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No one turned on the light over the table. His parents had gone upstairs, trying to get Hero to eat something, and Kel didn’t like to be up there for that. So it was just him, sitting at the table in the dark, plate empty and silverware set in an ‘x’ on top. The echoes of noisy family dinners still felt like they lingered around the corners, just out of sight but still there, if you looked. But the sun had set on those kinds of days, and even if Kel could still feel them, stuck in the fringes, he didn’t know how to get them back.
Even a sigh sounded loud in the silence, now. Pushing his plate back, Kel settled with his arms folded on the table, his chin propped on top. Absently, he wondered how long it would be before his parents came back downstairs today, murmuring quietly to each other, exchanging strained and solemn looks. It wasn’t exactly like he was in a rush to get back to his room, but sometimes they spent hours with Hero there, sitting, talking, taking or giving whatever comfort they could offer each other. He’d dozed off at the table more than once, ending up with a sore neck and sour mood when he woke up.
He’d gone with them, at first, trying to make Hero feel better, trying to make them all feel better. Though, it didn’t take long for the realization to settle in that Kel wouldn’t be any help. Sitting in that room, on Hero’s side and not his own, the curtains drawn to mellow the fading daylight from gold to dull blue, a plate of food in his lap going cold, sorrow rose up over his head to drown him faster than he could fight it. Every time he tried, tried to say something, tried to offer up an encouraging smile, his throat clogged up and ached. His eyes went hot, pooling with tears he didn’t want to fall. His head hurt and throbbed, and it was all he could do to curl his hands into fists and try desperately not to cry until the waves threatening to overtake him receded and the tide went down again. By the time he’d gotten shakily to his feet and excused himself, minutes, hours, ages later, he felt wrung out and exhausted. But more than that, he was just upset with himself. All the time, he relied on Hero. But when Hero needed him for once, when Hero was hurting worse than he was, he couldn’t manage to set aside his own feelings and try to pay back all the years of kindness and support he’d gotten. He tried, and he choked, getting caught in tears and a squeezing chest. It made him feel all mucky and sludgy inside, like he was useless now when he was needed the most. Like he was worthless.
So, he stopped going upstairs for dinner. He’d only make everyone feel worse if he started crying, or said the wrong thing. And that was the last thing he wanted. Instead, he ate alone, sitting at his seat at the table, staring across at all the chairs that shouldn’t be empty. Some days, his mom remembered to turn on the light for him. Some days, she didn’t, and Kel never felt right about turning it on himself. Something had pulled, deep in his stomach, when he’d tried. It made him feel sick. Gazing up at the dark, quiet lightbulb, he’d decided to leave it off.
Most of the time, he didn’t mind the dark, the empty table, the silence, all too much. He understood. Things had to be that way, for a little while at least. Until everyone felt better. If they ever felt better. But, occasionally nights would creep around where the sun set, or grumbling grey clouds blotted out the light and set to storming outside the window, and Kel was still there. Waiting. There was only the little blinking light from the smoke detector on the ceiling, and that wasn’t enough to see by. His eyes always adjusted, though, to make out the shadowy shapes and figures of the room.
It was one of those nights, where the sun had already sunk down and the dark had slunk in to take over. And before Kel knew it, loneliness had cut in to clamp down on his heart. Not sharp but blunt, squeezing and aching. And he thought of Hero, just upstairs yet so far out of reach. He thought of Sunny and Aubrey and Basil, who might as well have lived on the moon for how often he saw them. And, helplessly, he thought of Mari, who he would have given everything he had just to see one more time. To eat one of her cookies and hear her piano in his room from the way all the way across their yards and feel her hair tickle his nose when she hugged him.
Tears pricked in his eyes, a lump forming in his throat. Digging his nails into his arms, he tried to blink back the tears, but the dull, dark dining room blurred. Like a newspaper left out in the rain, blotted with moisture, everything distorted and he couldn’t stop it. His cheeks were damp, but he kept trying, willing himself to feel better, to be strong enough to bite back the tears. Sniffling, he scrubbed at his face and took a steadying breath, grabbing for the water bottle still left on the table. Though, when he went for a drink, it came up empty. Only the littlest droplets clung in the crinkles and divots in the plastic.
He was about to get up and throw it in the recycling bin—he could use the distraction anyway—but stopped short when a thought wormed it’s way past the all the upset haze jumbling his mind. Absently, he wished he could just bottle up all the bad things he was feeling, screw the cap on tight so he wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. But, the more he thought about it, the more reassuring it seemed to have a bottle. To have somewhere to put the hurt when it choked him up.
Even if it didn’t really make sense—he couldn’t actually pour all the murk and mud in his chest out into a crinkled old water bottle—it made him feel better. Picturing the transparent plastic full of fluid sorrow, dark like ink, helped pull a weight off his chest.
He needed to be there for everyone. Sturdy, reliable, smiling through the shadow. Just like Hero had always been. If all it took was stopping up the ugly feelings, stashing them away, then it was an easy choice to make.
When he went to bed that night, an empty water bottle stood vigil on his nightstand.
——————
Kel started collecting bottles.
The first crinkled water bottle was soon joined by the bright, sunny color pop of an orange joe bottle. Slowly, over days, over weeks, more and more were tucked in wherever he could clear some space. Soda bottles from the vending machine in the park after he shot a few hoops on the quiet basketball court. Cheap, flimsy water bottles that crumpled and dented just like the first. Juice bottles, orange of course, because it was undeniably better than apple. Bottles belonging to iced tea that he hadn’t even drank, but instead plucked off the coffee table or out of the recycling when his mom was finished with them. And, most of all, orange joe bottles by the dozen, filling out the ranks of his collection.
It didn’t take too long for his nightstand to get so full and clogged that there wasn’t any room left. He couldn’t even read his alarm clock anymore, the numbers warping and swimming behind layers of curved plastic. So, the army of bottles marched out, taking over his desk where his homework should have been, squeezing between all the action figures lining his bookshelf, piling along the front of his tv stand. He even had to climb up on his bed’s headboard, leaning precariously and trying to keep his grip on the wood with his toes, to start leaving them on top of his closet.
