Chapter Text
Scaramouche sighs softly, his weary, tired eyes staring at the dim white light coming from his cellphone. It’s a bit harsh truthfully, it stings his eyes a bit but at this point, he honestly doesn’t know if it’s from lack of sleep or just regular dry eyes.
The faint constant ticking of the clock in his bedroom, combined with the soft background hum of the noise coming from the TV has long become annoying but Scaramouche doesn’t have any energy to move at the moment, let alone roll over and search for that godforsaken remote.
So instead he simply shifts a bit, tugging the blankets tighter around his body in a near cocoon. But no matter what he does he can’t help but think that the blankets still feel cold, and he also can’t help but remember when it wasn’t always that way.
A memory he quickly banishes to the far-off recesses of his mind, it shouldn’t matter anymore and he knows this. But at the same time, it’s difficult to not notice the little things.
The fact that despite the noise around him, his bedroom feels eerily quiet at the same time, missing a long-familiar voice that was once at his side.
The fact that the bed he’s in feels far too large and empty no matter how much he tries to stretch out. After all, he’s only one person, he can only fill so much space.
And finally, the fact that no matter how many blankets he wraps around himself, no matter how high he turns the heat up in the house it feels stripped of all its warmth. Frigid, cold, and empty.
It reminds Scaramouche of days long past when he was a child. Days that even now leave nothing but the bitter taste of poison in his mouth and jumble his thoughts like a baby shaking a rattle.
It’s late, around 1:30 to 2:00 am. If Scaramouche had it his way he’d be asleep, hell that was what the sleeping medication he took was for but even though he’s taken a little bit extra it fails to lull him to sleep like he desperately wanted.
Leaving his mind and body straddling a line of being too exhausted to truly do anything but not exhausted enough to sleep.
At most, in the last week or two, he’d gotten a total of 10 maybe 16 hours of sleep altogether. It wasn’t even so much the sleep that Scaramouche desired but the dreams.
The dreams were a brief but peaceful and welcomed respite from what Scaramouche was currently experiencing, a salvation in a sense no matter how delusional it may have been.
Mumbling a soft curse under his breath Scaramouche placed his phone face down with a sigh. Watching time tick by at a snail's pace almost absentmindedly is only irritating him.
He closes his eyes, every inch of his body feeling heavy as if filled with lead or chained down, as he tries to will himself to sleep. It almost makes him feel like a petulant brat throwing a tantrum, kicking and screaming until he gets his way but honestly at this point he doesn’t care, desperation has long since won out.
Once was all he needed, just one more time, one more dream to help him keep going. Maybe he should’ve prayed to whatever god would’ve listened but he doesn’t, he never does, after all, why sit around uselessly praying and spinning his wheels waiting for an outcome when he could easily get up and work towards that outcome himself.
It’s what he’s done in the past and what’s always worked for him, it was something he’d sooner die than change. A stubborn yet understandable habit, a familiar face had once called it.
It is just as his mind is beginning to get hazy, his thoughts becoming a bit quieter as they start to gradually slip through his fingers like grains of sand, that in the fading background noise of the room Scaramouche hears a noise that echoes loudly in his ears.
The soft yet almost whiny creak of the bedroom door, and in the recesses of his foggy memory Scaramouche can’t remember if he’d locked the bedroom door as he’d been doing every night lately.
He hears a soft, yet methodical tapping noise, and yet despite him nearly needing to strain his ears to hear it, the noise seems to almost echo in his skull. Scraping along the inside of it as if someone were slowly dragging a knife tip along a brick wall.
The sensation is horrific to put it lightly, causing Scaramouche to grit his teeth and take a sharp breath in. The tapping gets ever so slightly louder, and Scaramouche can practically feel eyes boring into his back.
This isn’t what he wanted. He wanted sleep, to dream. He wanted peace, but honestly, he should’ve expected this. He’d learned long ago that he could never expect fate to treat him well, for life to treat him well.
He cracks his eyes open ever so slightly, holding his breath when the tapping stops. His body feels so heavy, so weighed down that even opening his eyelids is a monumental task.
The room is quiet, save for the sound of his own soft breathing. The eyes continue to bore into his back, but Scaramouche doesn’t turn over, doing his damnedest to simply stare at the blankets in front of him as he peeks through his eyelashes.
He learned long ago not to look up at the wall, or the window. Anything that could reflect a shadow was dangerous at the moment.
There’s a soft hiss, almost akin to a faint whistle and then a voice speaks.
