And They Were Roommates

Nightmare

word count: 848 || Hakuba & Kuroba (bonus scene with Hattori) || angst & comfort (bonus humour)

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Saguru woke up with the feeling that something was wrong. When you've been a detective that deals with the occasional homicide and one Kuroba Kaito, for as long as he has, it's a beneficial sense to have. He quickly began to understand what was wrong when he heard the ragged breathing of his roommate coming from the bed on the other side of their bedroom. In the dim glow of the street light outside the apartment that shone through the curtains of the window, Saguru could make out Kuroba sitting up with his fists curled up in his sheets. The detective slowly sat up as dark blue eyes, that seemed to glow with the way they reflected the light, turned towards him.

That damned poker face smile appeared, wiping away that stricken look of fear as Kuroba attempted to steady his breathing. Saguru's worry was joined by a small spike of anger. Even after becoming close friends, Kuroba's first response was still to hide his pain. Well it's not like Saguru couldn't understand why, but it still hurt.

So as he usually did when Kuroba had a nightmare, the blond simply slipped out of his bed to sit next to the brunet. "Kuroba, do you wish to talk about it?"
Only the sound of much steadier breathing.
"It's alright if you don't, I just thought it might help." Sometimes he would talk about his nightmares and sometimes he just needed someone to be next to so that he could calm down.
Laying down on his back next to Kuroba, he pat the empty space by his head, "Come on, I'll wait with you until you fall asleep."
Saguru received a blank stare before he was joined.
A few moments of tense silence. Then the magician's hands slowly released their grip on the sheets, "It was another nightmare," Kuroba's quiet words broke the silence, "I saw the night dad died and I heard that bastard's laugh."
Grabbing the shaking hand, Saguru gave it a comforting squeeze.
"But this time the nightmare didn't end there, Snake started to kill everyone." Kuroba drew in a shaky breath, "Mom, Aoko, Inspector Nakamori, Jii-chan.You."
The hand had thankfully stopped shaking and turned around in the hold to squeeze back.
"Not to worry, I can assure you that those scum are all locked away in prison. We saw to it ourselves. Not to mention none of us plan on performing an escape trick any time soon. We'll leave that up to our favourite magician."
"I know, I don't need to be told that."
"But it's still nice to hear others affirm it."
Saguru could feel Kuroba take a deep breath and exhale slowly, "You're right Hakuba. As usual."
A small chuckle from the detective, "Of course Kuro-san, you do know how much I enjoy it."
This managed to get a chuckle in reply, "Right, of course. What else did I expect from Haku-san."

A more peaceful moment of silence, Saguru thought Kuroba may have slipped back into sleep and started to do so himself.

"It did help, I feel better."
He turned on his side to face the brit with a small and genuine smile, causing the blond head to turn towards him in attention.

"Thank you Saguru." this time those deep blue eyes slid shut, "Goodnight." Kuroba muttered.
He returned the soft smile, "You're welcome Kaito, goodnight."

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The next morning Heiji got back from his early morning kendou practice to find the apartment still dark and silent.

That's odd, usually the punctual blond would be up and about sipping his tea after his nutritionally balanced breakfast, while browsing the newspaper or going over a case file or class notes.

That's right, the time obsessed nerd mentioned having a break to rest this weekend. But Heiji never thought he'd see the day Hakuba Saguru would sleep in. Not even a cold kept the prim detective from his morning routine.
Well this just meant that Hakuba would have plenty of time to grumble at him and go back to catching up on sleep, it was the perfect opportunity to prank him. Even if he had plenty of opportunities in the past, before leaving for his morning practices, Heiji was also a famous detective and knew what it was like to be tired from working cases afterall, he wasn't a total jerk despite what seemed to be Hakuba's first impression of him.

Snickering, the Osakan pulled out his smartphone to start recording as he approached his roommates' bedroom. Flinging open the door, he gave a shout of "OI HAKUBA!" pausing to snicker, "Wake up sleepy head!!"

But Heiji was surprised to find Hakuba's bed empty, instead he turned, looking over to see the blond lying asleep in Kuroba's bed as said owner raised his head of messy hair to grumble, "Hattori? What the hell man?"
The detective of the west didn't miss the way their hands were holding each other.
Heiji didn't bother responding except for an "oooohhhhh!!" as he booked it out of there while grinning at the still filming camera.