Muscle memory must kick in, because even though it’s been months he still seems to remember every point in the map that makes up Tendo’s form, and it might have changed a little since his departure but Tendo seems to respond the same old ways, if not a little more relieved, a little more grateful, a little more wanting and needy and emotional. And he knows this will end eventually, and they’ll sink back into the pattern of taking it for granted that they’ll be together always, but he feels that this time, they have more reason to believe that.
He wants to puff his chest out and preen but even the sarcastic Dr Crane can’t find the energy to, and just smiles that little bit wider, holds him that little bit closer, when Tendo expresses pride. If he can sense or feel the same kind of anxiety that the multiverse will take something away to compensate, he makes no indication, opening his mouth to whisper something else and managing only a muffled word salad as his mind begins to succumb to his desperate need for sleep, even if he wants to stay awake to relish this moment.
Tendo offers a low hum of response to the other man’s jumbled and unintelligible reply before lapsing into comfortable silence. Listening to Jonathan breathe, each new breath brings a release of tension, little bits of him relaxing after being knotted for so long. It is cathartic. For a long while, Tendo is lost, his world narrowing only to the comforting weight of Jonathan’s arms around him, the soft sound of his lover’s breathing, and the feel of Jonathan’s steady heartbeat under resting fingers. Even having slept recently, Tendo is drawn into the quiet calm of sleep, drifting in and out of consciousness.
It’s several hours before Tendo regains his senses, momentarily alarmed. There is no warmth around him. It was a dream. Just another one of his perfectly constructed fantasies, one of the torments he endured too often at the hands of his overactive imagination. His hands quest frantically over the bed in the darkness, meeting a warm lump under the covers and Tendo nearly shrieks with glee. The other had shifted at some point during his rest to pull the covers up over himself, but he was here.
Containing his delight in favor of letting Jonathan sleep as long as he should like, Tendo eases himself from the bed and briefly considers making something for them to eat. Since his track record with cooking of any kind isn’t great, he vetoes that idea. He’s also not entirely willing to commit to leaving the room for more than a few minutes.
He hesitates before padding to the window and twitching the curtains aside to allow a shaft of sunlight to penetrate the darkness of the room. Returning to the bed, Tendo slips under the covers and props his head up on his arm, gazing at Jonathan’s sleep-softened face. His eyes trace every line, every shadow, every detail he can make out in the faint light. He wants to memorize, to consume, to ensure that this--Jonathan--never leaves him; he has branded Jonathan into his soul.