Chapter 8
Shane’s blood turned to ice. He remembered what Whistle had said about Darklings – that they were evil creatures from a negative dimension, that used the Vortex to hunt down and devour their prey. Prey which just happened to be those with a very high level of energy, such as…Whistle. Oh, God! He tried not to panic, but he was so scared he could barely breathe. “Whistle,” he choked, grabbing the being’s arms. “There’s got to be something we can do! Listen to me…you can’t just wait and let them come for you. Is there anything that you can do to get away? Maybe through the Vortex?”
Whistle shook his head, the despair in his blue eyes deepening. “No. I cannot use the Vortex while I’m Seeded; the Little One’s energy would make it unstable and we would both be destroyed anyway.”
“Fuck!” Shane cried. “Can’t you run somewhere on this world to get away? I’ll go with you; we can run as far as we have to!”
“There is no running from Darklings once they get the scent of your energy, Shane. They would find us no matter where we went,” Whistle replied wearily, his shoulders sagging.
He began to shake Whistle, his desperation now so strong that it was beginning to choke him. “Whistle, please! I love you, I can’t lose you! There has to be something you can do! You say these things are drawn to your energy – is there any way to hide it from them?”
The being’s head came up, and something sparked in his crystalline-blue eyes. “Yes,” he breathed. “Yes, there is one thing I could do. But it will be very dangerous, Shane,” he warned.
“That doesn’t matter now, not if those things are going to tear you apart and eat you anyway. What is it?” Shane asked urgently.
“I will put myself in a state of suspended animation, and my life energy will dim so much that the Darklings might not be able to find me. I don’t know how long I will have to be in that state, how long it will take them to give up on their search for me. If it takes too long I might not be able to get back into this body,” he added.
Shane took a deep breath. “Do it, Whistle,” he told his lover. “Do it, no matter how dangerous it is. Because if you don’t – then it’s a sure thing that you’ll be eaten, right?”
Whistle nodded. “Yes. The Darklings always find and devour their prey once they are on the track of it. I will do it. Please watch over me, Shane. I will try to get back when I know that the Darklings have departed. But if I cannot…” he looked up at Shane with heartfelt eyes, “I rejoice in the time I spent with you, Shane. You have made me so very happy.”
His throat tried to close up. “I love you, Whistle, so much. Come back to me if you can,” he leaned over and kissed his lover on the lips, wondering if it would be the last time he’d ever do so.
Whistle lay down on his back on the bed, his arms folded over his waist. He closed his marvelous blue eyes, taking deep breaths as he prepared to do whatever he was going to. Shane watched him, and saw something happen – Whistle faded. Not his body, but the soul animating the body. He could actually SEE the glow fading and dimming. His stomach twisted inside of him, and he felt sick. Soon the still body on the bed seemed without a tenant, and Shane saw that the chest had stopped rising and falling. He panicked, leaning over to put his ear to Whistle’s chest. Oh, God, please still be breathing! He prayed desperately. Don’t be dead! Oh, God, Whistle!
Nothing at first. Then he heard the distinctive sound of Whistle’s heart beating, just once. Then nothing for what seemed like far too long, until he heard it again. Shane realized that Whistle’s heart was only beating once or twice a minute. And he was only breathing in the same rhythm. He straightened up, putting a hand over his mouth. At least Whistle wasn’t dead, and hopefully these Darkling creatures wouldn’t be able to find him – but this was awful. Seeing Whistle like this made him want to scream. How long would the being have to be like this? What if he couldn’t find his way back? How would he go on living if Whistle COULDN’T get back to him?
Shane paced the house. On every circle he went back into the bedroom to stare at Whistle, and make sure that the being was still breathing a little. Finally he couldn’t stand it – he picked up Whistle’s limp body and took him into the guest room. He wouldn’t be able to sleep in the bed next to a Whistle who seemed to be dead – not that he’d be able to sleep much, anyway. He lay the blonde down and covered him with the blanket, kissing those slack lips tenderly. “Please come back to me, Whistle,” he whispered against them. “Please. I don’t want to live without you.”
