Archive of Our Own ^beta

Jim’s heart was racing. They’d been caught by the Moray, and he was currently pressed against the wall by the door with Silver on his right side gripping his shoulder, and B.E.N. on Silver’s other side while Kate stood apart from them looking utterly betrayed and resigned to it as the three pirates came into the room covering them with their guns. Jim tried to give Kate an encouraging smile because this was Silver’s plan, he was sure of it. Silver was just pretending to collude with the Moray in order to secure a more advantageous position. He had to be. That was why he’d said he wasn’t gonna let this bloodthirsty lot gut them, right? It was a callback to their first meeting following the events of the mutiny when they reached Treasure Planet, wasn’t it?

As soon as the Moray and her two lieutenants fully entered the room, Silver moved. He swung B.E.N. clean through the air, the robot screaming frantically, and knocked them all to the ground, sending their pistols flying.

“Get to the longboat! Go!” Silver shouted and shoved both Jim and B.E.N. straight for the now cleared doorway. “Kate, move!”

Relief rushed through Jim as he raced through the Centurion’s corridors straight for the longboat bay. He was right! Silver had been playing along just to trick the pirates!

But just as he turned the final corridor to enter the longboat bay, his vision warped, an immense pressure started weighing on his eardrums, and his stomach heaved like a sudden bout of etherium sickness. Jim stumbled into the doorframe, desperately clinging to it to remain upright, and belatedly realized there were words being spoken underneath the weird ear pressure.

Not just any words either. It was Silver speaking but sounding like his voice was coming from down a long narrow tube. “I know ye’ll work wonders, lad, even if I can’t be around to see it. I’d love to, y’know I would, but there’s no future fer ya with me in it, and I won’t drag ye down with me.”

Jim’s blood froze in his veins as the words penetrated through his skin. Wait… Wait…!

He turned on his heel and darted back down the corridor to the engine room, but the halls were growing narrower, longer, darker, the end shrinking into a pinprick of golden light ahead, and Silver’s voice was now saying, “Society ain’t kind to someone trying to turn over a new leaf. The Navy’s even more unforgiving.”

In a sudden flash of light, Jim found himself stumbling into a blindingly bright open stone courtyard in front of what looked like the capitol building of Parliament City. It was Andromeda Square. Temporary wooden stands had been erected all along the square and were packed with people wearing the latest fashions in rich fabrics. They were the nobles and landowners and rich business owners, but they were hardly the only attendees. The rest of the square was packed with commoners, and all eyes were fixed with heated attention on the wooden scaffold in the very center. A scaffold from which a noose hung innocently before the bound cyborg ursid standing upon the platform.

Kate also stood on the platform, dressed in Navy blues, hair pinned tight, and expression stern as she read from a scroll, “By Her Majesty’s decree, the convict John Silver is found guilty for crimes of piracy, murder, and mutiny and is hereby sentenced to hang from the gallows by the neck until dead.”

“NO!” Jim shrieked and lunged forward to reach him, but the crowd swelled with ferocious excitement and chants of “Hang him!”

Silver bowed his head to the executioner who placed the rope around his neck and cinched it tight as evidenced by a small flinch.

Jim struggled against the crowd, fighting to reach Silver, screaming at the top of the lungs that there’d been no trial. That he deserved a trial. But they were a rip current dragging him away, and no one could hear him no matter how he struggled. He was choking, crying, begging, screaming, drowning, stop this, stop this, stop this–!

The lever pulled, the trapdoor fell, the rope–

“NOOO!!!”

The sound ripped out of Jim’s throat, and he suddenly found himself staring up at a dark ceiling, breathing hard, soaked with sweat, and something soft twisted in his hands. Where– What– Silver–?

Warm light suddenly filled the space, making him jump, and a voice on his left said, “Jim, what happened??”

Jim twisted his head toward the source and stared blankly for a moment at the young cragorian man sitting up in the bed next to his, looking alarmed after having turned on a lamp on their desk. After a long moment, Jim remembered that he was Onyx, that he was his dorm mate at the Interstellar Academy, that this was his room, that Kate was his new friend, and that Silver hadn’t been executed for any of his crimes. Right?

His stomach was tight, his heartbeat rapid, his entire body overheated. He stared at Onyx for a long moment, struggling with what to say.

What could he say?

