A/N: Trigger warnings—vivid-ish panic attack. Mentions of suicidal ideation.

So yeah, I meant this one to be up much sooner. Sorry 'bout that.

fourteen: some things break, some explode, some do both

He reached out, and took the angel's hand.

Static.

He came back to himself some time later, and became aware that he was crying.

The angel's voice was a warm blanket settling around his shoulders. "Breathe, Neku. You're safe. Nothing happened, do you understand? Nothing happened. Breathe."

Nothing. Nothing? He'd been—there had been—

Panic clawing at his chest, choking him, emptiness roaring in his ears—

Static.

"Breathe," the angel said again, quietly.

He sucked in a ragged, noisy lungful of air, let it out in a sharp gasp, sucked in another, and another—too much, too much there were bright spots in his vision and his head swam but he couldn't stop. He was doubled over on the bed, his arms wrapped tightly around his torso as if he'd fly apart into pieces if he let go, but he couldn't stop that, either. His body had taken over from his mind.

"You're safe, Neku." The blanket became a little softer, a little warmer, wrapped a little closer around him. "It wasn't real."

His breathing started to ease, but the presence of the angel's voice was invasive in its comforting warmth, smothering. He wanted to scream back at it—shut up, just shut the hell up—but he couldn't quite get control of his voice and his mouth and the rage made his chest tighten up and his breath get harsher and faster again, and the angel murmured another quiet, gentle Shh, you're safe and it made Neku's skin crawl—

—But at the same time it brought back the sense of the blanket, soothing and safe, and he felt something inside him drop down a notch, and his breathing started to calm again—

Static.

—No. He wasn't safe. no one was, and the Noise had closed in so thick around his head he couldn't breathe and he opened his mouth to yell, hands tore away from his sides to thrash at the air and the angel and the blanket—

"Breathe. You're all right."

His breathing started to calm.

No—

The circle went round, and round, and round.

Gradually, awareness began to sink into his awareness that it was a circle. Panic—false comfort and forced calm—anger—helpless rage—more panic, swinging wildly up and down like he was trapped on some insane amusement park ride.

Seeing it for what it was didn't do shit for helping him find his way off it. He stared past the angel and let the words wash over him, let the mess of emotions sweep through in their wake, and gradually he started to drift, floating away from himself until he could no longer make out the angel's words, couldn't hear anything more than a low, distant hum of speech. From that distance, he waited.

And waited.

And then he blinked, and abruptly he was back at ground level, looking out through his own eyes, in control of his own body again. Exhaustion crashed over him, and he twisted away, fell sideways onto his bed, pulled his knees up to his chest.

"Good. You're all right, Neku." The angel's voice was low and calm and reassuring, and Neku couldn't help flinching at it, but he was too tired to feel anything. "The Noise amplify negative emotion beyond what it should be; you know that. So annoyance becomes anger becomes rage, and anxiety becomes fear becomes terror."

Neku said nothing, didn't have the energy, but he sensed some response was expected of him, might make the angel leave him alone sooner, and so he nodded, dully.

"The effects are stronger when one has a sensitivity to psychic energy," the angel went on quietly. "You have that, as your mother does, but unlike her—unlike most in the Realground—you've gained some experience at protecting yourself. I blocked you from doing so for a short time, so you could see what that was like. I would not have let harm come to you, but you needed to understand how harmful unneeded exposure to the Underground might be for her. It was a lesson, Neku. Recognize it for what it was—that, and nothing more."

Neku stared past him at the wall, let the words settle like weights over him as the angel continued to speak in the same gentle, soothing voice, let the weights pull him down and away from the meaning of what was being said.

Down, and away, and down, until eventually he slept.

Neku walked through a long, twisting hall. It was lined with doors, but none of them were the one he was looking for; he knew that, even though they all looked alike and he couldn't quite remember the target of his search. He would know it when he saw it, and so he kept going, around twists and turns and down stairs and down more stairs, down and down, and past more doors—hundreds of doors, and then thousands—that went on looking alike.

And then there was one, on a landing halfway down a staircase, that looked exactly like all the others, but he knew when he saw it that it was the one he was looking for. Without hesitation, he pushed it open and stepped through.

