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It had been a long day.
The sort of day that left your eyes heavy with exhaustion as you dragged yourself through the front door of your home, the sort of day that made you forget to lock the door properly behind you, the sort of day that you made you decide to put off having a shower and drag your tired ass to bed, barely bothering to even change out of your clothes and put on some much more comfortable PJs.
You yawned for the fiftieth time as you turned the knob to your bedroom door, not bothering to close it behind you and just stumbled to your bed on the far side of the room.
When you finally found yourself beneath the covers you could not describe the joy you felt at finally being in bed and being able to have a long night's sleep, and you were most certainly going to savour it. Tomorrow was the weekend, and you were not getting up until well into the afternoon you imagined.
Despite you being tired and all, it still took a few more minutes for you to fully fall asleep, watching the light outside your window (that was on the wall beside your bed) slowly fade as the last hints of the daylight disappeared, and the gentle moon rose, letting an eerie white light fill your bedroom.
Then you finally fell asleep, your chest rising and falling soundly. No noises were heard other than your soft breathing as you slept.
But the most quiet action can attract the biggest creature.
It heard you when you opened that door, it listened patiently as you fell asleep, listened to that gentle breathing that was like music to its non-existent ears, and now as you were finally relaxed and ready for the taking it couldn't help itself...creeping slowly, quietly, you would never know it was there until it was too late...
You were in the middle of a dreamless sleep, enjoying the bliss of darkness when a cold creeping feeling made its way up your spine, one that made you wake up almost immediately. Was the house on fire? Did someone break in? These thoughts all ran through your mind in the few seconds of blinking your eyes open as that's what you thought would usually happen when a bad feeling woke you up. But you were so far from the truth...
You had fallen asleep on your stomach, or maybe you had rolled onto it during the night, but regardless, you felt something cold as ice nuzzling the back of your neck, the only thing sticking out the sheets practically at that moment.
Every hair stuck up on your body, did you dare to look around? Was this another dream? Should you look...
Taking a shaky breath you twisted your head around slightly, trying to get a glimpse of what was there.
Two stark, white, glowing eyes met yours. In the weak moonlight that was filtering through your windows, you made out the smooth outline of the face to which the eyes belonged. A white, ivory mask, where two eye-sockets in which those white lights sat stared at you, black-painted on tear streams on each of its cheeks, and black lips that revealed a widening smile at your frightened expression.
"Goddammit Nightmarionne, I just wanted one night of sleep! Is that too much to ask for?" you grumbled in the realization that it was just your sleep-paralysis demon that came to visit every so often.
The nightmare softly stuck its face in yours, until it was a mere inches from your nose.
"Go on with your sleeping...I'll just be here, enjoying you," it chuckled deeply, grinning.
"What? How could anyone sleep with someone watching them the entire time?" you retorted, your neck aching despite you only being in that position for a few moments.
"Exactly," the nightmare purred, and an ivory claw booped you on the nose.
You groaned and twisted your neck back around, burrowing your head in the pillows. All you wanted was some sleep dammit...
"Aw, that's no fun little bird..." Nightmarionne pushed its face into the back of your neck again, and you couldn't help but shiver as that cold face continued to nuzzle at your skin, you took in a sharp breath as you felt it lightly nibble at your flesh, letting its cold tongue sliver over your warm skin, but you didn't turn around again and just groaned to yourself as it was becoming very apparent that the nightmare wasn't leaving anytime soon.
It soon grew bored with your neck, so it went to its next tactic.
The rest of its body had been off the bed, as you imagined it had been leaning over this entire time, but you felt a surge of dread as you felt its skinny figure make its way onto your bed, boy, this was going to be a long night.
Your small sleeping area was too small for its long form, but it didn't mind its twisted legs slightly falling over the edge as it bent down to turn you over with its long, ivory claws, trying not to prick at you with its sharp digits as you mumbled your complaints.
"Do we have to do this tonight?" you grumbled as it tugged at the warm blankets encasing your body, like a cocoon. You watched it physically struggle a little bit at untangling you with those large talons, and you gave a long sigh of apprehension before pulling the fabric of the blankets down yourself.
