Secretive (Scaramouche x reader)

Of golden blood

"Its late, why are you still awake"

"I'm reading, and i'm enjoying the quiet of the night, obviously"

You leaned against the bow, your front facing your superior. His arms were crossed and he wasn't wearing his hat. "No wonder you never want to get up in the morning".

He huffed with a tired sigh, "what are you, my mom?" When he shot you a glare you just smiled; slightly smug. "I'm your boss" your smile dropped before you rolled your eyes, "no shit".

He frowned, almost pouted a bit before he wiped it off his face. "At least tell me what you're reading" he sighed and leaned against the railing, though unlike you he was facing the ocean, watching the stars glitter on the surface.

"Just reading some book i got a while back in Sumeru, its some research about rift hounds. I know a fair extent abount them, but i have my reasons to look further into them".

He gave you a quizzical glance, one brow raised before sighing and shaking his head. "I know Dottore had an interest in them for a while. I knew he got bored around a few months ago though".

You hummed, nodding your head as you flipped a page in your book. "Yeah, he wanted to test how the organs of rift hounds would work in a human."

"Of course, sounds like something that mad man would do" you looked over at him, chuckling a bit. "I don't think you have the right to call anyone a mad man, if anything hes your stereotypical mad scientist".

He hummed, "i suppose" he leaned onto his hand, seeing small flying fish leap out of the water he raised his other hand up and lightly zapped the fish, watching some flop dead back into the water.

"I think you're just proving my point by doing that" you looked over your shoulder as he accurately shot down the flying fish until they had dived back underwater.

"Like i care, it's not like i'm zapping you" he retorted, "point given, anyway, have you met any harbingers who want to possess the withering ability Rift hounds have?".

He glanced at you and shrugged, "most of the harbingers don't like me, so they don't spill they're studies or abilities with me" he hummed with another shrug.

"Huh..i figured it'd be pretty popular among harbingers, guess not" you put your book mark in before closing the book and leaning to the side a bit to kiss his cheek.

"Cheer up" you hummed and pat his head, "you wanted me to go to bed yeah? Then let's go" you held a hand out to him and he sighed as he took it.

"I don't need to cheer up, i'm not even down" he hummed. "Right, i'm sure you're not" you chuckled and squeezed his hand, walking slowly as to not disturb those below deck.

You paused for a moment, looking over your shoulder to see him playing with the accessories on your clothes. He didn't seem to notice you had stopped even for the breifest of moments.

Seeing the gentle child-like light in his indigo eyes made you smile a bit before you started walking again.

It truly was late, and you didn't even notice how late it had gotten despite being out under the stars. It was completely silent on the ship, the occasional squeak was all you could catch.

When you opened the door to his office even the meowing you expected to hear never reached your ears.

Scara pushed passed you and opened the door, seeing you suddenly realize how sleepy you were he snapped his fingers to bring your attention back to him. "The cats asleep" he hummed, pointing at the black and white cat sleeping peacefully on top of the covers.

"Makes sense, he's always so excited when i come back" he nodded, "let me see your book" he hummed and held his hand out, you gently put the book in his hand.

He left for a brief moment, likely to put the book somewhere on his desk for you to get whenever you left in the morning. While he did that you removed the accessories and extra layers of clothes.

Yet he noticed you were very adamant at keeping your leggings on, even if you were just about to get in bed. If anything he had noticed the past few nights that even when going to bed you were fairly still heavily clothed.

"Don't you want to change?" He inquired with a head tilt as you crawled into bed, pulling the blankets up. "Hm? Nah, i'm comfortable, besides..i get cold easily" he narrowed his eyes and shook his head.

"Weren't you the one who was training shirtless in the freezing cold forest of Sneznhaya?" You looked over as he got in bed, waking up Mochi in the process.

"Well- ah, you caught me" you shrugged and gave Mochi some attention as he wandered over and laid down close to your stomach, seeming to sense your unease.

You felt safe with him, but didn't know if you could explain why even in bed your whole body was covered up. Then suddenly, he hit the nail on the head.

"Scars?"

"Ah.."

Seeing you both surprised and hesitant to speak was enough for him to know he was right. "I don't.." you frowned and pulled the blankets over your head, "relax, i'm not going to force you to show them like i did with the scar on your face".

"Thats comforting.." he hummed and gently pulled you closer after moving Mochi aside, much to the cats dismay. Though you were still hiding under the covers, he held you close and rubbed your stomach nonetheless.

"I'm smarter then i look, so i apologize if my guess made you feel uneasy. Just rest" he whispered.

After a while, he had fallen limp, you assumed he was asleep so you eventually slipped out of his grasp and got up.

You snuck off to grab your book off of his desk before returning to your place beside him in bed. You opened the book, and started to read.

You were stalling, you didn't want to fall asleep.

But after a while despite your best efforts, you did, and the nightmares seemed to be twice as long and twice as painful.

When you started tossing and turning Mochi got up and curled up beside you in a poor attempt at helping. But he was a cat, not much he could really do.

Then, eventually your movement woke Scaramouche up, and he was a little less lenient; about to open his mouth to wake you up then paused.

He noticed the book he had put on his desk was closed without its bookmark next to you, he was a little surprised it hadn't fallen off the bed.

He sighed and pulled you closer again, knowing you had escaped him once already did frustrate him, but he brushed it off and made sure his hold was too tight for you to get out of after he had fallen asleep again.

"Stop moving idiot.." he whispered and gave you a squeeze, to his surprise you froze and stopped moving. He sighed and kissed your forehead, "goodnight".

Noisey little fucker,
Arent you?