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wontgraham) wrote2022-06-07 06:22 pm
wontgraham) wrote2022-06-07 06:22 pm
fic • gerry
Gerry sits up sharply, and the first sign that what he just saw wasn't real is that this time when he tries to scream, he can hear his own voice. There's enough air for that — the darkness still surrounding him isn't full of dirt, piling over his limbs and through his lungs, but emptiness.
As soon as that thought processes, Gerry's no longer sure it's any better.
He's gasping, trying to remind himself what regular breathing feels like without the weight of the Buried on his chest, but then there's a new noise. A door slams open and Will's voice rings out.
"Are you okay?" Panicked, choppy, shaky but sharp in that way that Will's sounded only a couple other times since Gerry met him. Gerry's learned to think of it as Big Fear. Will usually seems afraid, at least a little, and definitely more than most adults Gerry's met so far — but the Big Fear happens only sometimes.
Apparently, 'Gerry screaming in another room in the middle of the night' is one of those sometimes.
Gerry isn't sure what to do. He's long since gotten used to the double-edged sword of his distress being mostly invisible to his mother. Sure, it means there's been nothing to help him through any of his nightmares or more typical childhood fears, but it also means that if he's weak enough to wake up crying, she doesn't come rushing to stare at him or shame him. She'd rather just...sleep through it.
So Gerry freezes to the spot, staring up at the door mostly sightlessly. There's vague suggestions of shapes, and the ambient light through the edges of his curtains and from the hall behind Will gives just enough brightness that it's reflecting off Will's eyes. Technically, they're probably staring right at each other — Gerry's neck prickles with being watched, so they must be — but he can't even see what expression Will's wearing as he looks at him.
Humiliation starts curdling his stomach and heating his cheeks, and Gerry realizes for the first time that they're already wet — that he woke up crying — and he gives up. Just pulls his knees up and folds over them, hiding his face under his hands, his hair, and the darkness. "I'm fine," he tries to snap. His voice definitely shakes, and that embarrassment squeezes tighter.
It reminds him of his dream, that pressure he can't escape from — his own weaknesses all crushing him, letting the ambient dirt of his world wreck him, and Gerry feels his throat tighten and his lungs shudder and then he's crying. Bitter and angry and uncontrollable, he sobs against his own knees.
And then there's a hand on his shoulder. When did Will even move? Why did Will move? Gerry freezes, sort of, except he can't actually stop crying long enough to stop shifting with it. He's proud of himself for not flinching too badly.
He's expecting anything and nothing — for Will to leave, for Will to demand he get ahold of himself, for Will to drag the truth of his nightmare out of him and spin a horrifying lesson about the Fears from it.
Instead, Will's hand stays gentle against his shoulder, and then it shifts to his upper back. Over his spine, and then moving in a slow pattern Gerry fearfully tries to place. It's already slowed down his crying from sheer distraction before he realizes Will isn't tracing any sort of glyph or sigil that Gerry recognizes, just...circles. Big, slow circles, like he'd watched Will's hand do on Toast's belly the other day after she'd tired herself out playing.
Gerry manages to swallow and hiccup enough to force out words. "What— what're you doing?"
Will slows down but doesn't stop. There is a tension to the shadow of him next to Gerry that Gerry recognizes but can't figure out the cause of — like Will is watching something frightening and utterly determined not to show his fear. "Do you want me to stop?"
"That's not an answer, idiot." Gerry nearly spits on his own hand as he tries to swallow back another sob enough to speak. "Try again."
Will's hand doesn't stop. It doesn't stop, and the rhythm feels like it's slowly sinking down through Gerry's back to his lungs. The painful spasms of his crying ease back just a little. "I'm rubbing your back."
"Why?"
"Because I don't want you to feel alone right now." It's said with an awkward momentum, and the answer feels like a backhanded slap. Gerry isn't sure what to think about it. It— it's nice.
It's way, way too nice.
Will is an awkward weirdo, he's bad with people and he doesn't have friends — look, he said all that himself so Gerry's sure as hell allowed to think it — so why is Will wasting time on a kid, especially one as shitty as Gerry is?
