3 o'clock things

this world is a wasteland where nothing can grow

"Y'know, you were actually. You knocked an' everythin'," Niki agrees, his smile growing lopsided and a touch drowsy; the twilight and the plush comfort of the bed is rapidly combining with his inebriation to make consciousness more of a chore than a choice as time goes on. "You've also slept on every couch I've ever owned now," he adds, in case for some reason the Heartless was curious to know it. "You're the only one who has, actually."

Niki doesn't count by virtue of owning them, but suffice to say he doesn't have many people for sleepovers.

"Exactly," he says with all the confident of the very drunk, waggling his finger towards Sunjata again. "Maybe I should've gotten into therapy. Then again I used to spend most've my time talkin' to dead people." It would explain why he's such a relatively good listener, and also why he doesn't speak much about himself.

Niki

i used to have strength but i ran out of hope

relive who i've been at my worst,
every single night, looking for a distraction

“Well, I can give a good review about your furniture.” Sunjata admits with a soft laugh, a stupidly boyish smile on his face despite how half of it remains buried in the pillows, like he might be able to hide the flush to his cheeks if he buries it enough. It’s this easy and smooth banter that has the Heartless able to feel less of the sorrow that seeps in, like each little soft comment Niki offers are small flexible patches he can stuff into them and keep the dread at bay.

Temporary, though, seeing as how they won’t last when they wake in the morning. But for now, it’s nice, and he lets himself indulge in it for however long it’ll last. Enough that when Niki’s finger waggles toward him as if in chastisement, Sunjata snorts softly despite the widening of his eyes, playing along. “You’re really good at it, y’know.” He admits, wishing he was even half as capable of the dry, witty humor that Niki is prone to, and the way he can just say what he means or wants without it getting tangled up with the wrong implications.

But, then, it’s like he notices the ruffle of Niki’s hair and how the dark strands have fallen into his face. And while it isn’t really Sunjata’s place, he reaches out to brush the strands out of his face before withdrawing and rolling onto his back to peer up at the ceiling that seems a bit more like a sky in the twilight of the room. “You should probably get some sleep.” And with any luck at all, he'll get some too.

the flood

waiting for the sun to rise
pretty sight for some hollow eyes

totally sniped from odd ilu

this world is a wasteland where nothing can grow

"Good. I didn't pick it out with people sleepin' on it in mind, but it's always nice to know." Smirking and feeling himself start to take longer between blinks before opening his eyes again, Niki inhales a deep and steadying breath as if it might help to keep him focused. (It won't - he's fighting a rapidly losing battle and they all know it). The compliment has him grinning, at least, though when he speaks it will be clear to Sunjata that he's entirely missed the point of it.

"Thanks. They don't really do much so it's not hard to talk to 'em. Or it wasn't anyway - I haven't done that sort of thing for a little while." Not officially, anyway, but that part of his life had also been firmly locked up in his house in the Greatwood, and his new abode does not yet have the same accommodations.

The feel of sudden, warm fingers brushing across his face has the necromancer's breath hitching in his throat, and he's left blinking after Sunjata's hand long after it withdraws, as if the simple touch had been something as searing and unexpected as it had been welcome. "...Yeah," he mumbles, unable to figure out if he'd imagined it and so opting to try and forget it altogether. "G'night, Sunjata."

Niki

i used to have strength but i ran out of hope

relive who i've been at my worst,
every single night, looking for a distraction

He imagines most people pick couches based off of their own comfort and not demigods that have chosen to come and bug them in the middle of the night. But it helps that the comfort is related to sleeping on it as well, hence the easy review Sunjata would give to anyone that might decide to stay over at Niki’s.

Snorting softly to hear Niki miss the point completely, it’s the liquor that likely has caused such a thing, and he can’t fault him for not following along when he’d been the one that supplied them in the first place. So instead, he nods along, that boyish and stupid smile focusing on Niki. “There’s still time.” He murmurs, before he’s reaching out and brushing away the dark hair from those hazy blue eyes and rolling over before he can see whether or not Niki enjoyed it or he’d stepped too far.

