"I really hope you're right about the Underworld."

For some reason he really wants to lean on Kaleva and stare at him. This is very different from his normal response to horribly awkward interactions, which is to run away. Possibly this is because Kaleva is a very good and kind and non-frightening person. If this were a story then probably Bruce would see the light of God in his fellow man and be redeemed and then Kaleva would be redeemed too and then Bruce would have an awesome testimony about being saved by the virtue of a heathen, but nope, Bruce is an unsuitable fiction protagonist and therefore still convinced that the Flood was bad actually.

"I think," Kaleva says, "instead of trying to get me to go to Heaven when I die we should try to get you to go to the Underworld when you die."

Bruce has hair. This is a very interesting fact. It looks soft. Kaleva reaches out and touches it.

"It would. Be really nice. If that were possible. I don't deserve it but I want it anyway."

Having a hand in his hair is very strange and unfamiliar but possibly? Strange an unfamiliar things can be good? He closes his eyes to examine this new sensation in more detail and observes his desire to make a small happy noise about it. Then he makes a small happy noise about it.

"I want to give you nice things even if you don't deserve them," Kaleva says, and then there is a small happy noise and Kaleva promptly forgets all about whatever they were talking about. Bruce's small happy noise makes him feel electric like touching Bruce's skin does, except it's much more intense, there's a jolt of it all through his body, and he is full of an incoherent desire for-- something.

What if he can make Bruce make more small happy noises?

He can if he keeps touching Bruce's hair! Also Bruce will tentatively reach up and pet Kaleva's hair back, as though Kaleva is a cat he's trying to befriend.

Oh no Kaleva has no more brain his brain is a small pile of mush.

If he can't have a brain at least he can have soft hair.

Bruce has been through kind of a lot today and also for the several years before that and if nothing stops him he might just fall asleep on this couch.

Kaleva nudges him awake.

"Bruce," he says, "if you're going to sleep you have to sleep in a bed."

"Wha--sorry. Sorry. I'm awake now. What time is it here anyway?"

"Like six pm but it's fine if you're jetlagged. Come on."

He pulls Bruce up and starts to guide him to Kaleva's room. Possibly handholding has to be involved.

Handholding doesn't have to be involved but Bruce certainly appreciates it.

Kaleva pushes Bruce back down onto the bed and cuddles him. "Good night."

Bruce was expecting, from the "my bed is huge" comment, to be able to put some distance between them for sleeping, but he doesn't want to uncuddle juuuuust yet, he can move in a few minutezzzzzzzz.

Kaleva's arm is asleep and he can't find a comfortable position and it is too early for him to go to bed and he is SO HAPPY.

After a while Bruce curls his sleeping body into the tiniest possible ball and starts whimpering. "No, no, nononopleaseno . . ."

Oh no. Bruce is suffering and this is the WORST THING POSSIBLE.

"...Bruce? Are you okay?" He shakes Bruce.

Bruce sits bolt upright, eyes wild, takes a couple seconds to orient to being 1) alive 2) in this bed 3) in a new world, then turns crimson with embarrassment. "Was I. Um. Was I being some kind of annoying?"

"No, you were curled in a ball and whimpering 'no' and I thought-- I don't know what I thought."

"Auugh. Sorry. I--can we just pretend that didn't happen?"

"...we can if you want to but I was going to offer you a hug? And ask what you had a nightmare about? And, um, my mom always used to rub my back and sing to me when I had nightmares and I could do that?"

"A hug would be nice."

"It was. About dying. And." Fuck it, he does not want to talk about how he still has nightmares like a middle schooler, he wants a hug. Hugs are nice because you can hide your face.

Kaleva hugs him and rubs his back and starts singing softly, "Shlof zhe mir shoyn yankele mayn sheyner, di eygelach di shvartzinke mach tsu. A yingele vos hot shoyn ale tseyndelekh, Muz nokh di mame zingen: ay lyu lyu..."

(His singing voice is extremely good.)

This is pretty nice. Kavela's singing voice is nice, and not being able to understand the words means he can just focus on the pretty sounds. It's better than his usual solution for getting back to sleep after especially bad nightmares, namely taking his pillow and blanket into his closet and hiding in it. (Obviously God can still see him when he's in the closet, but it still feels safer.)

Now they should be cuddling horizontally, actually. To help Bruce go back to sleep.

Kaleva keeps singing until Bruce is safely unconscious.

He doesn't wake up again for a while.