Toby looked at the clock on his living room wall: 1:32 pm. He was editing a video on a particularly gloomy Sunday night (or rather Monday morning), which was due to be posted on Monday afternoon. He wasn't particularly tired after drinking four (or was it five?) cups of coffee, but border was starting to set in and Toby found himself watching the rain fall heavily onto the nearest window for entertainment.
Despite having all of the downstairs lights on and being a 26 year old man, Toby still had to admit that the view out of the window was creepy. It was one of those cliché stormy nights you saw on budget horror films; this led Toby's procrastination to a new level as he began to plan his own horror film out in his head. It would have demons, and zombies, and a hot chick who would get stabbed in the face. Toby reached the part in his head where the main character (the chesty peroxide blonde 40 year old, acting as a high school student) would go into the basement after hearing a suspicious noise, when the doorbell rang. He jumped, snapping himself out of his vision and glanced up at the clock again. It was almost 2 am.
Cautiously, Toby moved towards the door. "If this is a zombie I swear I will murder its face off. However, it this is a demon, I will run in the opposite direction for eternity" he mumbled to himself. For the first time since moving into his house, Toby was thankful for the peephole set into his front door. He looked through it, gasped, and quickly unlocked and opened the door. "Justine, what are you doing? It's 2 am" Toby asked, pulling a damp and shivering Justine into the house. He closed the door behind her and she looked up at him sheepishly.
"I'm sorry. Did I wake you?" she asked quietly and Toby smiled softly. He pulled on the hem of her damp Black Ops hoodie and she lifted her arms so that he could pull it over her head. Toby placed the hoodie over one of his radiators and looked over at Justine. She was wearing zebra print pyjama bottoms and a clashing green Tobuscus t-shirt which he knew was one of his; not that he wanted it back, it looked better on her anyway.
"No, you didn't wake me, scared me a bit though. This is zombie weather" he laughed as she nervously glanced towards the window "Oh, come here" Toby said, and pulled Justine into a hug. After a few seconds of comfortable silence, Toby spoke again. "So, you going to tell me what you're doing here at 2 am Jus?"
"I-I" she stumbled over her words and a blush crept up her cheeks "you're going to think it's stupid" she said, pulling away from Toby's embrace and looking at the floor. Toby shook his head, took her hand and led her across the room, over to the sofa. He sat down and pulled Justine down with him, wrapping an arm around her.
"I promise I won't think it's stupid" he declared, and Justine smiled up at him.
"I had a nightmare" Justine waited for the onslaught of jokes and mocking laughter, but they never came. Instead, Toby simply cuddled her in further and softly kissed one of her temples.
"You want to talk about it?" he asked quietly.
"No, it was just about necromorphs, but I couldn't sleep and I kept hearing noises" she rambled.
"Don't worry, I'll protect you" Toby whispered into her hair.
"I know"