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In New Haven, they all get their own apartments.
The first night in her new place, Lilith expects to fall asleep immediately. She lies down in her own bed - a real bed! with a mattress and blankets! and a pillow that isn’t Brick or Roland, not that they weren’t nice too, but real pillows! - and pulls the blankets up. It’s not exactly quiet, she can hear drunken revelry in the streets below, but there’s no deep snoring or gentle breathing in the room itself. She lies there for about an hour, shifting and rolling and sprawling out in every direction to find a comfortable position, before giving up entirely.
Lilith sighs and sits up. Much as she hates to admit it, she misses sleeping with someone next to her. She’s fallen out of the habit of being alone.
She considers the situation, which of her three friends is mostly likely to still be awake and receptive to visitors, and then slips out of bed. It’s a short walk to Brick’s, made even shorter as she phasewalks there. She stops short of actually phasing through his door, partly out of courtesy, partly because Roland is standing by the door. She re-enters the dimension with as little disturbance as possible though Roland still jumps at her sudden appearance.
“Hey Lilith.”
“Hey. What are you doing here?”
Roland bites his lip and glances down. He’s a step away from shuffling his feet like the first time she asked him to dance and he couldn’t figure out the right way to say yes but I can’t dance at all. “I couldn’t sleep.”
She could tease him about it and maybe if it wasn’t dark and she hadn’t already wasted an hour trying to sleep alone too, she would have. Instead she nods. “Yeah, me too.”
He glances up and smiles. She smiles back. There’s something reassuring knowing that it’s not just her having sleep problems. Even Roland, the most level-headed member of the group, is.
“No use just standing here then.”
Roland knocks. A moment later, they hear Brick’s thumping footsteps and then he opens the door. A big grin bursts out on his face at the sight of them, as if it’s totally normal and welcome for two of your best friends to show up uninvited in the middle of the night. Maybe it is. Lilith’s never really had friends like this before to compare it to.
“Lilith! Roland! Get in here. I’m glad to see you.” They step inside where it’s brightly lit, blinking at the sudden change. “So what’s brought you two here?”
Now that she’s here, standing in Brick’s living room with all the lights shining down on them, she feels a little ridiculous. She’s a grown-ass woman; she doesn’t need anyone to fall asleep. She should have just had some rakk ale and curled up until pure exhaustion drove her to sleep. That was what regular people did, yeah? A quick glance at Roland shows a similar hesitant expression, his brows drawn close.
“I, uh, couldn’t sleep.” Lilith admits. “Figured I’d come here and ran into him on my way.”
“We’re not disturbing you, are we?”
“Nah. Couldn’t sleep either. I was just getting up to make some food. Do you want any?”
They both nod and Brick sets about preparing pancakes because what else are they going to eat at this time of night. Lilith and Roland sit back on Brick’s sofa, chatting, until Brick brings the pancakes over. Before they can dig in, there’s a knock on the window. They all startle, hands going to guns, before noticing it’s just Mordecai crouched on the balcony with Bloodwing on his shoulder.
Brick opens the window. “Heya Mordy.”
Mordecai stares back and then looks past at the other two. “Didn’t realize there was a party.”
“Oh yeah.” Lilith gives him a small wave. “Didn’t you get the invite?”
“Must have gotten lost in the mail.”
Brick lets him in and Mordecai drops down on the sofa beside Roland. Bloodwing flies into the room and settles herself on the bookshelf.
“You want any food?” Brick gestures at the stacks of pancakes.
“I’m fine.” Mordecai shakes his head. “Got any ale?”
Once Mordecai has his drink, the other three dig in to the food. The pancakes are as delicious as anything else Brick makes, all soft and fluffy and drowning in syrup.
Lilith swallows her mouthful and starts with a bright laugh, “Remember when it was Mordecai’s turn to cook and he was trying to be fancy, making those grilled rakk kebabs with the eggs, and we were all trying to figure out how to get out of eating them?”
Brick grins and picks up the story. “Then that pack of skags showed up out of nowhere. Tore through the camp while we were rushing to get our guns out.”
“They were the only ones who enjoyed the food.” Roland chuckles fondly. “Made a mess, but they did save us the trouble of coming up with an excuse not to eat it.”
“Ah hell, like you could do better. Remember when you made that soup out of old bones and mushrooms and even Blood wouldn’t touch it?”
“I was conserving rations! We were almost out of everything.”
Mordecai waves his hand dismissively at Roland’s protests and grins at Lilith next. “Or that time you set the entire campsite on fire? Best meat we’d gotten all week and it was ashes by the time you finished. Along with the rest of our supplies.”
“That was – I told you I couldn’t cook!”
They sit around eating and recounting stories from their adventures until all the food is gone and the fatigue of the day threatens to pull their eyes shut. None of them really want to be the first to leave though, the first to start a chain reaction ending with everyone in separate apartments and cold beds. It’s better here, basking in the glow of friendship and full stomachs.
Brick looks at the three of them. “You can all sleep over if you want. I don’t mind.”
There’s no argument, so they all troop into Brick’s bedroom, Bloodwing following after to resettle on Brick’s dresser. They stare at his bed. Sure, it’s a large bed, but there are four of them.
“C’mon, we can all fit.”
Brick gets in first. After a pause, Lilith shrugs, slips off her boots, and follows, pressing close to Brick. Mordecai lays down on Brick’s other side and Roland by Lilith. They’re tightly packed together, each careful to keep their balance and not take up more room than they have to. Lilith isn’t sure if sleep is going to come any easier now than it had when she was alone. A moment later, Brick shifts and with a yell, Mordecai ends up on the floor.
“God-fucking-dammit!”
The three still on the bed burst out laughing, edging around to stare down at Mordecai’s scowling face.
“Your bed’s too small.” Mordecai grumbles, tone weighed upon as if Brick should have considered this when shopping for his bed.
Brick nods.
Roland is the one to broach the big question. “What are we going to do now?”
No one has an answer. The obvious solution is they all return to their own beds and forget about this silly venture like the grown-ups they supposedly are. Lilith knows she isn’t the only one thinking about it; they’ve all got that pensive look on their face that says I really don’t want to say anything but. Then she has an idea, a brilliant flash of an idea, and she shoves all the blankets to the floor. They land on top of Mordecai who splutters indignantly, setting off a new chorus of laughter. Once he digs his way out from under them, he shoots her a glare.
“What the hell, Lil?”
“We can sleep on the floor.”
The others consider it. It means leaving the comfort of the mattress - Lilith feels a pang of regret because she really was looking forwards to an actual bed tonight - but it also means they don’t have to go home or figure out who goes where.
“I’m coming down!” It’s just enough warning for Mordecai to scramble out of the way before Brick grabs a pillow and rolls off the bed.
They spend some time arranging the blankets and pillows until they’ve got a cozy nest on the floor. Bloodwing watches them with the long-suffering eye of someone kept awake far past her preferred bedtime by noisy friends. Once everything is set up, they curl up on the floor, all jumbled together.
It’s not a bed, but none of them will fall off and it’s warm and comfortable with the familiar bodies of her friends surrounding her. Lilith smiles and burrows closer. She figures that one day she’ll sleep fine in her own bed again, but there’s no point in rushing that day along. This is where she belongs. This is where they all belong.