And he’d waited quite a long time, before asking - he knew Sousuke was not as easy to convince into talking about pain the way he’d been, but maybe now he would.
Sousuke looked at him, and then to the side, with a shrug.
“I don’t really have one. I had a couple of friends, a girlfriend, a family... like anyone else. They’re all gone now,” he mumbled, with his eyes looking outside, with a cold edge.

“I’m sorry,” Nagisa said, even though he knew full well it was the most useless phrase he could use, and moved slightly closer without even thinking.
“It’s okay. They all got infected really fast, so I sort of… had to take care of them right away,” Sousuke continued, curt, and looked over at Nagisa. “That’s what my story is. I don’t have a lot to say.”
Surprisingly enough, it was not uncomfortable, having that conversation. Nagisa sat there, with an empathetic expression, and nodded. Maybe he could try and veer the conversation a little.
“A girlfriend, you said?” He asked, not even trying to sound subtle with the way a flash of interest lit his pupils up.
“Yeah. She was cute,” Sousuke replied, and pressed his lips together. His eyes kept avoiding Nagisa’s, too.

And then Nagisa asked, clenching his fists with impatience, “and... you’re not into guys as well?”
There was no way Nagisa had not noticed the way Sousuke looked at him, sometimes. Undecided, like he was always wondering what he should do next, even though in the current circumstances nothing mattered. He always seemed hesitant, but growingly affected by the way Nagisa looked at him.
Nagisa’s question made him look back, with a small frown, and for the first time in a very long while he felt his cheeks burn a little. Oh, whatever.
“Maybe I am,” he replied after a long pause, and looked down at his hands, which trembled a little.
“Oh! Me too,” Nagisa chirped, and gave him another smile. “It’s actually the only good thing that came out of all of this,” he hummed, while Sousuke’s jaw dropped.
“Wait… something good?” He responded, with his eyebrows shooting up, but Nagisa smiled at him again.
“Yeah. I mean, with the world falling apart, nobody cares for these things.”
Sousuke’s brows arched more, but after a few seconds his expression cleared, and he nodded briefly in understanding.
“Yeah… yeah, I guess you have a point.”
“Me and Rei-chan had a blast, you know?” Nagisa started again, and his legs kicked a little. “We could go around and kiss and hold hands and not worry about the looks and people’s thoughts and words. Everyone was too busy keeping themselves alive for that. It was nice,” he continued, with a bit of a dreamy, nostalgic look. And then that look weakened. “I really, really loved him, you know. My Rei-chan.” His voice lowered almost into a whisper, but the smile lingered on his face for a few seconds, before fading. “It was good while it lasted. It was better than ever.”
Sousuke sat there quietly for a minute, biting on his lip.
Oh well, what the hell.
“I liked her, too, a lot. She was a good person. Kind, you know? She helped me a lot. And she was my best friend’s sister, so we sort of grew up together, we really relied on each other. At least… I hope she did.”
Nagisa hummed, focusing again but keeping quiet.

“I think you’re a reliable guy, so I think she did,” he commented, and looked over with a little, kind smile.
And Sousuke sighed, somewhat accepting that he’d chosen to tell more about himself, even though he was already beginning to think that was a really bad idea.
“Actually… I loved him too. He was a cop too and we worked together... and stuff happened. AIt got really hard to choose, but in the end I guess I went with the safe choice. I mean… nobody would look down on me and my career would’ve had no trouble if I chose a woman.” His lips pressed together, while his hands clenched for a brief moment, but then he relaxed again. “I wish that I could’ve had both, though. But that would’ve been too weird.”
“Yeah,” Nagisa agreed, but then shrugged. “Well, it would’ve been weird then. Nobody would care now.”
Sousuke hummed with a nod, and his throat shrunk a little, his chest turning cold.
“Well, either way, it’s useless to talk about now. They’re both dead,” he concluded, with a curt tone, and stood up all of a sudden to walk out from the kitchen. Nagisa saw him go to another window to look outside, thumbing the gun in his pocket-

