Chapter Text
His eyes groggily snap open, the loud crashing of thunder above instinctively making his ears perk. Blinking wildly in the pale moonlight, Lo’ak only just barely is able to make out a blur of blue rushing towards him, the sound of bare feet slapping against the wood floor rattling around in his brain.
“Lo’ak!”
His arms open, and Tuk is suddenly there scrambling onto his sleeping mat, clinging to his chest with fear in her wide eyes. Her elbows crash into his ribs, causing a wince to escape his throat. It’s just dark enough that he can hardly see the outline of her ears.
“Tuk?” He sleepily mutters.
The thunder must have scared her. He sighs, his body relaxing against the mat below as he realizes there’s no real danger– just his sister being a scaredy cat. Tuk is practically laying on top of him, her shoulders shaking.
“Skxawng, you’re crushing me.” Lo’ak groans in fake annoyance, his arms wrapping around her despite his words. His fingers glide up and down her back, reflexively, a motion from childhood that had always calmed him. The sounds of his family breathing in the night air makes him hum, blinking as his eyes finally adjust to the light– or the lack of light– in the mauri.
“Don’t be mean!” Tuk whines, her braids tickling his skin as she rests the crown of her head against his bicep.
He sighs.
It wasn’t uncommon for Tuk to climb onto one of her siblings' sleeping mats. She wanted to prove she was a ‘big girl’ when Lo’ak had made a snarky comment one afternoon about her still sleeping on their parents mat– of course his dad had snapped at him to drop it, and Lo’ak had muttered a sulky apology, but the damage was already done.
Lo’ak guesses it’s only fair that he is the one to take the brunt of Tuk being scared at night but being too stubborn to prove her brother right and climb in between their parents for comfort.
He’s not as annoyed as he’s pretending to be, truthfully. The sudden strike of lightning had startled him as well. Heavy rain outside makes his ears perk, tail flicking out behind him. Lo’ak tosses on his sleeping mat, untangling his legs with a sigh. Getting back to sleep anytime soon seems like an impossible situation.
They lay in silence for a while, until shuffling behind Tuk catches his attention, dragging him back from the edge of sleep.
“Move over, skxawng.” Kiri murmurs.
He shuffles over automatically, frowning. Tuk moves without much complaint, as long as she gets to stay in his arms. Kiri settles down on the right of Lo’ak, tucking her shawl over her shoulders as her legs kick out, shoving his feet off the edge of the sleeping mat.
“Hey!” Lo’ak groans but doesn’t make an attempt to take back his space. It was useless anyway.
“You’re fine.” Kiri huffs, making Tuk giggle under her breath. Traitor. He lets Tuk come to him for comfort and this is what he gets in return?
“I was trying to sleep,” he shoots back, not with much fire though. Something settles in his chest, relief, maybe. “What do you want?”
“It’s thundering.” Is all she says, as if that explains everything. And in a way, it kind of does.
The forest is usually warm– the humid atmosphere, dense vegetation– and at night, it was still not cold enough to need to use a thin blanket. Unless it was storming, then it got cold enough to cause shivering.
So, storms were a recipe for Sully sleeping mat takeovers.
The breeze from the marui’s entrance only seems to prove his point.
The rain trickles down, collecting in a puddle outside the marui, reflecting the forest’s bioluminescence into his eyes as he watches the drops drip from the roof. The warmth of Tuk’s skin pressed against his, and Kiri’s forehead rests on his arm stretched across the sleeping mat.
The urge to kick Kiri’s feet back to her side of the mat is tempting– but he knows it’ll just start a war he won’t win. Reluctantly, he grumbles something under his breath. Turning his body closer into Tuk, braids spread out behind his head on the mat, Lo’ak closes his eyes.
The echo of rainfall lingers in his ears, nose twitching at the smell of wet leaves. Maybe now he could finally get some sleep. The distant rumbling of thunder felt far away, fuzzy, like the edge of a dream.
Tuk’s tail lays across his knee, occasionally tapping his skin with the twitches she makes as though trying to fight the restlessness in her body.
Kiri’s foot bumps into his shin, already half-asleep despite the fact that only just moments ago she’d seized his sleeping mat as her own.
Just as sleep starts to look like an option again, a change in his surroundings captures his fading attention.
Lo’ak creeks open an eye, glancing up at Neteyam. His glowing tanhì easily visible in the light.
“‘Teyam!” Tuk says loudly in his ear, tilting her head up as well.
“Hey Tuk-Tuk.” Neteyam softly says, and it takes everything in Lo’ak not to roll his eyes. “You guys okay?”
“Yeah, never better.” He whispers.
Neteyam just laughs quietly, eyes twinkling as he takes in the cuddle-pile.
“I got scared.” Tuk frowns.
It’s clear by her pout that she’s still upset– something Lo’ak kicks himself for not realizing sooner. Neteyam has always been the better brother. The one they could go to when something was wrong. Sure, Lo’ak comforted Tuk by letting her lay on his sleeping mat, but feelings? Emotions? Not exactly his best skill. That was more his brother.
His perfect, golden, brother.
A flash of irritation flashes through him at the thought, quickly followed by guilt. Why can’t he just be better?
“It’s okay Tuk,” Lo’ak murmurs. “I get scared by lightning sometimes too.”
Her ears flick forward, as though she’s surprised. Her big brother, scared of lightning?
Kiri’s eyes open, staring at him with a slight squint, though not one of suspicion, just softness. Lo’ak shrugs, brushing it off. It’s nothing big.
“Me too,” Neteyam says. Lo’ak almost expects his brother to roll back over onto his sleep mat and fall asleep, but he settles down by Lo’ak. The warmth of his brother against his back brings a certain comfort, back to the times they were practically inseparable. Huddled together on their sleeping mats. Lo’ak sighs, and if his back twitches back, to press closer to Neteyam, well that wasn’t anything important.
Tuk settles back down against his chest, her weight cutting off the circulation in his arm. His arm would be dead asleep in the morning, but Lo’ak can’t find it in himself to care enough to shove her off.
The soft breathes of his siblings surround him, and for a moment, it doesn’t matter that it’s storming. That his parents are still sound asleep, curled together like they’ve been apart for days. It doesn’t matter that certainly this will be something Kiri teases him for in the morning, and his mom will eye him with a gross softness.
Maybe his Dad will even smile at him.
Neteyam tangles their legs together, leaving Lo’ak to sigh softly in peace. Despite how annoying his siblings could be, he wouldn’t trade them for anything. Even if they prod and shove him for the rest of the night.