He and Onyx weren’t friends. He’d lost that privilege when he’d used his dorm mate as a cover for sneaking out to town to listen for stories of Silver before the Centurion had been stolen, and he and Kate had been unknowingly kidnapped along with it. Jim was still uncertain how to act around Onyx now, so he tried to give him as much distance as possible. He missed the understanding and friendship that they’d had only a couple weeks ago, but it was selfish and unrealistic for him to expect anything like that now.

With guilt starting to sneak its way into his chest along with the lingering panic and confusion, Jim shook his head. “Nothing. I’m sorry I woke you, Onyx.”

It was already difficult to read Onyx’s stony features, but the dim light from only the lamp made it even more impossible as Onyx stared hard at him, and Jim stared right back.

“Are you sure?” Onyx said with the faintest note of uncertainty in his voice.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry again. I don’t even remember what I dreamed,” Jim lied as he tried to discreetly untangle himself from the blankets.

Onyx gazed at him for a few more moments before nodding slowly and reaching toward the lamp string. “Alright… good night, Jim.”

“Good night.”

The light switched off and Jim lay blind for a moment as his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. He wanted desperately to verify that Silver was okay, but any option he could come up with would be impossible right now. Mom didn’t have a radio he could reach out to even with the communication equipment in the com tower, nor could he send a heliogram at this hour, and even if he could, it would be a while before anyone would respond. In the darkness, he couldn’t even dig out the article he’d cut out detailing the trial and Silver’s pardon. He wouldn’t dare turn on his lamp to read it lest he wake Onyx again and disrupt his sleep more than he already had. He couldn’t even ask Morph to become a tiny light so he could see and read, since he was back on Montressor with Mom and Silver now.

Actually, now that he thought about it, Silver probably wasn’t on Montressor and was instead en route to wherever his regular cybernetic mechanic was so he could get his arm repaired. Jim couldn’t even send a letter or heliogram that would reach Silver right now in order to get a reassuring response.

There was nothing he could do to try to calm down.

Jim rolled onto his stomach and buried his face in the pillow, forcing himself to close his eyes. He lay there for a long time, but sleep evaded him. Details of his dream haunted him, making his heart race and tears sting behind his eyes.

He startled when the morning bugle sounded.

He hadn’t slept even a moment after his nightmare, but he hoped that Onyx had gotten a little more at least.

Jim lingered a moment before pushing himself into a seated position and dangling his legs off the bed. He took a moment longer before standing and moving around the bed to where he kept his uniform, and he started to slowly and silently change.

Onyx did the same, and Jim avoided his gaze, guilt once again weighing on his stomach. He wondered if he’d be able to keep breakfast down.

“Were you able to get back to sleep alright?” Onyx asked.

Jim shrugged off-handedly, still not looking at him. “Yeah, I guess,” he lied, not wanting to burden Onyx unnecessarily.

“That’s good,” Onyx said, and that seemed to be all he was interested in saying.

Jim’s hands faltered in buttoning his jacket up. Today would be the first actual day he and Kate were back on campus, and there had frankly been far more pressing matters on his mind, so he hadn’t put any thought into if he and Onyx would sit together for mealtimes like they’d started doing before the whole Centurion fiasco.

His eyes darted toward his dorm mate, who was nearly dressed himself and was paying him no heed.

A flicker of disappointment flared in Jim’s chest as he realized that he’d probably lost that privilege too. He’d be lucky if Onyx didn’t request a room transfer to get away from him.

Jim yanked his boots on, grabbed what he would need for his classes, and slipped out of the room before Onyx had finished. He almost immediately was met by the frosty glares of the two cadets that shared the dorm to the left of his and Onyx’s.

He flinched as he realized his shout the night before must have woken them as well and he ducked his head, embarrassed and ashamed. “Sorry.”

It was going to be a rough day.

Kate lay on the catwalk on her stomach, pinned in place by one of the Moray’s pirates. The Moray herself hovered in the air over her, holding a pistol in her fin-hand.

Jim could do nothing. The longboat hadn’t finished its descent program yet because Kate had cut the cables prematurely, and Silver’s arm was damaged so even though he’d swapped his cutlass for his pistol, he was having an immensely difficult time raising it to take aim at the eeletheran woman.

The howling wind didn’t seem to matter, as Jim heard everything crystal clear as the Moray cackled while raising her pistol and aiming at Kate’s head.

“Oh, I can’t wait to see Papa Blake’s face when he spots your body hanging from the bowsprit, Katie.”