He couldn’t explain it really, in a way that would make sense to anyone else anyway, why he needed so many. Why the rows and hoards of rinsed bottles got him through the day. But they helped. Whenever his throat knotted up, or traitorous mist started to cloud his eyes, or deep, bubbling dread and grief stirred to life in his stomach, he could take comfort in the fact that there was somewhere else to put it. That he could cough up or carve out all the hard and ugly things and trap them somewhere else. And as long as he kept collecting bottles, he’d never run out of space for it all. It was just a waiting game. And waiting for all the bad feelings to ease up and go away felt more achievable with some help. Like an item in a game. A bottle removed a nasty status effect, so if he kept a big enough stash, he’d be ready until the status effects finally stopped coming.
It worked, mostly.
Sometimes, at night, the pressure built up. The world was dark and Kel felt dark and all the swirling stratospheres caught and captured in his bottles started to swell. Plastic moaned and creaked under the outward force, bending, warping, bulging. Kel curled his hands to fists, pressed the heels of them into his eyes or bit down on his knuckles. Screw caps, forced on tight, strained against the threads holding them in place. He tried to force it all down, pour it all out, but his chest was burning, keen to burst, and he was all out of bottles.
Weak plastic ruptured, sludge splattering first with the release, then spilling sluggishly over his nightstand, his desk, everywhere. Caps popped off and pockmarked the ceiling, unable to hold on any longer. Churning galaxies, supernovas, black holes, no longer stopped up and confined, pulled and pushed and jostled Kel, a mess of gravity and energy. Festering feelings set free to paint the room in a tarry oil slick. Even in the dark, even through the blur of dampened eyes, he could see the ruin, the splatters of everything he tried to get rid of seeping into the walls, into the floorboards, into thin cotton sheets.
When he woke up in the morning, a soreness in his chest and a gumminess to his eyes, the bottles were always still there. Empty as they had always been. Undamaged, untouched.
Just like any other morning, he rubbed at his eyes and got up, pushing the bad nights far from his mind.
——————
There are some things that get easier. There are some things that don’t.
Staring down at the pile of wood and metal heaped at his feet, Kel decided this was one of the things that didn’t. It was supposed to be an easy job, something that anyone could do. No experience required! And better yet, no age restrictions. (Maybe the management was more lax about part timers than it should have been.) Yet, as Kel picked through the mess of drills and hammers and shovels, he couldn’t help but think that maybe someone else would be better suited for the job. He’d started by taking down everything that was stuffed on the wrong shelf or hung on the wrong hook. It had seemed smart at the time, but now he had a mess on his hands, and sorting through it was harder than it looked. Besides, it didn’t help that he kept forgetting which shelf was labeled with what item, and even what he was holding in his hands. Too many times he wandered over to hang up a wrench, only to realize he was holding a hammer. His brain wasn’t sticky like he wished it was.
Still, easy or not, he eventually got the job done, the store finally sorted with sunset streaming in through the windows. And it felt really good to have three ten dollar bills pressed into his hands, even if the manager mumbled something under his breath, a little miffed at how some simple tidying could take so long. Kel knew he didn’t have a mind for organization, so he tried to let it roll off his shoulders. Like water off a duck.
He picked up shifts whenever he started running low on cash, because allowance wasn’t cutting it anymore. When his mom started complaining about him collecting trash—it wasn’t trash, she just didn’t see it the way he did—and threatening to throw his bottles away, he had to figure out something to appease her. And what he came up with was glass, vintage bottles. They looked a lot nicer than the flimsy plastic ones, not that Kel cared, since it had never been about aesthetics. And better yet, his mom had deemed them an, at the very least, acceptable collectible. Unfortunately, though, they cost a lot more. He couldn’t just wander down to the vending machine and slip in a few coins or snatch a water bottle out of the pack sitting in the garage anymore.
Still, a job well done, even if it was slowly done, and a fresh set of glass bottles to replace the old ones with fading and peeling labels was ultimately pretty satisfying. It got his mom off his case too, which was a plus. She already fussed at him enough about dirty laundry on the floor or half-read comics strewn all over the house.
Eventually, all of the plastic bottles were swapped out and fed to the recycling bins. Then, all his pay from work was free to start growing his collection again.
——————
Hero had been doing better. Operative word being had.
Things almost seemed normal for a while, or as normal as they could anyway. Sure, there was still a certain cloud of gloom that filled their room on the bad days, thick and black like smoke plumes, but it thinned to a haze on better days. Light enough that Kel could ignore it, if he tried. And sure, Sunny hadn’t come out of his house in… a while, and he hadn’t seen Basil much more. Aubrey didn’t want anything to do with him anymore, always shouting something about it being too little too late.
And Mari…
But it was better! At least around the house, with his family, Kel could pretend it was all okay again. Hero had come downstairs for dinner sometimes, and opened the curtains sometimes too. He’d actually talked to Kel, about more than the bare minimum, about sports and school, and it was nice. Even if it took some yelling and some fighting and some tears to get there, it was a price Kel was gladly willing to pay. He couldn’t remember most of the things Hero had said that night anyway, though he didn’t know if it was because he’d been too shocked and stunned to really listen, or if it was because he’d blocked it out after.
Either way, it was nice to feel like he actually had his brother back again.
It didn’t feel like that anymore.
After a long while of almost normal, of close enough that Kel could squint and pretend, it all stopped. Hero stopped. The back of his shoulders, pajamas and messy tufts of chestnut hair, was all Kel got to see of him most days. If he wasn’t in bed, drowning in heaps of blankets, he was hunched at his desk. Kel walked by one afternoon when Hero was in the bathroom and searched through the stuff he spent so much time slumped over. It was mostly school work, grades above his own understanding, askew from Hero’s usual neat and tidy organization. Medical textbooks stood grimly in amongst the notes and worksheets, already worn at the edges with use. Something in his chest pitted at the sight.
