aki looks back at the yard.

"Aki?" Angel murmurs.

Aki's heart flickers oddly. "Yes?" he asks, looking back down.

Angel stares up at him for a long moment, and in that moment, Aki would give anything to know what he's thinking. In the end, Angel offers him a small smile, gently pulls his hand back, and turns to head back inside. "Sleep well."

"...Thanks," Aki says.

He goes back inside a few minutes after that.

The house has gone quiet in his absence. As he walks down the hall, he can just about make out the soft murmuring of voices as he passes Denji's room. He could probably make out what they're saying if he strains his ears.

He doesn't strain.

Aki pauses when he reaches his room. The door is closed and he can faintly hear the sound of someone puttering around inside. After a moment of consideration, he raises his good hand to knock.

"You don't need to knock on your own door," Nayuta's huffy voice declares.

"It's the polite thing to do," Aki says as he opens the door and steps inside. "Besides, what if I had been Denji?"

A quick glance confirmed that Denji obeyed his request to move Nayuta's futon into his room. She also has a glass of water beside it and a small mountain of stuffed animals on top of them. As he watches, she sits down amidst them with a disbelieving sound. "Denji wouldn't have knocked," she says. "He would just come in and do whatever he wanted to do. You're the only person who knocks in this house."

"Unfortunately true," Aki mutters. He pauses to take Nayuta in, pleased to note that she's already in her pajamas. "Do you need anything before bed?" he asks.

Nayuta shakes her head. "You were gone for a long time."

Aki frowns. "It wasn't that long."

Nayuta scoffs. "You don't know how to tell time, then."

"Don't be rude," Aki mutters. And yes, he feels kind of offended. Even if he wasn't, with his head still aching somewhat and the cravings guaranteed to return and worsen once the effects of the gum wear off, he'd rather not deal with a mouthy child right now. However, all of that is drowned out by the relief that she feels comfortable enough to get mouthy.

Maybe he didn't fuck up too badly after all. Or if he did, Denji did an admirable job of damage control while he was outside.

"Do you want to sleep there?" Aki asks, nodding to Nayuta's futon. There isn't anything strictly wrong with it, but he immediately recognizes it as their spare, which is on the smaller end and not especially thick. He'll have to tell Denji to buy her a new one. He can't believe that he didn't think to mention it back when he was buying supplies. For the time being, it would be uncomfortable for him to sleep on, but... "You can have my bed if you'd like."

Nayuta wrinkles her nose, dramatically flops onto her back, and says to the ceiling, "I don't want to sleep in your smelly bed."

Aki snorts. "It smells a lot better in here than it did this morning," he says, closing the door behind him and walking over to the dresser.

"I know, Denji told me. I bet it smelled like you before."

"And you're in here anyway," Aki says, pulling the dresser drawer open. As he rifles through it to find a clean pair of pajamas, it occurs to him that this is the first time in a while that he's worn something other than pajamas.

"Denji's room doesn't smell very good either."

"Wonderful," Aki mutters under his breath. Louder, he says, "I hope my stench doesn't keep you up."

Nayuta hums. "You smell okay now."

Aki looks toward her, remembering a second too late that he doesn't have any eyebrows to raise, and is met by the sight of Nayuta rolling her head toward him, a sharp smile on her lips. "Don't worry, I'll tell you if you get bad again."

"Thanks," he dryly says. Turning back to the dresser, he fishes out a black nightshirt and pants. Both of them smell like smoke, but they're decently clean and not too ratty.

"Look away while I get changed," he says.

"Why?" Nayuta asks. "Is your butt different from everyone else's butt?"

"You shouldn't be looking at anyone's butt."

Nayuta snorts, but when he looks her way, she has her head turned in the other direction.

It doesn't take long for him to get changed. Once he's done, he sets his bedside alarm for six in the morning, sighs, and asks, "Alright. Are you sure you don't need anything?"

Nayuta shakes her head. She shakes her head and Aki falters, unable to believe that it's this easy, that she doesn't have anything else on her mind, that he can actually rest now. He almost pushes further, just to make the other shoe drop before it can catch him off guard. It takes him a moment to remember that he can't afford to push with a child who's been through as much in as short a time as Nayuta.

Right now, the best thing that he can do is accept the small victories where he can get them.

"Goodnight, then," Aki says.

"Goodnight," Nayuta murmurs.

Aki turns out the light and climbs into bed. As he lies there, exhaustion weighs down on his mind, his thoughts slow to a crawl, and he wants nothing more than to disappear into the oblivion of rest, but sleep does not come. He is too acutely aware of the feeling of an empty bed, so unsettlingly alien after over a week of sharing with Angel and Power, after Angel climbing into bed with him every other night for the past month. He is aware of the intangible tension lingering in the air, a sense that he'll be missing something if he goes to sleep now. Oh, Aki wants to sleep, but through some sick combination of restlessness and suspicion, he ends up lying there wide awake.

And then, finally, "Aki?" Nayuta calls.

"Yes?" Aki asks.

"Denji said that he might not go to school because of me."

It's a testament to how tired he really is that that sentence doesn't jolt him wide awake. His tone is still sharp, severe, and concerned when he asks, "He said that?"

"He didn't say it was because of me," Nayuta corrects.

That he didn't have to goes unspoken.

Aki takes a deep breath, counts to five, and lets it out.

"Denji's going to school. You and Power too," he says, acutely aware of the things he'll have to do to make that happen, of the commitment he's making.

He won’t be able to lock himself away in his room for a long time.

"Really!?" Nayuta exclaims. He hears the rustle of fabric as she sits up in bed and is once again reminded of all the sleep he didn't get the night before. Aki is fucking exhausted, and by this point, he doesn't think it has anything to do with his various dysfunctions. By all rights, she should be too. Yet her voice is lively when she begins, "What do-"

"Nayuta," he interrupts. "If that's all, can it wait until morning?"

Her voice is lively enough that she can handle a little disappointment. Especially since he suspects that if he lets her stay up much longer, she'll sleep until noon.

"...I suppose," Nayuta grumbles, sinking back into her mattress.

"Thank you," Aki mumbles.

Nayuta grumbles something quiet in response, and Aki allows himself to drift off.

Sleep comes easily this time.

Chapter Text

Aki wakes up to the screech of the alarm and the loud, angry whine of a disgruntled child.

"Shut that thing up!" Nayuta cries as he sits up and reaches for the alarm. After a few seconds of fumbling, he shuts it off and turns to look at Nayuta. There's no need to turn on the light, for the dull glow of dawn has already begun to shine through the window. It reveals her laying flat on his stomach, head buried beneath a pillow.

With the noise stopped, Nayuta pulls her head out from under the pillow and glowers blearily up at Aki. "What was that?"

"The alarm," he says, trying to sound awake but struggling with the fog filling his mind. "It's time to get up."

Nayuta squints. "I thought you slept late?"

If Aki still had eyes, he would squint. As it is, the shame from the question helps wake him up if something else. "I'm trying to break that habit," is the only explanation he can honestly offer.

Nayuta flops forward onto her pillow with a groan.

"You can sleep for a little while longer if you want," Aki says as he grabs his pack of nicotine gum from off the bedside table.

"Good," Nayuta groans.

Aki steps lightly out of the bedroom for Nayuta's sake.

The house is silent at this hour of the morning, the way the old apartment always used to be when he woke up. It fills his chest with a nostalgia that is somewhere between mournful and warm, telling him that he should have done this earlier. He wants to finish doing the laundry. He wants to make coffee and sit on the back porch with the newspaper. He wants to have a cigarette.

Only two of those things are options, and there's something that he needs to do before he can get to work on either.

Aki pops a piece of gum into his mouth as he walks into the kitchen. A short list of phone numbers is sitting on the counter beside the phone. He only has to scan it for a moment to find the one wants. Whether or not he'll get an answer calling this early in the morning is a crapshoot, but it's better to call and leave a message now than attempt to have this conversation with Denji and Power prowling about. He cradles the phone awkwardly between his cheek and shoulder as he dials the number.

His first attempt at calling is met by a ringtone, followed by a gruff response from an answering machine. After a moment of consideration, he dials the number again. Once again, he goes to the machine. Aki frowns, stares at the keypad, and decides to give it one try before leaving a message.

"What?" A rough, aggravated voice snaps.

"Kishibe," Aki greets.

There's a moment of silence. Then, "It's nice to hear you walking and talking again."

Aki doesn't know how to respond to that. So he doesn't. He stands in silence for a moment, allows the words to wash over him, and waits for the moment to pass him by. Once it's in the rearview mirror, he says, "I wanted to talk about getting Denji, Power, and Nayuta enrolled in school."

Kishibe hums. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

Aki frowns. "They need an education." Now that they're out of Public Safety and Kishibe's managed to secure them basic 'human' rights, he isn't willing to let them lose that opportunity. He's sure that Kishibe understands, which only makes his question all the more befuddling and aggravating. "I would have thought you'd agree."

"That was before the Nayuta," Kishibe says. "Power, sure, but don't you want Denji around to keep her in line?"

"She doesn't need to be kept in line," Aki responds without thinking. "I can-"

He cuts himself off at the last second, suddenly acutely aware of what he's about to say, what he's about to commit to.

Then he swallows his apprehension down and says it. "I'll make sure that Nayuta's ready to interact with human children without causing problems. Denji deserves to go to school and have a normal high school experience without worrying about raising a child."

"Are you saying that you'll take responsibility for her, Hayakawa?" Kishibe asks. Something about the way he says it makes Aki suspect that this isn't about Denji or Nayuta at all.

"I am," Aki says.

"...Good," Kishibe replies. "I'll be in touch. It will take a little while for me to get everything set up. Keep your head above water until then."

With that, the line goes dead.

Aki stares down at the phone, takes in a long, shuddering breath, and sets it back on the receiver.

So far, so good.

He's moving forward.

*

The rest of the morning crawls by at a snail's pace. Denji, Power, and Angel may have become somewhat more responsible, but they still can't be considered morning people, especially not compared to how Aki used to be - or rather, how he's striving to be once more. It's becoming increasingly clear that Nayuta isn't a morning person either.

That's fine. He'll need to get them in the habit of waking up earlier when school starts, but for now, he wants to cherish these moments of peace before the chaos of the day sets in.

Aki finishes a load of laundry from the night before and starts on another one. When left with nothing else to do, he heads back upstairs and brews a pot of coffee. No newspapers are anywhere to be found - apparently, no one saw any point in subscribing them to one - but he still pours himself a pot and heads out onto the back porch.

He sits there for what he estimates is about half an hour, watching the birds hop around in the tree in the backyard, attempting to ignore his slowly mounting cigarette cravings, and trying his best to be at peace with his existence. He's considering going back inside and starting on breakfast when the door a bleary-eyed Denji rips the door open.

Denji spends a solid ten seconds standing in the doorway and squinting at Aki in confusion. "...You're up early," he finally says. "Like, really early."

Aki resists the urge to scoff. "You mean before noon?" he mutters, lifting his cup to drain the last dregs of coffee.

