AN: Guys. I got diagnosed with a serious illness which is why I have been AWOL. It's really messed with my head and I will be in treatment for the next year. It's made it really hard to write the happy ending I want for these characters because I don't have the headspace for it. I am so so sorry. I love writing. It brings me joy but all I have right now is the two snippets below. I promise. I absolutely promise that this is not going to be one of those WIPs that doesn't get finished. It will. Thank you for all of your comments and likes and follows and favourites. xo lily
Things don't always turn out as expected. Dawson knew this. She was anxious and terrified. Her heart in her throat as Casey and Severide warmed up in the ring. She loved them both. She did. But… her glance shifted to Severide. He'd fallen from a window only six months ago. His shin still acted up at times. It was still so easy for her to read his moves. He was getting better; had taken to grappling with her in bed, showing off MMA moves and hip checks that left her crying foul and screaming with ecstasy by turn. She wanted him to win. She didn't want Casey to be humiliated by any stretch of the imagination but this was Sev. The guy who apparently left an active fire because she mattered more than his job. The guy who had posted up in her hospital room, mulish, outright defiant and so solicitous she would have screamed except he'd give her their look and clench her hand to his heart like she already owned it. Just then she was clutching her fingers together in a gesture that looked like prayer, words whispering past her lips nonsensical and fervent. The fight shouldn't have mattered but it did.
He turns back to Dawson and he gives her a smile and he mouths "I love you" because he does and if they're going to get reamed for hooking up in the firehouse she should know that. And Dawson beams so wide for a moment he is blinded straight back to that first morning after, his head between her thighs and her laugh broken in two places on the kitchen floor. Her eyes are shiny and he kisses her hand gripping his unbuttoned shirt. She hasn't let go of him in hours and it's perfect because it really never is and he doesn't regret any moment that got them here. He zips her jeans first. Buttons her shirt and smooths back her hair while she continues to beam at him, to preen into his touch like Boden isn't thirty seconds from yelling. She soothes her thumb across his lips to smudge a lipstick smear. She smirks as she tucks him back into his dress pants and Severide wants to howl with laughter at her boldness. God, how he loves her as her mouth moves and he doesn't understand she's saying Te amo but the sentiment is obvious and his face goes silly slack with glee. Bri loves Sev. It matters to him