“Can You... Hold Me?”

“Can You... Hold Me?”

Pairing: Rhys x f!reader Summary: Reader is a prisoner UtM and asks Rhys to cuddle her in a moment of weakness. He comes to a shocking realization. Warnings: None (literally just fluff). Word count: 487. A/N: This is literally so short, I’m sorry, rip.

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“Rhys?” Her voice shook a little and my heart broke for her. I turned back to her. I will never forget the look on her face… pure, unadulterated fear. She paused, but eventually asked, “Can you… hold me?”

“Yes,” I breathed without a second thought. She made room for me and I climbed into her tiny cot, wrapping my arms around her as she nuzzled into me.

I would do anything to help her feel less scared and less alone, but I’d be lying if I said I had nothing to gain from this. Sure, I was used to being physically used by Amarantha, but I hadn’t had this kind of innocent intimacy since long before Under the Mountain. It felt… good.

Too good.

Her head rested between my neck and my shoulder. I held her close to me, gently rubbing her back as her body calmed. I didn’t expect her to fall asleep right away, and she didn’t. In fact, she practically clung to me and stared at the wall for at least an hour, thinking. I wasn’t sure if talking would help, so I just kept quiet and decided to wait for her to come to me. She didn’t, though. She stayed quiet. Staring. Drowning in thought. 

It took a long while, but eventually, I began to feel all the tension in her body begin to ease. Her eyes fluttered closed and her breaths were even.

But I couldn’t bring myself to leave.

I realized that I wanted to stay like this forever. Holding her, rubbing her back, playing with her hair. Just watching her sleep.

I hadn’t felt anything in my heart for decades. I’d often wondered if it had simply gone dormant or if the ability to love was yet another thing that Amarantha had taken from me. But I felt something then, like a firework in my chest, exploding into brilliant colors of light and happiness.

I knew then that I loved (Y/N). 

It startled me and I quickly cast the thought out of my head, far far away. I was too afraid to even think something like that in this place. Should Amarantha find out, she wouldn’t hesitate to kill (Y/N), not just out of jealousy, but also to spite me; just to show me that she could. Another show of the power she held over me… over all of us.  

I couldn’t love her; that would only complicate things and put her in danger. So I swallowed the feelings; buried them deep down and tried to explain them away.

She’s the first girl who’s touched you like this in a long time, I told myself, and you're just clinging to her because of it. You don’t actually like her; you just need to feel loved and appreciated. Yeah, that must be it.

That must be why I just laid there for hours and hours and watched her breathe.