Denji winces. "You said it, not me." He closes the door behind him, walks across the porch, and flops bonelessly into the chair beside him. "How was Nayuta?"

"Good," Aki says. "She's still anxious, but she's already improving. She'll get better in time." If everyone behaves themselves and treats her decently.

He trusts that Denji will get the underlying message.

Aki keeps his vision trained on Denji as he sets his empty coffee cup on the railing. His expression shifts subtly, brow furrowing, mouth tugging over toward the side before he starts chewing on his lower lip. It's the look of someone with something to say, yet the words never come.

Before, Denji wouldn't have hesitated to blurt out whatever was on his mind.

Aki can't tell if this is an improvement or not.

"How was sleeping with Power and Angel?" he asks once it becomes clear that Denji isn't going to find his words anytime soon.

Denji springs back to life. He lets out a dramatic groan and slumps down into his chair until he's practically lying flat with his legs dangling almost entirely off. "It sucks!" he exclaims. "First of all, Angel's wings take up a ton of space, and he started bitching every time me or Powy touched 'em. Which is bullshit, because you've fallen asleep right on top of them before. I've seen it."

He pauses to glare at Aki, who shrugs his single good shoulder.

Denji narrows his eyes.

Aki purses his lips and gestures for him to continue.

"Anyway," Denji sighs, "I figured out that we can kinda all fit without touching Angel's wings if we put him in the middle, but that made Power upset 'cause she likes to sleep in the middle. She started arguing with Angel, and they ended up deciding that the only solution was to put me in the middle, which fucking sucks because they both complained if I moved, like at all. And then..." Denji pauses, expression shifting into a deep scowl. "They started arguing."

"They never argued when we were sharing a bed," Aki muses.

"Yeah, that's 'cause you're all..." Denji awkwardly trails off, waves his hand in a way that he can only assume is supposed to mean 'chronically depressed' and starts back up. "They don't give a shit about keeping me up. They went at it for over an hour, and by the time they passed out, I wasn't tired anymore, so I was just stuck there."

"Did you get any sleep?" Aki asks.

"Kinda," Denji grumbles. "Power used me as a teddy bear even though it was cramped as shit and Angel kept slapping me with his wing after he fell asleep, but I dozed off for a few hours."

"I need you to take Nayuta out later," Aki murmurs. He pauses, turning the problem over in his head for a moment, before offering, "You could try to get some more sleep on the couch. I won't wake the others up for a little while longer."

Denji sluggishly sits back up and shakes his head. "Nah. I'll just be more tired when I get back up if I do that. 'Sides." He pauses to shoot Aki a wide grin. "I've gotten plenty of shit done on way less sleep before."

Aki stands up with a sign. "Alright," he says. "Help me with breakfast, then."

Denji offers a mock salute before following him into the kitchen.

They only get halfway through preparations before they're interrupted by heavy footsteps and an ear-shattering exclamation of, "What are you doing awake!?"

"Good morning to you, too," Aki mutters, not bothering to look up from the vegetables he's awkwardly chopping.

"I would still be asleep if someone hadn't kneed me in the ribs," Denji snaps.

Power scoffs. "You have slept with me many times before without issue."

"That was when it was just us! Now you've gone and dragged Angel in with us too!"

"Aki was able to sleep with Angel and me with no problems at all!"

"I think you're the only one who was sleeping well, Power," Aki interjects, carefully sliding the cucumber slices off of the cutting board and into the bowl beside them. At her offended gasp, he adds, "You're a bed hog."

"The three of us have shared a bed before!" Power argues.

"And you were a bed hog then too!" Denji exclaims.

"Yet you slept fine!"

"'Cause there's only one of you! Angel's also a bed hog, and sleeping with both of you is awful!"

"Aki!?" Power demands.

"Denji's right," he says, moving to fill a pot with water.

"But you didn't say anything!"

"Because I was being polite."

The most uncomfortable bed-sharing situation in the world is preferable to the nights when people had actually respected his requests to be left alone, even though he will never admit it.

Power lets out a loud, offended huff. A few seconds later, heavy footsteps go storming out of the kitchen.

"Geeze," Denji mutters from where he is leaning against the cabinet doing absolutely nothing helpful. "I didn't think she'd get all upset by-"

"Shut up, Denji!" Power shouts.

"Don't shout! Angel and Nayuta are still asleep!" Aki yells back. The sight of Denji's smug, amused grin alerts him to his mistake, too late to do anything.

"Shut up," he mutters.

"Eh." Denji shrugs. "They probably just slept through it anyway. They both sleep like rocks."

Power stomps back inside before Aki can think of a response. She marches right over to him, grabbing his arm and tugging him toward the table. "Come on!" She demands.

"Hey!" Aki exclaims, barely managing to set the pot down on the counter before the water sloshes over the sides. "I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm busy."

"You are awake. It is time for you to do my hair," Power counters.

"That's-" A stupid, inane, pointless ritual that's come to mean more to him than he's willing to say. He pauses, tilting his head toward Denji when he remembers that he won't be able to see that he's looking at him.

Denji rolls his eyes. "Fine," he sighs, stepping forward from the cabinets. "It's just miso soup with tofu, right?"

Aki nods.

"Yeah, I can do that." Denji shoulders Aki out of the way as he grabs the pot and carries it over to the stove. "You two go do whatever."

"Thank you," Aki says while Power cheers. He allows her to drag him over to the kitchen table, where she presses her brush into his hand and sits down expectantly.

Aki's lips twitch faintly as he runs the brush through Power's hair.

Maybe it won't be so bad to start getting up early again.

*

Eventually, Aki wakes Nayuta up for a breakfast that’s almost as awkward as the dinner the night before. Almost. It’s fractionally easier to breathe, which is enough to give him hope that he isn’t being a hopeless fool about this entire thing.

Still, it isn’t easy. In that sense, Denji is a godsend. He eats quickly, keeps an eye on Nayuta, and jumps into action as soon as she’s finished her soup. Her own excitement to get out of the house stops her from complaining about being hustled off to get dressed. Within an hour of walking her up, she’s dressed and out of the door… leaving Aki with nothing to do other than finish the laundry and work on cleaning his room.

The disgruntled look Angel shoots him stops him before he can head off to do just that.

“Do you want a driving lesson?” Aki offers.

Angel’s face twists in disgust. It brings Aki back to every time he’d ask him to actually do his job in Public Safety. He can practically hear the words forming even before he asks, “Why would I want that?”

“Because you need to know how to drive?” Aki suggests.

Angel lets out an aggrieved whine that it, by this point, is as good as outright agreement. “Go get dressed,” he instructs.

Another whine. “Can I just drive around in my pajamas?”

“Changing your clothes daily helps form healthy habits.”

Angel straightens up and squints at him. Aki shifts awkwardly from foot to foot. “I’ll get changed in a moment,” he adds.

“You’d better. Otherwise, I’m going to start telling people you’re the lazy one,” Angel says. With that, he stands up and shuffles toward the bedroom. Aki watches him go for a moment before during his attention to Power.

“Do you want to-”

“No.”

Aki frowns. “I didn’t even say anything yet.”

Power crosses her arms. “You will need to provide a spectacular bribe for me to watch you assist the Angel Devil in driving like an old woman.”

“I’m not bribing you,” Aki flatly says.

“Then you shall be deprived of my company.”

Aki stares at Power for a long moment. She stares back, looking at his mouth in the absence of eyes. He brushes aside the odd way it makes his stomach twist and instead focuses on whether it would be okay to leave Power in the house alone. She could get into something, or start feeling lonely, or…

…Or she could deal with it, just like every other time she’s been left alone over the past several weeks. Denji and Angel have both left the house while Aki was comatose or locked away in his room, and he knows better than to count himself as present in those instances.

“Don’t get into anything while we’re g-” A shirt hits the back of Aki’s head before he can finish. He fumbles in his attempts to grab it before it hits the ground.

“Dawdling isn’t a good look on you, Hayakawa,” Angel sneers as he walks over to slump down at the kitchen table.

“I’m sure you can afford to wait a little while,” Aki shoots back, ignoring Power’s snickering.

“Go get changed before I change my mind,” Angel grumbles.

Aki gets changed.

He drives them to the same place they’ve been having their driving lessons since Angel first goaded him into it. The forest parking lot is just as abandoned as every other time they’ve visited, likely due to the drizzly, overcast sky above. The drive there is uneventful, as is the first part of the lesson itself. Angel’s improved a lot since they started. However, given how horrible he was when they started, that isn’t saying much. It isn’t too long until-

“-Don’t use both feet!”

“I thought I was pressing too light with one!”

“That doesn’t mean you use two!”

“What do you want from me then!?”

“For you to apply a normal amount of pressure!”

“How am I supposed to know what normal is!?”

“Use common sense!”

“Using two feet is using common sense, Aki!”

Aki makes a pained sound of disapproval, disgruntlement, dismay, and powerful disagreement. Angel scoffs and mutters something under his breath as he lowers one foot back down onto the gas and carefully pressed down.

“...Okay,” Aki breathes, desperately trying to get his nerves under control. “Now-”

“Hold on,” Angel interrupts. He gently tugs on the steering wheel and, at what could be generously called a snail’s pace, guides the van into one of the many parking spaces.

“What are you doing?” Aki says.

Angel keeps his eyes locked straight ahead as he carefully brings the van to a stop. “Parking.”

“I can see that. Why?”

“I want to go outside.” Angel pauses before looking up at Aki. “You could use some fresh air, too.”

Aki feels his shoulders tense. “I’m fine.”

Angel frowns. “You know you don’t need to lie to me, right?”

The tension dissipates, and Aki finds himself slumping back in his seat. “Angel…”

Aki is met by the sound of a seat belt unbuckling and the van's door opening. He tilts his head up toward the ceiling with a sigh, again wishing that he had eyes to close and settling for the next closest thing.

The door on his side opens a moment later.

"Come on," Angel says, climbing back into the car. "We're the only ones here. You might as well come back." A second later, he's reaching across his lap, and Aki's squirming in his seat to try and straighten himself out beneath him.

"I can unbuckle myself," he indignantly sputters.

"Will you?" Angel counters. The devil makes a triumphant noise when he finds the button to release the seat belt, then pulls back to shoot Aki a look that's two shades too concerned to be truly challenging or defiant. It makes him want to apologize, but for what? He does not know. Maybe it doesn't matter. The past few months have left him with so many things to apologize for that he's not sure he'll ever be able to stop saying the words.

"...Come on," Angel softly repeats, taking Aki's human wrist and tugging him out of the van.

Even if he hadn't already checked for himself, Aki would trust Angel when he says that they're the only ones in the parking lot. He still can't help the way that the hair on the back of his neck rises, how his heart rate picks up, or the sudden compulsion to scan their surroundings, just to make sure.

For his part, Angel seems to be suffering from no such paranoia. His wings and halo are on full display, yet he leads them straight onto the nearest trail without so much as a sideways glance, his grip on Aki's wrist never wavering. That steadiness serves to drive Aki forward. It allows him to keep his breathing steady even though his heart is hammering inside his chest.

