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thetomorrowshow · 2 years

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somewhere in the darkness

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i'm so excited. welcome back to the trust au. also posted on my ao3 (link in bio!)

cw: panic attacks, past injuries

Scott shoots up in bed, gasping out those stupid words—“I’m awake! I’m awake!”—for the third time that night.

He takes in a deep breath, one that pushes uncomfortably against the tightness of his chest, and shoves his blankets off. He’s not going to sleep tonight. Again.

He can blame it on the lingering pain, no problem. His left wing is still immobilized, his shoulders still stiff, his exhausted body still achy. The healer had checked him over again yesterday, clucked xyr tongue, and told him if he wanted to fully heal, his body needed rest.

Real helpful advice. Yeah, just as soon as he can close his eyes without having a panic attack, he’ll get to it.

He rubs his forehead, properly slides out of bed. Might as well get started on his work.

His daily itinerary has been relatively cleared for the next week or so, given his current state. Mostly he’s been focusing on ways to save the Ender Dragon.

He’s buried himself in the depths of Rivendell’s libraries since he returned to his empire a couple of days ago, searching and searching for any information about what, exactly, Xornoth may want with the End.

He’d stumbled upon the secret library completely by accident. There he’d found the well-known legend of Aeor and Exor, with added details about Alinar and chosen heroes and it takes Scott a long while, but he eventually realizes that he is quite favored by Aeor compared to . . . well, compared to all the past rulers apart from Alinar himself. And from what he’s noticed about Xornoth, he’s carrying quite a few of the hallmarks of Exor’s Blessing. And Exor’s full power is only restrained by the life of the Ender Dragon.

That’s not good. That’s not good at all.

But there’s nothing he can do about it right now. Lizzie’s set up a guard around the End Portal and there’s so far been no alerts of anyone even looking for it or entering the Ocean Kingdom unwanted.

Everything’s quiet. Too quiet. The calm before the storm.

And Jimmy’s right there. Right next to Mythland, where apparently Scott had been held captive for the past week.

It’s so very difficult to assure himself that Jimmy’s safe—it always had been, but even more so now, even more so after what’s happened to Scott. There’s nothing he can do about it—no communicator, broken wing, all that—except hope that Lizzie’s keeping a good enough eye on him that he’ll be at the next meeting.

Which happens to be tomorrow. Or, today, rather, a glance at his incense clock tells him. He’s meant to be meeting with the Cod Alliance in Lizzie’s palace around midday.

And he can’t fly, so he’ll have to leave several hours earlier than normal. Probably with a guard as well.

He really should be packing for the trip, or preparing in some way—but Scott’s just tired. He can’t sleep, can’t properly relax at all, but he can at least sit here at his desk and stare at the wall and pretend to be okay.

He’s rarely had problems sleeping before. Even when his brother was making an attempt on his life at every other turn, he’s almost always felt secure in his bed at night—and when he’s had trouble sleeping in the past, it’s always been out of concern for another issue, not the fault of the sleep itself.

Just another thing for his head to be all screwed up about. Right up there next to food and drink and people touching his wings. Great.

So Scott sits there. He doesn’t drift off, as much as he’d hoped he might, but he also can’t seem to focus at all on his research. Eventually, he stands, stretches, and pads over to his bookshelf. He skims the titles for a moment before finding one that he’s read several times over the past couple decades. Maybe a familiar story can ease him into sleep.

It can’t. Which is how, for the third night in a row, he’s awake to see the sunrise.

It’s not like he’s running on nothing, though. He’d slept almost as soon as he’d returned (he’d contacted his Empire that same day he’d first woken and had been home by midday), though it had been potion-induced. He hates sleep potions (even moreso now), but he’d accepted it begrudgingly and slept while his physician set his wing in place.

He’d woken up panicking. He’d sprinted for his quarters as soon as he could.

It’s time for a meal before he knows it, one that Scott surreptitiously oversees the cooking of. It still makes him uncomfortable to eat more than dry toast (toast is difficult to mess with, it’s a simple item of food that has a familiar texture and structure and he would immediately notice if something was wrong), but he also manages to force down some mutton for protein.

And then it’s time to leave. Usually he wouldn’t bother leaving until almost the meeting time, but he has to ride out with a guard of three to the pier, then board the small vessel there sent from the Ocean Queen (pulled by dolphins for maximum efficiency). It’s a much longer trip than normal, and once again Scott mourns the use of his wings (which will return to him, he’s just being dramatic, but still—two weeks of no flying?).

When they arrive, several pins-and-needles-filled hours later, Scott’s swept into a hug.

He freezes, staring almost uncomprehendingly at Lizzie’s arms around him. Her arms brush wrong against his damaged feathers, but it’s a touch that isn’t meant to hurt, isn’t meant to make him scream.

