for lifetimedreamer

[cadet_amara]

Amara Smith had always been a light sleeper. The slightest movement or noise woke her, and her recurring nightmares usually kept her on edge as it was. She'd learned to function on very little sleep. Here, she spent most nights watching Peter. His sleep patterns were fascinating. He moved around more than anyone she knew, and she wondered what he was dreaming about.

She was about to drift off again when a slight rumble in the distance made her suddenly alert. She smiled a little. A storm. She loved storms. Ever since she was a little girl thunderstorms had thrilled her. When the other children in her neighborhood would run for cover, she'd run straight out into it. Strange for a small child, but Amara had never really been a normal kid.

Amara rolled over on her side to look out the window and listened as the storm came closer, content to enjoy the show.

Comments

[lifetimedreamer.livejournal.com]

Peter did move around quite a bit in his sleep, except for on the nights when he was totally exhausted, where he crashed and didn't move until he got up in the morning. That didn't happen very often though. He'd already moved around a little, and he was laying on his stomach with his arms around the pillow.

Ever since he could remember, thunderstorms brought on bad thoughts and fears, and even as he grew up, he couldn't shake the irrational fear--it was just there. If he had been awake when the storm came, he wouldn't be sleeping at all, but if they crept up on him when he was asleep, it stirred up a dark mess inside his dreams. As the thunder came closer and lightning lit up the city, he tightened his hold on the pillow and twisted his body to one side, bringing his knees up toward his chest to curl up in a secure position. When there was a louder rumble of thunder, he responded with one leg kicking a little.

[cadet-amara.livejournal.com]

"Mm." She felt his kick and rolled over to look at him. Since they started sharing a bed she had become used to his occassional kicks and loose arm ending up in her face. Normally, she could make him roll over without even waking him, but tonight was different. His position was more defensive. Like he was curling up to protect himself. She sat up a little to watch him better, wondering if she should wake him or let him sleep.

[lifetimedreamer.livejournal.com]

He buried his face half into the pillow and kicked out again. It wasn't too violent of a storm, but the only thing he wanted to do was to get away from the noise invading his dreams. He wanted to run, but it was like his legs were stuck, and he couldn't move them unless he tried really hard.

[cadet-amara.livejournal.com]

Amara scooted back a little to avoid his kicking. She had no desire to have bruised shins from this night. However, she was not aware of how precariously close to the edge of the bed she already was. Amara, who had always been admittedly clumsy, found herself sliding off the edge of the bed. She grabbed at the covers in an attempted to keep herself from falling, but all that managed to do was tangle herself up and make the covers go with her.

She landed with a loud thud and yelped a little like a wounded puppy. That had hurt.

[lifetimedreamer.livejournal.com]

Peter was pulled to the middle of the bed with the covers as Amara fell off, and he woke up at both her thudding on the floor and the thunder outside. He lifted his head quickly and tried to blink the sleep out of his eyes as he sat up and brushed his hair out of his face. "..Amara?"

[cadet-amara.livejournal.com]

She silently mouthed "OW" and a couple of other choice words that were running through her mind as she checked herself for injuries. She rubbed her head, which she had somehow managed to bump on her way down, it hurt, and she'd probably have some nasty bruises, but she was otherwise just fine.

She remained laying on the floor, as if it were a perfectly normal thing to just fall out of the bed. Mainly because for one she was still tangled in the sheets, and two, she wanted to make sure he was really awake and done kicking. ".... yeah?"

[lifetimedreamer.livejournal.com]

He looked over the edge of the bed, frowning a little. "What are you doing on the floor?"

[cadet-amara.livejournal.com]

"You were... kicking. And I didn't realize how close to the edge of the bed I was." She sat up, still rubbing her head. She looked up when a particularly loud thunder clap rattled the windows. It was getting closer.

[lifetimedreamer.livejournal.com]

"And you fell off the bed?" he asked, creasing his brow a little in confusion, still trying to wake up to make sense of it. But when the thunder hit, his was immediately more awake. He flinched and looked out the window to see the lightning flash. "Shit.."

[cadet-amara.livejournal.com]

"Yes... clumsy I know." She got up to get back on the bed and noticed his flinch. She frowned a little, "The storm?" She asked, sitting back down in the bed and pulling the covers back into place.

[lifetimedreamer.livejournal.com]

He rubbed his face and moved over for her to get back in bed. "Yeah.. thunder kinda gets to me," he said softly. He looked over at her. "Sorry I kicked you off the bed."

