wes @wesblu - Tumblr Blog

Jul 20

hear me out

winter olympics au where ice skater reader and hockey reiner are competing for different countries (marley vs paradis) but they end up falling in love (and get freaky)

a: Firstly thank you to whoever sent this its literally incredible yes. Secondly, this is long asff and kinda sucks as I had to cut it down a lot so oops....anyway enjoy everyone <3

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Thin Ice ✦ Attack on Titan ✦

.ᐟ Reiner Braun x F! Reader.ᐟ Modern AU .ᐟ

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[ NSFW warning .ᐟ 18+ ]

Ice Hockey Captain! Reiner Braun x Figure Skater! F. Reader (oneshot)

summary: You came to Marley to win a gold medal in the Winter Olympics. You didn't expect to meet the rival team's hockey captain Reiner Braun. A figure skater, a hockey captain, and twelve days on someone else's ice, what's the worst that could happen?

wc: 11K

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Everyone talks about the Olympic Winter Games like they're a single thing. One event, one moment, one answer to four years of work.

They're not. They're a thousand small things— the smell of a foreign city through a cracked bus window, the sound of a different accent to yours, the way your legs feel after eleven hours cramped on a bus, the particular quality of cold that comes from a place that's had winter for a while. You've competed in seven countries, but you've never been to Marley.

It's older than you expected. The streets in the city centre are stone-paved and narrow, buildings pressed close on either side like they're holding each other up, and everything has the layered quality of a place that has been building on top of itself for so long it's forgotten what the bottom looks like. For the Games, the whole city has been dressed up— Olympic banners on every lamppost, the five rings reproduced on facades and bridges and shop windows, enormous screens mounted at intersections cycling through athlete profiles and event schedules and footage of last cycle's medal ceremonies. It should make it feel less serious, all that decoration, but it doesnt— if anything, it adds to the pressure.

You look back out the window. A woman on a bicycle is navigating the gap between the bus and a parked van with an ease that suggests she's done it a thousand times. A café is just opening on a corner, a man in an apron pulling chairs off tabletops in the early morning cold. Ordinary life, carrying on underneath the Olympics, indifferent to all of it.

Twelve days. That’s all you were here for. Twelve days.

The Marley Arena is everything promised and then some— purpose-built but old-feeling, with the particular gravitas of a venue that has hosted things that mattered. It smells when you push through the service entrance on Tuesday morning at six-fifty, like cold metal and rubber matting and the clean, specific sharpness of refrigerated ice, which is the smell that has meant home to you since you were six years old and your mother first laced up your skates.

You're moving fast and swiftly— you always move fast, it was just more efficient to you. Which is why, when you come around the corner from the warm-up room corridor, you don't see him until you've already walked into him, and by then it's too late to do anything useful about it.

The impact is total. It's like walking into a wall that wasn't there a second ago— sudden and immovable— and he catches you before you can go anywhere. Both hands, one on each arm, grip sure and immediate, but the grip is— careful, you think. For hands that size, and the speed it had to happen at, it is remarkably careful.

You look up and find a face you don't recognise— sandy-blond hair, cut short and slightly dishevelled. A jaw that's all clean angles, with two or three days of blond stubble across it. A nose that's been broken at least once, maybe even twice— and reset slightly crooked, which should read as a flaw and somehow doesn't; like his face has been revised by experience into something better than symmetry. And his eyes: a beautiful amber, almost gold. Holding the corridor light in a way that makes them look warm even here, even now, even in a moment that is mildly chaotic. "Sorry," he says. The word is low, accented— and he looks genuinely alarmed. "I didn't see you— are you hurt?"

You are not hurt, but you are, if anything, a little memorised by the amber eyes, which you recognise as an unhelpful response. "You caught me," you say. "So no."

He looks down at his hands on your arms, registers he's still holding you, and lets go with a speed that is almost comical— stepping back, a flush working across those high cheekbones. "I wasn't watching where I was going," he says.

"Neither was I," you say, which is fair. You look past him into the arena entrance, where you can see players already on the ice— dark red jerseys, a crest you don't know. Marley? You look back at him. He's still looking at you with a quality of attention that is more than the situation strictly requires. "You're with the Marley squad?"

"Captain," he says. Then, like he's remembered other words exist: "I mean— I’m the captain. Reiner. Reiner Braun."

"I know," you say, which is only marginally true— you know of him….in the way you know all the major names in the Olympics, distantly and without detail— but the way his expression shifts when you say it, that small surprised lift, makes it entirely worth saying.

"You know me, huh?" he repeats.

"You're hard to miss," you say. "You're practically the biggest person in this arena."

The flush again. He measures himself involuntarily, which involves glancing down at you— you are several significant inches shorter than him— and then back up. "I'm not— that's—" He stops. "You're just—"

"Small?" you offer, pleasantly.

"I wasn't going to say that."

"But you were thinking it."

Something moves at the corner of his mouth. It's not quite a smile yet. "Maybe," he says, carefully.

You smile at him— bright and deliberate— and watch him blink, like you've done something unexpected. "I'll stay on the left side," you say. "You and your team can have the right."

"This slot is—"

"Shared, now." You tilt your head. "Unless you'd like to go find a coordinator and spend your morning in an administrative queue…."

He looks at you, contemplating. "Right side for my team it is then," he says, finally.

"Right side," you agree. You walk past him onto the ice and you feel, with complete certainty, that he watches you the entire way.

Bertholdt Hoover also from the Marley team finds you at the sides twenty minutes in. He's taller than Reiner —slightly apologetic about his height, as if he's been meaning to do something about it and hasn't got round to it— and he introduces himself with a warmth that seems entirely genuine, says his name, and then nods toward the far end of the rink where Reiner is directing a drill, and says, Have you met our captain Reiner yet?

You tell him you ran into him, and then go back to practicing. You try not to look over at the Marley end more than three times. You are unsuccessful.

What you see, from across the ice: is a different kind of athlete to the ones you spend your life around. Figure skating is control made visible— the management of appearance, every line intentional, every error hidden inside the performance of absolute perfection. Hockey is controlled chaos, reactive and physical, and Reiner moves through it with a bluntness that shouldn't be as fluid as it is. All that size and mass, and it carries itself with a certainty that reads less like athleticism and more like instinct. Like his body knows things his brain doesn't have to think about.

He's working with one of his younger players— the kid keeps misreading the breakout positioning, and Reiner is demonstrating it at half-speed, voice too low to carry across the distance but expression clear: patient, focused, not a trace of frustration even on the third attempt.

