"that you also sleep in your bed. Not with me or anything weird like that but I'd feel bad if you gave up sleeping comfortably only for me to sleep in your bed." Raz reasoned, trying to keep himself from thinking about actually sleeping with another person, let alone Simon.
Simon tipped his head, considering. “Fine,”
he said tonelessly and went to his bedroom kicking off his shoes and pulling off his shirt. He got into bed on the right side, laying at at the edge and pulling the covers up over his head.
Raz sat on the living room couch for a moment, stunned that Simon would agree so quickly. He glanced down at Jack, as if the cat could reassure him that what Simon had said was true. He sighed softly and kissed Jack on the head. "I guess I'll see you and Spooks in the morning." He gently nudged the cat aside onto the couch and stood up. He slowly made his way to the bedroom and peeked inside, only seeing a silhouette of Simon laying under the sheets. He took a deep breath and walked to the empty space on the bed to the left. He felt a bit weird getting into the unfamiliar bed but he felt more uncomfortable walking home alone at such a late hour of the night. He nudged aside the sheets and curled up near the edge. "Thank you, for letting me sleep here." He muttered softly over his shoulder at Simon. He rested his head on his arm and closed his eyes, breathing in the faint cinnamon cent of the sheets
Simon made a noncommital noise in response to Razielle, curling into a ball with his wings wrapped around himself. After a while, he drifted into sleep, happy that he was finally getting some rest. This joy was quickly dispelled by the fact that he was having a nightmare.
He was running away from something. Usually, in the nightmares, it was some horrible form of Anael, like a demon version of him. This time, he couldn't look behind him to see what it was. He kept trying to, nonetheless. The scenery looked somewhat like Hell, all red and black and burnt up. He tripped on something, and as he hit the ground, everything went black.
He shot up in bed, his wings puffed up defensively. His head hurt terribly, but he couldn't do a lot about that. He looked up at the ceiling, trying to calm his breathing. He knew it wasn't real, but it still was disconcerting.
Raz whined softly and woke up "hey, you alright?" He asked sleepily, scooting up so that he was sitting up. "Did you have one of those dreams where you feel like your falling or something?" He asked softly, yawning and stretching. "Or was it nightmare?"
"I'm fine," Simon snapped, forcing his wings to relax. "I'm fine," he repeated, giving Razielle a hard look. He was suddenly very self-conscious of the fact that he had no shirt, so he got up and dug a hoodie out of his closet, putting it on and pulling the sleeves down over his wrists.
Raz sleepily glared at Simon before looking away as he pulled on the hoody. "You're clearly not fine." He said softly "despite how much you want to.lie to me or yourself."
"Fuck off," Simon said, puffing his wings up again. "I don't need your charity. And you don't get to tell me how I feel.'
Raz laughed humorlessly and crossed his arms over his chest "I'm not offering any charity Simon. I'm only telling what I see. And clearly it's something different from what you're telling me." He shrugged with a shake of his head and curled back up again. "If you do that want to talk, fine. But don't brush it off as if it's nothing." He said, curling his wings around him as he faced the wall.
"What is there to talk about, Razielle?" Simon said, pulling his knees up to his chest. "It's over now and it doesn't matter. I don't see why it matters so much to you."
"you sit up in bed as if you saw a ghost or something in a cold sweat." He turned in place and faced Simon. "We both know that the moment you try and go back to sleep the nightmare continues." He ignored the last bit, mostly because he honestly didn't know why he cared. It wasn't like Simon had done him any favors but he had grown to enjoy his company, at least in the last recent days.
Wearily and without any venom behind it, Simon said, “I am fine. I survived without your concern for God knows how many years. I think I can get by. I’m a big boy.”
Raz sighed softly and nodded, "you're right. But if you do want to talk about anything, I'm.willing to listen." He said softly with a slight smile. "I'll see you in the morning."
Simon didn't say anything, getting up and going to the kitchen. He ran hot water in the sink and held his hands under the water for as long as he could stand it, then let his hands cool off and repeated this until his hands hurt too much to do it again. Then he pulled his hands into his sleeves and returned to bed, laying on his back, not even trying to go back to sleep.
Raz didn't sleep very much either, worry about the next day as well as about Simon's sudden changes in mood. He had assumed the other had gone to the bathroom to freshen up and to shake himself from the bad dream. After a while, he got out of bed and walked to the living room, needing to do something other than lay with his thoughts
At seven o’clock exactly, Simon got out of bed, changed into khakis and a grey sweater and went to the bathroom to attempt to comb his hair. Eventually the comb got stuck in his hair and he stood in front of the mirror trying to weasel it out. Giving up, he went into the living room and said, “Um. Razielle. I need- I need help with something.”
Raz had stayed in the living room for the majority of the morning, napping occasionally when he could read or just watching the stillness of the city outside the window. Raz glanced up and tried his best not to laugh as he patted the spot beside him. "What did you do?" He asked
“Tried to fix my hair. It didn’t work. Obviously.” He flopped down next to Razielle. “It’s so tangled. How the hell did it get like this?” he complained, frowning.
Raz codnt help but chuckle as he knelt on the couch, trying his best to pull out the comb. Figuring Simon didn't want to go bald, he decided to slowly pull out a few strands of hair at a time. "Does this happen often?" He asked curiously "I can't imagine you leaving the house with a comb stick in your hair."
Simon glared at nothing in particular. In a surly tone, he said. “It happens all the fucking time. I had to cut my hair more than a few times.”
"that can't be a great look." Raz noted with a laugh as he gently pulled out strands of hair from the mess. He glanced away for a moment, debating on what to say next. He wanted to bring up the dream again but didn't want to push Dimon to his limit. Instead, he said "are you ready to go back today?"
“Back?” he asked distractedly. He was more expecting Razielle to just yank the comb out of his hair, instead of being so gentle.
Raz nodded "yeah, to heaven. It might not be permanent but it'll be different than before. And probably ly for longer depending on how much time we'll need to spend looking in the archives." He explained, finally managing to get the comb out.
“I’m-I guess I don’t really feel all that strongly about it.” Simon began trying to untangle his hair with his fingers. “I mean, I don’t not care.”
"that's surprising, considering you were so adament about returning before." He mused with a shrug. He swatted Simons hands away and tilted his head down so that he could detangled the end of his hair with the comb
“Emotions change, especially mine.” Simon said. He made a spluttering sound of protest when Razielle began combing his hair. “You don’t have to do that,” he said ducking out of Razielle’s reach.
"I've noticed." Raz muttered, sighing softly and looking at Simon with a pointed glance. "You're gonna get this stuck again." He warned, waving the comb around.
“That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? Pulling a comb out of my flowing locks?” He frowned, but sat still and let Raz have his way with his hair.
"unfortunately, hair stylist isn't part of my job description. And flowing is not a word I'd use right now, more like potential bird nest." He snickered and tilted Simon's head back down to begin combing through Simon's hair again, using both the comb and his fingers to better feel where any snags were
"It isn't funny. I had no reason to brush my hair until now. Minimal effort. And I rarely even get it cut." He screwed up his face and added as an afterthought, "Professionally, at least." On instinct, he kept ducking out of Razielle's reach. "Sorry! Sorry."