The voice isn’t much of an indicator either, though. The mumble soft and leaving Sunjata uncertain whether or not it’s Niki curling into himself because he’d gone a little too far with just a simple touch. It keeps him up after Niki’s goodnight, even after he’s offered his own quiet “goodnight, Niki,” still laying on his back and peering up at the sky. Unintentionally, he shifts the ceiling a little in this dreamscape of Niki’s making, a soft and easy sky fluttering throughout he can watch to try and count like sheep to fall asleep.

It comes all at once, like a blanket thrown over him to blot out his vision, and where usually this would mean his sleep is easy and fine because he isn’t alone, obviously the events that had lead up to their quiet goodnights have taken a number. He’s out for a while, though for the first time when sharing a bed, the Heartless moves enough to maybe be noticed after some time, regardless of inebriation. He’s obviously tense, too, tossing and turning, curled into himself with dark navy feathers that ripple along his neck and shoulders under his shirt. A few fall out, left behind in the bed in feathery cusps that dust the bed, seeming to relax the second his back is to Niki's side, completely curled in on himself.

the flood

waiting for the sun to rise
pretty sight for some hollow eyes

totally sniped from odd ilu

this world is a wasteland where nothing can grow

Niki doesn't sleep like the dead so much as he sleeps like the drunk - unconsciousness seizes him like a black sheet drawn over his face, and he's gone for an amount of time that feels simultaneously like far too much and not nearly enough. He doesn't realise it but it's Sunjata's tossing and turning that stirs him, the necromancer huffing in a soft breath as if only just remembering how to breathe. All he can taste is liquor at first, though his mouth feels stuffed with cotton, making for a particularly unpleasant rise into wakefulness.

With a low, hoarse groan he manages to get his elbows beneath him, seeing nothing but bleak darkness and wishing for some light, but of course when it comes it's far too bright. The fact that he's able to correct it to something soft and dim ought to be a good indication of where he is, but Niki - whilst more sober than when he went to sleep - is still not nearly clear-headed enough for things like geolocation.

All he's aware of is that he's cold, having fallen asleep atop the blankets without his sweater, he's thirsty, and he's not alone in bed. The fuzz of alcohol will be to thank for the way his higher brain function disregards the first and third points (which would usually be the source of anything from awkwardness to blind panic), and the glass of water on the bedside table takes care of the second.

It's as he's cupping the glass between both hands after a deep and much needed drink that Sunjata shifts again, enough to draw his attention, and he finds himself squinting down at the Heartless. "Hey," he says without thinking, voice rough but soft. "It's a dream. You're okay."

Niki

i used to have strength but i ran out of hope

relive who i've been at my worst,
every single night, looking for a distraction

He’s very unaware of just how his movements have managed to wake someone as inebriated as the necromancer is. All he knows is that it feels like he’s on the edge of a cliff – like one of the few that has spurred the tumultuous trauma of his life, because where Niki wakes up sluggishly and drunkenly and cold and tries to let his soft voice reach him, it’s only one of the mixtures of voices currently in his head.

All he can see is a pale marble floor, the stinging, bone deep pain lancing through his leg, and a trail of blood he can only assume he knows where it came from. It’s a strange combination of multiple events all wrapped into one deliciously awful pit of regret. And Niki’s attempt to tell him he’s okay is only meshed with the hushed urgency of his mother’s voice and the sharp commanding tone of his father that still seems somehow disapproving and simultaneously probably the proudest of him he’d ever been and ever would be.

The dream itself is the aftermath of Sunjata’s Trial when he turned seventeen, where he’d gotten shot in the leg and somehow managed to be the last survivor. The marble floor is the manor he’d grown up in, blank and minimalist, especially for the Heartless in the years it had taken him to grow and survive each encounter Shaju was certain would take him out. And this was just another in the mix.

