Work Text:
cough syrup
It's raining out. Haise hates the rain. It dulls his senses, makes it harder to tell what's what by smell and sound alone, and he's come to rely on those senses as much as his sight. The fervent thrumming of the rain on his umbrella as he approaches the Chateau is hypnotic and lulls his brain into a state of half-awareness. He hardly registers that he's turning the doorknob until he's inside the house, shaking and closing his umbrella while juggling his keys and a plastic bag and backing into the door to close it. He kicks it shut and slips his shoes off, heading into the kitchen.
The Chateau is silent. The incessant ticking of an analog clock is just detectable over the subtle but unending ringing of absolute quiet. Haise heaves a sigh and sets the plastic bag down on the counter. He remembers he's still wearing his jacket, so he takes it off and drapes it over his arm, moving back to the entryway to hang it on a hook.
Haise returns to the kitchen, tugging at his collar and at the cuffs of his sleeves. His neck is sore, and, tilting his head to each side, he pops it. Rubbing at the base and then massaging around his throat, he eyes the plastic bag with offense.
For Haise, hunger is a restraint. It's regulated by the government so that he feels it at its worst. They allow him the bare minimum—just enough to keep him alive and functional and in his right mind.
It's fair, he knows, that he shouldn't be allowed to indulge himself. He's property, after all, and sacrificing limbs and lives for the sake of a tool is unheard of; sacrificing humans in a human dominated world is wrong.
But that doesn't make living with it any easier. Neither does complaining, so he doesn't. When he is allowed to eat, he's kept alive the same way a Cochlea ghoul is: with what Haise has come to call his Stew.
The contents of the Stew are unclear. It doesn't smell human to Haise, but he knows it must be if he's able to digest it. He only requires about a bowl each month to keep absolute hunger at bay—it's by no means pleasant.
He eats it cold. He's too hungry to wait for it to heat up in a microwave, and he's learned from experience that it wouldn't work well in a pot over an open flame. The consistency is too thick, the contents too questionable.
Haise peels off the plastic lid, the suction giving way with a low pop. The slop inside is colorless, shining with a layer of some form of grease or oil. His stomach constricts at the sight, but the smell, the promise of something to sustain his body with, is overwhelming. He grips the marble counter to keep himself upright as his head spins, ears buzzing as blood vibrates in his skull. Every cell in his body aches for that sleaze, begs him to take that sludge in his mouth and eat ravenously. It's disgusting and revolting and the fact that his mouth waters repulses him and makes him hate himself.
He takes out a spoon. He eats it anyway.
It has no flavor. At one point, it might have, but his tongue and his taste buds have grown so tired of this wretched filth that they've simply abandoned him. He's grateful: he'd rather not attach a taste to this slop.
Halfway through his meal, he hears footsteps on the staircase. Haise reseals the Stew and slides it behind a few paper bags remaining from a recent trip to the market and turns his back to the counter. His fingers feel shaky, but they're not actually trembling, so he won't be given away.
The footsteps are light and careful. He's got a smile on his face and a name on his tongue before Mutsuki even enters the room.
“Good evening, Mutsuki.” Haise’s voice is soft when he talks, kind. Mutsuki glances up as he enters the room.
“You’re back late, Sasaki.” Mutsuki smiles apologetically.
Haise rubs the back of his neck. “Ah, I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”
Mutsuki moves to the cupboard, shaking his head as he selects a glass. “No, no, I’ve been up this whole time.”
Haise glances at the clock. “It’s almost one thirty.”
“Yes, it is,” Mutsuki agrees quietly. He holds his glass under the faucet and runs the water.
The room is quiet as the glass fills slowly. Haise watches the water reach higher, swirling and bubbling. The analog clock sounds louder than before. The rain patters against the window.
“Oh, did you want a glass too?” Mutsuki asks, turning the water off and facing Haise again.
Haise smiles. “Ah, no, that’s alright. Thank you.”
Mutsuki heads back to the staircase. “Goodnight, Sasaki.”
Haise watches him go. “Goodnight, Mutsuki.”
He’s gone, and Haise watches the staircase silently for another minute, listening to the floorboards creak as Mutsuki drifts back to his room. He can just make out the sound of his bedroom door clicking shut.
Haise sighs, turning back around to retrieve the Stew. He peels the lid back off and stares into the container.
His head feels a little clearer after digesting some of it. Now he holds the spoon with less desperation and stares with a grim sort of acceptance.
