Chapter Text
Chapter 4:
Over the Threshold
When Shane was a child, there had been a particular fear that threaded itself through his childhood. It was a subtle thing. Not a fear of monsters under the bed or a school yard bully. A monster inside of his head.
It would come at night. He would lay awake in bed, waiting for sleep to come, and then, a peculiar sensation would wash over his body, enveloping each limb until it consumed him. A shift in the texture of the universe. It was as if he had been seated on solid ground one second, and then suddenly, drifting with no tether. Like he had slipped through the cracks of the universe, into some other realm, some mistake in the membrane of the universe giving way to a parallel one. The universe where he felt safe, where things made sense, and where his parents were, when they didn’t, was gone. It was the world, tipped over.
He was like an astronaut, launched into space, floating outside of his space ship and his tether was cut. Drifting outward. Alone.
His stomach caved in on itself, falling into a pitt of dread that spilled over his entire being. Swallowed by something whole. If he wasn’t careful, if he slipped too far, he wouldn’t be able to find his way back to the boundary that separated his world from this one. This monster existed inside of him and existed without him.
At first, it only came at night, when it was too quiet and his bedroom ceiling faded into infinite dark. But soon it bled through to the sunlight. Like an ink-stain bleeding through to the page behind.
One moment, he was avoiding the texture of food as he scrubbed at his dinner plate in the sink, and then a sweet-metallic feeling would slide up his chest. Something gripping at his breath. The world. Turned alien.
Or running to find a place to hide in a game of hide and seek with a group of friends from his youth hockey league. One second, excited, nervous, running. The next, he would look up, and see everyone gone. And the same funny feeling would surround him. Alone. Drifting. Something wrong happening inside of him, around him, to him,and no way to find his way back.
He would run, panicking and crying to Yuna and ask her to hold him, to hug him, to tell him that he was still there with her. That everything was ok. She would wrap him in her arms and sooth his hair back, rocking him back and forth, bewildered, but trying to put the pieces of the world back together for the scared, crying little boy in front of her.
He was afraid to sleep alone on those nights, begging David and Yuna to let him sleep in bed with them, terrified that the universe would swallow him back into the dark of the night.
His parents, unable to reshape the world, would offer him small comforts. An ice cream sundae, a few minutes extra reading a superhero comic book before bed, a board game on Sunday before the school week restarted. Anything to bring some warmth back into the disconnected uncertainty on his face.
Yuna had worried at this fearful monster that seemed to threaten her son from the shadows, an enemy opponent she couldn’t fight. She took Shane to the doctor, but Shane had been too scared to talk to the man in the stiff, too crisp clothes, overwhelmed by the penny sharp smell of antiseptic wipes and aerosolized disinfectants. He’d answered the doctor’s questions with as few words as possible. Afraid that they would know something was wrong with him. The doctor had waved it off as anxiety and suggested that Shane would likely grow out of it.
His mom had pushed him on it at first, but when she saw how upset it made him, she and David did their best to accept it. It was just something Shane did. Something that happened to him from time to time. They just needed to reduce his stress. Make sure he ate the healthy parts of his lunch first. Make sure that he got to bed early for a full night of sleep. Make sure he was keeping up with his homework and studying for his tests.
Shane could see how much it worried his parents to see him so upset. So eventually, he started hiding it. He no longer ran to Yuna when the darkness sucked him in. He didn’t cry into his dad’s shirt when the world shifted outside its place. He would let it come and hold onto the world around him, slipping quietly into the living room while his dad was watching a game or into the kitchen when his mom was taking a business call, just to know that they hadn’t slipped out of the universe with him. That they were still there. That he could find his way back to them.
As he got older, these cracks in the universe were less pervasive. He didn’t fall into them as often. The uneven fault lines were spaced further and further apart. They still occurred, but they were less scary, less unfamiliar, a foreignness that he now recognized. They were still unpleasant, but he could manage better.
And then the Universe had shifted.
He was in University. On a long drive back home following an away game, Yuna talking to him from the driver’s seat, asking about one the English class he liked, David messing with the radio dial, as stations flicked onto the next, when the razor-bright headlights of an oncoming vehicle interrupted his family's existence, followed by the mechanical crush of metal on metal, David reaching across the console in an attempt to swerve the wheel. The animal sound of fully grown adults yelling. And then--
Nothing.
