FIC: Winters Hold the Longest Night: Part 4 (MLB/Lukanette, LBSC Sprint Challenge Secret Santa - End!)
Notes: So this one is set sometime after Winters Pt3, though not necessarily immediately after? I havenโt figured out yet how long I want them trying before this actually happens. ย Biiiig shoutout to Quick, who spitballed this with me until it went from a Vague Idea to an Actual Fic. ย xD (Because there were two directions I could have taken snakelets, and @justknitstuff, who got first say since itโs her SS fic, did not care โas long as you let them liveโ. ย Because Iโve got a Big Reputation, apparently. ย xD) ย
Anyway, happy holidays everyone โ hopefully everyone found some moment of joy in them. I think we all needed some light after this year. ย Hopefully yโall found that. ย Knit, I hope you enjoyed this bit of silliness โ and hey, I think Iโm wrapping this up right in the middle of another @lovebugs-and-snakecharmers Sprint Challenge? ย So hey, feel free to join us in the Disco, sprint away, and get showered with encouragement and random, possibly traumatizing gifs! :D
Winters Hold the Longest Night
Part 4: A Yuletide Gift for Years to Come
When he awoke, Luka was not alone. ย He was very much not alone, not that his sleep-addled mind noticed beyond warm and Marinette and mine. He woke just enough to curl closer: his tail coiling more firmly around her legs, his arms pulling her to his chest, and his head tucking against that warm spot between her neck and shoulder that always smelled like home. If she shifted herself, burrowing closer and pressing her ear above the slow beat of his heart, he was out again before he noticed.
Heโd been sleeping a lot that winter. ย More so than usual. ย It had been unseasonably cold, worse than it usually was, and the brumation had hit him hard โ and early. ย The Harvest season had barely passed before heโd felt his body slowing down, and heโd spent almost every day since buried under a pile of Marinetteโs enchanted blankets in their nest. ย Not that he had noticed, but Marinette had told him there had been quite a few occasions where heโd slept days without waking (which wasnโt entirely odd, as heโd been known to sleep for a week straight during colder winters, but he usually at least partly woke every day or so). ย It had concerned her, at first โ enough to bring it up to him โ but as the temperatures dropped and the snows came a good month ahead of schedule she had worried less. It was colder that year than it had been in years โ even colder than their first winter together, when a blizzard had trapped them inside the cottage for at least a week. ย If Luka was sleeping more, Marinette just assumed it was a natural consequence of the lower temperatures.
She wasnโt worried, and he wasnโt awake enough to worry.
