Work Text:
Every morning after BJ’s knuckles make abrupt contact with your face, he comes to stand before you. He gently takes your chin in one hand, and tilts the bruised side of your face up to the light so that he can examine it better.
You can tell that the fact that he hit you at all is eating him up with guilt, but the look on his face on these mornings is so beautifully serious, you hardly regret it yourself. It’s a real muddle, but he looks at you as if you and your bruised cheekbone are the only things that exist in the world, and it’s difficult for you to come back from that.
Once he’s looked it over oh-so carefully, his other hand will come up and his warm fingertips brace lightly against the side of your neck. His thumb softly, slowly sweeps across your cheekbone, running the outline of the bruise he’s left, as if he’s committing the shape of it to memory. Hell, maybe he is - maybe he thinks that if he learns it by heart, it’ll never happen again.
Lastly, once he’s finished tracing the damage, that hand will slide to rest firmly against the back of your neck. His gaze comes to yours, and he’ll look at you so intently for a moment that you almost squirm in his grasp.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs every morning, and then leans in and brushes a feather light kiss across your cheek.
Every morning you wonder if you’d ever be brave enough to turn your head to accept that kiss a different way, but his voice echoes endlessly in your head, talking about how much he misses Peg and Erin, so you don’t dare. This man is not for you.
One morning your bruise has faded to nothing at all, like it never happened. You’re reminded that BJ knows you at least as well as you know yourself, and he kisses your cheek, then smiles down at you before pressing a sweet, chaste kiss to your lips.
It’s less than you wish for, and more than you expected, and it’s perfect.