Work Text:
It had been an absolute hellish day.
First, her alarms didn’t go off in the morning. Well, apparently it did, but Aelys had been dead-to-the-world asleep and heard none of the 5 consecutive alarms set on her phone. That left her with 5 whole minutes to get up, get ready, and get out the door. By the time she arrived at work, she had been sweaty, soaked from the rain, and grumpy.
As if to add insult to injury, the cheap office coffee maker just had to choose this particular day to give up the ghost. Consequently, she had to make do with the instant coffee stashed in a dusty corner of the kitchenette cupboard. The horrid, bitter taste sure did wake her up, but it left her more displeased than ever.
Of course, the universe hated her and had to make the day get worse somehow. For the rest of the work day, she had to deal with everything from incompetent coworkers to clients being ignorant assholes. It felt like the entire day was spent putting out tiny little fires that didn’t even have anything to do with her or her work. She even missed her lunch break due to one of those “mandatory” all-hands meetings that absolutely could have been an email, but had to be dragged on for an hour. By the time 4 o’clock rolled around, the overhead fluorescent lights were becoming unbearable and the electronics’ hum inescapable. For a few long moments, she wondered how undignified and unprofessional it would be if she crawled underneath her desk with her headphones on, and whether or not she cared.
All this was to say, by the time she arrived back home and set her bag down with a thump, Aelys was exhausted. All she wanted to do was tear off her uncomfortable “real adult” clothes and lie in bed in the dark for a while.
Her roommate watched her from the couch as she darted into her room, trying her best not to slam the door in her eagerness to escape. The bed creaked as Aelys threw herself onto it, and finally, she felt like she could breathe again. The fabric of her sheets were soft against her skin, and the comforting darkness of her bedroom felt like a world of difference from the sterile office she had just been in.
After an indeterminable amount of time lying there in the dark, she heard a barely perceptible knock on the door.
“Bad day?” Katari asked from the other side of the door, voice uncharacteristically soft.
Aelys managed a vague noise of assent.
The door opened just a crack, and she winced at the light.
“Sorry,” she sees a body move to block out the light, “do you want me to bring you anything? Water? Dinner? Painkillers?”
It took her a second to process the question, foggy as her mind was.
“Food. Please.”
She heard Katari laugh quietly.
“Alright.”
The door closed (she breathed in the dark and quiet), then opened again a few moments later. Katari came into the room, shut the door quickly, and set down a plate of food on Aelys’ nightstand. Again, Aelys made a sound that she hoped Katari took as thanks.
“Don’t mention it. Anything else?”
The shape in the dark was moving slowly back towards the door, and something in Aelys made her blurt out, “Stay?”
Katari hesitated, their hand on the door knob.
“You sure?”
Aelys nodded, hoping she could be seen well enough in the dark. It seemed like she had been, as she felt the bed dip where Katari sat down, half off the edge of it. It made her chuckle a little.
“You can sit on my bed, Katari, it’s okay.”
“No, I mean, I’m still wearing my outside clothes and I know you-”
Whatever else Katari had been going to say was cut off in an indignant squawk as Aelys wrapped her arms around them without warning and pulled them down beside her. It made Aelys laugh in earnest this time, burying her mirth in Katari’s annoyingly muscular shoulder. Katari huffed, but Aelys could see the smile on their face, even in the dark.
“Is this okay?” she asked.
An arm comes up around her and she finds herself being pulled into a hug.
“More than fine.” Katari answered.
The warm comfort of her friend’s embrace relaxed her almost immediately, and Aelys closed her eyes, humming in satisfaction. The day’s troubles were nothing more than a distant memory, now that she knew she was safe and held.