Author's Note: This story will probably be four or five chapters. I would say that I hope you enjoy it, but, uh…well, you get what I mean.

Twitter: AlbatrossTam14 (protected tweets)

Tumblr: welldeservedobscurity

I.

She's been up since before the sun rose, but can't seem to feel tired. Her fingers twitch and fumble with the clasp on her necklace, but they feel fat, uncoordinated. She mutters a curse under her breath and tugs half-heartedly on the chain, hard enough to dig into her sweaty skin but not hard enough to break it.

The sound of footsteps behind her, then a cool, calloused hand on the back of her neck. Brushing her hair away, the fingers carefully take hold of the slim gold chain, and after a second manage to work the clasp open and slip it off her neck.

She turns around, and Drew slowly drops the necklace into her palm.

"Thanks," she says.

He doesn't say anything, just stares at the star-shaped charm fastened on the end. He gave it to her for graduation. She remembers this, and her throat clamps shut. She wishes she'd worn something –anything – else.

He watches it catch the bare lamplight, glimmering softly. Stares at it, like he's mesmerized.

She takes her palm, lays it on his cheek. His eyes meet hers, and he leans into the touch of her hand.

She reaches up and gives him a kiss.

"You should lay down," she murmurs.

He doesn't respond, just closes his eyes. He's exhausted, and she wonders how he could still be standing, given that he hasn't slept in two days. Neither has she, but then again, she hasn't been waking up from nightmares of the school van hitting that tree, sobbing and thrashing, gasping for breath that won't come, Adam's name on the tip of his tongue but unable to force it out.

He looks at her, eyes rimmed with black bags, and sighs like everything in him aches.

"People liked the bonfire," he says, his voice rusty.

She nods. "They did. Everyone got to say goodbye."

When he winces visibly, shutting his eyes while his face contorts, she bites her lip and strokes his cheek, still damp.

"Everyone loved him," she murmurs. "They all got to show it. It was pretty amazing."

He nods slowly, then sits – more like sinks – down on the bed, laying on the unmade covers. He's still dressed in the clothes he wore to the funeral, the ones that smell like smoke and wilting flowers. She tries not to shudder at the scent when she lies down with him, their hands intertwining over his heart.

She wonders if he ought to get up, change out of the suit, put on something more comfortable. Or at least, something they didn't bury his brother in. But Drew doesn't move, barely breathes beside her, and she doesn't push. Suits can be dry-cleaned, wrinkles ironed.

"You should eat something," is all she can manage, because it doesn't hurt to say it and it's still true.

He shakes his head.

"If I eat," Drew says, "I'll throw up."

That ends that. She rests her palm on his jaw, and he sighs into her touch.

"Did you see Dallas?" he asks, after a moment.

"No. I think he got a ride with Dave. I don't know where they went." She looks up at him. "Want me to text him?"

"No." Drew stretches out, pulling an arm around her. His fingers slowly stroke her forearm. "I just wanted to know."

Bianca kicks her socks off with the tips of her toes. She twines her leg with his, and puts her head on his shoulder.

"Did he cry?" he asks.

She blinks. "What?"

"Dallas. At the – " Drew takes a breath. "The church. Did he cry?"

Bianca tries to remember. It was only a few hours ago, but the whole funeral feels like a blur. Audra crying beside her, Omar holding his wife with vacant eyes, Drew silent and grey-faced, his hand limp in her own. They'd been in the front row, and she'd been so focused on not puking or sobbing or standing up and screaming at the priest that she hadn't been able to notice anything else.

"He cried when that other kid died," Drew says. "I saw him. He was – he was so messed up." He sighs. "I just wanted to know."

There's a tug in the pit of her stomach. She forgot all about that poor kid on the hockey team. His face is clear in her memory, teary-eyed and shaking, and it makes her gut twist. She buries her face in Drew's shoulder, trying to put Campbell Saunders out of her mind.

"I don't know," she says quietly. "I couldn't see him."

When Drew doesn't reply, she squeezes his hand.

"He loved Adam," she says. Her voice is low, every word scratching her throat. "Everyone there did. A lot of people cried. They're all sad, Drew."

"I know," he says. "I just…I was wondering."

He shifts away from her, turning to the wall. She watches him curl into himself, then lays down on her own pillow while she stares at the ceiling. The tiredness finally starts to seep in, and she lets her eyes drift shut, pushing damp ringlets off her forehead streaked with sweat. The air in the room feels suffocating; the windows are sealed tight, like they're entombed here.

Bianca stares at the moon. Full and fat, on a clear, starless night. It fills the glass, butting up against the frame like it's trying to spill through.

"What can I do?" she asks to his backside.

He doesn't answer, just sighs. The bed seems to sink under his weight.

Bianca sits up, reaches one hand over. Touches his shoulder, and it's like touching a live wire, humming under her hand. The coiled tension radiates all the way through her.

