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Leaning around to look through the key slots, the clerk hummed, pulling out only a single key from the end. “We have one room left, and I’m afraid it’s a two bed,” he said.
Purah breathed a laugh, glancing at Robbie. “That’ll be fine.” She figured she was more than comfortable enough around him by that point. They had just shared a tent with his sister for about a week. She would even consider it an upgrade, and wasn’t even sure why it being a two bed would have been a problem.
“You sure?” Robbie asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” she dismissed.
The clerk hummed, pulling the key out of its sleeve. “The beds are pretty spacious, so you could always share just the one,” he said, and just like that, they both realized exactly why he had made it sound like it was a problem.
He thought they were together.
“Great, thanks,” Purah said, snatching the key before he even had a chance to set it on the counter. The inn was warm, but her face was definitely warmer.
Snatching her bag off the floor, she headed off, not waiting to see if Robbie would keep up or not. She needed out of the lobby. She needed to get away from the silly clerk and his silly ideas. Silly ideas like being partners with her partner.
Realizing she didn’t even know the room number they were looking for, she flipped the key over in her hand, the little wooden pine tree tag displaying a 17. At least they didn’t have to backtrack and go up the stairs.
“So did he…” Robbie began, keeping a distance from her when she found the room.
“Yep,” she finished, slotting the key into the door.
Thankfully, the room itself was much cooler than the lobby had been. The fireplace hadn't been lit in a while, unlike the oil lamps around the room, and the window was cracked open, leaving the room with a distinct chill and the smell of the pine forest behind the inn.
The clerk certainly hadn’t lied about the beds being spacious. Large, green, pillowy comforters on each bed. A million fluffy pillows she was sure she was going to have to toss off the bed. Definitely more than enough for the two of them to share--
But that wasn’t going to happen. No. Not a chance.
She had woken up plenty of times snuggled up to his sister during their survey trip; she didn’t need the risk of waking up snuggled up to him. It didn’t matter that, in the back of her mind, she found herself starting to wonder if it would be nice. He was always so warm bodied; would that be a nice thing to wake up to? A cold room, but a warm partner--
Just like that, the room had swung from cold to hot.
Robbie lingered in the doorway, watching as she threw her bag down on one of the beds, effectively claiming it for herself. “Purah, hey-” he began, waiting for her to turn around again. “Do you- I can always go crash at the lab. Y’know, show up and throw my weight around and act like it’s a surprise visit from the royal lab,” he said, trying his hardest to play it all off as a joke, rather than show her just how anxious this all was making him.
She crossed her arms, giving him a quick look over. “Do you want to?” she asked, figuring it was enough of an out for him. She wasn’t about to force him to sleep in the same room as her.
He opened his mouth to speak, to lie, but the words refused him. “Not...not really,” he eventually answered, feeling heat rising up his neck. “But not that I-”
“Robbie,” she interrupted, shifting her weight to her other foot. “We did just spend a week together in a tiny-ass tent with your sister surveying around for Ruta. I think this is quite the upgrade,” she pointed out. There was probably more room between the beds than there had been in the entire tent they were sharing.
He shrugged. “I know, but-- just seems different, I guess,” he said. “I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable.” That, and he was pretty sure Impa wouldn’t hesitate to make good on her threat to eviscerate him if he even thought of trying anything with Purah…followed by all four of his sisters.
At that, she laughed, hands falling to her side. “Robbie, if I was uncomfortable with you, I wouldn’t have come on this trip with you in the first place. You wouldn't still be working with me, and I definitely wouldn’t have slept at your parents’ house.” Her flush had turned into a full-on hot flash as she looked away and more quietly added, “And if there had been only one bed, I would have been comfortable enough to probably even just...share the bed with you. It would’ve been fine. That’s how comfortable I am with you, okay?”
If nothing else, he was getting far more vulnerable sides to her than anyone got, and surely he at least understood that much.
She didn’t want to even think of the implications of it all. She didn’t want to think of what it meant to be willingly vulnerable around someone. Especially when that someone wasn’t even blood-related.
