Disclaimer: I don't own 9, 6 or 7. So there.
AN: (Thanks, Ryosei) At last we get to the gushy romance bits. You knew it was coming. And forgive me, this is the first gushy romance I've written since Worth Fighting For, so I'm a bit rusty.
.4.
Though the worst of the damage had been repaired, Seven was officially bedridden until Two and Five could find the proper utensils to make more delicate repairs. The canvas on her back had been shredded beyond repair, and Two had been forced to patch it entirely with a swatch of red felt.
With nowhere to go, she turned her attention to Six. At first, she just invited him to come to her room to draw, so she wouldn't be so alone while she waited. It had been simple enough—draw and listen and sneak glances at her once in a while and get her anything that she might need.
And then she asked for a handful of beads. She'd collected them from the emptiness for the past few weeks, hoping to use them to decorate her gear. And now was as good a time as any. Six rushed to bring them to her, almost tripping over himself in the process.
But then he had to give them to her. He fidgeted and fiddled, trying to hold onto the treasures and deposit them one by one in her hands, but it didn't work quite right. A whimper of frustration escaped him, and she frowned thoughtfully.
"It's all right," she said, taking the beads from him and setting them on the ground beside her bed. "I've got another idea. Sit down." She patted the edge of the bed, and he seated himself on it tentatively, careful not to nudge her as he did.
"You're allowed to get closer if you want," she told him. He just tapped his fingers together nervously, averting his eyes. There was concern in her voice now: "You don't have to if you don't want to."
"Don't want to hurt you," he mumbled, still tapping.
"You won't."
"I'm… sharp," he tried to explain, holding out his hands for her to see. "And you're hurt, and I don't want to hurt you."
"You didn't do this to me," she said gently, taking his hand. That was okay, as long as he was careful. Her hands were metal. He couldn't cut through them by accident. "You helped the others find me, remember?"
"I should have stopped it." He squeezed his fingers into a fist, careful not to let them catch on her wrist. "You got hurt—I shouldn't have let you get hurt—I should have—"
A swift tug on his arm made him overbalance—before he knew it he was leaning over her, held aloft only by his free hand, which had torn into her pillow just beside her head.
He shuddered as he stared at the torn fabric. That might have been her face.
"Listen to me, Six," she said firmly. She still had one of his hands captive, and with her free hand she held his face steady, making sure he wouldn't look away. It was uncomfortably, thrillingly, dizzily close. "I don't blame you for what happened. Do you understand me?"
He nodded.
"And I'm not afraid of you, either. You don't have to worry about hurting me."
"But I might—if I—"
"Accidents happen," she said. "But whatever you could possibly do, it's not nearly as bad as what the Beasts are capable of." He whimpered in protest, but she stopped him before he could speak. "I'm not going to stop hunting them just because something might happen. And I'm not going to give up on you just because I might get a little cut."
For a long moment she was silent, waiting for his reply. He just stared, dumbfounded, searching his mind for his visions. Is this where it happened? Is this where he…? Hard to tell. He didn't remember. Answering for him, she took his hand and placed it on her cheek, holding it in place with both of hers.
"See? It's all right."
An electric shiver shot through him. "Uh-huh…" She was so soft, so smooth.
She released her grip on him. That should have been a signal to pull away and get up and return to his drawings, but he had forgotten how. He was caught up in the feel of her skin, in tracing the delicate lines down her throat, to her shoulder—
A part of him knew better. A part of him knew that it wasn't—what's the word?—proper for him to be touching her this way, that it was irreverent, disrespectful, a violation of personal space and all those other things that One talked about all the time. But he wasn't listening to that part of him, too caught up in the glory of his goddess.
Only the sound of her laughter could pull him out of the vision-within-a-dream that reality had become.
"See what you've been missing?" she mused, her head cocked impishly to the side. Suddenly, he was all too aware of who and where he was, of what he was doing. Seven was closer than he thought she should be—a few fingers' breadths away at most.
His breath came in shallow gasps, his head was whirling, but he remembered this image. This scene. He'd had this vision. Not once—hundreds of times. Over and over again, since before he could remember why or how. And this was his favorite part.
He leaned in and kissed her, just like he'd practiced a hundred thousand times in a hundred thousand visions. He waited, a thrill of fear electrifying the sheer joy he felt—what if she didn't like it? What if he was doing it wrong? What if she changed her mind this time? But, after a careful pause, she returned the kiss. No. Not just returned. Leaned into it. She enjoyed it. She loved it.
He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer, careful to touch her only with the palm of his hand, his fingers splayed so they couldn't cut into her flawless skin. Careful not to disturb the delicate parts of her body that Two still needed to mend. Careful to show her—to prove to her with every instant of the kiss—exactly how he felt.