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It didn’t just seem like a bad idea in retrospect. Djeeta was fully aware that it was a bad idea, even in the moment. Despite exhaustion settling heavily in her limbs and decision fatigue leaving her brain feeling like mush, she knew that it was a bad idea. That didn’t stop her though.
It’s the first day of the Grand Spruce Up and already she’s struggling to stand upright. Granted, she spent the last several weeks making preparations, pondering over what needs sprucing up, exactly, and how to divvy up the people whose rooms were temporarily left uninhabitable. Her head was already spinning before they even properly got started. Sure, today was comparably easy, walking the marketplaces of Port Breeze to look for various bits and bobs with Lyria and Vyrn while waiting for the bigger orders they placed with Siero to arrive, but even so, spending hours on her feet baking in the sun, carrying around their purchases, because like hell is she making Lyria carry heavy stuff, and having to make the final call on everything as captain of this ship, she almost ended up passing out in the shower. In fact, she may have dozed off under the warm water, if only for a bit, and now she’s padding down the darkened hallways of the nocturnal Grandcypher. It’s gotten quite late, which is a good thing, because she didn’t properly dry her hair and it’s still dripping all over her nightgown and she could do without people seeing her in such a state as she heads down the hallways, clutching a bag with spare clothes to her chest and trying to find a room for tonight.
Unfortunately, her own also ended up needing to undergo renovations. A lot of the rooms in that particular hallway ended up having some moisture problems, especially after that smaller incident with Nectar during the overall Orologia incident. Turns out having the hallway flooded with slime is bad for the wood, who knew.
This wouldn’t be a problem, if it weren’t for her only remembering about it after she tried going there to collapse into her own bed after that shower nap only to find it a construction site. What she does remember is that she can’t crash at Lyria’s for once, because her bestie made plans to have a proper sleepover with Katalina during this time. She even bought matching pajamas and a whole lot of snacks for them today and was really looking forward to spending some time with her guardian and big sister figure. Djeeta would never dare intrude on their time. Not after seeing Lyria so bubbly and excited about it all day.
At least she won’t have to worry about accommodating Vyrn, who usually shares her room, because he decided to camp out with Siegfried, funnily enough. She’s not entirely sure when those two became friends, but she’s confident that the gentle draconian knight and her little dragon buddy can stand to learn a lot from each other. She's looking forward to hearing the stories.
Finally, she stops in front of a door.
She knows exactly who the room belongs to. Her feet carried her here almost as if by habit, which is weird, because it’s not like she visits it frequently or anything. In fact, she doesn’t recall ever having set foot inside of it before.
If anyone were to ask, she’d at least have plausible deniability by bringing up that the owner of this room is currently on a mission, so it’s vacant. Clearly, he’ll never know.
This is a great idea, because Djeeta exclusively has great ideas.
She still raises a hand and knocks against the wooden door and it feels like the sound echoes ominously through the darkness for what feels like an eternity, but when eerie silence takes over and swallows her knock as well as all other sounds instead, she carefully pushes the door open. As expected, an empty room.
Immediately, she can feel her heart beating out of her chest.
This would be so wrong, if she didn’t have exclusively great ideas, as previously established.
Seofon left for a mission a while ago. He announced as much, so she didn’t bother giving him a roommate. Letting someone else have free reign of his personal space for however long it would take him to return just felt wrong.
And now she’s carefully setting foot in here herself. Carefully shutting the door behind her.
It’s just for one night, she tells herself. She’s going to find someone else to room with tomorrow. He’ll never know. Besides, she’s just here to use the bed, it’s not like she’s going to dig through his stuff. Which is what she wanted to avoid by not assigning this room to someone else in the first place, which makes it okay, right? She’s not a hypocrite, she tells herself over and over as she slowly steps towards the empty bed.
The moon hangs low tonight, nice and full and it peeks through the window right behind the bed, illuminating the room enough for her to find her way. There’s a little cactus or something sitting right beside the window, bathed in the pale light and painting a long shadow across the length of the room that she carefully steps through, like that will hide her intrusion.
She carefully sets her bag down by the bed, takes another deep breath and lies down.
It’s just because Seofon isn’t here right now. That is all. There is no other reason why she would choose his room, specifically.
Djeeta pulls the covers all the way up to her chin. Only good ideas in here. No ulterior motives.
It’s not like he keeps finding ways to invade her thoughts lately. She absolutely did not seek out his bed because she keeps finding herself thinking about him when in hers as her thoughts swirl around her head just before she falls asleep. It’s nothing of the sort. At all. And whatsoever. Nu-uh.
She pulls the covers further up, to cover her cheeks as they heat up, even though the only one to possibly judge her at this point is the moon and she doubts it would find the time for such pettiness.