He just could not get rid of the sounds and visions from that day, no matter how much he tried to think of something else. Sometimes at night he would hear their voices, hear his mother scream for help, his father yell at her to run. He would hear Rin’s voice calling him - “Sousuke!!” - and Gou’s little breathless yelp upon finding herself trapped before her seething, mindless brother. He remembered how it started a few minutes earlier, with them sitting all together for a cheerful lunch to celebrate the engagement, Gou looking at him with sheer happiness in her crimson eyes, and Rin’s melancholic, subtle glances, which he justified with being sad that his sister was going to leave the family. For a cop, too. Everybody laughed at that. Sousuke retorted that Rin was a cop, himself, but Rin said he was the good one.
He remembered a knock at the door, and his mother calling out that she was coming. He remembered taking a peek, and seeing an old woman at the door, begging for help. Her husband was sick, and the hospital would not receive their calls. They just needed something to disinfect him and then they would be back on their way, but she apologized for disturbing. Of course they weren’t, his mother said.
He remembered how the old man suddenly lunged to Sousuke’s mother, bit her and tore her jugular artery right off with surprisingly strong jaws, and then looked at the rest of them with an expression that Sousuke could not even make sense of. He looked furious, but for no reason. Sousuke’s gun was out of reach, and it took him a while to react - everything had been so quiet and cheerful just a minute before, and now this man from the neighborhood, this kind man who always greeted them and gave him candy when he was a child - that man was rushing to the dining room and toppling everything down to the floor - vases, frames with pictures, ornaments - for no reason, roaring and terrorizing everyone in the house.
When Sousuke finally did grab his gun, he yelled for the man to stop, but hesitated long enough. Too long. By then, his father was a goner, just like his mother who had already lost her mind. By the time he pulled the trigger, Rin had been bitten by her.
Gou screeched in his head, and cried at the sight of blood on her brother’s arm, at the sight of his face losing color, at his eyes wide and terrified while he looked down at the wound which was gushing blood. He remembered pointing the gun at Rin. He remembered his words of terror and confusion, and remembered how the three of them stalled for a second or two, trying to make sense of what just happened. And then Sousuke’s mother screeched, jumping at her own son while his father ran outside to go attack someone else, maybe. This time Sousuke reacted immediately, somehow, and looked at the wall as it got splattered with his mom’s brains and dark blood all over it. But then he also saw Rin taking advantage of the occasion, and grabbing Gou hard to bite into her forearm. The sound of his third bullet echoed in his memories.

“RIN!” He screamed, sitting up all of a sudden and grabbing his gun, everything at once. He pointed it in front of him with shaky and sweaty hands. But there was only an empty room bathed in the late evening’s darkness - not blood - before him; he could only make out the door draped with a curtain which he knew was yellow because Nagisa had stuck it there somehow, to ‘give the place a bit of color’. It took him a few seconds to remember where he was, but eventually he lowered his gun and he pressed a hand over his chest, over the heart that was pounding too hard.
This had happened before. It kept happening, and every time it was just like the first.
“Sou-chan…” Nagisa’s voice barely reached him, but he blinked to look at him. He had pulled the curtain aside a little, to peek in. “Are you okay?”
“Sorry,” Sousuke mumbled, without even thinking about lying back down. His heart was running too fast for that, and too many things were flashing through his head.
“No, it’s… I wasn’t sleeping either,” Nagisa replied, with a soft and sad smile. “Can I come in?”
That was the most vulnerable Sousuke could be. Half-naked, under a sheet that would make any movement harder, in the dark… but he nodded immediately.
“Come in,” he replied, with a low and shaky voice. Nagisa’s bare feet tapped on the floor lightly a few times, after hesitating a bit longer, and then Sousuke heard the sound of his small body plopping down next to him. There was silence, for a couple of seconds, but eventually Nagisa’s voice whispered to him, “you can use me if you want.”