So, despite the twinges of pain, Scott briefly wraps his arms around her with a pat, then carefully extracts himself.

He sees a flash of some strange mixture of emotion on her face—guilt and relief warring for dominance—before it settles into a mask of welcome, one so believable that Scott had seen it dozens of times before without realizing its truth.

“It’s good to see you safe,” Lizzie greets warmly, eyes flicking for a moment to the brace around his knee (that one, unlike the one immobilizing his wing, will be off within the week) before meeting his eyes again.

Scott tries for a smile. He doesn’t think he quite manages it.

Lizzie leads him inside, taking him down winding hallways slower than she normally would to accommodate him. It’s not a long walk, but Scott can already feel his energy flagging by the time they reach the room where they’re meeting.

“Jimmy’s the only one we’re waiting on. Pix flew in about ten minutes ago—he likes being early. Joel’s hardly left all week, of course. We’ve set up one of the lounges, just so things are a little more comfortable—”

And with that, Lizzie opens the door to an open, airy room.

Cushions and pillows and blankets are strewn about the floor, a couple of low seats and chaises here and there. A well-lit pool extends out of the wall, a handful of colorful fish swimming through it.

Joel is flat on his back by the pool, one hand trailing lazily through the water. Pix is a meter or two from him, feet tucked under him as he kneels on a cushion.

Both men wave at him, and as Scott’s in the process of greeting them individually, a familiar cod head pops up from the pool.

“Scott!” Jimmy cries, heaving himself out of the pool. He goes to hug him and Scott takes an unconscious step back—Jimmy’s dripping water, really, he doesn’t want to be soaked—but when the same guilt (less guarded, longer lasting) flashes across Jimmy’s face as it had across his sister’s, Scott acquiesces to a quick hug.

Jimmy seems reluctant to let go of him when Scott pulls away, holding him at arm’s length while his eyes scan every inch of his body.

“You look tired,” Jimmy finally says, seemingly unconsciously reaching up to tuck a curl of Scott’s hair behind his ear. Scott swallows (Jimmy doesn’t know what he’s doing it’s entirely platonic), then tugs free, rolling his shoulders to feel that good almost-painful stretch.

“I’m fine,” he mutters. He knows that the shadows under his eyes, the braces on his knee and wing, and the bruises in various stages of healing that paint his skin all belie his words.

He sits on one of the two chaises in the room, the back of it swooping low enough for him to rest his wings there without discomfort. Jimmy plops down beside him just as Lizzie calls the meeting to order.

For the state of panic that the alliance is in, it’s quite possibly the calmest meeting Scott’s been a part of. Lizzie talks of the reinforced guard at the location of the End Portal, mentions that there have been zero reports of border troubles. Jimmy brings up that Mythland’s been almost silent.

That’s about it for the meeting, or Scott thinks it is before Lizzie jumps and turns to him, fishing something out of a surprisingly deep pocket in her skirt.

“Scott, one of Joel’s people found your communicator in a bush a little way down the road from the pier,” she tells him, handing the device to him. Scott checks it over. The screen is a bit scratched, but it otherwise is in as good condition as he can hope.

It’s good to have the familiar weight of it back in his palm. He runs a finger along the small gouge in the side, represses a yawn. Now that he has this, they can keep him updated without necessarily having to call a meeting. Maybe he can leave, duck out under the pretense of having work to do, and if there’s anything important remembered later, they can message him. Jimmy’s been side-eyeing him the entire meeting, so Scott can’t kid himself into believing that his utter exhaustion has gone unnoticed. Would it be suspicious to leave early? Would it be a weakness to reveal exactly how tired he is by leaving before everything is formally over?

The conversation has shifted to light discussion about the wedding, which, shockingly, was only something around two weeks ago. Scott blinks past the blurriness and black spots in his vision—he can’t sleep won’t sleep they won’t let him—and focuses hard on the conversation.

“—went over well,” Lizzie’s saying when he tunes in. “We were worried that guests from other kingdoms would be upset over missing the first dance, but everyone seemed really excited about keeping to tradition!”

“I think I distracted them from their disappointment,” Jimmy pipes up. “My speech was the best one there!”

“Oh, ‘course it was your speech that distracted them and not my radiant bride, makes sense to me. . . .”

“I mean, c’mon! Joel, your great-aunt pulled me aside just to tell me that I ought to be a professional speech-giver! I don’t recall her saying anything about Lizzie.”

“That’s just ‘cause Great-Aunt Winifreda hates Lizzie, and you know it, Jim—”

Scott’s slipping down on the chaise, more and more to the side, but that’s fine. His shoulders hurt, and this position is a good bit more comfortable. He lets his eyes flutter shut—he’s not sleeping, just relaxing a bit—and lets the conversation lull him deeper and deeper into the blackness behind his eyes. He’s not going to fall asleep, though. He’s just going to rest for a moment.

