Couldn't Keep His Eyes Open, Bless Him
Author's Note
Continued experimentation in trying to make something cuddly and nice. Results mixed.
I went over this after a reasonable night's sleep and bulked it up a little. It's probably still stumbling and awkward and dumb but, you know, I'm not putting my dick on your shoulder so it's not all bad, yeah?
Evenings on the sofa
Reading together - same place, same time every week - was a ritual of sorts for Anon and Rainbow. A blissful fixed point of consistency in a technicolour world that seemed to intent on throwing up unusual events with alarming regularity.
Maybe this week the embodiment of chaos would be unleashed. Or some vast swarm of an unusual magical pest would descend and cause a ruckus. Or perhaps dragons. Or just one dragon but larger. Or ancient imprisoned malevolent monarchs. Or hilarious misunderstandings and time travel. Who knew? Literally anything could - and typically did - happen.
So it was nice to have something predictable. This had been the logic, at least. Every Friday the two of them would be there in Anon’s place, sat either end of the enormous, human-scale sofa that he had inexplicably arrived with all those months back when he’d first appeared where they would relax and bask in the quiet enjoyment of one another's company.
And books. The books were also important, Rainbow was very sure to make clear. The books were primary reason for the whole thing. Nothing else. She'd wanted somewhere nice and comfy to read at the end of the week and Anon's place was best, was all. That he was there was just one of those things. She could live with him being there she'd told him and he'd just chuckled and she'd felt the tiniest of lurches in her belly.
The sofa had been given a thorough going-over, it bears pointing out, and despite banks of tests administered by the greatest minds available (Twilight, being as how she’d been the only one available at all) the thing had proven to be completely and utterly mundane, totally devoid of even the merest hint of magic. It’s being there with Anon, therefore, had been ruled a coincidence and he had been allowed to keep it.
But all this is beside the point.
The whole thing had, as said, been Rainbow’s idea originally, much to Anon’ surprise at the time when she’d first suggested it.
“You’re the last person I would have expected this from, if I’m being honest,” he had said once she’d said her piece, earning himself a sharp look that took him a second or two to figure out.
“What? Oh, yeah, last pony, sorry. Force of habit.”
The sharp look had not gone away.
“Not that,” Rainbow had said. “The other bit.”
“What? I just - you never struck me as the sort to, ah, enjoy sitting around quietly reading.”
He had very nearly said ‘the sort to even be able to sit around quietly’ but had saved himself at the very last moment. And as well he did. Rainbow had puffed herself up at this, leaping up into a proud hover, throwing her chest out and holding a hoof to her heart, head held high.
“Hey! Reading is awesome!" She'd said. Then she'd thought about it, brow furrowing and hoof going to her chin. "If what you’re reading is awesome. And I only read awesome things. So yeah, it's awesome! And, you know, even I need some chill time now and then. So why not?”
“Why with me though?”
She’d glared at him then, more in frustration than anything else. She'd already explained the sofa thing and sort of hoped he'd bought that excuse.
“Do you want to do it or not?”
He had. So they had. And they still did.
This particular Friday - as with every such Friday they’d had so far - the book of choice was Daring Do.
Rainbow was the one supplier all the books for these evenings as Anon hadn't got around to actually buying any yet and these seemed to be the only books as far as Rainbow was concerned. Her overwhelming, gushing enthusiasm had done much to get him over his initial skepticism and the fact the books were actually quite solid on their own was what had kept them going for him.
Anon assumed there had to be other fiction books out there in Equestria, somewhere, but until he at least got up to where Rainbow was in the series he was content with what she lent to him. Once he had her beat he'd maybe suggest they start looking elsewhere.
Which, given how many books ahead she was, would probably take a few Fridays yet.
Unfortunately for this Friday, Anon had spent most of his day with Twilight doing something to do with trying to figure out a way to get him home. Whatever it had involved - he’d been very fuzzy on the details - it had apparently been draining, because he was dead on his feet and could barely keep his eyes open.
“We don’t have to do this if you want to sleep,” Rainbow said and he - mid-yawn - waved her off.
“No - no it’s fine. This is our thing. We’re doing our thing. We always do our thing,” he said, rubbing his eyes and trying to focus on the book in his hand. Rainbow was less than convinced but shrugged it off.
“Alright.”
“I like our thing,” he said, more to himself than to her, curling up into his end of the sofa and pulling his book over to him. Rainbow’s smile was lopsided but impossible to repress.
“I do too,” she said quietly.
From there things were very sedate, calm and peaceful. Every so often a page would be turned and on even rarer occasions one or the other might gasp or chuckle at whatever it was they’d just read.
Rainbow knew where Anon was, too. He was coming up on something momentous, plot-wise, and she knew it. The thought of being there when it happened and when he experienced it had been something she’d clung to the whole week and so she kept flicking her eyes up to see if he’d got there. Every time she did she saw his own eyes drooping a little lower.
“Why are you staring at me?” He’d asked, voice thick with sleepy grumpiness. Rainbow, realising she’d got greedy with looking, flattened her eyes back and hid behind her book, not answering. He didn’t press the issue and silence descending again.
Eventually it got too much for her to bear.
“Hey, have you got to the bit with the-” she said, looking over the top of her book only to see him flopped back into the corner of the sofa, head lolling and eyes closed. His book was resting on his chest, still held in one hand while the other arm lay limply by his side.
