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Janice sat up in bed with a yawn awoken by light flooding her and Floyd’s bedroom from the hallway as her partner came back in. She checked the clock quickly. It was about 5 am, but they didn’t have to get up early or anything, so why was Floyd up? Or more specifically, why was he in the hall with the light on? They had a bathroom attached to their room, it was silent in the house so there wasn’t an emergency going on with a bandmate or anything, and Floyd’s phone was still on the charger. So what was going on?
“Floyd?” Janice asked with sleep still evident in her voice, “Is everything alright?” Floyd nodded as he wiped his eyes.
“Yeah baby, go back to gettin’ some sleep. Nothin’ you gotta worry about.” Now being as in tune to the melodies of the universe as she was, Janice could see right through that to know it wasn’t nothing even in her still half-asleep state.
“You were crying… did Animal like, have a nightmare that got to you?” She patted the bed beside her, moving to sit on top of the covers. Floyd shook his head, “did you have a nightmare?” he sat down but looked away silently. “What was it about?”
Floyd sighed deeply. “You can read me like a book, can’t ya baby?” he opened his arms for Janice to fall into as he continued, “Just somethin’ about Animal and the rest of the band gettin' into a little crash because I wasn’t there.”
“Oh. Well, were they okay?”
“Not really. They were all in the hospital, but Animal. He ah, he didn’t fair so well.” Floyd got a bit misty-eyed as he explained, holding Janice tighter.
“So you had to go check on him rull quick? It must have been scary thinking you lost Animal,” He nodded. “Well, now you saw he’s like, totally fine! And now you can come back to bed!” Janice studied her partner’s silent face. It was difficult because of the dim moonlight filtering through their thin curtains, but he was clearly holding something back. “What about me? Was I ok?” Floyd squeezed her impossibly tighter, pressing her face into his shoulder, “I wasn’t was I?”
“Nah. You uh, you weren’t so hot either. I didn’t know what to do with myself. Plus thinkin’ I lost my little man? And life just ain’t gonna give me nothin’ better than you. I didn’t know what to do without ya.” Floyd loosened his grip so he could see her and put a hand on Janice’s shoulder as she took his face in her hands.
“Oh wow, honey, I don’t know what to say, but like, if something like that happened to you I’d feel the same way. I rully have no clue what I’d do- like BE even- without you.”
“Life would go on, but it uh, it wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t even be worth livin’ as cheesy and dumb as that sounds.” Floyd rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, turning a bit magenta in embarrassment at his use of the phrase. “I ain’t no good at words.”
“I think you’re plenty good at words! There’s nothing wrong with borrowing them sometimes.” Janice rubbed her thumbs over his cheeks in the soothing way she knew he liked. “So like, where were you that you weren’t with us?” Her partner chuckled in response.
“I was eatin’ out at a weird Greek food-Korean barbeque fusion place that was themed like a ski resort with my bass. It was real weird!” He made a face recalling the weird restaurant from his dream, “I was takin' my bass out to eat because I needed to fuel it up for a concert!”
Janice laughed back “Well, the astral plane likes to make our nightly journeys a little bit less sensical for our conscious minds, fer sure.” Floyd took one of Janice’s hands and tenderly kissed the back of her palm “I dig you, Floyd Pepper.”
“And I dig you too, Janice.” Floyd lifted her gently to place Janice back under the blankets before settling in himself. She shifted herself to get comfy and snuggled right up against his side before falling back to sleep slowly, eyes sleepily blinking in an effort to stay awake. “I’ll always dig you, baby.” Janice gave him one more sleepy smile before falling back to sleep.