#Just elements of somno that could be read that way or appreciated that way

[writingforfishes]

Otto and Atticus Chronicles Part 5: To Sleep Perchance to Hiccup...and Cuddle

Preface:

This fic was inspired by someone who messaged me some amazing prompts! I combined two of them.

- Atticus isn’t in a hiatus but they also don’t really feel like masturbating, it’s pretty early in the morning and they just woke up. Otto gets decently fast but not super uncomfortable hiccups and they just cuddle in bed and spoon a little maybe

- Atty watching Otto hiccup in his sleep with just so much love in their heart. God they have the best, cutest, most wonderful partner in the entire world

This fic has a LOOOT of exposition before things get started. I sincerely apologize but I couldn't help myself. My obsession with fleshing out the lives of my characters is deep. So give it around 1500 words to get to any content of a hiccup nature. Maybe I'll put a symbol when the hiccups start so those who are here mainly for that can find them easier.

This work is pretty safe for work/tumblr. There are mentions of arousal but nothing overt so I won't be putting it behind a filter.

Brief mention of Otto's sobriety, but it's blink and you'll miss it. Contains notes of somnolence appreciation, but not somno specifically. Just an adoration and admiration of sleep/iness as a form of intimate vulnerability. (Any arousal is from the hiccups not the sleep.) But I suppose it could be read as somnophilia as well and that wouldn't bother me. (Here! Have my art and make it yours!)

I can't think of any specific content warnings but if you feel there needs to be feel free and message me.

Anyway, on with it!

(An alert to where the hiccups start is in red font 😉)

***

Otto had been out all day. Sometimes he tended to be a little enthusiastic with his scheduling, especially on home visits. Rationally, he knew that home visits would go longer than he planned. He also knew that inevitably that would mean rushing to the next visit with a shorter period in between. But in the enthusiastic moments of conceiving finishing every home visit the same day and only having to leave home one day as opposed to several days he overlooked that rationality and threw caution to the wind.

Were his windy caution tossing days of scheduling too many clock repair and maintenance visits much tamer than before sobriety? Certainly. But there were still consequences and one of those consequences was only seeing Atticus at the beginning and end of the day. The other consequence was forgoing healthy food for convenient food. There was yet another consequence to come, but as of this moment in his timeline, that particular one hadn’t been experienced yet.

So off to Bert to check out his grandfather clock. Bert didn’t talk much. Otto and him exchanged short notes on the clock, some noncommittal discussion on the weather, an update on sport scores, and that was that. Otto was able to pick up a salad and sandwich on the way to his next visit.

This was a new customer, Beatrice “Bea”, who had come into possession of a tall clock that was, honestly, spectacular. They were younger despite what their name suggested, in their 30’s, and had inherited this particular clock from their mom’s side of the family. They had no idea what they had. Whoever had been servicing the clock before him had done a pretty good job. Doing some light maintenance and putting it into beat and talking for a bit about maintenance they could do at home, recommending some tools, and teaching them about the clock was a delightful experience.

Bea had a cornucopia of antiques, both inherited and sought out. Otto could tell they were of a mind of living in a decade that wasn’t theirs and Otto could certainly understand and appreciate the anachronistic identity. He had often been teased that he’d been born at 40 years old and was living life now as an 80 year old, tendency of grumpiness included. He didn’t hate the implication, honestly. And Atticus was a fantastic enabler of him embracing that quality. Not only were they patient with his rants about modern technology and dying craftsmanship, but they often fanned the flames of his frustration for their own amusement.

It actually took a while for Otto to realize he was being teased. And when he confronted Atticus they admitted it, apologized, and promised they would stop if he felt made fun of. Really, they just enjoyed seeing that passion riled up and supported the basis of his arguments. After some consideration Otto decided that he was fine with being teased, but only because he was supported. After a while it was discovered that they both had a tendency to tease each other and, despite neither of them having had a relationship quite like it, they seemed to thrive in the playfulness. But, of course, if either one of them felt like it was too much or they weren’t in the mood for it, communication was always given and the energy always shifted to sustain what the other needed. No hurt feelings. It was the most honest and safest relationship Otto had ever found himself in. Then again, his track record was pretty grim when it came to healthy relationships in general. Regardless, it far exceeded the fairly low bar he had to contend with historically.

