Under my skin

[Brayden Smith]

Blood.

Blood on shaking hands, blood on a face stained in horror, the eyes wide and bulging, mouth half-open in a soundless, wordless scream.

And anger. Fear. Pain. Suffering. Regret. Regret. Regret. 

Nothing.

Covered in a cold sweat, Bray sat up like an arrow shot out of a bow. He passed a shaking hand of his own over his brow, half-expecting to feel something slimy and viscous and wet on his own face. On his hands. Blood. But he only felt the clammy dampness of perspiration on his cheek and he breathed out a long sigh of relief.

Lightly he pushed the covers binding his legs away, glancing around and expecting to see his own bedroom. Everything was different, though. The bed was larger, the nightstand was the wrong shape and the windows were all the way on the other side of the room, not close by where he could crack it open a sliver to feel fresh air on his face.

Right. He slept at Jack's apartment because he locked himself out. Right.

The air in the room felt stale and he couldn't breathe properly. He turned to see if he had awakened Jack but Jack was conspicuously missing. The sheets on his side were rumpled, too, as though he had been tossing and turning. Bray slowly ran a hand over the place where Jack had been, swallowing hard.

They called it dream-walking. Bray had done it since he was a little kid but he couldn't control himself. Sometimes he was in for the whole dream, other times only parts of it. He knew it happened because his mother--a fae herself--told him about it, that she could feel him entering and exiting her dreams. She taught him to control it but he wasn't good at it and eventually he gave up on it, thinking that it wouldn't be an issue. People rarely felt the intrusion, not unless they knew the signs.

Was that dream Jack's? Bray stroked a line back up the bed, up to the pillow where Jack's head had lain. He heard water running somewhere and guessed that Jack was in the bathroom. Should he go and check on him? Part of Bray felt horribly guilty, as though he had discovered a secret that he shouldn't be in on. But the whiskey and Ambien started to make more sense... if Jack had dreams like these...

How did he put up that cheerful front, then, if he was plagued by visions of blood when he slept? Or was he purposely over-compensating, so no one could guess that he was tormented by demons after dark? It couldn't be the first time, or a random nightmare. Not this. Not with this much emotion behind it.

Bray frowned, made up his mind--for once. He got up and silently padded to the bathroom, in time to hear the water shut off, to hear Jack's low curse.

Bray stood at the door watching Jack scrubbing his face with the towel. His voice, when he spoke out, was soft and tentative. "Jack? Are you okay?"

[Jack Ripley]

"F-fuck!"

He jumped and it felt like he had leapt straight out of his skin for a second. Then he saw it was just Brayden and his skipping heart started to settle--a little. Hanging the towel dutifully, he turned toward Brayden, still feeling shaky on the inside. It wasn't the first time he had such... nightmares. Usually, they started innocently enough but the deeper into sleep he sank, the darker they got. Until...

"No," he said tersely. Then more gently, "Yes. I just need some... water."

Taking Brayden's shoulder and arm in his hands, he nudged him out of the bathroom door so he could pass through himself. Even once he was out, one hand remained on Brayden's arm, half expecting him to disappear. These kinds of nightmares weren't always experienced when he was alone but he never, ever talked about them. They were the worst when he woke up in somebody else's home. The unfamiliarity always scared him--did he do it again?

As long as he could look down at his own hands and see they were bloodless, that he wasn't hallucinating... He would be fine.

Entering the kitchen, Jack let go of Brayden so he could get a glass of lemon water from the pitcher in the fridge. He downed one glass, then most of a second before he stopped inwardly shaking. He tried to smile for Brayden.

"I must have been sicker than I thought." His laugh was half-hearted. But noticing that Brayden was still watching him like he thought something else was wrong, Jack held his glass of lemon water close to his chest and walked toward Brayden. He wasn't sure what he thought he was going to do, but he ended up leaning his head down against Brayden's.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, although the words weren't met for Brayden. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. The sickness that washed over him when he woke up at least seemed to have passed but he still felt like shit. Without lifting his head or opening his eyes, he asked, "What time is it?"

