Work Text:
Leon doesn't spend the night often, but Grace loves it when he does. He's clingy in ways she feels like she should have expected. It never starts out that way, he tries to give her space while he's falling asleep, but as soon as he's out, he curls closer, wrapping his arms around her and nuzzling close. She always tries to stay as still as she can - he's a light sleeper until he isn't - and waits for him to drift deeper into sleep.
When he does, that's when she lets herself stroke his hair and down his shoulders, tracing old scars and the freckles there. He always cuddles in, holding her a little tighter, and sometimes she'll even dare to kiss his forehead. His face usually scrunches up when she does, but it smooths out into a little smile after. He never wakes up, either. It feels so… big, that he trusts her like this, to sleep so deeply in her bed, letting himself be held. She knows it is, that he's skittish and scared of anything that even looks like it might be intimacy or love, and that's okay, so is she, but she wants to be someone safe for him; she wants so much to be a safe place for him to rest.
The late nights are the hardest for both of them; that's when the nightmares start to catch up, twitching limbs and gasps for breath, but no matter how deeply they're sleeping, the other will always wake up to be there. She doesn't know the names he says in his sleep, but she knows the way he says them, that the people he's lost are still haunting him, and that all she can do is hold him. Sometimes, it's him holding her while she tries not to scream and wake up Emily down the hall because she's watching her mother die again, or back at the Care Center, or the Wrenwood. They'll hold each other in the early morning darkness, neither of them needing to say a word, just breathing each other in and holding on tight until the sun comes up.
Right now though? There's no night terrors, no screaming, no fear. It's just Leon, asleep on her shoulder with his arms wrapped around her waist. Grace presses a kiss to his hair and turns down the light to curl up with him, closing her eyes.