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Sometimes, he has a hard time finding a person behind all of the rot.
He’s something cursed, born into the world to ruin everything that he could ever touch. There’s nothing good about him that he can think of, that he can see without being reminded that he was the very reason that his mother died. Realistically, he knows that the finger can only be pointed towards Shido, but it doesn’t stop his mind from wandering on the nights that he thinks of her.
Would she have been alive if she never had him?
Would she have been happier if he had never been born?
He doesn’t have the answers to these questions, not when the only person who could answer them is buried six feet in the ground. He must be cursed, he must have been. That’s the only thing that could explain the foster families that never wanted him, that bounced him from home to home with disdain in their eyes.
It was easier to believe that you were cursed than to believe that you weren’t good enough for someone to love you, that you were perfect enough to be cared about, that you weren’t ideal enough for someone to keep you. It was easier to believe that everyone hated him than to be hurt by the rejection that cut into his bones.
And yet, nothing he did could ever convince himself that it didn’t hurt.
Nothing he did could ever take away the hurt of years of being unwanted, of being looked at and treated like the scorn of the earth. Nothing he did could ever take away the years of wondering if he was ever going to be good enough to be loved, to be wanted. Nothing he did could ever take away the memory of finding his mother in the bathtub, wrists slit and blood coloring the water.
Nothing could convince him that revenge wasn’t worth it.
Staring at Shido was staring into a pit of hell, a level of hatred that boiled his insides and turned them into lava. Staring at Shido was staring into his mother’s dead eyes, the smile that stopped fitting right with each passing birthday. Staring at Shido was staring into a reflection, a copy of the rot that overtook his body like an infection festering in a wound.
He felt like an infection too whenever Shido told him that he did a good job after a shutdown.
He hated the curl in his stomach, the bubbly praise that made him feel happy as well as nauseated. It was hard to remember the urge of revenge when he had finally felt wanted, even if that feeling came with blood on his hands and images of dead bodies that lived freely in his mind. It was hard to remember that he wanted Shido dead when he wanted more of the praise, the feeling of being needed that made his heart pound and fingers shake.
Or maybe the shake of his fingers was because he couldn’t stop seeing the blood coat the barrel of his gun.
Wanting Shido dead meant that his mother got to live in peace, revenge taken in her name. Wanting Shido dead meant getting revenge for the broken child who watched his foster parents dump him back into the orphanage to rot. Wanting Shido dead meant that he could stop being reminded of the father who forgot that he existed.
And then he died.
Bullet tears through chest, blood spilling across the ground and shadows fade into nothing. He wonders if this is how his mother felt when she had her dying breaths, acceptance and nothingness and the reality that pain didn’t have to exist anymore. He didn’t have to feel the crushing pain of being unwanted, of being unloved, of being unworthy of care. He didn’t have to look down at his shower floor and envision the color of bloody water running down the drain.
He didn’t have to feel anything.
And then he came back to life.
The air is cold, bitter in the depths of winter and the sight of the water under the bridge looks so tempting. All he has to do is climb over the fence and jump. He could do it right now if he wanted to, but he knows that Maruki would just bring him back to life. He wonders what would happen if he kept jumping over the same bridge.
Would Maruki give up on him? Would Maruki finally leave him alone? Would Maruki see him the way everyone saw him and left him to rot?
He wishes that he had the answer.
Sadly, puppets don’t get answers.
━━━━━━━━━━
It’s easy to fall back into bad habits when you have nothing to live for.
He’s teeth and bite and rage, a fire that burns and burns without stopping. He’s a wild animal, marking the hand of anyone who attempts to save him. He’s a collapsed building, rubble and soot and dust that destroys the lungs of anyone who gets close to him. He’s poison in the finest sense, deadly and destructive.
It still doesn’t stop Akira from laying down in bed with him one night, arms wrapped around his waist as if he’s trying to keep him from fading.
He hasn’t been the same since Maruki, neither of them have. He wants to die, wants to see the edges of his coffin and hopes that death sticks this time, that nothing will bring him back from the brink. Akira wants to hold onto him until he’s skin and bones, wants to keep wishing that he won’t ever go away, that he’ll be with him forever and ever.
Akira looks at him like one would like at the sun in the morning, warmth and love and understanding that makes his chest hurt. Akira loves all of the parts of him, the good and the bad. Akira loves him as if he isn’t rotten, as if there are things worthy about him, as if he’s so much better than what he thinks he is.
It’s sickening, it’s disgusting, it’s everything he loves and hates about Akira.
“Have you taken your meds today?” Akira mutters into the space between his neck and shoulder, peppering the bare flesh with gentle kisses.
He doesn’t respond, lets the silence be his answer. Maybe, he hopes, that this will be the final straw for Akira. Maybe, he hopes, that Akira will finally get the hint that trying to save him is futile, that he’ll get off the bed and leave and never come back. Maybe, he hopes, Akira will finally leave him alone to rot, to cave in on himself.
Instead, Akira presses one more kiss into his shoulder and sits up in bed, reaching over him to grab his medication.
Akira picks him up, setting him into his lap. His back rests against Akira’s chest, the former Thief’s arms wrapped around him. Akira opens the tops on both of the bottles, plucking out the doses of medication he needs. The crackle of the water bottle sounds behind his ears as Akira deposits the pills into his hands, their fingers brushing against each other.
He feels like a black hole, something that could suck Akira in and spit him back out, mangled and ruined beyond belief. Maybe then, the other Thieves will see that he isn’t good, that he isn’t something worth keeping around. But then he remembers the cake Ann brought him that sits in their fridge, given to him when she took him out to a local cafe after a rough day at work.
He can still remember the way she wrapped her arms around one of his own, clinging onto him as she giggled into his ear.
He raises his arm, slowly and painfully, to drop the medication into his mouth. The water bottle is placed into his hand, head tilting back to sip it down. He can’t manage more than two, putting it back into Akira’s hand and laying back down in bed. Akira follows right behind him, their hands clasped over his stomach.
He loves Akira as much as he hates him, wants him around as much as he wants him dead.
He closes his eyes, resisting the urge to bite and hiss at the one person whose shown him nothing but unconditional love and care. He feels like a tar pit, black and thick and suffocating.
“Why do you love me?” He whispers in the lull of the room, feeling Akira’s breath on the back of his neck. “Why do you stay with me?”
Akira scoffs, pulling him closer to his chest. “Because I love you. Because I can’t imagine living without you again.”
For the first time, the tar pit doesn’t bubble.