there was a stray neighborhood cat that my sisters fed, which kind of became ours, even though it didn't live with us. been trying to think if i could keep a cat here, but i don't even have a houseplant. maybe i should start small
[ she hasn't even seen his place yet. which bucky thinks about sometimes — hopes she hasn't taken it personally, wonders how he'd explain that ascetic cell of a studio apartment, and knows he'll have to find some way to deal with it sooner or later. but not right now. ]
The kind that's home ( — she could leave it at that, but why put a damper on the night so quickly? ) Dinners around a table, warmed in the winter and the windows open in the summer. A yard for him to have room, space to spoil him, the american dream.
( not hospital bills and college admissions stuffed between her mattresses, not a home built on grief. )
You know, you seem like a cat guy. I've heard they're independent, just a little affection here and there. On their terms, of course.
Debatably, they might even be easier than a plant. Plenty of strays in the city.
true. and i always liked the idea of rescues. adopt don't shop, and all
what was your home like then, growing up? not warm in winter?
( that last question is lightly teasing, but he's already aware he might be tiptoeing into dangerous territory. family's a sore spot for so many people he's ever known. )
( she knows the words are softened with jest, but it doesn't make it's answer β whether spoken or kept folded in, hidden β any less biting. )
It was for awhile. Vermont was a completely different kind of cold, it's like you couldn't get it off of you. We'd come home from school when we were young and by dinner you'd still be trying to chase it away.
( we. plural, made to sigular. )
We didn't exactly have a lavish life growing up, but my parents tried. You know? And I didn't know any different. If an electric bill was late, it was on all of us.
kinda know what you mean. like not to play the great depression card, but winters got brutal and heating got expensive. ma always found a way to make things work though. vermont must've been even chillier.
you had any siblings?
( they really had started off on such an uneven footing. bucky's biographical details were right there in the wikipedia article, the museum placard: the oldest child of four. still, he'd been going about slowly filling in the details and the flavour for karen, the personal touches that the textbooks couldn't carry. remembering his family. a kind of tribute, in the remembering.
the woman on the other end of this phone, though, is such a blank slate in comparison. )
New York comes close. It's just all the buildings, all the life, it cuts it a little bit.
( she enjoys those little windows into the man he'd been before someone had tried to decide such a thing for him β something as simple as that 'ma,' and yet just as readily as that warmth had slipped over her, the thought of learning someone, it's stripped from her again in a single breath. her heart lurches; thick and uncomfortable, a threat: there is nothing soft here. she doesn't mean to go quiet, doesn't realize the time that spans between his question and her reply. some part of her, splintered, is grateful for the tense he'd chosen: had. because she doesn't have to say it. not yet.
had. verb. past tense. )
A brother. It was just the two of us and my parents. They owned one of the only diners in town, we both worked there so we were just always with each other til my mom got sick. ( she clears her throat, as if any of it had been said aloud at all. ) I think we were closest then, even if we didn't act like it.
( it was an accidental slip of the tongue on bucky's part, a byproduct of talking about the past, and his and steve's own childhoods being so far behind them with everyone dead in the ground-- and yet that past tense treads so much closer than he realised. had. was. were. )
so that must be why you've got such good taste in nyc diners.
( another small joke. he's bad at this; keeps reflexively leveraging that gallow's sense of humour. )
but i'm sorry about your mom. 'got sick' never really entails anything good, i'm assuming
( she doesn't mind the little glimpses of reprieve he provides, maybe because she can see through the overcast humor, maybe because it reminds her of another gruff voice doing all too closely the same thing. they all had their ways of coping β hers was just battering herself down into stories that weren't hers. )
It might have a thing or two to do with it.
( it's easier to talk about that, the surface-level idea of where she hides herself. )
She was diagnosed with cancer. It did't really give her much time, and you'd think you'd want more of that, we're all kind of desperate for it in the end, but she suffered. For it to stop was peace for her. We tried to keep everything up and running after she was gone but it wasn't the same. ( teeth pinch at the inners of her cheek, but she tries to keep herself here: a lesser cliff. not as much of a sentence. )
I guess simple isn't really a word that suits us huh.
He's still in Vermont. We don't really talk, after everything. We lost my mom and I dunno, from there it's like I forgot what I was supposed to be doing. What I should have been doing. ( she thinks to side-step it, but her mom isn't the reason she'd left the state, why she'd been told to leave, why she'd sought out the city. and keeping that one crucial bit of what splinters her hidden from him seems disingenuous, for all he's been honest with her about. )
I got into some bad shit. My brother, he started looking out for me when it should've been the other way around.
