Summary: "It's that reflex we have to pull what's warm – whether it's something or someone – toward us, that feeling we get when we do that, that feeling of being safe in the world and ready for sleep, that's happiness."

Notes: Well, this is it, the final chapter. Special thanks to my betas mswyrr, syolen and halfaslug; the FBND meta squad in general and malariamonsters in particular.

She is jolted when Que-geum plucks a piece of pizza crust from her limp fingers and returns it to the box. The sun has dipped below the horizon. He swipes excess flour off his hands with a lazy gesture, and then leans forward. Left hand snaking around her calf, he hooks his chin over the top of her angled knee, smiling gently.

"How are you feeling, Ahjumma?"

Dok Mi rubs her eyes and takes a sip from their glass, leaving flour prints all over it. The wine swigs lazy laps around the bowl. The stone at her back gives off a last feeble bit of residue warmth. Her bones are heavy from displacement. Exhaustion is making itself know via a buzz at the base of her skull. She takes in the artificial pond before her and the chestnut trees around its edge; the predictability of a group of teenagers on the other side of the monument doing unspeakable things to "Wonderwall" on an acoustic guitar, before returning her gaze to Que-geum – whose smile has transformed into what can only be described as a simper. He lifts his head off her knee and takes to nudging it with his temple by way of prompting her to answer. She feels extraordinarily woolly-headed, no telling whether that is due to exhaustion, wine, or him. She grins back.

"Perfect."

He takes the wine glass from her, fingers lingering atop hers, and empties its dregs. „That was the plan!", he gloats, chin returning to rest on her knee.

„And how are you feeling, Que-geum?"

Serene, he closes his eyes.

„Incandescentwith contentment," he says, emphatically.

She narrows her eyes.

"This is most definitely cheating – pulling big words on me when I'm clearly not in a loquacious mood."

He frowns slightly and sits up to retrieve his phone, but she stops him with a nudge of her knee against his shoulder. "It means "wordy", "talkative".

He takes the word and runs with it.

"I think I am only loquaciousin the sense of garrulous," he says, over-enunciating his big words. "but you are more articulate and me… me… waitwait I know this one…"

She smiles quietly and watches him root around for the right word, all floppy hands and deep concentration. Then, with a yelp of discovery, he's back:

"Mellifluous! That's what you are: mellifluent." He looks out onto the water, shaking his head at himself. "Need to remember this better. Mellifluous, mellifluous, mellif..."

Enrique likes to tell himself that it's pretty hard to surprise him. After all, observation, prediction and planning are sort of his job and definitely firm legs to stand on. However, Dok Mi cutting him off with her hands fisted into his shirt collar to pull his lips against hers knocked all three of them out from under him. Not the kissing business as such - in fact, they had figured out fairly quickly that here was a team sport they excelled at. Nor her initiating... things – that one time at her place when he had found and slapped on her panda hat whilst she was in the bathroom – hand to god, he barely made it out alive.

But all the parameters are off: they are in a very public place, in the middle of conversation, and only coordinated enough to drink without spilling two out of three times. The stars aren't in position. But he's of course fully committed to taking one for the team. Making a mental note to find out what exactly made him deserve such attention, one of his hands shoots behind him to catch their weight and the other reaches for her waist as she advances further into his space. When her hands scoot from his shirt to the sides of his neck, he receives a partial answer in-between pecks dropped all over his face:

"I've missed you, I've missed you, I've missed you."

In response, he lets his arm curve further around her back. She continues the conversation by wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her face into its side.

"So much", she elaborates, her breath warm against his pulse. Her grip tightens and Enrique bemoans the necessity of using his other hand to keep their balance. "I know that", he says with the air of one stating the obvious.

"Yes, but somebody taught me that some things, sometimes, need saying," she mumbles into his collar.

He grins into her temple. There's a hint of ozone clinging to her skin. "Are you speaking trainer to me?"

She sits back on her knees, hands sliding around to rest on his chest.

"I think it's more accurate to claim we understand each other's elephant."

He gives this thought some straight-faced contemplation. "I do speak polar bear already, so that makes sense..."

