Work Text
Yancy is woken by his alarm. Not his phone, or a clock, or anything else mechanical, digital, or indeed otherwise electronic. No, this alarm clock is entirely biological, and is named Chuck.“Morning, sunshine,” Chuck whispers against his temple, earning himself a groan. “You have forty minutes before you need to be on the road, and today is laundry day.”“Hnnnngh,” Yancy does his best to make the groan articulate how much more he values sleep than anything else at the moment, but he's fairly certain Chuck is ignoring his protests. His boyfriend pokes him in the side, and Yancy responds with a sound he’s fairly certain communicates exactly how he feels about that.“Don’t you,” Chuck makes an exaggerated imitation of Yancy’s grunting noises, “at me, mister. Get a shower and get your shit ready. I’ll do laundry while I’m reading some papers later today.”This time, instead of groaning, Yancy huffs, rolling over with an arm still splayed over his eyes to block out the light. A moment later, lips press themselves against his mouth, slow and sweet.“C’mon, Raleigh’s already up. If he's ready before you again, we’ll never hear the end of it. Besides,” the lips are back, this time with a hint of a promise, “if you get up in the next few minutes, I’m sure I can arrange some sort of,” this time, Chuck’s kiss tastes somehow hotter, and Yancy can feel himself start to press back with subtle urgency without meaning to, “reward at the end of the day.”“I hate you,” Yancy whispers, dropping his arm from his eyes. He cracks open a single eyelid, just enough that he can see Chuck beaming down at him. At least he hadn’t turned on all the lights—not that he’d needed to, the way the sun is just starting to peek in through the door from across the hall. Like a fucking laser beam straight into Yancy’s retinas. When he’d come back, he’d made sure to make his room one of the ones on the west side of the house specifically so he didn’t have to deal with the fiery eye-death rays first thing in the morning. And yet... “Hate you so much.”Chuck just beams wider. The asshole.“Hate you too, seppo. Now, get your lazy ass out of bed and strip the sheets before you leave. I’ll be downstairs working. Unfortunately, mechanical engineering degrees don’t just fall out of the sky.”As soon as he hears Chuck’s footsteps recede, Yancy experiences the briefest moment of firmly believing he could get away with it if he fell back asleep again. But, if the past eleven-odd months of Chuck officially living with them have taught him anything, it’s that his boyfriend misses nothing. So, with a weary groan—yes, he’s perfectly aware he’s alone, but it’s early damnit—Yancy rolls himself out of bed and starts shuffling about the room.Chuck, it turns out, is more type-A than either him or Raleigh. Hell, more type-A than Yancy’d realized after over a year and a half of dating. A place for everything and everything in its place. So, while he’s always had a dirty clothes hamper in his—now their—room, now most of his dirty clothes actually make it into said hamper. Which means gathering up laundry is much quicker than it might've been a year ago, and, really, the most intensive part of the whole process is stripping his sheets from the mattress and lumping them in.As Yancy’s carrying his bundle to the laundry room, he practically runs into Raleigh as the kid plods through the hallway without making so much as a sound. He manages to keep himself from shouting something obscene and maintain his balance, though it’s only by some miracle that he manages not to bowl Raleigh over. The kid has clothes in his arms, a pile of them—all Raleigh-sized—growing at the base of the washer.“Rals,” Yancy lets his voice trail off meaningfully with a pointed glance at the pile in Raleigh’s arms. “Missing something?”His brother, though, rolls his eyes and shrugs.And that...well, that's the newest addition to their little household. In the last six months or so, Rals has grown like a damn weed—in fact, looking now, Yancy notices the hems of the kid’s pants are riding up just above his ankles again, so yet another thing they need to buy again—has been tired all the time, and has become, for lack of a better word, moody. Surly, maybe, except the kid’s at least not been outright hostile.Truthfully, it'd probably be more effective if Raleigh didn't still have his baby face.Puberty has arrived, and—dare he think it?—it is adorable. Annoying, temper-fraying, and unreasonable at times, but adorable nonetheless. Still, once the outright hostility towards authority sets in, Yancy’s more than confident it'll wear thin extremely quickly.“You have a laundry hamper for a reason, kiddo,” he lets his voice drop into a stage whisper. “Chuck would have a heart attack if he saw you weren't using it after he bought you that bigger one.”Raleigh blinks at him, huffs a breath of air out through his nose, and lets the clothes in his arms fall onto the pile before stalking away. There’s a flash of annoyance that passes through Yancy’s mind, but he tamps it down, reminding himself that patience is necessary—especially if he expects Raleigh to have any.He's rewarded when, several seconds later, Raleigh trundles back down the hall, his hamper in tow, and sets about filling it with the pile he'd been building. Jackpot. Though the kid may be difficult at times, invoking Chuck still seems to be the one sure-fire way to get him to listen. God, it's a good thing the kid adores Chuck as much as he does.“Thanks, kiddo,” he leans over to give his brother a quick, dry kiss on the forehead. Raleigh flashes him a look of annoyance, a flush creeping at the corners of the kid’s cheeks, so it’s totally worth it. “You’re the best little brother a guy could wish for.”
