Things that go bump in the night || Victor and Shannon
Between the two of them, they had enough nightmares to last a lifetime. Probably two. Probably more. Shannon wasn’t a newcomer to nightmares; he’d been having them since he was sixteen. Even earlier, probably, but nothing as morbid as the ones that came after Gregor. Even thinking his name made Shannon’s entire body tense and feel cold; colder than it always was. He never wanted to remember the beasts name, especially in the bed he shared with Victor. A place that should have been their tiny sanctuary, untouched by something that had once threatened to tear them apart. It wasn’t the time for Shannon to think about his demon, the one he conquered or the things he’d tried to do. It was Victor sitting on the edge of the bed, practically falling apart and it was Shannon who was there to wrap arms around him and keep him together. It was Victor’s demon that hadn’t been put to rest yet and five years later, Shannon didn’t even know if it could.
He could feel the tension in Victor’s back with only his palms laid against him. His hands knew every part of Victor, had run down every inch of him and memorized the way he felt. Shannon was small, thin and lean with muscles built for swimming or running. Victor was massive, and Shannon had always thought the strength he had was built for protecting. Saving. Helping. Huge arms built for wrapping around someone. Shannon wasn’t sure he could replicate the same feeling Victor gave him just by embracing him, but he could try. But before he had a chance to run his arms around to loop Victor’s torso and hold him close the way he thought might help, Victor’s hand had found his. Giant just like the rest of him, and wrapped loosely around his slender pale fingers.
“It has,” Shannon replied, moving so he could sit next to Victor, lace their fingers together. Every time Victor went a long time without a nightmare, Shannon thought they might be over. But he was still as naive as he’d always been. “Hey, look at me,” he mumbled, raising his free hand to cup Victor’s cheek and turn his face so he could look at him. Even broken down and tired and upset, Victor was beautiful and Shannon almost couldn’t take it. “We don’t have to talk about it. We don’t have to talk about anything. I just—I wanna help, you know? God that’s overbearing.” He wasn’t sure how to tell Victor how he wanted to help, just how Victor had helped him before. There were many breeds of sadness and the kind Shannon had gone through wasn’t the same as what Victor was going through. “I love you, Victor,” he said quietly.
Shannon's fingers were cold when they brushed across his face. They were always cold, as if his entire body had been carved from the darkness that he expertly wielded. Maybe it had been. Just as the creatures Victor summoned were an extension of him own body, Shannon's shadows were pulled from within him just as much as from the darkness that surrounded them. Whether that was true or not, Victor didn't know. The technicalities of mutation were lost on him. But the metaphor that had been deeply engrained in them before they'd even met was not. Shannon and Victor weren't just surrounded by darkness, it flowed in their blood and tore straight from inside of them as well.
He didn't realize that the corners of his lips had somehow tugged themselves into a weak smile at his boyfriend's touch. “I love you too,” he said, in a tone so soft that his words were nearly swallowed whole by the empty room. The urge to draw into himself—to brush everything off as “nothing” and even worse “fine”—was almost a violent one. It started in his stomach and burned like fire in his throat and made the muscles in his already tense arms constrict. Fight or flight was kicking in and it was a rare moment when every muscle in his body screamed for him to fly.
“It's always the same.” His voice strained with the physical effort it took to force them out. His hesitation didn't come from a place of doubt but a place of stubbornness. But getting the truth, the reality that hid behind the bullshit “fine,” felt like shoving a boulder across a desert.“I did what I had to do. I must have played it over in my head a million times by now and every time...” He took a deep breath, trying to brace himself for another shove, putting all his weight behind it. “Either Bolt dies or Michael dies and there isn't another way it could have gone. I did the right thing and I don't know why I can't get over it.”
His breath hitched in his throat and something stung behind his eyes. The weak smile that he'd managed before was crumbling, slowly. Shannon called Victor a titan. He was a mighty, mythical creature carved from mountain stone. He was strong and he protected when something needed to be protected. But as he let his eyes fall away from Shannon's, face turning down to hide the tears threatening to spil over the brim of his eyes, he couldn't have felt less mighty.