“I quite enjoyed your speech, Jimmy, but I think the best part was certainly the airshow the next day.” “Oh, I—” Jimmy’s voice falters a bit— “I missed most of that. Was it any good?”

“It was—”

“My people outdid themselves, Jim, you’ll never see anything like it again. . . .”

Scott’s head slips further and further down the cushion, and the voices die down to oblivion as he lets out a slow breath and fully lets his head fall.

“. . . like he’s not slept in days. Did he say anything to you?”

“. . . . No. He—well, he fell asleep while I was still carrying him out. Then, when he woke up—you guys were there—as soon as he ate something, he wanted to go home. He barely said a word.”

“Jimmy . . . I hate to say it, but I think they hurt him really badly. It doesn’t have to be us, but he needs to talk to someone about it.”

“What, you think I don’t know? I—I found him, Lizzie, I found him all chained up and bleeding—and the things they’d done—he was barely even coherent—”

He shifts, ever so slightly, and the conversation halts with a hasty shhh. He doesn’t pull himself out of the pleasant, drowsy darkness he’s floating in, just presses his head into the warm thing he’s up against. There’s something in his barely-tangible hair, and he nudges up at it.

The thing he’s against rumbles as someone chuckles, then a hand begins running through his hair again, having frozen when he’d moved. He sighs contentedly, relaxes even further.

“This is so cute.”

“I hate it.”

Slowly, with the comfortable warmth against him and the soothing hand in his hair, he slips back into nothingness.

He comes close to the surface again, a whisper partially rousing him.

“Do you want me to bring you something to eat?”

“Nah, I’m good.” An almost silent laugh. “My legs are asleep though, so I might have to take you up on that later.”

The hand is still carding through his hair, and it’s safe. So very very safe. So safe, in fact, that he can let himself sink back down.

“. . . him up soon, probably.”

“You think?”

“Look at the way he’s all bent, that can’t be good for his back. Besides, it’s getting late. They’ll think he’s been kidnapped again or something.”

Kidnapped. A not-nice feeling, a squirming deep inside, accompanies that word. He frowns, tilts his head a bit. The hand has stopped again. It starts back up at his movement, and he pushes minutely closer.

“I just can’t bear to wake him. I think you were right earlier, Joel—Scott doesn’t just fall asleep places. He probably hasn’t slept properly in a while.”

A snort. “Well, certainly not in Sausage’s torture dungeon, from the looks of things.”

An actual shudder runs through him at those words, the squirming feeling back full-force. The hand in his hair freezes, and after a moment, a voice asks softly, “Scott? You awake?”

He grunts a little—he’s not sure if he is or not, but he definitely doesn’t want to be pulled from this pleasant, warm darkness. The hand hesitantly returns to its motions.

“What do I do?”

“Is he awake?”

“I don’t know!”

“I don’t either! Ask him again, moron!”

A gentle rub of his upper arm. “Scott?” the voice asks again, a little louder. “Are you awake?”

He is now, he supposes.

Scott finally lets his eyes flutter open, just enough to see beyond his eyelashes. It’s a bit blurry, but across from him . . . Joel, he thinks, sitting up on a cushion on the floor . . . where’s Lizzie? Is she here too?

Joel’s staring at him, and when Scott meets his eyes, he smirks a little. “Yep. Those are some sparkling sapphire orbs if I’ve ever seen ‘em.”

“Hey, Scott,” the other voice says from just above him, and Scott cranes his neck up and around to see—

Jimmy’s smiling down at him, and it’s his hand in Scott’s hair, and something’s wrong about the angle he’s at and it takes Scott an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize that he’s laid out in Jimmy’s lap, for Aeor’s sake.

He shoots up, shoving himself off Jimmy clumsily as his body remembers how to work. “Exor’s antlers, Jimmy, I’m sorry—”

“No, no, it’s fine—”

“I shouldn’t have—” Scott’s cut off as a yawn pulls his mouth wide open. He can feel the blood draining from his face, shame thick in his mind because he’d somehow fallen asleep on top of Jimmy and his mind is going places it really shouldn’t go.

Joel’s laughing at him which makes things even worse, because of course people would’ve seen him asleep, he fell asleep in the middle of a meeting! It’s no wonder he was such an easy target for fWhip—

“Hey, it’s all right,” Jimmy tells him sincerely, a light pink dusting his cheeks. Great, Scott’s embarrassed him. “Really. I’m just glad you got some rest.”

“I—” Scott rubs at his burning eyes, glances around the room. It’s just the three of them, Joel still snickering into his fist. “How long was I out?”

Jimmy shrugs, but a voice comes from behind him.