After Bea was a string of customers including a business who often called on him to manage the street clocks when they fell behind, needed service, or there was a time change. After that was a jeweler who used his services when they got an older watch that needed repairing. The owner and employees knew how to adjust sizes, change batteries, and a million other small things that one didn’t know jewelers could do until they needed the service, but older automatic watches were something they often outsourced. He was happy to be a local contact.

And, last on his list because he knew it would take the longest, was Millie. Otto loved talking to Millie. She would feed him cookies and coffee and sometimes new snacks she had picked up at the international store that she was trying for the first time and wanted to experience with someone else.

Millie’s children had moved away from the city so she often didn’t have anyone with her. She lived alone, her husband having passed a few years prior, with her two cats and her house full of gorgeous clocks. Millie’s family had a robust history of clock repair and clock making. Her great-great-grandmother worked on Black Forest clocks in Germany. And though Millie, herself, had never pursued a career in horology, her father had been a master jeweler locally as well as a well-known handyman. Millie often compared Otto to her father in both temperament and skill. It was an extreme compliment to Otto as he had looked up her father after he met her for the first time and was astounded at all the man had accomplished and how instilled his practice had become in the city. Everyone seemed to bring up her father’s name at some point in the maker community. Even those who had been transplants to the city knew of his work and skill.

Otto probably knew more about Millie than he had of his own mother. And, in a lot of ways, Millie filled that maternal role the way his mother never had. The octogenarian (in the genuine sense as opposed to the assigned sense Otto was referred as) was refreshingly open and inclusive. Her family had lived lives of oppression and minority. The lessons she chose to take from that reflected in showing everyone love and acceptance. How quick she had learned Atticus’ pronouns was proof positive that if someone put enough thought and caring into wanting to respect someone then it was just that much easier to do so correctly.

As predicted, he spent a few hours with Millie. It was clock winding day and Millie always invited Otto over to help her. And while it had been an incredibly fulfilling visit, as it always was, he had only consumed cookies, coffee, and a spicy curry-like snack Millie had opened and put in bowls for them. And, well, Otto did enjoy spicy food.

Otto had texted Atticus that he wouldn’t be back in time for dinner so to go ahead and reheat last nights dinner for themselves. He was going to get something from a restaurant on the way home. Atticus made a tease about his food choices today and recommended an antacid before bed tonight. Otto sighed as he looked up from the text. His partner was probably right. He could already feel some bloating and pressure from the curry snack.

When he finally got back home he found Atticus typing furiously on their laptop on the couch in the living room. Their small body was balled up, face inches from the screen. A notebook with writing scrawled on the pages was beside them.

Otto had told them many times before that they were free to use his desk when he wasn’t in, but this almost fetal position they took while engaged in the story they were writing seemed preferable to good posture. He’d have to remember to offer a shoulder massage tomorrow. Tomorrow. Which was to be blissfully free of any form of work-related activity. He sighed, getting their attention.

“Hey,” he said, sheepishly.

“Hello...the shadow of my husband. You look beat,” Atticus said, suppressing a yawn that seemed sympathetic in the timing, and stretching with audible pops in their neck and back.

“No offense, spouse, but you don’t look much better. Which means...you made progress?” Otto said, recognizing the passionate drive their typing had presented when he walked in.

“Oh god, so much. And if I stop now I feel like I’ll lose it, honestly,” they replied.

“Then...as it is almost midnight I think I should probably wish you goodnight and head to bed,” Otto said, regretfully.

“Is it really? Damn. No, right. I’m sorry. It’s just I’ve got such a thing going...ugh!” Atticus replied, desperately gesturing to the screen.

