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Tomoe already knew she was a restless sleeper. He already knew she tossed and turned and that sometimes she talked in her sleep, usually mumbling something about their dinner suddenly coming back to life or something equally disturbing. He didn’t mind her clothes sliding up anymore and he certainly didn’t mind when she suddenly threw her arms around him and nuzzled up to him in the middle of the night. It felt nice to have her breathing softly against his skin, mumbling incoherent words in the midst of her dreams.
It felt nice having her around and being able to touch her, to watch her in her most vulnerable state, to look out for her, even if he didn’t really need to anymore, not really. But he still watched her sleep sometimes, seeing her chest moving slowly as she breathed, listening to her incoherent deep-sleep mumbling.
Except when he got bruises out of that. Which was definitely happening now.
Nanami shifts in her sleep, throwing an arm over him once again. It’s been five minutes since he woke up after getting hit on the chin when she moved closer to him, tugging at his hair and pulling him down as if he was a giant teddy bear. He makes a mental note to tell her it’s her fault if he ever goes bald.
“Why can’t you ever sleep like a normal person?” he mutters to himself.
It’s not like he minds her tossing and turning, her constant babbling or even the light punches she throws at him accidentally as she’s dreaming of their not so distant past, but sometimes he wishes he could just lie down and sleep for twelve hours without being jolted awake in the middle of the night because she bumped into him or punched him in the face or in the stomach.
He sits up, sighing, finally accepting the fact that he won’t be able to get a blink of sleep tonight. He decides to watch her, then. She seems peaceful, mouth slightly open, hair sprawled on their white sheets, hands up and head turned to the side. She hugs his legs tightly, nuzzling his bare skin and smiling softly, humming in her sleep. He doesn’t even notice the smile that breaks through his lips.
It’s like she’s a kid and she’s hugging her favorite toy. Her skin is soft and he allows himself to caress her cheek, giggling softly when she furrows her eyebrows and pouts a bit. She’s definitely like a kid, he thinks to himself, smiling down at her. Tomoe crouches down and kisses her temple, inhaling the scent of her shampoo, so characteristically hers that it makes something pleasantly hot pool up in his tummy.
Nanami mumbles something in her sleep but still doesn’t wake up, letting go of his legs only to turn her back to him, brown hair cascading down her back. He just watches her, head tilted to the side, a sweet smile on his face. She’s cute, he thinks. She’s just like a kid, he thinks. And maybe he starts to think about how horrible it would be to take care of a child when she didn’t wake up even when he shook her. It’s not like they were trying for it, anyway, but sometimes he ended up thinking about it. They’d eventually have to talk about it.
“No, you can’t do that…” she mumbles and he can’t help but snort.
“Why?”
“You can’t, can’t do it… bad fox.”
He giggles lightly, shaking his head. She still calls him fox sometimes, especially when she’s angry, and sometimes when she’s sleep talking. He never brings it up, though, and he doesn’t know why.
It’s only when she thrashes again, lying down on her back, with one hand resting on her chest and another one gripping his own, that he sighs. It’s not like he’s not sleepy – much on the contrary, in fact. If he could, he’d sleep for two whole days, no interruptions. It’s just that he can’t sleep. Not when Nanami is moving like that, slapping and throwing punches in her slumber.
He could sleep, yes, but then he’d jolt awake almost having a heart attack and he’d rather not go through that again, he knew better than that. Tomoe already accepted the everlasting dark circles under his eyes. They were a part of his personality by now, grumpy and unfriendly.
But when Nanami moves around, groaning something about Mizuki forcing him to drink too much, he sees her fist going straight to his stomach, probably trying to clutch onto something inside her dreams, and that’s when he snaps. He holds her wrist, hard enough to stop her motion but careful as to not wake her up and, slowly, he lets his body fall back to the mattress, his head hitting the soft pillow with a soft thump.
And before she can do anything, he rolls her over carefully, holding her tightly against his chest, curling up against her small frame and inhaling her scent. He closes his eyes and hears her muttering something about Tomoe promised to make me pancakes tomorrow and for a second he doubts whether she’s actually sleeping or if she’s just pretending. But when she starts snoring softly, he lets a low chuckle escape his throat before resting his chin on her head, pulling her even closer.
Nanami tries to move a few more times after that, but his arms hold her in place, comfortably wrapped up against him. Tomoe inhales deeply, drunk on her scent, on her warmth, of everything he ended up associating with her after all these years. It’s nice.
He doesn’t really mind her tossing and turning anymore because, in the end, she’ll end up exactly where she has to be, safely tucked in his embrace, snoring softly and still mumbling nonsense. And, sometimes, even drooling on him a bit, but he doesn’t really mind that. What matters is that he can feel her.
She smells like warmth and safety, like the first rays of sunshine after a thunderstorm.
And he finds out he doesn’t really mind the sleepless nights and the dark circles under his eyes. Not when he hears her softly mumbling in her sleep about how awesome Tomoe is. He definitely doesn’t mind.