Tomas sees Marcus having a nightmare wakes him and they sleep together for comfort
send me writing prompts bc i love dying
marcus has always slept in fits and starts; he pushes himself to the edge of exhaustion and back again, over again, dozes whilst tomas drives, nods off standing in line at the grocery store, lays out flat on the bed of the truck so that tomas can sleep on the bench in the front. sleeping under the stars, that’s never been so bad, and he was raised in the kind of cold that makes nights on the road positively cosy.
motels are much the same. marcus sleeps for one, two hours at a time, wakes up, stares into the dark, voided spaces just in front of his eyes. marcus has bad dreams, not prophetic ones, but even when he wakes with his heart racing he never wakes - loudly, or obtrusively. he’s always been glad of his quiet nightmares. what’s in his head, can stay there.
— which is why marcus lashes out, when tomas wakes him up in the middle of one of those supposedly quiet nightmares. tomas is just fast enough to avoid an entire arm to the face, before he re-appears, stiflingly close, hands on marcus’ shoulders. he’s saying something and it doesn’t get past the ringing in marcus’ ears, the rabbit of his pulse in his throat; coiled like a spring with tomas holding him down, it takes six long, gulping breaths for marcus to say, ‘ tomas, let me go. ’
he does.
marcus pushes himself upright, pulls the sheets down where they’re choking him. he doesn’t look at tomas so much as he looks through him, eyes pinpricking. before marcus can say anything, ask anything, on the opposite bed where he’s now perching tomas splays his hands and says, ‘ you were talking. ’ in the wake of marcus’ confused blink, he elaborates, ‘ you were telling someone, something to stop. i didn’t mean to scare you. you just seemed ... distressed? ’
the finer points of the nightmare are already fading. this suits marcus, who revisits enough in his waking hours that revisiting dreams has never been on his agenda. ‘ gabriel, ’ he says, a lie told by way of explanation, and though tomas’ brow creases, he doesn’t needle the point. thank you, marcus thinks. he knows he’s transparent, half the time, and - he doesn’t think tomas is stupid, or that tomas can’t tell when marcus is lying to spare himself. gabriel is just obvious, something tomas already knows. maybe someday i’ll tell you everything i’ve ever dreamed about. but not tonight.
— today, even. this morning. it’s dawning light filtering through cheap blinds, not the blue of evening.
when the dream is gone, all that’s left is the fear, unusually paralysing. marcus doesn’t know how or where to move, elbows locked, back already starting to ache from the way he’s sat. it’s tomas who figures it out, who stands up and, before marcus can protest any differently, is pulling his hands up where they’re bunched in the sheets, touching his neck, his shoulders, and marcus’ breath catches in an ugly way in his throat to realise tomas is doing all the things for him, that marcus would do for him, in the same situation.
right down to the way that, when marcus has turned on his side, oppressive sheets kicked off the single bed entirely, tomas very carefully lies down behind him. at first marcus can tell he’s laying on his back, probably staring at the ceiling the way he does when he’s having a good think about anything. marcus doesn’t want to ask. he prays, with half-closed eyes, that he doesn’t have to.
as though right on cue, the weight on the mattress shifts. marcus holds his breath when tomas tucks up against him, his front pressing along marcus’ back. his arm slings across marcus’ waist, warm hand covering still-rabbity heart. marcus lets that breath go. tomas must feel the rise and fall of his chest with it.
marcus falls asleep with his head on tomas’ other arm. not for long, but he does sleep.