Jim fought with the controls on the longboat, but it refused to respond to anything he did. Why wasn’t it working?! There was no damage to it! He looked back up at Kate, reaching in vain for her even though he, Silver, and B.E.N. were hurtling away from the ship.

Her orange eyes met his, terror on her face. “Jim, help–!” she squeaked.

“Say ‘bye-bye’, Katie!” the Moray giggled.

“Wait! No! No!! STOP!!” the shouted plea tearing out of Jim woke him with a start and he stared into the darkness. 

He came back to himself faster each night, so it was only a moment before he remembered where he was and that none of what he’d dreamed had truly happened, but ultimately it didn’t make the situation any better.

Three nights in a row of terrifying nightmares, and Onyx didn’t even turn on the light anymore, though Jim knew he’d been woken, and he whispered frantically, “Sorry! I’m sorry! Everything’s fine!”

He fought the urge to continue and rolled to face the wall while biting his lip as his guilt on top of the terror from the dream made him feel like he might throw up.

This wasn’t going to work. He hardly got any sleep at night before he was dragged into a dream that played out his deepest fears, then lay awake until morning. By the end of the day, he felt ready to collapse, only for it to happen again, and the cycle continued.

Something had to change.

Jim rubbed his hand over his face. He listened for Onyx’s breathing for a while before climbing gingerly out of his bed and creeping to his clothes. He changed in the dark, doing so only by feel, then inched to the door.

A beam of light from the hall flooded through, seemingly far brighter than normal, and Jim winced as he rushed through and eased the door shut again as quickly as he could. He pressed his ear to the wood, listening for any footsteps inside. When he was confident he hadn’t woken Onyx, he turned and started toward the stairs.

Jim picked at the cuticle of his left pointer fingernail with his thumb and his stomach churned as he walked as quietly as he could past the dorms of sleeping cadets.

His instinct was to seek out Kate, since she was his only friend here, and ask if she’d been suffering any nightmares too because he’d been too embarrassed to ask before now. He wouldn’t be surprised. She’d been equally worried about Silver’s trial, and she’d been stuck on the Centurion alone with the Moray and her crew for a while before he, Silver, and B.E.N. had been able to rescue her. She hadn’t divulged much of what had happened in that brief interval, and he was sure she was hiding it for his sake.

While he was sure he’d be embarrassed to admit to Kate that he was having nightmares because their friendship was still so new, he hoped that maybe it would encourage her to reciprocate any of her personal worries with him.

Halfway down the last set of stairs to the bottom floor, Jim came to an abrupt halt.

What was he doing? He couldn’t just walk out of the dorm at this time at night; it was within curfew hours, and the front doors were locked and guarded by the overnight RA. He’d have to find another way out.

There was a window he could sneak through, and he had slipped out through countless times so he could go to the Purple Monkey, but he balked at the idea of going out that way again. Following him and Kate being discovered having snuck off the Academy’s campus, Jim wouldn’t be surprised if Dean Amelia hadn’t had a thorough search done for anywhere that cadets could creep out undetected.

And now that he was really thinking about it, his idea to seek out Kate was a terrible one. He would not only have to find a way out of his dorm, but also a stealthy way into hers; he had no idea which room she was in; and she had a roommate of her own that would see him. Even if he explained himself, it would seem wildly suspect that he was going to her dorm in the middle of the night. The rumor that he and Kate had been sexually intimate during their kidnapping as a way to explain their sudden friendliness was already rampant across campus, and this would only solidify the claims.

Jim loitered on the stairs, his momentum brought to a dead stop, and his mind spinning uselessly as he tried to come up with a new plan. He used to climb to the roof of both the old and new Benbow Inn to process his emotions when they felt especially overwhelming, and he turned around to walk back up the stairs.

His footsteps felt overloud in his ears, and he tiptoed up each step to the top floor, where he hesitated.

It looked no different here than on any of the other floors, but it somehow felt intimidating. He’d never had any reason before to climb to the fourth floor, and he wasn’t sure where to start to seek out a roof access point.

Jim’s eyes drifted to the windows at the end of the hall. The ones over the stairs were impossible to reach, and the two at the far end were clearly unable to be opened.

That option down, he started to slowly walk the corridor in search of a door now. At the very end of the hall was one slightly recessed into the wall with a sign on it that read ‘Academy Personnel Access Only’ that he assumed had to be the roof access, and while he didn’t think it would be likely, he checked it to see if it was unlocked.

