xp_logs | Very, very late Tuesday night, or very very early Wednesday morning

x-crowdofone.livejournal.com posting in

Jamie can't sleep, and doesn't want anybody to know, so he sneaks out to the treehouse.

The treehouse wasn't quite the complete secret Jamie sometimes wished it was. Kitty knew about it, of course--he'd built it for her, after all--and Rahne, because she'd paced the route, and even on grounds as extensive as the Mansion's there weren't that many places you could build a treehouse so it couldn't be seen from any of the trails, and Professor Xavier or Ms. Frost could probably find him without even trying hard, if they wanted to. But all Jamie really wanted was a semi-comfortable spot out of earshot of everybody and with at least the illusion of privacy--and for that, the treehouse was perfect.

It was a dark night, which was good for sneaking but bad for finding things, but he'd prepared for that, made his own set of pace directions, and he managed to find the right tree on his second try without actually tripping on anything. He was too worn out to do more than absently notice that the rope ladder had been pulled up, but he'd put that in more for Kitty's convenience than his own; hitching the blankets he'd filched from the linen closet over his shoulder, he jumped for the low branch, swung himself up, worked his way around the trunk with the ease of experience, slid through the window--and stopped, blinking, as the moon peeked through the patchy clouds and showed him he wasn't alone.

Kitty lay curled up in one corner of the treehouse; she'd made bedding out of the worn-out cushions and burst pillows they'd appropriated for furnishings, and was fast asleep, shivering occasionally under a single blanket too thin for the September chill. The moon picked out tear-tracks on her face before going back behind another cloud.

Jamie crouched, hugging his knees in the opposite corner, trying to figure out what to do. Waking her was out of the question. He didn't want to disturb her sleep when she obviously needed it, and he didn't want to get into what he was doing sneaking out at three in the morning. What he really wanted to do was curl up next to her. She'd be warmer, and maybe having her there would help keep the nightmares at bay.

But maybe it wouldn't--and his nightmares would definitely be loud enough to wake her. And then there'd be the awkward questions, and another load of stress for Kitty that she really didn't deserve . . . his dad had told him, when he'd asked for advice after that first date, that the best thing he could do for her was to be the part of her life she didn't have to worry about.

He squelched the little voice that was trying to tell him his dad probably hadn't meant that advice to apply to this kind of situation--be nice to find out what advice would, but after all the trouble he'd gone to Monday night convincing his parents he really was okay and they didn't have to drop everything and get on a plane, "do I tell my girlfriend about my screaming nightmare fits and how I haven't gotten more than an hour of good uninterrupted sleep since I woke up from my coma" wasn't really the kind of question he wanted to ask . . .

And he was drifting off the subject. That would be the lack of sleep. He could tell by the way it felt like he was thinking through a wet towel.

Jamie shook his head, stood up, and compromised by gently tucking Kitty under his blankets before climbing back out of the window and stretching out on the treehouse roof. He couldn't afford more than a couple hours out here anyway if he wanted to sneak back into the mansion before anybody got up, and his sweatshirt would be warm enough.

As if they'd been waiting for him, the rocks began to fall again as soon as he closed his eyes.