Chapter Text
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“I feel like you’re just making words up, now.”
He looks at you with that bemused expression and you keep patting frantically at the cuff of your coat, until you’re positive the status of your person is no longer set to on fire. Singed, definitely, but the coat isn’t completely lost. It’ll hold up for a few more of these outings, probably.
“”What in Sam Hill’s summerlovin’ wazoo'' is a completely normal thing to say when you’re reactin’ to your clothes catchin’ fire out of absolutely consternatin’ nowhere.”
You’re still out of breath, and you accidentally tug too hard on your hair as you try to run sweaty, shaking fingers through it. “I’ll need more than a drop of the pure in my tea tonight, Pines, I’ll need a heavy-handed splash or two after all’a this.”
He’s just standing there, the little toadlike creature responsible for your sudden uptick in body temperature sitting placidly in an empty jam jar which he holds with both hands.
At least he has the good grace to look sheepish about it, this time. His eyes shift to the side like a child being scolded, then to the amphibious thing, and then he glances up at you with a tiny, hopeful smile that-- damn it to all the hosts of heaven, that smile makes your accusing scowl melt away and your shoulders lower, and you roll your eyes but you both know this’ll be the end of the matter.
“I’m sorry.” He says, and you believe him. “I didn’t know it could do that. I wonder if it’s an internal mechanism like a physiological flintstone and spark, or if there’s some sort of fuel flow in its respiratory tract..?”
He doesn’t expect you to answer, he’s just musing aloud to himself and will likely figure it out with a little poking and prodding at this new addition to what may as well be billed as his personal petting zoo.
He does it a lot, it’s how he processes things. His mumbling is like the sound of rain on a window pane at night as you both walk back to the cabin, it’s a simple comfort and at the same time blessedly easy to tune out. That comes with practice, and you staunchly ignore the flash of (petty, possessive) pride that you feel at the notion, that you’re the single other person to ever have been this close to him. Close enough to know him, be used to his habits. And to have really, actually known him in the other sense of the word like when--
Stop, rewind the tape.
You don’t think about that night on purpose, but the memory sure does like to come off the backburner of your mind at the most inopportune times. Like when you’re in the shower and can’t ignore it, or chatting to him over breakfast and he’s right there, or when you’re tucked up too-warm in the bedroom and trying to go to sleep.
Or, for example, when you’re holding the front door open for him and he gives you a pleased little nod, pausing in his rambling to smile at you again. It’s nothing but a slight lift of one corner of his mouth, just a silent little ‘thanks’, but it makes you think of the words he had said when he had you pinned under him, and your body goes hot against your best wishes. Luckily, you can blame your flushed cheeks on the cold weather.
A lot had happened in the last week. You’d found a dog (Chrissy), almost immediately lost the dog to a werebear attack (Chrissy!), gone into town for another few months’ worth of groceries, and pointedly not spoken about what had happened between the two of you.
(You remember, though. Don’t think you’ll ever be able to forget.
..okay, well, maybe you hadn’t been paying attention to the specific words very well, but a few do stand out in your memory. He hadn’t quite been kind, calling you things like desperate and filthy, but he’d come around to sweeter things eventually. Even ‘pretty’, close to the end. There’s a part of you that doesn’t strictly enjoy being called pretty, it’s more of a woman’s word, but, it had felt nice in the moment.)
Tonight is shaping up to be much the same, and you’re not sure how you feel about that. Maybe it would be best to leave the past in the past, let bygones be bygones, and just think to yourself about it at night under the safety of darkness and his comforter. The thing with that, which you’ve really been trying, is that the blanket smells like him, and the shower smells like him, and the coffee always brewing in the kitchen isn’t a very different story. He drinks the stuff religiously, sometimes ten or more cups in a day. You’d almost think he didn’t have to sleep at all.
He’s currently on his twelfth. Or, twelfth since you’d gotten up that morning at least. It doesn’t seem to affect him, his hands are steady as he jots down observations on the newfound fire-starting creature in his journal. He’s got a steady touch all the time, your mind supplies unhelpfully, and his calloused fingers are dexterous in a way you almost would never expect. His hands are larger than yours, and broader than most for the extra finger. You’ve got slim, almost dainty ones, more suited to fiddling with the minutiae of circuit boards and wiring than, say, critter wrangling. Musician’s hands, your mother had always said.
He taps against the table, a quick one-two-three-four-five, and you become aware that you’re staring at his hands too intently. When you glance up at his face to see if he’d noticed, he’s straightened up from writing and is looking at you right back, expectant. You feel like you must have missed something.
“Pardon?”
“I said, you don’t feel any lingering side effects, do you?”
Oops. “I.. don’t think, no. Just gave me a decent fright.” You shrug, nonchalant. It wasn’t the first time Stanford Pines had inadvertently put you in harm’s way for the sake of science and it probably wasn’t going to be the last. He had a way of finding thrill, excitement. You didn’t come here to be bored.
“So I’ll just jot down ‘harmless’, then.” He plays it straight for one second, two, and then he cracks a cheeky little grin, the tip of his pen hovering over the page. “Or maybe ‘fire hazard, do not provoke’.”
“Write down ‘fire hazard, do not be in the vicinity of someone whose actions could be categorized as provocative’.” You put on your Academic Voice, natural drawl slipping away in favor of sharpened t’s and clearly enunciated last syllables.
He rolls his eyes, but he’s still smiling. “I’m not that provocative.”
You both realize what he had said in the same instant.
He clears his throat, hunching back down over the journal again and you avert your gaze to look out the kitchen window. It’s snowing now, you note absently, and it’s pretty swirls of snowflakes instead of the sleet that falls from January onward. (You should have gotten Christmas decorations out at the shop, but then again it wouldn’t be fair to do that since he never gets anything to put up for holidays. It’s not a big deal.)