Nope. It was locked tight, and the knob barely jiggled when he tried it.

With the only universal lock-pick he knew – Morph – safely in Silver’s care, nothing else he could use to unlock the door, and zero experience doing so, Jim gave up trying there. He realized belatedly that going onto the roof was probably prohibited, and he was sure that was listed somewhere in their cadet handbooks. Kate could probably even tell him the exact page if he asked. He’d been one slip-up away from being expelled before the Centurion incident, and while he wasn’t sure if that still stood, he didn’t want to test his luck.

But that also meant that he had none of his normal options for coping with these distressing emotions.

Jim sighed and started back down the hall. He hadn’t thought to grab his journal or any of his course material, or he’d read ahead for the next day. He could go get it, but that meant both going into his and Onyx’s dorm and then sneaking back out of it again without waking him, and the chances of that were slim-to-none.

It’d be best if he just found somewhere he could sit and wait until the morning bugle.

Bjornsman lounged at the front desk and jumped the tiniest bit when Jim crossed the hall from the stairs. He raised a brow and said, “Unless you’ve got a medical emergency, the doors stay closed.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jim said defeatedly, then slipped into the empty common room and fell into a chair in the corner. He drew his legs up to his chest, hugged around them tightly, and buried his face in his arms to wait until morning.

Jim was leaving the room again. Onyx pretended he was still asleep as he heard his dorm mate crawl out of bed and slip out the door as quietly as possible. Every night so far since he’d come back to the Academy, Jim had been waking up to some kind of nightmare, but he refused to talk about it, and on the third night, Jim had started sneaking out of the room.

It left Onyx feeling his stomach get all twisted up into knots. Jim was sneaking out of their room after curfew going who knew where, doing who knew what, and it was a painful reminder of how Jim had used his late night return from the com tower as an alibi to sneak out into town. He felt betrayed when he learned that someone he’d started to think of as a friend was using him that way, but then Jim had been accidentally kidnapped during his detention punishment on the Centurion along with Kate, and he felt stupid holding a grudge when Jim’s literal life was in danger. After Jim had been rescued, Jim had apologized, but Onyx had just wanted to let it all go. Just start over with a clean slate and let bygones be bygones. He didn’t really know how to talk to Jim anymore though, and Jim didn’t seem interested in talking with him either. It was almost lonelier than when he first arrived at the Academy not knowing anyone and struggling with the language and cultural differences.

So when Jim had started sneaking out of their room, Onyx tried to ignore it. Tried to pretend he didn’t care, that it wasn’t his business, and that he had no feelings about it.

Now he was just tired of pretending he wasn’t upset that Jim’s apology to him didn’t seem to matter at all, so Onyx threw back the covers and stood up to cross the room. He was going to find out where Jim was going this time and wouldn’t be made a fool of again.

Onyx stepped out into the hall, looking in either direction for his roommate. Jim was already at the top of the stairs at the end of the hallway, making his way down them to the floor below. He didn’t notice as Onyx followed behind him at a distance, listening intently to the direction he was heading by his unique gait through the vibrations from the floorboards traveling up Onyx’s legs through his bare feet.

Jim continued down the next set of stairs to the main floor, then toward the lobby where Bjornsman sat to watch the doors. Onyx’s brow drew together. Where was Jim going? He wouldn’t be able to sneak out through the front doors, and Bjornsman would surely have an eye on him so he wouldn’t be able to go through a window. Onyx wasn’t even sure that the windows on the main floor opened, since the one in their room didn’t.

He reached the main floor just as Jim’s movement stopped in the far corner of the common room, and Onyx glanced over toward Bjornsman.

The canid glanced over at him with an eyebrow raised and an expression on his face that looked like the silent question ‘You too?’

Onyx slowed as he reached the doorway to the common room and he peered in.

Jim sat in a chair, his legs pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped around them, and face buried in his arms. He didn’t move other than a faint shaking of his shoulders and Onyx watched for several minutes before backing away and walking slowly over to Bjornsman’s desk. “For how long has he been coming down to the common room?” he asked in a low voice, hoping for some additional context.

Bjornsman sighed, looking more annoyed than anything. “The last three nights.”

Onyx nodded slowly. It didn’t make sense. Why was Jim sneaking out of their room just to come sit in the common room?

“He doesn’t go anywhere else?” he pressed.

“Nope. Just goes in there. I don’t have any other answers for you. He doesn’t say anything to me when he comes down, and I’m not here to pry, just to guard those doors,” Bjornsman said.

