Chapter 9: Snore

It was in the evening a few days after their talk when Nora and Luke had left for Keystone City. The journey was a relatively smooth one, the only bump being that Luke had thought he left his ticket for the train at home when in reality he had just misplaced them in the wrong pocket. At the start of the train journey Nora stole the window seat from her friend before they sat down because she enjoyed seeing what was on the other side of the glass speed past, to her it was like running except your butt is firmly planted in a comfy seat, what's not to love about that? The Detective however didn't experience much of their journey because he was mostly silently asleep in his seat swaying back and forth which Nora found hilariously adorable until the point where he almost fell into the aisle between seats. Of course Nora was a good friend and managed to pull him back towards the window where he soon enough got comfortable on her shoulder while remaining asleep. The smile that remained on her face for the rest of the journey was a small but happy one… until he began to snore.

When the train came to a stop Nora gladly nudged her friend awake and snorted when she saw his groggy looking face from sleeping. "Good morning," she teased before beginning to mock his snoring.

Luke smiled and shook his head, "Oh shush, I bet you do it much worse than I do," he retaliated as he stood up from his seat to grab their bags from the overhead storage.

"Hey, I don't snore!" she sassed a little too loudly before correcting her voice levels as to not wake up any other passengers, "And even if I did, it's not like you'll be sleeping with me anyway."

Luke dropped Nora's bag on his empty seat and then slung his own over his shoulders, "Sounds like you've got ideas," he teased before motioning her to follow him to the exit of their carriage. Nora gave Luke an 'I hate you' look before grabbing her bag and following her friend to the exit and stepping out into the cold dead of night, "Why did we get such a late train?" she asked the man who was zipping up his coat, "Because busy trains are annoying," he replied.

"They're annoying?" Nora questioned with a light chuckled as the two began to head their way out of the train station, "How are they annoying?"

"Because it's filled with people constantly coughing and shuffling about, it's annoying" Luke explained, and when Nora began to laugh louder at his statement, he knew what was coming.

"But you were snoring!" She laughed, "You can't get any more obnoxious than that!"

Luke lightly laughed along with her because of how right she was , "So why didn't you wake me up then?" he asked.

Nora's laughter died down a little as a small blush crept across her face, "Because." She replied trying to escape the question.

"Because you thought I was cute before I was snoring," Luke teased as he quickly sped ahead down the stairs to avoid the slap he would get from Nora. "Not at all!" she quickly flustered, "why would I find someone drooling on me cute?"

The Detective simply shrugged at the question to annoy her as the two left the train station and walked towards the only taxi that was parked outside. The two jumped into the car and made their way towards the hotel that they were planning on staying in, it wasn't anything fancy or expensive, it was simply cheap and suitable.

When they entered the hotel, they were met with a tired looking young lady who looked bothered by the fact that she had to do her job. The check-in process was slower than it should have been, but they were eventually given the key to their room along with a hint of attitude and as the speedster and detective opened the door and walked into their room for the night they were met with a surprise.

"Are you trying to pull a fast one on me?" Nora slowly questioned as she looked at Luke who quickly shook his head in denial, "No! Not at all! I booked two separate beds, I swear! I've got the confirmation email on my phone," he scrambled as he began to unlock his phone and search through his emails until he found the correct one. Nora watched Luke tap on his phone until a sigh of relief appeared and he showed her that he did, in fact, book a two-bed room.

Nora looked at the email a little longer than she needed to before pouting a suspicious look, "Okay, I believe you."

Luke held his phone back towards him and turned to leave the room, "I'll go talk to the receptionist and see if she can change our room or something," he announced with a worried tone as if he messed up. Nora felt bad for him, knowing what Luke was like he would probably be beating himself up over this if he thought that he had upset her, and she didn't want him to feel like that when they had both come all this way and had bigger problems to deal with. "Hey," she called out to him as he stepped out into the hallway, "It's fine," she smiled.

"It's… fine?" he asked her with a curious tone.

"Yep!" she replied as she walked towards the bed and took off her coat, "Just stick to your side, 'kay?"

Luke slowly walked into the room with a suspicious look, he felt as though he was in trouble, "I can always just sleep on the floor or something?" he offered in guilt.

Nora reached into her bag that was placed on her bed and pulled out light blue pajamas with a pink flower pattern spread out across them, "stop being stupid, I said it was fine," she replied with a somewhat motherly tone, "now get dressed into whatever you sleep in because you are so not sleeping in your underwear next to me," she chuckled but despite all the sass she was giving that she inherited from her mother, the butterflies in her stomach were running wild.

"Oh? Wouldn't be able to help yourself?" Luke joked as he began to undress top-down just wanting to get some more sleep at this point.

Nora averted her eyes and scurried off to hide in the bathroom and to get changed all while internally screaming "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod", she knew she was at the very least crushing on him, that was obvious enough for her, but she never thought that she would be in this position. She placed her face in her hands and released a quiet squeal of embarrassment before taking a deep breath and releasing it, "you're okay, you can do this XS," she said to herself confidently. All while this was happening Luke was simply yawning and getting dressed into the comfiest clothes that he had brought because he didn't bring anything to sleep in as he wasn't expecting to be sleeping in the same bed with the cutest girl he had ever met. Luke didn't really know how to proceed to make Nora the most comfortable, does he jump into bed now or does he wait for her to exit the bathroom? As he overthought this Nora opened the creaky door from the bathroom and Luke turned to see the adorable woman dressed in her pajamas while wearing a nervous smile as she looked at her friend wearing sweatpants and the most loose-fitting shirt he had.

"I don't know how, but I feel over-dressed" she joked cautiously as she walked past Luke to head to the bed but as she moved past him, she noticed a large mark on his right arm in the corner of her eyes. Nora's curiosity got the best of her, and when she was in the process of climbing underneath the covers, she stole a look at Luke's right arm to see an old burn scar running up the inside of it.

The detective noticed her looking and turned his arm a little to hide what he could of it before giving her a meek smile, "you can probably guess where that came from," he admitted before he slowly got into the right side of the bed.

Nora felt guilty for drawing attention to it, so she turned her back away from him as they both attempted to get comfortable underneath the sheets. A few minutes passed in awkward silence until Nora rolled onto the other side of her body and mumbled her apology, "Sorry, for bringing it back up."

"Don't worry about it," The Detective replied with a yawn, "I just usually cover it up is all, but you were bound to see it eventually."

Nora looked at the back of his body and released and audible shiver, "Are you stealing the sheets already?" she asked, attempting to change the topic before the night ended on a sad note.

Luke gave a tired laugh before turning his body to face her, "No, not yet anyway," he joked, "are you cold?" he then asked with a hint of concern to which Nora replied with one of her meek smiles and a timid hum, "Yeah… just a bit anyway."

"Just a bit?" The Detective repeated in a soft voice, and while assuming what she was alluding to he lifted his arm up underneath the bed sheets for her to move closer. Nora shuffled towards Luke under the sheets before taking his arm and placing it over her as she turned her back towards him. "Much better," she whispered in triumph before closing her eyes with a smile on her face as Luke placed his hand over hers and interlocked their fingers.

"Goodnight Nora, have dreams as sweet as you." Luke wished.


A/N: Merry Christmas!