3 AM [Kit/Koty]

[Dante Russo]

Dante stared into the darkness. He could never fucking sleep during the holidays. The closer it got to Christmas the worse it got. He laid down in bed, closed his eyes, and within five minutes his heart was racing. He was sweating. He felt sick. Felt like he was vibrating. He'd lay on his back for a long time. Beathing deliberately. Slow. Deep. Trying not to think. Trying to think about something else.

It was three in the morning. He'd been getting a few minutes of light sleep here and there, but nothing significant. God he was tired. He tried thinking about Wren for a moment. Wren was comforting. And tall. And strong. And his eyes were... soft, and kind, and beautiful. Dante concentrated on breathing again. Attraction made him uncomfortable. A fresh batch of anxiety flared into his stomach, and Dante scrambled for something else to think about.

Koty. Koty was nice. Intellegent. Comforting. And he could carry on a real conversation. His presence was always calming, somehow. And his touch, however rare, was strong and safe and-- another pang of tingling fire erupted in his belly.

Dante sat up, throwing the covers off and trembling in the chilly air of his dorm room. He was cold and hot at the same time. He put on his hoodie, then took it off again. Anyhing that touched him made his skin prickle with heat, and that heat surrounded his head and neck, and it all made the nausea much, much worse. He needed a real distraction.

Wearing just a loose t-shirt and boxer shorts, Dante left his dorm and headed down to the first floor. Television was always distracting. With a bottle of water and a plastic grocery bag in one hand, and his sweatshirt in the other, Dante stepped quietly into the common room. He didn't turn the light on. Everything was jarring right now, and light seemed unsettling. Shaking, Dante satdown carefully on the couch and found the remote. MSNBC was the least assinine thing he could find at this hour, even if they were into their morning shows at this point. News was always distracting, even if it pissed him off sometimes. Anyway, he was just going to stare at the screen, listen to someone elses voice, drink his water, and try not to throw-up.

[Kitrana Moore]

About the time that Dante was settling in to the couch, though, he would feel something light and furry pass across his left leg... and about the time he might lean down to investigate, a very fluffy cat (clickable) hopped up on the couch next to him and settled down to stare. Obviously it wanted attention and.. obviously he needed to give it to her.

How had the cat come to end up in the student lounge? .. Well.. as obvious by the sheer amount of fur the cat had, it was a bit cold outside. Sure, trouncing through the snow was fun for a while, but after climbing some trees and stalking some of the few animals around that didn't hybernate and spending some time warming up on the roof next to a heating unit.. the cold had gotten fantastically boring. Then the typical flashing multicolor lights of a television had shown up in a window about the time the cat had been headed back to her dorm.. and one last interesting thing for the evening couldn't be a bad thing. Even though it wasn't evening so much anymore as morning.

So Kit had run around the building to get to the entrance, shifted back to humanoid form in order to open the pesky doors, and snuck right into the first floor lounge to see who was up at this hour and whether they'd just woken up or had yet to go to bed. She hadn't expected to find a skinny asian kid looking sick, but hey. Maybe he needed a companion. Kitties made everything better.. Especially when they were big and very fluffy cats that could actually help keep someone warm. Kit sure as hell looked like he needed something, so maybe mutual benefits were a possibility here.

Of course, if he ended up using that bag, the kitty was likely going to disappear in a rather large hurry. Cause gross. Seriously, vomit smelled bad with a human nose.. with one far more sensitive, Kit could pick out the individual things that had remained in dude's stomach for the last however long. Bleh.

[Dante Russo]

Dante inhaled and braced against the sudden, disorienting sensation of something brushing past his leg. His skin crawled and swelled with heat, and Dante made a quiet groan of discomfort. He shifted closer to the arm of the couch, leaning against it for a sense of stability when the cat jumped onto the couch. The subtle movement of the cushion, which would have otherwise gone mostly unnoticed, made his head spin.

"Nng, god," Dante said on the edge of a strangled breath. He looked at the cat through the corner of his eye, grimacing and not wanting to turn his head enough to get a better look. He could tell it was a cat, though. At least, it was a dark cat-shaped blurr, so.. cat seemed likely. Honestly, his deductive reasoning skills were pretty non-existant at the moment. Nausea was extremely distracting. He'd rather not use his bag if he didn't have to.

