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His teeth hurt. The normal feeling of his bite is wrong, like his teeth have shifted, the normal alignment thrown off. He runs his tongue over his teeth, feels canines too large and too sharp and he bites back the sound that was about to escape him. His brother is asleep in the bunk bed above him, he can't wake Rin. Not for this. Not for--
He's scared. Something moves in the corner of the bedroom, he thinks he sees eyes, and his teeth are wrong. He shouldn't be scared. He should be braver than this. He knew this could happen, it's why they check him every single day, shine a light in his eyes and take measurements of his ears and teeth, prick his fingers and drop blood into holy water to check for a reaction. But what happens now, in the middle of the night on a Tuesday when he wakes up from a nightmare he can't remember with a feeling like being punched in the stomach and teeth that ache and feel too big for his mouth, he doesn't know. They never talked about it.
They'll exorcise Rin, when it happens. Yukio knows that. That's why he's training to be an exorcist, so he can protect his brother if he has to. But they never talked about Yukio. Father just always nodded, looking slightly relieved every time when Yukio's results came back the same as always. They never talked about what would happen to him. Will they kill him? He's twelve. They can't kill a twelve year old, can they? (They can. He knows they can.) He pulls his blankets up around him, shoves himself as far into the corner of the bed as he can get, it's safer there. He needs to think. He needs to make a plan. It's happened and he doesn't even have a plan. He can't. His teeth hurt, he checks them again, rubs the pad of his thumb against a canine that feels too sharp, tastes blood. He's scared.
There's no fire yet. There's going to be fire. There's going to be fire, and fangs, and claws and pointed ears and a tail and his demon side finally waking up, finally taking shape and destroying him when it does. But his chest feels frozen instead of burning, so cold he can't breathe. Maybe this is part of it too, crushing him, freezing him out before the firestorm. He didn't even get to say goodbye. He said something mean to Rin after dinner, stupid and mean and that's going to be the last thing he said to his brother, the last thing and then Yukio will be gone and the demon will be here instead, and Rin won't even know, can't know, because if he finds out then the seal on his soul will break too. He said goodbye to father, who left on a mission right after school, but it wasn't a real goodbye, it was just a see you later and he won't now.
The door opens. Yukio whimpers, and Father Fujimoto is there, one hand on Yukio's shoulder, his weight sinking the edge of the mattress, the light from the hallway making his hair the brightest thing in Yukio's blurry vision.
"Did you have a nightmare?" Father asks, and his hand is heavy on Yukio's shoulder, and his voice is quiet but Yukio can hear the disappointment in it. He shouldn't be having nightmares. He shouldn't be scared. He can't get an answer out around the pressure in his chest, and if he opens his mouth to talk then father will see. He hides his mouth behind his hands, tries to breathe but just gasps instead.
"Yukio?"
He's scared. He's so scared. He should be braver than this, he's an exwire already, he's supposed to take his exorcist's exam in less than a month, but the only sound he makes is a strangled sort of whimper as he presses his hands over his mouth as hard as he can.
Father grabs him, scoops him up like he weighs nothing at all, picks up Yukio and the blankets he's wrapped in and carries him out of the bedroom. The couch is old, has always been worn out and is always getting more worn out, but it's familiar and the brightness of the living room is so different from the dark bedroom that it stings Yukio's eyes. There's nothing moving around in the corners. In the back of his mind, a little of the panic leaves him, but not enough. Father sets him down in the corner of the couch, puts a hand on his shoulder and studies him with the look he gives when he's being an exorcist dealing with a civilian who won't stop crying.
"Yukio." He should say something. He should. But he's scared. He's scared and he's going to die, the demon half that's always been buried is going to dig itself out of his chest and attack, bite and claw and rip and he can't do anything to stop it. Father's hands are on his wrists, pulling lightly.
"Show me your mouth." He can't. He struggles against the pull, but isn't strong enough. His hands are pulled away and he tries to hide, twists to block any view of his teeth, because once Father Fujimoto knows--- if he sees--- He's the Paladin, he can't let Satan's children live, not once they stop being human. But the Paladin pins his wrists with one hand, grabs his chin with the other and Yukio's too wrapped up in blankets, too pinned against the corner of the couch to fight back. His mouth is forced open, and he can't fight back, can't catch his breath, and he's being studied, fangs examined as the Paladin decides what to do with him, and he doesn't want to die, he doesn't want to---
"Yukio. You're fine. It was just a nightmare."