You come out of the step sequence three beats late, which you have not done since you were fourteen. You remind yourself that you are very focused and very professional and you look over at the Marley end only twice more after that.

The Olympic Village dining hall was built for the games and has the airy self-consciousness of something designed to impress— glass ceiling, long communal tables, food stations lining the walls like an international argument about what constitutes a proper meal. Every nation has found its corner. Your country, Paradis, is near the east windows, claimed by the captain of your countries hockey team, Jean. You had been friends with a few of the guys off the team for a few years now— Jean, Connie, Eren and Marco, all of you coming together when in close proximity at games.

Tonight there are too many bread rolls and someone's water glass has been knocked over and Connie is explaining, at great length and with hand gestures, something that happened during the short-track relay. Eren is eating Connie's food while Connie isn't looking. Marco is listening to Connie with genuine interest, because Marco is constitutionally incapable of not listening to people. You sit down with your tray, and you try not to immediately look around the room. But you do.

Reiner is at a table across the hall— Bert on one side and a couple of other Marley players you didn't recognise or hadn't met yet. He has his head bent over his food, and then— the way it keeps happening, this week, this specific thing that keeps connecting you two— he looks up. Directly at you, across the full width of the room, like he knew exactly where you were. The eye contact holds for three seconds, maybe even four. Long enough to be a choice. He dips his chin, that same slow, deliberate acknowledgement, and goes back to his plate.

You pick up your fork. "Who are you looking at?" Jean suddenly asks from beside you. He's watching you with that specific flat attention he uses when he's already formed an opinion and is waiting to see if you'll confirm it.

"No one," you say quickly.

He turns around. His gaze locates the Marley table without what seems like any particular searching, which suggests he already knew where it was. He turns back, and his jaw has acquired a new tension. "Braun," he mutters.

"Are you asking or stating?"

"Stating." He picks up his fork. "He's Marley's captain."

"I'm aware of who he is. He introduced himself this morning."

"Hm." He sets the fork down, then picks it up again. "He's good."

The words come out like they cost Jean something to say. "Is he?" you ask.

He finally looks at you properly. "Remeber he's competition. Marley's strong this year— their whole squad is—"

"Jean," you say, patiently. "I'm a figure skater, remember? We are in completely separate events— what does it matter?"

"That's not—" He stops. "You know that's not what I'm talking about."

"Then what are you talking about?"

He's quiet for a moment. Around you, Connie has moved on to his second bread roll and his third retelling of the lane incident, and Eren has started on what appears to be Connie's dessert, and Marco has noticed and is deciding whether to say anything.

"Nothing," Jean says, finally. "Forget it."

Which is not nothing, and you both know it isn't nothing, and you let it be what it is for now. Across the room, you don't look at the Marley table again for a while. When you do, Reiner is already looking at you, and this time neither of you looks away for almost five seconds, which is a very long time when you're paying attention.

You look down at your dessert. "Subtle," Connie says, from nowhere.

"Mind your own business," you hiss.

"I'm just saying," Connie says.

"Connie," Jean says, in a tone that closes the subject.

Connie eats his bread roll and says nothing else. But you catch Marco smiling quietly at his plate, and you decide, on balance, that you don't mind.

Wednesday was your slot, properly yours. The ice at six AM is silver and untouched and entirely silent, and it is the purest version of itself at this hour, before the day gets hold of it. You push out onto the surface and the blades sing against the fresh ice and everything else drops away.

You run your routine, then you take it apart piece by piece, the way your coach taught you: build the thing completely, then dismantle it, find what's wrong, rebuild. By the time you reach the step sequence you've been on the ice for nearly two hours and your body has found its rhythm, the good kind of tired, warm all the way through.

You don't hear the door, and you don't hear him come in. You become aware of Reiner the way you sometimes become aware of a change in weather— not a specific sound, more like a shift in the quality of the air, a sense that the room is different than it was. You hold the line you're on, finish the sequence, and decelerate into a long glide toward the boards.

He's there. Forearms resting on the barrier, chin slightly down, watching you with the look of someone who has completely forgotten they were going somewhere. He's in a practice base layer— no jersey— which does nothing at all to obscure the fact that he is built like something that belongs in a museum. He doesn't say anything when you stop in front of him. He just looks at you, and there's a density to it, like there's more going on behind it than he's letting out.

"Wrong slot?" you ask.

"Day off for me," he says. "I was going to use the gym, but I—" He pauses. "I heard your skates from the corridor."

"And you decided to stay."

The corner of his mouth does something. "Maybe."

You lean your arms on the boards from the ice side, mirroring him, which puts you closer than you need to be and you both know it. "How long have you been standing there?"

He considers. "A while."

You look at him. "And….what do you think?" you ask. "So far."

"Honestly?" He glances at the ice behind you, at the marks your blades have left. "I don't have the words for it." He says it simply, without embarrassment. "I've watched figure skating on television and it didn't— it looks different from here. From close up."

"Different how?"

He thinks about it. "It should look harder," he says, finally. "At that speed, with those rotations— it should look like something that could go wrong. Yours doesn't. It looks like—" He pauses. "Like the ice is just doing what you tell it."

Something warms in your chest. "That's the goal," you say softly.

"I figured." He meets your eyes. "I also looked up the different jumps you do.”

You stare at him. "You looked up the jumps I do?"

"The axel seems like the hardest," he says, matter-of-fact. "Is that the one that goes forwards on the takeoff?"

"It is." You hold his gaze. "Do you want to see it?"

Something opens in his expression— quick and genuine, before he pulls it back. "Yes," he nods eagerly.

You hold his gaze one beat longer, just because, and then push off. You build the approach over the full length of the rink, letting the speed accumulate, edges clean and precise— then pick in off the toe, rotate. You're in the air for a few seconds, and the landing is sure and clean, one unbroken line all the way through— and you hold the edge long before letting it go.

From the boards, Reiner makes a sound— something that escapes before he can do anything about it. You glide back. His expression is completely undone— the look of someone who has just seen something that's rearranged their idea of what's possible. "That's the triple axel," you say proudly.

"Wow," he says. Slightly rough before he clears his throat. "You make it look—"

"Easy?"

"Like It's nothing," he says. "Which is harder."

