Chapter Text
Chapter 1: The Stillness After the Storm
The first thing I’m aware of is the warmth.
It’s a deep, primal thing, a stark contrast to the bone-deep chill that has been my constant companion for… well, for longer than just the past few days. This warmth isn’t just the absence of cold; it’s an active presence. It’s a weighted blanket. It’s the low, steady hum of a furnace that isn’t just heating the air but seems to be radiating directly into my bones.
My eyes are still closed. I’m afraid to open them. In the fuzzy, liminal space between sleep and waking, I can pretend this is just a dream. A particularly vivid, comforting dream, but a dream nonetheless. Because if I open my eyes, it becomes real. And I don’t know if I can handle that.
There’s a weight across my chest. An arm. Heavy, solid, and radiating that impossible heat. One of my own paws is tucked beneath it, and I can feel the coarse, friendly texture of fur against my pads. My other arm is pinned beneath my own body, and my legs are tangled with another pair. My tail, usually a restless, anxious thing, is curled tightly against my stomach, as if seeking refuge.
And there’s a smell.
It’s… Rofi. It’s the scent of clean dog, a hint of the cinnamon-laced junk food he was devouring last night, and something else. Something uniquely, achingly familiar, a scent that my brain has apparently kept locked away in a vault for the last ten years. It’s the smell of safety. The smell of home, or what used to be home.
*Oh, god.*
My eyes snap open.
The reality is exactly as I feared, and yet, somehow, infinitely more terrifying. I’m on the air mattress in Theo’s den. The morning light is muted, filtering softly through the boarded-up window where the tree branch crashed through yesterday. It paints the room in gentle stripes of grey and white. And curled around me, breathing in a slow, deep rhythm that I can feel vibrating through my entire torso, is Rofi.
He’s fast asleep. His face is turned towards me, muzzle relaxed, lips parted slightly. One of his long, floppy ears is draped across his cheek, the other is splayed out on the pillow we’re apparently sharing. The arm across my chest belongs to him. His legs are indeed tangled with mine. We’re… cuddling. Spooning. Whatever you want to call it. It’s an embrace so complete, so unconsciously intimate, that a hot spike of panic shoots through my chest, so sharp and sudden it almost makes me gasp.
*Don’t move. Don’t you dare move.*
My heart is hammering against my ribs, a frantic, trapped bird. *Thump-thump-thump-thump.* It’s too loud. Surely, it’s loud enough to wake him. I squeeze my eyes shut again, as if that will somehow make me invisible.
*What did I do? What did I let happen?*
The memories of last night are a fragmented, hazy collage. The chaos after the window shattered. The searing pain in my footpaw. Rofi’s sudden, shocking transformation from goofy, energetic friend to a focused, competent PA, his voice calm and steady as he pulled shards of glass from my skin. The way he held me after I broke down, after I confessed the stupid, impossible dream. The way he offered his room, his bed. The way he…
The way he held me, just like this, as I cried myself to sleep.
It wasn’t a dream. It was real. All of it.
And now it’s morning. The crisis is over. The adrenaline has faded. And I’m left with the consequences. I’m left with this. This… intimacy. It’s too much. It’s too close.
My first instinct, my only instinct, is to run. To carefully, surgically extract myself from this embrace, roll off the mattress, grab my things, and just… disappear. I could be gone before anyone else is even awake. I could walk back to my cold, empty apartment and just… wait. Wait for the power to come back on. Wait for the roads to clear. Wait for my flight to be rescheduled.
Wait to die, as my own traitorous mind whispered to me just a few days ago.
I try to move my arm, the one pinned beneath me. It’s numb, tingling with pins and needles. I shift my weight, just a fraction of an inch, and the movement causes a change in the rhythm of Rofi’s breathing. He murmurs something in his sleep, a soft, nonsensical sound, and his arm tightens around me, pulling me even closer. His nose bumps against the back of my head, and he lets out a contented sigh, nuzzling into my fur.
And I… I freeze.
Every muscle in my body locks up. The panic is still there, a high, keening whine in the back of my skull, but something else is rising to meet it. That warmth. That impossible, traitorous warmth. It’s seeping into my nerve endings, calming the frantic bird in my chest. My tail, which had been a tight knot of anxiety, slowly, tentatively, begins to uncurl.
*He feels… safe.*
The thought is a betrayal. A violation of every defensive wall I’ve spent the last decade building. Safety is an illusion. Connection is a trap. I learned that lesson the hard way. The day I had to look this same dog in the eyes and tell him I was leaving, the memory of his crushed expression has been the ghost that haunts my every attempt at closeness.
Why isn’t he haunted? Why isn’t he angry? He should hate me. He should resent me for disappearing, for letting our friendship wither and die. He should see me as the awkward, broken thing I am. He shouldn’t be holding me like I’m something precious, something he was afraid of losing.
I can feel his heartbeat now, a slow, steady counterpoint to my own frantic rhythm. *Thump… thump… thump…* It’s the sound of untroubled sleep. The sound of a clean conscience.
Maybe he doesn’t remember. Maybe the past doesn’t weigh on him the way it does on me. For him, maybe this is just… helping a friend. A physical, uncomplicated act of kindness, like offering a blanket or a cup of tea. Typical dog behavior, as Artemis would probably say. Open, affectionate, without the million layers of guilt and self-recrimination that I, the solitary, overthinking cat, project onto everything.
I’m the one making this complicated. I’m the one turning this into… something more.
Slowly, carefully, I let myself relax into the embrace. Just for a second. I let my head sink back into the pillow. I let my breathing sync with his. I let myself feel the solid, reassuring weight of him against my back.
And for a single, terrifying, beautiful moment, the world goes quiet. The anxious monologue in my head just… stops. There is no past. There is no future. There is only the stillness of this room, the soft morning light, and the warmth of the dog holding me like he never intends to let go.
It’s a dangerous feeling. It’s the feeling of a promise. And I don’t know if I have any of those left to give.
Note:
hi guys :3 I’ve never done this fanfiction thing before so please kudos and subscribe (if you even call it that) and I will see you next chapter <3