There’s the regret, there, too. Of just how many had suffered before him, only for him to become the face of this year’s winner. Another face in the running of taking his father’s place, which was the very last thing he wanted to be. And unfortunately for him, the way the dream begins to spread through him, it reflects in how he starts to wake, jittery and stuttered, has Sunjata surging up on the edge of the emerald bed that’s far too large. Head in his hands, running over his face multiple times with quiet curse mutterings, it’s when he fully opens his eyes and peeks through his fingers does he see the dark room of the House of Midnight, with bloodstained marble flooring to greet him and a winding staircase that leads to a variety of rooms that he wants nothing more than to forget. “Stop.” He grits out in a whisper, knowing very well that he’s not alone and hoping he hasn’t woken Niki, shutting his eyes tight to try and shift the room back to how it had been but not keeping his eyes open enough to see whether it does or doesn’t.

the flood

waiting for the sun to rise
pretty sight for some hollow eyes

totally sniped from odd ilu

this world is a wasteland where nothing can grow

Niki just manages to set the half empty glass back down when Sunjata bolts up from his nightmare, the movement abrupt enough to have the necromancer jumping a fraction. He freezes on the bed, leant back on one hand, blue eyes wide at the way the space is suddenly not how either of them had left it. Distantly he remembers where he is - the House of Midnight, the flight of liquor, the Heartless saying he'd reserved him a room - but getting up here is a wide, yawning blank that doesn't seem to matter as much as the blood all over the marble.

"Hey," he tries again, between Sunjata's muttered curses, Niki reaching out across the bed as best he can to touch gentle fingers to the other man's shoulder. "I can... I've got it, I think." He hardly knows what he's saying, only that he recalls the way the rooms in the House work, and whether or not the Heartless is able to release his hold on his own memories, Niki can at least drape it in the Greatwood's foliage.

Fireflies start to drift lazily through the air, the ceiling crowded with a canopy of vibrant green, and the sound of trickling water and crickets fills the room. The smell of pine and spruce mingle with the scent of wildflowers, and as Niki sits up a little more, he feels a soft breeze ruffle through his hair. "Is that better?"

Niki

i used to have strength but i ran out of hope

relive who i've been at my worst,
every single night, looking for a distraction

He’s distantly aware of the movement in the bed when he jolts up, but curving over to the side of the bed, legs on the floor that feels too slick and cold to be anything like what they’d fallen asleep to. His eyes shut out the pale white marble, the voices that feel like they linger and reverberate in his mind, but it’s with Niki’s voice this time far more audible and brighter does Sunjata bite the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste copper.

The touch is unexpected, though, and unfortunately it has him flinching before relaxing, a tremble hiding under the shirt that he wears despite the feathers. “Sorry.” He manages to get out, running one hand through his hair like he might be able to swipe everything away, but he can still feel the cool marble beneath his feet, to the hollowness that seems to ring out – until it simply vanishes. It’s then that he opens his eyes, first to the floor that’s softer and plush, the breeze that chills him from the cool sweat of the nightmare, the way deep woodland scents fill the air and crickets offer a lively backdrop that’s so much at odds with the quiet death his childhood home had been.

He’s distracted by a firefly for a few moments, watching it flit around before Sunjata’s suddenly looking down to his leg. He looks at the inside of his thigh, hand dropping down to it as if to see if it stings, forgetting about Niki’s question in the air as his heart races to try and double check that he’s not bleeding. “Yeah, this is better.” He says in a quiet, exhausted murmur. He rubs at his face, pinching at the bridge of his nose as he reorients himself to the here and now. “I didn’t mean to wake you up. I'm sorry. This.. Usually doesn’t happen.” He’s lying, it happens almost every night reliving one trauma or another, but it happened far less when he wasn't sleeping alone.