"There, that wasn't so hard, was it?" asked the nightmare, grinning as always.
"I just hate to watch an animal struggle," you muttered.
Nightmarionne growled at your remark, but that didn't stop it from leaning down to let its impossibly skinny out-protruding ribcage prick at your skin as it wrapped its talons around your stomach, resting its head on your chest.
Luckily it wasn't very heavy, and completely lightweight against your body. Still, you always felt a little embarrassed whenever the nightmare wrapped itself around you in its idea of an embrace.
But that didn't stop you from being able to suppress a giggle as it rubbed its jawline along your clothed upper body, making you reach your hand over to pet it on the head like an oversized kitty, letting your fingers trail along its cold skin. You felt it slightly push into your hand at your touch like it enjoyed your warmth beyond anything you would be able to understand. Well, who could blame it? It was very cold, wasn't it...
"Mari...as much as I know you enjoy this...I've had a pretty rough day...can you just let me get some sleep tonight and you can come back tomorrow?" you yawned, still letting your hand wander over the smooth, black surface that was the top of its head.
"You're going to sleep in anyways, what's stopping you from letting me have fun tonight?" Nightmarionne replied, raising its pale face to eye you as it dared you to say anything that contradicted its idea of fun, bright pupils narrowing at you in a warning.
You sighed, as much as you were used to this nightmare, you still knew better than to mess with what it wanted to do with you...
"OK...but it was a rough day...I'm just not going to be in much of a good mood for it tonight..." you finally replied.
The nightmare didn't reply but looked satisfied enough at your answer as it untangled its long fingers from around your abdomen and instead tugged you closer to its chest until you were forced against its cool skin as the nightmare wrapped itself around you in the bed, finally resting its chin on top of your head, a deep rumbling coming from its throat at its pleasure at having you that close.
"Why was it a rough day?" it rumbled rather curiously, flicking at your hair with its striped talons.
"What...do you care?" you yawned, not being able to stop yourself from snuggling at Mari in your tiredness, but you didn't wait for a response. Ranting was a part of your human nature after all, and you didn't mind telling somebody why you had a bad day as long as they were willing to listen.
"I ran into a not-so-nice person today..." you mumbled "He was one of my old co-workers from an old workplace of mine, I forgot he existed in fact...all the people used to keep their distance from him whenever he clocked in for his shift. They always thought there wasn't something right 'bout him..." You yawned again, the words slightly slurring as you struggled to keep your eyes open and you didn't notice Nightmarionne's claws stiffening around your shoulders at your words.
"Guess they were right though...we ran into each other outside of the grocery store...chatted for a few minutes, and then...well, I probably should have left after that..." you stopped talking and decided that Nightmarionne didn't need to hear the rest, thinking about it was bringing the crappy day back into your memory and you didn't want to think about it anymore.
"He didn't do anything to you did he?" Nightmarionne asked lightly, but dangerously soft. You looked up to peer into its face at its change of attitude.
Its white pupils were narrowed until you only saw the tiniest pin-prick of light in each socket, that grin was still plastered on its face (let's face it, it never came off) but it was twitching slightly.
"He...uh..." you sputtered a little as Mari's claws gripped at you a little harder "...just...I think he was drunk Mari, nothing bad happened really...he's just a stupid creep,"
You breathed sharply as its claws didn't release their sharp hold on you.
"Did he touch you?" it asked, smiling, but you could hear the venom in its voice.
"No!" you protested, your voice coming out sharper than you intended.
"Don't lie to me, did he touch you?" growled Nightmarionne softly, staring into your soul.
"He...kinda did...but not in a bad way, he just slapped me," you mumbled, averting your gaze.
"Are you sure that's all he did?" the nightmare questioned, not sounding convinced of your answer.
"And maybe...he tried to drag me to his car, but nothing to worry about. He's always been a creep, I'm still a little pissed off about it..." you finally admitted, shivering as Mari's grip on you loosened a little. Despite your strong words, it hurt your gut to think about it again. Stupid...you just wanted a good night's sleep, and now you were awake, have spilt the whole thing to something that wasn't even human, and were pissed about the incident all over again.
