Page 22 of Epidermis

Back to sleep where the ink was thick, choking him, forcing his eyes open and making him see the insidious forms that took shape in the darkness.

Hands again, stroking his arms, and he thought he might have turned into the touch.

The nightmares claimed him again.

They weren’t letting him go without a fight—they never did.

“I’ve got you, darling.”

Jasper clutched onto something soft, and he made a sound that was more whimper than words. Then arms wrapped around him. He pressed his face into solid warmth and fell back asleep. The nightmares didn’t return, perhaps as exhausted as he was, the shadows retreating as daylight broke. Overthinking before going to sleep almost always resulted in nightmares. Almost as if his brain said Oh, you want something to be upset about? I’ve got you covered.

At least he got some peaceful sleep at last, even if it was only for a precious few hours.

He woke up to the blaring of his alarm exactly like he remembered falling asleep, on his back, with nothing but the faint stickiness of dried sweat on his skin to make him think any of the fragments had been real. Konrad was just as Jasper had left him, on his side, facing away.

The interludes between Jasper’s nightmares must have just been more dreams.

Jasper tapped his phone to silence the alarm. He swung his legs off the bed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He would have expected Konrad to already be awake, since he seemed like such a morning person. Which made Jasper wonder if he was just pretending to be asleep. To what end, Jasper couldn’t imagine, but it seemed unlikely Konrad would sleep through the incessant trilling of Jasper’s alarm.

“Hey,” Jasper said.

He reached back to nudge Konrad’s shoulder through the blanket.

Konrad made a convincing show of only just starting to stir, but his voice was just a little too clear when he said, “Good morning, Jasper.”

“Mornin’. I’m going to take a shower and then order some coffee if you want anything from room service.” Whatever part of Jasper’s brain that let him hide his accent didn’t wake up until an hour or so after he did, so he resigned himself to letting Konrad hear him sound like a proper hick.

“I will order for us while you take your shower,” Konrad said, pushing the blankets off to get out of bed. He slipped his feet into a pair of slippers. “Just regular coffee for you?”

“Yeah.”

Konrad looked at him with raised eyebrows, a smile playing on his lips.

“What?” Jasper asked grumpily. He didn’t like being stared at on a regular basis, never mind when he was still groggy from waking up. On his days off, he didn’t wake up before noon if he could help it.

“Your hair is a vision.”

He didn’t even think about how his hair looked first thing in the morning. “Shut up.”

Konrad had said it so genuinely that Jasper almost believed him, but he didn’t think it was possible for anyone to like the rat’s nest of curls that Jasper had every morning. He grabbed a change of clothes and then stumbled to the bathroom.

He started the water and eyed Konrad’s products, placed neatly in the shower. They were all slim bottles with French names, and Jasper sniffed them curiously once he was under the spray. God, they smelled good.

He only felt a little bad for using them without asking.

Jasper left the bathroom smelling very expensive. He knew he’d be expected to dress formally for the awards ceremony, but there were no such requirements for the convention itself, so he wore his black shirt with the fishnet sleeves and ripped black jeans. He fished a studded belt out of his duffel bag and tucked the bottom of his shirt under his chin so he could slide it through his belt loops unobstructed.

He let the shirt drop and found Konrad staring at him.

Again.

“Okay, what now?” Jasper asked, shoving his feet into his boots.

“Nothing at all.”

Yeah, right.

The convention wasn’t overwhelmingly busy. Saturday and Sunday would be the worst, so Jasper was thankful for a slower day to ease him into it. He and Hiyori had booths right next to each other, where they would be tattooing throughout the day. He’d drawn flash for the convention with a flat rate, and had some larger one-of-one designs as well. Konrad had gone off to browse the vendors, and Jasper let himself slip into the pleasantly disconnected mindset he found when he worked. He talked as much as he had to and not a syllable more.