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He can hear voices.
He recognizes only half of them. The voices that he hasn’t heard in years, the ones he never thought he’d hear again, surround him on all sides of the blackness he’s stuck in and drill into his brain. Some of them are screaming. He’s too frazzled to figure out what the other ones are saying.
“Kip! Help me!”
He doesn’t know where the voice is coming from, and he can’t see. He doesn’t know whether it’s because it’s dark or because he’s closing his eyes. Is he closing his eyes?
“Please!”
The voice rocks him to his core until he’s screaming back, “I can’t, I can’t—” in a panicked loop, and now he’s definitely closing his eyes. He realizes suddenly that he’s screaming at nothing; everything is quiet now, so his eyes slowly slide open. He sees nothing again.
Wait. A face. Faces.
“Kent,” he whispers, and feels himself begin to shake all over.
His brother stares at him sadly, resigned. He doesn’t speak. Kip reaches out with a trembling hand. Then he blinks and sees a motionless body. His motionless body.
He feels like he’s going to pass out and crumple to the ground next to his brother. “N-No, wait—
He’s dead. He’s dead and there’s nothing Kip can do about it.
No!”
Kip jerks upright in bed with a gasp, heart pounding a hole into his ribcage. He lets out a couple of shaky breaths before he realizes that the darkness is his room and not his dream, and he’s in his soft bed, warm except for the chilling sweat that clings to his forehead and arms and legs. Especially around his legs. His pants feel… damp. Too damp for sweat.
He exhales deeply as a pit settles into his stomach. Not again.
With slow, groggy movements, he clicks his lamp on and dons his glasses. As he peels away the covers, there’s no denying it in the light. There’s no mistaking the dark halo under his waist and on his clothes for sweat. And, now that he’s more awake, he can tell that the back of his shirt is wet at the bottom too.
He wet the bed again.
Kip grimaces miserably at the way his pant legs cling to his legs. This is the second time this week he’s woken up like this. The nightmares haven’t been this awful in a while, not awful enough to warrant this, but with all the stress building up from different things—Wallace’s move in, the way they had all cornered him in the apartment, drudging up old demons—plus the sheer anxiety from his nightmares, it isn’t too surprising.
That still doesn’t keep him from feeling embarrassed. When he was sixteen, this was more understandable, but now he’s a grown man, and he shouldn’t be wetting the bed.
When they first moved in, Kip almost didn’t get a plastic cover for his mattress. He hadn’t had those problems in years; he was doing well, and he was completely over it, he told himself. And Molly. But she had smiled at him awkwardly, and she said she thought so too, but… precautions and all? It had taken a little coaxing, but in the end Kip decided that it would be worth it in the future to preserve his mattress in case he… in case he had a bad night.
Now, as he pulls all the blankets and sheets off and leaves them in a bundle on the floor, he’s glad he listened. His hands still shake slightly from the dream. The other night, when he’d woken up in the morning with wet sheets, he thought he’d just had a one-off isolated incident, but tonight proves him wrong.
Molly and Roy are thankfully still asleep, because it’s sometime in the middle of the night. Kip showers and the warm water makes him feel slightly better, physically, but otherwise he just continues to feel terrible. He’s wet the bed for the second time in a week, and he’s tired but won’t be able to go back to sleep from the constant nightmares that just keep getting worse.
Once he’s in a clean pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, he cleans up his bed, gathers the ball of blankets and sheets in his arms, and begins to trudge out with his shoulders hunched. Sure, he could use the extra sheets if he wants, but he’s ninety-five percent sure he won’t be able to sleep again. And if he does, he’ll probably have another nightmare, and maybe he’ll wake up soaked again. Twice in one night? No thank you.
Before he goes out, though, he leaves a sticky note on his nightstand in case of the very rare chance that someone is up in the middle of the night and notices he’s gone. He doesn’t want his friends flipping out when they see his empty bed in the middle of the night with no explanation. Doing laundry, be back soon.