Now, Kel sat on his bed, unmade as always, sheet and blanket in a crumpled heap half on the floor. Across the room, Hero was still at his desk, the scribbling of a pencil the only noise Kel had heard pretty much all morning; it was a near constant at this point, only stalling for a bit when Hero slept. It made him all squirmy now, that sound, left him feeling restless and uncomfortable and lost. He fiddled with the bottle in his hands, rubbing one thumb up and down the smooth curves of the glass and pressing the other into the jagged edges of the cap, twisting it loose and tightening it back on.
Listening to that writing, the drag and dot of pencil on paper, Kel felt all jittery in his ribs. Though, he couldn’t tell whether he wanted to shrink in on himself, curl and hide, or go burn the energy at the basketball court. A quiet voice—one he didn’t like very much—offered up the suggestion of stomping across the room and snapping the offending pencil in half. Kel didn’t do that. He did get up, though, stretching out stiff limbs and setting his bottle aside. Padding across the room on socked feet, he came to a stop just beside Hero’s chair, a little hesitant but resolved to be useful.
He made it his mission to get Hero back on the mend, or even just out of this room. Even just for today. It was all he could do, but it was something he could do. And he had to do something. He had to.
“Hero, can you take me to Gino’s? I want to go get lunch,” he said, rocking on the balls of his feet.
Why was he nervous? There was no reason for his pulse to slip into a faster rhythm, no reason for his palms to sweat. This was Hero. This was his brother. But he found himself quietly wiping his sweaty hands on his shorts and trying to dull the mixed up warning signs stirring to life.
After a beat, Hero scratched out whatever he was writing, then glanced back over his shoulder. Kel didn’t see his face much anymore, but maybe it was for the best, because he didn’t like the pale cheeks and dull eyes bruised under with dark, sleepless rings he found looking back at him. He fought the urge to reach out and pinch color back into those cheeks.
Hero didn’t say anything for a while, just looking at Kel with an expression he couldn’t make sense of. The back of Kel’s neck prickled a little, and in that moment, he felt distinctly unwanted, like he had stepped into the wrong room with the wrong people. He’d never really felt like that before, not when it mattered. Sure, when he wandered into the wrong classroom by mistake on the first day of school, or stepped into a very busy doctors office and seemed to be in the way no matter where he stood. That was different, though. Still, the world had tipped off balance, a bit, and suddenly the familiar space of their room—hardly anything in it, aside from the newly collected bottles, had changed in years—seemed subtly wrong. Three steps over and fuzzy at the edges.
Finally, when Kel didn’t budge despite the long stretch of silence, Hero spoke up. “Can’t you find some lunch in the fridge? I’m sure we have leftovers or something?” he replied, and he just sounded so tired. Kel almost felt bad for bothering him, tempted to apologize and sulk back, tail tucked.
“Come on, we haven’t gone out to eat in forever,” he appealed and rubbed at the back of his neck, trying to soothe the nervous prickle there. What he said was the truth, too. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d eaten anywhere but the house, and pizza really did sound good. Pizza almost always sounded good. It might have been a way to pry Hero away from his desk, but Kel really did want to go all the same. It hadn’t hit him how hungry he was until he started talking.
“Kel, I just—“ Hero started, cutting himself short with a sigh. Kel knew he was being a headache, and causing one too, when Hero pinched at the bridge of his nose, eyes slipping shut for a moment. Something small and instinctive in him curled back, afraid of a snap he’d never been afraid of before. It made him a little sick when he realized what that feeling was, where it came from.
But it passed as quickly as it came, Hero continuing on. “I just don’t really feel up to it today, okay?” he said, tempering his tone to something even and gentle. Flushing the anger out of it.
“Just for a little bit,” Kel tried. “You can come right back and study when we’re done eating.”
“Kel,” Hero said, mouth creased into something undeniably sad, brows drawn down at the inner corners.
”Please.”
Too sincere, too genuine, the word was weighty where it lingered between them. Kel might have drawn it back, if he could have, brushed everything off with an awkward laugh and tried to make it all a little less real. A little easier.
But in the end, he was glad he didn’t, because Hero’s gaze softened, and even if he still looked tired to the bone, he relented. “Alright, I’ll go with you,” he said, quiet but sure.
Kel couldn’t smother the satisfied grin that broke across his face, or the hopeful lift of his heart. And he found he didn’t want to.
It didn’t take long for Hero to swap his pajamas for real clothes—though those real clothes were only a worn, old t-shirt and sweatpants—and smooth down the worst of his bed head. There were still some flyaways he hadn’t bothered to comb into place, but Kel certainly wasn’t complaining. Dressed was dressed, no matter how put together, or not, he looked.
The weather stayed warm and sunny while they walked the familiar sidewalks into town. Occasionally, shade settled over them as a cloud drifted in front of the sun, but the warmth was always quick to return.
The sidewalks were quiet and empty, save for the occasional passerby. Gino’s was just as much so, with every table cleared and vacant. It hadn’t occurred to Kel until then, seeing the deserted pizza place, that it was definitely way past a normal lunch time. But at least that meant there wasn’t much of a wait for their food.
Sitting across from Hero, Kel chewed cheese and dough and wondered how they used to talk so much. How they used to talk so easily. He didn’t really know what to say anymore, and Hero definitely wasn’t as talkative as he used to be. When Kel tried to stir up a bit of a conversation between bites, Hero’s replies were usually pretty short and to the point. He didn’t seem unhappy, exactly, but just…
It seemed silly, then, to think that just getting out of the house would make everything better. He was being naive, he figured, to hope that a walk and some pizza would change anything. If Hero wasn’t feeling better, something like this wouldn’t change that fact. Staring down at his plate a while, Kel picked at his crust and wondered what he could do, then, because he wasn’t going to give up. He had to fix things, get them back to how they used to be, or at least as close as he could manage.
