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[noburden]

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[noburden]

She shivers under his mouth, head tipping to invite more.

"We can get comfortable and if you fall asleep, you fall asleep. I don't like you going out tired."

Not after that one time.

[rosarianoath]

He kisses her again, relishing how she trembles so subtly in his arms.

“I’d like that,” he murmurs, nosing his way back up just to kiss down again.

[noburden]

He's a terror. Were she not already leaning against him, she'd need to hold onto him for balance with the way he makes her knees feel weak.

"Clive," she laughs, retaliating by nuzzling her face against his. His scruff tickles. She loves it.

[rosarianoath]

“Yes?”

He chuckles under his breath, lifting his head just enough that he can try to catch her on the lips.

[noburden]

She twists the rest of the way, giving him a playful kiss on the lips. The look she gives him is full of affection.

"I believe I require a carry, now."

[rosarianoath]

“What the lady wants, the lady gets,” he says, and he stoops just enough to hook an arm behind her knees and sweep her up off her feet. He boosts her high in his arms, his face close to hers once more.

[noburden]

Jill happily wraps her arms around his shoulders, stealing a kiss from his lips.

"You look especially handsome today," she tells him. He looks happier.

[rosarianoath]

Vegetables abandoned, he carries her across the house, feeling a lightness in him that is much brighter than he is often comfortable expressing. He takes her upstairs, to the room she’s made space for him in.

“I wonder why today in particular,” he remarks.

[noburden]

"It may just be my eyes," she teases. He's handsome every day, even when he comes home covered in muck, but she can tell something in him has been put at ease even with the looming conversation to be had with Joshua.

She takes advantage of being held in his arms to examine his face. The blue eyes under his mop of hair have always been her favorite, but she has a fondness for his scruffy beard and even the scar that mars his skin.

[rosarianoath]

The corners of his eyes crinkle as he smiles, the scars on his cheek pulling unevenly as he does.

“Best get you to a doctor soon, I think.”

He turns them sideways to enter her room, and there he sets her down on the bed and crawls in after her.

[noburden]

She already thinks of it as their room. It's the way it should have always been--they may have needed their time apart, but it's only now that things in the home finally feel right. And it isn't only because of Joshua's arrival.

Clive is met with Jill's feeble attempt at bowling him over, arms going around his middle in a hug. She is quite determined to nuzzle in against his neck and get as close as physically possible.

She's been happier, too.

[rosarianoath]

She pushes and he follows through, tipping over onto his back and taking her with him, offering up the length of his body as her personal bolster.

“Are you going to rest too?”

[noburden]

"I might," she says after a moment of consideration. "The sound of your heartbeat under my ear is more soothing than any other sound."

And she's never more at ease than she is when she's in his arms.

[rosarianoath]

Clive closes his eyes briefly, settling under her and letting himself sag into the mattress. He lets his hands wander up and down her back, slow and reverent. He hums:

“It’s yours to lay upon.”

[noburden]

She's more interested in kissing the spot between his shoulder and neck, not eager to lull herself to sleep with the sound of his pulse just yet.

"I thank the heavens every night." They're rebuilding, she supposes, the relationship between them. She's grateful that he wants to be in her bed, and each night he crawls in behind her and holds her she thinks they might be okay.

[rosarianoath]

How fitfully did he sleep, even just weeks ago, an arm around a pillow and a heart throbbing from residual adrenaline? Enough, he thinks, to tolerate it, but on the better side of time, he isn’t sure how he managed. He could have slept wound into her and felt her warm under his touch. He could have held her.

His hand wanders back down now, fingers just barely inside her waistband.

“I think I’m in the heavens.”

[noburden]

She laughs, muffling the sound against his neck with another kiss. She noses his jaw, enjoying the scratch against the bridge of her nose.

"I'm glad the heavens have freshly laundered bedding." She had him help her change the sheets this morning.

[rosarianoath]

"Down in the abyss I have not changed the sheets in weeks," he says, amused, hand settling where it is, as far down as he can reach without moving her.

[noburden]

"Why would you? You sleep here. This is your bed," she says, pressing a kiss to the underside of his jaw. The basement is still his, and she thinks it good to keep it as it is so that he can take time to himself if need be. Sleep there, if he worries too much about waking her with odd hours. "This is our bed."

[rosarianoath]

He hasn't thought of it as their bed –– hasn't dared to, really, but it feels like the opposite reason that he didn't nearly a year ago. Then, it was a matter of waiting to be excused to death, having failed everyone and everything. Now, it's a fear he won't get to stay.

He tries it anyway: "Our bed is a great deal more comfortable than that one, too."

[noburden]

It's bold to say when she's deemed it a thing to revisit once Joshua knows the truth of what occurred at Origin, but in a way, this has always been their bed. They shared it in that small apartment, and she agrees that it feels much more comfortable with Clive in it now.

"It is. You make it so, for me."

[rosarianoath]

"This scarred, hard body is more comforting than a mattress this fine?" he replies, putting his other arm around her, holding her tight to him. He knows the answer, but he can still tease.

[noburden]

She knows he knows, but she smiles at him as she lets her hand find the bottom of his shirt, sliding under and up to touch his bare skin. Her thumb brushes over the line of an ab.

"Yes. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and it keeps me both safe and warm."

Perhaps warm isn't the best thing in the summer, but she'll cope. Winter was miserable for a number of reasons.

[rosarianoath]

"Just as well then that I sleep better with you here," he says, sighing comfortably. He loves her hands, her touch. "I've never slept so soundly in my life."

[noburden]

"Why do you think that is?" She asks, just idly caressing his skin, no scar beneath the thumb that moves back and forth. "Sometimes I think I might accidentally crowd you off the bed."