"You know who I am, right?"

The order of things were getting messed up in my head. When did I hear that question? Was it before I did the lines? Or after? Or after I woke up in hospital? Was the hospital before the lines or after? It seemed more realistic that the hospital came after, but sometimes, when the events of the past days played in my head, it came before. I just didn't know anymore.

I looked down on my arm. My elbow stood out so much it looked disgusting, it was so thin, and I had so many rashes from needles there, it looked like I had done heroin. Wait, have I done heroine? No. No, I had never gone that far. I was quite certain. 

Then, I realised what the rashes were all about. I had a needle in my arm, and seeing my blood pressure sucked, they had probably had to try several times before they found a vein. I was grateful they had; whatever they had put into my bloodstream, it was good stuff.

I'm done with good stuff.

"You know who I am, right?"

I had been in his apartment, looking down on the people below, when I had gotten the phone call.

"Mr Uchiha? It's about the photo shoot tomorrow. It's cancelled."

What do you mean, cancelled?

"Or, rather, it's canceller for you. They have hired another model.

Why? I knew why. Because I was now too thin. Because I didn't take care of my hair, now long, as well as I should. Because I had been caught by paparazzi behaving strangely so the fashion brands did not want to be associated with me anymore.

Is this the beginning of the end for me? Or has the end already passed?

What else could I do? I had no education, no dreams, no ambitions. It was over for me.

I had done what I always did when I didn't know what to do. I did a line. Then, I did another for the hell of it. Then a third. Then, I did three shots. Or, honestly, I don't remember how many of either; it could have been any number between one and the stars. But I did have some floating memories of going outside.

A headache was catching up on me, letting me now I was gaining consciousness.

And there he was, opposite me, sitting on a chair, legs splayed, hands clasped together, looking at me with... Disappointment? No. Worry? No.

Love. It's love.

No. Couldn't be.

"Hashirama?" I said.

He didn't say anything. He opened his mouth a few times, but closed it again, as if the words he had come up with weren't enough to display what he was feeling on the inside, so there was no use saying them.

So I reached my hand out, and he took it immediately.

We were both quiet, looking down on out entwined hands. There was nobody else but us in my single patient room, the only sound being the soft beeping of a machine next to me, and the seconds passing by.

Hashirama...

He had told me he was a doctor, but I hadn't had time to ask him where he was from. Who knew it was New York?

"You know who I am, right?" he asked.

You have known for quite some time. You just haven't dared to hope. You have never been so good at hoping, have you, pet?

Tears welled up in my eyes, and I looked down to try to hide them from him, but he just brushed my hair away from my face, wanting to see the havoc he caused on my face.

"H", I said simply, or rather, I whispered, afraid my voice would crack the space between universes, have me fall from this one into another where Hashirama and H were not the same person.

"M", he said.

And I broke down crying.

Hashirama, or H, leaned forwards and hugged me as I cried and cried and cried. I clung to him, wetting his shirt with my tears and my runny nose as he whispered comforting words into my ear.

When I had calmed down, he held me at arm's length and inspected me.

"In the medical world, we have a saying", he said. "That if a patient is screaming and crying, they're probably fine." He smiled at me. "You will be fine."

"I love you", I said.

It was not the most romantic moment for it, but in that moment, when Hashirama and H melted and merged into the same person, it was the right one. I love you. I love you. I love you.

"I love you, too", Hashirama said.

He kissed me.

And for the first time, M was allowed to kiss his H. 

Then, hell started for me.

As I was hospitalised, I did not have any access to cocaine, and I got abstinent.

They gave me some medicines against it, but it felt like I was burning from the insides.

"It will get worse", I heard some doctors say as they stood over me. I hardly understood what they were saying; I was a trembling, cold-sweating mess. "We will have to take him to detox in the psychiatry ward."

No... Please, no.

I was not as sought-after as I had once been, but I was still painfully famous, and even more desirable for paparazzi now I had deteriorated to half my weight. I did not want to go to a psychiatry ward where the risk of me being recognised and pictures leaking was basically inevitable.

"I'll take him." The unmistakeable voice of Hashirama. My H. "Home to me."

"But-"

"Tell me one place where he would be safer?" Hashirama demanded. "This is a very unusual situation. 

I had some hazed-over memories of me being transported to him in an ambulance. I had apparently stabilised in my values so they hadn't have to have me wired up, but I needed to have someone watch over me closely as I was detoxed.

Once I was installed, having too little energy to protest against Hashirama giving me his bedroom while he slept on the couch, the couch I had seen on video so many times, the true hell started. I was going from trembling of cold to sweating profusely within hours, back and forth, over and over. I was having nightmares so bad, I woke up from my feverish sleep screaming. I was having so much anxiety, I was certain I would throw myself out of the window had I had any more energy.

Hashirama was there through all of it. I would realise afterwards he must have taken time off work just to be with me. When I was cold, he put blankets around me and heat me up with his hair dryer. When I was warm, he would put ice on my forehead. When I woke up screaming, he would hold me until I fell back asleep. He fed me with medicines that actually helped me, very gently. He fed me soups and fruit juices and other things that were easy for me to swallow.

Until one day, I woke up and actually felt slightly better.

The apartment was empty, I realised. I wondered how many days I had been there; Hashirama would, of course, have to go out for groceries at some point. Perhaps even a ten minute walk. Hell, I would die if I was caught up inside without the possibility to go shopping or hit the gym or something, but I knew Hashirama would never do such a selfish thing when I was in his care.

