Zee (fall_of_rain) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-12-18 23:46:00 |
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Entry tags: | black widow, dorian gray |
Who: Hunter and Zee
What: Talking! About alters! And stuff!
Where: Their apartment
When: That recentish sort of time
Warnings/Rating: Some angst. Some language.
It had been a long day.
Zee lay starfished on the futon mattress, Fluff up on the bed next to him and tucked near his hip, her head resting on the crest of bone that peeked out between boxers and his t-shirt. Eyes closed, he hadn’t even taken off his shoes when he got in, just dropped to the bed with a sigh and a groan before he was joined by his now-snoring canine companion. He was on the verge of sleep himself, his body attempting to pull him down into it, but his mind was still too wired.
He hadn’t been sleeping well; he knew he hadn’t. And he knew that whoever it was that was in his head was making their way to the other side of the door when he was asleep. Or mostly asleep. That part worried him, the fact that he still hadn’t been able to figure out how exactly he was getting to the hotel. He only knew that he’d end up back through the door with no memory of what had happened. It was more than worrisome, and he was about a day past freaking out about it. He hadn’t told anyone that part of it yet, not quite sure how to bring up the fact that he was losing time on this side of the door. He’d never had that problem with Meg, and he didn’t like having it now. He knew he was going to have to tell someone soon. Probably Hunter. He just needed to admit that it was a problem.
It didn’t help that work had been crazy, and that was on top of being tired already. There was only so much Red Bull he could consume before his hands started shaking too much to work, and he had tiptoed that fine line all day. All he wanted now was a nap. Or for Hunter to come home and make him feel a little bit better just by being there.
Hunter came in a chorus of sound. Hunter was usually sound, and not words, because growing up the way he did he wasn’t accustomed to announcing himself at the top of his voice (honey, I’m home) and he never would be. Instead it was the rattle of his keys in the door, the heavy thud of his boots as he came in, and the loud buzz of the window-model air conditioner as it began working furiously to fight the wave of heat that followed the young man into the room. He paused there for a moment, taking in the sight of Zee flopped out on that bed sort of like a present somebody left for him.
The dog sat up and looked at him expectantly, but Fluff was getting to an age where all Hunter’s training was getting somewhere. He made a little clicking sound with his tongue and pointed at the floor. She hunched her head, but didn’t quite move. He scowled. Okay. Getting there, but not there. He pointed at the ground again. Begrudgingly she gave up her Zee-side spot, and Hunter crossed the room. “Hey,” he said to Zee, giving him a bright grin that had a hint of the wicked to it.
It was short warning before all of his weight dropped down onto the man and lumpy mattress under him. Hunter was a lot of angles and length, but he hadn’t even bothered to take off his boots, so when he landed--half bed, half Zee’s chest--it was with an explosion of warm skin, clean sweat, the sun-warmed hay smell of horsehide, and cigarette smoke. After the impact there was nothing until Hunter spoke from where his face was pressed into the mattress. “Wanna help me take off my boots?”
Zee only cracked one heavy eye open when the sound of keys announced Hunter’s arrival, and squinted through thick lashes as Fluff relinquished her spot only to be replaced by the long flop of a very welcome body. Zee grunted a little at the sudden excess weight on his chest, but one lanky arm slowly moved itself down to curl over Hunter’s shoulders. Sighing and closing his eyes again, he enjoyed a long quiet moment before clearing his throat, words tired when he pushed them out.
“I gotta move for that? Then nah.” There was enough of a smile trying to make itself known, but it was a struggle to get it to tip, even though it warmed his words. His hand somehow found the wing of shoulderblade through Hunter’s shirt, and his fingers traced along the hollow of it. Barely a touch, but it was a comforting point of contact for Zee. “You smell like outside,” he murmured, ‘outside’ meaning the ranch. There was no one else he’d ever met that smelled quite the same way Hunter did, and while horse maybe wasn’t the greatest scent in the world, the fact that it meant Hunter was closeby was good enough for him.
