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He wants to give her everything.
His overzealous nature becomes quite apparent once all the secrets have come to light. It was already peeking through in places before: large dinner spreads, deep-cleaning the bathroom so she can have a more relaxing shower, driving into the center of the city during rush hour to make sure that document she forgot to submit can get turned in before her boss yells at her. It’s pretty obvious, he begrudgingly realizes one afternoon, that no normal man spends an entire day and most of his night coming up with 862 dates for his wife.
It’s this portion of their relationship where he has to rein himself in. Going overboard on his romantic gestures not only gives him away, but it’s a waste of energy that could be put towards other work. Given the choice between spending a free night filling out backlogged reports or painstakingly baking delicate pastries Yor can have for breakfast, the spy in him should choose the former.
The spy, however, has been getting fewer and fewer opportunities to be in control of his decisions. For this reason, Yor opens a tin at work smiling at a lovingly crafted bundle of apple muffins and delicate roses carved into their tops with the same steady hand that writes the accompanying note.
Have a good day, please be confident in yourself.
-L
But now he has no restraints. Since they’ve both admitted their feelings and the “marriage” has lost its quotations, nothing is holding him back from devoting every bit of himself, his time, and his love to her. He’s completely unchecked, by himself or anyone else.
This new power is intoxicating.
His most practiced gesture, of course, is gifts. They’re unassuming, and had been when their connection was still platonic. Fresh bouquets being sold at the corner shop, perhaps a new delicate chain bracelet if Sylvia was feeling so inclined to include a little extra in his weekly stipend. A normal husband bringing home gifts for his normal wife is totally normal.
She’s always so humble with them, of course. Even the small things he got her she would initially refuse with a polite denial. A brief bout of arguing that she deserved it would ensue (because to him, she very much did) and eventually, whatever he got her would end up in her possession one way or another. If Loid wasn’t up for arguing, he’d simply leave it in her room or allow Anya to bring it to her.
She has trouble saying no to either method. The little pouts poorly covering smiles he could glimpse when he knows she’s caught onto his game are also quite the adorable bonus.
Then follows gestures, romantic and otherwise. An evening lost to doing some extra cleaning to allow her to relax, in his opinion, is an evening not “lost” in the slightest. As long as it makes her day run a little smoother, he has no reason to say it isn’t worth the effort.
That said, Yor does enjoy having her share of tasks in the home; the pain in his chest and the guilt in his stomach when he finally realizes he was taking away a part of their little life she actually quite likes is remarkably heavy. A brief regrouping had then occurred as he had to come up with new ideas– alongside a jar of fresh scented lotion containing live rose petals quietly placed on her nightstand.
Alright, if housekeeping assistance was out, he would only resort to other acts, things he was certain she would appreciate. Asking if she’d like to join him with dinner preparations, being mindful to give her tasks within her skills that still contributed to the meal. Allowing her to tuck Anya into bed and noting how gentle she is about it– their daughter herself is especially perceptive to this specific one, sometimes even tugging at Yor’s hand to head towards her room and bringing a delightfully maternal smile to her face.
At this point, at least at first, he’d had to be a lot more careful. Little acts like this so quickly become much more than he had intended to show. How far he stepped into Yor’s space was mindfully monitored, each move calculated even if his being was screaming at him to go further, do more for her. Briefly (stupidly), he thought he could satiate the desire by just allowing the smallest bit of extra care into each act. That perhaps giving himself a small taste would fulfill the need entirely, and he wouldn’t have to think about the matter any further.
In the medical field, this type of dosing is known as a gateway drug. And spoiling his wife quickly becomes terribly addicting.
His kindly gestures plus “a little more, because she deserves it” keep getting added on to, nudging in a little more, and a little more, and a little more until it’s difficult to make an argument that they were ever small acts of affection and gratitude at all. It’s just that… well, once your dates have gone from a quick drink together after work to extensive dinners, complete with a rowboat reserved weeks in advance and rowed out to that perfect secluded spot on the far undeveloped side of the river to catch the sunset within range of the gentle string instruments lilting music from the village cafes… you can’t exactly say this is all just to keep your wife happy and interested in maintaining the charade. Especially when she was never that demanding to begin with.
Physical affection, of course, is the last thing to curse him. Or be his blessing, depending on one’s perspective of the situation. Like his gestures, he attempts to keep them small at first– honestly, he does. A hand across the shoulders, the most fleeting kiss in greeting or farewell he can muster for public appearances.
Sometimes, though, he notices how Yor’s touches seem to last a little longer than what’s proper for a marriage of convenience; her hand will drift over to where his hangs on the armrest between their bus seats. She doesn’t turn into as much of a flushed mess when she has to squeeze closer to him on the couch to allow Bond more room to lay. There’s a light shiver in his shoulders where the pads of her fingers drift across his back as she reaches to take up his dinner plate.
Experimentally, he tries to reciprocate these lengthier moments. Subtly and minimally, obviously, lest they have a repeat of… previous events. But when he extends his elbow for her to take, even when there’s hardly anyone on the street to see it, she still puts her hand on his arm without hesitating. She doesn’t lean forward or shirk away if he rests his arm atop the bench behind her.
