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The frenzy ended.
With the blink of an eye, the endless, ever-quickening cycle was gone and the lights out with it. Like a broken circuit, his heart still flickered and twitched. Bloodshot eyes could not make out a single shape in the darkness.
Blaine clenched the strands of hair he tore in his fist. Blue flittered in his fingers like worms. Even as his heavy breaths filled the room, he still couldn’t find it in himself to move. His legs were buckled to whatever fate the bed had resigned him to. Yet as the achingly long seconds passed, the traces of the familiar room emerged, with no unwanted faces accompanying it. The chest of a friend he thought he’d never see again slowly rose and fell in the nearby bed.
The sight makes his stomach twist in what he can’t tell is happy or yucky. But he’d learned by now that there were surprises in the corners, bad surprises that he needed to keep an eye out for, despite how much he wanted to lay down. Blanket for a shield, he tucked the fabric to his chin.
He fought his eyes attempting to flutter closed whilst forcing himself to stay straight on his back. Turning to his side would leave an open space for someone to sneak up on him. Though it was uncertain, the thought that watching would stop whatever would be happening next was a comfort. But not by much, considering how his eyelids wanted the unknown to creep in on him.
He couldn’t check the hour- maybe that was a good thing?- but he hoped it was time for the sun to come soon. If it were here, the edges and colors wouldn’t get lost in the shadows so easily. As he repeatedly forced his rolling neck back into place, however, the more it seemed the sun was forever away.
Eventually, though, there was the distant sound of keys jingling in the front door. And every corresponding step jolted through him like the next dissonant chord of a horrible tune. As they drew closer to the bedroom, he buried himself under the covers and squeezed his eyes shut. He curled onto his side and tried to stay as still as the bed frame itself.
The door slowly opened, and the feet on the floor only got closer. Though he faced away from the presence. he knew it lingered between his bed and Duck’s.
He wished it was time to go home.
But as the movement trailed to the bed on the other side, he realized how familiar the sound was. With a creak of the mattress, Blaine just barely cracked his eyes open.
Head in hands, it was his friend, Red.
The board in his spine could bend, ever so slightly, now that both of his friends were back. But he needed to stay awake, still. There were all kinds of horrors in this house, and outside, but especially in this house, that he needed to stay alert for. He couldn’t stop them, but it felt a little better to know that it was coming.
Despite his insistences to himself that he wouldn’t do so, he sank into the soft pillows on his bed, and his mind drifted into a nonsensical world not unlike his own- which was probably why he kept startling awake, before the exhaustion would win over again, of course.
After a few rounds, it was a hand on his shoulder waking him up instead.
“Wakey wakey, sleepyhead!” A familiarly shrill voice insisted, “come on, wake up!!!”
Blaine turned with a groan to face the sound, trying to rub the tired out of his eyes. Duck stood there, jaunty as ever.
“Huh?”
Seeing that he was awake, Duck leaned down to greet him.
“Red told me you’ve had a rough night, so I’ve made the both of us a big stack of delicious pancakes,” he explained, “to cheer you up!”
The last he saw of him was the scrape across an empty platter. Raw slags of meat had somehow been unconsumed.
“What’s the matter?” He pressed a warm hand to his forehead. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
He blinked, not a detail was out of place. His tongue itched.
“...Duck?”
He sighed and turned on his heel, but the smile didn’t fall. “Come on, don’t keep me waiting!”
With that, he started on the way out of the bedroom. Blaine watched him leave, waiting for a misstep to reveal him as a lookalike, but one never came. He slowly abandoned his thin shield for his bedroom shoes, flinching when the mattress squeaked beneath him. He glanced around.
Maybe it was only a nightmare. One of those where it lasts longer than the sleep seems to, and tires him out more than the day did. But then, he saw it.
A black streak down the side of his bed- one he wouldn’t have noticed if he didn’t know to watch for the little things now. It weighed heavier than the shadows. Unable to tear himself away from it now, it glared so horribly against the rest of the colorful room. A portal to the abyss, ready to yank him into the darkness. His index finger skimmed the substance- cold like touching a porcelain toilet seat- and a wave of revulsion up his arm sent him stumbling backward.
