Not Dead Yet

A/N) probably OOC, but it's for the feels, so it's ok

also yes the title is unimaginative shut up I just had it titled as "takizawa one shot" until I posted it today and lemme tell you the alternatives my friend suggested were Not better. 

   It's late. Far too late to be turning up like this, but it's not like he could have very well marched up the respectable, homely residential neighbourhood street in broad daylight. Everything about him screams ghoul, and that fact alone has his hand stilling, half-way raised to knock on the door. But he also has a feeling if he doesn't do it now, he'll chicken out and never do it ever again, and whatever tattered shreds was left of his pride brings his knuckles down to rap sharply on the door.

He recoils a bit at the loud noise, glancing furtively around to see if the many quinque he felt were all pointed at him were actually there. Of course they weren't, he was just jumpy.

And then the door is opening, and his mother is standing there, dressing gown wrapped snugly around her against the chill night air, and suddenly it wouldn't have mattered if he was surrounded by doves, because he finds himself frozen in place, fixed in the condemning stare of a woman who had thought her son dead, and now is seeing him for the first time in years, looking like-

Suddenly he wishes that he had just swallowed his pride and left, because surely a dead human son was better than an alive, half-mad ghoul one. But then her hand is covering her mouth, and tears are leaking down her cheeks, and he's being enveloped in a hug, like he's still him, like he isn't standing there with the iron scent of blood staining his skin, and his hair is still that boring old brown. Like he's still her little boy.

His eyes sting.

"Oh baby," she chokes, and hugs him closer, and he lets his head drop down onto her shoulder, and ignores how fragile he feels.

She leads him into the kitchen. His eyes flit over to and quickly away from the small memorial in the corner of the living room. His old face stares back at him, bright smile mocking him with its innocence. He wants to rip it all to shreds, hunt down every picture of that old version of himself in the house and torch the pile. The thought makes him sick.

He sits awkwardly in one of the chairs at the kitchen table, feeling distinctly and revoltingly out of place, like a boil on a model's face. His mother asks if he wants anything. He wants to know where his father is, if he's still upstairs in bed asleep, oblivious to the events unfolding beneath him. Whether he'd welcome the return of his son with as much open arms as his mother did. Instead he tells her a coffee is fine. Black, no sugar. She gives him this sad look that feels entirely too knowing, but on the other hand he looks like this, so it was probably an easy conclusion to come to.

He shifts uncomfortably as the kettle boils. He's grateful she hasn't tried to ask him anything about what he's been up to, but from the concerned look she's eyeing him with he'll probably have to give into some sort of medical examination, not that she'd find even the faintest bruise courtesy of his enhanced healing.

"Where's dad?" He asks, after waiting for her to pour out the drinks and settle down across from him, her own steaming mug cradled in weathered hands.