"Out-scary me? No way, I got all the best ghost stories you can imagine. What ghost stories do you have anyways, growing up on an island with nobody to sit around a campfire with?"

"Just wait and see!"

Bro is out for the weekend to give the two of them some time alone without an overbearing sibling around, but Jade’s still set to sleep on the couch. It’s not that she doesn’t trust Dave alone in a bed with her, but Dave hadn’t seemed sure about taking that step in their relationship when they discussed it, and she hadn’t wanted to push it. “Besides, I’m pretty sure I kick in my sleep anyways!” she’d joked, smiling at him to keep him at ease.

But as the storm starts to roll in, an hour or two after Dave turns in for the night, she regrets it. It starts out as rain at first, which is fine, she tells herself. It’s only rain. But there is still the nagging sensation of dread, and as the wind begins to pick up and howl, dread turns into terror.

Dave’s given her a couple of spare blankets, and Jade buries her head beneath them, covering her ears in an attempt to drown out the growing din of the storm outside. All the while she chides herself for being so scared of something like this. Hasn’t she lived through worse before? What’s so scary about a little wind and rain?

Plenty apparently, because from the moment the wind starts howling, Jade begins whining in a way that is definitely more dog than human. It must be Bec, then, stirring up this fear inside of her. She can recall nights from before, where he would seek her out and sleep in her bed in the middle of a storm. And Jade can feel the same urge coming over her now, to crawl into Dave’s room and curl up against him.

But she stops herself. Love of snausages aside, Jade is a human person, not a dog, and she is too embarrassed to try and explain to Dave why she can’t handle a storm.

Hurricanes are long-lasting, however, and Jade loses track of time. She’s too on-edge to fall asleep, and it’s too dark to do anything but toss and turn and whine. An hour in, she’s nearly at the point where she’s about to get up and curl up with Dave anyways.

But as it turns out, he comes to her first.

It startles her at first, because she has her ears covered and her head buried under her pillow, and when she feels a dull thud on the mattress she thinks somehow the storm has gotten inside. After scrambling out from under the sheets, however, she’s instead face-to-face with Dave. His shades are off, and Jade can just make out his face in the dark - stoic as usual, but with a hint of worry behind it.

“Jade?” he asks. “You okay?”

“Just fine!” Jade squeaks, her voice not quite able to back up her claim. Dave stares at her in the dark.

“No you’re not,” he says. “Look, sorry, I forgot how loud hurricanes and stuff could be, I should’ve let you come into my room or something.”

Jade’s quiet for a few moments, letting the shrieking of the wind make up for her silence. Finally - “Is it quieter in there?”

“Not really,” Dave admits. “Want me to stay out here?”

Her cheeks heat up, but Jade is too glad for the company to say no. “If that wouldn’t be too much trouble!”

“Nah. Come on, let me under the blankets.”

Jade is more than happy to lift one edge, and Dave crawls in with her, holding her tight. His presence doesn’t cure Jade of her fear - she still shakes a bit, and she can’t quite make it to sleep - but it helps. She buries her face into the crook of his neck and takes in his scent, and he lazily runs a hand through her hair. The storm doesn’t quiet, but at least her nerves do.

They’re quiet for another half hour or so before Jade breaks the silence again - “Was I really whining so loud that you had to come in and check on me?”

Dave jerks a bit, and she wonders if he was about to fall asleep. But he answers - “What? No- you were whining? Wind was so loud I couldn’t hear myself think.”

Jade smiles - there’s that embarrassment saved, at least. “OK, then why did you come in? Did you miss me that much?”

“Sure, let’s go with that.”

Jade peers up at him, and she hopes he can see her disapproving face through the dark. “You’re lying.”

“What? I totally missed my hot dog girlfriend. It’d been like a whole hour since I got your slobber on my face.”

Jade laughs and licks his face because, well, he asked for it. “Still. That wasn’t the reason!”

Dave groans and wipes her spit off of his face with the back of his hand. “OK, so maybe I was kinda scared too. It’s been a little while since a storm this big last rolled through so I didn’t think I’d still get freaked out by it…”

She grins. “Aw, you’re just a big scaredy-cat!”

“Yeah, well, then that make you a scaredy-dog.”

Jade can’t help but giggle, hiding her face in his shoulder again. “I think I can live with that!”