The oil stained into his fingerprint. It didn’t quite come off, even when he smeared it on his pajamas.
He left the room before anything else could happen.
The kitchen table had a plate of breakfast for him, as promised. Duck waved at him between bites of pancake, and Red nodded at him from beside the coffeemaker. And there was a third person, the sketchbook. She seemed to have been dreading his presence as much as he dreaded theirs though, because with a blink, it was all closed up again.
He eyed them as he pulled out his chair, not daring to look away until he was sure there wouldn’t be another song. He blindly fumbled for his fork. He glanced down, to make sure his breakfast wasn’t going to move, either, but when he looked back to them, there was only vacant space.
His pancake, with a nose of melting butter, eyes of blueberries, and a smile of haphazardly cooked bacon, was happy. He was not.
He couldn’t make himself look at his friends, only the pink syrup that oozed from his blueberries. The tingling in his fingers wouldn’t stop even as he held his fork. He ran them over the metal of the prongs, and the smooth rubber on the handle, hundreds of times. The heartbeat in his ears drowned out the coffee maker and the wet in his eyes blurred away the happy face.
Little whines started to crawl through his throat, itching until a line of wet started to ooze down his upper lip. Out the corner of his eye, he saw a green blur begin to lean closer.
A repetitive shriek sent his fork clattering across the table. Rapid eyes spun around the room. The green blur was Duck again, his hand fixed to his torso.
He sighed, “oh, just the phone.”
Duck passed Blaine’s fork back onto his napkin, but his gaze stayed fixed on Red, who listlessly grabbed the phone off the receiver.
A quiet ‘mh-hmm’ or two, then Red was holding the phone out to Blaine.
“It’s for you.”
He looked at the phone, big enough he had to use both hands to hold it, and followed its spiraling cord back to the receiver, and then over to Red.
“It’s your dad.”
And suddenly those vacant eyes had their spark back for a moment. He took the phone like it was the last flashlight in an endless darkness, or the key out of a room he’d been stuck in.
He pressed it to his ear and a voice came rasping through the static.
“Am I speaking to Blaine?”
Timidity replaced the usual gush of excitement he felt for him. He wanted him there all yesterday. He wanted him there to stop it all with just one word, or even less.
“...Uh, y-yeah.”
He saw Red shrug at Duck’s knitted brow. It made him look back at his pancake and tuck his knees to his chest.
He was sure he could’ve, if he had just been there.
“Would you like to come home today?”
The thought made his pancake smudgy again, so he hid his eyes in his legs.
It would’ve been better even if he couldn’t stop it. Just to know he was watching out for him would’ve made it a little easier.
He sniffed, “yeah…”
Home was far away. Safer.
“I’ll be arriving shortly, then. You’d best be prepared.”
“Okay,” he sank closer to the phone, resting his head against the wooden backrest, “bye, Dad.”
Red started to reach for the phone.
He squeezed his eyes shut, “I love you.”
A puff of breath.
“I love you, too. Goodbye.”
Blaine handed the phone back, nothing but dial tone from the other end.
He squirmed in his seat, knocking his ankles together. Every second he spent here was another second too long. He hated to think that, especially since his friends were right there, but spending time with them could be yesterday all over again, and he didn’t want to be around for that.
But he would, at least for a little while longer.
He forced down a bite of his breakfast before sliding off the chair with a mumbled apology. His feet were hitting the hallway floor as soon as Duck opened his mouth.
“What’s the matter with him today? He barely took a bite of his food, and he loves pancake mondays.” He finally released the lapel he was white-knuckling. “Maybe he’s just growing into a waffles person. I’ll have to save some for him later!”
With that, he leaned over the table and skewered the pancake with his fork before plopping it onto his own plate.
“Ah. Well,” Red stirred his coffee, “he had a pretty bad nightmare.”
“I don’t blame him one bit,” Duck said through a mouthful, “I’ve had a dreadful night myself.”
He looked to the hallway that he ran down, “I’m sure he’ll be over it by this afternoon.”
“Mhm…yeah.”