The sobs come back. Gerry bites his lip, his tongue, the inside of his cheek, all to try to keep his jaw under conscious control.
"It's okay," Will says, and it's soft as if he's cooing at an animal, and Gerry pushes himself away even though the ache of refusing that gentle hand on him is painful.
"No, no. Why? Why are you doing—" and sobs overtake Gerry again as he flails back off the bed entirely, shoving at Will's hand when it once, all to briefly, reaches after him. "Is it just like—" He can't breathe. Just like in the dream — overwhelmed, overcome, buried under his own stupidity and weaknesses and the weight of a world that only seems to keep reminding him of all the ways he's failed anyone who was ever supposed to help him.
Gerry stumbles away from the bed, mind scrambling for steadiness as much as his legs are. When he finally trips over what's bothering him, it pours out instantly. "When are you gonna get sick of me?" There it is — the fear underneath the fear, layered and rotting and so humiliating Gerry feels like he's going to burn away before he gets the words out.
But he can see that the shadow of Will has shifted forward, not standing but at the very edge of the bed now, attention glued to him, and Gerry forces out one heaving word after another. "Because it's not like— it's not like I'm why you're acting like this." His voice cracks. "So what is it, then? Is it— pity?" Gerry doesn't even know what that word means, not really - it's such a distant concept, but one he's seen occasionally from strangers, he thinks, and he hates it. Like how you look at trapped zoo animals, or things at the shelter.
The connection snaps so loud Gerry could almost flinch from it, and it comes tumbling out of his mouth immediately. "Do you just like collecting strays?"
And immediately, Gerry knows that's only a fraction of the actual worry. His actual problem is...is...
Is that Gerry's a bad idea, a bad kid, and someone like Will who likes things that are as sweet and loyal and uncomplicated as dogs would never settle for something like Gerry.
But the false accusation is enough wretched anger to keep Gerry's lips pressed thin and quiet, and while he's still crying, he makes no noise.
For a moment, neither does Will. "I do," Will says at length. Gerry can't bring himself not to hang onto every word. "But I don't usually meet ones who also have nightmares."
Gerry sniffs. "Y-you have them, too?" Will likes telling stories. Gerry thinks if he prompts him, he'll get one.
He's right. "Yes. Assuming I can sleep at all." Will sighs, and it's not at all like how Gerry's mum sighs. Will doesn't sound disappointed or angry. "I actually was worried I'd end up waking you eventually. And...if you stick around, I probably will."
"So what?"
"So...if you think this is ruining anything, it isn't. I've seen things a lot worse than someone who's scared and hasn't done anything wrong."
"I'm not scared!" Gerry's voice doesn't quite echo in a room this cramped, not even at the volume he just shouted. "And— and I've done plenty things wrong."
"So have I." Will says it with such certainty, no hesitation, that Gerry actually doesn't challenge that idea yet. Even though he's sure Will can't mean wrong things like the kind of wrong things Gerry has done, it sounds like Will...might know. "And for a really long time, I thought the best thing to do to keep everyone else safe, and—" Will scoffs. "To keep me safe...was to avoid everyone else. But recently, I met someone who's made me think maybe I was wrong about that."
Gerry was crying already, but it was a fearful, gasping thing. This, this causes a painful tension in his throat that feels like it might just rip him in two. In a flash that hits like a real impact, he regrets the gap he pushed at between them. Gerry's standing several feet away from the dark shape of the bed, and Will's so carefully sitting at the edge of it, and Gerry wraps his hands up around his own elbows, hunching down. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Gerry wants to come closer. Does Will want him to come closer?
Gerry also wants to bolt. That's easier. His mom was easier, too — he knew what to expect with her, even when it was terrible. He's so much less certain about Will, whose unpredictability is a personality trait. There's always surprises, good and bad and neutral, and Gerry is so, so afraid. "Will—"
Will waits, but Gerry doesn't say anything else. After several seconds, Will says, "Do you want me to, uh— would you rather I left, or I stayed?"
Specific questions. It takes some of the horrible pressure off Gerry's chest, and even though it's terrifying, he can choke on a, "Stay."
"Okay." Will says it almost too fast.