"Okay, just," Dante stammered as he spoke, and he held his hand up between himself and the cat, "stay.. over there, cat. I can't..." He trailled off. Something seemed weird about this cat, but he couldn't think about it right now. Couldn't think right now at all. Had to keep the thoughts still.

[Kitrana Moore]

While Kit hadn't noticed Dante's reaction to her tail brushing against his leg, she definitely noticed how not-good the kid looked once she was up on the couch. He looked horrible. Like he was having the hangover from hell as well as withdrawl from something nasty.. like meth. The hell had happened to this guy? Maybe this was something that a cat couldn't make better. Cause seriously. Dude looked horrible. And her showing up only made it worse, apparently. Noted.

So as he held up his hand, she'd backed away, ending up laying against the arm on the far side of the couch and simply staring over at him. Heck, maybe it was a good thing she was here. He might friggin collapse or have a seizure at this rate, and she'd need to be around to call for the nurse. There was something wrong with him, only she didn't know what. She certainly hoped this wasn't what she looked like with a hangover. Cause gross.

After several minutes, she let out a soft, curious meow.. Her way of asking if he was okay without having a mouth capable of making words. She was staring at him.. her eyes glowing slightly thanks to the dim light in the room and the TV.. but otherwise she would remain motionless aside from the occasional twitch of her tail and her breathing. It was gonna suck if she had to call the nurse for this guy, though. Too bad he was sick.. he was actually kinda cute. Then again.. given her luck with other guys around here.. he was probably gay or something. Not even neko girls would do it for him. Not that she wanted anything to do with somebody that looked like he did (sick) but when one was sitting and staring at someone, what else was there to think about?

[Dante Russo]

It was either weird or an amazing coincidence that the cat listened to him. Cats, generally, did not give a shit about what you wanted. Dante was just glad that this one seemed content to sit on the other side of the couch. Fortunate, really, since cats usually liked him a great deal, and felt obliged to sit on him.

Regardless, he was extremely busy coping with the nausea-inducing anxiety attack from hell. Every time he thought it was settling down, a fresh wave of prickling heat washed over him, making him cringe and brace against the couch. He was shaking because his hands and feet were freezing, but he couldn't wear his sweater because his arms and neck were on fire. Carefully, Dante pulled his feet onto the couch and folded them under himself. His hands were likewise balled up in the bottom of his t-shirt. The constant shaking was making his stomach worse.

"Stop. Stop. Stop," he whispered, furrowing his brow and squinting his eyes. "There's nothing. Nothing. God, make it stop."

The funny thing about anxiety, was that it seemed to perpetuate itself. The anxiety made him sick, and being sick made him helpless, and being helpless made him anxious. The feeling of anxiety literally gave him more anxiety.

"Breathe," he murmured, "just fuckin' breathe. It'll pass, it'll pass. It always goes away..." Dante leaned stiffly against the back of the couch and looked up at the dark ceiling. Breathing deliberately. Trying to make everything stop shaking.

[Kitrana Moore]

Okay, so the little asian guy (like Kit had any business calling anyone over the age of 10 'little') seemed to be getting worse. He was shivering and sweating.. shaking, convulsing.. His hands were balled up in his shirt but his skin was flushed.. And on top of all that, now he was talking to himself. Fuck, Kit really was gonna have to go get the nurse. She didn't want to go back outside. It was cold out there.. Also, there was the issue that she'd already been by the infirmary once tonight and the on-duty nurse knew her form.. And would know she was out crazy late if she showed back up and then turned into a person.. Kinda lose-lose. Except for this dude.. Who may not die. Cause seriously, he looked like he was about ready to keel over.

Keeling over, Kit imagined, was less than fun. But then, this guy didn't look like he was having much fun at the moment anyway.. Shivvering with a cat staring at him while sweating and mumbling to himself about something going away. What the fuck was wrong with him, anyway? Crap, was it contagious? ..Surely it wasn't contagious for cats at any rate.. right? What if it was some mad cow disease thing that Kit could actually get from him? --Or it could be just wicked crazy anxiety.. which apparently was slightly contagious. Fortunately, one good dose of 'wtfe' would cure it in an instant on Kit's end... But how to get him to take a metaphorical pill and chill the hell out?

