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Tony awoke fairly abruptly in the middle of the night. At first, he was unsure what awoke him- Not scared by any means, no. With so many nocturnal beings living in the mansion, it wasn't uncommon for something in the halls to wake him up. In fact, that's what he was in the process of writing it off as until he heard the distinct sound of Rudolph quietly crying to himself from within his coffin.
"Rudolph?" Tony asked cautiously, getting out of his bed and approaching the coffin. The noise ceased, worrying him further as he slowly lifted the lid off to reveal his boyfriend curled in a ball, black marks down his cheeks revealing that he had in fact been crying. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, Tony" he dismissed, his voice coming out cracked and watery. Tony frowned and stepped inside the coffin, forcing Rudolph to move aside and sit up. "What do you want?"
"My boyfriend's crying in the middle of the night" Tony replied flatly. "I wanna know what's wrong"
"It's just some pain" Rudolph replied with a dismissive hand wave. "I'm just being a crybaby about it"
"Where do you hurt?" Tony asked. He remembered Rudolph telling him about his chronic pain- How whatever remained alive of his nerve endings would sometimes feel as though they were on fire and how a dull ache would follow, spreading through different parts of his body and making him wish he'd stayed dead.
"Everywhere" Rudolph replied, a fresh set of tears welling up and spilling out without his consent.
"Oh, buddy..." Tony muttered out sympathetically, looking around for a solution. An idea came to his head, leaving a very confused Rudolph Sackville-Bagg to watch as he sprung up out of the coffin and made sure the window was properly covered, then smoothed out his bed and gestured for Rudolph to come over to him.
"Tony-"
"Clearly sleep isn't working out for you anyway, so I'd at least like you to be comfortable" the blonde said with a warm smile, gesturing to his bed. More tears left Rudolph's eyes, but this time they were tears of gratitude as he floated out of his coffin and into bed next to his boyfriend.
"Thank you for this" Rudolph said softly. "I love you, human"
"I love you too, vampire"