It grows easier as Angel leads them into the forest. That isn't to say that he relaxes immediately; at first, it feels like every nerve in Aki's body is on edge as he stays on the lookout for any stray hikers. But as they go deeper in, the trees grow denser, and the quiet of the afternoon is filled with the chirping of birds and insects. Finally, when Angel abruptly takes them off the trail and into the trees, he finds that he can breathe easily.

Angel was right. The fresh air is nice.

They don't go very far off the path. No more than three hundred yards, by Aki's estimate. He's about to point out that they probably shouldn't wander too far off course when Angel lets go of his wrist and walks over to a fallen log. He kicks it a few times, hums, and sits down, tilting his head up toward the sunlight streaming through the canopy and closing his eyes.

As he leans against the nearest tree, Aki can't help but think he looks beautiful like that.

Then his mind stutters to a halt as he realizes what he was thinking and catches himself staring.

Before he can pull himself back together, Angel opens his eyes and looks over at him. "What are you doing?" he asks.

Looking at you, Aki thinks, stomach twisting in a way he doesn't know how to describe.

"Nothing," he says.

Angel snorts. "I'm sick of you doing nothing." He pulls his wings inward to make more room and pats the space on the log beside him. "Sit with me."

Aki is suddenly, acutely aware of how dry his mouth is as he shuffles over. He takes note of how his stomach seems to be tingling and twisting at the same time, feels the awkward way the rifle attached to his shoulder presses against the ground when he sits down. His mind threatens to morph into an endless stream of every way that he's different from the Aki who Angel had been partnered with.

And Angel doesn't show any sign of noticing any of it.

"How long do you think Denji's going to be out for?" he asks.

"Several hours at least," Aki said. The answer comes easier than it should when his insides are twisting up into knots. Maybe it's a good sign. "Denji likes to take his time shopping when he gets the chance, and Nayuta's going to want to stay out of the house for as long as possible."

"Good." Angel lets out a heavy sigh and leans against Aki's shoulder. "I could use a break from all that noise."

A break. He says it like it's only temporary, like he couldn't walk away from their chaotic, miserable, broken household at any second.

He could. Out of all of them, Angel is the only one who could be argued to be better off in the aftermath of everything Makima did. Aki knows better than to think that he misses his powers, however much he may struggle to adjust to life without them. Ever since Denji explained the situation to him, he has known that Angel could leave whenever he wanted. Kishibe made sure that Public Safety no longer has any control over him. Angel may still be a devil, but he's no more dangerous than any human, so he's no longer considered a threat. He's free. Free to go anywhere he wants, do anything, and carve out a life beyond the four walls that Aki will be stuck in for the rest of his life.

Yet he's decided to stay.

For all the life of him, Aki cannot understand why.

But he is unspeakably, suffocatingly, selfishly grateful that he has.

Aki gently flicks the side of his head. "So you want me to stop lazing around, but it's fine if you do it?" he teases.

Angel straightens up to scowl at him and bats his hand away. "Yes," he says. "I'm the Angel Devil. I'm supposed to be the lazy one."

"That wasn't in your description."

Angel flops back against Aki's shoulder with a huff. "They also called you the number one devil hater," he grumbles. "Public Safety didn't know a thing."

Aki bites back a bitter smile. You don't know the person I used to be, he thinks. And right then, he's grateful that he doesn't.

"Angel?"

Angel looks up at him with a drowsy hum.

Thank you for staying with me.

Are you sure you don't want to go?

I l-

"Don't fall asleep in the forest," Aki says.

Angel closes his eyes with a dramatic moan. "Why not? You can just carry me back to the car if I fall asleep."

"I'd leave you here before I’d do that."

"Asshole," Angel groans. "Fine, we can start walking again soon. Just... give me a few more minutes?"

Aki looks down at Angel, at his closed eyes, his cheek pressing against his sleeve, and the sunlight streaming down on his face, and smiles faintly. "A few more minutes," he agrees.

*

"Why do they make you cook when you only have one useful arm?"

Aki pauses. He thinks about Power's disastrous attempts to cook, Angel's defense of his attempts to "help" her during the chicken incident, and his mouth twists into a grimace. "It's better this way," he says.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Believe me." Aki resumes cutting the beef into slices and strategically decides that it isn't worth mentioning that Denji could stand to help in the kitchen more, even if he'd prefer that their other housemates remain ten feet away from it at all times.

"But you're slow."

Aki stops cutting to shoot Nayuta what he hopes is a disgruntled look. She responds by sticking her tongue out at him, which tells him nothing about how successful his attempt at emoting was or wasn't.

He responds by trying a different angle. Truthfully, he doesn't expect anything to come of it. Still, he doesn't like the thought of standing there and letting the kid make japes at him without some sort of retaliation, even if he is unwilling to yell at her or threaten to leave her to find her own dinner like he would with Denji or Power.

"If I'm too slow for you, why don't you help?" he suggests, reaching for the knife again.

Aki pauses when his question is met with a thoughtful hum. Nayuta tilts her head to the side, tapping her pointer finger against her chin. "I'll help if we can make the cake that I saw and TV," she eventually says.

"The cake you saw on TV?" Aki dumbly parrots.

"A big chocolate one with strawberries!" Nayuta exclaims, leaning forward against the counter. "It looked really good, but Denji said he'd make a big mess and you'd yell at him if he tried to make it."

Well. He wasn't wrong about that.

"We probably don't have all the ingredients," Aki warns. "Denji would need to go shopping, and you'd have to wait for him to get back."

"So send him!" Nayuta exclaims, slapping a hand against the counter. "I can be patient! It will take a while to finish dinner with how slow you're going anyway."

For the first time in a long time, Aki catches himself biting back a smile. "Go find him and change into something you don't mind getting dirty."

*

It takes a little under a week for Kishibe to get back to him. The fact that Aki answers the phone is at least partially a stroke of luck, and one that he's particularly grateful for. He'd rather tell Denji and Power about the upcoming lifestyle change than have Kishibe gracelessly inform them that he made a major decision about their lives without consulting them. Not that he feels bad about it; they would have ended up at the same destination even if he had bothered to stop and argue with them about it first. But the argument that's probably about to ensure will be easier with him able to break the news to them himself.

Probably. That's too optimistic of a term to use right now; there's definitely going to be an argument. Power has never shown any interest in school and won't appreciate Aki doing what she sees as ordering her around. Denji actively wants to go, but he'll feel bad stepping back from the household to further his life and prospects. A hundred different arguments are already fluttering around Aki's head by the time he gets off the phone, both the ones he'll be subjected to and the ones that he'll make in turn.

They get several hours to stew and multiply before he can bring the subject up. The anxiety worsens the cravings that have been steadily gnawing at him throughout the past week. By the time dinner rolls around, he's gone through three pieces of nicotine gum. The dinner itself is awkward, as he once again insists on everyone eating together, but not as suffocating as it had been the first time. It's still too early to call, but if he dares to be a little optimistic, he might say that things are improving.

He hopes that this is a step forward and not a leap backward.

Finally, once everyone has cleared their plate and devolved into petty bickering, Aki turns to Nayuta. He'll have to talk to her about starting her own classes at some point, but for now, he asks, "Why don't you go play in the backyard?"

Nayuta wrinkles her nose. "What's in the backyard?"

"A lawn," Denji "helpfully" provides. "You can dig holes and shit."

Nayuta glances at Denji, then back at Aki, and raises her eyebrows. "Will you let me dig holes?" she asks.

Aki grits his teeth. This is a test if he's ever seen one, but he does need her out of the room. Is trying to hide how badly he needs her to make herself scarce right now really worth the risk that he'll have to speak to all three of them at once?

No, it isn't. He can just explain everything to her later.

"If that's what you want to do," Aki sighs.

Nayuta steps away from the table with a snort. "I'm going to go read."

At this point, 'reading' means squinting at a book and trying to decipher the words within. He feels a pang of guilt at the thought of her struggling with it without anyone to help her, but he isn't about to discourage the attempt, especially when it gets her out of the room. Still, he offers, "I'll help you later."

Nayuta walks off with a non-committal hum.

With her gone, Angel leans back in his chair and raises his eyebrows. "I guess you want me to fuck off too?"

"Will you be quiet if you stay?"

"No."

"Then yes."

Angel stands up with a beleaguered sigh. "Have fun getting chewed out," he calls as he walks out of the room.

Denji and Power immediately erupt in protests aimed at Aki and Angel alike.

"Relax," Aki sighs. "Neither of you did anything wrong."

"Then what's with the ultimatum!?" Denji demands.

"It's not-" Aki pauses, balking for a second, before exclaiming, "How can it be an ultimatum when I haven't said anything yet!?"

"You have a very grave expression," Power solemnly says.

Aki presses his lips together. "I don't have any expressions to read," he mutters, unthinkingly.

Denji and Power exchange a look, and he barely has time to register that saying that might have been a mistake before Power lunges forward to chop her hand on top of his head. "Idiot!" she proclaims.

"Do you really think we don't know how to read you by now!?" Denji exclaims.

Aki ignores him in favor of trying to dodge Power, who's going in for another smack. He leans sharply to the side and, when she goes after him again, reaches across the table to slap at her. She takes the opportunity to grab his hand. Aki finds himself cursing and wrenching it back before she can drag his wrist into her mouth. "Stop that or I'll-"

"Or what?" Power sneers. "You'll sit there and stare at me without a thought in your stupid, empty head?"

"I'll shove my boot so far up your ass you'll be tasting leather for weeks," Aki vows.

"You're the one who needs a boot up your ass if you're gonna talk about yourself like that," Denji snaps.

"That's not-" It's not right. He didn't say anything that isn't true. He didn't say anything wrong. For an instant, he wants to push it, but when he sees the hard look on Denji's face and the protective insult on Power's, that impulse fizzles and dies.

They have important things to talk about. There's no point in arguing about this when Aki already knows he's right.

"That's not what I need to talk to you about," Aki sighs. He straightens back up in his seat and watches as Denji and Power reluctantly follow his lead. Once they've reached something approaching civility, he says, "I have good news."

Denji and Power exchange a blatantly distrustful look.

Aki bites back the urge to sigh. He swallows down the frustration that he ever allowed things to reach a point where they doubt him so badly. He shoves down the aching whisper telling him that they weren't just being rambunctious brats, but acting out because he's been making them worry. He pushes it all aside and forces himself to plow forward to say, "Kishibe's enrolled you both in high school."

Two sets of eyes widen.

That's where the similarity in the reactions ends.

Denji is unable to contain his excitement. There's worry too, a slight furrow of his brow, the uncertain way that he looks at Aki, but as a whole, he looks like a kid who's won the lottery. It tells him that he should be able to handle any complaints and protests without too much trouble. Regardless of the self-sacrificial responsibility he has come to feel toward the household, his desire to experience the things he's been denied throughout his life has not faded. Now that he can see it's still there, Aki is sure that it will win out with a little nudging.