“A couple of hours,” Lizzie says, striding into the room. Scott’s head jerks to follow her as she enters, and she sends him a smile. “If you don’t mind me saying, it was really quite cute.”

If he wasn’t white as a sheet before, he definitely is now. This is terrible. This is so—so humiliating, that he’s managed to fall asleep in Jimmy’s lap—and not only sleep there, but if he remembers correctly, he’d even been practically cuddling him at some point during his nap. That’s absolutely mortifying.

“Supper’s almost been prepared, and it would be lovely to have you join us, Scott,” says Lizzie warmly, gracefully lowering herself to a cushion beside Joel. “If you’d like, we can even have a guest suite made up for you.”

It’s tempting. Scott’s still so tired, his bones aching with the pull of sleep. He doesn’t want to have to sail back to the coastlands of Rivendell then ride up through the mountains. But. . . .

He can’t. For one thing, there’s no way any time soon that he’ll be eating food he didn’t prepare himself. It’s too easy for even someone trusted to miss the potion slipped in, or to poison it themselves. And he doesn’t feel like keeping the whole palace awake with his screaming nightmares.

Perhaps most prominently, he doesn’t think he can face Jimmy for an entire meal.

Scott takes a deep breath, tries to compose himself. He’s royalty. He has nothing to be ashamed of, despite the twisting of his insides that make him want to hide in a hole forever.

“Thank you for the offer,” he says stiffly, fighting to keep his heavy tongue from tripping over the words. “I believe I should head back to Rivendell, though.”

“Will you be okay?”

Scott waves off Jimmy’s concern, reluctantly pulling himself to his aching feet. “I—I’ll have my guards. I’ll be safe. Thank you for the concern.”

There’s a moment, a long moment where the other three in the room exchange a glance. Then Jimmy clears his throat, stands.

“Yeah, of course!” he says brightly. “I’ll walk you out.”

And Scott really doesn’t want to let Jimmy walk him out because he just fell asleep on the man’s lap and he’s not sure how to apologize, but he nods and follows him out the door.

Jimmy doesn’t leave him on his own until he’s boarded the boat, the dolphins ready and waiting to bring him home. He stands on the dock and watches as the boat is pulled away, and Scott subtly keeps an eye over his shoulder until they’re too far away to make out anything but endless water in the setting sun.

Just like every night so far, Scott’s up again before he can properly fall asleep.

He’s been laying in bed reading by candlelight for hours, waiting until his eyes droop and the words melt into each other. When he finally reached that point, he hurriedly blew out the candle and laid back, hoping he could trick his mind into falling asleep before it even realized what he was doing.

Yet here he is, barely ten minutes later, his heart pounding out of his chest as a phantom whip cracks across his wings.

It’s bad. It’s very, very bad that he can’t sleep, because he doesn’t function well on low levels of sleep and Rivendell is on the precipice of war and he needs to be able to lead his empire. He’s managed to avoid a meeting with his council on what happened so far because of his injuries, but he can’t put it off forever and he certainly can’t put off sleeping any longer.

He can’t sleep, though.

He just—he can’t.

At this point, even looking at his bed makes his anxiety spike. He can’t even think of closing his book without tears building in his eyes, and it’s horrible and the worst result of anything he’s gone through ever and he wants to murder fWhip—and Sasusage—and Joey—

Scott sits up properly, shoving his covers back and running both hands down his face. This is the worst. This sucks so much. He wants to cry he’s so tired, he can’t stop yawning, his head keeps falling of its own accord, but he’s certain that even closing his eyes at this point would send him into a manic episode.

Which is stupid, because he’s slept. He’s slept twice without any help since escaping, and he would think the problem was his bedroom if he hadn’t tried every bedroom in the palace and even a few choice sofas and armchairs and, last night, a patch of floor.

(The floor had been the worst. The floor had made him truly believe he was back there, and he was up on his knees and begging as Joey sneered before he realized where he was.)

He’s slept twice. The first time was right when he was rescued—that was possibly his longest period of sleep in years, thirteen hours if what Jimmy said was accurate. And then just two days ago he’d embarrassed himself at that alliance meeting by falling asleep on Jimmy’s lap, and Aeor he can still feel the shame.

There has to be a connecting factor. Scott stands, the bottoms of his feet protesting, and limps over to his desk. There he pulls out a sheet of paper and the quill he’d made from one of his own feathers, dips it in ink. Instead of making any sort of list, though, he just absentmindedly scribbles. Little spirals, piles of squares, an owl or two. He thinks, and while he thinks, he keeps his hands busy.

The first time there was a bed, the second time it was a chaise. No connection there. The first time he’d been exhausted out of his mind, but the second time . . . the same, actually. That isn’t helpful, though, because he’s still so tired that his entire body is shaking and he can barely force his eyes to stay open, let alone process what they see.

