Chapter Text
He should be home.
It's late and he knows he should be home, but the walls of the trailer are paper thin and nothing stops him from hearing the raspy almost desperate coughing fits that echo from his mother's room in the middle of the night.
The sound haunts him. It clings to every corner of the house, waiting for the quiet to settle just so it can shatter the peace.
On those nights, he fears the silence most of all.
He doesn't sleep.
He sits, with his legs pulled up, close to his body, huddled on top of the abandoned train car he's turned into a makeshift haven.
Outside, in the middle of the night, he doesn't have to fear the silence.
* * *
There's a dream. It starts with him waking up one morning, light streaming through his window. The curtains are missing, so the light is overwhelming. He blinks quickly, momentarily blinded by how bright it is.
It's quiet.
No birds, no alarm going off, no neighbors being noisy — Mrs Franklin to their left just had a baby and most mornings, he can hear the baby crying. It's faint, but it's there. There’s always at least one dog barking.
But today everything is quiet.
He gets up, body shifting automatically, running through his morning routine.
Bathroom first, then kitchen to grab the handful of little pills that are due each morning, and to fix up breakfast. Maybe today his mom will finish it all, his optimism hopes. His cynicism in the back of his head laughs, mocking him for the thought.
But then he opens the door, a soft, “Morning, mom.” on the tip of his tongue.
It's too quiet.
And then he wakes up with tears in his eyes and a choked sob ripped from his throat. Desperate, scared, all alone. His fear is crushing, loud, almost physical, like an earthquake in the middle of his room.
It's just a dream, he thinks.
Dreams are just your subconscious trying to deal with real life issues.
That's utter bullshit. No nightmare will ever prepare him for the silence.
* * *
He lays in bed, fingers drumming against his stomach, eyes to the ceiling, drifting between being awake and dozing off. Besides him, Jason sleeps quietly, with his back to Zack, face towards the closed door. Zack’s closer to the window, the bay singing a symphony outside the house. It must be nice, he thinks, to fall asleep to the distant sound of the waves. The water always offers a whisper of comfort.
He shifts, turning on his side, inching closer to the body next to him, and throws an arm around Jason's waist that makes the blond startle awake. Zack buries his face against a shoulder. “Go back to sleep,” he murmurs.
It must be hard to be such a light sleeper, and part of him wants to apologize but Jason doesn't say anything, instead, he just intertwines his fingers with Zack’s, and tugs the hand up to give it a soft kiss between his knuckles.
“K,” the blond exhales.
Zack smiles; he tilts his head up and kisses the back of Jason’s neck, breathes in the scent of his shampoo and tries to relax.
Behind him, the bay sings at night. He closes his eyes, focusing on the soft breathing in front of him, on the faint thrum of a strong heartbeat.
* * *
He wraps the blanket around him tighter and continues to watch the rain outside. The inside of the train car is a bit chilly but not enough to bother him — it beats standing outside, getting soaked. It's the start of a possible thunderstorm; weather's taken a dive lately and he overheard someone at school saying it was supposed to rain heavily all weekend. Maybe next week too.
The noise from the storm drowns out anything else, but he doesn't need to hear the footsteps to know someone's approaching — he can feel the low hum of his coin reacting to the presence of another power coin. It resonates inside of him.
He looks up, yelling, “Over here!” and waits until he sees the familiar face of their leader. Red flannel soaked through, it clings to Jason in a way that can't be comfortable. Zack loosens up the hold on the blanket to pat the spot next to him, a quiet invitation to join him.
“Forgot your umbrella?”
Jason peels the loose long sleeve shirt away and sits down, leaving a gap between them that Zack totally ignores. He scoots closer, laughing when Jason protests that he'll get wet too.
“Shouldn't have been out in the rain then.”
The blond huffs, cheeks dusted pink, and just leans against him. “Wasn't raining when I left.”
He's a terrible liar, but Zack doesn't call him out on it. “It's supposed to rain all day.”
“That's fine.” Blue eyes focus on him and Zack drowns in their intensity. Like the ocean, but deeper. Like the sky, but clearer. “I don't mind the company.”
“You're gonna get sick though,” he nudges him with an elbow, mouth quirking into a smirk. “Better strip down. I'll share my body heat. Promise.” He gets an exasperated but fond roll of eyes in return. It makes Zack grin stupidly, love struck and far too gone.
“You just want to see me naked.”
And can he really deny it?
“Any excuse is a good excuse, Red.”
Jason exhales a soft chuckle, reaching over to wiggle out of his shirt. It lands with a heavy wet noise, right next to the plaid he’d been wearing on top. He gets up to unzip and kick his pants away and stands there in damp underwear and nothing else. Zack smiles, eyes drowning in the lines of muscle and pale skin. He opens his arms, welcoming the shivering boy in his embrace. “Better?”
He gets a kiss to the cheek that makes him smile. “Yeah, much.”
They stay like that for a while, until Zack dozes off, comfortable and warm, listening to the pitter patter of the storm.