“scoot over.”
“Scoot over.”
He does, unquestioningly,without quite taking the time to register why. This is the reason that whenFelicity drops down onto the couch and onto him, none too gently, he makes asurprised oof! noise.
She’s got a cushion andeverything; it’s tucked between her head and his leg and he’s left staring downat her, hands half-raised for lack of anything better to do with them, as shemakes herself comfortable with a sigh. Her shoes have been kicked off,somewhere, and her bare feet tuck themselves between the arm of the couch andthe cushion, the better to keep them warm.
“ – comfortable?” he asks, dryly, when sheseems to have settled.
“Very,” she confirms. Hedrops a hand to her back, and she arches into the warmth of it, just afraction.
“At least one of us is.”
“Quit complaining,” shedemands. “I haven’t slept in two days.”
“I didn’t ask you to dothat,” he points out. “In my defense.”
She lets out a huff ofamusement and curls a little closer into his touch. Thumb rubs idle circlesagainst the slow rise and fall of her breath. The whole place seems to becreeping towards something restful and still.
“You never have to ask meto,” she says, sleepily.
His hand stills on herback. This close to sleep, there’s not enough presence of mind for Felicity toback-track and double-up, to negate her own sentences or to cross back andexplain herself. The declaration simply sits, feeling more than it is, insilence. After a second she makes an unhappy, insistent noise, and Oliverescapes the breathless moment to coax his hand back into the same soothingmovements.
You neverhave to ask me to.
Felicity drifts towardssleep. Oliver, for all his complaints, doesn’t shift a muscle – not when hisdiscomfort grows; not when muscles, robbed of freedom of movement, protest. Hesits, and he waits. He watches.
She never has to ask himto.