“No, no. That wasn’t meant to be a dig. Besides, I’m exhausted. I have the whole day free tomorrow. We’ll make up for today, okay?”

“Yeah,” Atticus said with a smile. “Okay. I love you…”

“Love you too, my little comma,” Otto said with a laugh.

“Oh, am I scrunching again? Ugh, yeah. Okay, straightening out now. Figuratively speaking. Well literally...bodily...not sexually. It...you get it,” they said, brain firmly planted on the story and not on making much headway in any other forms of intelligence at the moment.

“Goodnight,” he said, shaking his head in amusement. He put a kiss on their forehead as he went upstairs hearing an echo of his goodnight from behind him as he climbed the stairs. If he didn’t get to bed quickly he would faceplant before he did. Oh and that antacid? It had been a good thought.

A few hours later Atticus’ mind had finally insisted that it could no longer function to make words into sentences on the seemingly too bright screen. So, saving the work on the hard drive, saving the work on a cloud source they paid for, and saving the work on an external hard drive they uncurled themselves from the couch and got ready for bed.

Atty hadn’t always slept in the same bed as Otto. When they first moved in neither one was sure about being able to share a bed. But as the relationship deepened and they became more comfortable with being physically near one another, and then a bit obsessive of it at times, both of them found they preferred sharing a bed. But usually on nights where Atticus was getting to bed so late the writer would tuck themselves into the loft bed to avoid disturbing their partner.

Considering they hadn’t really seen Otto all day and that Otto didn’t have any commitments later that morning Atticus leaned toward the side of selfishness in wanting to sleep near him tonight. So, stripping down to boxer briefs, they crept into the room and turned on a warm lamp light on their side of the bed.

Otto was not usually a deep sleeper but they could tell by his face that he was utterly catatonic-seeming as he hadn’t even flinched when the light had come on. Atticus’ back-sleeper husband had his hands lightly resting over his chest and his lips very gently parted as he breathed softly with just the slightest of soft whistle as breath moved in and out of his mouth. Atticus smiled.

(Hiccups start here, you adorable scanner looking for hiccups!)

They shuffled their body into the covers and then perked up, back cracking a little as they straightened it abruptly. What was that sound? A radar went off in their brain usually saved for picking up the sound of a hiccup. But that didn’t make any sense. They waited a little and felt a small shudder in the bed and there the sound was again. Like a very soft ‘uck’ from the side of...Otto.

Suspiciously Atty turned toward the man and watched him patiently. It didn’t take long for their baffled hunch to be proven.

Otto’s body spasmed beside them, chest pulling and stomach pooching out quickly. His neck punched in above his clavicle. At the movement a soft ‘uck’ left his lips, croaky and deep. The bed gave a tremor and so did Atticus. Did he genuinely have the hiccups as he slept?

A few more minutes watching him intensely proved that to be true. Some of the hiccups were soundless, his body jolting. In the several minute span of watching Atticus saw rapid hiccups as well as solitary ones that were more evenly spaced. And while him hiccuping with such soft abandon was incredibly confusingly arousing, it was also heartwarmingly endearing.

At no point did Otto’s face indicate he was in any form of wakefulness during the attack. It was the picture of peace aside from a few twitches that were normal as someone slept. A few times his head moved side to side with a particularly hard hiccup, but overall the hiccups seemed to be integrated into his sleep as much as snoring would be. And, as Otto’s body temperature ran warmer, he rarely had anything but a light sheet on and that had long since been pushed down his body during the night so that his white undershirt laid softly against the perfect silhouette of his chest and belly.

Atticus was overwhelmed. But, they were also teetering on exhaustion. It was a very confusing place to be, energy-wise. For a good long while they just sat there staring at the event of Otto hiccuping in his sleep. Soft ‘huk’s, rapid silents, sometimes louder hiccups and doubles likes ‘huck-UCK’ would materialize startling Atticus but not having any effect on Otto other than to jostle his head about a little.

