Of the other three—he didn't count Rin, because the tiny girl ran from him whenever he got close and they'd never interacted beyond him handing her a bowl of fried potato wedges at dinner one evening—Zebra liked Coco best.
The older boy—older brother, if Ichiryuu was to be believed and they were a real family, the kind of family that didn't dissolve and go away when things got rough and there were too many mouths to feed—was kind to him without being relentlessly and overbearingly cheerful the way some of the nurses could be. He didn't talk down to him, either, which was nice; yeah, he may have been rough around the edges, may not have known too many fancy words, but he wasn't an idiot.
Coco was nice, Coco was trustworthy, and so when Coco found him hiding in the bathroom, laying on the tile floor in his underwear with his knees drawn up to his chest and his hands clamped over his ears, he didn't mind as much as he would have had it been one of the others.
"Zebra?" Coco sounded worried, almost frightened. The hands over his ears didn't do anything to muffle his older brother's voice, and that was half the problem. The roar of sound that flooded the building was nearly deafening; people talking and yelling and whispering, beasts roaring and stomping, machinery grinding—it was overwhelming even during the day, when he had things to focus on, things to do that would drown out some of the noise.
At night, it was bad, bad enough that he felt tears burning in his eyes and an ache settling into his throat. It didn't help that he'd grown nearly six inches in the past month, now that he had so much food available to him—though he still couldn't quite shake the fear that it wouldn't always be available, that someday he'd reach for something to eat and have someone come after him with a knife for doing so; maybe it wasn't true, but it might be, and that's why there was bread going stale under his bead, why his drawers were stuffed full of whatever he'd managed to steal from the pantry this week—and while he did like being the biggest of the four despite not being the oldest, growing so quickly hurt.
His legs hurt the worst, though his arms ached through the wrists and elbows and his back hurt all the way from his shoulders down to the base of his spine. Laying down here on the floor hadn't really helped, but his head hurt and he was too dizzy—and that was something he couldn't understand; why would having sensitive ears make you dizzy?—to get up just then. He closed his eyes for just a second, listening to Coco make his way across the room, footsteps somehow clearly audible despite the sounds of everything else going on in the building.
"Are you…okay?" his brother asked, still sounding scared, and Zebra opened his eyes to see him kneeling down beside him, one hand half-lifted like he was contemplating touching him. Zebra huffed out a pained breath against the tile, finally dropping his hands from his ears, huddling in on himself more tightly.
"Yeah," he said, out of habit, only to follow it a moment later with a groan. "…no. Guess not. Everything hurts," he muttered, speaking short bursts; the movement of his jaw made the throbbing, maddening ache in his head worse. "My head's the worst. People are…are too fucking loud," he forced out, through clenched teeth. Ichiryuu didn't want him saying that word, but sometimes it was the only one that seemed to work. "But…legs 'n arms 'n back and stuff hurt, too. Doctor says it's growing pains," he added, with a snort of derision that sounded a lot more like he was sniffling back tears than he'd wanted it to.
"My legs hurt too, sometimes," Coco ventured, finally, and it dawned on Zebra that it wasn't just his own heart pounding in his ears that he was hearing; he could hear Coco's too, a little softer and far more rapid. He blinked, half-surprised—he knew he could hear other people's heartbeats when it was quiet, when Ichiryuu was working with him and trying to focus his skill; he'd just never focused on it for very long outside of training—and fixed his brother with a wary stare.
"The doctor—one of them, anyway—said that rubbing them could help. I'd...rub your legs and back and stuff for you. If you wanted, I mean. I know you don't…don't like people touching you very much. " Coco trailed off, scratching the back of his head and looking a little uncomfortable and a little hopeful, the way he always did when he was trying to help someone and pretty sure he was screwing it up.
Zebra hesitated, closing his eyes again for a moment and listening to the sound of Coco's heartbeat, still steady underneath all the other sounds. He opened his eyes again after a moment, trying to scowl at his brother and completely aware that the most he really managed was a tight, pained, almost fearful expression. He felt anger twist in his gut at that; he hated being afraid, even if it was only because of the changes his body was going through and not because someone was hurting him, and he usually responded by lashing out. He might have, had it been anyone other than Coco sitting in front of him; the dark haired boy seemed so intent and earnest, and Zebra finally huffed out another little sigh.
"Guess it's okay, if you think it'll help," he muttered, and Coco gingerly set one hand against his upper arm. Zebra blinked at the feeling of his brother's warm, steady hand against his arm—and it was a blink, not a flinch; he'd stopped flinching when people touched him after the first month of them living together, when he'd realized that people could touch each other without inflicting pain—and fixed his gaze resolutely on the far wall.