In the first instance, he had been in the Cod Empire, so maybe it was the muggy evening air? But the second time had been inside the Prisma Palace, and there the air is possibly more humid yet far cooler.

Scott drops his quill to dig the heels of his hands into his eyes, a frustrated growl escaping through gritted teeth. He’s an emperor, he’s one hundred and nine, he should be able to sleep! If the only times he can sleep are at Jimmy’s house and in Jimmy’s lap, what kind of—

He gasps, the quill falling from his suddenly limp fingers.

No.

Jimmy.

Jimmy’s the connecting factor.

Aeor’s got to be laughing at him. Exor, too, while he’s at it. They have to be, because of all the things to soothe him enough to let him sleep, it has to be Jimmy, the man he’s fallen into unrequited love with.

There’s no way. He can’t just turn up on Jimmy’s doorstep, asking if there’s room in his bed for two but not like that, just in a totally-friendly entirely-platonic way. He’s not that desperate.

“Can I sleep with you?”

Jimmy takes a step back into his house, face instantly flushing, and Scott feels the blood drain from his own as he realizes just what words have fallen from his clumsy mouth.

“Not like that!” he adds frantically, waving his hands to dispel the notion. “I just—it’s really—you don’t—” he’s already messed everything up, his eyes are burning and his vision blurring and the sun’s only just set but he’d been so afraid Jimmy had already gone to bed—

“Scott,” Jimmy interrupts kindly, opening the front door a bit wider. “Why don’t you come in?”

Scott closes his mouth, then follows Jimmy in. He immediately gravitates toward his normal spot on the sofa before halting. He’s here to ask Jimmy the most mortifying question ever, then Jimmy will kick him out and he’ll go home. He doesn’t have time to get comfortable.

“Are those—did you put a pair of elytra on over your wings?” asks Jimmy incredulously, handing Scott a glass of water. Scott glances behind himself, shrugs.

He had, but only because he hadn’t wanted anyone in Rivendell to know he was leaving. His wings are still bound for at least the next week, and though his shoulders ache like he’d tied boulders to them, he’d managed to get here in under an hour with no boats involved (and he hasn’t used an elytra set in decades, so it’s fairly impressive if he does say so himself).

“Don’t worry about it,” Scott tells him, taking the water and walking past Jimmy to the kitchen, where he places the glass in the sink. “I—”

“Do you want something to eat? I’ve already—”

“Jimmy, can I just say my piece and leave?” Scott says, and maybe his voice is so tense because he’s frustrated and maybe it’s because he’s close to tears. Jimmy, however, falls silent, waits.

Scott takes a deep breath. He already asked the question, he just needs to clarify. ‘I can’t . . . I can’t sleep,” he admits, gripping the kitchen counter to keep his hands from trembling. “I—I keep trying and I can’t, I just—I freak out and it’s not okay and nothing works. I can’t—I just can’t do it, and the only times I’ve been able to sleep since—you know—is when you’re here. So if it’s all right, I want to know if I can . . . sleep in your house tonight. To see if that helps and work things out from there. You don’t have to say yes, I’ll go, it’s fine I’ll figure something out I swear it but—”

“Yeah, that sounds fine.” Jimmy steps around Scott as his mouth falls open, pours out the water in the glass and sets the glass on the counter to dry.

Scott’s brain catches up a few seconds later and he spins around, barely daring to hope—

“You mean it? I can—I can sleep?” His voice cracks on the last word, and there are the tears again, but he’s just so relieved that he’s allowed to sleep, they’re finally letting him sleep—

Jimmy raises a brow, somehow managing to look both sardonic and concerned. “Wouldn’t make me much of a friend if I didn’t at least let you try,” he says. “Besides, I don’t mind sharing!” He laughs a little bit as he opens the cupboard, gestures for Scott to choose a glass of his own. “You were real cuddly the other day, it was nice.”

Scott doesn’t process that. He’s still stuck on the fact that Jimmy’s agreed, Jimmy’s going to let him sleep and then everything will be okay again. He does shuffle through the glasses in the cupboard though, wincing as his shoulders burn. He takes one, fills it with water, and drinks.

It’s safe water. Jimmy’s safe. Jimmy’s going to let him sleep and Scott’s so relieved that the tears he’s been holding back this whole time start to spill down his cheeks.

He dashes them away angrily, and thankfully Jimmy doesn’t comment on it, only rocks back and forth on his heels awkwardly.

“So . . . right now?” he asks, and Scott nods almost desperately. Jimmy nods back, leads the way through the living room and into . . . Jimmy’s bedroom. Where he’d stayed the last time.

“I—but you’re sleeping here—”

Jimmy’s already throwing back the tie quilt on the bed, scoffs when he hears the confusion in Scott’s voice. “It’s a huge bed, there’s room for both of us.”

