Chapter Text
Nahyuta sits primly on a metal chair, one leg crossed over the other with his hands clasped in his lap. Across from him, the prisoner sips his tea, but his hooded eyes never leave Nahyuta’s form, like he expects that Nahyuta will do something the moment he looks away. This isn’t the first time he’s visited, but the growing pains of becoming used to one another is a slow, slow process. Whenever he makes sudden moves, Nahyuta cannot help but flinch. Whenever Nahyuta calls a guard for something, the prisoner holds his breath and Nahyuta remembers just how much power he holds here.
Vidhan. Nahyuta swore never to forget that name the way he forgot his brother’s. Another name now permanently inscribed into his hippocampus. Vidhan. Ravindra. Vidhan and Ravindra. They’re names that fit together like perfect puzzle pieces. One without the other… well. Where were they now?
The guilt gnaws on his stomach all the time, but after a while, it just feels like a puppy nibbling on something absentmindedly. It’s a gnawing guilt Nahyuta is forced to grow used to again, a reunion with an old friend that always dutifully kept him company in the old days. Ga’ran was in prison and the world had changed, but Nahyuta had not changed with it yet. He’s still searching for that change, and some idiotic part of him convinces him that he might find the change at the bottom of enough conversations with Vidhan. His attacker. The one who so badly wanted him to die for the hurt he caused. It’s a selfish desire, and he knows it, but Nahyuta can’t stop himself from coming back each week to sit mostly in silence with a man who hates him more than anyone else. Nahyuta wishes he could hate Vidhan right back. It’d be better that way. But he doesn’t. And, if he’s being honest, he never will.
Sometimes, they talk. Not much, but Nahyuta fills him in on the goings-on of the outside world, or they discuss Ravindra, his case, Vidhan’s case. They talk in circles like they’re going somewhere, only to arrive at the same conclusions they always had. At least when Nayhuta brings current news, Nahyuta can do more than apologize profusely for being alive.
“The world keeps turning,” Vidhan remarks, arms crossed as he looks out a barred window, “but I stay the same.”
“The punitive nature of prison doesn’t make it easy to grow,” Nahyuta agrees, “but if it makes you feel any better, none of us are changing as much as we’d like.”
Vidhan turns to look at Nahyuta. It feels like a shock running down his spine. “Is that the way you feel, or is it really the way everyone is?”
His breath comes out in a way that almost sounds like a discomforted laugh. “I suppose I more so hope that it isn’t just me.”
“You and me,” Vidhan corrects. “Well, I guess that’d really prove we were bound together by fate.”
“I try not to think about fate much nowadays, I admit.”
“Hmph.”
It’s difficult not to read deeply into even the most minute of sounds and movements from Vidhan, but Nahyuta can’t help but feel like he’s already made another misstep. He makes at least one each time they meet. Nahyuta keeps track of each one in his mind, putting them away for further review and embarrassment when his brain least expects it. His nails tap on the top of his other hand. Now it’s his turn to look out the window, though he can see nothing but blue sky and wispy clouds passing through, nothing of the earth below. Being suspended in the sky like this almost makes him feel a bit dizzy.
“I still have trouble believing it," Vidhan starts, “but you really agonize over this, don’t you?”
Nahyuta’s breath catches in his throat, startled. “Over what?” he asks. Like he doesn’t know.
“Over me, and… everything that’s happened. If you didn’t feel guilty, you wouldn’t bother to keep showing up. You would’ve forgotten about me and moved on, just like you forget about everybody else you prosecute, I guess. Or—well, I guess you weren’t the one prosecuting me this time.”
It’s easy to get tunnel vision over this. It’s the cover he uses to avoid having to think too much of the other case files that still clutter his home. He creeps around them silently, like daring to open any of them now will consume his soul down to the last bite. The precinct keeps asking for them back. Nahyuta can’t bring himself to, and so they sit like graves, the souls filling every cubic meter of his house. At least Nahyuta is never alone in there anymore. He just wishes he appreciated the company more.
