Chapter 9
Author's Note: So some of you may recognize the later parts of this chapter, so to give credit where it's due, I was inspired to write what I wrote by Fahad09's great story A Demon Lord's Hero, which is without a doubt one of the greatest Fate/Stay Night x DxD Crossovers I've ever read. This chapter is mostly setup for the future, as well as developing the relationship between Gabriel and Leo.
"Uhhh. Did someone get the plate on the bus that hit me?" Leo groaned, fumbling about in the sheets. "Where am I?" The sheets that he was on didn't feel like his mulberry satin sheets, nor was it his regular fluffy mattress, and most importantly he was alone in the bed.
He tensed as a pair of soft hands lightly gripped his head, before relaxing in the presence of her warmth. Wisps of long blonde hair caressed his face as she peered down at him. "The Vatican." She reassured. "How are you feeling?"
"Feverish." He admitted, subtly shifting closer to her. "What happened?"
"I'm sorry." She replied, downcast. "It seems like our contract has had some unexpected side-effects."
"What sort of side-effects?" He asked, wondering what would change her normally cheerful demeanor into this melancholy one. Whatever it was, if she wasn't happy then he wasn't happy, and when he wasn't happy he tended to resort to shooting the problem until it went away. To quote one of the mercs he had teamed up with once, "If violence doesn't solve all your problems, you're obviously not trying hard enough."
"You know how you had Holy Light flowing through you?"
"Of course." Leo responded, it was common knowledge that he possessed the required energy that allowed him to wield Holy Weapons. A fact that really grated on some of the Church Elders who saw his blatant neutrality and unwillingness to assist them as an affront to their Faith. Here was a heretical existence in possession of something that was considered to be one of God's greatest gifts, a sliver of the Divine itself. "While it was enough for me to use something on the level of Carnwennan, I rarely used it. I rarely use arias, preferring to engage Devils from long range."
She nodded. "Do you remember what happens during a contract ceremony? Not a devil contract but a true partnership contract?"
He shifted a bit, his demeanor taking on a lecturing air. "Normally the two participants agree to a set of terms, as well as rules to govern the overall contract. This is to prevent one side from abusing the other. Next the two exchange a bit of their own power, each person taking in the essence of the other, in order to link them eternally. It's because of this that this type of contract is incredibly rare, as it would allow the two people an unprecedented amount of knowledge over the other. Not to mention the fact that they would be able to locate one another no matter where they were, to teleport to their position, and supposedly it would establish a sort of telepathic link between them. Why?"
"It seems like one of the side-effects of our contract was an increased potency to your Holy Light." She said slowly.
"Wait." He interrupted. "When you made a contract with me, I thought it was going to be a different type. Not something so…so…."
"Binding?" She supplied, her heart wrenching a bit at the rejection of the contract, not that she showed it. "I'll admit that it wasn't my intention to bind us together so tightly." She wouldn't admit that her mind had slipped for a moment when she was initiating the contract with him, nor would she admit that her distraction was what landed them in this predicament. "But it seems like the fates have bound us together."
He sighed before nodding. Honestly it shouldn't be that bad, he was after all bound to a seraph, a being of benevolence and awesome might. More importantly he was bound to a beautiful and loving woman who he cared for. Before today he chose not to be fatalistic, even when presented with beings who represented Fate. Now though, abruptly he stood up, and walked to the nearest window, threw it open and screamed as loudly as he could. "SCREW YOU CLOTHO! LACHESIS! ATROPOS! YOU'RE JUST JEALOUS THAT URDR, SKULD, AND VERDANDI ARE THE REAL FATES! YOU UGLY, POMPOUS, DISGUSTING HAGS" His voice was loud enough to set windows rattling and birds squawking in indignation. Panting he began to laugh, while it would surely piss off the Greek Pantheon even more, it sure was cathartic. Gabriel stared at him with a tilted head, wondering what brought this about.
"Sorry." He apologized, running a hand down his face. "But the Greek Fates swore that they'd cause me no end of grief when I told them that the Norse Pantheon was better."
She wasn't about to dissuade him from the notion that the Greeks were to be blamed, and replied. "I see."