On night there was an accident. He didn't make it. ( and with that her breath catches, throat constricting in on itself β how long had it been since she'd lived this out loud? )
I think from there it was just too much for my dad to have me around. Too much of a reminder. That's when I came to the city.
( he'd had that lingering suspicion that there was— something. karen page put on such a bright, put-together, ostensibly normal exterior — the girl next door — but the average person didn't just invite a bleeding stranger into their apartment to stitch them up. and he'd started to get to know her in the time ever since. he'd been on the other end of those late, lonely texts. had started to put two-and-two together that there was something beneath that brittle exterior, some aching void inside her that he couldn't put his finger on but there were hints at it, in her messages, in the things she did and didn't say about her family and her past.
maybe that was part of why he liked her so much. these days, he's drawn to other broken people. )
i'm sorry that happened, karen. and sorry if i'm prying.
( it's a response for the mere sake of just that β responding. it's the dry truth and even then it seems stale on her palette, because grief never seemed to age. she doesn't want him to pity her, to empathize too sincerely, because he doesn't know the hand she'd played. that she could've done more for her family, after her mom. that she could've made choices that weren't barraging her life with shit so that her brother didn't attempt to come picking up the pieces. )
I don't mind, sharing it with you. It sounds weird to say it's nice to be able to talk about it all, but I guess I've never really gotten the chance to. ( she wets her lips, stares emptily at the coffee that'd gone cold on the end table.
( he's not on assignment tonight — hence the possibility for sleepless texts — and so there's nothing stopping him from just grabbing his leather jacket, keys, lacing up his boots, and slipping out into the night.
it's always her place. bucky hasn't dared let karen see the sad empty shell of his apartment yet, and he already knows he's gonna have to cross that bridge eventually — but for now, at least, it's hopping on the subway, heading over to her now-familiar neighbourhood, and buzzing her door. leaning his weight against the front door and breathing out the chilly autumnal air while he waits for that tell-tale click of the lock letting him into the building.
up the stairs several steps at a time, a long loping stride which still doesn't leave him breathless, until he's back to her apartment, and he raps his knuckles against the door.
it's like the night he found her on tinder, and yet it isn't. he isn't bringing alcohol and this time he feels calm, comfortable, not strung with nerves. is it even a booty call? hard to tell. but karen wanted his company and he'll give her that, easily, in whatever way it's needed. )
( she doesn't think to prod him into that anticipated invitation, not when she's carrying what she is tonight, not when she couldn't stay with him there with only half a story told. it's only once he pages up to her apartment and she, in turn, allows him in that it occurs to her the implication that might've laced itself within her message. and he'd have every right to have thoughts wander there, to teeth and flesh and heated breaths pattering against one another, mouth to mouth β maybe it was too much, too soon to expect he'd come for anything less. or was it anything more?
she doesn't know. he's not that way, bucky, but as it is, can she really say with any certainty at all that there's no part of her β even as fragmented as she is, here and now β that didn't hunger for him?
a familiar knock at the door, a moment and twin set of locks slipping from their watch, and the moment it's open and he's there before her, again, she suddenly feels a tinge of something childlike and vining for asking him over at such an hour β and yet, what's more... relief. )
Hi. ( a breath, faint as her smile, lips snared beneath her teeth as she steps aside to invite him in.
Hi, ( he echoes, and for a moment they're all bashful smiles, still feeling out the tenor and shape of this— whatever-this-is. bucky steps in, then hesitates on the threshold for a second, caught between a hug or a kiss and if so, where to plant it? in the end, he settles for a kiss on her cheek (his own is rough with stubble, a mark of how late the hour is) and a half-hug, an arm wrapped around her shoulders in a quick embrace of hello. )
Is it a good or a bad thing that we're both insomniacs? At least misery loves company, I guess.
( as if insomnia is the only trouble weighing karen down tonight; as if it isn't also the topics they accidentally broached earlier. bucky's eyes are soft when they land on her, his voice turning gentler, more probing. more serious, for a heartbeat. )
( this halfway is where they seem to have found themselves, not quite sure when to administer the warmth and if so, how much. she'd never really gotten around to learning that about herself, but he doesn't seem to mind treading through the dark with her. that stubble-brush of a kiss leaves skin alert, like a whisper in her ear: something familiar is here. a cue to let the rigidity of her bones soften, to let that held breath go β and she does just that. )
Hm. Depends on the night.
