Reassure (Jay Halstead x OC.)

18

The next morning, Jay woke feeling a heavy weight that had settled in his limbs as if he had been tied down with stones to a river bed. Floating and not floating all at once.

The warm, early May, morning sun cascaded in through the half-open curtain and spread out across his face and chest. He blinked a few times, shifting his left arm to sheild his eyes from the window's enslaught of light.  He allowed himself to adjust a bit before he looked down at the dark grey sheets of his bed.

It had formed small hills over his legs and  pooled at his waist as his, slightly cold to the touch, chest was left bare and uncovered.

The bullet scar on his left shoulder having take on a sharp white colouring againts the rest of his freckled skin. The jagged edged of the once open wound spiking out around the circular centre like a splintered window with a brick thrown through it. It had been forever imprinted on his skin.

He sighed deeply, shifting again to sit up slightly as an unfamiliar, new groove in the mattress caught his attention. The unfamiliar presence caused him to look to his right. Suddenly, the numbness in that side's arm made sense.

There the cause of the dip in his bed lay sleepinging sweetly beside him. Her eyes closed, her breathing even and her face relaxed. Her head of chestnut curls spattered across his bicep as her neck lay rested gently in the crease of his elbow.

Reign Gallagher in all her peaceful glory. Sun-soaked, olive skin, smooth and illuminated in a glow of honey sunlight. Her various freckles and beauty spots marked on her skin like delicate ink dots of a pen on paper, each one handcrafted in his mind by some unknown deity.

Probably the same God that had blessed him with her in his bed that morning. Not that he recalled how she got there. Sifting through the night before was like swimming through murky water. Nothing quite made sense, he couldn't remember her coming into his bed. And for a moment he panicked, had they done something and he couldn't remember it, for that he'd never forgive himself.

They say that peace time is never the absence of war or chaos, just simply a break between the previous and the next wars- a time for meticulous planning and preparation for the oncoming worst. But Jay disagreed. Peace time was Reign Gallagher when she slept.

Peace time was when she wasn't worried or stressed, hurt or hardened by life. She was calm and tranquil. Sweet and innocent. Gentle and at peace.

Peace time to Jay was healing. Moving forward after the backslide of a war.

To Jay, peace time was forgiveness.

Quiet.

How he felt being around Reign. Light.

But she was constantly at war during her lucid hours and he hated it for her, and for himself, knowing he had to wake her from her peace, eventually.

But just not yet.

He slipped out from under her, her body rolling naturally onto her front, right into his spot. It must have been warm and comfy as she unconsciously hugged his pillow into her hair a grip tight and gentle all at once as she sighed out contentedly in her sleep.

Jay smiled slightly at her sleeping figure as he pulled himself up off of the bed and made his way soundlessly towards his en-suite to shower.

Even when he returned fifteen minutes later, still shirtless and towel clad, rubbing his auburn locks with a second towel, he could spot her still sleeping soundly on her front. He smiled again.

Coming over to his bed and placing a sweet kiss on the crown of her head before he noticed something.

A strange curve in her back, her shoulder blade laying at a strange angle.