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n4tunicorn · 5 hours ago

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that time modern!chet baker had a bad trip and hallucinated himself at ten years old.

tw: drugs, abuse, angst, probably not how hallucinating on drugs works but oh well.

The bathroom light hummed like it hated him.

It buzzed in his skull, crawling under his skin, syncing with the pulse hammering behind his eyes. The mirror wouldn’t stay still—his reflection kept twitching, too fast and then too slow, stretched and smeared and flickering like an old reel of film. Chet pressed both palms to the sink and bent over it, breathing like he was trying to outrun his own lungs.

It wasn’t the coke, or not just the coke. It was the tequila before that. The pill someone passed him earlier. The acid maybe—he didn’t even ask what it was. He just didn’t want to feel like him anymore.

The tile shifted beneath his feet. He backed away from the mirror, sliding down the wall with a hand clenched in his hair. He sat on the cold floor, pulling his knees to his chest. His heart was racing—too fast. Too sharp. He couldn’t slow it down. Couldn’t focus on the music outside. Couldn’t focus on anything but how the light made everything look like it was underwater.

He didn’t hear anything at first—just the hum of the overhead light, the soft thud of his heartbeat echoing in his ears.

Then he saw him.

A boy. Curled up on the tile like he’d been dropped there. Small. Shivering. Legs drawn up so tight they hid most of his face, hair a messy halo that clung to damp cheeks. His socks had slipped down, one bunched at the ankle, like he’d dressed himself in the dark.

He was crying.

Ugly, snot-choked sobs. The kind that couldn’t be swallowed. The kind that broke out in gasps, hiccups, chokes—sounds that clawed up from the chest like they didn’t care if they hurt.

Chet stopped in the doorway, frozen.

No.

No, no, no.

This couldn’t be happening again.

The boy didn’t see him.

Didn’t move.

Just kept shaking, face buried in the crook of his elbow. His ribs rose and fell too fast. Each breath a battle.

Chet stepped back. His pulse thundered.

“No,” he muttered, breath hitching. “No, we’re not— You’re not real.”

The boy mumbled something into the tile.

“M-my tummy hurts,” he said, like he was confessing. “He kicked me. I didn’t even do nothin’ this time…”

His voice cracked, a high, quivering whisper. “I hate him…”

Chet staggered forward, mouth dry. “Stop it. Stop.”

But the boy didn’t stop. He rocked forward, clutching his shirt like he could hold his insides together, the fabric spotted with tears.

“I didn’t break it,” he whimpered. “I didn’t—I was just tryin’ to help—”

“Shut up!” Chet barked, louder than he meant to. The sound shattered in the small room.

The boy flinched but didn’t look up.

“Michael saw…” he cried. “James looked away… Dean said not to cry so much like a baby…”

Chet dropped to his knees, hands in his hair. “You’re not real. You’re not real.”

“I tried to be good,” the boy sobbed, curling tighter. “I tried real hard.”

Chet’s hands trembled as he slammed them against the sink cabinet. “Why are you here?! What do you want from me?!”

He looked again.

Still there.

Still crying.

The child he’d buried—stuffed into corners, patched over with powder and bravado and late-night hookups and cheap liquor—was right there on the floor, sobbing like the world had come undone.

“Why don’t they wanna help me?” the boy whispered, voice gone hoarse. “Why don’t they wanna be my brothers?”

“Because they’re assholes!” Chet shouted. “Because—because they’re scared or stupid or too proud or—I don’t know! I don’t know, okay?!”

He pushed himself back against the wall, legs folding uselessly under him. Tears blurred everything. His throat burned. “Just go away,” he begged, voice cracking. “Please. Please just go.”

But the boy didn’t move.

He whimpered and bit down on his sleeve again, muffling himself like he was trying not to exist. Like smallness would save him.

Chet clawed at his chest, pressing the heel of his hand into his sternum like he could keep himself from splitting open. “I can’t—I can’t keep doing this. I’m not you anymore. I’m not.”

He moved.

Small hands planted against the tile as he sniffled, wiping his nose with his wrist. He didn’t look up right away. Just uncurled himself slowly, like he was afraid of being swatted for taking up space.

And then—he turned toward Chet.

Wide, puffy eyes met his. Not with recognition. Not with fear. Just this open, aching need. Like a kicked dog finally crawling toward the only person left in the room.

Chet’s breath hitched.

“No—no, no, don’t—” he whispered, scooting back against the vanity like it might swallow him whole.

But the boy kept coming. On his knees, then crawling. Quiet, slow, shaky. The way kids moved when they didn’t know if they were welcome.

