Title: Fault Lines
Fandom: Ghost Hunt
Rating: T
Length: 1072
Content notes: Warnings for implied Murder, Trauma, and Drowning.
Author notes: Doubles as a fill for HC Bingo's 'Telepathic Trauma' prompt.
Summary: There are little cracks in everyone's carefully crafted personas, even a perfect machine like Naru has his moments of weakness.

An extreme example arises when he fully experiences his twin brother's demise and disposal the evening after his body is recovered. Lucky for him, he has a skilled bodyguard who's used to dealing with his frequent brushes with death.

It's entirely too dark for Naru to be asleep.

Something thick wraps around his body and he's being carried somewhere.

Creak, creak, creak.

Someone's voice desperately whispers above him, "Are you sure that no one will find him out here?"

Splish! Splish!

"Will you quit asking me that?! No one is going to find the brat ever, got it?"

Creak, creeeeeak, creak.

Naru is moving again. Long slats dig into his back from behind and someone's sitting on top of his legs. The pungent tang of copper and stagnant water sting his nostrils. A chorus of toads croak somewhere around him and the temperature slowly drops as he drifts along with these strangers.

Splish, splash, splish, splash.

A sliver of light penetrates the darkness and a woman's face peers down at him. Her mouth twists into a grimace and she reaches down to pinch a hunk of Naru's cheek.

It stings. Stop it.

"I didn't mean to muss him up so much, I swear! He just…" She pauses to bite her painted lip. "He appeared on the road out of nowhere! It's like he wanted to get run over or something!"

"Tch. Thanks to your carelessness, we weren't able to interrogate him properly before he croaked," replies the second party, possessing a deep, masculine voice. "Cover his face, will ya? He's givin' me the creeps."

Gulping hard, the woman quickly throws the tarp over his face again. "C-Can we dump him now? I'm getting antsy."

"Fine, fine. Just help me lift him," says the man. "Those damn bricks make him a lot heavier than he actually is."

A foreign ache fills him as his body rises from the uneven surface. He teeters in someone's grip like dangling over the edge of a cliff and then –

SPLASH!

There are no more voices. No more faded lights or faint breezes.

It's cold, freezing even. Pressure crowds around him from all sides and tears little fissures into the tarp protecting him. Thick, inky tendrils worm through the cracks and force the tarp open entirely. Bubbles rise from where his breath should be and his gaping mouth inhales nothing but frigid water instead. It fills him from the inside-out, crowds his throat and bursts into his lungs and –

"Naru!" Lin's powerful voice comes crashing through his dream and shatters the hallucination. "What's wrong?!"

Naru thrashes around the bed like a beached fish, his eyes wide and his mouth gaping. Dry air is all that fills his mouth and it's not nearly enough. He tries to scream, tries to explain what's going on, but nothing but a hoarse grunt escapes his throat. Lin climbs over top of him and lifts him off the bed slightly, supporting his weight with one arm around his shoulders.

"Can't you speak at all?!"

Tears fill Naru's eyes and spring desperately forth as he makes a waving motion with the one arm that Lin doesn't have pinned down. He gasps some more and Lin almost drops him back on the mattress with the horror of his realization.

He's drowning.

The grimmer portions of Gene's demise, the ones his brain apparently blocked earlier that afternoon, are surfacing with disastrous results. Lin shakes him by the shoulders again, calls out to him, recites a mantra, slaps him, and does all he can but nothing seems to snap Naru out of his trance.

And then, very abruptly, Naru's body goes limper than a boneless fish.

"My God…" Lin lays him down on the bed and pulls one of his eyelids back delicately, wincing to find his eyes rolled back into his head. "No, no…Don't, Naru! Wake up!"

Nothing. The boy remains in his limp position on the bed.

"He needs to breathe again."

Lin frantically looks up. There's no one else in the room beside Naru and himself.

"Breathe for him."

Gritting his teeth, Lin obeys the subconscious voice echoing at the back of his mind without a second thought. He places his hands palm-down on Naru's chest and starts pumping hard.

"Naru?"

Pinching the boy's nose, he leans down and fixes his mouth over Naru's, breathing into him. It takes a few more rounds of chest compressions and rescue breathing to bring the boy around. Naru convulses in Lin's arms and coughs up what seems to be water onto Lin's button-down shirt. Tears fall from his eyes and he grips Lin's arms to steady himself.

"Are you all right?" Lin asks quietly, trying to regain composure himself. "Calm down. You're safe now." He wraps his arms around the boy and grips the back of his head with one hand in an attempt to soothe him. "Was it Gene?"

Naru offers a vague nod. "W-Why, though?" he pants, crushing the fabric of Lin's shirt between white-knuckled fingers. "He was already dead when they dumped him into the lake. I shouldn't have…"

"You underestimated the connection you shared with him," Lin says with a gentle huff. "It only intensified when you made contact with his corpse."

"Tell him that I'm sorry."

Lin's head snaps up again. "Don't fault him for it."

"I can't," rasps Naru, clinging to Lin as he tries to sit up on his own. "I'm the one who touched him."

"Take care of him for me. Protect him."

"There's more to this than a simple hit-and-run, isn't there?" Lin pulls Naru away from the comfort of his chest and holds him a few inches in front of himself. "You'll get to the bottom of it eventually."

Naru shivers and catches a glimpse of his instructor-turned-guardian's gaze, shying away from it almost immediately. "There's no need to state the obvious."

"At least you're all right," Lin says with a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, slight and subdued.

"This little episode is to be kept strictly between us," barks Naru at length, shuffling around on the bed but unable to find his footing so he settles for lying back in Lin's arms again. "Lin?"

The onmyouji simply nods. "I wouldn't tell anyone even if they were to ask about it."

Naru heaves a breath of fresh, night air pouring in from the open window of the cabin and relaxes finally. Lin's arms slowly wrap around his waist from behind and settle in his lap.

"And Lin…"

"Yes?" answers Lin, peering down at his charge and meeting his eyes as Naru cranes his head back to look up at him.

"Thank you."