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She can't sleep. Released from her usual rigid schedule that is impermissive of deviation and tires her out perfectly well to have her in bed by 10pm, she lies awake, staring at the ceiling.
She can't sleep. She doesn't want to tell him, but his soft snoring might be part of the problem, gentle as it is. They're still fairly new to sleeping in the same bed together, and she already can't tolerate his heavy arm over her body in bed. Telling him that his snoring disturbs her would drive another nail into whatever's developing between them.
She can't sleep. She needs to be up by 5:05am as usual, and she's losing ground to the battalions of the future, its forces waiting for her to face them on the other side of dawn.
She can't sleep. She tries to dream herself to sleep, sometimes, imagining things in a long spool of army thread so that when she at last succumbs, her dreaming can pick up the frayed ends and stitch a similar skein.
She can't sleep. She thinks of herself as a crow, flying over rolling green pastures and wild woodland. If she's not careful, the landscape saturates with bloodied sand and sprouting Dendrobiums, and she has to veer quickly, dipping her tail to turn away from her work.
She can't sleep. So she remembers a happy memory instead, but with her current mood, the figures of her and her partner are empty shadows, playing kabuki behind paper screens. If she tries too hard to make a nest in the mirth of the moment, she risks chuckling and stirring the silence she wants to keep still.
She can't sleep. So silent, so obedient, the child kneeling at the table is lauded for her quietude. The tatami presses grids into her knees that she scratches at with her claws, later, alone in her room.
She can't sleep. She's not alone now, but she's lonely, asleep as he is. A raven circling aloft over a battlefield, not a crow clucking itself to bed with its flock. He tilts his huge black wings and stoops to land and eat, and the hot wet slide of fresh food down his throat --
She needs to sleep. She needs to sleep. She needs to sleep. She needs to sleep. She needs to sleep.
She must make some kind of noise, since he stirs beside her and flips over, mumbling. She stills, cutting her eyes over to him. She can't actually see that well in the dark, not without movement, but at least his eye mask is still in place, that much she can tell.
But then he reaches up with one arm to slide the eye mask up, and bounces his eyebrows at her. “Hey.”
She woke him, and she can't help but feel pathetically grateful that he's here now, that she's not alone. “My apologies for awakening you.”
“Oh, I wasn't actually asleep. I was pretending to snore.” He grins, fangs glinting in the dark, all winsome and easy for her.
Her eyes narrow. Never mind, scratch that. Narukami almighty, how does he manage to be so infuriating without a moment's notice?!
“Hehe, don't worry, I won't tattle to the cops that you're still awake.” He pokes her on the nose. His vision right now is much better than hers, but she can still see the strange shade of red that his irises reflect without light.
She scoffs and rolls to face him. “Why were you pretending to sleep?” It comes out too loud, too sharp in the quiet dark, like a claw snagging on dark fabric.
“Well, if I can fake it for long enough, sometimes it becomes real,” Itto says sagely, nodding.
He suddenly crowds into her space, slotting his head under her chin (mindful of his horns as always) and nuzzling her neck. “Good thing we don't have anything big tomorrow.”
“You might not have ‘anything big’. I have work to do tomorrow.” Despite her tone, she latches onto him, wrapping her arms around as much of his broad shoulders as she can, cupping the back of his neck under his mane. He's always startlingly warm, searing into her chest, his wet breath on her collarbone.
“Yeah yeah, whatever.” He licks her neck, which makes her stomach swoop, but she knows he doesn't mean anything by it. He just likes to taste her, sometimes.
They lie there in a silent snarl of blankets for a time. She tries to slow her breathing, to fall asleep all wrapped up and warm, but as usual her mind won't allow it. Even as her mind stays stiffly alert and ready for battle, her body buzzes with the need to do something, fighting or fucking or fleeing or paperwork. But she has a feeling that Itto wouldn't be up for a spar or sex anytime tonight.
Although, maybe she's wrong. After a few minutes of restless repose, Itto starts laving wet tongue strokes across her windpipe, and she can feel the press of his sharp canines every so often. “What are you doing?” Her voice comes out too low now, almost breathy. She's not unaffected by her partner's attentions by any means.
“Mmm, just tasting.” His voice is just a murmur. He inhales, and he must smell her interest, because he pulls back a little. “Oh shit, sorry. Didn't mean to start anything.”
“It's alright,” she says, a little disappointed. “So you don't want to…?”
“Nah, sorry.” He peeks up at her through his bangs, white hair looking matte in the dark. “I'm tired, but I'm not sleepy, y’know?” He fakes a huge yawn that turns into a real one while she appreciates his teeth.
“I know.” Her hands press flat against his bare skin. She wants to dig her claws into something, but doesn't want to harm him, so she rubs circles into the skin she touches with the pads of her fingers instead.
He sighs gustily and wriggles up against her, which does nothing to calm her down. His kiss on her forehead, though, does settle something within her.
It's her turn to bury her face into his ample chest. She drinks in the physical contact like a man dying of thirst on the beach, surrounded by water that will kill him until he finds a rivulet of clean fresh water and greedily slurps it up. She doesn't have the same compulsion to lick like he does, but it's still nice.
“Hey, do you wanna hear a bedtime story? Maybe it'll help you sleep.” She feels his chin dig into the top of her head, then his nose, as if he's scratching an itch.
She considers the proposal. She knows conceptually what a bedtime story is, of course. She's curious what Itto will tell her. Something entirely made up, or something his granny would have read to him, once? Knowing him, probably the former, though she hungers for the latter, for a glimpse of some childhood out of her reach. “You may. What is the title?”
“Uhhhh…” he starts. It clearly doesn't have one, so it's something of his own invention, then. She doesn't feel any disappointment, though. A smile curves her lips against his skin.
He rubs at the nape of her neck. “It's a title-at-the-end kinda story,” he decides. “Alright, here we go: Once upon a time, there was this very brave onikabuto.”
“That could've been a sufficient title,” she can't help but remark.
He flicks the knob of her spine with a claw. “Hush, this is supposed to make you sleepy. Once there was this very brave onikabuto, and it lived in Tatarasuna where it had all the Electro it ever wanted. However!”
He pauses dramatically before continuing. “This onikabuto really liked fruit. Specifically, it loved Lavender Melons, but it didn't have any trees near where it lived. So being brave and all, it decided to strike out to find its fortunes. Its fruit fortunes.”
She doesn't think Tatarasuna is really that lacking in Lavender Melons, but she keeps quiet as he goes on. It’s nice to listen to the low timber of his voice, so different from his loud boisterous antics with his gang. A tone reserved just for her, ear pressed to his chest in the quiet of the night.
She doubts she'll actually fall asleep to his grand tale of fruit-motivated beetle samurai, but she rousts her metaphorical feathers and nestles into his words, content.