No, she’s just here because it’s a vacant room and he’s a friend and she knows he won’t mind. Probably, anyway. She knows the other Eternals, especially Fif, tend to barge in here whenever they like and the only time Seofon ever expressed any amount of displeasure with that was when Feower snuck in to put hair dye in his shampoo. And even then it was up to Djeeta as their de-facto captain to lecture him while Seofon kept asking if Feower really thought he’d look good with pink hair, which did not help his case in the slightest.
…On second thought, she’s not even sure why she can’t get this man out of her head. So it’s a good thing that she’s not thinking about him at all.
Even though her head feels fuzzy and her limbs ache and every part of her craves nothing more than sleep, now that she’s in his bed, she’s suddenly feeling wide awake. She blames her heart that started beating rapidly. Surely just because she did kindasorta sneak in here without permission and no other reason whatsoever. Not because this is Seofon’s bed that she’s in, that Seofon sleeps in when he’s here and that she can still catch whiffs of his scent on the pillow and covers or anything, which makes something stir deep down inside of her. That would be super weird, obviously.
It’s too dark to really have a look around and distract herself, but she knows that this room is still sparsely decorated. Which is understandable, both because it’s fairly small and its inhabitant only recently started staying over more often. Her gaze wanders to a single sword mounted on the wall above the foot end of the bed and the way the blade captures the moonlight.
Staring at it for a while fills her with a strange sense of peace. Tentatively, she stretches her limbs and feels her bleary eyes finally shut. A pleasant warmth washes over her and her thoughts spiral like water in a drain before sleep overtakes her and empties her head.
Then the door opens and she snaps awake like a rubber band.
While she doesn’t quite sit upright in bed, she does stare at the door and pulls her knees to her chest, clinging to the covers like they’ll shield her from the consequences of her thoughtlessness.
Surely this is a joke or a misunderstanding.
It’s not.
Between the dim light from the hallway and the silvery moonlight from the window she can clearly recognize the owner of this room take a few steps inside and shut the door, so only the moonlight remains as a light source. His gait reminds her of the way she came down here as well, exhausted and trying to power through the last few steps before getting to collapse on a bed. For some reason, her brain immediately and helpfully informs her that his hair is damp, so he probably also nearly passed out in the showers before coming here. Isn’t that a fun thing to have in common?
It then further points out, because Djeeta sure isn’t consciously looking for this information, that he’s not wearing a shirt.
Great. Thanks. Amazing work.
He is wearing what looks like boxers though and he does have a towel wrapped around his shoulders, which further confirms her shower theory.
The thought to keep peering at him and figure out if he sustained any bruises or other injuries during his mission crosses her mind, but she shoots it down immediately and with a vehemence she isn’t used to. Even if he were injured, what is she supposed to do about it? Lovingly tend to his wounds? Preposterous.
Less immediately interesting is the bundle he holds in his hand that she has to assume holds his regular daytime clothes, all conveniently wrapped up in his cape, that he sets down on the desk, probably too tired to deal with it right now.
Then he stops moving and it occurs to her that he spotted her.
Shit.
“I can explain –“ she begins, which makes everything immediately sound a million times worse.
“Is this not my room anymore?”
His tone is difficult to gauge, but something about the questions tugs on her heartstrings.
“No. I mean. It is. I’m sorry.” Now she sits upright and moves to the edge of the bed.
She isn’t even wearing one of her cute nightgowns, she could kick herself. Wait, no, focus.
“My room’s under renovation and I forgot all about it, so I thought maybe I could sleep in yours, since it was vacant.” Djeeta avoids looking at him directly. “I know that’s not a good reason. I’m really, really sorry.”
“Oh yeah. That Grand Spruce Up. I forgot all about that.” He offers a little laugh but the sound is almost swallowed up by that of her blood rushing in her ears.
“I’ll get out,” she begins.
“No, it’s fine. You look like you had a rough day. Sprucing up sounds like hard work, never mind grand spruce ups.”
“You just got back from a mission,” she responds flatly.
“Yeah and it was super easy, otherwise I wouldn’t be back so soon.” Despite the low light, she can see him winking. “I guess I’m just too strong.”
“This is your room.”
“This is your ship,” he retorts with a shrug. “I’ll find someone else to room with, no worries.”
“At this hour?”
That gives him pause.
She can read his thoughts on his face. He’s mentally going through which other Eternals are currently on the ship so he can ask permission and avoid a repeat of Djeeta's situation. Seox is the only male Eternal currently on board and sharing a room with him might not be the best idea. Especially after being woken up at such an advanced hour. Djeeta would have infinitely better odds of asking the melee master to share his bed.
“Stardust Town is –“
“That’s too far away,” she interrupts. There are no commercial flights at this hour and she’ll be damned if she’s letting him take a skyskimmer when he can barely stand upright.
His expression takes on a pained quality. He’s probably wondering about their headquarters. Sadly, Djeeta doesn’t know where that is currently located either.