“Kel.”
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting there, wracking his brain for answers, when his name startled him out of his head. It was probably too long, he guessed. After all, he promised Hero they would be quick. But when he glanced up, his heart stumbled in his chest.
Hero was smiling.
It was small, just a soft curve at the edges of his lips, but it was there and real and warm and Kel had missed that smile so much. His chest ached, ribs going sticky and sweet, breath syrupy in his lungs. It felt a little like drowning, but in the best way. Drawn under gentle, lapping waves, held safe beneath the surface.
“Thanks,” he said, soft and genuine, eyes just crinkling at the corners, “for bringing me here.”
For a moment, Kel just sat, feeling a little stunned, and looked. But then his own grin, lemon-bright, cracked across his lips, something giddy rising up in him. “Yeah,” he said, a little breathless with the rush of unexpected happiness. “Of course.”
They stopped at the park on the way back, wandered around a little, talked a little, but mostly just laid in the grass after Kel, pleasantly tired from a meal and still warm and soft with the reassurance that things were going to get better, flopped back in a soft patch of grass and clover. A nap sounded nice, but he didn’t want to make Hero wake him up, so he settled for gazing up at the clouds. And he watched, with Hero sitting at his side, those white, fluffy clouds roll by until the sky was just tinging pink and gold with the beginnings of a sunset.
“We should probably get back soon,” Hero said, disturbing the quiet peace settled over them. Kel made little move to get up while Hero got to his feet and brushed the stray grass from his pants. But when he reached out a hand, Kel took it and let himself be hauled up off the ground.
“You’re heavier than you used to be,” Hero said, the light wash of a laugh coloring his tone. It wasn’t all the way there, not a full laugh, but it was something.
Kel grinned, wide and proud. “I’m taller too,” he said, straightening out. He still had a ways to go before he caught up to Hero, but he was definitely gaining on his older brother.
Hero looked him up and down, like he was noticing the extra height for the first time, and maybe he was. Then that same, small smile from Gino’s was back. “Come on, let go,” he said, a little fond.
The walk home was short, and even though it was quiet, the quiet was companionable, rather than sullen and weighty, like it was all too often anymore. It was comfortable, and that was something Kel hadn’t felt in too long.
When they got back, Hero headed upstairs and Kel wandered off to the kitchen for a drink. His mom was at the counter, slicing a few carrots while something wafting a warm and mildly spicy scent bubbled on the stove. Distracted, he wandered over to peer into the pot.
“Kelsey.”
He stopped short, dread yawning a pit open in his stomach. Full names were never a good thing. “Yeah?” he asked, sorting through his memory of the last few days and trying to figure out what he might have done wrong.
“Where were you and your brother all afternoon?”
Not understanding, Kel furrowed a brow. “We just went to get pizza,” he said slowly, doing his best to tread carefully. There wasn’t anything wrong with getting lunch, right?
Setting her knife down on the cutting board, his mom sighed like she was disappointed in him and turned to meet his gaze. “You can’t be distracting Hero like that,” she said, and Kel’s good mood curdled in an instant. The lingering warmth from the sun dissipated, tension coiling in his loose shoulders. “You know he has a lot of school work to catch up on if he wants to keep up and graduate on time. I don’t want him falling behind a year because of you.”
Fight riled up in his rib cage, but Kel did his best to squash it down. He was almost surprised how easy it had gotten by now, to tamp down the protests of how that wasn’t fair, how he was just trying to help. The arguments melted into something quiet and dark, sludgy but easier to manage nonetheless. He could handle the upset, the drag to his step, and it would get him in less trouble than the flare of fight.
“Kelsey, did you hear me? Don’t bother him anymore when he’s studying. I don’t want to see you pulling him away all day again.”
Biting his lip, Kel turned towards the fridge, searching out the water bottle on the top shelf. It was plastic, so he couldn’t keep it, but that didn’t seem to matter much then.
“Sorry, I won’t,” Kel said when he felt like he could without his voice wavering or pitching a note too high. Shutting the fridge, he stepped out of he kitchen and into the dim, empty living room, not sure whether or not he’d just lied. But either way, he opened the bottle and downed the water in one go, flimsy plastic crinkling in his grip. Sinking down to the floor in front of the couch, he leaned back against it, pulling his knees to his chest.
Letting out a breath, he tried to fill the bottle with all the inky muck in his chest, to get back the pleasantly light, glowing feeling he’d had when he came in. He tried.
He tried.
——————
Kel pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes hard enough that stars sparked and popped in his vision.
It was morning, really, and that wasn’t right. He wasn’t supposed to be awake. Not hours after curling up under the covers, the sky deep and dark out beyond the curtains. He didn’t want to be awake anymore. Exhaustion pulled at his bones, plagued his mind while his traitorous heart kept coming up with things to get all twisted up about. Every time his eyelids got heavier, fell shut, a pang of hurt thrummed dully in his chest. Every time a yawn cracked his jaw open, something tarry dripped from his ribs. Every time he started to nod off, unprompted nerves and fear startled him back fully awake.
Kel heaved a sigh, scrubbing at his eyes. It wasn’t supposed to be like this anymore. Things looked better. He could check off boxes, of things that had gone back to the way they used to be. That was better, than when his happy memories seemed like a far off dream. He’d been getting closer to having those good things again, to putting the pieces together.
So it should have been easy, to collapse into bed and be dreaming by the time his head hit the pillow. Like he used to do. But he was just tired, and frustrated, and the clock kept reminding him with every glance how many hours too long he’d been gazing blankly at the walls, the ceiling.
His eyes turned to the bottles perched on top of his closet, trying to empty out whatever feelings were keeping him up. He just had to get rid of them; then, he could sleep.
