Author's Note: For the Imagine Your OTP prompt: "Imagine Your OTP lives in a large house with several other people. They rarely have time to spend together during the day… but at night they often lay awake together in one of their rooms, enjoying the quiet and still while everyone else in the house sleeps, they finally have the time to talk to each other and just enjoy being together." Also, for the If You Dare Challenge, prompt 362. Pipe Down.

Room

(Cinna and Portia find a time and place for peace.)

It had seemed like a good idea at the time. It really, really had.

A bunch of the design students had decided to split the rent on a huge rental house near the campus in senior year. Everyone got their own room, there was plenty of space, and it all seemed fine.

But for Cinna and Portia, it posed an odd problem: they felt like, "living together", they never saw each other anymore. When it involved some level of effort, they thought about it consciously, and constantly arranged ways to spend time together. But now that they were technically living together, they seemed to assume that they were spending plenty of time together when, due to their schedules, they actually weren't. So they'd come up with an unintentional system.

. . . . .

"Cinna? Are you awake?" Portia whispered from the doorway.

"Yeah," he mumbled, and rolled over to look at her, pulling the blanket back; it was cold in the house, which if he was talking to most people he would use to explain her wearing socks and a jacket with her loose nightgown, but it was Portia, so he'd learned to stop trying to explain such things.

"Can I come in?" she asked, a question with a rather obvious answer. She still shifted nervously.

He almost rolled his eyes. "Of course. Just like every other night, angel."

She smiled a bit, and curled up next to him, accepting the half of the blanket he offered, although it was excessive since she was much smaller than him. "Thanks," she murmured.

"Hmm." He just absently brushed her hair away from her face, short black strands that had come loose from a rather sloppy ponytail.

"How was your day?" she asked, words slurring from exhaustion, eyes fluttering shut.

"All right. Busy. I take it your day was tiring."

"Hmm," she echoed, snuggling nearer to him, in awkward, jerky movements. He hugged her closer and just held her like that, peaceful, kissing the top of her head softly. It was oddly quiet—everyone else was asleep, and it was only late at night like this that you could feel alone in the big house. But, not quite alone.

She nuzzled her head against his chest, breathing in his scent of fresh fabric, feeling his faint warmth and heartbeat, comforting.

"Go to sleep, angel. We both have to get up early tomorrow."

"What if I don't want to?" she tried.

"Then I'll have to drag you out of bed again. And you know the big brown eyes don't work on me."

She pouted at him, or tried to.

"Portia, sleep."

"Fine. … Goodnight, Cinna."

"Goodnight, Portia."

… A few minutes later, he whispered, "Fall asleep, already."

"Why do I have to fall asleep first?" she whispered back.

"Because I can't sleep until I'm sure that you're safely and happily asleep."

"Well, I can't just fall asleep on command."

"Just try." He kissed her forehead, stroked her hair, her head tucked under his chin, a leg over hers, protective. "… Just try. All right?"

She didn't answer. She was fast asleep.

END