Roan's eyes starts to flutter open as light comes through the window of the cabin. Squinting he closes his eyes and turns his head further down to hide away from the light, snuggling his face into the soft furs, wait, no not fur. He frowns and slowly opens his eyes to look and they widen as he's met by your hair.
He stares at your head.
Letting out a breath he apparently had been holding, the hair blows away and shows your now exposed neck. Feeling his heartbeat start to quicken its pace, he tries to slowly move away from you. Only to find himself not just lying close to you, but completely tangled with you.
His chest was pressed up against your back, your legs tangled with his. He could feel your cold feet touching his, giving him a soft shudder. His arm was under your head, his bicep as your pillow and the other was wrapped around you with his hand on your stomach. Literally, it had slid itself up under your shirt and he was touching your soft skin.
So soft, everything was soft and smooth.
He tries to pry himself loose from you, but somehow in your sleep you instantly felt the loss of touch and pulled him back. He then realises your hands were intertwined with his. One with the hand under your head and the other was holding over his on your stomach.
Roan was not sure how he'd managed to get in this position during the night. He knows you fell asleep before him, because he had a tendency to stare at you a bit after he heard your breathing even out, indicating you had fallen asleep. And he knew he fell asleep laying on his back looking at the ceiling, thinking about you.
He lets out a slight shaky breath as he pries himself loose from you, thanking whoever there is to thank for not waking you up in the process.
Deciding to leave as soon as possible to get a job to distract his thoughts, he hurriedly but quietly puts his jacket and boots on. Grabbing his sword and bow he stops by the door involuntarily to look at you, he tries to fight it but somehow he just ends up walking back to you. Bending down he looks at your face, sleeping with a peaceful expression on your face. He strokes a hair from your face and pulls it behind your ear.
"What are you doing to me, Mahena?" He whispers to himself in Azgeda.
His face turns to shock as he realises what he just called you. Being a rare word used in his language, it's what you call the person you love. He frowns and shakes his head, he didn't love you, he couldn't.
He sighs and stands up, leaving to find himself a job to take his thoughts of you away from his mind. As impossible as it feels, he needed to try.
(I just made it up btw, 'Mahena' will be a cute pet name Roan calls her in Azgeda.)
...
He had never really had the urge to protect one person so much before, sure he would protect his people, but if that meant sacrificing one for the many he would easily do it. Though now, if that person was you, then he wasn't sure if he would be able to do it.
...
Even though falling asleep apart, every morning you find yourselves curled up and tangled together. Either you have moved closer in your sleep and ended up leaning into his side for warmth or he has rolled over during the night to spoon you unintentionally.
It surprises him the first few times because it wasn't like him to initiate physical touch like that. Cuddling. He sighs annoyed with himself. Somehow he couldn't get enough of yours. He had an urge to hold you, have you close, to protect you.
But every time he woke up he tried to get out of it without waking you up. What he didn't know was that you woke up almost every time he moved in the morning. You had neither initiated the close contact intentionally, but whenever you woke up in his arms with him still asleep, you didn't make a move to get out of it. Instead you just went back to sleep, and later sometimes woke up by him moving.
Reason for not doing it was because the few times you had tried to get out of his hold, you honestly couldn't. He just held you there, locked into him. Not waking up by your movements at all, just tightening his hold on you.
You would even tried to speak softly to him but he just didn't wake up. Which confused you a bit because when he slept on the floor on the blankets he would wake up by anything, and it couldn't be that it was uncomfortable to lay on the floor, because it was, with all the thick furs and blankets he might as well have slept in a bed. You realised it was because he got to hold you that he slept so soundly, and so you didn't want to interrupt that.
And it wasn't like it bothered you to be help protectively by his strong arms during the night. His body heat warming you even better than the furs did.
Sometimes half asleep in the morning, you could feel his head move toward you and you would feel his eyes on you for a long moment before he made a move to get out of bed.
Every time Roan woke up, he would just stare at you for a moment before moving, he couldn't help himself.
...
Roan realises that he's getting too attached and had tried to distant himself. You had grown some feelings for the man but kept it to yourself, knowing things couldn't stay like this forever and he was distancing himself so he clearly didn't want you.
He considered many times to just initiate something and see where it goes, and leave afterwards, thinking maybe he just needed to get laid. But he couldn't do it. For some reason he knew that if he let himself kiss you and let himself give in, he wouldn't be able to get back from it.
He wasn't just attracted to you, he was enjoying your company and longing for your presence when he was away. Roan was always looking for ways to see you smile and laugh. He was a bit disgusted with himself at how sappy he was being. You were drawing him in, without trying he was starting to feel strongly for you. But he couldn't let that happen, he couldn't fall for a Sky person.
What he didn't understand or admit to himself yet, was that he had already fallen, hard.
He talked less and didn't initiate anything anymore, and he would be gone longer during the day.
You understood it in a way, you were Sky people and he was Azgeda. He was a Prince, even though banished. You were just some doctor from space. He wanted to go back to his people to serve as future monarch to try make Azgeda better than his mother did. And you needed to go back to your people eventually too.
...
When he hears about the hunt for Wanheda, he makes a deal with the Commander, Lexa, to bring Wanheda to her, in exchange for her to lift his banishment. He considers just leaving without explaining to you, but he can't to do it.
He explains to you that he has to leave but doesn't give more details about it. You knew he was a bounty hunter so you knew it was a person he was gonna find. But he didn't show you the drawn picture he had of the target, so you didn't know he was going to hunt for Clarke.
You tell him that you should leave too, that you should go back to your people too. They would need your help as a doctor. You missed your friends and they probably thought you were dead.
He tries to make you promise to stay here, and want to tell you he'll come back, but he finds himself not being able to say it convincingly, because he wasn't sure if he should come back to you.
You notice his hesitation and it gives you the motivation you need to leave too, but you don't tell him. But you don't promise him to stay. Instead of arguing with him you just change the subject, so he thinks you're going to stay here.
He goes to leave but before he gets to, you stop him. Turning to you, he looks at you in question. You just move closer and wrap your arms around his torso and hug him. Your head resting on his chest, you feel his rapid heartbeat. As you stand there, you thank him for everything he has done for you, and tell him how grateful you are for him.
At first he doesn't move, but then he wraps his arms around you and lean his head down, putting his lips in your hair on top on your head. Feeling his strong, protective arms around, you sigh contently.
In this moment Roan realises, that what he had tried to fight and bury deep inside him, had already happened. He had fallen in love with you.
...
After leaving he thinks about you a lot but tries to put the thoughts to the back of his mind and concentrates on his mission to hunt Wanheda.
You were safe in the cabin. He had made sure over the months that it wasn't somewhere people would approach and he had hunted a lot of extra food for you. So you could stay for a while. Until he came back.
He used the time apart to think about what he would do. He realised he wanted to come back for you. Now he just had to figure out if he should.
...
What he didn't know, was that you were on your way to where he said your people had settled. He had told you long ago before you were strong enough to leave, so he didn't think about the fact that you would be bold enough to leave on your own now.
Taking one of the extra bows and some arrows, putting on a warm jacket Roan had gotten you, you leave for Arkadia.
You glance back at the cabin that had felt like a home over the months, thinking about Roan. But you shake your head sadly, because you didn't think he'd come back anyway. Once his banishment was lifted, he would go back to his people.
And now it was time for you to get back to yours.
—