The first time it happened, Mithrun woke up sweat-slick with no memory of having fallen asleep, wrapped tightly in the scavenged sleeping bag. His tunic was bunched up around his thighs and his hair was askew in a crown around his head. It didn’t strike him as too strange, that first time – in the beginning, he’d woken up in a similar state almost every night, sometimes still thrashing and sticky with fear. The episodes subsided along with the bouts of insanity, and the years served as a potent balm, but the dungeons took their toll. Because of this, he was largely unsurprised. He had had a nightmare that he didn’t remember, because he never remembered his dreams. He put himself together and went about his day.

Words: 1,226

No pain is so decadent as this, no pleasure so rich. He has to bite down on Hashirama’s palm just to regain some semblance of composure, finely attuned to the hitch in his brother’s breath, the slap in reprimand that makes his body ring like a bell. He squirms for more, base and senseless, and Hashirama’s answer is his sweetest mercy, palm ringing out in the silence of the room until Tobirama is a smear across his thighs, nothing more and nothing less than where the mokuton has him outlined, no end and no beginning without Hashirama. They are made of something that is at once equal and opposite – upper and lower, spring and winter, older and younger, bound by blood and a duty only to each other.

Words: 1,257

“Do you know what you’ve done wrong?” Butsuma asks, voice even. By now he knows that it’s not a question. Tobirama has made rigorous study of his father’s crafty words. When Hashirama doesn’t answer, Butsuma continues, tenor never rising or falling. He speaks as though he’s discussing the weather. “Conspiracy. Treason. Reckless endangerment.”

How did Tobirama get his scars?

Words: 1,383

Some years ago, Tobirama would've called him mad, spitting in his face. Some years before that, Tobirama would've appealed to the logic that had died and been buried with their younger brothers. In the softly shadowed time before even that, he would've silently complied, understanding that Hashirama held his best interests in mind. He would've gone pliant at the first press of lips, completely lax at the seeking tongue. Remembering is like looking into a room shrouded in gauzy curtains.

Words: 1,620

How do you hold yourself
In the pale light between the days
In the lingering?

Mob doesn’t dream, but he falls asleep imagining Reigen’s hands around his neck, and he wakes up imagining his hands around Reigen’s neck. In the mirror, he checks himself for a haunting, wide eyes and soft chin, even though he doesn’t need the mirror to know that it’s nothing he can fix – that it’s nothing at all, really. He’s seen this type of nothing before, underneath Reigen’s skin.

He could try to scrub at it, but it wouldn’t wash clean.

Words: 3,543