He tossed and turned a while, picking new bottles to fill, trying to close his eyes for a minute and drift off. Though, none of it quite seemed to work. He didn’t know what time the sun rose, but it felt like he would find out before he got any sleep.
More resigned now than anything, Kel grabbed hold of his blanket and turned, putting his back to the wall. Then, his heart lurched straight into his throat. All at once, Kel was wide awake, utterly frozen aside from the hammering of his pulse, the nauseating twist of his stomach.
Mari was there.
Over on Hero’s side of the room, strung up by a strand of rope cutting into her throat, all dark, limp hair and ashy skin. Unseeing eyes, wide and bloodshot, lanced straight through him. Frigid fingers gripped at his ribs, cracked them apart to squeeze at his heart, and all Kel could do was stare. His breath was stuck in his throat. Every muscle felt locked stiff, and he couldn’t even tear his gaze away.
He wanted to cry, or run, or even just close his eyes and pray to whatever higher power was out there that this would all just go away.
Then, choked and horrified, he blinked and she was gone. All that hung across the room was one of Hero’s white button downs, kept out of the closet to be protected from wrinkles, half cast in shadow. No matter how many times he looked or blinked or scrubbed at his eyes, it was just a shirt.
It was just a shirt, so why wasn’t the heart-pounding fear going away? Hand clenched in the fabric over his heart, Kel lurched upright, trying to remember how to breathe. All at once, trembling took over his body, and he couldn’t stop shaking. Sick to his stomach and sick with the powerful sense of dread that kept his chest tight and his head spinning, he clutched tighter at his shirt, his other hand twisting in his bedsheets. His heart beat fast and funny, lurching and stumbling and skipping beats.
That felt bad. That felt really bad.
Suddenly, he was way more afraid of dying himself than any illusions of a hanging girl.
Hero.
Hero could help.
Shaky, Kel struggled to pull himself free of the blankets and stumbled out of bed. The room tilted and spun as he tried to get across, but he only made it halfway before wobbly knees gave out. Dizzy and breathless, he dropped to the floor, hardly aware of the cold floorboards under him. His vision was starting to fuzz at the edges, going grey, but he held his attention on Hero’s sleeping form, tucked under the blankets.
“Hero,” he called out, desperate, voice sounding small and afraid, even in his own ears. He couldn’t breathe, and his heart felt like it was just moments from being crushed by the tight grip bearing down on it. And panic flooded in further with every frantic heartbeat that he didn’t get any sort of reply.
Finally, thankfully, Hero stirred, blankets rustling. “Kel…?” he mumbled, questioning, drowsy and still half-asleep.
“I think…” Kel managed breathlessly between heaving in useless gasps of air, “I think I’m dying.”
Sitting flat on the floor, knees bent out on either side of him, hands braced against the floorboards in front of him to keep himself from collapsing, Kel hardly had time to squeeze his eyes shut before Hero was there. Startled wide awake, he was kneeling in front of Kel in an instant. His warm hand was an anchor, a grounding point on Kel’s shoulder, keeping him from spiraling off.
“Kel? I need you to tell me what’s wrong, okay?” he said, urgent, and even through the haze of panic, Kel could hear the barely restrained fear in his voice.
Absently, he thought that he didn’t like making Hero afraid.
Managing an answer was daunting, though. He couldn’t even make sense of all the static buzzing in his limbs, the jumbling of every vital thing in his chest, much less explain it. Cracking an eye open, he glanced over at Hero, found him pale and a little frantic in the eyes.
“My— my chest hurts,” he tried, reaching up to grab hold of Hero’s hand on his shoulder. To hold tight with his own trembly hand and keep it from disappearing. “And I can’t breathe.”
Hero nodded, serious, lips pressed to a thin line. His gaze was intent, searching, no doubt looking for any sign of injury or illness. Taking in Kel’s wide eyes, the thin sheen of cold sweat broken out over his skin. “Anything else?”
After a moment, Kel just shook his head a little, not answering but trying to clear away the haze and make everything make sense again. “Dizzy,” he said. “Kind of feels like I’m gonna pass out. Or puke.” The room was still swimming around him. “Or both,” he amended.
Hero was quiet for a minute, observing, thinking, before a look of realization clicked in his eyes, and Kel was sure he’d never been more relieved in his entire life. Hero knew what was going on. Hero could save him.
Before he knew what was happening, he’d been tugged into Hero’s lap, held close and secure. Sucking in a stuttering breath, Kel wound his arms around Hero’s back. He didn’t know why that did it—just a hug—but it was enough to send tears streaming down his face. Clinging desperately, he buried his face in the crook of Hero’s neck, shaking apart.
“You’re going to be alright, I promise. Just try to breathe, okay?” Hero said, the scarcely repressed panic pushed from his voice, replaced instead by something low and soothing.
Kel tried to take comfort in that, in the solid pressure and weight of Hero’s arms around him. And he tried to breathe, like Hero said, fighting against the constricting of his chest. His ribs felt too small for his lungs, and the air he gasped down never seemed to do any good. But, twisting his fingers in Hero’s pajamas, he managed to get a few decent breaths in.
Slowly, with time and air, the grey shadows creeping into his vision receded, and everything cleared up from the fuzzy haze it was in, only blurred a little by watery eyes. He was still trembling all over, heart racing too fast, but he started to feel less like he was drowning, less like he was dying. Hero’s hand rubbed soothing lines up and down between his shoulder blades. And whenever his breath hitched, throat closing up and fresh panic washing in, Hero was there with quiet reassurances, reminding him to take it slow, to breathe, and that everything was going to be okay.
“That’s it,” Hero murmured, soft, encouraging, as Kel slowly came back from the brink of… whatever that was. “There you go,” he said, keeping that same gentle tone.
“Breathe in… breathe out…” he reminded in slow, even counts, and it was only then that Kel realized his breath had snared in his chest. He kept at it, matching Hero’s steady pace, until he found it getting easier, more automatic. And eventually, like the tide drawing back from the beach, the intense panic fell away to something far off. Just a distant glimmer, a memory.
