TIMING: morning after feral SETTING: zane's home PARTIES: @chrisgates + @rn-zane WARNINGS: vomiting tw SUMMARY: chris and zane deal with the aftermath of their meeting in the woods
The creaking that came from the old house woke him up and when he opened his eyes, Christopher was greeted by an unfamiliar ceiling. On the other end of that, the ache he felt through his bones was awfully familiar, though painful, it meant that he was alive — and that he felt like shit, too. His head hurt. He wanted nothing more than to close his eyes again, but the foreign environment made that difficult. As did the hand at his wrist, limp, but it held firm despite the unconscious body it belonged to. Zane.
Chris twisted his fingers enough to where he could feel Zane’s skin. He was cold. A flurry of panic started before he could remember all the weird stuff that happened before — the red eyes, the teeth, that whole alleyway stand-off all those months ago. That math, although it worked in the fictional sense, didn’t add up to him. He wouldn’t let it. That would mean that everything else was real and Chris didn’t want that.
He leaned forward to take a firmer hold of Zane’s own wrist; worry became his driving force, overriding everything else. The pain would be there whether he moved or not, so he ignored it in favor of a better view of the other man’s face. There was no breath nor life to be found. “Zane?” Came Chris’ hoarse, panicked whisper. A moment of exhaustion elicited a weak sigh from him, but he gave Zane’s forearm a gentle shake with the hope that he wasn’t dead. Something told him he already knew the answer, but that didn’t stop him from thinking the worst.
—
Sometimes, there was an upside to a dreamless sleep, if sleep was even an apt word for it. Zane no longer really needed sleep but it was a good way to pass the time since being conscious for 24 hours a day, every day, was exhausting. It was a clear blessing now that no dreams haunted him in his current state of not being - they would have been filled with visions of blood and pale skin and feral eyes which could have belonged to either one of them. Because there had been two of them, hadn’t there? Yes, someone other than him, someone whose skin was warm against his cold palm, pulse thrumming faintly. A soft voice speaking his name, breaking through the haze of unconsciousness.
Along with the groggy relief that flooded him at the sound of Chris’s voice came the pain. There was no fear or adrenaline keeping it at bay now, letting the tearing and burning sensation run rampant. Zane’s grip tightened on the wrist it held for a moment, hiss escaping through his teeth and eyes scrunching before finally fluttering open. Seeing Chris awake, still definitely pale and covered in blood but alive, was a decent distraction from the pain. “You’re okay?” he breathed, needing to hear it confirmed, not trusting his eyes to not betray him. With every second he gathered his thoughts better, ‘woke up’ in a sense and finally let Chris’s arm go. It hurt to turn, to move and sit up straighter, torn shirt sticking to raw skin and wounds and tugging at them. He needed to see his work from last night, see that the bandages had stuck and nothing was bleeding through. That the full horror of his own doing, the evidence of which was dried all over his neck and shirt, wasn’t visible.
—
“Eh,” came Chris’ reply. He weakly dropped his head back onto the couch once he knew that Zane was alive. Relief was evident on his face — or maybe that was just the fatigue. Okay was definitely not the word he’d used, but it would do. He was alive, by some miracle. The amount of blood that had dried onto their skin and into what little clothing remained told him that at least one of them should be a goner. He was glad it didn’t come to that. A shiver overtook him then once his worry for Zane gave way. It wasn’t violent, but it was noticeable. “I’m.. okay,” he assured, though he wasn’t entirely convinced of that himself.
Chris could see Zane’s chest a little better when he moved. He followed the mess of blood down to the wounds visible beneath the torn and frayed gashes of what little shirt remained. He couldn’t make out much detail, but his initial, woozy assumption was correct: Zane did look worse. He didn’t even know the extent of his own injuries, but he could tell he made it out with the better deal. “Are..” oh how dried his mouth and throat had become. Did he sleep with his mouth open or something? He tried to clear his throat, accomplishing little, but it was enough to get out at least one question. “Are you okay?” That was probably a stupid question considering how badly Zane’s wounds looked, but he was alive and sitting upright, which had to be a good thing.