———
Getting ready for work is a blur of tightly-controlled chaos. Chuck is cooking—again, and Yancy could kiss him for it (and does)—as Yancy showers, rushes around the kitchen like a headless chicken trying to get something together for Raleigh’s lunch, and fusses over the kid to make sure he’s actually getting ready. Last he’d checked, Raleigh was brushing his teeth and using his free hand to give Yancy a sign that’d needed no ASL knowledge to interpret.He’d like to say that one is Chuck’s influence. And yet...Somewhere in there, Yancy scarfs down his own food and manages to throw on clothes without strangling himself.“Thank you, thank you,” Yancy is saying as he struggles into his jacket to stave off the December cold, pecking Chuck between each repetition as his boyfriend offers soothing hands on his shoulders, “thank you, please make sure Raleigh gets to the bus on time, and thank you. I would be lost without you.”“You would,” Chuck’s smile could melt steel, “although I like to think that Ray’d keep you in line.”As if summoned, Raleigh appears at the mouth of the hallway behind Chuck. He’s not in pajamas anymore, at least, and his hair is damp. He casts Yancy an offhand wave behind Chuck’s back before strolling away.“You have your phone, kiddo?” Yancy calls after him. The cellphone is a recent addition, courtesy of Chuck’s dads for Raleigh’s birthday. Yancy’s fairly certain the kid uses it mostly to text Mako. Does he think 12 is too young to have a phone? Maybe. Although he’s heard of kids half Raleigh’s age having one...but he’s also pretty sure those kids have two parents with a combined salary with six-digits. He’d almost had a minor panic attack when he’d seen the small black rectangle of glass and metal in Raleigh’s present. But at least some of the worry had left once Herc and Stacker had assured him they’d help with the bill if they needed to—so far it hasn’t been an issue, but the safety net being there is more of a reassurance than anything—and that the device came with fully-utilized parental controls.Which, given how Raleigh hasn’t stopped growing up—exactly the way kids tend to do, so it shouldn’t still surprise him—is probably going to become a major concern in the very near future.There’s a huff of air from the doorway before Raleigh reappears, signing upstairs and charge. Yancy interprets that as ‘it’s upstairs charging,’ and nods.“Don’t forget to bring it to school today, okay? Text me or Chuck if you need anything.”But Raleigh is already rolling his eyes and walking away with a dismissive wave. Yancy hears the sound of a chair scraping the kitchen floor and a fork clattering against a plate.“I’ll make sure he has his phone, too,” Chuck intercepts Yancy with a press of lips against his cheek. “You want me to check on him when he’s between classes?”“Would you? You won’t be too busy?”Chuck laughs, gentle and sweet.“I’m gonna be looking up papers and drafting methods all day. It’ll be a nice change of pace.”The moment—him in his coat, Chuck’s arms about his neck, both of them standing just inside the front door, the sounds of Raleigh eating his breakfast in the background—is so domestic that Yancy takes a few seconds to consciously commit it to memory. He smiles, his forehead falling forward to meet Chuck’s before stepping away. The weather seals around the front door squeak as it opens.“I love you,” he says to Chuck before directing his gaze at the empty hallway behind him. “Love you, Rals, have a good day at school!”There’s no answer. To be fair, he didn’t really expect one. At least, not more than Chuck making a shooing gesture at him.“You’re a bloody sap. Now go, go, you’re going to be late. And you’re letting the hot air out.”Yancy laughs, mirth and affection dancing a slow waltz in his stomach.“Silly Australian,” he says with a wink as he shuts the door. Can hear Chuck’s offended squawk even through the heavy wood.When he gets out to his car, his phone buzzes with a text, the pattern telling him it’s Chuck.
Goddamn drongo.
Then, as he still has the message open,
Stop reading and get your cute ass to work. Love you.
Yancy’s smile doesn't fade for at least the next five minutes.
