Tired Sleeping

Her wrists throbbed. Her feet throbbed. Her head throbbed. She was going to have a nasty cut on her head for later, no doubt. She didn’t care. She didn’t have the time to care. They were finally home. To her house in Crocus that she had never shown to Sharaku. Her house that was off limits to everyone. Her sanctuary. She channeled her magic into a string. She had lost her key. She would need a new one. The string turned into a key and unlocked her door. She opened it and let Sharaku inside.

“This is my place… I’m going to shower… I will be back after that. Um… make yourself at home, I guess.”

She walked off to her bathroom, connected to her bedroom. She showered off all the disgusting feelings and washed her wounds before stitching a few more. It all hurt, and she just wanted to feel clean and safe and comfortable. Comforted had been the first word to come to mind, but she didn’t want that. She didn’t need that. She did want it. She just… didn’t need it. She sighed and took her hair down so it would dry. The long braids on the side of her face were down for the first time around Sharaku, but this wasn’t the first new thing of the day.

She went into her bedroom and put on some underwear and a long tank top. It went down just enough to show she wasn’t actually wearing real pants. She didn’t care though. She left her daggers on the nightstand and went to see Sharaku. “I’m tired. Do you want to sleep?”

Sharaku looked pretty good all things considered, having been hit in the face a time or two and in the gut at least once. He couldn’t rightly remember what happened during the worst of the scuffle to save Tabitha. Intense things were like that sometimes. He didn’t have a photographic memory, after all. He made himself comfortable leaning against furniture while Tabitha showered, staring at things including the violin she had. He wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to be surprised or not. It was a string instrument, after all. Now… if she’d played the tuba…

Finally, Tabitha arrived, dressed in the sort of thing women often wore to bed. Sharaku didn’t have anything to change into, and had no intention of changing into anything else at the moment So he simply nodded. “Fine by me,” he answered with a slight nod. He wasn’t especially in the mood for asking about the house or anything else. They’d done quite a bit of talking on the way back. Or at least it felt like it. He was tired. Maybe he’d just done a lot of thinking about things he knew how she’d answer. It was starting to blur together since he hadn’t slept well in days.

Sharaku was a strange man. Except his strangeness came in the form of silence or calm. He was completely comfortable with the lack of clothing she had on. She didn’t mind though. She wasn’t feeling flirty, she was feeling needy. She moved over to him when he said that he was fine with sleeping. “You can sleep in… what do you normally sleep in?” she asked. She pulled him into her room and closed the door behind her. “You can sleep with me,” she added. She wasn’t exactly telling him what to do, based on her wording, but of course she intended for him to follow her instructions. She wanted him to be close to her. She was, after all, standing right by his side.

As far as the violin, well, she had been playing that since before she used her magic. The strings of a violin were as perfect in her fingers as the magical strings that her fingers produced. Tabitha might tell Sharaku about that someday, but it felt like he didn’t want to talk. She just wanted someone safe by her side. “You don’t mind that, do you?” she asked. A hesitation so unfamiliar to her that she didn’t even register its strangeness.

Sharaku was a bit surprised at how vulnerable the girl with nerves of steel was at the moment. It had him thrown off, which was the main reason he was silent. He didn't want her to be embarrassed later, when she recovered some. "This isn't that far off," he told her when she told him he could sleep in what he normally wore. "I promise, I don't sleep in the nude," he told her with a chuckle, half expecting her to make a joke about that even now. He did take his shoes off though, and undid his ponytail, as well as taking out his earrings.

"For tonight I will sleep with you," he nodded. She would behave. He trusted her. He trusted himself, mostly. Right now though, he had no desire to be ungentlemanly at all. She was vulnerable and upset, and had just been... well, who knew what for the last few days? He was sorry he couldn't get there sooner, to be honest. He just hadn't said anything about it so she could calm down, if that was what she wanted. "It's not something I normally do, but..." he shrugged. Tabitha was actually pretty cute when she was vulnerable, though he respected her independent nature as well.

