A/N: So my friend suggested I write for Private's Reed/Josh. I'm not promising greatness here, but reviews would be lovely! Megan, this is for you. ;p

Disclaimer: Um, I wish I owned this. Kate Brian's my idol.

Summary: Oneshot that takes place at the end of Invitation Only – thoughts during the Reed/Josh scene on the train.

Complacent Comfort

He saw her sitting there, staring out the window as the train shuffled along the tracks roughly, and he was sure he hadn't ever seen anything so beautiful. She was broken, she was frantic, and she longed to see her boyfriend again (a fact which he had trouble understanding given Pearson's track record), yet he still was drawn to her.

Josh was in a daze, sitting there and gazing at her. She turned around and looked back at him, and he felt something shoot through him – something brand-new for him, a zing that flew from the tips of his toes up to his face in mere seconds. He grinned at her and she gave him the ghost of a smile in return.

He walked over to her, resting his hand on the back of the seat she was in in order to steady himself against the turbulent rocking of the train across the bumpy tracks.

"Hey," she told him softly, her eyes sparkling a bit more the closer he got to her (or maybe he was just imagining that).

"Hey," he responded, looking around the train. Everyone else was resting, and it was peaceful. It seemed like the lull before the rest of the storm. He'd been sensing that something else would be happening with the Thomas ordeal soon. It made his stomach churn with acidy nervousness, but for the moment, he pushed the feeling away.

"Mind if I..." Josh gestured to the empty space next to Reed, suddenly a little bit nervous. He swallowed thickly when he noticed her smile widely.

"No. Go ahead," she replied kindly.

He took in her appearance once he settled into the seat. With her gold dress still perfectly intact (the fact that she hadn't gone off with a guy made him indescribably happy), and her hair disheveled in the sexiest way he could've imagined, she looked ethereal. Her breathing was soft, and their arms touched just barely at the elbow in the seat – neither moved to break the contact.

Josh's appearance was comparable to Reed's. His suit had a few wrinkles from the small amount of dancing he'd grudgingly taken part in, and his hair was a little bit mussed, but overall, he looked fairly normal. No hideous red-rims around his eyes, no stench of strong alcohol on his suit.

They made a lovely pair.

He shook the thought from his mind, blinking quickly. Come on, Hollis, he told himself, trying to recollect his mind. His brain flitted from thoughts of her soft, supple lips to the heat that the side of her body was irradiating towards him. He took a deep breath and let it out, running his hands across the knees of his pants.

"So. Interesting night, huh?" He inquired, glancing in her direction.

"Definitely. I would definitely say that." Reed's words seemed nervous to him, somehow – jittery, even. Something warmed inside of him at the thought that she was nervous being so near to him. He could feel that thing that had been planted inside of him since the first time he'd seen her grow just a bit more, and resisted the urge to grin, or to reach out and touch her. Sensing that things between them were taking a turn into very different territory for them (for him, really), he hazarded a dip into the waters of her pain.

"But...no Thomas."

She looked back at him blankly for a moment before the train turned abruptly, squealing over-dramatically. Reed gasped and Josh, feeling the need to offer some sort of comfort, crossed that invisible barrier and touched her arm briefly, helping to calm her. She gazed up at him as he chuckled amusedly at her.

"It's okay," he told her. "Just a turn." He smiled good-naturedly, the grin turning up the sides of his mouth and wrinkling his cheeks a bit.

Reed badly feigned nonchalance as she responded to him with a "No. I know." Her smile was an attempt at reassurance, but Josh saw through it. He could read each expression on her face, even the ones that were utterly unreadable to everyone else – he could see everything in her dark brown eyes, could practically see into her soul.

For him, she was different. She became someone else – or rather, she became her true self around him, and was somehow altered in the presence of Noelle and Ariana and all the other Billings Girls.

That unnerved him a little. A girl hadn't treated him this way before – hadn't wholly let him in in the way which Reed seemingly was right now.

He was suddenly painfully aware of the fact that words hadn't been spoken in a few uncomfortable seconds, as they had both become lost in their thoughts. Josh looked over at her, only to meet her steady, rather intense gaze. A sort of current passed between them, beneath the surface of the words they spoke.

"I'm sure he's okay," Reed reassured him. He sensed something different – that truly, she was worried for Thomas, and about him, but at some point that worry had become a lesser presence for her. She had grown tired of the agonizing and self-induced pain and guilt. Now, all she wanted was a break.