———
Yancy gets done with work just in time to pick Raleigh and Mako up from swim practice. Well, swim club technically—their middle school has a small football team and soccer team and not much else official. Mako has confessed to him that she thought it'd be a good way to help Raleigh not be self-conscious about his scars. Truthfully, Yancy’s pretty certain the kid only goes along with it because Mako is doing it.The two of them pile into the backseat, smelling like chlorine and signing rapidly. Then it's home for dinner, homework for the two of them, and finally an hour or two of time for them to just relax and be kids. Yancy divides his own time between helping with homework,
making sure the two of them aren't wrecking the house, and catching up with Chuck. He even allows himself a few moments to horse around with his brother—to be the big brother he wishes he could be all the time—and the breathless giggles Raleigh makes as Yancy feigns shock at losing at Mario Kart make it worth it. But then it's back to pretending to be a parent and ushering the kids to bed and tucking them in. Mako calls Herc and Stacker just before lights out, and Chuck is handed the phone just before the call ends. As usual, he's blushing when the connection cuts.Mako and Chuck’s dads are very protective, to put it mildly. They’ve gotten better in the last few months, but even so. Very protective.And then, it's bedtime for the two of them. Chuck
has an early class, and Yancy's got breakfast duty since he doesn't go into work until noon. They go through the usual late-night dance of preparing themselves for bed, tucking into one another beneath the sheets.“Sleep tight,” Yancy whispers to Chuck, the light from the hall allowing him to see the glimmer of Chuck’s eyes still open. He tilts his head, allowing their foreheads to meet, and is already falling into the arms of dreaming when he hears Chuck answer.“Sweet dreams, love.”
———
Yancy's return to consciousness is accompanied by the knowledge, as absolute and sure as he is breathing, that something is wrong. Everything feels softened, distant, but rather than comforting it feels like his limbs, his ears, his eyes belong to someone else. Like he is a stranger in his own body.“Yancy,” whispers a voice above him, and it takes his brain a solid two seconds before it connects it to Chuck, “you need to get up.”It takes another pair of seconds before the urgency, the fear, in Chuck’s words registers. The reaction when it does is immediate and almost painful, his senses going into overdrive, his own muscles pulling him bodily from the bed before they can get truly coordinated. His mouth floods with a lemony taste.“What is it?” he slurs, balance teetering for a dangerous moment before strong arms catch him. “Wha-what’s wrong?”There's a single, terrible moment of silence. Then,“Raleigh.”Just that—that single, terrible word—sends an electric shock through Yancy’s body. In the span of an eyeblink, he is across the room, his feet carrying him down the bright hallway faster than he can process anything else. The door to Raleigh's room is open—like it always it—and Yancy doesn't hear anything until he crosses the threshold.His brother is screaming.Not that anyone but him would ever recognize it.Raleigh is thrashing on the bed, his lips peeled over his teeth, a strained, breathless sound leaving his lips. It reminds Yancy vaguely of the sound of someone trying to force an inhale through an allergy attack, but in reverse.Across the room, on the air mattress that’s become a semi-permanent feature in the kid’s room, Mako is sleeping soundly. Yancy is suddenly and viscerally reminded of a conversation he and Chuck’d had when they'd first started dating, that Yancy reminded him of his sister—they both sleep like the dead.As he moves towards the kid’s side, Raleigh’s back bows, one hand twitching up towards his throat. And, in a moment of horrifying clarity, Yancy understands.“Rals,” he grabs one small shoulder, wincing when the kid’s other hand clamps down on his wrist in a bruising grip, “wake up, kiddo. C’mon, you can do it—”“You can't wake up someone from a night terror,” Chuck’s voice interrupts him from the doorway.Yancy almost snaps at him. Almost. Except he can hear the fear in the words, the helplessness that Yancy knows all too well. It forces him to take an extra half-second, to reign his initial answer in.“It’s not a night terror,” he says as evenly as he can, his voice still wavering to his own ears as he focuses on gently but firmly shaking his brother awake. “He had those when he was a toddler. I remember what those look like. This isn't that.”“Then what—” Chuck starts, but is cut off by Raleigh gasping breathlessly. The kid’s eyes open, and Yancy is careful to make sure he's the first thing his brother sees. He can see the fear, the confusion, the old pain, written in the kid’s eyes, and finally the moment it all catches up to him. Tears swim in those orbs the color of the ocean, and he abruptly finds himself with an armful of silently sobbing twelve year old.“You're okay,” he whispers into Raleigh’s hair, dropping kisses and soothing words onto the kid’s scalp in equal measure. “You're okay. It was just a dream. It's over now. It's out. I've got you. You're okay.”