#c.enjin

First, she had felt his fingers on the back of her shirt. Pinching, pulling. Probably removing a piece of lint. Whatever.

Then, she felt his fingers on her back, and he was… Petting her absentmindedly? Riyo had felt too bewildered to feel irritated. Was he scratching her? Is that it? Why? She hadn't felt itchy.

It had been weird, but she'd put it aside.

However, he'd done it again, a week later. Then, she'd seen him do it to Semiu while she was working, absentmindedly tracing his fingers over her upper back as she ignored him in favor of her smutty magazines.

Now he is doing it to Zanka, who looks mortified, embarrassed, and flustered — all at the same time. His head is so red, he looks like he's about to explode. If she waited long enough, maybe he'd be shooting steam out of his ears?

Riyo is resting her head in her hand as Enjin explains the intricacies of close combat Jinki to Rudo, his hand scratching along Zanka’s back as he stands behind the sofa that the younger boy is sitting on.

She doesn't think he notices. Not really.

“Why are you doing that?” she interrupts.

Enjinv turns to look at her.

So does Zanka.

And finally, even Rudo looks her way.

Rudo and Zanka both turn to look at Enjin, who notices that now, he's the one being looked at.

“What?”

“That.”

Riyo points at where his hand is still on Zanka’s upper back. Looking down, their mentor stares at his hand, frowns, and then pulls it away.

Holding it up in front of his face, he stares at it like it's a conscious offender.

“Sorry. Bad habit.”

That's all Enjin offers. Rudo doesn't think much of it. Zanka tries to bite down the giddiness that comes with finding out something new about Enjin.

And Riyo thinks he's being really fucking weird. However, she can tell, as she regards him with a mock-nonchalant look (an attempt to hide the layer of curiosity beneath it), that there's not much to gain from any further questioning.

“Weird,” she tells him, and Enjin reacts dramatically.

“Huh – Who are you calling weird?!”

Enjin thinks about it a lot. It keeps his thoughts occupied, and whenever he feels his hands drifting, he stops himself.

It is a little weird, admittedly. A tiny bit. Just slightly.

With a sigh, he tilts his head back into the pillow, looking at the ceiling.

"What's wrong?”

The comfortable weight moves off his chest, and immediately, he feels colder now. He has half a mind to tug you back.

You've been doing this a lot recently. Staying in bed together after the deed is done. It's nice. There are no cold sheets for him to roll around in. Instead, he's been feeling toasty and cozy. Sometimes, you even share very pleasant conversations that would not have come to be otherwise.

As much as he feels a little defensive about his enjoyment of the situation at hand – Laying in bed together, touching you – he really cannot find it in himself to complain in a sincere way.

“Nothing. Just thinking,” he tells you, wrapping his arm around your middle as you cuddle up against his side. Your naked chest presses against his, and it feels good. Right, the way custom-tailored clothes feel. In the way that they fit him and only him.

Not that he'd drone on about that in a way that you'd be able to get an idea of his thoughts. He keeps that to himself, as a sort of comforting piece of truth that feels good to think about.

“You can do that?” Your words are immediately followed by a giggle when he rolls his eyes and groans.

Once you settle again, you put your arms on his chest and lay your head on your arm. “Wanna talk about it?”

“Nah. 's nothing important,” Enjin shakes his head. Then, his brows draw together as he looks down at you, his fingertips dancing the way up your spine.

“Actually – Shouldn't you be asleep?”

Your lower lip juts forward, and the need to lean forward and tug it between his teeth bites at him. He swallows it down like an unwelcome taste.

“I should be,” you give in, “but I feel restless.”

His hand moves to rub at your back, nails gently scratching at your skin as you let out a content sigh before closing your eyes and resting your cheek against your arm.

Enjin continues like that, enjoying the small shivers you offer in return, whenever his hand trails off a little too far to either side. It's quiet in your small room, cozy and warm too.

It doesn't take long until you're fast asleep against him, your body moving against him, whenever you take a deep breath. His fingers do not stop their task, drawing shapes into your skin absentmindedly.

Really. It's been strange. He has been getting quite handsy recently. More so than usual, which already is a lot!

Enjin wishes he had any idea as to why that’s been the case.