Power is another matter entirely. Her expression is one of pure, undiluted disgust. She's looking at Aki like he's grown a second head, or worse, started sprouting vegetables from his hands. It could not be clearer that she's looking for a similar reaction when she looks at Denji. When she doesn't find it, her horror only magnifies.

Denji opens his mouth, but Power beats him to the punch.

"Why!?" Power demands, standing up and slamming her hands down on the table.

Aki already feels tired. However, as Power glares him down and Denji looks between the two of them in bewilderment, he also feels stubborn. It's only a faint glimmer of a once-familiar feeling, but he clings to it as he tries his level best to stare the Blood Devil down - or at least do something close to it. "Getting an education is important," he says, calm, level, even - and hard as stone. Unwavering. An unspoken warning that this is a battle she will not win.

But of course, Power still has to try. "I am educated!" she exclaims, straightening up and crossing her arms imperiously. "You and Denji cannot begin to comprehend the depths of my knowledge." She clicks her tongue, shakes her head, and wags her finger in Aki's face. "Shameful! Am I not the one responsible for us all being here today!?"

"I mean a formal education, Power."

"And why would I require these human formalities?"

"'Cause it'll get you a diploma," Denji chimes in. "And you'll get to learn math and english and shit."

Power tilts her head back and laughs. "Fools! I will never need your human maths."

"It's not just math!" Denji exclaims. "You get to meet people and learn how to interact with the rest of the city like a normal person and-" Denji pauses, shooting Aki a long, wary look. "It takes time. We'd be away from the house a lot."

Aki nods. "You'll be out of the house for eight hours a day, more if you take extracurriculars. Plus the time that you'll need to spend studying."

"Yeah, uh..." Denji slumps back in his chair. He fiddles with his hands, some of the excitement that had glowed so brightly for a moment fading into a dull ember. "Are you sure about this?" he asks.

"It doesn't matter if he is sure," Power mutters, flopping back into her chair with a thud. "'Tis a fool's errand either way."

Denji turns his head to glower at her. "School ain't foolish," he snaps. "But..." He looks back at Aki with a frown on his face. "Are you sure about this?"

"Would I have brought it up if I wasn't?" Aki shoots back.

Denji makes a face that says he's not so sure.

Aki swallows down the lump in his throat and reminds himself that he's given them plenty of reason to doubt him.

"Kishibe thinks it's a good idea," he tries again. "You can't put your lives on pause forever, and I..." He pauses, takes a deep breath, and reminds himself that what he's about to say is the truth. He needs it to be. "I'm not going back to the way I've been. I can handle taking care of things here."

For a moment, Denji looks like he's going to argue, like he's going to question him, like he's going to worry.

Aki doesn't know how to describe his relief when that doesn’t happen. Not outright, anyway.

“What about Nayuta?” Denji asks.

“She’ll be starting school soon as well. Until then, I can care for her while you’re away.”

Denji doesn’t look doubtful at that, and Aki… Aki doesn’t know how that makes him feel. It’s a confusing mass of static in his chest, warm and suffocating at the time.

Power, as always, provides a distraction by declaring, “You can lock them away in your horrid math building, but I am not going.”

Aki shoots Power a look without thinking about it. The way it makes her squirm in her seat gives him pause. For the first time, he considers that he might still be capable of conveying emotion after all. It feels impossible, but… it’s not like he’s been looking in the mirror to tell.

The thought isn't allowed to linger for long, because Power goes back to glowering at him in an instant, pulling him back to the debacle at hand.

“Yes, you are,” Aki says.

“You cannot make me.”

“I can stop cooking for you.”

Horror ricochets across Power’s face. However, it only lasts for an instant before she declares, “Fine! I can cook for myself now!”

Now it’s Aki’s turn to feel horrified. “Don’t you dare.”

“My next attempt at sugared chicken will be a rousing success-”

“You’d better not get anywhere near that stove!”

“-And you will weep for having ever doubted me!”

“Y’know, I heard school has cooking classes,” Denji muses. “If you go, I bet you could become an even better cook than Aki.”

Power snaps her head around to stare at Denji. “And you hid this information from me!?” she cries.

“I didn’t hide shit. I’ve just never been there! But…” A horrible grin crawls across Denji’s face. “If you don’t go, I guess you will only know what I tell you, huh?”

“No!” Power shouts. “I will pick the information out of your mind!”

“Nah.” Denji waves a hand dismissively. “You’re obviously way too scared.”

“Yeah. Why else would you be trying so hard not to go to school?”

“I’m not scared! You’re scared! If I graced it with my presence, I would cow the entire building into submission!”

“Nah. You’re being a weenie, and now you’re gonna miss out on home economics.”

As Power lets out an indignant squawk, Aki leans back into his chair and lets out a regretful sigh, preparing himself for what is bound to be a very long, very circular argument.

*

And it is.

Power and Denji spend the rest of the day loudly, obnoxiously, disruptively arguing about whether or not Power should go to school. However, through some act of god, Denji has convinced Power to give school a chance by the time they go to bed.

Aki owes him one.

Aki owes him a lot.

*

Denji bought Nayuta a bedazzling gun. Why he thought that was a good idea, Aki cannot fathom. The fact that she hasn't gotten into any trouble with it yet isn't enough to satisfy him. The jeans and canvas bag that Denji bought her may have been enough to keep her occupied for now, but he can see how she is eyeing the furniture.

Nayuta manages to maintain her self-control for an entire two hours. During that time, Aki lounges in the armchair. In theory, he is attempting to read a horror novel about a young man turning into a giant bug. In practice, he barely absorbs any of it, too busy keeping a wary eye on where Nayuta's sprawled out with her crafts in the center of the room. He watches as she slowly starts to fidget more and more, her occasional glimpses at the furniture turning into long, lingering looks.

He catches the way she starts staring at the massive rifle that's taken the place of his arm. More importantly, he notices the glint in her eyes as her fragile self-control finally fractures. When she stands up and walks toward him, he already knows with resigned certainty what's about to happen.

"Hey, Aki?" Nayuta asks, tone lilting in the way of a child who is trying very hard to be adorable. It might be effective if she looked even a little less devious.

Aki tilts his head toward the ceiling with a heavy sigh. "Why?"

"Why, what?" Nayuta asks innocently. As if she isn't smart enough to know that he knows what she wants.

"Nayuta."

Nayuta steps back and bends down to pick up her bedazzling gun. She points it at him menacingly, triggering the pointless muscle memory that is him rolling his head toward her and shooting her what would have been a flat look. Yet... maybe it isn't entirely pointless, because the next thing he knows, Nayuta is trying to hold back a giggle.

"Don't you think it's kinda bland?" she asks, gesturing toward the rifle.

Aki lifts it a few inches, feels his lips twist into a grimace at the movement, and lets it drop back onto the cushion. "You think the weapon of mass destruction is bland?" he intones.

"Yeah!" Nayuta exclaims. "It could have a design! Like a flower, or..." The no-good look in her eyes morphs into something achingly earnest as she trails off. Her pause only lasts for a moment before she's waving her bedazzler around and saying, "You could let me surprise you!"

Aki's grimace turns into a more subdued frown. "You don't even know if they'll stick," he points out, as if that's the most glaring issue with letting a child glue shimmery rhinestones on his person. If anyone sees…

...Who's going to see? With Kishibe's schedule, it's not like he will stop by anytime soon, and Denji, Power, and Angel have all seen him looking far worse. Who else is liable to get anywhere close to Aki?

He knows how this is going to end even before Nayuta pleads, "You can at least let me try! Please? I'll make it so good. You'll feel stupid that you didn't say yes right away!"

"Fine," Aki sighs. "But stay on my-" Rifle? Arm? Growth? "-That. If you start putting rhinestones on the furniture, I'm taking that thing away from you."

"I know that," Nayuta huffs. She climbs over the edge of the armchair, forcing Aki to move over to make room for her. However, she only sits there for an instant before scooting back onto the arm and pulling the rifle into her lap. "Stay still and don't look until I tell you to."

"Be careful," Aki warns, looking off to the side and away from her.

"Duh." Nayuta presses the first rhinestone into the gun. Aki's skin crawls as he realizes that he can feel it. The sensation of hot glue clinging to metal isn't painful, but the heat is enough to resonate dully through the nerves that he tries so hard to ignore, an odd sensation that he could almost describe as tickling. "I know what I'm doing. If I mess up, it's gonna be because you didn't listen."

"I'm sure your day of experience with that thing has made you an expert," Aki drily says.

Nayuta reaches forward to swat at the back of his head with a huff. He jerks away, but isn't quick enough to keep her fingers from grazing the hammer in the back of his head. Fighting back the disgust coiling in his stomach, he remarks, "I thought you wanted me to stay still."

"I want you to stop being a butt," Nayuta gripes. She leans back, turning her attention back to her work. A few more rhinestones are affixed to the abomination that's gunned down countless people before she proclaims, "The stones are sticking. It'll be done soon."

Aki hums his acknowledgment. The feeling of the stones being attached makes it difficult for his mind to drift as she works, but he tries his best. He picks his book back up from his lap and forces himself to pay attention to the words, to focus on the story and not think about what Nayuta's touching. It isn't an entirely fruitless effort, surprisingly. Aki manages to get a decent amount of progress made before Nayuta declares, "It's done!"

His stomach twists at the proclamation. He doesn't want to look; he never wants to look. The simple act of turning to look at Nayuta has him fighting against an unnaturally stiff neck. He almost tells her that he sees and likes it, a simple lie that he can probably get away with because he lacks any actual eyes, but the look on her face stops him in his tracks. She looks so proud, so excited.

What right does he have to hurt her to avoid the parts of himself he hates?

It's not like they'll be going away any time soon, no matter how much he wishes they would.

Aki looks down at the rifle.

A large circle has been bedazzled into its side. Two pointed triangles sit on top of it. On the inside are three small clusters of rhinestones, two of them beside each other and the third beneath them. What looks like a lopsided three sits beneath the third with half of a long-thin oval attached to its side.

"...It's a dog," Aki eventually registers.

"Yeah!" Nayuta exclaims. "Do you like it?"

It's not very well done. All of the lines are crooked, the placement of the stones is haphazard, and Aki would have mistaken it for a cat if not for the tongue.

...His arm doesn't look quite so scary like this.

"Yeah," he says. "It's nice."

Nayuta grins triumphantly. "I told you! You should let me do your face too. I wanna-"

She's interrupted by a burst of choked laughter.

Aki and Nayuta look toward the doorway at the same time. They're greeted by the sight of Denji and Power clustered together, Denji with his hand slapped over his mouth, Power with her chin resting on his shoulder, actively sputtering.

"Not a word," Aki warns.

Denji lowers his hand, opens his mouth, lets out a pained wheeze, and covers it back up.

Power buries her face in Denji's neck. It does next to nothing to muffle her laughter.

Warmth bubbles up in Aki's stomach, making his voice wobble as he adds, "She could go after either of you next."

"I will if you tell me to," Nayuta eagerly vows.

"Right, so you'd-"

A burst of laughter erupts from behind Denji's hand.

