✮⋆˙ . sensory!reader and her need to be crushed by rafe while they cuddle.
warnings — none, really! soft!rafe x sensory!reader. angst & brief mentions of rafe brushing reader off.
cherie’s note — requested here! thank you anon<3 decided to stick with a more subtle approach for a sensory seeking/autistic reader. i seriously need to write more for soft!rafe, absolutely healing something inside of me writing this awe.
the word cuts softly through the quiet, not harsh — just... curious. a thread of confusion wrapped in affection.
you don't look at him right away.
your curled up on the far end of the couch, legs drawn to your chest, blanket tucked high around your chin like armor. the soft hum of the tv flickers across your face, but your gaze is vacant — not really watching, not really here.
rafe shifts his weight where he sits, brow furrowing slightly. his eyes linger on you for a beat too long. he'd spoken once already. maybe twice. but it didn't seem like you'd absorbed any of it, even heard him. like you were lost in the space between here and there.
"...you okay?" he tries, voice low.
you hum. not an answer. more of a deflection, pretending to focus on the television show that reruns for nearly the hundredth time — one of your comfort movies, something from your childhood that you found helped you feel grounded. but it was no use now, not with the events of earlier stinging your mind.
and it clicks for him — not all at once, but in fragments. the way you'd barely spoken since the afternoon. the polite nods. the hollow 'i'm fine' you tossed over your shoulder when he came to sit beside you earlier. the way you subtly leaned away when his fingers brushed your knee.
he glances away, tongue pressing to the inside of his cheek in the way he always seems to do.
it hadn't seemed like a big deal at the time — you'd asked for something so specific, so quietly, just 'can you lay on me for a bit?', and he'd snapped before even thinking, too wrapped up in the chaos of his phone blowing up with business deals, and investors bitching about god-knows-what.
"you'll be fine for a bit," he muttered, already halfway across the room.
it wasn't just the dismissal. it was the way he said it. the assumption that you'd be fine — as if it hadn't taken everything in you to ask in the first place, coming from a place of pure vulnerability, and needing. as if you hadn't needed that closeness in a way words couldn't even explain.
you hadn't brought it up since. that's not your style. you just went quiet — a dull, subdued kind of quiet. like the air around you got thinner and you learned how to breathe smaller, take up less space.
now, hours later, he watches your fingers fidget with the frayed edge of the blanket. your nails scrape softly over the threads, over and over again. your lips are slightly parted, eyes glassy, unfocused. you look like you're underwater.
he leans in just a little.
"baby," he says again, softer this time. "talk to me."
"that's not what i asked."
your shoulders rise, then fall.
"i know," you murmur, voice barely above a whisper. "i just don't wanna be a lot right now."
that breaks him a little. it cracks something.
"you're not a lot," he says. immediate. almost too fast. "you never are. don't do that."
and the silence between you stretches long, tight with everything unspoken — the need you swallowed down, the soft request he brushed off, the ache you'd carried all day like a weight in your chest.
he swallows, guilt rising like bile.
he watches the way your body hesitates — then unfolds, slowly, as you let him pull you into his arms. your limbs are sluggish, like you'd half-melted in his lap. like it takes effort to just... let go.
he doesn't say anything as he shifts you into his lap, guiding you down gently until you're on your back, tucked into the corner of the soft couch, and then he covers you with himself, warm and heavy, chest-to-chest, legs tangled with yours.
all his weight, everywhere. just like you'd craved all day.
and god, the sound you make — a tiny, broken exhale against his neck — kills him.
"m'sorry," he mumbles into the crown of your head. "didn't mean to blow you off. you should've told me i was being a dick."
"you weren't" you whisper. "you were just busy, s'all."
"next time you ask, i don't care what's happening — i've got you, okay?"
you nod, slow and careful.
but it's the way you nuzzle into his neck — the way your body softens entirely beneath his, letting out soft, content sighs — that lets him know: you'd forgiven him.
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