"Let me see."

Someone's hand was wrapped around his wrist, in a grip gentle but nonetheless stern. They were lifting his arm in front of him as if it were a fragile and valuable museum piece, turning it carefully one way and then the other, not quite enough to strain his joints either way.

For an instant the overpowering urge to pull away staticked through him, but even as it did it felt… detached, his but not completely his. Then it was gone, in a rush of cool and soothing ambivalence more welcome but equally alien. He blinked, disoriented, and stared in blank confusion at the intricate web of black ink spidering up his arm—

A mild voice spoke in his ear. "I did tell you last time—no."

—And his surroundings dissolved, and sent him tumbling through darkness.

He flailed his arms, but there was nothing but empty space around him, nothing to catch himself on. Nothing underneath him, and only the slightest sense of air moving against his skin, so he couldn't quite tell if he was falling or floating. He wasn't even sure which way was up or down—he twisted and turned and couldn't feel gravity's pull, had nothing to orient himself against.

For some time, he struggled against the nothingness.

For a longer time he lapsed into a listless, tired haze, staring at the dark and not thinking about much.

Then something in his head snapped, and he threw his head back and yelled in wordless frustration, louder than he'd yelled when he woke up at the scramble after Joshua shot him the second time. Enough of this bullshit, he'd had enough, enough, enough—

A wall of sound slammed into him and he doubled over, curling into a ball, and only after it had passed and he'd shakily taken his hands away from his ears did he recognize it as his own voice, amplifed back at him.

Fine. That was how it was, then.

The urge to scream had gone, but it had left him restless, trapped and jittery and needing something he could lash out at, and he started drumming his fingers repeatedly, relentlessly against the side of his leg just to get any kind of tactile sensation at all. Counting the beats in his head, wishing there was any kind of music instead of the silence ringing in his ears—one-two-three-four-two-two-three-four-three…

He'd made it up to hundredninetyone-two-three-four, humming under his breath, when a light, dry voice cut through his litany:

"Honestly, Neku, you'd deserve it if I left you there. It's lucky for you I like you, you know that?" Joshua's exasperated sigh was all too familiar, and he spoke like someone calling a wayward pet out of trouble. "Come on, then. Out."

Neku managed to spin, awkward and flailing, and then there was an open door right in front of him, light streaming through, and Joshua was standing there, foot tapping impatiently, one hand on his hip, other hand out and beckoning. He caught Neku's hand and pulled him closer, and—

—Concrete under his feet, cool night air on his skin. Joshua let go, and Neku stumbled a few extra steps with a gasp and a curse, reeling as gravity reasserted itself. He pulled himself back into balance, and looked around, and blinked. He was back on the rooftop, under the impossible stars, heart racing from the abrupt return to… not reality, but something like it. "What the fuck—"

Joshua folded his arms over his chest and gave him a reproving look, brows raised. "And that would be why we don't wander through strange doors without knocking first, hm?"

Neku reached out for something to hold onto. His hand found a convenient wall where he needed one, and he leaned against it, shutting his eyes, trying to make sense of things—of something, of anything—as reality crashed back into place in his head and his pulse thumped in his ears.

Strange doors. Right. Like the ones last night, where he'd seen Shiki and his mother and—his thoughts skipped ahead in the sequence, jittery and nervous. His mother. He'd told her what was going on, and she'd actually listened, but then the angel had—no, skip over that bit—and then he'd… he must have fallen asleep, and then there'd been more doors and then—okay, no, looking through the bigger picture wasn't clearing things up much. He swallowed thickly and opened his eyes. "What was that?"

"Poor judgment," Joshua said. "I mean, yes, it was one way to cap off what was already a spectacularly reckless day for you—" The reproving look slipped away, replaced by a wry, knowing grin. "Thank you for that, by the way. You have no idea how boring my own day would have been without your exploits to watch."

"Boring." Bewilderment evaporated in a rush as Neku almost choked, the pent-up anger and fear and frustration of his day abruptly boiling up to the surface and exploding over the edge and bringing him fully back to the present moment, in a way that shutting his eyes and trying to breathe hadn't. "Boring? What—oh, god." He clapped a hand to his chest as if wounded, let his tone drip with sarcasm. "Are they still not letting you play with your phone? I'm so sorry."

