endlessdel | (no subject)

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442... 443... 3.141592... 84... 64... how many sheeps could a sheep chuck sheep if a sheep sheep could chuck sheep...

There were times when sleep evaded Delirium of the Endless. She would wait staring at the ceiling, at her pillow, at a collection of freckles on Robb's skin... waiting until her brother would let her eyes fall shut and allow her entrance into his realm. Sometimes it would take minutes and she would sleep, curled up in a small ball beside Robb Stark and other times it would take hours and she would count sheep or ships or sometimes just the freckles on his body. Tonight, she was counting sheep.

999 fluffy little nightmares with razor sharp teeth and their baa-ing... 474... 1,000,001...

Robb was asleep, his eyes closed, beside her. He was different when he slept; younger, more relaxed, beautiful instead of handsome, hers. He felt like hers when he was asleep. Sometimes she could curl up against him, her hand on his shoulder and her head pressed against his chest. Safe. She doesn't feel scared then, she feels safe and whole lying there with him. She hasn't told him that, Helen says she should.

22... 1/8... 9... 723... where is Big Puppy in sheep clothing...

He doesn't stir when she brushes her cold toes against his legs or slides her hand up his chest. Del waits before leaning in close, Safesafesafe, and whispers four words into his ear. Pulling back, she looks at him with wide mismatched eyes before letting out a soft eeeep. Rolling over she hides behind her hair, burying herself beneath the blankets where he cannot see her.

678... 85,498... 1...

The four words, the words she had whispered, were a simple I love you Robb.

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Robb has been dreaming about Winterfell. This is a common but unpredictable state--sometimes he dreams about sunlight glittering off ice, the scent of cooked apples and snowflakes in Jon's hair; others he dreams of blood and fire, of three-eyed ravens and two small boys' heads on the wall.

And sometimes--like this one--it is running, four legs on the snow and the scent of woodsmoke in his nose. Chasing a brightly-coloured bird, out of place in the ice-covered north, and never able to jump quite high enough to catch it.

And then the ice cracks beneath his foot--paw?--and he slips, skidding across the frozen ground until his eyes open, and he's back in his own bed, with Grey Wind stretched out at the foot and a suspiciously human-sized lump of blankets next to him.

She covers her face, peeking through pale fingers as she feels the waking. Her heart feels like it is racing- 100... 987... 1/3...- so fast, inside her chest. Wriggling beneath the blankets, she can feel Robb's warm body behind her waking up but she tries to ignore it, slipping further beneath the covers until all there is, is darkness.

The darkness is comforting, it is not four words or Robb stirring and knowing how she felt. Safe and whole and loved- she loved him, she did. Peeking out the small glimpse of light from the top of her nest of blankets, Del hid behind her hair and dragged it in front of her face.

"Love," Del whispered very quietly before letting out soft eep noises. She wanted to tell him but now she was... scared. Silly human heart.

Part of him is still skidding on ice in the forests near Winterfell. "Hm?" he murmurs quizzically, peeking at her under the blanket. He'd thought at first the lump of unmoving blanket meant she was asleep.

(He's still not quite sure how they got here, and it's a little strange having a woman in his bed he's not actually doing anything more than sleeping next to. But he's come to the conclusion that nothing involving Del is going to make sense to him at first, and probably second or third either--but that if he goes along with it anyway, eventually, in time, it will.)

The waking is over, her brother's realm has drifted away from Robb. She misses the waking, even the endless waking would be better than the lack of sleep and all the sheep and Robb Stark knowing, not-knowing that she loves him. El-oh-vee-ee Love.

"Oh," Del said looking up at Robb with wide, mismatched eyes as he peeks a her. Flushing, Del ducked her hair and tried to hide in the tangle of her hair. Fidgeting in the blankets, she tried to stay still for a moment before rolling over to face Robb. Pressing her face against his chest, her hands still covering her face, Del leaned her body into him. "gobathtosshleeprobbstarkshoicantalktoyouth."

Her words are mumbled, her hands and the blankets and Robb distorting her words and the sound.

"Is that what happened?" Robb asks, his voice soft and sleepy and a little amused. "You were talking to me? I wondered why I woke up, I thought it was because I was dreaming." He wraps his arms around her, lightly stroking the back of her hair. "Are you sure you weren't talking to Grey Wind? I don't think it can be much of a conversation, if I'm asleep."

Slowly peeling her fingers from her face, she peeked up at Robb looking up at him before ducking her head slightly. Sliding her cool fingertips againts his chest, Del pressed her forehead against his skin and huffed slightly. Biting the bottom of her lip, Del sighed as Robb wrapped his arms around her.

"It wasn't supposed to be a conversation, I was telling you a secret," Del said, quiet. "And Big Puppy is asleep, dreaming of Big Puppy things."

Robb wonders briefly if Grey Wind was having the same dream he was.

"I suppose if it's a secret, I won't ask what it was," he says thoughtfully, winding a bit of her hair through his finers. "I'm sorry to say I'm not sure I can fall back asleep on command." This is not entirely true--like most soldiers, Robb can fall asleep and wake up again in split seconds, when he has to. But Del is warm in his arms and the echoes of icy wind are still clouding part of his brain.

