shine_again | (no subject)

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Dan spends his time in captivity finding out what it might have been like if the Overlook had been a medieval dungeon run by fucking goblins. He feels precisely as helpless as he had in the worst of it there, at the beginning, when he's aware of everything. They beat him, of course, because it's a goblin dungeon, and one of them is sneering about tenderized meat. His coat and flannel and t-shirt are taken, though he's left with his jeans and boots. Something about foot-rot, they say. Not very appetizing.

He tries to frighten them, spits more of that strange language at them, and it earns him a cell of his very own, it seems. Now, this has nothing on the Overlook, cramped and slightly wet and cold; he's held to the wall with an honest to god chain, and all he can see from the gaps in the bars is a passageway, and a door on the other side, and fire beyond that door.

Dan thinks he might honestly have been dragged to hell.

The shining is of no use; all he feels is the terror and despair and angry helplessness of others in other cells. And then the dark waves again, which drag him down for hours at a time, and leave him shaking and gagging against his bonds.

He can't think, he can't think for all of the noise of everyone else's thoughts. Oh, but he tries. He thinks of Abra's light shining so brightly, that even across worlds, it might give him something to see by, he thinks of his mother fighting with everything to keep them alive. He thinks of the moment when he'd thought he was safe, his arms around Marcus and Marcus holding him so tight, the warmth of his breath, the little flicker of light kindling in Dan's chest.

He tries to get it back.

He's just so cold, and it's so loud inside his head.

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"It hurts, but it'll heal," Marcus answers with a small, lopsided smile. "Few days of rest, ice and some painkillers, and I'll be right as rain."

It's swollen and the place where the goblin had hit him with the club is already turning a rather spectacular shade of purple, but Marcus has had worse, and he's more concerned about Dan and the others still up at the castle. There's nothing he can do in this state and that's what bothers him most about his knee. Not the pain, not the time he knows it will take to properly heal, but the fact that it prevents him from helping any further. Until he knows the outcome of this, whether or not people are safe, he's going to be utterly stir crazy.

"I'm more worried about your throat," he says. "We'll have to keep an eye on it. Trauma to your throat can cause swelling even days after the incident." He knows this, having been grabbed by the throat more than a few times in his life, starting with his father and ending with Betty Cooper, although he rather hopes she doesn't remember having done so.

"As long as you stick to that," Dan says, and he doesn't need the shining to see the possibility for restlessness. "I'm sure you'd rather be heading back up there." Dan remains unsure of whether he could make himself go back into that dark place, though he thinks that if Marcus did, he'd try.

He lifts a hand to his bandaged throat, a far-away look in his eyes. "Yeah, you're right." It's on his list of things not to think about, puzzles not to solve. Had it been Mrs. Massey that had strangled him, or had it been-- that's not what he wants to think about, no. But he's gone quiet and distant enough that he feels he should say something.

"I was strangled pretty badly as a child, once. I don't think my mom understood that much. It's not like she could have taken me to a doctor anyway, I think we were snowed in at that point. I suppose I was lucky."

"Me too," Marcus admits with a faint smile that's completely lacking in any real warmth. It looks more like a grimace than anything and he takes another mouthful of soup before continuing. "First time it happened, I think I was five. My mum wouldn't have taken me to a doctor anyway."

He doesn't think it was her the first time, he's fairly certain it was his dad, but she'd done her fair share of it, too. Thrown him into walls, slapped him hard enough to bloody his nose, dragged him around by the arm hard enough to leave finger shaped bruises. In the early seventies in the tiny town he'd grown up in, no one had really cared much about trying to prevent that sort of child abuse, so he'd suffered the two years in silence until they died.

"Was it your dad?" he asks, figuring he might as well. It's a difficult question, but one an abused kid will always think to ask.

"I'm not sure," Dan says honestly. "Whether it was one of the ghosts, or whether it was one of the ghosts fucking with him to make him do it, or whether he was just drunk and angry. I was five too, actually, and we were staying at a hotel called the Overlook. He got a job as caretaker, and we were snowed in, and-- the place was evil. I mean that in a literal sense."

He keeps the shining quiet, where it wants to reach out. This is the kind of talk meant to be done this way, face to face, words spoken aloud.

Or so he tells himself.

"And you? There's a reason you asked."

