Chapter Text
They were after a dinner and a shower and were just in a mood for relaxing and doing nothing. Well… Almost nothing.
Callum and Rayla cuddled close in his bed, tucked comfortably under the covers and propped up on his pillows. Their pillows. Rayla also brought hers to make their nest extra comfy. Usually they didn’t cuddle like that, both embarrassed to do the first step and ask the other one if they wanted to, but tonight it just felt natural.
It started when Callum sat on his bed, while Rayla found various notebooks in his closet and Callum explained they were his old sketchbooks.
"Can I take a look? I want to see little Callum's drawings." She said with a childlike voice.
"Sure. Come here, I'll explain them to you."
"Aww, I should have figured there were stories behind them."
Rayla chose three of his sketchbooks and carried them to his bed. She then laid them down and climbed next to him, grabbing one of his sketchbooks. Callum propped up his pillow for them to rest on. Their heads rested on his headboard, their shoulders touching and legs spread out on his linens.
"Are you comfortable?" Callum asked her.
"Uh yeah, but we could use another pillow, hold this." She gave him his sketchbook and went to bring her pillow. In the meantime, Callum wrapped his legs under his blanket. She came back and gestured for Callum to lean forward so she could put her pillow behind him. Then he leaned back again and she sat back next to him under his blanket, a little closer this time. He was warm and she hasn’t felt this relaxed in a long time.
"This one I think is my second sketchbook. I think I was 6 or 7. Pretty sure I was 6." He opened it up and noticed that the first page was smeared with dried jelly, a clumsy drawing of baby Ezran under it. He chuckled. "Yes I was 6. It's supposed to be Ezran here. I remember getting excited about it and wanted to show it to Ez, but he was just a baby and his hands were filled with jelly after eating too many jelly tarts for his size. I remember being upset about it, but I'm glad he did it now. It's sweet. Both the jelly and the gesture." He glanced at her and found that her face was soft.
"Aww! baby Ezran destroying baby Callum's drawing. Poor thing." He smiled at her. There weren’t many times he saw that soft face, and he liked it very much.
He flipped to the next page and showed her drawings of trees and flowers. They weren’t as good as his current drawings, but it was nice to look back and see his improvements. "Just trees and flowers. No story behind them."
"They are really impressive for a six years old. When I was six my flowers were barely a one big circle with many other circles around it."
"Awww! I wanna see baby Rayla's drawings."
"Not going to happen. All my drawings are at the Silvergrove anyway…" she looked down and fidgeted with her fingers.
Callum lifted his hand that were closer to her side and rested it on hers. She sighed and intertwined her hand with his. "Show me another one."
"Just for the record I'm sure you were the cutest baby ever."
She blushed and smiled goofily. "I was a devil baby. I drove my parents crazy."
"That doesn’t change the fact that you were cute. Still cute."
She couldn't handle his cheesy remarks and elbowed him in his ribs, trying to distract him from her expanding blush. The gesture loosened a few giggles out of him. "I'm sure you were cute too." She said.
"And now?" he raised his eyebrows, leaning a bit closer to her.
"Oh stop it dummy!" He laughed again.
"Yes." She rolled her eyes. "You are cute. Happy?" she said.
"Very."
They calmed down and Callum flipped through the pages again, showing her his various sketches and telling her stories from his childhood. In his second sketchbook there was a drawing of his mother, this time clearer and more realistic than the other drawings he'd shown her so far. "I think it was the first drawing of her that I kept."
"What do you mean?" she asked softly.
"When she… After my step-dad told me about what happened, the first thing I did was running to my room and I started drawing her. I wanted to see her. Wanted to see her face any time I wanted. But every drawing I tried didn’t look like her, so I threw them away."
Rayla squeezed his hand and he sighed as he looked at his mother.
"I know it's not my place to say but… She'd be proud of you." He smiled sadly at her and squeezed her hand back.
It felt a little wrong to speak on her behalf, but it was really hard to not be proud of Callum.
"I think she would have liked you." Callum said. "You have a lot in common."
"Really? Like what?" her curiosity was getting ahead of her.
"You're both amazing warriors, smart, selfless, kind, carrying… and funny. His smile widened on the last part.
Rayla blushed. His words were so sweet. She felt somehow connected to his mom. She felt closer to him. Sharing about his mother felt like a step forward in their relationship. She couldn’t resist the urge and pecked him on the lips. Holding his face with her free hand. "That was very sweet, Callum." He just smiled goofily at her and she felt a smile of her own starting to grow on her face.
When Callum turned over the page, she rested her chin on his shoulder and looked at his next sketch as he explained the story behind it.
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It was when they reached to the middle of his third sketchbook that Rayla started to fall asleep. They already sank downwards, their heads on their pillows and the blanket tucked around them. Rayla's cheek was on his shoulder and her eyes began to close. She tried to fight it for a while, but now it started to get real hard.
"Starting to get sleepy?" Callum asked as he looked down at her.
"No…" She mumbled. "Show me another one."
"Come on, you should go back to your bed." He started to get up and she held him down by his arm before he could.
"No! Just one more." She was too adorable, he couldn’t say no to that face.
"Okay. One more. Then go to sleep."
He flipped to the next page and saw a drawing of his step-dad, with Bait on his head and Ezran hiding behind him. Even though he was a busy man, he always found time for them. He missed him. "I keep… I keep thinking about all that times that I called him King Harrow. All that time I could have just call him dad."
She squeezed his hand and lifted her head from his shoulder so she could look at him. "Callum…"
"The night I went to see him when the assassins came, I did. I called him dad. I don’t know if he heard me." A single tear came down to his pillow. "I hope he did. I wanted him to know what he meant for me. But I'm also scared that he didn’t want me to."
"He loved you so much." She wiped another tear that manage to escape. She never met him, but hearing stories from him, Ezran and Soren was enough to make up her mind. "I think he'd wanted you to."
"That's what Ezran said to me before I went to the tower."
"He's a smart boy."
"Yeah, he is." He rested his head on hers. Saying those things was like lifting a heavy weight away from his heart. He still wasn’t sure if he heard him that day, he hoped that he said it loud enough for him to hear. At least he had the doubt. And these drawings. And Ezran. And Rayla. "Thank you."
"Hm." was the only response he got from her. He looked down and saw that her eyes were closed.
"Rayla?"
She didn’t answer, she fell asleep. He didn’t want to wake her, but it was better if she slept in her own bed. Reluctantly, he rested his hand on her shoulder and gently shook her. "Rayla, wake up." He whispered.
She took a deep breath and stretched, her eyes still close. "Hmmm?"
He moved away a strand of hair from her face and she slowly opened her eyes. "Time to go to bed."
"Okay." She mumbled quietly. She was so cute.
Callum helped her up and walked her to her bed with her pillow under his arm. She was half asleep and almost collided with his chair on the way. She laid down and Callum covered her with her blanket. She looked so content. She was having a hard time sleeping lately and seeing her now, sleeping soundly, was a relief. He just hoped it'll stay that way. He kissed her forehead and whispered, "Good night."
He then went back to his bed and settled in. Rayla's warmth was still there and he suddenly felt sleepy. He met Rayla almost a month and a half ago and he couldn’t imagine his life without her now. He glanced at her sleeping form and smiled to himself. His smile stayed even after he fell asleep.