[cadet-amara.livejournal.com]

"It was my fault, I moved too far over." She kissed his forehead gently then put an arm around him, hoping to provide some comfort and get him to relax a little. She could almost feel his nervous energy, so she tried to keep her voice quiet and soothing. "Do you know why it bothers you?"

[lifetimedreamer.livejournal.com]

He reached up to hold onto her arm gently and he shivered with another loud clap of thunder. "I.. don't know, it's just always freaked me out," he said, and swallowed hard. "I used to go run into Nathan's room when I was a kid... Always thought I'd grow out of it."

[cadet-amara.livejournal.com]

Amara figured he needed the physical contact, that it was comforting, so she let him hold her arm and reached up to play with his hair a little. "Nothing wrong with that." She paused then decided that maybe it would help if she talked, maybe it would distract him from the storm. "When I was little Mama and my Aunt used to throw us out of the house some nights. Whenever there was a storm my cousins would all try to find shelter, but I was never scared. I used to stand out in the rain and watch the sky like it was a show. Like it wasn't real." She smiled a little. "I think it was so I wouldn't be afraid.... but I would hardly recommend teaching kids that way."

[lifetimedreamer.livejournal.com]

"If it worked for you.. but yeah.. that would be kinda traumatizing," he said with a sigh. "My parents have this house in the Hamptons and we stayed there in the summer when I was a kid. There were always several nasty storms. It was a lot worse after Nathan went into the Navy. I couldn't really go to my parents about it.."

[cadet-amara.livejournal.com]

"Most of my childhood would be considered traumatizing" She admitted, slightly amused. She continued to play with his hair, hoping this was helping. "What did your brother used to do?"

[lifetimedreamer.livejournal.com]

"After he tormented me for a little while, he'd let me stay in his room until it was over. That helped," he said with a small smile. But another clap of thunder made him jump.

[cadet-amara.livejournal.com]

She held him a little tighter, but didn't say anything to draw attention to his jump. "My brother was much older than me. Before he left when I was scared he used to tell me stories. Ridiculous and crazy ones but they always made me feel better."

[lifetimedreamer.livejournal.com]

He laughed a little, nervously. "Yeah.. Nate told stories. He also used to count the space between the lightning and the thunder, and it kinda helped," he said. "He's a lot older than me too... He went into the Navy when I was 7, after that I was kind of on my own."

[cadet-amara.livejournal.com]

"I was five when Karan ran off. Then two years later they sent Mama to the penal colony and I went into foster care." She shifted her position a little to get more comfortable. "I think that was the most scared I'd ever been. I'd never left Mumbai before, and they sent me off to Sweden. Snow terrified me the first time I saw it. Now it doesn't scare me, but I still hate it."

[lifetimedreamer.livejournal.com]

He shivered again, but tried to smile a little. "You'll have to get used to the snow living here."

[cadet-amara.livejournal.com]

Amara wrinkled her nose a little at the thought. "It's not so much the snow as being cold. I can't stand that." She looked up at him, trying to tell if he was feeling any better. "This isn't helping at all, is it?"

[lifetimedreamer.livejournal.com]

He chewed on his lip and looked over his shoulder at her. "Yeah, it is actually," he said with a weak smile.

[cadet-amara.livejournal.com]

"Well... let's see... what other stories can I tell?" She tried to think of some lighthearted and funny ones rather than the traumatizing stories from her childhood that she'd been telling. Really, they were just depressing, and she didn't really like to talk about that. "My first year at the Academy I managed to break a 600 gallon fishtank.... did I tell you about that?"

[lifetimedreamer.livejournal.com]

He raised an eyebrow at her. "No.. you didn't tell me that. What happened?"

[cadet-amara.livejournal.com]

She smiled a little. "One of the other cadets got a little.... too fresh with me. Arrogant boy. Bad pick-up lines. Thinks he's God's gift to women, I'm sure you know the type. Anyway, I'd had enough of his suggesting that I brush up on the basics of human anatomy with him before our Xenobiology final. I shoved him... unfortunately I didn't realize I shoved him that hard and he fell backwards.... right into the 600 gallon fishtank." She laughed a little, remembering the exact look on the poor man's face. "The damn thing broke and flooded the corridor. I thought for sure Admiral Pike, my advisor, was going to kill me. But he just laughed and asked for the security footage." She paused. "It was pretty funny, and it was the last time someone made that suggestion to me."