Tabitha was going to have to go to a bar, get drunk, and beat someone up to feel back to her normal self. Of course she didn’t want to get drunk, because then she would be vulnerable and could get hurt again. That would suck. Okay, so she needed to go work up a sweat in the woods. Her and her knives. Her knives which were resting in her bedroom out of reach. She could feel her fingers and she knew she could defend herself with her magic if need be. If she wasn’t too stupid and let herself get caught up and… no more crying tonight.

She smiled when he said he didn’t sleep in the nude. She really did have to tease him, “I don’t think I’d mind if you did,” she told him. “But I think I had an idea of what you slept in when I went knocking on your window,” she reminded him without the usual sass. She was feeling a little better, but it was clear she was still drained. She put her hand to the side of his face, brushing past his long hair. It was longer than hers. She touched his ear for a second, all of her movements graceful and soft along with her thoughts. “Why do you wear earrings anyway? Not that I mind, or think its wrong… it just seems like it might get caught on something and hurt… I don’t know. I’m just distracted tonight,” she sighed.

Tabitha then went to the trouble of pulling him into her bed. Door closed, door locked. Curtains drawn. She liked to keep her space private. It would be nice to see the moonlight some nights, but tonight she wanted to feel safe. That was why she scooted up to Sharaku and put her head on his chest. It was less flirtatious than times when she was merely co-existing with him, but it was definitely more intimate than usual. She had an arm over him as well. “I’m sorry… that I’m being weird…” she said, feeling teary eyed again but forcing herself not to cry. “I’m… yeah… I’ll just…” she sighed. She really didn’t know what to say, she just wanted to be there, so she trailed off.

Sharaku was silent for a long moment when Tabitha asked him why he wore earrings. He closed his eyes for a moment and grinned before he answered. “To tell you the truth, I just like them,” he told her simply. “My older sister used to ask me the same thing. She was ironically always a lot more manly than me the way she acted and dressed. Maybe I thought I had to make up for her,” he said jokingly. He’d never thought about it much, but it seemed as good an answer as any. “As for the getting caught…. Maybe. It hasn’t happened yet though. I can make adjustments as needed.”

Finally, Tabitha said she was being weird as she laid her head on his chest. Normally, Sharaku would be rather awkward about this entire situation. He was surprisingly gentlemanly with the way he acted with women a lot of the time, and that was partially because women who weren’t his extremely tomboyish sister made him nervous until he got used to them. Even then, new situations made him more nervous than he cared to admit. At least Tabitha had helped him work though a lot of it. Well, Tabitha and a combination of being generally annoyed by the other women in Shadow Heart, aside from Fayte whom he rarely talked to. “You’re fine,” he told her with a gentle pat on the back of her head due partially to where his arm was after being rested upon. “No worries.”

So he had a sister? “You have a tomboyish sister?” she asked him casually as she lay against him. She felt bad for not knowing these things about him. Well, perhaps not bad, more so she felt like she wanted to know more. He was interesting and her friend. “How much older is she?” Tabitha added. It seemed like an interesting thing to have siblings. She certainly didn’t have any that she knew of. He said he would make adjustments if he needed to. “Well I like your style, it suits you.”

She was acting weird, and she knew that, but at least he was taking it well. She knew that he was a very good guy, even if he seemed to think he was no hero. He was, especially today. At least to her. She remained there, laying down with him, “So, have you ever slept with a girl before?” she asked. He seemed too nice to have. There was, of course, more than one way to take that statement, but she didn’t really care which way he took it. She was pretty happy., He said that it was alright that she was acting weird, “You’re sweet, Sharaku,” she reminded him. She could have said a lot more, but she supposed she should actually rest and not make things weirder. She closed her eyes.