Dok Mi nods sagely. "naturally."

His hand has slid from her back to the curve of her hip.

"I can't believe you beat me to the kissing. I was waiting for the right moment," he moans, tugging on the hem of her shirt. He sits up and starts counting off on his fingers: "When you came out of the gate was clearly one, any doofus can tell, but I was busy enough not barfing up my heart as it was, that is to say: I was incapable. Then when you pointed out the mortal threat of time-space cracks was another, but I thought at the time I was perhaps the only one drowning in an ocean - an ocean - of emotion. Hah. That rhymes. Then the taxi when you gave me that one look; but the driver was there and I'd just talked about puking. Then pretty much every second at the apartment, but I didn't want you to think that's all I was shooting for. And then we had to eat and..."

Her hand drops to meet his.

"This has been torturing you all day, hasn't it?"

"Ahjumma, I'm a wreck," He groans, knitting his fingers around hers.

"You're a dummy."

"But I'm your dummy."

Words delivered like a statement, the question is all over his face, right beneath a layer of levity. And so she sits up on her knees to reach out and frame his face with her hands in that way he likes to do with her at the slightest provocation. She prods him upright on his knees until his eyes are almost level with hers from his spot one step down before replying.

"Unequivocally, yes." Looking down into his eyes, she is reminded again how laughably easy it is, really, to make him this happy. And selfishly grateful no one else has bothered to learn this until now.

"I'll look that up later, because my incredible perception tells me we're having a moment and I don't want to ruin it," he quips. His eyes dance and she finds herself smoothing away his fringe again

"One might even say this is one of those perfect moments, should one be waiting for one."

Que-Geum scoots closer, eyeing her. "That so?"

One of his hands is at the back of her knee, beckoning her closer. She gladly complies, inching forwards to the very edge of the step.

"Absolutely. Flawless, in fact. And very romantic. One couldn't plan it any better." Her right threads into the hair at his nape, causing a trail of goose bumps to vanish into his collar.

His hand has made its way up from the back of her knees to the small of her back. He wriggles in close, and the pull behind her sternum finally abates as it comes into contact with his.

"I think you're just stretching the facts to serve your own lowly pursuits," he chides, though the effect is somewhat lessened by the goofy grin on his face.

She yanks his hair, giving a frustrated noise at the back of her throat. He winces, snorts and closes what space remains between them to drop a careful kiss on a spot just underneath her ear

"– I've missed you..."

He covers the spot with his hand and moves on to her cheekbone –

"I've missed you,"

lingers on her forehead –

"I've missed you,"

skitters down the bridge of her nose –

"I've missed you."

and skims the corner of her mouth –

"so much."

She turns her head by a fraction and firmly keeps him from fluttering off again.

After a whole day of leaning in, this is where they arrive; the weather-beaten surface of the marble stairs prickling her knees through the fabric of her jeans and his thumb circling its home laps around the joint of her jaw. He tastes of pizza, wine, and burnt waffles for breakfast in a holiday home by the sea outside of Seoul.

When they pause, on of his knees has vrawled onto her step, and his shirt tails have come untucked. Loathe to pull away, he aimlessly nuzzles her face, provoking a chuckle.

"Your rain barrel's flattened out," he murmurs into her forehead. Dok Mi catches his eyes, intrigued.

"My what?"

He brushes his knuckle against the spot.

"The worry wrinkle on your right – my left – eyebrow. That's where all your excess emotion goes. It's a tiny little thing gathering drizzle from a pretty massive roof, so it's not very precise and overflows quite often, but at least I'll know something's drumming your mind whenever it does. Your rain barrel."

It takes her languid mind a few moments to connect the dots of his laboured metaphor.

"When you're overwhelmed, your eyebrows go lopsided," she counters.

He is delighted. "I did not know that. Must've looked like a Dreamworks lead character to you all day."

"When I was 12, I read a lot about strokes and how to recognise them early..." she offers with a pensive voice and a barely contained smirk.

"... GOD, you're mean when you're exhausted," he guffaws as he rolls off his knees and slides up beside her. She sits back and unfolds her legs to meet him.