“Thank you,” Onyx murmured.

He turned and made his way toward the stairs, pausing and glancing into the common room. Jim hadn’t moved at all.

Onyx walked slowly back to their dorm, now more bewildered than frustrated. He’d followed Jim with the assumption that he would confront him for sneaking out, certain that he was going to catch his roommate in the act of something he shouldn’t be doing, but he was just sitting in the common room. Why? It was obvious that he was having nightmares. They were frightening enough that they woke Onyx as well, and he had heard grumbles from their immediate neighbors too. Why wouldn’t he just talk to Onyx about them to try to calm down? He was the logical choice since they shared a living space.

As he thought this, Onyx remembered his own uncertainty around Jim. He didn’t know how to talk to him right now, so could it be that Jim was struggling with the same problem?

He slipped back into their room and crossed to his bed, but sleep evaded him, and he lay staring into the darkness.

Both of them were suffering from lack of sleep, and that needed to be addressed. Whether they knew how to talk to each other or not right now, they couldn’t keep dancing around this or pretending that it wasn’t affecting either of them. If they didn’t, then there could be noise complaints from their neighbors, and that wouldn’t be fair to either himself or Jim to face adverse reactions to nightmares. It wasn’t as if Jim could control what he dreamed.

As the morning bugle sounded and Onyx climbed back out of bed with a tired groan, he pledged to talk with Jim should this scenario repeat itself.

“Get to the longboat! Go! Kate, move!” Silver shouted and shoved Jim in the back towards the door.

Jim didn’t need to be told twice and started to make a break for it, but then hidden doors burst open along the corridor straight ahead, and a swarm of pirates spilled out bearing down on them. Jim was quickly overwhelmed and restrained, and the Moray cackled gleefully behind him.

“Aww, that’s so cute that you thought you had the upper hand and could get away with lying to me~!” the eeletheran woman cooed as Jim and B.E.N. were both brought back into the engine room and forced to their knees.

More of the pirates moved around them into the room to grab Kate, and the most terrifying thing of all was the scared expression on Silver’s face as he stared down at Jim. The Moray swiftly withdrew her cutlass and pointed it at Jim’s throat, making him freeze and hold his breath.

“So many options to choose from to deal with a little sneak thief and a crippled old liar, but which one is going to hurt the most,” the Moray said as she tapped her free fin-hand against her protruding jaw. Her gleaming yellow eyes darted to Silver, and her underbite became more pronounced as she smirked. “You see a lot of yourself in this brat, do you? Bit too fleshy though. Allow me to fix that. Pin him down and hold out his right arm.”

Jim struggled and flailed with everything he had against his captors as they wrestled him to the floor and stretched his right arm away from his body while Silver, Kate, and B.E.N. screamed in protest and fought to reach him in vain. Jim couldn’t breathe for terror and tears were streaming down his face in rivers when the Moray first pressed the flat of her blade against his shoulder and then forcibly grabbed his chin to look into her deranged eyes.

“Aww, why the long face, precious? Don’t you want to be just like daddy?” she mocked then released him, turned the blade upright, and swung.

Jim woke with a scream and bolted upright. He quickly grasped at his right arm and deflated immediately, though he couldn’t calm his heavy breathing yet. He still had his arm; it was just another nightmare. Another nightmare… Jim brought up his knees and crumpled over them, burying his face into his hands attempting to stifle his sobs. Every night… Every single night was some twisted alteration of the events that taken place that resulted in his, Kate’s, or Silver’s deaths. He wanted to sleep so badly. He’d tried bringing his journal with him to the common room one night, but trying to write down what happened only made it feel more real and made him feel worse. His body was beyond exhausted, but that didn’t seem to make any difference to his overactive imagination. If he tried going back to sleep, he’d either slip right back into the old nightmare exactly where it had left off or a new one would start up just as bad as the first.

Resigned to his fate, Jim pulled back the covers with the intent of slipping out to the common room again when he heard, “Jim.”

Jim froze as warm light suddenly flooded the room from the lamp at the side table, and he saw Onyx staring at him sternly with an elbow propping him up.

“We need to talk.”

Jim looked like a pipmouse caught in a corner by a shriekatt. “You’re awake?” he croaked and seemed to shrink in on himself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, I swear.”