He went into the kitchen and drank some coffee. As he was sitting at the kitchen table, staring out at the front lawn, Shane saw movement out there. He stared hard at the edge of the lawn, and then the hair tried to stand up on the back of his neck as he realized that there was something FLOWING over the grass. It was a slithering stream of what looked like solid shadow, moving over a place where there shouldn’t BE any shadows. And as he gaped at it, another one appeared behind it. And another, and another. He counted almost a dozen in all, squirming and sliding across his lawn toward the house.
Darklings. Shane knew that’s what he was looking at. They were on the trail of Whistle’s psychic scent, tracking their next meal. He sat frozen in complete terror, knowing that there was nothing that he could do anyway if they found Whistle. Shit, they came right through the fucking wall! One of them glided into the kitchen, and paused briefly. Shane had stopped breathing, his brain gibbering wildly as it ‘looked’ at him. It had no eyes, but somehow he knew it could see him. It hovered, apparently thinking about something, as Shane wondered distantly if he was going to pass out from lack of oxygen. But then it seemed to come to a decision about him, and flowed away out of the kitchen without making a sound.
Shane finally started breathing, his chest heaving as he drew in air. He wavered to his feet, needing to see whether those horrors had discovered Whistle or not. He staggered out into the hallway, heading for the guest bedroom. He didn’t want to go anywhere near those shadows, but he had to know…He arrived at the doorway, and the room had several Darklings swirling through it. They were circling the bed like sharks who’d been frustrated in their search for their prey. Shane stood there feeling helpless, praying that the Darklings wouldn’t realize that the energy they were searching for was on the bed.
Time seemed to stand still. But at last, almost as one, the Darklings flowed away through the wall and were gone. Shane staggered over to the bed and pressed his fingers to Whistle’s neck, waiting desperately for any sign that those things hadn’t eaten Whistle. Then he felt it, a single beat – and he sank to his knees beside the bed, crying in a mixture of relief and a release from a terrible, sickening fear. That had been the most horrible experience of his entire life.
He’d find that he had to repeat that same hideous experience day after day for a week. The Darklings kept returning, still searching for that tantalizing energy trace that had faded down to a scent thread. Shane was tense and frightened each time that they appeared, waiting for one of them to realize that what they were looking for was still there only retreated somewhere far away from the physical body on the bed. During the times that they weren’t there, he haunted his own house. He was tired from not sleeping and endlessly worrying, and he couldn’t settle to anything. He just couldn’t stop himself from constantly checking on Whistle, to reassure himself that the blonde was still (technically) breathing and that his heart still (sort of) beating. He could barely eat, and he was losing weight. He knew that he’d lose his mind if this continued on for too much longer.
He’d lied and told Amanda and Matt that Wes had gone back home to get some things taken care of, before he moved in with Shane permanently. Although if Whistle died, he had no idea what he’d tell them. But then, if that happened he wouldn’t care, anyway. He didn’t go over to their house because he didn’t want them to see him with his face worn and lined from stress and fear, and with dark circles under his eyes. And he didn’t want to leave the house anyway. He had this superstitious fear that if he left, Whistle would die while he was gone. So he paced his house at all hours, and when he got too tired to do that he slumped on the couch and stared with blank eyes at the t.v.
He was on the ragged edge. He had actually started to chew on his fingernails in a nervous habit. On the eighth day of his vigil at Whistle’s bedside, Shane was in the kitchen drinking a glass of water. He stared out the window, and realized that the sun was actually starting to set outside. His brain tried to get his attention – what was it trying to tell him? It took him a moment to figure it out. When he did, he felt a streak of astonished relief course through him. The Darklings hadn’t come today. For some reason they’d always come during the day before this. So unless they’d changed their habits, they weren’t coming. What did this mean? Had they left? Given up? Hope blossomed in his mind, and he hurried into the guest bedroom to check on Whistle.
There was no change in the ‘sleeper’. He groaned, running a hand through his hair. The blonde had said that he might not be able to get back even if the Darklings finally gave up. He leaned over the bed. “Whistle? Are you in there? Can you come back?” he pleaded.
