#sleepy reader

He leaned back, switching off the TV and the room became nearly silent, only your gentle breaths filling the space. For a moment, he just sat there, staring at the darkened screen, feeling the rise and fall of your chest against his side. Then, he rested his head lightly on top of yours.

Sleep came easier than he expected.

You spent the night like that, tangled in stillness, wrapped in each others' warmth.

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Zayne:

The moment your head landed on Zayne’s shoulder, concern washed over him. The angle of your neck wasn’t ideal, and if you stayed like that, you’d probably wake up stiff and sore.

He shook your shoulder gently, trying to rouse you. "If you’re tired, we should go to bed, love."

You groaned in response. "I’m not sleepy… we don’t need to move." Your words were slightly slurred as your eyes fluttered open for a moment, then closed again.

Within seconds, you were asleep again. He tried one more time to wake you, offering to carry you to bed. "Mmph, I’m comfy here," you protested, curling further into his side, your head resting at a sharp angle on his shoulder.

Zayne sighed, accepting his fate, and adjusted himself so your head rested comfortably. With the difference in your heights, it left him slouched awkwardly to one side, but he stayed that way all night, determined to keep you comfortable.

When you both woke, he stretched, and his back and shoulder cracked loudly.

"Are you okay?" you asked softly. "I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. Your back is probably sore from being bent so weirdly."

He shrugged. Knowing you’d slept well was worth a little back pain.

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Rafayel:

Rafayel was sitting against a tree, and you lay in the grass with your head in his lap, watching the clouds. You’d enjoyed a leisurely picnic lunch and were soaking up the warm weather when the inevitable food coma hit.

He asked what you wanted to do next, and when you didn’t respond, he looked down to find you sound asleep on his lap.

"You better not be drooling on my pants, cutie," he teased, running his fingers through your hair. "They’re designer."

He continued stroking your hair absentmindedly with one hand while scrolling through his phone with the other. Suddenly, a gust of wind swept through, and you shivered, curling slightly against him for warmth.

The breeze picked up, and Rafayel carefully shrugged out of his cardigan, each movement careful and calculated so as not to wake you. Once free, he draped it gently over your shoulders.

Unconsciously, you pulled the cardigan tighter around you and murmured something that sounded like thank you.

"Anything for you, cutie," he said, resting his hand on your shoulder with a soft smile.

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Sylus:

You were determined to stay up until Sylus got home. For the first time in a while, you had a few days off in a row, and you wanted to make the most of your time together. Both of you had been so busy with opposite schedules that it had been weeks since you’d last seen each other.

You watched the clock, counting the minutes and hours. Finally, the door opened, and he stepped inside, kicking off his heavy boots and hanging up his jacket before he noticed you. Your eyes were bleary, and a loud yawn escaped your lips as you raised your hand to greet him.

"Kitten, what are you doing up so late?" he asked, watching you rub your eyes.

"I was waiting for you," you mumbled. "Wanted to spend time together."

"Let's get you to bed, sweetie. You can barely keep your eyes open."

"No!" you protested, patting the space on the couch beside you. "'m not tired. Come, tell me about your day." The sleepiness in your voice was undeniable, and Sylus chuckled at your insistence.

He sat down beside you, and you wrapped your arms around one of his, leaning into him. Before he could even start talking, your eyes fluttered shut, and you were out cold.

"Oh, kitten," he murmured, brushing a kiss over the crown of your head. "Let's get you to bed."

With that, he lifted you effortlessly, carrying you to bed and holding you close until the sun rose.

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Caleb:

Growing up together, you and Caleb had fallen asleep together countless times. For years if you had a nightmare, you crawled into his bed, making him check under the bed and the closets before going back to sleep.

Now, years later, you leaned against his shoulder on a flight, eyes fluttering shut. Caleb froze, panic rising. You were already halfway asleep, and any movement might wake you. He wanted to adjust you, make you more comfortable, but he couldn't risk disturbing you.

In your sleep you murmured something he could quite make out and leaned in closer to him. Caleb’s arm hovered awkwardly, fingers stiff against the armrest. When turbulence hit, he held himself still and prayed you would stay asleep.

Your head felt heavy against his shoulder, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t risk disturbing your peaceful slumber.

Minutes passed. Caleb’s shoulder ached, his legs went numb, but he stayed perfectly still, unmoving like a statue. You were completely relaxed, breathing slow and even, trusting him fully and he took his job as your pillow seriously.

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You had a problem.

You couldn’t sleep unless you were hugging something.

At home, it was always your pillow—big, soft, perfect.

Unfortunately… you were at work.

The safehouse was quiet in that late-night lull. Team 141 were scattered around the room—Price at the table with a mug of coffee, Gaz scrolling on his phone, Soap half-asleep in a chair, and Simon leaning against the wall, arms crossed, mask on, completely still.

You shuffled out of the side room, hair messy, eyes half-closed.

Laswell glanced up.

“You alright?”

You nodded slowly. “…Can’t sleep.”

Soap smirked. “Try closing your eyes.”

You ignored him.

Instead, you scanned the room like a zombie on a mission.

No couch pillow.

No spare blanket.

Your gaze landed on Simon.

Tall.

Broad.

Solid.

Your tired brain made a decision without consulting you.

You walked straight up to him.

Simon stiffened slightly when you stopped in front of him.

You squinted at him for a second, then murmured softly,

“…You’ll do.”

Before anyone could react, you wrapped your arms around his middle, pressed your cheek against his chest, and curled in, using him exactly like a body-sized pillow.

