Chapter Text
Shayne had dreamt of his voice since the first time Charlie had ever tried to comfort him. Ever since he learned that his name could be said with something other than disgust or reluctance, he’d heard himself being called from all corners of the earth as he slept. Ever since he learned that hands could be used for holding, not just for pinning down and hurting, he’d reached for them under the sheets, often failing to find them.
Ever since he started to consider that there was more to life than what he’d been raised for, his dreams had been in colour. This dream was green.
The grass was dark and glistening with fallen rain as clouds gathered and promised that more would fall. The freezing cold jar lay emptily in his hands, its weight boring into his skin and searing its meaning into him. This is what you are. His jaw ached from being unhinged, and it snapped sharply as he tried to stretch it out. The jar fell from his hands as he clutched at it, terrified that his whole head might fall apart under the force of the pain.
He wanted to call out for Charlie. He was scared and confused and hurting, and Charlie always seemed to ease those feelings.
But when his jaw clicked into place, he opened his mouth and he said his own name instead. Or rather, something said his name through his mouth, but it wasn’t his voice.
“Shayne,” it said softly, and he clutched at his own throat as something else grabbed at it from the inside. “Let me out.”
///
He woke like he’d been stunned, lying rigid at the edge of the bed as his eyes stared widely across the room. For a moment – a nice one, in retrospect – he couldn’t remember why he’d woken, but when he did, it hit hard.
He stumbled into the bathroom, hands shaking and shoulder colliding with the doorframe on the way. One hand was pressed to his stomach and he was already doubled over before he reached the toilet.
Get it out, get it out, get it out of me, he almost cried, forcing out sobs and dry heaves that jerked him further forward across the toilet seat. He realised that the it in his plea had almost been a him, he’d almost called the demon a him, a familiar him, a beloved him –
And then he remembered that it was a dream.
“Fuck,” he gasped, closing his eyes in relief. The tension left him so quickly he swore he felt every one of his joints pop. It was a dream, it was a dream; there was nothing in his stomach that had the ability to talk back to him, and it was certainly not Charlie Two. It’d been days since he’d even devoured a demon.
When he was able to stand, he leaned over the sink and sipped some running water, hoping it would calm his stomach rather than agitate it. In the mirror, he looked more washed-out than he usually did between devouring. His ears were ringing, and his chest hurt, probably from waking up with such intense anxiety. It was as though the nightmare had carved something out of him, left him longing in a way he wasn’t used to, and the first thing he found when he followed that thread of emotion was Mum, I want my mum. A sharp pain rose in his throat at the thought and he quickly smothered it, and the next one was of Charlie.
Charlie. Something might have happened to him. Right? It made perfect sense in the moment, while his body was shaking, and his head felt like a swamp. Maybe the dream was supposed to be a sign or a warning or a –
And the next thought was so crazy and obvious that he shook his head at it, refused to meet his own gaze in the mirror, fearing he would all too easily talk himself out of it.
Go to him.
___
Shayne was used to pain and general unpleasantness in his body. He was never surprised when a demon tried to claw its way out of him, turning his stomach and burning his throat with bile and making him throw up all kinds of crap as its essence broke up inside of him.
But he wasn’t familiar with this different sort of ache that was crawling up his chest and throat. Instead of something that rushed like a waterfall, this was more like a glacier, sending chills through his organs and making him shudder involuntarily. He missed his bed and his hot water bottle. Hell, he would have accepted a burning-hot hug from Elliott if he’d been there. And he absolutely wished he’d worn something more than just a t-shirt and his leather jacket.
No doubt he was isolated on the train because people were taking one glance and deciding that he had some kind of plague. Not that he was complaining about that. What he could have complained about, however, was the swirling nausea in his belly that he couldn’t find any relief from, the pressure in his head that made his ears ring, the grating agony in his lungs and throat. When he looked out the window at the dark countryside passing by, the undersides of his eyes were black in his reflection.
Finally, finally, he heard the name of a familiar stop. His legs were next to useless as he attempted to get to the door of the train, resting his head against a wall as he waited for it to stop, for the doors to open, and he damn-near almost fell asleep on his feet.
