It wasn’t supposed to be this way, was it? But everything was still so heavy.

Part of Rhys had come alive again, most definitely. Waking up that morning with Dorothea snoring cutely next to him had brought a sense of peace that hadn’t washed over him in a long, long time. Things he’d been too tired to feel were sparking within once more, fireflies flitting within deep darkness.

But the weight was still there. Exhaustion clung to his ankles from the moment he woke, dragging his body down. He’d thought he’d be better with such a happy thing gracing him. He was trying so hard to be okay, but…

The front door to the house opened, and he stiffened. The way the door was closed would tell him who it was and how he needed to act. Not that he had a good excuse to escape the house, though. Iree was still spoiling him for Sunmer’s retrieval, and he didn’t have any tasks. First she’d been running him ragged, and now there was too much time to be alone with his thoughts.

The door closed gently, almost soundlessly, and Rhys let out a sigh of relief. So it was Dorothea, not either of his parents. Not that they spent much time at home regardless, as they kept busy between his father’s duties as a writer for the press and his mother’s position as a guard on the fort wall and in patrolling the nearby villages unguarded by the fort. They hadn’t even talked to Dorothea much beyond initial introductions and a few awkward passing bys, though of course they’d been polite to the bearer of Juncture.

He peeked out of his room, and she jumped from her place on the stairs. He hated to keep startling her, but it was also incredibly cute.

“I was just coming to see you,” she laughed, coming to a stop in front of him.

She looked guilty for some reason. “What is it?”

“I, um…” She frowned, so he pinched her cheek, and she giggled. “Stop it, I’m trying to be contrite. So… I’ve agreed to go to the Zeal’s Web event with Cerid. I know I should have asked you, and I’m sorry, but I wanted to help them.”

“It’s fine. I know how important Shark is to you, so of course you’d want to do what you can.”

She smiled, relieved. “Thank you. And…” She ducked her head to try and hide behind her bangs like she usually did when she was nervous. That was when he noticed she’d kept one arm behind her back the entire time. “Thisisforyouit’sokayifyoudon’tlikeit!”

A small box was pushed against his chest, and Rhys stumbled back, startled. “Uh. Okay?”

Her cheeks were red. “Okay.” She looked at her feet, then back to him, wringing her hands with anticipation.

Gods, he loved her. Today, he decided, he wouldn’t weigh her down with any more darkness. The moments they were together were the ones in which he felt like anything was possible, and he wanted to sink into that feeling as much as he could without ruining it. He wanted to give her that same sense of joy.

“Come on.” He nudged his bedroom door completely open with his foot and went to sit on the bed.

“Er…” She padded in with small steps, looking around as if she’d never seen someone’s sleeping quarters before. Her eyes devoured everything she could see, taking in all the details. What she was looking for, he didn’t know.

Rhys laughed when she stood still in the center of the room, stiff. “You don’t want to sit?”

“Yeah, but… Your bed is…”

Interesting. So she was thinking on those terms. Truth be told, that made him happy. “I won’t do anything. Not unless you want me to.”

She took a deep gulp of air and released it slowly as she approached to take a seat. “Okay…”

His chest and stomach felt tight with a childlike nervousness and tentative joy. “Can I open it?”

“If you want.” It was obvious she wanted him to as soon as possible, though.

“Alright.” Without further ado, he pried the lid off the box, a small blue rectangle about the size of his palm. Inside were two items: a long, thin purple ribbon and an ovular grayish-pink stone with a dip in its smooth surface. A worry stone? Generally, tools for dealing with stress like this one were looked down upon as superfluous. It had to have been hard for her to find. “Oh…”

Dorothea reacted to his lack of reaction with nervousness. “I, um, went to the market after we all split up from the dining hall. I wanted to get you something for your pocket. You’ve gotten used to having this”—he reached into her own pocket and withdrew Dale’s, no, her, pin—“with you. I’ve seen you reaching for it a lot while you’re idle, but obviously it’s not there. So I thought that maybe you’d like this? I know it’s not a proper replacement. You can think of it as a temporary placeholder if you want. Uh, and I thought the ribbon would look nice on you. Not that anything wouldn’t look good on you.” She busied herself with tucking the pin back into her pocket. “I can return them if you want.”

He rested his head on her shoulder, plopping his weight on her with a swift tilt. “Sorry. It’s not that I don’t like them, it’s just that I’m touched. I don’t really know how to act.”

She rested her cheek on top of his head. “I’m the same way. Every little thing makes me nervous now. In a good way, kind of.” She laughed softly. “I’ll try to calm down.”