“So. Not a night terror,” the bed dips as Chuck joins the two of them, voice soft. A hand finding Yancy's shoulder, the other hovering over Raleigh’s shuddering back as if unsure what to do. “Nightmare?”Yancy nods, fingers taking the place of his words, weaving themselves between blond strands. He tries not to think about the way his hands are shaking.“About the night he lost his voice. He’s told me he doesn't remember it in detail, but the emotions are still there. And his subconscious seems to remember just enough to paint a pretty vivid picture. Or, at least,” he leans down to kiss the kid’s brow again, the pads of his fingers tracing what he hopes are soothing patterns, “enough that he remembers having something in his neck. And being really scared.”There’s a hum that comes from where Chuck is behind him, vibrating against his back. The hand that’d been fluttering, unsure, finally closes the distance between itself and Raleigh’s spine, the gentle hiss of fingers ghosting over fabric a subliminal layer under everything else. There might be a small stab that goes through Yancy’s stomach when it is that, above all else, that seems to tip the scales, but he viciously crushes it to nothingness. His brother is quieting, is calming; that’s all that matters, he tells himself.“So this has happened before.”It’s not a question, even if the suggestion of one is there.“When he first got back from the hospital, almost every night.” It’d honestly been a miracle they only had to go back twice for him busting his stitches because of it, Yancy remembers. “At first he didn’t want to sleep alone—had to be in bed with me or he got scared when he woke up. Then it was just being in the same room. And then,” he rolls his shoulder in what he hopes is a slow approximation of a wave, “he could sleep by himself again.”Chuck hums again. Raleigh has mostly quieted, the noisy, voiceless inhales and exhales all but stopped, but Yancy can still feel warm wetness cooling into his shoulder. His hands keep up their soothing motions even as Raleigh shifts slightly, his forehead burying itself in the crook of Yancy’s neck, nose at his collarbone. He lets his head tilt and fall until his cheek is against the top of the kid’s skull, closing his eyes and humming a lullaby their mother used to sing to them. He doesn’t know the words—they were in French, he remembers that much—but the tune has always stuck with him.
“How long?” Chuck asks. Doesn’t clarify whether he means How long since the last one? or How long did it go on?Yancy doesn’t answer with words, keeps humming and stroking his brother’s hair. Untangles one hand to fingerspell.
Last time when seven none since AFAIK
Chuck frowns at the acronym at first, but only for the briefest of moments. Then frowns again, his eyes on Yancy’s. In that moment, Yancy is positive they’re having the same thought.“Ray?” Chuck whispers into the quiet, and Yancy feels a surge of affection for the man as he keeps up his gentle lullaby. He hadn’t even needed to say that he didn’t want to speak just yet. “You with us, buddy?”Though it’s barely there, Yancy can feel his brother nod against his neck. He gives Chuck a thumbs up in case he’d missed it.“Do you feel up to talking for a second?”He tenses in Yancy’s lap, but ultimately Raleigh peels his face from Yancy’s skin. There’s snot leaking from his nose, and his eyes are red and puffy even in the dim light. Even through that, the small, sardonic twist of his mouth is impossible to miss. Chuck laughs, though the sound is a shell of its usual self.“Poor choice of words, buddy. But we gotta know. Is this the first time in a while this’s happened?”The watery-eyed shake of his brother’s head feels like a sucker punch, sucking the air and his voice from his lungs.“When was the last one?” Chuck asks, tone calm and even, like he’s afraid to spook the kid.Raleigh shrugs, eyes somewhere in the middle distance.“A year ago?”Another shake of the head.“Longer than that?”Shake.“So, more recently?”Nod.“How recent, then? Six months?”Shake. Raleigh makes a small hand gesture, finger pointing down. Less.“Three months?”Shake.“A month?”Shake. Dread creeps up in Yancy’s stomach, replacing the air that’s still missing with a ball of lead. He feels like if he breathes it will break some sort of spell.“A week?” Chuck’s voice is tight.Shake.“Rals,” Yancy practically gasps before Chuck can speak again, his voice feeling like it’s being stretched around something frozen even as he labors to keep it under control, to keep it level for his brother’s benefit, “how many times in the past week?”Silence. Verbal and otherwise. Tears spring to the corners of Yancy’s eyes, and he takes his brother’s face in his hands as gently as he can stand to. Raleigh still isn’t looking at him, eyes darting left and right like if he spends enough time not seeing Yancy, he won’t be there anymore. Guilt is there, in the crease between his brows and the thin set of his lips.