"- You'd better-"

Power tumbles off of Denji's back, laughing hysterically.

"Shut the fuck up," Aki sputters weirdly. It takes him a few seconds to register that he's laughing.

"Holy shit," Denji wheezes, dropping his hand and doubling over in laughter, arms wrapped around his middle. "Angel!" He manages to wheeze out. "You've gotta- Get in here! Now!"

Aki manages to regain his composure enough to call, "Nayuta."

"Yeah?" she asks, the gleam in her eyes saying that she already knows what he's about to say. Good.

Aki smiles.

"Why don't you go decorate their shoes?"

Denji straightens up with a squawk. "Wait, no-"

*

Aki is on the verge of falling asleep when his bedroom door creaks open. His first instinct is looking at the futon beside his bed. When he spots Nayuta, perfectly still and seemingly fast asleep, he looks toward his door in confusion.

The sight of Angel, his bleary eyes and fuzzy pajamas illuminated by the warm glow of his halo, raises more questions than it answers. Aki sits up, a puzzled frown slipping across his face, while the devil quietly closes the door and picks his way across the room, carefully stepping around Nayuta's cot. He sits up when he moves to climb into bed with him, scooting over obligingly, but not without whispering, "Angel?"

Angel hums sleepily, already worming his way under the covers and laying down.

"What are you doing here?"

"Denji 'n Power are being obnoxious again," Angel murmurs. He reaches up to grasp Aki's shoulder and gently tugs at him. Aki hesitates for a moment before laying back down obligingly. Once he's down, Angel throws his arm over his torso, burrows his face in the crook of his neck, seemingly uncaring that one of his cheeks is pressing against the hard, cold metal of his unnatural shoulder, and adds, "I'm sick of it."

Aki feels his heart hammering away against his chest. He wonders if Angel can hear it. He wonders if he can feel the way his breathing has become more shallow as his lungs constrict. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows why this is happening. However, it is the question in the forefront of his mind, the one seeping in hopeful disbelief, that he gives voice to. "Enough to tolerate Nayuta?" he softly asks.

"Yes."

Aki's heart hurts. It's a good hurt, it's a terrifying hurt, it's a hurt that speaks of the thing that he is not willing to think of in the middle of the night, with Angel clinging to him like he's still stable enough to be anyone's lifeline. He pushes it aside and focuses on the simpler feelings: the hope, the joy, and the flicker of wry amusement that out of all things, it was Denji and Power being irritating that drove Angel to willingly tolerate Nayuta's presence.

"What were they doing?" Aki whispers.

"Asking about our relationship," Angel murmurs.

"Our... Oh." Just like that, the thing in the back of Aki's mind has been pushed to the front. He thinks of Angel sitting in the sunlight of the forest and the feeling that enveloped him at that moment, so similar to what he's feeling right now. There's a realization somewhere in there, he thinks. It's a complicated one though, filled with implications and difficult questions.

It's a realization that Angel might well be better off without, what with Aki being the way he is now.

So why is he even bringing it up? Why didn't he just say that Denji and Power were being pushy and asking about things that weren't any of their business?

"Angel..." he tentatively begins.

"Hush," Angel murmurs. He fidgets as he adjusts his position, and for a moment, Aki thinks that he's going to ask to move over to his human side. Instead, he drapes his wing across both of them, loops his free arm around Aki's gun, and lets out a contented sigh. "Sleep."

The corner of Aki's mouth twitches, just barely. "Alright," he whispers.

Angel is asleep within minutes.

It takes Aki longer. He doesn't know how long he stares at Angel, caught up in the maze of feelings that he doesn't dare give voice to.

Not until he starts to drift off.

On the edge of sleep, he finally thinks, I love you.

Chapter Text

"Stay very still," Aki murmurs.

"I am staying still. You're the one that's taking forever." Nayuta huffs out this declaration and cranes her neck, eyeing him skeptically. "Are you sure you can do this?"

Aki frowns. "Of course. I've cut people's hair before."

A snicker from across the room draws his attention. Power is leaning against the bathroom's door frame with an amused smirk, plainly entertained by the scene playing out in front of her. Angel stands a few paces behind her, his expression akin to someone watching a car crash.

The sight of the two of them makes Aki press his lips into a firm line. "I have," he stresses. Brandishing his scissors at the duo, he adds, "You both need trims as well."

Power scoffs and Angel wrinkles his nose like he's never heard something more distasteful in his life. However, it's Nayuta who speaks up first. "Have you done this with one hand?" she asks, leaning back as she eyes the scissors warily.

“No,” Aki admits. “But I’ll never be able to do it if I don’t practice.”

Nayuta jerks forward with an appalled noise. “Don’t practice on me!”

“You need a haircut, and I don’t see anyone else around to do it,” Aki reiterates. He grabs Nayuta’s shoulder, careful not to poke her with the scissors, and carefully pushes her back toward the chair. “Lean back.”

Nayuta looks up at him with something that he would call terror if he were being dramatic. He nudges her shoulder again, and she reluctantly sits back.

A fresh volley of snickering starts from the doorway. Aki knows that he can't glare like he used to, but this time, he tries anyway. It's more effective than he would have expected; Power smirks at him for a few seconds before covering her mouth with her hand and turning away, shoulders still shaking with mirth.

Good enough.

Aki holds his scissors up to Nayuta's hair, awkwardly maneuvering to grasp the end of a lock between his pinky and ring finger.

Seconds before he can make the first cut, Angel cries, "Wait!"

"What?" Aki asks, straightening up with a huff.

"This is just sadistic," Angel says, walking across the bathroom. He shoves Aki out of the way and grabs the scissors from his hand without so much as an 'excuse me'.

"Since when do you know how to cut hair?"

"I don't," Angel easily replies, leaning closer to examine Nayuta's hair as he runs a hand through it. "I'm a devil, not a barber."

Aki moves to cross his arms, aborts the movement, and puts his hand on his hip instead. "Then what makes you think you're qualified to do this?"

"Qualified," Angel scoffs. "Nayuta, who do you want cutting your hair? Me, or-"

"You," Nayuta immediately interrupts.

Angel shoots Aki a smug look. Aki frowns, and Angel actually smiles a little bit before waving his hand at him. "Get out," he says. "It's too crowded in here. I could slip up and give the Control Devil a bowl cut or something."

"You'd better not," Nayuta hisses.

Angel hums. "I guess you'd better listen to me, then."

He lines his fingers up about an inch from the end of Nayuta's hair. For all of his claims of inexperience, his movements are confident. It makes Aki wonder if he might have been lying. His hair is almost as long as Power's, and Public Safety likely would have shorn it off if he couldn't care for it by himself. Unless it's that long specifically because he never cut it, and he's just lucky enough not to get split ends?

Before Aki can comment on any of his musings, Angel shoots him a flat look. "Have you gone deaf, or are you just being a stubborn asshole?" He points to the doorway with the scissors. His other hand still threaded in Nayuta's hair. "Out."

Aki reluctantly exits the bathroom. Upon reaching the doorway, he's met with Power's gleeful snicker of, "Banished."

"Shut your mouth," Aki mutters, leaning against the doorframe. He starts rubbing his fingers together and a second later mutters, "I need a cigarette."

Power punches him in the arm.

"Excuse you?" Aki asks through gritted teeth, pretending not to hear Nayuta's snickering from the bathroom.

"Denji said we're allowed to use violence to discourage your cravings," she proudly proclaims.

"Did he now?" Aki deadpans.

Power nods. "Angel is in support of this plan."

"Now that you actually smell good, I'm not letting you go back to reeking like a chimney," Angel shamelessly proclaims.

Aki feels a flicker of something that isn't irritation. Of course, he doesn't acknowledge it. Instead, he looks between his partner and his terror, contemplates chewing them out, and ultimately decides against it. Next, he spends a moment peering at Nayuta, taking in the tenseness in her shoulders and the way she keeps glancing back at him. Those don't strike him as good signs, but Angel looks far more at ease than he had been when he first started to sleep with them a few nights ago, and Power doesn't seem fearful at all, so maybe…

Maybe…

"Nayuta," Aki calls.

Nayuta moves to turn her head toward him, only to be stopped by Angel's hand on her cheek. She makes an aggravated sound before asking, "What?"

"Will you be okay if I leave for a moment?" Aki asks.

Nayuta makes an affronted sound. "Duh! What kind of baby do you think I am?"

Aki's lips twitch despite his building headache. "I won't ask next time," he promises.

"Good."

Aki casts a look at Power before leaving. She anxiously between him and the bathroom before leaning back against the doorframe with a tiny nod. He pats her on the shoulder before leaving.

It only takes a moment for him to pull a packet of nicotine gum out of his bedside drawer and put a piece in his mouth. He sits on the bed for longer than necessary, doing nothing more than waiting for his withdrawal symptoms to die down as time ticks by. Once several minutes have passed, long enough for exposure, but hopefully not enough for any disasters to occur, he stands up and heads back toward the bathroom.

Angel is almost done with Nayuta’s hair by the time he gets back. He’s fast for someone with “no experience” doing hair. Aki leans against the doorframe opposite Power, but only ends up watching for a few minutes before Angel shoos Nayuta out of the chair opposite the vanity. “Now you,” Angel says, pointing at Aki as Nayuta scurries out of the chair.

“What?” Aki responds.

“When’s the last time you cut your hair?” Angel asks.

Aki raises his hand to brush his fingers against the edges of his hair, which now goes down a little past his shoulders. Before he can admit that he doesn’t know, Nayuta leans against his leg and declares, “You look like some sort of hippie.”

Aki frowns down at her. “How do you know what a hippie is?”

“I just know these things,” Nayuta says.

At the same time, Power gleefully provides, “Denji’s been letting her watch weird television while you clean.”

“Of course,” Aki sighs. Then, to Power, “I haven’t been cleaning that much.”

Power scoffs. “You’re more of a freak about it than you were before.”

“I’ve never been a freak about cleaning.”

Nayuta snickers into her hand while Power argues, “You are the worst of neat freaks.”

“Better a neat freak than a slob,” Angel interrupts, marching across the bathroom to grab Aki’s hand. Nayuta steps back with an indignant huff.

Aki allows himself to be dragged into the chair. When confronted by the mirror, he quickly averts his gaze downward, but doesn’t give in to the urge to ask the chair to be moved. Meanwhile, Power protests, “You are a slob, Angel Devil.”

“Exactly. This house doesn’t need four of us,” Angel retorts.

Angel and Power continue bickering. Aki finds the sound fading into the background, instead focusing on the feelings of Angel running his hands through his hair. It starts with unforgiving jolts of tension racing through his being whenever his hand brushes against the hammer in the back of his head. But as Angel continues his ministrations, it gradually fades from a blaring sense of wrongness to something lurking in the back of his awareness. Instead, he finds his attention drawn to the pleasant, tickling warmth of his fingers brushing against his scalp and the sensation of the tangles gently being woven out of his hair. He hadn’t even realized that it was tangled.

Eventually, the bickering stops, and Angel murmurs, “Let me know if anything feels wrong.”

Aki nods his agreement.

