Work Text:
She was nervous.
She wasn’t used to it. It made her feel like a teenager again, like she was young and unsure of herself, anxious when he smiled at her, as if she would find happiness somewhere in the curve of his cheek or in the dip of his dimples. It made her feel stupid. Foolish. And if she didn’t love him so damn much, she thinks she’d hate him for it.
She’d waited for him. Waited for him to ask her on a date, because she knew it was important for him to be the one who asked, and when he finally did, when months - years, if she was honest - gave way to their friendship tipping over into more, it was a relief. Like she could breathe for the first time in a long time, her head above water as if he was her dry land.
The only thing that made her feel better was that he was nervous too. He was just as anxious as she was, just as aware of how important this was. The last first date. The last first kiss.
The last time they’d fall in love, the thrill of it just as addictive as she remembered.
It takes a couple of weeks for them to find the time, for work and for everything else to line up so they go on their date, and it’s perfect. She’d worried it would be awkward, that they’d overhyped it, made it more than it should be, but it’s just like any other time they’ve spent together. They talk about anything and everything, but this time, as he tells her about Jack and what he’d done at school, they aren’t sitting on opposite ends of his couch, but snuggled up together in a booth in a restaurant, her hand in his as he runs his thumb back and forth over the heel of her hand.
Aaron is sweet, kind, and annoyingly gentlemanly, and he’s everything she knew he would be. He shows up at her place with flowers and a nervous smile, and she doesn’t fight him when he gets out his wallet to pay for dinner, doesn’t insist that she pays for half, because she knows it’s another thing that’s important to him. She sinks her teeth into her lower lip to try and contain her smile when he helps her put her jacket on as they leave the restaurant, his fingers chasing the shiver he causes when they skim her shoulders. A taster of what she hoped was to come.
He drives her home, their hands linked over the centre console, the press of his palm warm against hers, and she feels the same nervous excitement she’d had before he picked her up bubbling in her stomach again. He walks her to her door, because of course he does, and she smiles when she turns to look at him, her lips pressed together as their eyes meet.
“Want to come in?” She asks, nodding towards her front door, losing her nerve a little when his eyes flash with something close to anxiety, “For a drink?”
He smiles, and clears his throat, “I…I don’t want you to think I’m expecting something if I do come in-”
She kisses him, her hand on his cheek as she holds him in place, cutting off his adorable apprehension with a simple press of her lips against his. She pulls back just enough to talk, her lips pressed together as she chases the taste of him still lingering on them.
“I want you to come in,” she says, stroking her thumb back and forth over his cheek, knowing he’ll catch the double meaning, “As long as you want-”
He kisses her this time, gently and all too briefly, before he pulls back and smiles at her, taking his turn to be the one doing the reassuring. It was a give and take. A perfect example of what their relationship always had been and always would be, their love for each other laid out in how they cared for the other.
“You said something about a drink?” He says finally, his eyes soft as he looks at her as if she hung the stars in the sky herself. She nods and she digs through her purse for her keys, the warmth of him at her back overwhelming as she turns to unlock the door.
They step into her apartment. He helps her take her jacket off, purposely running his fingers over the same spot on her shoulders he’d accidentally discovered in the restaurant. She gasps, narrowing her eyes at the delight in his eyes, the way they sparkle in a way she would have once thought they couldn’t.
“Scotch or wine?” She asks, swallowing thickly to pretend her voice isn’t shaking, and he leans in to kiss her cheek.
“Whatever you want,” he replies, his tender teasing giving way to open affection as she leads him to the kitchen, neither one of them sure who had reached for whose hand. She pours them both a glass of wine, and they go to the living room, snuggled together on one end of the couch as they exchange kisses like the sweetest candy. She isn’t sure how it happens, but she ends up in his lap, her arms around his neck and his around her waist as they explore each other, hands skimming hills and valleys they’d only ever imagined before. She hums his name against his lips, her forehead against his as she pulls back, her breath skipping across his face. He squeezes her hips, “Em…”
“Bedroom?” She asks, and she doesn’t know how he has this power over her, how he can make her so nervous, but then she pulls back to look at him, and she can see he’s nervous too, that he’s just as aware as she is about what this means to them. It wasn’t just sex, it never could be between them. It was the start of the rest of their lives together, the night they’d look back on fondly for the rest of their lives, the night they’d tell their children a PG version of if they ever asked about their first date.
She presses her thumb against his lower lip, and he kisses it, smiling softly as he nods at her, “Bedroom.”
He follows her, his hand wrapped around hers as she leads him down the hallway, only breaking away from her when she picks Sergio up off of her bed and leaves him out in the hallway, both of them smiling when the cat meows at them from the other side of the closed door.
They take things slowly, exploring each other and skimming gentle fingers over scars they’d only ever read about in each other's files. She thinks with anyone else, she’d be self-conscious, that she’d be all too aware of the starburst of scar tissue on her abdomen and the brand mark on her breast, but it’s different with him. She sees the beauty in his scars, sees how they are made of him, that they are evidence that he’d survived to make it here to her, and for the first time, she knows hers aren’t any different.