"But they're all better now, your eyebrows," she says.

"I thought they would be," he replies before ducking his head to fit himself into the crook of her neck.

He's warm, soft, almost pliable with his usual buzz siphoned off.

"This is nice," she says quietly.

"Hm."

"Que-geum?"

"Hm?"

"Why the anxious asymmetrical eyebrows all day?"

She expects him to deflect the question. Instead, he presses more firmly against her side and hooks his ankle around hers.

"Because I was terrified something would go or feel or be horribly wrong. But everything's really gone back to being right. Like... when you put on your 3D glasses and all the disconnected layers on the screen slide together and into focus. And depth."

The words topple over her collar bone and sink into her chest, rustling the leaves of a tree he had planted there earlier. She slips her phone from her pocket and starts typing. He perks up and places his chin on her shoulder.

Are you writing that down? You're making me blush."

She smiles. "No, I'm writing down something of my own." She hastens a peck against the side of his mouth that favours his snarl to nip all pouting in the bud. „But you made me think it."

His hand flops in a quarter-hearted fist pump. „My pleasure. Make sure you also write down that ‚idle Tuesdays' line from earlier."

She does, trying her best to ignore his warm breath against her neck.

So he resorts to grinding his jaw into her shoulder. "Hey, Ahjumma? Ahjummaaa-ha-haaa?"

She looks up to find him leering at her like the cat that belly-flopped into the cream.

"Does that mean I'm your muse?", he sing-songs. „I could be a great muse. The best muse. I'm totally your muse. Should I get some skimpy silk clothing? A loosely tied sarong, maybe?"

„Unbelievable," she deadpans before turning back to her phone to finish her paragraph.

He is knocking his knee against hers, now. „Just think of the possibilities," he teases.

„I am. You could trip, catch fire, catch a cold – which could spiral into a kidney or bladder infection – mustn't trifle with those."

Notes taken, the phone slides back into her jeans pocket. "You could make me tea, though," she offers consolingly, touching her forehead against his. The tight muscles in her back give way to a brief shudder, which jumpstarts him into immediate action.

"Are you cold? It's getting cold. Wait, I've got a hoodie..."

Of course he does. He's already crawled halfway across her on the shortest route to his backpack before she can interfere.

„Nonono, hush. I'm alright. Just exhausted," she says, hand on his shoulder to guide him back into a sitting position.

„Well, we should get to bed," he says.

She steadfastly tries not to react to his choice of words. For at least a second and a half. Which is all anyone can do, she tells herself when she throws him a sardonic brow. With magnificent results: Colour rises up his collar and into his cheeks with the swiftness of scalded shrimp.

„That is not what I meant. I would never!" And now he looks very much like he's slapped himself, eyes wider and more alert than they've been all day. „NO. WAIT. I DON'T MEAN THAT, EITHER I MEAN I would always, I mean…" flustered hands flap about in time with his pupils, actively scouring the landscape for a good spot to turn around. „WILL YOU PLEASE SHUT ME UP?!"

And she wants to. And she would. It's just that the laughter rumbling around her belly is so much stronger just now, and it finally squeezes past her face-splitting grin as the bastard love child of a snort and a giggle. But at least the sight of that allows for most of his blush to migrate into the tips of his ears, and she manages to extend one hand, so he eagerly takes the invitation for a hug and parks his forehead on her shoulder, smirking.
"I meant for sleep. Sleep sleep," he whinges two beats later, which only sets her off anew.

„I know," she presses out with some effort „But your face..."

He pulls back, grinning with her. „I'm glad you're pleased."

„I am," she nods enthusiastically. „So very pleased."

"As I said," he casts over her attempts to calm herself. „we'll sleep sleep together. If we want to. Not that we have to. I'm saying we don't have to anything. But we can. But it's very likely we sleep sleep, seeing as you clearly have the two o'clock giggles and I can't be trusted with my own tongue... oh, COME ON!" he exclaims indignantly when fresh peals of laughter have her eyes water.

