Chapter Text
He was on the way to his bedroom when he heard it. The muttering was quiet, but audible...and in Spanish?
Past midnight, Schneider didn’t usually hear voices outside his apartment.
Especially not one he recognized instantly.
“Penelope?” He opened his door and found her standing in the hallway staring at him like she had forgotten where she was.
“Hi.” Penelope ran a hand over her curls, then remembered. She was still in her pajamas, and her hair must look as though she'd been tossing and turning on it all night. Like her, it was a mess. “Hey, Schneider.”
“What are you doing out here?”
Penelope crossed the hall toward him. “I couldn’t sleep and I had to get out of that room. I just...I needed some air, so I thought maybe a walk--but I couldn’t walk out there, in the middle of the night, obviously.”
“Oh, yeah, obviously.”
She barely registered his words, talking right past him while she turned to pace back in the other direction.
“Only I have been walking the halls now for twenty minutes--twenty minutes, Schneider, and it isn’t helping. I think I might be more awake than I was twenty minutes ago.”
“Okay. Okay!” Schneider grabbed her by the shoulders just to stop her increasingly manic pace. “Penelope.”
“Yeah.”
“The last time I saw you this amped up it was the day before Elena’s quinces and you’d had half a can of Cuban coffee. Are you caffeinated right now?”
“No.”
“Then what is up?”
“I can’t sleep. I have been trying to sleep, and I can’t, I can’t turn my brain off, you know? It’s just--” She circled her fingers toward the ceiling. “Going.”
“All right.”
“It’s been almost three hours now. I was afraid Mami would wake up and hear me pacing and think something was wrong, so I went for a walk.”
“Is something wrong?”
“I. Can’t. Sleep.”
He stepped back to his doorway. “Gotcha. I meant, besides that.”
“Not really. I just can’t seem to relax. It happens sometimes,” she admitted quietly. “Less since I came home. Less since I started the meds.”
Schneider nodded, then stepped back again, crossing the threshold to his place. “Why don’t you come in?”
Penelope looked down the hall, mentally retracing her footsteps, and wondered if Schneider had heard her the first three times she’d walked this way. “Yeah, okay.”
“Want some water?”
“No, thanks.”
Once he shut the door behind her, Penelope was left standing awkwardly next to it. She didn’t really feel like sitting down, but she couldn’t pace around his breakables.
“Do you still have that spinning bike?”
He grinned. “Somehow I doubt that more exercise is a good solution for you right now.”
“Well, what would you suggest? How do you deal with insomnia?”
“I used to chase a handful of Ambien with a couple shots of Jack Daniels,” Schneider replied thoughtfully. “Always put me right out.”
He blinked. “Of course, waking back up had a slightly less consistent success rate. Now I mostly use sex.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Ew.”
“What? It expends energy, releases happy brain chemicals, usually leads right into a very relaxed state. Skin-to-skin contact even boosts your immune system, it was on the news.”
Penelope was still trying to banish the image of naked Schneider from her brain when his face lit up.
“I’ve got an idea.” Schneider rested his hand at the small of her back and guided her out of the living room. He was about to nudge her through his open bedroom door before Penelope realized what was happening and froze in place.
Schneider bumped into her, steadying himself with a grip on her shoulder. “What’s wrong? There’s something I can try, it might help.”
“You want to try something--in your bedroom? Do I look like an idiot?”
“God! Not that!” He stepped away, holding up his hands in defense. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Penelope.”
She folded her arms, staring him down until he elaborated.
“We need the bed, so you can lie down and hopefully relax enough to sleep. Go back home, or sleep here and I’ll take my couch, it doesn’t matter. But I figure you’re desperate, and I took a class.”
“In what?”
“Massage.”
“Oh, no. Not a chance.” Penelope retreated immediately, and he rushed to catch up.
“C’mon, Pen, hear me out. You’re on your meds, right?”
“Yeah.” He was at her heels as she reached the front door, and she didn’t have the heart to slip out and shut it in his face. With a heavy internal sigh, she turned instead, and listened.
“Well, you’re on your meds like you’re supposed to be, you’re back in therapy...” Schneider sniffed the air between them. “You smell like Vicks VapoRub, so Lydia’s already done all she can for you. Is it stress? Work?”
