Page 35 of Too Many Beds

F.A. Lantern

Content warnings: domestic violence | child abuse

D on’t get involved, Ben tells himself, unable to look away from the trio of boys surrounding the crouched figure of the smaller child. It's none of your business.

He can already feel the sting of his foster mom’s slap when he gets sent home from school again for fighting, making her leave work to pick him up.

I don’t get paid enough to take care of you when you make me miss work! She screams the same things every time she hits him. Ben wishes he could ignore the three bigger kids as one of them pulls his foot back and kicks the smaller boy in the stomach, but he can’t, he just can’t .

He’s ten, but he’s as big as a sixth grader and that alone is enough to keep him from being picked on, despite his sometimes-dirty clothes and his too small shoes. At least, no one messes with him anymore. But Samuel, the kicker, picked on him for weeks before Ben finally shoved him into the dirt hard enough to bloody his nose.

He never tried it again, but Ben can hear the snide comments he makes in class when Ben doesn’t know an answer, or when he comes to school in the same shirt three days in a row.

Ben could put his head down and go to class, make himself small and not get into trouble, and avoid all the consequences he knows he’s going to get. But the boy makes a stuttering little cry as his backpack is dragged off his body, even as he struggles to hold on to it.

“Give it back!” Ben snaps, his hands in fists at his sides a few feet from the huddle of boys. “It’s not yours!”

Samuel tenses before he turns, handing the backpack to one of his buddies as he faces Ben, an ugly sneer on his face. “What do you want, assface?”

Samuel’s friends snicker, pleased by his insult and their greater numbers. On the ground, the smaller boy sniffles, bringing his scraped, bloody hands to his face to readjust his crooked glasses. Ben doesn’t look at him. He doesn’t need the reminder of how it feels to be small and helpless and overwhelmed.

“Just give him back his backpack and leave him alone,” Ben tells Samuel, jerking his head at the boy pawing through the bag, looking for snacks or money or anything else he thinks he can take.

Samuel’s friend pretends to ignore him, darting a glance at Samuel for approval before he chucks a sandwich on the ground and stomps on it. The younger boy makes a sad, hopeless sound that cuts through Ben to the quick.

“Or what?” Samuel sneers, his voice deliberate, his piggy eyes eager and mean. “What are you gonna do about it? Cry to your mother? Oh, wait, you don’t have a mother?—”

Ben shoves him hard enough that he hits the ground with a startled grunt. Everyone freezes for a long moment, waiting for Samuel to react, waiting for Ben’s next move.

It’s the younger boy who moves first, shoving himself to his feet and running away, abandoning his backpack, still held loosely in one of his bullies’ hands.

“What is going on here?” A sharp adult voice cuts across the yard, and Ben feels his heart sink.

“Nothing, Ms. Stevens,” he mumbles, taking a big step back and wondering if he can mimic the younger boy and run.

“He pushed me, mom!” Samuel whines, holding up his dirty palms as evidence as he looks pathetically up at his mother. The PE teacher frowns, narrowing her eyes at Ben as she pulls her son to his feet, looking him over critically.

“Your hands, baby,” she sighs. “Go to my office. I’ll get you cleaned up and write you a note for class. You!” She points a stern finger at Ben. “Come with me right now.”

Ben feels his stomach fall to his toes and his mouth go dry. He wants to protest, he wants to explain himself, but Ms. Stevens isn’t going to listen to him, and neither is Mr. Sweeney, the principal.

Behind his mother’s back, Samuel grins at him, sticking his tongue out victoriously as Ben is pulled away.

Ben hates him. He doesn’t like the feeling, the sick, hot rage that makes him feel like choking. It tastes like helplessness and despair and is far too bitter to comfortably swallow. He doesn’t say anything as he is dragged away, across the schoolyard to the administration building.

The back of Ben’s neck itches, but he keeps his burning face pointed at the ground. It’s obvious enough what is happening to him, even without Samuel telling everyone that he got Ben in trouble. He doesn’t need to see the curious or gossip-hungry looking at him too.

“Sit here,” Ms. Stevens says, nudging Ben toward the row of chairs in the hall of the office and leaning over the counter to talk to the receptionist, who shoots Ben a sympathetic look before lifting the desk phone to her ear.

Ms. Stevens says something else and then turns to Ben, giving him a narrow-eyed glare before leaving the office. Ben slumps against the wall and kicks his sneaker over the linoleum until it squeaks.

The receptionist hangs up the phone and gives Ben a little smile. “Mr. Sweeney will be able to see you soon.”