“ Welcome back…”
The words are soft, barely audible, and yet just like that horrible tapping, they seem to scrape alongside the inside of his skull. Ugly, revolting, and as abrasive as ever.
Scaramouche takes another shuddering breath in. His chest feels strangely tight as if it were being slightly constricted.
There’s a soft chuckling noise, raspy and broken more akin to a choked wheeze or gasp than anything.
A soft rustling noise enters Scaramouche’s ears, and this time a jolt of ice-cold fear shoots through him, forming an almost tight ball in his cheek and he bites the inside of his cheek to force himself to stay still.
That mantra he’d taught himself at a young age said much like a prayer in his mind. The closest he’d ever get to one truthfully.
Don’t react. Don’t turn around. Don’t speak. Don’t react.
The urge to flinch away when he both feels and hears the bed creak beside him, the mattress dipping under a newfound weight, is immense. And yet with that fear is also a cold rage.
Rage that a place, that something Scaramouche considered sacred in a strange way was being tainted. Defiled. As if the creature, that thing was doing it on purpose.
It wouldn’t have been the first time it’s done something like this to get a reaction from him. It always disgusted Scaramouche to his core those instances, but truthfully this had to be the worst offense in his eyes.
And that thing currently sitting beside him seems to know it. It always did, that was why it did it after all. It always knew just where to push his buttons, what tricks to use most to grab his attention.
It knew him far, far too well.
Something cold, almost freezing brushes along his upper arm seemingly piercing through his cocoon of blankets and his sleeping shirt but not disrupting them. The sensation reminding Scaramouche far too much of cold soil long forgotten and untouched.
More rustling enters his ears, the noise is quick, frantic almost as if something is scurrying across the blankets towards him.
Those frigid things, the appendages, hands of the thing grab him, the fingers were cold as a corpse’s stroking along his skin leaving an almost slimy chill in their wake. And Scaramouche can’t help but jolt slightly when he feels one brush over his chest.
Right over his heart.
That small movement seems to be enough for the creature to act and Scaramouche wants to curse himself. He knows better, he really should, he’s known better since he was a child. So why had he reacted?
Truthfully he knows why, even if the thought of dwelling on it has a faint sense of nausea stirring up in his stomach.
Guilt.
The hands lock around his arms and legs in a tight, nearly bruising grip that feels as if a cold knife is trying to slice into Scaramouche's flesh.
He feels the bed dip further, as the creature leans over him almost agonizingly slowly. Something brushes across Scaramouche’s face as it does, thin, willowy almost greasy tendrils.
Long strands of purple hair.
Scaramouche takes a deep shuddering breath in, his eyes shifting slightly to stare at his phone case. A last-ditch effort to keep himself grounded in a sense.
But at the moment the sight of the dark blue and white ocean-like swirls do nothing but make his eyes sting, pushing him further over the edge.
He bites the inside of his cheek and squeezes his eyes shut in an attempt to stop the tears gathering there.
That raspy, wheezing chuckle enters his ears again, anything but comforting, nearly painful to him almost as it reverberates inside his skull to the point he can nearly feel it in his teeth.
“I’m here…”
That ball of ice coiled in Scaramouche’s chest seems to shatter, splintering to pieces and spreading outward. His chest aches, it burns.
That hair is smothering him, stealing his breath as it clogs his throat feeling like steel wool on the inside of his lungs. Tears trail down his cheeks in warm, almost searing rivulets chasing away a tiny bit of the chill.
And yet Scaramouche can’t breathe.
~~~
Scaramouche sighs as he trudges his way from the kitchen to the living room, a mug of coffee in his hand and a deep scowl on his face.
He barely got any sleep last night, although he supposes he got a bit more than the night before. Once again his body is beginning to feel it, as is his mind.
The rich, almost earthy yet slightly sweet scent of the coffee that would normally be so soothing for him any other time only has a slight twinge of queasiness forming in the pit of his stomach. It would seem that just like every other food he laid his eyes on these days was unappetizing to him.
His mind feels both too fast and also too slow, each of his thoughts little more than a jumble of barely coherent noises and sensations. This also means that it takes him a bit of effort to process them and make sense of them, effort he hardly has the energy for.
As he flops down on the sofa in the living room with a sigh he runs a hand through his hair, noting that the indigo strands are getting a bit longer than he would’ve liked and he manages to make a faint note to trim them later.
Opening the laptop on the coffee table, he sets about going about his usual routine. Or rather what his usual routine has been as of late, mindlessly yet methodically clicking through emails.
