Work Text:
Asta was never in any danger. She had turned off the outlet before she’d plugged in the toaster, betting on the fact that Harry, for all his alien intelligence, hasn’t figured out every nuance of human electrical engineering. Or if he has, he’ll have forgotten it due to the situation. Frankly, there’s still a lot of human nuance Harry doesn’t understand and Asta’s frustration has hit a breaking point.
Harry certainly doesn’t understand the pressure she’s currently feeling. The world on her shoulders, a ball of lead in her stomach. She likes Harry, likes him a lot, even, and there’s a deep connection between them. But to be solely responsible for the fate of an entire planet? Completely unfair. His attention is both gratifying and overwhelming and he won’t see any sense.
She wants to scream. Or maybe punch someone. Or, as she is now, threatening to electrocute herself by standing in a partially filled bathtub with a toaster, just to get Harry to do something. Definitely not how she imagined the course of her life after leaving Jimmy.
Harry bangs on the door, yelling something about bread. Freaking bread, of all the damn things. Men are obtuse idiots no matter what planet they come from, apparently. Harry manages to break the lock on the door, barging in and ripping the cord out of the wall as she lets the toaster drop, just to prove a point. She takes a little satisfaction in that, but she’s annoyed that it had to come to this at all.
“Be careful, you might slip,” Harry chides as he gives her a hand out of the tub and Asta opens her mouth to give a snappy retort when that’s exactly what happens. Harry has her right hand and she’s got her left foot on the edge of the tub when she starts to fall. Harry moves so fast that she barely has time to register she’s falling before he’s got an arm wrapped around her waist, lifting her up and out of the bathtub.
Harry pulls her tight against him, arms wrapped around her, and Asta relaxes into him. Head against his chest, she can hear his human heart beating rapidly. There’s something comforting about being here in his arms. “Harry, you can let go-” she starts, pulling back a little to look him in the eyes.
Harry is staring at her, fear and worry stark in his eyes. “Asta, you… you scared me.” And there’s something about the quiet way he says that pierces Asta’s heart as he gazes down at her.
Oh.
Oh.
The rapid beating of his heart, the way he hasn’t let go of her yet– she’d assumed that it was a selfish desire on his part but it dawns on her now that Harry, in his own weird way, deeply cares for her. And that he truly would do anything to save her, if the bunker below his cabin isn’t proof enough.
“Harry, I’m sorry. I—” but she can’t even finish her sentence because Harry’s mouth is on hers. The kiss is gentler than she might have expected, Harry capturing her lips softly. Softly, at least, until she surges up to meet him, kissing him back. She uses her teeth to tug on his bottom lip and is rewarded with a low rumble from Harry. She’s not sure how long they stay there, trading kisses back and forth, slowly exploring each other’s mouths and cataloging each response.
Eventually she disentangles herself from Harry, both of them sighing a bit as they break apart. Harry leans down and kisses the top of Asta’s head, an almost unbearably tender gesture that squeezes Asta’s heart. She threads her fingers through his, gripping his hand tightly.
“Let’s eat the pizza and figure out how to contact your people,” she says, tugging him out of the bathroom. “We–we have a lot to talk about. We’ll work together to figure it out. That’s what we do.”
“I’d prefer to do more kissing,” Harry grumps, but he follows her readily back into the main living area of the cabin.
Asta snorts. “Saving the world first, kissing later.” Harry grumbles quietly and she smiles to herself. This is a plan she can work with.