NOTE: Beware that this is absolute sweet garbage cuteness. If such things offend your hypermasculine sensibilities, I suggest eating a stick of beef jerky, drink bacon-flavored beer and watch Braveheart after the first forty minutes. If you don't mind completely sugar-dipped and candy-coated fluff, this is for you.
“Good morning, sleepy,” Marisol whispered softly into Brady’s ear, provoking a subtle grunt of acknowledgement from him as he shoved his nose deeper into the pillow. Barely an inch of sunlight to gauge the morning’s presence; blankets periwinkle cloud cover let in just enough light to filter through them that she recognized the vestiges of daylight. With a groan of her own, she lurched forward to the side of the bed he was not already otherwise occupying to find the edge.
His arm then found her.
The unbowed, indefinitely, and he would not give way to the challenge that she might release her residence of the bed, ruining the warmth he had spent all night building. Curling his arm just under her bosom, he gruffly peeled her back with such slow and heavy motions, it was meant to be taken as a sincere declaration: You will not leave until my say so. Like a cat, she dragged her fingers along the sheets beneath her, quietly giggling that he was not awake enough to speak to her but certainly aware enough that he could draw her back to him without stealing away from his spot on the bed.
“Breakfast--” She started with a gentle mewl to her voice.
“Later.” He grunted, now moving like stone against rushing water; the arm that had been anchored beneath his pillow now thrusting toward her and completing the circle leash he had designed for her. Both arms curled around her smaller frame with relative ease and his face buried pleasantly against her neck.
Somewhere in the middle of the night, he would often find himself waking up just to check on her. Brady could count the number of times on both hands when he had thought she stopped breathing through the night because he couldn’t see just how shallow and easy her chest rose and fell in unison with his. Even now, he tightened his grip just to feel her heart thrum in the depths of her chest and smiled internally when he could count the rhythm in sync with his. Exactly in time with his. When he drew her in thoughtlessly, enjoying the sensation of her matched breathing and heart rate, she let out a soft hiss. Creaking one blue eye open, he looked down at her mess of tangled white hair.
“Your hands?” He asked in a half-sleep baritone.
She nodded faithfully.
“I’m sorry.” He purred to her, turning his chin down to kiss the side of her neck as an attempt to remove the pain. One of his hands slipped down her side and while he painted a picture of it in his mind, he was gentle enough in his desires that he took up her hand at the wrist so as to be delicate with the recently mended flesh. Drawing his thumb in circles around the base of her hand, he let the healer within him service hand to help ease her suffering.
“You did nothing wrong.” Marisol cooed to him, watching him sleepily draw out the Light just for her. “Besides,” she continued, keeping her voice low and using the cloudy, rainy morning to conceal her words from anyone but him, “you showed up to be my hero, even when you didn’t have to.”
“I like being your hero once in awhile.” He admitted with a low chuckle in his chest. It rattled them both.
“You do a good job of it.” Marisol replied, slipping her hand down even against his current actions so that she could lace her fingers in between his, a near-perfect fit. Brady inspected the motion, veiling his heavy-lidded smile.
“I love you,” He murmured into her hair before casting himself back into the drifting sea of a good and peaceful sleep. She didn’t need to respond to him this time as she snuggled up flush against him so she could count the thumps of his heart that she could measure in time with her own.
