If Our Heads Fall

There are teeth on Rei’s skin, sharp edges catching at the base of his neck. They barely break the surface, leaving beads of blood in their wake, and God, it stings, but he does not move.

He cannot move.

He holds his breath until it proves impossible for him, letting it out in one heavy, clumsy exhale. The beast beside him smiles, his lips curling against Rei and making him shiver. Hot hands take hold of his wrists and he tenses, squeezes his eyes shut as a thin black tail curls itself around his abdomen, a sharp tip leaving faint scratches as it flicks him every so often.

He can feel the beast’s eyes burning holes into him, searing his face. He refuses to look; meeting those eyes will only paralyze him.

“Rei,” the beast starts softly, his breath too warm on Rei’s skin, “look at me.”

Rei does not whimper, absolutely not. His head twitches a little bit to the right, away from the man that is so invested in him. He winces only slightly when he feels slender fingers grip his cheeks and yank his head back in the beast’s direction. “Oh?”

He doesn’t say a word, even when claws begin to pierce the skin on his wrist.

“Rei-chan,” he says, not sounding nearly as worked up as his suddenly intense hold suggests, “open your eyes.”

Still, Rei is silent.

“Rei-chan. Rei-chan. Rei-chan!”

And when he wakes up to meet the face of his childhood friend, Rei can barely breathe a sigh of relief, for he still feels the demon squeezing his face much too tight.

He keeps his calm as he comes to life, squinting in the face of the harsh sunlight. He drops a hand over his eyes and peers through his fingers at Nagisa, who looks more or less ready to start his day, unlike Rei, who is hardly willing to put any effort at all towards crawling out of bed.

“Are you awake now?” Nagisa asks, looking down at him with wide, inquisitive eyes. He’s never shared his nightmares with Nagisa, never really felt the need, but sometimes he half wishes he would just get it over with so he could stop being bothered on these kind of mornings. “It takes longer and longer to wake you up lately.”

“Good morning to you, too.”

Rei rolls over so his back is facing both Nagisa and the sun, allowing him to stare at the wall in peace. He drowns out Nagisa’s whiny, “Rei-chan!” in an attempt to try and rest. It’s short-lived, seeing as how Nagisa is now working ten times harder to get him out of bed.

“Why are you so eager to get me up?” he partially mumbles, his face halfway stuck in the pillow. “What do you need?”

Nagisa pulls his hands away from Rei’s shoulder once Rei turns back to him, rubbing softly at the back of his neck as his gaze falls to the floor and now sporting a sheepish smile. “Nothing really,” he says in a way that suggests what he wants is probably too silly to outright ask for. “Just. Uhm.” He shrugs as well. It’s clear now that he’s skating around something.

He lets out a nervous laugh under the weight of Rei’s straight gaze, looking at the ceiling before finally coming out with it.

“We’re kinda low on food and stuff and I would go get it myself but I don’t really wanna go by myself because it’s more fun going with you.” It’s all said so quickly that it nearly flies over Rei’s head. Luckily, he’s known Nagisa long enough to grow accustomed to it; it’s something he does quite often, and with a little training, it’s fairly easy to decipher what he’s saying, despite it being little more than a blur.

“Just say that, then.” Honestly, it sounds a bit harsh, even for Rei’s standards. It can easily be attributed to his less-than-stellar night, but no one aside from him knows about it. To Nagisa, he just looks like an asshole, though he hardly means to. He pushes himself into a lazy slouch of a sitting position and tacks on, “I won’t be mad about that,” in an attempt to soften the blow. Judging by the way Nagisa perks up, it works just fine.

“Okay! Uh, okay.” He’s smiling again, showing that Rei is in a safe place. “I’ll leave you alone now. Just let me know when you’re ready to-I mean, take your time, but-I-just let me know.”

He’s gone after that stumble, closing the door unnecessarily hard behind him. Rei stares at the area his best friend just stood, waiting to see if he’ll pop back in because he forgot to say something. Three minutes pass and he’s still alone; he figures it’s safe to lay down once more.

