Take My Mask, I'm Home

this looks real, this is real, i wish it was real

Sometime in the middle of the night, Lisa woke up. Groggily, she opened her eyes and wondered why she was awake. Nothing in particular seemed to have woken her up, no bright lights, leg cramps, or anything else untoward.

Groping for her phone, she winced when the bright screen shone in her eyes. It was 4:47am, and Lisa shoved her phone back onto the nightstand. She settled back down against her pillow and turned over to face-

Jennie.

Jennie was fast asleep, only inches from her face, breathing softly into Lisa's pillow. Somehow, she'd rolled over in the bed, bringing most of the blankets towards Lisa. One of her hands was underneath the pillow, and Lisa belatedly realized that she was almost on the edge of the bed. One more movement would probably send her to falling to the floor in a heap.

Lisa lay there and blearily considered what to do. She could push Jennie back onto her own side of the bed, but she might wake up and wonder what was happening. She could fall noisily out of bed, which would wake Jennie up, and she would just move back to her side on her own. Climbing out of bed and sleeping on the sofa was a possibility, but that would negate the whole reason they were sleeping in the bed together in the first place. She lay there, paralyzed with indecision.

Next to her, Jennie snuffled in her sleep, stretched a little, and inched closer to Lisa. Lisa absolutely did not mind being this close to Jennie, but there were only two outcomes for this. One, Lisa fell out of bed, which she definitely didn't want to do. Or two, Jennie slept on top of her. Even in her half-asleep state, Lisa's heart leapt at the thought. But, if that was going to happen, she'd prefer it if they'd led up to that, awake. She'd like it if she opened her arms and Jennie snuggled into her, found the perfect comfy place on her chest, and they'd fallen asleep tangled together.

Finally, it clicked in her mind. If Jennie was on her side of the bed, then she could sleep on Jennie's. Slowly, trying not to jerk the blankets and wake Jennie, Lisa started to swing her legs out of bed, but either Jennie was a really light sleeper, or the movement was too sudden, because the next thing she knew, Jennie was awake.

"Lisa?" she mumbled, her voice heavy with sleep. "What, uh- what's happening?" She pulled her hand out from under Lisa's pillow and punctuated her words with a crashing yawn.

"Nothing," Lisa whispered, startling slightly when Jennie raised herself up suddenly.

"What 'm I doing over here?" she asked.

Lisa chucked under her breath. "I don't know. But you're about to push me out of bed."

"God, sorry," Jennie said, sounding much more awake and shifting herself backwards and making room for Lisa again. "Not sure how, um, how that happened," she added. She reached for Lisa with one hand, sleepy fingers pulling gently at her shirt. "Come back over here."

Lisa moved back towards the middle of the bed, careful not to crush Jennie's hand as she did so. Once she was no longer in danger of falling off, she settled back against the mattress, flat on her back. Beside her, Jennie was partially sitting up and rearranging the blankets, which she'd somehow managed to keep mostly to herself in another impression of a Jennie-burrito.

Lisa sat up again and shuffled closer to her so that it would be easier to help Jennie put the blankets back. When they were back to normal, Lisa flopped back down, closely followed by Jennie. She lay on her back, listening to Jennie making herself comfortable again. Finally, Jennie turned over to face Lisa, moving closer until her knees curled up and gently touched Lisa's thighs.

"Goodnight," came Jennie's soft voice in the dark.

Lisa turned over to face her too. "'night, Jennie."