Maybe just distraction. He'd said that he couldn't take her being close to him.. Maybe ..that? .. Okay, it was probably a horrible idea, but Kit was curious. And there are sayings about cats and curiosity.. Even though in this case, Kit seriously doubted that Dante could kill a fly. He looked like he was dying.. Maybe on second thought she really shouldn't get any closer to him. She didn't want to lose any of her nine lives unless it was absolutely necessary, and 'crazy asian kid freaking out and throwing a cat' wasn't the grandeur way to go out she would like to be remembered by.

So.. Yeah. She continued to sit there and stare.. and.. absolutely nothing else. How much worse could this guy get, anyway?

[Dante Russo]

Jesus Christ! Dante would have sworn to God that he could feel his pulse in his whole body (if he believed in God, that is). Everything was shaking. He could hear the air in the room between the words spoken on the television, and it was fucking loud!

Dammit, he was freaking out. The room was too big, and the couch was too close, and the changing lights from the television was disorienting, but he needed the soud to drown out the deafening sound of nothing-- and there was something really fucking weird about that damn cat!

He stood up suddenly. Much quicker than his stomach would have liked him to, but the mounting panic really wanted him to be on his feet. Pacing. The nervous activity calmed things down a bit. A bit. He felt less like his universe was a fishbowl that somebody was shaking, anyway. That was an improvement.

But safe? No Dante was far from feeling safe. His heart was still racing, and now that his back was not pressed firmly against the couch cushion he felt unsettlingly exposed. The prickling on the back of his neck felt like someone behind him. Each time he turned to pace back the other direction, his wide eyes made a sweep of the dark room. The television threw shadows, so he was never really sure..

"Nobody. There's nobody. There's nobody..." His lips formed the words over and over, but he gave them no voice. There was nobody here. Dante knew that. He knew it. She wasn't going to miraculously show up out of nowhere! She was in jail! He thought... God, he was sure that's where she was. He didn't keep tabs on her. He didn't want to think about her! He had no idea where the fuck Rebecca was!

"You're paranoid. You're fucking paranoid. There's nobody there. There's never anybody there. Never. It's in your head. It's in your goddamn head!" He was starting to vocalize now. What started as silent words gradually grew into a harsh whisper. Dante swallowed the bile that had risen in his throat, and put his hands on his head. "Why don't you just get a knife already? It was better when you had a knife. You could make this stop if you had a goddamn knife."

The cat, with her night vision, could probably see what Dante would do with a knife if he had one. There was a small collection of scars on the inside of his right ankle, and the edge of one or two scars peeked past the hem of his shorts while he paced the floor. One could assume, if they wished, that there were plenty more above the hem.

[Kitrana Moore]

Kit almost jumped when Dante suddenly lunged out of his chair.. almost.. instead she just winced and continued to stare.. then hopped up on the back of the couch when he started pacing. Indeed, she could see the scars, and she could hear the whispers that were still growing. This kid was fucked up. No other way to see it. No other way to look at it. Messed. Up. And talking about getting a knife.. with all those scars already there. Hell naw.

So in the matter of a few seconds, a head of bright red hair rose from behind the back of the couch to stare at Dante with a bit of an angry look. "Okay, dude. You need to calm your anxious ass down before I knock you out and drag you to the nurse for some sedatives. A fucking knife? Are you kidding? The hell are you gonna do with a knife? Who are you freaking out about? Why the hell am I sitting here watching you? I can't leave now. Now you've gone from looking sick to looking suicidal, and I ain't having your asian blood on my paws. Not tonight. If you're gonna off yourself or whatever, you can do that when you aren't at Hammel. This school doesn't need that media coverage. Nuh uh."

She didn't move closer to him, she didn't even get up off the couch. He was already freaking out. About a someone. About people. Maaaybe appearing where a cat had been wasn't the best idea ever, but dammit dude needed to calm down and if he was trapped in his own head, somebody else nearby might snap him back out of it. Regardless, this shit was getting weird fast and it already wasn't fun.. so adding weird wasn't gonna make it any better.

[Dante Russo]

Dante jumped and spun to face the voice that was suddenly talking to him. He'd had his back turned to the cat when it changed, and now there was just some girl. The cat was gone and there was a girl!

A girl with wavy red hair.

He stared, frozen, while she tore into him. Eyes wide. Heart racing. Barely breathing. She looked like her. She looked like Rebecca. Like, if Rebecca were his age or something. Maybe a little younger. Dante blinked once. The dim, flickering light from the television made it difficult to see and... and he usually didn't have visual hallucinations at random like this. Usually he was waking up from a nightmare when he saw things.