[Brayden Smith]

"Oh. God." Jack's outburst scared him too, especially since he'd been trying to keep his voice soft to avoid startling Jack. Didn't work, did it? Bray almost clutched his own chest like a little old woman, but his hands got half-way up before he jerked them down to his sides.

"I'm--" He started to say sorry at the tightness in Jack's tone but Jack's words softened and Bray let his apology trail off. Maybe he shouldn't have come over. Maybe Jack didn't want to be caught in a vulnerable state. Bray was about to suggest that he leave--again--when he was moved bodily out of the way, and then taken to the kitchen. Offering no protest, he walked with Jack until he was let go of, after which he hovered awkwardly and anxiously nearby to watch Jack with ever-increasing concern.

The way Jack tried to laugh things off didn't make him any less worried. He felt instinctively that something was wrong. The dream, it unsettled both of them, but Bray couldn't let Jack know that without admitting that he had intruded upon his privacy. And then Jack would really be... not okay. Bray swallowed another apology as Jack downed lemon water like it was going out of style. He wished he knew what to say, or how to say it.

"Ah--" That wasn't it. He thought Jack was walking past to get to the little kitchen table but he stopped and his head came to rest against Bray's. Up close Jack's features blurred. Bray half-closed his eyes and felt a sympathetic twang in the heartstrings. His chest was sore as Jack apologized and it didn't get better the longer they stood there.

"It's... ass o'clock." That one he heard from a friend--one of the few he had. Bray laughed softly as all sense and sensibility deserted him. In the moment all he could think about was the dream, and Jack's shaken form standing at the sink struggling to come back to Earth. All he felt was the ache in his chest. His hands lifted, slipped around Jack's shoulders to bring him in for a gentle hug. "And you have nothing to be sorry for."

[Jack Ripley]

Ass o'clock. Even Jack let out a muffled laugh at that. Who the hell said something like that? It sounded like something a flirty stripper said before ripping off the bottom half of his costume before thrusting his ass in somebody's face. Or maybe Jack just had a demented mind. No argument there. The sigh that escaped him was heavy as Brayden wrapped his arms around him. Jack knew full well he didn't deserve the embrace but hell if he was going to let it go to waste.

"You don't even know me," Jack said into Brayden's temple. He had a list of things to be sorry for. Cameron, for example. But he wasn't going to explain all that to Brayden. What was done was already done and Jack had been kicking himself for years over what happened to Cameron. Not even Brayden could help him with that. Nobody can. Maybe Alejo could have. Alejo looked at him like he could see through him to every terrible, monstrous thing he had ever done and he still accepted him. It was so rare to find that kind of acceptance.

Idly, he wondered what became of Alejo. Had he gone back to his hotel? Did he call his boyfriend? Did he make up with him? Hopefully, he didn't tell him about them. It seemed like Allie had a lot more going on in his life. He didn't need to stir up even more grief and Jack wasn't the type to tell the guy's boyfriend what happened between them.

Jack held onto Brayden for a long moment. Human to human contact was the one thing that saved him from becoming the exact monster that Alejo saw in him. Connections to something... to something he couldn't even fathom right now, not as he floundered in the past, present, and fear of the future.

"Let's go back to bed," he whispered after they stood there for what felt like an eternity. It felt good to hold somebody and be held in return but it was doing him no favors in other areas. "You have my permission to toss water in my face if you think..." He trailed off. He hadn't even admitted he had a nightmare, just that he was still sick. But he let the rest reluctantly tumble out--too exhausted to hide it. "If you think I'm having another nightmare." He kissed Brayden on the top of the head before letting go of him. "Deal?"   

[Brayden Smith]

"I know pain," Bray said in a whisper so soft it was almost lost. He closed his eyes too as their embrace held for far too long, letting Jack make the deciding move on whether or not to draw away. For once Bray didn't feel awkward. It simply felt right; it felt like something he needed to do. Jack needed someone in that moment and Bray was the only one there.

He nodded slightly to acquiesce to the suggestion of going back to bed, but stopped turning when Jack spoke again. Bray wondered about the kiss on the forehead. He didn't need reassurance—Jack did. But he wasn't nearly tall enough to reach the top of Jack's head... Instead of moving away, he lifted his hand and wiped away a cold droplet of water clinging to one of the curls by Jack's temple. Bray smiled up at him, taking him in.

