Dreamlessly, Bradley sleeps for — how long? No longer than an hour, surely, before Bradley's stirring at the sound of Hyde swearing, something Bradley slept through before but is now drowsily alerted by. He blinks, but with the bough of sleep now broken, he's half-asleep and unable to speak, and he's half-worried and half-bewildered that he's unable to speak (how deep had he been sleeping?) and wholly worried that Hyde's awake and on alert.
But Hyde's hand is tucking a lock of Bradley's hair behind his ear, is tracing Bradley's cheekbone around the edges of the bruising, and Bradley's eyelids become heavier and heavier, eyelashes fluttering. And, finally, no longer fighting, he's asleep again.
And it's then that Bradley dreams in a blur of delirium, domesticity, and dread. Dreams of memories with Hyde. (Drinking beer at a bar in downtown New York, Bradley's thigh against Hyde's and smiling. Hyde, haloed in the low light, smiling back, and Bradley laughing at how beautiful Hyde is and how ridiculous of a thought that is.) Dreams of false memories with Hyde, flashes of fooling around with Hyde that would render Bradley flushed and flustered — and having to hide in the bathroom for fifteen minutes — if it hadn't been so fleeting, because Bradley's in a warehouse with Nile, now, a nightmare Bradley isn't able to wake up from and a nightmare that doesn't end as soon as the dreams before. Even while sleeping, Bradley isn't able to escape from Nile. And with every nightmare of Nile, and he's imagined it all, it's as if it's the first time: it's fucking terrifying.
Hyde being there, though, in the warehouse in the Bronx that Bradley dreams of time and time again, is new. Tied down in a dark and dank warehouse with a molar missing and some teeth loose, drenched wet with sweat, with water, with blood and bleach, and trembling from the cold. Hyde's in the corner of the warehouse but too blurred and too distorted in the half-blind dark. He tries to call out to Hyde but a hand seizes his throat from behind and —
Hyde being there, in bed with Bradley, as Bradley starts awake, though, is also new.
It's still dark. The digital clock sitting on the nightstand reads four forty-five in the morning. The sun won't be rising for another hour and a half, and Bradley's strangely relieved. Strangely relieved, strangely safe, and, beyond strangely, beneath the weight of half of Hyde's body and soothed by it. Hyde's head is against his chest, against his surely racing heart, and Hyde's all but crushing him, and he's embracing him, resting his head against his, and he's still shaking but not as badly as before. Hyde breathes in, and Bradley breathes out. Hyde breathes out, and Bradley breathes in. With a hand trailing up and down, up and down, Hyde's clothed back and to the steady sound of Hyde's even breathing, Bradley, again blaming teary eyes on exhaustion, is lulled into and slips back into a state of blissful, unemotional sleep.
(Ever so slightly, he's still trembling.)
The third time that Bradley's startled from sleep, it's the morning, ten thirty in the morning, and Hyde's not in bed but is standing by the table near the bed. He's still tired, but not so tired that he's having to fight too terribly hard to not fall back asleep. He's still tired, though, and he's starving, too, and thirsty, three days of minimal water and protein bars finally hitting and hitting hard. "Hey," he says, moaning in pain and in reluctance as he pushes himself up and into a sitting position in bed. Hyde's haloed in the morning sunlight, spilling into the hotel room from the window and highlighting Hyde's mousy brown hair into bronzes and almost golds, and Bradley smiles slightly, sleepily, at the sight. "You been awake for long?" He blinks away sleep, scrubs his face with his hand. It's domestic, so domestic that he almost forgets why they're there.
"... We should order breakfast or something, by the way."
But he's too damned hungry to be bothered by it.
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