You're close enough now to see the detail of him properly— the gold of his eyes, the particular way the morning light catches his jaw, the slight asymmetry of his nose that you've already decided you like more than you care to admit. He's looking at you like you're the most interesting thing he's encountered in a long time, and he's not being subtle about it, and you find that you don't mind.

You don't go straight back to the village after. It's Reiner who suggests it, almost offhandedly, like he's been thinking about it for a minute and decided it was worth the risk— "there's a cool place just outside the athlete entrance, if you wanted coffee"— and you say yes before he's finished the sentence, which you think tells both of you something.

The café is small and warm, the kind of place that's been there long enough to stop trying to impress anyone. Stone walls, mismatched chairs, a woman behind the counter who recognises Reiner and greets him and then looks at you with a very specific kind of curiosity that you decide not to examine too closely. He orders for both of you— asking you first what you want, which you note— and you find a table by the window, the winter street outside grey and quiet.

You're settled into your chairs, coats still on because it takes a while for the warmth to get in, when the door opens and Connie comes through it, followed by Eren and Jean.

Connie sees you first. His face does several things in quick succession— surprise, delight, a look sideways at Jean that he probably thinks is subtle. Eren follows his gaze, registers Reiner beside you, and has the decency to at least attempt a neutral-ish expression. Jean doesn't attempt anything. He just looks at you— at Reiner— back at you— and then looks away, jaw set, and steers the other two toward the counter without a word.

You watch this happen and Reiner watches you watch it.

"They’re my teammates," you say before he could ask. "They play hockey— Jean's the captain of th—."

"I know who he is," he says, not elaborating after that. There's something in the way he says it that's neither warm nor cold— the specific flatness of someone who knows a person professionally and has filed them under ‘competitor’. You don't ask if they've spoken to each other since arriving here. It doesn't feel like your question to ask.

Reiner glances toward the counter, where Jean is staring at the menu like it's personally wronged him, and then back at you. Something shifts in his expression — a small recalibration, the kind that happens when information doesn't quite fit the shape you'd given it. "You're friends with them?" he asks.

"We all train at the same facility," you say. "Same rink, mostly the same hours. You end up knowing people….and obviously we compete together every four years."

"Same hometown too?"

"More or less," you tell him. "We grew up in the same area. It's a small world when you've been doing this since you were eight."

He takes this in quietly, the way he takes most things in— not rushing to respond, just letting it settle. He nods once and moves on. "What made you come watch the practice?" he asks. "Actually."

You smile into your coffee. "I had some time."

"You had some time?" he repeats, a smirk evident in his tone.

"I was curious," you admit. "I wanted to see what you actually looked like on the ice."

"And?"

You look at him, tilting your head a little. "You already know the answer to that."

The corner of his mouth flicks upwards. "I want to hear it anyway."

"You're very good," you say, simply. "You make everyone around you better without making them feel like they need to be better. That’s great leadership."

He's quiet for a moment, looking at his cup, and there's something in the set of his face that's slightly unguarded, like the compliment landed somewhere real. "My coach has been saying that to me for ten years," he says. "I still don't always believe it."

"Well, you should believe it," you say honestly.

He looks up at you. "Okay, I will," he says, and it sounds like he might actually mean it.

You stay for a second coffee, which neither of you planned. The conversation moves the way good conversations do — without effort, without agenda, from one thing to the next like following a path you didn't know was there.

He tells you about growing up in Marley. His mother raised him alone, which he says plainly, without making it either a tragedy or a triumph, just a thing that was true. "She worked a lot," he says. "I spent a lot of time at the rink because it was warm and she didn't have to worry about me there."

You nod as he spoke. "That's how you started playing?"

"That's how I started playing." He wraps a hand around his coffee cup. "The coach at the local club let me hang around if I helped with the younger kids. I didn't have any brothers or sisters so I think I liked it, you know— having people to look after."

"You're still doing it," you say. "Just with your team now."

He considers this. "I suppose I am."

"Do you have family nearby? Still in Marley?"

"My mom." He smiles when he says it— small, automatic, the kind that happens without deciding to. "And my cousin Gabi. She's fifteen. She plays hockey too, actually— she's been playing since she could walk, she's furious that she can't compete yet at this level." He says it with such obvious, helpless fondness that something in your chest does a small quiet thing. "She's better than half the senior squad and she knows it. She's been texting me updates about my games before I've even come off the ice."

"She sounds terrifying," you laugh.

"She's absolutely terrifying," he agrees. "She's also the best person I know, probably. Don't tell her I said that, she'll be insufferable."

"Will she be watching?" you ask. "The Games?"

"She’ll be watching all of it, no doubt," he says, then he pauses. "She may have already looked you up."

You raise an eyebrow. "Oh? How does she know about me?”

"I may have mentioned you," he says quietly, and the flush is back, faint and extremely gratifying, creeping across his cheekbones. "In passing…."

"In passing?" You repeat, a smug smile on your lips.

"Once or twice."

"And what did Gabi say about me?"

He picks up his coffee. Doesn't answer immediately. "She said," he says, carefully, "that you are the best figure skater internationally, and also that I should stop being an idiot."

You bite the inside of your cheek to keep the smile from becoming something he could tease you about. "She sounds very wise."

"Frighteningly," he says.

"Well." You look at him over the rim of your cup. "She's not wrong."

"I know," he says. "I've seen you skate—"

"I wasn't talking about that one."

He meets your eyes. “Ah,” the flush was still there on his face. "I’m working on it," he says.

You laugh— properly, surprised by it— and he watches you do it with that particular expression of his, the one that's slightly arrested, like he's catching himself. Across the room, you don't look at Jean's table, but you're aware of it anyway, the way you're always aware of Jean when he's nearby. You hope he's all right. You think he will be, eventually. He's Jean— he'll be all right.

"Tell me more about Gabi," you say, turning back to Reiner.

And he does.

You'd only come to pass the time. Your own practice wasn't for another hour, and the Olympic Village had started to feel suffocating after spending the entire morning either training or stretching. Someone had mentioned the Marley hockey team were practising in the main arena, and with nothing better to do, you'd wandered in.

The stands were almost empty. A few coaches sat scattered around the arena, notebooks balanced on their knees, while the rest of the seats remained deserted. You settled into the second row, arms folded over the barrier in front of you as you watched them skate through drill after drill.

