Renard was still a bit restless that night, and Vivian finally caught it.
Usually in Vivian's experience, Renard didn't move around a huge amount when he was asleep, it was only when he was still awake that he was so active. Ever since he fell asleep on top of her out in the garden, she'd been trying to be more vigilant about staying up to make sure he was sleeping well. It was just so hard though... By the end of the day and after having sex with Renard her body was usually just too exhausted to stay up. Tonight though, she'd managed to stay awake enough to notice him moving around, and she held her breath as she waited this out to see if this truly was sleeplessness. As she both felt and listened to him continue to move, she was wracked with both nervousness and delight: he definitely couldn't sleep, and she was finally going to try and comfort him in a moment of weakness. She could see this going well or just backfiring right into her face, and she really had no idea which it would end up being. How would he even react to her picking up on a perceived weakness? It couldn't be well, could it? Not when he'd spent so many years trying to convince them that he didn't have any!
He continued to shift around beside her, and Vivian knew that she had to try and do something. Even if she was terrified that he would get upset, she'd be more upset with herself if she'd noticed that something was wrong with him and did nothing to try and help. With that thought in mind, Vivian rolled over to face him. She could feel Renard stiffen for a moment, and this caused her resolve to falter just slightly. It was only a moment of weakness though, because she was soon reaching out to gently placed her arm on him. She thought about trying to say something, but as she opened her mouth all that really came out was a slight trembling of her lip. Would breaking the silence ruin everything? Kyrie and Dessi were both so much better at comforting people than she was; if they were trying to comfort Renard, how would they do it?
No... Don't think about Kyrie and Dessi. Vivian could comfort Raine just fine, couldn't she? The first thing she always did in those situations was engulf the little girl in a hug until she'd calmed down a bit. Renard was no little girl, but Renard had always liked skinship when they were being intimate so being close now shouldn't be unwelcome.
Sliding one arm underneath his torso, she let her hands meet on the other side of him as she pressed her body close up against his. He still felt a bit stiff in her arms, but as Vivian gently nuzzled his face and gave him a soft kiss, she could feel the tension in his limbs beginning to relax. He was laying on his back for the moment, so it was easy for him to move his arm beneath Vivian to hold her, but he couldn't help letting out a sigh as he did so.
"Sorry, did I wake you?"
His voice was thick with an exhaustion that Vivian didn't think she'd ever heard before, and it made her heart clench with worry. Slowly shaking her head, she tried to snuggle closer to him even though that was a futile effort due to the fact that she already had as much of herself touching him as she could.
"No... I hadn't fallen asleep yet."
Renard let out an exasperated sigh at that, because that meant that she'd been awake to feel his restlessness. It was more than a little emasculating to have her see him at his weakest. He had started his relationship with Kyrie with them effectively knowing each other's weaknesses, but with Vivian it hadn't been like that. He didn't really have anything to say in response to Vivian's comment, he just moved his free hand up to cover his eyes, letting his hand rest there as he tried to will his body to sleep to get out of this scenario.
She could sensing just how hard Renard wanted to abort this conversation, but Vivian really wasn't going to indulge that want. She'd already made the decision that she would try to talk to him about what was bothering him. Besides, if she just rolled over and went back to sleep they wouldn't be getting any closer: things between them would be the same as they always had been and she wanted to continue getting ever closer to the love of her life. Taking a deep breath, Vivian reached a hand up to lightly touch his cheek.
"What's wrong?"
Once again he stiffened in her arms, and as the silence stretched out between them, she deflated a bit at the thought that he wasn't going to share. And indeed, that's what was going through Renard's mind: how did he even put what was bothering him into words? That wasn't the primary problem though, the primary problem was that he didn't want to reveal his weaknesses to others. Even with Kyrie he didn't strictly like to do it, and she'd already seen it through her spying.
While Kyrie wouldn't be inclined to push if he didn't want to talk about it, that just wasn't Vivian's style. Instead, Vivian brought both hands up to Renard's face with a pout on her own face before playfully tugging on his cheeks.
"Come on now, wasn't it you who said that sharing something you don't want to be shared can be surprisingly good?"
Renard couldn't help letting out a soft laugh at that, both because of how much he wasn't expecting the sudden shift to a more playful mood and because of the fact that she was using his own sentiments against him. Vivian always had been clever, especially good at twisting words, in his opinion. Moving his hand away from his face then, he gave her a soft smile.
"So you were listening, were you?"
"Of course I was! Don't you underestimate my sleep addled brain. I spent ages functioning on that when Raine was a baby."
Renard let out another chuckle at that as his hand began to lightly play with Vivian's hair. She was ultimately right though: if he wanted her to be more accepting of things that she might not like then he had to walk his own talk and set the example. This was a two lane road as much as he'd prefer it to be one.
