Come night, fingers laced together and limbs tangled into an unrecognizable mass. Her cheek rested on his bare shoulder and his nose was pressed into her hair. They shared every breath in perfect time; their chests rising and falling at the exact same moment. Had they been covered with a blanket, any onlookers would think it was a single person that lie beneath.
They had developed a talent for not moving from one position the entire night, and with that had come an internal alarm system, waking him precisely seven hours and forty-two minutes after falling asleep. Upon waking he would shift just so, and his breath would tickle her ear until she roused herself as well, pulling them from the happy world of dreams into the perilous world that was theirs.
Their travelling companions soon found that to split them up was near impossible; whilst bunking in Reddas' manse they had observed the nightmarish fits of the girl and the insomnia of the boy until they were reunited and under the same cover once more, skin coming into contact with skin, almost as if reassuring one another. And before that they had learned in Archades that paying for six rooms at an inn was a waste; only five were ever used.
Penelo had long since accepted that to sleep without his inhuman warmth and the grinding sounds of his snores was impossible. As long as she could remember they had shared a bed, and there had been no further meaning to it. She just wanted her arms around him, and his around her.
Vaan had long since accepted that the smell of Penelo's hair and her cool breath on his neck was something that chased away the demons that plagued his dreams. Not even during the awkward girl-phobic stages of his youth had he ever been ashamed that he needed her to find nightly peace.
When Balthier teased, expecting a rise out of the short-tempered boy, he was surprised and somewhat disappointed that Vaan looked him in the eye and said with a straight face that he had lost too much to be embarrassed that he needed her. And then the blond would turn back to sharpening his sword or tending the fire.
And when Ashe protested the 'indecency' of it all, Penelo would look her right in the eye—quite annoyed—and inform her Majesty that she found nothing wrong with holding on to the one consistent thing in her life, and that nothing could ever make her let go, Royal order from the Princess Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca or not. And then the blond would turn back to her cooking experiments or the stitching on Vaan's arm that she was tending to.
They were long past shame. It was far too late for that.