You sighed.

Content.

And promptly fell asleep.

The room froze.

Soap’s jaw dropped.

Gaz’s eyes went wide.

Price slowly set his mug down.

Laswell blinked. “…Did she just—”

Simon didn’t move.

Didn’t speak.

Didn’t breathe for a long five seconds.

Then—very carefully—he adjusted his stance so you wouldn’t slide, one gloved hand hovering before resting lightly against your back.

“…She asleep?” Soap whispered.

Gaz nodded. “Out cold.”

Price cleared his throat. “Simon?”

“…Not moving,” Simon replied quietly. “She’s comfortable.”

You shifted, hugging him tighter, mumbling something incoherent about pillows.

Soap covered his mouth to keep from laughing.

Laswell sighed. “I’m not even surprised anymore.”

Simon stared straight ahead, heart doing something inconvenient.

“…She usually hug a pillow?” he asked quietly.

Laswell nodded. “Apparently today, you’re the pillow.”

Simon swallowed.

“…Alright then.”

And he stayed right there until you woke up.

Because moving you would’ve been cruel.

And… he didn’t really want to.

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He approached quietly, brushing a stray strand of hair from your face. "You push yourself too hard," he murmured, voice laced with fondness.

Carefully, he scooped you up, your weight settling easily against his chest. Even in sleep, you curled slightly against him, seeking warmth. He chuckled under his breath as he carried you through the dimly lit halls, the soft rustle of his cape the only sound accompanying his footsteps.

As he laid you on the bed and pulled a blanket over you, he allowed himself a rare moment of indulgence—his fingers grazing over your forehead as he brushed your hair back. "You should learn from me," he mused. "A well-timed nap does wonders."

You stirred slightly but didn't wake. Satisfied, he leaned against the nearby chair, arms crossed as he settled in. Someone had to make sure you stayed resting, after all.

Welt sighed as he stepped into your quarters aboard the Astral Express. The soft hum of the train filled the air, but what caught his attention was the stack of half-finished sketches, notes, and reports scattered around your desk.

And there you were—fast asleep in the middle of it all, your cheek resting against a sketchbook, your glasses (if you wear them) slipping down your nose. He took a moment to observe you, his usual stern expression softening.

"You really don’t know when to stop," he muttered, shaking his head.

With practiced care, he lifted you into his arms, making sure not to wake you. You shifted slightly, letting out a sleepy sigh as you tucked yourself against his shoulder. Welt adjusted his grip and made his way toward your bed, his own exhaustion momentarily forgotten.

Once you were tucked in, he placed your fallen glasses on the nightstand and glanced at your desk. With a resigned sigh, he began stacking your papers neatly, making sure nothing would be lost in the morning.

Before he left, he murmured, "Next time, let someone remind you to rest, alright?"

And though you couldn’t respond, he hoped you’d take the advice to heart.

Feixiao prided herself on discipline, but even she could appreciate a bit of indulgence—especially when it came to you. Finding you slumped over your desk, completely passed out amidst a sea of reports, she let out an exasperated sigh.

“Really? Again?” she muttered, but there was no true annoyance in her voice, only concern.

She bent down and easily scooped you up, her strength making it effortless. Your head lolled against her shoulder, and she could feel your warm breath against her collarbone. A rare, soft smile tugged at her lips.

“You’re lucky I like you,” she whispered, carrying you to your bed with a gentleness that few got to see from her.

After settling you in, she tugged the blankets up to your chin and, without thinking, reached out to ruffle your hair. You stirred slightly but didn’t wake, instead mumbling something incoherent. Feixiao snorted.

"Fine, fine, I won’t tease you too much about this tomorrow," she said, leaning back against the wall.

But she didn't leave just yet. Not until she was sure you'd stay asleep.

Phainon found you in the same state he often found himself in—hunched over, exhaustion winning over determination. The flickering candle beside you barely illuminated the half-written notes under your hand, your breathing slow and steady.

He knelt beside your chair, carefully observing your peaceful expression. "You’re too dedicated for your own good," he murmured, though admiration tinged his voice.

Without hesitation, he lifted you into his arms, his grip steady yet gentle. Even asleep, you instinctively curled into his warmth, trusting him completely. The realization made his chest tighten in an unfamiliar way.

As he laid you down, he lingered for a moment, brushing his knuckles lightly against your temple. "You fight hard, but even warriors need rest," he whispered.

Before leaving, he adjusted the blanket around you and blew out the candle, ensuring that, for tonight, at least, you’d rest properly.

It’s faint—your shampoo, your lotion, a trace of vanilla from the candle you always forget to blow out. The kind of scent that hits him low in the ribs and makes his chest ache in that familiar, quiet way. Home.

He drops his bag by the door, keys in the bowl, jacket over the back of the couch. The apartment is warm but quiet, the TV off, afternoon sunlight spilling through the blinds in slanted stripes. He pads down the hall, trying not to make noise. He wants to see you before you know he’s here. Wants that first real breath of peace that only ever comes when he’s looking at you.

When he reaches the bedroom, the sight hits him like a punch to the sternum.

You’re a lump. A very specific, very beloved lump—completely swallowed by your blanket cocoon. Only a wild tuft of hair and the top half of your face peek out, eyes squinting down at your phone, lashes fluttering in slow blinks. You look rumpled and warm and soft and so endearingly human that Bucky’s knees actually go weak.

He leans on the doorframe for a moment, just looking.

