Sweet Dreams Make for Bitter Mornings

Disclaimer: I don't own No. 6.


The room was still pitch dark but the dawn chorus was singing and the smell of freshly baked bread filled the air.

Glazed red eyes blinked slowly open and then closed in pleasure as a long-fingered hand stroked itself through his hair and along the edge of the red mark that marred his cheek.

"Nezumi?" muttered Shion hopefully.

"Hey there."

"You're back."

"Yeah."

"Stay with me for a bit this time, okay?"

The bed was only meant for one, and Nezumi pressed himself more fully against Shion's sleepy warmth and Shion shifted with a contented sigh, slinging an arm over Nezumi's hipbone and burying his face in the joint between his neck and shoulder his breath hot and moist against Nezumi's collarbone.

"Just for a bit, that's all I'm asking."

"What about forever?" asked Nezumi a hint of teasing in his voice, "Would you let me stay?"

"Of course," Shion mumbled, "It's all I ever wanted."

"You never asked me though. To stay and to never leave, you never asked me…"

"I know better than that. If I had asked you would have scoffed and gone running in the other direction without a backward glance. But I hoped that if I waited long enough, if I was patient enough, you might decide you wanted to stay for yourself. Do you? Want to stay with me, that is? Or were you only teasing?"

"I want to stay with you Shion. I've missed you."

"Good. Then I'm not the only one. Now sleep, I don't have to up for another two hours and I'm going to make the most of them."


A clatter on the stair and a wistful ache in his chest jolted Nezumi awake. The sun was rising over the desert city and already everything was almost oppressively hot in his cramped little room. The scent of fresh bread still teased his nose but it was from the bakery down the street a bakery that didn't sport a round-faced woman with innocent eyes and a love of cherry cake, or a cool storeroom with a narrow bed and a muzzy-headed white haired boy. No, Shion was thousands of miles away, in No. 6 where it was probably damp and cool with the first days of spring.

Nezumi rolled angrily out of bed, yanked on a pair of pants and soft sandals and jumped from his window on the second floor to the narrow alleyway below. Pointedly stalking away from the ghosts of a dream he'd had all too often lately.

He couldn't go back, not yet. Not when he'd come this far and still had nothing but regrets and a sunburn to show for it.

Shion would wait for him. Probably. Maybe.

He kicked a small pebble clear across the street with a black scowl, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"Shit!"


AN: Another random Nezushi drabble. Let me know what you think.