Joshua rolled his eyes and opened his mouth, but Neku barrelled ahead before he could speak, and if a little bit of a snarl slipped into his voice, well, it could stay there. "Seriously, so glad I could entertain you, Joshua. So freaking glad you thought my day was funny. What was your favorite part, huh?"

"Neku—"

"No, seriously, what was it? Was it my mom getting brainwashed by Reapers? Was it me getting beat the fuck up by Kariya for like eight hours straight?"

(His thoughts tripped over themselves for a moment, because—oh, gods, please tell him Joshua hadn't heard Kariya's opinions on his love life, or his own responses. Please. Neku wasn't ready to deal with any of that, on any level.)

"Or how about the bit where the angels dropped my brain into a Noise cloud so I could see what it felt like—how about that? That was just a laugh a fucking minute, yeah? And then there's whatever the hell happened just now." His voice had risen to a shout somewhere in there; he considered that for half a second as he sucked in a breath, and decided that yeah, he was good with keeping that up too. "So come on, Joshua, let's hear it. Tell me how incredibly fucking entertaining my day was for you."

Silence—a brief, still, potent silence—and then Joshua shrugged, smirking as he twirled a strand of hair around one finger. "Well, since you ask—I liked the bit where you told your mother about me." His smirk widened into a grin equal parts cheerful and deadly, and he winked. "But the rest was fun, too."

Breathe. Neku almost couldn't for an instant, Joshua's casual dismissal of—of everything closing like a vise around his chest, suffocating. He turned away, fists clenched, teeth gritted, eyes closed, and said nothing.

"Honestly, Neku. If you were fishing for pity, let's just go through that list, shall we?" And Neku didn't have to be watching him to see him ticking points off on his fingers. "Kariya's interruption of your lunch: you'd just called out the angels, made demands of them. If you really thought they weren't going to answer in the most uncomfortable and inconvenient way possible, you haven't understood much about them yet. Your subsequent fight with Kariya: you sought him out, if you recall. And he forced you to stop the fight, in the end, when you'd have kept going until you collapsed. And then the Noise cloud? What you told your mother was an act of open defiance. You knew that when you did it." Joshua's voice was mercilessly light and disinterested. "Don't get me wrong—I'm all for testing their limits, but you were incredibly lucky that angel took your side. They aren't all so lenient."

Neku opened his eyes, and stared down the line of rooftops leading away from 104. Just last night he'd thought that if he could only catch hold of the calm still moment he'd found up here, sitting at Joshua's side above the city and under the stars, he'd stay there forever.

Guess that moment got away.

He opened his mouth, closed it again wordlessly, shoved his hands into his pockets, and started walking.

"Neku—"

He paused, didn't turn around, wondered at how even his voice was when he spoke. "Josh, I have had a hell of a day, and I really can't deal with your bullshit right now. So—thanks for hauling me out of that… weird psych space, or whatever that was I fell into just now. And sorry you've been bored. But unless you're going to tone the attitude down by, like, all of it, just—do us both a favor and leave me the hell alone. Please."

He waited for one second, two, three. Joshua said nothing, and Neku shook his head and walked away. He wasn't sure how far he'd be able to go in this space, but what the hell—it had been a day for testing limits. Anyway, it was imaginary, so maybe it would go as far as he wanted it to. He imagined a bridge from one roof to the next, and it was there; he crossed it, and let it fade out behind him as soon as he'd stepped off, and headed for the next, and then the next after that.

He became aware of a presence beside him half a beat before he heard the footsteps, and glanced briefly at Joshua out of the corner of his eye, but said nothing. Joshua did not return the glance; he stared straight ahead as he walked, his face expressionless. They went on in silence, and the rooftops blurred around them and gradually resolved into streets that were familiar in their form but utterly alien in their emptiness. Neku had never seen the scramble without people; he had to stare around at it for a moment to be sure that was actually what he was looking at.

