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Your eyes shoot open, a familiar tingling sensation working its way down your spine and through your body.
You tended not to scream or cry in the event of a nightmare, even less so considering the rarity of such dreams. In fact, since coming to Twisted Wonderland, you’d only had one, and it was a silly, stress-induced worst-case scenario for finals; Crowley kicked you out for having the worst grade, and all the Housewardens gathered to watch your expulsion, laughing at your face and saying they were glad you were gone… in the end, the thing that brought you to your senses was that Idia was there. He would only ever actually be present at a Housewarden meeting in someone’s dreams.
But as a trade-off for screaming or crying, you instead get a bone-chilling feeling the moment you snap yourself awake, leaving you numb and helpless. The calm serenity of Leona’s room, where you had decided to spend the night at his invitation, helped a little with your racing mind, but couldn’t calm the dread coursing through your veins.
When you were at home, you might have scrolled the internet or read a book to calm you down, though returning to sleep would never have been an option.
Of course, when you were at home, you also would have been sleeping alone.
Cutting your losses, considering this nightmare had been possibly the most terrifying thing since a student last overblotted, you gently jostle the beastkin beside you. Leona snores through it, like you expected, so you first try poking him, then twisting around in the covers to steal them from him, and finally giving up and softly calling his name while shaking him as hard as you can.
Leona still sleeps.
Now, you start to panic. You can’t go back to sleep; the nightmare is waiting for you there. You can’t leave the room; you know it’s stupid, but some deep-seated instinct tells you that some apparition or malevolent force from your dream would come to haunt you. You left your phone back at Ramshackle and Leona keeps no books. Your only hope had been somehow waking the beastkin and asking him to cuddle, even though the probable answer would be no in his tired stupor.
You suddenly feel like you’re back in the nightmare, the subject of your terrors right there beside you, preparing to give you pain you haven’t experienced even during an overblot incident, the fear of it finding you as you hide in a dark corner and feel it approach–
“Hey, herbivore!”
You snap to your senses to see Leona cradling your face in his hands, expression unusually panicked as he calls to you.
“Wha…” you trail off, feeling something wet begin to dry and crust on your cheek.
“You’re…” Leona leaves behind words as he cups your chin, using his other hand to wipe away the… tear tracks that had formed. Both of you are sitting half-upright now.
You work past the lump in your throat to ask, “Why are you…?”
Leona interprets the remaining words. “I heard you cryin’, and I didn’t… I had to make sure you were alright.” He quickly blushes and turns away. “You’re still just an herbivore… but you’re my herbivore, you got that?”
You nod, smiling despite yourself, the post-nightmare shiver still permeating your body. You don’t cry easily, the overblot mind-projections being an exception, and so nightmares never brought it out of you… but somehow, the thought of Leona being your only solace, yet still failing you, is what brought you to tears?
Leona pulls you closer as he lays back down, taking back the blankets you had stolen previously and curling around your smaller body. His tail comes to rest over your legs, and he puts one arm around you. “Was it a nightmare?” You nod. “Do you wanna talk about it?”
You tell him as many details as you can remember, the fog of dreams already clouding your memory, though you can’t say it isn’t welcome. You tell him about the fear, the stalking sensation, the malevolence and the existential dread of somehow seeing this play out in real life, despite it not being a possibility. Though you start tearing up again, you also feel relieved and lighter than before. Especially when Leona growls at your mention of the monster or squeezes you tighter when you mention your fears.
At the end of your tale, he brings your head closer to his chest, and you feel his chin settle on top of your hair. You can hear his heartbeat, the steady sound going much faster than a normal human’s. His breaths are long and raspy in his chest, the vibrations a welcome constant.
“Human…” Leona finally starts after a moment. “Why didn’t you just go find Ruggie or Jack? I’m sorry I couldn’t wake up for you.”
“Because I… It’s stupid.”
“It’s not. Keep going.”
“Well, I…” You take a deep breath, letting the sound of his own reassure you. “For some… stupid reason, I’m always so sure that it’s going to be waiting outside my safe space… and once I leave that bubble, it’ll k… it’s going to…”
Leona starts to purr, letting you stay silent in his sound. “You don’t have to finish. I get it.”
Silence having fallen, you let yourself relax and just exist within the bubble of safety and serenity Leona has created just for you, not quite able to fall asleep yet not insomniacally awake. The sounds of fabric rustling as you or Leona shift are all you hear for the first minute or so, but then as you calm down more, you begin to perceive the sounds of the savanna. Crickets chirping in the long grass thickets. The whooping of zebras that are similarly awake. The crackling of the bonfire torches by the entrance. The rushing of the waterfall in the lounge. The dry sound of twigs cracking as tumbleweeds roll across the hard earth.
Leona is the one to break the silence. “I know you said you normally don’t want to fall asleep again after that, but… do you think you could try?”
The acknowledgement is what makes your eyes start to feel heavy.
You grab fistfuls of Leona’s clothes, keeping him by your side, as you bury your head in his chest and twine his legs with your own. His other arm slithers under your neck to embrace you, and the soft muscle makes a comfortable resting place. The moon shines down on both of you, keeping you woven together under its soft, silver light. The rest of the world drops away, leaving just you and Leona together at the top of Savanaclaw dorm.
For the first time in your life, the dreams after a nightmare are warm and pleasant.