Nikto doesn't do anything by halves, so really, Krueger should have expected this. Nightmares long since graduated into night terrors, limp hits made more precise, more painful. All those years of training, all that time being tortured, resulting in him being just as deadly asleep as he was awake - if not more. And really, the Austrian should have expected it, because it was Nikto, and it was him, and he might have warned him about it before they'd fallen asleep in a huddle but Krueger had merely shrugged it off as just one of those things people exaggerated about.
Yeah, turns out Nikto hadn't been exaggerating, and he now had the bruises to prove it. Dark spots blossoming across his arms and ribs already, and the taste of blood in his mouth. His own hands pinned to the sides as he'd had to resort to other means to waking him - read: kicking the Russian hard enough to give him momentary dead-leg.
It'd worked like a fucking charm, and now along with the bruises and the blood, he's rewarded with frighteningly blue eyes focused on him with sudden and new, sleepy clarity. Ruined lips twisted in something unpleasant and unsure. Awkward...
"Has anyone told you that you snore?" Krueger tells Nikto, quite seriously. Like he hasn't just been woken by his first good night rest in a while with violence and the stench of fear. Like his teeth aren't tinted red and his tongue isn't swelling from how hard he'd accidentally bitten it. "Like, really fucking loud. Should get that checked out."
[ scream ] for one muse to wake up because the other is having a nightmare
Sleep didn’t come easily to the Russian. This was doubly true of tandem sleeping. For lots of people, the warmth of another body next to them may come as a comfort, a loved one to share in the charge of protection. To Bogdan, it was only another threat. No one was to be trusted. He’d been proven time and time again that eventually, everyone betrayed one another. It was a waiting game. Sleep was a perfect time to take someone out. It was the perfect opportunity to catch someone unawares.
He’d done his best to caution Sebastian, and the man had insisted. They’d graduated to co-sleeping! It was a new level to whatever they were. The Austrian had insisted on it being perfectly okay. He’d insisted he could handle it. Nikto had agreed, though begrudgingly, to at least give it a chance. Despite his misgivings, too, he’d drifted into slumber with relative ease. A night didn’t pass without nightmares for him, though. His waking hours occupied with worry translated to nights filled with the memories of the source of said worry.
The jolt awake was jarring; it was frightening. One moment he was in a cell under Mr.Z’s mercy, next he’s staring down a bloodied Krueger. Tired eyes half-lid, narrowed sharply as he tries to make sense of what’s going on. The statement stands to confirm his assumption. It was exactly as he’d predicted. He’d lashed out. “We don’t snore,” the statement is flat. He’d told him this would happen. He rolls off of the other man, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “We said this would happen.” Try as he might to mask the guilt in his tone, it was futile.