"Drew," she says softly.

He doesn't move, doesn't answer.

Bianca lies back down, trying to take a breath. When one doesn't come without a struggle, she turns on her side, spooning up against Drew, and wraps her arms around him. She sighs and closes her eyes, hoping for sleep to come.

It doesn't.

II.

She awakes with a start, bolting straight up in bed and wondering, for half a second, where she is. It's a moment before she blinks against the light of the bedside lamp and remembers herself, still in her bonfire clothes and her arm slightly numb from sleep.

Drew is tossing and turning beside her, tangled in his suit jacket and lost to some silent dreamworld. She tries to shake his shoulder, but he doesn't seem to notice, even when she shakes him as hard as she can.

"Drew," she says. Her voice feels like it echoes through the room. "Hey. Wake up."

He's lying, thrashing, dripping sweat and his mouth open in some wide, silent horror, forming an O that can't force the words out –

So it just comes as one long, loud scream.

It's the most awful noise she's ever heard, and it doesn't sound human. She can't move, and for one crazy second she wonders where the noise is coming from.

"Drew." She almost stutters, barely holds it back. She's shivering all over, and her teeth won't stop chattering. She slams her jaws together, refusing to allow the sound, and pushes her body against his. Every inch of him radiates heat and terror, and he tries to shrink into himself, letting out another strangled cry when he realizes he has nowhere to go.

"Drew," she repeats – or at least, thinks she does. His name doesn't sound like his name, like anything familiar, once it leaves her lips. She isn't even sure it leaves her mouth, and he certainly doesn't seem aware of it, or aware she's here at all. Even though they're forehead to forehead, their arms tangled together and his pulse is racing furiously under her fingers. His button-down is absolutely drenched, and his suit jacket locks his arms against his side as he fights the straightjacket grip.

"Drew!" The sound escapes, traitorous, laced with panic. She hates herself for it. But she's terrified, and it feels like a block of ice in the gut.

Bianca bites her lip, so hard she's surprised she doesn't taste hot blood on the tip of her tongue. Get your shit together, DeSousa.

She takes his face in her hands, forces his gaze to meet her. Salty tears roll from his eyes through the slats of her fingers, and she strokes the pads under his black-bagged eyes with her thumbs. He whimpers at the touch, but stops making that horrible sound, and the thrashing dials down the longer he stays in her hands.

"Drew," she says, and this time, it's devoid of tone. Bianca repeats it again, and again, and then keeps saying it, until it loses the sound of his name and becomes a senseless tune, an eerie lullaby punctured by the ragged edge of Drew's gasps for air, his wracking sobs.

She doesn't realize she's holding her breath until the burn licks her chest, and she lets it out slowly, feeling dizzy. She tries to listen over the sound of his tears, but doesn't think she hears footsteps from the second story. Looks like Audra and Omar slept through it all, miraculously. Maybe the Herculean effort of getting through today did them some good. And she doesn't hear Dallas from the guest room down the hall, either.

Of course, the other side of the wall – Adam's room – is silent.

"Baby," she says. Her voice still that low, windy hum. "Baby, look at me."

She won't let herself blink; barely lets herself breathe. She feels like she's floating, strangely out-of-body, but ignores it and just focuses on keeping herself as still as possible.

"Come here. Look at me, okay? Shhh. Look at me, baby."

His head is still in her hands, fat tears slipping between her fingers. She presses their faces together, noses bumping, the contours matching and meeting like they always have. Then kisses his forehead, between his eyes, the tip of his nose. Kisses his lips, and wipes the wetness off his cheeks.

"Look," she says, slow and softer than a whisper. "At. Me"

His eyes open. Bianca holds the gaze, won't let herself look away from his wide, white eyes. He shuts them again, ducking his face away from her.

A sound escapes him; the first thing that sounds like it's trying to be a syllable.

"What?" she asks.

He gargles something out; she doesn't know what it means, but he's trying to say something.

Whatever it is, it's making him frantic. His fingers claw at her collarbone, scratching the skin, and he has her arms in an iron grip. It hurts, but Bianca doesn't try to move.

"Can't," she finally hears him manage.

She's still holding onto him. Carefully, she takes one trembling hand off his face, and smoothes back his sweat-soaked hair.

"What?" she repeats

Drew finally looks at her. His eyes are wild, colorless.

"Can't," he says again.

Her brow furrows. "Can't what?"

Drew shakes his head.

"Y-y-y-ou…" A series of grunts and indistinguishable murmurs, and then he shakes his head again.

"Can't," she hears again. "G-g-o, don't go, don't go, d-d-d-"

He gasps, arching off the mattress as a shudder runs through him, and gags. Nothing comes out, but he keeps heaving, and rolls over to the other side of the bed, coughing and choking over the carpet.

