Like Touching a Reflection

 He couldn't sleep that night.

Shoving his face into the crook between mattress and wall, he groaned softly into a faceful of bunched-up blanket, a scratchy gate-hinge sound warbling in his ears. Fever-nonsense.

Too warm, too cold. His heartbeat fluttered shallow, sweat sticking fabric to his itchy neck as he curled up and tried to ignore the gate-hinge creak whistling in the imaginary wind filling his ears. How was he supposed to sleep like this? Every part of him wanted to drop dead, but couldn't, and his head pounded.

Shivering violently, he wrapped the softest blanket on his bed around his shoulders and tried to smother himself in it, his own breath panting miserably back at him. This bit deep. All of it. Forget what tomorrow'd be like, he'd barely be awake. They could get him up when the moons rose. He'd turn nocturnal. Sleep never.

Could feel ants marching under his skin, like prickling fire, tiny pincers munching up from underneath. Couldn't breathe. His head turned in sky-spinning circles, and his lungs ached. Too much blanket. No air.

A howl drifted on the wind, yellow eyes flashing in the darkness.

He shot up, chest heaving. What was that?

No, it wasn't real, was it? His teeth chattered in the burning cold and his breath rasped in his ears. Couldn't hear anything if he wanted to.

Too close to the window. The curtains... there was a faint light behind them. Faintly yellow.... Darkness prowling out there, wanting to get in. If he peeled back the curtain....

The hairs along the back of his neck prickled hard enough to make the bite throb, and he gripped his neck hard, air stuttering between his teeth. No no, could feel it scratching at the glass. He wrapped the blanket over his shoulders, stumbling up and almost falling onto the carpet. Out there. Outside, a dark shadow snuffling under moons that weren't red yet.

Had to get away, had to get away from the window, and the eyes looking in before it saw him.

Slipping through the door, closing it behind him, he leaned against the wall, shudders crawling up and down his spine, and tried to muffle his panting breaths, listening hard. No scratching noises. No glass shattering.

Too quiet, too dark; silent shadows watching in the corners. The only way it could go was through this door, and a flimsy wooden door wouldn't stop it.

Needed a corner. Hide. Hide. The gate-hinge grated in his ears, tingling at his back teeth like claws on a chalkboard, and he clenched his jaw, shaking his head. Bathroom. It was out of the way.

He closed the door quietly behind him, ambient light leaking around the ceiling edges, glowing eerily off the tile. Wedging himself into the corner of the shower-tub, nudging the blanket until it piled nicely, he curled up, cold seeping through the hard surface. Pulling over the rest kept out the chill creeping over his skin. Perfect.

Couldn't hear any skittering or rustling anymore. No panting outside the window. It couldn't get in here; it wouldn't look in here. Quiet enough to hear his heartbeat thudding against the tub, shallow breathing a little softer.

...Lonely.

A rasping sound bounced in his ears to the bobbing squeeze of his throat. It almost clicked, almost vibrated. Weird.

He curled up, rubbing at the crook of his shoulder. Something... not right. Shivering, another dry swallow clicked in his throat, the air in his lungs catching in a rattle.

"Ngh-h." Shaking his head, he buried his face in the blanket, another grating creaky-hinge whistling in his ears to the stiff shudder of his shoulders as he muffled a miserable groan. It sounded like a canid. Like a wounded, whimpering dog somewhere in the room. Wasn't human.

Couldn't... didn't hear his own misery over it. Was... was...? No, wouldn't be. He huffed a stuttering laugh into the blanketed tub floor. Felt like a dying canid, sounded like one too. Be hilarious if it was.

A soft click caught his ear, and he went still as the air shifted, dragging another chill across his skin through the tiny gap in his blanket: the door silently swinging open.

He shivered silently, listening hard, hearing soft, quick breathing. Sounded human. Maybe... Erold? Seemed like the way he breathed, somehow.

His idiot brain decided to hum some kind of query. Except it came out weird, more like a whistle-rasp that left the back of his nose sore.

The breathing stopped.