He was still sort of shivery, but his heartbeat had come back down to a rhythm more settled and quiet. The tears had stopped too, and slowly, Kel realized he didn’t quite need his death grip on Hero anymore, fingers stiff and aching where they’d been clenched in the soft stripes of his pajama shirt. Still, he was a little reluctant when he finally pulled back enough to wipe at his eyes, his nose, with the back of his wrist. Sniffling, he glanced up at Hero and found concern and relief all tangled up in the ginger set of his expression. His brows were still stitched in at the corners, eyes crinkled with worry, but the chalky, bloodless pallor he’d taken on, clear even in the dark, had warmed into a healthier color.
“Do you feel any better now?” he asked, the words coming gentle, a balm on frayed nerves.
Kel nodded a little, wiping at his eyes one last time for good measure. “I think so,” he answered. At the very least, he was just glad that seizing in his chest, that unshakable dread chained around his heart, was gone. He really had been sure he was dying, but now, not so much. Which was a very, very welcome thing.
When Hero let out a long, relieved breath, all the tension wound up in him settled, and he drew Kel back into a quick hug. “You really scared me,” he breathed, squeezing tight before letting go.
Kel held on just as tight for a moment, before he shifted back out of Hero’s space, pulling one knee to his chest. “Sorry.” He found he meant it—really meant it—and that he really was sorry for making Hero worry. That was the last thing he needed on his plate, to be woken up in the middle of the night to his little brother completely panicked, about to pass out in the middle of the floor.
Bending a little to catch Kel’s gaze, Hero reached out. He took one of Kel’s hands between his own, something intense about his eyes, bright in the lowlight. “You don’t have to apologize,” he said, achingly genuine. “I’m just glad you’re okay. I…” he started, mouth twisting to a wobbly line. “I couldn’t lose you too.”
Warmth bloomed out behind Kel’s eyes again, and his throat started to clog. Nodding, he ducked his head until he managed to blink back the cloudy tears. He didn’t want to cry anymore, with his eyes already tender and his nose all stuffed up. Clearing his throat, he tried to redirect the conversation to something that didn’t press quite so hard on all the bruises marring his heart.
“How did you know what to do to make me feel better?” he asked.
Instead of giving an answer, Hero just rubbed at the back of his neck and hesitated a few beats. “Do you know what that was—what just happened to you?”
Thinking a moment, Kel shook his head. It felt like what he imagined a heart attack would feel like. And he couldn’t shake the lingering sense of dread that something was very, very wrong. But, Hero had managed to take all of that away, even if it took a little time.
“I think you had a panic attack,” Hero said quietly. Something in his eyes softened, and for a moment, while everything sunk in, all Kel could think was that Hero’s hands, still protectively clasped around his own, were warm. And that was nice.
Then, his head caught up to what Hero had just said. Though, he went on with more, tone careful and gentle. “I just wanted to help you calm down and feel better. And to make sure there wasn’t anything else going on. You feel okay now, right?” he asked. “Not dizzy or sick anymore?”
With his free arm, Kel hugged his knee a little tighter to his chest. He tried to take a deep breath and take stock of himself, and to not let what Hero said rattle him too much. The shivering had finally slowed to a stop, and that had been just about the last uncomfortable thing sticking around.
“Just tired,” he said. As if to prove his point, a yawn bubbled up in his throat, and exhaustion seemed to pull just a little more heavily at his bones. He’d been tired earlier, restless, sleepless, but the panic and fear had sapped all the energy he had left and then some.
Hero nodded once, seeming relieved there wasn’t anything else wrong. Kel hadn’t noticed it before then, but Hero looked tired too, no doubt because he’d been woken up in the small hours of the morning.
“Why don’t we talk more in the morning, then?” Hero suggested, giving Kel’s hand a final, reassuring squeeze before he eased back. “Do you think you can get some sleep?” he asked.
Kel’s heart sunk a little at the thought. Warily, he turned back to look at his bed, sitting unassuming halfway across the room. Yet, somehow, it seemed that the shadows settled thicker there, on top of his blankets, lying in wait at his pillow. He swore, if he squinted hard enough, he could see the glitter of glass shards, pieces of burst bottles and shattered control ready to slice in and bleed guilt from his veins.
Thinking about lying in that bed again tonight made him sick to his stomach.
But at the same time, his whole body felt like it was weighted with sand or magnetized to the floor. His brain felt fried, too, worse than after the last day of that one summer vacation when he had to spend all day finishing all the homework he put off too long. Really, nothing sounded better than slumping into bed and closing his eyes. Blinking slow, he glanced away from his own bed, looking up at Hero through damp, clumped lashes instead.
“Can I sleep in bed with you?” he asked, almost too tired to be embarrassed. Almost. His face still flushed warm and pink. He was sure he was too old to be curling up in bed with his parents or his brother, like he used to after a nightmare, or when the creaking of the house left him nervous and on edge. He hadn’t asked, or merely invited himself into their beds in years. But, with his heart feeling bruised and battered, the last smudges of adrenaline fading from his system, he thought it might be okay. His first panic attack—and he desperately hoped it would be his only panic attack—seemed like just about the best excuse he would ever get, to slip back into that old comfort.
For his part, Hero only smiled, small and fond, and reached out to ruffle Kel’s hair a little. “Of course,” he answered gently.
And so he helped pick Kel up off the floor, pulling him to his feet and keeping a steady hand on his arm when he wobbled a little. And before he knew it, Kel was tucked under the covers, warm and secure between Hero and the wall. It was a little bit of a tight fit, but he didn’t mind, and the arm Hero draped around his middle was weighty in the best way, a comfortable reminder that he wasn’t alone anymore.
“This okay?” Hero asked quietly after they got settled in. Kel was already fighting drowsiness to come up with an answer.