Silence, again, and Gerry feels like his heart might burst out of his chest. "I'm cold, just standing over here," he says. Which is ridiculous, it's early summer in Virginia, but he needs an excuse to come back to the bed.
"Come here?" Will says, and maybe it's because even after all this it still sounds like an invitation, but Gerry listens instantly. Sometime between his first step and actually hitting the side of the bed with his shin, he sees the shadow of Will's arms move up, slow but steady, even with Gerry's shoulders.
Gerry wants to ask permission, so he knows he won't get shoved away, but being told no would hurt just as much. He stays there, shivering.
"You can." Gerry waits for Will to say more, barely breathing, eyes burning. "If you want."
Will moves his hands just a little closer. One of them touches Gerry's right shoulder.
It's enough to not have to make the first move. Gerry can say it was Will's idea, and he knows Will maybe won't immediately shove him aside, and he steps forward against the bed and into Will's arms.
Will is warm, warm enough it's actually a bit uncomfortable for a summer night as soon as he's wrapped his arms slowly around Gerry's upper back, but Gerry can't imagine asking him to let go. Gerry isn't sure what to do from here — how do you hug someone? You're probably not supposed to be choking back tears, right? Will shifts to the right just as Gerry tries to sneak his own arms around him in return, terrified but hopeful and expecting to regret it at any moment.
Gerry can't help but flinch, squeeze harder, and then flinch again when he thinks Will might be pulling away, but Will must just be shifting because he doesn't leave. And then Will says "I'm not going anywhere until you say you want me out," like he means it, low and as calm as Will ever sounds. And then Gerry just—
Breaks. Again. He sobs like he had right after the dream. He can barely breathe, his nose aches, his head hurts like it's stuffed full of cotton and nails. After the first several gulping, spitty sobs, Gerry couldn't even have said why he was crying, just that he had to. Like something that had been trapped was coming out, maybe.
It definitely isn't about the nightmare, anyway.
Will doesn't pull away. Not once. He doesn't flinch, not even when Gerry finally realizes how wet and gross the patch of t-shirt under his nose and mouth is. He's against Will's shoulder and everything is way too warm and damp and disgusting, and Gerry cannot imagine ever asking Will to leave.
Eventually, the crying slows down. The world feels fuzzy and surreal, and most parts of Gerry from the shoulders up ache. He sniffs and then pulls away just enough to wipe his nose on his own sleeve, and...still gross. "Sorry."
"Don't be." Impossibly, Will sounds like he means it. Like he doesn't mind. He also doesn't actually let go, just loosens his hold based on Gerry adjusting to sit up on his own. Over the course of the crying jag, they'd moved backwards — towards the head of the bed, so Gerry could sit down. He'd practically been in Will's lap, on his knees and folded against him, and now he sits firmly on his own side of the bed.
"...Kinda fucking exhausted now."
Will does one of those weird scoff-laughs. Gerry doesn't need the lights on to know exactly what his face looks like during that noise. "Yeah. I bet."
"I'm...gonna go back to sleep. Or...try to, I guess."
Will's quiet for a moment. "Okay. Here, uh...let me move—" But Will doesn't get off the bed. He just sort of wriggles the bedsheets down away, out from under him so the sheets aren't pinned down. Gerry has room to maneuver under the covers, now.
Gerry pauses, disbelieving but just as afraid of actually inciting Will to leave as he is of asking him to stay. But Will doesn't leave, nor does he say he's staying, and the tense uncertainty builds until there's a heavy ache in Gerry's stomach and—
"You mind if I stay?"
And just like that, the tension snaps, and Gerry feels those stupid tears come back again. "No." He tries for casual. He thinks he sounds embarrassingly choked, but Will doesn't scold him for it. Just nods up above him, and settles a little more firmly against the pillows.
"Here — this might be, uh. More comfortable."
In the end, Will is sitting upright at the head of the bed, and Gerry is laying on his side, facing him, and curled up against Will's legs. His head is pillowed on Will's mid-thigh. It's still way too hot and it smells like dog and weird cologne and it's the safest Gerry has ever, ever felt.
