You had always had trouble sleeping.
As a child, you would wander the house in search of something to do, as a teenager you utilized it for spending countless nights painting the town red with your childhood best friend Yuji, but, as an adult, you find yourself spending more and more nights sitting in front of the window, waiting for the sun to rise in a peaceful quiet.
The view was always better from your partner Sukuna’s apartment. Tucked into the very top of a complex that scraped against the sky, the city stretched out before his ceiling length windows like an endless mirage of glittering light. Looking out of them, you would never know it was three o’clock in the morning. The city still bustled, people the size of ants crossed the main streets below you in swathes of different walks of life; business men lost to highballs with too much whiskey, friends on their way to the next nightclub, shop workers calling to anyone with a pulse on the sidewalk. It was a perfect people-watching spot and a perfect distraction from the nightmare replaying in your head like a broken record.
You’re sitting on the cold tile floors of his living room, curled up in a blanket you had taken from the arm of the couch. You’re positive Sukuna had never used it before and that it’s always been a decoration before you had arrived. Now, it was part of your nightly routine when Sukuna had you over to unfold it and curl in, while you spent countless hours drifting off in your own mind waiting for morning.
It wouldn’t be long before Sukuna was up now, he had a meeting at seven o’clock in the morning that day. The two of you hadn’t gone to sleep until around midnight, naked and content. You wished you could sleep as deeply as he had been when you carefully crawled out of his bed half an hour ago, but you had accepted your insomnia by now. You found ways to live with the burden of it, and you had long since made friends with the silence and peace of nightfall.
You always did feel guilty when Sukuna was affected by it. Like tonight, when your ears catch the door to his bedroom clicking open and you hear his bare feet against the tile approaching the living room.
Your heart momentarily skips a beat. You think about hiding- sprinting into the bathroom as an excuse for your late night absence from his bed, but he makes it into the threshold of the living room before you get a chance to decide.
Despite the guilt washing over you like a bucket of cold water, your heart still warms at the sight of him. He’s slipped into a pair of sweats to come find you and is still in the middle of putting on a tank top when he appears, sleepy and squinting against the light of the city signs glaring in. His hair is still a mess from your fingers pulling on it before bed, which somehow makes him even more heart wrenching to look at. Even when his eyes find you on the floor, and he immediately frowns you’re still starstruck by his sleep drunk appearance.
“Why are you so good at that?” His voice is thick with sleep, but he talks to you as though you were just in the middle of a conversation.
You tilt your head at him, peering over your shoulder in confusion. “Good at what?”
“Leaving without waking me.” He scratches at the back of his head, yawning as he makes his way across the room to come stand beside you. One of his hands sweeps down his face, like he’s trying to wipe away his clear exhaustion.
“It’s no easy task.” You admit, hoping your innocent smile is enough for him not to push any further. He stares down at you for a moment, searching your eyes reflecting in the neon of the city line.
He huffs through his nose when he doesn’t find what he’s looking for, muttering to himself as he plops down beside you and folds his legs into a cross-legged position. He’s close enough that his side is flush against yours, his knee resting over top of your own, grounding you. “So stubborn.” You hear him say.
As if it were second nature, you immediately rest your head against his shoulder and his arm comes around your waist in turn, scooting you even closer to him. The two of you fit together perfectly by now. Constantly trading off between who was yin and who was yang, but always in equilibrium when you were side by side.
“I need to get you a bell.” He murmurs against the shadows of his living room.
You chuckle, “Yeah? Gonna collar me?” You’re just poking fun, but when you peek up at him expecting him to be chuckling too, you find his eyes honed in on your neck, like he’s considering it.
He doesn’t give you an answer to that one, but you can see it in his eyes that your joke has been taken as a suggestion to be logged away for future use. You bury your face into his shoulder, feeling your cheeks burning in embarrassment.
The two of you sit like that for a while, allowing Sukuna’s presence to diffuse the unease from your haunting dreams. He doesn’t have to do much to comfort you. When Sukuna was beside you, comfort was a given. He joins you in silent people-watching, his hand protectively curled over your backside as though he can feel the nightmares lingering just out of his sight.
