Spoilers for chapter 50 on.

- folie à deux-

The day that Toto wins the Carnival Corpse, Yosuga watches as his gait seamlessly transforms from a solemn stalk to a playful skip en route to where she stands on the sidelines.

"Nee-chan! I won!"

No mind for the chattering holograms on the walls, the gilded cage dripping with blood, the gaping guards—no, he beelines for her with a cupid's-bow smile on torn lips. Yosuga smiles to mask the nausea that suddenly clenches her stomach as he nears her, reeking of copper and guts.

He steers them both offstage, back to his room where the flowers, trophy, and cast cards await. He showers, sloughing the crusted red off his skin, but emerges wearing his still-bloodied white pants. "I have an idea, nee-chan," he says while pulling on his crimsoned shirt. "For a celebration."

Yosuga only stares at the red. It's as if he believes the stains will disappear by themselves.

Yosuga knows they never do.

That same night he sneaks her out of G block, out of the entire barracks complex and into the amusement park proper where the lights wheel and the balloons are the color of candy floss. A thousand murmured worries issue from her lips to be met with a thousand hushed reassurances from his.

"Don't worry, they'll let us walk free as tourists tonight. This'll be our playground! After all, I won!" He repeats the words with a clap of the hands. "I won."

Yosuga is not so sure. Though the darkness offers no hint of prisoners or guards, the shadows run deep. They walk by immaculate hedges and darkened popcorn stands. The night air is warm enough to kiss.

Her eyes slide to the boy beside her—Mockingbird, who has killed deadmen into the hundreds; Toto, who buys her candy and pulls her pigtails. Which is she the sister of? She could almost forget at times the strange dichotomy, but the blood that patterns him in silky splotches reminds her too closely of their pact. It gnaws at her, the way he now threatens a night-shift guard into operating the merry-go-round for them, the way he turns back to her a second later to sweep her into his arms and onto a painted horse.

"Toto, I don't think this—"

The music drowns her out: kitschy, crude carnival tunes that radiate from the spinning center of the ride as Toto hops onto a horse next to hers. His dips while hers rises. They turn round, and the other horses and carriages bob soullessly in time with the rhythm.

"This is so loud! We'll be caught!"

He shakes his head gleefully and points to his ears. Helplessly, she feels her lips echo the upward tug of his.

They are a boy and a girl on a merry-go-round. A brother and a sister. And what of the emptiness of the night, the dearth of other carnival-goers, the terrified glances of the guard flicking the switches? Yosuga closes her eyes and they disappear.

But Toto remains, leaning over his horse to poke her in the ribs, laughing like wind chimes tinkling in her ear. And she opens her eyes and thinks that no, they can never be simply a boy and a girl on a merry-go-round. Why does he not see, and why does he not know—

"Nee-chan! Look at me!" Standing on the horse's saddle, skipping from animal to animal.

Still blood all over his clothes, still he ignores it. Yosuga clutches the pole of her horse, feels the blood seethe under her skin, and allows the music to fill her up.

"Will you scream?"

"I won't."

"Are you sure? No shame in it."

"I won't scream."

All this as the car climbs the rail, their backs pressed to the seats and arms locked onto the bars pulled over their chests. Yosuga cranes over the side of the car to glance down and gauge the height of the roller coaster. Immediately an absurd flutter dances across her stomach despite the knowledge that their blood promises more safety than their constraints.

"Nee-chan, you look scared," he taunts. The car creaks on its rails.

"I'm not." He reaches towards her and she recoils. "Toto, your arm's bleeding."

"Oh, is it?" By his shoulder closest to her. She watches as he lowers his head and licks the cut before raising his head to her with the same smile.

It's not natural, the way he exists at once murderer and child, not even for deadmen, and at least she doesn't pretend she's not messed up—

"Toto, we have to stop this. We have to go back," she cries suddenly.

"Hm? What are you talking about, nee-chan?"

—Does she?

"I'm talking about the fact that this isn't right and I'm not really your—"

A seize in his golden eyes. A tendril of blood by his shoulder rises to taste the air. The car drops.