He hadn’t realized it until Mutsuki had almost walked in on him, but Haise is embarrassed to be seen like this. He feels shame, rooted stoically in the pit of his stomach, heavy like a fishing weight dragging the hook deeper and deeper until it catches on the mouth of his conscious and makes him nauseous. He’s ashamed that he’s so dependent on something so out of his control. He’s ashamed that his basic needs for survival are met with disdain and disgust and then countered so dispassionately with food likened to that of a swine.
This is the language of dehumanization.
Haise turns away from the Stew to get himself a glass from the cupboard. Turning the sink on, he watches the water fill it up, swirling and bubbling. The clock is drowned out by the sound of rushing water. The rain lessens.
Haise seals the Stew shut and hides it in the back of the refrigerator, too sick to his stomach to eat anything. He turns the lights off and leaves the kitchen.
And if the glass is half full, it doesn’t matter because it’s still half empty.
——
Tooru lays on his bed, staring at the ceiling with his bedside lamp on. The rain taps sheepishly on the window. The glass of water on his desk is still. The clock beside it reads 2:46.
He’s wide awake. Tooru wishes he would fall asleep, but he’s not tired. He’s restless, even, and laying still isn’t helping.
He sits up on his bed. It’s like pacing, almost, this back and forth between laying and sitting he’s been switching through for the past few hours. He wants to do something, but looking around his room he can’t decide what. Work has been light recently and he doesn’t want to fill out reports anyway. He can’t go out—it’s too late and too rainy. So he continues this oscillation like a pendulum on a clock. Laying to sitting to laying again.
His throat hurts. He reaches for his glass of water and sips at it. It offers little relief.
He thinks he’s worried himself sick. This isn’t the first time he’s stayed up like this, sleepless and uneasy. For the past few days, he’s had images flickering through his mind. Images of Sasaki fighting Serpent, images of Sasaki losing control, losing himself, and nearly losing his life. Tooru’s mind plays a film on repeat, and he's sure the record’s scratched because all he can see is the moment Sasaki reveals his most ghoulish features. It leaves Tooru with chills and he can’t stop worrying that someday, that will be him.
He lies down again. It won’t happen to me, he tells himself. Because the kagune in his body is different from Sasaki’s. Tooru has a modified kagune, restrained to different levels so he doesn’t have to worry about being overwhelmed by his own unless he chooses to open more.
But none of it quells his fears. Tooru watches the rain hit the window. His eyes are dry and sting every time he blinks. He wants to sleep so badly. He wants to end this circle of Sasaki’s pain to Tooru’s fears and back again. He hates laying and sitting and laying and sitting. He hates this unchanging cycle every night. His throat hurts.
He sits up again, this time with purpose. He pads lightly to the door, turning the knob and stepping out into the hallway. It’s dark, but since his surgery, he’s had exceptional eyesight, so it’s not a problem. He starts down the stairs.
They have cough syrup downstairs. Tooru just wants some form of relief. Maybe it will help him sleep.
He knows cough syrup isn’t supposed to be stored in the refrigerator, but that’s where he finds it. Urie always puts it in there; maybe he’s got a cold too.
Tooru pours himself a dosage. It’s a cherry red liquid, thick and slow, and it takes him a minute to fill the medicine cup. He swallows it slowly. It’s cold and bitter, but soothing.
Tooru doesn’t like taking medicine. He’s always been susceptible to the side effects each one warns of. Cough syrup isn’t any different. When he’s through with it, he washes the cup and puts up the bottle.
He holds the handrail on his way up the stairs, wary of the dizziness he’s certain will hit soon. He makes it to his bedroom unscathed and lays back down on his mattress.
He’s still restless, but his eyelids are heavy, and soon he’s drifting into a fitful state of almost-sleep.
——
Tooru is ripped violently from his subconscious by a lurching sensation in his stomach and he slams his feet to the floor almost immediately. He rushes for the door, missing the handle as vertigo throws his world into a whirling image of yellow spots. His knees almost give as he grasps desperately at the door handle. He manages to force his way into the hall.
He stumbles blindly to the bathroom and slams open the porcelain toilet cover, not bothering to close the door behind him. His trembling fingers clutch at the bowl as he vomits.
I expected this, Tooru admits to himself silently, convulsing as bile stings his tongue. But it was worth the sleep I got.
