Until Dawn|One Shots

Chris X Ashely

Trigger Warning: none

Is that seriously what you're wearing to bed?" Ashley chuckled at Chris, giving him a quick glance up and down.

The light of the hotel room was predictably dim, even though they had paid quite a bit out of pocket for the room. It bathed the off-white walls in a twinge of yellow, casting oddly shaped shadows from the furniture stranded about the room against the uneven coats of paint.

When Chris had exited the tiny bathroom after changing into pajamas for the night, he hadn't expected Ashley to comment, and could only smile at her for a moment as he worked out a witty response.

"What? Are you judging me? You're just jealous of my fashion." He scoffed, resting his hand against his breastbone with a huff as he leaned against the molding of the bathroom's doorway.

Honestly, he didn't see what the big commotion was, a pair of sweatpants and one of his favorite T-shirts. A bright red shirt with white block letters outlined in black, proclaiming. "I WOULD CUDDLE YOU SO HARD."

Honestly, it was probably one of the best purchases he had ever made.

Ashley didn't seem to agree, really. Or, well, maybe she did. But either way, she rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. She herself wore a pair of flannel pajama pants and a too-big T-shirt advertising the last college they had visited. This road-trip's original purpose, after all, had been to visit and tour some campuses. But it had quickly dissolved from their original objective, and had, at some point, turned into just a for-fun trip.

Even if that meant holing up in shitty hotels on the side of some far-off expressway.

"You are such a dork, seriously." She teased, sitting on the edge of the bed, the only bed in the room, to be exact.

Between the two of them and what was left of their spending money, they had decided to opt for the one-bed room, which was considerably cheaper. Though their wallets were grateful for the mercy, the already awkward relationship, teenage selves were not so much. Or, maybe they were. Things had been weird ever since the Lodge incident, in more ways than one.

Well, weird was an understatement, really. It went without saying that each one of them had needed extensive psychiatric care. Though Chris suspected he and Ashley were on the brink of a 'thing', both were too... what was the word? Shy? To come out and say it.

Mostly, they talked around it. Even through this whole trip, singing along in the car during the day and holing up in rinky dingy hotel rooms and watching shitty cable together at night, neither had had the guts to break the tension. They only kissed once after the soft peck back at the Lodge, when Ashley was convinced Chris was walking straight to his death. They knew it had happened, but neither teen knew what to do nor say about it, and as such did their very best to move past it.

"You love it." He sniped back, sitting on the side opposite her and kicking his feet up onto the mattress, pulling the blankets to the side so he could squeeze underneath.

Though they had checked the bed for bugs prior to settling in, he couldn't help but to feel a little strange under covers that weren't his own fondly worn quilts and comforters. Ashley didn't seem to feel the same way, and was more than happy to roll right up beside him, keeping a respectable, but friendly distance as they made themselves comfortable for the night.

"Yeah, yeah. If that's what helps you sleep at night." She retorted, rolling her eyes and rolling over onto her side, her back facing Chris.

He sat up, pulling his glasses off of his head and gently folding them before placing them on the nightstand.

"I wouldn't be able to without it." With another one of his witty remarks.

Chris reached over Ashley's form to turn out the light, plunging the room into near-complete darkness, even as their eyes adjusted. The only light was from the cable-box beneath the television, and the alarm clock, both of which blared the time in an angry red. Before Chris could even say goodnight, Ashley was snoring, that cute little snort and sigh thing she did when she had her face half buried into the pillow, and Chris couldn't help but to feel as if he was a little creepy for noticing that these past few nights. But he couldn't really help it, it was adorable, after all.

Mindless thoughts of Ashley and the days they had spent together so far were what lulled him into a sleep. Though it had been quite some time since he had awoken in a cold sweat, driven from dreams by nightmares of the sights that had befallen him at the Washington Lodge, he couldn't help but to worry over it. He knew, mostly from experience, that Ashley tended to have more nightmares than he, though it had been a considerable amount of time since she'd woken him up in a panic and cried into his arms in the early hours of the morning, whispering about the wendigo and Josh. Regardless, he was more than happy to submit to the comforting darkness of sleep, blanketed by the happier memories spent during he and Ashley's supposed college road-trip.

--

The first thing Ashley noted, upon being awake, was that she had to badly go to the bathroom. The second thing happened to be that grey light poured through the sliver of blinds left open to the outside world, revealing the room to a variety of hues and shades, signaling the time was when the silver moon was high.

The third thing, however, took a little more time to notice. But it was a pressure against her back, and her belly, and it was warm and solid and she was more than happy to welcome it. In fact, she couldn't help but to feel a little sad that she had to pry herself away from the warmth to waddle to the bathroom, which had no right being as cold as it was. It was only when she returned to the bedside did her sleep-addled mind put two and two together and realize what that warmth had been.

Chris.

He was still asleep, his cheek smushed comically into the pillow he had used to sleep with, though his arms were askew. One rested underneath the pillow Ashley's own head had been resting on, and the other laid across where she had just been. Though his legs and lower half had disappeared beneath the comforters of the bed, she had a feeling they, too, were considerably closer to her than they had been upon initially falling asleep. Though the two of them had gone to bed on separate sides of the bed, they had woken together, and Ashley was tempted to return to that position.

He was a good cuddler. Maybe now he had more of a right to wear the shirt, now that she had seen proof of his abilities. But he was warm and his hold was firm, but gentle enough, and even though her breath hitched in her throat as he twitched against her while she settled back in his grasp, she felt no shame at what she was doing. Even as she wiggled against his chest, burrowing her face in the warm juncture where his throat met his collarbone. He was soft, and smelled like soap and washer machine softener, like your favorite too-big hoodie on a rainy day on the couch.

Once settled, she had been set on returning to sleep. But by the time she had wriggled herself into a comfortable position between his arm and his chest, she hadn't realized Chris had awaken from his slumber. She glanced over to him, closing his one open eye quickly, keeping from Ashley's gaze as she pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the base of his jawline. A small smirk spread across Chris' face, feeling satisfied accepting her gentle touch and growing warmth. Before she even knew what she was doing, and it was only when his grip tightened on her in the early morning greyness of a strange hotel room did she allow herself to blush, and think that maybe she didn't mind the term 'boyfriend' just as much as she thought she did.

How'd you like it? Decided to do something a little different, making it from the third person view instead. Tell me if you want more like this so I can alternate my stories between second and third person view! Hope you enjoyed it @Aureylia, and sorry if it's not after they got picked up, just because I'm writing an epilogue about them in my other story and it includes that! See you tomorrow with another one, byeeee 😜😘