He walks slowly down the hall with some blankets trailing on the floor behind him, thinking about his promises and expectations, about Kent. He feels a distinct tightening in his chest and a sense of helplessness, still reeling. He doesn’t want a repeat of what happened.
“Calm down,” he whispers fiercely to himself and his beating heart in the near-silence, concentrating on the way his bare feet sound on the floor. He needs to think. If he’s going to go in, he needs a plan.
He doesn’t want a repeat of what happened. Molly and Roy mean too much to him. He can’t let it happen again.
I can’t—
Kip inhales sharply and opens the door to the laundry room so fast that in nearly slams against the opposite wall, eliciting a loud gasp from someone else in the room. His gaze is automatically drawn to the man on the left wall, who’s perched stiffly on the edge of his seat and staring at Kip with wide eyes.
“Kip!” Wallace says with a little yelp in his voice, “O-Oh. Oh, man, you scared me.” He slumps a little against the plastic chair, smiling weakly. “…Hey.”
Kip doesn’t respond. He stares at Wallace, hyper aware of the haggard expression on his face and every odd angle his hair sticks out at. He probably looks horrendous. However, Wallace doesn’t exactly look presentable either, with a bedhead that rivals Kip’s own and prominent bags under his eyes. He’s also in shorts and a shoddy-looking t-shirt.
“So, uh… You too, huh?” Wallace’s smile turns sheepish, awkward.
Kip wonders what he’s talking about. Then it occurs to him that he’s holding his damp sheets, and it hits him that there’s only one possible, logical reason for him to be at the laundry room in the middle of the night washing his sheets.
He feels his face flame with a blush and hugs the bundle closer to his chest as if he can hide it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mutters peevishly, crossing the room to one of the empty washing machines. Two machines down, one rumbles quietly, washing what has to be Wallace’s own sheets. He takes little solace in the fact that Wallace wet the bed too.
“It’s okay,” the other man says, even though it’s not okay because he wet the bed and now Wallace knows about it. Even if he never brings it up, because he seems to be a nice guy like that, Kip knows he’ll remember it and probably think about it every time he sees him. Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but still. Now someone else is witness to his shame. “Does this happen often?”
Kip frowns as he stuffs the sheets into the machine, quick to answer “No.” He doesn’t want to tell Wallace about it, but he also doesn’t want him to think that he has a bedwetting problem, which he doesn’t.
“Me either,” Wallace continues, and if he insists on talking, Kip is going to leave very fast. “I-I think it was the stress? Has this… um, has this happened to you before?”
“Wallace,” Kip says way more vehemently than he needs to, closing the top before turning around to direct a glare at him, “I don’t want to talk about this with you. And frankly, it’s none of your business.” He turns back around before he can see Wallace’s reaction and turns the dial with a click, forcing himself not to feel guilty. He might have been a little mean, but—
“What is with you?”
Kip resists a wince. Great. Way to go.
He glances over his shoulder and tries to look questioning. Wallace’s entire demeanor has changed: now he’s sitting upright, hands clenched into fists, looking angry and upset. And… kind of hurt? “I was just asking a question, jeez. Why do you have to bite my head off every time I talk to you? What did I do wrong?”
Kip inhales deeply, staring at the dial on the washing machine. “You didn’t… you didn’t do anything wrong.” He feels nauseous and tired and a lot of other things that he can’t sort out, besides the prominent feeling that he should be apologizing.
“Well, obviously I did something,” Wallace huffs.
Kip whirls back around to stare irritably at him. “Look, you—you were digging into personal matters. You didn’t do anything wrong, it’s just—” Kip throws his hands up helplessly. “It’s not your business!”
“You could’ve told me that you didn’t want to talk about it instead of getting mad for no reason,” Wallace responds hotly, motioning with one hand. “I was just trying to help. I’m always trying to help, but I can’t if nobody will let me.” One of his hands goes up and tangles itself in his already messy hair, and he rises from his seat. “I don’t even know what to do at this point! Nothing is working. Everyone is telling me to get help from you, but all you do is blow me off and get mad at me. I don’t understand what’s so great about you.”