Will starts carding a hand through his hair around the time Gerry is losing his battle with consciousness, and the last thought Gerry has is that he really hopes Will hasn't forgotten it's him and just thinks he's petting one of his dogs.
He hopes Will knows it's him, and he's choosing to do this anyway.
As soon as that thought processes, Gerry's no longer sure it's any better.
He's gasping, trying to remind himself what regular breathing feels like without the weight of the Buried on his chest, but then there's a new noise. A door slams open and Will's voice rings out.
"Are you okay?" Panicked, choppy, shaky but sharp in that way that Will's sounded only a couple other times since Gerry met him. Gerry's learned to think of it as Big Fear. Will usually seems afraid, at least a little, and definitely more than most adults Gerry's met so far — but the Big Fear happens only sometimes.
Apparently, 'Gerry screaming in another room in the middle of the night' is one of those sometimes.
Gerry isn't sure what to do. He's long since gotten used to the double-edged sword of his distress being mostly invisible to his mother. Sure, it means there's been nothing to help him through any of his nightmares or more typical childhood fears, but it also means that if he's weak enough to wake up crying, she doesn't come rushing to stare at him or shame him. She'd rather just...sleep through it.
So Gerry freezes to the spot, staring up at the door mostly sightlessly. There's vague suggestions of shapes, and the ambient light through the edges of his curtains and from the hall behind Will gives just enough brightness that it's reflecting off Will's eyes. Technically, they're probably staring right at each other — Gerry's neck prickles with being watched, so they must be — but he can't even see what expression Will's wearing as he looks at him.
Humiliation starts curdling his stomach and heating his cheeks, and Gerry realizes for the first time that they're already wet — that he woke up crying — and he gives up. Just pulls his knees up and folds over them, hiding his face under his hands, his hair, and the darkness. "I'm fine," he tries to snap. His voice definitely shakes, and that embarrassment squeezes tighter.
It reminds him of his dream, that pressure he can't escape from — his own weaknesses all crushing him, letting the ambient dirt of his world wreck him, and Gerry feels his throat tighten and his lungs shudder and then he's crying. Bitter and angry and uncontrollable, he sobs against his own knees.
And then there's a hand on his shoulder. When did Will even move? Why did Will move? Gerry freezes, sort of, except he can't actually stop crying long enough to stop shifting with it. He's proud of himself for not flinching too badly.
He's expecting anything and nothing — for Will to leave, for Will to demand he get ahold of himself, for Will to drag the truth of his nightmare out of him and spin a horrifying lesson about the Fears from it.
Instead, Will's hand stays gentle against his shoulder, and then it shifts to his upper back. Over his spine, and then moving in a slow pattern Gerry fearfully tries to place. It's already slowed down his crying from sheer distraction before he realizes Will isn't tracing any sort of glyph or sigil that Gerry recognizes, just...circles. Big, slow circles, like he'd watched Will's hand do on Toast's belly the other day after she'd tired herself out playing.
Gerry manages to swallow and hiccup enough to force out words. "What— what're you doing?"
Will slows down but doesn't stop. There is a tension to the shadow of him next to Gerry that Gerry recognizes but can't figure out the cause of — like Will is watching something frightening and utterly determined not to show his fear. "Do you want me to stop?"
"That's not an answer, idiot." Gerry nearly spits on his own hand as he tries to swallow back another sob enough to speak. "Try again."
Will's hand doesn't stop. It doesn't stop, and the rhythm feels like it's slowly sinking down through Gerry's back to his lungs. The painful spasms of his crying ease back just a little. "I'm rubbing your back."
"Why?"
"Because I don't want you to feel alone right now." It's said with an awkward momentum, and the answer feels like a backhanded slap. Gerry isn't sure what to think about it. It— it's nice.
It's way, way too nice.
Will is an awkward weirdo, he's bad with people and he doesn't have friends — look, he said all that himself so Gerry's sure as hell allowed to think it — so why is Will wasting time on a kid, especially one as shitty as Gerry is?
The sobs come back. Gerry bites his lip, his tongue, the inside of his cheek, all to try to keep his jaw under conscious control.
"It's okay," Will says, and it's soft as if he's cooing at an animal, and Gerry pushes himself away even though the ache of refusing that gentle hand on him is painful.
