A/N: Just something quick fished out of the churning ocean of final exams. Hopefully it can be a little island of serenity to everyone else who's cramming for finals, too.
Speaking of Serenity, please expect STC updates in January. Happy holidays to everyone, and endless thanks to the super-awesome JadeEye!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
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Her husband may have wolfish tendencies when he transforms with the Golden Crystal, but at other times, he reminds Serena of nothing so much as a cat.
She is lying back on the bed one rainy day after work, luxuriating in the soft pillow beneath her head and the comfiness of her t-shirt and sweatpants after a day in her high heels and tight business skirt, with her favorite manga magazine propped on her stomach, when she hears him pad into the room.
He is wearing sweat pants like her, and even from across the room, she can smell the rain-scented soap that he always showers with after surgeries. She glances up from her magazine to give him a contented smile, and then returns her eyes to it, patting the bed beside her. He has a habit of flopping down on the bed next to her when she's reading and bothering her until she stops, with the excuse that she used to do the same thing to him all the times he was studying for the medical school entrance exams and he's just getting revenge.
But instead of flopping down next to her, Darien stops at the foot of the bed. Then he crawls onto the mattress, nudging her magazine out of the way so that he can settle down with his cheek pillowed on his arm and his arm pillowed on her stomach.
She tenses a little, lifting her comic book above her head to look at him, feeling her stomach muscles shift against him as her arm moves.
He blinks once, lazily, at her, and snuggles back into her stomach. He lifts his head, but only long enough to pull his arms from beneath it. One hand slides up to curl loosely in her hair where it spills from the pillow, and the other slips to the comforter to lie with his thumb against her ribcage just below the curve of her breast. The weight of his head settles back onto her stomach, and his slow, content exhalations warm her skin through the thin fabric of her shirt.
Serena smiles, shifts her comic book to one hand so that she can stroke the other idly through his silky black hair, and keeps reading.
She can't wait for him to wake up so she can see the look on his face when she tells him he was purring.
