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Soul’s room had been dark, so it was a struggle to make anything out. He almost tripped over a stray monster can. “[Soul, you really need to clean your room,]” he muttered, to no response. He approached Soul’s bed and his eyes focused. First, a flimsy folding chair he had never seen in his life, not even known they had, discarded off to the side. So that was what made that noise.
Second, Soul hanging from the ceiling, with a smile.
Horror had shot through him, like a gunshot. The shock, numbing all else. And then the reality setting in, hurting just as that wound had when Heart put his fingers into it and laughed.
That same fear seeps through him. Mind can almost trace the path - like warmth, from chest to limb to his very fingertips. Like warmth, yet Mind is cold. The dread aches, acid eating into his flesh. Blood drips down his shoulders.
It’s more than an ache. More acute. Mind rocks back and forth because he’s stiff and can’t seem to move properly. What if Soul is dying in the other room, just a few feet away? And Mind didn’t save him? Soul would be smiling, still hanging there without Mind’s intervention. Eyes fluttered shut, as if asleep. Soul would find it pretty. Soul would want to die that way.
It would be Mind’s fault.
Mind is the only one who can save Soul when he’s like this. Or Heart, bleeding on the bathroom tile. They expect him to - they place themselves in his arms, and the tension drains from their body, and they list into him, and he can read the thank you even if they don’t have the wherewithal to say it -
They would all die, and it would be because of him.
Mind picks himself up. He is still an open wound. It’s a struggle to move. One foot, and then the other. Mind always picks himself up just as he is always picking Heart and Soul up. He opens his door. The hallway is dark.
Soul’s door will be locked. He doesn’t want to be interrupted - at any moment but especially now, especially with this. Mind grabs a butter knife from the kitchen - he has his own knife to summon, to cut the rope - distantly noting the sound, remembering when he had first caught Heart picking his own lock with it. (Our locks fucking suck.)
He slots it into Soul’s door, turns it -
“{What is it?}”
The knife clatters against the floor.
“[Soul.]” He drags in a clean breath. The relief hits so hard he has to hold onto the doorknob. “[Soul,]” he repeats, tasting the name. He’s alive. He’s right there, just like any other night. Mind doesn’t move past the doorway, doesn’t force Soul into an embrace like Heart would have, but it’s a close thing.
“{Mind, what is it?}”
“[Nothing.]” Mind smiles.
He should really close the door before Soul forces him to explain, but he can’t tear his gaze away, because Soul is alive. All of a sudden, he wants to feel warmth under Soul’s skin, put a finger to his neck just to be sure.
Mind doesn’t. Just stares.
“{Then why did you pick open my goddamn door?}”
“[I just wanted to make sure,]” he evades.
“{Of what?}”
Soul isn’t going to let this go, is he?
“[That you weren’t tying yourself up again.]” Every word is deliberate. His voice is steady. It’s as if he isn’t afraid at all.
“{Well I’m not.}” Soul sighs. “{Get out.}”
“[You’re just going to do it the moment I leave.]” Wouldn’t he? If Mind didn’t stop him -
“{I promise I won’t.}”
Soul swings his legs as he gets out of bed. Mind doesn’t understand why - there’s no need, Soul doesn’t like getting up when he doesn’t have to - but there’s something about the way Soul looks at him…
He sets a hand on Mind’s shoulder. This would be conservative for Heart, but this is Soul, not Heart, and the simple decision to touch the disease Mind supposedly is says a lot.
Promise. Soul is promising.
“{Not today. I promise, it’s not going to be today. Besides, I only tried once, and I’m not planning on it for now.}”
There’s honesty there, to an extent Soul usually never shows. Soul’s hand is real and warm and here.
“{…Get some sleep.}”
Soul backs away, and Mind bites his lip until iron fills his mouth.
He needs to be sure.
“[Promise?]”
“{Yes, Mind, I promise. I’m not letting Harmonia die,}” Soul almost-snaps, shaking his hand out as if there’s something on it. But he doesn’t close the door.
Mind needs to be sure -
Soul is right. If nothing else, he would not let Harmonia die. He isn’t one to break his promises, either. [Not promises. If anything is to be trusted with him, it’s his promises. He always says the word with this sort of uncomfortable reverence, lilting over each consonant with surgical precision - that reserved for the sacred and life-or-death only. “I promise.”]
He lingers at the door, unable to leave, as if the moment he does Soul will drop dead.
“{Apollo, either get in or get out.}”
Without thinking about it, because if he thinks about it he’ll realize just how irrational he has become, he shuts the door behind himself and sits on the floor. It sinks in, how emotional he is acting, but it's too late.
Soul kneels and reaches a hand to him. “{Dearest, this is just pathetic, I have a chair - I’m sure you’ve heard of-}”
“[Oh, shut the fuck up.]” He takes Soul’s hand and hauls himself up. Unfortunately, it really does help. Mind sits in Soul’s chair, places his head on the table and tries not to think.
Mind really can’t help himself [or so he says] - he watches Soul. Their eyes meet, but Soul doesn’t say a word.
It feels significant.
Soul brings the covers up, turns his head to the side, sending hair down with him. Arranges his limbs whichever way.
It really is not that significant. Soul is only trying to sleep. Trying, and most likely failing.
Mind can’t bring himself to stop.
He watches Soul fall asleep. Watches his shadow clear away and leave him looking human and real and more than he deserves. He’s alive, in front of him, breathing.
He memorizes it.
He’s never seen Soul like this before. The lack of his shadow feels like a confession. Mind doesn’t know what.
