Archive of Our Own ^beta

Warm, delicious, and …………is that cinnamon?

Regardless, Audrey has a hard time prying her eyes open.

8:27 AM

Pancakes.

She freezes.

Her hand slides ever so slightly to wrap around the all-too-familiar grip of her sidearm.  The adrenaline, the fear, the resignation – they’re instant – and she can’t shake Claire’s skin wrapped around the Bolt Gun Killer’s frame from her mind.

Claire’s dead.

Now it’s rage that spins her, and instinct that drops her into the crouch next to her bed, training her gun on the intruder. She’s processed several scenarios and poised for flight before it kicks in.

Nathan.

It’s Nathan.

He’s quick, turning at her movement and she should smile at the sight of his gray t-shirt sprinkled in flour, the small fleck of batter marring his chin and a shy half-smile of his own.

She should laugh at the griddle, hot and lined with pancakes, and how normal it looks when her own attempt weeks earlier paled so horribly in comparison…

She should laugh at the fact that when she envisioned Nathan and pancakes in her house, she had never imagined it following a showdown with a skin-walker.

There could have been a different ending to that scenario – one where’s she’s very much dead and Nathan hadn’t decided to check his voicemail. Where he hadn’t…..

And she should be laughing at how the Troubles inevitably sideswipe every moment of “them” in some malicious cosmic joke.

 She does laugh – brief hysteria – because she can never seem to get the punch line.

Nathan’s face is instantly somber. She wants that easy, shy smile back she thinks; she stands as he crosses the floor. He gently slides the gun out of her stiff grip and folds her hands in his.

When did her hands start shaking?

He’s rubbing warmth back into them gently and she shouldn’t relax this quickly.

She does.

“I didn’t…” Nathan pauses, guilt and self-loathing heavy in his low tone, “didn’t mean to…” Now his voice drops off entirely, eyes searching. She hates hearing it - can’t stand it. She wants to tell him that he may be the only thing keeping her sane right now.

She wants to tell him.

He’s here and he’s so close and she’s remembering his arms around her, grounding her as she let herself fly apart last night – mourning Claire, mourning Eleanor and Garland, mourning everyone they’ve lost – until there were no tears left and she was so exhausted that she’d auto piloted through her bedtime routine. He’d been waiting there for her, afterwards, steering her to bed and pulling the covers over her.

They hadn’t talked.

They hadn’t needed to.

She’d grabbed his hand as he‘d stood, and held it long enough to pull his glance. He’d smiled slowly and, just as slowly, half squeezed before letting go and heading for the door. For a split second, she’d thought he was leaving. Instead, he’d turned off the lights and she’d heard the comforting slide of locks clicking into place. He’d moved to the couch and she’d almost said…..something….but she’d been so tired, and he’d been there, and she’d never been so thankful for dreamless sleep.

His thumb is still rubbing phantom tension out of her right hand and his eyes are firmly fixed on hers. 

All she can think is that right now they have time.

She’s reminded of just how great the difference in their heights is as she stretches up on her toes.

There’s still batter on his chin.

Then, she does smile as a puzzled expression replaces the solemn one at the last second and….

He tastes like pancakes.

And now she has batter on her chin, but he’s pulling her against him with one arm, the other threads through her hair. She’s not sure if she’s even touching the floor anymore as he lifts her, but she could care less.

She may not have much time left.

But she’s damn sure going to make it count, so when they finally need to breathe again and he lowers her a scant few inches so she’s once again resting on the ground, she pulls back slightly. She runs the back of a curled hand down his cheek, feeling the gentle tickle and this expression; this is one she could get used to on him. But right now, she needs his full attention, so she stills her hand, flattening it along the curve of his jaw.

“I love you.”

It fits across her tongue and slips out of her lips so easily that she smiles again.

Nathan goes still and then he looks at her – raw, open, and alive. It’s the look she didn’t even know she missed seeing, but she knows suddenly that she’s seen it before, in bits and pieces. It’s been there before and he’s pulling her in again and this time it’s soft and slow and breaking her apart and putting her back together at the same time.

Then he pulls away and rests his forehead against hers, breathing deeply. His fingers curl around the nape of her neck, holding her to him - slow, so certain, so solid, that she can feel it before he says it.

“I love you.”

She thought he’d been determined before. She was wrong. This is determination. The intensity should scare her, because she might have just signed his death warrant; he won’t let her go now.

It feels better than she imagined.

“…too.” The blush in his cheeks is instant and adorable and…

They have time.

The pancakes almost burn and later he tastes like maple syrup.

Her world may end in a few days.

She’ll take the time they have.

All of it.