Disclaimer: I have no rights to The Lunar Chronicles or its characters. I've got all the books, though.
It was a quiet sort of love. The kind of love that you don't intend to happen, that blossoms from near nothing. No one tries to cause it, but it comes still with no surprise. It starts as the littlest spark in the back of your mind and ignites every trail of gasoline you didn't know was already there, until you realize that it's the only thing in life that makes sense.
And it took five months before Scarlet admitted it to herself.
Five months out of the orphanage, where she was by abandonment and then the death of the only family that'd ever wanted her, him by mistakes he made as a younger teenager. They'd grown close over their year spent together, sixteen- and seventeen-years-olds who knew they'd never get adopted, knew they were stuck there, who'd found some sort of a home in their friendship.
Five months of their well-choreographed dance that took place whenever they crossed paths in the farm house she'd inherited at 18 from her late grandmother. Always just out of reach of the other, their conversations always ending three words too soon.
It took another six months for Ze'ev to commit the feeling to heart – he'd known forever, it just took him that long to stop lying to himself.
Even still, they kept it from one another. They did their dance for a year, a year before everything started to finally take its toll.
It was 3 AM when she woke herself up from crying and calling his name, and she immediately stopped to listen for him. When no sound came from the hallway, she tried to slide back under her blankets to sleep.
But it would not find her again, the images in her head too much to let her exhausted mind drift back into the solace of unconsciousness.
She pulled herself up and her legs were heavy as she moved to stand, half-stumbling down the hall. When she gently pushed his door open and saw him in bed – the moonlight filtering through the blinds just enough to grant her visibility, she froze. He was still sound asleep, seemingly unbothered by her cry, and she figured that she would go back to her own bed if he didn't wake up in six sec-
"Scar? What's wrong?" He croaked, rubbing his eyes and turning over.
She said nothing, her fist over her heart and her skin suddenly freezing in the air that surrounded her.
He lifted the covers, like maybe he might invite her to come lay next to him… like maybe he might pull her into his arms and let her know that she was all right, that they were all right. Instead, he moved his legs to the side of the bed and shifted to the edge of it, "What is it?"
"I," she found her voice, and it was much smaller than she wanted it to be, "I had a nightmare."
"Do you wanna talk about it?"
"No."
"Can you get back to sleep?"
She shook her head.
Then, he was moving away from her again and then back under the covers, holding the blanket open and inviting her with a tilt of his chin.
She crept to the bed slowly and slid in, facing away from him. The warmth was enough to take her away, she was sure, but then his arms were around her and she never knew she could feel so safe. He pulled her close and Scarlet had never known it was possible to feel how she did.
Her voice wobbled when she spoke again, "Ze'ev, can I tell you something?"
"Anything."
She shut her eyes against any potential rejection and inhaled, "I'm in love with you."
There was no immediate reply. Scarlet could feel the near-darkness surrounding and suffocating her. How long had it been since she'd said it? Thirty seconds? Forty-five?
She wanted to take it back, to play it off in the morning as if he must've been dreaming.
A measured breath-and she hadn't realized he hadn't been breathing that whole time-before he spoke. "I've always loved you, Scarlet."
The weight of Luna itself seemed to be lifted away from that farmhouse in the small town of Rieux, France. Earth had righted itself, after all that time.
A silence befell them. They were so quiet around each other, some wondered how well they knew the other in the first place. But sometimes, love doesn't need words to fill the empty spaces.
Sometimes, silence is the only answer.
Author's Note: I never write Wolflet. There will never be enough Wolflet, honestly. I wanted to write something short and sweet, and I know it's an AU and I'm sorry, but I got the idea at work and basically had the whole thing written out in my head before I got home so, like, what can you do?