♗:One falling asleep with their head in the other's lap, for rheda and varr! specifically rheda being the one falling asleep pretty please
okay I’m sorry this took so long I’ve been filling these slowly BUT YES thank you for sending my these qp nerds
Rheda yawns and rubs her forehead. "That headache won't go away," says says, shifting uncomfortable on her stool. "I can't concentrate."
"Perhaps you should lie down?" Varr puts his pen down and studies her carefully. She looks stretched out thin and hollow, and he feels a little stab of worry.
Rheda shakes her head. "I can't sleep like this."
"In that case I may have a solution?" Varr looks around; there's no-one there to see them, so it should be safe.
"What is it?"
"I could run your temples and see if it soothed it." He winces even as he says it; it sounds so forward.
Rheda sighs. "It sounds as good as anything."
"You...might have to put your head in my lap."
Astonishingly, this does not release an instant chorus of objections, not even in her body language. She just shrugs. "All right, then. You'd better sit on my bed."
Varr hesitates for a moment - supposing someone walked in and got the wrong impression? - but she's right; it'd be too complicated to do it with her draped over a stool and him wobbling on another.
They settle themselves, Varr with a pillow on his legs to make it more comfortable for her, and then Rheda lays her head on his lap. Varr nearly holds his breath, and it takes him a moment to adjust to this. She is this thane, and she trusts him enough to put her life, quite literally, in his hands. He knows how to break her neck from here without her even knowing. He would die first.
Once she is comfortable, he rubs her temples, massaging up towards her forehead and then toward the crown of her head. After a while, the corners of her eyes and mouth relax, and soon she is breathing the even steady breaths of sleep.
"Rheda?" he whispers.
Rheda snores, very, very gently.
Varr has to hide a smile before he remembers that there isn't even anyone to see him do it. Slowly, slowly, he eases her head onto the bed below it, sliding out from beneath the pillow, until she is settled.
He smoothes a blanket over her before he leaves, and takes a moment to remind himself of just how fortunate he is to be allowed here.