___
He’d forgotten his phone, he realised as he stood in the entranceway of the train station. Then again, he couldn’t forget something he’d never intended to bring in the first place. The thought just hadn’t occurred to him, not even while he’d been scribbling down a quick explanation for Felix and Elliott so that they’d know where he’d gone.
He remembered the way to the Waters’ new house from the station, even though he had been in a car last time he’d come; but it was bucketing down rain and he didn’t have so much as a hood to pull up.
He wondered if he’d have called Charlie at that point, if he could, and asked him to come and get him. Probably not. That would mean putting him out even more than he was already planning to.
The rain made itself part of his clothes so quickly he might as well have gone swimming in them.
___
Evening was closing in on the housing estate when he got there, after what felt like hours but was probably only one in reality. The curtains were drawn in the front room, leaving a faint glow around the edges to indicate life inside. Shayne’s breath stuck in his throat as he stepped onto the porch, finally out of the downpour.
He couldn’t believe how uncomfortable his eyes felt in his head, how high the pain had risen in his throat, how shaky his limbs were. He was starting to wonder if this whole day had been an extension of that messed-up dream. Charlie would know. Charlie would tell him why he was feeling like this…
Charlie would make it better…
The doorbell faded in and out of his vision, and the first time he reached for it, his palm touched the glass pane of the door instead. Shit. If his throat and mouth and chest hadn’t felt so unbearably dry, he’d have thought he was about to throw up. It was stupid, actually, how dry and hot he felt inside while his outsides were drenched.
Shayne tried for the doorbell again, succeeding in ringing it this time. Doubt crept up his spine as droplets of rain fell from his hair and down his face. He was suddenly nervous on top of everything else, the sensation gnawing at his gut. He hadn’t thought about what he was going to say; thinking usually felt like taking steps through his thoughts, but right now it was like trying to tread water with weights tied to his feet.
He folded his arms tightly around himself, grimacing against the urge to just curl up on the doorstep and cry until someone came to get him.
The door clicked as it unlocked.
“Shayne!” Trevor exclaimed as he opened it. Shayne couldn’t tell if it was a question or not. “What are – what are you doing here?”
Ingrid came to the door too, when she heard her husband’s voice rise. Her eyes were wide and so was her mouth, as she pulled the front of her dressing gown more firmly around herself with folded arms.
“Sweetie, it’s lashing rain!” she exclaimed, peering out past the doorstep as though checking the driveway and sidewalk for a car. “Did you walk here from the station?”
“I-I – yeah, I heard – I heard from Charlie… kind of, not really, and… and… well, it was a dream, but he was – I h-hurt him, or it - it was a demon, I just don’t… I-I mean, I think it was just – just a nightmare, but they’re – the demons, my foster parents, everything’s – maybe…”
Shayne heard it, he heard how awful his voice sounded through his battered throat, and how little sense he was making, but he couldn’t seem to stop talking.
“And… and I had to see him, I’m – I know it’s late and it’s n-not okay to just show up uninvited, but I was s-so fucking worried about – sorry. Shit, I-I didn’t m-mean to swear just now, I…”
Both their faces fell as he stopped talking, and his stomach did too.
“Shayne, sweetie,” Ingrid said. “Charlie doesn’t live here.”
It took the words a moment to penetrate the fog in Shayne’s head and click into place. The way the two of them were standing in the doorway suddenly made sense, their shoulders tensed and their bodies forming a barrier he couldn’t cross. He wasn’t a guy coming to see his friend, he was a guy trying to get into their home on a random, rainy night.
“He…” Shayne blinked and felt himself start to sway.
“He didn’t tell you?” Trevor demanded incredulously, the rise in his voice making Shayne flinch. “He went back to Mulberry after the holidays. He’s finishing school there.”
“I… no, he’s…” Shayne’s skin tingled with hot-and-cold panic, his ears rang with in trouble, in trouble, you’re in trouble. He lowered his gaze, looking at how the rain lay in patches on the painted floorboards in the porch, carried there by the wind, or by him. “No, I’m – I’m s-sorry, I didn’t…”
He felt Charlie’s parents stare at him for a few moments longer before the embarrassment settled firmly in the pit of his stomach. And when it did, it made every hair on his body bristle, made the tears finally spring to his eyes, made his shoulders lift stiffly towards his ears.