No response. He wanted to scream again. What if Whistle remained like this for the rest of his life? Shane covered his face with his hands, tears trickling down his face as his shoulders heaved. He couldn’t take it anymore. He turned and sank down to the floor, resting his head on his knees. “Whistle,” he said mournfully.
Because he was sitting on the floor hiding his eyes, he didn’t see what happened on the bed. A dim glow began to emanate from Whistle’s still body. It skirled around the form, before sinking slowly into the flesh. The blonde stirred a bit, and the crystalline-blue eyes flickered open. Whistle stared at the ceiling blankly, before realizing that he’d actually managed to return to his human body after all. He gasped a bit, his lungs filling with air fully for the first time in over a week. His ears brought him the sound of someone crying, and he turned his head just a little (he didn’t have the energy to do more than that) toward it. “Shane?” he croaked with a mouth that felt like it was full of cotton wool. “Shane?”
Startled silence, then a cry: “Whistle?!” Shane appeared, using the bed to heave himself to his feet desperately. “Oh, God, Whistle! You’re back!”
“Yes, Shane,” he husked.
“Oh, Christ, I am so glad,” Shane said in weary joy. “I thought…I thought that you weren’t coming back.”
“I am sorry, Shane. I didn’t think that I’d be able to come back either,” the blonde replied on a thread of sound.
“I’ll get you something to drink,” Shane said, realizing how dehydrated Whistle must be by now. “Wait a second,” he staggered away out into the hall, while the being lay on the bed and tried to gather what energy he actually had left together.
But suddenly he felt something within himself; a sensation he’d never experienced before but knew it for what it was. Whistle wanted to groan, and would have if he’d had the energy. ‘Oh, Little One, not now!’ he cried silently to the baby. “Please! I can’t help you separate now!’
But the swirling bit of energy that was him and Shane’s child simply didn’t care about that. It wanted to be separated, and it wanted to be separated NOW. It struggled and pulled against the main mass of Whistle’s energy, and the being felt desperation run through him. What was he to do? He was too weak from the stasis to either help the child separate from him or to help it form a physical body. He sobbed (dry tears, for he had little moisture left in him), a sound that reached Shane’s ears as he came back in holding a glass of water in his hand.
“Whistle? What is it?” the human cried, beginning to panic all over again. There was this weird film of light swirling and wavering over the blonde’s head. What the hell was going on?!
“Shane,” the being said, desperate to communicate with his Lamhulae. “The Little One wants to separate from me. I can’t stop it. Please, Shane, I need your energy. I’m too weak to help the Little One.”
The human darted over to the bed, setting the glass of water down on the table beside it as he did so. He grabbed Whistle’s hand. “Take all you need,” he rasped. “Anything. I don’t care. Just help the baby, Whistle.”
A sigh, and he could actually SEE his energy being pulled from him and down into Whistle’s hand in a steady stream. Shane felt weakness begin to creep up on him as the blonde recklessly took more and more of his life energy to help the separation. His knees were threatening to buckle as the cloud of pulsing light began it pull away from Whistle’s head. Shane wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, knowing that this little ball of energy was their baby. He leaned against the bed, too weak to stand up on his own, wondering dimly if Whistle was going to take too much and kill him. Not that he cared; as long as Whistle and the baby were okay he’d gladly give his life for them.
But the drain abruptly stopped, just before he started to black out. “Shane,” Whistle said, sounding stronger, “Boy or girl?”
“What?” he asked feebly.
“Boy or girl, Shane! Tell me now!” Whistle said imperatively.
“Oh. Uh, boy,” he replied.
“Very well,” he could hear Whistle’s voice, but his eyes were glued to the little ball of energy. It was sinking toward the bed, swirling and pulsing, and as he watched in amazement it began to…well….THICKEN. He saw a head form, and two arms, and two legs, and a torso…the energy sank into the flesh and merged with it, and awe filled Shane as the now solid baby came to rest on the bedspread. He saw a mane of blonde curls, and two large crystalline-blue eyes just like Whistle’s. It wasn’t a newborn, but looked about eight or nine months old instead. The newly-formed baby wriggled a bit as a wearily triumphant Whistle said: “Here is our Little One, Shane. Isn’t he wonderful?” And he couldn’t help but agree, totally and one-hundred-per-cent.
