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Fog obscures the bathroom mirror. The person in its reflection isn’t returning the favor.
Borsalino’s nephew sits naked on the edge of the tub hunched over a stained palm. There’s a red line cut into it, releasing a pool of crimson, filling the boy’s palm with blood while cold water fills the bath.
Except, there is no plug in the drain. The water runs past its destination.
“Sentomaru…?”
No response to the name. No indication that the voice was heard, nor recognized.
Red eyes watch red beads roll into the cracks between limp fingers.
“Hey.”
Borsalino combs Sentomaru’s bangs off of his face, feeling for his temperature. There’s nothing to suggest he has a fever, meaning this episode of his is entirely mental.
This isn’t a shock to witness.
Mildly surprising, yes, considering the boy was fine just minutes ago before leaving to shower as they were tucking in for the night. Then the bath ran, and ran, and Borsalino’s keen ears didn’t pick up any telltale signs of bathing. Just running water. Cold running water.
He turns the faucet off, then kneels before Sentomaru on the shower mat, searching for his gaze.
Blankness.
His gaze is unseeing. It’s likely he hasn’t registered the blood, nor Borsalino’s presence.
Sentomaru’s dissociative states are nothing new. They’re rare, as Vegapunk hasn’t reported one to Borsalino in the roughly six months they’ve been apart, but they’re also commonplace. The boy has been experiencing episodes like these since he was a boy, only seven years old when they began.
At least, that was the first case in which others were witness to it. Who knows how often it happened before he was taken in?
They’re fairly simple to handle; Sentomaru becomes nonverbal, unresponsive, and disoriented for some time— could be minutes, could be hours— and then he regains himself, with no memories of the gap besides a faint feeling that something is missing.
All Borsalino has to do is keep him somewhere safe and comfortable.
The edge of the bathtub is not the place for this, so he takes him back to their bed in the hotel room and sits him down against the headboard, tucking a blanket over his waist to provide some privacy— not that Borsalino hasn’t seen every inch of him already. Still, the boy is modest by nature, and would appreciate this act if he were cognizant.
Bandages are wrapped tightly around his hand after the wound is cleaned. The white strips of cloth fit right at home around his palm, and Borsalino’s fingers sit snugly interlocked with Sentomaru’s.
He squeezes his nephew’s hand, sat on the edge of the bed and leaning over his legs, rubbing the boy’s thigh in case it might provide some comfort.
It’s never not unnerving to stare into a pair of eyes that don’t look back. It’s not like looking at Issho, whose eyes are milky white and confidently blind.
Sentomaru’s pupils are pinpricks, and red irises engulf the tiny black dots like two blood moons. Borsalino cannot see himself in that gaze. It is devoid of light, as though they lack a soul completely.
They don’t; Sentomaru’s soul is well intact. It’s just hiding somewhere unreachable, hiding from something it doesn’t want to be found by.
Borsalino has often wondered what it is that Sentomaru seeks shelter from. His precious subordinate is extraordinarily brave, so it must be something terrifying. Something intangible.
Everyone is powerless to something.
A response to powerlessness is manifested uniquely by the individual. In Sentomaru’s case, when utterly helpless, he becomes just that; helpless. Completely susceptible to whatever or whomever would see him in this state.
That he would only succumb to dissociation like this in the presence of Borsalino speaks to how utterly trustworthy he finds his guardian. It’s never happened absent of him; that much was deduced by Vegapunk’s insistent record-keeping.
Sentomaru’s medical file is filled to the brim with data, including bi-annual physicals, incident reports, charts of injuries, diagnostic evaluations, surgical documents, and so on.
Being the boy’s secondary guardian, Borsalino is privy to all of that information.
He is a well studied man, and is especially knowledgeable concerning mental illnesses and disorders due to Vegapunk’s lessons following Sentomaru’s early childhood diagnoses— a list that only grew as he did, seeing several new identifications added when he experienced puberty, and then his second puberty during hormone replacement therapy. The latter didn’t last more than two months before the boy opted out, but some consequences had remained.
Borderline personality disorder was the earliest test result— namely due to the childhood trauma that came with exile, followed by years of isolation, neglect, and abuse.
Attachment issues were the biggest concern at first, and the most obvious.
Then came the anxiety, major depression, PTSD, dysmorphia, dysphoria, bipolar disorder, eating disorders— too much for one small kid.
It was no wonder, really, that Sentomaru would sometimes slip into himself to cope with experiencing too much. The opposite of that would, of course, be experiencing nothing.
Thus, dissociation.
They’ve never tried breaking him out of this trance. Vegapunk disallowed it, in fact, and Borsalino never questioned that decision.
It has never happened in a moment where it was dangerous to be vulnerable, so there was no reason to force Sentomaru out of the escape he sought.
If desired, Borsalino is fairly certain he could snap Sentomaru back to reality, though the measures would be too extreme to justify unless the situation was dire.
He does not take for granted the fact that this hypothetical has remained a hypothetical.
He does not take for granted the fact that he is the only person Sentomaru trusts to this degree. He is the boy’s favorite person, after all, for better or worse.
Definitely worse. The worst.
All the more reason to take good care of him, to live up to his expectations.
Sentomaru regards Borsalino far too highly while also resenting him. The relationship they have is far from normal. Far from healthy.