Just a child, snowed into an evil place with ghosts that could make his father choke him. No wonder Dan had been so deeply bothered by the snow, by the castle and the dungeons. He's lived through this already and maybe the bars on his cell hadn't been quite so literal the first go around, but Marcus feels a surge of warmth and worry for him.

"My dad," he says. "Some of the time anyway. My mum the rest of the time. The two of them never wanted to be parents and at best I was an inconvenience."

At worst he'd been the reason they were poor, the reason they were sad, the reason they were angry.

"He ended up killing her," he tells Dan. "When I was seven. Your mum, though..." He wants to hear she was able to get away, found a place to be safe with Dan. His mother never would have, but he has a feeling Dan's mother was a far better parent than his own was ever capable of being.

Dan puts down his spoon and reaches out to set a hand on Marcus's wrist, the back of his hand. The dizzy feeling now isn't from darkness or evil; it's from the realization that they are so similar, that they've been hurt in so many of the same ways.

His thumb strokes the inside of Marcus's wrist.

"When my dad finally lost it, he tried to kill both of us. I had called for help with the shining, called a man I knew I could trust, and it nearly killed both him and my mom, but we got out. My dad died at the Overlook. So we were safe, even if we were changed. The ghosts tried to follow me, but Dick, that's the fried, he helped me with that." He keeps his voice soft, as soothing as he can manage.

"How did you escape it?"

Marcus does his level best not to shiver when Dan's thumb strokes over the inside of his wrist. At this angle, his fingertips cover the gun barrel tattooed just there, the smaller circle within the larger, and he knows it's utterly meaningless to most people who see it, but for him it's a reminder. Not just of who he is, but of what he's done.

"I killed him," he answers, lifting his gaze from Dan's hand to his face instead. "I was seven when he killed my mum, hit her with a hammer right in front of me, and I knew I was next. I went for his hunting rifle, grabbed it down off the wall, and shot him through the throat as he tried to choke me to death."

Seven years old, his father's strong hands wrapped around his throat, wet with his father's blood, and Marcus had never felt freer in his entire young life. He doesn't regret it at all. Never will. He hopes that's clear in the ways he says it all.

Dan can't quite seem to pull his hand away, and he doesn't think he wants to, not in this moment. To be fair, he's done an awful lot of touching his friend today, and it's been-- allowed. Okay. Perhaps even welcomed.

"You set yourself free," he says, still in that quiet tone. "I'm sorry, I can feel that coming through, but it's clear. Set yourself free from that, though not everything."

He feels something stirring in his ribcage, and he's not sure he's felt it before. Maybe Abra had pierced through the numbness, but not like this.

"I'm really glad I met you."

No, certainly not everything. Not long after, the Church had gotten its claws into Marcus and even now, all these years later, he still hasn't quite shaken it. He has no love for the Church, really, not as an institution, but he still goes to sit in the buildings when he feels like he needs to. Still crosses himself, still carries his rosary, and his Bible. He strongly suspects, if not for his excommunication papers ending up in the hands of the local bishops, that he might even still be a priest.

All that gets shuffled aside, however, at Dan's next statement, and Marcus can't let himself hope Dan might mean it beyond friendship. Though there's no denying he's nursing a bit of a crush these days, he's doing rather well keeping it under wraps, he likes to think, keeping it from being something Dan can just read in him. The friendship already means so much to him. He can't risk it by overstepping.

"So am I," he agrees, his smile widening a touch, becoming a little lighter. "I've a tendency to be a bit of a grumpy prick, so that you like me at all is rather impressive."

Dan would be the first person to tell anyone that Dan has really ever found himself in a relationship when he's been the pursued-- not out of ego, but because he tends not to notice these things. Perhaps it's natural inclination, or maybe it has to do with how carefully he keeps himself closed off from people. That he feels such warmth, such ease with Marcus just makes him happy, and at least right now, he's not questioning it.

you also let abra call you uncle dan for how long

Dan blinks, surprised for a voice to pop up. It's not Tony, or anyone he'd known to visit back home. He thinks, maybe, Tony might still be with him, but not the others. He squeezes Marcus's hand gently, and returns to eating his soup.

"I'm capable of absolute wonders, you'll see," Dan says, and smothers a yawn.