“Yeah. She’s twenty-one,” Sharaku said with a shrug. He didn’t generally talk about his family or his past or anything with anyone, even Tabitha, but he felt like sharing this time, for whatever reason. Maybe it was relief. Maybe he was just tired of not talking about things. He wasn’t sure. To be honest, he was quite tired, and after the last couple of days he wasn’t entirely sure about anything. He hadn’t expected Tabitha to ever be kidnappable, for one thing. He also hadn’t expected to have to fight a guy trying to snipe him from a tree.

His thoughts were a bit interrupted though by an awkward question. Had he ever slept with a woman? She didn’t elaborate what she was asking exactly, so of course his mind went to the worse option, turning a bit red and squirming uncomfortably. “I – no why would…” He couldn’t even get the sentence out. What kind of question was that? It was just like her… but still… “I don’t… You…” He tried to calm himself down a bit, letting out an audible sigh. “Why is that important?” he finally managed. He sounded defensive rather than calm. Of course, he hadn’t in any sense of the phrase until tonight, but… yeah…

Twenty-one… that’s not too much older. I wonder if you were close… Were you close? Why isn’t she here? Why aren’t you with her, being a cute little brother with your earrings and your long hair… why are you here in bed with a crazy lady? She really was a bit of a freak. She knew it. She didn’t mind. She was just really weird tonight. She knew no matter what, tonight was weird. She liked learning about him. If he had asked, she would actually have given him information about herself. He didn’t know that though, and he as too nice a guy to take advantage of that.

Tabitha hadn’t meant to throw Sharaku off that much. He reacted quite quickly and squirmed around. If Tabitha scooted away from him, feeling bad where she normally would have just enjoyed the moment. She heard his answer at least. A no was somewhere in that rambling. No wonder he was so awkward. Well, he was a good looking guy, he probably could have gotten a girl if he wanted. Dense. You know he’s too sweet… and… well… awkward… He kept trying, and then sighed. Why was it important? “Well, its not, I guess… I was just thinking… you’re cute when you’re flustered… and I did mean in a bed… not sex… if that helps,” she told him with a sigh. It probably didn’t.

Of course he’d be cute when he was flustered. It was the problem he had when he talked to a lot of women. Women easily flustered him when they were flirty or suggested anything he found uncomfortable. Sure, people probably wouldn’t think a guy who worked for Shadow Heart was so easily flustered, but everybody had their quirks, right? At least she didn’t mean sex… right?

“I… why would I-?” Sharaku still didn’t quite finish the sentence. Why would he be in bed with a random girl if not for- and why would he do that? He wasn’t trying to be close to people. Of course, he was decently close to Tabitha, but… it was… different?

No, it kind of wasn’t. She was a friend, and was a girl, and she spent an awful lot of time flirting with him, even if originally it didn’t seem to have meant much. It was hard to explain, really. He wasn’t even sure what was going through his mind.

“Er, nevermind,” he finally managed. “There’s a first time for everything,” he decided to answer instead. His cheeks were a bit red, and he didn’t exactly look irritated, mostly because he wasn’t, but he did look like he was recovering a bit from the statement and was frowning at himself over it.

Well Tabitha wasn’t sitting around looking for a cute guy who got flustered from positive female attention. In fact, being that he was the only guy who had gotten her attention like this. That made him pretty special in her eyes. Plus being her friend, and all that. She didn’t consider this different. He said… something? She wasn’t sure what he was starting to ask. Why would he be in bed if not for sex? Well, she didn’t guess that was what he was asking, because it was silly. They were in bed for different reasons, after all. Although she had made sure it was alright before she shared the bed with him in the first place.

Her decided to change his comment and said there was a first time for everything. Yeah… She could say so many things, like… liking him, or getting kidnapped, or sex. Yeah, she could bring that up. Normally she might tease about that, but she left the easy comment alone. He was red, which was still quite cute. She relaxed against him again, “I should be quiet before I say stupid things tonight,” she told him, knowing where her mind was going. Even if she wanted to feel close to someone right now, she was sure he wouldn’t let her tonight. Even if he would have normally. She didn’t know if that was the case. She kept pushing the words back down, and just kissed him on the cheek before saying, “Goodnight, Shar…”