Mostly letters of condolences, well wishes, old faces that were hardly familiar to him now simply checking in to see how he was doing. All of it was annoying, a spark of irritation welling up in Scaramouche as he tossed each one in the trash.
He didn’t need it. He didn’t want that. Any of it. It was useless to him.
He takes a deep breath and sips at his coffee, waiting for his sluggish mind to come up to speed as he works.
Maybe it’s the exhaustion, or the irritation, the hellscape that his last two weeks have been but he doesn’t notice that a familiar email has come up on the screen. One he’s specifically starred and flagged with blue and purple marks to help stand out to him.
He doesn’t even think before tossing it in the recycling bin too. It is only a second later that he freezes, his eyes going wide as he realizes what he’s done.
He nearly drops his coffee as he frantically opens the recycling bin, his movements sloppy and his eyes racing across the screen as he searches. His heart pounds in his ears, beating painfully in his chest, waves of icy cold fear and panic washing over him.
He doesn’t know how long he searches, it might’ve been a few minutes, maybe an hour, searching among that sea of garbage for that one singular treasure but when he finds it and places it back where it belongs a wave of relief washes over him so intensely that it nearly leaves him breathless.
He places his face in his hands for a moment, trying to ignore the slight trembling of his body. The cold almost slimy sensation of fear that was beginning to recede but still nagging him at the edge of his mind.
It is a few moments before Scaramouche slowly lifts his head and looks at the email that had been so desperate to save. There’s a singular link on it and below that is a name that Scaramouche knows far too well, intimately so.
Ajax.
He clicks on the link as he’d done nearly every day, waiting for the webpage to load which would take him to a familiar screen. A drive with a passcode protecting it.
Then he simply stares at the 4 empty boxes for the numbers, his mind struggling to come up with any new combinations.
He’d been going through every single strand of 4 digit numbers he could think of that would’ve been important to Ajax. Scaramouche determined yes, in fact, he feels a bit as if this is the only thing keeping him going lately truthfully, but at the same time, he feels as if he’s hit a wall.
His mind, his body, and soul were tired. Drained of nearly every ounce of energy he had left, which considering the circumstances hadn’t been much, to begin with.
As he hesitantly takes a sip of coffee he realizes he can barely even taste it. It was probably a good thing he hadn’t left the house much lately, he could already see tabloids now practically circling him like a group of vultures ready to pick off an injured gazelle.
He’d already had to deal with the countless idiotic tv stations talking about it.
‘Black sheep heir of the Inazuma group wracked with grief after losing lover’
Just the thought made the coffee Scaramouche was drinking taste like ash and poison in his mouth. How dare they even put his name in their mouth? How dare they even fucking think of telling him how he felt?
If thought he could get away with it he’d have them shot.
Actually, he probably could but none of those bastards were even worth the effort in his mind. Especially if he needed to talk to her to get it accomplished.
His eyes flick up to the familiar photo sitting on the fireplace, one that he’d laid face down these past few days, finding that simply looking at it had a deep ache forming in his chest, constricting it and making it harder to breathe.
And yet at the moment, despite that, he finds himself long to pick it up. To look at it. Desperate to see that familiar face just once, especially since he didn’t dream last night like he’d wanted to.
Taking a deep breath and another sip of coffee Scaramouche slowly climbs to his feet, he quickly reaches out to grip the arm of the sofa when a wave of dizziness hits him and for a second or two he sways.
Giving a soft groan, Scaramouche blinks quickly to clear the black dots in his vision as he shakes his head slightly. He brings a hand to his stomach rubbing it almost absentmindedly when that queasiness makes itself a bit more known.
He knows he should probably eat something more substantial than what he has been lately, especially since he has no doubt that he’s losing weight but he’s too tired to care at this point besides it hasn’t killed him. Yet at least, so it can be ignored for a little while longer.
Walking over to the fireplace Scaramouche simply stands there for a moment, his eyes locked on the picture. As he slowly reaches up he does his best to ignore how his hands tremble slightly.
The smooth metal of the picture frame is cold beneath his fingers, almost icy and he pauses hesitating for a moment before slowly picking it up.
It feels strangely heavy in his hands, just as it did the day he came home and placed it face down. The house feels almost abnormally quiet as he stares at the picture, his heart pounding almost painfully in his chest.
There was a time awhile ago when Scaramouche welcomed the silence, other people talked too much and frequently annoyed him after all but that had long changed. Nowadays the silence felt oppressive, suffocating, and horrifically lonely.