Nahyuta’s skin prickles as if on cue, a phantom brushing by his side. He instinctively reaches for the now-fully healed scar on his side. He’s never yet forgotten it was there. In the brief moments where he’s naked before a bath, Nahyuta always examines the slowly paling, ragged line across his side, tracing it with his finger as if he could find some answer in it.
It was senseless violence, Amara tells him whenever she notices a distant look in his eyes. Really, my darling, you should try and forget all about it.
He never will. Never.
Nahyuta will never allow himself to let any of this go. He will carry the memories in the scar like a pouch, the same way Dhurke carried his close inside his chest. I am my father’s son, Nahyuta reminds himself. And a dragon never yields.
He wonders too often what Dhurke would think of him now. If he’d admire the scar the way he often lionized each one of his own. Would he be able to read the struggle in it, the shame? Would he see that the scar was a punishment, not a celebration? Nahyuta wishes he could stop picturing Dhurke as looking disappointed. It’s the only face he ever sees when he thinks of his father anymore.
But the disappointment is part of why he’s here. That maybe if he finds a way to make up for everything, that Dhurke might find it in his heart to forgive his son for everything by the time they would hopefully see each other again in the Twilight Realm. It’s been almost a year since his death. It could be just that, but Nahyuta hasn’t been able to get Dhurke off his mind since the day Vidhan was found guilty. It’s like Dhurke is watching over his shoulder at all times. Nahyuta is constantly monitoring himself, even when he’s alone. Each choice he makes in the day down to the last detail is saddled with more and more thought put into it.
He’s getting away from what’s at hand now. Another misstep. Nahyuta lets the silence dangle too long between them, and when he finally parts the quiet, it feels like an admission. “I try hard not to forget about anyone now. Mr. Justice and I have so many old cases to comb through and potentially overturn. It is difficult to find time in the day for everything I feel I must do.”
Excuses piled on top of excuses. Pathetic.
“But you always find time to sit here and haunt this prison for… well, I’m not certain if it’s for my sake or yours.”
“I know. I apologize.”
“You should let it go and move on, Mr. Sahdmadhi.” Vidhan smirks. Nahyuta hasn’t been able to bring himself to smile in weeks, even sincerely. The smirk drops from Vidhan’s face eerily quickly. “Look… it’s not that I mind the company. I actually… appreciate it sometimes, really. Not like my family is going to visit me. But I don’t know what you could possibly be getting out of this anymore. So can I ask you to tell me, completely seriously, why you keep coming here?”
“I… have been nothing but serious with you.” Nahyuta is stalling. He touches his prayer beads. He still has not yet mended the jade string, so his typical red beads have returned to his shoulders. They feel so light on him, pure. Redeeming. “Personally, I cannot handle the thought of you being here to begin with. I meant it seriously when I said I wanted you to go free that day in court. Even now, I’ve been working on getting my mother and sister to permit a pardon, or at least to commute your sentence. Because I just don’t think that you—”
“Why?” That one word sends a chill down Nahyuta’s spine. “I mean, I know you think you deserve it for whatever reason. I still remember everything we talked about that day in court. But why? Have you even thought about it?”
Nahyuta stops to think as his gaze drops to his lap. He watches the prayer beads and Dhurke’s butterfly pendant rise and fall with the soft heaving of his chest. The red string reminds him of the blood pooling in his coat, nearly two months ago now. His fingers brush the string, just like he always does. For the first time in a long time, he hears those words in his head again.
“…this is for your brother.”
Vidhan’s mouth parts, a jaw drop in slow motion. His eyebrows knit. He does not understand what Nahyuta means. The way, almost imperceptibly, Vidhan leans forward in interest makes Nahyuta feel the pressure of saying this right all the more. Dhurke’s watching, too.