Horse smelled good to Hunter. Not horse dung, but horse, the smell of the animal in its element. It smelled safe to him, and very, very few things felt safe to Hunter; the rustle of the quakin’ aspen, the buzzing silence of skeeters in the dusk, a warm dog against his side, that was about it. Hunter was fairly practical when it came to his work, though, and he smiled into the press of the mattress, his words still muffled. “You mean I stink,” he said, rolling his head sideways so he could grin at Zee. The back of his neck was as dark as his face, baked into a deep sand under the sun-bleached ends of his hair. “Just ‘cuz you get to work in air conditioning.” His soporific smile wasn’t troubled by the idea, and he rolled up just far enough to free an arm and fling it over Zee’s side so the other man could not escape. “Spoil’t.”
Zee had never really been around the animals much to have any sort of association with them except for what Hunter brought home with him. That, at least, was good enough for him though. He mustered enough energy to chuckle, and shook his head against the mattress - left, then right, then center. “Nah. Not bad. ...Today.” The grin split his face even though he kept his eyes closed, because he could hear the smile from Hunter before the rustle and movement of the bed. He finally opened his eyes at the weight over him, tipping his head again to look over at Hunter, close enough to be able to notice the tan and pale of his skin, the individual needles of gold that his hair split into at the ends. The smile earned one in return, easy and warm. It was full of the things he never said to Hunter (but that maybe he should), and the drag of exhaustion finally loosened his tongue just a little. “Yeah,” he breathed out, quiet in the apartment because the words didn’t have to carry very far. “Figure I probably am pretty fuckin’ spoiled.” The fingers that had been tracing along Hunter’s shoulder blade found their way up to the sun-warm back of his neck, pressing there in a loose caress.
Hunter’s eyes went half-closed and pleased as Zee’s fingers pressed into stiff tendons, and his breathing slowed to the point of slumber. He made a low, formless sound in the back of his throat and traveled quickly to the point of a nap, but his boots were still heavy and hot. It felt kind of like they were dragging him off the bed, and he didn’t want to go anywhere. Groaning, Hunter rolled up and into Zee, roughly colliding with the other man’s ribs, and then he brought his head and shoulders up while he lifted his knees to his chest at the same time in an easy display of muscle from necessity. He dug his fingers into his socks and started working his boots off. “You stick anybody with a mermaid named mom today?” he asked.
The collision with his chest made Zee let out a little grunt and then laugh softly as he watched Hunter roll up to remove his boots. He appreciated the view of the shift of Hunter’s muscles, turning his head and raised one arm to hook behind his own neck so he could get a better angle to watch. A sly little grin graced his lips and it took him a minute to reply to the question, distracted as he was. After a beat of silence, he dragged his eyes up toward Hunter’s face, and cleared his throat. “Not today. Had a bunch of bachlorette party ladies come in to get bunnies. ...I didn’t ask.”
With the motivation of watching the removal of Hunter’s boots, Zee shifted his legs just enough to toe off his own shoes and let them drop off the end of the bed. It was a much less of a production than pulling off a pair of boots, and he was done before Hunter was. “You?” He realized that he wasn’t used to asking Hunter how work had been, and he hesitated for a second before continuing. “Your day okay?”
Hunter assumed Zee had to pull himself out of a nap to answer the question, and as he wasn’t in any great hurry to get an answer, he focused on his right boot and didn’t look back to see what caused the distraction. His spine grew knobbly and defined as he bent into a hard curve to get hold of his boot heel and yank it off a contorted jean leg. The jeans were tight enough to show off a white seat in the blue jean and the beginnings of curves at the base of that spine. Hunter tossed the first boot aside and took a break to glance sideways. “Few trail rides. Boring as soup. Good tips, though, and the weather’s cooling off.” He gave Zee a keen look, the soft caramel of his eyes sharpening. “Feels weird asking?” he asked, perceptively.
