A/N: For those of you familiar with my old fic 'Cartography', this is kinda a postscript to that.
For those unfamiliar with 'Cartography', you don't need to be! Please enjoy the cuddling below. And do check out 'Cartography' sometime. It's M-rated, but very sweet.
Her fingertips are light, tracing his cheek, and he moans, nuzzles deeper into her breast. She is so soft, so soft and warm, and he would lie here forever if he could, head pillowed on her chest, ear pressed to her heart, the gentle lub-dub of its beating a susurration in his blood, and her lips are a faint brush against his scalp, one tiny kiss, and then another.
"How do you feel?" she murmurs, and the words thrill through his bones, catching at his heart so that it skips, just a moment.
Oh there was such pain earlier, such terrible pain, the aching stiffness in his knees, and stabbing in his ankles, and throbbing in his hip, tightness in his lower back as if the whole lower half of his body had suddenly decided to betray him. His arm prickled each time he moved it, a pulling at his wrist, and the moment that she saw he was suffering she insisted that he lie back down in bed, and she would tend to him. (He did not tell her about the pain that briefly lanced through his heart, but she paled the moment he grew faintly breathless, and squeezed his hand as if to remind him of what he has now that he did not have before. "I love you," she murmured, "I love you," and kissed the corner of his lip, and that pain, that worst pain of all, eased away as he leaned into her.)
She heated oils, and with careful knowing fingers, massaged soft circles into his hip. He could not help being faintly embarrassed, her touching him like that (nevermind that they have been married for more than ten months, and been far more, ah, intimate), and a warm flush crept into his cheeks, but as the heat spread deep into his bones he sighed, his eyes slipping closed. And when the pain was gone from his hip she kneaded the tightness from his back, her voice low, singing softly old songs from her youth with words that he did not understand but he did not need to understand them, not really, because her voice wrapped him, cocooned him until it was the only thing in the world. She moved on, and with infinite gentleness massaged his knees until the pain was wholly gone, and it brought the pain from his ankles with it, and he could only lie there, limp and heavy beneath her hands.
He does not think he has ever loved her more than when she kissed him on the lips (not even when he revealed his scars, and she traced them with tears in her eyes, or when she insisted that he not wear the mask to spare her because, I wish to see my husband's face, not the façade). She lingered there, lips barely touching, and wrapped her arms around him, and she has held him safe against her ever since.
"Tired," he whispers, at last, in answer to her question. "Very tired, but better."
And the hand that has been stroking his cheek all of this time moves to rest, a warm weight, between his shoulders. "Then rest, my love, just rest."