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The sun is now, officially, above the horizon. And while it doesn't shine very bright here in the N109 Zone and its shroud of eternal darkness, Sylus's internal clock is well attuned to its presence.
He sighs as he plucks his glasses from his face and sets them aside with the book he was reading. It's one he sees you pick up often, though he can't tell if it's for the charming slice-of-life moments, the love interest that sounds very similar to himself, or the toe-curling imagery of their (very, very frequent) copulation. Either way, it's a way to pass the time for those last few hours before bed.
At these hours, when night turns to day, and again when day turns to night, a sort of trade off happens. He slips into bed, holds you, speaks with you softly as you wake up and he drifts off; or you tuck yourself into his side as his barely-awake conscious automatically curls around you, where you tell him about your day to get the last vestiges of energy out of your system while he tunes back into his itinerary for the night. There are times when this doesn't occur. If you want to go out at night, or if he decides to tag along with you during the day; both of you and your not-so-subtle clinginess. That yearning you both share to spend as much time together as possible, even when it seems impossible.
But today, it does happen.
He stretches like a lazy cat as he quietly makes his way from the couch to the bed. He changed into pajamas hours ago, just after his shower to wash away the evidence of the night's exhaustion. Pants that hang loosely around his hips despite having a drawstring to adjust them. The waistband of his underwear peeking out the top. Exposed torso with muscles that shift and flex with his movements. He'd grown quite fond of wearing these more mundane things instead of his usual luxury robe, if only to better take in the way your hands slip over his abs and cling to his back.
He carefully draws back the covers. The bed shifts under his weight as he crawls in, his eyes focused only on you. Your cheek squished against the pillow. The sleeve of your nightshirt slipping off your shoulder. The irrefutable drool slipping from the corner of your open mouth.
You'd probably cringe and hide away if you knew he saw you like this every day. A complete and utter mess. Maybe you'd even refuse to let him wake you the next day, leaving him to curl around you from behind and pepper kisses all over your shoulder, begging to let him see you, his disastrously beautiful partner. As it is, it's a secret, just for himself to keep.
Your body reacts in tune with his as he pulls the blankets back up and gets to work wrapping himself around you. Arms circling your middle, hands against your back pulling you close. His legs tangling with yours. You turn into his chest. In exchange for your pillow, you use his shoulder. Your fingers seek out his waist, feeling up along his ribs as you hug him like it's the last time you ever will.
He brushes a kiss against your forehead. "Good morning, my love," he whispers. His voice is little more than a soft rumble, a gentle purr by your ear to coax you back to the waking world.
You inhale deeply. Your legs stretch out, toes pointing, back arching, until they're shaking, before you relax and melt into him once more. He still has to stifle a chuckle as you do it, watching as the blankets shift with the movement underneath.
Your face contorts into a sorrowful frown with a soft whine. "Don' wanna get up..." you mutter petulantly. You squish your cheek against him, trying to hide your face against his collarbones, but you just wind up looking insufferably cute. Still, he humors you.
"Hmm, why not?" He tries to pull back to better see your face, but you don't let him. He has to disentangle one of his arms from around you so that he can cup your cheek in his hand and guide you to lean back. Because it's his warm touch leading you, you don't fight it.
You grumble as you crack your eyes open to glare at him. "My body is made of sludge."
He can't fight his smile then. You see his lips curling up into something so amused and mirthful, and you pinch sharply at his side in retaliation.
"'S not funny!" you chide, but your voice is still slurred with sleep and your eyes haven't really focused enough yet to really be able to see him for how squinted they are. You pinch him again just under his ribs when he laughs.
Still chuckling, he brushes back your hair and strokes your cheek. "Okay, okay, it's not funny. I'm sorry." You huff, but your hand relaxes against his skin once more. "Why does your body feel like sludge?"
A minute of contemplation passes, punctuated by an eventual shrug. It could be something you ate. Could be a virus. More likely than not - Sylus recognizes - it's your brain deciding today would be the perfect day to be cruel to you.
"What did you have planned today?" he asks.
"Mm, I wanted to go to that really nice bookstore in-" You yawn, mouth gaping wide and fat gathering under your chin where it presses against your neck. "In Linkon. To get the next book in the series."
He hums. His fingers have started to trace idly along your features. They wipe away the tears from your yawn, then they wander across your brow. Across your cheek, your chin, your nose. Tracing, committing your face to memory. "Is the next book as - how did you phrase it? - 'spicy' as this one?"
Maybe you're too tired to realize the secret he just spilled, of reading your book while you've been asleep. Every time he asked about it before, you'd grow warm in the face and flounder over innocent explanations for the plot.
So you nod, sluggishly. Your eyelids flutter slightly as you fight to stay awake. "Is that all?"
"... Mhm."
"Then you can go back to sleep." He kisses your forehead as he draws you back into him. They linger, dancing against your skin as he speaks low and quiet. "We'll spend all day in bed, hm?"
You sigh. Your warm breath fans across his skin, sending sweet trills of delight through him. It's hard to remember a time when he didn't get to hold you so close, close enough to feel your breath, but there are times his body reminds him, leaving a cruel gap for his mind to fill in that he may not always be able to hold you like this one day. You, already drifting off back to sleep, completely unaware of anything else he could say right now no matter how ridiculous, squish your face up against his heated skin with an incomprehensible agreement to his proposal.
He himself feels his last grasp on consciousness slipping as the sun reaches out toward the midmorning sky. With the final moments he has left, he slips a hand under your shirt to rest against your sleep-warmed skin. The honeyed fingers of dreams caress the thoughts from his mind in time with your even breaths, until the last thing he's aware of is your hand slipping past the loose waistband of his pants to hold onto his ass.