#‘lunai just saw you venting about not having work done and now you post this?’ yes sorry…

[logically-asexual]

Nathalie was woken up by the feeling of movement next to her. She opened her eyes slowly, taking a moment for her vision to adjust to the dark. She finally turned her head when she heard a gasp to her left, and found Gabriel asleep, reclined on her bed. She remembered they were talking earlier, she must have dozed off at some point and he unintentionally followed.

He kept shifting in place. At first Nathalie thought he might be cold, since he fell asleep sitting over the covers, but then his mouth opened and closed, as if he were trying to speak. He was frowning, too, clearly distressed by some anxious dream.

She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to startle him by waking him up, but she couldn’t stay there doing nothing while he suffered. Carefully, she sat up and took off the glasses that were awkwardly positioned on his face. His gasping slowly became muttering, but Nathalie still couldn’t make out what he was saying.

Soon she could hear syllables. “No,” and “-lie” repeating the most. “I’m,” or “Em-,” “Don’t” and eventually, “I’m sorry.”

He was dreaming about when he lost Emilie. Nathalie didn’t know how to help with that. She gently ran her fingers through his hair in an attempt to soothe him. It seemed to work, judging by his features losing tension, and his breathing becoming less shallow. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “You’re okay.”

He relaxed more, but his eyes were still scrunched up. She brushed the loose hairs away from his face and noticed how the skin smoothed in her fingers’ wake.

“Nathalie.”

She pulled her hand away as if it had been burned, afraid that she’s woken him up. After a pause, nothing else happened, except for his breaths now sounding like sniffles.

“‘m… so-sorry,” he repeated. “N’thalie.” His face was still angled towards the ceiling. He was still asleep.

Her hand went back to caressing his face. It felt wrong, like she should have asked someone for permission. But the darkness and silence that surrounded them encouraged her to forget about everything but the man in front of her. She leaned forward and pressed a kiss on his forehead, and, as if a spell was broken, his shoulders slumped and his frown disappeared.

The stillness lasted only a moment, before he turned to his side, now fully facing her, and trapped her in a warm embrace. His chest pushed against her and pulled away in deep, even breaths. The low amount of energy she had had available at this time in the middle of the night was running out, and his peacefulness was becoming contagious. She let her head relax into his shoulder and her mind drift off.