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It’s rare that MC is awake before Victor. Time is very much on his side, but he never sleeps in. MC has known him abandon sleep altogether in favour of finalizing urgent projects and replying to hundreds and hundreds of e-mails. The day she finally wakes up before him it’s satisfying in more ways than one.
He looks so different when he’s sleeping; every ounce of tension gone. His cheeks are softer, his eyelashes longer, the bags under his eyes more obvious than before. He lacks the armour of sharp suits and disinterested nods; is vulnerable and quiet and almost overwhelmingly warm.
It takes everything she has to hold back from pinching his cheeks and settle for watching the steady rise and fall of his chest. She holds her own breath without meaning to, desperate to savour this moment that falls so far from the ordinary. Before long he will be awake again, checking his appointments for the day and complaining about her taste in coffee.
She wants to see him as he is just for a little longer, to take in every inch of him before he can hide behind sarcasm and Armani. She wants to kiss his lips so very badly, to whisper words of love in his ear that he won’t remember.
She reaches to card her fingers through his hair, braver than usual and desperate to know if it is as soft as it looks. He sighs, though, the moment gone before she can make contact.
“You know,” he says, taking hold of her wrist before she can touch him, “it’s weird to watch people sleep.”
MC blushes despite herself, as if she has been caught doing something much worse.
“I’m sorry,” she says, “you just looked so…”
“Whatever you do, don’t finish that sentence.”
In a way she agrees with him. She doesn’t think he’d ever recover from being called ‘cute’.
He rolls over onto his side, turning his back to her and burying his face into the pillows. MC wonders if she ought to apologise, but he answers for her without so much as a word, keeping hold of the wrist he took and tugging until she follows, allowing him to drape her arm over his waist.
She blushes at the intimacy of it; her fingers in close proximity to the exposed strip of his body between his shirt and pants. His back is firm and comfortably so; a faint scent of cologne lingering about his person. She buries her face in him without thinking twice, wishing for all of the world that she could see his face.
~~
It’s rare for MC to be awake before Victor. He’s able to pinpoint the exact moment she falls asleep, the arm across his waist falling loose and her steady snores warm across the back of his neck.
He has not slept since turning over onto his side, and even if MC guessed as much, even she is not immune to fatigue and a comfortable bed. She doesn’t move as he gently lifts her arm from his waist and turns over onto his back, setting it down on the pillows beside her and watching with a smile as she unconsciously settles into a more comfortable position.
He glances across at the bedroom clock, shaking his head at the time. It’s 8:59, and she’s almost certainly late for something.
It takes little more than a look for the clock to fall still, the room frozen in place by his will alone.
He reaches up to cup her face, for now at least enjoying the calm before the storm. When she wakes up she won’t be in the least bit graceful-he can already see her darting between the bathroom and the shower, a toothbrush wedged in her teeth.
She is as content right now as he is to be a hypocrite, laying there for as long as it takes to commit her sleeping face to memory.