"Right now I suspect all you're really capable of is taking a nap," Marcus points out, then finishes the rest of his soup to give himself some time to consider where to put Dan. Kat is in the spare bedroom now and he knows better than to suggest Dan take that bed. Not because Kat wouldn't give it up, he knows she absolutely would and might already be thinking about offering it, but because he's got a strong feeling Dan wouldn't let her. He would insist on taking the couch and Marcus doesn't like the idea of him out there alone in the living room when he's in such rough shape.

That leaves, of course, Marcus's bedroom. The enormous bed he hasn't shared with anyone but Trass in months now. Not that he'll presume to share it with Dan, even though there's plenty of room. He'll take the couch, he's certainly slept on it before and it's more than suitable for him for a few nights.

"If you're finished, I'll get you set up in my room," Marcus says, getting up from the table and taking his empty bowl to the sink. "Though if Trass comes back tonight, I can't guarantee you won't have a large, furry companion in there."

Dan also takes his time finishing, aware of Marcus's thoughts spinning but making sure to give him space for it. He allows himself a bit more guilt over not having come here in the first place; it's far more comfortable and there's not ghosts wandering the halls. Maybe it's time to look at somewhere besides the Bramford, then.

He looks up as Marcus speaks, watching him move, watching the limp.

"You don't get to sleep on the couch, and I did not need psychic powers to tell that's what this is. You need to be in a bed, more than I do. I'll behave myself."

There's more, of course.

He doesn't want to be alone, not when anything could crawl through his dreams.

Whether or not Dan behaves himself hasn't been Marcus's concern at all. Whether or not he behaves himself hasn't been either, come to that, because even if he could allow himself to believe, just for a moment, there might be a chance of something here, he thinks it would be safe to say neither of them would be quite in the mood for any sort of misbehaviour.

And it is a rather large bed. It had been built for three, after all, and comfortably for three, larger than even a regular king size bed. It's not as if they'll be crammed in it together, there's really plenty of room, and Marcus can control himself, he's not a bloody teenager, after all. He would insist on sleeping on the couch, but he already knows Dan isn't going to accept that and Marcus is really far too tired to try and argue his way out of it.

He laughs as he takes the bowl from Dan, bringing it to the sink as well and then taking two glasses out of the cupboard. He fills them both with water and then turns and hands one to Dan before saying, "Alright. I'm not going to argue, but only because I'm spectacularly exhausted myself."

Dan's more pleased than he should be, he thinks, and again, that's the sort of thing better analyzed by light of day, for the hour that comes, or for whenever this winter is done. The one thing he's picked up from people is that this sort of thing usually draws to a close.

Taking the glass, and then a long swallow, wincing slightly at the movement of his throat, Dan finds he's extraordinarily comforted by the realization that he's not going to be alone.

"Wonderful," Dan says. "Because I'm not sure how long I'm going to be awake, regardless of location." He stands up, muscles shrieking in protest. "Lead on."

As they head down the hall, Marcus thinks maybe he ought to be nervous, but he suspects he's too tired for that. Besides, it's not as if there's anything to be nervous about, he's not taking Dan to his bedroom for anything besides the sleep they both so desperately need, the rest their bodies are craving. This doesn't have to be unlike any of the many times he found himself looking at Nate from the corner of his eye and admiring what he saw.

Of course, Nate had never slept in Marcus's bed.

The room is by far the loveliest in the house, Matthias's hard work evident in the enormous windows that look out onto the currently snow covered trees, in the woodwork and in the beautiful fireplace. Against the opposite wall is an oversized bed, a little rumpled from Trass having clearly been there earlier.

"Hopefully there isn't too much wolf hair," Marcus says dryly, reaching down to shake off the top comforter.

Dan doesn't quite catch the words.

He's busy taking in the room with a sense of wonder. "This is beautiful," he says, and it's soft, slightly awed. "This-- I've been in places where you could feel what was built into a place. The darkness or sadness, or-- worse. There's love here, in each angle and line."

Dan realizes a moment later he's been babbling, and glances down at this feet. "I'm sorry if that-- overstepped." He knows Marcus misses whoever built this.

Quietly, as if not wanting to pull more attention to himself, Dan pads over to the side Marcus doesn't stand on, and crawls in, perhaps without much ceremony, but with a certain respect, at any rate.