It’s not as though he’s planning on going back to sleep, no. Despite how tired he is, he can’t find it in himself to fall asleep again knowing that the demon may be waiting for him the moment he closes his eyes. No matter how imaginary it is, it feels so real that the thought of it causes a chill to curl around his spine. He pulls the cover over him and stares at the wall again, frowning when the small dots where the paint has chipped away starts to take the shape of something more.



“Oh, oh, wait, Rei-chan!”

Nagisa has been pulling him around the whole time they’ve been out.

They’ve been out for hours.

It started with a quick trip to the store; they got the things they needed (and the things they did not), and began their trek back home, nice and simple. It was only when they got all the way to their apartment building that Nagisa declared they needed to go back because he wanted a new charm for his phone and refused to order it offline for fear that it would arrive broken.

And so they were back on the street, surrounded by people left and right.

Rei prayed that his discomfort wasn’t obvious, but judging by the way Nagisa hasn’t given him a second glance in ages, he figures he must look fine. He tries his best to keep up with whatever conversation Nagisa is attempting to have with him, but he can’t keep his attention on it very long. His mind tends to get away from him on days like this; it’s plagued by the night before, weighed down with thoughts of that demon.

And while he would love to just push it out of his head, he just isn’t capable. He isn’t strong enough. The monster is as stubborn as he is slick, digging his claws into Rei’s head and making what truly feels to be a permanent home there. With every nightmare, his presence feels stronger. There doesn’t seem to be any sort of stopping it, either; Rei has to sleep sometime, doesn’t he? What can he do? How can–

“Rei-chan?”

Nagisa has stopped walking, his index finger having hooked itself around the threaded bracelet on Rei’s wrist. He must be confident in the fact that it won’t snap, because he’s tugging on it quite hard. Rei isn’t very convinced, considering Nagisa made it for him years ago, but it hasn’t even started to fray yet. Perhaps it’ll be fine.

“Are you okay? You just started standing here.” His gaze wipes Rei up and down multiple times, magenta eyes looking for a hint of any little thing out of place. “What’re you thinking about?”

“Nothing!” It’s so excited that it’s beyond obvious he’s lying. Nagisa frowns, pushing him to lamely add, “It’s nothing. Really.”

“Is too,” he says, narrowing his eyes now. “What is it?”

“Honestly, it’s nothing you should be concerned about.” Rei turns his head, unable to handle Nagisa’s stare. It feels as though the other boy is staring right through him, and he’d rather not look at him do it. He adjusts his glasses one too many times, anything to keep him from turning back. “I just got distracted is all. Let’s keep going.”

Nagisa pouts then, crossing his arms and sighting, ”Fiiine.” Rei only looks in his direction again once he’s sure the elder has started to move.

Unsurprisingly, they don’t make it to the shop Nagisa’s trying to get to before they stop again.

This time, it’s a crepe stand. Better than Rei stopping in his tracks courtesy of his thoughts, yes, but still another thing to keep them from getting back home. Nagisa is practically jumping at the sight, though, so there’s no getting out of it.

“It’ll be two seconds, I promise! Then we’ll get the charm and head back!” Nagisa assures him with a giddy grin, already walking away. Rei stays behind, sitting on a bench and stuck watching Nagisa maneuver through a relatively dense crowd. The only reason he’s able to keep track of him is because of the pink and yellow jacket he’s got on; it’s almost too bright, but it keeps Rei from feeling alone until even the color is swallowed by strangers.

Rei chooses to keep his gaze on his lap for the most part, tensing when people come too close. He knows he’s in public and there will be plenty of them, and that’s rarely ever a problem, but the demon is fresh in his brain and all he wants is the false sense of security his apartment grants him.

He could shout when someone sits beside him; it’s not fair for him to be upset, really, seeing as it’s a free spot on a public bench, but still. He takes a chance and looks quickly to his right to steal a peek at whoever has taken a seat.

It seems that they’ve taken the opportunity to look at him, too.

From what Rei can gather during his millisecond-long glance, it’s a guy, taller than him but probably (maybe?) not too much older. It appears he’ll be getting another chance to look, though, because the guy is talking to him now - “I’m not taking anyone’s seat, am I?” - and conversation, no matter how short, requires eye contact. It’s just proper manners.