Hockey, you found— was oddly satisfying to watch. Fast, physical, chaotic—but there was still a rhythm to it. And then there was Reiner, and of course your gaze kept returning to him. It wasn't intentional. At least, not at first. For someone built like a brick wall, he moved with an ease that made no sense. Every turn was smooth, every stop controlled, and he wasn't the fastest skater on the ice, but somehow he never seemed late to anything—always arriving exactly where he needed to be before anyone else realised the play had changed.

He looked... comfortable, like he belonged out there.

You found yourself smiling without noticing, and then one of the drills ended. The players slowed, catching their breath while pucks were gathered from around the rink. Reiner skated towards the boards near where you were sitting, one gloved hand resting on his stick as he exhaled heavily.

Without a second thought, he hooked his fingers beneath the hem of his crimson jersey and lifted it over the lower half of his face, wiping away the sweat. Your thoughts vanished completely. The jersey rode high enough to expose his stomach, revealing the firm lines of his abdomen— every muscle tightening as he reached across his face. Broad shoulders, defined waist, skin flushed pink from exertion and a thin sheen of sweat—

Well. You hadn't expected....that. Heat instantly rushed straight into your cheeks before you could stop it. You looked away, suddenly fascinated by literally anything else— the empty seats, the scoreboard, a water bottle abandoned on the bench.

Get a fucking grip. It was just abs. Perfectly sculpted, unfairly attractive— Stop.

You pressed your lips together, willing the warmth to leave your face, and when you finally risked another glance, Reiner was already looking at you. He'd caught you. Of course he had. He gave a small laugh to himself before skating over.

"So," he called up, the corners of his mouth lifting, "you're watching me now?"

You forced your expression into something that resembled indifference. "I was bored."

"Mhm." His eyes narrowed ever so slightly, amused."You didn't look very bored."

You rolled your eyes. "Don't flatter yourself, Braun…..I just happened to end up here."

"And you just happened to keep looking over here?"

You felt your face warm all over again. "I was watching everyone." A grin spread slowly across his face— one that made you want to throw something at him. "You know," you sighed, "you've got a ridiculously high opinion of yourself."

He shrugged, entirely unbothered. "So I've been told."

You shook your head. "I was bored," you called over. "Don't get used to it." His laugh followed you across the arena. "...Arrogant idiot," you muttered under your breath.

It's a good game, even at practice pace. Marley runs a system that's different to Paradis's— tighter, more structured in the neutral zone, with a defensive discipline that's clearly been drilled to the point of instinct. Jean adapted to it within the first five minutes, which you notice because you know Jean's game, know the specific shift in his posture when he's reading something new and adjusting.

What you're mainly watching, and making no particular effort to pretend otherwise, is Reiner.

He's different in a game context than in a drill— still the same controlled authority, but there's an edge to it now, something sharper, the difference between a musician rehearsing and the same musician performing. He's on Jean's line repeatedly, and the two of them are well-matched in a way that's almost beautiful to watch and also, you suspect, intensely irritating for both of them. Jean is faster with the puck. Reiner is better without it. Jean reads the zone; Reiner reads Jean.

Though, apparently, today Jean is reading more than just the game.

Because every time Reiner comes near the boards, his eyes flick briefly toward you. He'd noticed earlier— the way Reiner skated over during the break, the way the two of you had exchanged that annoyingly familiar back-and-forth, the way you had tried and failed to hide your smile when Reiner teased you.

Jean knows you. Knows the way you pretend not to care when you very obviously do. He's seen it a hundred times before— on the ice, in training, everywhere. And watching you look at Reiner like that seems to bother him more than he'd ever admit.

Twelve minutes in, a loose puck at the boards. Jean goes for it from one side, Reiner from the other, and they arrive at exactly the same moment with the combined poor judgment of two very competitive people who are not going to yield— and Jean's elbow, coming up as he turns, catches Reiner across the bridge of the nose.

The sound is......not good.

Reiner goes back half a step, one hand coming up to his face, and even from the stands you can see the dark red starting against his skin. Jean, to his credit, looks immediately appalled.

"Braun—I didn't—"

You are already at the tunnel entrance. You're not sure when you stood up. You're not sure when you started moving. But you're on the ice in your trainers before anyone's had time to collect themselves, the cold of the surface immediately soaking through the soles, and you get to Reiner just as Bert gets to him from the other side. Jean follows quickly, pulling his helmet off as he skates to you.

"Hey, wait—"

You don't even look at him.

"Move," you say to the general situation, and people move.

Reiner has his hand over his nose, head tilted back, and his eyes find you over the top of his hand with an expression that cycles through surprised, slightly pained, and something else in very quick succession.

"I'm fine," he says, muffled.

"You're bleeding," you say. "Tilt your head forward, not back." You put a hand on his jaw and redirect him without waiting for agreement, and he goes with it, because apparently when you put a hand on his jaw he does what you tell him. "Can you breathe through it?"

"Mostly."

"Mostly is fine. Come on." You get a hand on his arm— which is, through the practice gear, about as useful as trying to steer a building, but he comes with it anyway— and you start moving him toward the tunnel. Behind you, Bert says quietly to Jean, it's all right, he's had worse, which you hear and which you can tell Jean doesn't find as comforting as Bert intends it.

The changing room corridor is empty and quiet, the sounds of the ice muffled behind the double doors. Reiner sits on the bench just inside the Marley room with his head forward and his hand still over his nose, and you go to the first aid kit on the wall— there's always a first aid kit, in your experience, in any room that borders ice— and come back with gauze and a cold pack from the small freezer unit beside it.

"Move your hand," you say.

He moves it. The bleeding isn't bad— his nose is intact, just caught across the bridge, and the blood is already slowing. You press the gauze there and he reaches up to hold it and his hand covers yours and neither of you address this.

"You didn't have to come out onto the ice," he says. His voice is slightly thick but otherwise fine.

"I know," you say. You crack the cold pack, wrap it in a second piece of gauze, and hold it out. He takes it from you with his free hand and presses it to the bridge of his nose, and you perch on the bench beside him— close, because the kit is between you and the space is small— and look at his face with the clinical attention of someone who has taken enough knocks herself to know what you’re looking at. "It's not broken," you say. "Or no more broken than it already was."

He lowers the cold pack slightly to look at you. His eyes, from this distance, are a golden honey and very direct, and his hair has gone slightly messed and there's a streak of red on his cheekbone and he is still, objectively, distractingly good-looking. "It's been broken twice," he says. "I have a high bar for what counts."

"Apparently." You reach out without thinking and push his hair back from his forehead— just clearing it from the gauze, just practical, of course— and your fingers brush his temple and neither of you move for a second.