"No, it did't. You didn't," Marcus says and shakes his head as he goes to the fireplace and pokes at the smouldering logs for a moment before adding two more. The power is still on, but he worries it might go out overnight again and leave them freezing, which he doesn't like the idea of Dan waking up into. Not after that dungeon. He doesn't say anything else as he gets the fire back up, then crosses over to the bed and sinks down on his side. His in that he'd slept there with Matthias for barely a month and has since slept there alone, unable to spread out lest he feel the emptiness even more acutely than he already does.

"That's nice to hear," he admits as he pulls his feet up, his knee protesting as he does. Getting his legs under the blankets, he pulls them up, settling back on his pillow, though still partially sitting up. "He wanted this place to be for... for us. For a family eventually. Now they're both gone, have been for months, but I'm not alone here, and that... I think that's what he would have wanted."

It's not the family Matthias pictured and he well knows it, but it's the only sort of family Marcus would have ever had. He's not a father in the traditional sense, he wouldn't have wanted or known what to do with a baby, but he has Sabrina and Salem. They live here now, they make it a home. And he has Kat, too, willing to come when he needs her. The best family he's ever known.

Something sort of wells up in Dan's chest, like an instance of shining he can't exactly name, one that's not full developed, and maybe it's just this. Maybe it's just that he's exhausted, in a place that is actually a home, warm and drawing light in like other places have drawn the dark. Maybe it's that he feels so close to Marcus right now, has known his pain and has put his life in Marcus's hands-- only to end up in a warm, safe place.

It's a wish, not fully formed, and Dan pulls it carefully back into himself and sets it aside for better times. He's beginning to think they might actually come.

"If you love someone, I don't think you ever stop wanting what's best for them," Dan says quietly. "Goodnight, Marcus. I know I don't need to say it, but thank you. I really am glad I met you."

He smiles, and then he slides down, settling into the bed and finding sleep almost immediately.

"Goodnight, Dan," Marcus answers after a moment, though sleep doesn't come for him right away. For a long time he remains sitting up against his pillow, against the headboard, looking out the big windows and into the snow. He's looking for Trass or some sign of Sabrina, unable to quell the worry he feels knowing they're still out there. He's looking for those creatures, too, the monsters from the castle. They have to know Dan is gone by now and he does't know whether or not they'll try to take him again. If his knee didn't ache so much, Marcus knows he would likely be pacing the room or the entire house, occasionally checking in on Kat, as if to make sure she's still here and safe.

But he can't pace and he doesn't want to turn on the light so he can read or draw, not with Dan sleeping so deeply beside him. It's clear he needs it and Marcus doesn't want to interrupt, so he just sits for a long while. Outside the wind howls and it gets darker still as the moon is hidden by clouds and whirling snow. Eventually his eyes start to drift closed and he sinks down into the pillow, pulling the blankets up around his shoulders.

He's still facing the widows when he falls asleep. Still looking for movement.

Dan sleeps without dreams, for a time.

He's exhausted, after all, and from down in the depths of sleep he'd be willing to bet this might be the safest place in the city for him. It's almost enough to keep it all away.

But the shine itself still processes, trying purge itself of all the sick bits it had picked up at the castle. Dan's being pulled out of his cell and forced to walk, down a long hallway that looks exactly like that dungeon, only the cell doors are the Overlook's doors, furnished with room numbers and all.

Come, pup, got to take your medicine! shrieks a goblin, and another laughs until gobs of black come up from its throat. Not quite, we make this one into the medicine! Soup for the immortal soul and Dan can smell it, at the end of the hall, he knows what room number it is, and he kicks and screams. The goblins are smaller than him but so strong; one reaches inside his screaming mouth and holds him by the backs of his teeth. He skids along carpet and ragged brick, and the door opens to a monstrously huge bathtub over a fire.

She's there, Mrs. Massey swims in the soup and it's not decay peeling her flesh from bone, its heat. Come here, Danny.

