HINABN, "Nightlight," Hanna/{...}, PG
This fic does not exist. I did not write it while at work.
That said! I was talking to my girl Pocky today, and she said she thought it'd be a little creepy to have glowing orange eyes floating at the foot of her bed (I gotta agree there, gaaaah) and SpookMouse wrote that awesome line about {...} answering something Hanna said with a blink, light flickering off and on for just a second (so cool) and I just thought that was all kinds of win. I was at work at the time and really just didn't feel like doing work for twenty or so minutes, so I wrote this story, let it simmer, then came home and finished it up. It's not porn, it's loving sap in the way we should all recognize by now as Hanna/{...}ish, so enjoy the hell out of it, please, it was written with everyone's enjoyment in mind.
Nightlight
by mistr3ss Quickly
So yeah, it freaked him out at first. A little. Kind of. Barely.
Okay totally, but that's not the point. The point is that that was at first. Way back when. Back before. Y'know. Stuff happened.
No, he can't tell Oswald what stuff that is. Can't keep from blushing about it either because he's just like that - damn pale skin - but that's okay because Oswald is worried about him and gets pretty single-minded about making things better when he's worried.
Which shouldn't be cute but it is. In that oh-what-a-cute-undead-guy kind of way.
A-ny-way. It's not a big deal, doesn't matter at all, because he doesn't wake up in the night and kind of - barely - freak out over the glowing orange eyes watching him from the foot of his bed (mattress). He doesn't end up crying out like a startled 9-year-old girl when the eyes come closer. Doesn't not hear Oswald's voice (so heavy with concern, it breaks his heart now to think that he's the one who caused that tone) saying his name, asking him if something's wrong.
Nothing's wrong. Nothing was wrong. Just Hanna being stupid, that's what he tells Oswald. Stupid and immature and haha, he used to wet the bed when he was ... well, too old to wet the bed, really, because he had nightmares, so it's nothing new, really.
And isn't that just exactly what he wanted Oswald to know about him. Christ.
But back to the issue at hand, he's pretty sure he fucked up, being a wimpy little girl about sleeping without a nightlight (like he could keep doing that with someone hanging around to see it, jeez) and yeah, maybe it had a little bit of something to do with the fact that he was sleeping with a zombie at the foot of his bed (not that Oswald's really a zombie, not in the horror-movie-zombie kind of way), and now he's stuck with Oswald sitting on the other side of the office/apartment/whatever whenever he sleeps and damnit, he misses him. Wants him back where he was.
Because. Um.
"Are you all right?" Caius says, quietly. Probably because Hanna's blushing. Again.
Damnit.
"I'm fine," he lies. "Your turn."
Because playing Scrabble at bedtime means he's got Caius there for a while, at least, close for a while, sitting on the bed with him for a while which is so cool and makes him have all kinds of thoughts he probably shouldn't have, especially not when he's sitting around in his boxers like he is, jeez. And man, for a guy with no memory Caius is good at Scrabble, probably because he sits up all night and reads on the other side of the apartment goddamnit instead of spending his free time watching whatever new action movie the library had on DVD. Makes for fun times, though, even though Hanna loses miserably every night, because Caius gives him lots of smiles to add to his list, and that almost makes up for the fact that he's not there anymore when Hanna wakes up in the morning.
Because Hanna's a wimp. Damnit.
"So, um, I was thinking," Hanna says, tagging a C-L-E-R-Y around the E in Caius' E-X-O-R-C-I-S-M, probably the biggest word he's made all week, even if it's not a very impressive word. "You read a lot while you're not sleeping, huh."
Caius glances up at him. Blinks. The glow of his eyes isn't as noticeable when the lights are on (even though the light's kind of dim in Hanna's apartment, his latest attempt to keep the electric bill down where he can wrangle it every month). Isn't scary at all. Quite the contrary, actually.
"Yes," he says.