Yeah, he'd probably freeze if he stepped in to use the toilet and his feverish older brother haunted the tub making crazy noises, too. He shifted, a hard shiver rattling his arm as he tried to push up, only for the world to suddenly burn white with a snap.

"Augh!" He hissed violently, burying his face in blanket, knees, and arms. What the—? Lightning—? No, stupid shrihked light. A grumble disappeared into another rusty-hinge creak, high and aggressively plaintive as he tried to block out the light. "Turn— turn't off."

"...D-Dray?" The breathing was back, fast and quick.

"'M bathroom monster. Go 'way." He heard a hesitant shuffle of feet before he rolled over and curled into the tub wall, drowning it all under the rustling cloth. A grating canid-whine rumbled in his ears, his lungs squeezing in a grumbling groan that never appeared as he burrowed deeper into the dark. "Turn th'light off."

"Dra— Dray?" Erold's voice cracked up the whole octave scale. "Is— are— are you...?"

There was a dry rasp-whisper that might've been "okay?" if he could hear past the blanket pulled around his ears, and Erold.... He sounded genuinely terrified, actually, past the fuzz fogging Dray's brain.

"Whadzzit?" He bit back more misery as he forced himself to pull the blanket away from his face and squint over at a darker blur staining the eye-watering light. "Ero?"

A shuddering backwards-breath wasn't the answer he was expecting, blur-Erold sagging against the wall like he’d been shot. "You're okay. You're not— Sluhking Ley I thought you were—"

Dray frowned fuzzily. "Lanwage."

Erold burst out with a shuddering sound that could've been a laugh on another planet.

"Mmf." Dray rolled back over, burying his face in multiple layers again, red blotches with Erold-shaped holes in them swimming behind his eyelids now. "Light. Please."

A softer not-quite laugh trailed away, the light not turning off. "I... should I do something? You don't look.... I think— I think I'll get Mum."

"Light," he growled after him, but the floorboard just outside the door creaked, and he heard quick footsteps disappearing. Kritz.

Grgh, couldn't he just—? A whine trailed after his brother, and he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, clamping his teeth tight, but that didn't seem to help. Definitely wasn't him then. Didn't even know how that sound'd work, but Erold was gone, and the light was on, and if he wanted it off he'd have to get up, and he didn't want to, he wanted him back—

His throat and chest seized up, and his head tipped back, a sound he did know rising up, dragging from a whine into a low rrroooo—

And abruptly choking off as his blood ran cold, his gut clenching. Sluhk. Sluhk. No, no no, anything but that. Not that one. Not that. He choked in air, forcing his throat to loosen, curling up and shuddering. What the sluhk. What the jrahking—

No. No. No. He beat the side of his head, gasping raggedly past the bile rising in the back of his throat and the urge to be violently, violently sick, a nauseating gurgle twisting in the pit of his churning stomach. Swallowing hard, he shivered uncontrollably, a harsh laugh shaking him from head to foot. "I'm going crazy. I'm going sluhking crazy."

Curling into a tight ball, he tried to breathe, wishing Erold would come back with Mum, hoping desperately they'd stay far enough away that they couldn't see him losing his mind. Please—

A hiccup twisted in his throat, rattling strangely again, and he thought for a second he heard a rumble in the dark depths of a damp tunnel, a guttural clicking ringing out. Click click click whine—

"Stop it!" He shoved back, tangling in the blanket and thudding hard into the other side of the tub, stars sparking in his vision. His shoulders shuddered with every harsh breath as he kicked the blanket free, huddling up and shivering. Distantly, the sound of concerned voices and footsteps hurried towards him. Or maybe he imagined them over his teeth chattering.

Shihk. He laughed to himself again, the cold clawing across his clammy skin, heat burning underneath it. Had they heard that? Wasn't— wasn't beating the allegations of turning too quick. Had he just howled? Almost. Maybe. Shihk.

He forced himself to uncurl as the breeze of the door swinging open raised goosepimples on his arms. Shouldn’t... shouldn’t see him losing his mind like this.

Still shivering, he craned his head back, closing his lips firmly in case it triggered something, and caught a glimpse of Mum coming in, concern in her eyes.

"Dray?"