[attr="class","NoahLpostingbox"][break]
It was strange, to be living with someone.[break][break]
Noah had shared spaces before of course (with family, university flatmates, not-girlfriends and not-boyfriends) but no one had stayed for so long in his own
home. A place of residence he’d bought himself and considered far more permanent.[break][break]
Admittedly he’d been tense in the beginning, wary of attack, disgruntled by the thought of someone poking around and using his things, but the whole ‘payback’ aspect made up for it. And Seth, he found, was a more than tolerable person when she wasn’t trying to fight him. Not at all as burdensome a guest as he’d originally assumed.[break][break]
It was actually quite
nice to have someone waiting for him when he got home. To have meals together and talk about whatever popped into their heads. For him to lounge on the couch, growing flowers and watching them wind around his fingers, his arms, while Seth watched TV or read something. He was getting better with her gift by the day. Faster. Increasingly detailed and more precise. Not as good as her, but that was a given.[break][break]
The only real problem came at night.[break][break]
He laid flat on his bed in his pitch-black room, eyes closed as he sought sleep. The walls of his home, though thick, did not prevent him from hearing the whimpering across the hallway. The rustling of sheets as Seth tossed and turned.[break][break]
It wasn’t the first time she’d kept him up and he resigned himself to his usual ‘routine’ when the disturbance started. He huffed to himself. Did some tossing and turning of his own. Squished a pillow over his ears. But he couldn’t sleep, far too used to the silence of West Hook and perhaps subconsciously put on alert by the sounds of fear, and though he would usually just wait it out, just ignore her until she quieted and he could finally find slumber, this time he was too tired to simply hope she would stop.[break][break]
With another huff he flung off his duvet and marched across the hall to her room, ready to smack the light switch on and tell her she was being annoying. Instead, he loitered in the doorway, frowning through the dark at the faint outline of her beneath the sheets.[break][break]
“Hey,” he called out softly. While it would be funny to see her flail around and fall out of the bed, he found he didn’t want to jolt her out of sleep that harshly.
“Wake up.”[break][break]
It didn’t seem to work.[break][break]
After a moment of hesitation he moved towards her, pausing once more at the bed's edge before deciding to perch on it.[break][break]
“Seth,” he tried again, and reached out to give her a small shake.
“Hey, wake up, you’re having a bad dream.”[break][break]
She stilled, her breathing slowing, but not in a way to suggest she’d regained consciousness. Maybe he’d been able to pull her from the dream, maybe she would be fine now… But he was only three steps away from his room when she started up again.[break][break]
He groaned, pressing his palms into his eyes. Was this what it was like to have a baby? Or a little sister that had somehow become his responsibility rather than his parents’?[break][break]
Probably.[break][break]
Turning back felt like somewhat of a defeat, but not as much as falling back into his own bed would have been. It seemed that she might simply need someone
there for a while. Like a kid in need of a safety blanket. But he couldn’t exactly slip under the covers with her (that would be
way too creepy), so he lay on the side of the bed she’d left empty, on top of the duvet, and glared at the ceiling for a bit.[break][break]
Though he told himself he was doing it for purely selfish reasons – doing it because he wanted to sleep without making her think less of him – it both irritated and baffled to consider the alternative; that he might have grown a
teensy bit softer over the past year. Likely Belle’s fault.[break][break]
He sighed. It didn't bear thinking about. He’d just… wait there for a bit. Then sneak back to his room once he was sure she was well and truly settled. He’d simply rest his eyes in the meantime.[break][break]
---
[break]
A voice pulled him out of sleep. Familiar, but not in the context of lying in bed, and it took him a second to remember why he wasn’t tucked under his duvet. Oh. Right.
Seth.[break][break]
It was still dark (dark enough that he couldn’t make out her expression clearly) but a touch lighter than he remembered it being when he’d first entered the room. Perhaps the sun was rising. Lightening the sky but not quite broaching the horizon yet.[break][break]
“Hey.” His greeting was a grumble, deep and thick with sleep as his heavy eyes fell shut again. He shifted, discovering his arm was slung over her, and quickly retracted it with an inward wince.
“Sorry. Clingy sleeper.” It could have been worse, honestly. At least he hadn’t
completely wrapped around her, a leg thrown over hers like a particularly heavy blanket or a bar to hold her down, as was his modus operandi.[break][break]
“You were dreaming again,” he explained,
“I tried to wake you up but it didn't work and, well, you seemed to chill out when I was in the room.” That made sense, right? There was logic to it? Not that it hugely mattered if she didn’t understand and decided he was a creep, but it would be a shame to have undone all that hard work gaining her friendship.[break][break]
He lifted his head to squint over at the alarm clock. Groaned and flopped back against the pillow when he saw only a couple of hours had passed. He’d thought for certain that she would sleep through the rest of the night.
“It’s so early,” he complained. Then reconsidered if that was really a bad thing.
“At least this means we can sleep a bit longer.” He was not ready to get up yet.[break][break]
But would she want to? Had she woken from another bad dream and decided she wasn’t willing to risk returning to it? Maybe she needed to talk it out to be able to settle, which would let
him settle.
“Is it… the same as before? Your nightmares?”[break][break]
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