He sucks in a fast breath in a sorry attempt to steel himself, though he isn’t quite sure what there is to be afraid of. This isn’t like him. All he needs to do is look up and just talk.

His response dies in his throat, however, when he meets the stranger’s eyes.

They’re burning red, hot as the demon’s touch in his dreams. They look relatively human, but Rei knows, he knows that they aren’t. He knows who they belong to, and he knows that they should not exist outside of those damned nightmares. And yet.

The guy, the monster, he raises an eyebrow and repeats his question like Rei didn’t hear him the first time.

Rei blinks one, two, three times, and on the final blink, he’s looking into eyes so brown they’re nearly black. Unfamiliar. Normal. There is no flaming red glare to lock him in place, just a somewhat confused but undeniably human look.

“It’s fine,” he says. It feels as though he’s been screaming for ages when he finally speaks, but he knows for sure that he’s been in shocked silence for as long as he’s been looking at this stranger. “The seat. It’s empty.”

“That’s good, then.” There’s a short pause that allows Rei to stare at his lap again, giving him a moment to breathe before the stranger speaks again. “Are you, uh, are you okay?”

“Yes. I’m alright, thank you.” He doesn’t look up this time.

He thinks the stranger nods, but can’t be sure. He can’t really tell out of the corner of his eye, but whatever he does, it must have been a sign that he isn’t talking anymore, because this time it remains quiet.

He doesn’t know how long it is - minutes? hours? - but the next time he hears a clear voice, it’s both brand new and not at all directed at him. He risks a short glance upwards and finds himself looking at another boy, though this one isn’t bothered with him. He’s keeping his eyes locked on the guy at Rei’s side, his voice unbelievably quiet when he finally speaks. It’s a wonder Rei or the stranger can even hear him.

“Kuroo,” he says, tucking his hands in the pocket of a bright red sports jacket, “I wanna go.”

The stranger - Kuroo, then - hums and stands, looking down on who Rei assumes is his friend. “Already?” he teases, stretching incredibly long arms over his head. “Alright, then. Shame, I was just getting comfortable, too.” The boy turns away from Kuroo, beginning to walk away and caring little to none about whether Kuroo is following him. “Oi, hang on, here I come!”

Kuroo makes a start towards trekking behind the other boy, but not before he turns around to look at Rei one more time. He smiles a smile that Rei has only seen in the worst of his nightmares, full of long, razor sharp teeth, waves and says, “Goodbye.”

The angry red of Kuroo’s eyes stays with Rei long after he leaves.

“Rei-chan!”

Nagisa is here. Good. They can go now. They don’t ever have to come back.

“They were out of ‘em! The line was crazy and there were more people than I thought, and then–hey. Rei?”

“We should go now. Let’s go,” he says much too quickly, nearly jumping from the bench. He’s holding onto Nagisa this time, dragging him through the suffocating groups of people without so much as a warning.

“Rei-chan! What are-what is up with you?”

He doesn’t know how to answer. It’s the third time he’s been asked that in a day; it’s obvious that something isn’t right and Rei is out of convincing ways to lie. So he stays quiet.

“Did something happen while I was gone? Hey, stop walk-he-Rei!”

Nagisa wrenches his arm out of Rei’s grip, staring up at him not with a pout or a frown, but certainly not with a smile. “What’s wrong?”

“I...” What can he say? He can’t talk about his stupid nightmares in public like this. He can’t even do it at home. Home. He wants to go home. “I just want to go back. I’m tired.”

“You look scared. Did someone do something to you? I’ll–!”

“No. No, no, it’s okay. Can we just go? Please.”

It’s quiet between them, not entirely comfortable and not quite uncomfortable, either. It’s just. Quiet.

“Okay. Come on, Rei-chan, let’s go home, yeah?” He loops his finger in Rei’s bracelet again, leading Rei around with confidence. He’s smiling again, more than likely for Rei’s sake. Surely he’s hoping that Rei will just come clean and tell him what’s going on, but it just doesn’t feel like anything worth sitting down and talking about. They’re just nightmares. They only started when Rei and Nagisa moved here, after all; he’s just adjusting.

He’ll be okay soon.