I've had the idea for this fic in my head for awhile. I hope that you like it. Let me know know what you think either way!
Cinder always felt that she shouldn't touch him. It seemed wrong when she had so much ability to control him.
But just a few months into war it changed. They changed. She was no longer controlling Wolf, it was more like shielding him. But in a way he was shielding her too. They became each other's eyes, seeing attacks from behind through the other. They moved together as one and her combat experience increased exponentially as his years of soldier's training seeped across their bond. Wolf moved and attacked freely as he chose, Cinder's bioelectricity doing little more than shielding him from other's control and linking them to fight as one.
Now that he was her comrade at war it didn't feel so odd to touch. They fell naturally to casual touches. His hand on her shoulder as they passed. Her leaning against him in the rare instances of relaxation.
It didn't bother Scarlet at all but Cinder knew Kai was jealous. She toned it down but didn't worry about it too much. She loved Kai and had told him that. The idea of her and Wolf was so foreign that she couldn't take Kai's jealousy seriously, even though she promised him she did when he had to return to the Commonwealth a year into the war.
Wolf's touch was a support, a bright spot in the darkness of war. It was the same as clasping Thorne's hand before he left to take flight, falling asleep against Scarlet at meals, her arm around Cress' shoulders as they read reports of casualties. It was the same but it was different because Wolf was always there. They fought on the frontlines together and came back exhausted together and ate together. She always knew just where he was, their bioelectricity so entangled that she automatically held him in her shield if he was anywhere near her.
When Scarlet died she held him all night. He was too tired for tears and she was unable to cry and they just sat in stunned pain in each other's arms. Against her own sadness she felt Wolf's grief like a knife in her chest.
After that the touch was necessary. Their hands found each other every morning and stayed clasped through meals and meetings and even through most of the fighting, only letting go at night. Until she finally asked him to stay with her at night. They only slept, or lay awake. People assumed but she was beyond caring about assumptions.
The first nights she wiped his tears away but after that she just let them silently soak into her hair. She gathered strength from his arms around her in the nights used it in the following days.
After a year that seemed to last ten the war was over. Winter took the throne with Jacin by her side. Kai came back for treaties and talks. There was too much distance between them though. It was the months and scars that separated them more than the assumptions.
Neither she nor Wolf knew where to go next. They just knew that they wanted to be together. Winter convinced them to stay at the palace and they grudgingly accepted. When they couldn't sleep from the memories they would go sit on the roof and watch the stars and Earth in the sky.
Months after the war had ended and she started allowing herself to think of other things, the roof was where Cinder first kissed him. His lips against hers were an entirely different kind of touch. Yet after just one kiss Cinder already knew it was a touch she wanted for the rest of her life.