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Ayaka finds Sara doesn't take well to breaks. She wanders aimlessly and stresses about all the work she's not getting done, even though she's appointed 4 people to cover for different aspects of her job.
Her life has been highly and carefully regimented by others since the day she was adopted by the Kujou Clan, Ayaka reasons. She's not used to having time to herself.
So Ayaka creates schedules for Sara.
At first, Ayaka makes them fairly strict. Not military strict, but strict enough that Sara won't get confused and shut down. Slowly, though, Ayaka introduces choices for Sara. At the beginning of each week Ayaka makes time to sit down with Sara and plan her days. For certain times, Ayaka gives Sara two options, and has her choose.
Sara had difficulty, Ayaka finds, liking things. Opinions, original ones at least, had been beaten out of Sara as early as possible. She has trouble choosing, because either she truly doesn't have an opinion or because she thinks that choosing one option will disappoint Ayaka somehow. It takes a thousand assurances (carefully phrased so that Sara can't find some loophole so she can be wrong somehow) to make Sara even begin to understand that nothing she does will make Ayaka hate her.
It's tragic, frankly, how hard it is to make Sara understand that Ayaka isn't out to get her.
But she's getting better. Slowly.
And one day, Sara takes a great leap forward.
It starts the night before.
Their evening ritual hasn't yet really changed in the month and a week since Ayaka woke Sara during her worst nightmare yet, and though it hurts Ayaka even more than before as she watches her wife's silent cries from across the room, Sara would never accept her comfort or help even if she was dying or something.
Ayaka lies awake, waiting for Sara too fall asleep so that she can torture herself by watching her pain when Sara speaks, rather suddenly.
"Ayaka?" In the dark, her voice is so much more vulnerable and young. Sara sounds fragile, Ayaka's name is spoken like she's spitting out broken glass.
"Sara." Ayaka finds her voice sounds just as fragile.
"I-" Sara breathes deeply. She's oddly monotone when she speaks next. "I am afraid to fall asleep."
Ayaka turns her gaze from the ceiling to the unnervingly still form of her wife. "Why, Sara?" She speaks as softly as she can.
Sara shifts. Will she lie?, Ayaka wonders.
"I have nightmares."
She sounds so lonely it hurts.
Ayaka sits up. Sara has given her the truth, and so Ayaka must return the favor. Life is exchange. "I know."
Sara is silent for a moment too long, and Ayaka worries that she's made a misstep and Sara won't continue, will shut her out. But the silence is broken after a few minutes. "How?"
"I don't fall asleep as fast as you do. You fight in your sleep. You twist and run. But you never cry." Ayaka murmurs, almost unsure that Sara can hear her.
"Oh."
"Do you need anything from me?" Ayaka asks hesitantly. "To help you sleep?"
Sara sits up, staring at her covers and picking at them nervously. She says nothing.
"Sara?" Ayaka asks carefully.
Sara looks up slowly at Ayaka, and the gentle, frightened hope in her eyes kills Ayaka. Everything about this woman makes Ayaka's heart do odd things. "Will you..." She extends her arms a bit as she trails off. The implication is clear.
Ayaka rises slowly, as if she'll startle Sara if she moves too quickly. Which is not out of the question, now that Ayaka considers it. She walks over to Sara's bed, her footsteps far too loud in the dark and the quiet. Sara shifts, uncomfortable, anxious. She presses her back against the wall, lifting the edge of the blanket, as Ayaka sits on the edge of her bed.
For a few seconds too long, they stay like that, before Ayaka crawls under the blanket, her back to Sara.
"Is this okay?" Ayaka asks. Sara shifts behind her, and the taller woman curls herself around the shorter, wrapping her arms carefully around Ayaka.
"I like this better." Sara says, very, very softly, her voice shaking badly.
Ayaka breathes. "I agree."
Silence settles and wraps itself around the two of them like a blanket. Sara's breathing does not change.
So Ayaka decides to break the silence, comfortable though it may be. "Sara?"
"Yes?"
"I think we need to talk about you wings." Ayaka says. Sara's breath hitches and becomes faster, irregular, anxious.
When Sara says nothing, Ayaka speaks again. "I just want to know... Why you hide them." Ayaka turns in Sara's arms to face her. Their noses brush together lightly, their lips are nearly touching. Sara's eyes are wide open, her pupils so dilated that Ayaka can barely see the golden amber rims of her irises. She smells like bowstring wax, steel, and faintly of blood. Like battle. "And I want you to know that I don't want you to hide them, at least around me. I know-I know that it's not comfortable for you to keep them bound."
Sara blinks. "You don't mind them?"
"I think they are beautiful, Sara." Ayaka whispers. Sara's breath slows, and blows Ayaka's hair to the side.
"You do?" Her voice is so faint that, even though Sara's mouth and her ear are only inches apart, Ayaka has to strain to hear her.
"I do."
Sara looks at her, meeting her eyes as if searching for deception. When she next speaks, her voice is harder. "Why?"
Ayaka could write volumes on the beauty of Kujou Sara, but she doesn't need to know that, at least not in this moment. "Everything about you is beautiful, Sara. Your wings are no exception."
This seems to satiate Sara for the time being, but Ayaka knows it won't be enough. Sara needs constant reinforcement if she is to believe that she is just about as perfect, beautiful, and honest as they come, and Ayaka is perfectly willing to provide.
"Goodnight, Sara." Ayaka whispers, closing her eyes.
She almost misses Sara's reply, sleep takes her so quickly. "Goodnight, Ayaka."
It's the best sleep of Ayaka's life.
