a/n: i'm sorry that this is one day late!

His fingers shook at the wheel. Occasionally, his hand would rise to wipe his forehead, and each bump in the road made him wince. That terrible agony returning to incapacitate him... What if he drove off the road and flipped the car? Next to him, the boy started to hum as if to placate the angry silence. Swallowing his own muteness, he attempted to strike up a conversation with his ward, exerting a valiant effort to make his tone as friendly as possible.

Despite the faint quiver in his voice.

"What's your name?"

After a while of silence, he was beginning to reject the notion of getting a response when a soft voice answered him cheerfully, as if he had been carefully crafting his response while the soundlessness crashed in waves around them.

"I wasn't given one properly." The boy's dark-haired head tilted to the side as he swiveled to look at him. "You should name me."

His throat went dry. "I'm not very good at naming things."

His ward gave him a knowing look, and he wondered what would come from those thin lips this time.

"You named your pet fish Bubbles."

The first thing he did was protest for the sake of his dignity. "It was the first thing that came out of his mouth!" Then, his mind backpedaled. "...How did you know that?"

"I know everything about you."

There the boy went with those unsettling words again. The conviction more than convinced him; in fact, he believed in the thought wholeheartedly, and his face paled.

"Well, perhaps not everything," the boy conceded, turning to face the window with a sigh. "I haven't gotten to know this life of yours. Though, you do have a penchant for naming all fish 'Bubbles.'"

"I've...only had one fish."

"This is only one life," was the answer. "You in general had other fish."

Well, he wasn't going to argue with this odd logic, but if he understood what the boy was implying, it was that he had had 'other lives' in which he'd repeatedly bestowed that mundane name upon several fish.

"Of course, you never really liked fish yourself, being that it reminded you of the shore."

His tone was of a forced cheer as he brought himself to speak again, because it was true. Out of some unidentified guilt, he had always stayed as far as he could from the shore. "...You're a little weird."

"I was considered the sanest of us all." The kids in the orphanage? he wondered, but a dark chuckle escaped the boy's lips. "Oh, how they were mistaken... Though, by the end of that time, I had no one left to prove to that it was quite the contrary." It was good that he didn't have to respond (not that he knew what he would say in response), for then: "You really should name me, you know. Only you have the qualifications to give me a name, seeing as my father and mother never bestowed proper names unto me either."

Qualifications as a legal guardian, he assumed, but the boy shook his head.

"No - as close kin."

He thought for a while, glancing to the sun peeking over the tips of the boy's raven hair, rendering it a dark stained gold. "A name that maybe emphasizes your hair color?"

"I'd prefer some that starts with an M."

"...Mark."

The boy's face was filled with pity. "Humans have gotten less and less creative as the ages go along."

He sat back in his seat and sighed, angling the wheel slightly to the right. They were almost about to arrive in the 'other side' of town, where the normal people were. It was weird to some degree-as if he were taking a piece of the abandoned place with him, that piece being right next to him in the passenger's seat, playing with the window controller. (Later, he would realize that it felt forbidden.)

"Do you have a name that you prefer?" Before the boy could respond, he added with a long-suffering look, "Something that actually sounds like a name."

From the amused glint in the child's eyes, he could tell he was understood. "All right, all right. I don't have a predilection-though, as for names that actually sound like names, I assure you that my name for you is more of a name than their name for you."

His lips parted in surprise, but he quickly closed his mouth.

"What's your name?"

"Mine?" It dawned on him that he hadn't even introduced himself properly. "Ah - I forgot to introduce myself! My name is Nen."

"Nen? Usually, your name begins with an 'm.'"

"My actual name is Mikhail," he admitted, deciding against dwelling on the boy's comment. "My father wanted to name me Nen, though, and as I grew older, I realized I liked it better."

Understanding flitted across that small, dirty face, but it was a faint flicker that disappeared as soon as it appeared. Then the boy's lips twisted into a wry smile.

"I can understand why your name is Nen now."

Nen tilted his head to the side. "Why so?"

The boy turned to him with a smile. "Nelyafinwe."

This time, it felt as if he felt as if he were driving into a dark sea of red, and the tide was turning over them both. His entire body betrayed him-his blood swarmed in its veins like panicked bees, his heart beating rapidly against his chest as something moved in his throat-it wasn't air.

The boy reached out and placed a hand on his cheek. "Works every time," he mused with a smile.

The apprehension twisting in his gut faded, and he slumped down in shock. Dangerous. He was driving, and he could've-

"Are you casting some sort of spell over me?" he asked weakly.

"Not at all!" Another smile-but this time, it looked like it was intended to be a displeased frown. "You only react that way because your body can't handle the thought of being readdressed by it." The smile looked less like a frown and more of a smile now. "For example, if I were to say Maedhros again-"

Something painful sliced through his right wrist, sending electrocuting signals up his nerves as he jerked his right hand from the wheel. Through the sharp pain, he expected his left hand to do the same, expected for his right hand to detach from his wrist in bloody theatrics, but nothing was happening. His wrist was throbbing, and as he stomped down on the pedal, he found that he couldn't feel his right hand anymore. Even if it was still there, he couldn't move the fingers.

"Nen."

He clutched his immobile, dead right hand and turned to the boy with widened eyes. Where his nerves ended at his wrist, the pain began to intensify, each pang beating like his heart, a desperate drum that tried to pour out as much of its life that it could.

"My hand," he croaked.

The boy looked compulsorily contrite. "It's a good thing that you're left-handed this time."

He was silent.

"One would think that your body would know by now not to give all of your strength to a hand you'll eventually lose."

Nen turned the car off. Then he exhaled shakily, clutching the part of his wrist where the feeling and unfeeling met.

"Sorry."

He found his voice along the lines of oblivion and pain. "It's fine."

"No, I was too blunt. I should have waited until you actually lost your hand..."

"Please." Stop speaking. "It's fine."

"No, I overstepped my lines."

When the boy reached out for his hand, he wasn't entirely sure what to expect. He couldn't feel the touch of the other's fingers, even as the digits nimbly danced along his palm and then to the back of his frozen hand. The boy gently took his wrist and pulled his arm towards himself.

"What are you - ?"

Something soft pressed against his wrist-it was a mouth-and the feeling returned to his hand. His fingers quivered at the sudden assault of touch, and he yanked his hand away.

This time, the boy was silent as well.

He started the car up again and mutely pressed down on the gas pedal.