Scott blinks at the bed. No. He can’t get into a bed with Jimmy, not when he’s already delirious from lack of sleep. But Jimmy’s stripping off his shirt right in front of him and Scott’s mouth goes utterly dry and his brain shuts down enough that he can barely shake his head when Jimmy asks if he brought nightclothes.

He somehow remembers to kick off his boots and tug off the elytra, but his body moves of its own volition, too desperate for sleep to even consider leaving the room to lie on the sofa. He’s in bed before he knows it, half-empty glass of water on the nightstand, and then Jimmy’s climbing in next to him. He’s in bed with Jimmy.

Jimmy turns down the lantern until it’s barely glowing, settles in and pulls the covers up over them. “Just kick off the blanket if it’s too warm, it doesn’t matter,” Jimmy yawns.

It’s sudden, it’s so very sudden, and Scott doesn’t know if it’s because within five minutes of being here Jimmy had actually led him directly to his bed or if more happened that he doesn’t remember. He’s here now, though, and sand is weighing on his eyelids, so he shifts until his wings are facing out (and, consequently, he is facing Jimmy), and tries to sleep.

Jimmy rolls over too, smiles at him. “Hey,” he whispers. Scott can’t help but snort out a laugh. They’re just two children at a sleepover, aren’t they? This doesn’t mean anything to Jimmy.

“Sorry about this,” he whispers back. “I just—I’m so tired, Jimmy.”

Jimmy reaches out, rubs his arm soothingly. Scott practically melts into the touch—safe touch, safe sleep, safe Jimmy—and lets his eyes flutter closed.

“It’s okay. Sleep, I’ve got you.” And Scott does.

The next night, he can barely look at his own bed without wanting to throw up.

Sleeping over at Jimmy’s is going to become a regular occurrence, then. Which would be fine, except his wings are still bound and his shoulders hurt badly from the harness of the elytra tugging on them. He can maybe stay awake for tonight, but that will put him back into that desperate, exhausted state that he just doesn’t have time for.

He’d managed to get away with his sudden disappearance by messaging Ilphas when he woke up late the next morning, reassuring them that he hadn’t been kidnapped again, he’d just been called away in the early hours to a rather urgent meeting. That isn’t going to work for every night of the foreseeable future, though.

He’s going to have to go about this in a smart way. If he leaves after dark, he won’t be spotted flying out. If he returns before the sun is risen, he won’t be caught flying back in.

That gives him probably six hours to safely sleep at the Cod Empire, seven or even eight when his wings are fully recovered and the elytra aren’t slowing him down. The flight to the Cod Empire is probably twenty minutes with good winds, thirty if not. He’ll have to watch cloud coverage as well, make sure a storm isn’t going to start during his stay.

But for tonight, he just dons his elytra over his covered wings, straps a backpack to his chest with nightclothes and safe food, and sets out.

Jimmy’s expecting him when he arrives, pulling the door open before he’s even properly landed. Scott skids into the house and would’ve fallen flat on his face had it not been for Jimmy grabbing him by the harness.

The both stand there awkwardly for a few moments, and Scott knows Jimmy’s searching for something to say to defuse the situation. “Let’s just cut the small talk,” he says, letting some of the still-lingering exhaustion leak into his voice. “Is it all right if I sleep in your home for the foreseeable future? I would attempt to work myself back up to sleeping at Rivendell, but I currently don’t have the time to be losing sleep.”

Jimmy’s tense smile grows soft, and Scott notices that he’s already wearing a nightshirt. “Yeah, of course,” he says, locking the front door. “If you brought anything to change into, you can use the bedroom. Or I’ve got some spare stuff.”

Scott pats his backpack, then stands there for a few seconds more, head still foggy enough for his actions to be delayed (bad, that can’t happen—what if someone attacks him or sneaks up from behind and smashes a potion over his head), before unbuckling his elytra and hanging them on a hook beside the front door.

He changes in Jimmy’s bedroom quickly, leaving his travel clothes in a folded pile on the floor by the side of the bed he slept on last time. Then he lets Jimmy in, and somehow more uncomfortable than last time, they climb into bed and Jimmy turns the lamp low.

Scott pulls the covers up to his chin and thinks about how unfair it is that he has to face Jimmy because of his wings while Jimmy can look anywhere he wants. He doesn’t say anything, though, just lies there and lets his breathing slow.

Maybe it’s because he actually slept last night, but it’s harder to drift away tonight. He’s just staring at the back of Jimmy’s head, fidgeting with the edge of the tie quilt. If he shifts, will it disturb Jimmy? Will it pull the blankets away from him? Will Jimmy be upset if Scott accidentally steals the covers in his sleep?