“Did you really fall asleep?” She asked. Anon did not respond, because he was a asleep.
She would have been angrier with him had he not looked quite so cute. As it stood, she just shook her head Quietly as she could Rainbow set her book off to the side and rolled forward, trying not to make too much of a fuss. Anon continued snoozing.
“Helllooo? Anon?” She whispered, creeping up and over until she was standing practically on top of him, hooves braced either side of his body and on the arm of the sofa he was sprawled against.
“You’re a lot cuter when you’re not talking back,” she said, to no response, grinning. The grin vanished briefly as she was gripped with a sudden and horrifying vision of a world where Anon wasn’t around to talk at all and she would never see him again. The idea came from nowhere and made her distinctly unhappy. Shaking her head to clear it she was gratified to see him where she’d left him, and she smiled.
But he was still asleep, and so she had to do something about it.
Bracing herself for him to wake up the instant she made contact Rainbow gave him a poke on the nose. He didn’t move a muscle. She poked again and he still didn’t move, other than for his head to roll a little to the side and his arm to finally slide off the side of the sofa. Rainbow grinned.
“Wow, you’re really out of it…” she said quietly.
Rainbow had an idea. A devious one, she thought, the grin coming back in force.
Delicately and ever-so-slowly she worked the book out from under his hand, setting it down on the floor (making sure not to lose the page, she wasn’t a monster). With that done she nudged his now-free arm to the side and wriggled in against him, pulling his arm back over her a moment later.
Now snuggled her grin was wider than ever and her heart was fluttering. Anon was, if anything, even more asleep.
He was also very warm, she noticed with delight.
“Can I tell you a secret?” She asked, taking a few seconds to enjoy the feeling of his chest rising and falling beneath her before twisting in place slightly so she could see his serene, sleeping face.
“I kinda...I’ve kinda been thinking about this a lot lately,” she said, extending a hoof and letting it rest on his chest as heavily as she dared. “Not just the Friday thing - I like that, yeah - but this, really. This right here. Kinda hoped you’d take the hint. This works too, though.”
She listened to him breathe and she smiled, pressing her head in closer.
"It's lots easier to talk about this stuff like this. When I know you're not listening. Is that weird? Maybe a bit weird. But it's not my fault. I didn't want to freak you out or anything. Because I know you think we're friends. I mean, we are friends. We're great friends! But, uh, I worry that if I tell you that I've been starting to want...more..."
Rainbow swallowed. Even knowing he wasn't listening this was difficult to say out loud. Thinking it was one thing, hearing it was another.
She'd probed this issue before, with as much delicacy as she could muster. Asking - casually - if he had a marefriend back home (no, he didn't), what he tended to look for in a mare. When he'd raised an eyebrow she'd laughed it off. Just shooting the shit, she'd said, just learning about a friend she'd said.
He'd bought it, shrugging it off as just one of those questions ponies pestered him with and saying that it hardly mattered now anyway, as he was all alone here as far as humans went so what did it matter?
That hadn't made her feel good. That had made her start to worry.
“Just because, well, I really like you, you know? Like, a lot. More than I thought I would when I first saw you. Course then you were some weird thing that just showed up but now, now…”
Now? Now it was difficult to describe. Anon was still weird, this was true, but it was a kind of weird Rainbow had grown to enjoy having around. To the extent that, when he wasn’t around for whatever reason, she found herself missing him. The sound of him. The things he said, the way he said them. The things he did for her without ever even really thinking it was a big deal. The way his eyes and face lit up whenever he so much as heard her.
A lot of little things that had, bit by bit, built up into something far greater than the sum of its parts. Something that now sat heavy in the pit of her stomach anytime she was around Anon and something which she couldn't get rid of. She wasn't even sure she really wanted to.
Rainbow swallowed. Then relaxed as Anon made the most overwhelmingly adorably snuffling snoozing sound. What was the point in illicitly cuddling up to someone who was sleeping if you didn't enjoy it, anyway? Moving her legs to cling onto him - still gently, careful not to wake him - she nuzzled into his side and grinned fit to burst.
“Now I think this is a place I’d like to be more often. Maybe next time we could try it when you’re awake. Maybe next time you’ll finally notice what everypony else has not-”
Then she felt Anon stir and her heart froze, mouth halfway open. He snuffed and shifted underneath her, legs stretching out and back arching. Rainbow’s eyes were wide, her pupils pinpricks, every inch of her completely still. Not that it helped.
“Nngh - Rainbow? Wha…what you...” He mumbled, dazed, blinking dimly. The arm of his she’d put around her tightened, pulling her in closer as he rolled onto his side. She let out the tiniest ‘eep’ as his other arm came up as well and wrapped around her.
“Cuddly…” He said, smiling, dozing off again.
Rainbow tried in vain to escape but quickly gave up. There would be no way of doing it short of waking Anon up properly, and she didn’t have the heart to do that to him. And was it really so bad, trapped in his arms on the sofa, warm and safe and snuggled?
Smiling dazdly she curled into him and shut her eyes, listening to the rhythm of his heart through his chest and slowly but surely drifting off herself.
She’d have to explain it once they both woke up later, of course.
But that was a problem for the future. Not right now.