For a blissful time, Seth lay and drifted at the edge of slumber, dozing in a state of semi-consciousness. He was tired, his body was fatigued, but if he fell into true sleep his awareness of Jane Doe would be entirely lost. So instead of allowing himself to sleep, Seth luxuriated in the feel of her next to him.

Jane's breath was gentle and warm at the side of his neck, her head sharing his pillow and her forehead just not quite against the side of his own as he lay on his back- occasionally he heard the quiet snapping sound of one of her floppy ears twitching in her sleep. Jane was a side sleeper, or at least was one tonight, and she curled her nakedness around him.

One of her legs was draped over Seth's thighs, the warm smoothness of her thigh intoxicating against his skin. Her bare breasts pressed softly into the side of his bicep. One of her elbows rested on his torso while her hand and wrist curled back towards Jane herself- a warm weight on his chest. Her tail, mildly cool and soft to the touch in a pleasant way, was curled over him entirely, its pointed tip almost resting on Seth's pillow on the opposite side of his head.

The base physical pleasure of Jane's proximity was one thing, and her overt desire for him was a delightful second: Seth, lying in the dark with her around him, felt simultaneously needed by her and adequate to that need- and that granted him a sensation of deep, deep satisfaction. If there was any single thing in life to succeed at, surely this was it, and he was doing it, right now; every worry, hang-up, anxiety, fear was banished in these scarce and precious moments.

Eventually, Seth could no longer resist the depth of true sleep. He'd worked a full day, done most of his exercise routine, then jumped into the river and swam with Jane's weight and pulled her out of the water- badly straining his shoulder in the process. Seth's body needed the rest, and it pulled him down into the restorative darkness.

…

Whimpering woke Seth in the darkest hours of the morning. He became aware of Jane's body twitching against him, her hand clawing into his chest lightly, her trail had curled somewhat around the edge of his chin, and her ears were snapping with frantic intensity. Seth looked over at her in the darkness and could discern an expression of fear on Jane's face, her eyes tightly closed in the grip of some dream. Blearily, Seth watched her whimper and shudder for a few seconds as his own brain finished the boot-up process.

Oh, Jane was having a nightmare. Seth had a few of those and hated them. The only good thing about nightmares was that when you woke up from them, you were able to enjoy that moment of blessed relief as you realized it was just a dream and all that had been bad in it was not real. It was only right to wake Jane and fast-track her to that moment.

"Hey, Jane," Seth said, rolling over enough to give himself leverage with his other arm to shake her gently awake. "Jane? Jane. Jane?!"

In response to his assertive third shake, Seth's bed exploded with frantic movement. Faster than he could comprehend what was happening, Jane was atop him and her hands were tight around his throat and he couldn't breathe and he felt the tell-tale tightness of interrupted blood circulation. He had not even the air to gasp in surprise, nor to speak or protest. He flailed in shocked response, but Jane's knees were painfully dug into his biceps and her mass was too high on his chest. His hips bucked impotently. She was perfectly positioned and she bore her weight down upon his throat with lethal intensity.

Even as Seth realized Jane was killing him, his mind never considered it as intentional. He knew, either through intuition or naivete, that this was a mistake. Jane wasn't actually trying to kill him. She was trying to kill something in her nightmare, but she didn't know she was awake. Even as Seth's pulse pounded in his ears, he simply knew this as fact. Jane wasn't recognizing him in the dark, and they'd never slept-slept together before…

The few useful parts of Seth's body were his hands and forearms. His elbows could move. He floundered around, hands searching the futon near his hip and met plastic. Got it! His phone! Seth's thumb jammed on this power button and lifted the device as high as he could to shine the light of the screen in the direction of his own face.

Jane's face illuminated above him and her expression was of teeth-locked hatred and rage, her eyes narrow and gleaming with killing intent. Seth's vision was starting to tunnel, but even as it did so, his main thought was that Jane looked really beautiful when she was like this- scary beautiful. But- after a half-second, Jane's expression transformed into surprise and then into dawning realization. Her hands recoiled from Seth's neck and he gasped in relief.

"S- Seth!" gasped Jane. "I- I'm sorry! I don't. I didn't…"

Seth tried a reassuring smile as he massaged his neck. "No worries. You were having a nightmare."

Jane blinked down at him, her expression guilty and sad, her ears drooping. She curled her own arms around her body, pressing her breasts together, her tail wound protectively around her own waist. She looked away from him.

"Yeah- I- I must have…"

Seth did not like seeing her look like that. The last thing he wanted was Jane to be sad, and especially not when she was naked and straddling his body. He wanted to reassure her: "I think I made a mistake waking you up…"

Jane's eyes returned to him, downcast in guilt. She didn't respond. Her eyes glittered in the faint phone light as she looked down at him in the dark.

"Because you must have been kicking ass in there," continued Seth. "I think I saved the nightmare from you, Jane."

He tried to sell the punchline with a toothy grin.

Jane looked down at him with a bland expression, clearly not impressed. But! But she didn't look sad or guilty! So that was something.

"You're stupid," said Jane, finally.

"Stupid cute?"

"...No. Just stupid," but she said it with a faint smile.

Then the smile shattered and her face collapsed into intense sorrow. The transformation was so fast that Seth only had a moment to register the change before Jane flopped forward and buried her face in his collarbone, her body wracked with deep-throated sobbing. He felt tears drip onto his skin as he instinctively wrapped his arms around Jane's body.

"Hey, hey Jane, its okay. It's all okay," said Seth into the top of Jane's head, feeling truly stupid as he did so. Something obviously was not okay and he had no idea what it was, but he felt impelled to say something, anything. Wasn't that what one was supposed to do when someone was crying?

Jane didn't respond, only continued to cry, her face wet and hot against his skin. Seth took the cue and simply held her in silence, his hands stroking her bare back in a comforting way. He could feel her breasts against his bare chest, he could feel the subtle heat and fur of her groin on his bare stomach- but Seth wasn't aroused in the slightest. Jane was hurting, and when that was true, there was no room in Seth's mind for sex or anything else- just a desire to provide comfort.