It’s not until Jimmy’s breathing evens out that Scott feels okay with closing his eyes. He settles deeper into the pillow, sighing slightly. He can’t think about just how awkward this is—he can’t think about how he’s in a room that smells like Jimmy with Jimmy right there, solid and warm and asleep beside him—he just needs to sleep. He can sleep here.

It’s just as the darkness behind his eyes begins to fade into oblivion that panic seizes his throat.

He’s up in an instant, throwing off the covers—too much, so much—and he can’t quite get a hold of himself. He’s—he can’t sleep, he just can’t, they aren’t here they aren’t going to hurt him but his brain doesn’t know that and they could be here at a moment’s notice. He’s breathing too fast, he’s breathing too fast but he can’t stop, even just the sound of crickets chirping outside is too much, he’s so tired and he’s about to fall asleep and he can’t sleep or it’ll hurt so so bad—

“Scott?”

He whips around; Jimmy’s sitting up in bed, covering his mouth to stifle a yawn.

“I’m awake,” he bursts out, flinching at how loud his own voice is, like he can feel the vibrations running up his throat and through his teeth. “I can’t—I can’t sleep, I can’t do it, everything’s so bad and I can’t do it—”

“How about you lie down, and try again?” Jimmy suggests.

Scott sucks in a breath, considers. He’s been able to sleep with Jimmy before. Jimmy being here is the necessary stipulation to sleeping. Maybe he can try again?

He nods cautiously, then climbs back into bed and tries to take a few calming breaths. His brain is still going a bit haywire, but everything’s okay.

Jimmy settles back in, on his back now instead of facing away from Scott. Scott lies there, tries to force the tension in his chest to ease. Everything’s okay. He is okay.

He swallows repeatedly, hoping it’ll do something to tamp down the fear. Jimmy’s here with him, and Jimmy makes it safe. He knows this.

When he tries to close his eyes twenty minutes later, he’s choking again.

He can do this. He just has to breathe through it. He just has to breathe, even though the bands on his chest are tightening and his wings are stuck in one position and the blanket is too scratchy and his racing heart is so loud in his ears—

He can’t, he can’t, he’s up before he even knows what’s happening and sobs are tearing from his throat. He dashes blindly until he runs into a wall shoulder first, and he’s crying and gasping and he wants to die because they’ve broken him, he’s never going to sleep, everything is so terrible—

“Scott, can you breathe with me?”

The words are too loud, far too loud but Scott opens his eyes (when had he closed them? He can’t close them, he can’t sleep) to see that Jimmy is once again sitting up. He’s doing something—demonstrating breathing, he’s taking in an exaggerated breath and holding it and then letting it out, and Scott tries to follow but his lungs won’t respond properly. He shakes his head mutely, hands clenching and unclenching, breathing speeding up—“I can’t do it,” he gasps out. “I can’t breathe, I can’t sleep, I thought it would work but it didn’t and I can’t—I can’t—”

“Breathe, Scott,” Jimmy says gently, and irritation is bleeding into the freakout because Scott just said he can’t breathe, wasn’t Jimmy listening?

The room brightens slightly, and Jimmy turns away from the lamp on the bedside table and stands, nightshirt wrinkled and hair tousled. His hands are still gesturing around his chest, miming breaths for Scott to follow. He can’t follow them, of course, he can’t do anything now that he’s broken—

“Scott, are you with me?”

He manages a nod, and his legs are wobbly under him but he won’t fall, if he falls they’ll just hurt him worse. . . .

“It’s okay,” Jimmy reassures, and Scott can’t help the anger in his response.

“No, it’s not!”

“I think you’re having a panic attack,” Jimmy continues, still in that unbearably calm voice. “Can you stop pulling on your hair?”

Scott hadn’t even realized he was doing it, but now that it’s been brought up, he’s acutely aware of his nails digging into his scalp and a couple of strands coming loose as he tugs. He stops, forcing his hands to grip his trousers instead.

He can’t look at Jimmy—Jimmy’s still doing that stupid breathing thing—so he looks beyond, and his eyes catch on the bed and his breathing (which had gotten marginally better) ramps up again. “I can’t,” he breathes, pressing himself against the wall. “I can’t sleep—I can’t do this—”

“Scott, I need you to listen to me.”

And Scott does listen, because it’s Jimmy.

“What they did—it doesn’t define what you can and cannot do,” Jimmy says seriously. “If you believe you can sleep, you can. You’re not broken.”

“You don’t know what they did to me!” Scott cries out, and flashes—fWhip, beating him with that halberd over and over—Sausage, forcing him to eat drugged food—Joey, whipping the soles of his feet—his wings—the shackles—his poor mind, broken for nothing because he’d given up the information in the end anyway—

“I don’t, you’re right.” Jimmy’s even voice cuts through the memories, and Scott blinks a couple of times until he can see Jimmy in front of him, blurry and wavering through the tears in his eyes.

