Work Text:
He's here again. He can feel him.
It's more of a deep sense inside Kazuaki's brain. Like a long-buried switch has been flicked from "off" to "on". It floods his entire system. Every single inch of his body is filled with this overwhelming sense of "him". It's dizzying. He's lying in bed, jolted only a few seconds ago from sleep by "his" presence.
It's pitch dark, but it's not a darkness he trusts in the slightest. Nanaki squeezes his eyes shut, but the darkness on the inside of his eyelids is just as threatening.
He opens his eyes again. It's pressing down on him. Kazuaki can feel it thundering into his ear drums, pushing against his nostrils and the dam of his lips. He can feel the darkness swelling like a crescendo in one of Dr. Iwamine's notorious pieces of classical music. It's enveloping him. His lungs grow tight, his throat constricting itself. The blood just pounds harder and faster throughout his entire brain, shaking its way through his corotid arteries, his arms, legs.
Kazuaki sits up. His fingers are trembling, and he grips hold of his duvet. He swallows, forcing an enormous weight in his throat down into his ribcage, and cracks open his lips.
"...Nageki?"
His vocal cords scratch against each other like badly-oiled gears. The sound of his voice is weak, but it still carries throughout the tiny room. To Kazuaki's ears, it's slightly muffled by the darkness, which seems almost physical. Like he could just reach out and sweep the gloom away.
His hands remain firmly gripping his duvet.
Kazuaki straightens his back a little.
There's no point hiding from me, my poor brother. I felt you come in. I know you're here. Tell me what you want, and let's go back to sleep now. I'll make us some hot chocolate. You like hot chocolate, don't you? There we go. Drink your hot chocolate, Uzune's going to read you a story until you fall asleep. Good boy... good boy...
"Nageki."
That seemed to do it.
The shadows thicken in the middle. They coalesce into the form of the boy.
His head is bowed, light hair falling over his eyes. His arms are folded, fingers digging into his bony elbows. His cardigan is too big for him. Nanaki... Uzune... had bought it for him before he went away. He was going to grow into it, wasn't he?
Ah... ah... ahahah...
Kazuaki's heart leaps at the sight of his beloved, departed little brother. It's always like this. It's always a moment of hope where he thinks Nageki has come to pay him a comforting visit. A soft, spiritual little flicker in reality where his ghostly fingers can stroke over the man's tousled blonde hair, texture brittle and straw-like from countless bleachings. Nageki's ethereal lips would try to press a little kiss to his forehead, and Kazuaki would go back to sleep again without any problems, almost feeling the mattress depress slightly as Nageki sits on it to keep him company and watch over him while he dreams.
It never goes that way.
Nageki lets go of his elbows. His hands swing down like dead weights to fall by his sides. He stands there, watching Kazuaki from under the curtain of his fringe. Kazuaki can almost fancy seeing him breathing. Fancy seeing his little bony shoulders move up and down, indicators of his lungs being so so real and so full of life, and so-
"Hi. To. Ri."
Kazuaki holds his breath at the sound. The sound which just came from Nageki's icy blue lips. His chest is thudding so hard, he's sure, so sure the whole house can hear it. The whole neighbourhood, even. And he's utterly frozen. He can only remain sitting up as his eyes remain fixed to the form of his younger brother.
Nageki takes a step forward, towards the bed. His movements are jerky, erratic. As though both of his knees were dislocated. As though he were being controlled by a puppeteer. His hair is still falling over his face. Oh God. Oh Nageki. Please just let me see your face one more time. Just once. Just once just let me stroke your cheeks and hold you and tell you we're going to get through this and Nageki's just taking another step now. His movements are more fluid now. His limbs are more in control now. He takes a few more steps and reaches the foot of the bed. He climbs onto it. Lifts one knee up, places it on the bed, hoists the other knee up. His fingers are skeletal, fingernails too long and grimy. His hands are skeletal and they're right next to Kazuaki's feet and Kazuaki's just sitting there only able to watch and his heart is thumping so damned hard and his head is buzzing and Nageki's crawling over his legs. He's climbing on top of him and Nageki's beautiful head is still bowed, it's still hiding his young innocent face from Kazuaki and he places both hands on either side of Kazuaki, trapping him. Kazuaki is just staring at the crown of Nageki's head now. Nageki remains motionless for a few heartbeats. And since Kazuaki's were the measure of time, this was a very short moment indeed.
He lifts his head up. Nageki Fujishiro lifts his head up to face Kazuaki and his eyes are missing and Kazuaki can feel his own face break into a smile of hysteria. Nageki's beautiful eyes are gone and there are hollow sockets in their place. Blood begins to pour out of his eye sockets, streaming down his face and splashing down into Kazuaki's lap. Nageki opens his mouth. His teeth are blackened and missing and his tongue is swollen and his gums are bleeding and his mouth is just filled with blood and blood and teeth and blood is pouring out of his mouth and his nose and there's teeth in the blood and the blood's soaking Kazuaki's lap it's- oh Christ it's everywhere oh Nageki I'm so happy to see you and Kazuaki's smile is wider and wider and his eyes are overflowing and is this blood too? Is it? Oh. No it's tears it's... my tears I-I'm sorry Nageki I'm sorry. Tears drip down his cheeks, pool under his chin and splash down into the river of blood that is Kazuaki's bed. And all the while Nageki is just screaming at him he's screaming and screaming and he's sobbing his throat out his voice box is going to break, the vital little strings which vibrate to make his voice are going to snap and HITORI PLEASE HITORI PLEASE PLEASE HITORI PLEASE IT HURTS IT HURTS HITORI IT HURTS and blood and blood and Nageki's voice is layering over itself only more twisted, darker, deeper, it's pounding at his skull and HITORI THIS IS YOUR FAULT THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT HOW COULD YOU HITORI I'LL NEVER STOP, HITORI, I'LL NEVER LEAVE YOU BE, YOU WILL NEVER BE FREE OF THIS HITORI and Kazuaki's no longer sitting up and he's pulled the duvet over his head and he's curled up under the duvet and he can feel Nageki's fists beating at him through the layers of material and there's so much screaming he's not sure who from and oh God oh Nageki Nageki Nageki I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I-
With a final screech, Kazuaki feels the assault stop. Kazuaki opens his eyes again. He hadn't realised he'd shut them, but he had. He can see a faint red glow through the duvet.
He always hates this bit.
Kazuaki swallows and forces himself to look. For Nageki. He pulls the duvet away and sits up. He can barely see through prisms of salt water that have shattered his poor Nageki into thousands of blurry images. He's burning up. Kazuaki lets out a heart-wrenching sob and reaches out for his brother, as though he can just pat the flames away. Nageki's eyes have returned to their sockets, and they fix Kazuaki's watery ones vacantly as Nageki's hair melts away and his skin blisters and peels off, his muscles shred and his bones char. His darling brother is reduced to a pile of ash on the carpet, which will only be gone in the morning when Kazuaki has woken up after hours of shakily persuading himself that it's safe to sleep again.
Sometimes the narcolepsy is an act. Sometimes it's not that simple to explain.