The hiccups would interrupt sleep grunts and sighs. At one point Atticus was SURE that Otto had woken because he smacked his lips together and sniffed only to hiccup three times afterward. But with a soft grunt his lips slowly parted again and he was still asleep.

Fifteen minutes of being a passive observer in the dim light of their lamp had passed before they could no longer help themselves. They had to cuddle. They were having physical contact withdrawals without the hiccups appearing (for the first time in a month or two at that), and this was too much to simply be a passive observer to.

Slowly they scooted over and snuggled their head on Otto’s chest. Otto grunted, hiccuped, sniffed, hiccuped two more times, and finally started shifting taking a breath that indicated he was stirring. Atticus tried not to feel guilty when he looked down at them blearily, head thrown back into his pillow at another hiccup. He gave them a dopey smile and lifted his arm off his chest and pulled it around them pulling his partner closer to his body.

“H-uk!-hey,” Otto said hoarsely.

“Hey,” Atticus repeated. “You have the hiccups, sir.” They said it very matter-of-factly to prevent themselves from stuttering over the word.

“I do?” Otto said and jolted with three silent hiccups that hit him in a row. He blinked owlishly, eyes wide in recognition. “Oh!” He put the hand that was not embracing Atty on his chest in surprise.

Atticus had put a hand over Otto’s diaphragm and shivered as it rewarded the touch with those three hiccups. The softness of Otto’s belly jiggled gently under his shirt.

“I don’t know how long you had them before I came in, but you’ve been going for at least 15 minutes while I’ve been here,” Atticus informed.

“Mm huck! Well I guess that mk!-ex-explains hmuck!-the dream,” Otto muttered, eyes closing momentarily, exhaustion trying to steal back his consciousness.

“Oh?” Atty asked, desperate to hear him talking again.

They were awarded with a deep breath interspersed with a particularly enthusiastic stifled hiccup that sounded a bit like hrmkl. A soft grunt followed it. Atticus squirmed a little. The absolute confusion their body was in as all it wanted was to disintegrate into sleep but simultaneously it was deeply aroused and tingly was a little frustrating. But physical exhaustion was putting up a very good fight.

“Y-yeah. Um, I w-was trying t-hmk!-to tell...someone? Um. Mk! I don’t remember hmuck!-remember who...saying...I was huck’m!mk!-uh saying something but mk!-I couldn’t g-get mk!mk!-get the words out. They kept turning into bubbles. Like mk!-literal bu-bubbles mk!-that sorta floated b-by and my huck!-uh my words were tr-trapped in them. And when they huck!-when they HUCK!-whenHUCK!” Otto paused and let a couple more hiccups in the cluster pass before trying again. Now that he was awake and talking the hiccups seemed to be a bit more enthusiastic on being heard. He grunted.

He felt another squirm from his partner and rubbed their shoulder in response. He now had his eyes opened and had been watching their hand on his stomach jump with its movements. He never noticed his body’s response to hiccups before they learned about Atticus’ kink. But now he was intensely aware of how his chest caved in and his stomach popped out. And he even knew how his neck pulled inward at Atticus’ informing him of it. He had found himself more than once watching in the mirror and being sort of fascinated by what his body did when he hiccuped and how it made sense where he felt the pulls of muscles with each spasm and why his chest got so sore if he had them for too long.

“When the bubbles popped,” he was finally able to get out quickly before next hiccup. “All the huck!-words would come out in s-sounds hmuck!-n-not words but huck!-but just the sounds of hmk!-of all the le-letters at on-hmkuh once hmk! Hmuck! Huck’m! Mm.”

“How the hell did you sleep through this?” Atticus wondered aloud. Their ear was pressed into his chest listening to the thumps and swallows that accompanied his hiccups.

“No idea,” Otto admitted with a light laugh and a smattering of hiccups. “I d-don’t know if I’ve mk!-ever hic-huck!-hiccuped in my sleep! Erk!”

“Did you take that antacid?” Atty asked.

