Work Text:
I tried to remember the last time I had felt this safe. Had it been with my mother, in that vague, barely-remembered past? Though I’d had my memories of that time returned to me, they still seemed somewhat distant and far away. But I could remember a few things, like trying to braid my mother’s pale golden hair with my clumsy toddler hands while she laughed, or the way she lifted me up and held me close against her chest. Above all else, I remembered feeling safe, in a way I couldn’t remember feeling anything like since. The few times I had felt even remotely safe had been with Beloved, I realised. And what about him? I tried to imagine a tiny white baby, small and perfect as a pearl, being rocked to sleep in a woman’s arms, while she sang a lullaby in a foreign language. That was even farther away and longer ago than my own memories were. How often had he felt truly safe after that? As much as I hated to, I knew the answer: moments of safety for him had been few and far between. There was a lump in my throat as I tightened my arms around him.
We let the gentle movement of the water push us this way and that, like we were children being rocked to sleep in our mothers’ arms. I allowed it to rock me back into a sense of calm. We were in the bathtub, cuddled close together. The only sounds were the sloshing of the water, the crackle of the hearthfire, our soft breathing in the quiet. I was close enough to hear his heartbeat.
I had walked into the room while he’d been bathing, then stopped in my tracks dumbly, momentarily entranced by the view he made, his eyes closed in peace, his chest rising and falling under the soapy water’s surface, his face gilded with the nearby firelight. I’d felt embarrassed by how I just stood there watching him and had told myself I should probably give him his privacy, when his eyes had opened a crack and seen me standing there. Though a small smile had curved the edges of his mouth upon seeing me, the gesture he made to beckon me to join him was shy and tentative, like he thought I might refuse.
I had spent the last few years trying to show him that he didn’t need to fear rejection from me, not ever again. I’d undressed with a haste that surprised even myself, almost stumbling over my trousers as I made my way over. Beloved’s smile had widened into a grin as he watched me, and I had felt an absurd sense of triumph.
The tub, though spacious for one, was barely big enough for the two of us, but I managed to squeeze in there. Some water sloshed over the edge. We were completely pressed up against one another, and when I was fully settled, my Beloved wrapped his arms around my chest eagerly and tangled his legs with mine, bringing us even closer together. I wrapped my own arms around him and burrowed my face in his neck, sighing with contentment.
The water was warm and surrounded us on all sides. Every so often the water would close over my ears and drown out any other noise. I felt enclosed, but not in a way that warranted any fear. Beloved’s arms held me and I felt only warmth and safety, like a rabbit asleep in its hole. I was pressed so close to him I felt like I could burrow into his soul and build a home there. It was not unlike when we were joined by the Skill, when we might as well have been one being, so close I couldn’t tell where one of us ended and the other began. I shivered at the feeling of our bare legs tangled inextricably together, sliding over each other in the soapy water.
I don’t know how long we had been laying there. Time seemed irrelevant, kept out by the bubble of warmth and closeness we found ourselves in. Beloved’s hand caressed over my back, up and then down, soothing me in a rhythm that I found myself subconsciously matching with my breathing.
It had been a bad day, for both of us. His night terrors had come with a fervour, leaving him sobbing and shaking and me trying my best to soothe him, and when we had finally managed to fall back asleep I had awoken gasping with night terrors of my own. The morning had been slow and groggy, neither of us speaking much. I’d wanted to reach out to him, to offer him comfort, but hadn’t known how to. Perhaps he hadn’t known how either. Over the past few years I’d learned the value of being patient with him, as well as with myself. I’d hauled the water for his bath and he’d kissed me in thanks. I’d kissed him back and tried to let him know through that that it was alright. We’d both come back slowly to ourselves slowly over the course of the day, and now we came back to each other.
I felt myself falling asleep, drifting away on drowsiness. The only thing that pulled me out of it was Beloved’s voice, tender and teasing.
“Fitz, if you go to sleep on top of me, I won’t be able to get out. The water’s getting cold.”