“Because I can’t save him. He’s dead, and it is by my hand, although indirectly. So… I suppose I thought… that if I could make some difference in your life, that I perhaps could forgive myself. At least for that.” He sighs. “I know it’s a selfish reason. But I suppose that must be it. I make myself responsible for you however I can. I know prison will never be happy or comfortable. But I want to make it easier for you. Ravindra deserves that much: for his brother to be safe and alive, although he was never given that opportunity himself. I am sincerely sorry for my selfishness, Vidhan. I know I’ve achieved nothing I sought for you.”
Vidhan ruminates. Nahyuta can’t remember the last time he was so honest. He wishes he could say it made him feel relieved. It did, in a way, but all it did was allow more and more thoughts to come tumbling down about everyone else he’s sworn not to forget. Nahyuta can’t bring himself to review their cases just yet, but he could name every single one like a brother or sister. He's counted them out a few times on his prayer beads. After the trial, he could never bring himself to use the old mantra again.
“You remind me so much of my brother sometimes,” Vidhan sighs. “It kills me. It fucking kills me. He always cared too much about the right thing, but he never knew what the right thing was for him. But he knew he wanted to protect me and protect our neighborhood. It’s why he got into the Defiant Dragons.” He swallows. “I don’t know if he killed that judge. Maybe he did. They wouldn’t let me see him, and, to be honest, I don’t care. I love him either way, and that will never change. But I think he’d probably feel guilty that you still agonized over this years after he died no matter what he did. That’s the kind of person he was. He wouldn’t want you to feel bad. Or like you deserved to die. That?” Vidhan smiles bitterly. “That was all me. I always was the hot-headed one between the two of us.”
Nahyuta doesn’t reply. He doesn’t even know what he could say, and so it’s his turn to be stunned. Would this man really feel that way…? He couldn’t make sense of it. Anyone would be right to be angry with him, cocooned in an anger that dries the well of forgiveness entirely. Nahyuta expected to die starving for forgiveness, bleeding out on the ground, surrounded by strangers as they watched the light finally dim from his eyes.
Why does he feel sick thinking about it again? It’s what he deserved.
Vidhan can read him like a book. “You still think you deserve it. There’s no use in that.”
“It wouldn’t make up for what I did,” Nahyuta murmurs, “but it’s felt like that is the only way I could find redemption.”
“Well, I don’t really think it’d make anybody you hurt feel better. Not really. I’ve had nothing but time to think since I’ve been in here, and to be honest, I’m glad you’re still alive. I… don’t know if I’ve ever said it yet, and I know it doesn’t change what I did, but I am sincerely sorry about what I did to you. Me killing you isn’t going to bring Ravindra back. It isn’t going to make me feel any better that he’s gone if you’re gone, too. After all… I mean, you’re somebody’s brother, too, right?”
Nahyuta could cry. It’s a kindness he never expected, never felt he deserved. How can someone who hates him so much be the one to convince him that he didn't deserve it...? Had Nahyuta been holding onto this for nothing? The silence feels so light, a sheer shroud that blankets the both of them, swaddled lovingly like infants. He chokes back tears that threaten to blur his vision and the lump that makes it hard to breathe and speak. He wants to speak, but instead he allows himself to say nothing. Vidhan doesn’t expect him to say anything either. He simply sips the last of his cooled tea and looks out the window again. Nahyuta tries to clear his head. He takes deep breaths. He fidgets with his beads, anxiously tapping his fingers on them. But nothing can stop it now. The more he thinks about what Vidhan says, the more he can’t control himself.
Tears start to roll down his face in rivers. His breathing goes shallow and shaky, turning into hiccups halfway up his windpipe. “V- Vidhan,” Nahyuta says shakily. Only then does the man look back at him. And despite himself, Nahyuta smiles. He smiles, and he means it for the first time in years. He means it sincerely. It's never felt so good to be wrong. “Th- Thank y- you.”