The grip on his pack eased, and he finally stepped into the room, setting it down at the end of the other bed. “If you change your mind, though, at any point, just tell me, okay?” he said.
She nodded. “Same to you.” She was quick to change topics, not wanting to risk being any more vulnerable than she already had. “But now if you’ll excuse me, if I don’t go shower I’m gonna have a meltdown because I just know I smell like a big mule!” she said, kneeling down to start pulling things from her bag.
He snorted a laugh, sitting down at the one chair in the room. “Well, I wasn’t gonna say it-”
“You jerk!” she said, snatching a pillow off the bed, and tossing it at him quicker than he could react.
He reacted with an oof before throwing his head back in a laugh, clutching the pillow to his chest.
She bit her tongue, trying not to laugh along with him. “I can’t believe you- I let you stay with me, I pay for the room myself, and what do you do? Call me a mule!” She failed to not laugh.
He couldn't help himself. “Would you have rather me call you an ass?”
She laughed, about to reach for another pillow to throw at him along with a retort, but had to stop herself short, thankfully catching herself before she even said it. “I’m not gonna say that.” It didn’t stop her from still laughing too hard at it anyway.
Setting the original pillow aside, he leaned forward. “Well, now you gotta tell me,” he said.
She leaned back on the floor, looking up at him, debating. “I was gonna say, ‘I’ll show you an ass’, but then I realized that’s exactly what that clerk thinks is gonna happen anyway-”
He snorted a laugh, looking away from her, trying his hardest to contain it all. “You better go shower before I somehow say something even dumber,” he said.
She hummed, finally grabbing everything she needed.
Standing up, she reached out to ruffle his hair, not even sure why she did so. “Knowing you, that won’t take long.”
He breathed a laugh. “Get outta here,” he teased.
She headed off, the water from their tiny shower room turning on not longer after the door had closed behind her.
Setting himself to work, he began to organize things in his bag, figuring he would shower after her. Two days on the road left him feeling gross as well. Until then, he was content to organize, and then read until she was done.
Partway through the chapter of his book, a warm floral smell began to seep out of the bathroom. Rose oil. Likely what she put in her hair.
He took a deep breath, thoroughly losing his spot on the page. By the time the water had turned off, he had never found the sentence he had been on, and he wasn’t even sure he could have told anyone what he was trying to read.
“Your turn.”
Her voice made him jump, dropping the book into his lap, but she didn’t notice. Hair damp on her shoulders, she looked asleep on her feet, falling down onto the bed she had picked earlier.
He laughed lightly, grabbing his things before heading off to take his own shower, walking into what might as well have been a cloud of warm rose oil. A smell he was positive he was going to forever associate with her.
Another deep breath, and he almost felt intoxicated.
Exhausted. He was exhausted, and he would blame it all on that. Nothing more.
As he worked through his own shower and nightly routine, the smell of his own soaps and washes mixed with hers, creating something uniquely them. By the end of it, he was begging his tired mind to let it go. To drop it. To stop going down whatever path it was trying to.
They were lab partners. Nothing more.
Toweling off his hair, when he stepped back out into the room, he noticed that Purah had already fallen asleep. All the lamps were still lit, and she hadn’t even bothered to get under the covers. She had probably fallen asleep the second he closed the door.
Warmth stirred in his chest at the sight, and he moved without thinking, going over to at least pull the throw blanket over her, grabbing the one off his bed as well for her. With her hair still wet, she would likely wake up soon enough, cold, and he didn’t want that for her.
With that in mind, he carefully built up a small fire in the fireplace with the provided kindling. Once it was built up enough to his liking, hopefully enough to last them through the night in a slow burn, he went around the room, blowing out the oil lamps one by one.
Crawling into his own bed, the sound of the fire crackling and popping, combined with Purah’s soft breaths in the bed next to his, all he could think about was how content he was in that moment. Truly, there was nowhere else he would rather be, and after that realization, he fell into a deep sleep…