“Raleigh,” Yancy whispers, “please. I need you to tell me. How often?”His brother’s breathing catches in a clicking sound somewhere in the kid’s throat. Yancy sees the moment the kid breaks, when he looks at Chuck, then at Yancy, and the wetness in his eyes redoubles.I’m sorry, he signs. And, in that moment, Yancy feels his heart breaking like a physical thing. He pulls his brother back into his chest, arms folding around the kid’s small form.“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he whispers into Raleigh’s hair. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice. It’s my job to help you through sh—through stuff like this. I messed up. I wasn’t there. But I’m here now, okay?”Three things happen at once.Mako’s covers rustle in the dark. Chuck is immediately gone from Yancy’s back, soft Japanese drifting between them.Raleigh wraps his arms tighter around Yancy’s midsection, squeezing until Yancy could swear he feels his ribs creaking in protest.And, safe from any prying eyes, Yancy finally allows the burning at the corners of his eyes to go. Lets the tears that’d come to life there fall freely. He can feel his brother fingerspelling into his back, the same series of letters over and over. He can’t actually tell which letters they are, but judging by the repeat in the middle and the length of the word, Raleigh is still saying sorry even if he can’t do the proper sign with how they’re pressed against one another.“I’ve got you,” he hears himself muttering, his fingers tracing nonsense patterns over Raleigh’s scalp and down the back of the kid’s neck. “I’ve got you, kiddo. I’ve got you. Everything’s going to be fine.”The signing against his back slows after what feels like a short eternity. Mako and Chuck are still talking quietly—there’s a brief noise that sounds like Mako maybe trying to shift on the air mattress to get up, but it stops when Chuck says something that sounds like, “No, Mako, it’s alright,” before picking back up in Japanese.One day, a detached part of Yancy’s mind thinks, he should really ask Chuck to teach him.
Raleigh lets Yancy go in degrees. Slowly, his arms loosen, his shaking slows until it is nothing more than the occasional hiccup. Yancy lets him pull away, but leaves one hand cradling the back of the kid’s skull. Raleigh isn't quite looking at him again, but he at least turns his head into the slow, circular motion of Yancy’s thumb against his scalp. He's always had a thing about his head—seems to soothe him, almost like a kitten. Or a puppy.Can I sleep in your bed? Raleigh signs. Just for tonight?“I dunno, kiddo,” Yancy starts, neck tilting towards Chuck and Mako, “what about—”He stops when he sees Chuck leaning down to press a soft kiss against Mako’s forehead, her breaths already even and deep where he's tucked her in. Chuck looks up, catching Yancy’s eyes, the corners of his mouth ticking upward.“She's out again,” he says softly, almost a whisper. “Don't think she even really woke up. Doubt she'll remember anything much, but I'll talk to her again in the morning.”As observant as ever, before he's even finished speaking. Chuck’s eyes are tracking from Yancy to Raleigh. Then back to Yancy, and back to Raleigh again.“What is it, Ray?”Raleigh looks at Chuck, but turns back to Yancy, his gaze off-center. He moves his hands in a half-aborted gesture, glances up then down again. In the dark, Yancy can see his brother’s cheeks tingeing a shade darker.I…The pause after Raleigh gestures at himself is pregnant, his hands hovering in front of him. If the kid could speak, Yancy’s sure he'd be stuttering through various different iterations of the thought, trying to articulate himself. His mouth would be flapping as he made half-inarticulate noises, his hands possibly wringing themselves together. Instead, the kid is suspended, mouth a wobbling line, hands silent as his mind searches for the words, shoulders shifting under his nightshirt in a body language equivalent of stuttering.Yancy lets himself focus on the feeling of his brother’s skin, warm under the pad of this thumb. Tries to convey calm and understanding through the simple touch as much as he can. Calm, understanding, as much patience as he can find, and a love so deep it sometimes scares him. He may not be the best at expressing it sometimes, but, in the end, they're all either of them have left.He makes a mental promise to his brother he’ll do better.I’m scared, Raleigh eventually signs.Yancy glances over at Chuck, and feels a low rush he can't name flit through his guts when he sees the tears gathered in the corners of Chuck’s eyes. And, behind them, a steely resolve.“Rals,” Yancy starts, squeezing his brother's neck softly, but then Chuck is there. Is scooping Raleigh up in a fireman’s carry like the kid weighs forty pounds instead of more than twice that. Under different circumstances, Yancy would probably find the way Raleigh’s arms wind themselves about Chuck’s neck and the way the kid tucks his lanky frame into such a small space almost cute.Right now, though, he doesn't have that luxury.“Of course you can spend the night with me and your brother,” Yancy hears Chuck whispering into Raleigh’s hair. He's already carrying the kid out the door, glancing back at Yancy, meaning plain on his face.
