Work Text:
My eyes fluttered open when I noticed the coldness of the sheets beside me. It was weird to think about after twenty-odd years of sleeping alone - no, I do not count the nights that Rick would stumble in blackout drunk and paranoid or the nights I instinctively wedged myself between the springs of Rick’s cot after yet another night terror fueled by a near death experience - how accustomed I had become to the warmth of a body at all hours of the night. The calefaction of tangled legs and frigidity of bear toes. The fiery tattoo of a heart and gelid strumming of air against ribs. The heat of shoulder blades in stark contrast to the icy ridges of a spine.
It was that same back that greeted my slowly adjusting eyes, the soft purple glow of the desk lamp throwing the rest of him into hazy shadow. Some sort of black clip, appearing almost like a sentient oil spill in the light, entraps his wavy brown hair. A smile creeps onto my face at that - he keeps “forgetting” to get it cut, he’ll never admit that he just wants to try it out since I'm the one who originally mentioned he would look cute with longer hair.
A glance at my multi-watch on the bedside table confirms it's still the dead of early morning. A slight twitch of his head is all the outward acknowledgement I receive that he has heard my movement. If he was a wolf, I can imagine the flexing of his ears at the change in my breathing even before I am fully awake.
No, not a wolf… more like a German Shepard.
Loyal. Intelligent. Eager to learn.
Forcing myself into a posture that resembles standing, for the most part, and groaning at the creaking of sleep-paralyzed muscles and the clacking of bones, I traverse the small distance that separates the bed from our sternum high work desk. Which, I might add, is no small task at this hour with the multitude of spare parts and loose paper and books sitting precariously in piles all around. We really should take the time to clean up the place, it would probably make the inventing less messy and the correct research easier to locate.
"You could j-join me, ya know," I whisper, voice gruff and cracking with sleep and disuse. His face comes into view, startling eyes highlighted by the large tan frames of the glasses that are perched high on the bridge of his nose. Right now, one is dark green and the other is the more normal a murky brown, but even though the color could change at any moment I would recognize his eyes anywhere. His bangs, that now reach his chin, have been swept back with the rest of his hair, the unusual birthmark on display if anyone cared to look. That’s new too, just a few months ago he was still pretending it wasn't there. Now, he shows it off to an extent, although Bill Cipher would come back before he stops wearing that blue and white pine tree hat.
"Mmmm..." he hums in response to my arms wrapping around his waist from behind. I can feel the vibrations resonating from his shoulder in my cheek. A tilt of his head and a sigh later, he's back to studying the array of papers spread out across the desk. How he can find anything is a mystery to me, but there is a definite method to his madness. I recognize some of his scribbling - a few maps, sketches of an array of dissociated body parts, half pages of equations or clinical descriptions - some in English but most in an assortment of mythical or alien languages.
I don't know what he is working on, but I am content to stand here and watch his hands ghosting through the motions as his brain does the lifting.
It's moments like these that we are more Stanchez than our usual AuthorFord, but I don't mind.
Not one bit.