Hanna grins. "So I was thinking maybe you could read out loud sometimes," he says, replacing his tiles from the pool of tiles in the lid of the box. He gets a blank tile. Awesome. So much potential there. "'Cause seriously, I gotta learn some new words or something. Other than by losing at Scrabble all the time, haha."
"We can play something else, if you'd like," Caius says, cool times ten.
Not what Hanna was going for at all.
"Nah, I like it," he says. "I just thought ... nevermind."
He totally doesn't have anything to play on Caius' Q-U-A-D-R-U-P-L-E. Wastes his blank tile making P-I-Z-Z-A on the A. Damnit.
"I can read to you," Caius says after his next turn (he makes W-H-I-P out of Hanna's P-I-Z-Z-A, totally a pity shot). "If you'd like."
Hanna doesn't care about the pity shot. Doesn't care that he's probably blushing like a schoolgirl again. "Sweet," he says. "Thanks."
~*~*~*~
Okay so it's not as scary as he was expecting, turning out the lights (and not turning on his unicorn nightlight that he totally claimed wasn't his the first time he noticed Laertes looking at it). There's something nice about the glow of Laertes' eyes in the darkness, the way he can kind-of-almost-maybe see Laertes' expression, kind of hesitant maybe like when he's out sidekicking and isn't entirely sure he likes whatever Hanna's suggested (even though it's always totally fine, well mostly anyway). He's not smiling but he's not frowning, either, just kind of watching while Hanna stretches out on the mattress and pats the space beside him for Laertes to sit down and get comfy, stoops to take off his socks and shoes before sitting down, his weight making the mattress dip a little.
Not scary at all. Hanna curls up and closes his eyes, ridiculously happy when Laertes begins to read.
He's maybe kind of (totally) asleep when he has a nightmare (something he's dreamed before, a maze he's running through before he loses his footing and falls off the edge of the world, tumbling down into darkness full of feathers) that brings him very suddenly but not very fully awake, his body thrumming with adrenaline, heart pounding. He wakes to a cool hand on his shoulder, his name said gently in a comforting, familiar tone. Wakes to Laertes' eyes, glowing and concerned and so good, so ... so familiar that he doesn't think twice about reaching up and clinging, holding on, breathing the familiar scent of laundry detergent mixed with saddle-soap, big gentle hands holding him, patting his back.
"I'm sorry," he hears, close to his ear. "I didn't mean to startle you."
Which is dumb because it's not Laertes' fault Hanna's heart is still trying to push its way up his throat. Hanna tries to laugh but ends up just clinging some more (not because he's scared anymore, really, though that makes a pretty good excuse), ends up nuzzling some and cuddling, and when Laertes slides down and lies down next to him, stroking his back, well that's just fine too. Totally worth the nightmare (and the embarrassment of waking up crying, jeez).
Laertes' chest isn't soft but it's nice, it's sturdy, feels good under Hanna's cheek, smooth cotton and cool skin, moving in and out as he breathes (hey, he breathes, that is so cool). Hanna slips an arm around him, really cuddling now. Feels the dullness of sleep start to creep up on him, pulling at him almost immediately. Even though really, he'd rather stay awake just a bit longer, maybe. Savor this just a little more.
He's snoring instead of savoring when Laertes tries to pull away. Doesn't consciously tighten his grip, isn't aware that he whines until Laertes stops moving and goes back to stroking him. All he knows when it's morning and his bladder's dragging him to consciousness is that he's got his arms wrapped around someone and that someone's awake and watching him and he totally had another fucking nightmare at some point last night, how embarrassing, jeez, but he's got Laertes in his bed - in his bed - and that is just really awesome. Awesome.
"Good morning," Laertes says when he sees Hanna looking at him. His eyes don't glow so much now that there's light coming through the tiny window on the east wall of the apartment. Still look pretty neat, though. Definitely different. Not scary, though. Not scary at all.
Comforting, even. Maybe. Definitely.
