Title: Asleep/Awake
Author: P.R. Zed
Theme #4: Intimacy
Rating: PG
Word Count: 200
Asleep
Doyle was trapped in a crushing dream of light and noise and unremitting pain. He tried to scream, but instead came awake, uncertain of where he was.
"Ray?" Bodie's hand brushed his shoulder, stroked his cheek.
"Yeah?"
"All right?"
"Yeah."
And with Bodie there, he was. All right.
Doyle lay back down, his heart slowing and his breath deepening as Bodie caressed his back, then wrapped a firm arm around his chest. He drifted into sleep, Bodie's presence the surest safeguard he knew against his own demons. Bodie, the only other person who understood what terrors haunted a warrior's dreams.
Awake
Bodie propped himself up on one elbow and watched over Doyle, ready to wake him if another nightmare struck, ready to cosset him back to sleep if the need arose.
Well, he thought. When the fuck had that happened?
When had Doyle wormed his way so completely into his life? When had standing guard over the stroppy sod's sleep become a sacred duty he gladly performed?
When had he gone so soft that these moments of being so trusted, so needed by another human being, by Ray, meant more than the fucking, more than the friendship, more than absolutely anything?