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Shane’s blood turned to ice. He remembered what Whistle had said about Darklings – that they were evil creatures from a negative dimension, that used the Vortex to hunt down and devour their prey. Prey which just happened to be those with a very high level of energy, such as…Whistle. Oh, God! He tried not to panic, but he was so scared he could barely breathe. “Whistle,” he choked, grabbing the being’s arms. “There’s got to be something we can do! Listen to me…you can’t just wait and let them come for you. Is there anything that you can do to get away? Maybe through the Vortex?”
Whistle shook his head, the despair in his blue eyes deepening. “No. I cannot use the Vortex while I’m Seeded; the Little One’s energy would make it unstable and we would both be destroyed anyway.”
“Fuck!” Shane cried. “Can’t you run somewhere on this world to get away? I’ll go with you; we can run as far as we have to!”
“There is no running from Darklings once they get the scent of your energy, Shane. They would find us no matter where we went,” Whistle replied wearily, his shoulders sagging.
He began to shake Whistle, his desperation now so strong that it was beginning to choke him. “Whistle, please! I love you, I can’t lose you! There has to be something you can do! You say these things are drawn to your energy – is there any way to hide it from them?”
The being’s head came up, and something sparked in his crystalline-blue eyes. “Yes,” he breathed. “Yes, there is one thing I could do. But it will be very dangerous, Shane,” he warned.
“That doesn’t matter now, not if those things are going to tear you apart and eat you anyway. What is it?” Shane asked urgently.
“I will put myself in a state of suspended animation, and my life energy will dim so much that the Darklings might not be able to find me. I don’t know how long I will have to be in that state, how long it will take them to give up on their search for me. If it takes too long I might not be able to get back into this body,” he added.
Shane took a deep breath. “Do it, Whistle,” he told his lover. “Do it, no matter how dangerous it is. Because if you don’t – then it’s a sure thing that you’ll be eaten, right?”
Whistle nodded. “Yes. The Darklings always find and devour their prey once they are on the track of it. I will do it. Please watch over me, Shane. I will try to get back when I know that the Darklings have departed. But if I cannot…” he looked up at Shane with heartfelt eyes, “I rejoice in the time I spent with you, Shane. You have made me so very happy.”
His throat tried to close up. “I love you, Whistle, so much. Come back to me if you can,” he leaned over and kissed his lover on the lips, wondering if it would be the last time he’d ever do so.
Whistle lay down on his back on the bed, his arms folded over his waist. He closed his marvelous blue eyes, taking deep breaths as he prepared to do whatever he was going to. Shane watched him, and saw something happen – Whistle faded. Not his body, but the soul animating the body. He could actually SEE the glow fading and dimming. His stomach twisted inside of him, and he felt sick. Soon the still body on the bed seemed without a tenant, and Shane saw that the chest had stopped rising and falling. He panicked, leaning over to put his ear to Whistle’s chest. Oh, God, please still be breathing! He prayed desperately. Don’t be dead! Oh, God, Whistle!
Nothing at first. Then he heard the distinctive sound of Whistle’s heart beating, just once. Then nothing for what seemed like far too long, until he heard it again. Shane realized that Whistle’s heart was only beating once or twice a minute. And he was only breathing in the same rhythm. He straightened up, putting a hand over his mouth. At least Whistle wasn’t dead, and hopefully these Darkling creatures wouldn’t be able to find him – but this was awful. Seeing Whistle like this made him want to scream. How long would the being have to be like this? What if he couldn’t find his way back? How would he go on living if Whistle COULDN’T get back to him?
Shane paced the house. On every circle he went back into the bedroom to stare at Whistle, and make sure that the being was still breathing a little. Finally he couldn’t stand it – he picked up Whistle’s limp body and took him into the guest room. He wouldn’t be able to sleep in the bed next to a Whistle who seemed to be dead – not that he’d be able to sleep much, anyway. He lay the blonde down and covered him with the blanket, kissing those slack lips tenderly. “Please come back to me, Whistle,” he whispered against them. “Please. I don’t want to live without you.”