You don’t see him yet, too focused on whatever’s on your screen. He can tell you’ve been like this for a while—the pillow creases pressed into your cheek, the lazy half-smile that means you’re comfortable and safe. His jaw loosens, and all the tension he’s been holding since the mission—every tight muscle, every locked breath—starts to dissolve.

You feel the shift before you see him; that awareness that creeps up your spine when someone you love walks into the room. You peek up over the top of your blanket burrito, eyes bleary, hair sticking in every direction.

“Bucky?”

Your voice is thick with sleep and disbelief, and it makes him grin—wide, boyish, unguarded. “Hey, doll.”

You blink, still half-wrapped in your cocoon. “You’re home.”

He nods, stepping closer, metal hand braced on the doorframe like he’s holding himself up. “Couldn’t wait another day.”

You hum, a sleepy smile tugging at your lips, and tilt your head a little. “Wanna snuggle?”

It’s the way you say it—like it’s the most natural question in the world, like you’re offering him salvation instead of a nap—that undoes him completely.

Bucky laughs under his breath, that deep, rough sound that vibrates low in his chest. “Sweetheart, I’ve been thinking about that since I got on the damn plane.”

You hold one corner of the blanket open in invitation, eyes soft and drowsy. He’s moving before he realizes it, boots kicked off, shirt discarded somewhere on the way to the bed. He crawls in behind you, and the moment his body molds to yours, the rest of the world ceases to matter.

You’re warm. That’s the first thing he notices. The second is how good you smell, like laundry soap and sunshine, like home. He wraps an arm around you and hauls you back against his chest, sighing into your hair.

“God, I missed you,” he murmurs.

You giggle softly, the sound muffled against the blanket. “You just saw me three weeks ago.”

“Yeah,” he says, voice gravelly with exhaustion. “Three weeks too long.”

His flesh hand slides under your hoodie to rest on the soft skin of your stomach, fingers tracing lazy circles while his metal one stays wrapped protectively around your hip. You shift, pressing back into him, tangling your legs with his. He hums again, eyes fluttering shut as the rhythm of your breathing lulls him.

You tilt your head enough to look at him, smiling when you see the deep lines of fatigue smoothing from his face. “Rough mission?”

He doesn’t open his eyes, just tightens his hold on you. “Yeah. Lots of noise. Too many people. Too many orders.”

“Mm,” you murmur, threading your fingers through his hair. “You’re safe now.”

That’s all it takes. His breath catches, a tiny hitch in the quiet. Safe. He hasn’t let himself believe it until you said it.

He noses at your neck, inhaling deeply, and presses a kiss to the spot just below your ear. “You don’t know how good that sounds, doll.”

“Guess you’ll just have to stay here and listen to me say it until you believe it.”

He chuckles, low and hoarse. “Careful. I might never leave.”

“That’s kind of the point,” you tease, tugging the blanket higher to wrap both of you tighter.

Bucky buries his face against your shoulder, breath ghosting over your skin. His body relaxes inch by inch until he’s nothing but warmth and quiet contentment pressed against you. His thumb strokes slow, sleepy patterns on your hipbone, every touch a silent thank you.

After a while, he mumbles, “What were you doin’ before I came in?”

You shrug, half-asleep again. “Scrolling. Thinking about getting up. Didn’t make it that far.”

He smiles against your skin. “You look perfect.”

You snort. “I look like I fought the pillow and lost.”

“Still perfect,” he insists, nudging your jaw with his nose. “Missed this. Missed you like hell.”

You shift slightly to face him, eyes soft. His hair is a little longer than when he left, the circles under his eyes darker, but he’s here. Real. Safe. You run your hand down his cheek, thumb brushing his stubble.

“Welcome home, Buck.”

The words break something open inside him. He pulls you closer until your foreheads touch, his breath trembling just a little. “Never gets old hearing you say that.”

You smile, brushing your thumb over his bottom lip. “Then don’t make me wait so long next time.”

He grins faintly, eyes still heavy. “You makin’ me promises, doll?”

“Maybe,” you murmur. “Depends how long you stay this time.”

“’Til you kick me out.”

You pretend to think about it, then sigh dramatically. “Guess you’re stuck here forever then.”

“Good,” he whispers, and seals the deal with a soft kiss.

It’s slow and lazy, just lips and breath, a silent promise that doesn’t need words. He lingers until you melt against him completely, then pulls back just enough to rest his head beneath your chin. The steady beat of your heart under his ear is the last thing he hears before sleep finally drags him under.

You feel him start to drift—the slow exhale, the way his fingers go still against your waist. You keep your hand in his hair, tracing the short strands gently, and whisper, “Sleep, baby. I’ve got you.”

He mumbles something that sounds like love you too, already half gone.

The room falls quiet except for the hum of the city outside and the soft rhythm of two hearts beating in time. The sunlight shifts, crawling higher across the sheets, catching the glint of metal where his arm wraps tight around you.

Fall has come to Seoul.

Spooky movies played on the HD TV in the background.

The spray scent of maple bourbon clings to the air.

Obsidian tinsel garland littered with pumpkins and ghosts hang around the archways and doorframes.

Aesthetic purple cobwebs decorate the walls and the ceiling corners to elevate the spooky vibes.

Plus various colorful lights.

Nearly empty mugs of your cozy drinks stay forgotten on the side table.

You were so comfy laying on the couch with him in the living room.

Too sluggish, attached to the hip with him, unable to focus on the moving pictures.

You felt a fever blooming on your face.

His giant scarred hand pressed against your forehead.

His skin was so cool, running slowly, sensually, all over your face, soothing the warmth there.

