Morning found Dax awake long before it found Chris.
This was not unusual. Sleep had never been something Dax trusted enough to linger in. His body woke as if summoned by habit rather than light, senses sharp, mind already cataloguing the quiet of the room. No alarms. No movement beyond the slow, steady rise and fall beneath his arm.
Chris was still asleep.
Not the restless half-sleep he sometimes fell into when his mind refused to let go, but the heavy, unguarded kind. Warm. Boneless again, though this time folded into the sheets instead of a rug, one leg tangled with Dax's, face turned toward his chest as if he had drifted there by instinct and decided not to leave.
Dax did not move.
