Work Text:
“Koala?” Sabo called softly as he prodded at the base of her slightly ajar bedroom door with the toe of his boot. The soft glow of lamplight pouring through the thin cracks indicated that the girl was in, yet he heard no response. Eyebrow crooked, he eased the door open; the iron hinges whined loudly in protest. Light spilled across Sabo’s face when he poked his head around the door to quickly scan the room. He quickly discovered why she had not answered.
She was currently slumped over her desk, shoulders slowly rising and falling with the deep, gentle breaths of sleep. Sabo clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. It unfortunately wasn't a surprise. She was always overworking herself; it was not uncommon for him to find her like this, passed out over half-finished documents.
Sabo sighed, then shouldered the door all the way open before crossing the room in quick strides.
“Up we go,” he murmured under his breath while he gently eased the chair back. Koala's body adjusted to the movement by slumping further over the table, nearly bending her over double. Once he had enough room to maneuver, he very carefully slipped her arms around his shoulders and slipped his own underneath her thighs, then picked her up in one smooth motion so as not to jostle her. He tensed when she mumbled something incomprehensible and snuggled her face into the crook of his neck. Her breathing didn't quicken, however, so it seemed that she had not awakened. He adjusted her position in his arms to ensure her comfort and his, then, slowly and with care, walked her across the room to her bed.
Sabo supported Koala with one arm while he pulled her comforter back enough to lay her down on the mattress; he supported her head while he guided her body down, gently letting her down onto the soft surface. When he went to pull away, Koala’s arms insistently clung onto him, and he released a quiet sigh. Koala nuzzled her nose right into his sternum, muffling her garbled murmurs.
“Koala,” Sabo whined as his legs and lower back muscles began to burn from the odd angle at which his body was bent. He alleviated the pressure by bracing one knee into the spongey mattress and planting his hands on either side of Koala's hips. “You aren’t gonna make this easy, are you?”
Still completely oblivious, Koala snoozed on while blissfully cuddling into his chest. Sabo would like nothing more than to crawl into bed with her and hold her for the night, but that wouldn’t do. As far as Koala was concerned, their relationship was strictly professional. She had no idea about the intense feelings Sabo harbored for her, and for both their own safeties, he would prefer to keep it that way. Well... truthfully, he wouldn't prefer it, but that was neither here nor there.
He wrapped her hands around her wrists, forcibly pried her grip from his clothes, and settled her arms by her sides. As if a magnet drew her, Koala's hands immediately sprang back up to clench into the meat of his biceps.
“Oh my—Koala!” he hissed when her nails dug into the muscles, almost teasingly. Drool leaked from the corners of her mouth as she contentedly snored on, but Sabo was having a hell of a time remaining convinced that she was asleep. It was always like this, though. Koala was a clingy sleeper, and he always had to wrangle her like a damn circus monkey when he put her to bed like this. He always said that he would just let her wake up at the desk with a crick in her neck and aching back to spare himself the trouble—yet he always found himself in this position. Damn him and his kindness; it really was going to get him into trouble someday.
Koala continued smiling in her sleep while Sabo glared down at her sleeping form.
“Why are you like this?”
“Warm,” she purred as she pawed at the front of his vest.
Sabo’s shoulders slumped, and he rolled his eyes. Sleep-talking, too? Did she have to be so cute? It was really hard for him to hang on to the shred of willpower he had left.
Sabo heaved a sigh, preparing to once more attempt to disentangle the sleeping girl—but when he looked down at her face again, he saw that her dark irises were peeking out at him from beneath her thick lashes.
He froze. All the blood drained from his face, down his body, and out through the soles of his feet, leaving him as pale and cold as death. He was in a pretty compromising position: leaned over her body as if he were in the middle of climbing on top of her with one hand wrapped around one of her wrists. Oh, hell, she was probably about to scream at him. She wouldn't stop there, either; she'd most definitely hit him.
Shit. Hell. Fuck, his mind stammered uselessly. He could only watch while Koala's eyes opened further, growing half-lidded until she was staring blearily up at him.
“You’re warm,” she whispered suddenly. “Don’t go.”
