[fraser]

[finally_ahead]

The night stretches on, bloody and claustrophobic, and awful. When the morning comes and they get out, when there's been reunions and a hospital trip, time moves double. Even the waiting, when it comes, flies by, and that might be for a dozen different reasons.

And maybe Stan's too tired to be as deeply re-traumatized as he ought to be, or comfortably numb, but he thinks it's just as likely that it's the same reason he makes sure that as the last of it winds down, he makes sure that he's next to Fraser.

"Hey," he says quietly, nudging Fraser a bit further from any lingering group, "don't go back to the Home. Come back with me. We'll make someone talk to them. I mean, if you-- you shouldn't have to go back alone. We can do sleeping bags or," and God, would he be any better at talking if he were less tired? He'd like to think so. "I'd feel better about going to sleep if I knew you were there."

Comments

[juststrange]

It was late morning and Fraser was so tired he could barely stand. They'd escaped at dawn, were whisked off to the hospital, where there was more waiting and uncertainty and weirdness. He hated hospitals, the same way any sane person hated them. Or, at least, that's what Fraser thought— that it was normal and right to be wary of them.

"I don't care where they think I am. I'm already late anyway," he said, shrugged. Exhausted as he was, his heart stuttered at Stan's request. "We can do sleeping bags."