"Thank you," he says, quietly. "For coming out."

"You would have done the same."

"I would have," he agrees. "I would have run out onto the ice in my trainers for you without thinking about it." He says it simply, like it's just a fact he's submitting. You just look at him. He's looking back at you with an open expression and the cold pack is still in his hand and you're sitting very close. You lean in, just slightly— and he also leans in, the distance between you is very small now, and his eyes are on yours and then on your mouth and then on yours again, and his free hand comes up slowly to rest at your waist—

The door opens.

Bert appears in the doorway, stops, and in the single most efficient social detonation you have witnessed in recent memory, takes in the entire situation— the bench, the proximity, Reiner's hand, your expression— and says, with genuine apologetic horror: "Oh fuck. I'm— I'm so sorry, I just wanted to check— the bleeding, I thought—" He looks at the ceiling, and then back at the door. "I'll just— I'll wait outside," Bert says, already retreating. "I'll just be— yes. Outside."

The door closes, and silence follows.

You become aware that Reiner's hand is still on your waist, and you also become aware that you haven't moved either. You become aware that you are sitting approximately four inches apart in a changing room corridor in Marley and that the moment has shifted into something that is extremely funny if you let it be. The laugh comes before you can stop it— quiet, surprised— and Reiner looks at you, and then something in his own face gives, and the sound he makes is low and warm and real.

"He has the worst timing," Reiner chuckles.

"He looked like he wanted to die," you giggle.

He shakes his head. The hand at your waist hasn't moved. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." You look at him. He's looking at you. The moment the door interrupted is still here, you both know it's still here, sitting in the room with you alongside the first aid kit and Bert's lingering mortification. "How's the nose?"

"Fine now," he says. "I told you. High bar." He holds your gaze. "I meant what I said. Before Bert—"

"I know," you say.

"I would have come out for you," he says. "Without thinking about it."

"I know," you say again, softer.

He looks at you for a moment, and the hand at your waist shifts slightly — just a small movement, adjusting, settling — and his expression does the open thing, all of it visible. "Tonight," he says, "are you— after the ceremony preparations —"

"Yes," you say.

He blinks. "I haven't asked anything yet."

"I know." You stand up, and you let the moment reconfigure itself and go to the door. You open it to find Bert, standing in the corridor with his hands in his pockets and the expression of a man who has been sincerely suffering, straightens up immediately.

"He's fine," you tell him. "The nose is fine. The bleeding's stopped."

"Right," Bert says. "Good. That's— yes. Good." A pause. "I'm very sorry about the interruption—"

"Bert," you say, gently. "It's all right."

He looks deeply, privately relieved. "Thank you," he says. "For looking after him."

You glance back through the open door, just for a second. Reiner is watching you go with an expression you're going to be thinking about for the rest of the day.

You find Jean at the far end of the corridor, still in his gear, stick in hand, doing the thing he does when he's uncomfortable — moving, always moving, like stillness gives the feeling somewhere to settle.

"Jean."

He turns around. He has the look of someone who was hoping for more time before this conversation.

"It was an accident," he says, before you've said anything.

"Was it?"

A pause. "Yes."

You look at him. Jean looks back, and the thing about Jean is that he's a terrible liar when it matters — he can deflect and sidestep and change the subject with real skill, but when something is genuinely true and he knows it he can't quite hold the denial in his face properly. It keeps slipping.

"Jean," you say again, quieter. "Was it actually an accident?"

The silence goes on long enough to be its own answer. He looks away, and he turns his stick over in his hands once, twice, the same way he fidgets with things when he's got nowhere good to put his hands. "I didn't mean to hurt him," he says, finally. "I want that to be clear. I didn't go in trying to—"

"But you went in harder than you needed to."

He doesn't deny it this time. "He's Marley's captain," he says. "We play them in three days. And you've spent every morning this week with him and I just —" He stops. His jaw tightens. "It got to me. Okay? It got to me."

"Jean." You look at him steadily. "Is this about the tournament? Or is this about something else?"

He's quiet for a long moment.

"Both," he says, eventually. Quietly. "You know it's both."

And there it is. You look at him— at the tight set of his shoulders, the way he can't quite meet your eyes— and you feel something for him that is genuine and warm and also completely beside the point right now.

"That's not fair," you say. "Taking it out on him because of how you feel. That's not fair to him and it's not fair to me."

"I know," he says. Low. "I know that."

"Apologise to him. A real one."

"I will." He finally looks at you, and his face is more open than he'd usually allow. "I'm sorry. For making it your problem."

You hold his gaze for a moment, then turn to walk away.

And stop.

Reiner is twenty feet down the corridor.

Close enough to have heard every word. He's standing completely still, cold pack at his side, eyes on you. When your gazes meet he doesn't look away or pretend he wasn't listening. He just looks at you, steady and quiet, and his expression is — soft, almost. Like something in him has settled.

You hold it for one second. Then you walk, right past him, back toward the rink.

You don't stop. You don't explain. You just go.

Saturday. Your competition begins tomorrow morning.Now it's almost midnight and you've run through your routine in your head for the last time and you've laid out everything for tomorrow— and yet you still can't sleep.

So you go to the ice.

The Marley Arena at night is completely different. Competition lights off, just the maintenance panels, everything washed in a blue-grey dimness that makes the ice look like it goes on forever, like you could skate out onto it and not find the other end. The stands are empty and vast around you. You lace up your skates, step onto the surface, and the sound of your blades is the only sound in the building.

You skate without the pressure, without the intention. Just moving, the way you did when you were a small girl that loved the ice without complication. Long, easy sweeps across the surface, the cold in your lungs— it all felt so nostalgic to you. You've been out there maybe twenty minutes when you hear the entrance.

Reiner comes through the tunnel in a hoodie and joggers— with his skates already on his feet, and he stops at the sight of you, and you stop at the sight of him, and for a moment you just look at each other across the empty blue-lit ice, and then you both say, at exactly the same time:

"I couldn't sleep."

A beat of silence, then you both laugh. It opens up in the empty rink, fills all the space, and the whole weight of the week— the almost-sayings, the careful distances, the back-and-forth of it— suddenly feels very light. He steps onto the ice in his skates. He moves toward you with that unhurried ease, and the blue light does something to his face, makes the amber of his eyes deeper, and he is very tall in this low-lit rink.

"We're not supposed to be here," he says, when he reaches you.