She does her best to gather, biting her tongue, hand pressed against her mouth. Despite his affronted air, she can feel him drinking in the sight of her. Bumbling his words might be; his gaze is quite eloquent on its own. He presses on while she mirthfully keens into her palm.

„Sleep sleep. That's nice, too. Great, in fact. You like that. Right? If you want to… we don't have to, obviously, if you don't… I have sheets and everything prepared for the couch, so that was my initial idea."

Her face falls instantly alongside her hand. "It was?"

He scowls. "Well, I was quite honestly making sure we could go either way, because it's been forever and I didn't want to assume, and because making you happy makes me happy, but now I feel like an ass!"

Throughout the rant, his voice progressively spiralled into what even the most lenient observer would be hard-pressed to call anything but a whine. The impression is accelerated by him flopping back onto the shallow steps, and preceding to twitch like a petulant child.

"And now I've shouted at you," he groans with the heels of his hands pressed against his eye sockets in frustration.

She waits out a final irritated kick of his foot - which arrives like clockwork - before addressing the issue at hand.

"You've „shouted" at yourself, and we both know it," she casually remarks, unable to hide the amusement in her voice. The observation only prompts another grumpy mumble from him, and she decides that now is a as good a time as any to give him a talking-to that has been six hours coming. She scoots up two steps and peels his hands off his face. Elbows resting firmly on his chest, she leans in, effectively pinning him down with her slight weight and firm gaze.

"I feel like I have to make something very clear, because it seems to me you are labouring under a misconception," she says with slow deliberation.

Que-geum breaks eye contact, pouting

"Look who's not feeling wordy." he mumbles.

"Look at me," she scowls. Sulkily, he complies.

"I wish you didn't feel like you have to make yourself worthwhile. You've done the shopping and had your hair cut and exiled your flatmate and upgraded my ticket" – she interjects a glower – „and saved up your holidays and made that recording, and that's very sweet, that's very you - and I love it - but then you forego sleep and god knows what else and that worries me. I can't have you take care of me if that means you're not taking care of you."

"It's the least I could do," he replies, nonplused.

"You're my favourite person. You don't have to do anything to deserve that. It's lovely when you feel like it. But when you give yourself a hard time over it, that makes me sad. It's just me. I am not going to pack my bags because you didn't get any raspberry jam."

„That's good, because I bought strawberry."

„Oh for... are you going to be there for breakfast with me?"

„Yes."

„Good. Perfect. Best breakfast in 7 months."

„More like a year," he insists, his nose wrinkling at the indignity of it all.

She leans down to kiss it.

„And for the record," she concludes. „I love sleep sleeping with you."

She starts pushing away, but he glances the backs of her elbows with his hands and holds her gaze.

„Can I say something now?" he whispers.

Dok Mi nods.

„First of all: It's not „just you". It's you. I think we have to have a veeery serious talk about what exactly that means, Ahjumma."

Her gaze drops to where her indexfinger is fiddling with the corner of his shirt collar.

"Alright. Thank you. But I don't want to be a burd..."

"You're not a burden," he interrupts decisively. „You're never... Ahjumma, you're the farthest thing from a burden." The fingertips of his right hand brush lightly against her ribs. „You're a privilege. That I am selfishly enjoying. So there. Secondly: It's not like I didn't sleep to make the tape. I couldn't sleep, so I made the tape. I was SO excited for you to get here - I don't know whether you've noticed, but I am a teensy bit excitable sometimes. I couldn't wait to talk to you - so I didn't. And I wanted you to be happy. And I wanted you to be safe. And I didn't want you to be alone."

"And you wanted to be impressive," she adds shrewdly.

Que-Geum shrugs in acknowledgement.

"That, too. And I was, right?"

Through the park and across the grassy lawns, their steps are heavy with impending sleep, their centre of gravity further compromised by uneven ground and the need to orbit each other. Her fingers keep straying to his dangling shirt tails; his brush up against the small of her back or the notch of her shoulder blades, engrossed in the absence of layers. At the pedestrian crossing he accidentally-on-purpose walks into her and sneaks a peck onto her crown in the commotion.