Maybe he was asleep. Oh god, he didn't know anymore. He was so fucking tired, and his senses were all amped up-- shit but how many days without sleep did it take to start hallucinating? How long had it been since the last time he slept? If he wasn't asleep right now this could definitely be a hallucination.

Shit! Shit! Shit!

The girl stopped talking and-- "OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM!!?" Dante shouted, sounding very much like he was scared shitless. He was breathing hard, and edging his way slowly around the couch toward the stairs. "You can't just SHOW UP and- and tell me what to fucking do! You can't--" Dante glanced toward the stairs. God, he really just wanted to go back to his room. Right now. Right fucking now!

"You don't get to tell me what to do anymore!" He yelled, before turning and running for the stairs. He choked back bile again. Really there was no time for getting sick right now. He was hallucinating.. Or he was dreaming and if he was dreaming then he should really wake up first!

[Koty Hura]

Unfortunately, the light was out in the stairwell... and someone else had started running down them right as Dante had started running up them... and the two met in the middle with a sickening thud, Koty automatically wrapping his arms around what- or whoever had just slammed into him. Their skull had split his upper lip as easily as a ball peen hammer or a baseball bat would have, and he let out a gargled cry of surprise and pain as the two bodies crashed unceremoniously to the stairs. Koty, since he had been headed to take a very early morning jog, was wearing sweatpants and a hoodie and wool gloves.. so as of yet there had been no skin-to-skin contact between them.. because for whatever reason hair didn't work.. and apparently Dante's hair had been what had contacted his face.

So.. Koty sat with his arms wrapped around someone who had just been screaming.. that sounded an awful lot like dante.. and tasted his mouth being coated in the coppery iron flavor of blood. If this was Dante, they really had to stop meeting like this. Of course, he was still trying to get his bearings and figure out what had happened and if he was even actually awake.. Pain usually meant that he was, but.. Hell, who knew? Regardless, when unsure, pause for a second and figure shit out. It was better to know what was going on than to panic.. and with whoever or whatever this was firmly held chest-to-chest like this, at least it was gonna be hard for them to do too much damage if they started flailing.. They could still do some damage, but not as much as friggin running into him again like they had.

Meanwhile, a certain red-haired girl in the other room had blinked and stared.. and blinked some more.. then pinched the bridge of her nose and shaken her head before becoming a fluffy cat once again... which, after a moment, peered around the corner to find the little asian guy on top of a bigger asian guy.. and had Kit not been a cat, she'd have facepalmed.

[Dante Russo]

Unfortunately for Dante, pain did not always indicate being awake. He had dreams where his teeth were falling out and he could feel it. He woke up with sore teeth and had to check more than once that they were there because it had felt so real.

So the sudden throbbing pain in his skull did not immediately bring Dante to his senses. Mostly it just caused his head th throb. Lucky for Koty that he was extra disoriented for a moment and thus unable to struggle. When the lights came back on, so to speak, Dante found himself held tight against another person.

He gasped, and struggled, and tried desperately to pull away. She had him. Somehow she fucking had him. Well if he was dreaming that made sense. She could be anywhere! His breath was quick and shallow now. Tears squeezed out the corners of his eyes, which were shut tight against the panic and the chaos. "No no no no no no..." He repeated through clenched teeth.

He didn't want to do the next part. The next part was always bad. He wanted to go back to the part where she was telling him off! He didn't want her to touch him! God, anything but that.

Warmth spread through his stomach again, and Dante very suddenly stopped struggling. There was something that was almost guaranteed to wake him up. If he vomited right now, it'd be a bitch to get out of the sheets, but it'd wake him up. It was really hard to sleep through something like that...

[Koty Hura]

Okay.. Moment taken, situation grim and deteriorating, definitely Dante, definitely bleeding from his inner lip, and definitely had to stop meeting like this. But after another moment of Dante struggling, the smaller boy very quickly stopped.. There was almost a sense of urgency and cold in the air, and despite not having accessed Dante's mind at all, Koty knew that something very unpleasant was about to happen. Not good.

