#this has been Joke Police (Because Yeah Good Taste And Not Being A Dick Applies Even If You're Progressive) Hour with vic

[gloriousmonsters]

5 minutes and i again see

someone: *makes a joke about how taylor swift should tell people to kill ron desantis for her because it would be super effective*

someone else: haha, no she wouldn't say it right out. Here's a string of emojis and let me explain what the references are, as Taylor Swift is wont to play little games with promoting stuff where she knows her fans have often been with her throughout her career and will get references to specific songs/albums/events, therefore allowing her to create decodable messages

someone else: WOW THIS IS JUST LIKE QANON

[tysonrunningfox]

Two Night Stand AU: Part 8

Sometimes, you finish things on a quest for feeling accomplished and end up not feeling accomplished but also things are done.  And it’s bittersweet, but like, in the baking chocolate way where sure they’re sugar there as a concept but god, at what cost? 

Ao3

“Knock knock,” Ruffnut cracks Astrid’s bedroom door and peeks inside, and thankfully Astrid notices the plate of pancakes in her hand before calling her out on her less than stellar knocking etiquette. 

“Those better be for me, I’m not in the mood to watch you eat pancakes.” 

“A peace offering,” she nods, handing the plate to Astrid.  There’s a smiley face of strawberries on the top pancake and it makes her think of oatmeal from a world ago, and her stomach feels like it’s twisting around a rock. 

“What did I do to deserve a peace offering?” 

“Did you tell her yet?”  Snotlout appears in the doorway, thankfully clothed, and Ruffnut glares at him. 

“Tell me what?” 

“The pancakes were to keep your mouth full while I very gently tried to tell you that well…” She exhales, and Astrid wonders when Ruffnut grew up and started trying to be gentle. 

Or maybe she didn’t.  Maybe Astrid is just fragile now, and it’s a relief when the thought makes her furious, some forgotten lick of heat and anger swirling in her chest. 

“What is it?”  She takes a bite of the pancakes, forcing it down even though it feels dry in her mouth. 

“Should I be here for this, or…” Snotlout points over his shoulder, “or I can go—”

“Just tell me,” Astrid snaps, the newly re-discovered edge in her voice making Ruffnut raise her eyebrows. 

“We really liked having the place to ourselves,” she says, “Snotlout is ready to take over the lease, and since I’m the primary name on the apartment—”

“Yeah,” Astrid doesn’t need to hear the dissertation about why she needs to move on from this stagnant phase, because it’s finally on repeat in her head again, the silent assertion that tomorrow needs to be different.  That she needs to make tomorrow different.  “You’re right, I’ll…start figuring it out.” 

“I told you she could take it,” Snotlout tells Ruffnut, “it’s Astrid, after all.” 

“Yeah, and she hasn’t been acting like Astrid—”

“She’s right here,” Astrid clears her throat, “and I get it, I’ve…kept your second bedroom occupied long enough.” 

“You can stay as long as you need to,” Snotlout nods, “like a day.  Two days.  Through the week, maybe—”

“I’ll…figure it out.”  She says, shocked when she actually believes it.  Or at least she believes she can believe it.  That she might be believable once again.  

The second bite of pancakes tastes better. 

“Ok, then,” Snotlout claps, “we can share boxes, if you want, I’ve got like, a fuckton of boxes at my place—”  He cuts off with a grunt when Ruff smacks him in the stomach.  “Hey, I’m being helpful—”

“What happened to you?” Ruffnut asks, risking her fingers to steal a strawberry off of Astrid’s plate. 

She thinks about telling the whole truth, but doesn’t want to cry about it.  She doesn’t want to hear about what an asshole Hiccup is.  She doesn’t want to think about him, and she’s starting to remember how to force her thoughts in a direction. 

“Apparently it took a near hostage situation for me to get off my ass.” 

“Or some good dick,” Ruffnut jokes, but she looks relieved, and Astrid wonders how long she’s had that worried frown for Astrid to be so used to it. 

“Wasn’t all that,” she lies, still not thinking about him.  Not remembering what he said as she was leaving, after he proved to be everything she hates.  Not thinking about how it hurt to hurt him, even though that’s stupid.  Beyond stupid. 

“Well,” Ruffnut pats her leg, “either way, we have to get ready for the party tonight.” 

“Shouldn’t I be finishing my application or looking for an apartment with a totally possible monthly rent of zero dollars?”  She laughs, a little overwhelmed, but after months thinking she’d never even be whelmed again, it’s not unwelcome. 