Zee had to make a conscious effort to not reach out and touch the ladder of bones down Hunter’s back, to not trace the line and curve of spine. It didn’t stop him from staring though, at least until Hunter turned just enough to look at him. He dragged his eyes back up, maybe pausing on the width of shoulders, and then slapping a wry little smirk on his face. “Little weird, yeah.” He knew that it was his own fault, the fact that he just didn’t have the practice coming home to ask someone else how their day had been. It wasn’t a bad sort of habit to get into, though. “Glad it was good, though.” As he spoke, his arm flopped out to the side, relaxing for a moment before his hand lifted and his fingers started to push beneath the fabric of Hunter’s shirt, burrowing to find the warm skin he knew would be there.
Hunter didn’t say anything right away. He turned back with a strange, thoughtful look on his face, and he worked the other boot off by stepping one socked foot on the inside of his left heel and wiggling his knee until it was loose enough to pull off. The thin blue cotton of his long-sleeved but light shirt read the movement in his back just before he twisted at the waist to acknowledge the questing fingers. Hunter stretched out again, but this time he pinned one of Zee’s hips to the mattress by rolling his weight over one of the other man’s legs. He propped himself up on his elbows so he could look down, his hair swinging over Zee’s forehead and his eyes searching. “Don’t want me to go yet?” he asked, seriously.
Zee frowned, not even thinking of leaving. Instead, he interpreted it as Hunter maybe needing to return to work, and the confusion was easy to read on his face. “Go?” Half-pinned to the mattress, he looked up at Hunter with a frown. “You just got home.” Even partially pinned, he managed to bring a hand up and push back Hunter’s hair, though it fell forward again immediately. “You gotta go again so soon?” It didn’t make sense. None at all. He’d just taken off his boots.
Hunter broke the long stare, and his eyes went vague for a moment as he turned inward. A few seconds went by, just a few, and then Hunter’s long exhale ruffled his hair against his cheek. “No,” he said, quietly. Hunter looked like the kind of man that did better with a bellow than anything soft, but soft and rough was the way his voice was, like his old jeans. Hunter looked at Zee’s mouth and considered kissing him and skipping all the in-between, but in the end, he swallowed and said, in the same voice, “You been out late a lot.”
It didn’t make sense. Zee hadn’t been out late. He’d come home, same as always, eventually passing out in bed... But no, that wasn’t right either. Because hadn’t he woken up standing in the hallway of the hotel more than once? “Fuck.” The word was still quiet, but intense and explosive as Zee let his head fall back onto the mattress with a thump and squeezed his eyes shut, bringing up one hand to rub hard at them. He allowed himself another run of swearing before sighing hard and dropping his hand to look up at Hunter with hurt-dark eyes. “I know you got no reason to believe me, H. But it’s not me bein’ out late.”
It was Hunter’s turn to look hurt, because he clearly did not believe Zee, and not because he didn’t want to. He broke the gaze and slid down the length of Zee’s body, taking his weight off Zee’s hip and tipping slightly sideways, setting his head down on one temple. “You workin’ at two in the morning?” he asked, eyes going half-hooded again, though not in pleasure. He brought his hands up and spread them over his face and up through his hair.
The mattress frame creaked as Zee flopped back with a sigh. “No,” he spat out, annoyance and irritation. It wasn’t directed at Hunter, but at whoever or whatever had taken up in the back of his mind. “Shit, I wish I was.” He lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling and not looking over at Hunter. A tight, angry part of his mind wondered why something had to come along to fuck everything up the second he felt like they were getting on semi-solid ground with each other. “Got no idea where I’m goin’,” he growled. “Thinkin’ the hotel, since that’s where I always end up after, when I’m awake again.” He scowled as he did his best to shove angrily at the part of his mind where Meg had always been, hoping to make some sort of impact on whatever it was that was in his head now.
