#weeping actually

The park was a chaotic sea of silhouettes and flickering glow-sticks, the air thick with the smell of scorched gunpowder and the humid, grassy heat of a mid-July evening. All around them, the excited chatter of the crowd and the distant cries of children were swallowed up by the rhythmic, chest-thumping boom of the fireworks as they blossomed overhead in violent strokes of crimson and cold.

Willoughby stood a head taller than most of the folks packed onto the lawn. Feeling the familiar, restless energy of being in such a tight space, all that tension seemed to dissipate the moment he focused on Hazel. She stood just in front of him, her small frame illuminated by the strobe-light flashes from above, and the sight of her looking so upwardly transfixed made his own heart do a nervous, stumbling dance against his ribs.

Stepping forward, letting his instincts override the voice in his head that kept telling him to stay guarded. To keep that safe, iron-clad distance he was so used to maintaining. He moved in close, the head radiating between them, and slowly looped his thick, calloused arms around her waist. Drawing her back against his chest until there was no longer a whisper of air between them. He felt a sudden, sharp intake of breath at the sheer vulnerability of the gesture. His pulse was racing faster than the fuses lighting up the sky.

Tentatively, he lowered his head, resting his chin on the soft curve of her shoulder. His face half-hidden by her hair, closing his eyes for just a brief second. He let himself exist in the feeling of holding something so fragile and precious, his rough exterior finally yielding to the quiet, terrifying warmth she stirred deep in his soul.

He tightened his hold just a fraction. A silent anchor amidst the booming pyrotechnics and the shifting crowd. His voice was barely a murmur against the shell of her ear once he gathered the courage to speak. "Just thought you might need a bit of a windbreak with all these folks pushin' and shovin'," he said, the low steady vibration of his Southern drawl barely audible over the next thunderous explosion of blue light.