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The bed was warmer than before, and Sarah's six-month carrying body considered it heavenly. She blinked against strands of her long brown hair but made no effort to lift a finger. Her limbs felt detached and tingly from just awakening from a sleep she didn't quite recall. From what the sunny strips striping the covers told, it was late morning. And from the sudden shift on the mattress, she hadn't fallen asleep alone.
Sarah went stiff as a board when something metallic slipped over her waist. She then smiled sunnily as a kiss dragged and pressed behind her ear, a gentle rumbling putting her at ease.
"Mm. Mornin', lovey." Johnny mumbled the greeting into her neck and directed another to the heavy abdomen he caressed. "James."
The close proximity had been experimented with for the first time last night. Consciousness regained, Sarah recalled it had started with an unsure kiss. It hadn't gotten inquiringly intimate, but then again, she had been under a fearsome enamored spell with the cyborg for a month now, and to her extreme joy, he'd felt the same (as if his smooth remarks of her beauty and hovering hospitality didn't give anything away).
Sarah damn near forgot what cuddling was, but she was glad it wasn't a completely lost art.
The girl carefully sat up, a task that was certainly beyond her past skill. She damn near forgot what it was like to wake up with someone next to her too, and an unmade, occupied beside was a wonderful sight instead of an untouched one.
"Morning," she replied. "I didn't think you'd still be here."
"Why not?" he murmured. "Y'didn't exactly pay for me to end up under yer same sheets, did ya?"
Unabashedly shirtless, Johnny laid on his stomach, chin resting on his crossed, toned arm and a half. Unruly brown hair and a dozy grin only further served to question if he was real and not a figment of Sarah's starving imagination.
"No, I guess not."
She smiled, and the one he returned sent hers skidding to the windows. A woman was dumping out a basin of dirty water, and a small craft drifted above, heading towards the bazaar port. "Don't you have a shop to run though?" Sarah inquired softly, still a bit sleepy since calm mornings weren't part of her own job's routine. She'd trusted her patrons were willing to receive a late lunch and check-in, and come to think of it, Sarah didn't know why she didn't have postponed hours regularly, being pregnant and all.
Apparently free from responsibilities such as impending parenthood, Johnny yawned and licked his lips. "Naw, Ishmael's got it fer the most bein'. Doubt he'd want me minglin' in his tighter 'an' a priest's ass schedule. Stars've blessed him with a brain, but he uses it far too much and mainly ta make me processors grind."
Sarah had gotten to know Johnny's other half as a teaser just like him- though he didn't have that easy smile and belly laugh to go along with it. Ishmael was the prime example of an older, mature sibling that was about as stark a difference as their merry shop in the dreary slums. While Johnny was boisterous, mischievous, and wisecracking, Ishmael was dry, intellectual, and direct; a kind of character you could either hate or love. Sarah learned she had to may as well get used to him on her apparently 'wonderingly frequent' visitations- claimed to be so as they often slipped with unsuccessful stealth upstairs most mornings.
"And what have the Stars blessed you with?" Sarah joked, her first guess being that overflowing well of charm she'd long since drowned in.
Johnny's half-smile widened, but there was no sort of joke to it, nor explanation to be given. He gazed at her as if she'd just finished falling out of the sky into his bed, and then Sarah had to glance out the window.
Sitting up on a mechanical hand, the Ursid tilted her chin towards him. He was faintly frowning. "Come on 'en, don't do that."
"Do what?" Sarah became subconsciously frightened at the reprimand, although there wasn't the slightest bit of sharpness to it.
"Look so shy, fer one thing." She had expected the frown to deepen, maybe a scowl to suddenly surge, but Johnny's brow only quirked questioningly. "I can barely say a thing and ya close up. D'ya get uncomfortable with me kiddin' as I do?"
"Huh? Oh, no, no, that's not it at all..."
"'En what is it, lovey?" he asked, an earnest tug in his voice.
"I'm just..."
Not used to being so in love with someone so wonderful.
Sarah bit her lip, gathered up her courage, and, for the second time in a life full of wrong choices, took a leap of faith of her own terms. "I like you."
Johnny's reaction was understandably mild, as if she'd informed him that the sky was blue, or an apple was red. His eyes briefly landed on her mouth, his artificial glinting playfully. "Well, based on the salutation those sweet lips a'yers gave me, I'd say so," he smirked.
He'd be nothing if he wasn't a kidder, and that was all fine and dandy had Sarah not been trying to come up with a better way to explain herself. She moved around for a better angle, and her struggling movement honed his attention to her satisfaction. "When I say I like you, I mean I love you," Sarah explained, "and I know you know that but... I think there's a difference between loving someone and wanting to be with them... right?"
Johnny nodded slowly, sensibly keeping his mouth shut and his ears on full listening mode.
"So I guess what I'm asking is..." For the smallest of seconds, Sarah forgot her words, only because Johnny seemed to be anticipating them as much as she was wanting to prompt them. "Do you want to be with me?"
Never once, Sarah noticed in the span of her sojourns, had Johnny even peered in the direction of another pretty admirer, and that was saying something by saying nothing, wasn't it? Really, him sticking his neck out for her during her daily adventures to the time of all the way back in the alley was enough of a commitment. One she wanted, desperately. It all boiled down to if he'd be willing to do it for the rest of his apparently bad-choice-free life. And yet, before he broke the long silence, Sarah somehow what he'd say, not from what her heart declared, but by the strong second pulse within her.
A warm smile graced Johnny's face. "I do."