the flood

waiting for the sun to rise
pretty sight for some hollow eyes

totally sniped from odd ilu

this world is a wasteland where nothing can grow

Already mumbling an apology at the same time as Sunjata when the other man visibly flinches from his touch, Niki withdraws enough to give him space and to also try and persuade his mind to grow a little sharper, though that's a big ask given the still-substantial haze of alcohol he has to swim through to get there. Rubbing at his eyes and exhaling a long, slow breath, his lips twitch into a smile the Heartless won't see from where he's still turned away. But the Greatwood and its accoutrements remain since they seem to be taken well, Niki finally sitting himself up properly.

"You don't have to apologise. Waking up after a nightmare is always hard, especially when you're alone," he mumbles, stifling a yawn behind his hand and blinking hard a few times like he's trying to focus better. "Can I help?" The offer is easier than it's ever been, and though it would have been made just as sincerely were he sober, it might not have been phrased so directly.

Niki

i used to have strength but i ran out of hope

relive who i've been at my worst,
every single night, looking for a distraction

Niki might be in his own haze of alcohol still, but Sunjata’s equally as much in a haze as the necromancer. Pinching at the bridge of his nose and rubbing at the side of his face, starting to relax slightly as the tension seeps from his shoulders and he feels the bed shift as Niki sits up. He stays where he is, though, feathers rippling along his neck as he takes a few steadying breaths, looking at the shift in atmosphere as a distraction.

“Yeah.” He murmurs – which is why he didn’t sleep. And now Niki has a first row seat to why Sunjata chooses his insomnia, why he chooses to busy himself with things until he doesn’t have to sit with his thoughts because they always drift to the worst parts of his life. He chews on his cheek, muscles feathering in his jaw as he starts to sit up, unfolding himself a touch as he lets Niki’s question hang in the air, unsure how exactly to respond.

He doesn’t know how Niki can help, but at least he doesn’t feel like he needs to escape the room after this lack of composure. He scoots back on the bed enough to tuck one leg up and under him, the other perched up so he can wrap his arms around it and press his forehead against his knee, sucking in a slow and steadying breath. “Can you… Talk about something? Anything?” It doesn’t matter what, but something that would distract him and give him something else to focus on than the oily nausea in his gut.

the flood

waiting for the sun to rise
pretty sight for some hollow eyes

totally sniped from odd ilu

this world is a wasteland where nothing can grow

Clumsily grabbing at a few pillows to prop them up against the headboard, by the time Sunjata slowly starts to unfold himself and scoot back on the bed, Niki is properly sitting up at last. His good leg is also pulled up against his chest, the other propped out over the covers, and he's just about decided that Sunjata would prefer to be in silence when the Heartless speaks. Blinking his surprise, Niki nods before he realises he's done it, clearing his throat a bit and racking his brain for something to talk about.

In the end, he opts for something more personal than the melting temperature of various precious metals. (Sunjata had said anything, but that feels dry even to the necromancer).

"Okay, well..." He tips his head back against the pillows. "I already told you I was orphaned when I was very young. I don't know anythin' about my parents, really - I don't even know if they lived in the Greatwood or if they were just passin' through it when everythin' happened. I was brought to an orphanage in the Sidhe Village, and was there until I was about... ten, I think? That's when businesses started lookin' for apprentices. They'd take on orphans to teach 'em a trade, and it'd make space at the orphanage for other kids who needed help. It's how I ended up at the funeral parlour."

Niki

i used to have strength but i ran out of hope

relive who i've been at my worst,
every single night, looking for a distraction

His stomach is still roiling with nausea, but he settles back on the bed and tucks one leg up, the other lifted enough to rest his forehead on his knee. His breaths are measured, requiring a fair amount of focus as he feels the bed shift slightly with Niki propping himself up with more pillows and getting comfortable too.


