Chapter Text
Haunted, hunted, to be silent is to be safe. Suffering is temporary, pain is a form of love. He cannot tell if the fear is inside him or around him. The dark furred beasts, the dark robed humans, he cannot decide which is worse. Illness. Injury. Medicine. Healing. Hurt. Again. Again. Again. A forest, an office, a cold and empty house, his...dorm?
Moze sits up and looks around, realizing he had just woken up from a nightmare. He takes a breath, he's sweating and his heart is racing. Memories start to resurface, he pushes them back down, drowns them. He has to, or their weight will cause him too to sink. He gets up and takes a shower. He stares at the white walls of the bathroom, his mind distant, still one foot in the dream. He stands under the water until the haze clears. He feels better when he's clean, as if he was somehow washing the dirt from his mind as well as his body. Blade is still asleep, so Moze goes outside. It's warm, summer still hanging in the air.
He sits on the steps, trying to sort through his thoughts. He knew exactly what caused the nightmares. He should really go to therapy, but working through the past would mean remembering the past, facing it. To heal you first have to accept that you're hurt. He couldn't do that, not yet. The memories were there, the door unlocked, all he had to do was turn the handle. He wasn't strong enough. He didn't want to remember. He stared up at the sky, the moon was almost full. He had no idea what time it was, he had forgotten to check and his phone was still in the dorm.
There was an aching pain in his chest, his throat. Building until it broke. Moze sat on the steps of the dorm building and, for the first time in a long time, he cried.
He walked back inside and checked the time, 3:46am. He felt drained, exhausted, and decided to risk going back to sleep. He didn't have dreams this time.
Life was normal, he told himself. His classes were normal, his job was normal, he was normal. Nothing had changed. Nothing except the nightmares. They were getting worse, more frequent. He tried to ignore it, but it was almost every night now that he'd be woken up by them. He always did his best to calm himself down and go back to sleep, but he still felt more tired than normal in the morning.
Again, he jolts awake. His phone screen reads 12:17am. He sighs, looking around the room as his eyes adjust to the darkness. Blade isn't there. He gets up and steps into the common area. Blade was sitting on the kitchen counter, a cup of tea in his hands. He looked up when he entered, and Moze gave him an awkward wave.
"Couldn't sleep?" Blade asks him
"...Yeah." He debates with himself over how much to share. "...Nightmares."
Blade nods, taking a sip of his drink. "You wanna talk about it?"
He paused. He did want to talk about it. Part of him wanted that more than anything. Only Feixiao and Jiaoqiu knew anything about the nightmares. He wanted to talk about it, he wanted Blade to know, but something held him back. He trusted Blade, he knew he would understand, but he also knew talking about the nightmares would lead to questions, ones he wasn't prepared to answer. Blade would probably try to help him, try to get to the root of the problem. Do you know why you're having them? How long have you been having them? Where do they come from? He knew, deep down he knew, he didn't want to know. Worst of all, talking about it might make him cry again. He did not want Blade to see him cry. "...Not really."
Blade accepted his answer without protest and they sat in silence for a while. "Um...You couldn't sleep either?"
"Yeah. Happens sometimes." Back to silence. He couldn't tell if it was comfortable or awkward. He figured if he had to ask it was probably awkward. Blade looked tired, but somehow still good. Even though his hair was a mess. Even though he had dark circles under his eyes. He still looked good. Moze never looked that good when he was tired, he never looked that good period. He snaps himself out of his trance, hoping he wasn't staring too much. He decided he wouldn't go back to sleep yet. He realized he had been awkwardly standing against the wall for the past 10 minutes and sat down on the opposite side of the counter from his roommate.
Blade stood up, getting another mug from the cabinet. Moze watched, confused, as he made another cup of tea and handed it to him. He took it, waiting for it to finish brewing. It was herbal, mint and something else. He wasn't sure how he felt about it, but drank it anyway. He appreciated the gesture. They sat there for a while longer, even after both had finished their tea. It felt like neither wanted to leave, to break the moment by going back to bed. Moze reluctantly accepts that he can't stay up all night, and returns to their room. He falls asleep quickly.
"Dude, are you dead?" Moze slowly pulls his head up from the table at the sound of Silver Wolf's voice. He'd felt half asleep the whole day, and ended up nodding off at lunch.
"Sorry..." He rubbed his eyes, at least he hadn't fallen asleep in class. His friends had noticed how out of it he'd been lately, he knew they were worried, but he didn't want to talk about it. He managed not to fall asleep again, but his brain definitely wasn't working at full capacity. He got through the day and went to sleep the second he returned to the dorm.
He woke up disoriented, finding he had been asleep for the past four hours. It was almost evening now, and he wasn't sure whether or not to go back to sleep. He didn't want to mess up his sleep schedule any more than it already was. He sat up and was quickly reminded of how long it had been since lunch. He got up and debated if he wanted to leave the dorm for an actual meal or settle for microwave ramen, which he had bought but rarely ever ate. He decided he did not have the energy or motivation to go anywhere so he would accept the copious amounts of sodium.
His roommate chose the exact time when he was in the middle of eating to return to the dorm. Great. Moze probably looked like a mess right now. Not that he cared whether or not Blade thought he looked good. He gave him a nod as he went into their room. Moze sighed, pressing the heels of his palms against his closed eyes. He felt like he was going crazy. Between the nightmares, the exhaustion, and the complicated and confusing but definitely perfectly normal feelings for his roommate he didn't have much room left for sanity. He stared at the closed door to their room as if he could see through it to the man on the other side. There was still so much he wanted to know about him, his curiosity was insatiable. Every word exchanged, every glance, felt like it meant something. Did it? He wasn't sure. It meant something to him, at least.
It was the same story that night, a similar nightmare that had him jolting awake. This time it was only about 10pm. Blade was at his desk, working on something on his laptop, but he had turned to look at Moze due to his sudden movement. He looked...worried. Knowing Blade was worried about him made him strangely happy. It meant he cared.
"...Still don't want to talk about it?" Moze looked away, he still wanted to talk about it. He was still afraid. He stopped and blinked. Why couldn't he just be honest? He could literally just tell Blade that he wasn't prepared to answer questions about the origins of the nightmares. He could literally just tell him if he didn't want to talk about something. He felt like an idiot. He had basically forgotten that boundaries and communication were a thing.
"They have something to do with some things that happened in my early childhood, I know that, but I don't think I'm prepared to...know what happened, I guess. Those memories are repressed for a reason, right?" Blade nodded, Moze felt like he had already said too much. Were they really at the trauma dumping stage of their relationship?
"I get not wanting to face it, to accept it.
It's a very common trauma response. Unfortunately, harsh truth is that you can't run from it forever." He was right,
Moze hated that he was right, he didn't want to stop running.
"...Someday." Blade seemed to sense that he was done talking for now and returned to his work. Moze sat there for a few minutes, watching him, before finally going back to sleep.