I blinked open my eyes, then closed them again and mumbled something incoherent. I pressed closer to him, burying my face in his neck, smiling to myself when that made him giggle. I would never tire of being able to make him laugh.
“Not that you don’t look beautiful like this,” Beloved continued, reaching up a hand to toy with my hair, “with those ridiculous long lashes of yours fluttering across your cheek, your entire face softening as sleep threatens to overtake you… But if I stay in here any longer I will truly become a prune.”
I laughed. “Well, alright then.” I moved to sit up, shivering as parts of my body that had once been submerged were exposed to the colder air. I was reluctant to leave the comparable warmth.
“Let me wash your hair before we get out,” Beloved whispered. “Here, sit like this.” He touched my arm to position me how he wanted and as I turned away from him I saw in his eyes a reflection of my own reluctance to leave the peace and closeness we now shared, though he tried to hide it.
“I thought you wanted to get out?” I asked as he carded through my hair, pouring water over it with the cup we kept by the bath for this purpose, running down my back in rivulets.
“I can wait a few minutes more. I’m not made of sugar.”
The feeling of his fingers in my hair only seemed to bring me closer to drowsiness. I wished he’d never stop. The soap smelled of lavender.
He finished washing my hair, then paused for a moment before wrapping his arms around me from behind, pushing his nose into my neck. He exhaled and I felt a slight tremble in his body. I gripped his hands tightly. We sat like that for a moment, both our eyes closed, breathing, until Beloved pulled away.
I helped him out of the tub. He shivered in the cold, so I grabbed one of the towels stacked nearby and wrapped it tight around him, pulling him into my chest. I rubbed his arms with the towel, trying both to dry and warm him up. I knew how he hated the cold. We both dripped water onto the wooden floor.
We got ready for bed side by side. However much I wanted to keep him in my arms until we were under the covers together, that just wasn’t efficient. Nevertheless, we didn’t stray but a few feet from each other, and when I had to grab my nightshirt from the other side of the room, I listened to the sounds of him washing his face in the water basin with pricked ears, my awareness of him heightened. Usually he had a whole routine of washing his face with expensive creams and a lot of other things that I had no idea what they even were, but tonight, as evidenced by how he only did the most perfunctory of washes, he must have been too tired for it. He drifted towards the bed looking half-asleep already, his partially-dried hair floating loose about his shoulders. My heart clenched for a moment in my chest, feeling like it swelled two sizes in my chest in a way that made the emotions difficult to suppress, as I noticed how matter-of-fact this had all become, like a foregone conclusion, me getting to listen to him get ready for bed, getting ready for a bed he would share with me, after which I would be able to wake up beside him, holding him, in the morning light that fell from the window. I felt tears stinging in my eyes and for a moment my hand jerked up to quickly wipe them away, then I realised I didn’t have to. There was nothing I had to hide here, I berated myself. For some reason that made me more emotional and I bit my lip, probably gazing at Beloved like an idiot.
He stopped in front of me and put his hands on the sides of my face, holding me, his face etched with concern. “Beloved, what’s wrong?”
I smiled at him through the tears and wrapped my arms around his waist, the texture of his beautifully embroidered nightgown grounding against my fingertips. “Nothing’s wrong,” I reassured him. “I’m just….” I didn’t know how to explain it. From the look on his face, he seemed to understand well enough.
I leaned down to kiss him. It was a long kiss, deep and tender. Not particularly passionate or sensual, but it made my knees tremble all the same. It felt like home and like comfort. I tightened my arms around Beloved when he melted into it like his strings had been cut.
Beloved broke the kiss by breaking into a yawn, letting me know he was just as tired as I was.
“Let’s go to bed,” he murmured and with the way he looked right now, sleepy and content, it was hard to refuse.
I braided his hair for him, both of us sitting cross legged on the bed. Then we both crawled under the thick covers. We held each other.
It didn’t always, but sleep came easy that night.