The tense silence lasts for a while, and your tea has grown cold in your hands but you don’t want to draw attention to yourself by getting up to put the kettle on again. Actually, maybe that’s not a bad idea. It’ll give you a potential out, and a way to smooth things over. Yeah. You scoot your chair back, leaning forward to reach for his empty coffee cup, and as you open your mouth to ask how he’ll take it this time he speaks up too.
“I didn’t mean--”
“You want another--”
“Oh, I, yeah.” He stutters, and looks surprised, like he expected a fight instead of a refill offer. He looks like he’s poised to spring up out of his seat, and his hand is on the cover of the journal in a perfect mirror of the symbol on it. You don’t know how he’d expect something like that to go down between you and him, he could definitely ring your bell without even giving maximum effort. Luckily, neither of you are the fighting type. He sinks back down, but he’s clearly still uncomfortable, twirling his pen between his fingers. “Thank you. I just. Never mind.”
“My pleasure.” As soon as the response is out of your mouth you want to smack yourself, you were supposed to defuse the situation, not continue speaking in cryptic euphemisms! You follow up quickly, face heating like it has been almost constantly for a week. “I mean, sure, no bother, will you let me put milk in your coffee this time?”
“Nuh-uh.” He shakes his head, humming in the negative, and for that moment the two of you are back to normal.
“I was plannin’ on breakin’ out the whiskey like I said earlier, you want some of that? Think of this one like a nightcap?” You try to coax him, leaning to the side to get a read on the stove clock. “It’s already a quarter ‘til eleven. I figure we go to sleep and pick up back downstairs tomorrow.”
It looks like he’s not going to bite, though, he’s got that stubborn look about him. “No, thank you.” He sighs, and the end of his pen starts tapping against the tabletop erratically. “I think I’ll head down in a minute, and then probably meditate for a while.”
You stare at him, deadpan. You don’t approve of when he avoids sleep on purpose, and he knows that, and you know he knows. But he doesn’t meet your eye and after a few seconds you concede, letting out a little breath and moving toward the stove to light the range again.
Eventually the kettle whistles, and you put down the article on whatever it was - Supernumerary Digits and Why They Tend Distal - that you’d grabbed up off the kitchen counter to pretend to read in favor of pouring your new drinks. You grab the near-empty bottle of whiskey from atop the fridge and add a decent splash of it to your tea. You think you’ve earned it. When you settle back into your seat opposite him and place his cup back in front of him, he hardly looks up at you before gathering his research in his arms and pushing back in his seat to stand.
“Well, good night, then.” You say, slowly, watching as your tea very nearly spills over the side of your cup when you swirl it in your hand. “I’ll hazard a guess it wouldn’t be wise for me to come down to the lab, on the off chance I interrupt your meditation,” and your eyes lift to gauge how he’ll react to that, to the implication that something happened last time you did.
He looks a bit hot under the collar, but. You’re annoyed at just how realistic of a probability it is that the flush on his face might purely be due to him looking forward to working on the project, not as a reaction to you.
He still can’t look at you, though, and his voice sounds dismissive and flustered in equal measure as he waves one hand in your direction. “No. Probably not.” Still, he hovers in the space between the table and the doorway, fidgeting with one of the couple of pages threatening to fall out of his journal altogether.
Hell. He isn’t going to bring it back up.
You’re just going to keep dancing around it like this forever, until he does it again, or you get fed up and leave, or, you don’t know, the portal gets finished and you part ways for good.
That-- you can’t let that happen. You’re going to have to make the move, here.
So you do. You stand up, both hands balled into fists on the tabletop, and level a glare at him that, judging from his expression, probably seems like it came out of nowhere. But he doesn’t move, is still standing there. Watching you.
“Alright, Stanford,” you say, and then your train of thought derails completely.
You hadn’t quite thought out what it was you were going to say. There’s an awkward pause, and then you manage to, not get the train back on track, but maybe build another track in the direction it’s going now. “I need to talk to you, even though you clearly don’t wanna talk to me. I.. I- what happened that night, do you remember?”
You’re staring down at the wood grain of the table as you force the words out. Your hands clench into tighter fists, and then your fingers splay out across the unpolished surface. “Tell me you remember. I don’t, ah.. I want you to remember.” The anger you’d started with is gone by the end of your little outburst, and admitting that last bit was not strictly part of the plan.
You hang your head, unable to even try and look at him anymore. He’s still here, though, standing there with his books in his arms as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other. He’s not getting angry, and he’s not moving to hit you, but he’s not reassuring you either - he’s just silent. Maybe he wants to suffocate you out.
It’s going to work, too, you’re about to make some bland excuse and try to escape upstairs when he turns to place his notepad and papers on the counter next to him. Then, he draws in a breath and clasps his hands behind his back - the position draws his shoulders back, and in your peripheral vision he looks stately, handsome, much more sure of himself than you are, that’s for certain. “..I remember,” is all he says, as if that’s the end of it, as if it’s made it simpler instead of much more complicated.
Questions cloud your mind immediately, how does he feel about that, does he regret it, does he wish it hadn’t happened? (Your fingers itch for a pen, from some reflexive need to take notes.) More dangerously, underneath the panicked thoughts, another burning question lurks: does he want it to happen again?
It’s not until he furrows his brow in surprised thought that you realize you had said that last bit out loud, and before you can try to backpedal, he’s giving you an answer.
“You..” he clears his throat, “I didn’t scare you away with that?”
Your head whips up, and you search his expression with wide eyes. He really means it, he’s glancing to one side and fidgeting with the cuff of his sweater. His glasses do a little bit to disguise his blush, but the red tips of his ears give it away.
So you shake your head, the motion barely noticeable at first before you repeat the gesture more fervently. “No.”