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Nightfall liked to hear Twilight's breathing.
She was a spy, so she'd grown accustomed to any sleeping conditions; including, and perhaps especially, not sleeping at all, or sleeping light enough to wake at a pin's drop. Still, her preference had always been sleeping alone, and in silence.
She grew up in an orphanage. There was never enough for all of them, and come night, everyone was required to climb into bed and sleep until the sun came up in the morning. Someone always sobbed themselves to sleep after some injury or illness or emotional distress, and when the place got overcrowded, they had to draw straws for who would share.
Fiona got out when she was fourteen and deemed old enough to take care of herself. And she did take care of herself; she found food and work more easily on the street than she ever found at the orphanage.
She only got her own bedroom, her own bed, for the first time in her life when she was recruited by WISE. Twilight began to train her shortly after, and for the first time in her life, she knew peace. Every night, she would fall asleep in the same bed, and every morning she would eat breakfast that left her feeling satisfied. Some mornings, Twilight would even teach her how to cook, since she'd never had the chance to learn before.
It didn't last long, of course. She rose through the ranks quickly and as soon as she was on solo missions, she was often left sleeping in unfamiliar and unsafe situations, or crammed with other agents on the field, or pulling all-nighters several nights in a row.
But at the end of a mission, if she were allowed to take a day of rest at WISE HQ, she always had a bed to fall back into where no one disturbed her until seven AM. And in that bed, no one cried, no one snatched the blanket, no one kept her awake far too late into the night.
She always preferred it alone.
But in this bed with Agent Twilight, she liked his gentle breathing. She liked the way he had carefully positioned the blanket over the both of them so they were both covered and unlikely to rip it away from the other at any point. She liked that he had allowed her to comb her fingers through his blond locks while they fell asleep, and she even found herself relishing in his greasy roots because she knew he had only forwent a shower out of utter exhaustion from how much he committed himself to their shared cause.
His breathing had steadied in the way it only did when he fell asleep around Nightfall. When other agents were present, he kept his guard up and slept in bursts, waking every so often; he admitted that alone, he did the same. But with Nightfall, he allowed himself to fall into sleep the same way they fell into love: perhaps WISE wouldn't approve, but both knew that nowhere outside of HQ would be safe to love anyone.
Nightfall thought, as the fingers combing through Twilight's hair slowed from her own exhaustion, that they only ended up with each other out of the safety of it. They both desired safety; for the world, yes, but on a more intrinsic level, they both desired safety for themselves. Safety while they slept.
Safety and honesty and kindness and softness and fingers running through hair.
They were the only two people they'd ever found able to give that to one another. Their relationship, as much as it was a relationship of trust and mutual respect, was a relationship of scarcity. People like one another were scarce, and so when they found each other, they held on.
Nightfall smiled gently. She didn't do that often; didn't feel the desire, the need. But tonight, as her fingers finally settled and she finally closed her eyes, she smiled.
This would be the best night's sleep she'd gotten since the last time she and Twilight had slept in this bed together.