“I’ll just power through.”
“Absolutely not.” She could not live with herself if she let him do that.
“Do you know if there are any air mattresses nearby?”
“I’m pretty sure our supply is running at an all-time low, since so many people have been temporarily relocated.”
Seofon exhales but nods his head slowly. He’s clearly running out of ideas. Then he turns to his wardrobe, puts the towel away and puts on a shirt, which fills Djeeta with a feeling she’s not quite sure what to call. Is it relief? Is it disappointment?
“I’ll sleep on the floor then. No worries.”
“It’s your room!” she protests and finally stands up, not-cute nightgown be damned. “I’m the one who intruded. If anything, I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“I told you, it’s your ship. It’s fine. I can handle it.”
She raises her chin and frowns at him like a petulant child. “Well, you shouldn’t have to. This was my poor judgement.”
He closes the distance between them and having him suddenly stand in front of her like that, forcing her to look up at him while wearing a flimsy nightgown, makes her swallow dryly. “It’s fine,” he repeats, more firmly. Suddenly she can feel the pressure of his hands on her shoulders and he gently pushes her back towards the bed.
Something about the gesture and the situation and her own level of exhaustion has her entire face flush crimson and she thanks her lucky stars that she’s standing with her back to the window, so odds are, he’ll never know.
“You know,” she can hear her own voice, even though she didn’t even think of what to say yet, “we could probably share the bed.”
She did not actually just say that, right? She imagined that. Right?
Seofon arches his eyebrows at her, which does not immediately answer her question.
“I share a bed with Lyria all the time. They can fit two people. It’s fine if it’s just for tonight, right?”
She is begging the demon possessing her body and making her say these words to stop.
“Are you sure?”
She nods and feels like she’s going to cry.
He still doesn’t look convinced.
“I mean, if you don’t want to, that’s fine too, I just figured, before we both end up sleeping on the floor, because there’s no way that I’m stealing your bed from you,” and now she’s rambling. Even better.
“No,” he interrupts her, thankfully, “I don’t mind.”
“Great,” she decides, hopeful that they’ll be able to put the whole thing to bed now. Pun intended. To make it so and end this discussion, she ducks away from under his hands that she realized were still on her shoulders, and lies back down, pressed as far against the back wall as she can physically manage.
Seofon looks down at her for a second and she wishes the moon were even brighter, because she can’t quite tell what’s going through his mind then, but then he climbs into the bed as well.
It’s a bit of a tight squeeze because she forgot that Seofon takes up more space than petite Lyria, but they both fit back to back and she hardly dares to breathe, afraid of taking up more space in the stolen bed. Afraid of her body pressing against his even more. She can feel the warmth of his body against her and something about that is making her dizzy.
“Well,” he begins and she briefly considers asking if they should at least get separate covers, but then why would sharing one be a problem, it’s not like there’s anything weird about that, if anything, she’s being weird for suggesting they get separate ones, right? Oh, she’s spiraling.
“Huh?”
“I said good night,” Seofon laughs.
“Oh. Sorry. You too.” Would he notice if she punched herself in the face right now?
“Don’t let the bed bugs bite,” he lilts playfully.
“The what?” Please don't tell her he has a bug problem that he has never previously brought up, that would be truly awful and ruin whatever remains of her self-esteem as a captain.
“It’s a joke. A figure of speech." She exhales her relief a bit too loudly and he laughs again. "Y’know what, you should just sleep. You sound like you’re really going through it.” He chuckles and she squeezes her eyes shut and forces herself to breathe. Just breathe. Don't think about punching yourself right now, even though it's tempting.
“Yeah, it’s a lot of work,” she admits after a while, but manages to relax and rest her head on her half of the pillow. “But everyone’s doing their best and as their captain, I gotta do the same.”
“’m sure you’re doing great,” he mumbles groggily and something about that, maybe just the open vulnerability of his sleepy voice, puts a smile on her face.
“Thanks,” she mumbles in return and tries to focus on the pleasant warmth, both against her back and the feeling blooming in her stomach after hearing those words, on the softness of the bed. But despite her best efforts, her heart is beating rapidly and it takes an intense amount of willpower to not constantly fidget or shift to deal with the tension she feels rising deep within. Breathing still comes with considerable difficulties, too.
“Hey,” she whispers after a while, but is met with no response. Forcing herself to pay attention, she can hear his even breaths and is forced to conclude that he’s already dead asleep. How enviable.
After blowing air out of her mouth in a quiet sigh, she tries again. She closes her eyes and tries to focus on his breathing, because it’s so calm and steady. Sure, the rhythm isn’t perfect for her to imitate, if anything she regularly feels like she’s going to choke to death if she tries, but at least it gives her something to focus on. Something beside the fluttering feeling, like someone set loose a swarm of butterflies inside of her ribcage.