"No, no. Why? Why are you doing—" and sobs overtake Gerry again as he flails back off the bed entirely, shoving at Will's hand when it once, all to briefly, reaches after him. "Is it just like—" He can't breathe. Just like in the dream — overwhelmed, overcome, buried under his own stupidity and weaknesses and the weight of a world that only seems to keep reminding him of all the ways he's failed anyone who was ever supposed to help him.
Gerry stumbles away from the bed, mind scrambling for steadiness as much as his legs are. When he finally trips over what's bothering him, it pours out instantly. "When are you gonna get sick of me?" There it is — the fear underneath the fear, layered and rotting and so humiliating Gerry feels like he's going to burn away before he gets the words out.
But he can see that the shadow of Will has shifted forward, not standing but at the very edge of the bed now, attention glued to him, and Gerry forces out one heaving word after another. "Because it's not like— it's not like I'm why you're acting like this." His voice cracks. "So what is it, then? Is it— pity?" Gerry doesn't even know what that word means, not really - it's such a distant concept, but one he's seen occasionally from strangers, he thinks, and he hates it. Like how you look at trapped zoo animals, or things at the shelter.
The connection snaps so loud Gerry could almost flinch from it, and it comes tumbling out of his mouth immediately. "Do you just like collecting strays?"
And immediately, Gerry knows that's only a fraction of the actual worry. His actual problem is...is...
Is that Gerry's a bad idea, a bad kid, and someone like Will who likes things that are as sweet and loyal and uncomplicated as dogs would never settle for something like Gerry.
But the false accusation is enough wretched anger to keep Gerry's lips pressed thin and quiet, and while he's still crying, he makes no noise.
For a moment, neither does Will. "I do," Will says at length. Gerry can't bring himself not to hang onto every word. "But I don't usually meet ones who also have nightmares."
Gerry sniffs. "Y-you have them, too?" Will likes telling stories. Gerry thinks if he prompts him, he'll get one.
He's right. "Yes. Assuming I can sleep at all." Will sighs, and it's not at all like how Gerry's mum sighs. Will doesn't sound disappointed or angry. "I actually was worried I'd end up waking you eventually. And...if you stick around, I probably will."
"So what?"
"So...if you think this is ruining anything, it isn't. I've seen things a lot worse than someone who's scared and hasn't done anything wrong."
"I'm not scared!" Gerry's voice doesn't quite echo in a room this cramped, not even at the volume he just shouted. "And— and I've done plenty things wrong."
"So have I." Will says it with such certainty, no hesitation, that Gerry actually doesn't challenge that idea yet. Even though he's sure Will can't mean wrong things like the kind of wrong things Gerry has done, it sounds like Will...might know. "And for a really long time, I thought the best thing to do to keep everyone else safe, and—" Will scoffs. "To keep me safe...was to avoid everyone else. But recently, I met someone who's made me think maybe I was wrong about that."
Gerry was crying already, but it was a fearful, gasping thing. This, this causes a painful tension in his throat that feels like it might just rip him in two. In a flash that hits like a real impact, he regrets the gap he pushed at between them. Gerry's standing several feet away from the dark shape of the bed, and Will's so carefully sitting at the edge of it, and Gerry wraps his hands up around his own elbows, hunching down. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Gerry wants to come closer. Does Will want him to come closer?
Gerry also wants to bolt. That's easier. His mom was easier, too — he knew what to expect with her, even when it was terrible. He's so much less certain about Will, whose unpredictability is a personality trait. There's always surprises, good and bad and neutral, and Gerry is so, so afraid. "Will—"
Will waits, but Gerry doesn't say anything else. After several seconds, Will says, "Do you want me to, uh— would you rather I left, or I stayed?"
Specific questions. It takes some of the horrible pressure off Gerry's chest, and even though it's terrifying, he can choke on a, "Stay."
"Okay." Will says it almost too fast.
Silence, again, and Gerry feels like his heart might burst out of his chest. "I'm cold, just standing over here," he says. Which is ridiculous, it's early summer in Virginia, but he needs an excuse to come back to the bed.