Shane had woken up in the hospital. Monitors beeping, body stiff and painful. His ribs ached with every breath and his face felt puffy.
He was alone until the nurse found him.
And alone again leaving the hospital in the back of an Uber, with no parents to drive back home with.
Alone as he unlocked the front door, no parents greeting him from the kitchen before one of their family dinners.
Alone, as he tossed and turned in his bed.
And alone still when he gives up and shuffles beneath the sheets of his parent’s bed instead.
For the first time in years, he found himself sucked backwards into that unfamiliar universe.
For the first time, he is truly alone.
No David or Yuna to pull him back from the abyss. No ice cream sundae offerings to soothe the aching anxiety that sat in his stomach. No one smoothing his hair back like when he was a kid, or pressing the firm comfort of a hand against his shoulder.
The funeral had occurred in quick order. Everything occurred in a rush of well meant hugs and too many casseroles left in his fridge. A losing combination with a stomach too queasy and empty to eat.
He was a mess. Unable to sleep. Unable to eat. Throat obstructed by dread. Moving through the sweet empty molasses of grief.
The world had shifted.
He went for a drive. Hard sheets of rain obstructed his windshield, warring with the insistent squeak-squeak of water-weary wiper blades cutting across the river of glass to the road in front of him. His eyes felt tired and swollen from tears that didn’t stop. His shirt felt cool and damp with a cold sweat that ran over his over-warm body. A paralyzing fear echoed from his stomach. Trees shifted in the fun-house blur of the downpour.
He was going too slow.
No, too fast— down the wind of the road. And then he was flying, launched into freefall, dropping, plummeting over the edge.
The acid fear in his gut eating its way upwards to his throat as the metal cabin of his car pulled down towards the water.
Panic seared through his nerve endings, igniting a spark that feared extinguishing. White hot anxiety threaded through his nervous system. Breath stolen by the violent force of an airbag. A stinging pain across his face and hands. The phosphorus white exploding behind his eyelids against his skull. The heavy jerky sloosh of water enveloping the car, pulling him further and further beneath the surface. Dread, a scared animal inside of him fighting to the surface. He was pinned, the seat belt stuck. This was it. Tears bled over the edge of his eyes.
He was going to die.
He ached for some sort of comfort. Some sort of confirmation that this was just a crack in the universe and when he fell through, his parents would be on the other side. Maybe it wouldn't hurt. Maybe the universe would pull him out of his body and reunite him with his parents before the water pulled the life from his lungs.
He hears Yuna’s voice, calling him, he turns towards it, asking her to save him.
Mom.
He felt water around his face. And then his lungs were burning. An urge to cough, to vomit, to expel. Water camouflaging the tears that flowed from his eyes. A sob escaping, unifying the water within and without.
Caught between breaths. Suspended. Crying. It hurt. It hur—
“Malysh, Malysh! — wake up. Is ok!,” He feels a firm pat against his cheek, “You are ok! Come back, da?!”
Shane sputters and jerks.
He feels firm hands—holding him? Shaking him? Tearing him apart? Pulling him together? He doesn't know. Is this death? Light burns his eyes.
Ilya was holding him the second he started yelling. The boy was panicking. Thrashing violently against the bedsheets, feverish and fearful. Da, the transition had not been gentle. The boy fought against his hold. Ilya straddled the boys frame, pinning his body to the mattress, now worriedly talking into the boys ear. Tears wet the side of his face.
Ilya used his body to press down into a soothing pin and smoothed sweat slick hair from the boys forehead. Two tear-filled eyes looked up at him.
Oh, Malysh.
He looked utterly frightened. Gasping and grabbing at the space around him. The air, the sheets, Ilya’s clothes.
“Can’t—Breath—” rushed past his lips, eyes pleading with Ilya’s.
Ilya dipped his head closer to the boy’s ear.
“Hey, hey. Malysh, Listen to me, da? You are ok,” He reassured him, “You are breathing, da? You are safe, da? Breath. “
The boy hiccupped another breath.
“ –Shh. Is ok”
Shane’s chest hurt. His head ached. His eyes burned. His side sliced at him and his stomach clenched.
“It hurts,” He pleaded at whoever was holding him down.
Ilya shifted some of his weight off of him. He regretted pinning him so firmly. He knew his injuries would still be healing, but he had needed to make sure that the boy wouldn’t further injure himself. Caught in the state between human and Fledgling, the boy would be stronger than he had been as a human, but all the more vulnerable in his liminal state.