His concern grew when you reached for his marked hand, letting it slip under your shirt and rest on your abdomen.

"How are your cramps?" His whispered words hit your forehead as his thumb rubs slow circles in your skin; his calloused palm and fingerpads making you melt from how they felt against your bare flesh.

"Dull pain." Your hand curls into his own shirt, nuzzling against his slowly breathing chest while his other hand curled in your hair to rub that pulsing spot on your cranium.

"Too warm?" His bare feet brushed yours as his cool shadows soothed your calves.

"Kinda yeah." Your half-lidded e/c eyes glazed with fatigue peek up at his grey eyes matching how yours appeared. "You?"

"More or less." His hand weaved through your messy strands, brushing it slowly, breathing in your faint scent.

That unlucky mosquito or two that somehow snuck into your shared domicile got snatched mid-air from Ruler's Hand and squashed to oblivion.

Your wandering hands cup his face, making him grin cheekily in your hold. "We both know you want to."

Letting you mess with his smooth cheeks. Pinching them. Tugging on them. He's quite a soft Lord of Death.

He pouts playfully as you rub and knead his now flushed face that held nothing but endearment for you.

His narrowed eyes crinkled, hearing your giggles slip out as his sneaky hand tickled your sides in teasing drawn-out digs.

"There's my laughing beauty." The lilt in his voice filled your ear as his own face nuzzled yours to drop pecks to your closed eyelids as they squeezed from mirth at his ticklish touch.

Crawling up along his torso to kiss those cheeks. To gingerly bite and pull at them like they're mochi.

"So soft. So warm." He returned the favor. Gently treating your cheeks in the same fashion, humming into your plushness.

You spent quite a while cuddling, him being your very own teddy bear, not letting you go free unless you needed to change your pad. Once or twice. As well as satiating your cravings with filling treats.

The blanket lazily draped over his and yours laps nearly falls to the floor when he starts getting off the couch with you cradled securely in his arms.

"You'll feel more comfortable in bed." His purr makes your gut flutter, seeking him and his comforting presence.

"M'kay." You mumble out as you cling to him while he carries you to your shared bedroom. His shadows turned off the TV, then the decorative lights, all before tending to cleaning up your mugs in his stead.

Carefully setting you down on the plush bed, he adjusts the AC to a cool enough setting and prepares a glass of water to help you down some Ibuprofen with.

"My hero." You kiss him as thanks.

"All yours, love." He smirked against your lips. He plugged in your heating pad and turned it on to set it safely under your shirt.

You hum as he rubs and massages your neuropathy cream into your pulsing feet, his shadows aiding in adding some soothing to your flared up areas.

That very same blanket from before he draped over you both, leaving your now glossy feet uncovered, the blowing AC already aiding your cream in calming your pulsing limbs.

Doting kisses on your cheek, he spooned you from behind, keeping a hand on the slight bump that is the pad under your tee.

His unique scent made you inhale deeply. His low rough murmurs in your ear made you shiver. His curvy lips dote kisses in the crook of your neck.

"Jinwoo." You hum as you roll in his grasp, keeping the pad glued right above your valley, kissing under his chin and along his jaw, humming as his arm drapes over you.

"Y/n." That's the last word you're able to hear as you finally conk out, letting Jinwoo be lulled by your steady breathing, nuzzling his face in your hair, gently squeezing you.

Cuddle time, whether awake or asleep, especially during these vulnerable times, is a must.

So long as it's with Jinwoo, you welcome it.

Part I: The Hour That Belongs to No One

The evening had started with laughter and ended somewhere much quieter.

Diasomnia dorm at night was its own country—stone corridors washed silver by moonlight, ancient tapestries holding secrets in their threads, the faint hum of magic so old it had become indistinguishable from silence. You had come to visit. That was all. A simple visit that had stretched from afternoon tea into evening conversation into something neither of you had named, sitting cross-legged on the floor of Lilia's room while he showed you a worn deck of cards and told you stories about each one that you were half-certain he was inventing on the spot.

"—and this one," he said, flipping a card with a theatrical flourish, "was won from a sea witch in a game that lasted three days and cost me my favorite hat."

"You don't wear hats."

"I did then. I was going through a phase." He grinned at you, all fangs and mischief, the kind of smile that had charmed kingdoms and terrified generals. "I've had many phases."

"I can imagine."

"No." His head tilted, the movement fluid and strange, like a bird considering something from an angle that shouldn't be possible. "You really can't."

The words hung there—not defensive, not guarded, just true in a way that made your chest ache. seven hundred years of phases. seven hundred years of hats and wars and people loved and lost and buried. You let the silence sit between you, comfortable as a shared blanket, and he let you let it.

That was the thing about Lilia. He never filled silences that didn't need filling. For someone who had lived through so much noise, he understood quiet better than anyone you'd ever known.

The fire in his hearth had burned low. Embers now, pulsing faint orange in the dark. You hadn't noticed when the room got dimmer. Hadn't noticed when your body started to feel heavy in that specific, sweet way that meant sleep was creeping up on you like a cat.

"You're tired," Lilia said. Not a question.

"I'm fine."

"Your eyes have been closing for the past four minutes."

"They've been resting."

"Mm." That smile again, but softer at the edges. "They can rest more efficiently horizontal."

You made a noise that was meant to be dismissive but came out closer to a hum. Your body was betraying you—shoulders loosening, chin dipping, the reflexive fight against gravity becoming a losing battle. You'd been tired before you came. You'd known you were tired. You'd come anyway, because being here, in this room, with him, was more important than sleep.

