gt oneshots

laugh

She woke up to crying.
     The distant noise barely registered in her foggy brain at first. Her thoughts were muddled by sleep and Heath wasn't the first thing to come to mind.
     Still she rose out of bed and found her slippers by the nightstand, putting them on before she made the trek down the hall. It was way too early for this. Late? Briar hadn't checked the clock before she got up, but it was still dark outside. She could still see the stars from her window.
     She followed the noise into the kitchen until it finally clicked in her fuzzy, sleep-ridden mind. Who else would the sound be coming from? It had to be Heath.
     This wasn't really that strange of an occurrence. She'd walked in on the little borrower crying at least a dozen times before. He was just kind of emotional that way. Any slip-up left the tiny boy in tears. It had become Briar's job to find him whenever it happened, even though he always looked timid as she approached. It just took a bit of coaxing and he always let her come to him in the end, no matter how unnerved he looked by her presence.
     Briar had always been gentle and sort of motherly by nature. That was just her. But with Heath, sometimes it felt like no amount of coddling was enough. He still looked scared of her each time she approached. Nervous, like she was a stranger.
     By now Briar had gotten used to this. He must've been mistreated or hurt by someone in the past, and she couldn't really force him to open up. Maybe he would when he was ready. Maybe he wouldn't. Either way, she liked the little borrower's company. He was cute, always fiddling with the hem of his shirt or his tiny borrowing bag. He would cling onto her fingers or grasp onto her sleeves when she held him, and his voice barely ever raised above a whisper.
     It was precious. He was precious.
     When she walked into the kitchen and flipped the light on, there he was. Sitting on the counter with his back to her, sulking. As the lights came on he turned to face her. His eyes were big and watery and rimmed with red. He'd been crying for a while.
     Briar smiled a little, subconsciously pushing her hair back. It was always a mess when she woke up, despite her wearing a headband to bed every night.
     He didn't move at all, just clutched his borrowing bag a little tighter and stared up at her. She took a hesitant step forward, not wanting to chase him off. When he still didn't move, she walked over to the counter and kneeled down beside it, tilting her head a little as the light caught on his tiny tears. She wanted to brush them away.
     "Are you okay?" She rested her hand on the counter beside him, feeling better when he didn't flinch or try to move away.
     "Did I wake you up?" He whispered, clasping his hands together. He started to rub them together, knuckles turning white as his hands formed tiny fists. A nervous tic of his, one of many.
     Briar gently steadied his hands between two of her fingers, giving him a soft look when he flinched away from the contact. Heath stopped rubbing his hands together, letting out a small breath. He grasped onto her thumb instead, peering up at her with teary eyes.
     With her other hand she gently brushed his tiny tears away, smiling softly as his grip tightened around her thumb. He was so impossibly tiny, she wanted to keep him in her hands forever. Safe.
     Not long after that she moved him into her cupped palms. He didn't protest much, aside from a bit of squirming at first. But the close contact always seemed to make him a bit nervous before he eventually melted into it.
     "You've got to stop staying up so late, you know," Briar murmured, clicking her tongue softly as she brushed a careful fingertip over the bags under his eyes. Heath smiled a little and rested his cheek on her thumb, shaking his head.
     "You'd be even cuter if you didn't wake me up every night at four o'clock in the morning."
     She was partly in shock when a soft, bubbly sound escaped from the small boy.  A laugh. He looked surprised too, bringing a hand up to muffle the noise.
     Briar was grinning. He was smiling too.
     She had never heard him laugh before.