Work Text:
Raine is watching her from the depths of the nest once she is done downing her nighttime dose, blinking away cringing tension from scrunching her eyes against the taste of elixir and finding boiling sea-green staring right back at her. That half-lidded gaze, crowed feet at the corners and heavy with love and lethargy, peeks up from behind a fortress of sheets and blankets, reclaimed by another occupant after years in her sole custody. Night owl that she is, that look alone is enough to beckon Eda to tuck in until morning and. Still unbalanced, she lifts each leg carefully as she steps over the lip of the nest, knees creaking.
“Scooch over,” she says, lifting one end of the quilt so she can nestle underneath, bathed in Raine’s radiating warmth. The orientation of their limbs is still a negotiation, with a sensitive stump that Eda can’t lay on yet and a smattering of healing scrapes and bruises, but the two of them are finding a rhythm again. There is a recall, of the same shape of the other’s body even beneath the changes of years gone, and Eda remembers clearly how to make them fit together again.
“You’re on my side of the nest,” Raine quips, prodding her ribs gently.
“Tough,” Eda scoffs, curling up on her side with her back to their chest. “It’s all my side,” she says, and means nothing by it – neither have said that this is a shared bed, even as the notion of it and all it implies hangs in the air above them. Still, she concedes an inch, letting them stretch out, and soon the two are nested together like spoons in a drawer.
It’s easier, every night that goes by, for Eda to let them sleep beside her, against her, with her. It’s getting easier faster than it ever had before, in fact – compared to the friendly sleepovers that bloomed into loving embrace with excruciating hesitance, a generation ago. They don’t need to forge this path again, only retread one left overgrown, and even with age and disuse she feels the trust blooming at its edges, the familiar presence of another now in-step with hers after walking this road alone for so long. For the first time in a while – with the exclusion of her kids, and the one time Lilith bunked with her the night after she was booted from the Emperor’s Coven, and huh, maybe things have changed a lot more than she ever realized – she feels comfortable having another person in her nest.
Beyond comfortable, really. The weight of Raine’s arm squeezing her close is a delightful pressure, and the owlish part of her is rumbling a purr at the back of her throat. She’s half asleep already, content and warm and safe in this rekindled embrace that she could almost cry, if she weren’t grumbling out of her doze as Raine’s face nuzzles past her hair with kisses on their lips.
“Rainestorm,” she teases with a yawn. She can feel their curled smile crawl down the tendon at the side of her neck, a caress of soft skin and warm breath that makes her shiver. The two of them haven’t negotiated this part of their relationship, just yet, but she can’t say she is opposed. She loosens up from where she’s snuggled into herself, unfolding against Raine’s chest. “What are you doin’?”
“Mm,” Raine hums smugly as their lips find the junction where neck meets shoulder. “How quickly you let your guard down,” they hiss, followed by the rushed intake of breath, and a decades old revelation dawns on Eda as she realizes that isn’t Raine smiling against her but smirking, a mischievous, troublemaking, shit-eating smirk –
Eda is already screeching, trying to twist away before Raine can press their lips into an airtight seal. Still, Raine holds her steady, their once loving arms around her now a lethal trap, and her defiance turns to defense as Raine blows the air out of their mouth against her neck, flatulent and wet with spittle and ticklish as all hell.
“RAINE, YOU ASSHOLE,” Eda shrieks, writhing in their arms as the raspberry against her neck tapers out into an evil little giggle. She can blush at how cute their laughter still sounds. For now, she puts all her strength into wriggling free and one-arming herself in retaliation.
Already Raine is backing away, shielding themselves with their hands. There’s a youthful glint in their eye, joy and panic making their smile curl into the plush, adorable dimples that never disappeared even as the baby fat melted away from their childlike face all those years ago. “Eda,” Raine reasons, breathless, “remember you love me -”
They’re interrupted by the fwaump of Eda’s pillow smack in the face, and soon the two of them are screaming and wrestling and tripping over the rim of the nest to find the safest corner of the room, and the laughter makes Eda’s chest ache as she gets a mouthful of down and the door bursts open to reveal her kids.
“This means WAR!” King declares immediately, leaping indiscriminately into the melee with Luz close on his paws. The room is a mess of limbs and noise, she can’t if tell the feathers in the air are from the bedding or herself - and Eda, winded with joy at how familiar this childlike game feels after her life was flipped right side up, winds up like she’s fifteen at a slumber party and takes another swing.