Ben tries to smile at Miss Linda, but his chin feels a bit wobbly and his stomach feels watery. She is always nice to him, offering him smiles and sneaking him the occasional cookie from the nurses’ station, even when he is in trouble.

“Oh, honey,” she sympathizes, looking at him sadly and not fooled by his fake smile. “It’s going to be okay.”

It isn’t, but Ben is still grateful to her for trying.

B en huddles beneath the thin blanket on his saggy mattress and tries not to cry. His ribs hurt, and his face burns from where Mrs. Davis slapped him, blood pulsing beneath the blooming bruise.

The house is quiet enough that she’ll probably hear him if he lets himself sob, and it will only be worse if he interrupts her show with his blubbering. Mr. Davis isn’t home yet, and Ben hopes in vain that he’s late, that he stopped for a drink at the bar with his buddies instead of coming right home.

Maybe Mrs. Davis will be asleep—maybe Mr. Davis will be too drunk to pay any attention to his wife or his foster kid before passing out on the couch.

Ben is dozing when he hears the door slam, the rattle of the thin walls jolting him back to awareness. He goes very still, his eyes wide in the darkness. He thinks he hears something slither under the bed, but he’s not a baby, he knows that old houses creak sometimes. He doesn’t need to check, not when he can’t tear his eyes away from his bedroom door. It’s locked, but from the outside, keeping him trapped rather than keeping him safe.

There is a buzz of conversation from the living room, irritated and harsh. Mrs. Davis is still awake, and she sounds mad about it, which can only mean bad things for Ben. Ben eyes his closet, wondering if Mr. Davis will find him if he hides in there.

Probably, and it will only make him angrier. Ben has been in this house long enough to know that it's better to just endure, to let them hit him a few times and cry so they will feel better about what they are actually angry about and leave him alone.

It’s only really bad when he runs or fights or makes them feel like they have to work for it. He knows that, but it doesn’t make it any easier to sit alone in the darkness and wait for a punishment he knows he doesn’t deserve.

Waiting, straining to hear, Ben thinks he hears something shift under his bed. It's a slight rustling, the glide of something big over the dusty floorboards, but before Ben can wonder about it, the door slams open, the cheap metal handle cracking loudly against the chipped paint of the wall behind it.

Ben can’t stop the gasp he emits, the instinctive flinch away from incoming violence. “You nasty little bastard ,” his foster father slurs, the stench of beer wafting across the small, stuffy room.

“I’m sorry,” Ben squeaks, curling up against the wall, tucking himself into the corner like a rat in the trap. “I’m sorry!”

“You will be, you little piece of shit.” Every step that Mr. Davis makes sounds like thunder against the hardwood, inevitable and dooming.

Ben quails, clenching his eyes shut and tucking his face between his elbows and his knees, barely breathing as he waits for the first heavy blows to land.

They don’t.

Ben hears an unexpected bellow of shock and then a sickening crack and thud. He peeks between his fingers and stares dumbly in shock, unable to move as he watches Mr. Davis gurgle, a puddle of blood blooming across the carpet from the crushed mess of the back of his skull.

Ben whimpers, unable to think, unable to move, unable to do anything but stare stupidly at the creature crouched on the chest of his dying abuser.

It is small and male and mostly humanoid, just a little bit too pretty and graceful to be real. “What?” Ben manages to squeak, wondering if he is dreaming.

“Hi,” the creature says, shooting Ben a tremulous smile that is studded with too-sharp canines. “I’m Luce.”

“You killed him,” Ben whispers, barely able to stop himself from vomiting. “Oh, god.”

The creature—Luce—looks down at the body beneath him, a crease growing between his green eyes. They glow in the dark, liquid and luminous as they focus briefly on the body. “Should I not have?” he asks, looking questioningly back up at Ben. “He was going to hurt you, wasn’t he? Should I have let him?”

Ben blinks at him, stupefied. “I?—”

Luce grins at him, and it's suddenly harder for Ben to breathe. “It’s okay,” he says. “I stopped him like you stopped the mean boy earlier. No one is going to hurt you again. I won’t let them.”

One Year Later

B en’s cell is cold, but thankfully, lonely. He doesn’t have a roommate yet and the whole facility is daunting, but he’s grateful for the space each night after the rough and tumble of overcrowded classes and the brutal social structure of a juvenile detention facility.

Most people—the judge certainly—believe he deserves to be locked up until he’s an adult, no matter how many times Ben tried to explain that Mr. Davis had fallen. He hadn’t dared mention Luce, the strange creature who had shown up just in time to save him.

It was just a dream , Ben reminds himself, shifting his weight over the thin mattress of his bed. There had been no monster beneath his bed, rising to protect him with a sweet, timid smile and softly illuminated eyes.