( he'll find the apartment's much darker than the last time he'd been, same candle lit on the coffee table, light beneath the counters hardly offering much more in the way of guidance. the streetlights always seem to remedy that, just enough. the city had it's own light that never seemed to snuff out.
the flush that's taken to her eyes likely speaks for itself, but she's able to offer a tired, small smile in response beneath her lashes, head ducked and edge of her jaw fluttering. ) I'm okay. ( a whisper, and it's only true because she's used to this β swallowing it down, stomaching it. she's had to for years, now. he'd brought the chill in with him; she gravitates towards it. one of her digits lazily finds his own, twines there for just a moment before she's pulling back, a silent invitation further. )
Do you want anything? ( ever the hostess, always fidgeting, always restless. )
( there's an answering tug at the corner of his mouth, a rueful smile. the offer sparks another flickering echo of sense-memory: the taste of the liquor he'd brought, that pleasant burn on his lips and hers, and how that last particular night-cap had gone. but that's a different night for a different mood. something about tonight was— quieter. more comfortable. not buzzing with that electric energy of the unknown, of taking a gamble and stepping out over an empty cliff together. )
Maybe a glass of water? It's important to stay hydrated, ( he jokes. and that is not, actually, a HYDRA pun, no matter how it might sound.
mostly, it's a lifeline. granting her an excuse to bustle around and have something to do with her hands, while bucky shuts and locks the door behind them, toes his way out of his boots, tosses his jacket back on the kitchen bench— starting to find a routine, here, in her place. )
( her response comes in the form of a warm chuckle, however displaced, it belongs to him, rouses because of him. karen's never felt the need to be anything fictive with him, never felt the need to hide despite how accustomed she's become to keeping everything that ticks within her hushed. there's something about his standing before her, his merely being in that apartment with her that tells her it's okay. to hunger, to need, to break. however she needs to, however messy, and his words translate clearly.
the locks click in place as she slips soundlessly towards the kitchen, draft catching at bare ankles, dressed in no more than a pair of sleep shorts nearly obscured by a too-big t-shirt. and just the sound of it, something so simple, his taking care of a habit that leaves fingers curling into her own palm and boots setting hollow to the floorboards resonates within her far more than it should, far more than she should allow. the idea of this β him β becoming something she knows. it rattles her, and maybe it's only because she's in a fractured state to begin with, too many crevices open and yawning for those dangerous thoughts to sneak inside.
when she turns to find him again he's closer, tongue rolling over the bottom pillow of her lip once she's beside him, offering the glass for him to take. there's an electricity between them there just as it'd been the night he'd stayed β the first time. it baits her breath as she finds his eyes in the dark. )
Thank you. ( a whisper, tone softening as it rises to him. ) For coming.
Hey. We've already established that I don't sleep, either.
( those sweaty nights tangled in his sheets, jolting awake from nightmares that never really went away. it was better some nights — like when he'd crashed here — but the hurt was always waiting beneath the surface, a sea monster waiting in the depths, hungry to swallow you whole if you took the wrong step. something's starting to tell him that karen can relate. )
So being sleepless with company is an improvement on being sleepless alone, I figure. It's no trouble. And it's kind of my fault anyway. I texted you about dogs.
( he's half-smiling; a wry, self-conscious kind of humour. )
( it'd be easier, to let herself hide in him, to forget where that innocent message he'd started the night off with had wandered off to β the dark had never learned how to hold her, and she the dark in turn β really, she doesn't know if she's invited him here as a means to distract herself or because she's comfortable enough to let him see her at such an hour, when lack of sleep and all its reasons why feast upon her. it's different when you're downing whiskey, tasting it off of one another, when you have an excuse. as it is, there's half a mug of coffee that's run cold sitting on the kitchen counter, and her sobriety is sharp.
she laughs, and while it's fickle β distracted, almost, as if she's still not entirely there, present β at least it's honest. )
I guess it's sort of becoming our thing, sleepless sleepovers.