“I know that,” Onyx said as he pulled his own covers back enough to sit up fully and rest his legs over the edge of the bed in order to face Jim directly, “but you’ve been having nightmares every night since you got back, so your current strategy to deal with them isn’t working, and I’m concerned for you.”

Jim had been slowly crumpling into himself with every word Onyx spoke until his last sentence fully registered, and then he looked stunned. “You are?”

Onyx’s brow pinched. “Of course I am,” he said. “We were– We are friends, and you must have gone through a lot of terrifying situations that could have ended badly to be so deeply affected that you’ve not had a single full night’s sleep.”

Jim had done nothing wrong and had meant his apology for how he’d used Onyx as an alibi. It would be unhelpful for Onyx to bring up his earlier suspicions and hold it over Jim’s head when Onyx was the one who’d decided to let it go. Jim was struggling and clearly felt uncomfortable talking with Onyx about his nightmares. If they were going to continue being friends going forward like Onyx wanted, then he needed to give Jim the space to feel safe.

Fresh tears started rolling down Jim’s cheeks, and his breath hitched in his throat. He tried to scrub them away with his palms but more just kept falling, and he said, “Sorry. I’m sorry. I can’t seem to stop crying, sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize for that, Jim,” Onyx said softly.

His friend curled into himself more, crying even harder now than earlier though he tried to hide it, and his breath catching as his bottom lip also started to quiver. He shook his head, rubbing harder at his eyes and curling inward more and more. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to wake you… I didn’t mean to disturb your sleep tonight or any other night… I’m sorry I’m keeping you awake still and I can’t just pull it together–”

Onyx stood up from his bed and crossed the room, sat beside Jim instead, and gently pulled him into his arms in a side hug. He hadn’t thought to do it, he’d just stood up and done it without thinking, and it startled him when he realized what he was doing. He wasn’t usually this tactile.

Jim startled slightly too, going stiff momentarily before slumping against Onyx and burying his face in Onyx’s shirt. Tiny muffled whimpers snuck out, Onyx could feel his shirt was getting progressively wetter as Jim continued to cry, but he didn’t dare move. Whatever Jim had been dreaming had been incredibly distressing, causing him to stay awake for half the night or longer. Onyx had no idea if he’d spoken to anyone about the nightmares yet which meant that he could likely be suffering alone while trying not to bother anyone. He felt a wave of guilt for not pressing Jim a little harder so he wasn’t keeping it all inside.

“I’m sorry…” Jim mumbled.

“That’s enough, Jim,” Onyx said with firm gentleness. “You were kidnapped, whether accidentally or on purpose, by an incredibly dangerous pirate known for her cruelty. From what you’ve shared, you were under a lot of stress for an entire week as you and Kate tried to save what seemed like the entire Empire. Then, when it was all over, and the Moray was defeated, the important person that gave you Morph was put in danger despite having been a key player in stopping her. I don’t blame you for having nightmares.”

The media coverage surrounding the theft and then the destruction of the Centurion, and the following trial of ex-pirate John Silver had been all anyone talked about for the entire week. Jim and Kate had been in the center of all of it, which was a lot of pressure on anyone, and then had been thrust back into their normal Academy routines, so Onyx could only guess how big a shock to the system it had been for them. He wondered if Kate was also having nightmares and what she was doing to manage them. He knew at least that Jim was almost constantly hounded for details, and rumors had been rampant about his and Kate’s relationship. Either awake or asleep, he seemed to be getting no rest and his stress had to be just as high now as it had been through the entire Centurion fiasco.

Onyx’s attention was drawn back to Jim, who let out a heavy, shaky breath and sagged harder against him.

He leaned there for a while, soaking a large patch of Onyx’s shirt, before he finally sat up and rubbed his eyes again. They were red and his cheeks blotchy, but he wasn’t crying so hard now and drew in several deep gasps trying to catch his breath. He gave Onyx a shy half-smile, then cleared his throat. “Thanks, Onyx… I… I have been having nightmares, obviously, but I… none of them actually happened. Parts of the dreams are what happened, but then there’s a shift and everything goes wrong and either Silver dies or I get hurt or Kate gets hurt…” he cut off, breathing hard to try to calm himself before speaking again, “and you’re right that my methods to cope with them aren’t working. I didn’t want to wake you, and I… I didn’t think that you would want or care to hear after…”

Jim cleared his throat again, his shoulders curling inward. “After I abused your friendship before the whole Centurion thing… I’m really sorry about that, Onyx… I shouldn’t have snuck off campus, and I absolutely shouldn’t have used you like that… I just…”

Onyx waited, catching himself holding his breath. This was probably the most vulnerable he’d ever seen Jim in the few months they’d been rooming together. Onyx had never gotten an explanation for what Jim had been doing when he’d snuck off campus, or why he’d done it, and at the time when he found out, he’d been too angry to ask. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t curious now that everything had passed and he’d processed those emotions.

