Far Away - Chapter Seven

"Zerellian motherworms can't sustain their own heat when injured."

Chris could hear Mr. Smith's explanation, but he didn't look at the short disguised alien. His eyes were focused only on Danny, lying in a hastily constructed heat chamber, strapped down to keep him from thrashing. He had to watch, he had to make sure Danny's chest rose and fell, he had to see the temperature gauge struggle. He felt like if he looked away, even for a moment, it would all stop and Danny would slip away.

"Humans regulate their own temperature, and produce heat to do so. So it seems that Danny-" Mr. Smith choked a second, struggling with the explanation.

"Was a heater," Chris finished, but couldn't believe his own voice. It was a tone he had never heard before.

Silence reigned for a moment which Cathy's gentle sobbing filled, before Mr. Smith hesitantly said, "Yes, primitively so. Rather than sacrifice their own heat, the worker worms replaced themselves with Danny…" He kept going, trying to talk away the quiet that seized their small group since they had cleared the jelly from Danny's throat and stripped him of his armor to put in the heat chamber.

Chris could only stare helplessly at Danny. His fingers and toes were dark – frostbite, Chris' mind filled in. Danny was so cold, his body trying to keep itself warm but being sucked out so some alien worm could reproduce. It was horribly unfair – and for the first time Chris felt like he actually hated something. And yet, he realized in a twisted way, this was his fault. He had shot the motherworm in the first place, which made her need an outside heat source and pissed off the worker worms. He had scanned the jelly, making the worker worms think there was a threat to the nest and caused them to attack the clubhouse. Danny had been taken because he had saved Chris.

This was all his fault – and Danny was paying for him.

"Come on Cathy, let's get you something to drink to help you calm down," Sam suggested, and herded her out the clubhouse door with Mr. Smith following them, commenting on some alien drink that should 'do the trick'. Chris released a breath he didn't know he had been holding, grateful that they had left. He wanted to break down and cry just like Cathy, but couldn't. He had to help Danny, somehow.

Danny twitched inside the heat chamber and he whimpered, breaking Chris' heart to hear. A nightmare, maybe, and Chris couldn't offer any comfort.

Not out here, anyway. His brain engaged and realized that while Danny had to stay in the heat chamber and warm up, Chris didn't have to stay out of it.

So he stood up, stripped off both his shirts and kicked off his shoes. He opened the shielding of the heat chamber they had quickly built and crawled into the tight space. Inside wasn't unbearably warm – heating a body up too fast damaged it apparently, but it was still stifling and now cramped with two bodies inside.

Chris didn't care. He released the straps holding Danny down, wincing himself at where the straps had rubbed Danny's skin raw from thrashing. He squirmed around until Danny rested against his bare chest, his head tucked under Chris' chin and Chris holding him tightly.

Chris shut his eyes and tried to memorize this moment. The curve of Danny's almost-naked body against his, (which he blushed at remembering the science class video) his arm around Danny's waist holding him protectively, one hand buried in Danny's hair, Danny's breath against his collar bone. Even the strange sensation of the surface being warm but the core still chilled… Chris committed it all to memory. Just in case this was the only chance he'd get.

If Danny woke up, he would tell him, Chris promised himself. When Danny didn't want him there, he would let go and keep this memory forever. If Danny didn't wake up-… Chris couldn't even think that outcome. Then he would be the one frozen to the center, but miserably alive.

Even though he was hot and starting to sweat, Chris drifted off. He dreamed the same nightmare – walking in and finding Danny's body completely cold without a spark of life – several times over. A few times Danny twitched, and Chris roused long enough to check him. One time he opened his eyes, he saw Sam standing by the chamber looking in at them, and blushed.

"Sam, I…"

"Oh please." Sam cut him off with an eyeroll, before opening the shielding wide enough to slip a water bottle in to him. Chris accepted it gratefully and drained the entire bottle before it had a chance to heat up. He looked back at her when he finished. "As if you haven't been completely obvious the last few hours, even if I didn't already notice. I don't mind. Promise."

Chris nodded, and felt something release slightly in his chest. She was okay with it. Maybe… maybe Danny would be too.

"He's going to make it," she reassured him, leaning against the shielding.

"His color is getting better," Chris admitted, casting a gaze down to the boy resting against his chest. Even his fingers were looking better…less dark. He caught one hand in his and tenderly inspected it, before squeezing gently.

"He's going to make it," she repeated firmly, and lightly tapped the shield. "Haven't you noticed? He stopped convulsing."

Chris realized his arms were still wrapped tightly around Danny to prevent him from hurting himself, but he hadn't thrashed at all since Chris held him. "He hasn't," he murmured, a bit amazed.

"We're still trying to work out what to tell his family." And with that as an explanation she left them alone again.

Chris sighed in the hot air of the chamber and shut his eyes again, which were threatening to dry out on him between the heat and the tears. Danny stirred again, and Chris squeezed his hand in reassurance as he let himself drift off back into the same nightmare, time marked only by Danny's slight movements. Chris cracked a tired eye open each time, relieved when he saw Danny's skin take on a shade that was other than barely off-white.

Danny stirred again, and this time, lifted his head. Chris took a moment to process that, barely seeing Danny through a half-opened eye. Danny's eyes were open, and he looked disoriented and groggy, but definitely conscious.

Chris was about to speak when Danny looked at him, and a slight smile twitched on his cracked lips. Danny put his head back on Chris' chest and sighed, then… he snuggled.

Chris' brain exploded with a thousand different thoughts, each one more illogical than the next. Some rational part of his mind screamed that it was nothing, Chris couldn't let himself read into it, Danny was sick and didn't know what was going on, needed comfort – then Danny squeezed Chris' hand.

Oh, screw it.

"Danny?" Chris gently asked. Danny's eyes opened, then shut in a grimace of pain.

"Hurts…" Danny whimpered out.

"Where?" Chris asked carefully. Danny didn't respond, just lay there on Chris' chest.

"Danny…" Chris gently moved Danny's head so his foggy eyes had to look at him.

It was only after Chris pressed his mouth against Danny's did he acknowledge that Danny's lips weren't as pink as they had been.

Chris heard a strange gasp from outside the chamber, and broke off the kiss after only a second or two. Cathy was staring at him with wide eyes, and Sam… had her face buried in her hand in exasperation. And Danny…

"What the hell was that?" Danny's rasped voice struck Chris like a slap across the face.

In a second, Chris was tumbling out of the heat chamber, scrambling across the floor of the clubhouse, grabbing his shirts and shoes, and plunging out the clubhouse door. Voices called after him, but he didn't stop until he was blocks away.

He slumped against a fence, tears already leaking down his face, as he heard Danny's breathy question again and again, gaining more and more animosity until it was a track wreck against any fantasies Chris had.

The dream shattered.