But finally, after forcibly calming her overactive mind down, she drifts off and sleep pulls her into its warm embrace.
Waking up feels like a chore. Sure, the ache in her limbs is gone and her head is filled with fluffy, puffy clouds instead of mush, but for some reason, breaking the surface tension separating asleep from awake is especially difficult today. Something is different, is one of the first thoughts she can catch.
Peering through her lashes, she can see sunlight flooding the room that looks different from normal.
Right, this isn’t her bed. She remembers now.
She’s sharing it.
With Seofon.
Her back feels kinda cold.
And suddenly she realizes that she turned around in her sleep and just like that, she’s wide awake.
Her face is pressed against his back and her arms are wrapped around him, like he’s her personal pillow.
Her back may be cold, but her face is suddenly very, very hot.
Djeeta jolts upright and her back slams against the back wall with enough force for the small cactus standing there to topple. Time slows to a crawl and yet all she can do is stare with wide, horrified eyes as the small potted plant dances back and forth and suddenly teeters over to land right in her lap.
Only for her bedmate to snatch it out of the air by the pot and put it back in its spot. She didn’t even realize that he turned around and she continues to not fully process the realization for a few more heartbeats.
“Yeah, maybe that isn't such a good spot for it after all,” Seofon mumbles.
“Why do you even have that?” she croaks.
“Oh, I saw it at a store and just had to have it. It kinda reminds me of Feower.” He chuckles. “Good morning, by the way.”
Right.
She clears her throat and resists the urge to comb her fingers through her hair or otherwise fix her appearance. It’s too late for that.
“Good morning. Sorry for waking you like that.”
This is pretty bad but still salvageable.
“Oh, don’t worry, you didn’t wake me.”
This is worse.
“Oh.” She swallows dryly. “How long have you been awake for then?”
He taps his chin in thought. “A while, I guess. But you were clinging to me like that, that I didn’t wanna wake you, so I stayed put.” He smiles.
Djeeta plans the route from here to the deck of the Grandcypher where she plans to march herself off the edge. Bottom of the Skies, here she comes.
“I’m really sorry about that,” she manages as soon as she realizes that he’s technically blocking her path.
“Don’t be, really,” he raises his hands like his palms will do anything to quell the raging fires of her embarrassment. “It was kinda cute.”
She would not fit through this window, would she?
“Besides, you looked really tired last night, so I figured I’d let you get some rest.”
Djeeta deflates herself with a sigh.
“I’m still really sorry for going into your room like that.”
“I told you, it’s fine. The other Eternals do that all the time.”
That is what she thought, but it serves only as a small comfort.
“Which is also why I don’t keep the juicy stuff here.”
She perks up. “What juicy stuff?”
“The really cursed swords and such.”
“How cursed?”
His lips twitch into a smirk. “Oh, just swords that could strip all your flesh from your bones if you looked at them funny.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He places his flat palm on his chest and makes a face she presumes is supposed to be one of indignation. “Would I lie to you?”
She furrows her brows.
“About swords?” he tries again.
She slowly shakes her head.
“You should show me sometime,” she points out. “The last time I’ve been to your headquarters, everyone tried to beat me up and the time before that, you made a huge scene because they joked about making me leader.”
“That was not a huge scene,” he pouts. “On second thought, you just went into my room while I wasn’t there, what were you thinking? Super rude of you, actually.”
That makes her laugh. Once she’s done with that, she leans against the wall – carefully this time.
“I really don’t wanna go back,” she admits. “I’m looking forward to getting the Grand Spruce Up all over with and getting back to regular missions. If you think fighting rampaging primals is hard – “
“I don’t.”
“Shut up, actually. It’s got nothing on this sort of menial- handiwork stuff. I know it’s required to keep everything going and everyone deserves to have nice rooms, of course, it’s just.” She sighs.
“A lot of work, huh?”
Djeeta grimaces.
“You said you wanted to go to Terra. Want me to whisk you away right now?”
That’s tempting. That’s really, really tempting. But she shakes her head. “I can’t leave everyone else to just handle the work I personally don’t like.”
“Spoken like a true and responsible leader.”
“Maybe when this is all done,” she offers.
“Deal. I’ll cook you up something nice.” Something about his smile makes her feel like she could renovate the entire Grandcypher single-handedly.
“And in the meantime, if you do need a place to sleep while your room’s getting spruced up, if you let me know in advance, I’ll move the cactus for you.”
She runs a hand through her hair and hopes to Bahamut that her arm does an okay job blocking her face from his view, because she feels like the lava of Fremel has got nothing on her.
“I’ll think about it.”
Satisfied with that response, Seofon moves aside and lets her leave the bed and pick up her things.
Good. She feels like she desperately needs to talk to Rosetta. She also feels the urge to challenge him to a sword fight.