He had several options.. The first and most obvious would be to let go of the boy and shove him away. While this would likely be extremely effective, it also seemed distinctly cold and uncaring and.. it wasn't very Koty. The second option would be to simply ride out whatever was about to happen and take it on the chin, as it were.. but ugh, that sounded careless and potentially disgusting. Option three had several potential courses of action.. and basically involved trying to calm the boy down. The urgency of the situation, though, ruled out most of those courses..

No, the obvious and most likely to succeed option was to fall back on what had gotten reactions out of Dante in the past. Touch. That tiny moment of linked minds.. Perhaps it was just because Dante was so different from Koty, or perhaps it was because Koty genuinely cared about his well being, or perhaps it was just so strange to Dante to be understood in any given moment that it made him pause and collect himself.. but it worked.

Koty didn't have time to get his gloves off.. and the only part of his body not covered up was his face.. Which left only his face and Dante's face as a point of contact. Awkward? Probably.. but at least Dante would be aware of what Koty was doing and why. Knowing a person's motive was a pretty powerful thing when they suddenly kissed you.

And that's what Koty did. Kissed Dante. --Not on the lips, mind you. No, not that much fanservice in the thread thus far. He let his arms go from around Dante's upper body and took the boy's head firmly in his hands, leaning his head quickly up to plant a quick, short kiss on the boy's forehead.. before immediately loosening his grip so as not to trap the kid anymore.

In that moment of contact, though, Dante would get a flash of motive, decision, embarrassment, confidence... as well as a dozen thoughts of calming, reassurance, understanding, and promises that Dante was very much awake and his mother was nowhere near them.. That Koty would do his best to protect him if she were here... and there would be a noteworthy undertone of 'please do not puke on me' as well as a reluctant acceptance of the possibility that such a thing was about to happen anyway.

But what did it mean that Koty would rather get thrown up on by Dante than seem cold and cruel by shoving him away? Even the direct link they shared for that briefest of moments held no real hint as to the depths that such a decision originated from.

[Dante Russo]

Dante inhaled sharply at the sudden skin-to-skin contact with Koty. Suddenly, in one hell of a flash, everything stopped spinning. Koty’s reality layered over his own, and the other boy’s confidence in what was real and what wasn’t.. that alone would have been enough to settle Dante down. But there was more than that. There was a whole host of thoughts and feelings pertaining to this specific moment in time; this moment that was real and not in Dante’s twisted mind.

It was over almost as soon as it had come, and Koty was letting him go. Immediately, Dante pulled back and clamped a hand firmly over his mouth. He shuttered and cringed. His shoulders shrugged up and his eyes squeezed shut. Dante clenched his teeth as bile flooded his mouth and he choked it back.

“Oh god,” he gagged and coughed and lifted himself off of Koty to sit on the stairs next to him. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, swallowing several times just to make sure nothing came back up.

His heart was still pounding, and he could still feel himself shaking. The sour, bitter taste of coffee from earlier that night coated the inside of his mouth and stung his throat. “What’re you..?” Dante cut himself off to rub his tongue against the roof of his mouth, trying desperately to get rid of the taste. “There was a cat, and, and.. a girl and..” He paused again to wipe something off his forehead. Dante looked at his fingers then looked at Koty. Blood? Blood. “Did I do that?” Koty’s lip was bleeding. He’d already forgotten about the throbbing in his skull from their collision, but it was back now.

[Koty Hura]

The cat, feeling a bit guilty and also useless, disappeared back around the corner to grab a bottle of water. Bile.. stomach acid and coffee.. What a horrendous smell. Ugh, it was so strong even though the kid had managed to keep from puking. Bleh. Yeah, he was gonna need something to get the taste out of his mouth... so around the corner came a cat.. pushing a bottle of water along the floor until it ended up at the bottom of the stairs.. at which point she let out a meow and layed down in next to the bottle, her tail twitching calmly behind her. She'd probably already been made. What did it matter if these guys knew she was a student now? The smaller asian dude had been much less entertaining than she'd hoped for anyway.

Koty, meanwhile, was running his tongue along his teeth, trying to keep the blood in his mouth from coagulating between them. Blood was a horrible taste. "I do not believe you did it on purpose.." He opened his mouth and ran a finger along the inside of his bottom lip, wincing when the bit of salt on his skin hit the fresh wound. "It is minor. No concern. No worse than if I had grazed my mouth eating." Seriously, did everyone do that on occasion? What a great way to screw up a meal.. Nom nom no--gkh! And it never made sense afterward how you'd managed to place your inner cheek between your teeth.... Regardless, it only stung and tasted bad. No real harm done. Though Koty would need to take it easy for a few minutes to let it clot and stop flowing before he went to run.

