You spent that evening cuddled up in Leo's arms on the couch and you enjoyed every minute of it. He seemed a bit more protective than usual, after the knife scare at dinner. He wouldn't let you cook after that. It took him a while to recover enough to go back to cooking himself. You felt terrible for frightening him so much, so you were letting him do what he wanted. Which had resulted in the two of you bundled together on the couch, some documentary or other playing in front of you.

You didn't mind at all; you were unusually tired, the documentary was actually somewhat interesting and the pictures were pretty and bright, and Leo had you tucked into his arms. You were nodding off there, pressed against him happily. You would get to sleep in the next morning. You would get to spend all the time with Leo. Why wouldn't you be happy?

You didn't even realize that you were falling into a contented sleep until Leo tried to shift you and you blinked into awareness. The room was dark, the tv off and silent, and Leo was next to you trying to fix the blanket that was thrown over you haphazardly. You sat up on your own once you realized, pulling the blanket tighter around you as you felt a chill. Leo saw and moved a bit closer to you. A quick glace over to the far side of the room where the glowing clock sat proved it to be nearly midnight; you had slept for a good several hours, but you were still tired.

“Mmmh.” You moaned as you forced yourself away from Leo and to your feet. You were in comfy clothes but they weren't pjs, and you very much wanted to sleep. You stumbled forward blearily towards your room, hardly awake.

“Be careful,” Leo said, standing behind you, “don't walk into the--”

Too late; you ran into the door frame with a loud thud and back pedaled, falling into Leo's waiting arms as you lifted a foot to rub the pain out of the stubbed toe. “Ow ow ow,” you mumbled, unhappily as you hissed a bit from between your teeth. Leo leaned over and planted a gentle kiss on your head in the darkness.

“You definitely need to go to sleep.”

“What are you, a cat?” You asked, more awake now than you wanted to be. “How in the world can you see?”

“A cat?” Leo said, seeming please by the thought. “Like the pjs you got me? Maybe you were onto something.”

You scoffed and stood on your own, feeling your way to your bedroom. “Maybe I was, but you don't wear them.”

You could have sworn you heard a chuckle as you closed the door on him so you could change.

“Maybe I'll wear them tomorrow.”

“I'll make you,” you yelled through the door as you quickly changed. “Because it is way too much of a waste,” you pulled open the door, finished, “to leave them sitting in the closet. Would you mind staying in the living room tonight? I'm going to pass out, I'm exhausted.”

From where he has been waiting right in the hallway beyond the door, Leo leaned forward to leave a peck on your forehead.

“Of course I don't. Have pleasant dreams, alright?”

* * *

You didn't wake up. That was the first way you could tell something was wrong. Your dreams were a mess and they wouldn't let you go. Things were growing and shrinking out of proportion, disappearing even as you chased them, appearing behind you with a scream to set your heart racing. You couldn't tell what was forward and what was back. You couldn't tell what was hot and what was cold.

You struggled to wake yourself up; it was dizzying in these dreams. You thrashed and fought against invisible hands ruthlessly until you realized, no, these hands weren't invisible.

These were Leo's hands.

The understanding loosened the hold of the dream; the shapes began to recede, the tantalizing, frantically changes sizes of things you couldn't identify stilled.

“Easy, easy.”

The voice finally did it. It was calm, solid, but the edge of concern pulled you out of unconsciousness and you slowly opened your eyes. You weren't prepared for how painstaking that was, the slow battle between sticky eyelids and weakened determination. Rest, your body screamed, close them. But Leo was waiting.

Darkness greeted you. In the few moments it took your eyes to adjust you searched out the darkness you glanced over to the glowing clock; just past 4.

“Ugh.” Your head was throbbing terribly but some senses had come back to now that your eyes were open. What little you could see was spinning, and apparently it showed; Leo reached out from his seat on the bed next to you to steady you.

“Be careful, you aren't well.”

You slowly laid back down. “Yeah, I kind of figured that.” You put a hand to your forehead but couldn't tell if it was any hotter than usual. Maybe it was just the darkness that made everything feel off. “Could you turn on my lamp please?” He was sitting between you and it.

“Yeah, watch your eyes.” You closed them at his warning as he flipped the switch and light radiated through the room. Your head pounded in response, and you opened one eye tentatively. You could see now, but that was about all that changed. You opened the other, but still were squinting.

Leo was looking at you, concern etched into his features as though it was sitting there permanently. “I'm fine,” you told him before he could even ask. “It's nothing.”

“This is not 'nothing'.”

“Well it's not a big deal, at any rate.” You noticed for the first time the damp towel in his hand and the contents of half of your medicine cabinet at the bedside. “And what in the world are you doing with all of that?”

“You were thrashing in your sleep,” he mumbled, wordlessly looking down at the sheets- which was the only thing left on the bed, and you suspected that that was because Leo put it there. “And I didn't know what was wrong, so I just grabbed everything. This one,” he picked a small green bottle, “says it helps bring down fevers. You should take some.”