That realization should have alarmed you. It didn't.

"Come here," Lilia said, and his voice had dropped half an octave into something that wasn't quite a whisper but lived in the same neighborhood. He'd shifted on the floor, leaning back against the side of his bed, one knee drawn up, his arm resting along the mattress behind him in a way that created a space. An invitation. Not demanding—Lilia never demanded—but offering, with the casual confidence of someone who knew the offer would be accepted even if you pretended to think about it.

You thought about it for approximately one and a half seconds.

The distance between you and him was small. You closed it carefully, deliberately, settling against his side the way you might lower something fragile onto a shelf—mindful of the placement, aware of the value. Your shoulder fit into the curve of his arm. Your head found the space between his collarbone and his jaw, and when you exhaled, it was the kind of exhale that carried tension out of the body like smoke.

Lilia's arm settled around you.

Not quickly. Not possessively. With the slow, deliberate care of someone handling something they'd been waiting a very long time to hold and were afraid of breaking. His palm came to rest on your upper arm, fingers curved lightly, thumb finding a position against the fabric of your sleeve where it could move in small, absent circles if it wanted to.

It wanted to.

The thumb moved.

"You know," Lilia said, and his voice was right beside your ear now, close enough that you could feel the shape of the words as much as hear them, "there was a time when falling asleep beside me was considered a supremely unwise decision."

"Mm."

"I'm told I was quite frightening, in the old days."

"You're still frightening."

"Am I?"

"Your ears are weird."

A laugh—surprised, genuine, vibrating through his ribcage and into your body like a warm current. "That is the least romantic thing anyone has ever said to me in a moment like this."

"You asked."

"I did." His thumb kept moving. "And I'm delighted."

The fire pulsed. Somewhere in the dorm, a clock you couldn't see marked time you weren't tracking. Your eyelids were heavy—impossibly heavy—and the world was softening at the edges, colors bleeding into each other, sounds becoming round and distant.

You were falling asleep.

You were falling asleep beside Lilia Vanrouge.

The thought should have snapped you awake. It didn't. Because underneath the thought was a deeper one, a foundational one, the kind that lives in the body before it reaches the brain:

You are safe here.

Not safe because he wasn't dangerous—he was, enormously, in ways that most people would never understand and he would never fully explain. Safe because you knew it the way you knew your own heartbeat: without evidence, without proof, with the animal certainty of a creature that has found the exact right place to rest.

His fingers had stilled against your arm. You felt him shift—barely, a fraction of an inch—and realized he was looking at you. Not glancing. Looking. With the kind of attention that centuries of life had refined into something almost tactile, like fingers trailing over your face without touching it.

"You trust me," he said. Quietly. Not surprised, exactly. Something else. Something deeper than surprise.

"You make it easy," you murmured, and the words came out slurred at the edges, sleep pulling them down into softness.

The silence that followed was so long that for a moment you thought he might not respond. Then his hand moved—from your arm to your hair, slow as sunrise, fingers threading through the strands with a gentleness that made something behind your ribs crack open like a window.

"No," he said, and his voice had gone to a place you'd never heard it go before—bare, and raw, and stripped of every performance. "I don't think I do, actually. I think you simply choose to be brave."

Your eyes were almost closed. The room was almost gone. There was only warmth and the scent of something herbal and faintly sweet and the impossible softness of fingers in your hair.

And then—

Not a thought. Not a decision. Something older than both. Something that bypassed the brain entirely and came straight from the place where love lives before language catches up.

You turned your face—just slightly, just enough—into the warmth of his neck. Your lips brushed skin, not a kiss but something more innocent and somehow more devastating: a nuzzle, a burrowing, the gesture of something small seeking shelter in something vast.

And you spoke.

One word. Barely audible. Shaped by a mouth that was already three-quarters asleep, carried on a breath that was more sigh than voice.

"Mine."

Then nothing. You were gone—slipping down into dark, warm silence like a stone dropped into still water, unconscious before the ripples had finished spreading.

You didn't hear the sharp, soft intake of breath above you.

You didn't feel the hand in your hair go completely still.

You didn't see the expression that crossed Lilia Vanrouge's face—an expression that seven hundred years of life had not prepared him for, that no war, no loss, no triumph had ever put there.

You didn't see any of it.

You just slept.

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Part II: The Weight of a Small Word

Lilia did not move.

He did not breathe.

He sat perfectly, impossibly still—the kind of stillness that was not human, that belonged to creatures who had learned patience in geological time—and stared at the ceiling of his own room with wide eyes that saw nothing at all.

Mine.

The word echoed. Not in his ears—in his chest, in the hollow spaces between his ribs, in the ancient chambers of his heart where he kept the things he couldn't afford to feel during daylight hours.

Mine.

Such a small word. Two syllables. One vowel. A sound that children made over toys, that lovers made in the dark, that kings made over kingdoms. Spoken in a voice already half-lost to sleep, without emphasis, without intention, without any awareness of what it had done.

That was what undid him.

Not the word itself—though the word was a blade, sharp and precise, cutting through centuries of careful architecture—but the casualness of it. The way it had fallen out of you like an exhale. Like it was so obviously, fundamentally true that it didn't need to be announced, only accidentally acknowledged.

You had said it the way you'd say the sky is blue or water is wet. As a statement of fact so self-evident that wrapping it in ceremony would have been absurd.

Mine.