“Don’t touch me,” Chet choked, scrubbing at his face with both hands. “Please. I can’t—”

The boy sat beside him. Close enough to press his shoulder against Chet’s knee. He didn’t say anything at first. Just rested there, gently, like he thought he’d break something if he moved too fast.

Then he leaned in a little more.

His forehead bumped Chet’s side.

And then he cried again.

Softer now. Not because the pain was gone, but because he was tired. Because this was what happened after the screaming—after the begging. When nothing changed. When no one came.

“I don’t wanna go back out there,” the boy whispered, barely a breath. “I’ll be quiet. I promise.”

Chet stared down at him, frozen. His hands hovered like he might push him away. Like he might hold him. He did neither.

“I hate it,” the boy said again. “I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.”

His voice cracked on the third. Like he’d used it up.

Chet’s chest folded in on itself.

He didn’t feel high anymore. Not like before. Now it was just too much. Too sharp. Like the trip had peeled his skin off, left him raw and bloody with nothing to protect him from what was underneath.

“I don’t know how to help you,” he whispered.

The boy didn’t answer. He just inched a little closer. Laid his head against Chet’s thigh like it was the safest place in the world.

Chet didn’t move.

He couldn’t.

He looked down at the child’s messy hair, the way his shoulders still jerked with leftover sobs. The too-big shirt. The flushed cheeks. All of it.

Chet swallowed hard. His throat was too dry.

He placed one trembling hand on the boy’s back.

Just one.

Not a hug. Not a rescue. But contact.

The boy flinched—then melted.

A sob shook out of him like it had been waiting for permission. And then another. And another. Until he was clinging to Chet’s leg, face buried, small hands fisted in the fabric of his jeans.

Chet looked at the ceiling, blinking back his own tears, but they came anyway. Hot and silent and sharp. The kind you didn’t even realize were there until your face was wet.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

The boy didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to.

He was just a child.

And Chet—Chet had finally stopped running from him long enough to realize that he still was, too.

The boy was still there. Right there, pressed into Chet’s side now—his small hand clutching Chet’s hoodie, his head tucked against Chet’s ribs like he’d known him forever. Like he didn’t even care that Chet hadn’t moved to comfort him. His little body shook with each breath, his face still damp with tears, his eyes ringed in red and glossed over like glass.

“You can’t be here,” Chet whispered—to the boy, to no one. “You’re not… you’re not real. You’re not…��

But the weight of the boy’s grip was real. His breathing was real. The tiny, shivering presence, warm and clinging like a ghost that didn’t want to haunt—just wanted to be held.

Chet turned his face away. He tried to peel the boy’s hand off his sweatshirt, but the fingers only curled tighter.

“I didn’t ask for you,” Chet snapped, voice cracking as he shoved the heel of his palm against his eyes. “Why’d you come back?”

The boy flinched.

“I don’t want you,” he said, louder now. “I don’t want—you don’t get to be here, not now, not after everything. I already lived it. I already did it. You need to leave.”

The boy buried his face deeper in Chet’s side. One of his socked feet kicked slightly, as if trying to get more comfortable, like this was normal. Like this was safe.

The boy whimpered—quiet, tired. His arms reached up, wrapping around Chet’s middle. Seeking, clinging.

“I wanted someone to help me,” the boy mumbled into Chet’s shirt. “But nobody did. I thought if I was good enough, they’d start lovin’ me right.”

Chet gasped like he’d been stabbed.

The boy kept going, soft and wet-voiced. “I was real quiet for a whole week once. Didn’t cry or nothin’. I didn’t even mess up. And Daddy still hit me. Michael saw. James saw too. Nobody stopped him. Nobody even looked.”

“Stop,” Chet choked. “Stop talking. Please.”

“I just wanted to be a brother. I didn’t wanna be the crybaby anymore,” the boy whispered, pulling Chet’s hoodie up over his head like a blanket.

He could hear Sodapop’s voice in his head, even though he was nowhere to be seen. “Chet,” he said, voice low and steady, “you don’t got to push him away.”

“I do,” Chet hissed. His face twisted. “He’s weak. He’s pathetic. He’s the reason they hated me. He wouldn’t shut up—he kept crying, kept needing—he ruined everything.”

The boy didn’t flinch when Chet’s voice snapped. He just pressed closer, like a child who didn’t understand anger as anything but weather—loud and passing, nothing to do with him.

“I didn’t mean to be bad,” the boy whispered, fingers twisted in the hem of Chet’s hoodie now, clinging like it was the only thing keeping him anchored. “I said sorry. I always said sorry. But it didn’t matter. He still yelled. He still—”

His breath hitched. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and pulled his knees higher, curling like he wanted to disappear into Chet’s side.

