cuddles!!!!
|| cuddles.
You're asleep.
He isn't sure when, perhaps somewhere between one episode of this show you've convinced him to watch with you and the next, but his feathers catch the slow, easy rhythm of your breathing before he looks at you.
Settled between his legs with your head pillowed on his chest, one hand half curled near your face and the other tucked almost underneath you ㅡ a position he's sure can't be too comfortable, but he's afraid to move you.
("I sleep like the dead," you tell him, but he still tries to be as quiet as possible whenever he finds himself getting home later than expected.)
He stares down at you, tracing the feather-fine (ironic wording) brush of your eyelashes, the little twitch of your eyelids, the tip of your nose, the soft skin of your cheeks (one of his favorite places to kiss, over and over until you push him back, laughing) and feels his heart twist.
He loves you.
He's known it for a while, the word weighing at the back of his throat, a temptation on the tip of his tongue ㅡ he truly, genuinely loves you.
And it terrifies him.
He knows how dangerous his job can be, the duties and obligations, the lies ㅡ all of it on a razor's edge, ready to tear apart this fragile thing he has with you.
He knows you wouldn't leave him unless for good reason ("like, if you were cheating on me or something," you say, as if he would ever even entertain the thought) but it sits, weighing on him and welling like dark, brackish water that twists his insides.
He's scared.
This is all new, uncharted territory because he'd never been given training on how to handle a relationship like this, no formal preparation to fall back on ㅡ for once he is truly blind. He doesn't know how this will end, because if it does, he wants it to end well.
You shift, just the barest movement ㅡ and he watches your forehead crease, the twist of your mouth ㅡ and for a minute, he debates waking you, before thinking better of it.
His hands graze your back, light, fleeting ㅡ and then firmer, arms wrapping around you and pressing you to him ㅡ expression words he can't speak just yet.
I'm here. I'm not letting go.
The crease of your forehead smoothes, mouth untwisted by discomfort. Warmth blooms in his chest ㅡ and something desperate, the need to keep you safe, keep you with him.
His wings twitch, stretching out and over ㅡ a careful canopy of scarlet over the two of you, blocking out the world and everything in it.
Comfortable. Familiar. Safe.
Keigo presses his lips to your hair, tightens his grip, and closes his eyes.