The bathroom is silent aside from the quiet snips of the scissors. After a little while, Aki glances toward the doorway. He can’t see much without turning his head, but what he glimpses is enough to see that it’s empty. Surprise flickers in his chest at Nayuta’s absence, followed by a glimmer of haunting, hopeful relief.

Aki looks forward. He’s only able to look in the mirror for a few seconds, but for those few seconds, his stomach doesn’t churn as hard as it used to.

He looks down for less than a minute before forcing himself to look back in the mirror. However, it isn’t himself that he’s looking at this time. “Thank you for trying,” he tells Angel’s reflection.

Angel pauses. “With what?”

Everything.

“Nayuta,” Aki says.

“Oh.” Angel goes back to cutting his hair with a shrug. “She isn’t completely awful, I guess.”

A delicate silence fills the air for a moment. Aki knows that there are a hundred things he could say here, a hundred ways he could give voice to the warm, painful feeling in his stomach.

There are a hundred reasons why he doesn’t say any of them.

The moment is broken by Angel setting the scissors down beside the sink and declaring, “Done. I hope you know that I’m not going to clean this.”

Aki sighs, first glancing at his reflection - his hair looks good if nothing else - and then the small mountain of fallen back locks covering the bathroom floor. “Of course not.”

*

Aki has two problems right now.

He decides to start with the less important one.

Aki is staring through the glass of the back door one blustery morning, cup of coffee in hand, when he calls, "Denji?"

He can hear his... Not a colleague anymore. 'Friend' feels too weak of a term at this point. Maybe...? Fam-

Well. Whatever Denji is to him, he can hear him rustling around in the kitchen. At his question, he peeks his head out the doorway with a 'hmm'? that's half-muffled by the sweet bun sticking out of his mouth.

Aki allows himself a gentle snort at the sight, then gestures out the door and asks, "Why is there a shopping cart in our backyard?"

Denji swallows a mouthful of bun and strides over to stand beside Aki. He stares blankly out at the backyard - and the dented grocery store shopping cart lying upside down in the center of the lawn - before helpfully providing, "That's been there since yesterday afternoon."

"And why is it back there?" Aki presses, allowing a little irritation to seep into his tone. Something about it is perversely relieving; having the emotional capacity to be irritated isn't something that he realized he missed until it returned to him. Now that he's aware of it, he tries not to think about it too much.

It's difficult when Denji seems determined to make his irritation rise. He takes another bite of his bun, stares directly at Aki as he spends ten seconds chewing, swallows, and finally asks, "Who says I know anything about it?"

The corner of Aki's mouth spasms. "It was either you or Power." Possibly both of them. Probably both of them, actually.

Denji takes another bite of his bun and speaks with his mouth full. "What makes you think that?"

"Are you saying that Angel did this?" Aki shoots back.

Denji swallows. "Angel was involved, yeah."

Aki feels his jaw go slack. "He was what?"

A grin spreads across Denji's lips. "We were cart surfing! Y'know how it was all windy yesterday? We took the cart up to the top of that hill by the junkyard a few blocks away, I got in, Angel stood on the back with his wings spread out, and we rolled down. The cart got a little beaten up, but it was pretty fun."

Aki foregoes pointing out that Denji just confirmed that he is partially to blame for the cart in favor of asking, completely dumbfounded, "How did you get him to agree to that?"

"He owed me a favor," Denji quickly replies. Before Aki can ask for further clarification, he takes a massive bite of his bun.

With a faint, defeated sigh, Aki decides to let the question drop. "Get rid of the cart," he says instead.

Denji has the decency to swallow before responding. "D'ya want me to take it back to the grocery store, or...?"

Aki looks back out at the cart, which is barely shaped like a cart by this point, and grimaces. Even with Kishibe's help, maintaining a household of five is expensive enough without adding property destruction fees on top of everything. "Just drop it off at the dump."

Denji gets halfway through, nodding before a devious look crosses his face. "So, before I do that-"

"No."

"No?"

"I don't need anyone breaking a limb because of this."

"I already broke my arm!" Denji laughs triumphantly. "Angel gave me some blood and I was good as new."

Aki almost falls down the rabbit hole that this conversation is leading into. He almost snaps at him to be more careful, almost says that Angel should have more common sense, almost gives into the sort of indignant outrage that will have Denji responding with childish amusement. Something rises up to stop him before he can. He can't tell if it's lingering exhaustion or the knowledge that they have something more important to talk about, and right now, he doesn't care. They do have something more important to talk about. He's just wasting time by continuing this conversation at this point.

"Is Power still sleeping with you?" he asks.

Denji's brow furrows as he frowns. He shoves the rest of his bun into his mouth, hastily chewing and swallowing, before saying, "Yeah, no shit. Why?"

Aki hesitates for just long enough to hope this will go well. Then he asks, "Do you think you could get her to move her things in with you?"

"Probably," Denji says with a shrug. "She'd be a pest about it, but it's not like she's really using her room anyway, so yeah, I don't see why not." He pauses, tilting his head to the side. "Why? Gettin' tired of sleeping with Nayuta?"

It would be easy to call his tone amused. Aki would call it such if not for the glimmer of concern that he catches in his eyes, the strain that he can't quite keep out of his voice. Once again, he feels a pang of guilt for the same things that he's been blaming himself for ever since he started trying to pull himself together. For the first time, he wonders when he'll be able to stop feeling wretched about them.

Probably not anytime soon. Not for the hundreds of bodies that had fallen cold in the wake of his transformation, not for the way he had abandoned his family as he struggled to come to terms with what he had become and the blood on his hands. Denji's blood, in part. These are things that will haunt him, even as the guilt slowly begins to chafe.

For now, he can at least say, "That's not it. She's a growing girl. She's going to need privacy. I think she's stable enough to sleep by herself. The sooner we get her a space of her own, the better."

Especially since she can be trusted not to abuse that space. After spending over a week near-isolated in Denji's room, he trusts that she won't lock herself away for days on end, even if the situation with the rest of the house may still be a little awkward.

Awkward. It isn't pleasant, but the fact that the once-stifling tension can now be described as awkward is glaring proof of how the situation has improved.

"Yeah, but Angel will like not having her in the room with you," Denji says.

Aki frowns, ignores the squirming in his gut, and asks, "What does that have to do with anything?"

Denji holds his hands up innocently. "Nothing, I was just sayin'." He lowers his arms back to his sides before continuing, "I'll get Power to move into my room. But I think you're gonna have to talk to her about school a little more. She won't admit it, but she's all anxious."

Aki doesn't bother telling Denji that he thinks he can do a better job of soothing Power's anxieties. After everything he's done, if he wants Aki to take care of this one thing, he can pull himself together and do it.

"Deal," he says.

*

It's not hard to pull Power aside. She comes without complaint when he says that he wants to speak with her after dinner. The speed of her agreement makes Aki's stomach twist with bittersweet fondness. He doesn't doubt that he's been neglecting her to some degree in his determination to look after Nayuta. That won't need to be the case for much longer; once she's a little more integrated into the household, he'll be able to split his attention between everyone more evenly, even if the child will still require more supervision and attention.

Of course, Power won't need him as much once she starts school.

She probably hasn't needed him for a while.

Still, Denji thinks that he can help in this situation, so he's going to try.

Aki leads Power out onto the back porch. He hesitates for a moment, looking out at the lawn shrouded in darkness, before sitting down in one of their dinky patio chairs. Power does not hesitate to flop down in his lap, completely uncaring of the way the chair creaks ominously under their combined weight.

"Really?" Aki huffs, awkwardly shifting his rifle arm to the side so that it doesn't jostle her.

"Continue with what you wanted to say," Power commands.

Aki gently flicks the side of her head. Power jerks her head to the side with a yelp, but remains firmly seated in his lap.

With a sigh, Aki lowers his arm back to his side. "Denji said you still aren't sure about going to school," he says.

Power lets out a wordless grumble and leans into him, tucking her head beneath his chin. Her extended silence makes him worry that he might have been too vague or too soft and given her an escape that he cannot afford under the circumstances. Before he can try again, she murmurs, "Denji is a liar. I have already agreed to accept my enrollment."

Aki starts running his hand through her hair. "That doesn't mean you're alright with it."

Power doesn't say anything. Aki pauses, fingers stilling near the end of her long blond locks, before resuming his ministrations.

"I can't do anything if you don't tell me what's wrong," he presses.

"Do you care if I'm not alright with it?" Power grumbles.

"Of course," Aki says, stiff and perhaps a little offended. "I want you to go to school because I think it would be good for you, but we won't send you if you're terrified."

Power sits up abruptly. Aki allows his hand to fall out of her hair and down to dangle over the side of the chair. "I am not scared!" she exclaims.

"Okay," Aki says. "Then what's wrong?"

Power peers at him for a moment, chewing on her lower lip, before looking down at her lap. "...I was not scared of Public Safety either," she says, the tremble in her voice revealing her lie. "That does not mean that I want to go back."

Aki’s breath catches in his throat. "Power, do you think that school will be like Public Safety?"

"Won't it?" she challenges. "I will be under the control of authoritarian oligarchs, and if I displease them, I will be subjected to their wrath, even though I know better than all of them. They will treat Denji as their dog, and I-"

"No," Aki says. "Teachers can discipline you for breaking the rules, but there are limits to their authority. You have rights now, Power. Both of you do. They won't treat Denji like a dog, and they won't hurt you. They can't."

Power looks up and stares at him for a long time. "...I am stronger now than I was under Makima. I have no reason to fear the attacks of humans. But it would be irritating if they were to try."

"They won't," Aki says. "I promise."

"And you will not begrudge my dropping out if it turns out to be vile?" Power prompts.

This time, Aki pauses for a moment. He has to remind himself that for all that Power may have been doing a good job of holding herself together - potentially better than all of them - she has been through just as much. He cannot blame her if she wants to tread cautiously. It is more than enough that she held herself together while he broke - he will not be the one who pushes her further than she can handle too soon.

"I won't," Aki vows. He pauses to take in a deep breath, to remind himself that what he thinks would be best for Power doesn't matter if she can't handle it yet. "You don't have to go if you aren't ready."

Power doesn't say anything at first. She leans back into Aki and snuggles into the space between his rifle arm and chest with a gentle huff. "I will go," she says eventually. "Denji needs to see the superiority of my scholastic abilities."

Aki smiles. The words get caught in his throat, a genuine sentient that he wouldn't have been able to bring himself to voice only three months ago. But a lot has changed in three months. Where they once would have remained irreparably stuck, he now manages to shake them loose and say, "I'm proud of you for trying."

Power grins up at him. "Of course!"

They lapse into silence for a moment after that. It is broken by Power murmuring, "Aki?"

Aki hums in acknowledgment and question.

"I'm glad you survived."

Aki stalls. Then he wraps his human arm around Power, hugging her closer, and murmurs, "I am, too."

He isn't lying.

