The burden of consciousness came for him, and so Spyro labored a groan. All at once he became aware of his weight laid against cool stone, his claws lazily slumped out in front of him. His groan continued, accompanying a roll onto his back, where a cold, untouched stretch of stone drew a sigh, instead. There, his torso scales curled and grew taught in a series of stretches, the biggest of which rose his stomach a few inches off the ground.

"..."

The young dragon ventured to sit up, though it betrayed any hope of returning to the splendors of the Dream Weaver's realm. But as he moved, something strong pressed firmly against him, pushing him back down with a jolt. It was then that Spyro's tired eyes opened, and he spied a familiar red claw gripping his chest.

"And just where are you going so early?"

Spyro's fatigue quickly began to fade. A pair of sly, crimson eyes watched him. How silly of him not to notice.

"Crap," Spyro uttered, letting his head fall back uselessly as an even greater weight laid across his chest. "Didn't realize you were awake."

There was a cheeky tongue click. "Instinctive alarm system. The second my nest gets disturbed, I'm bright-eyed and whip-tailed."

His company shifted, and a chin rested upon Spyro's stomach, forbidding him from moving. Perhaps the Dream Weavers would be seeing him again soon, after all.

"Are we doing this every morning, now?"

"Are we doing what every morning, now?"

"Don't play dumb, Flame."

"But I am dumb," Flame insisted, sporting a huge, doofy grin. His claws extended like that of a stretching cat, gently raking along bright yellow stomach scales. "Nobody here but us dumb lizards. Dumb lizards hoard and tend to their treasure, Spyro, you know that."

Surrendering himself to the attention, Spyro cocked a brow, staring at the grinning dragon from down his own chest. He couldn't help but crack a little smirk, himself.

"You've sure got a roundabout way of cuddling," Spyro teased. His rear claws clutched the ground, attempting a more comfortable position, but Flame would not budge. Spyro snorted. "Too macho to ask directly, but love taking naps too much to resist."

"Cuddling?" Flame parroted, again laying upon a bright yellow abdomen. His talons wrapped around Spyro by his barrel, as did his tail curl around a lavender leg. In a few simple motions he incapacitated the dragon with weight and comfort. "The heck are you talking about? I'm treasure hoarding."

The thought was accompanied by a long, unsightly yawn. Puffs of smoke trickled from Flame's nostrils, and he grew still in his newfound nap spot.

Spyro sighed, long and deep. With productivity dashed from his grasp, he readily gave in to his body's pleads to sleep in. As inconvenient as Flame was, his body heat was nothing short of satisfying. He held the red dragon in return, clasping the base of his back, just below his wings.

"You're a dork, you know that?"

"Big talk coming from a treasure pile."

"A comfy treasure pile, apparently," Spyro probed. A solitary eye leered at him, raising high enough off his stomach to show off a smirk full of fangs.

"Dragons don't hoard stuff that's comfy," Flame shot back, "we hoard stuff that's ours."

A streak of red crept at Spyro's cheeks, but he recovered quickly.

"Oh, I'm yours, huh?"

He felt himself squeezed in response. A sassy tongue flexed in Spyro's direction.

"Even if I get called on to save the realms again?"

"Mine."

"Or if I have to go on extended leave to toast more magic-wielding, dragon-hating lunatics?"

"Still mine."

"Can't forget misplaced baby dragons and dragonflies."

"Definitely mine."

"Sounding awfully possessive, over there," the purple dragon taunted, his grin shameless. "You afraid someone's gonna steal me away? Oh no, better keep an eye on me, Flame, or an egg thief might stuff me in a sack and run off when you're not looking!"

Flame scoffed. In a decisive moment he rose to all fours, repositioned, and let himself fall with a thud upon Spyro's chest. Now utterly pinned beneath Flame's frame, Spyro could do little but gaze, cross-eyed at the snout just inches from his own.

"I could handle some thief," Flame remarked, his voice unnaturally calm. "My problem is my treasure has wings and likes to fly away of its own accord. Hence why I find myself having to sit on it so often. And I ask you, what good is guarded treasure if it flies away all the time?"

Flame's snout pressed against his, and this time Spyro's reddened cheeks were here to stay.

"Okay, gotta admit I'm not sure where your treasure analogies are going, anymore."

Flame simpered. A tongue emerged from a maw of teeth and licked the bridge of Spyro's nose.

"You know, we've been together for months now and I still can't get you to slow down," the crimson drake expressed, pressing his head beneath Spyro's chin and growing more comfortable. "Gotta get up and do this, gotta go somewhere and do that, gotta help the dad dragons do this, gotta patrol the realms for danger that - put a lid on it, Spyro. The realms have been safe for a while, now, but you still run around like you're always on a mission."

"So you're upset that I stay busy?" Spyro inserted. "Cause' no one's stopping you from coming with, you know."

"No, I mean that you think you know how to relax but you absolutely do not."

Two trails of agitated nostril smoke assailed Flame's head, and went unnoticed.