"Definitely not." You tilt your head. "But do you care?"

He looks down at you— that slight adjustment he always makes, the angle between you— and the corner of his mouth moves. "Not even a little."

"Good."

He looks around at the empty stands, the dark, still ice. "I keep thinking about how I wish I had time to show you Marley," he says. "The market. The harbour. I wanted to show you all of it it." He looks back at you.

"There's still time," you tell him. "After the tournament….you can show me then."

He's looking at you with an open expression. "Yeah?"

"Yes," you say honestly. "I'd like that."

Something in his face settles warmly. He glances at the ice around you. "Skate with me," he says.

You hold out your hand for him. He takes it. His palm is warm and broad, the grip certain, and you start moving together across the surface— slow, side by side— and he isn't graceful, not the way you're graceful, but he is so completely solid, and he follows your lead without tension, without second-guessing, with the same trust you watched him give his linemates all week. It's a good way to be trusted, you think. It's one of the better ways.

Reiner is quiet. You can feel his hand shift slightly in yours, a small, involuntary tightening, and you hold it. You slow down near the centre of the rink, and the ice holds you both still in the blue-grey quiet. You're close— close enough to see the grain of his stubble, the particular way the light sits in his eyes, the steady rise and fall of his chest.

"Reiner?"

"Hm?"

You looked at him for a long moment, your eyes drifting to his mouth before finding his again.

"I’ve been thinking about kissing you since Bert interrupted us."

A faint flush crept across his face. "I....I—"

You smiled. "There you go again."

His brow furrowed. "What?"

"Over-thinking."

A breath of a laugh escaped him. "I just don't want to—"

You didn't let him finish. One hand slid gently to the side of his face, your thumb brushing the roughness of his jaw as you leaned in and kissed him.

For the smallest moment, he went completely still. Then he kissed you back, slow yet desperately— like he'd been holding himself back for days and had finally been given permission to stop. His hand found your waist almost instinctively, drawing you closer until there wasn't any space left between you. Every movement was careful, like he was afraid you'd disappear if he rushed, yet there was a quiet certainty in the way he held you that made your heart ache.

You didn't admit to him you'd how much and how often you'd imagined kissing him since Bert had walked through that door, and you had decided reality was infinitely better.

His lips were softer than you'd expected, the kiss lingering without urgency, without anyone interrupting, without either of you laughing it off this time. It felt wonderfully, overwhelmingly right—as though something that had been suspended in mid-air for days had finally settled into place. You bring your free hand up to the front of his jacket and hold on.

When you come apart for air, neither of you goes far. His forehead drops to yours. His chest is rising and falling unsteadily, and the cold is everywhere except where he is, and where he is it is very warm. "There," you say, quietly against his mouth. "Was that so difficult?"

"You have no idea," he says, rough-voiced.

You laugh, soft in the empty rink, and he pulls back just enough to look at you when you do it — his expression open and completely undone, like he's been waiting to see you do that from up close and is making the most of it now that he has the chance.

Then he kisses you again, and this time there is nothing tentative about it. His hands frame your face and he kisses you like he means every second of it, deep and certain, and you meet him there, and the ice is cold under your skates and the rink is dark and quiet around you and it doesn't matter, none of it matters, only this: the warmth of him and the certainty of him and the feeling that this, too, like the best moments on the ice, was already decided long before either of you said anything.

When you part the second time, you're both breathing harder. You look at him— the golden eyes, unguarded; the careful, earnest face of him— and something in you is very settled and very certain.

"Come back to my room," you say to him before even thinking it through.

He goes very still. Not hesitation, no— this is the stillness of someone who has been handed something they want so badly and need to take a moment to make sure it's real. "Yeah?" Very quiet.

"Yes," you say, and you meant it.

He looks at you for one more moment— checking, because he checks everything, because he is careful about the things that matter most— and then something in his face settles. Simple and sure. "Okay," he says.

You skate off the ice side by side, and in the corridor you don't hold hands because this building has other people in it, but his shoulder stays against yours the whole way back— warm and solid and steady.

The Olympic Village dormitory rose ahead, its glass-fronted lobby spilling weak yellow light onto the snow-dusted walkway—it was a tall building, built to house hundreds of athletes every four years. A volunteer sat behind the desk, scrolling her phone, and didn't look up as you entered. The elevator was small and industrial, the kind that shuddered before it moved, and when the doors slid shut you were alone with him in a space barely big enough for one person, let alone two. You looked up at him to find he was already looking at you with an almost smirk on his face. It was almost funny how little restraint either of you seemed to have left.

You looking at him was apparently enough. His hand found yours first, fingers threading effortlessly between them before he gently tugged you closer— if that was possible— until your coat brushed against his. You could feel the warmth radiating from him, the steady rise and fall of his breathing, and for a heartbeat you simply stood there, smiling at each other like idiots.

"I’m trying to behave," he admitted quietly. “Till we get back to your room.”

“Oh, yeah?” You smile at him, tilting your head. "And how's that going for you?"

A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Not very well."

You laughed softly, and before the sound had even faded, you reached up, caught the front of his jacket, and kissed him. He answered instantly.

One hand slid to the small of your back, drawing you in until there wasn't an inch of space left between you, while the other cupped your jaw with effortless gentleness. The kiss deepened naturally, unhurried but impossible to pull away from, as though the two of you had been stealing moments all week and were finally alone long enough to enjoy one properly.

The elevator hummed steadily upwards, and the floors passed unnoticed.

You only broke apart when the cheerful ding announced the fourth floor. The doors parted. He dropped his hand and stepped out first, turning to check the corridor— left, right, clear — and then he waited for you to lead.

Your room was at the end of the hall. 417. The keycard beeped green and you pushed the door open and the room was exactly as you'd left it— small, institutional, the single bed with its white sheets still rumpled from your sleep, the desk lamp casting amber light over scattered energy bar wrappers and your phone charger and the garment bag hanging from the closet door with your skate dress in it for tomorrow. The narrow window showed the city beyond, streetlights smeared by snow, the distant glow of the broadcast center still lit at this hour.

The radiator ticked. The building breathed.

He stepped in behind you, and the room shrank. Not just because he was broad (though he was, shoulders nearly brushing both walls when he stood in the center) but because he took up space the way certain people did. He pulled the door shut behind him, and the click of it closing was very loud in the quiet room.

