#teddy: i asked borakov to cuddle me so i am JUST AS BAD as strahd :(

[anddreadful]

9 with teddy/borakov

"There’s only one bed and we sleep as far away as possible from each other but wake up cuddling" is actually canon for those dummies!!! the fic about that is here but it's old and it didn't cover the waking up so let's do something different. This is at an ambiguously pre-strahd-wedding point in the timeline:

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"Nim's posted up in the library," Borakov announces gruffly, returning from the hallway. "Ireena's in that other room. Denethor's in the Baron's bedroom. Already asleep. Somehow he's taking up the whole damn bed, him and Pidlwick."

Teddy laughs, but her mind turns over the number of habitable rooms left in the ruined manor, including the bedroom they're in now. Borakov had declared earlier it was hers, overseeing the party's room selection like a herd dog fussing over his sheep. "Where will you sleep?"

Borakov grimaces. "Thought I'd sleep in the hall, honestly. There's some beds in the servants' quarters that're still usable, but I don't want to be that far."

"Oh."

This is a finely-appointed room: a thick rug, patterned wallpaper (only lightly singed in the fire), drapery around the four-poster bed. The large four-poster bed. She swallows.

"You... could certainly stay in here. With me. There's plenty of room."

Borakov's eyebrows rise, and heat crawls up her neck.

"Uh. Sure." He hesitates. "If you don't mind?"

"Not at all."

He looks around the room. "Yeah, I could drag one of those cots in here."

Her heart sinks. That hadn't even occurred to her. "Oh. Sure. But I mean, if you wanted to--" He is looking at her, and her face is hot, and she is going to die by suggesting this, she's certain. "-- the bed is big, so we could... share?"

His expression is utterly incomprehensible for a long, agonizing moment, and then he clears his throat.

"Yeah, I, uh. I guess we could do that. You're sure?"

Theodora nods vigorously, not trusting herself to speak again.

"Well then," he might be blushing, it's hard to tell. "Thanks, Ted."

His silly little nickname shouldn't light her up inside, but it does, it always does, no matter how much she tells herself he nicknames everyone. She tries to talk herself into being normal about this as she helps him with his armor, and they take turns splashing their faces at the basin in the corner (the water in the pitcher has only a very thin film of ash at the top), and she crawls into the bed, on the side further from the door, Borakov extinguishing the light cast on his hammer.

The sheets smell like smoke, but they still feel luxurious compared to her hard bedroll. It's hard to enjoy them, however, as she senses the shifting weight of Borakov getting under the blankets beside her, and she makes every possible effort to make herself tiny and unobtrusive on her side of the mattress.

There's a long pause. It's pitch black, and suddenly very quiet. She's facing away from him, and she can't feel his weight, or his body heat, so there's probably a respectable amount of space between them. Not that that would matter if anyone were to walk in on them.

Or magically spy on them.

"Borakov," she whispers, horror dawning on her, "What if Strahd sees?"

There's a beat before he answers, soft in the darkness. "What?"

She sits up, now, mortified fear overtaking her. "I should have thought of it sooner-- what if Strahd sees? This? Us? And assumes--"

"So what if he sees?" Borakov growls, sitting up to match her. She can just make out his shape in the dark. "It's none of the devil's business. If he doesn't like it, he can stock Barovia with more beds so we don't have to double up."

A hysterical little giggle escapes her. "I just mean--"

"Yeah, I know what you mean. But even if we were..." Her heart leaps in her chest, but he changes course. "-- You don't owe him anything. That's all. You shouldn't worry what he thinks, Ted."

She suddenly feels very tired. "I think we have to, Borakov."

He's quiet for a moment. There's a rustle of blankets as he shifts, and she feels the warm brush of his fingers against hers. He pauses there, as if that's what he was looking for. As if he means to take her hand.

Then he thinks better of it, perhaps, and pulls away. "Get some sleep," he murmurs. "If anything happens, I'm right here."

Her throat suddenly thick, she nods. "Yeah. Okay."

Borakov lies back down, and she follows suit, if only to placate him. She won't sleep, she thinks -- how could she, here, with Borakov close enough to reach out and touch. Close enough to put them both in danger. Is it paranoia, to worry about Strahd's jealousy? Presumptive, even? Or is it stupid not to?

But sleep she does. The days are long in this place, and darkness always wins.

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The first thing she registers, upon regaining the ability to register anything, is how very warm she is. It isn't warm in their room at the Blue Water Inn, or out in the wilderness, or even in Ismark's manor. So why is she so warm?

She realizes why with perfect, thoughtless acceptance, as if she were still dreaming: Borakov's arms are around her, her face tucked into his chest. He radiates heat like a fire, and the blankets are soft and heavy, his arms solid. She has never been more blissfully comfortable in memory, and she can't recall why she shouldn't stay like this forever, a veil of semiconsciousness drawn between her and the vague sense that if she were more alert, something would be wrong.

She stays there as long as she can, drifting in the gossamer shallows between sleep and waking. Borakov's deep breathing ghosts her hair, his chest rising and falling gently; his heartbeat thrums hot beneath his skin and nothing else in the world moves at all.

It's perfect.

Perfect things are fleeting, in Barovia. Borakov's breath stutters once as he stirs, and it wakes her fully, like breaking through the surface of the ocean into bracing air. She goes stiff in his arms, suddenly remembering everything. All the Strahd reasons she shouldn't be in Borakov's arms. All the Borakov reasons, too.

Maybe she can pretend to be still asleep, she thinks quickly. Let him make the awkward decision of disentangling them. She keeps her eyes closed and holds very, very still. Too still.

"Hi, Ted." He says, rough with sleep. She can feel the rumble of his voice in his chest, pressed against him like this.

But he doesn't move. She cracks an eye open, but her head is tucked beneath is, so there's no looking right at him without moving. And there's no moving without implicitly acknowledging the position they're currently in.

"Hi," she mumbles, into his shirt.

Borakov continues not moving, so she doesn't either. Theodora thinks she can hear his heart beating faster, now, than it was when he slept. Hopefully he can't feel hers, since it's probably doing something stupid.

Eventually he makes a noise like a grunt. "We should... probably get up."

"We don't have to," she says, on some insane impulse, emboldened, maybe, by his warmth. Greedy for it. "We could stay here until they come to get us."

She cringes at herself, at her bald desperation. But Borakov continues not moving, until he does. It's a small shift, an adjustment of his arms and his weight. Getting comfortable, she realizes.

"Yeah," he says, moving a hand to her back. Holding her to him. On purpose. "We could do that."

Her mind feels sticky, a mess of need and paralysis and fear and what's left of sleep clinging to her. Bad. She shouldn't be doing this. But she feels too raw to do anything but nuzzle deeper into his chest and inhale.

She wonders if Tatyana was as selfish as she is. If the curse punishes her for her desperate wanting the same way it punishes Strahd for his.

Give me a ship and a prompt number and i'll write a minific!