swine | ☆

● chapter 8. ○

CW: Chris.

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When Y/n sat himself upright, his vision went staticky and his head felt fuzzy. He couldn't feel his limbs for a moment, but he felt the pounding in his temple, outdone only by the pounding on his door. For a short moment, he considered not answering it and going straight back to bed.

"L/n! Are you fucking dead in there?" Came the unmistakable voice of Chris, the one person Y/n really didn't want to deal with right now.

The events of last night were something that Y/n shut out of his brain for a minute. None of it happened. It was a dream. None of that was even real.

The haziness to everything visible and/or thinkable was an efficient counterclaim to that statement, one that Y/n dreaded.

"I'm up," Y/n mumbled, the words mushed together and near illegible. The banging stopped, so Y/n assumed Chris heard him somehow.

The red light of the alarm clock on his bedside table seemed brighter than usual, adding an ache to his eyes and colored splotches to his vision.

7:23am.

Y/n had to pull himself out of bed, and his feet felt leaden as the sudden change in position added more static to his unclear sight.

Every action that followed that — leaving his room, going to the bathroom, brushing his teeth, washing his face, leaving the bathroom — felt disconnected from Y/n's thoughts. It was in his muscle memory to complete these simple tasks, and so he did so without as much as a spared thought towards anything else.

Right until his felt a hand clamp around his wrist as he crossed the threshold of the hallway.

"Y/n." And Chris's voice made Y/n's head pound. He tried to tug his hand away from the older man's grasp, but it simply tightened instead of submitting to Y/n's physical protest. The (h/c) boy took a deep breath as he prepared himself to comply with this conversation.

With the man who was suddenly looking real eager to be put up on the murder suspect board. Hypothetically, of course. In reality, Chris's eyes were cold, likely sensing Y/n's lack of enthusiasm to proceed with this interaction.

Chris could do that. He could sense when Y/n was going to be "difficult," by his definition, and adjusted his own attitude accordingly. Except instead of what you would assume to be the normal adjustment, he just hardened, matching Y/n's irritable mood with his own.

And Chris was a lot better at it.

So, Y/n looked to him, trying to not look as unfriendly as he felt.

"Rent's due tomorrow. Give me what you have when you can. I'll be home early tomorrow, so don't even try to avoid it," Chris said, his jaw clenched slightly. He spoke as if Y/n had ever been or would ever be stupid enough to do that.

Chris wasn't the brightest, but where he lacked intellect, he advanced in strength. And, fuck, if Y/n could ever beat the ass of a twenty-something-year-old built like Chris, assume hell froze over as well.

"Okay," Y/n muttered, again trying to pull away from Chris, just to get the same reaction as before. "Let me go."

Chris raised an eyebrow. Y/n's eyes widened minutely. He'd spoken before thinking. Remedy the situation, dumbass!

"Uh, I'll be late. For school. Y'know."

Chris's semi-surprised expression softened into the apathetic one of before.

Y/n wasn't afraid of Chris. What he was afraid of is either getting kicked out onto the streets, because Chris had full power to do so if he chose to rat out the (h/c) boy to their landlord, or pissing off a murderer, if he and Erin were right about that theory.