daemonized | RECOLLE IC CONTACT.

[when Grell wakes in the morning from dreamless sleep, it's automatic, her sitting up, rubbing her eyes, and trying to not disturb the other person there-

wait. other person. it takes her a second to remember everything from last night and to catch back up as to why Ardyn Izunia is sleeping in her bed and not in his own. once everything comes back to mind, it makes sense, and she's touched that he decided to stay instead of taking the opportunity to quietly slip out once she'd fallen asleep - her request had only been sunrise, she wouldn't have known the difference.

on impulse, she makes a decision, getting her phone from the nightstand and stepping as quietly as she can to leave the room and make a quick phone call. at its conclusion, she has what she wanted - she can work from home today, as long as it's understood that everything should be in order by the time she comes in tomorrow. perfect, she couldn't care, she gets to sneak back into her room and lay back down like she had been, feeling her heart beat in her chest too quickly for this early. but...

since she has the leisure to, she simply looks at Ardyn, notes how he looks when he's asleep, doing nothing but existing right here. undisturbed, with no weight on his shoulders, she can only imagine what he might dream of. she could make a study of him, just like this, how exactly the morning very slowly lightens up the room and shows the color of his hair.

he's beautiful, she thinks, but she won't even dare whisper it for fear of waking him up too early. he barely gets sleep as it is.

instead, her eyes close again, though this time not to immediately pass out - she just lets herself relax like this. vaguely on the border of going back to sleep, resting all the same, alert enough to know if anything happens. waiting for whenever he feels like he's slept enough, but uncaring how long that will take.]

[Ardyn won't stir until maybe half an hour later, remaining in almost the exact position he had fallen asleep in — on his side, facing her. A few auburn locks of hair had fallen across his face sometime in the night as he slept; a deep slumber, the sort where he would not remember his dreams when he awoke. The room does indeed lighten (as much as thirty minutes will allow), and the brief touch of morning light is all it will take to wake him up. Reality gently hooks back into him, pulling his consciousness out from the realm of slumber, as if it were hefting something large and heavy from the sea itself.

He awakens, his eyes half-lidded with sleep at first, stirring just enough to turn onto his back. The mattress feels… different, and for some reason he has the sensation of still wearing his day clothes, and how come the cats aren’t meowing at him yet, and—

Ardyn opens his eyes fully, briefly confused, to see a ceiling that is not his own. It’s only then does he remember what happened last night, his decision to keep Grell company, and he turns his head on the pillow to look at her lying beside him. Confusion washes away with ease, replaced with a sleepy smile, and that sensation of fondness in his chest again.]

Good morning. [-he utters, his voice low from both just having woken up, and not wanting to completely disrupt the quiet in the air.]

[when he speaks, she lets her eyes open, turning away from thinking about nothing at all in favor of trying for the second time to wake up. they're up early, really, but habits are too ingrained, and it feels like a Sunday even if it isn't - nothing quite demanding attention just yet. his smile is returned, and looking at him right now, she feels a rush of affection.

what a simple but wonderful thing it is to wake up next to someone.]

Morning, Ardyn. Sleep enough?

Mm. I think so.

[He concedes that he doesn't exactly know, and it's difficult to tell from the state of his body alone -- relaxed and languid, indicative of at least an uninterrupted sleep, but beyond that he won't know without looking at the time.

He picks up his phone (he had taken it out of his pocket and laid it next to him in the night), clicking at the home button to illuminate the time. It's early, but given Ardyn's sleeping standards, he's slept in.]

More than usual, at least. [He drops the phone, letting it land on the mattress with a soft thud. He looks at her again, curiously.]

Don't you work today?

Even I can have the rare day where all my work can be done at home. I don't have to go leaping out of bed to write a few reports that'll be done before the night's over.

[granted, all of that was by her own machinations, and she'll have to make sure everything's done to the letter, but still.]

You stayed.

Edited 2017-07-18 04:35 (UTC)

[Did she decide to work from home, he wonders, just so she could lay in bed with him a little longer? To simply spend more time together, on this day that wasn't quite a Sunday, but felt as if it might as well be? Calm, slow, lazy and languid.

She's going to make it terribly difficult to leave, at this rate.]

I did. I wanted to. Was that too bold of me?

[too bold? she laughs quietly, shaking her head a little. it's hard to be bold when she was the one that asked him to stay in the first place.]

I'm happy. It's a pleasant surprise, to get to wake up and wonder for a few seconds if you're still dreaming.

Maybe I still am.

[How thoroughly smitten he must feel right now, making something so cliche sound so sincere. He reaches out with an arm to put around her, as he shifts his weight a little to draw her closer.]

