Guardian Blue - Season 1

Episode 19 - Homeostasis

This was a little different from the hammock.  In the hammock, she woke in full daylight to the gentle feel of rising and falling because she had rolled just slightly against the fox.  Now, as she woke, she felt completely enveloped.  The reason she had enjoyed sleeping on the couch was that it felt like she was not sleeping alone, it felt like someone was behind her and she could lean back against them.  She had not really wanted to admit to herself how comforting that was given how alone she could feel in the relative emptiness of her old apartment. With how loud her neighbors could be, sleeping against the wall was a terrible idea.  This time, as she woke, she found that she truly was not alone, and she knew even in her groggy waking mind why.

Nick had not moved to the other side of the couch.  He had not left her and slid to the other side himself.  He had not awakened her when she fell asleep against him.  Instead, he pulled her closer and fell asleep as well.  He was half curled around her, something like a comfy red letter C, and his tail looped around to bring that coil of fox closed completely around her so she felt surrounded on all sides.  She had drawn this tail up between her knees and to her front and had been, as she woke, hugging it like some kind of obscenely soft body pillow.  As she realized how completely wrapped up she was she found herself nearly paralyzed with a simple unwillingness to move.

She had convinced herself as she began to nod off that night that it was because she was distressed.  She needed security.  Losing the tiny bit of refuge the city offered was a hard hit to her normally stoic bravado and this was just something she needed until she calmed down.  As the grey morning light filtered in through the windows, she felt different.  She was not afraid, she was shamefully content and the realization of that poured in like light through the windows.

I should get up.  If he didn’t mean to fall asleep like this he’d be…  She then threw that thought away completely.  He meant to.  He was talking to her when she fell asleep.  He had every opportunity to move her, tell her to move, reposition himself, or even just turn over so he was back to back with her.  No, he pulled her close.  Nick wasn’t just behind her he was holding her.  His arm was over her and hand was under her pillow which propped her head up a little more and pushed her back against his chest.  Judy took some time to consider the very vivid truth that she’d never been held this close by anyone outside of blood relation, and certainly not as an adult.  And the bunny could not deny to herself that she enjoyed how this felt, even as she woke fully to consider it.

Judy closed her eyes.  She could doze like this a little longer.  There was an alarm on her phone, it would wake her.  She pushed back a tiny bit and she felt Nick’s arm tighten, and she put her hand over the top of his under the pillow.  His arm crossed over her chest so she was not going to accidentally roll off the couch or anything.  When he drew her closer she could feel his heartbeat against her back.  Her ears burned.  Okay, there was simply no denying it.  This was outright cuddling.  This… whatever it was… It was full of all kinds of trouble for work partners so she should definitely slip free and go make some coffee or something.

 Nick relaxed his hold and Judy went exactly nowhere.  She slipped her hand over the top of Nick’s again, giving it a small squeeze as she prepared to move it away so that she could leave, and his hand tightened a bit, holding hers.  It was considerably larger, that fox paw, and it seemed strong enough but she’d seen him far from strong before.  How long before she’d be held like this again, she wondered, even if it was a subconscious thing born of happenstance?

Another thought popped into her head with almost an audible thump.  Her parents.  When they woke up and opened the door of the bedroom after what was probably not a great night of very nervous sleep in an unfamiliar place that had been the scene of a violent crime, they would immediately get something else to have to worry about.  Nope, not worth the frantic questions from her mom once again!