The awaited climax doesn't happen. Semiu begins to talk now, once Tamsy is done but like everyone else's words, since they've come together for this post-mission meeting, nothing she says registers in Enjin's mind. He files away any keywords that reach his ears. Later, he'll ask for a written report. A summary. Whatever. 

The object of his interest is you – curled up into yourself, where you're sitting next to Tamsy, one hand pressed against your side. An injury that Eishia had managed to at least give some sort of medical attention to before this pressing meeting started about half an hour ago. 

Had it not been for your meticulously curated I-don't-want-to-be-a-bother way of doing your job and the sharp glare you shot him when he tried to get you to tell Semiu, he would have haggled with the woman, to at least give you some time to rest. To get treated, at the very least, but he didn't. 

If there was one thing that Enjin would have hated more than seeing you like this (which is pretty high up on the list already), it's the thought of how upset you would have been, had he gone over you to do such a thing. 

Obstruction of progress on the job, you would have called it. Enjin thinks that “looking out for someone dear to me” would be a much more fitting explanation of what he intended to do. 

When everyone starts to shift, chairs scrape against the ground, and jackets rustle, Enjin is up on his feet quicker than anyone else. Arkha’s hand on his shoulder stops him from walking over to you and for a second, he thinks about brushing the other man off. 

“May I have a word with you?” Arkha asks him and nods his head towards the direction of his office. Enjin's gaze lingers on you for a moment before he turns towards Arkha. 

The leader’s eyes follow where Enjin is looking and when he looks back at him, he gives him a knowing, but empathetic smile. “It will take just a moment.”

With a sigh, Enjin turns away just as Tamsy seems to be helping you off your chair. He leaves to discuss whatever it is that seems to be so urgent and private that it needs an immediate change of the premises. 

A word turns into many and by the time Arkha is done, Enjin feels wrung out. His boots are heavy as he makes his way towards your room. The casualty he displays regarding his invasion of your privacy aside, he cannot bring himself to knock on your door out of sheer exhaustion. It truly slips his mind. Even the act of lifting his arm seems tiring after today. 

“How bad is the pain, on a scale from one to ten?” he asks, his tone not too serious as he enters your room with a flourish, expecting you to be in your bed. 

And sure enough, there you are. Curled up under the sheets, a little less visible underneath your blanket than he would have guessed. Your head barely peeks out from underneath, your face and the rest of you completely hidden from his gaze. 

A muffled noise is all you give and it's wondersome to Enjin, how you can sound so huffy without any coherence to what you're saying. 

“That sounded an awful lot like a ‘two’ to me,” he remarks, grabbing the disinfectant you keep by the door. Lathering his hands in it, he makes sure to close the cap with gusto, the clicking of it audible even through your fortress of a blanket. He knows you're a little particular about this kind of thing. He doesn't mind it much. 

Thankfully, he's not wearing his cleaner's uniform today since he had been off-duty, unlike you. So all he does is step out of his shoes before he plops down onto your bed, one arm coming around to hug the weirdly shaped mess under the sheets that is you, around where he believes your waist might be.

A noise of complaint leaves you and you try to wriggle out of his grasp. Your attempt is futile and a little pathetic. Had it been another day, he would have made fun of you.

“Is it a two? I hope it's a zero but if it's closer to an eight, I might need to help you write your will…,” Enjin nudges you, trying to coax you out of your hiding spot with his playfully dramatic tone. 

You wriggle in his hold for a moment before you eventually still. You're probably sulking underneath the blanket and while Enjin would pay a good amount of money to get a glimpse at your face, he knows you're not feeling up for standing in as his evening entertainment. 

“Did you get treated after the meeting?” he asks, his tons a lot more soft now. Resting his head on top of yours, he waits for your reply. 

“Yeah. It's all good now, just aches a bit.”

You don't sound like you're in pain, so that's a relief and Enjin feels a weight slip off his shoulders. A soft hum leaves him. “Are you all good now though?”

His question is met with silence on your end. It doesn't frustrate him the way it used to. By now, he knows that you'll answer, eventually, you're just struggling with yourself, most likely. It's either that you're overthinking and trying to find the right way to string your words into a sentence. Maybe you're struggling to voice whatever you're feeling in general. Most likely because you think it's ridiculous. 