Lilia's hand was still in your hair. He realized, distantly, that he should move it—that continuing to touch you while you were unconscious and unprotected was, by any reasonable measure, an abuse of trust. But his body refused to obey the thought. His fingers stayed exactly where they were, curved against your scalp, trembling.

Trembling.

Lilia Vanrouge—who had faced armies without flinching, who had held dying friends in his arms and not broken, who had smiled through grief so immense it could have swallowed continents—was trembling because a half-asleep person had called him theirs.

He looked down at you.

You were so soft like this. Not the softness of weakness—nothing about you had ever been weak—but the softness of surrender. The way your face had gone slack, the way your lashes fanned against your cheeks, the way your breath came slow and even and completely unguarded. You had dropped every wall, every defense, every carefully maintained boundary, and fallen asleep against him as if doing so were the most natural thing in the world.

As if he were safe.

He wanted to laugh. The urge was right there, bubbling up from somewhere between hysteria and devotion. Safe. Him. The thing that mothers warned their children about. The creature that had inspired stories designed to keep people awake at night. Safe.

And yet.

Here you were. Asleep. Breathing. Trusting.

He lifted his free hand—slowly, so slowly—and hovered it over your face. Not touching. Just... mapping. Following the architecture of you with his palm held a centimeter away, close enough to feel the warmth radiating off your skin, far enough to maintain the fiction that he wasn't committing this to memory with the precision of a general surveying a battlefield.

Your brow. The bridge of your nose. The curve of your cheek. The slight part of your lips.

He'd seen beautiful things before. Had lived long enough to see everything beautiful, probably—had watched sunsets over lands that no longer existed, had heard music composed by people whose names time had eaten, had held flowers that bloomed once in a century and then never again.

None of it had made his hands shake.

Mine.

The word again. Refusing to leave. Settling into him like a splinter, too deep to extract, working its way toward something vital.

He thought about what it meant, coming from you. Not the possessive claim of someone who wanted to own him—though he would have let you, God help him, he would have let you own every ancient, broken piece of him if you'd asked—but the tender claim of someone who had simply recognized him. Who had looked past the masks and the performances and the carefully cultivated whimsy and seen whatever was underneath and said:

That. I want that. That's mine.

No one had ever—

No one had ever—

His throat closed.

He tilted his head back against the bed frame and pressed his eyes shut and felt, with the full catastrophic force of seven centuries of suppressed want, exactly how much he had wanted someone to say that word to him.

Not in a hundred years. Not in two hundred. Not ever. Not once in the entire unbearable span of his existence had anyone looked at him—him, not the general, not the diplomat, not the ancient fae of terrifying power, but him, Lilia, who was tired, who was lonely, who loved so fiercely and so quietly that it had become indistinguishable from breathing—and said mine.

And you had done it without even knowing you'd done it. Had done it in your sleep, like a confession pulled from the unconscious mind where truth lives when the conscious mind is too afraid to hold it.

Which meant you meant it.

Not as a gesture. Not as a performance. Not as something you'd constructed and presented for his consumption. You'd meant it in the marrow of your bones, in the place where you kept the things you didn't know you kept.

Mine.

He opened his eyes. Looked down at you again.

You had shifted in your sleep—not away, but closer. Your hand had found the fabric of his shirt near his ribs and curled into it, fingers loosely gripping, the way a child holds a blanket. Your face had pressed more firmly into his neck, and he could feel your breath now—warm, slow, rhythmic—against the column of his throat.

If he had been a lesser creature, he would have wept.

Instead, he did something he hadn't done in decades. He let the mask fall. Not dramatically, not all at once—the way a wall doesn't fall in one piece but crumbles, brick by brick, until there's nothing left but the open air behind it.

His expression smoothed out. The perpetual playfulness drained away like water from a glass, leaving behind something raw and unguarded and so old it hurt to look at. His jaw unclenched. His shoulders dropped. The tension he carried in his body like armor—maintained so seamlessly that even people who knew him well rarely noticed it—released, and he looked, for the first time in maybe a century, like exactly what he was:

Exhausted.

Not from lack of sleep—though fae needed less of it than humans, and he often gave himself less than he needed—but from the sheer, accumulating weight of being Lilia Vanrouge for seven hundred consecutive years. The humor. The mischief. The carefully constructed image of someone who had made peace with his past and his nature and his immortality.

He hadn't. He hadn't made peace with any of it. He'd just gotten very, very good at pretending.

And now you were asleep on his chest, holding his shirt like you'd die if you let go, and you'd called him yours, and the pretending felt suddenly, impossibly, like too much.

"I don't—" His voice cracked. He stopped. Swallowed. Started again, barely above a whisper, aimed at the top of your head where no one would ever hear it. "I don't think you understand what you've done."

You didn't respond. You were asleep. You were gloriously, trustingly, maddeningly asleep.

"I have lived a very long time," he continued, and his voice was the voice of someone talking to themselves in the dark, which was exactly what he was doing. "Long enough to know that people don't say things in their sleep that they don't mean. The mind is too honest when the mouth isn't watching."

Your fingers tightened on his shirt. A small, unconscious movement. Probably nothing. A dream, maybe, or the random firing of a sleeping nervous system.

It nearly broke him.

"I have been called many things," he whispered. "General. Monster. Fae. Friend. Father. But no one—" A breath. "No one has ever called me theirs. Not like that. Not like it was the most obvious thing in the world."

He pressed his lips to the top of your head. Not a kiss, exactly. A seal. A promise. The kind of gesture that in fae culture carried more weight than any vow, any contract, any blood oath.

