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You never liked it when Zeke kicked his boots off and immediately crawled into bed next to you still in the clothes he wore to go out, it felt unhygienic, you wished he took his jacket off at least. Yet you never had the heart to tell him to stop.
Tonight was no different.
Instead of scolding Zeke, you embraced him and bowed your head to bury your face into his golden hair. The strands tickled your nose and cheeks but even so, it was immensely comforting to finally feel his gentle powdery scent cut with the lingering smell of cigarettes. Zeke came back to you, unharmed, again.
Your hand quickly settled into a relaxing rhythm as your nails occasionally scraped against his scalp while combing through the tangles in his hair. It was always so soft.
It's not like you were officially together, this was a strange nightly ritual of yours, a bizarre routine you mutually fell into without ever really addressing it. It just somehow...happened. An unspoken shared habit; he'd come to you at the end of each day to be held and spoken to, in truth sometimes he almost reminded you of a little boy who just had a nightmare, seeking solace in his parent's arms, as opposed to a war chief.
Despite his demeanour in public, his soul always seemed to be helplessly trailing around, as if he had a perpetual deep yearning to belong to someone, a longing that even he wasn't fully aware of.
"At least take your glasses off, they'll get bent out of shape if you keep falling asleep in them."
Before you could finish your sentence, your hand was already moving to gently remove them from his face and place them on the bedside table with the quietest clink. You were convinced Zeke was feigning forgetfulness because he wanted you to take them off for him; probably because every time you did so, afterwards you'd carefully massage the area behind his ear where the temple tips of his glasses sat all day.
Zeke made a small noise denoting satisfaction every time he felt your thumb soothingly rub that small patch of skin. It was something so trivial, but perhaps that's why it mattered to him.
Once the glasses were off, he nuzzled into the crook of your neck, and within a few minutes you could tell he was starting to breathe deeper, by the small puffs of air against your skin becoming less frequent and more even.
"Rest, Zeke. You needn't worry about a thing, not now."
Maybe you never stopped him from crawling into your bed like this is because even though both of you tried to ignore it, his term was coming to an end soon. You had to hold him while you could and savour every moment.