“All the responsible returns at once,” Ruffnut snorts, “it’s our last New Years as roommates, come on.  One last party.  Snotlout’s dumb pretty friends are invited, you can continue your successful streak…”

“Oh God, no thank you.”  She sets the half-eaten pancakes aside, “I’m good, on that front.  Dating profile deleted, lesson learned, focus regained.” 

“So it was horrible dick, then,” Snotlout muses, “you know, I always kind of thought something would happen with the three of us while you two were living together.  And now that the days—or even hours, you could say, are numbered—”

“Still my room,” Astrid points at the door, “both of you, out.” 

“All the bossiness back at once,” Ruffnut smacks Snotlout on the back of the head as she stands up, “and you, stop being gross.” 

“You love me,” he follows her, grabbing her butt, and her giggle makes Astrid’s chest twinge. 

And she doesn’t think of Hiccup.  She doesn’t think how for a night it felt like something.  How for a day it felt like friends.  How he looked at her like he saw her, like she was more than her recent mistakes. 

Because even if that were true, it doesn’t change what he did.  When someone tells you who they are, it’s best to believe them, and Hiccup showed his hand. 

And his foot.  And she wishes he’d never made it her business, but there’s no changing that now.  There’s just forward. 

00000

“Really, I think you’d enjoy it.”  The guy who can’t read social cues drones on even as Astrid tries to make herself as obviously uninterested as possible, nursing her third drink of the night and trying not to resent everyone else for having fun.  “I don’t understand the stigma so many adults have against animation, but really it’s a show about the bond between man and dragon, and the world building on an already beloved franchise is vast.  You could say chief-sized.” 

He laughs at his own joke.  The joke that she doesn’t get, or care to get. 

“And with the coincidence of your name and appearance,” he gestures at her and she doesn’t remember Hiccup saying she was pretty over a video call, “I think you could really get into it.  Plus, the romance angle.”  He chuckles and she gets the impression he’s going to reach for her, or something, and she wonders who invited him.  She was promised Snotlout’s dumb, pretty friends, not some guy obsessed with a kids’ show about dragons that he’s been harping on about for twenty minutes.  “A great slow burn between well, the beautiful Viking warrior and the late-blooming future chief.” 

He gestures at himself. 

Her mother always told her that if she doesn’t have anything nice to say, she shouldn’t say anything at all.  Her uncle always told her that was bullshit, and sometimes people need a reality check. 

The only problem is she doesn’t know what reality he’s living in, so she doesn’t know from which direction to apply that check. 

She blinks slowly and chugs the rest of her drink to avoid that decision. 

“You know, it’s polite to respond when someone is trying to have a conversation with you.” 

“Dude,” she stands up, “I’m just intimidated as hell, you know.” 

“Oh, no, Astrid,” he says her name like it matters more than the rest of her and she doesn’t think about Hiccup pleading it at her, saying if he’d known she existed, his life would be different, and it’s a cruel twist that some nerd sees fate in her materialization tangential to his fantasy.  It’s like she hasn’t existed while she’s been unseen, and it makes her want to scream. 

“You’ve got me built up into this whole…thing, and I’m really not.”  She says some sanitized version of what she’d scream at Hiccup if she saw him.  She leaves out the ‘yet’ that she thought he had the capacity to understand, even if only for a second. 

“No, but you are,” he tells her, and she hates that it’s not a line, that he’s staring through her and telling her who he wants her to be.    

Mostly, she hates it because she was hoping for that a week ago. 

She hates it because it’s easy to identify the pivot point where she stopped waiting for someone else to instruct her and started asking for more.  Better.  She hates how she’d have to precede her rant at Hiccup with ‘thank you’. 

Good thing that won’t happen. 

“Fucking hell,” she swears to herself as she flops on one side of the couch, wishing she’d thought to grab another drink. 

“Astrid, right?”  Someone approaches her, a tinge of concern in their drunk voice, and she looks him up and down. 

Handsome, nothing behind the eyes.  No wit or charm or jokes about Bundy paraphernalia that should have made her run. 

“Are you Snotlout’s dumb, pretty friend?”  She asks.  He smirks, but the concern grows too as he points at the open front door where two uniformed police officers are waiting. 

“I mean, I don’t really know him that well, but sure.  I can be.”  He grins, teeth straight and uniform.  And there’s charm there, sure, but it’s generic.  A mass-produced kind of ubiquity to it that’s comforting, like she could get it anywhere and be reasonably confident in the outcome.  “But are you Astrid?” 