After a few minutes, Joshua said, quietly, "In the restaurant today, with your mother and Shiki. I know you were hurting, and I know you needed someone to talk to, someplace you could retreat from the immediacy of—what you stand to lose, in all this. I heard you looking for me in your thoughts. I'm… sorry I couldn't answer."

Neku blinked, nonplussed. Sorry? Holy shit, you do know how to pronounce the word. But he was fresh out of anything conciliatory to say, out of anything at all to say, really, and so he nodded and said nothing

Joshua drew a breath as if he was about to say more, and then let it out, and walked a few paces, and then drew another. There was an oddly hesitant note underlying his tone when he did speak. "Neku, when I said—look, when I said my day had been boring—" Another pause, another breath; he ran a hand distractedly through his hair, glancing away. "When I said—all of what I said, just now—I…"

Another, longer pause.

Aaand… he's forgotten how again. Shock of the fucking year. "I was worried about you," Neku said flatly, when the silence had stretched painfully thin. "You know that? And don't give me any of that smug, 'Aw, how sweet of you' crap. You dropped off the map so suddenly this morning—right after that angel said you'd picked a fight with him, and you wouldn't tell me what happened—and then I couldn't sense you in my head, and I didn't hear a word from you all. Day. Not when I called for you, not when Kariya showed up, not when I was talking to my mom. None of it, not one comment—from you, and you've got a snarky comment for everything. I was seriously starting to think they'd—"

He cut off, shaking his head, hating the knots that his stomach twisted itself into just thinking about it. Hating that it was Joshua he was worried about, hating that he could hear Kariya's merciless assessment echoing back to him: Heard the same shit from a few boys over the decades, Phones, so don't go thinking you're free and clear. And think real, real hard about how much you trust your own head right now.

"Starting to think they'd what?" Joshua asked, his tone curiously neutral.

"I don't know." Neku threw his hands up. "But you picked a fight with them, Joshua, you didn't deny that. That sure as hell sounds like open defiance, and you just said yourself how happy they are about that. What the hell was I supposed to think, when you disappeared?" He was walking faster, strides lengthening. "And since you don't tell me a goddamn thing—"

"I'm not obliged to tell you everything, Neku," Joshua cut in. "You're not my keeper."

Neku made a disgusted noise deep in his throat. "No. No, just the bodyguard you picked up on a street corner. It's not like I actually give a shit if you live or die. I'm your partner, you fucking idiot. I'm your partner, and—they could have killed you."

"Neku, I'm truly touched by your concern, but they weren't going to. It would've been far too much paperwork."

"Too much paperwork. That's it? That's your defense?" Neku slammed the heel of his hand into his temple with an exasperated breath. "Great. So all that stands between you and suicide-by-angel is their lack of an enthusiastic secretary? Joshua, seriously. What if they'd killed you?"

"Well? What if they had?" Joshua shrugged, voice light. "If you're worried about our pact, then don't be. It's not quite like the ones in the Game, if you hadn't figured that out yet. I'm fully capable of breaking it should I find myself facing erasure, doing no harm to you in the process—and let's be honest." His mouth twisted into a wry, lopsided smile, and he reached his arms out in front of him for a moment, lacing his fingers together and stretching his wrists, a relaxed, casual gesture, before he tucked his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. "If they did kill me, it would save you a lot of trouble."

For an instant Neku froze, and almost tripped on the pavement as his step stuttered midstride. And then he was rounding on his partner, grabbing him by the shoulders, spinning him so they were face to face. "Don't you dare," he bit out. "Don't you fucking dare, Joshua. I didn't—I didn't not shoot you so you could go antagonize someone else into doing it."

Joshua jerked his chin up and stared coolly back at him, let a beat pass in silence, long enough for it to sink into the more rational part of Neku's brain that this was the Composer he'd just grabbed and manhandled.

It got there eventually, and he swallowed. He should let go, he knew that. Let go, walk it back, mutter his own apology. One of them was going to have to, and they both knew it wouldn't be Joshua.

He knew, and his fingers dug in deeper, because gods damn it—he just wanted some reaction. Any reaction, anything that was actually honest and uncalculated—and okay, yeah, maybe he wanted it to hurt, just a little. But it was Joshua. Honestly, would anyone blame him? Shiki and Beat wouldn't; his mother wouldn't; Kariya sure as hell wouldn't, and granted that last one was an alarm bell, but screw it. It was a day for pushing limits.