How sad his eyes were. Haunted. The demons that chased Jack weren't far behind, he thought. His fingertips grazed skin, still a touch damp, still cool. "Deal." But they both probably knew he wouldn't. Brayden Smith throwing water in anyone's face? Maybe—in his dreams. But in reality, Bray wasn't the type. He could ease Jack out of future nightmares if it came down to it.

He could put people to sleep; he could bring them out of it too.

Relieving Jack of his water glass and setting it onto the counter nearby, Bray took the initiative this time to recapture his hand. It just felt... right. Like something that made sense for him to do, and he didn't have to agonize over the ramifications or the consequences. Bray turned for the bedroom again, letting their clasped hands do the talking. It was far more eloquent than he could be, anyway.

[Jack Ripley]

Life is pain.

Jack's mother said that to him once. He was thirteen. They were fighting, arguing over another new man moving in. His mother had been sober for a few blissful months and then she fell back into it. The drugs, the drinking, the awful men that claimed they would take care of her--and her unwanted progeny. Jack hated him. He hated all of them. He told her that. Told her that he just wanted his mother. Couldn't she see what she was doing to her son? Jack blatantly cried out for help and she struck him in the face and said it: Shut the fuck up, Jack. Life is pain. And if he wanted it to end, he had to end it himself because, as she put it, she tried and it didn't stick. With his hand still on his struck cheek, he backed away from her and then ran out the door, into the streets. Even those dangerous streets were preferable to staying there with a mother who talked like that.

He wished that Brayden didn't know pain but there was something deeply sad in his eyes sometimes. When he thought nobody was looking. At work, when he wasn't working on something, when he was in thought. As if his thoughts tormented him. Jack could relate to that, although he buried most of his pain so deep down that he didn't bother reflecting on it over and over again. Brayden didn't seem like that type. More like the type to... keep turning it over in his mind until it drove him half mad.

"I'm serious, B," he said. "Don't you dare let me stay in that nightmare for longer than I have to."

He would rather be rudely awakened by water before the nightmare could properly cut into him. But how could Brayden know how bad it was? Jack certainly wasn't going over what he just saw. And luckily, now that he was waking up, it was burning away, the way dreams did as consciousness was regained.

Now it was Brayden leading him to the bedroom and Jack felt strangely like the child now. He slid beneath the covers, this time curled on his side, facing Brayden. He tucked a pillow beneath his cheek but his eyes were still on Brayden. He pulled the blankets up over both of them, like two kids at a sleepover.

"Have you always lived here?"

[Brayden Smith]

( B! Q! B!    Yuusss )

They all had their crosses to bear.

Bray's mom told him that once too, in her gentle tone and with her wise eyes full of pain. His father had just passed; his mother was dying and Bray couldn't understand why it was happening to them. To him. Selfishly he decried God, full of anguish and sorrow and feeling as though he would never be able to smile again. His mother took his hand and said that to him. They all had their crosses to bear.

There were others in the world suffering more than he was. Others experiencing grief and loss too—not just Bray. To understand that was to accept that pain was a part of life, and that the two were inextricably intertwined. Life was pain, but pain didn't have to define a life. It was long after he had lost everything, everyone, that he understood that.

But knowing the principle wasn't the same as accepting it. He still struggled, some days more than others, though he tried not to let it leak into his everyday life. He didn't want others to see his pain and to know that he was having a difficult time because everyone had their own problems, their issues. Bray didn't want to add on to their troubles with his own.

"I won't. I promise." He slipped into bed too but waited until Jack had settled in before laying his head down. On his side facing Jack, he took him in. In the darkness there wasn't more than a vague shape, an eye catching a stray glimmer of light, the outline of a mass of waves and curls. Under the blanket Bray's hand shifted and encountered the warmth of another hand.

"Yes, I was born here." He sighed, letting his hand remain where it was. Maybe he was too tired to be skittish now. Maybe the impact of the dream still had its hold on him. "Sometimes it feels like I'll die here, too." Bray's eyes closed momentarily. All his life, he wondered: was this where he was meant to be? He always felt as though... something was about to happen and he couldn't leave Hazleton. As though he was waiting for something, some great event. Or maybe he was waiting for someone...

