Awake

She lies there, as still as she can, pretending to be asleep. He’s watching her, she’s sure of it, so she tries to keep her breathing as deep and regular as possible. She considers opening her eyes to check, but changes her mind as she feels his face closer to her own.

She can feel his breath on her cheek as he leans down and gently kisses her. First on her cheek, and then lightly twice along her jaw line, and then slowly and softly on her mouth. She can’t help smile, only a small one, but it creeps onto her lips before she can stop it.

She hears him sigh and knows he’s awake again worrying. He’s a worrier, he always has been and she knows she’ll never be able to change that. She knows no matter how much she reassures him that everything is going to work out and all of this… mess will be over with soon, he’ll still lay there next to her worrying night after night.

He jokes that the stress is what is turning him grey but she knows all too well that his jokes and smiles during the day are a mask. She wishes she could fix this and they could just get on with being together and loving each other.

He brushes her hair away from her forehead and kisses her again. She smiles and turns her head towards him as he wraps his arms around her and holds her against him. She can feel his breath and hears the steady rhythm of his heart, and hopes that he’ll be able to sleep tonight.

~~*~~
He’s almost sure she’s awake, or at least half awake but he doesn’t want to say her name in case he’s wrong and wakes her up. She deserves to sleep; she’s the one who does the worrying during the day, and then it’s his turn at night. She always knows the right thing to say to ease his mind, even if it is only a temporary release from the stress.

She always has done, that’s one of the reasons he loves her. She knows just what to say and do to make him ridiculously happy. She knows just how to look at him to make his legs turn to jelly and his stomach do back flips. He only has to look at her and he smiles; it’s completely involuntary, a natural reaction.

He can remember the first time he ever saw her perfect face, and how he had watched her all day from across the room. He’d been too scared that day to speak to her properly and had intended on introducing himself the next morning. However, at some point he’d looked up and found himself staring into the most beautiful pair of eyes he’d ever seen.

He jokes with her now that that was the moment he began to fall in love with her. Truthfully, he’d fallen hard and fast the moment she smiled at him and told him her name. He’ll never tell her that though, he thinks it’ll scare her away, although part of him knows that’s just paranoia.

Holding her against him now, nearly all the worry and stress fades away, and although he knows it will return in the morning, he can start to feel sleep overpowering him. He kisses her one more time, just next to her mouth and fights the urge to kiss her again, harder and deeper, when she gives him another small smile.

He carefully gets comfortable, with his beautiful girl resting on his chest, and closes his eyes.