Disclaimer: The Lost Boys belongs to Joel Schumacher and company.

Prompts: 500themes - #295 (edge of sanity)

Notes: Set after the movie.

Somehow they all manage to find somewhere to sleep in the house that isn't covered with gore or carnage. Sam seems content to sleep in the sleeping bags with the Frog brothers in the yard under the bright Californian sunshine. Star and Laddie curl up in Michael's bed. His grandfather and mother are able to sleep in their own rooms. However Michael has nowhere to sleep that doesn't reek of blood or death.

He winds up on the porch feeling as if he's betrayed David and the others. It doesn't matter that they were ruthless killers. What matters is that with David, Michael had felt accepted without any pressure to live up to some ideal of who he's supposed to be. His hands start to tremble as he reflects on his life.

Somehow Michael knows that this is insane but his racing thoughts are similar to the insidious promise in David's voice. If he listens hard enough, Michael is certain that he can hear David (and even the others) begging him to join them in the death that he has exiled them to. Just when the temptation becomes too terrible to resist, Sam finds him.

It's always his brother that draws him back from the brink. When Sam settles into the chair beside him, it's on the tip of Michael's tongue to tell him that the chair is too small for both of them and that Sam's too old for this but then Sam wraps his arms around him. Michael breathes in the familiar scent of him, the scent that had saved him in the kitchen the other night. Michael sits under the weight of his younger brother's affection. Surely now his brother will see him for the fraud that he is but Sam's hug grows tighter as the silence envelopes them.

And as suddenly as he came to him, Sam leaves him. No words flow between them but Michael feels calmer, even saner. Today, in the aftermath of last night, doesn't seem so hard now. He stands and moves toward the wicker sofa that he thinks his mother put out here. It barely fits him but his nostrils are filled with the scent of life as sleep finds him.

((END))