"'Morning," Hanna says. Yawns. Reaches for his glasses, not because he really needs them, not when Laertes is so close, but because they're on the far side of Laertes' body, gives him an excuse to press himself against Laertes without being too obvious (mostly).
Laertes doesn't push him away. Waits for him to put on his glasses, blinks once when Hanna settles back down beside him.
"Did you sleep well?"
Hanna nods. His glasses get knocked askew where they bump against Laertes' chest. He should probably be embarrassed for holding onto Laertes like a big teddybear, but he can blame being half-asleep for that later if he has to. Not that he'd have to. Laertes' like the last person on earth to make fun of him or anyone else for anything.
"Thanks for, uh. Staying," he says. "After the nightmare."
There's a pause. Long enough that he looks up, sees those glowing orange eyes focused on him, Laertes' brow furrowed.
"You're welcome," Laertes says after a long moment. "I'm glad I could help."
~*~*~*~
It's a week of reading and cuddling and nightmares and orange eyes watching him all full of worry when he wakes up, followed by a week of reading and cuddling and nightmares and orange eyes and kissing before Osric asks flat-out if his presence has anything to do with Hanna's nightmares, which is kind of ridiculous because even if it did there's no way Hanna'd let him change anything about their current arrangement, no way Hanna'd let him go back to lurking on the other side of the apartment while he sleeps when he could be in Hanna's bed sucking on the tip of Hanna's tongue instead. But he asks like he means it and Hanna's good at lots of things but lying to those strange, glowing eyes isn't one of them so he shrugs and says maybe and goes back to kissing before his answer can do (or undo) anything about the situation he's damned happy with.
"Not anymore, though," he says when Osric stops kissing back like he means it. "Like it, now."
The smile he gets in answer has got to count for two smiles, it's so big. Maybe three.
"Good," Osric breathes against his lips, pulling him down and kissing him, really kissing him, the kind of kissing that makes him whimper like he's 10 and has a skinned knee, god. "I like it, too."
~*~
As always, points if you can figure out where I got the names.
That said! I was talking to my girl Pocky today, and she said she thought it'd be a little creepy to have glowing orange eyes floating at the foot of her bed (I gotta agree there, gaaaah) and SpookMouse wrote that awesome line about {...} answering something Hanna said with a blink, light flickering off and on for just a second (so cool) and I just thought that was all kinds of win. I was at work at the time and really just didn't feel like doing work for twenty or so minutes, so I wrote this story, let it simmer, then came home and finished it up. It's not porn, it's loving sap in the way we should all recognize by now as Hanna/{...}ish, so enjoy the hell out of it, please, it was written with everyone's enjoyment in mind.
Nightlight
by mistr3ss Quickly
So yeah, it freaked him out at first. A little. Kind of. Barely.
Okay totally, but that's not the point. The point is that that was at first. Way back when. Back before. Y'know. Stuff happened.
No, he can't tell Oswald what stuff that is. Can't keep from blushing about it either because he's just like that - damn pale skin - but that's okay because Oswald is worried about him and gets pretty single-minded about making things better when he's worried.
Which shouldn't be cute but it is. In that oh-what-a-cute-undead-guy kind of way.
A-ny-way. It's not a big deal, doesn't matter at all, because he doesn't wake up in the night and kind of - barely - freak out over the glowing orange eyes watching him from the foot of his bed (mattress). He doesn't end up crying out like a startled 9-year-old girl when the eyes come closer. Doesn't not hear Oswald's voice (so heavy with concern, it breaks his heart now to think that he's the one who caused that tone) saying his name, asking him if something's wrong.
Nothing's wrong. Nothing was wrong. Just Hanna being stupid, that's what he tells Oswald. Stupid and immature and haha, he used to wet the bed when he was ... well, too old to wet the bed, really, because he had nightmares, so it's nothing new, really.
And isn't that just exactly what he wanted Oswald to know about him. Christ.