After a while, he squeezes you to catch your attention, but doesn’t ask you to pull away from your resting place against him.
He turns his head to press his lips into your temple, and the way he whispers your name then has you convinced you’d tell him any secret you promised you’d take straight to the grave. “Why are we awake?” He asks.
“I couldn’t sleep.” You whisper back, as though you were afraid that the nightmares would hear you and realize they had won.
Sukuna takes a few seconds breathing in your scent, patiently waiting for you to give him more information. He hums in disappointment when it’s clear that that’s all you were willing to share at the moment.
“Suppose I didn’t work you hard enough last night.”
It’s a joke. Such an obvious one that you can’t help but let out a laugh despite your thoughts weighing heavily.
“Please,” You plead in a groan, “I barely made it to the living room without crawling on my hands and knees.” This was not a joke. Your legs shook like jello the moment you were on your feet and they ache with the memory of overexertion even when you're sitting.
“I do love you on your hands and knees.” Another suggestion that you can tell he’s logged away for future use. At this point you were doing it to yourself.
You still don’t take it back, though.
“Let’s see,” He clears his throat and his voice takes a different cadence now, no longer conscientious of the time of night… or day rather. “The last time you had a nightmare and I caught you out here, you asked me to make you pancakes. I think I still have the mix in the cupboard…”
You freeze up against him, your head moving mechanically upwards until you’re face to face with him. The man who reads you like a book. When you’ve tried so hard to stay shut up. When you’ve worked your entire life at achieving the perfect poker face. Time and time again he proves to you that it’s useless when he’s got your soul tucked away in his hold, yet, it never stops surprising you.
Sukuna tilts his head, smiling like you’ve confirmed his suspicions with just one glance. “What? You think I don’t know that much, at the very least? How aloof you are~”
He takes the opportunity to scoop your hair away from your shoulder and tuck a few strands behind your ears so that he can see your sleep deprived face clearly. At the same moment, his free hand reaches over and finds yours in the blankets.
He's smug with your shock.
“How long are you going to try to hide from me?”
“I’m not hiding…” You whisper, even your own voice cannot bear to lie to him. He makes a warning noise, leaning closer like he can tell.
“One day I’ll know it all. Every secret you want to keep from me. Every dream you’re too shy to tell me.” His mere proximity is enough to scramble your mind. The way his lips play just out of your reach, the way his nose brushes yours ever so slightly, the way his thumb presses into your ring finger, all of it has your focus split into too many incapacitating directions. “Your burdens. Your nightmares. All mine to bear.”
You don’t doubt him. It’s yourself that you find apprehensive to trust. Convinced that your own mind was going to torture you with him there or not. You had spent years battling insomnia alone, and while you hated to deny him, you hated to get your own hopes up too.
“You can’t scare away all my nightmares, my love.”
"Hmm, is that right?” Sukuna lifts your hand to his face, presses it against his lips, and places a kiss to the very center of your palm. It's almost as sweet as his next words, “Sounds like I'll just have to give you so many good dreams you’ll forget about the bad ones, then.”
You wonder if you looked as awestruck as you felt in that moment.
He’s won. He knows he’s won. You can tell by that prideful toothy grin you feel him hiding behind your hand, the one you can see in the curve of his eyes.
The way your heart climbs into your throat, like it’s desperate to be home in the palm of his hands, has you instantly knowing that you were truly a hopeless cause at this point.
“When did you become so soft and sweet?”
Sukuna laughs under his breath, “When I found out that’s just how you like it.” He answers easily, like he’s asked himself the same question before.
“Now, do you want the pancakes or not?”
Before you can remind him that he has a meeting in only a few hours, before you can assure him that you weren’t thinking of food at three o’clock in the morning, your stomach releases a growl that’s begging for Sukuna’s undivided attention.
He snorts, not even bothering to wait for a verbal answer before he’s maneuvering to his feet, still grasping your hand gently in his own.
“Come sit pretty on the counter for me.” He tugs you. “It’s cold out here.”
You don't think you've ever felt warmer.