“You fucking idiot,” Scaramouche mumbled as he stared at the picture with slightly narrowed eyes. And yet his words were empty, lacking any of his usual bite or passion.
The picture was of him and Ajax, a silly little thing of one of the few moments he’d managed to catch Scaramouche off guard. As a result, while Scaramouche looked like a startled cat, his eyes incredibly wide, Ajax however had that familiar wide almost boyish yet warm smile on his face. His dark blue eyes almost sparkling.
Scaramouche remembered this day well honestly, and he also remembers slapping Ajax right after the photo was taken. Afterwards, Ajax had grabbed him simply picking Scaramouche up as if he weighed nothing at all.
As he thinks back to that day Scaramouche eventually realizes a faint smile is on his face and he quickly scowls when he remembers the silence that surrounds him.
That cold ball of ice forms in his chest once more, feeling all too heavy and for a moment Scaramouche feels as if he’s breathing through a straw, a shaky, raspy breath slipping from between his lips.
The living room feels too small but also too wide, the walls seemingly contracting and expanding around him. He squeezes his eyes shut, gritting his teeth.
Fine . He was fine.
What he experienced last night, what he did, floats to the forefront of his mind in hazy bits and pieces that he does his damnedest to ignore.
Opening his eyes slightly he stares at the picture for a moment quickly looking away when he feels his eyes growing slightly warm.
Perhaps if he had been able to dream like he so desperately wanted, he wouldn’t be experiencing these emotions he wanted to disappear. To fade away into nothing as soon as possible. Then again a small part of him is great from a reprieve of the strange numbness he’d felt days ago.
With trembling hands he carefully returns the picture to the top of the fireplace, taking a deep shuddering breath as he laid it face down once more.
His body feels heavier than ever at the moment, each movement is slow, not clumsy or sloppy but definitely more forceful than his usual quiet footsteps.
As he flops back down on the sofa, he merely sits there for a moment slightly slumped forward, his eyes staring almost vacantly at the laptop screen in front of him. 4 numbers was all he needed but at the same time, Scaramouche was tired. So, so very tired.
He just wants peace, for everything to stop. For everything to go back to normal, the way it used to be before life decided to take its revenge.
Truthfully he honestly doesn’t know how long he can keep going at this point, every day draining whatever little strength he had left. Going to bed alone each night, wrapping himself in a cocoon of blankets as he tried to find some semblance of that warmth he was missing.
Each night hoping for another dream, just one more chance to see that familiar face he missed so, so much.
His eyes glance up at the photo on the fireplace once more just as his cellphone begins ringing and vibrating. He doesn’t look at it, however, knowing exactly who it was, despite that he finds that he can’t muster the usual cold anger he’d normally experience towards the caller.
Instead, there’s only a slight spark of irritation, after all at least while his phone is ringing that oppressive silence doesn’t exist.
His attention remains focused on the picture, however. A memory slowly coming to the forefront of his mind. The same day that picture was taken, he and Ajax had gone on a date, stargazing specifically.
Scaramouche suddenly sits up, his eyes going wide as he does his damndest to wrack his exhausted mind.
What day was that? Is the biggest question circling his mind as he leans forward, his fingers hovering over the laptop’s keyboard.
Fall. It’d been in the fall, November specifically and his fingers quickly push the corresponding numbers.
Now, what day exactly had it been? Is the next question that floats to the forefront of his mind. Thankfully the answer comes quicker this time.
It’d been the holidays, thanksgiving, because he remembered that it was one of the few times that he and Ajax celebrated it together instead of visiting Ajax’s family overseas. And Scaramouche quickly pressed the corresponding buttons once more.
1126.
As he clicks the enter button a wave of excitement combined with overwhelming relief washes over him, and he lets out a soft shaky chuckle as he runs a hand over his face as he reads the letter in the form of a pdf that pops up on the screen.
‘I bet you it took you a while to figure this out huh, Scara? Who’s the idiot now? Anyhow, let's do something fun soon when all this stuff is over. I’m getting bored just sitting around. I bet you are too. So let’s go somewhere nice together, I already picked a place ~ ♡ Ajax’
His eyes sting, feeling far too warm as he stares at the screen, and Scaramouche sniffles for a moment, shaking his head before giving a shaky chuckle.
“You. The idiot is still you Ajax,” he murmured softly, his tone warm but also melancholy with absolutely no hint of malice or anger anywhere in sight.