"S-s-sunshine h-how long d-do I have to s-s-stay in h-here?"

"For as long as you can without turning into a human popsicle," I said, cleaning the blood away from the cut above his eyebrow. I couldn't help but think it made him look even more attractive in a sadistic kind of way.

"I th-think I have frostbite," he concluded, his teeth chattering. His lips were turning blue, and his skin was a zombie-ish shade of pale.

"Alright, I think you've been chilled for long enough," I said, grabbing his arm as I attempted to help him up. He stood up shakily, cubes of ice falling back into the frigid water around him. He stumbled over the edge of the bathtub and I held on tightly to him, steadying him.

"Woah, slow down buddy," I said as he swayed a little. I wrapped a towel around his shoulders, not that it probably helped very much at all. He was a big guy and it was a small towel.

"I f-feel tingly."

"That's good."

"Why is that g-good?"

"You can feel something, that means you don't have frostbite."

He frowned at me, sticking out his bottom lip. It was adorable. Like a golden retriever puppy.

I patted his shoulder. "Get changed. Hypothermia's not fun."

I closed the bathroom door behind me, heading to Ryan's room.

"Should I be worried that you were just in the bathroom with my brother?"

I gasped, placing a hand over my heart. "Don't sneak up on me like that!"

Evan raised his hands in surrender. "Seriously though I'm not ready to be an uncle."

I rolled my eyes. "He was having an ice bath."

"An ice bath...why?"

"He had a fight. You didn't know?"

"Oh right, I forgot."

"I take it you don't watch him fight then?"

"I don't like watching people beat on my baby brother."

"Fair enough. He did win the fight you know."

"Doesn't he always?"

"Seems that way."

"Right, I'm going to go raid Archie's candy stash," Evan grinned, rubbing his hands together at his evil plan.

"Have fun with that."

"Oh I will. You have fun too, but not too much fun if you know what I'm saying."

I smacked him as he walked past. "You're an animal."

He threw me a smirk over his shoulder. "Tell Ry not to be silly, cover his willy."

I covered my ears with my hands. "La la la la, I can't hear you!" I yelled, listening to him cackle as he walked away.

"No glove, no love!" He shouted in response.

I think I puked in my mouth.

I didn't reply to that. That comment shouldn't be dignified with a response.

I escaped to Ryan's room, falling face first onto his bed. I breathed in the scent of his comforter.

Why did it smell so good?

Did he soak that thing in cinnamon, or give it to a unicorn to sneeze special cinnamon smelling unicorn dust onto it?

Maybe he sent it to a magical treehouse where the tree folk sprinkled their magical herbs on it.

I don't know, but it smelled damn good.

The door clicked open and then closed.

"Sunshine, what are you doing?"

"Dying," I said, but my voice was muffled, making it sound more like 'flufgh'. Really accurate I know.

"No offence, but I'm pretty sure flying involves being suspended in the air."

I rolled onto my back, frowning as I looked at him. "I thought I told you to get changed."

"I am changed."

"Sorry I forgot, you don't wear shirts."

"Aw, c'mon, you know you like it."

"Whatever," I muttered, a blush tinting my cheeks.

He chuckled. "You're staying right?"

"Is that an invitation?"

"I guess it is."

"Would it be rude to turn down your offer?"

"Very."

"Looks like I'm staying then."

"I kept your toothbrush from last time."

"Thanks," I replied, padding over to the bathroom. I squeezed a glob of toothpaste onto the bristles of my toothbrush, shoving it into my mouth. I scrubbed my teeth thoroughly, getting rid of that gross furry feeling, also known as plaque.

Ryan also entered the bathroom, well duh, it was his bathroom after all. He grabbed his toothbrush, my eyes widening at the amount of toothpaste he used.

"Why so much toothpaste?"

"I like the bubbly-ness," he replied casually.

"Right...you're weird, you know that?"

"That's what they tell me."

I shook my head, continuing to brush my teeth, but I couldn't stop my eyes from wandering to Ryan's refection in the mirror. The more I looked, the more curious I became about his tattoos. There was no doubting that they made him look even more attractive, if that was even humanly possible, but I wanted to know the stories behind them. I knew he must've got them for a reason, they couldn't have been drunken mistakes because he didn't drink, so they must've had meaning.

"I'm just going to ignore the fact that you're eye raping me right now," Ryan said, spitting in the sink.