He’s spending the night with us and if you don't like it you can get bent.
Yancy nods.
Of course.
He quickly checks on Mako. She's making near-soundless snores, her breathing deep and even. Yancy allows himself a split second to make sure she's tucked in properly—of course she is, as if Chuck would allow for anything less where his sister is concerned—before following Chuck down the hall.Raleigh is already curled into Chuck’s side, taking up the middle of the bed. Yancy double-checks that the door is propped open, allowing a sliver of the hallway’s light into the room, before he slides under the sheets at his brother's other side. He doesn't even have time to get comfortable before Raleigh’s done a one-eighty and has an arm wrapped around Yancy’s chest, the kid’s legs bracketing his knee. Soft hair tickles his neck and cheek where Raleigh’s got his face pressed into Yancy’s shoulder.It's not what Yancy would call comfortable. But he'll put up with it. For Raleigh. He turns his head to press his lips to what little of his brother’s forehead he can reach. More or less ends up kissing the kid’s hair anyway.“Love you, Rals,” he whispers. “Sleep tight.”
———
Yancy is woken by his alarm.His phone is chirping at him, and it takes his brain what feels like a year to actually comprehend the sound. He cracks an eye at the ceiling, thoughts oozing like the colorful slime from that kit he'd gotten Raleigh that one time—and one time only. Turns his head to see his phone lit up and buzzing its way across the nightstand. Splashed across the screen is just one word: Breakfast.It takes a truly Herculean effort for his brain to pull the memory. That's right, he remembers. Today is his morning off. Chuck has class. It's his turn to cook breakfast before work. And make sure Raleigh—His thoughts catch on something with an almost audible screech of protest.Raleigh.He taps off his alarm, groaning to himself. Raleigh needs—Raleigh.He glances over at Chuck, mind expecting his boyfriend to be cuddled up to his pillow, but instead—Raleigh.Something in his mind, made of several thoughts that had been trying to coalesce into some kind of concrete whole, makes contact. Catches. Pulls.Raleigh.His brother is breathing against his neck. Arms and legs curled up against Yancy’s side, like if he pretends hard enough he'll be six years old again instead of twice that. His brow is smooth, breaths deep and even. Every time the kid breathes, the rush of air cools a spot on Yancy’s shoulder where he's sure he’s been left a small, but growing, spot of drool.The memories slot into place like rusty links on a chain. Walking in to his brother’s silent scream. The somehow even worse silent sobs. The kid’s confession. Asking if he could spend the night with them the way he’d spent nights with Yancy when he’d been fresh out of the hospital.The silent, half-signed conversation between him and Chuck that’d followed.As soon as Raleigh’s out the door to school, Yancy’s going to start looking up local therapists in the few hours he has before work. If he can find one who specializes in kids, or even just patients with traumatic pasts, so much the better. But, if last night has taught him anything, it’s that Raleigh needs more than just him. He needs people who understand what he’s gone through, or who can help the kid to understand it.It takes what feels like a glacial effort to haul himself out of bed. Raleigh’s eyes twitch, arms unfolding slightly as Yancy vacates his space on the bed. There’s a breath-stopping, endless moment where it seems like the kid will wake up. But, with a drawn-out exhalation, Raleigh turns, burying his face in Chuck’s shoulder, lips smacking. Given how late they were all up, Yancy’s not exactly surprised the kid didn’t wake up, but, then again, Raleigh’s always been a light sleeper.A muted series of pops come from Yancy’s back as he straightens and stretches, his limbs and eyelids feeling like lead. He allows himself one indulgence, balancing himself so he can lean over to leave a soft kiss just in front of Raleigh’s ear. As he straightens, his weight leaving the bed, Chuck twists, arms wrapping around Raleigh protectively and drawing the kid into him. It reminds Yancy of how he used to wake back when this was their normal.A smile tugs at the corner of his lips, a thought flitting through the back of his mind as he turns to begin their day.They’re going to be fine. Things may not be great now—things might not even be all that good right now—but they’ll get through it.After all, Raleigh already has more than just him.He’s not alone. None of them are.