Blaine needed to be dressed for when his dad came.
The lights in the computer's room were still blown. He didn’t look long enough to spy any shards of glass on the carpet, lest the screen that waited in the darkness flicker on again.
Instead, he hurried to his bedroom. He scanned the room before he stepped inside. He thought of just wearing his clothes from yesterday, but the iron smell wafting from the cracked hamper suggested otherwise. He smothered it with his pajamas and blindly pulled an outfit from his drawer instead.
The tag of his shirt scratched against his chest. He never could get it right on the first try. Today, though, the feeling crackled deep into his nerves and made his eyes get teary again. With a huff, he struggled it off and sent it sprawling across Red's bed.
He tried to be fast. The furniture was inching closer with every blink.
Blaine eventually stumbled into an outfit, but he could never find matching shoes, either. Whenever he found one, he would lose the other. Same with his socks.
A bumbling hand in the piles, none quite the same color or length, through patterns he never wore, not even once, brushed something cold and small. He carefully lifted it to catch the light of the window. A golden ring, engraved with swirling flowers of pink and red.
It hung off his finger like something he'd grow into, but it'd be more fitting in his mom's old jewelry box.
Vivid colors swirled inside it with promises of magic, but clipping the earrings on earned him nothing more than a quizzical look from his dad.
He led him back to the bedroom and laid all the adornments out on the covers for him to rummage through. Blaine examined every glittering accessory and carefully sat them back into the box that his dad cradled in his hands. He said he made most everything in it for her.
There were all kinds of ways. The earrings he lightly tugged off Blaine’s ears were the work of some spare buttons and clips. The bracelet of hopping rabbits was made from gold leafing and an old storybook that he tucked into a den and dug out the next morning. The little necklace was the gift of a minnow he caught, one that offered presents in exchange for its life.
Blaine could never quite tell if he was joking or not when he told him things like that.
After all the silly stories and spangling hues, he asked him if he was satisfied now. At his nod, the box snapped closed with a stern request to please not thoughtlessly pluck out whatever caught his eye again.
The way he got the ring he had now sounded like one of those stories he was told. And it’d fit right on top of everything else in that box. But he wouldn’t open it again, since he was not supposed to. And, despite the ring’s beauty, his stomach felt heavy when he held it.
The gifter, the one with ornate wings that beat like a hummingbird’s, was familiar. Familiar at first like the pigeons he sometimes saw outside, but that didn’t seem quite right now. Familiar like the people in stories read to him, ones he can’t say thank you to or accept gifts from. Ones that want to take his name.
He shivered and swapped the ring for a pair of mismatched socks.
It had been hours of minutes and his dad still wasn't there. So he went to sit in the living room, because everything felt a little bit faster in it.
He couldn't read the clock, though, because his face was buried in the newspaper. Blaine sat on the couch, pressing himself into the armrest to avoid getting any closer to him than necessary. Maybe the clock couldn't read him either.
He squeezed the railing. When his arm skimmed the velvet, the color looked ever so slightly different.
The material hummed under his fingers as he traced shapes into it. Random lines, little faces. He swept his hand over his canvas.
Starting again, he drew a tall figure whose lines reached all the way down to the cushion. He smeared the arm of the next figure, so it looked more like a blob, but the two were holding hands.
A cold feeling in his neck prompted him to turn and see the eyes peeking over the newspapers. In an instant they were rustled in the words and comic panels again.
He opted to wait at the front door instead.
It wasn’t that much farther, but it was farther than that couch. He palmed the floor as he sat, the flatness of it rubbing the hard insides of his hands. It jutted against the underside of his legs, like it wanted to bend him into impossible angles. Though he wiggled, he couldn’t fit himself into a more comfortable position.
In wasted effort, he relented and leaned his head against the door. Whispers filled the silence when his eyes fluttered shut. Voices he couldn’t quite discern from each other, hushed concerns. Hints of consequences that cannot be returned from. Talks of bad dreams that continue long after the sun rises.
