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Neal woke up with a strangled cry, and knocked off the lamp by his bedside as he fell off the bed and onto the hard wooden floor. A split second later, and something was licking his face frantically, and he could hear Peter and Elizabeth both calling for him. Neal became aware that it was only Satchmo who was licking his face.
“Neal?” El asked, coming into the room. She fixed the bedside lamp while Peter flipped on the light. “Are you alright?”
“Nightmare,” Neal said hoarsely. “It’s nothing, go back to bed.”
“If it was nothing, we wouldn’t be awake in the first place,” Peter said, rolling his eyes. El gave him a sigh, and then the two put Neal on the edge of the bed, with both of them squashing him in the middle. It gave him a sense of comfort. A small one, but there.
He’d decided to spend the night at the Burke’s, as June had been throwing a house party that was lasting a lot longer-and louder-than he’d thought. Mozzie was there to help out June, but he’d been running tired for three days, and now he was finally getting sleep, and he woke up the people around him. Some host he was.
“Honey, do you want to talk about it?” El asked, soothingly.
“I was…in a dark room. There were lights…someone was trying to cut my wings off, and they were using a saw,” Neal said.
Peter paled, and El looked startled.
“Has such a thing ever happened before?” Peter asked, and Neal shook his head.
“No, Peter, it’s never happened before.” He said, sincere enough that Peter believed him. “I dunno why I dreamed it…”
“Too much wine?” Peter suggested, gaining a small laugh from El while Neal rolled his eyes.
“If that’s the problem, then I’m in trouble because Mozzie would happily take the rest of the wine, and you really don’t want a drunk Moz on your hands,” Neal pointed out.
Peter grimaced at the thought.
“So you had a bad dream…would it help you to sleep if we stayed at your side?” El suggested.
“Or we could just get up, it’s already eight in the morning.” Neal suggested, wryly. El blinked-and gasped.
“It’s eight o’clock? Oh, god, I’ve got an appointment at ten!” She dashed out the room, leaving behind two amused men.
“Nice of you to scare my wife like that,” Peter grumbled. “She’ll be fussing about that later today. Anyways. Come on, let’s get breakfast. We can talk more about what to do if something like that happens.”
“I doubt anything will happen, Peter. And even if it does, you’ve got that ankle bracelet to find me,” Neal said, feeling better already. “Do we have coffee?”
“We better have coffee,” Peter said, seriously. “Because if there’s no coffee in this house, I will make sure that someone gets arrested for drinking up all the coffee,” Peter added.
Neal grinned.