But they are happy, mostly. It took decades to get to this point, but they managed.
Humans are resilient, just as they are fragile.
Humans are complicated beings. They are systems. Every human is unique— even the clones. To completely understand a single human is difficult, but to fully comprehend billions is impossible.
Nature is chaos, in the end.
Borsalino loves no one like he loves Sentomaru; his child, his apprentice, his partner, his guiding light.
The love they have for one another is Borsalino’s beacon of hope. It is the lighthouse guiding him ashore.
A being of light naturally seeks darkness, but if Borsalino’s flame were ever extinguished, he would know where to go. Would know which direction was forward.
He reclines in the bed beside Sentomaru, a crossword puzzle in his lap and an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips. The nicotine does nothing for him anyway. The weight of the stick is the comfort. It’s something to mindlessly toss around with his teeth and tongue. Some call it an oral fixation, but he swears it’s just a hobby.
Smoking is fun; it’s something to do that’s just as easy as breathing. Can’t find a lazier pastime than that. Just how he likes it.
It was already late when the timer began, but the clock runs well past midnight. Once two o’clock hits, Borsalino is beginning to worry this might be a marathon. He can stay up for days at a time, but wouldn’t be ashamed to admit he was looking forward to sleeping curled up around Sentomaru tonight.
He is shaken from his seventh crossword puzzle by a hitch in breath.
Lightning fast, Borsalino is sitting on Sentomaru’s legs and peering at his face before he can take another breath. A faint light emits from his palm, bathing them in orange that is digestible in otherwise pure darkness.
Sentomaru inhales sharply, hands flying through Borsalino’s torso, grasping at air. He blinks rapidly and his chest begins to heave, in and out, in and out, deep, desperate gasps of air to fill his lungs, like he’d been drowning.
“You’re alright,” Borsalino says and shines the light on his own face for the boy to see. Something to latch onto before he can claw his fingers into Borsalino’s skin.
Sentomaru searches the room, but will see nothing past the light Borsalino provides. This is by design. He wants to be the anchor point here. The boundaries of his awareness can extend beyond that eventually. They’ll take this nice and slow.
“It’s just you and me, Sentomaru.”
His mouth opens but, predictably, no sound comes out. Eyebrows furrowed, Sentomaru focuses on Borsalino, hands falling into the space between their hips, fingers twitching.
He looks down at his bandaged palm, rotating his wrist, flexing muscles beneath the wrappings.
“Does it hurt…?”
Delayed, Sentomaru shakes his head twice, effortfully tearing his eyes up towards Borsalino. When he next blinks, it is as himself, aware of who he is seeing. Recognition widens his eyes slightly, capturing the light.
A sound— a choked acknowledgment— is uttered.
“Take your time.” Borsalino dims his light and grazes Sentomaru’s jaw with his knuckles. The touch is chased, a jerking movement of instinct, body moving on behalf of its brain.
When Sentomaru finds Borsalino’s palm with his cheek, a sigh of relief is released. He swipes his thumb over the scar, caressing the boy who seeks warmth in his cradling hand.
“That’s it,” he murmurs. “Focus on breathing.”
Sentomaru copies the deliberate pace set by Borsalino, his chest rising and falling with manual breaths. While they do this exercise, his hands find Borsalino’s waist and he holds him heavily in his lap, thumbs nearly meeting over his naval.
“It’s past two. We were getting ready for bed. You cut your hand. I found you sitting on the bath tub’s ledge. Do you want me to brush your teeth…?”
Sentomaru frowns, chin dropping. He tilts forward, and his face finds Borsalino’s chest.
Arms wrap delicately around wide shoulders like a veil. Their bodies are coming closer, stomachs nearly touching.
Borsalino pets Sentomaru’s hair and kisses the top of his head. The boy’s frame begins to tremble.
“It’s alright… You’re alright…” he whispers.
“‘ncle,” rasps Sentomaru, his voice muffled by Borsalino’s shirt.
“It’s okay, don’t force yourself…”
“Uncle,” Sentomaru repeats, then begins to cry, weeping silently.
The boy clutches his back, face digging into his ribs. He sobs.
Borsalino hugs, hums, and shushes him through it, just like he used to when Sentomaru was a child. He’s thirty three now, but he’ll always be that rambunctious little brat that used to see the world in Borsalino. Used to look up to him, used to revere him. Before he discovered the sort of man Borsalino really was, he wanted to be just like him.
It’s for the best that they’re nothing alike.
“Uncle,” Sentomaru sniffles, rising and wiping his face. His eyes glimmer, round and pleading.
“Yes…?”
“You…” He struggles to form the words. “How long… Can we… Are you…?”
“Four hours, we can, and no. I’m not mad at you in the slightest, Sentomaru. I’m glad you’re back with me…”
A kiss to his brow, to flatten the wrinkles. They aren’t fitting for such a youthful face.
He strokes his nephew’s cheeks, sinking lower into his lap now that they’ve established the setting.
“Are you ready to sleep?” he asks.
Sentomaru blinks a few times, releasing a huff of air. He grunts, “Yeah. Um. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome…”
They stare at one another, imperfect reflections.
Borsalino smiles.
“I love you,” he says proudly.
It brings a smile to Sentomaru’s face, returning a mirror’s favor.