Is she still asleep?! he thought wildly. She didn't seem to be; her free arm circled around his neck, and then she tugged his hat off his head and tossed it lazily to the floor. Those were some pretty impressive motor skills for someone who was unconscious, but not altogether impossible. Then her fingers threaded into his blond hair, tearing the strands before slowly tracing a tingling path from the back of his head to the scar tissue on his face.
As the pads of her fingers painted indistinct shapes in the skin just below his eye, Sabo thought that maybe today was the day that his kindness was going to get into trouble.
“You’re not asleep, are you?”
“No.”
With a shaky breath, Sabo ran his hand through his cords of hair, which were rapidly becoming coated with beads of nervous sweat. They were creeping into dangerous territory, and honestly, Sabo didn’t know if he could stop himself at this point.
“What’s that look?” Koala asked sleepily. Sabo’s fear and concern were clearly showing on his face, but he didn't know how to wipe it off. Koala tilted her head, and her caramel hair slipped into her face—which suddenly turned sad.
“Sabo… I’m tired of pretending… I don’t care about the consequences. Just stay with me,” she pleaded.
Sabo’s heart lurched with the overwhelming desire to comply. Koala's mind was surely still clouded with sleep; she wasn’t thinking straight. If Sabo did as she asked, who knew if she would remember what had transpired? He was probably signing himself up for an ass-kicking.
When Sabo looked down at her with uncertain eyes, Koala puffed out her cheeks and jutted her bottom lip out in a pout. She made grabby hands at his shoulder with one hand while the other continued to trace patterns into the scar on his face.
“You know,” he sighed while he reached up to pull her hand away from his face, “you really are troublesome.”
She opened her mouth to respond with some snarky remark, but it morphed into a gasp when Sabo suddenly turned his face to press a long kiss into her palm.
Consequences be damned, Sabo wanted her, damn it.
“Sa—mmmf!”
Her cry of his name was interrupted when he dove down to claim her lips in a hungry, needy, open-mouthed kiss. Sabo nearly fainted when she moaned softly into his mouth, and again when the fingers of the hand that he was holding twitched with the desire to thread through his hair again. He released her wrist; it immediately jumped into his hair to tease the strands into messy cowlicks. The sweet burn in his scalp as she tugged on the roots only fanned the flames of desire burning within him.
Sabo climbed the rest of the way onto the bed and planted his knees on either side of her hips, caging her in. Her greedy hands pulled at his body and lowered him down so there was not a centimeter of space between them. The way her chest heaved with gasping breaths sent Sabo into an indescribable high, and as he tangled his tongue with hers, the sweet taste of her got him drunk in an instant. His hands began to roam—down her curves, under the small of her back to pull her further against him, down to the backs of her soft and supple thighs to the backs of her knees to make her wrap her legs around his middle. Koala allowed him to maneuver her as he wished, an instrument for him to play with the tune of his singing heart and the crashing crescendo of their mouths.
As much as Sabo would’ve just liked to kiss her until the end of time, he kind of started to suffocate and thus had to pull back. As he tried not to make a show of sucking in quick, quiet breaths to replenish his oxygen supply, Koala hummed contentedly beneath him. She then jerked his head forward so she could bury hers into his neck.
“Um…” he began but was interrupted by Koala's loud yawn.
“Sleepy. Kiss more in the morning,” she mumbled, and like that, she was out.
Sabo stiffly sat there for a minute, still trying to determine if what had just happened was some delirious dream of his or not, When he didn’t wake up in his bed, he giddily concluded that it was not. He then snorted in laughter—quietly, though, so as not to wake Koala.
What a night, he thought as breathed in deeply. With Koala so close, he ended up getting a face full of Koala’s hair; it carried the scent of sugar and honey. He liked it. He slipped an arm under her neck so he could roll onto his side without disturbing her too much. As he settled beside her in the bed, she snuggled up close to him to be in contact with every square inch of skin that she could.
Always was a clingy sleeper, he thought lovingly as he stroked her hair. He then dropped a few light kisses to the top of her head, and he felt Koala smile against his neck.
“Love you,” she murmured into his skin.
Whether she was sleep-talking or not, Sabo supposed it didn’t really matter. He was in trouble now. He might as well just let it happen.