Afterwards, as they lay together in her bed, his chest against her back and their linked hands tucked under her chin, she sighs contentedly, dropping a kiss to his knuckles.
“You okay, sweetheart?” He asks, and she hums, turning her head just enough to look at him.
“I’m more than okay,” she replies, stamping her lips against his, chuckling when it turns into a yawn, “Tired though. You wore me out.”
He laughs, but his cheeks go red, a blush rushing down his neck and chest, and he kisses the corner of her mouth, “We should get some sleep.”
She nods and kisses him again, her nose rubbing against his jaw, “Goodnight.”
He kisses her cheek, then her brow, before she rests her head on her pillow again, another yawn lost into the peaceful darkness of her room.
“Goodnight, Em”
___
They were the last two left in the office.
Aaron had told them all, including her, that they could go home a couple of hours ago, but she’d stayed, not wanting to leave him alone. She’d stayed, had used the excuse that she had paperwork to catch up on when the others had asked her if she wanted to go for a drink with them, as if they didn’t know she was staying to keep an eye on her boyfriend. She looked up at his office now and again, her heart clenching in her chest every time she did so, his stress obvious even through the window and partially closed blinds.
Eventually, when her own exhaustion creeps up on her, when she can no longer deny just how tired she is, she walks up to his office, determined to see if she can convince him to leave with her. He smiles when she knocks on the door and opens it, the first smile she’d seen skip across his face all day, and he puts his pen down, his tired eyes meeting hers as she walks over to perch on his desk.
“You heading home?” He asks, his hand heavy and warm on her thigh as he squeezes, and she nods in response, placing her hand over his and linking their fingers together.
“I was wondering if I might be able to convince you to come with me,” she says, stroking her thumb back and forth over his hand. Home was, as of a month ago, the house they’d bought together. It was perfect. Everything they’d been looking for and more in the months they’d been searching, and she loved it. She loved that after all this time that she finally had somewhere to call home, although she knew that more to do with the man and the little boy she loved than it did the five bedroom, three bath house on Dupont Circle they now lived in. She reaches out and runs her fingers through Aaron’s hair, her eyes flicking to the dark circles under his eyes, “You look tired, honey.”
He chuckles dryly, “Thanks, sweetheart.”
She rolls her eyes lovingly at him and stands, smiling when he doesn’t need encouragement to roll his chair back just enough for her to join him, and she climbs into his lap. They usually weren’t affectionate at work, usually respected the firm boundaries they had in place, but they were the only two left in the office, so she was allowing herself this, a moment of him before she knew she’d inevitably head home alone.
“You know what I mean,” she says, wrapping her arms around his neck, scratching her nails against the base of his scalp, catching against hair that was a little longer than usual. “It’s been a long day.”
“It has been,” he replies, his eyes drifting to his desk and the pile of paperwork, “I still have a lot to do.”
She knows him, knows he wouldn’t be saying it if he wasn’t true - that he didn’t use work as an excuse to stay here if he didn’t need to. She also knew it was something that weighed heavily on him, that every time he had to stay late, he felt like he was letting her and Jack down, a weight that he’d carried from his marriage to Haley and what he perceived as his failures heavy on his shoulders.
“I’ll go get Jack from Jess’s,” she says, “And I’ll get something for dinner and make sure I leave you some.”
He nods, looking down at their linked hands in her lap. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey, no,” she says, cupping his cheek to make him look at her, “You don’t have anything to apologise for.” She rests her forehead against his, “If anything, I should probably apologise - I think I’ll be asleep by the time you get home. I’m so tired, I think I’ll fall asleep the second I lie down.”
Aaron chuckles and kisses her, “I’ll do my best not to wake you up when I get back.”
She frowns as she pulls back to look at him, coming the closest she thinks she’d ever come to pouting, and she reaches out to touch his tie, focusing on adjusting it unnecessarily rather than him, somehow still shy about her love for him after all this time.
“You have to wake me up,” she says, as if they both don’t know she’d grumble at him if he did, “Otherwise we won’t have our goodnight kiss.”
He smiles at her, love and affection flowing off of him like a cologne, sweet and enticing, as she leans in towards him as if drawn like a moth to the flame. “Well, you know how we can avoid that, don’t you?”
She presses her lips together in an attempt to hide her smile from him, and she hums, “Enlighten me.”
He stamps his lips against hers and pulls back just enough to speak, “We have our goodnight kiss now.”
She smiles, no longer able to hide it, and she cups his cheek, dragging him into a kiss, tasting coffee and the candy she’d hidden for him in his drawer on his tongue, “I guess that’s acceptable.”
She kisses him again, and then once more before she pulls away, standing up and extracting herself from his embrace, the chill in the air of his office replacing the warmth of him.