"I suppose I can't argue with your logic."
He fell silent after saying this though, mostly because he was trying to figure out how to turn vague emotions into words. He also had to be careful not to mention that Kyrie had been somewhat of an influence on his mood: after seeing her pictures his anger on the whole situation had flared up again. He was planning to try and express that anger through plants tomorrow to try and test Kyrie's coping mechanism, but it meant that tonight he was rather out of sorts. He had been left with a smoldering irritation, an itch that kept him restless under the covers of the bed.
"I was thinking about the attack again today."
Even though "the attack" was such a vague term, Vivian knew exactly what he was talking about, and her expression sobered considerably as she looked up at him.
"It just continues to frustrate me how I was able to do so little. Our lives just aren't in our own hands; instead they're in the hands of people that we have no way of influencing. Their well-being is just as important as our own, and yet when they face distress all we can do is stare wide-eyed as it unfolds in front of us. Or worse not even know and find out the next morning! Just how are we supposed to deal with that?!"
As Renard spoke, the tone of his voice got increasingly more agitated, until by the end of it he was covering his eyes again with his free hand, trying to take a deep breath in to calm himself. That was more than he'd intended to show her, but he was tired and frustrated and apparently that meant he had less of a filter. Annoyed at himself, his face scrunched up into a scowl while his hand remained on his face. Vivian could feel him shaking slightly in his anger, and all she could really think to do was hold him a little tighter in her arms.
"I... I can understand that feeling at least a little. I was such a wreck when Raine almost died, not just because of that fact but also because the only thing I could do was sit there and watch her suffer. At least you were able to bring plants to the lady, all I did was cry."
Was this really helping either of them? All it seemed to be doing was making Vivian miserable when before she'd been just fine. He really shouldn't have said anything. As he wrapped his other arm around her, she spoke before he could say something to try and salvage this situation.
"But you were there with me, Renard. When you brought me back to the guest room and comforted me, I felt so much better. Plus, the events of that night helped me realize just how important Raine was to me. As horrible as it sounds, there were positives for me from that night, and maybe there were for you too. We both know in just what ways it was awful, and why we hope that such an event never comes again, but if we really can't do much to influence the masters of the house then wouldn't it be better to look at what influences us?"
Renard was rendered speechless by this. Here he was in one of his rare vulnerable moments, but being with Kyrie in one of these was so different from being with Vivian. For some reason he'd expected Vivian to comfort very similarly to Kyrie, but they couldn't be more different if they tried. Kyrie compartmentalized her fears and worries, and drew them out of her mind by letting them out onto a page. Vivian, on the other hand, confronted her fears and worries, wrested them into her own favor, and moved forward by incorporating them into herself. Renard couldn't say whether one method was particularly better than the other, but what he could say was that it really gave him something to think about.
Perhaps after he tried Kyrie's method with the garden, he might try to make a couple sections of the garden reflect the dramatic differences between these two young women. The idea rather appealed to him, and his anger began to quell as he thought about Vivian's words and his garden. Vivian was a stronger woman than he might've expected, and he turned to softly kiss Vivian's forehead.
"You always were the type to look your grievances right in the eye and tell them exactly what was on your mind."
There was another smile on his face now, and Vivian had to admit that she was relieved to see that.
"Well of course! You wouldn't like me as much if I didn't put up a bit of a fight."
Renard simply chuckled as he leaned down to nip at her nose, and she nipped him right back before moving in again to give him a slow kiss. Nothing trying to be particularly arousing, but something to remind him of just how deep her love for him was.
"Feeling better?"
Her face was close enough to his that he could feel her breath as she asked the question, and one of his hands moved up to rest on her cheek.
"I am, actually."
Vivian practically beamed at this, and as she was reveling in how good it felt to be able to help Renard, he moved in for another kiss. She could feel the earlier tenseness in him easing into a heaviness that was indicative of sleep, and her own body was falling into it as well as he kissed her: it was just so relaxing and comfortable to be like this. When he parted his lips from hers, he gave her a bit of a lazy grin.
"I shouldn't be keeping you up any longer."
"Good."
Vivian practically purred out her response as she snuggled her face up against him, using him as her effective pillow now. The warmth of his body relaxed her quite a bit, and even though she was tired, she was determined not to fall asleep until she was sure that Renard wasn't just trying to say that he was feeling better.
Soon though, she began to feel the slower and steadier motions on his chest from his breathing, and she couldn't help but swell with delight. She loved this. She loved spending time with Renard, and now that she was making more of an effort to get to know him on a more intimate level their time together was becoming all the sweeter. The only thing she wished was that she'd tried to get past the Renard smile earlier: perhaps then they'd be so much closer to each other than they were now. It was happy thoughts like these that played Vivian's lullaby for the night, and she soon followed her lover into unconsciousness.