“You don’t have to. It’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Ooh… I still don’t know how to react to all these compliments,” she mumbled, and he could imagine how hard she was blushing. “Hey…” She shifted, making him sit up, and sat facing him with her legs crossed, so he mirrored her. “Then may I?” Her fingers hovered over the ribbon in the box.

He nodded, leaning closer to her. She sure did seem to love touching his hair, and he wasn’t going to complain about it.

The atmosphere had shifted with her request, becoming stiller, almost as if they dangled on the precipice of something. He didn’t mean to close his eyes in the face of it, but it was his natural reaction to having his hair touched. It was just that soothing. Being in the dark made him feel almost breathless as physical sensation became a much more dominant part of his world. The anticipation of what could possibly happen next was the most thrilling thing.

His hair came loose, soft against his neck. Gently, it was pulled together, combed through with smooth strokes. It was strange. The mundane felt overloaded with gravity. Everything was significant, and time moved so quickly despite how much he wanted it to go slower. He heard the faint sound of the ribbon’s fabric slipping against itself as the knot was tied, and he almost opened his eyes.

But something else was happening. Dorothea’s thumb traced his cheekbone before her hand cupped his chin to lift it. The sheets shifted beneath her as she moved, and he heard her let out a tiny squeak as she tried and apparently found it difficult to get into position for whatever she was planning. He laughed but swallowed it when her breath hit his neck.

Teeth closed around his throat. They didn’t press down hard, but he still caught his breath, let out a short, strangled sound. Shock? Arousal? He wasn’t really sure what caused it more. Her tongue brushed his skin, her breath pooling. That was all. She didn’t move, probably didn’t even know what to do or what she could do beyond that.

Once apparently satisfied, she propped her forehead on his shoulder, hands gripping either side of the collar of his jacket. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I’ve dreamed about that. So I wanted to try… Do you mind? Wait, no I should have asked that before, but I just kind of went with the flow. Oh, geez, sorry.”

Yeah. She had no idea what she was doing at all, much less what she was doing to him. No matter how he wanted to return the favor and then some, it was important to restrain himself. He wanted to take good care of her and wait until she fully, completely signalled she was ready for more. Sexual contact of any kind would be a huge deal for her considering what her original mindset had been.

“Rhys?” she asked, concerned by his silence and stillness.

However, calming down was not going so well. He was going to explode, and he was moving towards her while being pushed by the same flow she’d followed. His hands guided her legs, pushing against her knees, to spread to make room for him between them. Her eyes were bright with a myriad of emotions that he recognized as conflicting: fear and joy, excitement and nervousness, confusion and eagerness. “Tell me when to stop,” he said against her lips before sealing them.

He had her on her back again and was ready to push the boundaries of all of those feelings in her to see what she would find. The kiss was long and deep; he felt her breath being taken away. Her chest heaved against his as she quivered beneath him and clung to his back. With a quick bite to her lower lip, he ducked his head to her neck and nuzzled it, one arm going around her back to get her body to arch and expose the area more to him.

Dorothea let out a short, sharp gasp as he pushed hard kisses to tender flesh. Rhys chuckled at her failure to restrain little cries that lingered in the space of the room despite her hand flying to her mouth. It was almost as if he could taste the rushing of her blood, feel her heartbeat, or maybe that was just his heartbeat, or their pulses were mingling to match somehow.

The neckline of her shirt was in the way, and he wanted it off. Knowing that would be too much, though, he settled for dragging it down, just enough to reveal her collarbone at the base of her neck, and kissing and sucking at her to his heart’s content so long as she allowed. She was squirming, pressing her legs together, and her hips kept twitching upwards in small jerks.

What next? She’d direct him one of two ways, and her response next was what he expected.

“Rhys,” she whimpered through her fingers. “Stop, stop please…”

He did so immediately, propping himself up enough to look at her. “Too much?”

Her wide eyes were both bright and dark with wonder and a rushing undercurrent of less innocent feelings. “I don’t know…” She glanced away. “It’s not as if I’m completely ignorant. I mean, with Sharkie as my best friend, how could I be? They like to embarrass me a lot…”

Rhys laughed. “I can imagine that.”

She smiled, bashful. “Don’t misunderstand me, though. It’s not as if I have absolutely no idea of the things we might do. I just didn’t think about it before, that anyone would ever be okay with settling for limitations like that when it came to their sex life.”

Good point. He’d assumed she knew nothing at all, but they were both adults. If they were mature enough to have sex, they were mature enough to discuss it openly. “Is that something you’re interested in right now, or do you want to give it more time?”

