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It happened very quickly—one second, Sasha was on Rhys’ lap, her mouth occupied with his, her hands sliding down from his hair to circle his neck, and the next she was on the floor beside the bed, blinking up at the ceiling.
“Holy crap,” she said, stunned and a little bit sore. “What just happened?”
“Shit.” Rhys’ face appeared above her, looming over the edge of the bed, looking as surprised as she was and far more alarmed. “Fuck. Sorry. I didn’t mean to… shit.” Screwing one eye shut in a wince, he held out a hand to help her up.
Sasha stared at it, her eyebrows knit together as she tried to reconstruct the confusing series of sensations. “Did you just… throw me?”
“I am so sorry,” he repeated, hauling Sasha back up onto the bed as she took his hand. “Are you okay?”
The worry on his face was disproportionate to her injuries, which—at worst—might amount to a bruise on her ass.
But Sasha was not one to relinquish the upper hand easily.
“You trying to give me a concussion?” she asked, head tilted playfully as she settled herself onto her knees in front of him.
Rhys continued to look horrified. “Sasha, I am really sorry—”
“Kinda impressed, though,” she carried on, smirking. “Wouldn’t have thought you had the strength for that.”
Rhys stared at the sheets and scratched the back of his neck.
“If that’s one of your moves, lemme tell you, it’s not doing it for me,” she joked.
Rhys didn’t share her amusement. “No, it’s… I…”
“Was it sexy for you? Cause if it was I think we might need to do some negotiation, you know.” Her teasing grin was now threatening to engulf her whole face. “I mean, you at least gotta give a girl a little warning if you’re going to—”
“You scared me,” he said abruptly, still staring at his sheets, one hand gripping something imaginary in front of his neck. “So I…” The hand by his neck waved towards the edge of the bed. “I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.”
“Scared you?” Sasha laughed, cocking an eyebrow. “How did I scare…”
But Rhys had turned red, massaging the front of his throat as he avoided her eyes, and finally it clicked.
Oh. Shit.
“Oh,” she said softly, the mirth extinguished from her voice as guilt settled in her belly. “Oh, Rhys, I didn’t… I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay—”
“No, it was stupid of me. I won’t do it again, I promise.”
Still Rhys looked mortified, which in turn only made her feel guiltier. “I know you weren’t… that you weren’t going to…” He shook his head, unwilling to complete the thought. “I just felt hands around my neck and I…” He swallowed, finally looking up at her with a frown. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“Oh, please,” said Sasha, offering a small smile as she caught one of his hands in hers, fingers intertwined. “I fell off a bed. I’m hardier than that.”
He squeezed her hand and sent her a perfunctory smile. “Still.” Looking at their interlocked fingers, his smile turned rueful. “Kinda spoiled the mood, didn’t I.”
“Smothered it a little, yeah,” she agreed.
“Sorry.”
It felt like the ninetieth time he’d said it. She was about to say as much when he pulled his hand out of hers and slid further back along the bed to lean against the headboard. With his knees to his chest and his eyes focused on a nonspecific spot between them, he looked uncharacteristically distant.
For as often as his heart appeared on his sleeve—sometimes accidentally, like toilet paper stuck to the bottom of a shoe—it was rare to see him this way, withdrawn and stripped of all bravado. More than startling him, she’d obviously thrown him into a tailspin.
Her chest ached at the thought. It wasn’t often Rhys let her—let anyone—see the scars Handsome Jack had left behind.
“Hey,” she said gently. She crawled to the space beside him, sitting back on her heels. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He propped his elbows on his knees. “Yeah, fine. Yeah, I just…”
A frustrated sigh cut off the rest of that sentence, and he hung his head. Sasha reached out tentatively, her hand nearing his shoulder when he lurched forward suddenly, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes.
“I am so sick of having him in my head,” he snarled, top lip curled in anger. “All this time, and—”
He broke off in another furious hiss, retreating further into himself, his face hidden in a tense ball of gangly limbs. Sasha’s fingers hovered in the air just above his skin, unsure whether or not he’d welcome the touch.
“Rhys…” she began.
“Even when I’m with you,” he muttered from within his self-made cocoon. “Even when we’re… that’s—that’s—”
“Rhys,” she tried again, resting her hand on his back. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.” Rhys raised his head, staring angrily at some spot straight ahead of him. “I got rid of him. I ripped him out, I crushed him, and I still...”
Sasha rubbed a circle between his shoulder blades, and all the fight melted out of him at once, replaced by something small and defeated.
“I just want it to be over,” he said quietly. “Really over. Over-over. The kind of over where I don’t throw my girlfriend off the bed because she put her hands around my neck and for a split second I thought she was going to strangle me.” He wrenched his eyes closed for a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Babe…” Sliding her arm around his shoulder, she gave him a little tug. “Babe, come here.”
To her great relief, Rhys curled into her immediately, hiding his face in her shoulder and wrapping his arms around her waist. It was a hunched, awkward position for him—he was so much taller than her—but he didn’t seem to mind, huddling against her. His heart ran rampant under her hand, and she held him tight, running her fingers through his hair.
“I’m sorry I scared you,” she murmured. “And… then made fun of you.” She winced. “A lot.”
“S’okay,” he said, muffled against her neck. “Sorry I threw you off the bed and killed the mood. Like, totally behind-the-barn Old Yeller-ed it.”
Sasha’s lips twitched in a near smile. “It’s all right.” She rested her cheek on the side of his head. “Wish I could fix it for you.”
Rhys shifted in her grip, resting lower against her chest and clutching her sides tighter.
“I’m fine,” he said. When she made a noise of skepticism, he reiterated, “Really, I am. Most of the time. It’s just sometimes…”
Sasha swallowed. “Yeah.”