You said mine. I say yours. And if you try to take it back in the morning, I will simply have to be very.... persuasive.

The thought had a ghost of his usual humor in it. He clung to it like a raft.

Then he settled back, adjusted his arm around you with the precision of someone who intended to hold this position for hours, and let his own eyes close.

Not to sleep. Fae didn't need to. But to rest—to exist in this moment without performing, without protecting, without being anything other than a person holding a person who had called him mine.

The fire died.

The moon moved across the sky.

And Lilia Vanrouge held perfectly, wonderfully still, and felt, for the first time in longer than he could remember, claimed.

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Part III: What Grows in the Quiet

You woke in stages.

First: warmth. A particular, specific kind of warmth—not the generic heat of blankets, but the living, breathing, pulsing warmth of another body. Wrapped around you. Under you. Everywhere.

Second: sound. A heartbeat. Slow—slower than a human's, steady as a drum in a temple, rhythmic and deep and alive beneath your ear.

Third: the realization that you were not in your bed.

Your eyes opened. Unfocused. Blurry. The room was dim—gray-blue pre-dawn light filtering through curtains you didn't recognize—and you were horizontal now, not on the floor, but on an actual bed, and there was an arm around your waist, and the heartbeat you were hearing was under your cheek because your cheek was on someone's chest, and—

Lilia.

Everything came back in a flood. The cards. The fire. The way you'd sunk into him like you'd been designed to fit there. The heaviness of your eyelids. The warmth of his fingers in your hair.

And then—

Oh no.

Oh no, no, no.

"Mine."

You had said mine. Out loud. To Lilia Vanrouge. And then you had fallen asleep.

Your entire body went rigid.

You tried to pull back—to sit up, to create distance, to find some shred of dignity in this catastrophic situation—but the arm around your waist tightened. Not forcefully. Not alarmingly. Just enough to communicate, with devastating clarity: no.

"Don't," said a voice above you, and it was sleep-rough and low and so unbearably soft that it hit you somewhere below the sternum and stayed there.

"Lilia—"

"Mm."

"I need to—"

"No."

"I said something last night, I didn't mean to—it just came out—I was half asleep and—"

"Yes," he said. "You did."

You froze. Not because of his words but because of his tone—there was something in it you'd never heard before. Something stripped and honest and so far from his usual playful deflection that it barely sounded like the same person.

"You—" Your voice was very small. "You heard?"

"I heard."

A pause that lasted approximately ten thousand years.

"Are you going to pretend it didn't happen?" you asked, barely audible. "Because I can work with that. I am very good at pretending things didn't happen—"

His hand moved. From your waist to your chin—slow, deliberate, giving you every chance to pull away. You didn't pull away. His fingers tilted your face up, and you were suddenly looking at him in the pre-dawn gray, and his expression—

His expression.

The playfulness was there, but underneath it—visible now, like stars behind cloud cover that had finally thinned—was something vast and serious and hungry in a way that had nothing to do with food. His eyes, usually bright and teasing, were dark in the low light, and they were looking at you the way someone looks at the last good thing in a world that has run out of good things.

"If you want to pretend," he said quietly, "I will pretend. I am very good at it too. Better than you, probably. I've had more practice."

"I don't want you to pretend."

The words came out before you could stop them. They hung in the air between you, naked and trembling, and you watched something shift in his face—watched the last of the mask fracture, watched the cracks spread like frost on glass, watched the person behind the performance lean forward as if drawn by gravity.

"No?" he said, and his voice was barely a whisper now, and his thumb was moving against your chin in a small, slow arc, and you were absolutely, catastrophically going to die.

"No."

"What do you want, then?"

You. I want you. I want you the way the ocean wants the moon—constantly, helplessly, whether it's there or not. I want you in the morning when you're making tea and being insufferable. I want you at night when the masks come off and you forget to smile. I want the seven hundred years of damage and the sharp edges and the loneliness you pretend isn't there. I want all of it. Mine. You're mine. There , I said it because it's true and I'm terrified but it's true.

What you actually said was:

"I don't know."

Lilia looked at you for a long, breathless moment. Then he smiled—not the sharp smile, not the performative smile, but the one you'd only seen fragments of before, the one that was small and real and slightly crooked and made him look his age for once, which was to say: ancient, and tired, and still somehow grateful to be here.

"You know," he said. "You just don't want to say it yet."

"That's—"

"Fine." He said it like a benediction. Like a gift. "It's fine. You said it once. That's enough for now. I can be patient." A pause. A glimmer of the familiar mischief, but warmer now, edged with something tender. "I've had seven hundred years of practice at patience."

"That's not comforting."

"It wasn't meant to be." His thumb traced the line of your jaw, slow as honey, and his eyes followed the path it made with the focus of someone memorizing a map. "It was meant to be a warning."

"A warning?"

"Mm." He leaned closer. Not kissing you—not yet, not quite, but near enough that you could feel the warmth of his breath, near enough that the world had narrowed to the space between your mouth and his. "You called me yours last night. Do you know what that means, in fae tradition?"

Your heart was beating so hard you were sure he could hear it. Could feel it, probably, through your chest, through his chest, through the negligible space between.

"No," you whispered.

"It means you've claimed me." Each word was careful, deliberate, placed like a stone in a river. "Not temporarily. Not conditionally. In the old tongue, in the old ways, to call a fae yours is to bind them. To say: I see what you are, and I am not afraid, and you belong to me, and I belong to you in return."

"I didn't know that."