Mrs. Davis had slammed into the room and started screaming, and Luce had disappeared between one blink and the next. Everything after that had been noise and sirens and a growing, sickening fear.

“He fell,” Ben whispers, as if anyone is listening, as if anything he says is going to get him out of this cell. “I didn’t kill anyone .”

But no one is listening. No one is here.

As if on cue, the lights click off with an irritating buzz, the doors locking automatically to keep all the boys in their rooms until 7:30, when breakfast starts tomorrow morning. Ben doesn’t move. His room is dark, but there is a large window in the door, leaking fluorescent light into the room.

Sporadically throughout the night, staff members peer into the room, ensuring that all the boys are safe and obedient. Between the noise, the light, and the guilt, Ben hasn’t been sleeping very well since he arrived.

When he does sleep, he dreams. It's always the same dream, and Ben wakes up feeling sweaty and itchy and alert, his hormones and the isolation inciting new reactions to unconscious visions of flashing eyes, a quick smile, and the slim, graceful figure of a creature who stepped out of nothing to defend Ben.

The rest of his life is boring. He wakes up, eats a bland breakfast, and sits through the minimal classes required by state law. He doesn’t make friends with any of the other boys. Most of them are vicious or sniveling, and all Ben wants to do is keep his head down and get through the next few years.

He is big enough that the bullies leave him alone, and thankfully, the juvenile hall does a good job of limiting the conflict between the other boys, which allows Ben to look the other way and stay under the radar.

He enjoys the weekly outings to museums or the beach or the zoo, but otherwise he spends as much time as he can in his room, reading his way through the rotating library supplied by a local community group.

It’s fine. No one hits him, he doesn’t go to bed hungry, and he never gets in trouble. Overall, it’s better than foster care, even though he knows his record will make things harder for him when he grows up.

But he’s bored and alone, and he can’t stop thinking about the creature under his bed. Ben has never been particularly imaginative or such a lucid dreamer before, but what alternative is there?

That a monster crawled out from under his bed and killed Ben’s abuser?

Shaking his head, Ben slides off the bed and pads over to the bathroom to brush his teeth, trying to dislodge his repetitive musings. He doesn’t want to dream about Luce again.

It makes something in his chest ache in a way that haunts him.

T he brush of paper over paper wakes Ben sometime later.

He takes a moment to blink at the lopsided light from the square of glass in the door. There is someone in the room, Ben realizes, still shaking off the cobwebs of his sleep.

It takes a moment for the fear to kick in, and then he is jolting upright in bed, his heart nearly galloping out of his chest as he looks around wildly.

“Did I scare you?” Luce asks softly, perched on the top of Ben’s desk with a broken-backed novel on his knee. “I didn’t mean to.”

Ben’s mouth is dry, and he struggles to gather his thoughts. He thinks he’s awake—he’s sure of it—but the creature is here, all warm skin and glowing eyes and the glistening hint of pearly teeth indenting his bottom lip.

“I—” he stumbles over the word, then falls silent, unsure what to say next. “I don’t understand.”

Luce frowns, putting the book down and leaning forward to peer at Ben more closely. “I couldn’t find you,” he says, sounding a little bit pouty. “Why did you leave?”

“I’m sorry?” Ben croaks, shaking his head to clear it. “I didn’t mean—I mean, they put me—what?”

Luce grins suddenly, his whole face lighting up with such brilliance that Ben can’t breathe. “I didn’t scare you?” he asks. “You weren’t running from me?”

He sounds so hopeful that Ben feels it in his chest, a pang so familiar Ben’s breath catches in his throat. How many times has he been rejected? How many times has a hand he reached out to a classmate or foster parent been slapped away, literally or figuratively?

Dream or not, monster or not, murderer or not, Ben can’t bring himself to do the same thing to someone who helped him .

“I wasn’t running from you,” Ben explains, swallowing back his instinctive fear and relaxing his grip on his cheap blanket. “They thought I killed him, so they locked me in here.”

Luce’s face falls, his little fists clenching into tight knots. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, his luminous eyes filling with tears. “I was trying to help. I didn’t mean to make everything worse.”

Ben has never been able to ignore the tears of someone younger or smaller than him, and it has always brought him trouble.

“Hey,” he says, unfurling from the bed and holding out his hand to the impossible creature. “I’m not mad. It’s better here, really; no one hits me.”

Something strong and new punches to life in Ben’s gut when Luce brightens like the rising sun at his reassurance, hopping off the desk and taking Ben’s hand, then curling against his side on the bed with a complete lack of self-consciousness.