Maybe I'll wake up soon, and opening my eyes, you simply won't be there. Lying next to me like you are now. I'll have woken up alone in my bed, and while that's not an unusual occurrence, there'll be an ache in my heart. A sorry consequence of knowing what could have been.

[cliches start somewhere, and Grell settles in right next to him as he pulls her over. perfect.]

If you're dreaming, then we found our way into the same dream. I'll have to wake up acutely aware of your absence, wishing the dream could have gone on just a bit longer.

[there's something delightfully tragic in the idea, the both of them waking up disappointed and knowing what's missing. yet, the reality is far better.]

But I'm very much here, and awake. I'd hazard to say you are as well.

Edited 2017-07-18 21:40 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware, I am.

[But she feels real in his arms, in both warmth and solidity. It's silly, but he takes comfort in knowing that, drinking in every detail of her face from this close.

And then, he decides to ask something seemingly out of the blue. (It isn't; he had been thinking about it, briefly, before he fell asleep last night. The question rises in him again now.)]

What does schatz mean?

...Where'd you hear that?

[she remembers saying that, but if she can play dumb, she will - that had more slipped out than anything.]

[He has to laugh lightly at that.]

You said it. [He wonders if she really did forget, but he'll not call her out on it if he doubts it.] Last night, before you fell asleep. Don't you remember?

[this close, it's impossible to miss how her expression shifts through about five different emotions before it settles on something slightly shy.]

...I remember. But I should just make you look it up and work for the answer.

[that tells her how tired she'd been, and truthfully it isn't embarrassing - it's more just...special.]

[Ardyn tries to decipher every last one of those emotions as they filter through her, and as she seems to settle on something close to being shy, he just has to know now.]

You wouldn't actually do that, would you?

[Though, he does reach over just to pat at his phone nearby.]

Not that I couldn't, if that's what you wanted.

[and she tries to reach and pull his hand back to stop him, but it doesn't really work given their positioning, and all it manages is her with her arm over him a little awkwardly.]

I said should.

[excuse her as she goes back to what was comfortable.]

Schatz is...well, you've got the literal meaning, but using it, it's more like my dear, darling, that sort of thing. Anyway the point is you don't say it to just anyone.

[she is bracing herself for him to tease her over this.]

[She'll not be met with any measure of teasing from Ardyn; even as she braces herself for it, he does little more than blink in... faint surprise at this information.

There's that feeling again. That idiotic, stupidly cliche feeling of being a lovestruck teenager. While she's busy readying herself for teasing that won't come, Ardyn averts his gaze, hiding it by shifting his weight to adjust his pillow with one arm.

It's not embarrassment, not really. It's the flourishing, outwardly spilling fond realization that she had used the term for him alone and--

It's an immeasurable kind of feeling. He doesn't know what to do with it.]

Only to loved ones?

[Or... well, people you were amorously affectionate towards but. The plainer version is out of his mouth already.]

Something like that.

[why'd he have to put it so plainly, like trying to get her to say something that she wasn't going to say because she wasn't thinking about it, and why did he have to look that way when he woke up it was unfair as anything, and she's very glad that he can't tell her heart rate right now. maybe she should just get up and make coffee.]

I suppose it just...felt right to say.

[It wasn't a crafty way of trying to get her say something she wasn't prepared for, nor was he fishing for confirmation; of all the times for him not to be wordy and filling the air with superfluous meaning, why did it have to be now? He hadn't wanted it to be awkward, and while Ardyn does not show anxiety in a normal way, or even really experience it to the same degree as others, his hand closest to the pillow does flex a little into the material.

But her response isn't one of correction. It's a quiet affirmation of, it just felt right to say, and when Ardyn searches for words, he finds himself settling on only one response.]

I feel the same way. Though I've not a specific word to apply to it.

Some things don't need words immediately to be there.

[but she feels the same awkwardness there, and as much as she wants to keep holding on and just staying there, there's the high likelihood that she's going to say something colossally stupid that just keeps increasing. so, she pulls away enough to sit up, talking to calm herself down.]

If you like, I can make breakfast. Coffee at least won't go amiss.

[putting on her glasses feels a little bit like restoring herself, now that she can see everything and isn't at the mercy of her memory to not bump into things. an escape to put together coffee, but she leaves the door open at least. in the kitchen she can have her own five second crisis and be done with it before the brew's even begun.]

[He just watches as Grell decides to get up and make ~~her escape~~ her way out of the room, for the purpose of making at least coffee. He sits up fully in just enough time to watch her disappear out the door and down the hall, feeling that lingering awkwardness, mixed with everything... else that has started to become a veritable wave of emotions just from their conversation alone.