"Now…where does this leave us?" He asked cautiously. He wasn't going to lie, being together with her was incredibly amazing, and the bindings she invoked would make them closer to each other than any other person. In a way he was honored to be together with her, having fallen for her long ago. Some might say that it was a fanciful crush or a desire for the forbidden fruit, but he would tell them that they were wrong. He could feel it in the very depths of his soul, the yearning and desire for her. However he swore not to act on it, to keep her not at arm's length but separated. His was not a clean profession and the amount of blood on his hands was enough to drown in and permanently stain the soul, and he did not want anything to sully her purity. He would not allow her to fall for a bloodied menace like himself.
"I don't know." She replied. "I haven't told anyone else yet. Not even my brother, but he's bound to find out sooner rather than later."
Turning to the sky, he wondered if Michael already knew, considering that they were in the middle of Vatican City, and he couldn't sense any protections around the room to prevent people from scrying or listening in on them. He was becoming lax in his security, once there was a time when he would've fired off protection spells without a moment's hesitation and more importantly detection spells to find the bugs.
He had done neither.
"We've known each other for what? 8 years?" Going back to the bed he took a seat next to her.
"Just about."
"How well do we know one another?"
She was silent, her face scrunched up, thinking. His breath hitched, and his heart beat a little faster at the cute expression she wore. "Quite well I'd like to think." She answered after a few minutes. Never would she admit to checking up on him whenever she had free time. Some of those times had shown her things that almost made her Fall. Lucky for her Leo was looking away and couldn't see the slight blush on her cheeks.
Neither noticed her wings turning slightly darker.
"I'd like to think so too. I'd go so far as saying that you are one of my few friends, and a close one at that." Leo confessed. "I love being with you, even if our times together have sometimes been fleeting."
"I've lived a long time." She stated. "However I've always felt a hole in my heart, like a part of me was missing. I've been alone and lost for a long time, and nothing I've done has managed to fill that gap in me. My brother knows how I feel but he doesn't understand it. My greatest fear was not Falling but being unable to fill that void." She whispered, before getting up and moving in front of him. "When I first met you, a feeling went through me, and as I spent more and more time with you I could slowly feel that void within me closing."
"I'm sorry." She said dejectedly, tears forming in her eyes.
"Shhh. Don't cry, angel." He stood up from the bed, conjuring a small handkerchief, and wiping the tears from her eyes. Slightly taller, he gazed into her sparkling sapphire eyes of the Most Beautiful Woman of Heaven, and felt his heart wrench, and his throat constrict. The title was without a doubt true, but it also failed to properly convey a sense of her astounding beauty. He had stood in the presence of Venus and Aphrodite, been enthralled to the chambers of Qetesh, and seduced by Astarte, even slept with Sjöfn a few times, but it was Gabriel who he found himself being drawn to. Her beauty was greater than that of those Goddesses who embodied the concept of beauty, lust and love.
"Can you forgive me?" She begged, stepping closer to embrace him.
"There's nothing to forgive." He reassured, running his hand through her hair. It took all his willpower not to kiss her cherry lips, to whisper sweet nothings in her ear as he trailed kisses down her elegant neck.
"You don't even know what I did." She laughed hollowly.
He just hugged her tighter, the two of them basking in the presence of the other, finding comfort in the warmth that they're joining created. He smiled a small smile at the irony of the situation, normally it was her comforting him, and most importantly their respective auras were almost completely opposed.
Hers was a gentle thing of beauty while his was harsh, authoritative and utilitarian. He lived his life in the grey areas of morality at the best of times and at the worse did things that would've made even the original devils balk at him. She served the Light and God, protecting man from foes like him.
By all rights they shouldn't be acquaintances, let alone the close friends that they were, but Fate dictated otherwise. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the situation they found themselves in, but he knew that he would cherish it forever. "Whatever you did, no matter how ill-conceived, or the world turn on you, I'll be here for you."
You could feel the promise in his words, pouring his very soul into the promise, and woe to the person, whether they be mortal or immortal that tried to stop him from coming to her. "Now tell me angel, what is there that needs to be forgiven? Make your confession."
"I used you." She cried, staining his shirt with her tears. "Degraded you to a thing to fill the very void of my soul."
He wanted to laugh, but he knew that he shouldn't. "That's it?" He asked gently. Before she could say anything in her defense, he placed a finger against her lips. "For all your experience, and your observations of humanity, no matter your innocence and naivety in believing in the goodness of man, we as a species are flawed. From the very beginning man has used one another for their own benefit, and though there are many who act selflessly it is hard to deny that as a species we are inherently selfish. Those who are selfish oft times have the power and create the laws that rule over others."