*

Denji upholds his end of the bargain. Within a few days, Power has been convinced to share a room with Denji and Nayuta has agreed to move into Power's old room. Nayuta is actually the more reluctant of the two. She's not a good enough actor to convince Aki that she has any genuine problems with sleeping alone. Rather, she sees an opportunity to take advantage of a situation and is not hesitating to do so.

And if he wants her to move rooms easily, Aki has no choice but to go along with it.

Nayuta's request is simple on the surface. She wants to go out and do something fun with everyone. It is kept from being a truly easy request by her making it clear that everyone includes Aki. He spends several hours driving himself insane trying to think of something they can do outside of the house that won't put anyone in danger.

It's Angel who suggests that they go hiking next time it's overcast. He immediately retracts his suggestion, complaining that hiking with all of them would be a hassle, but it's already too late by then.

The sky is dark and drizzly a few days later. Every forecast Aki checks says that it isn't going to rain, but the general misery of the day has ensured that no one else is out hiking. It does not do anything to stop his gaggle of hooligans from rampaging up and down the trails like wild animals. Aki spends about an hour trying to keep up before allowing himself to fall behind, listening to Power and Nayuta's distant, gleeful screeches and watching Denji dart around between the trees as he alternates between trying to stick with them and running after every little thing that distracts him.

He'll probably need to intervene if Power and Nayuta start to wander too deep into the forest. For now, he's content to leave them to learn how to get along.

'Content,' unfortunately, is not a word that can be used to describe everyone in the forest. Angel has been remarkably compliant considering that they've already been hiking for about three miles. Now, however, he pulls up to Aki's side with an aggravated huff. "I can't believe you've made me do this," he grouses, dramatic, but lacking any real bite.

"It was your idea," Aki lightly reminds him.

"It was a bad idea."

"I don't think so."

"That's because you have bad ideas all the time."

"Do I?"

"Obviously. You never would have met any of us if you made good decisions."

Angel's regret is obvious the second he finishes his accusation. His shoulders stiffen, his wings twitch, and there is wariness in his eyes as he peers up at Aki.

Aki smiles softly. It's alright, he says without saying it. Saying it would mean verbally acknowledging Angel's misstep, which would mean addressing how bad things had gotten that he has reason to worry that such a harmless comment might be a misstep.

Angel's wings and shoulders relax with a little sigh.

"You're right," Aki says. "That's why I'm okay with having bad ideas sometimes."

Angel's eyes widen. They soften in the seconds before he glances away with a gentle murmur of, "Sap."

He doesn't say anything as he slips his hand into Aki's.

It's warm.

*

The morning that Denji and Power leave for school for the first time is a whirlwind of chaos.

Once they leave, the house is quiet in a way that Aki hasn't gotten used to yet. It isn't the tense, fractured silence that has filled the space during most of the dull moments after Makima. It's closer to the moments of peace that Aki has been snatching by resuming his habit of waking up earlier than everyone else, which are similar to his early mornings back at the old apartment, save for the dull, aching weight that's nestled itself deep into his chest.

Aki doesn't feel that weight today. In the instant that he allows himself to acknowledge it, he wonders if it might be because it's the early afternoon rather than the early morning. The sun is shining brightly through the windows, he's already taken the time to adjust to being up and active for the day, and the house is quiet. Then he entertains the thought that maybe the time of day has nothing to do with it. He wonders if the reason for the quiet might be the reason he feels something close to good. Denji and Power are going to school, living their lives, building a future, and he's…

He's letting them. He's trying to help. Maybe, if he allows himself to be a little proud, he's even helping them.

There's a bittersweet sort of ache behind that thought. He knows that he'll run into it if he allows his mind to wander too far down that path, so he cuts himself off there.

Progress is being made. Denji, Power, Nayuta, and Angel have the opportunity to live happy lives. That's all that matters.

*

Denji and Power won't stop talking when they get home.

Denji's excitement was to be expected, but that doesn't make it any less refreshing. Power's gleeful bragging, behavior that might have been considered annoying once upon a time, comes as a massive relief. Aki listens to them for a solid hour before Nayuta gets fed up with waiting and begins flooding them with a barrage of questions. Aki allows himself to fade into the background at that point, sitting by Angel on the couch.

"Do you think they're going to get annoying about this?" Angel murmurs.

Aki's lips twitch. Power is regaling a wide-eyed Nayuta with a tale of the wonders and horrors of the school bathroom while Denji occasionally chimes in to add his own details.

"Probably," Aki whispers. "You're one of Denji's best friends by this point. He’s going to want to talk to you about school."

Angel wrinkles his nose. "Gross."

He doesn't actually protest.

*

It's Denji and Power's third day of school. Aki is sitting with Nayuta at the kitchen table, working on Japanese with her in an attempt to pull her up to a point where she can begin attending her own classes. It's not difficult. She's a smart kid; a few lessons were enough to start grasping the written language. At this point, he suspects that she's already on par with most kids her age. However, she's made it clear that she wants to get ahead of them. Since he can hardly fault her for wanting to learn, these extra lessons are probably going to continue for a while.

The non-academic lessons aren't quite as easy. Aki's spent a good amount of time going over how she should treat the other children, how to act with the other children, and why she mustn't use her powers on them. She always nods along and agrees to do what he says, but he can tell that she doesn't understand. Aki supposes that he could take a stab in the dark and start elaborating without any prompting, but he doubts that he'll be able to say exactly what she needs to hear unless she asks first.

He almost wishes that she would ask.

He suspects that he knows why she hasn't.

Even so, he knows that it can't continue like this forever. It's only a matter of time until one of them snaps and breaches the subject. However, he expects it to be while they're discussing the social aspect of school. He doesn't expect Nayuta to put down the middle school novel she's slowly working her way through, look up at him, and ask, "Why are you doing this?"

Several different possible meanings for Nayuta's question run through Aki's head, all of them valid. He only has to think it over for a moment before deciding that he has no choice but to ask, "What do you mean?"

Nayuta closes her book and sets it down on the table. "Why are you being nice to me?"

Aki frowns. "I already told you. You're a child. It's not fair for us to-"

"But why you?" Nayuta interrupts. "Makima hurt you worse than the others, right? She fucked everyone up, but they can all get better. But there's no way to turn you back into a human, right? You're stuck like this because of what she did to you."

"Ah." Aki smiles thinly. "You mean that I can't recover from what happened to me."

Nayuta falters, but doesn't look away. "You can't, can you?

"Nayuta..." Aki has to fight not to look away. He's acutely aware of how surreal it is to try to keep his vision locked in one place despite not having any eyes to move. He feels the stiffness of his rifle arm, a limb that he is unable to move beyond the bending of his shoulder and elbow unless he plans on actively attacking someone. He feels his hair brushing against the nape of his neck, unable to be pulled up into a topknot ever again.

None of it is okay. It will never be okay. But Aki feels it without it making him want to disappear. He wouldn't have been able to do that before. He hadn't been able to do that before her. Perhaps he had been making some progress, slow, lethargic, and fractured though it was, but it is not comparable to what he has accomplished with her here.

It is Makima's reincarnation that allowed him to begin pulling himself together after the damage done by her old self. The irony is not lost on him.

The irony isn't the point right now.

"...You don't know what I was like before you," Aki eventually says. "If you had, you wouldn't be saying that." He smiles, and it's weak, a gesture made entirely for her sake, but it's real. "You gave me a reason to try to get better."

Nayuta is quiet for a long time, face creased in thought. She looks down at her lap, only for her gaze to flicker back up to Aki almost immediately, sharper than before. "Then why are you sending me to school?" she asks. "If I make you feel better, shouldn't you want to keep me around?"

"That's not how it works," Aki says.

"It should be!" Nayuta exclaims, shoulders stiffening. "Me and Denji and Power are all going to school, but what about you!? You're just stuck here, aren't you!?"

There's a terrible pang in Aki's chest as the truth that he's been avoiding is finally said out loud. He shoves it aside as soon as he feels in. "You don't need to worry about that," he says, his tone a mix of soft and firm that he never would have been able to pull off before Denji and Power. "It's my job to take care of you, not the other way around."

"Someone needs to!" Nayuta snaps.

"Plenty of people do," Aki replies, thinking of Angel, Power, Denji, and all of the worry that's only just started to abate. The idea of Nayuta adding to it makes him feel sick to his stomach. "There's nothing you can do about my situation, so I don't want you to worry about it."

The frustration that flashes across Nayuta's face carries a heavy tint of despair. Aki wonders how he ever looked at her and saw Makima.

"But that's not fair," Nayuta says, voice cracking toward the end.

"We don't live in a fair world," Aki says, barely catching himself before his honesty can start to lean toward cold. "We have to do our best with the circumstances we're given. Obsessing over impossible things will only make you lose what you already have."

He wishes he'd realized that sooner.

Nayuta's brow furrows, her jaws works, and Aki realizes that she's probably only being quiet because she's struggling to figure out what to say. Before she can push herself too hard, he softly says, "I don't want you to stay behind with me. In the end, all I wanted was for Denji and Power to be happy. That goes for you too, now. Seeing you live your lives does help me."

Nayuta's mouth opens and closes a couple of times before she shoves her chair away from the table and marches over to him. Before Aki can ask what's wrong or even wonder what he did wrong, she's wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face in his chest.

He only hesitates for a moment before stooping down to hug him back.

"I love you and I'm not going to leave you," comes Nayuta's muffled declaration.

There's a terrible, wonderful pain in Aki's chest, and he doesn't know if he wants to laugh or cry. He runs his hand over the back of Nayuta's head as he says, "You don't have to, but don't forget to live for yourself." There's a pause as he almost strangles on the tears that can no longer fall before he whispers, "I love you, too."

*

Denji and Power's near-manic excitement lasts all the way through their first week of school. It's when that frantic energy has begun to fade that Denji hesitantly approaches Aki. It's early in the evening, he's working on dinner, and no one has been any help so far. He doesn't expect anyone to start being helpful, even when Denji leans against the counter and says, "Yo."

"It will be done when it's done," Aki automatically responds, not looking up from the cut of beef he's seasoning. The process is still far slower than it was when he had two hands, but he thinks that he's gotten faster over the past two weeks.

Denji lets out a huff. "How impatient do you think I am?"

Aki lifts his head to give him an unimpressed look.

"Jackass," Denji mutters. He stretches his arms out and leans further over the countertop, his stomach practically laying flat against the granite as his fingers curl around the other side. Aki briefly considers smacking them off. The thought is interrupted by Denji saying, "I was wondering how you're doing."

He asks the question like it's a casual inquiry. Aki knows better than to believe that these days. Holding back a sigh, he steps away from the meat, sets the rice pot to low to negate the risk of burning, and steps in front of Denji. "I'm fine," he says. "Why are you asking?"

"Ah, you know." Denji starts thrumming his fingers against the side of the countertop. Aki swats at them, smearing seasoning across the tops of Denji's fingers in the process. He abruptly lets go of the countertop and straightens up with a glower. Aki stares him down in response, which makes him scowl outright. It does not stop him from continuing, "Me 'n Powy are in school now and Nayuta starts next week, so I thought I should check in with you."