Then the cat meowed and Koty blinked down at it in the dim light.. There hadn't been a bottle of water there before.. and there weren't many cats that existed on campus. Plus Dante had been talking about a cat and a girl. Koty simply sighed and grinned, stepping down to grab the bottle before resuming his seat, staring at the glowing eyes of the cat. "Thank you." He uncapped it, took a swig, then handed the bottle to Dante. "You should drink. To help with the taste." Koty could smell the bile as well.. plus he'd seen Dante obviously trying hard not to wretch..

"I believe your cat and girl are one and the same, Dante." His eyes hadn't left the cat.. "Would you permit me an experiment, cat?" He leaned down, holding his hand out to the cat, palm-up. "Place your paw on my hand for a moment." Surprisingly the cat got slowly to her feet and walked forward to do just that.

Of course, Kit thought that this was the experiment. Seeing if she understood him. She was completely unprepared for the sudden presence in her mind of another person, and quickly jumped back shaking her head. She'd felt another person in her head.. literally searching for her name.. How freakin.. weird. Cool, sure, but weird. So dude was some sort of telepath? She'd only felt him when she'd been touching him, though. So touch-telepathy.. She'd never run across that before. Huh. She layed back down several feet back.

Koty simply grinned, raising his hands in submission. "I apologize, Kitrana. I had no intention of startling you." He closed his eyes and leaned back on the stairs and Dante presumably tried to drink a bit to wash the taste out of his mouth. "She is a shifter. Her name is Kitrana.. I did not have time to learn much more, but I do not believe she intends either of us harm. I am also reasonably sure that your reaction was a surprise to her. She could not have known."

No, Koty wasn't mentioning or confirming that he already knew what Dante was telling him. By now, he was pretty used to Dante's mind.. and could exchange thoughts and ideas with it fairly easily. He'd gained a reasonably complete understanding of the situation in just the instant of contact. Koty wasn't going to bring it up because it didn't need to be brought up. It aught to simply be let go and forgotten about.. including the blood.. as long as Dante could hold himself together now. If Dante could do that, Koty was going to let bygones be bygones.

[Dante Russo]

Dante nodded his head absently. No big deal. Little blood. Nobody’s fault. Everything was fine. Fine. Fine. Fine.

Except for how Dante could feel himself shaking. Feel his stomach shuddering and his shoulders quaking. Dante pulled the corner of his bottom lip between his teeth and sucked on it while he rocked himself quietly back and forth. His eyes were still wide, and he was staring into the darkened common room, focused on a single point where there was nothing in particular. He saw the cat at the bottom of the stairs without looking at it. The stress of everything heightened his senses to a state of hyper vigilance. He wasn’t looking at the point his eyes were fixed on. He was watching everything in his peripheries at once.

The cat made a noise and Dante froze for half a second. His rocking stopped and he didn’t breath while his mind rapidly assessed the situation. Cat sound. Probably not threatening. Koty didn’t seem upset. Fine. It was fine. Dante resumed breathing, and rocking.

He didn’t move his eyes when Koty handed a bottle of water to him and told him to drink. Dante took the bottle, and held it in both hands. He didn’t drink it right away. He just held it. The weight in his hands seemed comforting, and he would have to stop rocking to take a drink.

Without any change in demeanor, Dante focused on Koty. He was investigating the cat, which was definitely not like a normal cat. Koty asked it to do something, and it did— Dante inhaled sharply when the cat jumped back, and the pace of his rocking increased slightly. Koty apologized to the cat, then gave Dante some information about her.

”…I am also reasonably sure that your reaction was a surprise to her. She could not have known.”

“Yeah well..” Dante’s voice was trembling, “I’m a.. fuckin’.. piece of work, so-“ Dante let out a breath that could have either been a laugh or a small sob. The corners of his mouth pulled back as though to laugh, but his brow was knitted. Dante hung his head suddenly and he stopped rocking. Several breathy laugh-sobs shook his shoulders, and the plastic water bottle crinkled under his fingers when he tightened his grip on it. “Fine. I’m fine. I’m fine,” he muttered.