—-
Zane would have laughed if it didn’t make his chest burn but a tired smile did form on his lips because ‘eh’ was the perfect way to describe the current situation. They were both alive, or so to speak, and at least for now, Chris didn’t seem to want to throw the blame for the giant wound on his throat. The sudden shiver didn’t go unmissed and panic rose in Zane for a second, hands instinctively moving to pull the blanket over Chris higher up. Decency hadn’t exactly been his main worry last night but as he moved the only thing currently protecting the other man’s dignity, he was acutely aware of the glaring lack of clothing. He’d need to get the other some new clothes but a shower seemed necessary first and…
His attention snapped back to Chris as he spoke, thoughts still spinning around behind his eyes, which followed the other’s gaze down to his own chest. Right. “I’ll be fine, looks worse than it is,” Zane explained quickly and, as if to prove the point, moved to stand. It did the opposite, the process filled with wincing and harsh breaths sucked through teeth but at last, he stood. “See?” he attempted, jaw still clenched from the waves of pain. “I heal fast,” Zane added after a beat.
“I think… we should get you in some clothes,” he thought aloud, grateful to be able to focus on removing the needle from Chris’s arm as he approached the subject. “A shower first probably makes sense, there’s one on this floor so no stairs. If you think you’re up for it, might get you warm, too.” Needle discarded, Zane looked over at the other to gauge for a reaction to this plan and found himself, even in these worst of circumstances, thankful that blushing was no longer a thing he could do. Even pale and covered in grime and blood, Chris was breathtaking, especially up close and Zane really needed to get some distance between their faces right now.
Straightening back up with slightly less effort than before - at least the distraction of these very inappropriate thoughts helped with the pain - Zane offered a hand. “Wanna give it a shot?”
—
Chris wasn’t one hundred percent sold on what his mind told him what had happened. There were flashes of images that made no sense — but they were familiar. He’d seen things like that before. He just thought that the gore that seemed to plague him was merely a figment, a fabrication of his trauma. He didn’t think it could potentially be real; no — he never wanted it to be real, so he tried his best to push it away and ignore it. But it was here again. There was no ignoring it this time. He was grateful for Zane’s helpful hands and the distraction that came from the blanket as he didn’t want to linger on those thoughts. Not right now.
Zane’s pain was another helpful distraction, even if he’d prefer not to see him in it. A lie, Chris thought as much. Did he… What could have done that? An answer blinked across his mind, but it didn’t linger. He watched with raised brows as Zane pushed through the discomfort at having to stand. “Looks.. like it feels pretty bad, too…” He coughed out; there was just the smallest edge of humor in his observation, but concern overrode mostly everything else. “Not fast enough,” If he was still standing there with gashes in his chest, then no, it definitely wasn’t fast enough. Wolverine would have been fine — Zane, not so much.
Clothes sounded great, but a shower sounded even better. The blood that coated him was no longer sticky, but it stuck in uncomfortable places and pulled at his chest hair whenever he moved. He didn’t think he could really make it, depending on how far the bathroom was from where they were, but he would try. It would be a little awkward with the misplaced footing and nudity, but this was not the first time he’d been completely naked in front of the other man. He doubted it’d be the last.
Chris watched as Zane removed the needle from his arm without a wince to be found. It was nothing compared to the pain that throbbed from his neck. He hoped the shower would be a good distraction from the agony that found home in tender spaces — he also hoped it would be hot. He needed to feel his skin sear. He needed the water to scald him. There was no answer as to why, it just felt necessary. He gave it just a moment to think, wondering how exactly the trip would go, when he figured to just go for it. Zane was there to help, after all. (Wasn’t he?) So Chris nodded and offered him a small, but eager “yeah” and took his hand.
—-
Zane appreciated the concern, he really did, but waved it off nonetheless. “It’ll be fine. Seriously. Healed a broken leg in just a few weeks, so…” The pain probably would have been overwhelming without the distraction of something more important, if not for the need to help someone more important. Not only was Chris just barely brought back from physical devastation but the confusion and hurt behind his eyes eluded to the war being waged inside his head. A strange familiarity had flashed behind the dual colored eyes upon looking over the gashes, quickly overtaken by something else, something dark.
At least Zane knew what he was, even if he neither liked nor particularly wanted to accept it.
