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There are two kinds of love.
The kind that feels adequate. Not too much, not too little—just enough that it doesn’t occur to you that there could be more. Nothing about it is overwhelming, and you’re content—or you think that you are.
And then there is the second kind that sneaks up on you when you are not looking, the kind that slides into your life dressed as kindness, unwavering loyalty, and a quiet presence by your side.
The kind that makes your head spin and flips everything you thought you knew about love—and by extension, life—upside down.
The kind that is all-consuming and yet, your calm in a storm.
The kind you forced yourself to see as everything but love for a long time, because it was too much to hope for it to be yours.
The only thing you’ve known close to home when you’ve spent your whole life looking for it in all the wrong places.
Terrifying
Intense
So intense that you end up losing it the first time.
So intense that even after getting it back, you’re afraid of holding it the wrong way.
It’s been a month since they got back together, and it still feels like a dream. One that he might wake up from any minute and find the space beside him empty.
Not that Tim was a stranger to waking up alone. For the better part of the last decade, he’d woken up to a bed that was bereft of any warmth besides his own. First with a failed marriage, and then with relationships that didn’t last.
But none stung like the aftermath of the relationship that he’d wanted the most, but sabotaged.
Every morning after he’d broken up with Lucy had been the same—wake up before the alarm goes off—shut it down—stare at the ceiling with regret—drag his tired body (and soul) out of the bed.
He wouldn’t recommend!
There’s something about waking up next to the person you love. The moments where you ebb in and out of consciousness, as your body registers the warmth beside, the weight of an arm draped over your waist, or the soft breath that caresses your skin—and then your mind catches up, causing a warm and fuzzy feeling to bloom in your chest and spread from your head to toe as you pull them closer—bliss.
He would 100% recommend!
Now that he’s been waking up next to Lucy again, he wonders how he went without this all those months—without her. The soft, lazy mornings after they’d fallen asleep in a sated bliss—courtesy of their activities that extended well into the night—alarms be damned (or snoozed), the tangled mess that is their limbs, the soft, content sighs as they snuggle closer and let the morning slow down around them.
He no longer dreads his mornings, and for that, he couldn’t be more grateful.
But it seems that today, Tim’s morning was in for a small twist, for there’s something—or more precisely someone trying to burrow into his chest at the moment.
He wakes up to soft strands of hair tickling his chest and the feeling of warm skin firmly pressing against his sternum.
He looks down to see a familiar cloud of dark, soft waves and the owner of the said waves up to—whatever she’s been up to…
He gently gathers her hair and moves it over her shoulder so he can take a better look at her face.
“Lucy…what are you doing?” his voice comes out thick and raspy from sleep.
Lucy startles for a second and goes perfectly still. When she doesn’t respond even after a couple of seconds, he squeezes her shoulder gently. “Hey, are you awake?”
Lucy slowly raises her head to meet his eyes and just stares at him for a beat. “This doesn’t concern you; go back to sleep,” she points her tiny but adorable finger at him, her expression all stern.
Tim chuckles as she goes back to trying to burrow into his chest. “I think this concerns me a little.”
“I….I can’t get close enough,” her voice comes out small and squeaky with frustration, as she pushes her face into his chest again.
Tim looks down at her, at the way she’s plastered head to toe against him, and laughs again.
“Lucy, if you want to get any closer, you’ll have to be inside me,” he says, gently caressing her hair.
“Yes,” her response comes almost immediately.
“Yes, What?” Tim is now really confused.
“I want to be inside you,” she tells him with complete sincerity, and Tim thinks he’s not awake enough for this. He stares at her blankly.
“Lucy….” he groans, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as if that’ll somehow make her words make sense. “You want to elaborate on that?”
She goes quiet again, and just when he thinks she’s probably fallen back asleep, Lucy props her chin on his chest and looks up at him, her mouth forming an adorable pout. She looks comically frustrated and still very much sleepy.
For a second, Tim just takes her in—of her hair mussed from sleep, her soft and delicate features. Her cheeks flushed partly from sleep and partly from whatever it is that she’s been trying to do for the past few minutes. She looks impossibly small and cute curled up against him, and the sight tugs at something in his chest.
He moves suddenly, and before Lucy could react, he’s rolled them over, trapping her beneath him. He cups her face and starts kissing it all over. Her forehead, her chin, the tip of her nose, one cheek, then the other. Soft, gentle, but relentless.
Lucy gasps at the sudden onslaught of kisses and squirms in his arms, struggling to break free. Tim stops after a couple of her weak attempts to push him away.
“Timmm…” she whines. “I’m serious,” she looks impossibly endearing and mad that Tim wants to smother her with more kisses, but he pulls back anyway.
