Chapter Text
She holds Bryan for a while, until he’s still. Michelle thinks he might have fallen asleep, as she sucks in another deep breath, trying not to think of the smell of blood she inhales as he shifts closer to her. She prods him a bit, makes him lean a little looser on his own. Carefully, she starts to untangle her body from Bryan’s, and he moves, ever so slightly. She's scared that he's woken up when she realizes he's never been quite asleep, not the whole time they were sitting there.
“Bryan? I was thinking.. would you like me to start a bath for you?” She asks.
He makes some indiscernible noise, clinging to her. She helps him stand up, slowly, supporting his weight as she leads him to the stairs. There's a trail of blood and.. other things on the floor from the ajar doorway, and she remembers to slip it closed and locked before she fully starts up the steps with Bryan. He still smells awful, covered in blood and sweat, and tear tracks have caught on all the brand new ribbings of scarring on his face.
She only notices his feet are bare and blistered, too, as he leans on her for support the whole way. Maybe if she was a bit stronger she’d be able to carry him. More than a bit, of course. A lot. A lot of lifting would have to be done for that, and work. Between actual work and the baby.
But if she could go back in time and actually do one thing to help from hearing the pain in his voice as he hobbles up the stairs, it would have been to make sure he’d never taken that stupid job.
Double pay, he’d said. It was worth it for avoiding the conversation of the pregnancy. Worth it to be back in two hours, even when he should’ve been done by 10. When she’d fallen asleep at Katie’s and had woken in the night, staring at the ceiling. Fearing, thinking. About Bryan, about the baby.
He hadn't been back until this. Until the darkest hours of the morning.
Slowly, they manage to get up the stairs. Katie’s stairs are steep, and their parents always chastise her for them. Steep steps to the guest bedroom. Steep steps to get to the bathroom with an actual bathtub.
Tiny problem for her. Michelle wishes she could have a house with Bryan, even as they both juggle jobs to make ends meet. In comparison, Katie’s hit it lucky.
But for Bryan, it's a bigger problem than expected. He’ll stop and try harder to climb them and stumble when he lands hard or painfully when his weight meets the step. So many times does Michelle have to pull him tight, using as much strength as she can muster with residue dizziness and shock still in her system to help him up the stairs.
Eventually, they make it.
The bath is hot. A glaring heat, opposite of that of the snow Bryan tracked in when he found his way into the house, into Michelle’s arms.
She doesn't mind it as she gets him into the tub, stepping in and the water tinges the tiniest bit red. But Bryan looks the tiniest bit more like her Bryan, even with the bright, angry scarring over the side of his face as she scrubs Katie’s guest-room eucalyptus shampoo into his tangled hair and he relaxes the slightest at her touch. The blood on her hands is washed away, and his is, too. In the water her dark hair reaches for his, and she tries not to stay too long with him in the water even as he’s clean and so is she now and the water’s growing cold. They sit for a while, Michelle’s mind drifting to daydreams of Katie arriving home the next day, or somehow arriving home early to the mess they’ve left behind. Her confusion. Katie’s dislike of Bryan, but love for her sister.
She’ll clean it up, she promises to the Katie in her head. What matters now is right in front of her, as she reaches to drain the water, eyeing Bryan as he numbly watches it swirl past them, into the drain.
All of a sudden he’s looking at her, staring, or staring past her, at nothing again? She doesn't like how he's stuck somewhere in his head, even as he follows her to get up from the tub, as she finds him an old tee and pajama pants he left the last time they were here together. Slowly, she stands for a moment, clothes carefully folded in hand. Bryan’s eyes still don't manage to quite meet hers, but he still clings to her with a hand, unwilling to let her go.
Michelle’s eyes skim over him once more. He looks half better all cleaned up, and now, not in the water of the bath, can she take in more of his visible injuries. Scars, more like. It pains her to realize he’s covered in them, as she hands him the tee which he starts to over his shoulders that are covered in strange areas where the skin seems stretched too tight over the bone or other areas where it seems as if there's too much. Almost lumpy, Michelle thinks. Very softly, she hums as she scans him over.
In some areas his skin is marked and still very red. Over his jaw, cheek, forehead on the left. His arm has what looks like the strangest poky bite mark, but he pulls it away when she tries to look. His stomach and rest of his torso haven't been spared, either, bubbling scars trailing down his waist to his legs and some even find themselves near the blisters at his feet.