It’s early in the morning, before most people wake up but after it can be considered too-early-to-be-tomorrow—which is to say, around four o’clock. Tooru wishes he could have slept longer, but he’s satisfied getting any at all. If it hurts him like this later, he can’t really complain. He brought this on himself.
He spits pathetically into the bowl. He brought this on himself.
The lights flick on. Tooru rests his forehead on the seat, trying to catch his breath and keep down any more sick. He hears a soft voice call, “Mutsuki?” and soon there’s a weight on his back, warm and comforting. “Are you alright?”
It’s Sasaki, and Tooru’s glad that it is. He nods his head and leans over the bowl again, spitting the last of the bile into the toilet.
It’s important that it is Sasaki, Tooru thinks. For all of his worrying over losing his humanity, when he sees Sasaki maintaining his own like this it makes living with the fear just a little bit easier. Situations like this remind Tooru that his humanity isn’t as fragile as he fears. Even when there are moments when Sasaki loses himself, he’s always been brought back. He’s still here with them, still supportive and gentle and wonderful and Tooru thinks he needs this, he needs someone to prove to him that he’ll be okay even when he isn’t. Because if Sasaki can be this human, then Tooru can too.
“Feeling better?” Sasaki asks softly.
“Yeah,” Tooru breaths, closing and flushing the toilet.
“Good,” Sasaki laughs quietly. “You usually do once it’s all out of your system. I’ll go get you a glass of water.”
“Thanks,” Tooru murmurs.
Cough syrup had been the most accessible remedy, and despite the less-than-desirable circumstances he finds himself in now, he knows he would take it again should the same thing happen. He reminisces of the temporary relief from hours before and is eager to settle back into his bed, feeling exhausted and much less restless.
Sasaki comes back with his glass of water and offers it to Tooru, who accepts gratefully. He waits for Tooru to brush his teeth then helps him back to bed.
“If you feel sick again, come find me and I’ll get you some medicine.” Sasaki smiles, still kneeling beside his bed. He stands to leave and heads to the door. “Try to sleep in—you look pretty worn out.” He backs into the hallway with a wave. “Goodnight, Mutsuki. Sleep well.”
“Thanks, Sasaki. Goodnight.”
The lights shut off and the door clicks shut. The room is silent. Tooru checks the clock. 5:23. He sighs through his nose and wriggles deeper into his bedsheets.
The only sounds in the Chateau are those of Sasaki moving down the hall to his room, and the constant, distant ticking of the analog clock.
After a minute, he opens his eyes, half lidded with resignation, and reaches for the glass on his nightstand.
His throat still hurts.
——
“You look terrible.”
“Thanks.”
“That’s not a good thing, Haise.”
Haise rubs his eyes, trying to collect his thoughts. “It’s fine, I’m just stressed about some things. Probably caught Mutsuki’s cold, too.”
Arima doesn’t look convinced, but he changes the topic anyway. “How is he, then?”
Haise tilts his head and rests it on the back of the chair, eyes closed. “Better. He got really sick one night, but I’m pretty sure he just had a bad reaction to some medicine he took.” He goes quiet, then sighs through his nose and lifts his head again.
Arima folds his hands on the desk in front of him. “You’re sure you’re fine? We don’t have to scrimmage today if you’re ill.”
“I’m not ill,” Haise insisted. “Just stressed.”
Arima stared at him. Somewhere within the room, a clock was ticking.
“Alright.”
——
There’s a heat filling up his throat and pressing at his temple that makes Haise dizzy, but he doesn’t say anything about it. It flares up in the afternoon then settles at a simmer in the crepuscular hours, and he thinks sometimes it could be a fever, but it always quells before he can measure his temperature.
It’s buzzing in his skull now though, hanging over him like an inescapable fog, and he’s aware that he’s processing things slower than usual. All he knows is that he, Mutsuki and Shirazu are on clean up duty, as the ghoul one squad was following turned out to be too much for them to handle and they need reinforcements as soon as possible.
A chill threatens to shake him, but Haise suppresses it and tightens his grip on his quinque. It’s late afternoon, and the sun should be sinking soon, taking his haze with it. They have the ghoul cornered behind a Christian church.
He’s middle-aged and experienced, and the clothes he’s wearing are recently ironed. He’s all crisp, rolled-up sleeves and tucked-in shirts and Haise with his fever-feeling thinks he looks trustworthy and businesslike. The only thing that gives him away is the bikaku protruding from his tailbone.