Humming an approving note, Kel let his eyes fall shut. It was a relief that none of the sharp feelings from earlier, lying frustrated in bed, came scrounging up to pick at him. Instead, something warm and contented flowed through his chest. With Hero at his side, tucked up under blankets that smelled clean and familiar like him, Kel’s heart swelled with emotion.
He couldn’t remember the last time he really felt like that—safe and undeniably loved. But he felt it then, all the way until he drifted off to deep, dreamless sleep.
——————
When Kel woke up, it was a slow and gradual thing. The soft rhythm of Hero carding through his hair, nails scratching pleasantly light along his scalp, brought him up from the depths of bone-dead, exhausted sleep. It was a little like coming up for air after a long swim, the sun a bright glare and the world strangely crisp after breaking the watery surface.
For the first time in a long time, he felt rested and sated, all loose and warm and relaxed. Giving a languid stretch, he pressed his cheek a little more into the soft flannel of Hero’s pajamas, settled in against his stomach. And that was when the realization dawned on him that Hero was sitting up, Kel’s head resting in his lap, which definitely wasn’t how they fell asleep. Blinking against the daylight streaming in through the windows, he couldn’t help the confused noise that rose up in his throat.
“Are you finally awake?” Hero asked, smoothing some stray hair back out of Kel’s eyes before he went back to carding through the length of it, worked smooth and free of tangles. It had been getting longer lately, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to cut it.
“What time is it?” Kel mumbled, rubbing at his eyes. He was used to waking up to pale, morning light, more blue than gold with a particular yawn-inducing quality.
Hero hummed a little and glanced at the clock. “Almost two,” he answered. “Mom wanted to wake you up for breakfast, and lunch, but I’ve never seen you knock out like that. I figured you needed the sleep.”
Finding it in himself to sit up, Kel counted back the hours. He didn’t know exactly when he fell asleep, but he figured he must have been passed out for close to a full twelve hours. And Hero was right that he definitely needed it. Laying up all night, eyes dry and itchy, frustration and desperation mounting with every turn of the clock, was a special kind of terrible. And after everything that happened, he was far beyond the point of exhausted. He’d never been happier just to sleep.
“I can make you some breakfast if you want,” Hero said. “I think we have still have pancake mix.”
For a moment, Kel just made an agreeable noise in his throat, his stomach starting to wake up and realize it had missed meals. He was hungry, and pancakes sounded so much better than whatever he might have scrounged up himself. Though, after a moment, something snagged in the back of his mind. He’d been about to get up, and tug Hero down to the kitchen with him, but instead he sat and pulled at that snag, the thinking and considering creasing his brow.
“Why are you being extra nice to me?” Kel asked, when the thought came loose and clear.
Hero was always nice; it was just part of his natural demeanor, Kel figured. But this really going out of his way, to protect Kel’s sleep, to sit with him and comb fingers through his notoriously messy hair without ever catching or pulling a knot and waking him up, to make breakfast special for him when everyone else had already eaten, this was more. Beyond the normal scope of Hero niceties. And he had a vaguely prickling sort of feeling about it, somewhere low in his gut.
Something in Hero’s expression folded a bit, though Kel couldn’t exactly make sense of it. It felt kind of soft around the edges, but in the same way that paper did after it was put through the laundry in his pocket. Like it was beaten up a bit, somehow. “You had a rough night,” he said, a little gingerly.
Torn, Kel couldn’t decide if that made him feel better or not. He did appreciate the thought, but at the same time, it felt a little like Hero was trying to make up for something. He always went out of his way when he felt sorry for something, like when he’d accidentally thrown out one of Kel’s comics when he was cleaning up. The whole week after that, he pitched in with Kel’s chores and helped out, even going as far as replacing the lost volume.
The sneaking suspicion crept into his gut that Hero felt guilty.
“It’s not like anything changed,” Kel finally said.
But Hero’s brows tilted into something low and thoughtful, then, and Kel couldn’t help but wonder if it was the wrong this to say.
“Can I ask you something?” Hero tried after a few moments.
“Sure, I guess.” In an absent gesture, Kel rubbed at the fabric of his pajama pants, thumb and forefinger smoothing small circles over it.
“What happened, last night I mean? You seemed like you’d been handling everything really well—a lot better than me—and I kind of thought you were okay,” Hero admitted quietly.
“I was,” Kel rushed to assure, “I am.” The last thing he wanted was for Hero to have to worry about him too. Still, the smile he set on his lips didn’t feel quite right; most of them hadn’t for a while. There was something about the pull of it that didn’t crinkle his eyes like it used to. He only hoped Hero wouldn’t notice.
“That’s good.” The sentiment didn’t sound as relieved as it did cautious, like Hero didn’t quite believe him. “Was it just a bad dream then?”
Something sunk a little in Kel’s chest. It would have been easy to say yes and dismiss the whole thing. To say he was only scared of the some nightmare that haunted his sleep. But he couldn’t lie to Hero. “No, I- uh,” he fumbled, rubbing sheepishly at the back of his neck. “I couldn’t sleep.”
Something a little worried crumpled Hero’s expression. His mouth pressed into a soft frown, eyes going thoughtful. “Any reason?” He asked, and Kel squirmed a little under that line of questioning. There was a safe and easy ‘no’ he could offer, because it was true, at least at first. But the more Hero asked, the closer he got to hearing things Kel didn’t want to bother him with.
Kel just shrugged, trying to brush it off. But when he shifted his gaze away from Hero, a little guilty with the omission, it landed on his collection of bottles on the other side of the room. A bit of his smile fell away, and he laced his hands together in his lap. They weren’t really working like they used to, it seemed like. Before, he could just stuff everything down and cap it off. All the bad feelings safe and secure somewhere he didn’t have to deal with them anymore. But last night, and for a while before, it wasn’t really enough. He couldn’t get rid of the tar in his lungs, the murk in his stomach.