“Oh, ok, you’re serious.” he stifles a laugh and quickly schools his expression to mirror hers.
“Hmm, let me see. You want to be inside me?” he looks at her as though to confirm if he got it right, and she nods emphatically.
“Well, anatomically that’s not possible…” He pretends to ponder over it seriously. “But the other way around, though, can be done,” his face breaks into a suggestive grin. “Like last night, if you want me to help refresh your memory,” he attempts to close the distance between them yet again, and Lucy presses her palms into his chest and tries to push him away with all her might.
“Shut up,” she shoves him, and he laughs.
Tim lies on his back and brings his arms around her. He wraps them snugly around her small frame, pulling her impossibly closer. Lucy sighs and melts into his embrace.
“Does this work?” he asks softly.
“Ummm…” Lucy hums as if considering. She throws one leg over his and wraps an arm around his waist, as if trying to fuse their bodies together.
“This is nice,” her words sound soft and muffled against his skin. “But it’s still not enough,” her voice comes out small and broken.
Tim sighs and tightens his arms around her.
The thing is, he’s seen all kinds of Lucys in the morning. The dead-to-the-world, blissfully passed out Lucy. The tired, cranky, and not a morning person at all Lucy. The Lucy who wakes up hungry and wanting, ready to devour him. The Lucy who gets ridiculously childlike and talks random nonsense that he pretends to hate, but secretly loves.
But today wasn’t any of those Lucys. For one, she didn’t giggle in that soft, delighted way that she does when he pins her down and playfully smothers her with kisses. He’d thought it’d cheer her up and ease whatever was bothering her.
When that didn’t work, he’d tried again, this time with a not-so-subtle suggestive banter that he knows always riles her up and gets her bantering right back. But that didn’t work either.
There is something about the way she is clinging to him this morning, with a quiet desperation, a soft sadness in her features. Like she’s trying to tell him something but finding it hard to get there.
“Hey, you ok?”, he asks softly.
Lucy is quiet for a moment, and sighs deeply before she speaks again, her voice small and uncertain, “Yeah, it’s nothing…it’s stupid really. Don’t worry about it.”
Tim gently lifts her chin, trying to get her to look at him, but she simply shakes her head and buries her face back into his chest. He tries to pull back a little so he could see her face, but to no avail.
“Lucy…” Tim tries again. “What is it?” He kisses the top of her head while his fingers trace slow, soothing circles on her back.
“I thought we agreed to talk about things, no matter how small or insignificant we think it is?” He gently reminds her.
Lucy finally tilts her head back to look up at him, trying to read his expression. She looks for any sign of exasperation, a mild annoyance, but finds none. His eyes are soft with understanding—kind and compassionate as always, and whatever she’s been holding back breaks loose.
“I….I don’t know what happened. I was sleeping and woke up with a start…” She speaks slowly, her voice uncertain. “thinking you weren’t here, but then I saw, and you were. It’s just…it reminded me of the nights I used to look over, and you weren’t there, and I missed you so much that I used to stare at your side of the bed, not knowing what to do with how I feel, wishing you were there…….and now you are here again, and sometimes I get so overwhelmed when I look at you that I just…I want to crawl inside you and stay there forever.”
Lucy’s words tumble out in broken, barely coherent streams. She’s rambling now, half her sentences trailing off into nothing. But somehow, Tim follows every word; somehow, he understands exactly what she’s unable to articulate.
It all made sense now.
Ever since they got back together, there had been moments—subtle but very much tangible, where something would trigger memories of their time apart. The time they’d lost with each other after promising forever so early on.
While they’d managed to talk through most of them, and simply being around each other helped soothe the ache for the most part—there were days when the weight of what they’d almost lost forever hovered like a dark cloud before it eventually dissipated—and perhaps this morning, it got to Lucy.
Lucy eventually calms down, and they fall into silence, simply existing together. She tries to draw out every ounce of comfort she can from his warmth, while Tim just lies there holding her, her words swirling in his mind.
He wants to say something, anything, to acknowledge her most vulnerable thoughts before her mind starts spiralling again. But he’s simply too stunned to speak. Lucy’s candid admission had caught him off guard. He thinks about his own nights spent apart from her, and the ache in him left by Lucy’s words grows manifold. He closes his eyes, trying to swallow past the sudden lump in his throat.
As he contemplates what to say, Lucy’s soft voice penetrates through the silence. “I told you it was stupid,” she lets out an almost imperceptible chuckle. Even as she aims for levity, the vulnerability in her voice squeezes something hard in his chest.
Tim takes a deep breath and chooses his words carefully before speaking. “Lucy…you know I’m not going anywhere, right?” he gently caresses her arm.