The street lights come on two turns from his apartment. He halts on a corner and leaves her next to one with exuberant moths circling overhead to duck into a small deli.

"Two seconds," he says. Then, on the shop's threshold, he turns around, a single finger in the air. "One," he mouths.

She leans against the streetlight, comforted by the distant rumble of car tires on cobblestone. The evening breeze has picked up a bit, blowing away from the park. The chime of the shop's doorbell is dissonant against the rustling leaves above her and she looks down to see him with a sheepish look on his face and a jar of raspberry jam in his hand. She pushes away from the lamp post and spreads her open palms at him in disbelief, staring pointedly at the offending product. It's a chaff mostly wrapped around exasperation, while she contemplates throttling him. Pacifyingly, he drops his gaze and lifts his free hand.

"I know. I know," he cedes dramatically, "but can we move any plans of killing me too tomorrow? I'm too tired to get properly involved"

She casts a furtive glance up and down the street before hooking a finger into one pocket of his khakis. He swivels around to face her, and she secures him in place with her free hand fastened into the material of his shirt.

"So long as you do know," she scowls and gives him the tiniest of shakes for emphasis.

He answers her stern gaze with a lopsided smirk.

"I sense the ghost of a "you dumbass" at the end of that sentence."

"Your words, not mine," she says.

This time she informs him of her intentions by tugging at his shirt before kissing him briefly.

"Hi," he grins yet again when she pulls away, and quickly trails her for a second peck. Then he reaches around his own back for the hand still dangling from his pocket, and pulls her arm around his waist. Clasping her hand, he turns them towards home.

She is in the shower, and he changes into the pyjama bottoms and ratty mid-ninetees Disneyland Paris tshirt he's carefully selected four nights earlier for their perfect level of familiarity and softness of cotton before turning his full attention towards the bed. Fresh sheets have already been installed, so he smoothes down the blanket with a beady eye and then decides to turn it down, finds the price tag that came off his khakis that morning on a pillow and transfers it into the waste under his desk, then decides the blanket is not turned down at a perfect angle so that needs careful tugging; chiefly because if he doesn't concern himself with the last, most minute details within his control, he's probably going to suffer cardiac arrest from all the completely unfounded excitement because it's not like they haven't slept together before... in many ways. ALL the ways, really. Well most of the ways. Is there a way to quantify the ways? Probably. Likely. Definitely. Totally. Not gonna happen. NOT gonna play bingo. People are weird. And yet no matter how often he tells himself to calm down as there is absolutely no reason to get riled up he simply doesn't and suddenly this strange outside-looking-in perspective on himself gives him a whole new vista on the paternal grumpy benevolence that was the background noise to every good event in his life and is that dirt on the pillowcase.. no, just some lint. Water. They're going to need water. He dashes out of the room for the kitchen to fill a glass from the tap for her side of the bed. What is her side of the bed? Does she have one? There has been a wild disregard for just about any sleeping orientation conventions every time they shared a double, and in her bed you couldn't really speak of sides so much as layers, and fluid ones at that. So what to do with this stupid glass, now? The water in the shower's stopped and he can't help but listen to the domestic sounds of her presence. The noise of something cluttering down into the sink mingles with one of those exasperated tiny squeals that pass for swearing most of her days, which gives him not so much butterflies as what feels like a fully matured chestburster of fuzzy feelings. The blow dryer roars into life and alerts him to the fact that he's been stuck beaming in the general direction of the bathroom for no one knows how long. So he snaps back into action to see to the glaring inadequacy of the amount of pillows against the headboard in his pursuit of calm.

When Dok Mi enters the bedroom, she finds him straining towards the top shelf of his wall wardrobe, grinding out low-impact threats towards a pillow wedged there. The books she dumped on the bed whilst rooting through her bag for a shirt to sleep in have been carefully stacked to one side, topped with her paper journal and phone.

"The speed with which you shower is super-human. Next time, I'll race you against a soft-boiled egg," he says, back turned, still engaged in his stand-off with the pillow. Reflecting on the feathery soft mountain range already awaiting on his bed, she uses an opening when both his arms are raised to duck in for diversionary tactics.