But back to the issue at hand, he's pretty sure he fucked up, being a wimpy little girl about sleeping without a nightlight (like he could keep doing that with someone hanging around to see it, jeez) and yeah, maybe it had a little bit of something to do with the fact that he was sleeping with a zombie at the foot of his bed (not that Oswald's really a zombie, not in the horror-movie-zombie kind of way), and now he's stuck with Oswald sitting on the other side of the office/apartment/whatever whenever he sleeps and damnit, he misses him. Wants him back where he was.
Because. Um.
"Are you all right?" Caius says, quietly. Probably because Hanna's blushing. Again.
Damnit.
"I'm fine," he lies. "Your turn."
Because playing Scrabble at bedtime means he's got Caius there for a while, at least, close for a while, sitting on the bed with him for a while which is so cool and makes him have all kinds of thoughts he probably shouldn't have, especially not when he's sitting around in his boxers like he is, jeez. And man, for a guy with no memory Caius is good at Scrabble, probably because he sits up all night and reads on the other side of the apartment goddamnit instead of spending his free time watching whatever new action movie the library had on DVD. Makes for fun times, though, even though Hanna loses miserably every night, because Caius gives him lots of smiles to add to his list, and that almost makes up for the fact that he's not there anymore when Hanna wakes up in the morning.
Because Hanna's a wimp. Damnit.
"So, um, I was thinking," Hanna says, tagging a C-L-E-R-Y around the E in Caius' E-X-O-R-C-I-S-M, probably the biggest word he's made all week, even if it's not a very impressive word. "You read a lot while you're not sleeping, huh."
Caius glances up at him. Blinks. The glow of his eyes isn't as noticeable when the lights are on (even though the light's kind of dim in Hanna's apartment, his latest attempt to keep the electric bill down where he can wrangle it every month). Isn't scary at all. Quite the contrary, actually.
"Yes," he says.
Hanna grins. "So I was thinking maybe you could read out loud sometimes," he says, replacing his tiles from the pool of tiles in the lid of the box. He gets a blank tile. Awesome. So much potential there. "'Cause seriously, I gotta learn some new words or something. Other than by losing at Scrabble all the time, haha."
"We can play something else, if you'd like," Caius says, cool times ten.
Not what Hanna was going for at all.
"Nah, I like it," he says. "I just thought ... nevermind."
He totally doesn't have anything to play on Caius' Q-U-A-D-R-U-P-L-E. Wastes his blank tile making P-I-Z-Z-A on the A. Damnit.
"I can read to you," Caius says after his next turn (he makes W-H-I-P out of Hanna's P-I-Z-Z-A, totally a pity shot). "If you'd like."
Hanna doesn't care about the pity shot. Doesn't care that he's probably blushing like a schoolgirl again. "Sweet," he says. "Thanks."
~*~*~*~
Okay so it's not as scary as he was expecting, turning out the lights (and not turning on his unicorn nightlight that he totally claimed wasn't his the first time he noticed Laertes looking at it). There's something nice about the glow of Laertes' eyes in the darkness, the way he can kind-of-almost-maybe see Laertes' expression, kind of hesitant maybe like when he's out sidekicking and isn't entirely sure he likes whatever Hanna's suggested (even though it's always totally fine, well mostly anyway). He's not smiling but he's not frowning, either, just kind of watching while Hanna stretches out on the mattress and pats the space beside him for Laertes to sit down and get comfy, stoops to take off his socks and shoes before sitting down, his weight making the mattress dip a little.
Not scary at all. Hanna curls up and closes his eyes, ridiculously happy when Laertes begins to read.
He's maybe kind of (totally) asleep when he has a nightmare (something he's dreamed before, a maze he's running through before he loses his footing and falls off the edge of the world, tumbling down into darkness full of feathers) that brings him very suddenly but not very fully awake, his body thrumming with adrenaline, heart pounding. He wakes to a cool hand on his shoulder, his name said gently in a comforting, familiar tone. Wakes to Laertes' eyes, glowing and concerned and so good, so ... so familiar that he doesn't think twice about reaching up and clinging, holding on, breathing the familiar scent of laundry detergent mixed with saddle-soap, big gentle hands holding him, patting his back.