Luce is warm and small and smells like a freshly extinguished candle, sweet and smoky. Impossible or not, dream or not, it doesn’t matter. Ben never wants to let him out of his sight.

Five Years Later

B en has nothing against Todd, but he would really rather not see the other boy again. Todd is perfectly nice for someone who got caught trying to set his high school on fire, but the problem is that he’s always here , in Ben’s room—well, in their room, if Ben is being honest.

But Ben doesn’t want to be honest; he wants his room back. It’s only been two weeks since Todd arrived and was assigned to share Ben’s room, but that whole time, Luce has been absent.

Ben isn’t surprised: his peculiar friend never shows himself around anyone else, but Ben’s reaction to his absence this time has been … unexpected.

He’s had roommates before, weeks or months of time when Luce’s presence in his life was replaced by a human boy. Previously, Ben missed his friend, but it feels different now, sharper and more irritating.

Maybe it’s because it has been nearly six months since his last roommate was released, or maybe it’s because during that time, Luce had stopped sleeping beneath the bed and crawled in next to Ben, warm and smelling of fire and safety. It made Ben’s heart race and his stomach tighten, his crush winding through his bones and organs like ivy up a wall.

But Ben never dared to make a move, never dared to treat Luce as anything more than his dearest friend. All that time, Luce never gave any clear indication of romantic interest, and he isn’t human. Ben has no idea how to approach the issue, and he shies away from even thinking about it too hard.

Of course, none of that matters when he wakes up to soiled sheets and the fading remnants of hormonal dreams scented with the tinge of smoke and the curl of his friend's mouth…

If Luce noticed Ben’s frequent and sudden retreats to the bathroom at four in the morning, he hasn’t bothered to mention it, instead simply cuddling into Ben’s warm spot with a sleepy little grumble at being disturbed from his rest.

The unresolved tension, guilt, and helpless longing leaves Ben feeling surly and prickly, and despite his best efforts, he finds himself taking out his temper on the boys around him. He doesn’t have a lot of friends at the reformatory, partly because he has never been particularly friendly and outgoing, but mostly because the majority of the teenagers locked up with him are unpleasant and violent, broken from whatever trauma led to the crimes that landed them in juvenile detention.

Ben has grown tall and strong enough that the newcomers often choose to avoid him when jockeying for position, and the few boys who have been here as long as Ben has know better than to bother him.

He sticks to himself as much as he can, but he is still prone to starting the occasional fight when a younger or more vulnerable kid finds themselves the victim of one of the more persistent bullies.

Todd, however, is getting on his nerves.

Ben clenches his teeth and resolutely stares at the words on the page in front of him, determined to read his novel and ignore the muttered cursing and discordant scales coming from his roommate, who has, for some unfathomable reason, decided to check out the cheap guitar from the underutilized music room in the rec.

Ben glares at the book in his hands, his focus slipping as Todd strums out an awkward tune. It’s not that he dislikes music; he just can’t stand how Todd is ruining the quiet he’s grown accustomed to. The walls feel like they’re closing in, the noise reverberating in his head in a drumbeat of irritation.

“Could you stop?” Ben snaps, not looking up from his book.

“Sorry, man! Just trying to learn.” Todd’s voice is cheerful, oblivious to Ben’s rising frustration. “I thought I’d practice while you read.”

Ben slams his book shut, the noise slicing through the room. “You thought the best time to practice guitar was when I was reading?”

Todd chuckles, undeterred. “You’re just jealous you can’t play. I’ll teach you, if you want.”

“No,” Ben mutters, taking a deep breath and forcing himself to calm down, “thank you.” The comment barely registers with Todd, who just shrugs and launches into another off-key riff.

Ben’s eyes flick to the empty space beside him. Luce should be here , he thinks. His head wouldn’t hurt if Luce were here. They could be talking about anything, or nothing at all. Instead, the bed feels heavy and lonely.

His mind drifts back to those nights when Luce would curl up beside him, whispering secrets and sharing stories of his own kind, foreign and frightening and strange, but lullabies in Luce’s lilting voice. Now? Now, the absence of Luce is a dull ache in his chest. He can’t help but wonder if Todd’s presence is a sign that he’s lost Luce for good.

“Hey,” Todd says, interrupting Ben’s spiraling thoughts. “You alright?” The guitar in his hands twangs unpleasantly and goes silent.

Ben clenches his jaw, not wanting to let Todd’s friendliness get to him. “Fine,” he grumbles, shifting on his bed. He hates that Todd seems to genuinely care.

