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Rocket is awoken by sunlight peering in through a window and, frustratingly, directly on his eyes. Which was weird, since the sun wasn’t usually this bright, as the urban area of Crossroads was often packed with buildings close together. Other, taller buildings obscured the sun on the off chance his curtains were drawn. Why the hell was it so bright?
He screws his eyes tighter. Fuck this. His eyes were still tired and his body was still heavy underneath the blankets. It couldn’t be time to wake up.
Rocket attempts to lift his arm to shield himself from the cruel sun, planning on burying his face into the pillow for extra measure, but to his surprise, his arm’s weighed down by some ungodly thing on top of it. He tries to pull it back, but it barely budges underneath whatever it is. It is only when he tries to shift over onto his pillow does he recognize something that’s vaguely recognizable as an arm draped across his back. What?
His eyes instinctively crack open, and he’s greeted with the sight of Sword with the side of his face mashed into the pillow, loose curls spilling over the pillow and a few hanging in his face. Rocket has to suppress a snort at how silly he looks, with his mouth barely open, face twitching, and brow scrunched like he’s focused in his dream. His chest leisurely rises and falls as he breathes deeply, definitely knocked out. His cheek is smushed somewhat against the pillow, and he’ll probably have some creases on his face when he wakes up. Ah. Right. Rocket slept over at Sword's house after they sparred. Sword's face twitches again, breath hitching, the hand against Rocket's back moving in the slightest and sending goosebumps up his spine. He's probably dreaming of sparring or something. All brawn, no brains.
Rocket can’t help the soft giggle that escapes his lips. It’s so stupid.
The sun seems to be coming from the window behind Sword, because of course he would live in a place where you could see the sun rise directly from his window and not have curtains. Sword always swears he wakes up early, but every single time Rocket’s slept over (which is somewhere in between a somewhat rare and a common occurrence for them), he always seems to sleep like a rock. Rocket isn’t an early riser, but he supposes the sun is the thing that wakes him up most of the time when he’s over at Sword’s house. Annoying. Sword is hugging him close, but in some extremely unlucky way, they’re far apart enough so that the sun can peer directly into Rocket’s face. At least it’s making his face warm—but he wouldn’t need that anyways, since the pillow was plenty warm already. The morning chill can't seep underneath the blankets just yet, but the second he gets out of the bed, he'll probably be freezing.
He realizes Sword is kind of laying on his arm. Which would be fine, if it wasn’t numb and starting to grow feeling back into it, pins and needles spiking at the inside every time he so much as twitched. It’s a usual thing, for them to fall asleep with legs tangled and Rocket’s arm flopped onto Sword just to annoy him, and then to wake up in some sort of bear hug that Rocket doesn’t really mind, because Sword’s consistently warm and—well, his prosthetics don’t really generate heat by themselves sitting idly on his bed, so he just enjoys it.
Resolving that in order to turn and avoid the sun in a somewhat comfortable-enough position, he’d need his arm back, he halfway pushes himself into a sitting position. Sword’s limp arm falls down to Rocket’s side, but Rocket doesn’t really pay attention to that as he yanks his arm back from where it’d been trapped underneath the other demon.
Sword stirs a bit. The hand on Rocket’s side clumsily moves to wrap around him more securely, his hand loosely clutching Rockets shirt. The ensuing tug is weak and fumbling from Sword’s lack of awareness and mostly-asleep state, his fingers almost slipping. It’s almost laughable, how his nose and brow get scrunched up slightly like he’s frustrated.
Rocket follows the weak attempt anyways, letting his head flop back onto the pillow with a small thump and clutching his now-freed arm close to his chest. He stretches and clenches his fingers to try and rid the needles striking at him from beneath his skin, frustratingly uncomfortable for someone whose eyes still feel sunken in their sockets and his body far too weighed down to be awake. He passed out the second he'd hit the pillow last night, but he still felt very groggy for someone who'd gotten enough sleep.
He tries to lift the blanket with his elbow to get it pulled back up to his chest for a good minute, but after fruitless results, he eventually gives up and yanks it up with his hand instead, letting out a frustrated huff. Everything had to be difficult this early in the morning, huh?
His annoyance must radiate off of him as he slots his leg back in between Sword’s, curling around them like threads, because Sword’s eyes flutter open carefully. Rocket’s too busy focusing on adjusting the blanket back to how it was before to notice, at first.
Sword’s bed was somewhat of a mix between neat and messy, which he wasn’t sure was possible. The temperature up where he lives can cause a little chill to invade the house sometimes, but even throughout the year, every time Rocket’s come it’s been the exact same arrangement. Blankets are curled on top of their figures, and some bunch up around the edges, giving the illusion of being securely tucked in—he always teased Sword about how since it's always being bunched up and layered making it look like a nest, and Sword always got red in the face and tried to explain himself. It was stupid.
Rocket’s gaze flickers up, and that’s when he catches the look. It’s stupid, is what he can only describe it as.
Sword’s eyes are half-lidded, filled with a dazed sort of semi-awareness as he looks at Rocket. But his previously barely-open lips now curl into a soft smile with just a sliver of teeth poking out—those half-lidded eyes crinkle with the motion, and it makes a strange sort of emotion crawl up into Rocket’s chest and settle there, because—he can’t describe the look Sword’s giving him. His eyes are filled with—with some kind of emotion, and Rocket has always prided himself on spotting people's tells, a habit that won't stop clinging to him from his youth, but—for the life of him, he cannot tell what emotion is so very clearly displayed in Sword's eyes. Like Sword's not afraid; not scared of that emotion seeping through his eyes, or—or maybe he's just too tired to care. He’s tired, he’s smiling—still with his cheek pressed into the pillow that will surely be creased when he lifts his head—and it’s so stupid. It’s so, unbelievably stupid, the way Sword gazes at him.
“What’re you lookin’ at me like that for?” Rocket whispers, a smile creeping its way onto his face because he cannot bear to act like it’s serious—not this early in the morning, and surely not right now. Not with that stupid look that threatens to peel away all the layers and look straight at him, without the playful bickering or the nudging or the hands on each other’s backs.
Sword shifts his head, lifts it up and resettles it on the pillow so his face isn’t quite as mashed. As Rocket suspected, he does have a crease on his face that makes him want to giggle, but for some reason his breath is punched out of him instead. It’s nonsensical. It's ethereal. It’s stupid. Sword mumbles, somewhat slurred and morphed together with a low tone, as sleepiness will cause, “No reason.”
He’s so stupid.
Rocket’s mouth feels traitorous and unsteady, unreliable if any words were to escape his mouth. He giggles once, instead, because it’s so unserious, and the emotion that’s still crawled up into his chest and made a home out of it is still there, squeezing his lungs like a vice and snatching his breath away. He wants to go back to sleep. His eyes beg to slip back closed, but his brain urges for something to be addressed, racing. He doesn’t care. His arm’s freed now, and the sun can go fuck off out of sight.
Rocket turns so his face is settled into the pillow, and for extra measure, inches a little closer to the other boy so Sword’s shadow can help cover him while the sun lingers by the edge of the horizon. Sword’s arm tightens around him and he curls into it—returns the sentiment and places his arms right in between them, his knuckles brushing Sword’s sleep shirt and gods, they’re so stupid.
Rocket mumbles, before he actually closes his eyes: “You need curtains. I can’t keep doin’ this.”
He can hear the smile in Sword’s voice when he speaks—can practically picture it, with a stutter of the creature curled up in his chest—“Y’ always say that. An’ then y’ come back.”
They’re so stupid. So very stupid. He wouldn’t have it any other way.