Three weeks was apparently all it took for Sunny's house to give up and accept a new resident.
There had been no conversation. No agreement. No moment where anyone said the words move in. Things had simply… happened.
First it was her boots, left neatly beside his at the door. Then a comb on the bathroom shelf. A book on the arm of the couch, spine bent in the middle. A second blanket, folded at the end of the bed he technically did not sleep in because he had a pod, but which had become, somehow, "Cielle's blanket." Sometimes he came home to find the kettle already boiling and had no memory of turning it on.
Right now, he was home, and he was at the stove, and none of that was a problem.
The problem walked into the kitchen.
"You're burning it," Cielle said.
Sunny looked at the pan. The pan looked back, offended.
"It's fine," he said. The Flaw warmed up in his chest. "…It's getting there."
He turned the heat down.
Cielle crossed the kitchen, her wings tucked in so she didn't hit the cupboards. She was barefoot. Her hair was down, a little rumpled. She looked like she'd just woken up from a nap and gotten slightly lost on the way to being intimidating.
She was also wearing his black shirt. Again. And, as far as he could tell, nothing else.
On him, the shirt hit his hips. On her, the hem landed mid‑thigh and stopped. The collar had escaped and was hanging off one shoulder. The sleeves, even rolled up once, still covered her hands when she relaxed them.
Sunny focused very hard on the pan.
She hopped onto the stool at the counter, folding one leg under herself, the other swinging idly. She set her elbows on the counter, chin in her hands, and watched him cook.
"What," he said finally, "happened to pants."
She blinked. "They are in my room."
"The room at the Academy," he said.
"Mostly," she said. "Some here."
"And yet," Sunny said.
"They are restrictive," Cielle said simply. "The shirt is enough."
"For who," he asked. "Certainly not for my cardiovascular system."
She tilted her head. "Are you overheating?"
"Not from the stove," he muttered.
She looked down at herself, then back up at him. "Do you want me to leave?"
The way she said it, no drama, no hurt, just a direct question–scraped something raw in him.
"No," he said, too fast. "You being here is fine. Good. Whatever. It's the part where you keep trying to reinvent clothes that needs work."
She thought about that, then pinched the bottom of the shirt and tugged it down a bit, as if that might solve physics.
"Better?" she asked.
He made a small, dying sound and turned back to the stove. "Sure," he said. "Why not."
The meat finished cooking. He plated it up, two equal portions, and sat opposite her at the table. Equal distance. Very safe. In theory.
Cielle picked up her fork and started eating the way she always did at first: fast, like every bite had to win a race. It was efficient, at least. Not messy. Just too quick. Too familiar.
Sunny watched for a few seconds, then put his own fork down.
"Slower," he said.
She paused mid‑chew, eyes flicking up. "Why."
"Because this isn't a food line in the outskirts," he said. "No one's going to knock the plate out of your hands. The food isn't going to disappear if you take ten seconds to actually taste it."
"In the settlement it did," she said. Not defensive. Just stating it.
He met her gaze. "We're not there anymore."
She studied his face. Then the plate. Her grip on the fork loosened a fraction.
"In this house," Sunny said, hearing himself and wanting to kick a wall but continuing anyway, "whatever's on your plate is yours. It stays yours. If someone tries to take it, I'll stab them. This is a guarantee."
"You say that a lot," she noted. "That you will stab people."
"I mean it a lot," he said.
She thought about that, then nodded once, like she'd accepted the new terms. She took a smaller bite. Chewed. Actually chewed and slowed down enough to frown thoughtfully at the seasoning.
"It's good," she said at last.
"Obviously," he said. "I suffer for my art."
A tiny flicker touched the corner of her mouth. Not quite a smile. Close.
They ate. The tension in his shoulders unwound by degrees. He fell back into his old habit of saving the best piece for last, the perfect strip of meat with the right amount of char, still juicy in the middle. He pushed it to the edge of his plate in advance, a private little reward.
Cielle finished before him. Her plate was clean. She lifted it, scraped the last bit of sauce with her fork, licked the fork, and set it down. Her gaze drifted, as he knew it would, to the last piece on his plate.
He sighed internally. He liked that bite. He also knew exactly how this was going to go, because he was weak and had a brain made of wet paper whenever she looked at him like that.
Before he could push the plate toward her, she slipped a hand into the pocket of the shirt.
He blinked. "Did you arm my shirt?"
She ignored him. Pulled out a small bar wrapped in silver foil. The nice brand, from the shop near the academy. The one he'd seen her stare at for a long time and then walk past without buying.
"You said you were broke," he said slowly.
"It was on sale," she lied, terribly.
