He liked listening to the sound of her voice.

No matter what event was occuring, the feelings he was experiencing, or the words she was saying, he liked hearing it.

Her mouth moved faster than her thoughts, and she'd spill the words before she could finish formulating them. She'd stumble over phrases and forget what words meant, and interrupt herself to try and describe whatever adverb she'd misplaced. She'd go on for ages about whatever her current hyperfocus was if he let her.

And he let her.

He liked hearing her, and she liked that he listened. Before him, no one had given her that. Letting her talk calmed them both down.

He could spend an hour focusing on her rather than whatever thoughts would pop up with the sole purpose of stressing him out. She could get all of her strange, energetic, bright, impossible ideas out of her head and into the air.

"How was your day?" He'd ask whenever he needed a break from something draining. She'd describe in vivid detail the color of the sunrise when she woke up, the doodle she'd penned atop a neon yellow sticky note, the amount of purple flowers she'd come across; a day filtered through Nora's eyes was something ethereal if you had the patience to listen to her.

Summer storms were the perfect weather to dance in. Fields were the best place to lie down. Hands were made for swinging hammers, finger painting, and holding other hands.

They used this arrangement, her talking and him listening, beyond a general sense. There was virtually no stress, no fear, that Ren's semblance couldn't assuage long enough to ground himself. And whatever pain somehow managed to slip through the cracks was still no match for his Nora.

"Tell me a story." He'd asked once, voice tender, a few minutes after awakening from a nightmare; the image of a city cloaked in flames and bodies strewn about still haunting his mind.

She was leaning back against the pillows, side of his head resting against her collarbone. In this position, he could feel her pulse, and she could easily run her fingers through his hair.

Smiling gently, she drew daisies on his back with her finger, "What do you want to hear?"

He wrapped his arm around her waist, sighing softly. "Make something up."

Her smile widened. "Once upon a time, there was a bed of sloths."

He smirked, looking up at her.

"And one of them was weird." She whispered conspiratorially, "It wasn't super slow, instead, it was super fast!" He breathed a laugh.

"And nobody could catch up to it. So, it wasn't allowed to enter any sloth races."

"Sloth races?"

"Like horse races, except the sloths are both the rider and the ridden."

He raised an eyebrow, "Interesting setup."

"Let them have their fun." She poked his side.

He exasperatedly rolled his eyes.

"So anyway, none of the other sloths let it compete, and it was really sad. So, it decided to team up with it's super slow sloth friends, and they started their own sloth race gang, except with bicycles."

She beamed, emphatically throwing her arms up into the air, "And then all the mean sloths said 'oh my gosh look how fun!' And they set aside their differences and formed a bike gang! And they lived happily ever after causing bike related chaos! The end."

Ren sighed contentedly. "Truly the underappreciated storyteller of a generation." Reaching his hand up, he laced their fingers together.

Nora stuck out her tongue, "You wish you could be in a sloth bicycle gang."

He smiled slightly, "Who doesn't?"

"Not me," she grinned, "I'd totally be in a sloth bicycle gang! And I'd have super long arms, which means that I could give people double hugs. Hugs where you wrap your arms around somebody twice!" She squeezed his hand, to which he responded by pressing a sleepy kiss to her collarbone.

Maybe he could have snapped back from nightmares on his own, but it was faster and far more pleasant to just drown out the fear, the pain, anything unpleasant, really, with her.