And then his hands were on you— not rough, never rough. His palms landed on your waist and turned you, guided you back until your shoulders met the door— the wood cool through your pullover— and then he was there, his broad frame caging you; his forearms braced on either side of your head, his face inches from yours. His eyes found yours in the warm light, and they were the colour of the medal you were hoping to win tomorrow, and they were very, very steady.

"I've been thinking about this," he said, his voice rough, scraping low in his throat. "Every second since I bumped into you in the corridor and—" He stopped, the muscle in his jaw jumped. "I need you to know that."

"I know," you say softly.

His hand came up, tilted your face toward his the way it had on the ice— fingertips under your chin, thumb brushing the corner of your jaw— and then his mouth was on yours and it was nothing like the careful, searching kiss from the rink. His stubble scraped your skin raw as he kissed you deep and slow and thorough, his tongue sliding against yours with a hunger that he was barely containing, and you could feel the effort of it in the way his hand trembled against your jaw, in the way his other hand gripped your waist like he was anchoring himself to something solid.

He kissed you the way he played— total commitment, nothing held back and every part of him present and accounted for. You brought your hands up to the front of his jacket and held on tighter than before, fingers twisting in the fabric, pulling him closer, and the sound he made against your mouth— low, desperate, a groan he tried to swallow— sent heat flooding through you like a wave breaking.

His hands moved over your ribs, counting them through the fabric. Down your sides, spanning the curve of your waist. Up again, slower, his thumbs tracing the underside of your breasts through your bra and pullover, and he pulled back just enough to look at you— really look, amber eyes dark in the low light, his lips parted, his breath coming uneven.

"You're gorgeous," he said. The words were rough, almost angry in their intensity. "So perfect—” His voice broke, and he pressed his forehead to yours, eyes closing, and his hands kept moving, slow and reverent, mapping the terrain of your body like he was memorising it by feel alone.

"I've got you," you whispered soothingly. "I'm right here."

"I know." His breath shuddered out. "I know you're here—" He didn't even finish his sentence. He kissed you again instead, and his hands found the hem of your pullover and slid beneath it, and the heat of his palms against your bare stomach made you gasp into his mouth. He swallowed the sound, letting out a small groan himself. His fingers splayed wide across your lower back, pulling you away from the door, pulling you into him, and you could feel him now— hard through his track pants, the thick length of him pressed against your hip, and the reality of that, the physical evidence of how much he wanted this, made your knees soften.

He walked you backward. Three steps, four, the narrow room tilting around you until the back of your knees hit the mattress and you sat. He followed you down, one knee on the bed, then the other, his weight dipping the mattress, his body over yours — not crushing, hovering, his arms braced on either side of your shoulders, his face above yours.

"Let me—" His hand found the hem of your pullover again, and you lifted your arms. He pulled it over your head in one motion, tossed it somewhere, and then he went still.

The amber light caught your skin. Your sports bra was black, simple, the kind made for function and not this moment, and his eyes tracked over you— the defined lines of your shoulders, the curve of your waist where it dipped in above your hips— and his throat worked.

"You're beautiful," he said. Not a compliment. A statement of fact, delivered like testimony. "You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

You felt the instant heat rushing across your cheeks. "Reiner—stop—"

"I mean it." His hand came up, fingertips tracing your collarbone, his touch feather-light. "Every time I watch you skate, I think— how does something that perfect exist? How does someone move like that? And now you're here, and you're real, and I can touch you, and I—" He stopped again, shaking his head as the stubble on his face caught the light. "I don't deserve this."

"You do," you said, and you reached for him. “Of course you do.”

His jacket came off first. Then the hoodie beneath it, and the t-shirt beneath that, and each layer revealed more of him— the dense, slabs of muscle across his chest, the defined ridges of his abdomen, the way his shoulders were even broader than they'd seemed in clothes. His skin was warm under your hands, flushed, and you could feel the strength coiled in him, the contained power of a body built for impact and speed, and the contrast of his gentility against your skin like he was handling something precious— made your breath come shorter.

He kissed your shoulder, your collarbone, the hollow of your throat. His mouth moved down your body slowly, deliberately, each kiss placed with precision, each touch of his lips a kind of worship. He unhooked your bra with one hand, and you didn't ask how he was so good at that, because his mouth found your breast and your thoughts dissolved completely.

His tongue circled your nipple gradually as his hand cupped the other breast, thumb brushing, and you arched into him with a sound that surprised you— a high, breathless moan that escaped you before you stopped yourself. Reiner pulled back to look at you, eyes dark, his lips wet.

"I want to hear you," he said roughly. "Don't hold back. Please. I want to hear you."

You swallowed. "I—"

"Please." The word cracked something open in his voice, and you nodded, and his mouth returned to your skin.

He worked his way down. Your ribs, one by one, kissed. The flat plane of your stomach, his tongue dipping into your navel, making you squirm. His hands hooked in the waistband of your leggings, and he looked up at you from below— broad-shouldered and golden-eyed and stubbled, his face between your hips, waiting for permission.

"Yes," you said.

He peeled the leggings down your legs, taking your underwear with them, and then you were bare on the white sheets in the amber light, and he was still mostly dressed from the waist down, and the asymmetry of it— him looking, you being looked at— made heat climb up your chest and into your face.

"You're perfect," he said again, and his voice was reverent. "Every curve, every line— you're—" He pressed a kiss to your hip bone you whimpered, and his hands tightened on your legs, and the sound he made in response was almost a growl. "Every time. Every single time you make that sound, I—"

"Come here," you said, and your voice was wrecked, coming undone from just his words.

He moved up the bed, and you reached for him, your hands finding the waistband of his track pants, pulling, and he helped— shoving them down, kicking them off, and then he was bare against you and the full length of him was pressed to your body and you could feel everything. The hard planes of his chest against your breasts, the heat of his skin. The thick, heavy length of him against your thigh, and the wetness at the tip that told you exactly how much he'd wanted this. You reached down and wrapped your hand around him, and his whole body jerked, his hips stuttering forward, a low groan tearing out of him that he muffled against your neck.

"Fuck— wait, wait—" His hand closed around your wrist, stilling you. "I'll— if you do that, I won't last. I need— can you—" He pulled back, looked at you, and something in his face was pleading. "I need to watch you first. Please."

He sat back against the headboard, his legs stretched out, his cock hard against his stomach, and he reached for you. You went to him— straddling his lap, your knees on either side of his hips, your hands on his shoulders— and his hands found your waist and held you there, and his eyes moved over your face like he was trying to memorize every detail.