Maybe something showed too much on his face, or maybe Hero was just good at telling when something was bothering him, because he scooted over a little closer and looped an arm around Kel’s shoulder, gently pulling him in close. That comfort, the warmth in that little gesture, had a knot forming him Kel’s throat. A slow, flickering burn came to life in his chest, uncomfortably hot and gradually growing the longer he sat tucked against Hero’s side. It felt so good, knowing Hero was there, that he cared, but it still sort of made him want to cry. He didn’t understand it, couldn’t explain it, but so many tender, fragile, aching things were welling in his chest and he didn’t know what to do.
“I’m trying my best,” he said eventually, voice coming out a little watery and wavering. But his eyes stayed dry.
“What do you mean?” Hero prompted, low and mild.
At first, Kel just shook his head, not trusting his voice. Sniffling a little, be blinked against the heat prickling behind his eyes and readjusted. Pulling his knees up and propping his arms on top, he tucked his chin in behind his crossed arms. Like that, there was hardly a strip of the room visible, most of his vision obscured, messy strands of hair falling in his eyes.
If he just held on to everything, it would be fine. He could shrug this all off and Hero would forget, eventually. Everything could go back to normal. It had to.
“Come on, Kel,” Hero said, unmistakably warm and a little sad. “You’ve helped me a lot since… well…” He took a deep breath, steadied himself. “Anyway, I think it’s time you let me be the big brother I’m supposed to be and help you. But I can’t know what’s going on in your head unless you tell me.”
The words settled in the air between them, and something cracked open a little in Kel’s chest. The twist of a cap, soda bubbles fizzing up.
“I just want to fix everything,” he said, every word resonating somewhere deep. And once he started, it felt like the words just kept bubbling up, and he was telling Hero everything he’d been holding onto. “I want to put everything back the way it used to be. When everyone was happy and it didn’t hurt so much.” Before he knew it, tears were dripping slow from his lashes. “I miss Sunny. You know, he won’t even answer the door for me anymore. And I don’t know why, but Aubrey’s mad at me, and Basil just isn’t the same. Nothing’s the same anymore. And I’m trying to smile and make the best of it and fix everything, but I don’t know how. I don’t think I can. It’s not working.”
Taking a shivery breath, Kel tried to steady himself the best he could, squeezing his eyes shut. “I want Mari back,” he said, heartfelt and hurting.
It was quiet for a while, after that. And Kel sat, still hiding behind his arms, his knees, his hair, and waited for the tears to finally settle. He felt strangely raw for having finally said it. He’d spent so long trying to ignore it, to put the feelings behind him—to walk away from dusk and towards dawn, towards brighter things. But now, his heart ached in his chest, felt scraped clean.
When Hero finally did shift, did break the quiet stillness lingering over them, it was to wrap his arms around Kel’s middle and squeeze, hard enough that it hurt. But it was a good hurt, and Kel clung onto the fabric over Hero’s chest, holding tight.
“Kel, I’m so, so sorry,” Hero said, easing back enough to look Kel in the eye. Hero’s gaze was misty, eyes a little red around the edges. “I… I missed things, with Mari. I didn’t realize she was having a hard time until it was too late, and I can’t make that same mistake again.”
Kel swallowed hard, a little awed. Hero never really talked about Mari, if he could avoid it, and when he did, it was always with drifting gazes and careful stepping around anything that hurt too bad.
“I’m really sorry I didn’t notice anything sooner. I should have. She was your friend too.” Slowly, the intensity in Hero’s gaze, his voice, faded out, leaving something small and soft in its wake. “Of course you miss her,” he murmured, a little like it was only really sinking in for the first time. Kel couldn’t help but wonder whether he was really that good at putting on a happy face, or if Hero was just too distracted to see the cracks. Not that all the smiles he put on were forced. Some were real.
Some were real.
“You shouldn’t be sorry.” Kel said, wiping at his cheeks to dry off the tear tracks. It wasn’t Hero’s fault, none of it was.
“No, I should have checked on you, or asked or something.” He gave Kel’s shoulder a little squeeze, the very edges of a smile on his lips. “I’m your brother, it’s my job.”
Before Kel had the chance to say anything back, his stomach growled loud enough he was sure they both heard it. He’d almost forgotten he was hungry, but he definitely remembered now. He’d never skipped meals like this before, and even if was for much needed sleep, he wasn’t sure he liked the idea much anymore. Hero just laughed a little, softly breaking the tension, which was always nice to hear, rare as it had become. It was getting less so, now, though.
“Are you still offering to make pancakes?” Kel asked, grinning just a bit despite himself and wiping the last of the tears from his eyes. He was sure Hero had more to say, and he probably did too, if he thought about it. But all the same, he figured it could wait for another time. Even scraped out and raw as he felt, it was better than he’d felt in a long time, no longer so weighed down by muck and bubbling darkness curling in his chest. Talking to Hero, just getting some of it out, was what he needed, he realized.
“Sure thing,” Hero replied, affectionately ruffling a hand through Kel’s hair, then running it down through the length. He made to get up, but Kel stopped him with a hold on his wrist, just for an instant.
“Thanks, Hero,” he said, “for everything.”
For a moment, Hero just stopped and looked back at him, washed in gold sunlight, hair a mess of bed head, still in his pajamas. But when he smiled, it was soft and warm and felt like home.
“Anytime.”
——————
Later that day, when the sun had started to sink, Kel hauled the recycling bin out from the garage, up the stairs, and into his room. One after another, all the glass bottles lined around the room went in. There was something satisfying about it, the clink of tossed bottles landing in the pile.
“Are you sure you don’t want to keep those? You put a lot of effort into collecting them all,” Hero called from his desk, a curious brow raised.
Kel just smiled back, clearing the last bottle from the top of his closet. Climbing down, he threw it in to join the rest of the recycling. He dusted off his hands and sat down on his unmade bed, feeling light.
“Nah,” he grinned, “I don’t think I need them anymore.”