Who: Ren and Nora What: Nora wakes up flustered from combat Where: Their place When: March 17, before this conversation Rating/Warnings: Low/None Status: Complete!
So, they were going to be deputies! Ren and Nora wanted to go shadow a sherriff in a nearby village, but then Jaune got a phone call from Ruby that set him on edge. There was smoke and an alarm, and they were up in the plane heading out to help team RWBY. Because that’s how they rolled. Also, Jaune had this hero thing. It was pretty awesome. Nora had her big hammer, but she’d be the first to admit that she was easily excitable and also distractible.
But hey, hammering Grimm was incredibly awesome. Nora was bashing in Grimmheads left and right, shooting herself far across the city streets using the grenade launcher function of her hammer, and then…
Then she woke up as her shoulder hit the floor. Nora was tangled in the sheets, sweating and thrashing, half on the ground and half on the futon. Her eyes went wide, her heart was thundering, and she was gasping for air.
If there was one thing Ren hated, it was mornings. He had never been particularly good at waking up, and even now, at the edge of consciousness, it took him a moment to realize that Nora was flailing around and gasping. He groaned and rolled over, pulling the sheet up to his chin. “Nora, what time is it?” he mumbled.
Nora was still struggling with the blankets and to catch her breath. There was a panicked look in her eyes as she turned to look over at Ren in his bed. Ren! He was here! He was safe! No Grimm. They were in their apartment, and they weren’t battling evil monsters, and … and she was on the floor. Wrapped in a sheet.
“....it’s… it’s…” She didn’t have brain capacity to form words. It was early, she knew that much.
Somewhere in Ren’s sleep addled brain, it was dawning on him that something wasn’t quite right with Nora. He cracked open his eyes, and turned his head to look at her. She seemed flushed and out of breath, and suddenly Ren was worried that she had gotten herself hurt from the dreams. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever woken up so quickly in his life.
“Nora? Are you okay?” he asked, sitting up and shifting to Nora’s side.
The heaviness of the Dream was fading pretty rapidly now Nora was waking up. She was still stuck with the sheet and blanket wrapped tightly around her body. (Total bummer.) That was freaking her out more than anything else now. More than the Grimm and the battle. And now Ren was by her side, which had a serious calming effect.
“I’m okay,” she said, much more calm than her normally exaggerated levels of energy. “We were fighting Grimm, and I couldn’t--” She tried to move her arm, but it was stuck.
Ren sat up and methodically started untangling her from her sheets, wondering how exactly she’d managed to get so wrapped up in them. “You couldn’t…?” he asked, a look of slight concern crossing his features. He wasn’t as far along in his dreams as Nora was, but fighting Grimm was a constant danger.
“I couldn’t move my arms and legs.” Nora knew that once Ren was working on the sheets, she’d be saved soon, so she stopped struggling. (The struggling was only making it worse.) “I dunno, it was like the Dream of the Real Dream stuff sort of bled into a nightmare. A not Dream Dream nightmare, but a regular Dream nightmare. And then I was flailing and only seemed to get more caught up in what I was doing. It was awful.” Did any of that make sense? Now that Nora was awake, safe, knew where she was… she was almost starting to feel sleepy again.
Once her hands were free she reached forward and took hold of one of his. It was almost a thank you gesture. She squeezed it softly before releasing it again. “I’m sorry that I woke you.”
“You’re safe now,” Ren said, brushing a lock of hair from Nora’s forehead. He squeezed her hand comfortingly. “It’s okay. It’s almost time to wake up anyway,” he said. It wasn’t necessarily true, and he would have appreciated any extra sleep he could have squeezed out of the morning, but it didn’t matter now. What did matter was that Nora was okay, and no longer trapped by her blanket.
How was it that Ren made everything warm and safe and good? Even if only minutes ago, Nora was fighting for her life against sheets and Grimm, now she was completely calm? ...or, as calm as Nora got, anyway. She gave him a smile and a nod, looking into his eyes. Then her eyes flicked behind him into the kitchen before returning to his face. “...is it time for pancakes?” She asked, hopefully.
A small smile crossed Ren’s face when Nora looked toward the kitchen. It was endearing how Nora’s first thoughts always seemed to come back to food. It was no doubt the way that she managed to fuel that inexhaustible energy of hers. He gave a slight nod, and then got up and made his way to the kitchen.