Suddenly, I became aware of a noise. It sounded like... A lot of people, chattering.

I frowned and walked out on the balcony very carefully. Lo and behold, there was a bunch of paparazzi collected outside Hashirama's apartment.

I suddenly felt terrible for putting all of this upon him, Hashirama who was so private and careful and introverted.

The noise level increased in a way I knew meant the paparazzi had seen a target, and were ready to latch on to it like leeches.

"Hashirama! Is it true Madara is staying at your place!"

"Is he your boyfriend?"

"Hashirama!"

"Was it cocaine, Hashirama? Or heroine?"

I couldn't help but feeling anxious. How would Hashirama deal with this situation? In my experience, the men I dated handled it in one of two ways. The first way was complete denial, when they were desperate to show me they were not like other boys wanting to out me. What they didn't understand was how much this hurt me; did they really feel so much hesitancy at being seen with me? The second way, however, caused both me and my partner more trouble; it was when my partner outed me completely, being excited about the fame I provided, as if suddenly blinded by the attention, unable to see that behind all that light was an actual person whose life would have to be uprooted to escape all the information the paparazzi had now gathered. 

But Hashirama... He did something completely different.

"First of all, it's Dr Senju, please", he said, and as I hid on his balcony, now down on my stomach like a complete fucking idiot because I did not want to be seen, even if the paparazzi were far below me, I felt a shiver of pleasure as he demanded this courtesy of them. "Second, Mr Uchiha is fine. He's with me, I'm his doctor. Now, excuse me, I need to go buy some milk. I'm out of it. No more comments."

And he just left, ignoring the paparazzi running after him. 

I just gaped as I laid on my stomach, on his balcony still. He had handled that so smoothly. And demanded they stopped using my first name. I blushed and could suddenly not wait for him to come back with that stupid milk.

I changed my mind, however, once I saw myself in the mirror. Fuck. I was even thinner than I remembered, the clothes that I suspected Hashirama had lent me hanging off my body.  I had black bags under my eyes, and my long, black hair was tangled. Although not as tangled as it should have been... I blushed when I realised Hashirama must have brushed my hair as I recovered. 

I was just messing about Hashirama's bathroom cabinet in search of something that could fix up my appearance when there was a key in the door.

Shit. 

Too late. In came Hashirama, looking clean and lovely and everything I was not, in a long coat and his chestnut hair in a razor-sharp line over his shoulders. 

"Hashi! Ehh, hi. I just woke up, I just-"

But Hashirama just dropped the paper bag, that I guessed contained the milk, on the floor, took two steps towards me in his bathroom, and put his arms around me in a bone-crushing hug.

"Oh..." I said in surprise.

Hashirama didn't say anything, but his shoulders were shaking as if he were crying.

"H-hashi?"

"I have been so worried about you", he whispered.

My heart melted, and all the walls around me were torn down. I softened in his embrace, and put my arms around him, and kissed his head over and over again to calm him down.

"It's okay. I'm fine now. Thank you. Thank you for saving my life."

We stood there for a long, long time, hiding in each other's necks, breathing act other's scents, not daring to look at one another's faces. 

Hashirama got to work with me.

I took a well-needed shower, using a scrub glove to basically skin myself, washing my hair three rounds with some fancy shampoo Hashirama had and then using a hair mask that smelled like Kinder Bueno.

Then, Hashirama put me in a chair and brought some scissors out.

"Wait, do you know what you're doing?" I asked, worried.

"I took a stylist course back when I was a teenager. I always cut my own hair." Oh. Hashirama's hair was always flawless. "Now, down with your chin or the line won't be good."

He cut quite a lot and thinned the tips out, and shortened them in the front so some strands fell into my forehead and face. I had never had a haircut that suited me so much, even if I'd had star stylists take care of me for astronomical sums of money.

He also got to work fattening me up, but that took a while. After two weeks, I'd got some of my weight back, and I was allowed to start exercising again. Hashirama went to a very anonymous gym where nobody ever went, which suited me fine. Within two months, I was back to my old weight and appearance, although... Something was clearly different with me. Was this what happiness looked like? What it was like being drug-free?

Me and Hashirama lived as roommates. I took the couch, he took the bed. I don't know why, seeing both M and H, and me and Hashirama had been intimate with one another. But somehow, now, when the identities had merged together, something stood in the way for us.

We were incredibly polite. Hashirama had always made me breakfast before he went to work. I had always made him dinner when he came back. We shared the cost for groceries. I helped with cleaning and laundry. The only thing Hashirama wouldn't let me do was pay half the rent; he was adamant about that.

He also never asked me why I had just posted him, all those years ago. Why I had just disappeared.

But despite the lack of physical intimacy between us, living with Hashirama had made me look different. Living with him, even if it was as a platonic roommate, was good for me, and I got a glow on my face I didn't recognise, but liked very much.

Not that I used it for anything. Even if I wasn't all that fashionable anymore, I got several phone calls which I knew were about interviews regarding m y current state, but I ignored them. I still got more money in my different funds that I knew how to get rid of in a lifetime, so I allowed myself to take a break. In the same time zone for several weeks in a row.

Even if the relationship between me and Hashirama was platonic, we felt something start to stir in the air between us the more time that passed. It was as if our feelings for one another were contained in a cauldron with a lid on, and that lid started to strain.

We stared each other down during dinner. We hugged each other goodbye and welcome home for longer than what was necessary. A hand on a shoulder. Fingers through the hair. 

Then, one day, when Hashirama was at work, the dam burst for us.