Ilya continued the gentle smoothing of the boys hair from his face. A grounding action, he felt may be more for him than the boy.
“Da, is ok. You were hurt. But you are going to be ok. Da. Breath. Like that.”
Shane could feel himself becoming more lucid. There was a man holding him down. Petting his hair. The man had blond hair that curled around the sharp angle of his cheekbones and across his forehead. The man was handsome, and perhaps if Shane was better oriented, he would have blushed at the position he had beneath him. The man was talking to him, whispering concerned and comforting words at him. Shane couldn’t much comprehend what was being said, only that it seemed to be comforting and he readily accepted the grounding resonance that imparted from the sculptural cupid’s bow of the man’s mouth. Blinking away tears, Shane’s vision unclouded and found a set of cool blue eyes anchoring him to the space.
Before Shane could form any thought, he was overcome by an overwhelming sensation.
His body was wrong.
Something had shifted.
He didn’t know where the change had occurred, but he could feel it inside of him, a clear demarcation between what he had been and what he was now.
Something irreversible.
Something irrevocable.
He felt a sensation that his brain supplied with one word.
Death.
Ilya sensed the shift immediately. He could see the desolate look taking over the boys features. He needed to bring the boy back before he spiraled.
“Look at me. Look at me. I know is weird feeling inside. You need to stay, don’t disappear on me. I will explain to you and will help you to get used to it, da?”
Shane only nodded at the man’s firm words, not wanting the panic to bubble up to the ashen place in his mouth.
“ Da, Good boy. You were in bad accident. You were hurt. I found you— helped you. You feel sick now because of—,” He struggled to find an explanation and settled on, “--Is normal.”
Confusion clouded Shane’s mind. This didn’t look like a hospital. The sheets were too soft. The lights were too warm, too dim. And he didn’t think that doctors climbed on top of their patients, no matter how dedicated. Still, he had nothing else to go off of.
“A–are you a doctor?”
“No. This is not hospital.” Ilya had to keep himself from letting out a laugh. Shane blinked. Ilya continued, “I know you feel strange right now. Is because you are turning. I am vampire. I give you my blood. Your body is fighting with it.”
“Va–Vampire?” Shane didn’t know what else to say.
“Da, vampire, “ Ilya nodded, “You know, blood sucking creature, need sunscreen on beach, make teenage girls scream,” Ilya’s mouth twitched up at the corner, attempting a joke to ease the worry across the boy’s face.
“No,” Shane shook his head, “This is a bad dream. I fell asleep funny on the couch or something.”
“No couch. Bad fight with guard rail. Guard rail lost.”
Shane felt his breath getting quicker.
It was absurd. There was no way.
But—the weird feeling in his chest, the wrongness he felt in the space between his organs and in the hollow of his bones, ached with something like recognition. A resonation at a molecular level.
Shane’s hands went limp from their hold against the man’s dark shirt.
“What’s happening to me?” he whispered.
“You are going through change. Is hard on your body. You were hurt very bad. My blood is healing what it can, but will take time.”
“And then I’ll be fixed? I’ll be ok again?”
Ilya shifted his gaze away from the boy’s.
“Mm yes. It will fix your injuries. But cannot keep you alive.”
Shane’s face scrunched.
“I–I don’t understand.”
“The blood only sustains you. Is not— permanent fix.”
“So what? I’m turning into a vampire?!” Shane’s eyes widened. The panic inside of him grew. Ilya attempted to reassure him.
“No, No! You were not strong enough for change. Change would have killed you.”
“Then— Then what! I don’t understand?” Shane pushed away from Ilya and scrambled back until he felt the firmness of a headboard.
Ilya moved away, resting back on his knees, hands raised in a placating motion, attempting to sooth the boy who had evaporated from his grasp and come to rest tightly against his pillows like a scared kitten.
“Okey— I need you to listen to me. I know is scary and you are confused. But you are safe, da?”
Shane looked around the room, taking catalogue of his environment or planning his escape, he did not know. He was in a bedroom. A relatively normal bedroom with light colored sheets and dark walls. A low leather chair in the corner and a table with a few books on it. A TV built into a wall of shelves that contained more books, small objects of sentiment, a candle, a box of matches.
