SLEEPSONG (BoyxBoy)✔️

Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

It started pouring on us in a searingly cold wave five minutes into the run back home.

Being miserably cold and uncomfortably wet is unpleasant business, and the unpleasantness only increases when you're both wet and cold and scared, bouncing along over an uneven road with your heart in your mouth, the shoulder of a man you barely know gouging your ribs with every jarring jerk. It sucks more than a hooker with a Hoover.

Not only was I miserable and dizzy and finding it hard to breathe for the next few hours, I was soaked and completely frozen through. I must have blacked out at some point, though, because I went from fighting for air on his back to being jolted out of unconsciousness with a crash.

I heaved, realizing that we were literally airborne, and then we were crashing into a treetop. I clung to his shirt, squeezing my eyes shut against the branches and twigs catching on our clothes as we flew into them, and then we were still.

My ears rang from the silence, but that much was only natural considering how deafening the wind had been up to this point. Icy rain splattered against my head and rolled down my neck as Sebastian squatted on the branch he'd landed on, looking at something I couldn't see.

"Where are we?" I weakly rasped. "Are we back yet?"

"Do shut up," he noncommittally grunted. "If we were there, I'd have dropped you by now." 

"Then why are we hiding in a tree?" I croaked, struggling to raise my head and failing miserably; I hung like a rag doll across his shoulder, strings of hair dangling from my upside-down head. 

"Traffic," he coldly countered. "Now, do what I said and shut up."

I sighed and did just that, waiting impatiently as he squatted there, but after a time he lunged out of the tree, landed heavily on the ground, and took off with another heavy impact that left me wheezing for air. The fearsome vortex of wind engulfed me again, and my body temperature once again lowered in a way that made me feel completely frozen.

I was grateful when we finally came to another halt one long, bone-shaking hour later. 

With little more than a shrug, I abruptly slipped off of his shoulder. I tried to get my legs beneath me, but I was hard pressed to find my balance on such short notice. I failed, of course. Sebastian sneered at me when I fell over and landed hard on my butt. I hardly cared, though, because when I opened my eyes I found myself sitting on the sidewalk right in front of my building. 

The sky had turned blue-grey with the first touches of early dawn, but it was overshadowed by the streetlights, which lit up the surrounding area with a cheerful orange glow.

"Never," I rasped as I fought back a surge of nausea, "let me do that with you again."

He made a 'humph'ing sort of noise. 

"You wouldn't have had to do it in the first place if you weren't so damn weak."

I ignored the comment in favor of voicing my own. "Being weak isn't a bad thing."

"Only if you're not a coward, which you most certainly are."

I glared at him. He glared back. 

I let out a grumble and struggled to rise to my feet, but my whole body was shivering, and for whatever reason, felt far more sluggish than I was used to. It was a struggle to move right, and Sebastian noticed since his orange eyes narrowed, glinting with irritation. 

Grabbing my arm, he pulled me upright and threw me back over his shoulders before making his way inside and up the flight of stairs leading to my home. My body jolted with every footstep, but I couldn't help but wonder why he was carrying me inside.