Chapter Text
The smell hit them first.
Not the usual musty-old-house smell, or even the “someone hasn’t taken the trash out in a month” smell. No — this was something far more profound. A smell with layers. A smell with history. A smell that had lived a full, complicated life and wanted everyone to know about it.
Frank gagged so hard he had to brace a hand on the doorframe.
Shred winced. “You good?”
“Yeah,” Frank said, voice hoarse. “Totally. Love it here. Love this for us.”
He did not look good.
He hadn’t looked good since that morning, when he’d shown up pale and sweaty and pretending he wasn’t pale and sweaty. Victoria was already on a plane to New Zealand for her long‑overdue vacation, Petal was tied up on another call, and the report had said possible hoarding situation, possible animals in distress — so Frank had insisted he was fine.
He was not fine.
His curls were already damp with fever sweat. His eyes were glassy. His breathing had that faint, congested rattle that made Shred’s stomach tighten every time he heard it.
But Frank had waved him off with a weak, “I’m built different,” and marched inside.
Now, standing in the doorway of a house that looked like it had lost a fight with a landfill, Frank swayed slightly.
Shred stepped closer without thinking. “Frank.”
“I’m good,” Frank said again, then sneezed so violently it echoed off the walls.
A chorus of startled meows erupted somewhere deeper in the house.
Shred sighed. “Great. We’ve alerted the locals.”
They pushed inside.
The living room was a maze of stacked newspapers, old takeout containers, and cat towers in various states of collapse. Cats darted between piles like furry shadows — some curious, some skittish, all in need of help.
Frank crouched down to coax a small orange tabby out from under a mountain of magazines. The movement made him wobble, and he caught himself on the wall.
Shred’s concern sharpened. “You sure you don’t want to sit down?”
Frank scoffed, though it came out thin. “I can wrangle cats in my sleep.”
“You look like you’re about to.”
Frank ignored that and reached for the tabby, who immediately head‑butted his hand. Frank’s expression softened in that way it always did around animals — like something in him recognized something in them.
“Hey, little dude,” he murmured. “You wanna get out of here?”
The cat purred.
Frank smiled faintly.
Then he swayed again.
Shred stepped in, steadying him with a hand on his back. Frank didn’t even flinch away — which was how Shred knew things were worse than Frank was admitting.
They worked through the house slowly, carefully, gathering cats one by one. Frank kept insisting he was fine, even as his voice grew raspier, even as his hands shook, even as he stopped cracking jokes for whole minutes at a time.
By the time they reached the last room — a cluttered spare bedroom with a broken window and a nest of blankets in the corner — Frank was breathing hard.
The final cat, a scruffy gray longhair, hissed at them from atop a dresser.
Frank lifted the kennel. “I got it.”
Shred frowned. “Frank—”
“I said I got it.”
He didn’t.
The moment he reached up, his vision clearly swam. His knees buckled. Shred lunged forward, catching him under the arms before he hit the floor.
“Whoa—hey. Hey. Sit down.”
Frank blinked at him, dazed. “I’m… fine.”
“You’re about to face‑plant into a litter box.”
Frank frowned like that was a personal insult.
Shred guided him to sit on a relatively clear patch of floor. Frank didn’t resist. That scared Shred more than anything.
“Stay,” Shred said firmly.
Frank mumbled something that sounded like agreement.
Shred got the last cat into the kennel himself.
When he turned back, Frank was slumped against the wall, eyes half‑closed, skin flushed and damp. He looked like he was trying to stay upright through sheer stubbornness.
Shred crouched in front of him. “Okay. That’s it. We’re done. I’m taking you home.”
Frank blinked slowly. “We still have to—”
“No. We don’t. We’re done.”
Frank’s head tipped forward like he was about to nod, then kept going like he forgot to stop. Shred caught him again.
“Jesus, Frank.”
Frank murmured something unintelligible and leaned into him, too warm, too heavy, too out of it.
Shred swallowed hard.
“Come on,” he said softly. “Let’s get you out of here.”
He helped Frank to his feet — or as close to his feet as Frank could manage — and guided him out of the house, past the kennels, past the smell, past the mess.
Frank sagged against him the whole way.
By the time they reached the car, Frank was barely conscious.
Shred eased him into the passenger seat, buckled him in, and brushed a damp curl off his forehead.
“You’re burning up,” he murmured.
Frank made a small, miserable sound.
Shred’s chest tightened.