( it seems kind of brash to invite him to her room, and while she can't say there isn't any kindling of want for him when he's standing right there before her, a vivid memory of a few nights prior, it's not what she's after. she waits at least til he's taken the glass from her, wrapping one arm about her frame while the other gestures a hand behind her. )
I was in my room, if you want toβ ( join? she is so god awful at this, and it's almost in knowing that she offers an apologetic tilt to the edge of her lips. )
( bucky stands in the middle of her kitchen and sips at the cold water, contemplative; and in the end he decides to just call a spade a spade and be direct. pin down some of that shifting ground between them, and ease some of that apologetic smile of hers. his own smile is rueful: )
What're you in the mood for?
( after a brief beat, he hurries to add: )
Because whatever you need, Karen, I'm here. Whatever you want. It's okay.
( whether it's the aimless distraction of sex and losing themselves in each others' bodies. whether it's the company alone, and just lying there with each other. he addresses the ambiguity but he's not leaning in any particular direction, not assuming anything either way. )
( one would think she's familiarized herself with words enough that they'd so easily find her, but as much as they cooperate with a glaring screen, they're only heavy and unwilling when delivered by tongue. what do you need?what do you want? questions she doesn't know what to do with, because it comes resoundingly down to: everything and nothing all at once. she looks back a moment as they stand in her kitchen, and they've been here before, only now it's a different dance. )
I wish I knew.
( it's only a breath, toneless and yearning β for what, she can't say. he'd been the first to cross that barrier before, it only seems fair to even the odds.
she's padding closer, teeth already habitually snared into her lips, and eyes and crown are ducking once she's just before him, gathering his hand digit by digit, using it this time to lure him closer to her, rather than merely into the heart of her place. )
Just you being here isβ ( a slight shrug, their fronts flirting together. ) It helps.
I know you're still not exactly accustomed to a bed, but... ( the slow bloom of a half-grin finds her lips, and it's an invitation without bluntly saying so, nodding back towards the darkened entry to a bedroom that's familiar to them both. )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
β midnight texts.
no subject
How about you?
no subject
there was a stray neighborhood cat that my sisters fed, which kind of became ours, even though it didn't live with us. been trying to think if i could keep a cat here, but i don't even have a houseplant. maybe i should start small
[ she hasn't even seen his place yet. which bucky thinks about sometimes — hopes she hasn't taken it personally, wonders how he'd explain that ascetic cell of a studio apartment, and knows he'll have to find some way to deal with it sooner or later. but not right now. ]
no subject
( not hospital bills and college admissions stuffed between her mattresses, not a home built on grief. )
You know, you seem like a cat guy. I've heard they're independent, just a little affection here and there. On their terms, of course.
Debatably, they might even be easier than a plant. Plenty of strays in the city.
no subject
what was your home like then, growing up? not warm in winter?
( that last question is lightly teasing, but he's already aware he might be tiptoeing into dangerous territory. family's a sore spot for so many people he's ever known. )
no subject
It was for awhile. Vermont was a completely different kind of cold, it's like you couldn't get it off of you. We'd come home from school when we were young and by dinner you'd still be trying to chase it away.
( we. plural, made to sigular. )
We didn't exactly have a lavish life growing up, but my parents tried. You know? And I didn't know any different. If an electric bill was late, it was on all of us.
no subject
you had any siblings?
( they really had started off on such an uneven footing. bucky's biographical details were right there in the wikipedia article, the museum placard: the oldest child of four. still, he'd been going about slowly filling in the details and the flavour for karen, the personal touches that the textbooks couldn't carry. remembering his family. a kind of tribute, in the remembering.
the woman on the other end of this phone, though, is such a blank slate in comparison. )
no subject
( she enjoys those little windows into the man he'd been before someone had tried to decide such a thing for him β something as simple as that 'ma,' and yet just as readily as that warmth had slipped over her, the thought of learning someone, it's stripped from her again in a single breath. her heart lurches; thick and uncomfortable, a threat: there is nothing soft here. she doesn't mean to go quiet, doesn't realize the time that spans between his question and her reply. some part of her, splintered, is grateful for the tense he'd chosen: had. because she doesn't have to say it. not yet.
had. verb. past tense. )
A brother. It was just the two of us and my parents. They owned one of the only diners in town, we both worked there so we were just always with each other til my mom got sick. ( she clears her throat, as if any of it had been said aloud at all. ) I think we were closest then, even if we didn't act like it.
no subject
so that must be why you've got such good taste in nyc diners.
( another small joke. he's bad at this; keeps reflexively leveraging that gallow's sense of humour. )
but i'm sorry about your mom. 'got sick' never really entails anything good, i'm assuming
no subject
It might have a thing or two to do with it.