“I know.” Lucy’s voice comes out soft and feeble, as she brings her palm to rest on his heart. She’s quiet again, but Tim knows her mind is anything but at ease.
“Nothing you say will ever be stupid. Not to me,” he says quietly as she nestles even closer into his skin.
“You’re just saying that,” she murmurs.
“No, I’m not.” Tim’s states plainly. He pauses briefly before speaking again. “Lucy, do you really think only you feel things like that?” he asks, his tone incredulous.
Lucy pulls away from him slightly at that, her expression half confused and half curious. She stares at him for a beat, as she makes sense of his words. “Do you…are you saying? Surely you don’t. At least not in the ridiculous ways I do.”
“Oh, you have no idea,” he laughs.
“But…” Lucy trails off, unsure what to say next. “You’ve never said anything before.”
Tim simply shrugs. “That version of me had a tough time dealing with even feeling all that, let alone sharing it with the person I felt it all for,” he smiles.
Lucy raises her eyebrows, her expression shifting from mild amusement to something more incredulous. “But not this version of you?” she asks, a soft grin spreading across her features.
Tim closes his eyes and sighs deeply before he looks at her again. “I promised not to keep a single thought to myself, so here it goes. Remember, you brought this upon yourself,” he declares dramatically, and Lucy laughs.
She listens as Tim launches into a lengthy monologue where he tells her, albeit a bit bashfully, of all the ridiculous ways he used to yearn for her—some of them back from when they weren’t even dating.
Lucy smiles, laughs, and holds back a sob as Tim seems intent on proving to her that he’s equally, if not more, irrationally in love with her, and he doesn’t seem to care that he’s let yet another layer peel off of him and fall away, exposing himself in a way he hasn’t before.
No, all he seems to care about in the moment is to make her feel better. To show her that the depth and insanity of their soul bond is mutual and she has nothing to be embarrassed about.
When he’s done, Lucy looks at him with an expression so tender it squeezes his heart. She closes her eyes, trying in vain to stop the tears threatening to break free. Tim simply cups her face, his thumbs gently wiping the tears off her cheeks.
Lucy smiles through her tears, shaking her head. “We’re both idiots,” she says softly.
“That we are.” Tim agrees, his own lips curving into a smile as he pulls her back into his embrace.
“So, feeling better?” he asks her after a while.
“Mm-hmm, loads better.” Lucy hums. “The Chronicles of the Yearning Bradford definitely helped,” she giggles, and Tim rolls his eyes.
“So you really don’t mind if I cling to you like an Octopus?” Lucy asks, looking up at him again, her adorable pout back in place, but this time her voice and expression carry a mischievous little undertone.
Tim simply looks at her, his eyes flicking all over her features fondly. “No, because I happen to really like this Octopus.” He smiles as he dips his head down and kisses the tip of her nose.
Lucy’s cheeks turn a deep shade of pink, and her whole face blooms into a shy smile, the first genuine smile he’s seen on her since he woke up to her in a state of distress this morning, and he’s glad he could put that smile back on her face.
They stay cuddled up in each other’s warmth for what seemed like an eternity when the alarm goes off.
Lucy groans as Tim extends his arm to turn it off. “I wish we didn’t have to go into work today”, she sighs, further curling into him.
“We could take the day off,” Tim suggests as he returns to his position next to her, clearly having no desire to leave the bed either.
“Both of us?” Lucy looks at him, her eyebrows raised.
“Why not?” he simply shrugs.
“Yes, I’m sure the Captain will be thrilled that both his Watch Commander and Sergeant called off work at the last minute,” Lucy states dryly, and he laughs.
“I’ll tell him I had an Octopus situation in hand; I’m sure he’ll understand,” Tim tells her with an exaggerated seriousness in his expression, and Lucy swats his arm.
“Shut up,” she grumbles, and he laughs again.
Tim sighs as he finally coaxes himself to get off the bed and onto his feet. He holds out his hand to Lucy. “Come on, why don’t you go shower, and I’ll get started on breakfast?” He offers. “ Will pancakes do?” he smiles coyly at her, enjoying the way her whole face lights up at the mention of pancakes.
Lucy is up on her feet so fast that she stumbles and falls into him. Tim chuckles as he catches her and steadies her on her feet.
“I’ll be out in no time.” She presses a quick kiss to his lips and disappears down the hall with a little skip in her step.
Tim smiles as he watches her go, then turns and heads to the kitchen,
Healing is not linear—and they know that as well as anyone. There’ll be good days; there’ll be bad ones, and then there’ll be something in between like today. What matters is that now they face it all together.
They’re talking—even when they can’t find the right words because it gets too overwhelming—even when it feels uncomfortable, and they want to run the other way—they’re communicating, and that means everything.
That’s how they’re going to get there, and they will get there.