“S-sorry,” he choked out, stepping back from the door. “I – I’ll just…”
“Sweetie,” Ingrid sighed, reaching into the rain to pull him back onto the porch. “At least come inside and get dry. One of us will drive you back to the station.”
Shayne whimpered at the hand gripping his upper arm, fear crawling into the space where anger usually flared whenever he was grabbed. He was too exhausted to fight or struggle, and he didn’t want to fight Ingrid anyway.
“Oh, my god.” Ingrid lifted her hand, and Shayne flinched, the fog in his brain making him think that he was going to be slapped. Instead, she brushed back some dripping-wet hair, and rested a cool palm on his forehead. “Trev? I think he’s got a temperature.”
Trevor said something in response, but Shayne closed his eyes to all of it, unable to think about anything but the blissfully cool hand that was taken away again. If tears fell from his eyes, they were undistinguishable from the rainwater. The cold and the wet were seeping into his bones, his body getting ready to give up.
“Do you have a phone number for the people he’s staying with?” Trevor asked gently.
“No, but I can look up the number for his foster parents –”
“N-no,” he gasped, putting a hand to the wall again as his vision started to go black. “N-no, no, no, no, you ca-can’t call Madelyn, don’t call Madelyn, don’t tell her where I am, she’ll hu– I-I can’t let her find you, I can’t… can’t let her hurt Charlie…”
“Alright, come on, son. Come on, no – no, no, don’t collapse just yet. There you go, come on…”
There were hands on him again, but there wasn’t anything left for him to care with. All he knew was that those hands weren’t Charlie’s, they weren’t his mum’s, and that second thought stuck in the back of his throat like a shard of glass.
He was vaguely aware of being led through the house, remembered noticing when the sound of the rain faded softly into the background instead of pelting down all around him. He was handed a towel and pyjamas and shown to the bathroom, all of it tinged in warm pink tones and cold shivers. He remembered saying yes when they asked if he would be okay by himself; he was always okay by himself. He was used to being okay by himself. He wouldn’t ask for anything more, because asking led to –
“I’ll be right outside the door if you need anything.” Ingrid’s hand on his shoulder, her face slowly coming into focus for all of a few seconds. “Okay?”
“’Kay,” he whispered, the shard tightening in his throat as she left him alone in the bathroom and shut the door. His clothes were dripping, and sank heavily as he put them on the floor. The shower was already running for him, not hot enough to produce a lot of steam. Still hotter than what got at either of his vampire-run homes.
Shayne lost his breath for a moment, feeling so dizzy he thought he might pass out. He could only manage to stand under the water long enough to be sure the rainwater was washed off. The pyjama pants and hoodie that he’d been given smelled just like Charlie, which he couldn’t decide was better or worse than nothing at all. They felt crisp against his skin, he instantly knew they’d been tumble-dried.
“Are you okay?” Ingrid called through the door not long after he’d shut the water off.
“Fine,” he tried to say, but the word caught in the back of his throat and he coughed, wondering for a second if he was about to be sick. He turned towards the sink, hands shaking as he held onto it, but the clenching in his chest had nothing to do with his stomach, and everything to do with his lungs, which felt like they had a mixture of feathers and pins thrashing inside of them.
“Sweetie?” Ingrid pushed the door open a few inches. “Are you dressed? Can I come in?”
“Yeah, I-I’m…” Shayne tried to clear his throat, though he only succeeded in making his voice even more gravelly. “I’m fine, sorry.”
Ingrid put out an arm for him to hold onto as he eased himself away from the sink. He head felt like it was being balanced on a toothpick.
“Let’s get you settled in Charlie’s bed,” she said, and it took a moment for Shayne to remember that Charlie wouldn’t actually be there. “You can sleep here tonight, but we have to contact someone and let them know where you are. Won’t your aunts be worried about you?”
“I left –” Shayne winced and swallowed back the urge to cough again, not wanting to unleash whatever he was carrying so close to Ingrid. “Left a m-message for… my cousin.”
“Alright,” Ingrid said, though she sounded dubious. “If you’re feeling better tomorrow, I’ll drive you back to the train station.”