Josh didn't just want to give her a break, though. He wanted to be the one she ran to, yes, but not in that way. He wanted to be the one she came to to actually talk about the things that were merely looming in the air that separated them, that were always there. Josh wanted to be constant for her, always there, a rock that helped tie her to the solidity of human existence.

He wanted all of this for her; hell, he wanted her, in all her entirety. He wanted her truest self before him, her soul bared for him to examine. He wanted her happiness, and a growing part of him was sure that he could provide that for her – a happiness that was sorely lacking for her right now.

But he had to be sure, first. He had to be absolutely positive that Thomas – the memory of him, the lingering love he was sure Reed had for him – were gone, or at least quickly retreating.

"Yeah, I'm sure he is." Josh's reply was somewhat distracted, and unconvincing as he tried to focus on her – her eyes, her hand lightly touching his arm (barely there, really), and her lips. He watched them twitch slightly as something passed over her face. Her eyes flickered and she took a breath before talking once more.

"You know what? I don't want to talk about Thomas anymore. I mean, I want him to be okay and everything, but to tell you the truth, I'm over him..." Josh really only half-listened after that point, because he had gotten his answer – his confirmation that she was done with Thomas now.

There it was.

This was his chance.

He felt a new wave of jolting electricity wash through his abdomen and gulped, watching her lips move as she ranted about how she deserved to live her life now, and had devoted too much time to Thomas – all of which he found himself wholeheartedly concurring with in silence. Finally, she stared back at him, awaiting his response.

Josh could hardly form words. He'd gotten his opening here, but could barely say 'peep', much less try and make a move. Though, the more he considered it, he wanted to drag this out a bit longer – this lingering tension between them; it was torturous, and it killed a part of him to have to go through it. But at the same time it was deliciously enticing to feel these things – the sudden flickers between their bodies, the sizzle of a looming anticipation.

"Really?" he finally choked out – though surprisingly, it was a lot smoother than he'd thought in his own mind.

"Really," Reed responded, nodding at him and giving him the smallest hint of smiles.

"That's very healthy of you." The shadow of a smirk was on Josh's lips as he glanced down at her lips for a very brief moment.

"I think so." Reed opened her mouth, nearly unhinging her jaw as a large yawn came from between her lips. He felt something stir in his chest as he watched her eyes crinkle when she reached her arms high above her in a stretch. Her eyes sparkled with fatigue when she gazed back at him.

"Tired?"

"Yeah," Reed's voice was nearly a whisper as she replied to him, her eyes betraying some sort of emotion he couldn't quite decipher. He had the sudden urge to feel her against him, to absorb the heat that he had been unable to ignore since he'd sat down next to her.

Impulsively – instinctively, really – he reached out for her, offering the underside of his arm for her to lean into. She fit there perfectly, as if she were carved from a part of him. As she nestled into him further, he felt a tingle run along the right side of his body, the center of which was where her head lay, near his collarbone.

He could feel her breath on the small patch of skin that was exposed by the two buttons he'd undone in an effort to relax on the train, could sense the rapid beat of her pulse, and relaxed into her the way she was into him.

They really did fit together – he couldn't seem to get that out of his mind. He wondered if she felt it too, the way that her head just seemed meant for that crook in his neck, and that the curve of her side just seemed positively destined to be aligned with the straight line of his upper torso.

She shifted, sighing softly as Josh guided her head down into his lap. He didn't get a pang of desire in his nether regions at her presence down there, because it felt like the most complacent kind of normalcy to him.

Reed thanked him unnecessarily for giving her the new comfort of laying in his lap, and he watched her face relax as she began to drift off.

This was home for him – in some strange, unfamiliar, uncharted way, it was his home. Sitting there, stroking the soft, shiny tendrils of her brown hair was comfort; pushing them behind her ears and watching her sigh contentedly at the silence and comfort of a warm body made him feel complete. Yes, it was cheesy and sounded like it was out of a romance movie – but it was how Josh felt at that moment.

No one else had evoked these things in him. He didn't hide the fact that he was more sensitive than the average teenage guy, but still, in his entire life he had not felt the things Reed was causing him to feel tonight. The way that her touches caused fire to spread across his skin, and her eyes carved lines into him, reading him, memorizing him.

Josh let his eyes close as the sounds of the train whirred around him, soft snores drifting into the glowing-from-dawn train car. And they both fell asleep like that, tangled together in a delightful web of blissful ignorance.

A/N: Ew. I hated that. A lot. As in I'm really truly not proud of it. But I'm putting it out here...review, pretty please? With sugar on top?