I deleted the original file by mistake two days ago. I didn't remember what had been written. So this is slightly different and a lot less what I had imagined and hoped for when starting this the first time, but I'll post it anyway, since it was such a hassle. Stupid network drives.

He knows that they forget sometimes. But that's okay. He forgets too.

…

The red color mixed freely with the rushing currents of the waterfall, staining a once beautiful scene with the grief and horror of battle. The clear waters became tainted with dark red blood, splashing onto the grass where the falling streams hit the large rocks in the mouth of the river. He watched the endless rushes continue on, heedless of their new identity. Horror coursed through his veins, paralyzing him. Vice-like, grief gripped his heart and numbed his limbs as he stared at the water where the blood of allies and enemies alike mixed carelessly. The pain of his own wounds was minimal, crushed under the guilt that the unforgiving currents of the relentless waterfall would be the final resting place of so many of his friends. His mind began to shut down, and he blinked once, slowly, even as another blade came-

He sits up with a gasp, the strangled cry of "Shinji!" falling from his mouth. His breaths come in quick succession, and he struggles to get free. The sheets are wrapped around his legs and the duvet is immobilizing his hands. Panic sets in further, and he doesn't hear the sound of his name being repeated like a prayer, nor does he feel the hands on his face and fingers in his hair. He does hear it eventually, and with the clarity of Shinji's voice near his ear, comes the feeling of cold air nipping his skin, and the fabric against his bare feet. The duvet has been pulled aside, and the sheets cover his feet and ankles only.

His breathing slows.

His mind clears- partly. "That's it, that's it," he hears, and he feels the hand of his lover guiding him to the blond's shoulder. He presses his face to the crevice between Shinji's neck and shoulder. He begins to cry.

…

They don't speak of it the next morning. They never do. Instead, they all walk on eggshells around him, forcing smiles and their other normal, everyday interactions. Stop it! He wants to cry. Stop- nothing has changed. He watches them clear the room whenever possible, staying silent when they would have given their opinions any other day. They walk on eggshells, but it's mostly when they think he doesn't notice. They take care to avoid sensitive topics. He sees their actions and watches with a despaired mind and curled lip. There really isn't any point to their behavior, he thinks bitterly, because you can't break what's already broken.

When the sun dawns over the side of the mountains the next morning, they greet each other with cheerful smiles and hollow eyes. The entire incident is forgotten only two days after it happened. They shove it from their minds, somehow, that's alright. He sighs internally but lets it go, doesn't push them no matter how much he wants to, because he knows, even though it will take longer, he eventually will be able to do the same.

He will be able to push everything away and live normally- at least until the next time, the voice whisper traitorously in the depths of his mind- everything. The blood. The deaths. The swinging of blades and colliding of knives. The screaming. The look of hunger in his friends' eyes and the empty, wild look in his other allies'. The maniacal laughter, and the monotone voices. His part. Their part. Their guilt.

Because they know it's their fault.

Not entirely, of course, but it's enough. They did enough. Or rather, it's what they didn't do. They didn't take into account his age, and that it was his first time fighting something like that. They didn't remember his lack of formal training, lack of mind conditioning.

The least they could do is apologize.

…

"So tell me the real reason you decided to call me up on Monday," Tatsuki demands, laying back on the roof and tugging his guitar away from him. He doesn't try to get it back, knowing that she won't give it to him until he talks.

He sighs, "I'd rather not, if you don't mind," he mutters, laying down beside her.

"I mind."

Rolling his eyes, he stares at the stars- the same ones they've been watching for twelve years, the same ones that travel around their world, always- and braces himself for the serious conversation that's about to happen. They twinkle and shine, unknowing and uncaring of the people they watch over. Their bright, unwavering light seems to mock him. "They just don't understand," he offers, and she says nothing, giving him time while he thanks her silently for her understanding and her knowledge of his own emotions- perhaps better than he knew them himself. "They are ignoring the issue," he tells her eventually, and he doesn't know what else to say.

She sits up and stares at him, "And what exactly is the issue?" she prompts, and he sighs and mutters profanity under his breath. She ignores it skillfully, and he sits up and faces her to begin.

"The issue is that they forgot that I was fifteen. They forgot that I had never fought a war before, not like them. They forgot that I had other concerns, too, like the fact that I would graduate high school in two years and had to work to get money for collage." He pauses, and starts picking at a loose seam in his jeans, staring at it intently. "They forgot that I had friends, family to take care of, not just save their lazy asses. They forgot that I had no real reason to save them. If I had been a lesser person, I probably would have ditched them. It's not like they didn't give me several reasons to," he ends, sour and deflated. He throws himself back onto the roof, staring again at the starry sky.

She stares at him, then she shakes her head. He turns his gaze back to her, and she smiles sadly in return. "Sounds like an issue," she says, giving a half-hearted smile. He snorts and her smile disappears. Her hand motions for him to sit up, and so he complies, honestly too tired to do anything other than what she tells him to.

She hands him his guitar and he settles it in his lap properly. He rejoices internally at the familiar, worn wood beneath his fingers and the brand new strings, tight across the neck of the instrument. He pulls the pick from between the strings at the top of the neck, running it over the cords absently. Tatsuki watches before curling her arm around his free one, setting her head on his shoulder.

"I don't know what to tell you," she mutters. "It sounds like they've just made a mistake. I'm sure they didn't mean this."

He jerks, and the guitar that he had been tuning makes an unpleasant sound that they both scoff at. He huffs and plays a soft tune, then ends it abruptly and asks, "You're telling me that you believe that them breaking me like this is just a mistake?"

A long suffering sigh sounds from beside him. "I'm not saying that, not exactly, ass," she replies impatiently, "I'm saying that they probably did forget. You're very mature for your age, and very strong."

"I've had to be."

