Title/Prompt: Storm
Rating/Warnings: G
Word count: 465
Summary: Too much candy will give you nightmares.

Notes: So I compared my AO3 series with my FFN series and realised I was missing a fic here! This was written way back in Oct 2018 for mkrobinson for the Trick or Treat exchange on Dreamwidth. Apologies for the late upload!

Sharon drags herself slowly out of the weight of the nightmare, her limbs like lead, her heart beating a crazed rhythm against her ribs.

"You were dreaming," Richard whispers softly, and his fingertips stroke a damp strand of hair away from her face.

She lets out a slow, shaky breath. When she blinks her lashes are wet; she's been crying in her sleep.

There's a flash of light through the curtains, thunder rumbling overhead, so close it rattles the windows.

Richard moves beside her in bed — it's too dark to see him properly, but she knows the expression on his face.

"I'm okay," she whispers. Her mouth is dry.

"Are you sure?" His voice is still low and husky with sleep.

"Yes." She uses her feet to drag the bedsheet down a little. Her heart is still racing. Thunder rolls across the sky.

Richard's fingers fleet over her skin again, stroking her brow. He kisses her eyebrow and slides back to his pillow, settling on his side. She can see the shape of his shoulder silhouetted against the gray square of the window.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asks.

"I don't really remember it," she says truthfully. It's all scattered now — a flickering slideshow of images she's not even sure came from the dream. Maybe they've come from all the silly, childish things Halloween has brought into her mind again. Witches, and ghosts, and shadows behind mirrors. Dark shapes that turn into other things, monsters clawing their way out of the earth and from under the bed. Long fingers with claws and too many knuckles; oozing blood; blank unseeing eyes.

Horror borne from the cardboard cutouts people have pasted in their front windows, grinning jack-o-lanterns and the Halloween movie marathon running on TV.

She shivers and Richard reaches over, half-asleep again now, his hand brushing against her arm.

"Just a dream," he murmurs.

"I know." She takes his hand and squeezes it gently, and dabs her eyes with the corner of the bedsheet.

The thunder crashes overhead and he shifts a little closer to her again. "Too much Halloween candy," he suggests. "I told you it would give you nightmares."

She grins and looks over at him, and it's too dark to see but she can feel it between them, a tender little smile, and it changes the energy in the room within a heartbeat.

She rolls towards him and tucks her head under his chin, the sheets twisted around her legs, her heart slowing as Richard's arm slides over her.

"Totally the real reason I don't eat sugar," she whispers, and he chuckles softly into her hair, kissing the top of her head.

"All better?" he asks.

"All better." She kisses the side of his neck and closes her eyes again.