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“I had a bad dream.” Hedwig’s voice is soft and terrified as he peers into the room, hands clutching the door. “Can I sleep with you?”
You sigh, eventually nodding and scooting forward to the edge of the bed, offering him the space just behind you.
The boy exhales excitedly, locking the door and rushing to the side of the cot. His blue eyes are wide with a distant fear, his lips tentatively curling into a soft smile as he breathes, “I really appreciate this, Y/N. I had a scary dream, etc.”
“It’s okay, Hedwig,” you whisper, groaning as he leans his weight on your hip, clambering over and collapsing in a heap just behind you.
His hand finds its way around your waist, fingers curling tightly around the hem of your shirt as he nuzzles his nose into the space between your shoulder blades.
This, although seemingly bizarre occurrence, has become a trend in the past week, since you’d been abducted and placed in a room separated from your so-called friends, Marcia and Claire. Hedwig awakes from terrified sleep— often surrounded by aggressive alters who insist the nightmares are just that. Yet the child, repeatedly unable to calm himself from the overwhelming sense of fear, would find himself cowering at your bedside in hopes of receiving some gentle comfort. Some sense of safety.
And you would always provide it.
“Don’t you have any blankets in here?” he lisps in your ear, breath warm as a few droplets of spit find their way to the goosebump-riddled skin of the back of your neck.
“Go to sleep, Hedwig,” you insist, in a strained tone.
“Okay.” He goes right back to burying his face into your spine, sighing sleepily against your skin and remaining shirt as he drifts off.
By now, you’re used to this. Like a rhythm, his presence is almost comforting. So much less intimidating and threatening than Dennis and Patricia. Hedwig offers a steady heartbeat and gentle warmth that seems to hold you like a child, too: safe and protected.
Each night it happens, and each night, you allow the boy trapped in a man’s body to curl up in the space behind you, willing to take away at least some of his worry in the moment.
But the next night, just before you’re able to fall into a deep sleep, Hedwig returns to your room, begging to be comforted yet again. Though something is… off.
The door falls open with a low creak, followed by a pair of blue eyes gleaming in the dark.
“Y/N?” he calls softly, his voice softer than usual when he’s in a state of fear.
“Yes, Hedwig?” you reply, trying not to let your mild annoyance ring through in your voice.
“I… I had a nightmare,” he confesses. That alone is enough to make you sit up and stare at him seriously. He doesn’t usually say ‘nightmare’. You can’t quite place what exactly is wrong, suddenly, but it’s gnawing at you, and you want desperately to figure out what.
“Can I… can I sleep with ya? Please?” he whispers, his blue eyes strangely dark as he begs.
It’s the first time you’ve hesitated before saying, “Yeah, come on.”
And true to routine, you scoot to the edge of the cot, facing out, while the boy locks the door and hurries over. He seems to struggle with how exactly to climb over you— as if he hasn’t done this several times before in the pitch dark.
Then his eyes flash and he starts his ascent, crawling over your legs and worming down to lie flush against your back.
His hips brush yours, belly pressed against your spine as he adjusts and fits himself as snugly close to you as possible. You inadvertently jerk forward when you feel his hand grip the hem of your shirt, as usual, and he drones, “What’s th’ matter?”
Your voice is shaky and ghost-like when it finally comes out. “Nothing, Hedwig, go to sleep.”
Nothing. The word echoes in your mind uncomfortably. Nothing about this is normal, or safe. Or sane for that matter. You were naive to ever think the personality of a sociopath identifying as a nine year old could be scared. Enough to need comfort from you, of all people.
But you make no move to free yourself from his hold or send him back to his room.
Instead you just let out a pent up breath and try to sleep, ignoring the way his toes brush against your heels through his red socks.
Hedwig eventually starts to shift, making himself comfortable by pressing in closer behind you. His hand, still resting at your hip, starts to palm the side of your waist, drifting back and then forth, caressing the hip bone jutting out. You tense at the touch, heat flaming in your face and each spot of your skin that he brushes with his fingers. The sensation grows, and you wrap your arms around yourself in an attempt to smother the strange feeling fluttering in your stomach.
The man behind you sighs softly, curling his arm around your stomach and dragging you further back, into his embrace, one knee coming up to rest between your legs.
You shudder, tempted to squeeze your thighs together over his leg, but resist— instead kicking his shin until he retreats.
“Don’t do that, Hedwig,” you hiss.
“What?” he snaps, sounding utterly innocent. Yet, his tone is laced with a familiar poison you’ve heard in his other personalities…
“Just— stop moving.” For some reason, you feel like your breath has been stolen from your lungs.
“But I’m cold,” he complains. “And yer warm.” As if to prove his point, he rubs his face into the mess of your hair and you shiver.
“Fine.” You can feel his nose brush your neck, exploring, testing. His lips graze the side of your neck, and you suck in a sharp breath, tempted to smack him away.
But you don’t.
Some part of your traitorous body craves this— his touch, however wrong and insistent. You let his hand slide under your shirt and you bite your lip, stifling a groan as his fingers trepidatiously find the lace of your bra and begin fiddling gently.
