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It’s been a long day for them both.
To be able to fall into bed with one another at the end of the night, despite their fights, despite their factions, despite everything that lies hidden and unearthed between them. To be able to hold each other close, chest to chest, legs overlapping, arms wrapped as tight as possible around their waists.
It was warm, bundled as they were under their blankets, sharing the body heat. A comfortable one, neither overheating, no sweat or clammy hands. Just a simple warmth, like sitting in front of a fireplace, or drinking a cup of hot cocoa.
Completely at peace with just each other.
Neither speak. The words can go unsaid for now, locked away in their throats. For just this one moment, they can be peaceful. Can relax, just exist in the other’s presence.
Ros sighs, moving closer. Aimsey allows it, one of their hands twitching, muscles tensing, before going limp once more.
(That’s okay. Both don’t quite know how to accept a soft touch without expecting something else to come after it. Maybe one day they can, but Ros knows it won’t be today, and certainly not tomorrow or the day after.)
It’s quiet in the room. She can hear the wind outside, a gentle breeze that still somehow rattles the windows. The phantoms that screech, banging on the roof, trying to force their way in, only to give up and fly away. She swears she can even hear voices - none that she can make out, as quiet as they were, but they were there.
Ros forces the sounds out of her head. She focuses on Aimsey's face - the crows feet around their eye, the way their hair falls in front and the way he doesn’t try to move it away. His eye patch wasn’t on, something that she knows he said something about but she can’t quite remember.
It must’ve not mattered then.
(It does matter. It does. She remembers almost everything Aimsey says, does, and whatever else there is to remember. Ros hangs onto their every word, paying rapid attention to everything. And yet. And yet somehow this slipped her notice.
Was she that bad-)
She blinks. She looks at him, who stares back. She doesn’t startle - she was expecting this. Laid together in bed, chest to chest, legs interlocked, it was only time before the two finally looked at each other.
She was expecting this. And yet. And yet.
Ros smiles, soft and kind and tired, letting go of Aimsey’s waist to reach her hand up and move the hair from their face. A blink from them, before they, too, smile; the same as her’s, for despite everything, they’re still connected.
Chest to chest.
She can feel every inhale - their breath hitting her face, their chest rising and falling, a breathing so steady it almost shocks her. She wonders what hers is like: as steady as theirs? As soft and barely there? Well, it must be different now, now that she’s actively thinking of it.
Aimsey looks at her with something she can’t- no. No, that's wrong. She knows what he’s looking at her with, she just refuses to admit it, refuses to even think it into existence. She can place it, but she doesn’t want to. If she doesn’t, then they can stay like this for longer, peacefully laying in bed together.
Their legs interlocked, skin on skin, keeping the other from so much as moving the limb. A tad painful, but neither would exchange it for anything else. What is more pain in their relationship except another way to show that each is still alive, still here, connected.
They’ve been causing each other a lot of pain recently. Would they ever be the same without it?
(She doesn’t know. He doesn’t either.
Isn’t that strange? How connected they are - in thoughts, in reasoning, in the way they seem to always gravitate towards and away from each other, two magnets that can never decide whether to repel or pull. Connected through skin, through blood and tears and murder and death.
Connected through their-)
She blinks. They blink. She shuffles, and they shuffle. She moves ever so slightly closer, closing her eyes, letting them rest. They don't freeze this time, instead they curl more into her, foreheads touching every so softly together.
Their sigh felt on her lips. Her sigh felt on theirs.
It’s quiet in their room. The wind left nothing but the echo of it, a low croon that reaches her ears and threatens to lull her to sleep. The phantoms have disappeared - maybe they’ve finally realized tonight won’t be their night, that maybe tomorrow will bring them better luck. She thinks the voices she heard earlier have left too. She must’ve missed the sound of footsteps retreating to who knows where.
That’s okay.
It must have not mattered.
(But it does. It does matter. How can she protect Aimsey, protect the one she cares so deeply about, if she can’t even care enough to listen for who might be around them? She can’t protect her - she should be better, more on guard.
But oh. Oh how can she do that when she’s so warm? So at peace? Aimsey in her arms and her in theirs?)
She opens her eyes. He’s staring back at her. Ros does flinch this time - she wasn’t expecting it, had thought he had closed his eyes as well. Laid together as they were, connected as they were, she wasn’t expecting it.
She wants to laugh, but she doesn’t. Of course. Of course! Of course her guard would be down with them, enough that she doesn’t even expect a single look! Oh! Oh how utterly wonderful it is!
But with one look into their eyes, she contains it. Chokes it down and swallows it, lets it linger in her lungs before it disappears. Another time, another place. When she’s not in bed with her dearest friend, when she doesn’t have the urge to pull her as close as physically possible and become one with them.
One look, and she’s fallen. Oh, how fun is that? How sad is that?
Another sigh. She doesn’t know who it's from.
Another sigh. Who? This one feels like her’s.
She blinks. They blink. She smiles, and so do they. Her hand drops from the other’s face, back down to their waist, grip tight yet still so soft.
The moon is high in the sky above them, the light shining on Aimsey’s face. She doesn’t have the words to describe him - but that’s a good thing, she thinks. To be so indescribable you leave someone speechless?
Oh.
Oh.
How she’s so-
“I’m sorry.”
(There’s another word on the tip of the tongue. Another phrase that could be said, another phrase that won’t be.)
“I know.”
It’s been a long day for them both.