“Yeah,” he parroted back, smiling softly as he grabbed the other’s hand. As expected, it was… a hassle and a half. Supernatural strength or not, Zane’s chest tugged and ached with every movement and Chris wasn’t exactly small, wolf or not. At least this was an improvement from last night, with the other man awake and somewhat able to stand on two feet. The blanket, that would need a very thorough cleaning once this was all through, was haphazardly secured around Chris’s waist before they moved further, allowing both of them to cling to the delusion of privacy.
After the short but arduous journey was complete, Chris slowly lowered down to tiled shower floor, Zane heaved a sigh of relief. Leaning back against the wall, head settling back as he let his eyes close for a moment while the black edges of pain faded from his vision, a short huff of a laugh escaped him. “We really have to stop meeting like this,” he sighed, amusement tinting the words because if there was no humor to be found in this, the melancholy of it all would drag him to the ground and he wasn’t sure if he’d get back up again.
Eyes finally opened again and he glanced down at Chris, offering another smile. “Towels in the cupboard, I’ll bring back some clothes and uh… call out if you need anything more, I guess?” Wary to leave the room in case horror struck again, Zane finally did - with the door left ajar - after one last glance at the man he had only managed to meet under the strangest and bloodiest of circumstances.
His ears were perked the whole time as he settled for cleaning off his face and chest at the sink, not wanting to miss a shout for assistance if he jumped in one of the house’s showers. A pair of sweats, neatly folded, were placed outside the bathroom door where everything still sounded fine, Zane finally slumping back onto the couch once his own ruined pants had been changed as well. It wouldn’t do much for the healing but still, he started the process of getting some bandages on his own chest.
—
It’ll be fine, he said. It didn’t look fine, Chris thought, but he figured there was no point to argue, not when Zane seemed so sure, and not when either of them were in no position to argue in the first place. If he didn’t do something about those cuts, though, then he’d bring it up again, but for now, he accepted the help without pushing the subject again.
The walk sucked. It wasn’t the worst walk he’d ever have to do, but it still sucked. He was grateful for Zane, for his support and company. He made the short, yet uncomfortable trip to the bathroom just a bit better. Relief found him when they made it to the room and he was finally met with the cooled tile floor. They felt good on his angry, inflamed skin.
Zane’s comment pulled a tired, but full laugh from Chris. “Hey, I’m not complaining,” he joked, but actually he would like for them to stop meeting like this. This was a little too traumatizing for his tastes. Their first meeting had been unusually awkward enough, but it only seemed to get worse from there. At least he was nice. “No, I’m kidding…” he had to clarify with another small laugh and held a hand up in defense. “Something more.. Normal would be nice.” For next time, but he didn’t say that out loud. What if next time ended up being worse?
“Thanks…” went his lame ass reply of appreciation, but he really did feel grateful for what Zane did and continued to do for him. He hoped that at least it showed on his face. If not, he owed him regardless. It only seemed to get better when the door was left open — mostly likely to be able to hear for any potential accidents on Chris’ end, but having not been confined, even in the bathroom, relaxed him immensely. He knew the shower would do wonders for his aching muscles and low mood, but the act of leaving the door open, especially when most people would prefer privacy, left him feeling over the moon. It was stupid, but it made him happy.
The shower was… Well, it was nice. It felt like every other shower after a night of whatever it was he managed to get himself into. He made sure not to get the stitches wet, even though that was never instructed on Zane’s part — that was difficult, however. He wanted nothing more than to dip his whole head under the stream of water, but he’d rather err on the side of caution.
After the water was shut off, Chris stood in the shower for a bit longer than necessary. He really didn’t want to get out, but he didn’t want Zane to worry more, so after another beat, he stepped out, dried off to the best of his ability, and found a set of sweats neatly folded just outside the bathroom door. He had wondered about that initially, but he was glad Zane seemed to think of everything. Feeling clean and having clean clothes was honestly the best, and it felt like he was being wrapped up in a warm hug. He savored the feeling for just a hair longer before he figured he should probably poke his head out and find his very consistent rescuer.
The journey back to the living room made the most sense, so Chris headed in that direction to find Zane on the couch. He would have looked comfortable if it weren’t for the long cuts along his chest. Bandages, good — at least they were being taken care of.
“Hey..” he greeted softly.. Both of his hands were buried in the pockets of the sweats he wore; they messed with the soft inner fabric, a nervous habit.