Del let out a quiet soft, happy noise at the fingers playing with her hair. For someone who touched others hair quite often, her hair was very rarely touched... she was very rarely touched. People let her touch them, hold them and hug them but very few people touched her. It felt like it was just Robb now, the twins, not many others. Turning her head up to Robb, Del pressed her lips together before sliding her hands up his chest.

"I could tell you if you close your eyes, then it will be like you are almost in the Dreaming." Del said thoughtfully. "Close your eyes Robb Stark."

He leans back just a little, tilting his head down to look appraisingly into her face. "I'll close my eyes," he says after a moment, "if you do it first."

Del looked at Robb cautiously before making a soft hmmm noise against his skin. Scrunching her eyes closed obediently, Del peeked one eye open with a smile before closing both of hers properly. She did not know if he had his eyes closed, Robb Starks were sneaky wolves but she trusted him.

3.3333... 2... 1...

"I love you Robb," The words were quiet but clear. Not mumbled.

Sneaky wolves indeed, but he actually does have his eyes closed. Not realising she was really going to tell him a secret--let alone just what the secret was--he can't exactly plan ahead for the timing, but it works out reasonably well anyway. As her lips are forming words, his own reach them, so the secret and the soft kiss happen at almost--almost--the same moment.

O...Sneaky wolf.

There were lips brushed against hers, kissing her softly. Robb's lips. Letting out a soft oh, Del smiled against his lips and darted her head forward slightly to catch his lips with hers. Sliding her hands up his chest to curl around his shoulders, Del kissed Robb smiling as she murmured a soft pleased noise. Her eyes were still closed even as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

There is something so impossibly sweet about smiling kisses. Robb would never have thought himself to be the sort of man to notice, but there it is. Her arms curl around his neck and he eases her close, brushing the pad of his thumb across her cheek.

"Robb," Del whispers against his lips, smiling as her lips part to kiss him. Robb not Robb Stark. She loves Robb. Turning her head into the thumb at her cheek, Del pressed a kiss to his thumb before she leaned the whole of her body into the warmth of his. Cold feet, cold hands forgotten about, lack of sleep and counting sheep forgotten as she focuses on kissing him and pulling him close.

There's something too, about the way she says it. Robb is different from Robb Stark, despite both being almost the same label for the same person, and even though the second word is at least, if not more, important than the first.

It still sounds different when someone's whispering it into your mouth.

He pulls back just a little, after a moment, his fingers brushing against her cheek. "No," he says lightly. "I definitely don't think I can go back to sleep now."

Opening her eyes, she looked at him before letting the small smile spread across her face and light up her eyes with joy and delight at his words. Curling her fingers through the back of his hair, Del stretched her arms around him as she pressed their bodies close together.

"No?" Del asked quietly, cheeks flushed. Biting the bottom of her lip, she slid her foot down the back of his leg before smiling up at him. "We could try counting sheep."

"Counting sheep?" Robb repeats, looking as if he's just on the verge of laughing, still holding her close. "Does that actually ever work?"

Almost. Del leaned up kissing the laughter on his lips, smiling at him before she tried to straighten her face and look at him seriously even as she slid her leg over his.

"I am up to forty two thousand and eighteen tonight," Del replied, threading her fingers through his hair. "It works sometimes, sometimes I count your freckles but then I lose count and have to start again."

Robb does laugh then, quietly, muffled in the mostly-dark, easing her back down to the blankets with him. "So no, it doesn't."

There. There was nothing quite like the way laughter sounded, felt like on Robb Stark, Robb's, lips. She arches her back, leaning into Robb's body as he eases her back with him into the blankets and the dark and the warmth with him. Running her fingers along his scalp, Del pressed a kiss to his neck and smiled against the warmth of his skin before sighing and looking up at him.

"No... it doesn't." Del finally agrees. "We will have to find something else to do then."

Robb's hand slides down Del's side without really consulting the rest of him first. "Just wait till you're chasing Abby around tomorrow. You'll wish you'd had more sleep."

457... 22... Oh... oh...

That was new, the hand that made her heart stutter inside her chest and her cheeks flush. Twisting her fingers through a strand of his hair, Del considered Robb's word with a scrunch of her nose before she shook her head with a smile.

"Nope. Not even the combined forces of Abby and Reynald will make me close my eyes. Besides I have a secret weapon," Del replied, leaning in close to whisper into Robb's ear. "You. Robb."

Del smiled before pressing a kiss to his neck.

"Me?" Robb echoes, feigning quiet disbelief, his fingers tightening slightly against her hip. "What makes you think I'm a very good secret weapon? Especially against Abby."

She inhaled sharply at the fingers tightening against her hip, the warmth. Pressing her tongue to her lips, she brushed Robb's neck with her tongue before exhaling a soft mmm. Sliding her leg over Robb's, Del pressed closer to Robb squirming ever so slightly.

"Because," Del replied. "Because you make me feel alive and happy so even if I get no sleep, I will be able to look after Abby and Reynald and Daniel because you will be there with me. And we will do it Together."

Robb is beginning to think that counting things in his head is not a bad idea, though it's not sleep he's looking for. Well, eventually, it probably is.

"I'm glad to make you happy," he says lightly, "but I still think human bodies need sleep." Amongst other things his particular human body thinks it needs, which he is fiercely ignoring. "Even ones that weren't human before. Maybe especially those."