pairing: aged up lo’ak sully x female reader
content tags: fluff, lo’ak being unfairly pretty in the morning, established relationship, reader catches feelings all over again, soft & sleepy, all lowercase intended
author’s note: a lo’ak post to start off my blog!
the light hasn’t fully broken yet, just a pale blue creeping in through the canopy overhead, seeping through the woven walls and turning everything the color of deep water, like you’re both still resting somewhere underneath the surface of the morning instead of inside it. you’ve woken before him, which almost never happens, even though lo’ak can sleep through anything — through birdsong, through tuk shouting somewhere outside, through the whole forest stretching and waking up around him without him so much as stirring. he always says sleep is sacred, like it’s a thing owed to him after everything his body carries through the day, and this morning, watching him like this, you’re almost grateful for it.
you stay still, propped up on one elbow, and let yourself just look at him, unhurried, the way you rarely get to.
the light catches him in a way that doesn’t feel fair to anyone else who might see it and not understand what they’re looking at. it catches the damp curl of his lashes, still dark and heavy with sleep, throwing small soft shadows down the curve of his cheek every time his breathing shifts. his bioluminescent freckles have dimmed to the faintest glow now, scattered loosely across his skin like something painted there on purpose, too deliberate and too pretty to be an accident of biology. you’ve seen him in firelight before, edges gone gold and restless, and in moonlight, quiet and blue and far away, and soaked through from the ocean with salt drying on his sun-kissed skin — and somehow none of those compare to this, to just morning light and his slow even breathing and the complete, unguarded stillness of him, like the version of him that exists only for you has finally stopped performing even for himself.
one arm is slung loosely over your waist, heavy and warm, like even unconsciously some quiet part of him is still keeping track of exactly where you are and isn’t willing to let that go. his tail moves every so often in slow lazy curls against the mat, contracting and releasing like it’s dreaming on its own, somewhere separate from the rest of him entirely.
you reach out, barely touching, and trace the line of one of his queue beads where it rests against his collarbone, feeling the smooth worn shape of it under your fingertip. he only exhales, long and even, and shifts closer in his sleep, chasing the warmth of your hand without ever fully waking for it, like his body trusts you more than his mind is even awake enough to register.
you think, not for the first time and probably not for the last, that you could stay exactly like this forever and never once grow bored of it, never once want to be anywhere else.
his ear twitches once. then again. you go still, certain you’ve finally woken him, but he only burrows his face deeper into the curve of your shoulder and mumbles something low and unintelligible that might be your name and might be nothing at all. you smile against the top of his head and press a slow kiss to his forehead before settling back in to keep watching, certain you still have at least another hour before he’ll properly surface.
you’re wrong by about ten minutes.
his eyes open slowly, unfocused at first, blinking hard against the gray morning light filtering in. then they find you, find you already looking, and something flickers across his face before the familiar grin even has a chance to settle into place — something caught off guard, almost vulnerable, like he hadn’t expected to open his eyes to exactly this.
he doesn’t say anything right away. he just looks back at you, quiet for once, and finds your hand where it still rests near his collarbone, pressing it flat against his chest like he wants you to feel the exact moment his heartbeat picks up beneath your palm.
“how long,” he says finally, voice low and thick with sleep, “was i just lying here lookin’ stupid.”
“you didn’t look stupid.”
“i always look stupid when i sleep. neteyam told me i drool.”
“you don’t drool.” you pause, biting back the grin that threatens to escape. “much.”
he groans and drags a hand down his face, but he’s fighting back a smile the entire time, and it’s not working. “great. so you’ve just been lying over here, studying my drooling, unconscious face like it’s something worth looking at—,”
“i was watching the light on you,” you say, before you can think better of it, before you can stop yourself from handing him something that honest. “that’s all.”
that actually stops him completely. the teasing drops out of his face for a second, replaced by something quieter and more careful, like he doesn’t quite know what to do with a sentence like that this early, with no warning. his thumb moves slow against the back of your hand, absent, like he’s not even aware he’s doing it.
“yeah?” he says, softer now, all the usual edge gone out of his voice. “what’s it doing.”
“making you look unfairly good for someone who just woke up.”
he laughs at that, low and a little disbelieving, and pulls you in until your forehead rests against his, both of you breathing the same small space of air. “you’re in trouble,” he murmurs against your skin. “saying things like that before i’ve even had the chance to wake up properly. ’s not fair.”
you hum out a sound of acknowledgement, “go back to sleep, then.”
“can’t now.” his eyes are already drifting shut again anyway, a slow smile pulling at his mouth as he tucks you in closer against his chest. “you ruined it. now i gotta stay awake and be unfairly good-looking on purpose.”
you feel the laugh building in your own chest before it ever makes it out of you. he stays there a while longer, eyes closed, mouth still curved, just breathing you in like waking up isn’t something he needs to rush through, not when this — you, here, still tangled in him — is exactly what’s waiting on the other side of it.
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