It was fully plausible. Hunter had to actively fight Dorian to prevent the man from controlling him, but fortunately Dorian rarely bothered, as he could not be troubled with anything that cost him an excess of effort. Zee was fortunate that Hunter had been in Vegas for some time and he was aware of the varying relationships between people and their counterparts. All the same, it was easier in Hunter’s mind to envision Zee leaving for long stretches than to imagine him being walked out bodily by whoever was in his head. The vision was strengthened because Hunter didn’t know anything about that person, and Zee had been acting strange about it for a while. “Strange” to Hunter always seemed “secretive.” Hunter sat up. He always felt better sitting up, not really understanding the draw of his chest inward as if to protect it from a blow was obviously instinctive. He said, “You don’t know what you’re doin’ when you’re not here?”
The skepticism on Hunter’s face ate away at something inside Zee. They’d been doing so well, and maybe that was part of why he hadn’t wanted to say anything about whatever it was that was going on. But now, seeing the way that Hunter sat up, curled away, like he was preparing himself to be hurt, Zee realized that maybe he should have been saying things all along, but he didn’t know how to make up for it now. He wanted to pull Hunter back out of that defensive curl and back down onto the bed. “I don’t,” he answered before finally pushing himself up with a weary little grunt. His hand hovered over Hunter’s back for a moment, but then dropped away again before touching. He sighed, the movement of it present along the back of Hunter’s neck. “Not a clue, H.”
His socks showing grubby imprints from the toe of his boots on the inside of each narrow foot, Hunter set both heels on the edge of the mattress. The movement made him look younger, and the jeans were fitted too close for him to curl up in such a way for long, but he did it anyway. “So you could be anywhere?” Hunter said, trying not to make it sound as if this was the worst thing he could possibly imagine and avoiding Zee’s searching gaze. When he felt the prickle of something along the top of his spine, he didn’t relax the way he had a moment before; instead his shoulders rose and a contortion of tension worked everything closer to his spine. He dropped his feet and turned his head fully to look Zee in the face, as if reminding himself who was behind him. He knew who was behind him. Zee. Nobody else was there. Hunter tried to work some of the weird fear out of the back of his throat and focus. “Or not you but... the other you.”
The body language was all wrong, the way Hunter held himself, and Zee couldn’t do anything more than stare at him for a while after Hunter’s question. Hunter wasn’t supposed to look that way around him, not now. Not after they’d gotten back on track. Not that tense-shoulder, ready to be hit sort of posture combined with that hesitation behind soft eyes. He didn’t want to answer, to see Hunter close himself off even more. But he couldn’t avoid it. Not any more. “I could.” He swallowed, the words bitter in his mouth and catching on his own breath. “It’s fuckin’... fucked up.” There was the fear, hiking up hot in the back of his own throat, and he knew that part of the reason he’d been avoiding it for so long, was there was no way to stop it once he acknowledged it. He could be anywhere, and he would never have any idea.
Hunter’s eyes widened slightly and his lashes seemed to grow sparser and whiter in the ring around the soft eyes. After a moment he carefully took one foot down so it spread out flat on the floor. He wrapped an arm around his other leg. A few weeks in a brace had taken some of the walnut color out of his skin, but thanks to Dorian there wasn’t a scratch on him. Just old scars. He said, “You sneak out. Can’t even hear you go.” Hunter glanced at the door despite himself, as if expecting it to lock behind him without warning every time he got up to go.
Zee stared at Hunter, trying to swallow hard with all the scared things that wanted to bubble up in his throat about not knowing what was happening with him. The way that Hunter stared at the door only added to the tightness in the back of Zee’s throat, and the shift of weight away made him want to reach out and cling. “I don’t even remember any of that, H. I don’t know how I get from here to there.” His words caught and shook and his hands clenched into fists in the pillowcase. “Whoever’s in there just does their own thing.”
Hunter put one elbow up on his knee and started threading his fingers through his hair. The effect was much the same as static electricity, and he was looking positively wild before he spoke again. “You just... let ‘em?” Hunter was working cold needles out of his spine and the base of his neck, and he looked at Zee as if he could not understand how and why the other man was sitting there and not pacing away. “You never say nothin’ about it.” The sweat-worn fabric prickled along his ribs and the soft place low on his hips where Zee’s fingers had brushed felt like hot sunshine. Hunter pulled at the hair at the back of his neck again.