"Come here?" Will says, and maybe it's because even after all this it still sounds like an invitation, but Gerry listens instantly. Sometime between his first step and actually hitting the side of the bed with his shin, he sees the shadow of Will's arms move up, slow but steady, even with Gerry's shoulders.
Gerry wants to ask permission, so he knows he won't get shoved away, but being told no would hurt just as much. He stays there, shivering.
"You can." Gerry waits for Will to say more, barely breathing, eyes burning. "If you want."
Will moves his hands just a little closer. One of them touches Gerry's right shoulder.
It's enough to not have to make the first move. Gerry can say it was Will's idea, and he knows Will maybe won't immediately shove him aside, and he steps forward against the bed and into Will's arms.
Will is warm, warm enough it's actually a bit uncomfortable for a summer night as soon as he's wrapped his arms slowly around Gerry's upper back, but Gerry can't imagine asking him to let go. Gerry isn't sure what to do from here — how do you hug someone? You're probably not supposed to be choking back tears, right? Will shifts to the right just as Gerry tries to sneak his own arms around him in return, terrified but hopeful and expecting to regret it at any moment.
Gerry can't help but flinch, squeeze harder, and then flinch again when he thinks Will might be pulling away, but Will must just be shifting because he doesn't leave. And then Will says "I'm not going anywhere until you say you want me out," like he means it, low and as calm as Will ever sounds. And then Gerry just—
Breaks. Again. He sobs like he had right after the dream. He can barely breathe, his nose aches, his head hurts like it's stuffed full of cotton and nails. After the first several gulping, spitty sobs, Gerry couldn't even have said why he was crying, just that he had to. Like something that had been trapped was coming out, maybe.
It definitely isn't about the nightmare, anyway.
Will doesn't pull away. Not once. He doesn't flinch, not even when Gerry finally realizes how wet and gross the patch of t-shirt under his nose and mouth is. He's against Will's shoulder and everything is way too warm and damp and disgusting, and Gerry cannot imagine ever asking Will to leave.
Eventually, the crying slows down. The world feels fuzzy and surreal, and most parts of Gerry from the shoulders up ache. He sniffs and then pulls away just enough to wipe his nose on his own sleeve, and...still gross. "Sorry."
"Don't be." Impossibly, Will sounds like he means it. Like he doesn't mind. He also doesn't actually let go, just loosens his hold based on Gerry adjusting to sit up on his own. Over the course of the crying jag, they'd moved backwards — towards the head of the bed, so Gerry could sit down. He'd practically been in Will's lap, on his knees and folded against him, and now he sits firmly on his own side of the bed.
"...Kinda fucking exhausted now."
Will does one of those weird scoff-laughs. Gerry doesn't need the lights on to know exactly what his face looks like during that noise. "Yeah. I bet."
"I'm...gonna go back to sleep. Or...try to, I guess."
Will's quiet for a moment. "Okay. Here, uh...let me move—" But Will doesn't get off the bed. He just sort of wriggles the bedsheets down away, out from under him so the sheets aren't pinned down. Gerry has room to maneuver under the covers, now.
Gerry pauses, disbelieving but just as afraid of actually inciting Will to leave as he is of asking him to stay. But Will doesn't leave, nor does he say he's staying, and the tense uncertainty builds until there's a heavy ache in Gerry's stomach and—
"You mind if I stay?"
And just like that, the tension snaps, and Gerry feels those stupid tears come back again. "No." He tries for casual. He thinks he sounds embarrassingly choked, but Will doesn't scold him for it. Just nods up above him, and settles a little more firmly against the pillows.
"Here — this might be, uh. More comfortable."
In the end, Will is sitting upright at the head of the bed, and Gerry is laying on his side, facing him, and curled up against Will's legs. His head is pillowed on Will's mid-thigh. It's still way too hot and it smells like dog and weird cologne and it's the safest Gerry has ever, ever felt.
Will starts carding a hand through his hair around the time Gerry is losing his battle with consciousness, and the last thought Gerry has is that he really hopes Will hasn't forgotten it's him and just thinks he's petting one of his dogs.
He hopes Will knows it's him, and he's choosing to do this anyway.