He opened his eyes again and the thought was gone. "Where did you come from?"

[Jack Ripley]

I promise.

Jack's lips curved into a small smile. A promise? For him? For unfathomable reasons, he wanted to believe in that promise, that somebody would actually keep their promise to him this time. There was some whimsical saying about wishes being fishes (or was it horses?) and he always thought it was cute but ridiculous. Now he sort of understood it. Wishes were slippery things. Things he wished for in the past were caught... and found to be lacking. And some wishes were never able to be grasped. Wishing for just one promise to be honored... Which one did that fall under?

He realized that wasn't what the saying actually meant to convey. But he liked his realization better. Sometimes his broken little mind did that. Queer little things like that stuck to him. Conventional, not so much.

With Brayden's hand in contact, Jack idly stroked it, feeling the hard shape of his knuckles and the length of his fingers. Die here. Maybe he would. Jack didn't want to think about death right now. Or... ever. The memory of his nightmare flashed when he closed his eyes so he quickly opened them. Don't die. That was what he wanted to say. He swallowed the words instead.

"From all over," he said in amusement as he continued to lazily stroke Brayden's hand. "But I was born in Boston. Spent most of my life there. Did you know I went to Harvard, B?" He smiled as if it was something silly to disclose. "I didn't think I would ever go somewhere so prestigious. I was a nothing. But when I went there... for a while, I was something."

But he couldn't get out of Massachusetts fast enough. And now... here he was. All the way across the country.

[Brayden Smith]

It felt nice, the motion of Jack's fingers over his hand. A sweet warmth stole over him and he was still again, but this time not rigid like a plank. This time he didn't move because he didn't want the moment to be over, as though if he blinked or breathed wrong, everything would come crashing down and he would wake up with that hollow sensation in his chest as realization dawned that he was alone again.

"I did know that, Jack," said Bray with soft amusement in his voice, bordering on a laugh but not quite there. "I read your file." That was his job, of course. He looked at Jack's credentials, his degrees, his previous jobs. He wasn't joking when he said that he came from all over. It seemed like Jack had worked and traveled across the country, from Boston to tiny little Hazleton. What made him so restless, though? Was he one of those types who couldn't settle down in one place for long?

Or was he looking for something?

After a moment, Bray turned his hand over. He captured Jack's hand in his and he held on tight. It stood out to him. Nothing. Jack thought he was a nothing. How could that be when he was so accomplished? There was so much to admire about him—his education, certainly, but also his wit, his charm, the easy way he made conversation and slid into a scene as gracefully as if he had been born to inhabit the spotlight.

How could he ever feel like nothing?

"I think..." His fingers flexed against Jack's as he leaned his head closer, lowering his voice. "...you came from the stars. Because you shine, Jack."

[Jack Ripley]

"Oh."

Of course Brayden read his file. His scholarly achievements had to be all over that file. Brayden was probably curious why somebody who went to Harvard was here in Hazleton when he could work anywhere he wanted. (And it was a valid thing to wonder about.) The fact that he had moved on from job to job after school likely made him look like a bad candidate, too. But they had to weigh the fact that he was a Harvard graduate against his habit of moving onto another job, time after time.

Jack moved slightly closer. With his other hand, he pet Brayden's nose once, expression amused despite himself.

"That," he declared, "is a cheeseball thing to say."

But it didn't stop him from liking it. See, Brayden was totally cute. How nobody else saw it, he couldn't fathom but privately, he kinda liked that too. There was a constant internal struggle with how he viewed himself. Jack took care with his appearance. Anybody who met him would say as much. To get as far from his childhood of ratty t-shirts and torn jeans, he had developed a strong taste for all things fashionable. He had his clothes fitted by professional tailors. No more hand-me-downs. Hell, even what he was wearing right now in bed was expensive. Silk pajamas? A wispy dressing gown with a pattern of birds on it? Subtle, though. Not garish.