A year before, Sousuke would’ve strongly rejected the thought of it. Actually, he wouldn’t even have entertained the thought to begin with. He was taken, after all. But now, the yelling in his mind was still echoing in his head. Over, and over, and over again, and it would not stop. He’d spent so many nights awake because of it, with nothing else to think of. But now he could try and distract himself. He’d been thinking about this, too.
So his hand let go of the gun and reached out for Nagisa’s thigh. He grabbed it firmly, while shifting his body to move above him. Nagisa did nothing, said nothing, just let him do what he wanted and move however he wanted, but he also hummed as an encouragement, and his eyes drooped before his arms reached up to lace around his neck.
“I’ll use you too,” Nagisa whispered again, and Sousuke hesitated for a moment. Maybe this was meant to be a distraction for Nagisa, too.
“Fair enough,” he grumbled, and then lunged forward to attack Nagisa’s lips. He felt the other man’s body arch under him, searching for him. He could hear Nagisa’s breath get quicker, and at some point he also sensed the other’s legs wrapping around his waist, to keep him close.
One voice in him warned him that this was still risky, that there were still things he didn’t know about Nagisa, that his story had suspicious parts in it. But it was a very feeble one by now, and his whole body yelled back that it just wanted to devour and hold Nagisa close, and Gou’s screech in the back of it all made him growl as he tried to pull his pants down, fidgeting in the dark to make it faster.
“Let me help,” Nagisa breathed out, reaching his hand down and working on the zipper with a bit more calm, but also took the chance to palm the swelling in Sousuke’s boxers, receiving a groan that vibrated in the air between them.
“Do me, Sou-chan,” Nagisa purred, and cupped his cheeks to pull him down for another, slower, kiss. Sousuke whined in his mouth, moving frantically as chaos lit up in his mind and his body turned unbelievably hot.
“Fuck, you can bet your ass I’m going to.” Nagisa giggled at that, kissing his lips again.
“Ah, that’s a full sentence.”
“Shut up,” Sousuke hissed, and buried his face against Nagisa’s neck, biting and sucking and kissing until the smaller man’s only sounds turned into groans, his body rocked against Sousuke’s and his back arched looking for contact.
“You’re hard,” Nagisa purred, after brushing his fingers between Sousuke’s legs and eliciting a shiver and a grunt. Sousuke glared down at him, barely making out the shape of his face and realzing that Nagisa’s had a satisfied smirk on it.
“What are you?” Sousuke breathed out, and pressed his lips to Nagisa’s neck again, to receive a playful giggle.
“I like sex,” Nagisa explained, simply, and slid a hand under Sousuke’s shirt to sense his muscles. “Oh shit, you’re really ripped as I thought, huh. Mmmh.”
The hum alone made Sousuke’s balls tighten, and he growled again as he quickly slid off his pants and his underwear, finally feeling fresher air around his dick.
“What’s up with you,” he commented, beginning to pull down on Nagisa’s jeans too, and got another giggle as an answer.
“I like teasing, too. It’s fun.” Nagisa sounded very, very amused.
“Yeah, I got that much,” Sousuke replied, and sighed really deep as he brushed a finger between Nagisa’s cheeks. He got a squeak, and that was why it took him a bit to think about… something, again. But when he got there, he had to stop.
“I don’t have lube.”
Nagisa’s groan was one of pure frustration, and the two of them spent a while just panting with excitement before Nagisa eventually said, “well, just use spit.”
“Huh? That’s not nearly good enough!” Sousuke replied.
“It’s fine,” Nagisa breathed, already bracing for the discomfort. “I can take it.”
Something told Sousuke that he should have insisted, but his dick was aching too much.
“Are you… are you sure?”
Nagisa bit on his lip, and spread his legs open, closing his eyes.
“Yeah. It’s okay, really. That’s what I… that’s what we always did. I’m not used to it anymore, but I’ll survive.”
Sousuke sighed, but eventually shrugged.
“If you say it’s fine...”
Still, he made sure to use a lot of saliva, for Nagisa and for himself. It was indeed very embarrassing, with all that sound of spitting, so much that Nagisa actually burst in giggles - but then they both got over that feeling quite fast when he finally began fingering Nagisa’s hole, when he heard the first groans and hums, and when Nagisa’s body began moving with it, his mucles gradually growing softer around him.
Sousuke wondered if Rin’s body would’ve reacted like that. If his voice would have been so mischievous and whiny, if he could have played Rin like an instrument, just like this. And would Gou have grabbed his wrist to push him deeper inside of her, the way Nagisa was doing?
… Bad thoughts.
So he bent over, pressing a Nagisa’s chin and neck, as his fingers thrusted in and out of him.
“Is this fine?” He asked, and Nagisa nodded, with his guts burning and impatience taking over him.
“Yeah, keep it going.” Nagisa shivered, barely moving his lips to reply, too focused on the way his body was responding and on the heat and pleasure coming just from the fingers inside of him.
Sousuke twisted them inside, slowly, even though his body was sweaty and hot with impatience - it had become abundantly clear to him that that body had been mistreated enough by strangers, to the point that Nagisa treated it like it was normal and expected. Sousuke was not going to be another of those people.
“Just put it in,” Nagisa breathed out, at some point, grabbing Sousuke’s big shoulders, and Sousuke grumbled.
“Are you sure?”
Nagisa’s eyes were glistening, and he held his breath before nodding with pressing impatience.
“Yeah, just do it.”
Sousuke glanced over at him, to somehow make sure, and then considered that Nagisa probably knew his own body well enough to tell when it was ready for this.
But still, he spat on his hand again to lube further.
“Alright, you asked,” he said, spreading Nagisa’s cheeks and sliding between them a few times, checking Nagisa’s expression in the almost complete dark, once more before pushing in one slow, bold move. He heard Nagisa’s wheeze as his breath got caught in his lungs, sensed his fingers cling desperately to Sousuke’s shoulders, and pull him closer. Nagisa was clearly not  as used to it anymore, as he said he was, and Sousuke knew he was forcing himself to relax. So he began nibbling on Nagisa’s skin, kissing it and sucking on it, just to distract him - and it seemed to work after a while, as he felt the soft body under him relax more naturally, heard the sounds from Nagisa’s throat coming out smoother.
“Nagisa, is this okay?”
He wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint exactly the moment he started caring for Nagisa and his wellbeing. Really caring. Maybe it happened in one of those frequent moments of boredom, one of those where they were doing something useless to kill time or doing nothing; or maybe it happened while on a scavenge hunt. Maybe it happened when he heard about Rei-chan and the empty chest he left behind, when he understood the one he was fucking was a broken toy and everyone else had just taken advantage of that. Well, he was broken too. There was no way that anyone wouldn’t be wrecked, being forced to live in that new world.
“It’s fine,” Nagisa repeated, and finally looked at him, instead of closing his eyes, hiding his face or pretending that it really was. “Just… fuck me, use me, don’t worry about me. I want to forget about everything, so... do your best.”
For a good measure, Nagisa’s legs clenched around Sousuke’s waist, and laced his arms around his neck to pull him even close, to trap him and encourage him, as if he needed to be.
So finally Sousuke nodded, and listened to the boiling instincts inside of him. He decided to let go, and got to moving again. Fast, hard, using all the energy he had to slam and ram inside, fill Nagisa’s body up, split him in half, and the more he whined and groaned the harder Sousuke thrusted, chasing after whatever his instincts were telling him to.
Nagisa’s voice crackled and shook, but his arms held onto Sousuke’s neck like it was a lifesaver, his legs clenched and tensed around him - the rest of his body grew stiff with anticipation, and finally he began humming and whining as he hid his face against Sousuke’s neck. And then he called out...
“Rei-chan…”
His voice was soft, very soft, and Sousuke’s rhythm halted, his heart skipping a beat with the grief he heard, all stuffed in those syllables. He gently pushed Nagisa against the mattress, on his back, and lifted his torso to look down at him. Nagisa’s face was scrunched up, his eyes about ready to water, but he whispered, “keep going, please.”
Sousuke looked down at him, hearing some of his own voices coming back, but leaned in and kissed him anyway, moving inside of him again, slowly, and brushing his thumb against Nagisa’s cheek.
“I’m sorry,” he sighed out, with a dull pain not of his own making space for itself in his chest.
He got silence back, but Nagisa did not look upset at him. He simply looked lost, with his eyes glassy and his fingers’ grip softening. And then he blinked, seeing Sousuke again. He gave a trembling smile, and shook his head as he grasped harder again onto Sousuke’s body.
“It’s... okay. Keep going, please,” he hummed, and grabbed Sousuke’s nape to pull him down for yet another kiss. And Sousuke let him, giving up on understanding.