“I can be,” she jokes, wondering what the nerd would have said to the same line.  She doesn’t wonder what Hiccup would have said because it probably would have been something obnoxious, like he could pull off ‘I know’. 

“No, I mean—are you the Astrid Hofferson secondary on the lease?  They’re looking for Astrid Hofferson.”  He points at the cops again. 

“Well, considering I’m coming off the lease this week, I think any noise complaints should go to Ruffnut Thorston, who is over there.” 

Maybe it’s the universe righting itself.

“No, they’re asking particularly for you.  Something about breaking and entering?”  Stupid-Handsome scratches the back of his neck and she freezes, smile turned waxy on her face. 

Of course not.  That would require too much luck.  Be too easy. 

00000

“Did you write this note, or not?”  The officer at the station asks for what feels like the hundredth time, and Astrid knows, finally and absolutely, that Thank You notes are stupid and that her mom is and has always been wrong. 

What are you even supposed to do when you get a Thank You note anyway?  Does it require yet another Thank You?  Is it just the start to a never-ending procession of false politeness that people had time for before the internet? 

A gift is a gift, an in-person thank you is enough, writing it down is just a legal liability. 

“I don’t know where you got that.” 

“That doesn’t answer my question, Miss Hofferson.” 

She should ask for a lawyer. 

She can’t afford a lawyer. 

Hiccup should have to pay for her lawyer for framing her. 

“Yes, I wrote the note,” she blurts, “but I did not leave it anywhere than I had broken and entered into—”

“It was found in a Mr. Johann’s apartment, inside of a broken window.” 

“Yeah, I obviously just left an eyeliner note behind after smashing a window.” 

“Is that a confession?” 

“It’s sarcasm,” she sputters, “I didn’t—who told you about this?  Was it a guy?  On the phone he sounds like he’s plugging his nose like a nerd who never learned to hold his breath in the pool?”  She doesn’t think of Hiccup’s voice.  Her heart doesn’t twinge like it’s been stepped on. 

“Let me escort you to the holding cell while I confirm our source.”  The hesitation is obvious, and she feels rooted to the shitty, cold, plastic chair. 

“What happens if I don’t ‘let’ you?”  She asks, half-wishing she’d taken the dragon nerd up on the offer to play Viking warrior in a back room, except even joking about that internally makes her feel claustrophobic, like there’s no room in her for any more complication. 

Like Hiccup is weaseling his way back in where he doesn’t belong and crowding her. 

“Follow me, Miss.” 

00000

The next hour stretches.  In fact, she’s not entirely sure that it’s an hour, maybe all seconds just feel like hours when she’s in a concrete holding cell next to a woman who has puked into a government provided bucket 4 times. 

This is going to look great on her medical school application. 

Why do you want to be a doctor?

Well, my time in jail really showed me that the public’s opinion on alcohol is irresponsible.  Alcohol poisoning shouldn’t be a social activity.  Except it should, because it sounds like something I want to engage in right now, given that I had to mention jail on a medical school application.  Also, I want to help people, or something, especially after all this time I’ve spent being helped.  Not that karma operates on an economic model of supply and demand, but also, from what I know about capitalism and upward mobility, I’m not taking any chances. 

“Astrid Hofferson?”  The officer appears again, asking her name like he didn’t just spend an irrationally long time confirming it.  “You made bail.” 

“That’s impossible.  I haven’t even made my phone call yet.” 

“Well, there’s someone downstairs offering to pay your bail.” 

“Who is it?”  She narrows her eyes, trying to remember where Ruffnut was when she left the party. 

“Some guy,” the officer shrugs. 

“That narrows it down,” she snorts. 

“Most people don’t turn down bail.” 

“I’m not most people,” she crosses her arms, getting comfortable on the bench next to Pukey McPukerson.  “Who is it?” 

“Some guy,” the officer repeats, “tall, skinny, saying something about convincing his neighbor not to press charges.” 

“No.”  She puts her foot down.  Or she would, if it weren’t already down.  It’s so down the ball of her foot is starting to go asleep from the hard floor and she lets the tingle anchor her. 

“No?” 

“I don’t want his bail.  Just give me my phone call.” 

“You’re turning down bail?”  The officer asks and she nods, “I…honestly don’t know what to do with that.” 

“I’ll take it,” Pukey offers and Astrid glares at her. 

“You just stick to your bucket.”  She grumbles, “you only get one liver, you know.” 

“Oh, you’re a doctor now?”  Pukey rolls her eyes and Astrid crosses her arms. 

“Not yet.”  The yet feels like fire under that numb foot and she nods to herself, more resolute in her protest. 