He had the money to spend on himself now that his mother never cared to spend on him. And if he "wasted" said money on clothing and surrounding his apartment in nice things, that was his business. He didn't even drive nor did he have a car. Back home, where cabs were a dime a dozen, he didn't need to. It wasn't a problem here in small town, USA, either. Most places were within walking distance and there was a bus system... albeit, not a very good one. But he lived in the hub of the town. Everything he needed was here. (Except the school but he carpooled with another fellow teacher in the building.)

"I think I came to the right place this time." After all, if a place like Hazleton could preserve Brayden's innocence and softness for so long... it must be a good place to be.

[Brayden Smith]

Bray's cheeks warmed when his nose was—there was no other word for it—booped but he felt the need to defend himself. "I only meant that... you're not nothing." Not to Bray. He might have said a cheesy thing but he said it with honest admiration. In Bray's eyes Jack shone brightly, more than anyone else he had ever met in his life. Jack was so bright that he eclipsed everyone else. In a room, he stood out the most; even when he did nothing but smile—even at someone else—Bray couldn't stop watching him.

From afar.

He never thought for a moment that he would end up here, in bed with Jack and holding his hand under cover of darkness.

"What are you looking for, Jack?" Why didn't those other places have it, and Hazleton did? Was it something about their small-time, unimportant, out-of-the-way in the woods town that appealed to him? He had a feeling that Jack was running from something—from whatever that nightmare was, maybe. He had a feeling that Jack had been running for a while now, because he saw the weariness earlier and the tiredness that ran so deep, down into his bones. Bray knew that look because he lived through it. They both knew pain, albeit of different kinds, from different sources. But he knew it when he saw it and there was so much pain in Jack...

His heart ached again. For Jack. For whatever it was that kept Jack running, kept him from finding his happiness—his happy place. Bray didn't know what made him do it, but he reached over and brushed a hand over Jack's cheek, right under his eye, like he was wiping away tears. "Will you go back to the stars some day?" Don't go, he wanted to say, because even in the span of one night, even having spent all this time only watching Jack from afar, Bray... he...

[Jack Ripley]

I'm not nothing.

It was nice to hear. Music. Magic. He wanted to believe it so badly. How different this encounter was than his earlier one with Allie. So different. More pleasant. While he appreciated speaking with somebody that knew what it was to be nothing, he stood by what he told him. Nothing plus nothing made nothing. No. He needed something. He wondered if that something was him. Brayden.

The idea scared him but not enough to jump out of bed and start making excuses. He couldn't get rid of Brayden anyway. Not after inviting him inside. Not after seeing him smile. And laugh. As small as that laugh was, he heard it. How did somebody who seemed so deep in his own mind even know what to say to some floundering stranger? They were coworkers for a while now but... it wasn't as if they knew anything about one another.

That could change though.

"How do you know I'm looking for something?"

The list of jobs he'd taken and left? The fact that he'd lived across the country? Made his way all the way to the west coast from a lifetime on the east? What was he looking for? Something to ground him. Something steady. A place that raised up people like Brayden.

"The stars," he said softly as Brayden touched his face, "might come for me before I make the choice."

And they wouldn't be wrong. But he tried. Oh. He tried. He wished he could emphasize how hard he tried. Even with his level of intelligence and his education, he never did learn how to stop it from happening. But he was trying. He was changing things. Yet. He has gone to that night club. Jack closed his eyes. How hard was he trying and what was he really trying to do? Get caught? Taken down? Meet what he deserved? Jack sighed as if the weight of the world settled on his lungs.

[Brayden Smith]

"I know."

No man who was satisfied with his life uprooted himself so many times. The administration was concerned about the number of job transfers that showed up on Jack's record; they thought perhaps there was some issue with discipline or with personal misconduct that forced him out. But nothing came up, nothing suspicious other than the fact that he wandered a lot and left a lot of perfectly good jobs behind. Everyone they spoke to had nothing but positive things to say about Jack so they hired him.

But Bray had the advantage of that kind of insight, just like he knew about the nightmare. If Jack wasn't searching for something, he wouldn't be here. If he already found what he needed to keep him rooted and grounded, he wouldn't be in Hazleton now, talking about coming to the right place this time. The clues were all there, after all. It only took an interested, observant person to put them all together.