"But-- I-- they--!" He tries to explain, can't get a deep enough breath to form words, can't get a coherent thought even after that hand lets go of his chin.
"Nothing's changed." Father says, and sits down next to him, and Yukio pulls his hands out of his father's grip to press against his own teeth, feel the shape and edge of them, check again and again for fangs. They're still too sharp, too big. They still ache.
"But--- they feel--- they ch--"
"Do you want me to get Misumi? He can check, if you're still worried." Father Fujimoto's voice is quiet, and Yukio feels a rush of shame, embarrassed at the way he nods a yes in answer to that question, at the way his father adjusts the blankets more carefully around him and says he'll be right back. Yukio sits there, tries to breathe, tries to figure out what's happening but his mind still spins in circles that come right back to blue flames.
"Hands," Misumi says, the command quiet and familiar and Yukio holds out his hands obediently, without thinking. He knows how medical checks go, they happen every day, and Misumi glances at his nails and makes a mark in his file, pricks one finger and squeezes out a drop of blood into a vial of holy water. A bandaid, not on the pricked finger but on Yukio's thumb, where he'd cut it earlier trying to check his teeth.
"Ears," says the old man, and Yukio lets him look, the measurement is quick and noted down and familiar. They do this every day. It's fine. It's normal. He hasn't said that anything isn't normal.
"Eyes," Yukio doesn't have to take off his glasses, they're sitting on the nightstand in his room, and he's used to the light by now, he doesn't flinch any more. It's a little bit easier to breathe now.
"Mouth," and Yukio opens his mouth, obedient and practiced, and Misumi checks the measurements of his teeth just like normal, a ruler held up to canines and the length noted down. The same as every day. Yukio watches his expression, but it doesn't give anything away.
"And?" Father Fujimoto asks, and Yukio twitches with the surprise of it. He'd forgotten father was there.
"No abnormalities," the old man says, and Yukio feels something twist inside him, something angry and confused and pathetic.
"But that can't be right! I felt--"
"You might have," Misumi says, cutting him off. Yukio's hand goes back up to his mouth, traces the familiar shape of his teeth, recognizes the pain in his mouth as the ache that comes from clenching his jaw too tightly. "Human minds can play tricks on themselves, it's not unheard of for someone to wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to get their bearings for a few minutes, or for someone to think something's changed about their body."
"I... I just imagined it?"
"Nothing changed about your physical exam from yesterday, Yukio." Misumi says, as quiet and steady as always. Yukio tries to catch his breath, tries to listen. He was crying before, he can feel the way his tears have dried on his cheeks, sticky and humiliating. He wipes at his cheeks, and nods. Misumi said it, father said it, it must be true. It must be. He clings to it. He has to believe it. It must be true.
"Okay." He says, nodding. It's fine. It has to be fine. He had a nightmare, but it's all fine now. "Sorry I woke you up."
"It's all right," Misumi says, and pats him on the shoulder as he leaves. "I'm just glad you're okay."
"Are you ready to go back to bed?" Father Fujimoto asks, and when Yukio looks over at him he looks worried, a little bit. More worried than annoyed or disappointed, and something loosens slightly in Yukio's chest as he nods again and carefully gets to his feet. Father walks beside him on the way back to the bedroom, one hand gently resting on his back.
"All right, get up there," Father says, and starts lifting Yukio up the ladder to the top bunk.
"It... it's nii-san's week on the top bunk," Yukio reminds him, a little confused. He doesn't get the top bunk this week, his brother does. There's a schedule. Father knows the schedule, he helped make it. He knows it's not Yukio's week.
"I don't think Rin'll mind." The priest says, with a little bit of a grin. Yukio looks away, a little embarrassed, because he would like to sleep in the bed with his brother, he would like to hug Rin right now, but he's too old for that, he's almost an exorcist, he shouldn't want that, and his father shouldn't point it out like that either.
"... okay" he says, and lets his father help him up the ladder, and curls up next to his brother, and lets his father drop an armful of blankets on top of them both, and he closes his eyes and breathes a little more easily as he tries to go back to sleep.