Something in Kip bubbles over and bursts out. “I don’t know what’s so great about me either!” he says, and he’s shaking again, all the anxiety from the nightmare rushing back in an instant. He thinks about Kent and all the others that were dead and missing, all the others that are dead and missing now, all the people he can’t help. “I couldn’t help then, and I can’t help now, and for some reason everyone thinks I can magically solve all their problems, but I can’t do anything, so don’t—don’t think—”
His vision swims and blurs before it clears, showing Wallace’s slightly shocked and horrified expression. At first Kip thinks it’s because of what he’s saying, but then he realizes that his vision is blurring from tears. He’s crying.
“I—” he starts, his voice cracking, tears trailing down his cheeks. He’s not upset with Wallace, just himself, and he wants to stop the tears but he’s stressed and exhausted and he just can’t. He scrubs hastily at his face and takes a deep breath before he can speak again. “I’ll… I’ll do my best to help you,” he mumbles, staring at the floor, “but don’t get your hopes up.”
He takes a few shaky steps backwards and collapses into one of the plastic chairs, staring at his knees. His hands are trembling again and his chest hurts.
Pull yourself together, he thinks harshly.
Suddenly, Wallace is wrapping his arms around him.
Kip goes stiff as he inhales the vague scent of aftershave and coffee, hair tickling his cheek. “What are you…” he says a little breathlessly, rephrases himself, “Why are you doing that?”
“Because,” Wallace mumbles. He sounds nervous.
“W-Well, you can let go,” Kip breathes without any conviction, hoping he doesn’t. It’s awkward, sure, but Wallace is warm and the feeling of someone’s arms around him is soothing the distress that runs through his body.
Wallace doesn’t let go. In fact, his grip becomes a little tighter. Kip gives up trying to fight it and lets his head drop, his forehead pressed against Wallace’s shoulder. He’s stopped crying, but his wet cheeks leave small damp spots on his shirt. They stay like that for several moments, Wallace bent awkwardly over the chair to hug him and Kip slumped in his grip, eyes shut and breathing deeply to compose himself.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” he says eventually, muffled, into Wallace’s t-shirt.
Wallace’s voice is a little startled when he speaks, but mostly soft and tired. “Oh, that’s okay. I’m—I’m sorry for what I said, too.”
They part and stare at each other for a few moments, then both look away at the same time, quiet. Kip stares at the washing machine and realizes he never actually started his sheets to wash. Slowly, he drags himself up and presses the start button, feeling the vibrations under his hand until he returns to the chair.
Wallace sits next to him. Their legs brush together. Kip doesn’t move, though, and neither does Wallace.
“Wallace,” Kip sighs after a few moments of silence, at the exact time Wallace starts “Hey, um.”
They blink and stare at each other. “Sorry, go on?” Wallace offers tentatively.
“What you said is true. I was being unreasonable,” Kip says, massaging the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
To his surprise, Wallace is shaking his head. “No. I mean, yes, you have been doing that, but I think I understand.” He twiddles his thumbs in his lap. Kip watches him visibly struggle with what he says next. “I didn’t actually mean what I said a moment ago, about you not being ‘all that’ or whatever. I’m just… really frustrated.” He peers at Kip uncertainly. “What did you mean, just now, when you said that you couldn’t help ‘then’? Did… did something happen?”
Kip goes back to staring at his lap. He thinks about the accident, about Kent, and his chest is tightening again. He briefly squeezes his eyes shut and doesn’t look at Wallace when he speaks. “Wallace, I really… don’t want to talk about that right now.” Maybe some other time that’s not the middle of the night, when he’s not going to pass out or fall apart.
“O-Oh, okay! I’m sorry for asking,” Wallace says hastily.
Kip looks over when he feels their shoulders press together. The chairs are close, but not that close, so that means Wallace had to consciously lean over to make their shoulders touch. And he did. He’s also not looking at Kip, staring into space with a partly worried and self-conscious look on his face.
Kip leans back into him, so much that their sides are almost together. “It’s okay,” he says quietly. He starts to wish their chairs were even closer. “Are you?”
“What?” Wallace asks groggily.