Nightmarionne didn't say anything and when you finally looked up again, you were a little surprised to see anger flaring in its eyes, those bright pupils dancing at you rather excitedly. Now what did you do?
"Mari...what are you doing?" you said slowly as it unwrapped itself from you to leave you staring after it with a confused look on your face as it silently snaked off the bed.
Its slim figure stood silently for a second at the edge of your mattress before facing you. Smile grinning rather violently and eyes blazing it said:
"There is a certain man I have to visit tonight..." it replied lightly, voice edged with seriousness.
"NO, you are not leaving to kill someone tonight, not tonight please Mari!" you pleaded, sitting up, suddenly realizing what it had in mind.
"What's the fuss? He deserves death," Nightmarionne said, raising a striped claw to examine and avoiding your pleading glare.
"Please Mari, don't hurt him," you begged practically, tiredness gone from your mind.
"Give me one reason I shouldn't...'' Nightmarionne huffed, letting its gaze settle back on you again in stubbornness.
"Please, I can't deal with this tonight Nightmarionne. It's kind of...sweet...I guess that's the word, that you want to, uh, 'get him' for me, but what if they somehow traced it back to me or something dumb like that? Can't we just go back to sleep?" you protested, hoisting yourself to the edge of the bed to reach out your considerably smaller human hand clutch at its taloned hand in an attempt to use whatever was left in your exhausted body to stop the nightmare from going on a murderous rampage.
It glanced at your hand for a moment and let out a deep growl from its throat before sighing and begrudgingly nodding its head.
"Fine...but if I hear of him touching you again..." it muttered, letting you pull it back towards the bed.
"Why are you so angry about it anyway? You touch me all the time?" you questioned rather teasingly once you got it to sit beside you again on the soft mattress.
"I'm the only one who should be allowed to do it," it replied haughtily, grinning at you.
"Of course," you rolled your eyes at its answer.
"So, are you going to let me get some sleep, or did you have something in mind tonight?" you asked with a yawn, kind of hoping it would just let you sleep peacefully now that the ordeal had been dealt with.
"Hah, you're not getting any sleep with me around," it chuckled, leaning over to rub its jawline along your head in a rough caress.
"Oh stop," you giggled, pushing at its face with your fingers playfully.
It quickly grabbed your wrist with its claws as you tried to take your hand back, smiling slyly at you.
"And if I don't?" it asked, leaning towards your face until you two were a mere few inches away from one another.
You knew it was just doing that to make you uneasy. Still, heat blossomed in your face as it stared at you with such adoration and beastly love that you couldn't help but fall into the effect of its dark antics, and wrapped your fingers around its arm that was holding your wrist before leaning into closing the gap between your faces.
You closed your eyes as your lips connected with that of its cold, black ones. It always came as a surprise to you that something of little human resemblance to you still possessed lips at all.
It rather eagerly pushed into your caress, nudging at your lips with its until you were forced to open your mouth slightly, allowing it to nibble lightly at your bottom lip, pulling a little on the soft flesh of your mouth.
You murmured at the motion before softly breaking away, taking slow breaths as the nightmare grinned at you with a pleased look on its face, a striped tongue peaked out of its mouth, ticking at your cheek as your faces were still quite close to one another.
"God, why do you always gotta tempt me..." you grumbled sarcastically, grinning to yourself as you let go of its wrist to duck under its chin, and move closer to its slim figure, snugly fitting yourself within those out-protruding ribs.
Nightmarionne welcomed your closeness, and wrapped its long claws around you, letting them wind around your arms until you felt if they wrapped any harder you would burst like a bubble.
You pushed against its stomach, letting you two fall from your sitting position and ended up with you and the nightmare both lying together on the mattress, Nightmarionne wrapped around you until you felt properly entangled in its ivory tentacles, cold and eerie feeling, but at the same time comfortably soothing.
You closed your eyes, letting yourself snuggle against its skinny chest, and very aware of the cool sensation on the back of your neck as Mari's tongue ventured over your warm skin, licking at you teasingly while the rest of its body wrapped around you like a warmth-hungry vampire.
One thing was very clear, you thought as you cracked open your eyes to stare at your late-night captor.
You weren't getting any sleep tonight.