( it's easier to talk about that, the surface-level idea of where she hides herself. )
She was diagnosed with cancer. It did't really give her much time, and you'd think you'd want more of that, we're all kind of desperate for it in the end, but she suffered. For it to stop was peace for her. We tried to keep everything up and running after she was gone but it wasn't the same. ( teeth pinch at the inners of her cheek, but she tries to keep herself here: a lesser cliff. not as much of a sentence. )
Sorry.
2/2
no subject
i couldn't sleep, and felt like talking to you. and opening with "you up" felt too simple
( and he does not, in fact, know the connotations with that particular phrasing of a text either. )
i like learning more about you, even when it's heavier than expected. everybody's got shit in their past. god knows mine isn't easy either
your dad still around?
no subject
He's still in Vermont. We don't really talk, after everything. We lost my mom and I dunno, from there it's like I forgot what I was supposed to be doing. What I should have been doing. ( she thinks to side-step it, but her mom isn't the reason she'd left the state,
why she'd been told to leave, why she'd sought out the city. and keeping that one crucial bit of what splinters her hidden from him seems disingenuous, for all he's been honest with her about. )I got into some bad shit. My brother, he started looking out for me when it should've been the other way around.
On night there was an accident. He didn't make it. ( and with that her breath catches, throat constricting in on itself β how long had it been since she'd lived this out loud? )
I think from there it was just too much for my dad to have me around. Too much of a reminder. That's when I came to the city.
no subject
maybe that was part of why he liked her so much. these days, he's drawn to other broken people. )
i'm sorry that happened, karen.
and sorry if i'm prying.
no subject
( it's a response for the mere sake of just that β responding. it's the dry truth and even then it seems stale on her palette, because grief never seemed to age. she doesn't want him to pity her, to empathize too sincerely, because he doesn't know the hand she'd played. that she could've done more for her family, after her mom. that she could've made choices that weren't barraging her life with shit so that her brother didn't attempt to come picking up the pieces. )
I don't mind, sharing it with you. It sounds weird to say it's nice to be able to talk about it all, but I guess I've never really gotten the chance to. ( she wets her lips, stares emptily at the coffee that'd gone cold on the end table.
the quiet in her apartment aches. )
Can you come here?
β action bc we're incorrigible
( he's not on assignment tonight — hence the possibility for sleepless texts — and so there's nothing stopping him from just grabbing his leather jacket, keys, lacing up his boots, and slipping out into the night.
it's always her place. bucky hasn't dared let karen see the sad empty shell of his apartment yet, and he already knows he's gonna have to cross that bridge eventually — but for now, at least, it's hopping on the subway, heading over to her now-familiar neighbourhood, and buzzing her door. leaning his weight against the front door and breathing out the chilly autumnal air while he waits for that tell-tale click of the lock letting him into the building.
up the stairs several steps at a time, a long loping stride which still doesn't leave him breathless, until he's back to her apartment, and he raps his knuckles against the door.
it's like the night he found her on tinder, and yet it isn't. he isn't bringing alcohol and this time he feels calm, comfortable, not strung with nerves. is it even a booty call? hard to tell. but karen wanted his company and he'll give her that, easily, in whatever way it's needed. )
no subject
she doesn't know. he's not that way, bucky, but as it is, can she really say with any certainty at all that there's no part of her β even as fragmented as she is, here and now β that didn't hunger for him?
a familiar knock at the door, a moment and twin set of locks slipping from their watch, and the moment it's open and he's there before her, again, she suddenly feels a tinge of something childlike and vining for asking him over at such an hour β and yet, what's more... relief. )
Hi. ( a breath, faint as her smile, lips snared beneath her teeth as she steps aside to invite him in.
always. )
no subject
Is it a good or a bad thing that we're both insomniacs? At least misery loves company, I guess.
( as if insomnia is the only trouble weighing karen down tonight; as if it isn't also the topics they accidentally broached earlier. bucky's eyes are soft when they land on her, his voice turning gentler, more probing. more serious, for a heartbeat. )
You okay?
no subject
Hm. Depends on the night.
