“You are the warmest place I know.”
He chuckled, a sound that was only barely above a whisper in the afternoon's glow and half lost in the roar of the tides as they rolled in and out just enough to catch the edge of his foot where it was planted to flex and keep the slow sway too and fro of the hammock steady. The space wasn't a large one, netting tangled like a cocoon, a small bubble of time and space just between the two of them.
"Me? You sure about that? Yu's got more fire to her." By no means a lie either, in fact he counted it as one of the best things about the other fae. In fact, between the three of them Cal saw himself as the least blazing. It could have been biased of course, people saw the world how they wished to when their vision was laced with stars and happiness; everything had a certain lovely glow.
"Maybe just a little warm, but I think it's the both of us." Because it always would be, not simply himself but the three of them was where the sunlit gleam came from. It was easy to forget now and then, the seas were a chilly sort of place, but all the more reason to sink into that pleasant sensation and set aside the rest of the day and all the thoughts that went with it. He stretched, yawned, never quite fit right in narrow spots with those too-long legs but neither of them cared much.
The shift offered Cal a change to hang one arm higher over the top of the netting and El to find that spot at his shoulder where he could feel the warmth of her alive and aligned with himself as they relaxed and did nothing at all with the daylight.
Sometimes it was better that way.
He talked, rambling circles about places and books and whatever else crossed his mind and she listened, as always, letting the words wash over her in his lazy tones like the humid air rising from the surf and drowning the both of them in the simplicity of existing inside that moment. When he'd run out of words and the tide had chased itself back out to sea neither noticed, the sunlight was still settled deep in their skin and wrapped around them like a blanket.
Days like that, Cal had decided, were going to make forever worth being around for and he still had so many to look forward to.