He went into the kitchen and drank some coffee. As he was sitting at the kitchen table, staring out at the front lawn, Shane saw movement out there. He stared hard at the edge of the lawn, and then the hair tried to stand up on the back of his neck as he realized that there was something FLOWING over the grass. It was a slithering stream of what looked like solid shadow, moving over a place where there shouldn’t BE any shadows. And as he gaped at it, another one appeared behind it. And another, and another. He counted almost a dozen in all, squirming and sliding across his lawn toward the house.
Darklings. Shane knew that’s what he was looking at. They were on the trail of Whistle’s psychic scent, tracking their next meal. He sat frozen in complete terror, knowing that there was nothing that he could do anyway if they found Whistle. Shit, they came right through the fucking wall! One of them glided into the kitchen, and paused briefly. Shane had stopped breathing, his brain gibbering wildly as it ‘looked’ at him. It had no eyes, but somehow he knew it could see him. It hovered, apparently thinking about something, as Shane wondered distantly if he was going to pass out from lack of oxygen. But then it seemed to come to a decision about him, and flowed away out of the kitchen without making a sound.
Shane finally started breathing, his chest heaving as he drew in air. He wavered to his feet, needing to see whether those horrors had discovered Whistle or not. He staggered out into the hallway, heading for the guest bedroom. He didn’t want to go anywhere near those shadows, but he had to know…He arrived at the doorway, and the room had several Darklings swirling through it. They were circling the bed like sharks who’d been frustrated in their search for their prey. Shane stood there feeling helpless, praying that the Darklings wouldn’t realize that the energy they were searching for was on the bed.
Time seemed to stand still. But at last, almost as one, the Darklings flowed away through the wall and were gone. Shane staggered over to the bed and pressed his fingers to Whistle’s neck, waiting desperately for any sign that those things hadn’t eaten Whistle. Then he felt it, a single beat – and he sank to his knees beside the bed, crying in a mixture of relief and a release from a terrible, sickening fear. That had been the most horrible experience of his entire life.
He’d find that he had to repeat that same hideous experience day after day for a week. The Darklings kept returning, still searching for that tantalizing energy trace that had faded down to a scent thread. Shane was tense and frightened each time that they appeared, waiting for one of them to realize that what they were looking for was still there only retreated somewhere far away from the physical body on the bed. During the times that they weren’t there, he haunted his own house. He was tired from not sleeping and endlessly worrying, and he couldn’t settle to anything. He just couldn’t stop himself from constantly checking on Whistle, to reassure himself that the blonde was still (technically) breathing and that his heart still (sort of) beating. He could barely eat, and he was losing weight. He knew that he’d lose his mind if this continued on for too much longer.
He’d lied and told Amanda and Matt that Wes had gone back home to get some things taken care of, before he moved in with Shane permanently. Although if Whistle died, he had no idea what he’d tell them. But then, if that happened he wouldn’t care, anyway. He didn’t go over to their house because he didn’t want them to see him with his face worn and lined from stress and fear, and with dark circles under his eyes. And he didn’t want to leave the house anyway. He had this superstitious fear that if he left, Whistle would die while he was gone. So he paced his house at all hours, and when he got too tired to do that he slumped on the couch and stared with blank eyes at the t.v.
He was on the ragged edge. He had actually started to chew on his fingernails in a nervous habit. On the eighth day of his vigil at Whistle’s bedside, Shane was in the kitchen drinking a glass of water. He stared out the window, and realized that the sun was actually starting to set outside. His brain tried to get his attention – what was it trying to tell him? It took him a moment to figure it out. When he did, he felt a streak of astonished relief course through him. The Darklings hadn’t come today. For some reason they’d always come during the day before this. So unless they’d changed their habits, they weren’t coming. What did this mean? Had they left? Given up? Hope blossomed in his mind, and he hurried into the guest bedroom to check on Whistle.
There was no change in the ‘sleeper’. He groaned, running a hand through his hair. The blonde had said that he might not be able to get back even if the Darklings finally gave up. He leaned over the bed. “Whistle? Are you in there? Can you come back?” he pleaded.
No response. He wanted to scream again. What if Whistle remained like this for the rest of his life? Shane covered his face with his hands, tears trickling down his face as his shoulders heaved. He couldn’t take it anymore. He turned and sank down to the floor, resting his head on his knees. “Whistle,” he said mournfully.
