Finn Lynch lives a quiet, tranquil life in a rural village in the mountains. Her life may lack spontaneity and excitement, but at least it's peaceful. And if it's a little lonely too, then she can't complain too much - she's still happy, after all.
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hiiii lovelies! i just wanted to say thank you all for your lovely messages of support! i had one of those horrible wobbles during the week where i was like 'oh my god what am i doing, nobody is even reading this' but your comments were enough to keep me going ahahahahah!
just a quick note: the rating for this story changes in this chapter, and there will be sexual content in later chapters too!
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It's hardly even a surprise anymore to Finn when she wakes up to another person's body heat in her bed.
Unlike the previous occasions, Regulus isn't plastered against her back. Instead, Finn must have rolled around in her sleep, because she's facing his chest with her arms folded up between them. Somehow, her head has ended up tucked beneath his chin. His arms are wrapped around her so tight that it would be difficult to extract herself from him even if she wanted to.
This time, rather than exit the bed and flee as soon as possible, Finn allows herself to just... lay there.
Lying in isn't something that she's used to — usually, she starts her days early by getting up as the sun rises in order to begin making breakfast, and during the summers she gets out into the garden as soon as possible. But she has to admit that it's nice just lazing there as she relishes the warmth of human contact.
Her face is pressed into Regulus' chest, his chin resting over her head. It's a little embarrassing how much she enjoys being held like this, but she allows herself to enjoy it while it lasts — it's only a matter of time before Regulus wakes up and pulls away, after all.
She actually nearly falls into another doze, lulled by the heat of Regulus' skin against hers, but nerves begin to settle in her stomach. She doesn't want him to react in disgust when he realises that he has essentially been cuddling her in his sleep, so she decides it would be better to leave before he wakes up.
An idea has begun to brew in her mind, anyway, and she knows what she wants to do with her day. When she had gone to the shop the previous day, she had bought several cheap packages of meat with the kelpie from the lake in mind. She's still rather terrified of it, but she can't get the image of its bones poking through its skin out of her mind.
If she wants to make it to the lake and back before Regulus wakes up and notices her missing, she'll have to get going early.
Slowly and steadily, Finn extricates herself out of Regulus' grip. He's like a bloody octopus, which makes things difficult — it's like he just searches out sources of warmth in his sleep and then locks onto it. The hardest part is attempting to detangle their legs; they've somehow ended up knotted together, their thighs slotted together and shins interlaced.
She's almost made it out of the bed when Regulus begins stirring, and she freezes where she's perched at the edge of the mattress in the hopes that he'll settle back into sleep.
