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He couldn’t move. Held in place, his body being manipulated like a life-sized puppet, it took every ounce of his strength not to hyperventilate or pass out as he listened to the grotesque crunching and snapping of bones as one of the north American scientists was twisted into a horrifying rendition of a human pretzel, unable to even scream or cry out. That man is there. That torturous puppet master with a Cheshire-Cat smile that only grew wider with every flick of his wrist. And then the full attention of those golden eyes are on him; he can hear the blood rushing in his ears as panic consumes him, drowning in terror as his body shook.
No. His body was actually being shaken. He heard his name being called, like a distant echo, as those eyes slowly faded from sight, consciousness returning to him like a sharp slap to the face. Johnny's brown eyes snapped open, tears forming in the corners as he took in the blurry appearance of Kanda above him in the soft light of the moon; the younger man had a bruising grip on Johnny's shoulders, repeating his name over and over.
Johnny let out a choked sob, sitting up and folding himself over into Kanda. While the scientist could hear his companion speaking in low tones, his brain didn't seem keen on processing any of it, choosing instead to bombard him with the images that continued to plague his dreams. That smile. Those eyes. He buried his face more firmly into Kanda’s chest, his hands holding onto his sleep shirt with a death-grip.
Kanda rubbed circles on Johnny's back with one hand, the other carefully circling the brunet's slender wrist, waiting for his pulse to stop racing. It took nearly ten minutes. It was a faster recovery than the last time. When it no longer seemed like the scientist was breaking apart, Kanda pulled him up, holding him at arm’s length as he worked through the last few sniffles and sobs. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the exorcist, ashamed. This was the third night in a row that he had ruined the other man’s sleep, and yet Kanda never said a cross word about it. Never judged. And better yet never asked about the night terrors in the morning once they’d both gotten a few restless hours’ worth of sleep.
The first night that Johnny had woken up screaming in the middle of the night, Kanda had sprung out of bed with Mugen in hand, expecting to find an attacker in the room. Johnny had half expected the swordsman to yell or even swing said sword in his direction, but with a huff and a grimace, Kanda had sheathed Mugen and had sat on the edge of Johnny’s bed silently with his fingers folded and waited. Just waited for him to calm down. When he was finally coherent enough to stutter out an apology, Kanda had stopped him.
“They win if you fall apart. Don’t give those bastards the satisfaction.” Johnny didn’t have the mind to question how he knew what plagued his dreams. Kanda hadn’t left his bedside until after Johnny had fallen back asleep. And even then he had waited and made sure that the other didn’t fall straight back into the nightmare.
Sighing lightly, Kanda grabbed Johnny’s glasses off of the bedside table, carefully sliding them on to the scientist’s face. Johnny mumbled out a thank you and hugged his legs into his chest to give Kanda more room as he drew his legs up onto the bed to sit cross-legged in front of him. The older man continued to avoid his eyes, resting a tear-stained cheek against his knee, staring out the window listlessly.
It was difficult to see the normally-cheerful man like this. Kanda struggled between not wanting to press Johnny into talking about something before he was ready to, and wanting to do something, anything at all, to help him face down his demons. Johnny hadn’t signed up for this life, but here he was dealing with the fallout all the same, just the same as he had learned to do.
"It gets better. In time." Kanda swallowed thickly, "After Alma...after the first time, I...it was..."
"Kanda, you don't have to--" Johnny started to say, voice breaking, but the teen shook his head.
"I saw him every night. Every time I closed my eyes, he was there. If I was lucky, he'd just be surrounded by bodies. If I wasn't... I'd watch him die, feel it all over again. Sometimes, he'd manage to kill me too." He looked up at Johnny, who was staring at him, lips parted slightly with a look on his face that would have made you think that he had just been told that the world was ending. When Johnny reached out and took his hand, he didn't shake it off.
Kanda stroked the hand in his absentmindedly with his thumb. "The point is...it does get better. Two steps forward, one step back kind of thing. You have to tell yourself that it’s over. It can’t hurt you anymore."
Johnny squeezed his hand lightly, sniffling. “Does…does it ever go away…stop…?”
“No…but after a while, it stops having so much control over you. It stops feeling so…raw.” Kanda settled down onto one side of the bed, closing his eyes. “I still dream about him. About her. But now, it’s…almost peaceful. The worst part now is waking up.”
“Kanda…” He almost started crying again, hardly believing that the normally monosyllabic swordsman had entrusted him with this. Kanda wasn’t exactly known for being an open person.
“Just shut up and lie down.”
Johnny did laugh then, glad for the small semblance of normalcy that was Kanda’s usual gruffness, and flopped down facing the other. Kanda seemed older, in that moment, than his handful of years should have allowed. He was seven years his junior and yet…Johnny shook the thought out of his mind and hunkered down deeper into the bed, his eyes scanning over the lines and planes of the exorcist’s face.
After several minutes of silence, Kanda sighed loudly and lifted one arm out towards the scientist, not even bothering to open his eyes. Johnny wasted no time sliding underneath it and tucking himself against the larger frame. And it was being there, with Kanda’s arm around him, that Johnny began to believe that it really could get better.