"I believe in a world of freedom." Gabriel countered.
He was silent for a minute, gazing down at her crystalline eyes, before he smiled. It was an honest smile, one that he rarely wore and only shared with his closest confidantes. "Never change." He said holding her tightly. "Strive forever to make the world a better place, and know that I will help you along the long path, however I fear a world of freedom is also one in which the people live in absolute fear." She snuggled into his chest, and after several minutes he had to force himself to step back, not noticing the slight pout on her face. He loved her, however it was her innocence that first captured his attention, and he would not allow it to be dirtied. Clearing his throat, he started, "so we got a bit off track."
"That we did." She answered, retreating to take a seat on the bed. "I'm sure that you have questions."
"Just a few." He grinned. "You told me that our joining had several side effects, what are they?"
She gestured for him to take a seat across from her before folding her hands, and taking on a teaching air. His mind played with the idea of seeing her hair up in a bun as well as glasses on her face, imagining the sexy librarian look before he switched back to business.
"I haven't really been able to find too many changes, however this isn't really my area of expertise, and the people that might know can't be told." Gabriel began. "So far I've only found an increased potency to the Holy Light element in your body. Where before you were about A-rank in quality and probably a C-rank in quantity, your reserves have almost tripled in size, and the quality is such that it is almost indistinguishable from a mid-ranked Throne."
He whistled in amazement. Thrones were just under Seraphim in the overall hierarchy of Heaven and were a part of the First Sphere, the highest ranked of the Three Spheres that angels were divided into.
"However even though you gained a massive increase in both quality and quantity your form is still mortal and as such there is a limit to how much Holy Light you can channel before you become oversaturated and spontaneously combust." She said grimly. There was the caveat he expected, as there was always a drawback to a massive increase of power that you did not gain with your own two hands. "That explains why I felt feverish earlier." He mused.
She nodded. "When you channeled your Holy Light through the aria it caused your body to heat up."
"Hmmm. This is going to take some getting used to." He muttered. "I didn't think I channeled a lot of power when I was dealing with the Gremorys."
She shot him a deadpan look. "Are you serious?"
"Of course." He responded slowly, unsure of exactly where she was going.
"Your little power was like a beacon." Gabriel told him. "To those of us with the ability to sense it, it was like someone lit up a massive bonfire on the darkest of nights. You were lucky that our contract allowed me to teleport myself to your side. I managed to not only divert the power you were using, preventing you from killing yourself but also nudged the swords out of the way."
"Nudged?" He wondered.
"Yes. Else your last attack would've succeeded in killing the entire Gremory peerage. As it stands right now it'll take weeks for them to fully recover from the Holy Light exposure, less though if they spend time in the Underworld."
"Wait, you said that you managed to divert my power. That's impossible for anything less than a Kankara formula user!"
She shot him a look, that on any less pure being would've been something along the lines of 'are you stupid?' As it stood, she instead explained to him as simply as she could. "I've had much more experience with Holy Light than just about anyone else alive. Considering my almost immortal state that is saying something. While I may not be able to control all phenomena like the Kankara formula can, my mastery over both the Holy and Light element is unparalleled."
Before he could offer a rebuttal his stomach growled, causing the serious atmosphere to vanish in an instant. She giggled, "I guess someone's hungry."
He shot her a dry look, and afterwards said as seriously as he could. "Yes."
"I should've guessed you'd be hungry." She muttered to herself, looking around the room. Being a divine being she didn't need to eat, and sometimes the dietary requirements of mortal's slip her mind. "Come on let's go find something to eat."
"We can head over to my apartment, there's a kitchen there and it's been a while since I cooked a meal for you." He said getting up off the bed.
"NO!" She exclaimed, before coughing into her hand. "I mean there's no need to go that far." The wards around the city prevented anyone from interfering with their alone time, and if they went to his apartment Cornelia was sure to barge in. "There' a kitchen here, and a stocked pantry that I'm sure you can use to whip something up." Saying that she grabbed him by the hand, both of them oblivious to the other's slightly reddening cheeks, and led him to the kitchen.