“Look, I get it. It’s hard being in here. But it doesn’t have to suck all the time,” Todd continues, setting the guitar down and looking at Ben earnestly. “I can be your friend.”

“I don’t need a friend,” Ben shoots back, the words slipping out sharper than he intended. “What I want is my room back!”

Todd raises his hands defensively. “Whatever, dude. Just trying to help.”

Ben stares at him for a long moment, frustration bubbling beneath the surface. Maybe it would be easier to let it out, to talk to someone. But he doesn’t want Todd to see how weak he feels.

“I’m fine,” he repeats, softly this time, though it sounds hollow even to him. Luckily, Todd either doesn’t hear or ignores him, turning his attention back to the stained chordbook on the desk in front of him.

A flicker of movement catches Ben’s eye. It’s subtle, just a shimmer in the corner of the room. His heart races as he turns, half-expecting to see Luce.

But it’s just the sunlight filtering through the window, casting playful shadows. Luce’s absence feels suffocating again, and Ben swallows hard. The light fades as Todd picks up the guitar once more, strumming an overly cheerful chord that sets Ben’s teeth on edge.

“I’m going for a walk,” Ben mutters, standing up.

“Okay! I’ll be here when you get back!” Todd calls after him, the enthusiasm in his voice making Ben feel even more irritable.

Ben steps out into the hallway, the clamor of the facility surrounding him. He walks, keeping his head down, trying to push away the turmoil inside him. It’s only a few minutes until quiet time, when all the boys will be locked in their rooms for the night, but Ben has just enough time to get a few lungfuls of fresh air.

He passes the common room where boys are gathered, playing games and watching TV. The atmosphere is lively, and part of him wants to join, to be part of something that feels normal, but he feels disconnected, like he’s watching through a glass wall.

Instead, he finds himself in a small courtyard, the tall fences painted a once-cheerful blue, the cool air a welcome relief against his skin. He heads towards a squat bench, the only seat in the small bit of nature they have access to. A few trees stand tall, their leaves rustling gently in the wind.

Ben sinks onto the bench, his heart heavy with thoughts of his missing friend. Where are you? he wonders, staring up at the sky as clouds drift lazily by. Are you safe? He doesn’t know much about his monster’s life when he is away from Ben, but he knows it’s bad, and the worry gnaws at his belly.

“Luce?” he whispers, half-hoping for a response.

Nothing. Just the distant sounds of the facility and the chirping of birds overhead.

As he sits there, the weight of loneliness settles over him like a shroud. Maybe it was selfish to expect Luce to return, to slip back into his life as if nothing had changed. Ben feels a pang of guilt wash over him. Luce did what he could; now it is Ben who needs to find his own way.

A flicker of movement at the edge of the courtyard draws his attention. He squints into the shadows and sees something —his heart leaps, he jumps to his feet—but it's just a squirrel, twitching its russet tail before scrambling up a tree, leaving Ben alone once again.

The shrill squeal of the bell cuts through the evening air, summoning Ben back to his room.

Ten Years Later

B en stands in his apartment, the soft glow of city lights filtering through the curtains, casting neon shadows across the floor as cars hum on the streets below. The air is thick with anticipation, and the faint sound of music pulses from his speakers. He shifts nervously, glancing at the clock. His heart races, a mixture of excitement and anxiety coursing through him. Alex is in the bathroom, the pretty young man ‘freshening up’ from his night spent dancing with his friends at the bar Ben works security for.

He doesn’t make it a habit to take party boys home after work, but Alex is just his type—small and lithe and shifty, an echo of something it hurts to remember.

As he shrugs off his shirt and lights a candle, he tries to shake off the feeling that something is off. He can’t quite put his finger on it, but there’s a restlessness in the back of his mind, a flicker of longing that makes him uneasy.

It’s been a decade. He’s been through therapy, and he’s rejoined society with a sealed record and a job that pays the rent on his tiny one-bedroom apartment, with any extra cash going toward ramen and Cheerios.

Alex creeps out of the bathroom, his eyeliner highlighting the blue of his shy eyes as he runs them hungrily over Ben’s chest. Ben grins at him, the flicker of arousal drowning out his melancholy.

“Hey.” Ben grins at Alex, reaching for his hand and pulling him down to sit on the couch, the tension between them electric. Alex makes a joke, and Ben laughs, trying to keep the mood light until the time is right and he can lean in, cupping the back of Alex’s head to kiss him, the condom and lube waiting on the coffee table.

Just as their lips nearly touch, a soft, almost imperceptible scratching noise drifts from the closed door of his bedroom. Ben’s heart skips a beat. He glances toward the sound, his breath hitching. It can’t be. Not now.