I sighed. "Well that's what you get for not wearing a shirt."

"Shirts are so constricting." He complained.

"Oh you don't know anything about constricting until you've had to wear a bra," I chided, rinsing my toothbrush and placing it next to the sink.

"Touché."

"Being a girl majorly sucks," I said, climbing onto my side of the bed. "You got the good end of the deal."

"Yeah, I'm still convinced that girls have superpowers."

"Oh we do, if guys had to go through what we do, they'd be curled up in a corner hoping to hell that the ground would turn into quicksand and swallow them up forever."

He nodded, also climbing onto the bed. "Yeah that's probably pretty accurate."

I sighed as he switched off the light, leaving the lamps on so we could still see each other.

"Can I ask you something?" I queried.

"Ya just did," he chimed, flashing me a toothpaste commercial worthy smile.

I slapped him playfully. "Seriously though, can I ask you something?"

"Depends."

"On?"

"What the question is."

"What do your tattoos mean?"

"You really want to know? This could take a while," he warned.

I nodded. "It's not like I've got anything else to do."

"Where should I start?"

"At the beginning," I suggested, resting my head on my hand.

"Right. The first tattoo I got was this one." He gestured to the delicate lettering, which was quite close to the waistband of his shorts, near his right hipbone. It read 'Today you are you. That is truer than true. There is no one alive that is youer than you."

I quirked an eyebrow. "Dr Seuss?"

"Hey, in my defence I was drunk and it was a dare."

"I thought you didn't drink."

"I don't, that doesn't mean I didn't used to."

I nodded. "I like it."

This time it was his turn to raise an eyebrow.

"You like it?"

"Yeah, Dr Seuss is a legend."

"Dr Seuss is a crazy person."

"Aren't we all?"

"Good point."

"Next was this one," he said, pointing to the dark ink covering his right shoulder and upper arm. It appeared to be a tree, but the branches were sort of winding, spilling onto his chest. "I'm not really sure why I got this one. I think I was just having a rebellious moment."

"I feel like you might've been...troubled when you got this," I observed. Don't get me wrong, it was beautiful, in a dark kind of way.

He shrugged. "Quite possibly." He didn't elaborate, but I could tell there was more that he wasn't telling me. I didn't push it though.

"These ones," he pointed to his ribs where five birds were imprinted in his skin. "They represent my family, cause we're like our own little flock." I nodded and he carried on. "The one at the front, my dad. He's the strong one, the protector. Then mom, the graceful and kind one. Then Evan, I probably don't need to explain why his bird is a little wonky. Me, well I'm just me, and then Archie at the back, the baby bird."

I smiled at him talking about his family. It made me envious, but not in a bad way. Hearing him speak of them so fondly restored my faith in humanity, that there are actually families out there where the parents haven't divorced, nobody's died, and they all love each other.

"The last one I have is reasonably new," he explained, "and I was not drunk, despite what you may think."

He pointed to the lettering across the left side of his chest. I read it aloud.

"Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten."

"You wanna know what's special about this one?"

"It's from Lilo and Stitch?" I guessed.

He grinned. "Well yes, but that's not what I was getting at."

"What then?"

He took my hand in his, which was cold, probably from the ice bath. He placed the palm of my hand over his tattoo, holding it there gently with his own hand.

Suddenly I knew what he was talking about. I could feel it.

"It's over your heart, isn't it?"

Instead of confirming he continued talking. "Its so they'll always be with me. So even if they can't physically be here anymore, they'll always be in my heart, or over it in my case."

Okay, I don't know about anyone else but I found that hot. A guy who can talk about his feelings, hallelujah. Praise the lord, or whoever is doing the miracle work these days.

"That's really...sweet actually, how much you love your family you know."

"Well it's not like you get to pick your family the same way you do with friends, and some people get dealt a pretty crappy hand when it comes down to it-"

Tell me about it.

"-but the bunch I got stuck with, I wouldn't swap them out for anything."

Swoon.

~*~*~*~

Mondays can go to hell. And stay there. For eternity.

I know for a fact that zombies are supernatural beings, Sam and Dean Winchester taught me that, which is exactly why I was keeping my distance from Ryan. He literally looked like he'd crawled up out of his coffin and turned up at school. To make it worse he had a black eye and a busted lip from his fight on Saturday.