Taking a look at the ingredients he had he pulled out a skillet and began cooking some sausage that he took out of the casing. Next he took a loaf of bread sliced it, sprinkled it with olive oil and garlic and threw it in the toaster. Once the sausages were nice and browned he threw in the marinara sauce, seasoned with salt and pepper and allowed the flavors to mix on a low simmer, occasionally stirring. Once the sauce was to his liking he made a few little spots and cracked some eggs, putting one in each of the 4 spots he made. Leaving it alone to cook he took out the bread from the toaster and set it aside. After several minutes the whites of the egg solidifies leaving him with a nice runny yolk, and he finished it all off with a drizzle of oil, some coarse black pepper, a generous dollop of cheese and parsley. Plating it with the garlic bread, he sighed to himself at the smells filling the kitchen, before taking the two plates full of food to the table where Gabriel had been watching him from. After saying Grace, he began to earnestly dig in, savoring the hearty meal.
Gabriel giggled, "You're eating like you haven't eaten in days, which does make sense since you've been unconscious for almost a week."
He froze his brain trying to process what his ears heard. "A week?" He asked hesitantly.
"A week." She confirmed. "It's taken me that that long to draw all the excess Holy Light out of you." She hoped that he wouldn't see the blush on her cheeks. Drawing the energy from him and back into her had required close contact, and she had spent most of the time embracing him in bed, slowly siphoning it off. Thankfully it wasn't like the Devil's healing and didn't require bare skin-to-skin contact, but still for an angel, no a woman, who had lived her entire life in purity, it was the closest she had ever been with a man.
I'm so dead. He thought glumly, unable to even imagine the tortures that Cornelia would inflict on him. "Did you by any chance tell Cornelia that you were taking me?" He whimpered, the terrifying visage of his lover made him want to do nothing but kneel in supplication all the while begging for mercy.
"Of course." Gabriel answered. One of her Father's commandments was Thou shalt not lie, and she was not lying. She simply choose not to inform him that she had appeared in a pillar of light, knocked him out to prevent him from overdoing it, grabbed him, threw him over her shoulder, and shot a victorious look at the stunned Cornelia before disappearing in a flash. The entire exchange had taken no more than 10 seconds, and by the time she got back to the Vatican she was grinning broadly. She had raised the powerful wards around the Holy City to a war footing, preventing any supernatural being but a select to enter the city unmolested. Already the ancient Divine created wards had deflected numerous attempts to forcibly enter the Blessed Land, only to be rebuffed. Subtler attacks such as using mesmerized humans had also failed. She had waved off her brother's concerns by telling him that she was doing the annual test of the city's defenses, again not lying as she had done exactly that. Daddy would understand. She thought.
All that mattered was the time that the two of them spent together. Granted Leo had been asleep for the most part, but if she was able to spend one carefree day alone with him, she'd do it all again in a heartbeat. Well maybe not a heartbeat as she didn't really have a heart, only in the metaphorical sense, but still it was the thought that counted.
"So you came to me, then what?"
"Like I said I recognized the signs of Holy Light overexposure, and took you from there. Here at the Vatican which is central to the Catholic Faith, I was able to siphon off the excess and disperse it back into the world without any negative side-effects. It was then that I noticed the increased potency and quantity of Holy Light flowing through you."
"And that took several days?"
"You're lucky it didn't take longer!" She almost yelled. "Human bodies weren't meant to handle the level of power that a Throne can wield. Humans and other species may be able to manipulate the world around them with formulas or their demonic power, but it is only angel that can directly warp reality. Even low ranked angels can smite a devil or human with a single touch, while those of the First Sphere can call upon the System to do things like travel through time, negate Sacred Gears, gain partial omniscience, and control the most powerful of natural forces." She calmed down, fixing her clothes a bit. "There's a saying, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The temptation of Pride is one that all angels fight daily, especially for those of us who are exemplary. Locking ourselves in Heaven I believe has made us cold and blind to the plights of man, and eventually we may grow so out of touch with the world that we view ourselves as supreme. On that day Heaven will Fall. For that reason I make it a point to travel often and interact with humanity. My brother is unable to do so as his duties constantly require his attention, so I do so in his stead."
"I see." Leo said softly. The powers of Angels weren't well documented, and he was completely unaware of the sort of power that they could call upon if push comes to shove. He shouldn't have been surprised really, as they had been winning the war and were still the strongest of the 3 Biblical Factions. "Now I can understand your concerns. Those with power less than mine have tried to establish themselves as gods, and plunged the world into chaos."
