Work Text:
Fuck, fuck, goddamn it, son of a bitch, fucking shit balls mother of fuck.
He liked her.
To almost anyone else, this would have been something of a relief. Liking someone, that is. Especially considering how long they’d kept themself separate from other people, most would think it was a good thing for them to get attached. To Ashton, though, it felt more like a death sentence.
It wasn’t worth it to get attached to other people, not even for friendships—people would always let you down. It was an inevitability of having relationships. And Ashton didn’t like being let down, so they would rather choose to not have any real relationships. It made perfect sense to them. What they couldn’t understand was why their body couldn’t obey rational sense, why it insisted on getting attached when Ashton never, never wanted that to happen.
Fucking shit.
It didn’t help that their traveling arrangements tended to be tight. The Hells rarely needed more than two rooms to bunk down in—Chetney’s 3:00am escapades aside—but when holed up in a small town, where the local inn didn’t have much by way of extra rooms, sometimes they all bundled into one room together. And that was fine. It was necessary, even. But he didn’t like having so many people leaning against him in one cramped ass room, and he especially didn’t like how much he did like the way one of them draped herself across him.
Laudna had no sense of personal space. That had been apparent since day one, but had only become more notable the longer they shared rooms together. Usually she was curled up at Imogen’s side or cuddled up against Fearne, but every now and then, like a heat seeking magic missile, she’d find her way to him.
There was only one bed in the room. Ashton didn’t sleep in the bed with everyone else—he really couldn’t imagine anything more claustrophobic than that—so he’d fall a sleep on the floor instead. Tonight, he’d fallen asleep leaning back against the bed, out like a light the second they’d gotten back to the room. It had been a long day and even FCG powered down into stasis mode within minutes of them trundling in. He honestly hadn’t been paying any attention to what the others were doing until he woke up sometime in the middle of the night with a dead woman draped over his shoulder.
How she’d gotten herself in that position, he had no idea. She was twisted to the side, lying half off the bed, her head coming to rest awkwardly on his collarbone. She was so close her rock chisel tickled his chin. In the groggy moments before waking, he was so startled by the weight of her that he almost punched first, asked questions later. Was glad he didn’t. He didn’t think Laudna could take much more than one punch and really didn’t want to be responsible for what would happen after that.
“Shit,” they muttered out loud, shifting position, trying to jostle her back onto the bed, off of them.
It didn’t work. She didn’t seem to notice the discomfort of the position at all and only nestled in closer to them.
“Fuck,” they said. Maybe they weren’t used to having someone sleep curled up against them and maybe they were a little uncomfortable with it, but the idea of moving her seemed just as bad. What if she woke up? What would they do then? Feign indifference? They weren’t indifferent. It had been a long time since anyone trusted them enough to nestle up to them like that, but they hated to admit they didn’t hate it. Worse would be admitting it to her face. They’d do just about anything to avoid that.
But they needed to get her back into bed before she actually fell right off the bed. That was important. There was no way she could take a punch from him and he doubted there was a way she’d wouldn’t suffer some damage if she fell headfirst onto the floor.
“Goddamit, Laudna,” he said under his breath. It was the angle that was awkward, and made it difficult to push her back up onto the bed. She was so far off of it, it might be easier to just pull her down with him.
So that’s what he did. Fuck comfort; this was easier. She was already half off the bed— he just helped and pulled her the rest of the way down, making sure she didn’t thump against the floor or bang her head or anything.
She didn’t seem to notice anything. He stared at her, utterly dumbfounded. He knew the phrase “sleeping like the dead” but this seemed a little on the nose, even for her.
But there she was, fast asleep, body splayed out on the floor now, looking just about as much like a corpse as she did in her waking hours. Her eyes were half open, but he knew she was still asleep. That’s just what she looked like when she slept—a little uncanny, a little like a dead body, a little unnerving to anyone who wasn’t him. Honestly, he thought it looked kind of metal. Not that he would admit that to anyone, of course.
“You couldn’t just stay on the bed,” he muttered, staring down at her. She didn’t pay him any heed, just curled up tighter against him, her head in his lap, her arms wrapping around his thigh like it was a plush toy for her to cuddle.
They sighed deeply. Part of them didn’t want this—this kind of physical contact with anyone was off-putting, out of their comfort zone. But part of them reveled in it. It had been a long time since they’d allowed themself to be this close to another person, especially another person that they actually, genuinely liked. That changed things, even if they had a hard time admitting it. They weren’t half as off put as they should have been.
She should be in bed, they thought, staring up at the bed behind them. It seemed rude to leave her on the floor, clinging to them. That would be an awkward situation for her to find herself in the morning. But moving her came with risks. She could wake up and then he’d have an awkward situation on his hands, and fuck he didn’t want to deal with that. He was still tired from the day before, eager to get back to sleep with as little drama as possible. Or he could leave her where she was, while making sure she was comfortable as she could be while on the floor. Hope nothing got awkward until they’d both had at least eight hours of sleep. It was easier to deal with the fucking awkwardness of it with eight hours of sleep under their belt.
So they did what they always did when they weren’t sure what to do—they flipped a coin for it.
Heads, you move her, he told himself. That was the higher percentage anyway. He’d probably have to move her.
Somehow, he wasn’t surprised when the coin landed back in his hand, tail side up. That seemed just like what the universe would give to him, just to make things more difficult.
He sighed, and wrapped his arms around Laudna. If she was going to stay on the floor with him, he at least wanted her to be somewhat comfortable. Rock chest or not, leaning against him had to be better than the floor.
So he settled back further onto the floor, hauling her up so her head rested just where it had been before, on his collarbone. She relinquished her grip on his thigh easily and nestled into his chest, her arms wrapping around him even as she settled back into her deep, uncanny sleep.
He should have hated it. He should have hated it. Instead, he looked down at her, her eyes half-lidded, irises just barely visible, and felt himself relax. It had been a long time since anyone leaned against him like this and even longer since someone had been comfortable doing it. And, he found, he didn’t hate having her there with him. Not even a little, not even at all.
Shit.