Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Starlight wakes up without Avior in their arms, they panic. They almost forget they’re back home, that they’re okay, that they’re safe, so they panic . It’s a mad dash from their bed to the living room, kitchen, bathroom, and finally the balcony of their shared apartment with Avior.

That’s where they find him. Blue t-shirt with small wet speckles and pants gathering snow at the ankles. They open the sliding door and he turns around to greet them. His eyes almost glow in the dark of the morning, orange light shining through the quiet of the snow. He’s beautiful.

“What are you doing out here? Jesus, it’s freezing, Avior.” A jacket is snatched off the hall tree, and then another, one making its way into Avior’s arms as the other is pulled tightly over Starlight’s shoulders.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.” Starlight shakes their head as they grab his hand. Still warm as ever. Their fingers intertwine and suddenly they’re home .

“You didn’t wake me, just scared me a little. It’s like five in the morning, what’re you doing up and around?” Avior goes silent, and briefly Starlight wonders if they’ve said something wrong.

“It’s just- I’ve never-“ He takes a shaky breath, and they want to kiss the furrow out of his brow.

Then, in a voice so soft it barely carried over the roaring quiet, he says, “ I’ve never seen snow before.”

Suddenly it makes sense. The way his eyes light up even brighter with childlike wonder, the way they’re filled with an ease that Starlight has only seen grace his features a handful of times. They never want that look to go away. 

“ It’s so quiet .” There are tears in his voice as he says it, looking out onto the city streets that have just started waking up as well. The lights of the cars and the humming of the engines as they pass by is a symphony that Starlight had taken for granted when they were yanked out of their life and into Avior’s. While they wouldn’t even dream of changing a thing now, they can’t deny that they missed the little moments like this.

So, they went back inside briefly to pull out a small box. They walk back outside and hand Avior the present.

“Merry Christmas, love.” Avior takes the box, holding it gently like it’s made of paper thin glass.

He stares at it until Starlight shakes their head.

“Just open it.” So he does, because he’s never been able to say no to them easily.

Inside is a small snow globe. The snow globe has a beautiful landscape, a snowy city, with two stars shooting across the top of the building, suspended in midair as if frozen in time.

“It’s small, but I wanted to give it to you on the first snow of December. I made it myself, and if you funnel a little magic into it,” They trail off, letting the smallest bit of magic flow from their fingertips into the globe. The city comes alive, two figures dancing to a soundless song in the middle of everything, two figures that resembled them both. “That happens.”

And Avior stares in absolute wonder . He doesn’t take his eyes off of the little snow globe until Starlight removes their fingers from it. He fixes them with a gaze so heavy it makes their mind go blank.

“It’s not that much, but I figured your first snow deserved to have a special gift associated w-“

They didn’t get to finish the nervous rambling they started before he was kissing them. He’d gotten more bold in that sense, a kiss to the hand here, a kiss to the cheek there, chaste kisses in passing through the house, and it made Starlight short circuit every time.

A shiver moved through Starlights body, and Avior broke the kiss. If he noticed Starlight chasing the contact he said nothing.

“ I love you .” It’s muttered like a wish, like he doesn’t already know what he means to them.

“I love you too, Avior, so much .” They run their hands through his hair, combing snow onto his shoulders. They finally had the ability to rest, after going through so much they both deserved it. He deserved  it. Avior deserved everything, and Starlight was bound and determined to give it to him.

Chapter Text

Lovely lived for the calm mornings. The ones where there wasn’t a class to get to later in the day, where they could keep the blackout curtains drawn and wake up with Vincent. Where they could keep their head on his shoulder and watch the rise and fall of his chest, feel his breath ghost over their forehead and listen to the soft snores leaving his mouth. They loved those mornings.

Lovely adored those mornings because they could trace the freckles that spanned across his chest, stuck in time just like him. They would never fade, never develop. When they were both awake, they would play connect-the-dots with all of the little beauty marks on his back and arms, delighting in the little contented sounds he would make as he snuggled deeper into their neck as if asking for more. And who were they to ever deny the Vampire Prince of Dahlia? Who were they to ever deny Vincent Solaire?

In the midst of one of these mornings, one Lovely’s off day from classes, Vincent with no meetings or prior engagements, the calm air almost puts them back to sleep. Vincent’s chin is resting on their head as they snuggle deeper into his chest, flush against him but still too far away. They’re a tangle of limbs and hair and blankets, but it’s okay. It’s okay because they have nowhere to be, nowhere else to go but there.

That’s Lovely’s favorite position to wake up in, clutched to his chest like a safety net, like they would slip away if he didn’t hold them just right. For Lovely, it was safe and warm and home , and they’d never had one of those before. It was like breathing for the first time, like they were just figuring out how to use their lungs.