Arms unfurling across his stomach, she molds herself close against his back, drops a kiss on his nape and her cheek onto his shoulder blade.

"Hi," she says. He sways and makes to turn around, but she produces a dissenting hum and squeezes tighter, so he contends himself with aligning his arms over hers whilst she grows heavier against his back. He taps what he remembers of the moonlight sonata into her finger bones and concludes it was a good thing he pouted his parents into submission about letting him give up the piano. His breathing calms considerably as it synchs with hers, the ebb and flow smoothing out the kinks in his mind. His heart skitters towards her hands when they press firmly against his chest and stomach. "This is so much better," she says woozily after a while. He can sense the vibrations of her voice against his backbone; the weight of her slackening arms has begun to drop into his palms.

"Than what?" he asks.

Her answer drags over the ridge of his shoulder laboriously, punctuated by the shudder of a suppressed yawn "'nything I can come up with just now."

"Careful, that's almost a hyperbole, and "those make your argument weaker not stronger, especially if you use 13 of them in a single chapter," he says in a falsetto voice, "and for the last time switch off the bathroom light!"

She splays the fingers of her right hand, and he threads his through them.

"Memory like an elephant, this one," she mumbles.

He beams and shrugs lightly against her cheek. "Bed?"

No answer. He twists to peek over his shoulder.

"Ahjumma?"

"...think I used your shower gel on my hair..."

He snorts, "That's a yes."

With a firm grip on her hands, he shuffles backwards until they hit the edge of the bed. Dok Mi reluctantly peels her arms off his torso and he scrambles to hold open the covers for her.

"Got a glass of water right here and so's your phone and your books and your bag is there under the window and you know where the bathroom is obviously and... is there anything else you need?" he blurts over her huff.

She eyes him from her position against his headboard, arms crossed in front of her Velvet Underground tshirt; it's easily the best thing he's seen all day. Week. Month. Year. Which is exactly what he tells her.

"Que-geum?" she replies.

"Yyyup?" He jauntily pops the word and immediately regrets it.

"Bed."

He scratches the back of his neck bashfully and drags around the bed to gingerly climb underneath the covers.

"Finally," she groans as soon as he's drawn up his legs, pre-empting his progression towards the centre of the mattress by uncoiling into his lap. Another item on his ever-growing list of reasons to resent the entirety of the Eurasian landmass. Later. For now, his auto pilot has him curl up around her, only noticing the flat object under his elbow when the screen at the foot of the bed jumps to life to slice through the quiet with the whining of Flounder the fish. And her snort.

"In my defence," he mumbles into her ear "this IS the best Disney film of the eighties."

"Tell me why," she says.

He leans over further to catch her eye, his finger halting on the remote he's fumbled from in-between the sheets. "Really?"

She nods. "Really. Because I like Dumbo more."

"That's from the forties, Ahjumma. The forties," he mouths, with indignation bordering on personal insult.

"See," she says as she turns sideways and pushes his knees back down to clear her view of the screen. "I know nothing. Tell me about it."

He casts a puzzled glance at the screen. "How about we just… sleep. We can watch a different film every night for the next two weeks if we feel like it. Mornings, too."

"I want to fall asleep knowing you're there," she says in a small voice.

And he's off:

"People say that Disney took all the edge off the story, made it boring, took out the jeopardy and the darkness, and that Ariel is being demeaned. All true, but we're going to kill the author and not get into that. BUT I love Eric's arc. I mean, If we're being quite honest, that man is an idiot; she saves him from drowning, and he falls in love with her voice - that's a reallyreally dumb thing to fall in love with, don't you think? Her singing voice, I mean. It's almost a physically feature - not that there's anything wrong with loving physical features, but that is a result of love, isn't it? Not the reason. I mean: a voice can't talk. Well, it can, but you know. It's like me looking at your pinky finger and thinking "Now, THAT I would like to take to the zoo."."

Dok Mi scoffs.

"What?" he lightly jostles her head with his leg. „Ahjumma, you have two very pretty pinkies. They tie in nicely with the rest. Probably the best pinkies in all the land."