"Perfect," he murmured. His hand slid between your bodies, and his fingers found your entrance, already slick and sensitive— and he pressed two fingers inside you, and your head dropped forward, your forehead against his.

"Oh—" You were so tender, and the stretch of his fingers inside you sent sparks up your spine. "Oh, fuck—"

"That's it." His voice was low, rough, a rumble you could feel in his chest. "That's it. You feel so good— so good around my fingers. I want you to move, can you move for me?"

You rolled your hips, and his fingers curled inside you, finding the spot that made your vision blur, and you rode his hand— slow at first, then faster, your hips finding a rhythm, your hands gripping his shoulders. His burning eyes never left your face. He watched you like you were something sacred, something he couldn't believe was real, and his other hand came up to brush your cheek, his thumb tracking the tear that slipped out without your permission.

"You're beautiful," he said. "You're so beautiful when you come apart. Can you come for me?"

"I—" Your voice broke, your hips stuttering. "Reiner—"

"I've got you." His fingers pressed deeper, his thumb finding your clit, and he worked you with such a focused intensity. "I've got you. Come for me— I want to feel you." You came apart on his hand, your body clenching around his fingers, your spine arching, his name on your tongue like a prayer. He held you through it— one arm around your waist, his mouth on your shoulder, his whispered words of affirmation steady against your skin. "That's it— you're so good. I've got you."

When you came down, he was trembling. His whole body was tense, coiled, his cock hard and leaking against your thigh, and his eyes were squeezed shut, his jaw clenched, and you could see— could feel— how much it was costing him to hold back.

"Reiner," you said, and his name in your voice made his eyes open. "I want you, please..I need you to be inside—”

"Yes." His voice cracked, not even letting you finish your sentence. "God yes."

He reached for his wallet out of his track pants pocket, and the condom slipped out, and his hands shook as he rolled it on, and you watched— the thick length of him, the way his stomach tensed as he touched himself, the concentration on his face; and then he was reaching for you again, pulling you back into his lap, and you rose up on your knees and positioned him against you.

You sank down onto him slowly, taking him inch by inch. The stretch of him was overwhelming— thick and filling you so completely that your breath caught and held and your hands gripped his shoulders hard enough to bruise. He groaned, low and broken, his head falling back against the headboard, his hands on your hips steadying you.

"Fuck— you're so— you feel—" Words failed him. His eyes found yours, and they were wet. "You're perfect. I can't — I—"

You moved. A slow roll of your hips, and his whole body shuddered, and the sound he made— guttural, raw, a sound that came from somewhere deep in his chest— made you do it again. And again. You found your rhythm, riding him slow and deep, your hands braced on his shoulders, his eyes on your face, his hands on your hips guiding you but never pushing— never forcing, just holding on like you were the only solid thing in a world that had gone liquid.

"Look at you," he breathed. "You're— you're incredible. I—"

His hands moved. Up your sides, over your ribs, cupping your breasts, thumbs brushing your nipples. Down to your hips, gripping harder now, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of your ass as you rode him. His hips started to move with yours— small thrusts at first, meeting you halfway, then deeper, harder, his body pushing up into you as you came down.

"Reiner—" His name broke out of you, and his hand came up to your face, thumb brushing your cheek, and his eyes— amber, gold, bright with something that looked like worship— held yours.

"I'm right here," he said breathlessly. "You're so good. I've got you."

He shifted beneath you, and suddenly the angle changed, and he was hitting that spot inside you with every thrust, and your rhythm faltered, your legs shaking, your hands slipping on his shoulders. He felt it— felt you losing the rhythm— and his arms wrapped around you, and in one fluid motion he rolled you, his weight pressing you into the mattress, his hips settling between your thighs.

"I've got you," he said again, and he pulled back, almost all the way out, and then thrust back in— slow, deep, a full-body stroke that dragged against every nerve ending you had. "Let me— fuck— let me take care of you."

He set the pace– slow at first, deep and grinding, his forehead pressed to yours, his breath hot on your lips. Each thrust was deliberate, measured, and you could feel the control in it— the way he held back from coming too soon, the way he kept his weight on his forearms so he wouldn't crush you, the way his hips snapped forward with just enough force to make you see stars without overwhelming you.

But his composure cracked. You felt it happen— felt the moment his rhythm stuttered, felt his breath catch, felt his hands fist in the sheets beside your head. His hips drove forward harder, faster, and the sound that came out of him was desperate, broken, a sob caught in his throat.

"I can't— I'm not going to—" His voice was wrecked. "I need you to come first— please, I need—" His hand slipped between your bodies, his fingers finding your clit, and he circled it in time with his thrusts, and you were already so close, had been building since his mouth was on you, and the combination— his fingers, his cock inside you, the weight of him, the sound of his voice breaking on your name— pushed you over.

You came hard, your whole body clenching around him, your back arching off the mattress, and he followed you— two more thrusts, deep and uncontrolled, and then he groaned your name into your neck, his whole body going rigid, his hips pressed flush against yours, and you felt him pulse inside you as he came.

He collapsed, carefully though— he caught himself on his elbows, but his full weight settled against you, his chest heaving, his face buried in your neck, his stubble scraping your collarbone. His breath came in ragged gasps, hot and damp against your skin, and his arms trembled where they held his weight off you. You wrapped your arms around him. Your hands found the back of his neck, the short gold hair there, the sweat-damp skin, and you held on. His heart hammered against yours— fast, hard, the rhythm of an athlete's heart in overdrive— and slowly, slowly, it began to settle.

He turned his head, pressed a kiss to your jaw, your cheek, the corner of your mouth. His eyes found yours, and they were soft now, the amber muted, the intensity banked to something warm and steady. "Please stay," you ask quietly, almost pleadingly.

He didn't answer with words. He shifted off you, disposed of the condom, and then he was pulling you close— his broad chest against your back, his arm heavy across your waist, his stubbled cheek resting against your hair. The radiator ticked. The window showed snow falling now, soft and steady, the city lights diffusing through it. The medal on the wall caught the amber light. His breath slowed, deepened, and his arm tightened around you, and you felt the moment his body relaxed into sleep— the way his muscles unknotted, the way his breathing evened out, the way his hand on your stomach went slack and warm.

You lay there in the amber dark, his heartbeat against your spine, and thought about cities you'd never been to before this week that felt, tonight, like somewhere you could stay.

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