In the morning, Ayaka wakes first. Sara is not dreaming, at least not violently, and at least that Ayaka can tell. She doesn't dare move, Sara deserves her rest. When she wakes, the two will arrange Sara's schedule, but for now Ayaka is content to watch her wife.
Sara looks so peaceful when her sleep is undisturbed. Young, younger than her 26 years. Innocent, in a way Ayaka knows that she can't be, but somehow is. Sara is mature, but naive. Innocent and yet, guilty. She's a war of a woman. Everything about her is conflict. Her upbringing is completely opposite from her nature. She truly believes in her ideals, but maybe the ideals of the Kujou are more accurate. Sara had been molded greatly, but she somehow kept her shape.
Sara wakes quickly. Sleep for Sara, as Ayaka has discovered, can be turned on and off like a switch. A remnant from war or childhood, Ayaka isn't sure.
"G'morning." Ayaka murmurs, still not fully awake. Neither has shifted in the night, so their faces are still very, very close to each other.
"Good morning." Sara says briskly. She stretches her arms, in so doing bringing their faces impossibly closer. Their noses bump, and Sara pulls back, slight fear gracing her face.
"I trust that you slept well?" Ayaka whispers softly, eager to preserve this domesticity.
Sara smiles, soft and unbearably sweet, such a rare and beautiful thing for the stern woman that Ayaka wants to steal it off her face and bottle it up so she can look at it forever. "Yes."
Ayaka returns her small smile with a wider one. "Good."
"I- May we-" Sara sighs, clearly frustrated with herself. "I would like to- Continue this arrangement."
Ayaka nearly giggles at Sara's struggles with asking for affection, but restrains herself to a muffled snort because laughing at her wife was the last thing she wanted to do right now. "I want the same."
"And- About the schedules. I want to make them myself." Sara murmurs, sitting up, and Ayaka misses their closeness immediately. "With your help, if- If you please."
This is progress. Real progress. Sara is asking for things she needs, finally. If Ayaka wasn't already smiling as wide as she can, she would smile wider. "Of course I will."
Sara's smile returns for a brief appearance. "Thank you, Ayaka."
For a moment or two, they stay there. Ayaka lies below Sara, having shifted to face upward so she can see Sara's face. Sara is propping herself up, her hand lying just above Ayaka's shoulder, beside her ear. A few errant strands of Ayaka's hair are pinned under her hand. Ayaka couldn't care less. She's smiling, and above her Sara isn't smiling, exactly, but she looks happy, and completely unburdened.
Sara moves to leave the bed, and in so doing has to crawl over Ayaka, their bodies brushing together in a way that makes Ayaka crave Sara's touch. Ayaka files away these feelings in a very much sealed closed folder in the back of her mind labeled "Never to be Brought Up or Addressed".
In the end, Ayaka doesn't really have to help Sara much with her schedules at all. She just makes sure that Sara doesn't overwork herself while she's on vacation.
Each night, they lie, curled together, intertwined, Sara always around Ayaka, as if to keep her safe. Ayaka would protest it if she didn't love it so much, if it didn't make her feel so protected and needed and loved.
They lie there, and speak, most nights, of nothing of importance. They never speak of Ayaka's long looks into Sara's eyes, or of Sara's nightmares, or of the very clear tear tracks that sometimes adorn Ayaka's face. They speak of work and of the changing seasons (Sara enjoys winter the best, one of the few opinions Ayaka has managed to squeeze from her, even if the reason is that "War cannot be conducted effectively in winter. It is wonderful respite from conflict.") and make sure never to bring up the past, recent or far.
It's perfect. It's bliss. They're friends. Or- It's not friendship. It's not romance. It's more and it's less and it's honestly just what Ayaka has always needed. For months they continue without change. Sara's break ends.
It's broken (or perhaps it's fixed) one night.
It's been a long day for both of them, Ayaka had a meeting with Yae Miko and Sara had a meeting with her brothers (Ayaka had objected to this, but Sara insisted that "they weren't as bad" and Ayaka had winced and given up).
They didn't talk, beyond pleasantries. Sara is doing her ritual, curling carefully around Ayaka, holding her a little tighter than usual. Her hand drifts down, doubtlessly an accident, and lands on Ayaka's inner thigh.
Ayaka flinches, the cold of Sara's hand jolting her from the edge of sleep, and turns to face Sara as her wife yanks her hand back. Sara's shining, golden, beautiful, eyes are wide and terrified.
"I- I didn't mean to-"
Ayaka desperately wants to snap at Sara. But she knows she can't. She's worked to hard to ensure that Sara feels safe in her presence, and doing so would set them back months. She needs to calm down. Ayaka breathes deeply, and speaks. "I know you didn't, Sara. It's okay."
"I-" Sara takes a shuddering breath. "I want you to know that I will never want that with you or with anyone." Her eyes shine, for the first time, with unshed tears.
Ayaka releases the tensions still lingering in her shoulders, her anger rushing out like startled birds and leaving a kind up uneasy giddiness, assurance in what she already knew to be true. "And neither will I."
Sara exhales gently. A single tear escapes her eye, and Ayaka catches it. "I'm sorry." Sara says, gently, as if trying to sooth Ayaka.
Ayaka smiles slightly. "I know you are." That's what I love about you, she doesn't say. Sara knows it, Ayaka thinks.
The little suns of Sara's eyes shine so brightly and innocently and fearfully and utterly hopeful that Ayaka has to blink. Sara takes a deep, deep breath and asks the one question Ayaka had not thought would ever pass her lips but had always hoped would. "May I kiss you?"
"Yes." Ayaka whispers.
Sara leaned forward, so their lips were nearly touching. She pauses, and Ayaka realizes that Sara wants her to close the gap.
So Ayaka did.