She screams.

The vendors are all gone, so he buys them both plastic-wrapped ice cream bars from a lonely vending machine next to the coaster. Yosuga is sweating from the balminess of the night. Leaning against a hedge, she watches Toto caper about while the vanilla sweetness melts against her sore throat.

"I wonder if they got a picture of us at the top! No? Ah well, there's the Ferris wheel next!"

He claps, and his joy is candy-sweet.

She follows him to the base of the great wheel, where a bribe of CP to the night-shift guard starts it spinning. Their car is painted sunflower yellow and decked out in golden lights. They clamber on, choosing to stand rather than sit, gleeful with the knowledge that they are breaking all the regulations.

The land falls away from them as against the press of night and gravity, they rise. A tangle of lights is all that remains of Deadman Wonderland.

"This is the farthest away we can get from it, huh?" Toto muses.

He is lucid and not mad, Yosuga realizes. Maybe now she can chance the words that were stolen from her before. "You never complain about the prison like all the others do."

"Well, what's to complain about? I get tons of CP and I'm here with my older sister!"

Ah. Here again. Yosuga holds herself very, very still as she says, "But the CP's drawn from blood, and I'm not really your older sister."

Is that a beat he waits before answering?

"So what, nee-chan? Does it matter?"

"It does," she cries, "it does! Because…"

Below them, the circus where men have set themselves on fire for entertainment looms next to the tents where animal-headed prisoners box each other for bets across from the racetrack where hundreds have run and died like dogs for bread…

"Because this isn't a playground but a prison, and we're only murderers!"

Higher their car climbs, and she is screaming to the stifling air. Toto remains next to her, white hands on the rail, red trails on his clothes like ritual offerings to the puppeteers of this place.

"Just forget about that. It means nothing."

Yosuga stares at him.

"If it all means nothing, then, then this is meaningless as well?"

As the car reaches the top of the wheel, she grabs his wrists and kisses him.

The manic energy inside her, brought on maybe by the accusations, maybe the night, courses through him too. It's a bolt of lightning, hot like blood, sticky and visceral like the air, and it lasts until they're halfway back down to the ground.

"It doesn't really mean nothing," he admits when it's over, eyes low. "It's everything. But if we could… just a little longer…"

He gestures vaguely. She knows. He wants their shared indulgence in deception.

Doesn't she want it too?

"Remember the gun," he says suddenly. "It's okay to believe in this. There's always death."

"But even the gun was pretend—isn't the whole promise a delusion t—"

This time he kisses her. The heady scent of blood, and notes of intangible desperation in his fingers at his waist—Yosuga can sense a stopping point when it offers itself. For just this moment, the person kissing her is not her little brother. It is a concession.

"You don't have to say it," she says afterwards. "All right."

Back on ground, he helps her out of the car and onto the platform. They walk back towards G block, still adjusting back into their roles when the twins step onto the pavement in front of them.

"Mockingbird?" Two voices caress the name. "The director wishes to see you."

"The director? Now?" His voice takes on the whining tone of Toto, the little brother, rather than the addressed figure. They are unfazed.

"Come with us."

"Ah, but I was having such a fun night…"

A curl of blood twitches on his shoulder. Before it can materialize, before either of them can blink, two bayonets are directed right under Toto's chin.

"The director has already granted you mercy by allowing this night. Do not try his patience any longer."

The raised tendril of blood drops. Toto turns his head gingerly towards Yosuga, bewildered but compliant, and still smiling.

"Well then. I'll see you tomorrow, nee-chan."

She watches him go with the white-haired man and woman. She does not know that it is the last time she will see him as he is now—Toto, little brother in a killer's body—but that is not what she is thinking of now. Yosuga walks back to her bedroom in G block with only carnival rides and candyfloss on her mind, and perhaps, just maybe, the press of lips and golden eyes.

/end.

What can I say, I'm a sucker for relationships based on delusion, except you so rarely find both partners fueling the façade. Thanks for reading and please leave your thoughts!