Shayne wondered what was going to happen if he didn’t feel better in the morning, because right then it felt like his brain was never going to go back to the way it had been before it had become a dense, foggy wasteland for his thoughts. He had no idea how he got up the stairs, or which of Charlie’s parents had brought him a cup of hot lemon for his throat, or at what point the tears started again, because all of a sudden he was in the middle of crying softly into a pillow that was quickly losing its pleasantly cool temperature, and he wanted his mum.
“Shayne.” Trevor’s weight dipped the side of the mattress slightly. Once again, hearing his name in a stern voice made Shayne’s anxiety spike right up, skewering everything else he was feeling.
He jumped when Trevor touched his shoulder from outside the duvet, a nervous whimper scraping at his throat.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Trevor assured him, holding a mobile phone out towards him. “Here. It’s Charlie.”
“Charlie?” Shayne’s vision blurred a little as he tried to focus on the phone. “Can… Can I talk to him?”
“Yeah, that’s why I’m giving you the phone, son.”
Shayne’s hands were shaking as he untangled an arm from the duvet. He took the phone and held it to his ear, watching as Trevor smiled and got to up leave. He held his breath for a moment, silence tickling his nerves, before some part of his fog-addled brain remembered that the person picking up the phone had to say something to let the other person know they were there.
“Hello,” he said in a tiny voice that still managed to strain his vocal cords.
“Shayne!” Charlie gasped on the other end of the phone. “Lovely, I can’t – I can’t believe you went to my parents’ place. Holy shit, are – are you okay?”
“N-no…” Shayne’s chest ached with something beyond sickness, the shivering starting up again at the sound of Charlie’s voice, probably intensified by nerves and adrenaline. “I n-needed… I thought you’d be h-here.”
“I know,” Charlie whispered, sounding like he was almost in tears himself. “I know, I know, lovely. I’m so, so sorry. I’m going to drive up first-thing tomorrow. Okay?”
“Mmm.” Shayne’s eyes closed of their own accord at the mention of sleep, his bones and his head aching to just be allowed to relax without trying to think or react to anyone. Meanwhile, his heart was clenched tight with the need to have Charlie there, to have Charlie now, and he gritted his teeth in frustration at himself. “Sorry I’m so… selfish, and childish, I-I – I don’t know what I was… thinking…”
“Selfish?”
“I want you,” Shayne breathed, burying his head lower on the pillow, blocking his own view of the room. “A-and my mum, I want my mum, Charlie…”
Charlie’s breath hitched on the phone, and he took a moment longer than usual to reply. Shayne fought back a sob, knowing that it was going to be a big one if it ever saw the light of day. He couldn’t be sure, but he couldn’t remember ever voicing those words before.
“Shayne, that’s – that’s not selfish. Okay? I promise. I – I love you so much, and I’m so fucking sorry I’m not there… I shouldn’t have lied to you about moving.”
Shayne tried to hold in the sob a little longer, but couldn’t stop his breath from hitching as coughs wracked his lungs and his frame too.
Charlie gave a quiet whimper at the sounds. “Are you okay?”
“Sorry,” Shayne choked out, brushing his cheek against the top sheet to dry off some of the tears. The phone was starting to feel clammy between his hand and his cheek. “I just really… don’t feel good.”
“You don’t have to be sorry.”
As he got his breathing under control, the sharpness of the chest pains faded back into a dull, scratchy ache. Shayne focused on the crisp white duvet that swallowed him almost all the way to the top of his head, on the glow from the touch-activated lamp on the bedside locker, which turned the magnolia walls a soft orange. There was a strange sort of quiet, the kind that lingered after a door was closed and voices hushed. A deliberate, crafted quiet.
“God,” Charlie whispered down the phone. “I wish I was there. I wish I could hold your hand right now.”
“Mmm,” Shayne agreed, though he reckoned his fingers wouldn’t have had the strength to stay furled around Charlie’s. What he really wanted was Charlie’s body curled around his back, and his arms holding onto him until the shaking stopped. Just the idea of it, and the presence of his voice - that voice - was like an extra layer of warmth between his skin and the bedsheets.
“I’m in bed, too… I’m going to stay on the phone until you drift off.” Charlie’s voice was falling into softer and softer whispers by the second. “And if you go for a nice, long sleep, I’ll be there when you wake up.”