they'll fall asleep without you. [silas]

[Zephyr]

He’s seriously close to kicking Matthias out of his bed. He has work in the morning and the wit and sarcasm spilling from Matthias’ mouth isn’t making a lick of sense. Silas would probably accept the sarcasm with a little more grace had he not been woken from a sleep that had been hard to get in the first place…okay, he totally wouldn’t, but the point still stands that he isn’t in any mood to be entertaining the kid’s shit.

The doctor is trying to formulate the proper response in his sleep heavy mind, which would probably be something ever eloquent like fuck you or something, when Matthias keeps going, and kicking the kid out of bed is the furthest thing on his mind. Well, not really, because it’s just sinking in that Matthias wants to share a bed with him. It isn’t something he’d be completely against during the best of times. The kid is fucking gorgeous, and Silas just likes him in a way he hasn’t liked anyone aside from Nate…and he certainly doesn’t mind the kid touching him anymore…but it’s just weird.

He’s hovering on the edge of denying Matthias. He knows his couch is bad (he’s used it plenty of times in college, thanks), but it isn’t so bad that it’s impossible to sleep on. The truth is, though, that Silas isn’t keen on actually testing that theory out, so he can’t blame the kid for maybe wanting something a little more comfortable to sleep on. And the bed is big. They can both fit on it easily without touching or anything.

Not to mention the fact that he can almost sense how uncomfortable Matthias is at the moment. It isn’t easy to see his expression in the darkness, but all the goofy sarcasm has drained out of his voice and Silas can almost see it leeching from the line of his body in the scant amount of moonlight that spills into the room. He can tell that asking Silas for anything isn’t easy for him, and Silas just cannot understand this.

In the end, the decision is appallingly straightforward. Arguing with Matthias on this when his own arguments are disturbingly weak will just cause more issues and keep him up. He has to be at work in five fucking hours. He doesn’t have the time for this.

So, he regards Matthias carefully for a few long seconds, letting the kid talk himself out. The please tacked onto the end surprises him. It’s said like a plea, and Silas can see for the first time how truly difficult this is for him. So, he shrugs lightly. “Sure, whatever.” His voice is a sleepy growled, irritation still thick in his tone, but at least he’s agreeing. “Just don’t wake me up again. I have to wake up early for work.” Then he scoots over a fraction of an inch.

That is as much of an invitation as Matthias is going to get before Silas settles back down to try and fall back asleep, because he’s a goddamn bitch when he doesn’t get his sleep.

[Matthias Walker]

It should not be this…easy.

Matthias breathes, shaky, unsteady, his heartbeat an arrhythmic stutter against his sternum, his knuckles white in the blanket he draws like a veil around himself, and Silas makes it sound so simple, so natural. For a moment Matthias remains, silently sitting back on his heels on the edge of the bed, at a loss, and then his lips curve into a shy smile and he whispers, “Thank you.” Means it, for the first time in a long time, because it has always been easier to keep things far away from the mercurial sway of things like friendship and favors when he is as much of a ghost as anything he hunts, leaves smoke memories in the cities he visits.

But this is…something he wants to keep, just maybe, and he settles carefully onto the bed, letting his blanket fall to one side in favor of Silas’s. And he knows that the easiest, the most platonic, thing would be to keep the distance between them, leave it at the warmth from Silas seeping into the carved-out spaces against his bare skin and vice versa, but he just…it is faintly ridiculous, playing at foreignness, when he has slept with the man before (and much less innocently at that). And—for all that the bodies change with the night—Mattie is accustomed to sleeping with someone pressed against him, when all is said and done, appreciates the illusion of comfort.

So he closes the space between them, burrows to press himself along the lean line of Silas’s side, arm sliding tentatively around the doctor’s chest. Blue eyes stay determinedly open until after he has pressed a kiss against Silas’s bare shoulder, soft and apologetic, and buried his nose into the warm angle between neck and jaw. Then the pull of sleep, half borne of exhaustion and half of simple contentment, has him tucking himself silently against Silas, yielding to the warmth and pressure of skin and sheets.