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CHAPTER 2 IS UP!!

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Tags: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Miscommunication (BUT NOT LIKE THAT, TRUST), Insecurities, Fluff

Boxes are, as it turns out, quite heavy, Arthur learns. He learns this whilst carrying several of them up into his own apartment, barely furnished as it stands, now suddenly overwhelmed with new items to be stored.

“That’s all?” He calls behind him, just as he’s set down a cardboard box so buckled and warped he wonders if it was stored inside a fish tank. His back aches.

“Uh-huh!” Leon calls back, distracted. He chuckles to himself. He doubts she’s heard the question. He notices how winded he is.

“Is that—?” He aborts the question, figures it’ll be faster to go down and check.

He takes the steps down two at a time, so un-careful about his shitty knee that his future chiropractor will be positively screaming for joy at the amount of money Arthur will be spending when he finally turns 40 and gives in to the idea of aging.

He spies her by the door, one final box at her feet. Her hair falls in soft, tangled curls about her angular face, softening her in the light of the early evening. He grins. “Leon?” He calls.

“Yeah?” She answers, consumed by the list of items she’s holding. She’s biting at the skin of her lips, though they haven’t been chapped for a while. He notes the habit with a touch of glee.

“Leon?” He murmurs this time, much closer.

She looks up. Her doe-brown eyes never fail to strike him senseless. She has no idea what an effect she can have. “Yeah?” She repeats, softly. “Is— is everything… okay?”

“Yes,” Arthur smiles. “Perfect, really.” He snakes a hand across her waist, padded out by a few layers of blouse and skirt and sweater and coat, but he’d know this waist in his sleep, half-dead, or in hell. He tilts his head up, and she obliges, leaning down to kiss him.

Their lips meet, gentle, moving at a snail’s pace, only basking in one another’s company. Arthur melts against her body, and knows she’s there, sturdy, to catch him.

“One more box,” he murmurs against her lips.

“One more,” she smiles against him. He can’t help but let his heart soar at the feeling of it.

“What’s this one?” he barely whispers, capturing her lips once more, just to taste them. To taste her. Sometimes, he can’t quite convince himself she’s real. And that she’s here. And that she’s moving in, which, in Leon language, is essentially a commitment equal to marriage and kids.

“Hm,” she hums against his lips, vibrating his teeth. He splutters at that, giggling. He presses his nose to her throat. She slips a hand into his hair, long, painted nails scraping lightly at his scalp. He shivers.

“Hm indeed,” he murmurs there.

“I… I guess I don’t know what it is,” Leon sighs. “Could be… could be anything.”

“A tiger?!” Arthur gasps, leaning back and grasping at her forearms.

Leon’s bright, feathered laughter rings out across the foyer. “Yeah, a tiger. It’s a tiger, Artie. A Tiger.”

“You don’t know,” he grins, “could be a tiger. Use your imagination, why don’t you.”

“Alright,” she sighs, fond. She bends down, and he obliges, tilting his head up. The lightest brush, smile against smile, so fond.

A moment and they become something new, warm and intertwined, Leon’s nest of curls laying softly upon Arthur’s cheeks, feather-light kisses. They come apart and back together like a neverending high tide, and Arthur cannot ever get enough. Her warm, honey vanilla perfume envelops him like a blanket in winter. He sometimes feels, at times like these, as though he’s under some spell. He wonders if she knows. The extent to which he is really, truly hers for as long as she will have him. Preferably to the day he dies.

“It’s a tiger,” she chuckles against his lips.

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