Animalistic

20

I was waiting for it, expecting it really, but the dream never came. There was no river, no rouge, no Atlas, just a pure watery void encasing me in warmth. It was a peaceful, the inky nothingness surrounding me on all sides, probably the most peaceful thing I'd ever experience. As per usual, I was wrong, for soon enough, small rays of white-gold light pierced through the watery veil, stirring me from my slumber. My eyes slowly blinked open to greet the three small streaks of the first rays of the morning dancing across the crumpled golden comforter as the curtains swayed lightly. My vision cleared after a few more blinks, and I found my vision slightly obstructed where my cheek rests against my pillow. The heat radiating from said pillow clued me in as my body awoke and told me of my position: one arm resting under his neck, the other thrown across his bare chest, my cheek pressed into that solid chest, half of my body spilling off of him and unto the bed space directly next to him. My eyes cast up to his face, expecting to see a smug smirk and gooey eyes, but I didn't. His irises didn't meet mine, his mouth was neutral, slack, but still with a small upturn at the corners--he was still asleep. My hand thrown over his chest began to absent-mindedly draw little shapes into his skin. He looked so...not innocent, not pure...peaceful. His impish features almost completely erased from his face, it was a little unsettling, to see him so unlike himself, to not be sucked into those quicksand-y eyes or wonder what prompted the smug look he emulated.

I didn't like it.

Well, I didn't at first. It felt like I was looking at another person entirely, but the truth was, I was just seeing another side of him, as if he was cube, and I turned from one side to the next, but it's still the same cube. That thought reassured me, and all at once, I wanted to see all of the sides to his cube. As my body finally became conscious with me, I noticed something so strange and out of the ordinary. Though I could feel our body heats mingling from the contact of our skin, I somehow felt...cold.

Its strange thing to know you're warm but feel this incessant chill, like a loss of heat while in the midst of creating more heat than you can imagine. No, not a loss of heat, more like, walking away from a fireplace after warming up next to it, when you pick up a pan barehanded and that blistering burn fall away as you run cold water over them at the sink. It was gone, the searing pain, now even with my temperature, yet freezing by comparison. I had lost something, that much was apparent, but I also gained something, looking up at Atlas' sleeping face, that was apparent too.

I stayed like that, looking up to him, my hair pooling around me, the rays dancing as the sun awoke, and all the while I drew mindless shapes on his chest. It felt like hours, blissful hours of simple peace. Whether it was with myself, the world, or him, I didn't know. It was just pure peace that I somehow knew I'd see again, someday.

The rays barely crawled across the bed before I began to disbelieve what happened yesterday, well in particular last night. It wouldn't do any harm in checking. Right? I build up the courage and look to the edge of the comforter, lying at his waist and pull it up slowly as my eyes peered in. Yep. That's a thing that happened. "See something you like?" God, I felt his gravely voice rumble through his chest as it gooped up a bit in his throat from just waking up, my head snapping back to see his sleepy appearance. His brow furrowed slightly, his arm unfurling from around my back to stretch along with his other one, eyes lazily cast on me, those syrupy bowls of hazel trapping me as they crinkled slightly in his attempt at a early morning smirk, but giving me a sleepy smile instead.

"Maybe" I said back, giving him a cheek reddened smile back as his arm wrapped back around me while the other reached up to rub the sleep out of his eyes and in doing so, turned his syrupy irises back to their original quick sand, though both trapped me all the same. "Did you sleep well?"

It was meant to be an innocent question, but of course, that little smirk crawled up his face as he responded "Not really, something kept me up all night." Ugh, his tone, it was so infuriating and so damn sexy! Stop it you asshole!