If You Fall

Twenty Four

I fell asleep with the laptop open and when I woke up, Reed was asleep next to me on his stomach. My heart grew three sizes, like the Grinch. He had moved the laptop and covered me. 

It was early afternoon, and I was content to sleepily lay there until he woke himself an hour later with a bad dream.

He rolled over and opened his eyes, saw me, and his frown relaxed. "Addy," he said in relief, putting his hand out to touch my elbow, as if to verify my realness.

"Hi." I smiled, though seeing him unable to sleep more than an hour at a time was disconcerting. "How are those sleeping meds they offered working out?"

He winced and put the back of his arm over his eyes. "I don't want to be drugged."

"You have to sleep," I said, gently but reasonably. "Just take something for now. Do me this huge favor."

He groaned. "That's not really fair."

I could handle that. "Life's not really fair, my dear Intou." I kept my voice light. "You're not going to miss anything if you take something to pass out for a while. You can't do this much longer."

He opened his eyes and his mouth quirked wryly. "You'd be surprised, chérie,"

"Yeah, no, I probably wouldn't, tough guy," I said sardonically. "At least you're not snorting coke like Bella to stay up."

He shrugged. "I have done so before. Most recently two nights ago." His voice was quiet and he sounded like he didn't care but that was a sign he cared a lot.

If he expected me to balk at that or something he didn't know me as well as I thought. "'K." I yawned, which made him do so. "So, then you shouldn't have issue with a little sleeping meds and whatever helps to get you through this shit."

"Touché."

I smirked because I'd won.

"You saw Arianna?" He seemed afraid to ask. He yawned again, rolling toward me and propping his head on his elbow.

I reached out and touched his nose, about the only place on his face that wasn't hurting. "I was nice."

"I don't doubt that."

"So do you have them or you need to get them?"

He looked perplexed. "Get what, chérie?" He yawned a third time.

"The sleeping meds," I said pointedly.

He narrowed his eyes at me but I could tell he didn't have much protest left. "You're not going to give this up, are you?"

"Nope." I wasn't, either. "You and Bulletproof can take a nice rest; if I get bored I'll go play with Dane."

His eyes widened. "I would be careful of how you phrase that to the lad," he suggested, a little amused.

I would have liked to have been able to joke about teaching him a thing or two, but when you were dealing with sexually abused kids it wasn't really funny. "I'm just kidding. I'll stay with you, keep the dragons away."

"You are good at that," he mused, yawning yet again and moving his arm so his head was now on the pillow. He was still brooding though.

"What are you thinking about?"

He shrugged a little. "What if the dreams still come but I can't wake up enough to escape them?"

Damn every person who had every hurt him to hell. I patted his hair, short as it was. "I'll be here. I'll wake you up."