[That morning, Mind has the privilege of watching Soul wake up.]
Soul lets him in every time he opens his door at night, and doesn’t comment on how long he stays- not anymore. It makes Mind feel-
[It was courtesy Mind didn’t know Soul had the ability to share. To either of them.]
[Mind could kill Soul while he slept. He would never, for the good of the Whole, but he could. And Soul just let it happen? Let him into his room?]
Regardless. It’s a good substitute for sleeping. When Soul is there in front of him, Mind cannot worry he’s -
Dead.
The most dangerous third is accounted for.
[It’s nice.]
When Mind is - that way - he would not be able to sleep, so he isn’t losing anything.
[Sometimes Mind falls asleep in Soul’s desk chair. Somehow.
His body always aches far too much when he finds himself in whatever position, but it’s still more rest than he’s gotten in…]
Mind ends up drifting closer, only to see Soul in better detail, of course- to record this while he can. Soul doesn’t seem bothered when he blinks and Mind is looking at him. No- he falls asleep just fine with Mind’s eyes on him.
Mind doesn’t understand. Mind doesn’t understand how Soul trusts him.
“[How do you…]” Does Mind need to know? He trails off noncommittally. Really, he only wants to know to satisfy a curiosity. Unless this thing between them would hurt Soul. Which it might, if Soul trusts too easily. If he doesn’t keep his guard up, then what would happen?
[Mind is a dangerous thing just like the rest of them.]
Soul turns his chair around, looking at Mind appropriate his bed. Mind supposes it technically isn’t appropriation, since Soul told him to when he came in, charger in hand- instead of telling him to leave. “{What is it?}”
“[Why are you letting me in?]” Into your room, into your…
Mind leaves the thought unfinished, once again memorizing Soul, how he leans on his knees to look at Mind in turn, his intent eyes, curls falling over his face, his chapped red lips.
“{I know you’re not going to do anything, dearest.}” He smiles mirthlessly. “{Try it.}” He edges closer to him, chair contacting the bed. He gives his face to him. “{What are you going to do to me?}”
“[Nothing,]” Mind tells him, honestly.
Soul doesn’t move back. Mind proves his point.
“{There you go,}” he says, scoots the chair back, and spins so they aren’t face to face anymore. “{I knew you wouldn’t. It isn’t logical, there’s no point. This situation is mutually beneficial for the both of us.}”
“[…Mutually?]”
Soul pauses. “{You make me sleep easier.}”
Mind feels odd. That’s what trust does to him, he supposes.
He feels Soul’s eyes on him, but he doesn’t think Soul is going to hurt him. He said it himself: it isn’t logical, there’s no point.
His hands itch.
Trust is more illogical. Even if - even if…
The two of them are dangerous things. You don’t trust knives not to cut you. They’re knives.
[But if you handle them correctly…
No. You can still slip. You can always slip. You’re most likely to cut yourself when you forget to be cautious.]
The wrongness of it constricts him, like a noose. What is Mind going to do when Soul snaps?
He sleeps in his own bed that night, tossing and turning, thoughts clouding him rather than clarifying.
Until Soul opens his door.
“{Mind?}” He calls, stepping in as if it’s his own room. “{I thought…}”
“[You thought it was an arrangement.]” Mind sits up.
“{You were awake.}”
“[What?]”
Soul walks to the edge of his bed and tugs Mind’s blanket from him. “{You sleep easier when I’m there too. Why did you leave?}”
The various reasons buzz like useless static electricity. Scattered and meaningless white noise.
“[Why did you seek me out?]”
“{You’re avoiding the question, Mind.}”
Mind sighs. “[Our interactions will not lead to anything good.]”
“{Maybe not the ones you’re imagining in your head. This is harmless.}” Soul takes his hand and pulls him up.
“[It’s still…]” So dangerous.
“{Sure,}” Soul says, disregarding him completely. “{Are you going to come to my room or not? I like being able- Surely it’s not logical to deprive yourself of sleep for literally no reason. Come over. My bed’s not that bad.}”
“[You’re letting me use your bed? Are you not going to sleep also?]”
“{I’ll let you choose. To be nice.}” He puts an odd inflection on the word nice- or, well, if ‘bitter’ and ‘sarcastic’ and ‘like the word itself is a joke to him’ is an odd inflection. Most likely not. It fits Soul the same way his crop tops do.
None of this makes any sense at all.
“[…I can sleep fine in your chair.]”
Mind doesn’t sleep. He ends up thinking over the visage of Soul, limbs splayed out like it’s something to do.
He doesn’t come to any conclusions.
Soul is a knife, as sharp as Mind is. And yet.
He’s being nice to him.
It’s not something in Soul’s capabilities - Mind had thought, at the very least.
Soul should be better than this, Soul should be better than letting Mind have this.
Soul was the one listening to their conversations in case they escalated. Mind has never known him to be so similar to Heart.
It isn’t right. Being in Soul’s good graces would be advantageous, of course, but it isn’t right.
[No one should ever trust Mind- trust any of them, in fact- and if they do, there’s something wrong with them. And that thing will get them all killed, someday, somehow.
There is no way around that, it’s so clear it shouldn’t have to be explained, and yet, and yet-]
Soul should stop this. At the earliest opportunity.
[Mind doesn’t want to sleep in his bed, even if the alternative is Soul’s chair.
Doom bites into his skin like cold air. Betrayal is practically Soul’s middle name. He would do anything for “Harmonia”.
Mind grips Soul’s chair, hard.
Notably, does not move.]