Village of sorrow ~ Ethan Winters x Reader

The Beginning Of The End

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Chapter XXVI.
Wordcount: 6656

Ethan had been awake since 5AM.

He woke after two hours of sleep; which was more than the usual, with his hand between your warm thighs and the other arm curled around your body. The blonde had his chest plastered against your back, impossibly close-and the fluttering in his stomach nearly making him sick.

He had been holding you closely against him while you slept, his grip tightening to drink in as much of the snuggly warmth radiating from you. The feeling of your skin pressed against his; all mellow in bed, made him feel safe. It made him feel some relief from the constant cold he'd usually feel when sleeping alone. The mere thought of that made him grimace. Ethan wasn't sure he'd ever be able to go back to that life now that he had gotten a taste of this. The safety you offered, your warmth, the smell of you. He feared he'd never be able to live without it.

Insomnia was incredibly hard to deal with.

This night however, that wasn't the only keeping him awake. No, it was also this odd giddy excitement he felt in his heart. The combination of the two made for a weird concoction in his brain. On one hand he felt beyond tired, his thumb and index finger leisurely rubbing into the hollowed skin underneath his eyes. But beneath those grey hollowed circles was his heart beating fast, akin to the rhythm of a young rabbit.

God he was madly in love with you. Drunk on it. Ears red and warm, smiling unconsciously, eyes eager and happy to take in every inch of you. Ethan drowsily tangled himself into your body as if he was sleeping with a life-sized teddybear. He snuggled a bit closer, his light stubble scratching against your neck, hands clingy and needy against your naked body.

There he was. A father, 37 years of age, snuggling against the body of a woman he hadn't known for longer than a week, yet feeling safer and more loved now than he did in the past ten years.

He pulled his lips in and looked at the window.

It relieved him that the moon was still adorning the sky. It meant he still had some time left to stay in this room until daybreak. Even the sun wanted to grant you two some more time.

The sound of your steady breathing and rhythmic heartbeat underneath his forearm made him sigh blissfully. He gently stroked your hair, softly pulling the covers over you every time they slid back down. Ethan pulled you tighter against him, nose cold against your skin as he nuzzled into your neck. He gave a few warm kisses to the area, and his hand trailed down to settle on your hip.

This was nice. It was something he could understand. Very far away from the guessing game the both of you were in the past few days. This was nice. So nice in fact, that he almost forgot about the planning tomorrow.

He really didn't want to think about it.

Because with the idea of going out of the watchtower, of leaving the saferoom, came the idea of death. Outside stood the confrontation of how lucky he already had been to still have you around. But now that this happened, having made love to you so deeply, he felt that his luck was about to run out any time now.

Ethan was afraid. He was terrified.

For now though, he still had a few hours left. He closed his eyes and faced the ceiling with a sigh.

He really didn't want to think about it all. About anything outside. To be completely honest with himself, he was incredibly tired. Spent from all the fighting, the stress, getting his daughter back, just everything. Ethan knew if he had gone on this journey alone that he could've gone through the whole process in less than a day. But now he had you. Someone he cared about, someone who needed sleep and food, a woman he couldn't just drag through the village. The thing that irked him is that having you by his side, caused his own humanity to worsen too. He felt hungry a lot more often, felt his muscles go sore after intensively sprinting for two hours straight, felt his energy-bar damn near empty at the end of the day. You triggered that normalcy within him. The inability for his body to work like an inhuman-altered machine, but more like, well, a human.