No torture devices or restraints attached to the ceiling. It was decidedly nonthreatening. Cozy, even. He counted as he took a deep breath in, than out. Again. Until his eyes focused on the well-muscled man in front of him.
He was wearing a dark tank top that stretched over the muscles of his chest, lounge pants slung over his slender hips. He was bigger than Shane, but not absurdly so. Still it made him feel small in comparison to his softer muscle-rounded frame. The man was looking at him with a careful expression. Guarded, like he was trying to anticipate his next action. He was still giving Shane distance, which he appreciated, but a small part of him yearned to have those arms holding him again. Those steady fingers to skate over his hair, an echo of comfort that reminded him of being a child woken from a nightmare. He shook his head.
The man said he was safe. He was— safe.
He checked his breath. It was more even now. He met the man’s eyes and gave a slow nod of his head.
“O–okay,” His voice cracked.
The man across for him let out a breath.
“Okey. Good, da. Is safe. I tell you more now, da?”
Shane gave a more confident nod this time. Resolved to keep his cool.
The man shifted backwards to rest on his knees, raised hands settling by his side, no longer caging him in.
“You are Fledgling. But— different. Not vampire yet, but not human. You are— between.”
“So–so, i’m dead?” Shane couldn't do this.
“No– Yes.” Ilya saw the look of terror cross the boy’s features. Blyat! ,“Is complicated. But you are alive.”
Shane nodded his head slower this time. Too much running through his mind to articulate any of it.
Ilya nodded his head back, still waiting to see if the Fledgling would try to escape the room, but the boy remained oddly stiff in front of him. He seemed to be trying to grasp what he was being told. Understandable considering the confusing explanation Ilya had just given him. Blyat! He wished he was better at this. Svetlana would have known what to do.
The boy swallowed.
“So is this what happens before I become a vampire? This is what Fledglings–that’s what you called it?--That’s what we are before we are like you.”
Ilya ran his tongue over the back of his teeth, weighing his words carefully.
“Most Fledglings are turned when their sire share’s blood with them.”
“Right, you said you gave me your blood?”
“Da, but I did not bite you back. Is not the same.”
“So–So–I’m not a fledgling? I don’t understand," His voice shook.
Shane felt tired of vocalizing his repeated confusion. Slower now, Ilya answered him.
Ilya's brow furrowed.
“You are Fledgling. But different. I could not change you in your condition. You were too injured. I did different thing to save you.”
“Different? What do you mean?”
“Is blood bond. Like regular change, but different. I feed you my blood. You die. You come back. Alive, but different. You are in—eh between state. Still fledgling. Still like vampire, but different.”
Ilya struggled to find an English equivalent to describe the space between worlds that would be comprehensible to the overwhelmed boy in front of him. He could see the firm chest in front of him, heaving, intentionally pulling in air in an attempt to steady.
“O-Okay. So I am alive, but–but not? But I am ok? I’m not gonna die?” Shane’s voice cracked on the last word.
Ilya’s heart clenched at the fear in the boys voice.
“No, dorogoy. Will not die. I will not let you die. You are safe.”
Uncertainty flashed in the boy’s eyes.
“-Won’t let me? So I could still die?”
Blyat.
He had meant to reassure the boy. He was doing a bad job at this. Might as well have told the boy he was going to kill him with the way he cowered back from him. He had to turn this around, quick.
“Nyet. Is not something I would let happen. I am your sire. I will take care of you. Will make sure you do not get hurt or— die.”
Ah yes, very comforting, Ilyushka. He could see Svetlana rolling her eyes at his poor wording. He powered through, trying to move past the harsh wording.
“Will make sure you have my blood and you will be ok.”
That was the wrong thing to say. The boy’s face twisted in horror, repulsed.
“Blood?! I–what-have your blood?—like drink your blood?!”
Ilya brow furrowed in surprise. Surely drinking his blood was the least startling thing that he had just revealed to the boy. Definitely less harsh than telling him that he was half dead.
“Da. My blood. Is what is keeping you alive.”
Shane struggled to find words.
Ilya tried again. Maybe he had misunderstood.
“Taste is not bad if that is what you are worried about. Is sweet. Will not hurt.”
Shane shook his head.
“Yeah, no. I’m not—I’m not doing that. I’m not drinking your blood.”
