#98 -Writer's Choice - Bed
Further Adventures in Sharing a Bed
Segment Notes: So I ended up wanting to write out the incident Kalin and Radley discussed in the prior segment. I am always amused by inadvertent disasters that can occur while trying to share a bed, plus I was curious to see how Radley handled such an awkward problem. Kalin's brief musing on the Enforcer days is something both XenoEmblemFTW and I have mused on about those times.
When Radley started to emerge from a sound sleep, he found he was still wrapped in Kalin's sweet embrace. That felt so nice. They had dozed off like that after another round of upsetting nightmares had disturbed them both. It was a good way for them to comfort each other as well as themselves. Both of them hated to be alone, and neither was too proud to admit it.
Only . . . something else didn't feel quite right. Something unsettling had woke him up. As he roused up more, he realized the problem. In Kalin's sleep, he had let one of his hands slip down. Now it was resting comfortably in an inappropriate location.
Radley fumbled, reaching behind himself to lift Kalin's hand away. Unfortunately, as was usual when his friend slept, he just let his hand fall right back again. Radley flinched.
"Kalin!" he hissed. He didn't like to wake Kalin up, but it didn't seem like there was another choice. Radley wasn't going to lay like this all night, and fighting with a slumbering Kalin's hand never worked. "Kalin, you've gotta wake up!"
"Huh?" Kalin grunted.
Again Radley tried to push Kalin's hand away. "Kalin, your hand is on my bottom!" he finally exclaimed.
"Bottom of what?" Kalin mumbled.
Radley slapped his forehead. Normally Kalin was a light sleeper and could quickly snap to, but sometimes even he went into a deeper sleep. Radley really didn't want to have to end up using some of the terms he didn't like to try to get Kalin to understand the problem.
"Where I sit down?" he retorted. "That bottom?"
Kalin's eyes snapped open. He immediately jerked, pulling his hand away and releasing Radley from the hug at the same time. "Sorry. I'm sorry," he said in chagrin. He was completely red. They never touched each other there unless they had to for some reason, such as when Radley had fallen in the tub while dizzy and hurt and Kalin had rescued him and tried to dry him off. This certainly hadn't been such an occasion.
Radley sighed. "I know you didn't mean to," he said. "It's okay. Hey, you don't have to stop with the hugging. That felt nice."
Kalin looked too embarrassed to try that again. Instead he rolled over to face away from Radley. "I don't trust myself when I'm asleep," he mumbled. "One time I woke up with my hand dug so far into Yusei's spikes, it was hurting him. This is far worse."
Radley rolled with him and laid a hand on his shoulder. "I'll bet you made sure that didn't happen again with Yusei, even though you were asleep," he soothed.
". . . Well . . . yes," Kalin finally conceded.
"Then the same thing will apply here," Radley insisted. "You won't let yourself drop your hand down there again."
Kalin still hesitated, but finally he rolled onto his back and looked to Radley. "You really want to chance it again?" he said doubtfully.
"Of course," Radley said. "I know you'll be careful, and the hug was comforting." He sighed. "I have a phobia of being alone. That's gotten worse lately. And we've been waking up with nightmares most of this week. I'd rather keep resting together tonight."
Finally Kalin consented and turned onto his side, enveloping Radley in the sweet hug again. Radley snuggled close and soon dozed.
Kalin finally smiled. This sort of thing had often happened in the Enforcers, as with their circumstances they hadn't been able to afford much, and certainly not separate sleeping spaces for each of them. Now those days were long over, but he had one of those unique situations again. He and Radley had their own rooms, yet the heavy emotional trauma they went through often drove them to prefer sharing a bed for comfort. In spite of the lack of space, it did feel good and it definitely helped to not be alone with their thoughts and fears.
Kalin made sure his hands were firmly against Radley's upper back as he dozed. To their shared relief, his hands stayed there.
Kalin stood looking over Radley as he quietly slept. He was peacefully laying on his stomach, hugging the pillow to him. Even with the bed to himself tonight, he wasn't sprawled all over the whole thing. Kalin had seen him like that sometimes, but Radley had trained himself to use less of the bed ever since they had started sharing it sometimes for comfort.
There had been other weird accidents when they had done that. Kalin especially did strange things in his sleep, including sprawling out and flinging limbs and hair across Radley. Sometimes they woke up with their limbs tangled together or with Radley laying on Kalin's hair. There hadn't been any other embarrassing incidents with hands going where they actually shouldn't, although one time on the couch they had woke up with Radley using Kalin's hip as a pillow and another time he had been pressed so hard against Kalin's chest that he had apparently thought Kalin was a mattress or a couch cushion. Radley had apologized profusely any time he had done something uncomfortable, although Kalin really hadn't minded at least the pillow incident.
When it came to what Kalin did while sleeping, Radley was inclined to laugh it off as just one of those things. Sleep was unpredictable. Kalin felt terrible anyway, as well as downright embarrassed by some of his antics. Radley laughing and dismissing what Kalin did was his way of trying to get Kalin to relax and to show him that he didn't hold any of the nonsense against him.
Kalin appreciated that.
He pulled the quilt up higher around Radley's shoulders before quietly slipping to his own room. They would try staying in their separate rooms tonight, but nightmares might drive them together again. That was alright. They liked it, in spite of any awkward or embarrassing problems that came up because of it.
"Maybe it sounds loco, but I think being able to weather stuff like that shows how much we like being with each other," Radley told Kalin after the mortifying incident with his hand dropping down too far. "Sure, we're there for each other when things get serious and scary, but every day life has its trials too. Some people can't deal with things like that. We can. And honestly, that makes me feel really good."
Kalin smiled. He had to agree with that.
Settling down in his bed, he soon peacefully dozed.