During the classes we shared he chose to sit at the back, pulling his hood over his head and sleeping through pretty much the entire lesson. I was kind of Jealous that he could just sleep through class and not get noticed by the teacher, which was the other thing. The teachers that did see him seemed to turn a blind eye, even Mrs Hartley didn't comment on his lack of consciousness which was saying something considering Ryan wasn't exactly her favourite person. I even caught her give him a look of...sympathy? I don't know, maybe I was imagining things, but there was something wrong. Like really wrong, and something told me that he wouldn't want to talk about it.

I knew that something must've happened between Saturday when I was with him, and now. But what?

Lunch rolled around eventually, but I wasn't hungry, I was preoccupied and apparently so was Ryan. When I reached our table he was already there, with his head on the table. The others were glancing at him worriedly. I sat in my usual spot next to him, placing my hand gently on his shoulder.

He jolted awake suddenly, looking around in a disoriented glaze. His eyes locked with mine and he clutched my shoulders tightly, desperately.

"Is he okay?" He asked me frantically, his eyes searching mine for any trace of doubt.

I frowned and Ryan repeated his question, more pleading this time. "Is he okay?"

"Hey," I said, grabbing his hands. "You're okay, we're all okay."

Relief flooded his face, his shoulders deflating. "Okay," he muttered under his breath.

"When was the last time you slept?" I asked, genuinely concerned about his well being.

"Last period," he mumbled.

"When was the last time you slept in a bed, not with your face on a table?" I rephrased.

He gave me a sleepy smile. "Saturday night, with you."

Tara rose an eyebrow, but I shot her a 'now isn't the time' look and she dropped the subject.

"I'm going to take you home, c'mon," I said, standing up and extending my hand to the gentle, sleepy giant. His eyelids were already drooping as I hauled him up off his seat. He half walked half stumbled out to Elmo the jeep.

During the short trip home he nodded off several times, jolting awake each time like he got an electric shock.

I parked in my driveway, unbuckling my seatbelt. Ryan did the same, clambering out of the jeep, then staggering over to me. It reminded me of the similarities between drunk people and severely sleep deprived people.

I steered him on the direction of his house and his eyes widened as he dug in his heels.

"Hey, what's wrong?" I asked, searching his face for answers. The only clue I got was that he looked panicked.

"No, no, no, I'm not going in there." There was no way I could force him into his own house so I changed tactic.

"It's okay, you don't have to, you can sleep at my place." He let out a sigh of relief, nodding as we changed direction.

Nobody was home when I got to my house, which wasn't a bad thing, it just meant I wouldn't have to answer any questions. Ryan was more complacent with the idea of sleeping here rather than at his own house, but the stairs were an issue, like a major issue. The amount of times I thought I was going to kill the poor guy by letting him fall...lets just say my nerves were shot after that.

After finally hauling his butt up the stairs, he staggered into my room, barely having time to take his shoes off before he collapsed in a heap on my bed.

I sighed, placing a blanket over his sleeping form. I swiped the hair off his forehead as he snuffled in his sleep. As much as I would have loved to watch him obsessively while he slept, I had things to do.

I quietly shut my bedroom door, headed downstairs and walked the short distance from my house to Ryan's. I knocked on the door and almost immediately it opened. A short lady with silver hair and spectacles stood in front of me. She looked kind of like the way I imagined Mrs Clause.

"Hello dear, can I help you?" She asked, smiling in a motherly sort of way.

"Hi, I'm Hazel," I greeted. "I live next door and I'm one of Ryan's friends."

I hesitated as her smiled dropped and she muttered something under her breath.

"He was really tired at school today so I brought him home, but he didn't want to come here so he's sleeping upstairs at my house. I was wondering if you could tell Stella, just so she knows where he is."

She smiled sincerely. "Of course dear, I don't blame the poor boy for not wanting to come here, but I'm glad Ryan has a friend like you."

I returned her smile as she closed the door, but it dropped off my face as soon as she was gone. My suspicions had just been confirmed, something was definitely going on here.

~*~*~*~

I have to say, that was kinda tense and even though I know this whole thing is just my imagination, I feel so sorry for Ryan. I can't help it.

By the way, someone commented that Ryan and Hazel had the same dad. They most definitely do not. Incest is gross guys. Lets not even talk about it.

Vote, comment, follow (if you wanna)

Until next time.