Zee finally pushed himself to sit up, the exhaustion replaced by nervous emotion that reflected in the tense increase in volume of his voice. He wasn’t yelling, not yet, but he was well past the casual, lazy flow of words he usually had. “I can’t not let them. I don’t know when it’s happening. I go to bed and wake up in the hotel. It hasn’t been more than a few hours, not yet at least. But...” He spread his hands over his face, pressing fingertips into his closed eyes and tried to fight back the fine tremors and fear. “I’m saying something now. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say about it.” The words came from behind long hands. “I didn’t want to even think about it. ...Fuck.”
Hunter finally forced his body to unwind from its defensive position. He didn’t like sitting next to Zee like he was a stranger, but he was finally managing to get pissed off, and when he was pissed he wasn’t scared as much. “Then we’re gonna have a talk with ‘em about it,” he said, angrily. “I dunno why you don’t tell me things if it’s just the damn hotel.” Hunter edged a look at Zee that still contained a small kernel of doubt, but his mouth grew stubborn and his fingers left his hair. He nudged at Zee’s arm with his shoulder, not quite pulling the other man’s hands from his face but hoping for the effect anyway. “We can put you through and... and tell ‘em. Like you did with Dorian,” he suggested.
Zee moved his hands from his eyes to peer through his fingers over at Hunter. Closing his eyes again just long enough to rub at them one more time, he then let his hands drop away, guided by Hunter’s. “And what if it’s someone fucked up, H? We already know they’re driving over on this side sometimes. There’s so many people saying that they’re stuck with fuckers on the other side that are doing all sorts of messed up shit.” His voice gave out and he just looked at Hunter for a long moment, trying to find the words to explain himself. “I dunno why I haven’t been telling you this shit, either.” He paused again and he looked down, thoughts torn between that and trying to prod yet at the silent space in his mind. “Don’t want you to have to deal with my shit. Know you got your own.”
Hunter shuddered as if working cold out of his skin. “Don’t like it when you keep secrets,” he said, turning to look the other way at the door once more, so he didn’t have to see the effect of these words. “Just sayin’. Be better to know. They keep secrets they hurt people with ‘em.” Hunter scuffed his sock down on the floor and the dog watched with pointed ears in the hope socks would manifest into snacks. They never did. Hunter tipped backward on the mattress instead and closed his eyes. “Dunno what you want to do. Guess... just say. If you want help.”
Zee went quiet for a stretch of minutes that pushed into too long. The silence was filled with him struggling over things in his own mind, torn between his solitary habits and the (possibly selfish) desire to have someone there to help him with shit that had gotten way out of his control. His entire body reflected the back-and-forth, tension through limbs and the wrinkle of a frown very firmly etched between his brows. “Yeah,” he finally managed, needing to force the word out. “Yeah, okay.” It was a fight to even get those words out, and Zee started to wonder if there was more working against him than just his own self-sufficient nature.
Hunter didn’t move. He stared at the back of his eyelids. He turned on the small television in his mind, and he played all the times he had woke up with Zee gone. Then he pushed that away and let whatever wanted to swim to the surface come. He thought of the last time he had slipped quiet out of bed, and why. He remembered being afraid he would wake someone, and he remembered who had been willing to drive him out of town. “I’ll stay up. I won’t let you wander off if you’re not you,” Hunter said, roughly.
Zee looked over at Hunter, the entire situation making his chest go tight. He’d been on his own for so long that he wasn’t quite certain how to feel about asking someone for help, even Hunter. The offer made his stomach flip with worry, though. “Yeah? What if...” He didn’t even want to think of everything that could go wrong with that plan, but he cleared his throat. “What if shit goes wrong? An’ it’s someone that hurts you?”
Hunter opened his eyes and blinked at the ceiling. It was obvious that he hadn’t thought of that at all. “Me?” he asked, in clear surprise. He rolled his head on his spine and rested one ear on his shoulder so he could look over the expanse of his chest at Zee. “Why would anybody do that?” Hunter knew all about Dorian’s foibles, but to him the people in the doors had a fanciful quality about them, and it was men in Vegas that were the real danger. Men that killed people and buried them in the desert or burnt them alive.