She watches, waits, but there's nothing in his stomach to bring up. When he's done, he turns back to her, wrapping his arms around her back and hugging her so tight that her face cuts into his shoulder.

"Don't go," he says. His voice, for the first time, is clear, and drenched with panic. "Don't go, don't go, you can't go, you can't, you can't leave me, you can't go!"

His chest clenches; she feels it against her own. She's reminded, briefly, of the nightmares that woke them on nights they never talk about – when his warmth was what shielded her from memories of gangs and guns, and when she'd call him back from that afternoon in the blood-soaked snow with a similar tide of whispers. It was one of those things they knew they'd never discuss – like that cold night in April, the alleyway, the slush in the street and the empty sky and the screams no one heard.

But this is different, and she doesn't know how to bring him back from this – the van right before it hit the tree, the horn blasting through the muggy lakeside night, the smell of gasoline and the crunch of broken glass and the tangle of crumpled steel. The taste of iron, when they lowered him in the grave.

"Adam..." The name comes out in a long, tangled wail, like it could go on for hours. Her chest clamps at the word. "You can't go! Don't leave me! Don't go!"

Bianca stays quiet, focuses on stroking his hair. His breathing is slowing down, just a little, but his heart is still drumming against her body.

"Please." His voice rises with every syllable. "Don't leave me. Don't go."

He sniffles into her hair. The loose ends tangle in his fingers.

"Okay," she whispers in his ear.

She anchors herself to the bed, and runs her hands down his back.

"Okay. It's okay." She keeps rubbing his back in slow circles. "It's okay. I'm here."

He's still sobbing, still begging as she continues to croon, and at some point he trips into hysteria and there's nothing she can do to bring him back. She can only lie still and hold on, until he finally winds himself down from exhaustion.

Slowly, very slowly, she feels him drop off into sleep. When he finally feels still and heavy as stone, she lets herself let go.

His grip slides easily away from her. He's pliant under her hands as she brushes his soaking wet hair away from his eyes, kisses his forehead, tucks the bed sheets around him. He doesn't stir.

She sits up against the headboard, tries to catch her breath. It feels like she's been sprinting.

She aches all over, and not just from the fierce weight of his arms hanging onto her. Every part of her just hurts, raw and bone-deep, like the night she got the call from Dallas about what happened.

Bianca doesn't realize she's shaking until she tries to stand, then almost falls flat on her face. She falls against the bedside table instead, almost knocking the lamp over and scraping the skin of her palm against the sharp edge. Cursing to herself, she sits back on the bed and takes a deep breath, her bleeding hand cradled in her lap.

She sits there for a moment in the lamplight, and feels something loosen in her chest. A few droplets from her palm still to the leg of her jeans, like raindrops made of blood.

She finally pushes herself up and hobbles towards the bathroom, where she sits on the edge of the tub and turns the water on as hot as it can get. She hisses through her teeth when the heat stings the cut on her palm. Blood runs to the drain, turning the water near the drain pink and steamy. After a moment, she takes her bottle of body wash, the one Drew keeps in the corner of the shower for when she stays here, and squirts a trail of blue soap into the water.

Her head is throbbing; she can't remember ever being this tired before. Bianca leans against the cool tiles, pressing her forehead to them, bracing herself and letting her body go loose. It feels a little better, and she doesn't feel guilty about letting tears fall in the privacy of this little room, away from anyone's eyes and her own sense of pride. At least it helps the knot in her chest.

She can't leave him; not now. Can't leave any of them. Can't leave, period.

It wouldn't just be the most selfish thing she could do. It would be a slap in the face to everyone she loved.

After everything the Torreses did for her – lawyers, a summer job, the engagement, helping her pay for college, so much more than she could even put on a fucking list – how could she ever have thought to turn around and just go back to school? They were always so strong for her, were there for her when everything was at its worse. Just to up and leave them all like this –

Bianca presses a damp palm to her throbbing forehead. The bubbles fill the tub as the water rises, smelling of berries and tangerines. The roar of the faucet almost drowns out the sound of Drew's agonized sobs, still ringing in her ears. She closes her eyes, and the overwhelming scent of ash and too many floral arrangements fills her nose. It makes her want to gag. Somehow, she holds it in.

When the tub is almost running over, Bianca strips out of her smoke-scented clothes and lowers her body into the steaming water. It makes her wince – definitely too hot – but makes her feel calm almost right away. Pinching her nose with her fingertips, she lets herself sink under the surface, and all the noise whooshes away. Her heartbeat rushes to her ears, and she lets it flood her to the bottoms of her toes, the base of her throat, the entire length of her fingers. Her whole body pulses at once, the world shimmering in silence.

She'd be in jail if it wasn't for them. Dead, even.

She couldn't leave now, even if she wanted to.

And she doesn't.