—-
From the second the water stopped running, Zane’s ears were perked even further, listening for any sound of trouble. It took every inch of self control not to call out or rush in there as the silence drew on for longer and longer but he couldn’t - wouldn’t - hover uncomfortably. Plus, Chris’s sense of privacy had been abused enough for one day. The fact that he had seen the man naked, held him naked to make things even better, more often than some of the people he’d been intimate with was really a painfully ironic situation.
Luckily for the vampire’s frayed nerves and the endless spinning of his thoughts, Chris finally appeared, now the much healthier looking out of the two of them. “Hey,” Zane breathed back, fully ignoring the warm feeling of seeing someone else in his clothes because the situation that forced it was horrendous and made the feeling bad and twisted. “I, uh… I ordered some food. Since I don’t really keep… any.” His hands fiddled with the roll of tape he was holding before he finally put it down, glancing back up at Chris.
“Do you… I mean, should we talk about… last night?” His voice was hesitant, the words chosen carefully which ultimately just made it sound like they’d accidentally hooked up and were now trying to tread the waters of a morning after. “We don’t have to but… I’m here. If you want to.”
—
At the mention of food, Chris’ stomach grumbled as if it were waiting for that cue. Oh, right, that was something he needed to do. He remembered having lunch the day prior (was it the day prior???), but anything after that was a huge blur. Apparently, he was far overdue for a meal, but he was tickled that Zane had thought about ordering something even if he didn’t need to — really, he would have been fine if there was no mention of it but the fact that he went ahead and took it upon himself to add even more comfort to an already jarring experience made Chris feel incredibly cared for.
It was the first time in a long time and he didn’t know how to feel about it.
“Really? You didn’t ha...” Objection, objection, objection — to some that would be disrespectful. He caught himself before he resorted to the usual dismissal of anything good his way and instead replaced it with a look of sheepish appreciation. Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t help but to feel like a burden, even now. “Thank you,” he conceded, his tone nothing but sincere. This was just another thing to add to the ‘owe list’, he supposed.
It was nice of him to add that they didn’t really have to talk about what happened the night before, but — they should, shouldn’t they? If you woke up to a neck wound that needed stitches and a friend that looked like they fought a cheese grater and won, you’d want to know too, right? Chris worried at the soft, wool-like material with his thumbs before he removed both hands and shuffled over to the couch. He settled back onto the couch heavily — he tried to ignore the blood stains — yet carefully enough to not disturb Zane too much, in case he too was still in pain.
His palms ran along his thighs and smooth the sweatpant material until they found purchase against his knees. He gave them both a squeeze, clearly uncomfortable. He needed to know. “I, heh.. I don’t really want to, but…” Chris felt a curl of hair fall until it tickled the very top of one of his eyebrows. He didn’t bother with fixing it. He couldn’t move his hands. “... What happened.. Exactly?,” he asked hesitantly, fearfully.
—--
Ordering food, the idea of nourishment after the blood Zane had aggressively removed from the other man, had been more instinct than actual thought. He hadn’t meant for the gesture to bring that look of guilt onto Chris’s face, hadn’t even meant for it to be a gesture at all. The thought that he owed Chris a meal anyway since the other had, nonconsensually as it may have been, provided Zane with a meal, tickled at the back of his mind. A poor joke, one that thankfully stayed locked up. “It’s nothing,” he said instead, thankful when Chris decided to join him on the couch instead of running out. Maybe the promise of food was good enough to keep him here.
Zane turned on the couch and crossed his legs, facing the nervous man and waiting patiently. It was easier to focus his gaze on the restless hands than the stray lock of hair just begging to be pushed back but even just the hands were setting off ‘Nurse Zane’s’ innate need to provide physical comfort. So he dug his own fingers into the material of the couch, glancing up once Chris finally gave permission for the story to be told.
“I saw…” He hesitated, heaved a useless breath, and then continued. “I saw a wolf. A giant one. Disturbed it feeding so it went after me, instead.” Zane’s eyes moved down to his chest, bandaged but still aching. “I, uhm… I’m not much of a fighter but it had me trapped so I just… well, on instinct, I guess, I… bit it.” He wanted to glance up at the wound he had inflicted, now covered by bandages, just like Wynne’s, but refrained. “And then the wolf, uh… was you. Is you. Like you sort of rearranged yourself back to… normal but then you were bleeding a lot so I… I brought you here.”