He shut the door gently.
Then he got behind the wheel, glanced at Frank slumped against the window, and whispered to himself:
“…this is bad.”
He started the car.
And drove him home.
By the time Shred got him home, Frank was barely upright. He’d mumbled something about being “fine” as Shred half‑carried him inside, but the moment the door shut behind them, the last of Frank’s stubborn adrenaline gave out. His legs buckled. Shred caught him again — gentler this time, like he was handling something breakable — and steered him toward the couch. Frank didn’t protest. Didn’t joke. Didn’t even pretend. He just let himself be lowered into the cushions, shivering once before curling in on himself like someone trying to disappear into the blankets Shred piled over him. The fever was already climbing fast, burning through whatever scraps of energy he’d used to get through the call. Shred sat beside him, watching the rise and fall of his uneven breathing, and felt something in his chest twist tight. Frank Shaw was sick. Really sick. And for the first time all day, he wasn’t pretending otherwise.
A little later, Frank was curled deep into the corner of the couch beneath two blankets, looking absolutely wrecked…
The fever had fully won by then.
His hair stuck damply to his forehead. His cheeks were flushed bright with heat. Every few minutes another rough cough tore out of him hard enough to make his shoulders tense.
“You know,” he rasped weakly into the couch cushion, “if I survive this, I deserve financial compensation.”
“You have the flu,” Shred said from the kitchen.
“I have suffered.”
Shred snorted quietly and carried over another glass of water.
Frank blinked up at him slowly when he sat down beside him.
There was something strange about seeing Frank like this.
Usually Frank filled every room he walked into — loud and quick and sharp around the edges. Even when he was pretending not to care, there was always energy to him. Movement.
Now he just looked exhausted.
Softened.
Human in a way Shred wasn’t used to.
“Drink,” Shred said gently.
Frank obeyed immediately.
That was honestly alarming.
“You okay?” Shred asked.
Frank stared at him for a second too long like he was trying to process the question through static.
Then he nodded once and immediately dissolved into another coughing fit.
“Jesus,” Shred muttered, rubbing a hand between Frank’s shoulders while he coughed.
Frank leaned into the touch without even seeming to realize he was doing it.
By the time the coughing finally stopped, he looked half asleep.
“You should probably actually sleep.”
“No.”
“No?”
Frank frowned blearily. “What if I stop existing?”
Shred blinked.
“You think sleeping kills you?”
Frank pointed weakly at him. “Can’t prove it doesn’t.”
“That is not how that works.”
Frank looked deeply unconvinced.
A few minutes later, he was very obviously drifting in and out.
His eyes kept sliding shut mid-conversation.
At one point he stared at Shred very seriously and whispered, “You have kind eyes.”
“…thanks?”
“And weird hair.”
“Okay, rude.”
“Like a youth pastor.”
Shred laughed despite himself.
Frank smiled faintly at the sound.
Then his expression changed.
Softened.
Like something inside him had quietly unguarded itself.
“You stayed,” he murmured.
Shred’s chest tightened a little.
“Yeah.”
Frank blinked slowly at him, fever-glassy and unfocused.
“You always stay.”
Shred opened his mouth, but Frank was already rambling softly again, thoughts loose and tangled from exhaustion.
“Everybody leaves eventually,” he whispered. “But you don’t.”
“Frank—”
“I knew it the first day.”
“The first day of what?”
Frank’s eyes were nearly closed now.
“Us.”
Shred stared at him.
Frank shifted under the blankets, looking for all the world like he was trying to get comfortable enough to sink completely into sleep.
Then, completely delirious and barely awake, he mumbled:
“Love you so much.”
Shred froze.
Frank kept talking softly into the couch cushion, barely coherent now.
“Think I always will.”
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Shred’s brain stopped functioning.
Frank, meanwhile, sighed happily, curled more into the blanket, and immediately fell asleep.
Like he hadn’t just detonated a nuclear bomb in the middle of the living room.
Shred stared at him.
Then at the rain-streaked windows.
Then back at Frank.
“…what.”
Frank snored softly in response.
Shred sat there for a full minute with his heart trying to physically escape his body.
Carefully, like he was handling something fragile, he reached over and tugged the blanket higher around Frank’s shoulders.
Frank made a sleepy little noise and unconsciously leaned toward him.
Shred was completely doomed.
And the worst part was that tomorrow morning, Frank Shaw was absolutely not going to remember a single second of this.