“I…” She clasped her hands over her heart. “Are you really sure the terms I have are okay with you? I’m very serious.”

“I’m sure.” He paused, wondering if what he was about to disclose would prove helpful or not and deciding to try it. “I’ve had sex with both men and women, you know.” Sometimes both at once, but that might be a bit too much for her to know at the moment.

She nodded, blush spreading to her ears. “I, um, can tell that you have experience, yes.”

“I say that to make it clear that anatomy isn’t really a big deal for me. You’re thinking that you’re crippling my enjoyment by putting some possibilities off limits, but that’s just not true.”

“Oh…” Finally, she looked at him. “Does it make me bad to move this fast, or to want to?”

Naturally, it wouldn’t be easy for her to shake the association she’d had for so long of sex as something forbidden and wrong. “Sex is a normal part of a lot of relationships, including ones that are much less close than we are. I don’t really think there’s a standard,” Rhys said thoughtfully. “But you should just judge by your comfort level. That’s what we’ll go by.”

She smiled up at him sweetly. “Thank you for talking with me so openly like this.”

“Of course.” The least he could do as her partner was to field any and all questions and concerns.

“Rhys?” Her voice was heavy, dripping with heat.

He would never tire of the sound of her name on his lips. “Yes?”

“I…” Her arms looped around his neck, drawing him in. “There are so many ways to say it that I just don’t know what words to pick.”

He smiled, endlessly enchanted by how adorable she was. “What do you want me to do?” To comfort her, make her feel safe, he brushed gentle kisses to her forehead, her nose and lips.

She didn’t look scared anymore. “Take me...on the first step.”

“You’re sure?” She’d tensed up as one of his hands moved to hover at the buttons of her shorts while the other tugged her tucked shirt loose to slip beneath and rest on her ribcage.

“I-I am.”

He wanted to be certain. “Dorothea. You’re absolutely sure.”

Her hand came to rest atop his, push it upwards. Up her ribs to her breasts and between them, pressing down on her heart. “You’ve opened my world to a lot of new things,” she breathed. “So if it’s okay with you, then it’s okay with me…”

He needed no further encouragement. Unfortunately, he didn’t get the chance on this day to induct her or to join the two them as he planned.

“Ha… Hahaha…!”

Rhys jumped, snapping back out of the small space he and Dorothea had created for themselves. He followed her horrified gaze to the door. The door they had left open, and the frame where Shark was leaning with their cheeks puffed out with barely restrained laughter.

“AHHHAHAHAHAHA!” they screeched. “GODS THIS IS EMBARRASSING BUT DAMN YOU GUYS ARE DUMB, CLOSE THE DAMN DOOR WHY DON’T YA?!” They bent down to let out a howl. “GOOOOODS!” Then they jumped back up. “Also, karma, Thea. Thou didst interrupt, and thee be interrupted in turn! ‘Kay. Bye.” Shark shut the door slowly, making the action dramatic as if to demonstrate what they should have done.

Dorothea’s face was hidden behind her hands. Rhys withdrew his own from her, understanding that the moment was now far gone. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Pfft…” She flopped her arms to the sides and devolved into laughter, her blush deeper than he’d ever seen it. “I just,” she gasped, “I can’t believe this! And how, how lucky are we that they didn’t come back later, or that it was Shark and not your parents? And why didn’t we close the door?” She squealed in laughter, curling into a ball on her side. “I’m so embarrassed!”

Her amusement set him off. He collapsed beside her, burying his face in the pillow as he cackled to the point of almost crying. When he caught his breath, he rolled over onto his side to face Dorothea, who was watching him with a smile as her cheek rested on her hands.

“It’s always good to see you laugh,” she said.

And he was grateful to her for making it possible. That was just the thing though, wasn’t it? No matter how gracious the time with her felt, the dark would be waiting on the other side. It wasn’t possible to convey without putting unfair pressure on her.

So he’d tell her something else true. “I’m happy,” he said quietly. “And I’ll try hard to make you happy too.”

She smiled, snuggling against his chest. “I am. Happier than I ever dreamed of.”

The feeling was mutual. “Want to stay here for the night?” The night before, they had just drifted off without thinking. Sharing a bed intentionally was very different, even if they were used to being just across the hall from one another regardless.

She looked up at him with a shy smile, and the beauty and preciousness of it wrecked him a little bit. “Okay.”

With her continued presence, he felt no pain until the morning, only her and the two of them together.