"Okay," Coco said, and Zebra could hear him bite his lower lip. And then, again: "Okay." The hand on his arm remained there, still and hesitant, for a long moment. "Can you lie on your belly, while I do this?" Zebra looked at him sharply, feeling himself tense up even further despite his best efforts; that was asking a lot, it really was, because even if it was Coco it would be hard to just lay there on the floor unprotected and in a position where it would be hard to get up, to get away, if he needed to. Especially because Coco was going to be touching him, and maybe that blink a few seconds earlier was closer to a flinch than he'd ever admit to anyone but himself.
But it was Coco, and deep down he knew that Coco wouldn't hurt him. It wasn't the sort of knowing that you did with your head, either; it was the same kind of knowing that saved his life while he was living on the street, that told him which adults he could take food from and which adults he should run from no matter what they promised to give him. He had never been wrong about that sort of thing before, and he didn't think that his instincts would start getting him into trouble now; with a low grown punctuated by a little growl of frustration as his stiff, aching body protested the change in position, he rolled over onto his belly and curled his arms over each other in front of his head so that he could rest his head in the crook of one elbow.
That still didn't keep him from jerking in surprise when Coco's hands curved around his left calf, thumbs pressing into the tight muscle along the back of it. It felt…strange. He wasn't entirely sure if it hurt or not, the muscle that had been rock hard only a moment ago being forced to relax by the warm, steady pressure of Coco's hands working from his ankle up to his knee and back down again. He made low sound in his throat, slightly muffled by his own arm, as he realized that this gave him something to focus on other than the dull roar of the building's constant cacophony; the sound didn't go away, but it seemed to drift into the background, not nearly as important as the ache being soothed out of his leg.
By the time Coco had shifted his focus to his other calf, Zebra was making little noises of pleasure each time his brother's thumbs dug into his leg, pressing on the knots in the muscle until they were forced to unravel. He could hear Coco's still-rapid heartbeat, and the quick, slightly irregular sound of his breathing; the older boy seemed to be as unused to touching people as Zebra was to being touched.
"Is that mostly where it was hurting? Sort of…around the knees and down…down along here?" Coco's fingertips trailed across the backs of his knees, then down along his calves just lightly enough to raise goosebumps along his limbs; he shifted slightly, uncomfortable without fully understanding why. "It looks…it looked…bright. I don't know. Hot, I guess? Like it hurt," he finished, sounding uncertain. Zebra realized, after a moment, that Coco's vision must have let him see the heat or tension or…he didn't know what, in his legs; Coco seemed to be the one who adapted the quickest out of all of them, able to use his ability without too many problems.
The older boy had spent a week walking into walls when it first manifested, though, unable to see the barriers properly because he was too focused on the heat of whatever was beyond the wall; Zebra didn't feel quite as bad about his own problems, remembering the look of frightened, pained confusion on Coco's face when he smacked headlong into a wooden door for the second time in as many hours.
"Yeah," he muttered, shifting again when Coco's hands finally left his legs. "Can you see…" he wiggled the fingers of one hand, vaguely, trying to indicate his brother's ability and wondering if he could see everything that hurt, momentarily distracted from speaking by a particularly loud sound from somewhere several rooms away. He winced, teeth grinding, and almost missed the sounds of Coco shifting his position until the older boy's hands came to rest on his lower back, thumbs pressing to either side of his spine and rubbing firmly.
Despite the distraction that the sound—and the pain that it sent through his already throbbing head—caused, he still made a little, happy sound when he felt the ache that had settled into his hips begin to ease as Coco shifted to use the heels of his hands instead of just his thumbs, putting more of his weight behind it. He could feel muscles that had been tight for what seemed like his entire life beginning to loosen as Coco's hands worked steadily up along his spine, seeming to take the time to be certain that each section of his back was relaxed before going further.
It was nice to be touched by someone other than a Doctor or a sparring partner, though he wasn't sure he'd know how to say so if anyone ever asked. It was just comforting, in a way that very few things were, and he caught himself actually feeling safe despite the vulnerable position. Or maybe—he thought as Coco's thumbs rubbed under the bottom curve of each shoulder blade, fingertips brushing against his skin each time his thumbs slid upwards—maybe he felt safe because of the position he was in, the fact that he knew he was safe because his older brother wasn't going to hurt him, would keep him safe if anyone else came along—not that he needed saving, of course; the important part was that Coco would want to keep him safe.