There was a pause from him that was for more than just to let another cluster of silent hiccups pass.

“Fu-UCK,” he muttered.

Atticus laughed at the appropriateness of the hiccup’s timing even while Otto put a hand on his head in a gesture of self immolation.

For a moment Atticus had wondered if Otto had fallen back to sleep. The hiccups had gotten a bit softer now that he wasn’t talking. His hand had stayed over his eyes.

“Are you feel-feeling…?” Otto asked incompletely as he peeked beneath his hand to catch Atticus’ eye.

“A little,” Atticus admitted, snuggling further into Otto’s belly, letting the bounces move their head. They felt Otto’s long fingers stroking their scalp and sighed contently. They gave his stomach a little rub and felt the vibration of Otto humming between hiccups.

“Did hmk!-did you want hmk!-wanna hmk!hmk!…” Otto asked, again trailing off with implication.

“Mmm,” Atticus said, groaning a little in indecision before sighing. “No. I’m too tired. Can we just...cuddle? I just...wanna feel them. I know that’s a little weird...probably.”

“Not that we-hock!-weird,” Otto conceded. “There’s a lot goin-hmk!-going on here hmk!” He said this while gesturing to his torso as a whole.

“There certainly is,” Atty agreed enthusiastically. “Can we spoon?”

“For a hmk!-for a little hmk!-little wh-hmk!-while. Hmk!” Otto agreed.

Atticus knew that Otto tended to overheat easily so spooning indefinitely wouldn’t be happening. As they shifted themselves and Otto’s arm pulled around them, holding Atticus almost like one would hold a teddy-bear, against his torso with his head and nose buried softly in the nape of their neck, Atticus said, “I’m sorry that I woke you. I should’ve let you sleep.”

“D-don’t be hup! We’re gonna have all hulp!-day tomorrow to c-hup!-catch up on sleep. Hmk!mk!mk!” he said, grunting at the deepness of the last hiccup. For the most part the hiccups had felt like flutters but that last one he could feel pull his chest in deeper than the others.

“Ooh, that one was deep,” Atticus commented.

“Yeah,” Otto agreed breathily, snuggling more into their hair and breathing in amid more hiccups.

“If you need to cure--”

“Mm-mm mmk!,” Otto said, negating the suggestion. “I’m mk!-just gonna let them mk!-go awa-mk!-go away on their own.”

Atticus chuckled.

“Too ti-hock!-tired!” He murmured into his partner’s curls.

Atticus, for their part, was keeping it together. Most of it was that their body simply didn’t have the energy to act on the arousal they felt. They let the tingling sensations swell and ebb as they felt the softness of Otto’s midsection dance into their lower back. They felt the jerk of his chest against their upper back. They felt the jolting twitch of his head against their shoulders. Their body moved with his as every hiccup hit.

Soon it became less of an arousal and more of a ride as their mind started to lose its consciousness. The sensations of the sheets and bed faded as they were rocked unevenly but not unlike a child in a cradle. A jerky cradle, but also a soft one. Huffs of air were exhaled onto their neck. Atticus wouldn’t remember all of their dreams but they would realize when they woke up that they hadn’t been entirely dry ones.

True to Otto’s nature he had rolled away from Atticus during the night but kept one arm around them in some fashion. Also, gratefully, the hiccups seemed to have ceased at some point as he woke up without them. Atticus had curled into him, but not as closely as they had been, so they were cradled in his arm, softly breathing and Otto took a long moment to watch them twitch and breathe, grateful that the day was both of theirs to do with as they please and, even though he was definitely experiencing a little acid reflux at this point, he was anticipating that it was going to be a day of hiccups and perhaps that meant a day of orgasmic happenings. The release would be nice.

#hiccup kink #hiccups kink #minors dni #kink fic #kink blog #hic fic #hicfic #hiccuping #otto and atticus #somno #somnophilia #But not actually somnophilia #Just elements of somno that could be read that way or appreciated that way #No sex #nonbinary character