Shattered

Chapter 14

Lloyd was starting to think he liked waking up with Kai.

Well, okay, liked was a strong word, and maybe not so much the waking up part since that part in general could just go to hell. But, having some in bed with him? Wasn't as bad as he once thought it would be.

Sure, the heat ratio was absolutely jacked up, with the side Kai was laying on burning up and sweaty and the side that he wasn't was relatively cool. And yeah, Kai drooled, he didn't snore, but he did mumble and-what it is called-wuffle, every so often.

He also stole all the blankets, which still boggled Lloyd's mind since Kai physically can't get any hotter.

But besides all of that, it was nice to have a steady stream of heat and pressure resting against his side, all lean and taunt muscle that surprisingly wasn't suffocating when Kai decided to rest more directly on his chest then his side. It was comforting in a way, to not have to face the door every night, to not have to jump up in bed every time he thinks he hears footsteps or whispers.

To have someone immediately there when he had nightmares to either run a hand through his hair and loll him back to sleep or just be there for Lloyd to drink up that, those voices in his head weren't real, but the abnormally cuddly man on his chest was.

And that fact helped a lot with situations like the one currently.

Lloyd had been awake for about half an hour, or maybe more he didn't know, but he had shot up in bed, gasping and clawing at his throat and chest, and desperately making sure his hands weren't shaking.

They were, but not in the way that mattered.

He didn't really know what his nightmare was about, it was too blurry and mixed up in his head to really pinpoint any sort of plot or direction, and after a few minutes he eventually gave up on it and laid back down, still breathing heavy with his eyes not quite sure where to stay with the moving shadows of the room.

He had stayed like that for awhile, body tense and alert even if he could feel his brain slowing down and sluggishly sorting and organizing his thoughts. He was use to this, though, staying up all night because he was too afraid of what would happen if he closed his eyes for even a moment. What he wasn't used to quite yet was someone, that person being Kai, shifting and yawning and rubbing at his eye and moving his head up so his chin was pressed against Lloyd's chest and glaring at him.

"Wha' are you doin' up?" A mumble, a whisper, slurred and slightly hard to understand since Kai said half of it with his mouth still closed.

"Don't worry about it, just go back to sleep, yeah?" He whispered back, not trusting if the shadows dancing across the room would jump at him or not if he spoke any louder.

Kai shook his head, rubbing at his eyes more furiously this time, and pushed himself up and off of Lloyd, resting against the headboard with a groan. He sighed, yawned, and grabbed Lloyd's arm, lifting him up to rest against the headboard with him, shifting again, so that Kai's head was resting against Lloyd's shoulder, staring down at their hands.

He didn't even know when Kai grabbed his hand, but he wasn't necessarily complaining.

Kai grumbled, mumbled, whatever something against his skin, so Lloyd was left trying to decipher the incomprehensible words of sleepy Kai and glancing around the room for any threats he knew weren't actually there.

Great.

"Why are yo' up?" He slurred again, understandably this time, and Lloyd sighed, squeezing his hand.

"Just a stupid nightmare, it's nothing to worry about."

"You would't be up if tha' were true. What's goin' on?"