A bittersweet feeling washes over Aki. He's touched, he thinks. He's also irritated with himself for letting it get to this, the situation for not immediately fixing itself, and Denji for not trusting him the way he used to. It's an aching, frustrating, complex feeling that he doesn't know how to begin to voice, so instead, he says, "I already had this conversation with Nayuta."

Denji frowns. "What conversation?"

Aki can't tell if he's playing dumb or genuinely doesn't realize that he still knows him better than practically anyone. He supposes that it doesn't matter. "The conversation where you ask if I'm okay with you going to school while I'm stuck in the house."

"Oh." A beat of silence. Denji leans over the counter again, and Aki's warning glare does absolutely nothing to deter him. "Are you?"

Of course, Aki almost says. I'm fine. You don't need to worry about me.

The half-lies wither and die as he takes in the searching, worried, affectionate look on Denji's face. He's reminded of who it was who tried to hold the household together while he was falling apart, who risked his life in a desperate attempt to save him in the first place.

Denji isn't a child, not after everything he's been through. Aki doesn't need to hide his aches around him. By this point, he's beginning to suspect that he wouldn't be able to even if he tried.

"I'm alive. I'm glad that you saved me." He pauses. "I'd feel worse if you put your lives on hold because of me."

"That's something, I suppose." Denji starts drumming his fingers against the counter again. Aki doesn't bat him away this time. "Is there anything I can do?"

"You've already done plenty."

"That's not what I meant."

"I don't know," Aki sighs. In a way, Denji's mere existence does plenty. Him, Nayuta, Power, Angel - they give him a reason to live. They give him a purpose, they are people for him to love and look out for. But of course, he knows that that won't be enough for Denji. They both know that looking out for them and taking care of the house won't be enough to keep him from going stir-crazy in the long term.

The fact of the matter is that Aki hasn't stopped to consider the long-term back. He's barely remembered how to put one foot in front of the other, the notion of planning for the future - of having a future, even if it is a very limited one - is daunting in a way that haunting devils never was. For now, all that he can say is, "I'll figure something out."

He means it. He says it like he means it, which seems to be enough to placate Denji, who nods and says, "I'll help if you want."

Aki almost protests. Then he catches the shadow of guilt bleeding through onto Denji's face and finds himself saying, "Thanks."

Denji grins, and the tension bleeds away.

A second later, the grin morphs into a smirk that suggests that the conversation is about to take an insufferable turn. Aki walks back to the abandoned beef in an attempt to end it then and there.

It doesn't stop Denji from drawling, "Y'know, I don't think Angel's getting a job or anything. You'll get plenty of time alone together."

Aki ignores the way his stomach flips. "What does that have to do with anything?" he stiffly asks.

"C'mon, you know."

"I know that you're one of the most irritating people on the face of the earth."

Denji groans loudly. "You can't be this thick! I'm saying you'll be able to-"

"Finish that sentence, and you can make your own dinner."

Denji groans. "Bastard," he says with a warmth that tells Aki that that's not what he means at all. He wonders if he can hear it.

Aki wonders if he can hear it reflected back at him when he says, "Get the fuck out of my kitchen."

*

Power and Denji are at school. Nayuta is off attending her first day. The house has been cleaned to the point of spotlessness, preparations have been made for dinner, and every scrap of laundry has been washed.

Aki officially has nothing to do but stew in his anxieties.

That isn't an option, so he tries to keep himself distracted. He finished Metamorphosis a few days ago, so now he's attempting to read a long, meandering book about a man hunting a whale. It's entertaining despite the author's atypical writing style. Aki thinks he could get lost in it if not for Angel leaning against him. Instead, he finds his mind constantly wandering toward the warmth of the devil leaning against him, the ruffle of feathers against the couch, and Angel's occasional sighs and grumbles. Each is a tiny measure of his existence, and each makes the thoughts brewing in the back of Aki's mind, the ones that he's suppressed and repressed and fought every step of the way, rise closer to the surface.

They breach with the sound of Angel's sigh. "You have a boring taste in books," he complains.

Aki swallows and makes one last attempt to push the thoughts back down, to ignore it all until he reaches a point where it doesn't matter. "I didn't think you liked to read at all," he shoots back.

"I don't," Angel confirms. "You should do something more interesting."

"Or you could find something else to do with your time," Aki says casually, like the words don't carry the weight of a supernova on his tongue. He looks toward Angel as he speaks, taking in the way he blinks owlishly, as if the thought never occurred to him.

"Something else?" Angel echoes. Aki might be inclined to believe that he didn't think about it if that weren't entirely ridiculous.

"You could get a job," Aki suggests. "Or go to school. You don't-" His throat threatens to close up, selfishness reaching forward to overshadow all that he knows is right. Aki has to take a moment to shove it down before taking a deep breath and continuing as if nothing is amiss. "You don't have to stay here."

Angel stares at him searchingly, expression glimmering with something that Aki would call sadness if it were a little less complex. "Why would I do that?" he asks.

"Because you can!" Aki exclaims. "I know you aren't ambitious but haven't you ever wanted to start a life of your own?"

"Of course," Angel says.

"So why don't you? Public Safety isn't going to stop you anymore. There's nothing stopping you."

Please, don't let me stop you.

"That sounds like too much effort," Angel sighs. "Besides..." He slumps over to rest his head on Aki's shoulder. It's the good shoulder this time. The side of his head graces the skin of his neck, a simple touch that would have been impossible not so long ago, but Aki can't bring himself to savor it. Not even when he continues, "I want to stay with you."

Aki's insides feel warm. His heart pounds with something like hope. His skin feels cold, and his head reminds him that what he wants can't happen. It's selfish, it's ridiculous, it makes no sense when he's like this and Angel can do so much better. His mind threatens to split in a hundred different directions. For the sake of retaining the ability to string sensible words together, he ignores all of those sensations, forces himself to stay in the present, tethered to reality, and focus on the logical reality of the situation.

"I have nothing to offer you," Aki says, not disparaging, but a dull statement of fact.

Angel stiffens. He pulls away, slowly at first, then abruptly sits up, dangles his legs over the side of the couch, and leans forward to bury his head on in his hands. "Have you always been this stupid?" he groans.

That's hardly what Aki expected to hear, but the question serves as a distraction from everything else in his head if nothing else. "Excuse me?" he asks, shooting Angel a disgruntled look.

"I'm going to have to say it, aren't I?" Angel continues. "You just... You aren't going to get it on your own."

"You're going to have to say what?"

Angel stands up and moves to kneel down in front of Aki. He tries to ignore the hammering of his heart, but can't quite manage. Despite the layer of fabric between them, he feels like his skin is on fire when Angel sets his hand on his knee. "Aki, you are enough," he says. "I don't want anything to do with the rest of the world if I can't have you with me."

Aki's breath catches in his lungs. He feels jubilant. He feels selfish. He feels confused, because for all that he feels like he knows what's happening, it can't be. All of this comes together to manifest in the form of a single choked, "How?"

"Isn't that obvious?" Angel laughs, more mournful than mirthful. His eyes are glistening. Distantly, Aki realizes that he's never seen Angel cry. He doesn't think that he will today, either. He's stronger than that. Stronger than him. Even so, it's a close call as he says, "I'm in love with you. I have been for a long time."

Aki doesn't know what to say.

There's only one thing he can say.

"I love you too. But-"

"No." Angel reaches forward to gently cradle his face in his hands. Aki stiffens as he feels the tips of his fingers brush against the metal covering the top portion of his face, but he doesn't pull away. Angel's hands are far too warm for that. "It’s still you in there.." Angel leans in closer. Aki doesn't pull away. "I still love you."

The kiss is awkward. Angel is inexperienced, Aki is hesitant with everything that still weighs him down, and they both have to tilt their heads to avoid the gun. Yet it fills him with a warmth that cannot be described, Angel makes a sound of pleasure, and for a moment, he thinks that maybe he can find a way to be happy like this.

When they break apart, Angel wraps his arms around his neck and leans his head against his collarbone. "Stay with me," he whispers.

Aki swallows. He could say that he can't go anywhere these days, but that's not what Angel means. They both know that it's not what he means.

He wraps his arm around his angel and whispers, "I will."

*

Aki opens the closet door and is nearly buried beneath an avalanche of scented candles. His reflexes, which haven't yet faded after years of working for Public Safety, are the only thing that saves him from taking a horrible hit to the head. They do not allow him to process the situation any faster. For a moment, all that he can do is stand there, dumbstruck, as footsteps race toward the sound of the crash.

There have to be well over a hundred candles. He can smell them from where he stands, their various scents tangling together in an overpowering, blatantly artificial odor that threatens to give him a headache despite none of them being lit.

Why do they have over a hundred useless candles?

"What the fuck!?" he exclaims as Power and Nayuta race into his peripheral vision.

"Indeed!" Power exclaims, marching over to pick up a candle while Nayuta kneels down beside the pile. Where Nayuta carefully paws through them, Power grabs the closest candle, peers at it for a moment, and then points damningly at Aki. "I was not allowed to keep a few measly candles, yet you can have this horde?"

"They stink," Nayuta says. She looks at Aki with her lips pulled back in distaste. "Do you collect these? That's a disgusting hobby."

"They aren't mine!" Aki exclaims.

At that moment, he hears snickering behind him, and everything starts to make sense in the sense that Denji deserves to have his ass kicked.

Aki turns around to find Denji standing a few feet away, his hand covering his mouth in a futile attempt to stop his laughter. Angel stands a little ways behind him in the doorway, leaning against the wall with a faint, smirking grin on his face. Aki only eyes his boyfriend for a moment before turning his attention back to the actual menace.

"What the fuck did you do?” he demands.

Denji points at Angel. “It was his idea!” he declares with a horrible grin.

“Why?” Aki asks, looking at Angel with dismayed betrayal.

Angel shrugs. “I wanted to see how long it would take you to notice.” His wings quiver slightly. He’s trying not to laugh. Aki has a mountain of headache-inducing candles, and his boyfriend is laughing.

“We thought it would be funny,” Denji proudly adds.

“I think it’s funny,” Nayuta says. “You’ve gotta get rid of these candles, though. I don’t like them.” Despite her complaint, she has started sorting through the candles and organizing them by size.

“T’was hilarious when I did it,” Power grumbles.

Aki barely processes what either of them are saying, staring desolately at Denji and Angel. “How much did you spend on these?” he asks.

Angel starts to snicker, but manages to fight it down after a second. “It was worth it to see the look on your face,” he says.

There’s a burst of warmth in Aki’s chest. He does not let it seep into his tone as he says, “That’s not an answer.”

“Less than we spend on ice cream,” Denji says.

That’s a worse answer.

They devolve into an argument from there, Aki and Denji chewing into each other with a fury that doesn’t reach their hearts while Angel and Power watch on in amusement and Nayuta continues organizing the candles, muttering to herself about how gross they are. It feels… not quite the way it used to be. Nothing will ever be the way it used to be. They’ve all changed too much to ever go back. But there is a familiar warmth to it.

It feels like a fresh start.

Maybe they’ll be okay after all.