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She loved every sight of his boyfriend.
But there was one in particular she was very fond of.
When her shift miraculously ended on time… and it was still kind of early in the afternoon, she would ride her bike towards the first bakery in the way, buy some double-chocolate brownies and head towards the Laboratory. Because she knew that she would very likely find Valko there, still busy with… whatever high-sci tech he worked on, and she couldn’t wait to meet him.
She couldn’t resist lingering at the doorstep, quietly holding the bakery bag in hand and admiring his boyfriend in his -also- natural habitat.
He was the same man who enjoyed teasing her to no end, wrestling on the carpet until their bellies hurt too much from laughing.
The same one who liked to distract her in the kitchen just for a hug or ‘only another kiss’, breathing in her scent like his life depended on it.
Her boyfriend who got a bit sheepish whenever his werewolf instincts kicked in but eagerly seeked her fingers to scratch the sensitive spot behind his fluffy ears.
But in the Laboratory, there were glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. His burgundy hair was massy because he'd been absentmindedly running a hand throughout the day. And a serious expression would be on his face as Valko was so absorbed in whatever was going on the wide, digital screens in front of him.
She had no idea what all those formulas and projections meant, but she loved watching the quiet concentration with which he studied them.
“Val…”
He hummed lowly without turning towards her yet. He was aware of her presence for a while, having smelled her scent even before she could reach the doorstep, and he thought that she had waited for him to finish before greeting him properly.
Oh… but Valko was completely wrong with his assumptions.
“...you’re hot.”
Her praise made him stop, one of his hands pausing mid-air in front of the blue screen, and this time he looked beyond his shoulder to meet her gaze.
“I’m… working?” He blinked at her, confused but flustered by the way the tip of his ears had turned pink.
“I know.”
“That’s completely normal…”
“I know,” she chuckled softly and finally stepped inside, closing the door behind her.
Valko huffed in amusement, letting her win the banter for this time, and quickly saved the data he had been working on the whole day to give her his full attention.
“I brought a sweet treat,” she said, putting the bakery bag on his desk for him to see.
A grateful smile tugged at his lips and Valko turned towards her with the intention to thank her while teasing her with something like ‘you’re the sweet treat I need’ but he couldn’t utter a single word.
Her soft, delicate hands cradled his jawline and pulled him in with gentle firmness as she leaned in to press a kiss on his lips.
His heart stuttered inside his chest but he melted into the tender affection right away, his arms wrapping around her waist to pull her closer.
“...missed you,” she murmured against his lips, the tip of their noses nuzzling lightly as she hugged him back.
“I missed you too,” Valko closed the narrow distance between them for a second time, effectively stealing another sweet kiss from her.
Reluctantly, she indulged him for a little longer and then she pulled back, not forgetting where they were. It was true that nobody would just barge in without his permission but she had seen some of his collaborators in the common area, and she didn’t want to risk any embarrassing accidents.
“So…? What were you doing?” She asked halfheartedly, because his arms hadn’t let her go yet.
“Oh!”
Her subtle method worked to get Valko back on track.
Behind the glasses, his golden eyes shone with excitement at her question and he gave her hips an affectionate squeeze before walking towards the screens. With a couple of touches, a bright blue hue lightened the room once again as 3D molecular structures, formulas and side-notes appeared in front of them.
She blinked as she tried to read and make sense of that without much success.
Noticing her confused but curious expression, his smile only widened.
“Do you remember when I mentioned the primordial soup?”
“...yes?”
“Well-”
How could she ever forget such a revolutionary hypothesis that had made her re-evaluate her years in high school when she had studied science and physics?
Honestly, she had been more inclined towards humanities and literature-kind of studies but sometimes she had also been fascinated by the scientific field.
But having her boyfriend talk about these kinds of topics felt completely different than having an old, hostile professor who expected little-Einsteins frequenting their course.
Valko was passionate, enthusiastically drawing the molecular structures all over again just to make sure that she could follow his logic and understand what he was talking about. He explained chemical gradients talking with hands, the scientific terms slipping from his lips naturally fast only for him to digress a moment in less specific ones…
He genuinely cared to share all of that with her, hoping that she could see the world with these lenses too.
And even if she couldn’t fully comprehend the equations and formulas, she found him unfairly handsome. Just like the first time she had witnessed this nerdy side of him, way before they became a couple, in that dusty and quiet corner of the city library.
Back then he had worn a sharper pair of glasses and a darker outfit, something neat that had caught her attention because nobody dressed like that for such a place. In her hands there were a couple philosophical titles, thick volumes that had given him the perfect excuse to break the ice.
“Those look quite heavy… Can I give you a hand?”
She had accepted because she had had the intention of reaching towards a higher shelf and picking another book. But from then Valko had chosen to stick by her side and remained until nowadays.
Remembering his attempt at sounding smooth still made her chuckle -his intellectual enthusiasm had somehow got her hooked, and they had ended up sitting on the linoleum floor, side by side, discussing existential topics.
She couldn’t have ever imagined that Valko would have caught that chance to flirt with her with the most dorky pick-up line she had ever heard.
“Biologically speaking, we came from the same primordial soup. And we evolved under the same conditions. We're not that different…”
She had bitten down her own smile as Valko had lost himself in explaining to her such hypothesis about how life might’ve begun on Earth, only to end with:
“Listen, I’m not saying the primordial soup personally shipped us... I’m just saying four billion years of prebiotic chemistry invested an unreasonable amount of effort into arranging these atoms, and it would be rude not to see where it’s going.”
He had said that with a serious expression but she had caught the red hue burning the tips of his ears and she had broken into a genuine laughter.
It had been wildly romantic from her point of view, because she had accepted.
And now she stood there, in his Laboratory, listening to his scientific ramblings with a fond smile on her lips.
"...Did that make sense?" Valko turned towards her, finally catching his breath after having talked so fast for the whole time.
“Not really,” she chuckled quietly, shaking her head.
“Oh…”
His excitement dimmed at that but before Valko could feel self-conscious and fear that he had simply talked her ear off, she stepped closer to him one more time.
“But I loved listening to you,” she admitted honestly and tightened her arms around his shoulders when he melted against her, nuzzling his face in a happy but flustered way against the crook of her neck.