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She falls asleep against his shoulder one late night after a long day, and he doesn’t know what to do.
It’s not a normal occurrence. Everyone at the compound hates him, anyway, but this girl, she just falls asleep against him, on the couch like they were familiar with one another.
He’s old. 1054 years is a long time, and she is just a blink of an eye in his lifetime. He has no idea how old she is in human years, and what he has learned over the time spent with these Midgardians, he shouldn’t even ask that. She doesn’t have special abilities, and she is not allowed to join on the missions, but she is kind and cared for many of them.
She nuzzles closer and everyone stares at them, and he grows slightly more annoyed and angry by each glare, but refuses to stand up. She sleeps, and he is not going to disturb the peace, he decides.
He feels his heart flutter all of a sudden, and drawing in a shaky breath, he thinks how it is not fair that the carefully laid brick wall of protection he has built up around his mind, begins to crumble down as he looks down at her, sleeping there peacefully.
Her hand lays, unmoving on his thigh, and her breathing is steady and calming. He doesn’t want to, but he can’t help himself, when he reaches over, and touches the wavy lock of her hair, twirling it around his finger, once or twice, before brushing it back.
He feels lonely and crowded at the same time.
Why would anyone feel this way? His breathing quickens. It doesn’t feel automatically bad, but it doesn’t feel good either. He doesn’t know how to process the two feelings that hit him at the same time. Controversies, he enjoys them, but only when he is to create them and if he can watch them spread and cause more troubles, making the people scurry around like ants. But when it comes to this moment, controversy is the last thing he wants to feel.
He doesn’t know, or realize, that he continues to stroke her hair absentmindedly, or how his hands tremble. He brings his hand onto hers, picking the palm up gently, and slowly stroking her fingers, and finally realizes that his own hands are shaking.
Her hand is soft and warm, and she has picked her cuticles. Her fingers curl around his automatically and he breathes out shakily, as he tries to swallow the lump that seems to block his throat. He doesn’t understand, yet tries to, why she would trust him so much. Why would she let him touch her this way, when everyone around him is determined to chalk him as a troublemaker, a nuisance, a bad guy.
She doesn’t seem to have any sense of self preservation. Why would she, though? The compound is the safest place on Earth. He shudders, as he finds himself thinking how she would be perfectly protected in Asgard, before he realizes that Asgard was lost, which is why he is here, on Earth at this place.
She stirs for a moment, and the breath of his hitches, he stops breathing for two skipped beats of his heart, because he doesn’t want her to wake up, not yet anyway. She curls closer to him, and he tilts his head back. He draws in a shaky breath as his entire body is aflame with nerve endings begging touches, and he can’t deal with the feeling. It’s too much, and he doesn’t want to present as weak. He has told everyone he would do so much better alone. But now, her body soft and warm against his side, he feels his chest aching, hoping that she would take his hand, touch him, let him feel those fingertips on his neck, running over his chest, brush through his hair… Anything really.
But she is unconscious to the world, she doesn’t know how much he doesn’t want to be in this moment, and at the same time, doesn’t want to be anywhere else.
So, he just sits there, quietly and listening to her breathing as her head rests against his shoulder.