Still, little to be done about it now. Ardyn will wait for her, idly killing time by smoothing out the wrinkles in his shirt, a consequence of having slept in them. His success is questionable.]

[when she comes back, two cups in her hand, she feels calmer. now she's fully awake, and now she feels more in control of what she's saying. it's fine. it's fine, she can absolutely figure out how to handle the fact that her mind keeps going back to seeing Ardyn there when she woke up and how that made her feel. maybe. she'll attempt.

or, more likely, she'll end up in a mess of emotions, but she can at least be caffeinated while it happens.

but she sits back down on the bed, holding out a mug of coffee - black, how he likes it.]

This is one morning ritual I haven't broken in years. But...I'm pleased to be able to make two cups.

[Ardyn takes his mug from her with an utterance of gratitude, taking a sip. The smell, as pleasing as it ever is, is indicative of a proper early morning, and he notes that it's prepared black, just like he prefers it. She remembered, and it's such a small thing, but it makes him grin into his mug despite himself.

The atmosphere is calm again, and maybe whatever unspoken things that were hanging in the air prior have dissipated -- or at least, neatly packed away for now. Maybe. The safest thing is to just respond to her comment and carry on conversation as usual.]

Maybe you'll be getting the chance to prepare two cups of coffee in the morning more often now. [A pause, followed by an addendum to not sound too presumptuous.]

If the idea continues to please you.

I don't think I'd be changing my mind on it so soon.

[presumptuous. more like she could laugh and insist that it was fine.]

Not as long as the one I was preparing it for was you.

[the honesty slips out, and she takes a drink of her coffee to stop herself from continuing. there's that feeling again, as if it never went away and calmed itself.]

[What was it that he had said last night? When sleep was threatening to descend upon Grell, he had mentioned something about this all feeling very domestic, and she said for him not to rush through moments such as these. (She had called him schatz then too. He remembers her face as she drifted off to sleep, how beautifully peaceful she looked at the time.)

This moment feels the same, and Ardyn finds himself wondering how many more they'll share in the future. Cupping the mug in his hands, feeling its warmth, he quite realizes these are not things in which he's ever thought about before. A depth of emotion that was mind-bogglingly hard to parse, almost overwhelming when he looks at her now. And Ardyn is no fool. He knows that these feelings are not normal -- as in, they are not indicative of something transient like a lingering crush or a passing fling, something that should be obvious given his conversations with her in the past. Sitting here now, just watching her drink her coffee (how simple, how domestic), he feels the poignant weight of realization dawning. It's gentle, but as it washes over him, he feels that it'll swallow him whole. A part of him irrevocably shifts, never to be exactly the same, as he realizes that he has completely, thoroughly, immutably fallen for her.

He raps his fingers against his mug, fingernails clinking. Ardyn is quick to cast his gaze to the side, and oh, he's such a laughably lost cause now, he thinks. There's no getting around it, and he seems too busy thinking about this to even say anything in return to Grell.]

[she looks at Ardyn curiously, but she'll allow him his silence. there's a calm that falls in the place between them, one where she can sort out some of the thoughts she'd dealt with in the process of putting the coffee together. actually doing something had been helpful for her, to not end up sorting it out all aloud.

there's giddiness, yes, the excitement and anticipation of something new that keeps her on alert and almost too present. there's that slow undercurrent of delight that came at being proven wrong still, after so long ago she had calmly closed off that avenue of thinking towards him and settled into the solid and reliable contentment of friendship. there's the care and appreciation she feels like she would towards any close friend, that desire to see them well and happy and to know it was all sincere. and there's a trust there that runs deep enough that some of the cracks in herself are shown, none met with pulling away. enough that she had fallen asleep, secure in herself. but there's a happiness in it all to fill the spaces between, and being content and being happy are two different things.

there's more, she knows, more she doesn't see and that to pull apart piece by piece and acknowledge would be a use of time and effort that's practically wasteful when the easier thing to do is accept it, in spite of how far it reaches. Grell's not forgotten how it feels to have it all shatter to sharp edged pieces, how being cast out can be a violent and brutal affair that hits where unprotected. but wounds heal, and the joy in falling, the possibility there outweighs the fear of pain.

a word goes to this, despite her proclamation of things not needing words instantly. several words, actually. and yet, would saying anything break the spell? would trying to pin anything down send it further away? could she say this lightly enough that if it missed its mark it could be nothing more than another joke?

Grell realizes she's been staring into her coffee, and quickly takes another drink to avoid it getting cold. while she figures out what to say, if she should say anything at all, she shifts on the bed, leaning in so she can kiss him on the cheek. that, at the least, can't go amiss.]

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watch me lose this tag

picks it up and places gently in ur lap

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