Vidhan’s expression is soft. “Don’t thank me, Mr. Sahdmadhi. I haven’t done a damn thing for you, and I never will, so don’t make a habit of thanking your almost-killer. I just can’t stand seeing you feel sorry for yourself.” He says it like he’s put barbs in his words, but it comes out like a stern father’s voice. Vidhan leans his head back and pours the last few drops of tea into his mouth. “Maybe you should get going soon. I’m not trying to push you outta here for crying, I just mean… you should get home. That’s all.”
Nahyuta doesn’t disagree. He wipes the hot tears from his face and tries to take a few breaths as he stands. Vidhan does the same. He holds his wrist with his other hand, just above the handcuffs that the guards continue to insist on although there wasn’t a sharp thing in this room, nor hidden on Vidhan’s person, that he could use to hurt Nahyuta. For the first time since they’ve started, Nahyuta allows himself to approach Vidhan. Stupidly, he puts his arms around Vidhan and hugs him tightly. Vidhan’s shackled arms press uselessly against Nahyuta’s torso, but he tries a few experimental and awkward pats. He doesn’t know why he feels the need to do this, but Nahyuta doesn’t have the energy to be embarrassed for himself.
He lets go after that brief embrace. “I will… continue to do my best,” Nahyuta promises. “And… if you prefer it, I shall stop insisting on visiting you each week.”
Vidhan rubs his chin through the scraggly beard he’s grown over the past few weeks. “I didn’t say I wanted that,” he replies. “I told you, I don’t mind the company. If you feel like you have any reason to keep coming, then do it. I’m not going to stop you. You just have to promise to stop… you know. Doing this because you feel like you deserve punishment.”
“…right. Yes. I will ensure this does not happen again.”
He gestures to himself, like that explains what he means. His eyes are still watery from the tears and his head is pounding, but it feels clear despite that. “Take care, Vidhan. Please, do not hesitate to get in contact with me if any issues arise. If I can assist you in any way, I am happy to do so.”
Vidhan thinks it over. “Hey, yeah. There is something you can do for me, actually.”
“By all means.”
“Instead of focusing all on me, or on Ravindra… do you think you can visit some of the other guys you put away? I know you’re working on overturning cases, but… I think it’s important that they know not everyone’s forgotten about them. Maybe some of them are guilty, and I know most of them will probably hate you the way I did—do,” Vidhan hastily corrects, but it all sounds so fake. “But it shouldn’t stop you. It’s the right thing to do. I’m in prison for a good reason, but a lotta those people aren’t. So quit wasting all your energy on me and put it towards doing some good, alright?”
Nahyuta blinks, surprised. “Why, I… yes. Yes, of course. Vidhan, I promise you that I will happily fulfill this task for you.”
“Thanks, Nahyuta.”
That’s the first time Vidhan has ever said his first name. He always kept it formal, distant, and Nahyuta expected nothing less. It catches him wholly off-guard, yet it also feels so natural to hear. All Nahyuta can do is nod, and offer a quiet, “Take care, Vidhan.”
He has work to do, and his body itches to get home and start pouring over his cases in earnest again. To do anything less would be to disrespect Vidhan’s one wish, the one thing he has ever asked of Nahyuta. It’s reinvigorating in an odd way. Not perfect. His spirit feels released from at least one chain holding him down. It isn't much, but it's something. He still feels the heaviness of despair and guilt upon him, but it feels… doable. It feels worthwhile.
It feels like he might have a reason to stop wishing for something worse.
As Nahyuta steps out into the hall after the guard unlocks the door, the warden stops him like he always does. “Was your visit satisfactory, Prosecutor Sahdmadhi?” But when he sees Nahyuta’s red, puffy eyes and the dried tears on his face, he nervously adds, “A- Are you all right? Did anything happen in there?”
Nahyuta smiles again. “Not at all. I’m perfectly satisfied with my visit, thank you.”