"I'm sorry," he hears, close to his ear. "I didn't mean to startle you."
Which is dumb because it's not Laertes' fault Hanna's heart is still trying to push its way up his throat. Hanna tries to laugh but ends up just clinging some more (not because he's scared anymore, really, though that makes a pretty good excuse), ends up nuzzling some and cuddling, and when Laertes slides down and lies down next to him, stroking his back, well that's just fine too. Totally worth the nightmare (and the embarrassment of waking up crying, jeez).
Laertes' chest isn't soft but it's nice, it's sturdy, feels good under Hanna's cheek, smooth cotton and cool skin, moving in and out as he breathes (hey, he breathes, that is so cool). Hanna slips an arm around him, really cuddling now. Feels the dullness of sleep start to creep up on him, pulling at him almost immediately. Even though really, he'd rather stay awake just a bit longer, maybe. Savor this just a little more.
He's snoring instead of savoring when Laertes tries to pull away. Doesn't consciously tighten his grip, isn't aware that he whines until Laertes stops moving and goes back to stroking him. All he knows when it's morning and his bladder's dragging him to consciousness is that he's got his arms wrapped around someone and that someone's awake and watching him and he totally had another fucking nightmare at some point last night, how embarrassing, jeez, but he's got Laertes in his bed - in his bed - and that is just really awesome. Awesome.
"Good morning," Laertes says when he sees Hanna looking at him. His eyes don't glow so much now that there's light coming through the tiny window on the east wall of the apartment. Still look pretty neat, though. Definitely different. Not scary, though. Not scary at all.
Comforting, even. Maybe. Definitely.
"'Morning," Hanna says. Yawns. Reaches for his glasses, not because he really needs them, not when Laertes is so close, but because they're on the far side of Laertes' body, gives him an excuse to press himself against Laertes without being too obvious (mostly).
Laertes doesn't push him away. Waits for him to put on his glasses, blinks once when Hanna settles back down beside him.
"Did you sleep well?"
Hanna nods. His glasses get knocked askew where they bump against Laertes' chest. He should probably be embarrassed for holding onto Laertes like a big teddybear, but he can blame being half-asleep for that later if he has to. Not that he'd have to. Laertes' like the last person on earth to make fun of him or anyone else for anything.
"Thanks for, uh. Staying," he says. "After the nightmare."
There's a pause. Long enough that he looks up, sees those glowing orange eyes focused on him, Laertes' brow furrowed.
"You're welcome," Laertes says after a long moment. "I'm glad I could help."
~*~*~*~
It's a week of reading and cuddling and nightmares and orange eyes watching him all full of worry when he wakes up, followed by a week of reading and cuddling and nightmares and orange eyes and kissing before Osric asks flat-out if his presence has anything to do with Hanna's nightmares, which is kind of ridiculous because even if it did there's no way Hanna'd let him change anything about their current arrangement, no way Hanna'd let him go back to lurking on the other side of the apartment while he sleeps when he could be in Hanna's bed sucking on the tip of Hanna's tongue instead. But he asks like he means it and Hanna's good at lots of things but lying to those strange, glowing eyes isn't one of them so he shrugs and says maybe and goes back to kissing before his answer can do (or undo) anything about the situation he's damned happy with.
"Not anymore, though," he says when Osric stops kissing back like he means it. "Like it, now."
The smile he gets in answer has got to count for two smiles, it's so big. Maybe three.
"Good," Osric breathes against his lips, pulling him down and kissing him, really kissing him, the kind of kissing that makes him whimper like he's 10 and has a skinned knee, god. "I like it, too."
~*~
As always, points if you can figure out where I got the names.