Work Text:
You'd gotten used to waking up on Valentines' Day alone. To cold bed sheets, giggling teenagers, and consolidation chocolates. Being alone doesn't feel as strongly as it did when you were fourteen, crying in your bedroom because everyone had someone except for you, scrolling through Instagram stories and seeing your classmates pose with bouquets of flowers.
Oh, but this Valentines'? You're not alone. You peel your eyes open, already giddy, and grin at the sight of him. Simon, your personal furnace, has you wrapped in his arms. His blond lashes rest against his cheeks, lips parted slightly as he sleeps.
You shuffle carefully, cupping his cheek with your palm. His skin is rough, bumpy, as you trace the faint scars that speckle his face. The sun filters through your pinkish red curtains, dousing your room in a serene, dreamy rose that highlights the line of his nose and jaw.
Your thumb swathes the cut on his lip, healing but still broken from his recent deployment. Your heart squeezes at the sight, as if the injury had been yours, too.
"I'd watch where those hands go, love." Simon slurs, and your gaze darts up to meet his. He's giving you this half-lidded love struck look, all dopey and honeyed like you're all he sees, like he's drinking in every detail in the way your breath hitches at his attention.
"Good morning to you too." You huff, unable to suppress the giggle threatening to burst from your throat. Then, cautiously, you ask. "You have anything planned today?"
Your previous partners — if you could call them that — had skipped out on spending anniversaries and holidays with you. There was always a reason to not stay beside you: work, family, exhaustion. You never realized how much it'd hurt until Simon came and swept you off your feet for your birthday.
"Just you." He sighs through his nose, content as he buries his face into your neck. You're about to question what that means until you're being lifted into the air, the bed's warm quilts falling onto the mattress.
"Simon!" You laugh, slightly breathless.
"Hm?" He hums innocently, kissing up the skin of your neck, his stubble scratching against you lightly. "You called, love?"
You shiver involuntarily and squirm. He's gotten clingier over the time you've been together, like a starved man presented with a feast. "Put me down, you beast!"
"Careful," he growls, low and guttural, re-balancing to cope with your uncooperative wiggling, "I bite."
That's unfair, you think to yourself. That should qualify as some kind of red card foul in this little game of yours, because you really shouldn't be getting this flustered a year deep into your relationship. Simon's still pulling out secret cards from his hidden stash, even now.
He sets you on the bathroom counter, nudging himself between your legs and boxing you in with his body.
"Wasn't so bad, was it?" He chuckles.
"You'd make a good horse." You mutter, cupping his cheeks with your hands. He tilts his head at your will, his gaze anchored to you. "I think you need a shave."
"Don't think I'd look good with a beard?" Simon says dryly, as if it were a serious inquiry. You'd think it was if you didn't know him better.
"Depends." You imagine Simon with a beard like Price's. You grimace slightly at the image in your mind. "It'd be too mountain man-y on you."
Though the stubble isn't so bad.
He slips the razor into your hand while he smudges shaving cream over his jaw. When you make no effort to move, he raises his brows at you expectantly.
Then it hits you. "You… You want me to shave it for you?"
"You're the one making a fuss about it."
"I wasn't making a fuss." You pout, lifting the razor to his face and diligently gliding it down the line of his jaw. You try to focus on the small hairs peppered on his chin and not the brush of his breath against your nose. His finger twitches on the counter, the only sign that this is affecting him as much as it is you. You go quiet after that, trying to avoid nicking his delicate skin.
When you're all done, he presses a kiss to your lips. Gentle, slow, like he's savoring this, memorizing the shape of you.
"You're perfect." He murmurs in between kisses. He makes you feel perfect, whole, wanted.
You're in the kitchen, swiping through Simon's messages (out of boredom rather than suspicion), when the idea strikes you.
"Si," You call from the kitchen island, "Jazz or hip hop?"
He doesn't even turn, perhaps accustomed to your mischief at this point. "Jazz."
Simon does seem like a jazz person, you muse. You can picture it already: him, in some sleek suit with a watch that costs more than a house on his wrist, legs stretched out on a lounge chair, giving off an air of wealth. He'd make a good mob boss, and he doesn't even have to act to play the part.
You hit play on a video titled "Books, Coffee, & Jazz…" in an astutely swirly font with about sixty emojis — not really, but exaggeration is fun — following its name, and jump the volume up.
You pad over to him, socked feet against the hardwood floor. Only then does he spare you a glance, intrigued by your approach.
"Oh, good sir," you begin, pretending to bow elegantly, "may I have this dance?"
He stares at you.
Just stares.
And you start to cringe.
Maybe you misread all the lovey-dovey gestures this morning, and he isn't in the mood for your shenanigans. Or something changed, and he's realizing that he can do better than you with all your quirks and sentimental trinkets.("They're collectables, you insisted once, "It's not hoarding, Si.")
"…Sorry." You apologize, hand retreating to your side awkwardly, but his fingers grasp yours and pull. You yelp and suddenly you're gazing up at him, eyes widened as he leans over your figure.
"No." He breathes, then grins. Grins. Wolfishly, might you add. "Don't be, my liege."
"Wha-"
"I should be the one asking you for a dance, after all." Simon pecks the palm of your hand, dark eyes peering over your palm. Your heart races, and you mentally issue another red card for the injustice. "What do you say, love?"
Translation: You have to finish what you started.
Curse Simon and your traitorous heart.
You clear your throat and nod weakly, mustering up your courage once more. "…But of course."
The jazz is slow, melodic. You follow it with greater ease than he does, your steps falling into place as you waltz. The middle school dance lessons paid off weren't for naught after all. His steps are… clumsy, to say the least. He's stumbled a few times, almost stepped on your feet, and, worst of all, he's as stiff as a wooden board.
Simon doesn't dance often, it doesn't suit a bloke like him, and the pubs he visits aren't the slow dancing kind. Your giggles are carried by the music, by the sunshine and faint scent of toasted bread. If it were anyone else, he'd knock the memory out of them.
But it's you.
And he could never really find it in himself to shy away from you.
"You find this funny, sweetheart?" He breathes a huff of a laugh.
You beam up at him, radiant in the light of your shared kitchen space. "A li-"
He lifts you and spins, then dips you into a bow. You're breathless again, chest rising and falling in quick succession. You must be stealing the air from his lungs, it must be intentional — all of it — judging by the way your arms wrap around his neck.
You sweet, soft thing. How could he ever feel anything else towards you? How had he lived so long without you by his side?
In a swift, love drunk move, he sweeps down and kisses you like it's the last thing he'll ever do.
"I love you." Simon murmurs, a breathy rasp.
And you blush in that adorable way, oh-so charming and captivating. "I love you too, Si."
He's falling in love with you all over again. Maybe that's the power of Valentines' Day. But, between you and him, he thinks that it's the power of you.
You are the embodiment of love and life to Simon, and he wouldn't have it any other way.