His knee comes back up between your legs and settles against your privates— sending warmth shooting through your whole body from your core.
This isn’t Hedwig.
It can’t be. The child, despite acting like a tv gangster and asking for an innocent kiss, is still ignorant about sex and the implications of the actions his body is committing now. No, these movements are deliberate and experienced— predatory.
And you are the prey.
You feel his lips traveling along the side of your neck, nearing your throat as he breathes in your scent, chest rumbling menacingly against your back.
All at once, you place your hand over his, under your shirt, trapping his palm over your middle, and he freezes.
“I know Hedwig is asleep,” you whisper in terror, sweat beading in your palm and soaking into the shirt covering his hand. “I just want to know who you are,” you add gently.
The man behind you just breathes heavily, through his nose. His breath is hot and shaky against the back of your head, as you shift in his grasp and continue, “Barry?”
You didn’t think that man had it in him— in fact you assumed he was gay based on how he spoke in his rare appearances in front of you.
But he doesn’t reply, and you try again, swallowing. “Patricia?” Maybe, just maybe, the matriarch of this system was here, trying to get something from you. But she doesn’t answer, either, and you guess the last name, the one you were hoping with all of your heart that it wasn’t: “Dennis?”
A long pause before his somber sigh, “Yes.”
Your heart crawls up your throat.
“Are you… going to…” You try to speak, and fail, voice disapatting.
“No,” he responds over your words, voice immediately gruff having lost the magical lilt of Hedwig’s curious tone. He doesn’t move his hand from your abdomen, nor his leg from your crotch, as he adds, “I won’t.”
You let out a shuddering breath and lie your head down on the bare cot, shutting your eyes as his breath buffets your hair.
After a long silence, Dennis says in his low, accented voice, “I’ll go.” He starts to rise, using his elbow to prop himself above you and one hand on your waist to balance, when you grab his wrist. His nails dig gently into your skin in shock, and you can feel the burning of his gaze in the side of your face, hidden from one another in the dark.
“No,” you whisper, hating that it sounds like a question. Maybe it should, you think. After all, this is wrong. Completely and utterly unacceptable for either of you to be this close to each other— sharing a bed, letting his hands wander over your body.
And yet you can’t bring yourself to end it. You want— no, need the warmth that his massive hands and rippling muscles bring in the cold emptiness of this room. “Stay.”
Dennis appears stunned, unmoving in the space behind you, his breathing ceased.
Hand still gripping his wrist, you begin to pull him back down toward you, slipping his hand beneath your shirt once more, guiding his fingers to the edge of your bra. He sucks in a breath, and lays himself back down, dragging his knee forward, and this time you straddle his thigh.
Dennis leans around you, his mouth hesitantly exploring your throat, his hand pawing desperately at your breast beneath the shirt.
You moan, suddenly, as his knee jerks upwards into the space between your legs, and you can feel Dennis growing more hot and needy behind you. His second hand comes up around your middle and begins picking zealously at your shirt.
You twist, bringing yourself to face him, hands on his heaving chest, and he takes the opportunity to straddle you, propping himself up with his hands on either side of your head.
His face is a gentle pink, impaired eyes squinting without his glasses, breath coming in short bursts.
You reach up, boldly, and take the back of his neck in your grasp, pulling down. He moves with you, confusion flashing in his gaze, and you lift your head from the cot to bring your lips together.
Dennis stops— tentative in every motion, until you prompt him by pressing your tongue against his lips to part them. The man tenses before rushing to claim your mouth with his own.
Your teeth click against his— warm tongue exploring your throat as his huge hands begin wandering back over your body. His palms experimentally cup your breasts from the side, making you shiver in pleasure– despite knowing this is wrong, wrong.
“W-will,” he pants, breathless, and in the dark you can see his pupils are blown wide in arousal, “will ya dance for me?” His voice is a mere whisper, so pathetic and broken, you almost feel bad.
“Go to sleep, Dennis,” you whisper back, raising your head to place one last loving kiss on his clenched jaw. Then, smirking ever-so-slightly as you lie beneath his massive body, you add, “Come back tomorrow.”
He doesn’t smile, but you can by the way his breathing slows satisfiedly, that he’ll be sure to obey.
Suddenly, his arms begin to quake, and almost shrink, as his eyes turn back to glittery confused blue spots in his head.
“Were we cuddling?” he whispers, lisp true and loud after the silence of Dennis.
You just blink up at him and shove his chest so he’s in front of you this time. “Go to sleep, Hedwig,” you instruct.
He’s grinning over his shoulder at you as he curls up at the edge of the cot. “Okay!”
His back presses childishly against your middle, and you press as close as you can, savoring the lingering heat from Dennis. You wrap one arm around his midsection and squeeze, and Hedwig makes a confused noise.
“I’m keeping you warm,” you partially lie, and he seems appeased.
“Oh, thanks, Y/N,” he says sweetly, voice already thick with sleep.
“Goodnight, Hedwig,” you whisper, smiling when he responds, slurring his words as he drifts into darkness. Then, quieter, when you’re sure he’s at peace, you say, “Goodnight, Dennis.”