"I know you didn't." His smile widened, just slightly, and there was something devastating in it—something that was equal parts tenderness and triumph and the kind of desire that had been patient for centuries and could afford to be patient for centuries more but didn't want to be.

"That's what makes it real. Unknowing claims are the only kind that can't be revoked."

"Lilia—"

"Shh." His hand moved from your chin to your cheek, cradling it with a gentleness that made your eyes sting. "I'm not going to hold you to an accident. If you want to take it back—"

"I don't."

The words fell out of you like they'd been waiting their whole life to be said. You felt them leave your body and didn't try to call them back. Didn't want to. For once in your life, you didn't want to take anything back.

Lilia went still.

Completely, utterly still. The kind of still that wasn't human. The kind of still that a statue achieves, or a held breath, or the moment between lightning and thunder.

Then he exhaled—shakily, imperfectly, in a way that wrecked every illusion of composure he'd ever built—and pressed his forehead to yours.

"Oh," he said, and his voice was wrecked, was the voice of someone standing at the edge of something they'd been walking toward for seven hundred years and had finally, finally arrived. "Oh, you sweet, foolish, brave little thing."

"I'm not little—"

"You are." He was smiling against your forehead—you could feel the shape of it. "You are the smallest, most terrifying thing that has ever happened to me, and I have fought dragons."

"That's not—I'm not—"

"You fell asleep on a fae." He pulled back just enough to look at you, and his eyes were bright in a way that might have been laughter and might have been tears and was probably both. "You fell asleep on me. With no enchantment, no protection, no guarantee that you'd wake up as yourself. Do you know what that means?"

"That I was tired?"

"It means you looked at something that every story in every world has told you to fear, and you thought: yes, I'll nap on that. " A laugh—broken, beautiful, real. "You impossible creature."

"I trust you," you said, because it was the simplest truth you knew, and you were tired of making simple things complicated.

Lilia closed his eyes.

When he opened them, something had settled. Some ancient, restless part of him had stopped running. You couldn't see it—you couldn't have named it if you tried—but you felt it, the way you feel a storm passing, the way you feel the moment the wind changes direction.

"Then I suppose," he said, and his voice had found a new register—quiet, certain, warm as embers, "that I am yours."

He said it simply. Without drama. Without flourish. As if he were telling you the time, or the weather, or any other plain and obvious fact.

And then, because he was Lilia Vanrouge and he had never in his life been able to resist the theatrical, he added:

"You may want to document this. It's not every day someone manages to tame a fae general with a single syllable."

"I didn't tame—"

"You absolutely did." He was grinning now—full, fanged, radiant—and there was something wild and joyful in it that looked like it had been locked up for a very long time and had finally been let out. "One word. Asleep. No effort at all. I'm almost offended."

"I'm going to leave."

"No, you're not." His arm tightened around you. "You're going to stay right here while the sun comes up, and then you're going to have breakfast with me, and then you're going to say it again while you're awake this time, because I want to hear it properly."

"What if I don't want to say it again?"

"Then I'll wait." He said it with absolute, maddening serenity. "I've gotten very good at waiting."

"You're impossible."

"Yours, actually." The word rolled off his tongue like it was the most natural thing in the world—like he'd been saying it forever and would keep saying it until the stars burned out. "Yours. Apparently. Irrevocably. According to ancient fae law that you triggered by accident."

"I'm going to scream."

"Please don't. Malleus is a light sleeper and I'd rather not explain this to him before breakfast."

You buried your face in his chest to hide the fact that you were blushing so hard your entire face was radiating heat, and he laughed—a real laugh, full and warm and young somehow, despite everything—and his hand came up to rest on the back of your head, and he held you there.

Not tightly. Not possessively. With the kind of care that someone uses when they're holding something they know they don't deserve but are going to spend the rest of their immortal life trying to.

The sun came up.

It came up slowly, as suns do, painting the room in gold and amber and soft rose, and it caught the edges of Lilia's hair and turned them to flame, and it found the curve of his cheek where it rested against the top of your head, and it made everything look like a painting—something precious and fleeting that should be preserved in a frame and hung in a museum where people could look at it and feel something they couldn't name.

"You're staring," you mumbled into his chest.

"I'm appreciating."

"That's the same thing."

"It absolutely isn't. Staring is rude. Appreciating is an art form." His fingers traced idle patterns on your shoulder. "I have had seven centuries to perfect my appreciation technique. I refuse to have it cheapened by comparison to staring."

"You're insufferable."

"Yours," he corrected gently.

You lifted your head just enough to look at him. In the morning light, he looked—different. Softer. The sharp edges were still there, would always be there, but they were gilded now, warmed, like a sword displayed in sunlight rather than drawn in darkness.

"Say it again," you whispered. Not because he'd asked. Because you wanted to. Because you'd spent your whole life being careful with words and this one, you'd learned, deserved to be said as many times as possible.

He looked at you.

Really looked. Past the surface, past the morning blur, past the vulnerability of just having woken up in someone else's bed. Looked at you—the you that lived underneath all the layers, the you that no one else had ever quite managed to reach.

"Yours," he said.

And then, softer. Sweeter. Aimed at no one in the world but you:

"My love."

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Somewhere in Diasomnia, Malleus Draconia woke to an unfamiliar warmth in his chest and the faint, inexplicable sense that something had shifted in the foundations of the world.

He lay in bed for a moment, frowning at the ceiling.

Then he smiled—small, knowing, genuinely happy—and went back to sleep.

Note: Apologies if there are any mistakes. They are most likely going to be mistakes like commas, dashes, etc.