"And isn't that a shame?" she asks quietly, rhetorically. "But that makes you seem so much older. It isn't until they see you panicking over exams or concerning yourself with something as mundane as what movie's coming out next week so you can make a date with a few others and me that they notice. Or, you're playing your guitar and singing modern break-up songs from America, or the UK, or Australia or someplace and they realize that you're just a teenager."

He stays quiet for a few minutes. She reaches over and plays the few strings, but he doesn't look over or stop her, but just stares at the city lights in the distance. The skyscrapers block out the stars he remembers from his childhood, and the skyline seems darker somehow. It has been five years since Tatsuki and I did this last. Why did we stop? What has changed since then?

Of course, he knows everything has changed. Despite their strong childhood bond and their promises, they were drifting. I hate it.

Eventually, after he plays her a few songs as per her request- she said the silence was grating on her nerves- just as she's drifting off, he murmurs, "Couldn't they at least apologize?" and he doesn't expect an answer.

But she answers anyway, quiet and tired, "If they meant it, you wouldn't be still living with them in that stupid warehouse, right? So I suppose you know they didn't mean it and feel guilty, and they'll say sorry eventually. You could kick their collective asses if they don't after another few weeks, right?"

And it startles a short laugh from him, but it's enough to wake her up, and she starts laughing too. He tries to keep quiet, but laughter is contagious. And when the tears fall shortly from their eyes, neither of them mention it, but they both know it's not entirely from amusement.

…

There was no make-up sex. There were no kisses, there wasn't a quiet, loving moment. Some part of him understood. The other part protested the unfairness of it all.

Three nights later, he's lying on his bed in he and Shinji's shared bedroom, with the aforementioned blond lying stonily next to him, facing the other wall.

He had been welcomed back into the warehouse with warm smiles and enthusiastic greetings, but within the hour, the tension had been palpable. He wouldn't have had an issue cutting through it with a thumbtack. The others had cleared the room as quickly as possible, and the eggshells were much more obvious than normal. He grit his teeth and endured it, quietly saddened and hurt when Shinji had joined in the avoidance.

But the others had vanished into their bedrooms before nightfall, and unless Shinji wanted to sleep outside or on the floor in the other room, there was nowhere for the ex-captain to go other than the bed in their room. They didn't own a couch, after all.

With an inward sigh, he turns his gaze from his lover to the calendar on the opposite wall, the date of their three-year anniversary glaring at him with a frightening intensity. He thinks of the dinner reservations at the small sushi shop down the road in the city. At this rate, I'll have to cancel because he wants nothing to do with me.

Shinji shifts beside him, and he turns to face the blond as he turns himself over to face him. He raises an eyebrow, and Shinji questions, "Somethin' wrong? Your reiatsu is fluctuatin'."

He yanks his reiatsu under control, scowling. "Nothing's changed, you know," he says, "This breakdown seems to have been different, and I don't know why, and everyone seems to just be content with abandoning me. It's not like this is the first breakdown."

Shinji scoffs. "You're the one who disappeared for five days to god-knows-where!" he hisses, sounding furious all of a sudden. "We searched for ya and ya were gone! No one knew where ya could've gone to."

Indignant, he returns, "I was at Tatsuki's!"

Shinji moves to retort, but pauses, "Ya were at Tatsuki's?" he asks. His voice is quieter, but still weary, with the anger ready to return any second.

"I just crashed on her couch for the past five days," he tells the former captain, "I've always gone to her when I needed something, and she usually comes to me. Sometimes she goes to Orihime, though that was only after high school started," he finishes, an afterthought. Shinji has a look on his face- part uncertainty, part disbelief, part relief- but it makes him scowl. He forcefully pulls the duvet over his shoulders and rolls over, facing away from the blond.

A hand touches his nightshirt and turns him back, but he resists. "Damn it, don't do this!" Shinji mutters furiously, tugging harder. "We talked with Tatsuki! She denied you being there!" he hisses.

"I asked her to!" he says, and Shinji stops. "I asked her to because I wanted time away. You all were suffocating me, but I still saw you when you came. I thought you'd seen me," he explains, and turns over. "You never help, but it was so bad- I needed…"

Shinji's eyes flutter closed. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, leaning his forehead against his. The blond places a swift kiss to his mouth, and pulls away. "We're here," he whispers, and some part of him wants to believe the older man. "We're here, too, for ya. Ya can tell me anything, love."

But he can't. It makes his heart hurt, but how can he? He doesn't know how to say that sometimes the pain makes him want to die. He doesn't know how to tell him that when he's alone, he has more breakdowns that usually end up with him in a corner somewhere, crying, screaming, and bleeding, with no memory of how he got there. He doesn't know how to explain the feeling of shutting down. He doesn't know how to say that he really is just a kid, one that had to grow up too fast. He doesn't know how to tell the story of blood, and anguish, and staring at the dying world. He doesn't know how to tell them about the white, white walls and the endless hallways the closed him in from all sides. He doesn't know how to explain the feeling of hopelessness and despair that came with the unending desert. He doesn't know if he can ever force the words out. He doesn't know.

"I'm sorry," Shinji mutters, and he's yanked brutally from vacant, endless white walls and a broken sky that shrouded him like a storm cloud. He refocuses on the brown eyes in front of him, and he fights back the tears he knows are coming anyway. He hates his new weaknesses. He hates everything about himself, now.

Shinji reaches for his hand and twines their fingers together, squeezing lightly, and after a moment, he squeezes back.

Maybe it won't be all right, he muses, long after Shinji has fallen asleep, still loosely holding his hand. Moonbeams peak through the window, touching the floor before skittering away in the face of the tree moving with the wind outside. He watches the shadows, sometimes seeing the faces of his dead friends, but mostly seeing nothing at all. He closes his eyes.