Oz Spellman
September 15, 2021 9:01 AM
Conversations at Midnight
by Oz Spellman
Co-written With: Xavier Lundstrom
It wasn’t like Oz had bad dreams every night. It just happened more during and after the holidays. Sometimes, when he’d been at school a while, it took him far enough away that he could kind of forget about that stuff for a bit. The first night back was definitely not far enough away. The memories of the holidays, and the unpleasantness they brought, were fresh in his memory. Plus, as he tried to force himself to drift off to the sound of unfamiliar breathing patterns, the last thing that imprinted itself on his subconscious was that Henry wasn’t there.
He awoke with a jolt, pulling the impulse to shout back down inside his throat. His heart hammered, refusing to be reassured by a reality that was dark and empty, and where Oz was holding all his reactions inside. He carefully kicked off the covers, heading down to the common room. At least he could let out his ragged breaths and punch a pillow down there. And… and he still coudln’t get to Henry, but at least it was a bigger cage to pace around.
The moonlight streamed in through the window, bathing silvery light across the cushions and— Oz let out a cuss and jumped backwards.
“Sheesh! I thought you were a ghost!”
“No.” Xavier folded his arms, turning his shoulder away from Oz. “No gliding through walls for me…” he sighed, pressing his hand to the glass.
Oz shifted his weight from foot to foot, not entirely sure what to do with someone being awake and needlessly poetic in the middle of the night.
“Well, good. Cos that’d mean you were dead,” he tried pointing out the very obvious plus side of non-ghostliness. He didn’t ask if Xav was okay cos that seemed like a stupid question for someone else up in the middle of the night. However, as Xavier’s shoulders shook, a different, entirely redundant question came out instead.
“Are you crying?”
“Why? Gonna beat me up for being a sissy?” Xavier turned enough to glare.
“I don’t do that!” Oz’s voice was loud enough that they both flinched, glancing to check whether they had attracted anyone’s attention. But the silence around them remained. “Do people really think I do that?” Oz asked, torn between wanting to be seen as a tough enough guy that people didn’t mess with Henry, but not wanting to be seen to be that. Strength wasn’t the same as bullying. He didn’t think he’d ever given people reason to think he’d be a bully. Did they just assume it?
“No. I’m sorry.” Xavier turned to look at him properly. “Couldn’t sleep?” he asked.
Oz had been about to say something else, but Xavier’s words cut him off. He wondered if it was intentional. He shrugged off Xavier’s question, not wanting to lie, but also not wanting to admit to having a nightmare.
“Weird sharing a room, isn’t it?” Xavier asked.
Oz wasn’t sure whether Xav was trying to push the conversation away from where he didn’t want it to go, or was trying to be friendly to make up for his false accusation. Or cos they were friends. Kinda.
“With them, yeah,” he jerked his head towards the general direction of the stairs, giving Xav perhaps more to go off than he might have with someone else.
“You share with Henry at home?”
“Our place isn’t big.” Oz crossed his arms. This was a more grudging admission, but it was better than being seen as babyish. “Anyway, why are you up?” he pushed back.
There was a long pause in which he thought Xavier wasn’t going to answer him. He had turned back to the window, and seemed to be fighting to pull his knees even closer to his chest.
“Homesick.” The one word response came before Xavier buried his head onto his knees, audibly crying.
Oz stood, frozen in the moonlight. People just didn’t cry, as a rule, where he was from. At least, not the ones he’d hung out with. The only other person he’d seen cry was Henry, and that rarely, and he’d dealt with it badly. And Henry was his brother, so he was allowed to touch him, or tell him to stop being a dork, whichever was needed. He stepped over to Xavier, holding out a hand. He stopped, holding it in midair for several seconds whilst he made up his mind, before patting him very gently on the head.
OOC: Normally writing for more than one character like this is not allowed. However, in this case both characters are mine.
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Oz Spellman
Conversations at Midnight
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Xavier Lundstrom