Joshua's mouth thinned a little; another beat passed before he spoke, his voice deadly soft. "Didn't get enough from Kariya, Neku? I'll gladly go a round with you myself if that's really what you're looking for, but please be warned I'm in no mood to hold back. Otherwise? I'm going to say this once: Let. Go. Of. Me."

"Like hell I'm letting go of you," Neku snapped. "You jumped into the Game for a adrenaline rush. You handed me a gun and told me to shoot you, right after you'd given me every fucking reason to do it. You keep defending Mr. H, who—just to recap—tried to kill you. You pick a fight with angels because—because I don't even know. Because you're bored and you want to see what they'll do." His fingers dug in harder with every point, Joshua's calm expression only making him angrier. "You've got a fucking death wish, Joshua, and I'm not going to stand here and listen to you talk like it's nothing, like you'd be doing me a favor—"

He puncuated the last word with a short, sharp shake. His hand slipped sideways, caught on the fabric of Joshua's hoodie, and inadvertently tugged at it, and for the first time Joshua tensed, shoulders stiffening, and shifted as if to try to pull away. Some instinct prompted Neku to drop his gaze, and it fell on a dark line of ink that twisted across Joshua's skin at the base of his throat and over his collarbone—

Light slammed into him with the force of a speeding truck, and furious noise roared in his ears, and he was flying backwards. Joshua, his blurred figure the only thing Neku could see through the light, raised his hand.

Neku had just enough presence of mind to fling his arms up to protect his head and face, for whatever meager good it would do.

And then it was raining metal, machinery crashing to the concrete with ear-shattering crashes and sparks flying and shrapnel buzzing past his ear so close he could feel it and why vending machines, Joshua, just—why, and somewhere along the way he'd hit the concrete too and he couldn't make himself move, he was frozen, curled into a ball with his arms over his head and this was it. He shut his eyes and tried to breathe, tried to… go someplace else. He wasn't sure what would happen if he died in Joshua's imaginary extension of psych space, but he didn't want to find out, and he was pretty sure he was about to find out, and—

—And the shrieking rain had stopped, and none of it had hit him.

He opened his eyes half a second before the faintly glowing transparent shield around him—a shield he hadn't put there, he knew he hadn't—shimmered out. Stared numbly up at the contorted remains of a truck driven nose-first into the pavement, turned his eyes down to the pools of broken glass that had previously been headlights and windshield and mirrors. The shards stopped inches from his face.

He was shaking, head to toe; he wasn't sure if it was from fear, or from shock, or from an aftereffect of the light Joshua had hit him with, but he couldn't stop. He pushed himself up onto one elbow anyway, and twisted his head, and Joshua was there, just a few feet away, arms folded tightly around himself and his face a little paler than usual and his head slightly down. He met Neku's eyes for half an instant and then looked away again, looked for an instant like he was going to say something and then stopped, shook his head, turned away.

"Hey." Neku's voice was as wobbly as his limbs, but he managed to sit up; he was pretty sure he wasn't hurt any worse than some new scrapes and bruises, and those were pretty much old hat at this point. Anyway, this space wasn't real; they'd probably be gone when he woke. "I, uh."

His head was still reeling, and a part of him wanted to snap: Holy shit, overreact much, Josh? Or haul himself to his feet and hit back, no matter how shaky he was, keep going keep going keep going and lose himself in the fight, in the high of being angry and lashing out and not having to care who he hurt, because if there was one person who he couldn't possibly seriously hurt, wasn't capable of seriously hurting, it was Joshua. Joshua was above all that, Joshua didn't get hurt—

You jump into the Game for an adrenaline rush. You pick fights with angels just to see what they'll do.

His face landed in his hands, hard. Okay, yeah, if he was going to yell at Joshua for that shit, maybe he'd better take a long look at himself, too.

Joshua spoke up, his voice subdued. "You all right, Neku?"