"The nephalem, children of angels both Fallen and Pure inherited the power of their parents, and rose to threaten the world. It was only due to the Great Flood that we stemmed the tide and ended their tyranny." She whispered, melancholically. Sensing her sadness, he took a seat next to her and embraced her, pulling her into his chest. "I knew many of them, both the parents and some of the nephalem. The Great Flood may have succeeded in destroying them, but it also was the second time that so many of us Fell at once. The wailing lamentations echoed across the Heavens for weeks. Parents consumed by grief lashed out and were cast out. I watched unable to help them as their wings were stained black, and their halos disappeared. They plummeted like meteors from the Heavens, some died, while others found refuge in the Grigori, nursing hatred and anger deep within their hearts. The feelings fester still to this day. Others fled, and in disguise lived amongst the humans."
Sensing the break in the conversation he got up from the table and began to clean up the mess he had made in the kitchen. Once that was done Gabriel took him by the hand and lead him back to the room.
"Where does this leave us?" He asked.
"We are more than friends." She started, thinking that it was a safe point to begin. "Just as you feel for me, I feel the same." She held up her hand, silencing any protests he might've made. "I know what goes on in your mind. You fear the consequences of your feelings. You think that I will reject you, or worse that I will accept them. You're afraid that pursuing me will lead me to Fall, that I'd blame you for losing the blessing of my Father." She got up off the bed shuffling around so that she faced him. Placing her hands on his shoulders she held him in place as she took a seat on his lap. They were so close to one another, not only was she sitting on his lap, but her soft chest was against his, the two star-crossed friends gazing deep into the other's eyes. "Just as you said that you would forever be by my side, I too promise that I'll forever be by yours."
Their hearts beat as one, as their heads drifted closer to one another.
Love makes you do foolish things. It is not a thing of the mind but of the heart. Under its thrall men and women have done everything from move mountains to commit genocide. Love makes you abandon logic and do stupid things, dangerous things.
He was afraid to confess his feelings, and she would not either. They knew that this was not a fleeting attraction, but at the same time harbored fears that their love was transient. After all she was an immortal Angel pledged to defend mankind against the forces of darkness, and he for all his power and abilities was still mortal.
They both knew their own feelings, and understood the others, but they couldn't take that final step into the forbidden.
At least…not yet.
For now they held each other tenderly, their foreheads touching one as they gazed deeply into one another. For the first time in a long time he could feel the heat rushing to his cheeks, staining his normally hoary complexion rose red. He couldn't help it as he blushed at the prolonged contact, struggling to keep his gaze at eye level. Him, a person who had slept around enough to lose count, and regularly bedded a Fallen Angel and a creature of Sin, was blushing like an innocent school boy.
He found his grip on her growing a little tighter at that thought. Maybe it was the overall innocence or purity that she gave off, but he could feel the barriers that he built up around himself slowly crumbling the longer that he stayed with her. It was great to be just Leo Aurelianus once again, and not Leo the Mercenary willing to do just about anything when offered enough in compensation.
Closer and closer, the distance between their lips measured in a scant few inches. At the last moment right before he claimed her succulent lips, he turned away, startling her.
"Leo?" She asked, placing a hand on his cheek.
"Are we really doing this?" He wondered. "What would your brother say if he saw us now? He doesn't like me to begin with."
Her grip tightened, and her eyes gained a hard look. If her wings had been visible they would've darkened, their color shifting to a grey-white.
"Of the many gifts that God gave to man, love has always been one of the most potent. Father watched and saw how it brought happiness and gave strength to those who followed their heart. Marriage is one of the sacred sacraments of the Church; do you think that my Father, the God who practiced agape would deny any of his children the chance to feel what it's like to be in love?"
"No." Leo answered. "But what would your Father say about us?"
She smiled sadly for a moment, before answering. "Love between angels was rare to begin with. The love between two of his greatest children even rarer. Of those that I know the greatest was perhaps between Hadraniel and Azazel." Seeing the disbelief on his face she continued. "Oh yes, he was once happily married, one of the lucky few among us to have found a partner to love with his whole heart. And Hadraniel loved him, some say even more than Father himself, but Father did not care. Here were two of his children enjoying one of the greatest gifts bestowed upon them, and he was content to watch, and smile at their antics."