Zee rearranged himself just enough that he could stare at Hunter, wide disbelieving eyes on his face. “Why? Because they can, H. Because I don’t know what the fuck else they’re wanting to do, and if they’re some crazy fucker, what’s to stop them? I know you’ve seen some of the assholes on the journals, yeah? What if I got one of them an’ they’re just waiting for someone to piss them off?” He paused, realizing his voice had risen and his breathing had begun to come quicker, but he couldn’t stop it. “Maybe someone already has and I just don’t even know it. Who’s to say?” Finally sitting, he pulled his knees up but wide, resting his elbows on them and covering his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Fuck,” he murmured, still breathing hard. “Fuck...”
Hunter sat up again, rapidly. He saw the drain that Zee was about to spiral down, and he saw it very clearly. In one hard movement assisted by a shove of his hands against the mattress and a hard contraction of his stomach, Hunter pulled himself forward to the edge of the mattress, turned, and picked Zee’s shoulders up out of his knees with a grip on his shirt. Hunter didn’t look like much but he hauled on animals three times his size in the sun twelve hours a day, and he could probably pick Zee up and throw him if he had to. This time he just picked him up, picked him up and shook him. His eyes were wide and wild, but not with fear. “I say. I fucking say. You’re you if you want to be you, or I’ll take you so far away there won’t be a door you can reach.” He shook Zee again, and he stared in his eyes to see whoever was hiding there. “You hear me?!”
Getting hauled around wasn’t something that usually happened to Zee, and especially with his mind more than focused on other things, the panic that was starting to rise, it took him by surprise. His first instinct, the one that always came with a roughness he wasn’t expecting, was to lash out. In a fight, it was speed and arm’s reach and sheer determination to not stay down that won for him, but Hunter had him on strength. It was something he forgot, that shocked him when it made an appearance, and all he could do was cling to the arms that were shaking him and try to keep his balance. His breath was still jagged, eyes a little too wide, but the words drained something out of him, some of the wild panic that was building.
He so rarely leaned on anyone else, not for anything truly important. A place to stay, a job, a meal. As vital as they were for most people, Zee knew that he could always move on and find another person, as long as he had a handle on himself. But now himself was crumbling in the face of whatever silent watcher was in his head, and he had to find something to grab onto or he’d be washed away. And Hunter was there. Hunter, being that thing that maybe he could grab onto. “Shit...” The word broke like he was shivering, but it wasn’t as panicked as the last ones had been. “Hear ya...”
Hunter’s expression tightened, and he didn’t break his gaze on Zee’s eyes. There was something in there listening, he was sure, and even Dorian had bestirred himself to see what the emotional ruckus was. For once, the immortal was silent, because Hunter wasn’t just angry, he was determined. He had decided that if the universe was iron and had decided to bar him from Zee, well, he would just bend it out of the way. It would have been very different if Zee had ‘fessed up to sneaking out, or if he’d expressed doubt about Hunter’s presence, appearance, or strength. But no, Zee was not the one making the separation, not this time. “Yeah, well I’m not just talkin’ to you,” he said, plainly.
He gave Zee one last shake assisted by the twist of his fingers into Zee’s shirt, hauling the seams upright into the curve of his palms, and he held the man in his grip for a second so he could be sure his point was made. Then he let go. He stood up without saying anything else about it. “Go back t’a sleep,” he said, roughly. “I’m gonna make a cup of coffee.” And he turned away for the kitchen.
Zee let himself be shaken a few more times, not fighting it at all. The space in the back of his mind was still silent, but there was a different sort of feel there. Interest maybe, and he wasn’t sure if that was good or not. He worried that it wasn’t, but he was hoping for the best, even through the lingering panic, so he nodded. He only blinked a few times when Hunter stood though, surprised and disappointed. “Oh,” he managed with a frown. “Yeah, okay.” He didn’t lie down again though, even when Hunter turned away, sitting there again with his elbows on his knees and an exhausted, wrecked expression on his face.