—
It’s nothing. No, maybe not, but to Chris it was an incredibly kind gesture. There weren’t too many people in his life who were thoughtful like that — there weren’t too many people in his life at all, actually. Regardless, he figured it was best not to linger on that. He had other things to worry about, like the slightly confusing information that Zane just dropped onto him.
He listened to it, absorbed it, and took note of the pauses. Despite being still and mostly unreactive, his hands had clenched tightly around a clump of material at both knees, knuckles pale, revealing how he felt. Him? For years now there had been plenty of what he assumed were displaced memories of horrific things that plagued him every waking and sleeping moment. For years they were the same or similar in their blood and carnage and he always assumed that maybe, just maybe, they were manifestations from the horrors of his upbringing. He thought it was just in his head, that he was just broken.
One of Chris’ legs started to bounce. A lump started in his throat, one he desperately tried to push down to no avail. He felt his eyes sting. A breath of a small, sardonic laugh escaped him, unable to really believe what he just heard. No, no that couldn’t be. But the bite. Everything else could be explained away but the fucking bite. He could feel it throb, as if on cue, beneath the bandages that were wrapped tenderly on his neck.
He looked down at his lap. A wave of lightheadedness overtook him then and he had to let out a slow, shaky breath as he shook his head. “Um…” He swallowed. Or tried to. “Are you… Are you sure?” His voice broke just a hair at the end, inflection raised as if he were asking Zane not to be.
—
This was too much. He’d said too much, too fast and Chris looked about ready to break. Zane finally caved, one hand finding the shaking one on the shifter’s knee, giving a tight but gentle squeeze. “I wish I wasn’t,” he said quietly, his own voice breaking with hurt for the other man. “But it wasn’t… it wasn’t you. I know I don’t exactly know you like that but it was completely different from you. I don’t know if it’s just a part of you or what but you’re not someone who would hurt people willingly.”
Zane scooted closer on the couch, desperate to make sure that whatever he was saying, however little knowledge he was basing it on, was heard. “Chris… I’ve hurt people too,” he continued, voice thick. Unsure if he was making things better or worse right now. “Without meaning to, without wanting to so… if you want, I’m here. I don’t know how but I want to help, if you’ll let me.” And if he wanted to bolt out of here, never run into the vampire that only seemed to pop under the worst of circumstances, Zane would let him.
—
The hand that found itself over his own was a comforting one, but it did little to quell Chris’ rising panic. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from lifting his thumb to try and caress what skin he could reach. A part of him wanted to shake himself free of Zane’s touch, but there was nothing but care here, nothing but a tenderness that made him want to at least try to be normal despite the whirlwind of emotions. The sting in his eyes only worsened when he’d felt the hand. Tears swelled, though not quite enough to fall over the brim of his lower lashline. Monster, evil, stupid thing. “How…” He swallowed thickly before he continued with a shaky breath. “How do you know… I.. I don’t even know.. N-not anymore.”
He felt something else grow behind his distraught and growing anguish. It nestled in the pit of his stomach and churned with each thought and memory of death his mind managed to dig up. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure how he felt about Zane also being a potential murderer. He couldn’t pick apart his emotions or figure out where one ended and another began. It was a mess and although it was nice to know that he wasn’t the only one struggling with accidental serial killing, it made him feel sick. He killed all those people and just… forgot about it. Chose to forget about it. He still wanted to forget about it, ignore it until it ate away at him again and again. He didn’t want this hell—
“I’ll… be right-back...” Chris promised with a hurried tension. His nausea only worsened the more he continued to think and try to unthink; the only thing that really helped tether him to the present was Zane’s hand. That wouldn’t stop the knots in his stomach, so he had to remove himself from the couch, from the other man’s touch, and stiffly walked, not ran because that would have made it worse, back to the bathroom. He became acquainted with the toilet in there, although the relief was brief. The sob that escaped him echoed within the porcelain bowl and threatened to keep him fixed to the toilet, but he willed himself up to at least rinse his face in the sink. He shook with every step and even though his body reacted so viscerally, his mind continued to rebel against it.