( he'll find the apartment's much darker than the last time he'd been, same candle lit on the coffee table, light beneath the counters hardly offering much more in the way of guidance. the streetlights always seem to remedy that, just enough. the city had it's own light that never seemed to snuff out.
the flush that's taken to her eyes likely speaks for itself, but she's able to offer a tired, small smile in response beneath her lashes, head ducked and edge of her jaw fluttering. ) I'm okay. ( a whisper, and it's only true because she's used to this β swallowing it down, stomaching it. she's had to for years, now. he'd brought the chill in with him; she gravitates towards it. one of her digits lazily finds his own, twines there for just a moment before she's pulling back, a silent invitation further. )
Do you want anything? ( ever the hostess, always fidgeting, always restless. )
no subject
Maybe a glass of water? It's important to stay hydrated, ( he jokes. and that is not, actually, a HYDRA pun, no matter how it might sound.
mostly, it's a lifeline. granting her an excuse to bustle around and have something to do with her hands, while bucky shuts and locks the door behind them, toes his way out of his boots, tosses his jacket back on the kitchen bench— starting to find a routine, here, in her place. )
no subject
the locks click in place as she slips soundlessly towards the kitchen, draft catching at bare ankles, dressed in no more than a pair of sleep shorts nearly obscured by a too-big t-shirt. and just the sound of it, something so simple, his taking care of a habit that leaves fingers curling into her own palm and boots setting hollow to the floorboards resonates within her far more than it should, far more than she should allow. the idea of this β him β becoming something she knows. it rattles her, and maybe it's only because she's in a fractured state to begin with, too many crevices open and yawning for those dangerous thoughts to sneak inside.
when she turns to find him again he's closer, tongue rolling over the bottom pillow of her lip once she's beside him, offering the glass for him to take. there's an electricity between them there just as it'd been the night he'd stayed β the first time. it baits her breath as she finds his eyes in the dark. )
Thank you. ( a whisper, tone softening as it rises to him. ) For coming.
I know it's late.
no subject
( those sweaty nights tangled in his sheets, jolting awake from nightmares that never really went away. it was better some nights — like when he'd crashed here — but the hurt was always waiting beneath the surface, a sea monster waiting in the depths, hungry to swallow you whole if you took the wrong step. something's starting to tell him that karen can relate. )
So being sleepless with company is an improvement on being sleepless alone, I figure. It's no trouble. And it's kind of my fault anyway. I texted you about dogs.
( he's half-smiling; a wry, self-conscious kind of humour. )
no subject
( it'd be easier, to let herself hide in him, to forget where that innocent message he'd started the night off with had wandered off to β the dark had never learned how to hold her, and she the dark in turn β really, she doesn't know if she's invited him here as a means to distract herself or because she's comfortable enough to let him see her at such an hour, when lack of sleep and all its reasons why feast upon her. it's different when you're downing whiskey, tasting it off of one another, when you have an excuse. as it is, there's half a mug of coffee that's run cold sitting on the kitchen counter, and her sobriety is sharp.
she laughs, and while it's fickle β distracted, almost, as if she's still not entirely there, present β at least it's honest. )
I guess it's sort of becoming our thing, sleepless sleepovers.
( it seems kind of brash to invite him to her room, and while she can't say there isn't any kindling of want for him when he's standing right there before her, a vivid memory of a few nights prior, it's not what she's after. she waits at least til he's taken the glass from her, wrapping one arm about her frame while the other gestures a hand behind her. )
I was in my room, if you want toβ ( join? she is so god awful at this, and it's almost in knowing that she offers an apologetic tilt to the edge of her lips. )
no subject
What're you in the mood for?
( after a brief beat, he hurries to add: )
Because whatever you need, Karen, I'm here. Whatever you want. It's okay.
( whether it's the aimless distraction of sex and losing themselves in each others' bodies. whether it's the company alone, and just lying there with each other. he addresses the ambiguity but he's not leaning in any particular direction, not assuming anything either way. )
no subject
I wish I knew.
( it's only a breath, toneless and yearning β for what, she can't say. he'd been the first to cross that barrier before, it only seems fair to even the odds.
she's padding closer, teeth already habitually snared into her lips, and eyes and crown are ducking once she's just before him, gathering his hand digit by digit, using it this time to lure him closer to her, rather than merely into the heart of her place. )
Just you being here isβ ( a slight shrug, their fronts flirting together. ) It helps.
I know you're still not exactly accustomed to a bed, but... ( the slow bloom of a half-grin finds her lips, and it's an invitation without bluntly saying so, nodding back towards the darkened entry to a bedroom that's familiar to them both. )
(no subject)