He isn’t sure what to expect when Niki starts talking – but to hear that it lingers on a hint of the conversation that they’d had just before falling asleep, it has him chewing the inside of his cheek. He has a bit of experience with orphans, his mind flickering back to the twins that he and Nate had adopted, growing and living a better life without his traumas after the war. He makes a quiet mental note to go and visit and tries not to let it sink down in his gut as a failure alongside the nausea that’s become smoother waves. Still there, but not enough to completely relax it.

“Was it your first choice?” He asks, unsure what to say. He doesn’t know if it was some kind of orphan job fair where they got to go and choose what to do or if they, much like himself, were thrown into a job that didn’t exactly align. Sunjata never aspired in his youth to rule or police the world, but it’s how he grew up. It was the only tools he was given to learn how to live, so he’d fallen into the trap of it with all the freedom of being in a new world where he could make whatever choices he wanted to and still found himself struggling with the ins and outs of what he could do.

But he doesn’t comment on it yet, just sits there counting his breaths and listening for Niki’s voice to hang onto.

the flood

waiting for the sun to rise
pretty sight for some hollow eyes

totally sniped from odd ilu

this world is a wasteland where nothing can grow

"Oh," Niki says, surprised by the question as much as by the sound of Sunjata's voice, laughing quietly before he can help himself. "No, it... there wasn't a choice," he continues. "For some of the other kids I suppose there would've been - things they were good at, things they wanted to be when they grew up. There wasn't much for someone like me. I got sick a lot, I couldn't walk well or carry things far." All the sort of manual labour that tended to be the point for apprentices.

"I figured I'd end up workin' at the orphanage, but then Anatolii came - that was the undertaker's name. He said he'd be able to make it work, and so the orphanage sent me with him." Niki's gaze has grown distant quite without his noticing it, and as he frowns softly down at the bedcovers, the room around them subtly begins to darken, the Greatwood breeze replaced with cool, clinical air interspersed with the smell of patchouli and bergamot.

When the necromancer speaks next, he has to force his voice above a whisper. "He made it work," he mutters, a hand straying to where his scars intersect at his sternum. "He did this to me."

Niki

i used to have strength but i ran out of hope

relive who i've been at my worst,
every single night, looking for a distraction

The fact there wasn’t a choice resonates with Sunjata far more than he’d probably admit – so focused on Niki’s voice now to hear all the options that would benefit others. But not Niki and not for Sunjata. Their fates had been sealed from the get go – Niki with his illnesses and Sunjata with his birthright.

“Oh.” Sunjata murmurs, deciding as he focuses on the commentary that it must have been intimidating – to leave what you knew to go to some strangers house with the promise of being an apprentice. Or, perhaps, it was something optimistic. That he wouldn’t be forced to continue to work, live, and die in the same place he’d grown up. But then it gets worse. So much worse, in fact, that Sunjata in between the discomfort in his gut and trying to place it in a space where it would actually go away, finds himself snapping up to look over his shoulder at Niki, brows pinched in both quiet horror and a quiet anger he isn’t sure what to do with, but it feels a lot better than throwing up right now.

There’s a scent of clean alongside patchouli and bergamot and it’s reminiscent to him of the doctors he’d seen before back in Korofi and it only makes the sensation worse as he hears the quiet memorized reverberations of the necromancer’s voice in his ear, watching the hand stray to his chest where the scars intersect. “With or without your permission?” He asks, voice low and careful as if deciding how angry he should feel on Niki’s behalf.

Sunjata's always found it was easier to be upset and angry with other people's traumas than his own - almost like he was Stockholmed into believing that while he'd had it bad, it hadn't been that bad, unintentionally horrifying whomever he's telling the story to. This, however, feels different. And to hear Niki say it so plainly, how much he's always tried to hide it, the memory of what he'd said about his scars? Sunjata feels like he can put two and two together.

the flood

waiting for the sun to rise
pretty sight for some hollow eyes

totally sniped from odd ilu