And with each lingering touch, each permission she gives for him to extend a little more of himself, the barriers he’s tried to set for himself dissolve like the sugar cubes in Yor’s tea. It’s unspoken, slow, but they eventually both reach the conclusion that even putting up the barriers in the first place was both silly and pointless– at least, if he was going to ignore them like he does.
But once this realization fully hits him, the proceeding thought is quite pleasant: he no longer has to hold back.
He presses the relief of being freed of his restraints into every kiss now, every touch. At first, he had wondered when the newness of it would wear off, but it just… didn’t. Each goodbye kiss tastes as sweet as the first they really committed themselves to; the teasing touch of her tights along his ankle under the dining table is always playful and affectionate. Sometimes he expects their moments holding each other on the couch to be stuffy and overheating but they never become so. Every time she’s tucked so neatly between his limbs, she’s simply tender and loving and soft and just very Yor.
Eventually, their real jobs do bubble to the surface– inevitable, he thinks recalling it later, that so much trust and love between two people would spill every secret soon enough. If she hadn’t been the first to break, he was certain it wouldn’t have been much longer before it was him instead.
In the moment, he isn’t thinking about the true consequences that he should be for such an occurrence. Was she now a threat to him? To Anya, or to Strix? To WISE? How do you report this kind of thing to your agency? No, the only concerns going through his mind are how guilty he feels for spoiling her beautiful features with fear and worry and sadness. So he repents the only way he knows how to anymore: thumbs gently swiping off any stray tears, cupping her face and kissing her cheeks so fervently that any evidence of crying ever being there is erased, and holding her in such a way that she knows this doesn’t change a thing.
She thinks him quite merciful for accepting her as she is. He only feels selfish, for not wanting to give up this happiness he’s indulged in for so long. But he does begin to understand the mercy she speaks of when she extends him the same after he uncovers his own secrets to her.
He watches her sleep now, perched up on his elbow with her breathing deeply below him. Soft Saturday sunlight filters through their curtains, making the dust particles in the air float around her form like sparkles. Or perhaps she just sparkles naturally; his view is admittedly a little biased, though.
She’s ethereal like this, when he knows her guard is down and it’s purely Yor in front of him. But they can’t stay like this forever. The day has to commence at some point.
He gently leans down to start his routine, beginning with a soft kiss to her hair, her hairline, slowly moving downwards across her forehead and nose until the last ones are delivered to each cheek. When he finally reaches her lips, she’s awake enough to return the gesture with a smile, pressing back into the kiss with a sleepy tenderness. Loving crimson eyes shine back at him.
“Good morning,” Loid says softly, straightening the bangs that have crossed over her face in sleep. The hand that isn’t playing with her hair moves upwards from her hip to her abdomen, caressing the gentle curve of her stomach. “What would you like to eat today?”
Her eyes light up a little more at the mention of food, her hand joining his at her middle. Briefly, she purses her lips in thought.
“Sweet, but nothing overly heavy,” she decides at last. “I don’t want to upset him with too much.”
He cocks his head curiously, but hopefully. They don’t know much at this stage, and he’ll be happy with a boy or girl, or course. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have some silent preferences.
“You think it’s a him?” he chuckles lightly.
Yor blushes a little, shyness still present despite years of knowing one another. “Not for certain,” she admits. “But… a feeling. Call it mother’s intuition, I guess.”
He secretly hopes it’s good intuition. Loid presses another long kiss to her mouth, savoring the taste, interlocking their fingers. “His mother will get the sweetest breakfast I can whip up, then.”
A bit reluctantly, he gets up from her hold, trudging from the bedroom and shivering against the cool apartment air on his exposed arms and feet. The recipes tabbing through his methodical mind are stopped dead in their tracks as he opens the refrigerator to a rather meager offering of foods. He frowns. It wasn’t like him to let their stock get so low, but he supposed the last few days had been busy enough to keep him distracted.
The door shuts again. Okay… he thinks, laying out his next options in front of him. He could make them some toast or cereal, quick and simple. He shakes his head before the thought can fully form– absurd, of course. If he can’t make something with what’s available, he needs to get food from somewhere. Franky could hypothetically deliver groceries. Loid recalls the man’s extensive rant the last time he had asked for something so last-minute, and the remarkable anger that had come from a normally very friendly guy. No, he decided, actually, Franky couldn’t deliver groceries.
His last option is preceded by a withering look at the trees just outside their windows, the colored leaves trembling and beginning to fall in the chilly breeze. His hesitance is short-lived though, finally morphing into him quietly lifting his coat from the rack by the door and sliding his shoes on.
The corner store a block down the street is casual enough; they hopefully won’t mind his unruly appearance and ought to have all the fruits he needs to complete the spread he has in mind. As he’s pulling the second sleeve onto his arm, he smiles fondly at a torn piece of paper from their notepad stuck to the fridge with a kitschy Shellbury magnet. Boys’ names are entertained in neat handwriting in one column, girls’ names in the other. On both sides, the more creative additions of an eager nine-year-old are written in purple colored pencil.
He glances back at their bedroom, quietly shutting the front door and hurrying down the stairwell before Yor can realize he’s gone out. The smile stays on his face the entire way, breaking warmly through the biting autumn chill.
She is giving him everything. It’s only fair that he does at least that much for her.