Her fingers explored the bright blue pattern extending down his arm, and he relaxed a little more, letting out a long, slow breath that tickled her bare skin.
“I’m so tired of it, Sash. I keep thinking it’s done and then something happens and I…”
His voice trailed away in a sigh.
Sasha bit her lip, hopelessly out of her depth. She wanted to say something nice, something profound and helpful and kind, but she kept drawing blanks. She didn’t want to feed him a line intended for a mark or an empty platitude lifted from a greeting card.
For all that she hated to do it, Fiona was better at comforting someone or calming them down; Sasha could never seem to find the right words. Improvising for a con was easy enough—but these things, the real things tripped her up, an importance and a weight her tongue couldn’t carry.
What Rhys needed right now was the type of delicate emotional touch that always eluded her. She felt clumsy and useless, a giant stomping through a dollhouse.
With her determination and frustration coming to a head, she shifted until they were facing each other again, then leaned in to kiss his shoulder, right at the edge of his prosthetic. Her lips lingered there for a second, then moved half an inch lower, then lower still, her mouth trailing along the seam where his skin met metal.
“Sasha,” came Rhys’ voice from above her, equal parts perplexed and amused, “what are you…?”
Sasha said nothing. With three fingers on his jaw she turned his head to the side, pressing a series of kisses to the port on his temple as well. Rhys shivered in her arms, his hands at her waist, and when she pulled back to look at him a small smirk had returned to his face.
“You gonna kiss my eyeball too?” he asked.
“Smartass,” she chided.
But she kissed his forehead, too, for good measure, and Rhys’ eyes stayed closed even after she pulled away. As she threaded her fingers through his hair, he pushed into her hand like a cat, his smirk mellowing to a small smile. Little by little, the stress from earlier was being whittled away.
“I can’t imagine what it was like for you,” she said gently, when he still hadn’t opened his eyes. “Or how it feels now, or—or—how to… to make it better, or if I can make it better, but if there’s anything you need me to do, or to not do, or…”
“Sasha.” She hadn’t realized she was rambling until he said her name. He reached up to cover her hand in his and smiled. “You’re fine. You don’t need to do anything.”
She frowned. “I wanna help, I wanna—”
“I know. You do. Being with people—being with you—helps. You keep me outta my head, away from the deep water.” He sent her a cheeky grin. “You’re like my lighthouse.” Suddenly the grin disappeared and he cringed. “Oh, God, that sounded lame. That’s not even what a lighthouse does.” One hand covered his eyes. “No wonder you think I need help, I sound pathetic.”
Sasha shook her head, eyes widened in horror. How was she making it worse? “No! No, that’s not—”
“I don’t want you to tiptoe around me, or—I mean, I’m not—I’m not fragile or anything—”
“Rhys, I didn’t mean—”
“Okay, so I’m not indestructible, but—”
“Rhys.” Bumping her forehead against his, she tangled her fingers in his hair. “You’re not pathetic, and I know you’re not fragile. You’re… actually pretty tough.” He lowered the hand covering his eyes, and the corner of her mouth turned up in a smile. “A lot tougher than you look.” She paused, nibbling her lip, before adding, “I don’t know if I could’ve done what you did.”
“You could’ve,” he said immediately and certainly. “Probably sooner and hopefully easier.” He smiled. “But thank you.”
“I mean it. You might look like a hapless corporate lackey—”
“Hey!”
She brushed his mussed hair from his face. “But deep down, you’re pretty rock n’ roll.”
Rhys rolled his eyes, but she could tell from the set of his lips that he was pleased. “Gee, Sash, you’re gonna make me blush.”
“Not hard. You’re usually the colour of skimmed milk.”
Rhys lifted his chin. “Well, that’s the best milk.”
Sasha snorted, sitting back on her hands. “Uh, chocolate.”
“That doesn’t count, that’s not a real milk.”
“Neither is skimmed milk. It’s basically water.”
Rhys scowled and Sasha grinned, flopping back down onto her back. With the mock-offense on his face and the barely-contained laugh she could see him biting back, he looked more like the Rhys she was used to, and it made her heart do funny things in relief and gratitude.
She nudged his knee with her own. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” He nodded, and she believed it. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
Regarding him from where she’d nestled into a pillow, she tilted her head. “What do you wanna do now?”
Rhys looked down at her, sprawled and mostly naked atop the sheets, apparently contemplating his options with his mouth pulled into a tiny thoughtful frown. As if on cue, a tiny pink glow appeared on the tops of his cheeks.
“Um,” he started. “Can we…”
“What?”
Rhys was once again allergic to eye contact. “Can we just… um...”
It was unusual for Rhys to be this reticent about sex, and she nudged his knee again, eyebrow quirked in amusement. “Go on, sound it out.”
“...snuggle?”
Sasha blinked, and Rhys looked up at the ceiling, a brighter shade of red than she’d have thought possible on a human face.
Then she burst into uproarious laughter.
“See?” Rhys sputtered. “I knew you’d—”
“Oh my God,” she giggled, reaching up to draw him close. “Yes, you unbelievable loser, of course we can snuggle. I’d be happy to.”
“Thought you were making an effort to be nice to me,” Rhys muttered, but he settled in under her arm without complaint.
“Hey, you specifically requested no tiptoeing,” she retorted, hooking one of her legs under his. “I was wrong. You’re not rock n’ roll. You’re Kidz Bop.”
“Whatever,” he huffed. “You love it.”
His nose tickled her collarbone as he burrowed closer, then his arm circled her stomach and he wedged a hand beneath her ribs. Draped across her like a blanket, the weight of him was pleasantly overwhelming. Safe and soothed, she hoped he felt the same.
"Mmm." Twirling the hair at the nape of his neck around her finger, Sasha let her eyes slip shut. “Yeah, I do.”