“These things don’t just happen,” Kip says pointedly, feeling the regular tingle of embarrassment at mentioning what happened, then he ignores it. Between his exhaustion and the fact that they’re practically pressed up against each other, he doesn’t have much room to feel bashful. “It’s usually for a reason. Are you alright?”
“Oh, yeah,” Wallace says, sounding sheepish once again. “I’m okay. I-I think it’s just that everything happening at once, with the move-in and my job, you know? Everything here is so different, and I don’t know anybody.” His voice takes on a forlorn tone and he rubs the back of his head. “I’ve kinda been on edge since I got attacked. It’s… a little scary. Not knowing what people might do to me.”
Kip sits up abruptly, making Wallace lose his balance. “Wait, that’s how you got your head injury?” he says, whipping around to stare at Wallace with wide eyes. It probably isn’t that much of a jump to make, but he knows Wallace is clutzy. He’d thought that Wallace had just bumped his head or something. Or rather, Kip had hoped it was just that.
“Yes?” Wallace sounds unsure as he rubs an arm and starts looking self-conscious again.
“By whom?”
“One of my clients. I don’t want them to get in trouble, though,” he says, hasty to add the last part with his hands raised in a surrendering gesture. “I probably caught them off guard.” He looks so earnest and worried that Kip almost feels suspicious; part of him thinks, don’t let your guard down in front of this guy. But a much larger part of him is justifiably concerned and stuffs the other skeptic parts of him into a box.
“You’re… you’re alright, though,” he ventures, half a statement and half a question.
“Yeah, it’s fine. Just sore.” Wallace rubs his head a little more and stares at his lap. “I’m worried about what’s going on over there, but I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to go back.”
Kip would play it safe, but Wallace doesn’t have that luxury. It’s his job. “You need to be really careful if you do,” Kip advises him.
Wallace makes noise of agreement. “Hopefully I’ll have better luck with people once they see I’m with you.”
Kip frowns a little at the wording, picking at fuzz on his knee before fixing him with a hard stare. “Wallace,” he begins firmly, “I told you—”
“I know, I know, but you’ve got to be underestimating yourself at least a little bit,” Wallace insists. “People wouldn’t direct me to you without a good reason.”
“Who’s people?”
“Kate and Molly, mostly. But others like Roy and Cuddy have mentioned you too.” Wallace sighs and rubs his arm, staring nervously down at the floor. “Thank god for all you guys. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“What are you talking about?” Kip asks, tilting his head.
“I kind of don’t know about anything or anyone here,” Wallace admits. “It’s driving me crazy, the way monsters stare at me on the streets or in the apartment or just anywhere. It’s just such a relief to see a friendly face after all those glares and skeptical eyes.”
“Oh,” Kip says, thinking about all the times he didn’t greet Wallace, whether on accident or on purpose, or the less-than-warm times he did. Guilt gnaws at him now, brought on mostly by Wallace’s faraway expression.
A few moments later, one of the washing machines slows to a stop and beeps. Wallace painstakingly rises from his seat to go attend to it. Because he was leaning so much on the other man, Kip nearly falls sideways in his chair, but quickly rights himself with a blush. Wallace, apparently preoccupied with moving his laundry to a dryer, doesn’t notice. When he walks across the room, Kip sees that he’s also barefoot.
Wallace closes the door and sets his sheets to dry, then returns to his seat right beside Kip, brushing shoulders invitingly. Kip hesitates before his sleep-deprived mind decides it values warmth and comfort more than dignity. He leans back into Wallace, slowly, until they’re completely pressed against each other. He’s warm. Kip almost sighs.
“You don’t have to stay, you know,” he mutters a second later, obviously because he hates himself and loves torture. He actually wants Wallace to stay, even if they’re just going to sit beside each other in sleepy silence for another hour, but at the same time he sort of loathes himself for it.
You ignore him until his presence is convenient for you, Kip reprimands himself bitterly, wanting to move away from Wallace and sit upright on his own but not having the strength to manage it. He never thought he’d find Wallace actually comforting. (Though it’s not Wallace himself that ever made him uncomfortable, he reminds himself; it’s the fact that Wallace’s human, and that’s different.)
