Work Text:
N scowled at the laptop screen in front of him. He had encountered yet another edge case he had forgotten to account for. An entire section of his work would have to be rewritten to correct his invalid assumptions.
He was attempting to gain a better intuition for vector-valued function differentiation by constructing his own proof that the total derivative of a function is equivalent to the Jacobian matrix formed from the partial derivatives of its component functions. It was supposed to be a simple exercise, as it didn't seem too complicated to demonstrate, but typing it up formally had already taken four times longer than expected.
A series of soft footsteps reached N's ears, and he felt a familiar chill crawl up his spine. He glanced backwards, already knowing he was going to spot his wife in her night robe glaring at him from the doorway of their living room. Her right foot tapped restlessly and she crossed her arms in expectation.
N sheepishly grinned at Hilda, who rolled her eyes in response. With a huff, she walked up to grab N's arm and tug him away from his laptop. He barely managed to close the lid before she had dragged them both out of the room.
Earlier that week, Hilda had made N promise to her that he would stop staying up late and making her sleep alone, and she apparently had no intentions of letting him go back on that promise. With her mind set on the matter, N knew there was little point in resisting her enforcement. If she decided to drag him across their apartment to their bedroom, all N could do was match her pace.
“It's only 11 o'clock,” N pleaded as Hilda half-shoved him into sitting on their bed. He tried to replicate the doe eyes of a Purrlion, despite knowing that such a tactic could never work on her. “Ten more minutes?”
“Earlier, you said you'd stop at 10,” Hilda reminded him. “I'm not waiting any longer. I'm tired and want to go to bed, and if I go to bed without you, you're going to continue until the sun comes up.”
N couldn't deny that he probably would. He didn't feel very tired and he had slept yesterday. He would surely survive a couple more hours of work, despite Hilda acting like he would literally drop dead if he didn't get eight hours of sleep every single day.
Hilda, seeming to read N's thoughts, was apparently unamused by his disregard for his sleeping habits. She sat down next to him and leaned against his side. “Besides, you know I don't sleep as well when you're not with me. You want me to have a restful night, don't you?”
N felt his stomach bunch up. While he was perfectly willing to neglect his own needs, he couldn't bear troubling Hilda in the process. That was his biggest weakness, and they both knew it. She had won numerous arguments against him by leveraging that quirk. It was practically how she got him to marry her in the first place.
N silently fell back onto the bed and twisted to get under the blankets. He tried to suppress his pout. He knew Hilda was right about his sleeping habits, but that didn't make him any less displeased at being taken away from his math.
Hilda took his capitulation as an opportunity to follow him under the covers and wrap her arms around his chest. She wiggled her body down so her head fit into N's neck and sighed in relief as her body slotted against him.
“I needed your snuggles,” she confessed among her sated mumbles.
N felt his body relax. He couldn't maintain his token irritation when she cared about him so visibly. He resettled his body in his usual side-sleeping position, nonverbally confirming that he wouldn't be trying to sneak away once Hilda fell asleep.
Hilda cooed in reply. She pressed further into N's chest, squeezing him into her hug. He almost had trouble breathing with how tightly she wrapped around him. It reminded him of a Serperior constricting its prey between its coils, as if she was afraid that he would escape if she dared to loosen her grip.
N freed one of his hands and brought it down to Hilda's head. Even after this long with her (had it really only been eight months since their reunion?), he still was never quite sure what he should be doing in moments like this. So he obliged his first instincts to pet her head and hair. Hilda replied by nuzzling her nose against his collarbone, at least appreciating his unsure attempts at reciprocating her affections.
This was far from the first time that N had had his body crushed by hugs. All throughout his life, his pokémon friends had clinged to him for protection and comfort and heat. But hugs from Hilda were always different. Her possessive grasp always made his heart flutter in a way that snuggles with pokémon never had. It was both flattering and a little frightening. He didn't know if this sort of thing was normal among humans.
But N did know that he loved Hilda, and if holding him like he was her pokedoll made her happy, it was a small price to pay. He bent down to lay a small kiss on her scalp, enjoying the feeling of her hair cushioning his face.
He eventually fell asleep counting out the rhythm of Hilda's breaths.