Chris couldn’t help it — he dropped to the tiled floor and cried. The sound of his knees crashing against the floor, though covered with material, was probably audible. He didn’t care. He was too busy with his face in his hands, crying, and wondering why him.
—-
How did one know if someone was a good person? Zane had definitely put his trust in the wrong people before, on more than one occasion but… so far he hadn’t been wrong about the presence of a genuine kind soul. He thought about people like Ariadne and Jonas who simply warmed you with their presence but when that didn’t feel like the right comparison, he thought about Emilio. It would have been so easy to judge the slayer on his actions and his words, just like with Chris, but it was impossible to ignore the innate kindness. Even covered in blood and bodies.
“Guess you’re just going to have to trust me on that,” was the only thing Zane could think to say, squeezing the hand in his tighter until he was forced to let go.
The relief felt when Chris didn’t gun for the door was short lived, the pained sounds from the bathroom gluing Zane stuck to the couch for a moment. He finally moved closer, slowly, taking a seat next to the door and leaning his head back against the wall. It was unfair that Chris was going through this with someone who barely knew him, someone who couldn’t even tell how to help him, if anything even would. Zane was overthinking this, he knew that, and in a way was grateful for the alarming sound coming from the bathroom that forced him into action.
Whether it was a bad idea, whether it was violating boundaries, didn’t matter. Zane found himself on the floor right alongside Chris, arms wrapping around the shaking frame, holding the man tightly despite his chest protesting. Maybe he was crying too or his face simply wet from where it got buried in Chris’s hair, maybe he held him and murmured comforting words for minutes or an hour. There was nothing to say and the only thing he could think of was to attempt to impart some feeling of safety on the bathroom floor of all places, going through every soothing gesture he could think of as long as Chris would let him. Not even thinking about the intimacy of stroking someone’s back, their hair, holding them to his chest, as long as it seemed to be helping just the tiniest bit.
—
Chris didn’t have a lot of trust in people, but he wanted to trust Zane. He trusted his actions, for the most part. Nothing the other man did seemed to have a lick of ulterior motive, but his words, though reassuring as they were, didn’t seem to fit in with his lived experience and the paranoia and accusations that followed him tirelessly. He just couldn’t believe them, no matter how much it hurt, no matter how confident Zane seemed to be.
As he sat on the cold floor and heaved gasping, crying breaths into both palms, he didn’t hear the bathroom door open. He didn’t hear Zane creep in, either, didn’t even know he was there in the room with him until he felt hands on him. A spark of panic initially started, tensing Chris’ body from the sudden intrusion of personal space he didn’t see coming, but his shoulders relaxed the second he realized who it was. He couldn’t remember the last time he was held like that. It had to have been with his sister, surely, but that was towards the end of their time together. Had it really been that long?
Hesitantly and with shivering body, Chris leaned into the comfort that Zane was providing and welcomed the slight chill that came from his embrace. Consolation so tender helped to alleviate some of the hiccup-like sobbing that escaped him, but it couldn’t help the small bouts of embarrassment and self-pity that tried to get him to leave. So he tried to bury himself into Zane’s arms further, as if to try to shut off those parts of his spiraling thoughts. With some time and patient, steady compassion, his tearful weeping turned into small whimpers and dry eyes. “I’m sorry…” came his voice, small and breathless, and thick with tears that threatened to fall again.
—-
After a while, his chest stopped aching, overthrown by the dull pain in his heart. Zane’s journey into the supernatural hadn’t been a nice one and even though his clan at the time had been far from perfect, at least he’d had them. At least he’d gotten some insight into what he was now. Chris’s whole world had just come crashing down all at once. At the very least, Zane hoped this might be the start to some healing instead of breaking the man completely.
“Me too,” Zane murmured back because telling Chris he didn’t need to be sorry would fall on deaf ears. The strange embrace would have lasted for as long as the shifter needed it if not for the knock on the door. Food. With one last gentle stroke through the drying curls, Zane disentangled himself and got to his feet. “Food will be in the kitchen. Just… come on out whenever you feel ready.” Offering a sad but soft smile, Zane left to go retrieve the food, waiting patiently in the kitchen. Wondering if there was anyone he knew who might be able to connect him to another werewolf or anyone who could guide Chris through this better than he ever could.