Jim chewed on his lip for a moment before looking up into Onyx’s face and tiredly searched his expression, then let out a long breath. “I guess you’ve already figured out that Silver is the man who gave Morph to me, but it goes deeper than that. He… I see him as my father. Not my jerk of a biological father who skipped out on me and Mom when I was a kid, but as a dad who cares enough about me to give me his pet, to give up the treasure he’d been searching for his whole life to save me, and who…” Jim choked again, his eyes becoming glassy with another round of tears. “And who was willing to give up his freedom and even his life so I wouldn’t have to choose between him or a Naval career if we ever had a confrontation on the etherium…”

He swallowed hard, blinking rapidly to clear the tears from his eyes, but one snuck down his cheek and he brushed it away quickly.

“When I snuck out while you were doing your late class, I was… I was going to a bar in disguise to listen to stories about Silver… I missed him and… well, hearing stories about him made the distance and not knowing where he was a little more bearable… It’s… It’s a bad excuse, and I’m sorry again for using you as my alibi… It wasn’t fair to you…” he trailed off and heaved a deep sigh.

Onyx sat in silence for a moment as he digested everything Jim had told him. His anger at Jim’s sneaking out felt even more misplaced now, though he’d long processed that, and he was certain that he would have forgiven Jim in person had he just explained himself. He laid his hand gently over Jim’s, drawing his attention, and asked, “Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

Jim’s mouth twisted to the side and his eyebrows pinched. “I’m used to people having already made up their mind how they feel about me no matter what I say, so… I just kind of figured you had too… Sorry…”

“I–” Onyx started to protest, but stopped himself. He’d seen firsthand how Jim had experienced that with their fellow cadets, particularly with Kate whom he seemed to be friends with now that they’d gotten a chance to get to know one another. Onyx too had assumed the worst of Jim just earlier this week until he’d seen otherwise. He sighed.

“Well, thank you for telling me now, Jim. I’m sorry I made you feel that way,” he said softly, then hesitated before adding, “Your explanation didn’t mean that what you were doing was right, but I understand why you did it. If my… when I was younger and Arrow… I used to beg my mom for stories of my uncle whenever he was away, so I understand.”

They fell into silence other than Jim’s quiet sniffles, and eventually he moved to look at the clock. Another heavy sigh snuck out of him. “You should try to get some more sleep, Onyx.”

“You should too.”

Jim shook his head. “I’ll just wake up again, and wake you and our neighbors up too. I’ll just go down to the common room. The only one I can bother there is Bjornsman, and he’s supposed to be awake right now.”

Onyx gently squeezed around Jim’s hand, keeping him from being able to pull away. “You need more sleep than what you’ve been getting. I know you’ve been going down to the common room, but what would you do to calm down from a nightmare when at home?”

“I normally go up to the roof, and I tried that here, but the doors are locked, I don’t have anything to unlock them, and I really am trying to stay out of trouble of any kind. If I was at home, I’d have Morph and he was the biggest help after the nightmares I had following the voyage to Treasure Planet, but I couldn’t keep him here so… yeah,” Jim shrugged.

“How did Morph help?” Onyx asked.

“Cuddles and I guess the reminder that Silver cared about me because I had him.”

Onyx didn’t think he could help with the second part of what Morph did for Jim, and he hesitated at the first. He liked his personal space, and had never been one for physical touch except with incredibly close friends or family, but he’d never cuddled with anyone besides maybe his parents when he was very young.

“Then physical touch is most helpful to you?” he asked with a glance down at Jim.

His friend shrugged, eyes distant as he gazed across the room. “I guess.”

Onyx hesitated again. “Then… would it help if we shared a bed? More specifically, if we cuddled?”

Jim didn’t move for a moment, his eyes still cast to the far wall, but then his gaze sharpened and he sat up a bit, his eyebrows pulling together and eyes widening. He turned slowly, looking up at Onyx. “Say what now?” he asked.