She paused, a look of nostalgia passing on her face. "Back then Azazel was as far from the smooth charmer that he is now. He was a stuttering and awkward mess, who had no idea how to talk to a woman. It was Hadraniel who got tired of him skirting the issue, and one day after a mission confronted him. No one knows exactly what went on behind that closed door, at least no one besides Father, but when it opened Azazel had a goofy smile on his face and Hadraniel was smiling broadly."
"But then he betrayed her." Her voice hardened, as close to hatred as he thought an angel could get without Falling. "You've never seen an angel with a broken heart before, and pray that you never do. Angels are not only soldiers of God but also beings of love and light. When we love, we do not hold back, our souls intertwined with our partners. To have that love torn out and betrayed…there is nothing more tragic. For a hundred days and a hundred nights, the halls of Heaven were filled with Hadraniel's weeping. Nothing we did could comfort her, not even Father could shake her from her mourning."
Another pause, this one the longest one yet. He could feel her struggling with her emotions across the fledgling bond that they shared. The feelings and experience of a millennia old being almost completely overwhelmed him, his mortal mind unable to process the wealth of information that she had. But he knew enough to feel her struggling with sin, and one that he didn't think that she would ever struggle with, Wrath. Never before had he seen her angry, or even raise her voice, yet it seemed like this was the sin that she always struggled with. Underlying Wrath was another sin, Lust, and he promptly turned away refusing to even touch that sin with a hundred foot pole. He didn't want to know what the woman he loved was thinking, and while he may have been guilty of following Lust often, he at least had a semblance of control over it.
Placing his hands on her shoulders he tried to flood the bond between them with positive emotions, helping her keep control of her anger.
"Then when the hundredth night ended so did Hadraniel." He could see it in her memories, the majestic splendor of Heaven marred by the weeping of its angel. The image shifted to show a beautiful angel with long brown hair, hiding her face behind her hands as she wept. She knelt on the floor her hair splayed around her, and no matter what her brothers and sisters did she refused to be moved. Finally as the clock struck and a new day was beginning to dawn, she gave one final cry, before collapsing. Her body ignited in flames, the immolation so great that nothing was left but a stain on the alabaster marble.
The Angel who represented the Majesty of God was no more.
One angel moved to clean the spot. "Leave it!" A voice commanded, and all the angels froze at the command. The voice was one of resolute command, of unimaginable power and majesty.
"Father?" The voice came from his own lips, and he finally realized that he was watching the scene from Gabriel's memories. His mortal eyes were unable to perceive the existence that was the Biblical God in his true form. To try was to invite pain unlike any other as mortal's weren't meant to look upon the diving in all their splendor.
"Leave it, Daughter." The voice commanded once more, the ashes of one of his beloved children rising into the air and flying into an urn. "I look upon this spot and see the death of my child and the betrayal of another. Let it be known from now on, that Azazel is cast from Heaven, never to be offered redemption."
The scene ended, and he found himself looking into the eyes of Heaven's favored daughter. Only now her eyes weren't sparkling sapphires but dull blue, and moist with unshed tears. They embraced each other tightly, the memory affecting them both profoundly.
Suddenly he realized why Michael did not like him; he feared that what happened to Hadraniel would happen to Gabriel.
He would not let that happen.
"Some sins are too grave to ever forgive." She finished ominously. "But to answer your question. Yes, this is happening. "And as for what my brother may say, I don't care. I know what I'm feeling, and know what you're feeling. It is something that I'm willing to fight for and to go against all that I've ever known. As for what my Father may think…I'm sure that he would be happy for me. After all it's not every day that your oldest daughter finds a new meaning in her life."
As if sensing his thoughts, she held him tighter, moving to straddle his lap as she leaned her head against his chest. In the safety of her warmth he found his eye lids growing heavier and heavier, his ability to stave off sleep failing miserably.
"Rest now, my warrior." She sang, humming a long forgotten and sorrowful song, lulling him to Hypnos' embrace. Continuing to sing in time with his slowing heartbeat, until finally she was sure that he had fallen asleep, she choose not to pull away from his embrace. Instead she inched her way up so that their faces were level with one another as she worked her arms around him. She found comfort and security in his powerful embrace, and soon found herself drifting off to sleep. Her last thoughts were a sudden realization of why people enjoyed sleeping in their loved one's arms.