Because he was sitting on the floor hiding his eyes, he didn’t see what happened on the bed. A dim glow began to emanate from Whistle’s still body. It skirled around the form, before sinking slowly into the flesh. The blonde stirred a bit, and the crystalline-blue eyes flickered open. Whistle stared at the ceiling blankly, before realizing that he’d actually managed to return to his human body after all. He gasped a bit, his lungs filling with air fully for the first time in over a week. His ears brought him the sound of someone crying, and he turned his head just a little (he didn’t have the energy to do more than that) toward it. “Shane?” he croaked with a mouth that felt like it was full of cotton wool. “Shane?”
Startled silence, then a cry: “Whistle?!” Shane appeared, using the bed to heave himself to his feet desperately. “Oh, God, Whistle! You’re back!”
“Yes, Shane,” he husked.
“Oh, Christ, I am so glad,” Shane said in weary joy. “I thought…I thought that you weren’t coming back.”
“I am sorry, Shane. I didn’t think that I’d be able to come back either,” the blonde replied on a thread of sound.
“I’ll get you something to drink,” Shane said, realizing how dehydrated Whistle must be by now. “Wait a second,” he staggered away out into the hall, while the being lay on the bed and tried to gather what energy he actually had left together.
But suddenly he felt something within himself; a sensation he’d never experienced before but knew it for what it was. Whistle wanted to groan, and would have if he’d had the energy. ‘Oh, Little One, not now!’ he cried silently to the baby. “Please! I can’t help you separate now!’
But the swirling bit of energy that was him and Shane’s child simply didn’t care about that. It wanted to be separated, and it wanted to be separated NOW. It struggled and pulled against the main mass of Whistle’s energy, and the being felt desperation run through him. What was he to do? He was too weak from the stasis to either help the child separate from him or to help it form a physical body. He sobbed (dry tears, for he had little moisture left in him), a sound that reached Shane’s ears as he came back in holding a glass of water in his hand.
“Whistle? What is it?” the human cried, beginning to panic all over again. There was this weird film of light swirling and wavering over the blonde’s head. What the hell was going on?!
“Shane,” the being said, desperate to communicate with his Lamhulae. “The Little One wants to separate from me. I can’t stop it. Please, Shane, I need your energy. I’m too weak to help the Little One.”
The human darted over to the bed, setting the glass of water down on the table beside it as he did so. He grabbed Whistle’s hand. “Take all you need,” he rasped. “Anything. I don’t care. Just help the baby, Whistle.”
A sigh, and he could actually SEE his energy being pulled from him and down into Whistle’s hand in a steady stream. Shane felt weakness begin to creep up on him as the blonde recklessly took more and more of his life energy to help the separation. His knees were threatening to buckle as the cloud of pulsing light began it pull away from Whistle’s head. Shane wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, knowing that this little ball of energy was their baby. He leaned against the bed, too weak to stand up on his own, wondering dimly if Whistle was going to take too much and kill him. Not that he cared; as long as Whistle and the baby were okay he’d gladly give his life for them.
But the drain abruptly stopped, just before he started to black out. “Shane,” Whistle said, sounding stronger, “Boy or girl?”
“What?” he asked feebly.
“Boy or girl, Shane! Tell me now!” Whistle said imperatively.
“Oh. Uh, boy,” he replied.
“Very well,” he could hear Whistle’s voice, but his eyes were glued to the little ball of energy. It was sinking toward the bed, swirling and pulsing, and as he watched in amazement it began to…well….THICKEN. He saw a head form, and two arms, and two legs, and a torso…the energy sank into the flesh and merged with it, and awe filled Shane as the now solid baby came to rest on the bedspread. He saw a mane of blonde curls, and two large crystalline-blue eyes just like Whistle’s. It wasn’t a newborn, but looked about eight or nine months old instead. The newly-formed baby wriggled a bit as a wearily triumphant Whistle said: “Here is our Little One, Shane. Isn’t he wonderful?” And he couldn’t help but agree, totally and one-hundred-per-cent.
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