“Goodnight, honey,” she says, kissing him one last time before she steps back, throwing him a wink that makes him smile.
“Goodnight, sweetheart,” he replies. “I love you.”
She turns to look at him, “Love you too,” she grasps the door handle but looks at him one more time, “I wouldn’t be mad if you woke me up when you get home anyway,” she says, and he smiles, “I can never have enough goodnight kisses from you.”
He nods, unable to fight his smile despite his exhaustion, her love for him the balm his weary soul always needed.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
___
He stops her the moment she has the key card in their hotel suite door. His hands are insistent on her hips as he turns her in his arms, his arms tight around her waist as he draws a laugh out of her when he leans in to kiss her.
“Honey,” she says, mumbled against his lips, laughing again when he pulls her closer, holding her so tightly he almost lifts her, “What are you doing?”
“Trying to carry you,” he says matter of factly, his smile softened by love and the champagne they’d been drinking all evening. “It’s tradition.”
“Maybe if we were 20 years younger,” she hums as she pulls back, the sound turning into a full bodied laugh and then a squeal when he manages it, her arms tight around his neck as he hooks her arms around his neck, securing herself to him, “Careful of your back.”
“Like I said, it’s tradition.” He walks into their suite, kicking the door closed behind them and replies, “I’m carrying my wife into our hotel room on our wedding night.”
She can’t help but smile, her cheeks aching with it, before she leans in to kiss him, humming at the taste of champagne and the expensive chocolate dessert Dave’s caterers had served them lingering on his tongue. It was strange to think it was all behind them now, that the day they’d planned was over, the rest of their lives together laid out in front of them. It made her giddy, made love and everything she couldn’t find a name for swirl in her gut.
Everyone always joked that she could talk him into anything, that all it would take was a flutter of her eyelashes and a smile, and he’d be putty in her hands, but no one ever seemed to realise that it worked both ways. That all it took was a flash of his dimples and the crinkle of the smile lines around his eyes, and she’d give in to anything, every part at his mercy as he was at hers.
She thinks that must be why she simply holds on tighter despite her concern for his back, because she wants to live in this moment for as long as she can, to bask in his affection and adoration of her.
“I love you,” she says, kissing him one more time, not missing how he readjusts his gait, how he tightens his hold on her, “So much. But you should put me down now.”
“I love you, too,” he replies, kissing her once more before he sets her down, not letting her drift too far, his arms tight around her back as he holds her close. She yawns and he laughs, gently stroking his knuckles down her cheek, “Want to lie down?”
“Oh God, yes,” she says, toeing off her shoes before he leads her over to the bed. She immediately lies down and he sits next to her, untying his laces and leaving his shoes neatly by the bed, and then he lies down with he. She snuggles up against him, her face pressed against his neck as she sighs contentedly, “I’m so tired.”
He hums and kisses the top of her head, “It’s been a long day.”
She pulls back to look at him and smiles, reaching for his hand and linking their fingers together. Her smile gets wider when she feels the cool metal of his wedding ring pressing against her skin, and she runs her thumb back and forth over it. Ever since she’d slipped it on his finger a few hours ago, she’d been obsessed with it, seeking it out by touching it or staring at it - something that had made Penelope make fun of her when she caught her doing it. It was a sign for the rest of the world that he was hers, and she didn’t think she’d ever tire of seeing it.
“It’s been a good day, though,” she says, lifting his hand to kiss it, her lips catching the edge of his ring.
“The best.”
The wedding had been small, much smaller than she ever would have imagined her wedding when she was young, but she didn’t think she’d have ever imagined him either. It was perfect, just them and the people who meant the most to them, and she wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Staying in the hotel for the night was his idea, something to make the night special, to make it stand out from every other night of their lives.
She yawns again, and she thinks any plans she may have had for their suite for the night might be short-lived.
“You’re not going to be mad if I fall asleep, are you?” She asks, settling against him again, humming contentedly, “I know wedding nights are meant to be for sex until we fall asleep from exhaustion.” He laughs and kisses the top of her head, “Wedding nights are meant for whatever we want them to be for,” he says, running his hand up and down her back, “Haley and I ate leftover cake in bed and fell asleep.”
She chuckles against his neck, the vibration of her joy warming him from the inside out, “I like the sound of that.”
She’s falling asleep already. He can tell from the sleepiness in her voice, in how she gets heavier against him, and he knows they likely won’t even change out of the clothes they married each other in, the satin of her dress soft and cool beneath his palm as he runs his hand up and down her back.
“The cake is here somewhere,” he says, looking around the room to see if he can spot the belongings that the concierge had brought up for them. “I’ll find it later.”
She hums, “Okay.”
He smiles and stamps his lips against her forehead, “Goodnight, sweetheart.”
She hums, almost fast asleep, and she turns her head to kiss him, her lips missing his as she catches his chin instead. “G’night.”