Like clockwork, it only took Vincent about two minutes after Lovely woke up before he woke up as well. With a groan, he looked down at them, and his features instantly softened.

“Good morning, Lovely.” He places a kiss on their forehead, and they lean into it, savoring the contact.

“G‘morning.” They sigh, situating themselves back into their little corner of Vincent. “I don’t wanna be up right now. ‘Wanna sleep.”

A low chuckle echoes through his chest and into theirs, filling them with a warmth they didn’t think was even possible.

“You can go back to sleep, it’s early. I’ll wake you up before it gets terribly late.” They shake their head and place a kiss on his chest.

“No. ‘Wanna lay with you a while.” Lovely starts tracing random patterns on Vincent’s hip and he sighs into their hair. They’re melting and they’re so, so warm, and they’re home . It’s such a nice feeling.

“Okay, we can do that.” The soft tone in his voice doesn’t go unnoticed by Lovely, who wonders what they could have ever even thought of doing to get to where they were. To love and be loved this much .

They lie in silence for another ten minutes, or twenty, time always blurs when they’re with him, before Lovely’s stomach growls.

They groan. “ Shut up , not now.”

They can feel Vincent smiling against their forehead, soft and light. He places a chaste kiss there, before pulling back and making eye contact.

“Hello.” He smiles.

Lovely smiles back, sleepy and content. “Hi.”

“Good morning, Lovely.” His voice nearly puts them back to sleep. God, they loved his voice.

“G’Morning, Vin.”

“I think we have to get up now.” He rubs circles on their shoulder, and they were never a morning person before they met him.

“But Vin, it’s so warm here and it’s absolutely not warm out there.” They hold fast to him and he huffs out a laugh.

“Lovely, I’ll make breakfast and then we can lay back down. Neither of us have any work for the next few days, what with it being near Christmas and all.” They groan.

“Or,” They strengthen their death grip on him, and he falls impossibly more in love. “Hear me out, Vin. You could stay in bed?”

He grabs their hand from its place on his hip, and places a kiss to their knuckles.

“Breakfast first, then we can see where we stand.” He moves out of bed and places a kiss on their forehead before leaving the room.

They stay in bed for maybe another minute or so more before they smell cinnamon cooking and they throw the blanket back before quickly wrapping it back around themselves.

“Oh, fuck , cold, cold, cold - shit.” They tug the blanket tighter before moving around the room to find lounge clothes, before settling on a pair of thick sleep pants and a sweater of Vincent’s. It was their favorite, a chocolate brown with beige and navy stripes. It still smelled like his cologne from the day before.

They enter the kitchen and see a plate of french toast already made, powdered sugar and whipped cream already on top, chopped bananas and strawberries in bowls next to it.

“Well, that didn’t take long.” The smile in his voice is apparent, even though he’s still turned around to the stove. They walk up behind him and wrap their arms around his waist, pressing kisses to his bare shoulders.

“The fact that you can walk around in this house without a shirt and be fine is insane , illegal even.” He huffs out a laugh.

“Don’t lie, you know you love the view.” They press their cheek against his back, hugging him just a bit tighter.

“I do, but I detest the fact that you can’t get cold. I was born and raised in Dahlia, we didn’t get snow like this while I was growing up. I would play in leaf piles on Christmas day.” They stop, looking out the large windows of the Skyside house, white blanketing everything around them.

“The heater is on, Lovely. I can turn it up later.” He flips the toast in the pan.

“Mm,” They slip under his arm. “I know of a way you could make it up to me.”

A mischievous grin makes its way onto Vincent’s face. “I gotta make the toast, Lovely.”

They turn off the stove and bring him down to kiss them. He lets out a surprised noise before leaning fully into the kiss, backing them up to the counter before lifting them up onto it. Each kiss leaves them more breathless than the last with him.

The little noises he makes when they run their fingers through his hair driving them forward until he lifts them into his arms, their legs wrapped around his waist to keep from dangling. Lovely breaks the kiss to catch their breath, forehead resting against Vincent’s.

“ Fuck the toast .” They pepper kisses all over his face as he laughs.

“After I spent all that time -“

“I’ll reimburse you, of course.” They kiss their way from his mouth to his chin, and then to his neck and shoulder.

“Mm,” His small sighs of contentment drive Lovely absolutely mad . God, they love him so much. “And how would you go about that?”

They smile against his neck, pulse thrumming beneath their grin.

“Fuck around and find out, pretty boy .”

___

“I do really want French Toast, though. It sounds good.”

“I should make you eat the cold slices for not being patient enough to eat breakfast first, you absolute mess .”

“You wouldn’t, you love me too much.”

“I don’t know about all that, but- hey! There was no need to hit me with a pillow!”