She peeled the foil open, snapped the bar with her thumbs, and dropped the biggest piece onto his plate, right next to the last bite of meat.
He stared at it. Then at her.
"What are you doing," he asked.
"Emergency supplies," she said. "I kept it. This is an emergency."
"This is me eating dinner," he said.
"You looked at the last piece like someone was going to steal it," Cielle said. "And you cooked. So."
He swallowed. "You like chocolate."
"I do," she said. "You like it more."
The worst part was, she didn't even sound like she was being generous.
He put the chocolate in his mouth. It was rich and sweet, but completely ruined now, because his brain was going to remember this every time he tasted anything similar: her in his shirt, bare legs swinging off his stool, calmly giving away something rare because he'd looked at his plate weird.
"You're staring again," she said.
"I'm reconsidering several life choices," he said.
She nodded, as if that were fair, and picked up her plate. She took his too without asking and carried them to the sink. She rinsed them like she'd done it a hundred times. He watched her move around his kitchen, unconsciously giving her space for her wings when she turned, and had a brief, horrifying flash of what this would look like to literally anyone else.
'We are not dating,' he told the ceiling. 'We are just… accidentally sharing a life.'
Cielle finished with the plates, turned back, and leaned against the counter. For a moment, she just watched him, her head tipped, like she was checking for additional damage.
"Why do you let me stay," she asked.
No warning. No buildup. Just dropped it in the middle of the room.
He opened his mouth. The reasonable answer lined up: because it's practical, because it's safer, because it's easier to coordinate.
"Because I like you being here," he heard himself say instead.
His brain immediately tried to backpedal, but it was too late. The words were out. Flaw-approved.
Her eyes widened a little. Not a dramatic reaction, just a small, shift, the way she reacted to useful information.
"Like how," she asked, genuinely curious.
"There are different kinds of like," he said, feeling doomed. "Don't make me write a chart."
"You made a chart for the pantry," she pointed out. "You like charts."
He pressed a hand over his face for a second. "I like that the house isn't empty when I come back," he said finally. "I like hearing you moving around, even when you're doing something awful to the stove. I like that my stupid expensive pod isn't just sitting in the basement like an idiot purchase."
Her expression softened in some small, hard-to-describe way. The line between her brows eased. Her wings loosened a little.
"Okay," she said.
She pushed off the counter and came closer. Not fast. Just… one step, then another, until she was standing between his knees. He'd stayed on the stool, which in hindsight was a tactical mistake. It put her close. Too close.
"Is this also like," she asked, looking down at him.
His hands moved on their own, landing at her waist to steady her. The shirt had ridden up when she walked, and his fingers closed around warm skin.
He should have let go. He didn't.
She watched his face for a second longer, then leaned down and kissed him.
It wasn't careful or shy. It was straightforward, the way she did everything. She just… did it. Pressing her mouth to his, her eyes closed with one hand bracing lightly on his shoulder.
Sunny made an undignified noise in the back of his throat and tightened his grip on her waist so he didn't fall off the stool. The kiss was soft, warm and tasted like spices and a little bit like chocolate. She was still figuring it out, you could feel that, tiny hesitations, little adjustments. But her focus was absolute.
He didn't pull her closer. He also absolutely did not pull away. He let it happen, let himself feel, just enough to answer without turning this into something he was not ready to think about.
When she finally drew back, it was only by a few centimeters. Her face was close, eyes open now, searching his like she was checking if the experiment had blown anything up.
"You feel less tight," she said.
"That is one way to put it," he managed, voice rougher than before.
"I mean your shoulders," she clarified. "They dropped."
"Right," he said. "My shoulders."
She thought about something, then gave a small, decisive nod. "I will do that again," she said. "When you look like you're going to break."
"That is not how normal people handle stress," he said weakly.
"I am not normal," Cielle said. "Neither are you."
Hard to argue with that.
She stepped back, the warmth of her body leaving his hands. The shirt fell back into place. The kitchen felt a little bigger again, and somehow emptier.
She went back to the sink, rinsing the last glass, and setting it upside down to dry. She also opened more lights, illuminating the house in light.
Sunny sat there, trying very hard not to think of the words that were jumping up and down in his head.
'This is not casual,'one of them whispered.
'Do not name it,' another hissed back. 'If you name it, it becomes real.'
He slid off the stool, moved to her side, and took the dishcloth before she could try to use it for something disastrous.
They dried dishes shoulder to shoulder in the small, warm pool of light, while outside, People of NQSC had started going about their business, the sounds of PTV's and people walking had filled the road.
Inside, for the moment, it was quiet.