Michelle can't even imagine what could have happened to him. Or how. Instead, once he's dressed fully, she forces her eyes to linger on his instead. Still dull. Misty. Staring at something she can only try to reach, and oh, God, how she wants to. Her worry burns with laden curiosity, and she quells it as she stares at him.
What could have possibly happened?
Gently, silently, she takes his hand again. She leads him to the bedroom she's been staying in– or they? Does she count the baby, now, as the both of them?– and turns off the lights in the hall.
Immediately, Bryan’s hand tenses around hers. He murmurs something under his breath and squints. Michelle clicks them back on before he can say anything, anxious deep in her gut.
For a moment, in the dimmed hall, his scars looked like webs, thinly laced and spindling down his form. Some lumpy, causing her eyes to skid after them. Her eyes glance up– and, Bryan’s here, she thinks, as his eyes really meet hers again with that reminiscently puppy-eyed look. Michelle lets out a breath she hadn't known she was holding.
“Baby.” She says, softly, pausing as they step through the bedroom’s doorway, where she casts a glance. It's all covered in Katie’s tastes, more of a minimalist aesthetic than her own, even though a few of Michelle’s relics are draped around. A knitted blanket on the bed, a few bright green plant pots and an antique drawer by the windowsill, which has the blinds drawn. Michelle’s bags are piled in a heap on the floor.
Bryan doesn't focus on any of this, except for her. His eyes well in the amber lighting and he stumbles, sticking to her as she sits him down onto the mattress with a soft creak. Before he can start to cry again– which is so rare for him, even as the absolute sweetheart he is, she curls an arm around him, trying to exaggerate every movement. She doesn't think she's scared him, but she doesn't want to. He leans into her again.
“I.. Shit, sorry.” Bryan sniffles. It's the first real words he's spoken in a while. “You.. you’ve been helping me goddamn all night.. er, morning, and I’ve just been. Well. Useless.” He snorts, glancing to his hands warily before gingerly wiping at his eyes, only to double take a look at his arms again.
“It's alright.” Michelle murmurs. “You should sleep.”
His eyes meet hers again, and she pauses, leaning away as she squints into them. The room is dim, but brighter than before and far brighter than the porch.
She stares at him. His eyes. The pupils don't look quite right. Apart from how red the whites are– from his tears, the pupils are..
Bryan stares back. “ ‘chelle?” He whispers, voice straining. Maybe he can see her expression. Is it that obvious?
The pupils are misshapen, black bleeding into the iris, which is dotted with tiny pinpricks of black, like a spill of ink.
Michelle leans back. After all the weird things tonight, this gets to her? But she can't seem to shake it off. “Your eyes.” She says.
“They're.. just. Different.”
He blinks and looks away, palely. Michelle watches him warily, as he picks at the blanket he’s seated on, tense.
“Different how?” He asks, gaze to the door, or the light that sneaks through the slight opening. He refuses to look at her.
Slowly, her hand falls over his. She gives a little squeeze, leaning to him and getting a little whiff of the eucalyptus shampoo. The smell of iron isn't there, not anymore. Not when she half expected it to be, somehow, stuck to his hair, his body, the shadow she’d seen on the porch.
‘“Just.. new–” She starts, blinking hard, then sits up, hands leaving his as she quickly slams open the door, dashing away and soon enough she’s heaving into the toilet, clutching the porcelain as she pukes.
Michelle hadn't eaten much that night, sick with worry for Bryan after that voicemail.
Now, she regrets it as bile burns her throat and she gags, wiping her mouth with a hand. Her shirt is slightly damp now, and she feels dizzy as she stares at the putrid yellow-green in the toilet bowl.
She could say it was morning sickness. That this is. That's what Bryan would assume, no?
Slowly, she pushes herself up from the bowl, flushing the toilet. There's another of her shirts, strung by the bath, left with the expectation of more sickness. More throwing up, all coming with the baby.
But this hadn't been that, part of her knows, deep inside as she changes her shirt.
Thinking of Bryan, sitting in the other room on the bed, feels alien. She swallows the lump in her throat and returns to him, wiping her forehead with a hand– it’d started bleeding again, somehow, but she can't find the energy to care.
