#astererer

He looks up, miserably slow, at the sound of your voice; the bright silver of his eyes are a dull, exhausted grey in the shadow of his hat. “...Beloved,” he greets, voice unnaturally quiet. A faint smile tugs at the corners of his lips at the sight of you, relief trickling in to fill the hollow shadows beneath his eyes. “What are you still doing up?”

You frown. “I was worried about you.” 

Padding over on socked feet, you peer up at him under the brim of his cap and catch his tired gaze; you reach a careful hand towards him, pausing before you make contact, waiting for him to give you the ok. With a nod, he does, and your fingertips alight upon his cheek with a gentleness that makes him melt into your touch. 

Ingo nuzzles your hand with a sigh. You watch as his shoulders sag, the weight of the day dripping off them like sludge, and he in turn reaches up clutch at you, his hand over yours to keep it there, clinging like it’s the only thing holding him upright. 

You step closer until you’re pressed against him, humming in concern; he sinks into your warmth as you tuck yourself under his chin. His free arm wraps around you to hold you to him as he buries his face in your hair. 

“Are you hungry?” you whisper. You feel him shake his head no. 

You frown again, but let it be. Instead, you ask, “Think you can manage a shower?”

A few long seconds pass before you feel him shrug.

It’s enough. 

Gently, you steal his hat and then help him peel off his coat, hanging them up beside the door while he slips out of his shoes. You take his hand, and he follows along behind you like a lost lilipup to the bathroom, leaning against the counter for support when you have to let him go so you can let the water run warm.

“...I missed you,” he whimpers, and the sound of it is wrong in your normally boisterous husband’s mouth. 

His body bends forward like a branch under too much pressure, only a moment away from breaking, and you carefully slip between his knees to place your hands on his shoulders, letting them slide up along his neck to cup his face. You lean in, nuzzling your noses together as he lets out a shaky sigh. 

“I desperately wanted to come home; every time we settled one issue, another would–”

You silence him with the pad of your thumb against his lips. “Shhh.” You nuzzle him again, and replace your thumb with a gentle kiss. “It’s okay,” you tell him. “You’re here now, let me take care of you.”

He doesn’t reply with words, but you can feel his relief in the way he leans into you, weakly chasing your lips with his own as you pull away. 

You step back, and Ingo whines softly at the loss until your hands trail down his chest, picking at his shirt buttons one by one. You help him get undressed; your hands are kind and your touches light as you move them along his body, freeing him from the last dregs of a day gone wrong with each layer of cloth removed. Once he’s down to his underwear, you step back in and wrap your arms around his waist. 

“Do you need company or space?” you murmur into the side of his neck. You press the ghost of a kiss to his pulse. 

Ingo sighs quietly against your hair, his arms coming up to hold you closer. “Join me?” he asks. “Please.”

As if you could ever tell him no.

You give his waist a squeeze and breathe a quick, “okay,” before pulling back once more to peel away your own clothing. You catch him watching you with a look of fond amazement, and you know that if this were a different night, a better night, his hands would be on you, helping to undress you the way you’d done for him. But not tonight. Tonight, you shimmy out of your clothes at an even pace, letting him watch without keeping him waiting, and once the both of you are stripped bare, you take his hands and guide him under the shower’s warm spray. 

He stands facing away from the showerhead and leans his forehead against yours as the water cascades across his back and shoulders, easing the last of the tension from his tired, knotted muscles.

You brush your lips against his. “I’m glad you’re home.”

You stay there together, pressed close beneath the soothing warmth, uncaring about the length of time it takes for you to carefully delve your fingers into Ingo’s soft, silver hair and wash it clean of the stress of the day. He lets you run loving hands over the lines of his body, does the same to you - soft and sweet in your own private world as you help scrub away the last of the soap suds on his back and hips until all that’s left is the scent of warm summer rain that always lingers on his skin. 

Ingo sighs in resignation when you finally reach to turn off the water, and shivers slightly as the sudden change leaves a faint chill in the air. You kiss his shoulder in apology.

You wait until you’ve both stepped safely out of the shower before slipping away from him. “Wait here,” you tell him, quiet as a breath, only to return a moment later with the biggest, fluffiest towel the two of you own. 

You avoid his hand when he goes to reach for it, instead draping the towel over his head and playfully ruffle some of the moisture from his hair. He laughs softly, still too quiet, but it warms you like a campfire to hear it after the utter misery he’d been carrying before. 

“My love, I think I can–”

You pull the towel away from his face so you can lean up to kiss him, stealing his words clean away. 

“I know,” you whisper as you pull back. You press another kiss to his temple as you let the towel fall to his shoulders, gently wiping away the water that still clings to him. “Let me do this for you.”

You move the towel once more, trailing it over the column of his throat, down his shoulder blades, around to the planes of his chest, and drop your lips to follow along after it - a slow path of kisses at every place your touch alights. Ingo sighs against your hair, melting into your touch once more.

You dry off his left arm, then his right, ending with a kiss to each of his palms, his knuckles, his wrists. He tucks a wet strand of your hair behind your ear for you, and you offer him a smile before shifting to stand beside him, then behind him, kissing along the line of his shoulders you’d dried before but hadn’t been able to reach. As you brush the towel down the curve of his spine, he reaches back and gingerly steals one of your hands, bringing it around to his front so that you’re pressed to his back, arm around his waist and fingers entwined with his. You huff a laugh against his vertebrae and leave another kiss. 

“I’m not finished yet.”

Ingo hums. 

He lifts your combined hands to his lips and brushes them across your fingers reverently, before slowly turning until you’re chest to chest, adjusting his hold on your hand so that he doesn’t have to let you go. He tugs at the towel; with a fake pout, you let him take it. 

Ingo’s smile is tired and small, but real. “Indulge me,” he says, and while it’s still quiet, it’s better. 

The towel comes down upon your head in a mimic of before. You giggle as he gently ruffles your hair, squeezes the excess water from it, pets the dampness from your face and neck, and when he bends to kiss your forehead you intercept him with your lips against his own. 

“I love you,” you breathe into the kiss, smiling as Ingo tilts his head to deepen it. 

“I love you, too,” he sighs. “So much.”