And he wondered what Jack meant... The stars would come for him? Was that what he was running from?

"But we need you here..." He smiled ruefully. The world wasn't ready to let go of Jack, was it? The world—Bray's world—needed a ray of sunshine to chase away those cloudy days. Today would have been the same as any other for Bray if not for Jack. He would have gone home, eaten cold takeout, finished off those forms (so far away now in his mind, so wrapped up was Bray in getting to know Jack better). At some point he might have fallen asleep, woken up in a panic an hour later, frantically finished more paperwork...

Boring. Tedious. Monotonous. Bray's life had so little by way of excitement.

Tonight, he made such a fool of himself in front of Jack. Repeatedly. And yet he couldn't bring himself to regret all of it because those horrible embarrassments led him here. With Jack, holding hands, his fingertips still stroking Jack's cheek lightly, loathe to let go of the moment. Bray didn't know if there could ever be another night like this, full of chaos but somehow still sweet and funny and poignant and sad.

[Jack Ripley]

"Who, the school?"

He knew it was a cheeky response but it was hard to imagine who else the 'we' could be. Brayden? Other administrators? His fellow professors? The superintendent? No school actually needed him. They were sorry to see him go but he couldn't ever stay. All those great people, opportunities, places. And he ruined them. Ruined everything he touched. His mother said--

Well, he didn't want to dwell on the things his mother said. She was long gone from his life. Estranged. Jack hadn't spoken to her in well over ten years, at least. And the last time they did speak, it was her coming to him with a gaunt face and those hateful eyes, trying to manipulate him into giving her money for whatever vice she was hooked on.

All those vices... Every time Jack reflected on them, he avoided looking in the mirror. For so long. Even now, he had only partially attempted it. He'd given up on the drugs. The worst of it. But the laughably funny part was that the doctors still prescribed him things that were just as bad. Like that damn Ambien, for example.

Did... did he take some tonight?

He looked back at Brayden, who looked back at him with only kind and almost unbearably understanding eyes. It was hard to look at him for too long when he gave him those... those damn doe eyes. But he also couldn't look away.

"I used to believe in shooting stars, when I was really little. I'd watch the sky for them and trace their trail with my finger. Back then, I didn't know about wishing on them... or that they weren't even stars. I really thought they were just far, far away stars, flying through the sky like they were creatures themselves."

[Brayden Smith]

"Mm." It wasn't entirely a disapproving noise, but it wasn't an approving one either. Bray was beginning to understand a few things about Jack, like the jokes. Like using humor as a defence and a deflection against things he didn't want to delve too deeply into, skimming over them with a quick and witty response. It didn't hurt Bray's feelings though—he knew that Jack was deeply hurt. Someone—or multiple someones—had hurt him in the past, causing him to withdraw from the world and from others who might have tried to reach out.

How did he know that? He saw it in himself. He knew the symptoms of a broken heart.

That was why his gaze was still understanding, why his lips were curved in a half-knowing smile. He couldn't judge Jack for things he was guilty of himself, could he? That wasn't exactly fair.

His smile softened as talk turned to shooting stars. On the surface it sounded like a whimsical story but Bray thought there must be some longing hidden behind the words. He could see a young Jack sitting at a window at night, scanning the skies for that streak of light, hoping for a glimpse of his flying creatures. It was a more innocent time that Jack alluded to, when he still believed and when there was still a bit of wonder and magic in the world. Did Jack wish he could be that innocent again, that he could still live in a world where shooting stars represented more than a bit of space rock burning up in the night sky?

Or maybe he thought of shooting stars because Bray said he came from the stars. But Bray didn't want Jack to be one of those. He didn't want Jack to burn brightly only for a few moments and then disappear. If Jack was a star, he had to be like the North Star, shimmering in the sky for all to see.

"I never believed in shooting stars, but I have a lucky star." His fingers slid over Jack's eyes carefully to urge them closed. "Make a wish. Right now." Bray's voice was softly persuasive as he shifted closer, knee nudging Jack's in the motion. "I'll put in a good word for you."