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You woke up suddenly, out of breath and sweaty, sitting up and trying to will yourself into thinking about anything else.

“Jesus, you alright?” There was an unfamiliar softness in his voice, probably just from being woken up by your panicked breaths, though you jumped anyway, shaky as you looked over at him, uncharacteristic worry on his face as he sat up.

“Shit sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up. Just a bad dream.” You mumbled, words caught in the back of your throat proving difficult to come out, both exhausted from a restless sleep and energized from the pure panic and anxiety. That was always the worst part, being too scared of your own subconscious to go back to bed, involuntarily keeping yourself awake to stop yourself from drifting back into the personal hell you’d found yourself in before.

“Do you.. want to talk about it?” His voice still came out low, though the gruff from not having talked on purpose quite yet was peeking through. He wasn’t too sure how to comfort anyone at all - questioning himself more than you, you weren’t so used to it either; his words rather than his voice alone surprising you this time.

You shook your head, less responding to his question - though it sufficed, more trying to shake out the mental picture and get your brain to function correctly because it wasn’t difficult to understand nightmares but understanding why they happen didn’t seem to help much.

You had a sleep journal, you corrected them as best you could in your head after writing them down, you drank stress relieving tea and read articles and books on dream study and what it all means and it helps but it doesn’t fix the deepest, strangest anxieties that build up over time. The bizarre collection of everything you’ve thought about in the last month coming back to haunt you in a way that feels personal because it is.

Your brain knows the absolute worst combination of everything you’ve thought about or seen or heard, and if you eat too much fucking dairy or think about one specific thing for just the right amount of too much time, none of the rest of it matters anymore. And maybe you weren’t doing enough but maybe you just needed someone to tell you that it wasn’t real because hearing it from yourself so often was getting a little old and -

The tears were sudden - they usually are, soft and warm running down your face and you didn’t notice until a tear dropped down onto the hand still clutching your chest.

And then a warm hand was cautiously rubbing your back and your overly-worried coworker was trying to understand. Surprising himself again when a simply reassuring ‘you’re alright’ found its way out of his mouth, yawning quietly after and probably trying not to roll back over and fall asleep - bless him.

If it were just a few days ago you would’ve been shocked at the mere fact you were even in the same bed - a little mixup caused by none other than Javi, but sharing a room was excuse enough to get a little too comfortable for ‘professionalism’.

You gave up on the whole ‘oh I’ll just sleep on this tiny, uncomfortable chair for a few days until it’s sorted’ act days ago, diluting your dignity and climbing into bed with your similarly less than enthusiastic coworker who gave up on that shtick after the first night.

He wanted to go back to sleep - he really did, his eyes were practically closing themselves. But he surely couldn’t sleep next to someone actively crying and though he could be mean and - more accurately; a dick, he wasn’t completely emotionless. In fact he found himself scared that you were hurt or something was wrong and he had no way of fixing it when he woke up to your rushed breaths next to him. He still wasn’t sure he could really do anything, he didn’t tend to have dreams very much at all let alone bad ones.

There was no protocol to go over in his head about comforting a coworker-turned-roommate after a nightmare. He couldn’t exactly control your brain for you, though after a second thought he would if it’d help more than the apprehensive hand on your back.

Once you’d calmed yourself down enough and wiped the slowest string of tears from your cheeks you turned to look at Scott with something akin to a smile in the darkness.

Hoping that it made up for the lack of spoken gratitude that was clouded up in the panic in your head for the quiet comfort he wasn’t really looking to be thanked for anyway.