Bryan is still sitting there, almost childlike. Staring at the wall. He doesn't notice her until she sits back beside him, managing a small smile.
“You alright?” Bryan asks, looking at her. He still looks so distant. How can she fix this? How can she help him? Her mouth pulls into a determined frown, deep in thought. She glances to the window. By now it's 7 AM, still dark out, and Michelle doubts Bryan has slept at all, and no less has any clue what time it is in this beginning of winter; where it gets dark all too fast and stays that way for far too long.
“Just a little bit of morning sickness?” Michelle mutters, leaning back against the bed. “You should sleep. I need to.. clean up downstairs.” She closes her eyes for a moment, trying not to grimace at the thought of the entry and the door, now locked, but still covered in blood. Or the stains he must've tracked in when he was still covered in the scent of wrong, of oddity, but still she took him into her arms.
Out of the corner of her vision, Bryan brings his knees to his chest, crossing his arms around his face with a little groan. “Do you have to go?”
Then again, does she really want to leave him alone?
“I’ll be quick.” Michelle promises, trying not to linger on the way his voice warps with discontent. She tries to be fast as she leaves him, quietly padding to the stairs. God, they're all a mess too and the banister, and the tub, but she decides to clean whatever’s closest to Bryan last, hoping he won't get too anxious when it seems like all he needs is her right now. Really, she's still trying to process the past few hours, as tired as she is.
As Michelle walks down the stairs, she glances back to the bedroom, door wide open.
Bryan makes a pained noise, and she stands there for a moment, staring at him in silence.
He hasn't noticed that she's still there. His eyes are narrowed, staring at the wall. The moment she leaves, he’s gone, too.
The worry she feels grows by every second she stares at him, but she rests a hand on the banister.
Behind her, the floor is still smeared with what she thinks is gore. It's an almost grey colour and in some parts still bright red. Where had all that blood come from? She swears there's less than what she’d glimpsed in the dark. None of it seems to be Bryan’s. Or was it Bryan?
Quickly, she glances back to him again, thinking of the blood, and resists the nausea coiling in her gut.
She gets to work on the cleanup as fast as she can manage.
After Michelle manages to try and draw the stain out with a quick little mixture to soak, she takes the stairs two at a time trying to get to Bryan, after texting a quick message to Katie. Bryan’s back, she’d messaged. Trying to avoid the topic of the mess, but God she was tired. And Bryan. Was he alright after leaving him? She’d popped back into the bedroom every few minutes or so, giving Bryan a bit of comfort, even as it seemed he wasn't going to be able to fall asleep without her by his side.
So, Michelle takes a moment. Lies down besides him and closes her eyes, all while she tries to avoid the one thing she can't get out of her mind; the shadow of the monster outside. Bryan is happy to see her, clearly having cried again as his eyes are puffy and red. She’s happy to see him, she reminds herself.
Michelle feels worse as she lies besides him. A hand reaches for hers that all for a second feels dizzyingly foreign. Bryan’s hands are replaced with someone else, now calloused and thick and almost.. sweaty.
She takes in a breath. Then another. Holds it. That's Bryan. It's his hand. It's him, besides her. But if she were to open her eyes, even in the lit room, even to a sleeping Bryan, who would she see beside her?
The cool scent of eucalyptus smells almost sanitary. It's strong. Almost sweet, in a way. Similar to the way meat smells when it's rotted.
And Bryan’s crying again. His hands curl around her waist, bracing for support from an invisible foe. Instinctively, she sits up, pulling him close as she brushes dark hair from her face to see him better. It's not her Bryan. Is it?
“Hey, baby.” She soothes. It's the third time he's woken up tonight, her with him. Only this time he isn't screaming.
Bubbles of snot pour from his nose. He thrusts his head into her shoulders and she pats his head softly, taking his hand gently.
“Michelle?”
For a moment she doesn't recognize his voice. He shifts his face, nose digging into her collarbone. She can't see his face.
“Yes, Bryan?” Michelle, ever so slowly, moves her hands up. Trying to cup his face. “Baby–” She chides as he moves his head away. She wants to be able to wipe the tears away, to help him heal.
Slowly her hands find his jaw and she turns his face up to hers, dark eyes pondering.
She doesn't expect what she sees.