"Right, and you're such an expert on relaxing," Spyro mocked, rolling his eyes in an arc before returning to the dragon beneath his chin. "You're even more impulsive and reckless than I am, Flame, where's this speech coming from?"

A claw pinched his side, and Spyro twitched. He shot a glare, and Flame laughed.

"You're touchy when you're not awake yet," Flame replied with equal snark. "Look, I may be impulsive, but when I do run out of steam I know when to take it easy. You just go and go and go as long as you can justify it...and believe me, you always justify it. Then when you do relax, your idea of relaxing is rides and stuff at a theme park, not actually letting yourself rest."

The red drake expertly countered an attempt to knock him aside. Spyro's glare signaled another rush of smoke, and to this, Flame's eyes twinkled.

"Speaking of steam, that reminds me of something I've been meaning to show you," he went on, planting his chin by Spyro's cheek. "Who knows, it might even help with this hyperactivity problem of yours."

Spyro opened his mouth to retort, but the peripheral view of flickering fire at the corners of Flame's smirk seized his voice. Not a second later, a wave of warmth flooded the purple dragon, causing him to shiver in content. The scales of Flame's underbelly and neck, still pressed against Spyro's own, glowed with the heat of a furnace.

"Feels good, right?" Flame asked rhetorically, sparks of fire whisking from his mouth with every word. "I can hold a fire breath in my chest for a while to become a living heat source. How sick is that? Figured it out the other night when a fireball got stuck in my throat. Totally slipped my mind 'till now to bring it up."

"Alright, I lay corrected. Maybe you can show me a thing or two about relaxing, after all," Spyro murmured, his entire face flushed in enjoyment of the personalized snuggle sauna. Every cell within his every scale sighed in perfect harmony, and streaks of steam wafted from his lazy smile. "...yeah, I could definitely see myself getting used to this. I've been in hot springs less comfortable."

Flame's smirk doubled in size. "Oh, is that so," he purred. He picked up his head, hovering sly eyes over the toasting dragon beneath him. Never, not even while asleep had he seen Spyro look so relaxed. The young, revered hero of the Dragon Realms had been reduced to an adorable puddle of pleasant humming and slow-flexing claws.

When Spyro gave another full-body shiver, Flame's smirk nearly slipped to something more adoring.

"So you're saying all I have to do is pin you down and turn on the steam works to get you to relax? Great! Talk about a breakthrough."

It took a moment for Spyro's lackadaisical expression to catch on. "Hang on, don't even think about abusing this, Flame. Your lazy morning routines are bad enough as is!"

Closing his eyes and nuzzling Spyro's neck, Flame ignored the verbal protests outright. His tail wagged in a slow, rhythmic arc behind him, occasionally wrestling with Spyro's whenever it drew too close.

"Mmm...we gonna sleep till the afternoon every day, steam works junkie," the red dragon cooed. His smirk glowed wickedly in the hazy heat of his self-made sauna. "And you'll be too lulled in comfort to protest!"

"You lazy dolt," Spyro chortled, attempting to upheave the sluggish mass of red scales to very limited success. His muscles betrayed him, lethargic in the steady heat. "That's what this has been about, 'relaxing', my tail. You just wanna sleep in all the time, and want a way to keep me in the nest with you."

"Okay, yes," Flame admitted, unperturbed by the incessant pushes and prods. "But it's also about you, and all those other things I said. Sleeping in with me will help you slow down and take things easier. You clearly need an intervention, Spyro - I'm just flaming two sheep with one fireball."

Spyro scoffed at the notion, but ceased his vain efforts all the same. His attempts had drained him even further, and now he lay a toasty shell of the dragon he once was. Steam produced by his own breath, created in Flame's reaction, invaded his nostrils and pulled down his eyelids, while the red dragon's weight firmly held him in place, so coaxingly inviting him to drift off.

The purple dragon's back leg jerked subtly, and so that's exactly what he began to do.

"Well, it's certainly working," Spyro admitted weakly. He eyed his attentive chest weight fondly. "Guess I'll let you win this round, seeing as I was still kinda tired, anyway. Besides, I suppose I can't have you sulking this early over an absent security blanket."

"Oh, sure, go ahead with the flips and jokes," Flame quipped, his sarcasm diluted by a softer tone. Again he squeezed, extracting a chuckle in the process. "We'll see how long that attitude lasts. Now that I've got a surefire trick you respond to, forget it. Seeya in an hour or two."

"Hold up, one thing, first."

"Hmm?"

"How long can you keep up this trick, anyway?"

"Not sure. Probably until I have to sneeze, or fall asleep, myself," Flame mumbled through yellow scales. "Don't fret, though, I'll make sure I lull you to sleep first. Like I said, gotta take care of my treasure."

"Shut up, Flame," Spyro mumbled in a chuckle. "Only you can manage to embarrass me even when no one's around."

With his face tucked away against Spyro's chest, Flame couldn't see his mate's beaming smile.