Ah yes. Another infomercial. Because it's 1:30 in the goddamn morning and infomercials are all that exist.
Groaning with a sound she's been told is comparable to that of a frustrated bear, Skye fumbles for the remote and switches the TV to the next channel. On this very special program, an overexcited lady begins demonstrating the features of the "New and improved WonderKnife 7! Now with special handle grips when you order two or more!"
The buzz of an alert from her phone draws her already wavering attention to the smaller screen that lays beside her on the bed.
Grant Ward: Can we talk?
Just the sight of this all-too-familiar name forces a stone-like lump into Skye's throat. She'd finally gathered the courage to leave him and his manipulative, cheating ass. She refuses to let herself be fooled. It can't happen again, it won't. She'd gone so far as to give him a choice and he'd made the wrong one, leaving her in the dust as he chased after another woman.
When her phone buzzes with a second text, she's moved past the feelings of dread and sadness. She's simply angry. This time, she tosses her phone blindly, hearing the soft thud as it hits the carpeted floor - message left unread. She lays down stiffly, nearly burying her head in her pillow. With the over-exuberant infomercial demonstrator still babbling away on the television, Skye shuts her eyes and tries to think of nothing but a black void, attempting to force herself into what is sure to be a restless sleep.
She does fall asleep, though not for long. The bold red light of her alarm clock reads 2:43 AM when the doorbell's ring startles her awake. Her fingers fumble at the blankets that are tangled around her legs.
'Who the hell visits at this time?!' is Skye's first thought, followed quickly by 'Shit, the heater went out again.', prompted by the sensation of freezing floorboards as her bare feet cross the living room floor. She squints through the peephole. She can't see the visitor's face in the dim hallway light. It's a man though, she can tell by the shadowy outline.
Uneasiness edges at her stomach, but curiosity has always gotten the better of her, so she slowly cracks the door open as far as the locked chain allows. She silently pleads that she won't find Ward standing in her doorway.
"Oh my god, Lincoln! Do you know what time it is?" She scolds, then glances nervously at her neighbors' doors, realizing too late how loudly her voice echoes in the empty hallway.
It's not her ex that she's found, but her friend.
Her friend, and a garbage bag beside him, stuffed full of who-knows-what.
"What are you doing?" She asks in a slightly quieter tone.
"She just kicked me out." Lincoln responds sheepishly, scratching at the back of his neck.
He looks exhausted. His perpetually ruffled hair sticks up in even more directions than usual. His eyes are rimmed with red; his whole face is rather pink really, though stubble does cover most of it. He's clothed in gray sweatpants and a soft hoodie that Skye has threatened to steal for months. He glances down at the bag at his feet. "I… Uh. I didn't know where else to go."
"Raina? She seriously kicked you out in the middle of the night? That's insane!"
Lincoln responds with a shaky laugh.
"Ah, yeah. Always did have a flair for the dramatic, I suppose." He leans down to pick up his bag. "Then again, I should've seen this coming for months."
"Fair enough." Skye consents. She can't help but notice the lines etched on Lincoln's brow and the darkness below his eyes. She has the sudden urge to hug him; she wants to keep him from running back to Raina (and perhaps keep her from falling back to Ward as well). But instead, she turns to her default mood-lifter: humor. "So were you planning on sleeping in my hallway, or did you want to come in?"
He opts for the latter, slinging the bag over his shoulder and following Skye into the dark apartment. She gives the bag a once-over as he sets it down by the couch.
"So is that everything you currently own?" She asks, tugging the crocheted throw - a handmade gift from Jemma - into the couch as a makeshift bed (the first time she's actually used the supposedly entirely necessary blanket).
Lincoln shrugs.
"Everything I could get before Raina started screaming at me again to get out."
"You can grab a pillow from my room." She says without so much as glancing up. This isn't the first time Lincoln has slept on her couch, especially since he and Raina had first begun their on-again-off-again roller coaster of a relationship. Many an argument over the course of nearly two years had resulted in Lincoln being locked out of the apartment they shared, and he has spent more than a few nights getting cozy with her couch. (Except for when Ward was around - another guy in the apartment was absolutely out of the question to him.)
Still, he's never shown up in the middle of the night before. Regardless, at this point, they are rather well versed in the routine.
For all the grumbling she usually gives him for it, she never really minds. If she is completely honest with herself, she'd admit that these nights they spent talking and laughing and watching terrible movies were the nights she felt happiest. With him out of the room and her back turned to him anyway, she smiles.
"No way. No way. You did not."
"I did, I swear!"
She shakes her head in disbelief.
"Lincoln Campbell, you are either a liar, or in huge trouble for not calling me when you drunkenly decided to make a fool of yourself in public! Next time, I'm there and I'm filming it."
The stern edge of Skye's tone gets both of them to laughing. Laughing feels good.
The makeshift bed Skye put together on the couch sits untouched, as neither of them had felt much like sleeping anymore. They opted instead for making nests of pillows and blankets, and sprawling out on her living room floor.
Surprisingly cozy and distracted by conversation, they'd barely noticed the time, or even the silvery-red sunlight beginning to peek through the windows.
At around 7 am Skye moves to the kitchen to make coffee, leaving Lincoln alone. She's gone for no more than five minutes, but by the time she returns, he's fallen asleep.
"Dead to the world." She shakes her head at him as she sets his coffee mug safely on the nearest table. Well, if he's not going to use the couch, she may as well. No longer tired enough to sleep, Skye sips her coffee as she sits cross legged on the cushion. She picks up a random book she'd left out ages ago and tries to read, but her eyes keep drifting from the page.
She doesn't mean to be creepy, but she finds herself staring at Lincoln. Unlike when he first showed up last night, he doesn't look stressed. He doesn't look sad, he doesn't look angry.
He looks peaceful. And rather cute all curled up in blankets, with the sun softly illuminating him - she can't deny that.
(He'll ask her later, rather sheepishly, if he can stay a bit longer. Just until he finds a new apartment, he swears.
"Do you seriously think I'd let my best friend live out on the street, homeless and lonely?" She teases in reply.
He stares at her rather seriously for a long moment.
"No." He's serious now, something she rarely sees in him though their sarcasm and joking. "But really, thank you. I really needed you last night." His eyes widen slightly at the realization of how that could sound. "I really needed a friend last night, I mean." He quickly adds.
She needed him just as much, though she doesn't say so out loud. Instead, she raises her newly refilled cup of coffee to his.
"To friends-" She announces "-and, more specifically, to friends who I can, and will beat at every board game in existence."
"In your dreams.")