That is ridiculous. 

The fact that sometimes, you hold back on talking about your feelings because you don't think they're important or because you think you're being irrational. To Enjin, those things don't matter. What matters is that he's in the know about what's happening inside your head and your heart. Your silence doesn't scare him but it does unsettle him. 

“I feel frustrated.”

Now that's something he can work with. He waits, pleasantly surprised at his own patience. Every once in a while, he notices that he’s changed, only ever so slightly, and it's thanks to the time he has spent with you.

“I made a stupid mistake and I feel frustrated,” you explain further and he feels the blanket shift under his chin. When he tilts his head to peer down at you, you're avoiding his gaze but at least he can see your face now, the blanket pulled down to your chest. “That stuff happens to everyone but I almost got a civilian hurt and the thought of that…scares me.”

He can empathize with that. It's something that probably everyone in the group has dealt with at some point and it certainly isn't the first time you have dealt with it. 

That doesn't make it any less frustrating. 

“That sucks,” he mumbles, nosing at your temple, staying close. His arm tightens around your form a little, just the slightest bit, cushioned by the thick blanket that's still wrapped around you. “It's good they didn't get hurt.”

There are other things he wants to say but they'd be a repeat of what you know. It wasn't your fault. You've done your best. This happens to everybody. It's inevitable. 

Those words don't do anything. They don't even serve as a band-aid. 

“It's good that you're alright.” It's not ideal that you got hurt but you're here and you're safe. Patched up. A little grumpy but he could deal with that. He wants you to know that he cares. That he's grateful you've returned to him safely.

“I’m still hurt.”

Enjin perks up at that, lifting his head. Grabbing your face with his free hand, he twists your head to one side, then the other, squeezing your cheeks together in the process. “Where?” he asks, his other arm patting you down through the blanket. There's a bit of an urgency to his tone, to his motions.

This wouldn't be the first time you've managed to withhold an injury from Eishia (your stupid no-bother attitude was at fault) and he doesn't put it past you to do it again. 

“My pride-” comes your muffled, barely intelligible mumble, distorted by what he's doing to your face. He lets go. “My pride took a serious hit. Tamsy had to carry me back,” you complain, falling back against the sheets dramatically. 

Enjin clicks bis tongue, looking annoyed with you for approximately two seconds before he's weaseling his way underneath your blanket. “No, go away!” Your complaints fall on deaf ears as he manages to practically wrap himself around you and hold you tightly. “I don't wanna. I don't. Go away, you reek of smoke.”

It's futile. Enjin laughs, glad you're well enough to be acting like this, squeezing you a little too tightly until you stop moving around.

“I didn't smoke at all today. Stop lying,” he tells you, his teeth finding your cheek and gently biting into it. It's his way of dealing with the needlessly cute pout that's made its way onto your face now. “You're ridiculous,” the cleaner tells you, pressing his lips against the spot he just bit into. 

For a few minutes, you stay like this. His arms around you are warm, the material of his sweater soft, and his scent familiar. He doesn't reek. His scent grounds you when you need it most and calms you when you feel restless. 

You're grateful he's here. That he seeks you out whenever you return from a mission. You do the same in return. The Cleaners have become your home but Enjin is the one person you've truly found an anchor in. It's scary to think about, so most of the time, you don't. But on days like this one, you're glad you have your anchor, to keep you grounded and to keep your thoughts from going off in all kinds of bad directions. 

“Hey…thank you for caring about me. I know, I am not the easiest person,” you begin, rubbing your cheek against the soft material of his sweater, “especially when I get like this. I have a thick head and my pride can be a bit much, but I see the effort you put in. I don't take that for granted.”

You look up, even though being vulnerable and direct like this makes you feel a little exposed. It's good to let go of the fear of being open and vulnerable and Enjin would never judge you for it. 

Enjin doesn't judge you for it. His eyes are closed and he's knocked out, your bed and your warmth simply too comfortable for him to stay awake after such a day. 

You have half a mind to say something crass but you catch yourself before you do, sigh softly, and cuddle closer. 

A nap doesn't sound so bad.