#zelloyd

He shifted onto his back and stared up at the wooden ceiling. His eyes traced the slant of the shadows until he would swear he could make out the woodgrain, but then his head twinged and he realized he was just…seeing things. The moonlight spilling in from the window didn't reach up, after all.

Seeing things. Patterns in the wavering of his tired eyes, angels and their judgement lurking in every shadow. Hope, in those idiots from Sylvarant and their naive, dogged determination to fix a world that had been gladly eating itself alive for millennia. Obviously, Zelos was just losing it.

A loud heartbeat of silence caught Zelos's attention, followed by a soft snuffle, and then a return to the cadence of breathing that Zelos now realized had become so normal that he'd been startled to hear it stop. Tucking an arm under his head, he looked to the side. Beyond the edge of the bed, he could still see Lloyd, lying on his bedroll on the floor. Zelos could make out the curve of his arm, brown skin bare as he slept in his underclothes rather than actual pajamas.

Zelos raised his free hand slowly, rubbing his chest through his nightshirt as if it could soothe the squirming sensation rising back up there. Stupid, he told himself. It was stupid. So what if Lloyd had offered him the bed because Zelos was his friend and not because Zelos was the revered Chosen. So what if Lloyd slept with a weapon close by but made sure it was his wooden sword ever since Zelos let something slip about the attempts on his life. So what if—

So what?

Maybe if Zelos even knew why he was so bothered, he could actually rest. Nightmares would be so much easier. A few tugs on his hair or pinches on his wrist to remind himself what was real, and he would eventually fall asleep again. But this…

Nothing was wrong.

Everything was fine.

Zelos was tired and reasonably sure he was safe, but he couldn't stop thinking about how that was kind of nice and about how Lloyd's sometimes-snores and steady breathing were soothing, and how he'd only ever avoided sleeping alone by having sex and that was so much effort that he woke up tired the next morning anyway, but he'd been rising with the sun all on his own and feeling rested ever since they made this inn a temporary base to get some training in and started these particular sleeping arrangements and—

Well. Zelos sure wasn't getting a restful eight hours tonight. So here he was, yet again, ruining a good thing just by being Zelos fucking Wilder. Typical.

He sighed, feeling his chest fall under his hand, and made sure his next breath came from his stomach instead. It wasn't going to matter, discovering that he slept better with someone else in the room, when he wasn't going to have anyone to fall asleep with in a few months anyway, he decided.

It didn't matter.

Everything was fine.

And so staying up late tangling his thoughts like yarn caught by a kitten wouldn't change anything. Zelos closed his eyes and breathed in, then out. He relaxed his hand where it had curled into a fist behind his head. In, then out. He was done wasting time when he could be sleeping soundly, for once. In, then out. He was starting to feel pleasantly heavy and was not thinking about the fact that his breaths were falling perfectly in sync with Lloyd's, easy to follow; easy to trust—

Damn it.

Zelos grit his teeth and did not open his eyes. What a joke. He was safe and comfortable, and so he couldn't sleep? What a pathetic excuse for a human being.

You should never have been born.

Zelos turned over again, away from the window and the moonlight spilling in. He relaxed his face one muscle at a time, brow, cheeks, jaw…

"Ze…" grumbled a voice from somewhere in front of him. Zelos held perfectly still. "Y'wake?"

Lloyd shifted in his bedroll, and the floorboards under him creaked slightly. Zelos didn't open his eyes to look, but he guessed Lloyd was turning to look towards him. "Zelos? Swear I heard…"

He didn't know what possessed him to speak up when he could so easily just pretend to be asleep, but without opening his eyes, Zelos found himself saying, "Everything's fine, bud. Go back to sleep."

"Mmkay," Lloyd said. Zelos heard him shift in his bedroll again. "Bad dream?"

Instead of answering, Zelos just focused on evening his breathing out again.

"Whatever i'is, we'll…work somethin' out," Lloyd continued. His voice was heavy with sleep, almost like he was drunk. Zelos fought down a smile. "Not sacrificing…an'one else."

The humor in Zelos's chest died, replaced again with that strange, squirming sensation in his chest. Lloyd really believed that. And Zelos was…just about ready to shrivel up with envy and die about it, honestly. How dare somebody so fervently good and fair and hopeful come into Zelos's life which was none of those things, and start flaunting them?

Which led to the treacherous thought of: Why couldn't someone like Lloyd have come along sooner? Soon enough, maybe, that Zelos's father never would have been forced into a marriage to breed like a stud horse; soon enough that Zelos's mother would have gotten her wish and Zelos would never have been born.

Or—an even more treacherous thought—soon enough that Zelos would have had enough hope left to believe in him?

"Go to sleep, Lloyd," Zelos said, bitterly.

"You go t'sleep," Lloyd shot back. Zelos had the distinct feeling that he thought he was winning an argument. He scoffed—or tried to, but it came out like a chuckle, and something in Zelos's chest cracked. That squirming feeling gave way to a warmth, one that reminded Zelos of the way his eyes and nose would burn preceding tears, back when he still cried over how unfair it all was.

Yeah, yeah, Zelos mouthed, but didn't say anything. He didn't move at all until he heard Lloyd's breathing even out and pick up that slight rasp that wasn't quite a snore. Only then did Zelos open his eyes. Over the edge of the bed, he could just make out half of Lloyd's face, now turned towards him. His features were mostly lost in the shadow cast by Zelos's chest, but…Zelos could see enough to know that Lloyd wasn't totally relaxed, either. Like his promises and his fool's errand of a resolve had enough substance to weigh him down.

Zelos watched Lloyd's nose scrunch, and he wondered if this was what all that drama in Sebastian's romance novels was, about watching your partner sleep. If Lloyd were—

Before that thought could rip Zelos open so fast a hot knife would be jealous, he closed his eyes. Midnight's siren call to bad decisions was vicious. He knew that because he exploited it so often, and so he wouldn't fall victim to it.

Slowly to keep the bed from creaking, Zelos turned away. In the morning, everything would be real and clear again. Easy.

Everything would be fine.

Zelos wasn't going to be borne into slumber on the current of someone else's breathing; he wasn't going to manage a deep sleep the whole night reassured by someone else's presence; and he definitely wasn't going to wake up having turned back over, drawn like a moth to a flame.

He woke the next morning with his back to the window, a covered bowl of watermelon on the bedside table, and that warmth still feverish in his chest.