a/n: This ridiculous series spawned from the realization that my main fics, Homeward and Shattered Chains, have a whole lot of bedroom scenes for the amount of nothing going on, and that I generally enjoy writing these two, well... platonically in bed together. Despite the original inspiration, this series is completely unrelated to the Homeward series. 100% platonic, 200% nonsense (probably at least 50% ship teasing because I cannot restrain myself even in a platonic fic). Please enjoy the frivolity.
Dedicated to the lovely ryoku1, who, ever an inspiration, encouraged me to write this absurdity.
"I thought they were going to fix this," muttered Inaho as he twisted his apartment key in the lock for the fourth time, with no effect. He wiggled the doorknob. Wiggled and twisted together. Pulled, wiggled, and twisted. Nothing. Well, you get what you pay for, and he certainly wasn't paying for much. He stood for a moment, staring at the rusty old knob and its rusty old keyhole, wondering why anyone would even bother putting a lock on such a shoddy place. The only valuables inside were the people, and if his roommate hadn't been paying half the rent, he would gladly hand the man over to a burglar, or whatever nefarious person wandered in and would take him. As he made a mental note of when a good time to call the landlord would be, he reached for the keyhole one last time. Before he could fit the key inside, it sprung away from him and the door swung open.
A rather lanky young man was standing in the entrance dressed only in boxers, with hair not unlike a bird's nest, still clutching the pillow he had no doubt just climbed from the bed with.
"Inahooo…" he drawled out with the tail end of a particularly cavernous yawn.
"It's Kaizuka," was the terse correction, "Are you going to let me in, Troyard?"
The disheveled one seemed to only just realize he was standing in the way, and stepped aside. After closing the door behind Inaho, he turned and trudged back to the bed, flopping into its fluffy recesses with a contented sigh.
Through many unfortunate circumstances and events, Inaho had somehow ended up sharing not only an apartment with this person, but also a bed. Now, generally the name "full size" or "double" implies that the thing is, in fact, large enough for two people. But that only works if those two people are placed in unnatural alignment, from which they do not move throughout the course of the night. Given the reality that even close friends and siblings rarely prefer sharing a bed on a regular basis, this particular one was not nearly large enough for two practical strangers, even if they did sleep laid out like sardines in a can. He would opt for the floor, but this arrangement was for at least six months. Putting up with it was the only option, as there was absolutely no room for another mattress, or even a futon, had he possessed the money to purchase one.
The keys clanked in a dish on the table as he sat down to pull off his shoes. He nearly leaned against a drying watercolor as he did so.
Slaine Troyard was, in his estimation, something of an eccentric. They hadn't really spoken much, their schedules being very different thus far, but from what he had been told, and gathered through observation, his new roommate was an author and an artist, and maybe a few other things. Whether he had published anything, or was any good, he neither knew nor cared. The art was the main issue. This apartment was small, too small for wet paint to be lying around for any period of time. He had already, in the space of three days, ruined two shirts by brushing against something he hadn't realized was not dry. When he had demanded replacements, or compensation, or an apology at the very least, all he had received was a dismissive wave. Slaine was "in the zone" or some such nonsense.
After about fifteen minutes of fighting with the WiFi, which seemed to work only when he was not at home, and eventually hacking their neighbor's for the basic human right of checking one's email, he quickly prepared for bed and slipped in beside the fast-asleep Slaine. Then began the usual ordeal. First it was the curtain, which inevitably was left slightly open because Slaine liked to look at the stars as he fell asleep. But the street light just outside rivaled the sun in its brilliance, rendering him sleepless until the curtain was shut entirely. Perhaps he should invest in an eye mask. Of course, closing the curtain required climbing over Slaine, who never seemed to remain still in times like these. Sure enough, just as his knee connected with the mattress in the narrow gap between Slaine and the wall beneath the window, Slaine rolled over, tipping his balance and sending him flying backwards. He wouldn't go down without a fight, however. The curtain rod was bound to be strong, it looked strong, so he grabbed the curtain in one graceful hoist, and propelled himself towards the window. It was an unfortunate miscalculation, since this particular curtain rod belonged to this particular apartment, which was, for all intents and purposes, hardly fit for human inhabitance. The thing sprung from the wall like cork freed from a champagne bottle and flew across the room at a terrifying velocity. He heard a crash, and hoped it wasn't the only lamp they owned. Not that he even liked the hideous fixture.
Resigning himself to a night of torturous luminosity, he shoved the somehow still sleeping Slaine back to the far side of the bed. Then came the second tribulation – wresting his share of the blankets back from the fiend's death grip. But by this point, Slaine had rolled around so much that he was completely cocooned in them. Retrieving even a corner would require unraveling him. He sighed, exhausted from the late hours finishing his experiment at the lab, and cast a glance around the room for something else that might suffice for one night. His eyes landed on the curtain. Well, at this point…
Choking a little on the dust and nicotine that had clearly survived through at least three previous tenants, he snuggled under the thick old curtain. Thankfully the cold weather was not upon them yet, and the apartment was not terribly cold. There was one good side to all this – if Slaine was swaddled in all those blankets, he couldn't fling his limbs about all night as he usually did. Inaho closed his eyes, glad to have avoided at least one of the usual trials, and, of course, forgot to set his alarm.