A/N: In case you haven't realized it yet, I kinda ship Shane/Micah. A lot. Also, this was written for a friend's birthday, so there's cake involved! Yay cake!
Disclaimer: Dalton is not mine. It wouldn't be as great if it was. Oh, and Glee too.
Shane doesn't know exactly what to do when he sees one of the older students on his way home from school, hidden away behind the bleachers. He's lying on his side, covered in dirt, and his shirt is tainted with something red that makes Shane's head spin. When he averts his gaze away from those red spots, there are two bright orbs of sepia staring at him, so wide and clear that Shane almost takes a step back.
Shane looks around to see if anyone else is in the vicinity, but suddenly remembers that it's late in the afternoon. The rest of the student body has disappeared, and even most of the faculty has done the same. So he turns back to the boy on the ground, edges closer to him, and extends his hand.
"Hi," Shane whispers. "You need a hand?"
The brunet slowly nods his head, before he takes Shane's outstretched hand. He winces slightly when the younger Anderson starts pulling him up.
"Slowly now," Shane says worriedly, though his grip doesn't waver. "Slowly."
"I got it," the other boy mutters appreciatively. "Thanks." When he gets on his feet, Shane's surprised to see that the stranger has a good few inches on him.
"Let's get you cleaned up, yeah?"
The older brunet doesn't reply, but he allows himself to be pulled along.
When the two enter Shane's house, Shane's unsurprised to find it empty.
"My parents usually come home late," he explains, when the other boy stays unmoving by the door. "And my brother's probably working on something with a friend, so…"
Shane grabs the other boy's hand again, and then leads him up the staircase and towards the bathroom. He takes out a couple of towels out from under the sink, and hands them to the brunet.
"You can go and take a shower," he says encouragingly. "I'll be back with some clothes for you."
The boy wordlessly accepts and looks down at him blankly, but when he comes back with some of Blaine's old clothes, the shower curtain is closed and the bathroom floor is damp with brown water. Shane leaves the clothes on top of the toilet and runs out of there before he can pass out.
&.&.&
When the older brunet tentatively makes his way towards the open doorway towards the end of the hall, he's surprised to see a mass of sheets and pillows on the bed in the middle of the room. They're all structured, put together to form some sort of fort, and Shane pokes his head out of what he assumes is the entrance, flashlight in one hand.
"You look clean," he grins, eyes lit with enthusiasm, and the sort of childish innocence that allows him to take in wounded strangers. "Close the door, then come on in."
The boy shyly steps into the room, closes the door behind him, and carefully makes his way inside the blankets.
"Hi," the younger Anderson says cheerily, once he's seated across from him. "I'm Shane, and this is my hideout. Nothing can touch us in here," he adds thoughtfully. "So, what's your story?"
That afternoon, Shane finds out that his name is Micah Randall.
A couple of days later, they're back inside the fort when Shane pulls him into a hug and rubs comforting circles around his back.
"It's okay," he whispers encouragingly. "You are wonderful the way you are, those bullies be damned. Nothing can touch us here. We're invincible, remember?"
"Yeah, I remember," Micah says, his voice full of emotion.
When he pulls back, Micah stares at Shane with those brown eyes, strong, and dry despite his earlier outburst.
And Micah is breathtaking, Shane thinks. Completely, and utterly breathtaking.
&.&.&
Eventually, it isn't just Shane who holds up their conversations. The fort in his room isn't solely his anymore, but theirs, and Shane realizes that Micah is such a dependable, intelligent person, with an adorable affinity for stories with happy endings.
But it's his strength that sets him apart from everyone else. A strength that he completely radiates, even if he can't see it himself. It's what encourages Shane to go to school everyday, chin in the air, a smile plastered on his face.
It's also what pushes him to continue taking up his dance lessons after class, even if he does get bullied a lot more because of it.
"Forget about them," Micah whispers, snaking his arm around Shane's shoulders. "They don't matter, they don't matter…"
The kisses that Micah scatters all around his chest make his injuries ache less.
&.&.&
Shane's parents take him and Blaine away on the weekend for his birthday, so he and Micah don't get to properly celebrate it.
But a couple of days after he gets back, Blaine hollers at him from the living room and tells him that someone's at the door for him. Shane quickly rushes towards the door, and completely misses the knowing smirk on his older brother's face.
"Happy birthday!" Micah says enthusiastically, once Shane opens the door.
Shane grins, then immediately wraps his arms around him, and the both of them almost topple towards the ground.
They call Blaine to come downstairs, and the three of them share the cake that Micah brought over, each of them receiving a huge piece because Mr. and Mrs. Anderson are away on a business trip once again.
Then afterwards, the duo climbs into Shane's bed, and reenters the world that's all their own. They talk, and kiss, and do other things that should send their poor little fort collapsing all around them, but somehow it doesn't.
Micah falls asleep soon after, and Shane is left curled up beside him, a warm smile spread across his face.
He traces lines across Micah's chest, watches its steady rise and fall, and muses that it isn't the blankets and pillows around him that makes him—that makes them invincible.
At least, not anymore.