“I didn’t want you to get mean,” he murmured.

Chet stiffened.

“I—I try real hard to be brave so you won’t turn out like him,” the boy hiccupped. “But I didn’t do it right.”

Chet’s whole chest seized. His arms hung useless at his sides, frozen. He couldn’t look down at the kid—he already knew what he’d see. Puffy eyes. Wet cheeks. That same crushed, desperate kind of hope he used to hold like a secret in the back of his throat.

Chet let out a sound that wasn’t quite a sob, wasn’t quite a growl. Something feral, cornered.

“I hate it here,” the boy said, voice so small it almost wasn’t there. “I hate the house. I hate my room. I hate the look James gives me when he pretends not to see. I hate that Danielle said nothing. I hate that even Barbie only checks after, like a secret. I hate how Dean laughs at my voice when it breaks. I hate how no one ever—” he stopped. Swallowed hard. “No one ever helped me.”

Chet’s hands twitched.

The boy shifted slightly. He looked up.

“Do you want me?” he asked.

Chet’s breath caught. The kind of question that didn’t come from a memory, or a dream. The kind of question that came from deep down, from the part of yourself you don’t touch unless something breaks.

“Because if you don’t…” The boy’s lip quivered. “I’ll go. I can go back. I know the way. I always know the way.”

The silence filled up like floodwater.

Chet trembled.

He didn’t reach for him. But he didn’t move away either. His chest heaved. His throat ached. And for the first time since the coke wore off, his hands found movement. Not fast, not frantic—just one slow motion, laying his palm on top of the boy’s hair.

It was soft. Familiar.

The boy closed his eyes like he’d been waiting years for that.

It felt like it had been hours.

The boy was still crying, quieter now, but not because it didn’t hurt. His face was blotchy and red, tears glistening down his cheeks, breath hiccupping with every inhale. He gripped Chet’s shirt like it was the only thing keeping him from falling apart completely.

Chet held him close, cradling him awkwardly in his lap on the cold bathroom floor, one arm wrapped firm across his back, the other hand smoothing down messy, damp hair. He was too old for this. Too grown. Too broken. But the boy—his boy—needed someone.

So he became that someone.

“You don’t have to be brave right now,” Chet whispered, his voice rough and shaking. “You don’t gotta suck it up. I got you.”

The boy trembled harder, pressing his face into Chet’s chest.

Chet rocked them gently, knees drawn up to keep the small body tucked close. He rubbed little circles between the boy’s shoulder blades, steady and slow like it might help settle the awful shaking.

“No one should’ve left you alone like that,” he said. “You were just a kid.”

The boy whimpered, a soft, cracked sound like a kicked puppy.

“I shoulda come for you,” Chet whispered. “If I could’ve… I would’ve picked you up and taken you right outta there. I’d’ve made you laugh. I’d’ve sat next to you on the bed and told you your socks didn’t have to match and that crying doesn’t make you bad.”

The boy shifted, just a little, pulling his legs up tighter like he didn’t quite believe it yet.

“I’d’ve told you that even if they didn’t say it, it wasn’t your fault,” Chet murmured. “Even if they didn’t help, you were still worth helping.”

The boy’s fingers twitched in the fabric of Chet’s shirt. Chet gently untangled them and took the boy’s hand in both of his, folding his larger, calloused palms around the small trembling ones.

“I’ll be your brother now, ‘kay?” he whispered, forehead leaning against the boy’s. “I know it’s late. I know it ain’t how it’s supposed to be. But I’m here.”

The boy nodded once, barely a movement. His lashes fluttered, heavy and wet. Chet pressed his cheek against the boy’s hair and kept talking, soft and steady.

The boy didn’t respond.

But his body, for the first time, had gone soft. Less curled. Less braced for another hit.

Chet kissed the top of his head—awkward, like he didn’t know how, because he didn’t—and tucked the too-long sock back onto his foot.

“You’re gonna sleep now,” he whispered, like a secret. “Okay? Just rest.”

The boy blinked up at him. “You’ll stay?”

“I’ll stay,” Chet said. His voice cracked. “I swear, I’ll stay.”

The boy gave a tiny nod. A breath. Then another.

And his eyes fluttered closed.

Chet didn’t move. Didn’t breathe too loud. He just held him.

Just like he’d always wanted someone to do.

And for the first time in years, the silence didn’t feel like abandonment.

It felt like peace.

“You did good, little man. You made it all the way here. That’s brave. That’s the bravest thing I ever saw.” he whispered, and soon enough he was out like a light as well.

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