“Mutsuki, cover me!” Shirazu calls, and Haise watches them attack. He needs to do something too, but nausea overtakes him as he steps forward. Saliva floods over his tongue, but Haise knows he won’t be sick. The weakness in his arms and the throbbing in his head warn him, and the emptiness in his stomach reminds him of the half-empty container resealed and hidden in the back of the refrigerator, forgotten or ignored.
It’s been almost two weeks since that night. Haise knows he can’t skip a meal in his already half-starved state. But he’s only thinking of this now, only wishing now that he’d finished the Stew that night, and the growling in his stomach scolds him for being so careless.
He sidesteps an attack from the bikaku, slashing with his quinque and feeling something start to buzz under his fingertips. It’s adrenaline, he thinks, but he knows there’s something different about it. There’s an urge, swelling in his chest and obscuring his thoughts, pushing him after the ghoul. It’s nothing like the cool, calculating head he usually keeps when fighting; it comes from somewhere deep, some place inside him ruled by instinct over will and it gives his thoughts a manic edge–
“Sassan, look out!”
He reacts quickly, jumping and flipping high over the bikaku that cracks the pavement where he’d stood. He lands on the ghoul’s shoulders, slamming him to the ground. The ghoul hisses and turns underneath him, his bikaku wrapping up Haise’s leg.
A spike of that not-quite-adrenaline stabs at Haise’s neck, wrestles a growl out of his throat and instead of slashing at the kagune with his quinque, his rinkaku breaks the flesh of his back and sprouts behind him.
The appendage whips the ghoul aside, throwing him up against the church wall. He recovers quickly, running after Haise who dodges out of his way. Haise’s kagune slams the ghoul sideways, but he’s on top of Haise soon after, baring his teeth and retaining none of the composure Haise had seen in him before.
It’s all heat energy running through him now, and Haise can’t really see too well. Everything’s spinning, and he’s sure there’s a world outside this ghoul and the overwhelming hunger in his system but he can’t really sense it. Every atom in his body is zeroed in on the ghoul on top of him, and the fever is pounding at his skull like it needs to escape. The ghoul leans down, mouth open, preparing to tear into the flesh of his face. How unfair it is, that he alone enjoys this dinner of two.
Haise’s teeth close on the ghoul’s chin. He jerks his head sideways while his right hand pushed the ghoul’s head the other way. The ghoul screams when Haise hears a crack in his ears and feels it vibrate up his teeth, and the satisfying crunch of bone in this moment is a sound he’ll never forget.
He’s ravenous, tearing pieces of the ghoul’s cheek from his face and deaf to the way the ghoul screams. Blood drips over his lips and down his neck and he isn’t even aware that the ghoul has stabbed his bikaku through his shoulder. He keeps tearing pieces, until suddenly the head is cut from the body and pulled out of reach. His head immediately starts to clear, and the the first thing he sees is the accusing face of Shirazu Ginshi.
“Sassan, what the fuck!?” he yells, and Haise gets the feeling Shirazu’s been trying to get his attention for a long time.
It’s like someone’s poured a bucket of cold water over his head. He’s suddenly very aware of everything around him, a stark contrast to the haze of hunger he’d been stuck in before. He’s too aware now, of the way Mutsuki is frozen where he stands, of the look Shirazu’s giving him, and how shame is filling him up.
He throws the dead body of the ghoul off of himself and gets up quickly, stunned and speechless. He has no excuse, no explanation that can get him out of this, and suddenly he wishes more than anything that he could turn back the clock by two weeks and finish eating the stew.
“I’m sorry,” is all he can say. “I didn’t–I’m sorry.” Because he is sorry. Because losing his composure so intensely was never something he wanted to do in front of either of them, and the blood dripping down his chin makes him painfully aware of how they see him.
Shirazu’s face eases into something less like shock and more like uncertain acceptance, and he takes a deep breath before talking. “Sassan, let’s–let’s just go home.”
Haise meets his eyes, ashamed but desperate for forgiveness. “Shirazu, you know I didn’t–”
“I know, Sassan.” Shirazu shrugs and tries for a smile that looks more uneasy than anything. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s just go home.”
They check in with the CCG and leave the scene before anyone else can show up. Haise feels better, assured by Shirazu that it was water under the bridge and no harm had been done, not really, but when he looks at Mutsuki, whose glassy eyes follow him without him really trying, he knows damage has been done somewhere.
And if Haise is half human, it doesn’t matter because he’s still half ghoul.