"I like this part," she says, nodding at the screen. He leans back and quietly watches her watch Scuttle explain the dinglehopper. His hand is on its way to snatch his phone from the night stand and sneak a photo when her voice drags him back into the moment.

"How was your day, Que-geum?"

His hand goes to comb the ends of her hair, instead.

"Couldn't have been better."

"That was the plan."

"Oh, there was a plan?" He changes tacks to stroke tension out of her trapezius muscle. "Top marks for execution, Ahjumma. Ten out of ten – would desperately long for again." He finds a new appreciation for the real-life applications of anatomy and life drawing classes via her contented hum when he massages the cluster of muscles at the base of her skull.

„Don't think I don't know what you're doing." Her words have grown fuzzy around the edges.

He rubs light circles around her temple.

„Hm, but it's working, isn't it?"

She nods towards the screen.

"Go on."

With his eyes on the cadence of her breath in her shoulder, he continues.

"Okay, so: he falls in love with this mystical woman and her magical voice of wonder, because: don't ask me. Beats me. No reason. And of course, the sea witch takes away Ariel's voice, and so poor Ariel is plunged into a strange world she only ever gazed at from afar, unable to talk to anybody and without that thing that both Eric and her think he loves, and she just goes for it. So now oblivious Eric here gets to properly earn her love. „But Que-geum," I hear you frown aggressively. „What is so special about Prince Charming riding in to save the day?" and I will say that his arc is finished long before he steers that ship through Ursula. His struggle is not in slaying the dragon, saving the damsel, duelling the competition: He has to prove himself worthy of her by loving her for what she is: not the singer of his dreams, nor the mysterious mute, but the chaotic, funny, barefoot girl who takes his carriage on a rampage. He swaps this fantasy he was chasing for the reality he might have. Of course, we're only halfway through the film by that point and Ursula shows up and ruins everything, as witches do, but that's your third acts for you. And also they defeat her together and I think I just like that everybody gets to be happy at the end...

Ahjumma?"

"Hmmm?"

"Ahjumma, are you asleep?" he lightly runs his index finger down the side of her neck.

"Hmm."

His hand comes to rest, the pads of all four fingers flat against her neck, his thumb stroking back and forth at her nape. He leans forward and over her to check her face. Acknowledging that you're in way to deep if you conclude that the person of your affections can totally pull off the slack-jawed look of imminent drool, he gently smoothes away her hair and breathes a goodnight kiss across her cheekbone. She sighs. He smiles. "Good. I'll see you tomorrow. And the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that…"

Prattling quietly, with minimum cooperation on her side, he pulls the covers up against the small of her back, then settles down lower into the cushions, carefully transferring her head from his lap to his chest. She twists her body into his. Waves of her hair obscure his view of the ship wreck.

"There he goes, the fool. Any minute, now." he mumbles as he turns down the volume by three bars. His left hand drops the remote, reaching upwards to brush against the fingertips of the hand she's slung across his mid-riff. One of her feet wedges itself between his calf and the mattress.

"Dok Mi?" he whispers.

"...hNggn?"

"Sleep well."

Her grip tightens by a whisker. "'love you, too," she replies. "very, very much."

While he traces wave patterns into the shell-coloured skin of her forearm, they drift off.

He wakes on his side, forehead pressed against her jaw, knee atop her hip. The blue light seeping in through the window is shattered into shades of the very early morning. His first conscious breath is filled with her and he presses a subconscious kiss to the warm crook of her neck, contemplating breakfast. Her fingernails rake down the back of his scalp, lightly, and breakfast slips his attention when she arches towards him.

He rubs his nose along the cut of her jaw and grins against her pulse.

„Good morning."

She presses her mouth against his temple.

„The best."

The End

Notes: AN: My special and warmest thanks to my two main betas, mswyrr and Halfaslug for their great help and assistance, and a tip of the hat to the whole meta squad over on tumblr. You know who you are (to know of the meta squad is to be of the meta squad) and I thank you kindly and apologise profusely for never. shutting. up. about this. And for the random paragraphs I pelted you with. This is a group effort, really.