“I don’t know what they did. And you don’t have to tell me. But I know it hurt you, and seeing you hurting is the worst thing in the world.”

Scott can certainly relate to that—he remembers just how terrifying it had been, months ago, to carry a bleeding and quietly crying Jimmy back from that clearing in the woods.

“I’m sorry,” he rasps, but Jimmy shakes his head.

“Not your fault,” he says. “It will never be your fault that you’re hurting. Can you tell me what you’re feeling right now?”

Scott takes stock of himself, because Jimmy asked him to and he can at least try. “I’m—everything is too much,” he finally admits after going over every panicked thought in his brain to find the least offensive one. When Jimmy frowns, confused, he continues, “It’s loud, and—and the blanket was scratchy, and there’s just—there’s so much,” he finishes lamely. Jimmy nods.

“Like, you feel like your senses are overloaded with all the things?”

Of course. Of course he has to be having sensory overload during the worst night of his life. He nods.

“Okay, that’s good! Not—not the senses thing, but—you communicated that to me!” Jimmy looks genuinely proud. He can’t be, though. All Scott had done was nod, he couldn’t even remember what it was called, he hadn’t even really told Jimmy anything.

“Do you know what you need to make that better?”

And the funny thing is, Scott does know what he needs. If he’d been at home, he would’ve drug the weighted blanket out of the closet and curled under it in bed, earplugs in and eyes closed. He knows how to handle sensory overload, even though he shouldn’t be dealing with it—he’s an adult, after all; what would his parents think if they saw how pitiful and incapable he is now?

“Pressure,” he eventually croaks. “Weight. On me.”

Jimmy glances around. “All I’ve got is the blanket, but you said it was too scratchy—” and then he blushes, turning red to his gills. “I—well, if you’re all right with physical contact, I can—I can sorta lie—um, on top of you?”

It’s a credit to how bad he’s really feeling that Scott only sniffles and nods, not cracking any sort of dirty joke. Jimmy beckons Scott back to the bed and shoves back the covers while Scott, trembling, climbs in.

“Okay, I’m—I’m gonna get on top of you, yeah?”

Scott nods, and then ever so gently, Jimmy lowers his body onto Scott’s. Despite the care, the air in his lungs is forced out in a big sigh as Jimmy’s weight settles on his chest, and Scott feels himself relaxing without his own input.

This is nice. This is right. His wings are caught awkwardly under him, and he knows he won’t be able to lie on his back for long, but for a moment, he just lets his body loosen.

“Is this okay?” whispers Jimmy, his chin hooked over Scott’s shoulder, and Scott presses his face into Jimmy’s shoulder and breathes in the light scents of berries and vinegar and Jimmy. This is more than okay.

They lie there in silence for long enough that Scott feels the tears dry on his cheeks, feels his body start to slip into a doze. He’s so tired. He’s safe.

His wings ache, though, and he knows that while his head is still filled with a low-level buzz of peace and safety, he needs to try and sleep. So he taps Jimmy on the arm until Jimmy slides off, then shifts onto his side, pain in his wings giving way to relief.

“I think I’mma sleep,” he mumbles, and Jimmy laughs a little bit before curling up beside him, one arm still thrown over Scott’s waist.

And it’s unfair. It’s not fair at all that these are the only conditions under which he can sleep. It’s not fair that so many things have been taken from him.

Maybe it’s the bleary state of consciousness he’s in, maybe it’s the vulnerability, but he needs someone to confirm that what he went through wasn’t fair.

“Jimmy,” he says, and Jimmy blinks up at him.

“Hm?”

“It’s not fair.” “What’s not fair?”

There’s tears in his eyes again, but Scott’s too drowsy to do anything about it. “They wouldn’t let me sleep,” he confesses, voice barely-there. “They hurt me if I even closed my eyes. They only let me sleep once and it wasn’t even real, fWhip lied.”

“Oh, darling,” Jimmy murmurs, and he’s blushing again but Scott doesn’t know why. He forges on.

“They wouldn’t let me sleep, and—and the food was bad, there was stuff in it, they made me see things—” he shudders, buries his face in Jimmy’s chest. “It was so bad,” he manages, voice muffled against Jimmy’s nightshirt. “They were always hurting me, and no one was looking for me, and I—I thought I was going to die—”

“Shh, you’re okay. It’s all going to be okay now.”

“—and it wasn’t fair!”

“No, it wasn’t fair at all,” Jimmy soothes. Scott calms a bit at that—Jimmy agrees. He never should’ve gone through that.

Jimmy’s hands are carding through his hair, and Scott relaxes even further, letting himself be lulled deeper into darkness by the calming motion.

He’s safe here. Jimmy won’t let go of him, won’t let anyone hurt him.

With that in mind, Scott quickly falls asleep.

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