Author's Notes: One of the backup files from ages ago, left unfinished until this evening's boredom struck. And it works, well enough. I can only daydream about being as comfortable in my happiness as he appears to be…
Disclaimer: Do not own Saiyuki's characters or claim continuity with the manga or your opinions.
Warning: Light suggestion of shonen-ai, but besides that, this fic is surprisingly tame.
The Mornings
Once upon a time, as a very small child, I was the kind of person who would get up with the dawn. Every day until well into my twenties, when I was a teacher, married to both my sister and my work, I thought I was a morning person. I thought I was the sort who would be so compelled with some kind of internal drive that I would forever be unable to sleep past sunrise, and even then, to lie in bed for hours after.
I was like this until the very end of my humanity, and only began to change when the rest of my world was in shambles. It might've been the erratic patterns of rest and agony I wove through while I healed at the hands of an unskilled and unlicensed doctor that sent me on my pace, but today and all the days after it I believe I shall happily languish away the mornings.
I, as always, wake with the sun. We own no curtains or blinds and will not spare a blanket to cover the light that wakes me. He, on the other hand, is cocooned in the comforter, hair sprawled over the musty pillow like a bloodstain, snoring in the softest level above a heavy breath. He mutters sometimes, he dreams sometimes, but there is little that could ever wake him from his slumber.
I watch him even now, years since the first night he slept beside me and the first morning I eyed my mismatched and ironic lover, with jealousy. How careless he is, to sleep so soundly in the face of birds chirping and the steady brightness of sunlight. How tranquil he seems, how still he lies.
He keeps knives under his pillows. Perhaps it is this meager protection that lends him the ability to rest without worry.
He rolls now, shedding the comforter's warmth and tangling the sheets around his legs, inadvertently drawing me closer. An arm snakes over my waist and soon he is attached to my side from foot to chest, his head propped up on my bony shoulder, soaking in my warmth.
"Are you awake?" I venture. This move of his seems too contrived to be truthfully done in slumber.
"Shut up and go back to sleep, Kai."
I laugh softly, trace fingers over his face and smile at the resounding purr. To be so content in watching a lover sleep seems something out of a dream.
I feel his long body relax against mine, his hand a loose grip on the sheets, his breath slow as he slides back into his dreams. And I lie still, listening as he murmurs quietly to himself, as the house clicks and warps around us in the wintry air. Sliding my fingertips through silken red hair is a pleasure I had never considered in the beginning of this life, and my eyes fall closed as I sigh. Perhaps, in reality, I am still slumbering.
And a quiet thought, barely voiced on my tired lips, "I'm okay with that."
Fin The Mornings
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