And then he's in, and it's so hot that he should be dying, and a wet voice says get the tongue, his tongue's so sweet and her rotting arm pushes into his mouth--

Dan shakes and thrashes in the bed, clawing at his mouth, his throat. He can't breathe can't breathe can't breathe

help help help

Marcus has always been a light sleeper, has all his life been aware of the vulnerability that comes with sleeping too heavily, and so he wakes easily. Has since he was a child. Back then if he hadn't woken quickly, it might have meant catching a wooden spoon against the side of his head and so the slightest bit of movement or the creaking out a floorboard somewhere in the house can bring him out of what others might think was a deep sleep. The moment Dan begins to thrash in the bed, Marcus is awake. His eyes fly open and he pulls himself into a seated position, pushing back blankets and turning to Dan.

It's instinct only that has him laying his hands on Dan, reaching past the flailing hands, heedless of the possibility of being hit. Marcus has reached out to comfort people far more violent than this in the past, has held shrieking children to his chest, singing to them, reciting stories, hushing them with soft words as he tries to send the demons in them screaming back to hell. He's told them they're good and pure and loved even as they scratch and slap and bite. A nightmare he can handle.

"Dan," he says, voice firm and yet still gentle. His hands settle on top of Dan's, pulling them from his mouth, and once he has the space, he presses the weight of his entire palm solidly against Dan's chest, just below his throat. A reminder of reality. "Dan, it's alright, it's a dream. You're safe. Come back now. Come out of there."

Dan hears the voice from far away, from where Tony would call to him.

Not Tony, but someone trusted and safe, and Dan manages to shove the dream aside, move toward that voice until he's gasping for air, awake with the taste of blood on his lips. There's a few seconds where he's just trying to remember to breathe, like he's had the wind knocked out of him.

As soon as he feels the sweet relief of the oxygen making its way through his system at last, he's able to become aware of where he is, and it makes all the sense in the world that he's in Marcus's bed, with the only person that could have pulled him from the dream so easily. He has no shame when he reaches out and gets his arms around Marcus, pulling him closer, needing him.

He breathes raggedly into Marcus's shoulder, against his neck.

"S'alright now," Marcus says soothingly, rubbing Dan's back as he suddenly has Dan's arms around him, his face pressed to his shoulder. Dan feels smaller than he really is, and terribly frightened, and Marcus wishes he could have prevented the attack i the first place. He'd gotten Dan out of the castle, but if he could have stopped the abduction altogether, maybe Dan wouldn't be having these nightmares, whatever they are.

"You're alright. You're safe," he murmurs, running through all the calming assurances he knows and then some. Repeating them over and over until he can feel Dan's breathing evening out bit by bit.

He's barely been in Darrow for a month and now he's seeing the worst parts of it. Marcus certainly wouldn't blame him for being one of those who wants to get out of this place and back home, where things might still be dangerous, but at least the dangers are familiar.

"No, don't send me back," Dan gasps, only picking up on bits here and there, the shine reeling with dreaming and darkness and the warmth and light he's found in this very room even just for now, temporary.

Even if this is a temporary reprieve from darkness and loneliness, Dan will take it. Marcus feels solid and real, maybe the only solid and real thing Dan knows for certain exists in this moment. He doesn't want to have to let go.

But no one has ever really held him like this, and never for as long as he needs, so Dan carefully pulls away when he thinks it's been too long. He's sure he looks like shit, and like a crazy emotional wreck when he makes himself meet Marcus's eyes. "Jesus," he sighs. "I'm sorry." His voice rasps. "I should have expected-- the nightmares can get really bad. Really real. I'm not even-- I think I'm awake now. I used to have, uh, false awakenings."

"You're awake," Marcus says, still rubbing Dan's shoulder, even though he's pulled away. The wind howls outside and Marcus is quiet for a time, not saying anything at all, keeping his hand where it is, rubbing in a warm, comforting manner. The power is still on, he can see the clock glowing across the room, and the fire is still burning, so it's warm in the room and when he thinks he's given it enough time, he puts a bit of gentle pressure on Dan's shoulder.

"Lie down. It's okay if you don't fall asleep again right away, just lie back, it'll help calm your breathing if you're stretched out rather than hunched over," he guides. He keeps hearing what Dan had said about not being sent back, and he's not sure what to make of that, why Dan would want to stay here over returning to the people he must have back home. Marcus wants to be here. But Marcus doesn't have anything waiting for him.

Trying to encourage Dan to lie back again, he slides down a little on his own pillow, slouching back under the covers, gently bringing Dan with him.