“What you have been doing to cope with your nightmares hasn’t been working. You are getting less and less sleep each night, and physical touch seems to help make you feel safe, so the logical thing to do would be to try cuddling,” Onyx said stiffly. He felt hot all over for even making the suggestion, and was sure that his skin would color up if it could.

“You… that’s… We don’t have to do that, Onyx. Thank you for the offer, but I… I don’t want to bother you any more than I already have,” Jim said, his own face flushing a very deep red.

Onyx shook his head. “You’re not bothering me, Jim. And I want to help you. If it doesn’t work, then we can try to think of something else, maybe you could speak with the nurses at the infirmary for some sleep aid, but that isn’t an option right now and therefore isn’t a viable alternative for attempting to get more sleep tonight. I do not mind attempting this, nor am I uncomfortable about it if that’s what you’re worried about.”

It was a lie, he was a bit uncomfortable, but he was willing to try if it would help either of them get a little more sleep before dawn.

Jim bit his bottom lip, brows drawn together and looking as if he was debating the suggestion, before he finally let out a breath. “Okay. If you’re sure you’re okay with it.”

“I am.”

They both hesitated before moving again, and Jim turned to look at his bed, which they were both sitting on. “Um… Mine or yours?” he asked finally.

“We’re already here,” Onyx said.

Jim nodded, otherwise unmoving, then took a bracing breath and stood. “Okay. Would you like the wall side or the outside?”

Onyx stood as well, turning and assessing the bed. It would feel odd lying on this side of the room, but he didn’t expect that he would sleep much and would have plenty of time to get used to it. “I’ll take the wall side, so I won't accidentally crush you between it and me.”

He climbed onto the bed and moved over to the far side, wondering if it was even large enough for the two of them, and he positioned himself on his side facing the middle of the room. Jim stood statue-still for a moment before he turned and flicked off the lamp, plunging them in darkness.

The mattress shifted as he climbed on next to Onyx. They both startled when his hand brushed Onyx’s arm.

“Sorry!”

“It’s okay, Jim. We’ll have to touch to cuddle,” Onyx whispered.

“Oh yeah…”

Jim laid down and scooted closer, and they reached for the blanket to pull it up over them both. He hesitated a moment before inching forward more and they both startled again when he bumped into Onyx. He took a breath then pushed forward the rest of the way, leaning against Onyx’s front.

It was very strange. Onyx wouldn’t say it was uncomfortable or upsetting, just… odd. He’d never thought about what sharing a bed would feel like, because he’d never had any interest in a relationship with anyone that could involve this exact situation. He never would have guessed that his and Jim’s friendship would result in even platonic cuddling.

“Thanks, Onyx… I… I do actually feel better,” Jim whispered.

“Of course, Jim. Try to get some sleep, okay?”

“Yeah… okay.”

They fell silent again, and Onyx listened intently to Jim’s breathing. It slowly evened out and slowed, his body relaxed, and Onyx found himself relaxing too when he realized Jim had fallen asleep again. He was relieved for that, even though he fully intended to stay awake. It had only been a month ago that he’d accidentally broken Michael Veiss’ arm while sparring, and he was terrified of hurting Jim in his sleep by rolling onto him. 

So he lay still, his arm curled gingerly around Jim, and closing his eyes only because he couldn’t see anything anyway.

Onyx startled awake with the sound of the morning bugle. He lay still for a moment, confused about several things, though the most pressing question on his mind revolved around what could possibly be leaning against him.

He pried his eyelids open and looked down, brow furrowed, and stared blankly at Jim, who was curled tightly against him. His roommate was fast asleep still, seemingly having not even heard the bugle, with his cheek squished against Onyx’s chest and his fingers curled in the fabric of Onyx’s shirt.

It was nice to see that Jim was getting more sleep, but why was he here?

Belatedly, Onyx remembered his offer to cuddle in place of Morph since the protoplasm wasn’t here for them to see if it would help Jim get some more sleep. Onyx himself hadn’t expected to get any more since he’d initially been so worried he might roll onto Jim and crush him, but apparently he’d gotten comfortable and tired enough that he’d drifted off as well.

His eyes rose to the calendar on the wall and he sighed in relief when he saw that it was Saturday. There were no classes to attend. The bugle had only sounded to alert the cadets that curfew was over and the dorms and other buildings were open. There was nothing that was required of either of them today, which dispelled Onyx’s worry that either of them might struggle through the day.

He relaxed once more, very carefully adjusting his arm around Jim, and let his eyes shut again to get some more sleep.