“I’m sorry about- earlier,” Nagisa said, as they both lay down on the simple bed, under a dirty sheet and with their legs twined together, as their muscles melted with relief.
“It’s okay,” Sousuke replied, and looked up to the grey ceiling with a sigh. “You really loved him, huh?”
Nagisa nibbled on his lip, before curling up on his side, snuggled up against Sousuke’s warm body.
“I did…” he replied, with a small voice.
Sousuke’s gaze moved to him, and his fingers brushed through Nagisa’s hair. This was definitely way out of his depth. He’d tasted horror too, but he still had no words to face his own, so he surely had none to help someone else through their own.
“I’m not good at this, but... I see why he valued you that much.” His voice vibrated with warmth, but then he blinked with surprise, not expecting that from himself either.
He blushed when Nagisa looked at him, and the corners of his lips lifted.
“That’s a nice thing to say,” he replied, and shook his head to get rid of all those heavy thoughts weighing down on it. At least temporarily.
He let a few seconds pass, but then climbed Sousuke’s lap, placing his hands on wide shoulders with a smile.
“If you want, we can give it another go.”
Sousuke snaked an arm around Nagisa’s waist, and sighed.
“That’s tempting, but I think we lowered our guard enough for now.”
Nagisa pouted, with a playful look in his eyes Sousuke hadn’t seen before.
“But I like being on you like this,” he purred, and his eyes smiled.
Sousuke arched his eyebrows and then, surprisingly again, laughter rumbled up his throat.
“I didn’t know you could be so... feisty,” he commented, and pulled Nagisa closer to him. He could hear that small heart thump in the silence surrounding them.
That. That was good. He nuzzled his head against Nagisa’s neck, inhaled his scent, leaned his head over Nagisa’s warm chest to listen to the thumping beat.
He’d missed being cuddly with someone.
And Nagisa blinked, with surprise, but then decided to push Sousuke down, and kiss him again, with a smirk once he felt him kissing back, although with hesitation.
“You’ve been lonely this whole time, isn’t it?” He asked, and sighed at the shift in Sousuke’s expression: bingo.
“I missed holding someone,” Sousuke replied, with a little nod, and his expression darkened again. Nagisa looked at him for a while, and his smile faded as well.
“You can hold me all you want, if you want. I miss being held too, you know?”
Little lines appeared on Sousuke’s forehead, as he gently rubbed a few circles on Nagisa’s back.
They could keep doing this all day long, every day, but everything in the world had turned into pain, and that was not going to change. Pain everywhere, pain in their chests and heads and memories. It made his throat clench, seeing the same grief and the same defenses against pain he’d used, but used by someone else.
“I understand,” he said. “Close your eyes.”
Nagisa blinked a bit taken aback, tilting his head - but then nodded and did so. Soon after, Sousuke’s lips were on his, but in his mind he imagined another once again. A boy he’d spent the entirety of high school with, the man he’d been in love with since the first time they spoke, the same man who would look at a world in ruins and see plans, tools, formulas to exploit, and then look at him and see beauty.
He remembered the shape of Rei’s face, the feel of his hair under his own fingers, the sound of his voice. It made his hands tremble as they rushed gently along Sousuke’s arms, but he tried to trick them into believing it was Rei’s body under him. His skin knew, but pretended not to, and his mind forced the memories on itself - but just the good ones. Like the night him and Rei spent looking up to the stars while the fumes of buildings on fire floated up to the sky.
‘Even if it’s like this, it’s beautiful,’ Nagisa said that night. Rei didn’t understand. He asked why he would say that, how the sky could be beautiful if black smoke was ruining it, but Nagisa said nothing - he just looked up and counted the stars, holding Rei’s hand. It was a little moment, and a smile forming on his face in spite of the ugliness and rage in that world burning all around them.