“No, work’s fine. But yeah, stress is probably a factor. Finals are coming up,” she admitted, “and my grades are better, but they’re still not where they need to be. This semester is kind of my last shot.”
“Wow, no wonder you’re awake.” He nodded. “I don’t know what that’s like, exactly, I was never big on studying, but if I were you I’d have coffee in an IV right now. Straight to the brain.”
“An IV flows through the blood to the heart,” she corrected him.
“It makes it to the brain eventually, though, right? Because if I’m not getting any blood up there...that would explain some things.”
“Schneider, what’s your point?”
“You need to sleep. You’ve tried everything that would normally help. Why not give me a chance?”
Penelope dug her fingernails into her palms. When she considered her options, there was nothing there. Just more pacing.
She hated it, but she really was that desperate.
“No funny business?”
“Hand to God.” Schneider attempted the sign of the cross, looking a lot like a man fighting a drunken fly. “Just a massage.”
“Fine. Ten minutes,” she decided. “And all my clothes are staying on.”
He rolled his eyes so hard she had to hide a smile. “I’m not trying to get you naked. If I were, you already would be. I’m that smooth.”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” She followed him through the open doorway, stopping abruptly again when she saw his bed.
“Are...are those Batman sheets?”
“Awesome, right?” He saw the expression on her face and quirked the corner of his mouth up. “I wasn’t expecting company tonight.”
“What, the ladies aren’t hot for rich guys in rubber?”
She winced when she realized how that sounded.
Schneider just laughed, and let the opportunity pass him by. Instead, he pointed at the lake-sized mattress.
“Stomach down, ‘kay? I figure a nice, calm back massage is just the thing.”
This was so stupid, she thought. But she climbed onto his rumpled bed, praying fervently that he wasn’t checking out her ass when she was wearing her ugliest pair of pajama pants.
The mattress dipped as Schneider sat down, resting his thigh against her hip while she settled in. Penelope tried to focus on the coolness of the comforter underneath her, relaxing her toes where they were curling up anxiously.
“All right. I’m just gonna...” He laid his hands flat against her lower back, then lifted them back up.
She felt his fingertips brush her spine before he settled them higher, just under her shoulderblades. “There,” he decided. “There is good.”
Carefully, Schneider drew his fingers toward the center of her back, pressing lightly at first, then more firmly. He switched to the flats of his hands when she hummed in approval.
“Okay, that--” Penelope twisted around to stare at him over her shoulder. “That feels really good. How did you learn to do that?”
“I told you, I took a class. It seemed like a great way to meet women.”
She relaxed back against the mattress. “Mm. And did you?”
“Not really. It was such a brilliant idea that everybody there had the same one. Whole class of dudes. We had to practice on each other. Not exactly what I had in mind.”
Penelope chuckled, then bit down on a moan. “Yeah, okay. Right there. God, nobody should be this good with their hands.” Especially not Schneider, she thought, slightly bewildered by this hidden talent of his.
“Thanks, I think. Whoa, that’s a knot.” Schneider focused in on a spot just below her shoulder. “You’re super tight, Pen--you weren’t kidding.”
“Why would I kid about that?”
“Okay, wait, you’re tensing back up.” He laid his palms flat against the center of her back, spreading his fingers out until she stilled. “Just try to relax.”
“Come on, take a few deep breaths for me.” His voice softened and he switched to rubbing slow circles. Up to her shoulders, down along her spine. Up, then back down, while she deliberately tried to calm her breathing.
How were Schneider’s hands so warm in the middle of winter? The heat from them was sinking into her skin, making Penelope feel floaty and closer to sleep.
“There you go.” He flexed his fingers and started again, thumbs pressing into her lower back.
This time she managed not to moan, but she did let out a sharp breath. “You should do this for a living.”
“That’s not the kind of entrepreneur I want to be,” Schneider scoffed. “Touching strangers’ naked bodies? Carrying around one of those little tables? No thank you.”
He gentled his touch, working his fingertips down the curve of her neck as she sighed. “Besides, I’d much rather save my amazing talents for emergencies. Like a hyped up, exhausted friend.”
Penelope yawned into his pillow. It smelled like evergreen and mint.
“Schneider?”
He stopped moving. “Yeah?”
“Maybe this wasn’t the worst idea ever.”
She could practically hear the smile in his voice as he went back to working out the tension in her shoulders.
“You’re welcome, Pen.”