"Can you sit up now?" Coco asked, finally, after pulling his hands away again. Zebra felt a vague sense of disappointment that things had ended so quickly, but gave a grunt to indicate that yes he could and moved to pull himself into a more upright position. "Okay. Since…ah…since you can sit up, I can finish rubbing your shoulders and arms for you, if you want. I mean, because they still sort of look…" he made a short, frustrated sound as Zebra settled into position, slumped forward slightly with his hands in his lap and his legs splayed out in front of him. He made a low, happy sound that was somewhere between a moan and a grateful sigh when Coco's fingers dug firmly into the muscles of his shoulders, working out the knots there and easing the pain in his head slightly.
He opened his eyes, wondering vaguely when he'd closed them, when he heard the older boy shift to sit beside him, hands curling around his forearm and thumbs working the tension from it just as easily as they had from everywhere else. He watched with mild curiosity, allowing his brother to move and manipulate his arm, finally working his way up to the elbow and gently working some of the stiffness from it by flexing and extending his arm, rubbing lightly at either side of the joint in question. He closed his eyes again, letting his head drop forward onto his chest as Coco scooted—remarkably graceless, for him—around to his other side to take hold of his left arm.
He didn't actually realize he'd fallen asleep for a moment until sound seemed to come rushing back into the world as he woke with a start. Coco was in the act of settling his arm back as his side, and he seemed just as startled as Zebra was by the sudden awakening; the older boy didn't comment on it, though, instead shifting so that he was behind him once again. Zebra was about to—grudgingly, but sincerely—thank his brother and try to go back to bed, when Coco leaned forward slightly, running the fingertips of one hand up along the back of his neck and into his hair.
"Sometimes, Sunny gets headaches too," Coco said, his tone careful as he ran his fingers through Zebra's hair—which was, admittedly, not very long; it had grown some, but when he'd first got here and was told that he had to comb the tangled mess it had become while he had been living on the street, he'd decided it would be easier to simply steal a pair of scissors from the hospital and deal with it that way. It had ended with a very bemused Ichiryuu lecturing him on not stealing things—and not trying to cut his own hair—as he cut off what remained of Zebra's hair almost at the scalp.
The younger boy had no idea what to make of the tingling sensation Coco's gentle touches caused in his scalp and along the back of his neck. He shifted slightly, uncertainly, almost ready to ask what Sunny had to do with anything before his brother spoke again. "He says it helps if I rub his head, or…or play with his hair like this, so I thought maybe it would help you, too?" His tone was questioning, almost hesitant, and Zebra noted—after a moment of concentration—that his heart rate had sped up again as well.
"Mmph." Zebra noted that it wasn't exactly the sound he'd intended to make, but it was hard to focus his thoughts with Coco's fingertips working gently through his hair, over his scalp, and finally around the outer edges of both ears. "Feels nice," he mumbled, finally, swaying slightly as his older brother continued to run his fingers through his hair; it was soothing, and it seemed to work far better than trying to actually plug his ears in terms of getting rid of the headache all the sound had given him, distracting him from the pain and the noise.
He relaxed, surprisingly warm and in far less pain than he'd been in for ages and almost ready to simply flop backwards onto his brother and go to sleep right there on the bathroom floor, despite the fact that he knew they'd both wake up cold and stiff if he did so. Coco made the decision to get up and go back to bed somewhat easier when—after running his fingertips up along the back of his neck and through his hair once more—he patted Zebra lightly on the shoulder and stood up before offering the younger boy a hand.
"Thanks," he said, after a moment, looking down to meet his brother's eyes after he stood up. Coco smiled hesitantly, squeezing his hand lightly before letting go; Zebra caught his hand again, squeezing it in return in a frustrated attempt to convey his gratitude properly. "I mean it. You…helped a lot." He hesitated, kicking the floor lightly with the ball of one foot. "You said your legs hurt too, sometimes?" Coco nodded, frowning slightly as if in confusion. "Maybe I could…y'know…help you, too, if you needed it. Don't think the others would understand, or care, or…I dunno. I just…I'd help you," he said, gripping Coco's hand a little tighter before letting it go. His brother favored him with a brilliant, happy smile, before turning to lead the way back to the bedroom shared by all four boys.
"I'd like that. Thank you." Zebra smiled to himself, consciously focusing on his brother's heartbeat instead of the other sounds still trying to intrude on his senses.
Somehow, he thought that he would finally be able to get a good night's sleep tonight.