When he opened his eyes, and lazily leaned against Sousuke wrapping his arms around him, his fingers glided against his back and his eyes watered a little, remembering.
“Even if it’s like this, it’s still beautiful,” he repeated, and his lips curved in a smile at the sound of curiosity echoing in Sousuke’s chest.
“I mean, even if everything sucks and we don’t know how long we’ll live- you know, at least we’re not alone,” he explained.
Sousuke looked at him silently, and Nagisa took the chance to speak yet again, with a conciliating smile, cheeky through the sweetness. “So... can I stay?”
Sousuke scoffed, finally knowing where all of that was going, but smirked while looking out of the window and to the night sky. Time had passed, there was nothing burning around, and the sky was clear and beautiful just the way it was before. The sky would not change, no matter what would happen to them.

He did let someone else inside of him, in the end. He rocked his head to the side a few times, looking up and pursing his lips in a thoughtful expression, but then finally gazed back down to the blond man sharing his warmth with him. He could allow himself a moment like that. Everything sucked, there was nothing good left in the rest of that world in ruins, outside of that factory. Certainly the both of them were destined to starve to death once the stocks ran out, or maybe they would die on a scavenge run. Maybe one of them would make a mistake a leave the big steel gate open. Their world was over, maybe they were just a few resisting cells from a defeated cancerous mass doomed to be removed completely, but he could definitely enjoy a moment of quiet, right now. He was definitely going to. There was no future, but despair was a tiring business, it always is. The biggest fuck you to their present would be to enjoy every second they had left. And at least, Sousuke had a warm body to hold now, a different voice than his own to fill his long days, a friendly face to wake up to.  
“I thought it was a given by now...” he began, and his shoulders relaxed.
Nagisa nodded quietly, with a little smile, and sighed with soft relief, leaning his forehead against Sousuke’s shoulder. Sousuke looked at him enjoying a rare, if not unique, moment of real peace. The rest of the would be damned.
“... yeah, you can stay.”