A memory resurfaced in Shane’s mind. Skating on the ice during practice, tripping on his skates during a warm up and feeling a sharp slicing pain as one of his teammates skates cut across his hand. He hadn’t put his gloves on yet, and now there was bright blood blooming over the ice. So much of it, pooling on the ice in front of him, feathering along the micro cracks in the surface. He felt all of the weight in his body shift into his legs. His stomach rolled and he felt his vision go dark at the edges. The sound of hockey sticks and pucks gliding on the ice turned into static that deafened his hearing. The world turned to visual snow. His stomach clenched like he was going to throw up and then he was pulled down to the ice, his body too heavy, too hot, heartbeat too loud in his ears. He could make out the sound of a whistle and his coach sliding towards him. His mom yelling his name from across the ice.
He had ended up with a trip to the ER and an ugly white bandage covering a row of neat stitches. The blood loss had not been so serious as he imagined, but he came away from the experience with a new fear of blood and a disdain for any medical procedures that introduced it. He even refused to get his blood drawn, and procrastinated vaccinations.
So the very thought of not only seeing blood, but having to drink it, threw Shane into complete panic. He could feel his legs going weak just thinking about it.
“Malysh. Is not option. You must drink my blood.”
“You don’t understand!” Shane could feel himself drifting back to the full blown panic attack he had tangoed with ever since waking up.
“Okey, Okey— So tell me. What is problem? I cannot help if I do not know problem,” Ilya tried a new tactic.
“Blood. Can’t—can't, It freaks me out. Makes me sick. I — I can’t.”
Blyat. What kind of cosmic joke was this? Universe had given him fledgling who had phobia of blood. Bad trick for too many years of sarcastic comments to Svetlana about blood greedy fledglings. What was he supposed to do with this?!
Ilya could see the way the color was draining from the boy’s already pale face. He looked like he was moments away from passing out.
“Okey, Malysh. Okey. You do not have to feed right now, da? Am not going to make you feed, but can I come by you? Is that ok?”
The boy gave a shaky nod, but looked like he wanted to say no.
Ilya didn’t give him a chance to hesitate and moved quickly to sit beside the boy, pulling him back to rest his head on Ilya’s chest, an arm wrapped around the boy to press him closer.
Skin to skin contact was often used to soothe overwhelmed fledglings and he wanted to get the boy parallel to the bed to keep him from passing out.
The boy’s hand clenched at Ilya’s shirt, an involuntary bid for closeness. It would have made him smile at any other time, but right now, he needed the boy to calm down. He needed to distract him.
“What are you called?”
“Hngh,” The boy answered in confusion.
“Your name? I am Ilya. You are called what? I cannot just keep calling you boy in head, that would be bad story for later when I tell people how I saved you, da?”
The boy cracked a small smile.
“Sh-Shane.”
Ilya’s heart squeezed.
“Da, is good name. Fits cute boy like you. Pretty name for pretty boy with the–,” Ilya motioned at the delicate splotches that swam across the boys face.
“My freckles?”
“Da, your freckles. Is pretty. Like you.”
Shane felt his vision go a little less fuzzy, drawn out of his rapid downfall by the unexpected compliment from the beautiful man–Ilya, from Ilya.
Shane suddenly felt so tired.
“I’m sorry.” He whispered into Ilya’s chest. Ilya gave him a small squeeze.
“There is nothing to be sorry for. Is a lot, yes? I know. You are going to be ok.”
Shane nodded his head, not truly believing it, but too exhausted to do anything else.
He felt like he was tumbling back into sleep.
“Whas– happening?,” He slurred.
“Is ok, Malysh. Is lot of emotion. Too much emotion while body is healing. It cannot do all the things at once. You ask too much of it. You need rest.”
“But Ilya, I– I can’t do this blood thing. I really can’t. I—”
Shane's heartbeat fought against the sedation of shock wearing off.
“Shh, Malysh. We will figure out, da? When you feel better, hmm? But now, you sleep.”
Ilya pressed his lips into Shane's hair.
Shane turned into Ilya’s shirt, sleep pulling him under.
“--Ilya.”
“Am here, Malysh.”
Shane’s eyelids fluttered closed, finally asleep.
Ilya let out the breath he had been holding. That could have gone better.
But Shane was curled into him now, safe, asleep for the next few hours.
That would give him some time to figure out how to broach the topic of the other half of the blood bonding.