He’s so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he almost misses Wallace’s quiet “Huh?”
“Nobody’s going to steal your things, if that’s what your worried about. You can go back to bed,” Kip continues.
Wallace blinks tiredly for several moments before responding with a halfhearted shrug. “I guess. But I don’t think I’ll sleep, so might as well do this now.”
Kip hums softly. It goes quiet again, excepting the ever-present rumblings of the washer and dryer.
Then, suddenly, Wallace lets out a loud peal of laughter.
Kip jolts from his side as if he’s been shocked and stares at him, expression simultaneously incredulous and disgruntled.
“Sorry, I just,” Wallace breaks into a wide grin that slowly shrinks down to a small smile. “I haven’t slept at all tonight; My house calls start tomorrow at eight, and it’s already 4AM.” His expression turns sheepish, cheeks flooding with pink. “I don’t know why I thought that was so funny. I’m sorry.”
Kip stares at him for a moment. “I could go with you.”
Wallace tears his gaze away from what was presumably a fascinating spot on the wall to look at him with surprise. “What?”
“Well, I did say I’d try. To help you.” Kip coughs a little, wishing they were just sitting together in silence again.
“But,” Wallace goes, eyes still wide, “that’s—that’s kind of early, and you should really get some sleep, you look terrible—”
“That’s what I was going for, thanks,” Kip says flatly; even if he knows it’s true, he feels a little chagrined that Wallace apparently felt the need to point that out. “You know the markings under my eyes are permanent, right?”
Wallace’s reaction is purely comical. His entire faces goes red as one hand flies into his hair again, the other to his chest. “N-No, that’s not what I—! I didn’t,” he flounders, and honestly it’s so hilarious Kip can’t help cracking a smile, “I know; I didn’t mean it like that! You just look tired—I mean—you… should probably get some sleep,” he trails off in a mumble, looking very embarrassed.
“It’s a joke, Wally,” Kip emphasizes, almost fondly, only realizing what he’s said when Wallace stops looking embarrassed and starts looking shocked.
“You called me—”
“No, I didn’t,” Kip interrupts, blushing deeply. Way to go. Again. His sleep-deprived brain obviously should not be allowed anywhere near anyone else.
“You can call me that if you want,” Wallace says. His smile is wide.
Kip gives a small huff and looks the other way. “Anyway, I can go with you tomorrow—er, later today—if you want me to.”
They’ve relaxed again; or rather, Wallace has relaxed beside Kip, leaving the monster practically no choice but to do the same until they’re settled as comfortably as they were before.
“Of course I do, but you need to sleep,” Wallace says.
Kip lifts one shoulder in a lazy shrug. He could fall asleep and actually get rest, or he could have another nightmare. “What about you? You’ve barely slept.”
Wallace stares at his knees self-consciously. “That’s… different.”
“How?” Kip challenges. Not really giving him a chance to continue, he barrels on, “I’m off tomorrow, so it would be the perfect opportunity. Besides, I could always nap later in the day,” he adds.
Wallace doesn’t talk for several moments, fiddling with his hands and staring at his knees. Kip watches him tap his fingers on top of each other.
“Okay,” he says at last, returning his attention to Kip, “…if you really don’t mind.”
“I don’t,” Kip says firmly. “I said I’d do my best to help you, and I will. Okay?”
“Yeah.” Wallace inhales deeply and gives him a tired smile. “Thanks.”
Over an hour passes before Kip’s finally back in his room, tugging the fresh sheets over the mattress. Wallace had finished his laundry long before Kip but had remained in the laundry room until Kip was finished. That was something Kip didn’t miss, something he was simultaneously embarrassed about and grateful for.
He collapses into bed with a sigh. He feels surprisingly okay, even though he’ll have to wake up in a few hours, get presentable, and pull himself up to the expectations everyone is setting for him.
Despite the tough morning ahead, Kip falls asleep feeling lighter than he did the day before. He doesn’t dream.