Which, it occured to him, was the only thing—the only fucking thing—he'd wanted Joshua to ask him all day, just that. Not like they didn't both know the answer, but just some kind of check-in to acknowledge that holy shit, he was kind of going through a lot right now. It would have taken a grand total of three seconds.

Coming from someone who had just almost dropped a truck on him, it rang a little hollow.

He was still shivering, wondered dully when he was going to stop. He didn't lift his head. "Stupid question, Joshua."

"Mm." There was a pause, the crunching of glass and rubble as Joshua picked his way closer through the wreckage, a faint creak and cloth sliding across metal as he found something to sit on, and then silence.

"If you're looking for another show to entertain you," Neku said eventually, voice still slightly muffled by his hands, "go ask the angels to let you watch Tin Pin reruns. I'm done for the day, Josh. You're not getting anything else."

Silence. No laugh, no snide comeback, just silence.

At last Joshua let out a long, quiet breath and said, slowly, "If you'd prefer we go our separate ways for the evening, Neku, we can do that, and I'll send you back to your room shortly. But I… needed to let you know, I'm not…"

For an instant there was a weird catch in his voice, almost a tremor, or at least that was what it would have been from somebody else, Neku thought tiredly. It was almost a scared sound, and maybe if Neku were a better person he'd have the energy to give a damn, but right now? From Joshua it was probably an act. Neku lifted his head and went back to staring at the broken glass haloed around the remains of the truck.

Another breath, and when Joshua continued he was back to his brisk, breezy, careless self. "Well. It looks like I may have to be out of touch for the next few days—possibly until they start the Game. I'm still Shibuya's Composer, even if I am under house arrest at the moment, and this whole business of them taking it off the board before our Game—there are a few logistical issues there, as you might imagine. I can't stop them taking it, but I do have a responsibility to see it's done safely." He chuckled dryly. "Everything adequately packed and labeled, as it were. All the glassware marked handle with care. And the people, for that matter. Tedious as hell, but there's no getting out of it, and I'm afraid it's going to take so much of my focus—"

And now Neku looked at him, because Joshua—his tone was right, glib as ever, but there was something… off. He was talking a little too quickly, maybe, and there was something like an echo of that momentary tremor flickering through the pact link in Neku's head, barely perceptible, muted under layers of indifference, but… there. If it were anyone else, anyone but Joshua… "Josh," Neku said quietly, tiredly.

Joshua glanced towards him and away. Something in his eyes wasn't quite right either, something unraveling, and abruptly it hit Neku, something Joshua had just said. This whole business of them taking it off the board. He'd heard similar words before—the angel had said it that morning, he remembered, talking about what they'd done to Beat, but he'd heard someone say something like it somewhere else, too.

Behind the last door he'd opened the previous night, the one he'd been so abruptly thrown out of.

…No delight in needless cruelty. The upcoming alteration of the board will be difficult for you. If you would but open your mind to us…

"—Just not going to be possible," Joshua was saying, "to divide myself between that and—"

No delight in needless cruelty.

Joshua was Shibuya's Composer. Joshua was tied to Shibuya, in a way Neku had been granted a brief glimpse of the previous night but could still barely fathom. So if the angels were taking Shibuya off the board—what was that going to do to Joshua?

"Joshua." Neku rubbed his forehead, and realized tiredly that he hadn't asked, either. He'd been furious at Joshua for not asking, and he kind of still was, but… he hadn't asked either. "You all right?"

Another sharp glance-and-away. Joshua was silent for one breath, two, three, and then the words slipped out, low and quick and barely audible. "Please stay. Just for tonight. I—" He snapped his mouth shut on anything more; his brow furrowed, and for a moment he studied the middle distance like he was trying to solve a puzzle, and then he shook his head, drew a long breath, let it out. "Just for tonight."

Neku said nothing. He looked back at the broken glass and twisted metal and fractured pavement. Then he pushed himself to his feet, and made his way over to the upturned, mangled vending machine, and sat down, still silent, at Joshua's side.

A/N: Next chapter is gonna be a little longer of a wait. I am doing a fic for the TWEWY Bang this year (it's going to be sort of a companion to Missing the Point, if you've read that one) and I really want to get my first draft of that hammered out as much as possible before tackling the next chapter for this one.