Hunter returned with a mug, his expression making it clear he expected Zee to be lying down just the way he’d ordered. There was only a moment of surprise, and then resignation, because though Hunter was not particularly learned nor prone to self-reflection, he did know in his gut what it was like to be threatened and scared, and it wasn’t so soon that sleep came easy. He sat down next to Zee once more, the cup hot in his rough fingers, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t know the coffee was like to keep Zee up, since his people used it as comfort brew, so he offered it over wordlessly.
Zee gave Hunter an apologetic smile at the appearance of the surprised expression, shrugging one shoulder in a loose twitch of muscle. Having Hunter sit again, the slight warmth that radiated over from his body heat, made things seem at least little better, safer even though he was still worried more than he could actually describe. Whoever was in his head had been listening though, and there was a gentle sort of acknowledgement there. For the first time, Zee wondered if maybe whoever was in there wasn’t the worst person in the world. It didn’t change any of the things that had already happened though. The sneaking and not-knowing.
He sighed and took the cup from Hunter, staring down at it for a minute before taking a drink of it and then handing it back over to share with the same sort of ritual as sharing a cigarette. He was quiet for another long, passing moment, trying not to lean over to rest his heavy body against Hunter’s. “Think...” he had to stop and clear his throat, a grating sound that made the dog’s ears twitch until she placed the sound. “Think you might’ve gotten through. I dunno.”
Hunter was sitting in just the same place, shoulders hunched, his fingers returning to their vine-like curve around the hot mug as it was returned to him. He clicked his tongue at the dog and she got up to come over and nose under his palm for a scratch of those rough fingers. Hunter tipped the mug up at the same time. “That’s good,” he said, simply. “No point in doin’ much worryin’ about me,” he added. “Somethin’ happens you just stick me through the door and Dorian will fix it right up.” He gave Zee a wan smile just at the edge of his mouth, but he did not turn fully to face him. After a moment he nudged at Zee’s shoulder. “Lie down,” he said, in a commanding kind of voice.
Zee returned Hunter’s smile, but there was still something tired and bruised to it. It wasn’t nearly what his grin usually was, and it looked like it didn’t quite sit right on his face. “You know I still don’t want something to happen to you. Don’ wanna run the chance there’s something Dorian can’t fix you up from.” He followed orders, though, and scooted himself back just enough to ease himself down so his head hit the pillow. Even laying down, the relaxation of his usual sprawl was missing, hands folded tightly on his stomach and legs straight out from his body, one ankle crossed over the other.
Hunter shrugged. “Not much Dorian can’t fix,” he said, confidently. He looked back to see if Zee was closing his eyes, and when he saw he wasn’t, Hunter scowled at him over his shoulder. He tipped the cup up and scalded the back of his tongue with a deep gulp of hot coffee, and then he pushed it aside (Fluff nosed at it, then huffed in distaste). Hunter stretched out again next to Zee, fully intending on staying wide awake. He yawned. “Go to sleep,” he said, in the same sort of voice he had used before.
Zee watched Hunter and then ended up closing his eyes even though he was certain that sleep wouldn’t come that easy. The weight and warmth of Hunter next to him was calming in its own way though, and he at least felt some relaxation start to return. Sleep itself was fighting him still, his thoughts distracting him from the tempting oblivion of drifting off. He was quiet for a while, listening to Hunter breathe, and then softly, just in case he had already given in to sleep, whispered: “You wanna do anything for Christmas, baby? Or you got family plans?”
Hunter didn’t reply, and his deep, steady breathing suggested that the question fell on deaf ears, too wrapped in cotton-dreams to hear. Intending to sit up was one thing, but twelve hours on his feet was another, and the long pause, warm and without interruption, was enough to wash away most of the worry--but not all of it. Hunter’s fingers curled tightly around Zee’s shirt while his head lolled to one side against the other man’s shoulder. In sleep his expression was one of stubborn concentration, and even when the minutes passed, it did not ease, nor did his grip.