JAWS (Complete)

Chapter 21

"Porco." It's the third time, and Marcel's voice is filled with so much love, so much simple, genuine affection, that Porco's throat starts to close up on him, and he reaches his hand across the boat.

"Please." Porco whispers it, his voice unable to do anything louder, cracking and straining around the edges just with that single word. Sarge keeps barking from the shore, loud and joyful, and Porco can just imagine how his tail is wagging and how he's jumping up and down, and that makes him sad and he doesn't know why, but he needs Marcel to answer him. "Marcel, please..."

"Gali."

The world starts to blur around the edges, and Sarge's barking fills Porco's ears, and even as he watches, the light around Marcel's head starts to brighten, starts to melt away the outline of his features.

"No!"

Porco stands up then, and tries to lunge across the boat, tries to catch Marcel around the waist and keep him here, keep him in the boat, out of the light that Porco is suddenly sure only exists to take him away.

"Don't leave me!"

"Gali?"

"No!"

Porco flings himself across the boat, even as the light behind Marcel threatens to burn the world to cinders and as Sarge's barking deafens him, but Marcel dissolves like mist in his hands, and Galliard jolts awake with a gasp.

"Gali?"

It's Reiner, Reiner crouched next to Galliard's bed, his hand on his shoulder, gently shaking him awake. His brow is knit down over his eyes, his lips pursed in concern, and Galliard goggles at him, still caught between sleep and consciousness.

For a moment there, he thought it was Marcel, coming to wake him.

"Gali, are you okay?" Now that he's awake, Reiner stops shaking him, and instead moves his hand to the small of Galliard's back, rubbing in small, soothing circles. "You were moving and making noise, and I thought you were having a nightmare, so I woke you up."

Reiner bites his lower lip, uncharacteristically uncertain but so damn concerned that he just had to do something, and Galliard almost gasps as a sudden, nearly overwhelming rush of heat fills his chest. Reiner can't know this, but Galliard used to suffer from nightmares as a child, terrible dreams with shouting, furious shadows that were always almost in the shape of his father, and his whining and thrashing would wake up Marcel. And then he'd come to little Porco's bed, and wake him up, and then it would all be okay for awhile.

With a sudden snort, Galliard shoots his arms out, grabbing Reiner around his shoulders and hauling him forward. Reiner squawks gracelessly and doesn't move, but Galliard spends large parts of his week at the gym and is no slouch in the strength-building department. He heaves again, and with a faint, token protest, Reiner climbs up onto the bed with him.

The bed, built for a teenaged boy, squalls and creaks under their combined weight, but its craftsman built it with love and it holds. Reiner tries to turn on his side, to maximize the limited space they've got, but Galliard is having none of that. He manhandles Reiner around until he's sprawled out on top of him, Reiner's weight pressing Galliard into the mattress, and he turns his cheek to Reiner's chest and keeps his arms cinched around his back.