The nearby vent blew ice cold air against his side. The sounds got farther the longer it blew, until he heard nothing but the fuzzy, slow bumping of his thoughts. All he could think of was curling up in his dad’s bed- not his own, he didn’t trust a bed meant for him anymore- and sleeping. Far too early for bedtime, he knew, but it felt like he’d missed a few.
It wouldn’t be the first time he crawled under those sheets. In many bad dreams past, he blubbered into that bedroom without a second thought.
He’d bury himself up to his nose in the covers and cling to the warm beside him. Sometimes the warm would sigh and hold him. Sometimes it would cocoon the covers around him. Sometimes it’d move the small hand that dug into its ribs and squeeze it.
And sometimes the warm wouldn’t be there, and he’d run out to find it flicking through TV channels in the living room, or drawing things in the studio.
No matter where, he’d be put to bed and wake up to the smell of breakfast wafting in, having slept so well that there were creases in his skin.
But this time, he woke up to a knock at the door and a crick in his neck. Slippery wood tiles nearly sent him crashing back down, but he still threw the door open before any footsteps could make it halfway over.
Silence filled the house, save for the sound of labored breathing.
He knew he’d come.
His heart beat like it was trying to burst from his ribs and run off. Sobs finally broke through him like water from a dam.
He buried his face in the dark fabric of his dad’s overalls. He didn’t want to have to tell him about any of it. He hoped that he already knew about it all.
“I- I missed you ,” his cough was muffled. “I really missed you.”
His shivering was met with a pair of hands resting on his shoulders, rubbing the back of his neck and trailing into his hair. The calloused fingers running through his blue strands steadied his breath. It made him finally pry open the eyes he was squeezing shut. The hands gently guided his head up.
Usually, Roy had the kind of eyes that saw so much they saw nothing at all.
Sometimes one rolled in the wrong direction, and he couldn’t quite blink it back into place. Once or twice he saw him with glasses haphazardly balanced on his nose that forced them to attention. And even then, it seemed like he was looking past the scenery. He looked most people over the shoulder, or not at all.
But this time was different. His head tilted back and his brow furrowed, like he was searching for something. Blaine was being traced and diagrammed. There were the faintest embers of his reflection in those bloodshot eyes, warm like a stove he couldn’t touch.
The longer their eyes met, the more his mind calmed. He wavered his hands atop the wrists at his cheeks. A lifeline that pulled him away from his surroundings.
He blinked the remaining tears away, now unaware of the extra pupils on his back.
Roy knelt to his son’s height, and Blaine finally caught the light behind his shoulder. He cringed into his neck, where stringy pieces of hair brushed against his cheek.
“Are you all ready to go?”
He was the only person he’d speak to, whispering if anyone was in earshot. The sound of his voice felt like their secret.
He sniffed. “Yes…”
“Good, good,” his hand pressed the curve of his back, “and you’ve given everyone your farewells?”
“Um,” Blaine clung to his shoulders.
Whenever it was time to go back to his dad’s house, he always said goodbye. Half the time Duck would shout across the room for him to do so before he even turned around. And he’d get a wet peck on the cheek and a few sleepy pats on the head to see him off, and an extra bye-bye or a dozen shouted across the lawn as he was led out to the sidewalk.
It felt wrong to not do it, especially now. He missed his friends terribly, and he still did, even though they were both back home.
But this house was alive, and it was hungry for the horrors to begin again. He knew it. He just knew it.
So he couldn’t stay a second longer. Even for that.
“I already-” he swallowed the tightness welling in his throat, “-told them goodbye.”
The embrace broke, but Roy stayed level with him for a moment longer. Hand on his shoulder, he still looked like he was trying to find something behind his eyes. It made him wonder if he saw his reflection too.
“Very well.” As he rose he slid his hand down Blaine’s arm, to his clammy hand. “We’d best be leaving now.”
The door closed behind him as he was pulled down the walkway. His shoes scuffed the gray pavement in his struggle to keep up. Even the grass that sprouted beside it looked murky. A cold drop of rain hit the back of his neck.
He craned his head past the now dull neighborhood, up to the sky. It was full of clouds, about to storm. He squeezed his dad’s hand a little harder, and hoped today would be better.