“So, you want me to go tell this guy that you don’t want his bail?”  The cop asks and she raises an eyebrow. 

“I’ll tell him.” 

“I’m not supposed to let you out of holding without bail.” 

“I thought you didn’t know what to do with me,” Astrid antagonizes.  She’s not even sure why.  She’s glad she’s white.  Not in a ‘it’s great to be white’, disgusting way, but a ‘this little emotional peak would have had devastating consequences if she weren’t white’ way. 

She’s entirely shocked when the officer lets her out, apparently taking her suggestion to let her tell Hiccup where he can shove his bail, and that’s how she ends up at the top of the stairs, looking down at him. 

He has balloons. 

He looks miserable.  Desperate.  All of the things that her pettiest side has always wanted someone to feel when she left, instead of the other way around. 

“What if I told you that I helped?  Would you lock me up with her?”  He asks, and the officer behind the desk coughs. 

“Are you confessing, or?” 

“Yeah, no, I have no interest in this particular bail.”  She points back towards the holding cell, “I’d like my phone call, please.” 

“Astrid,” Hiccup calls up at her, like he’s said her name a thousand times, and her fingernails dig into her forearm with the force it takes to keep her arms crossed.  “I—I didn’t know what else to do, you deleted your account—”

“Not this, you idiot.”  She flings the insult like it weighs more than it does, and he goes along with the charade, crumpling slightly in a way she wishes she didn’t notice. 

“I know.  I know, I just—I broke up with Heather—”

“I don’t care.”  She almost wishes that she would yell, to impress upon him how much she means it, but it comes out calculating.  No, more than calculating, like she knows the answers already, and she feels like a liar.   

“Please.”  He begs.  She should like it.  It makes her feel worse and she wishes it were easier to resent him. 

“Phone call.  Please.” 

She gets Ruffnut’s voice mail.  Pukey lives up to her nickname and pukes twice more.  She thinks about her applications. 

Why do you want to be a doctor?

‘Because no matter what has happened in my life, the idea of helping people has been a North Star.  Yes, I know I have a fucking criminal record for breaking and entering, but in my defense, I really had to pee.  Also, the guy who half-framed me used me to cheat on his girlfriend so…

So, it doesn’t matter that he’s smart and funny and that it felt like he saw me.  It doesn’t matter that he admitted he was wrong.  It doesn’t matter that no one has ever looked at me like they were desperate before. 

It doesn’t matter that I liked it, even vindictively.  Even cruelly.  Even in a last-minute attempt to feel like I wasn’t part of the problem.’ 

So, yeah.  She’ll get into medical school. 

As a patient. 

Because how else is she going to get the therapy she so clearly needs without health insurance? 

“Astrid Hofferson,” the officer returns, “you made bail. Again.” 

“Lucky bitch,” Pukey moans into her bucket. 

“Is it—”

“It’s someone else,” the officer sighs, “do you need to vet them too?” 

“I wouldn’t mind.”  She stands up, shocked all over again when the officer escorts her to the top of the stairs. 

Ruffnut is downstairs counting money and the relief is almost perfectly drowned out when she sees Hiccup still standing there, stupid balloon waving in the heater blasting over his head. 

“Is this bail acceptable to you?”  The officer asks and she nods, resolving to ignore Hiccup even as she can’t look away from the fact that even the top of his head is miserable. 

Good. 

He deserves it. 

She’s not sad that he was so stupid.  He doesn’t feel like something lost.  It’s…post-orgasmic hormones that make her want him to be better.  It’s just the result of a long, satisfying experiment that makes her want to accept an apology. 

“Parked the car,” Snotlout appears in the doorway, “paid for fifteen minutes, so can we hurry this up?” 

“Snotlout?”  Hiccup bolts upright, recognition in his voice startling him out of his situationally appropriate moping. 

“Hiccup?”  Snotlout freezes, “what’s—why do you have balloons?” 

“Why…don’t you?”  Hiccup snorts, miserable and funnier for it, “everyone knows that New Year’s Eve is balloon hour at the police station.” 

The TV behind the intake desk shows the ball dropping and Snotlout and Ruffnut move habitually, pecking each other on the lips, and Astrid thinks she’d rather be in the holding cell.  Maybe her bail can be donated to charity.  She could be the face of The ‘don’t online date instead of finishing things’ Foundation.  The ‘just because Grandma is on Facebook doesn’t mean there aren’t still people on the internet who can and will ruin your life’ Initiative. 

The ‘sometimes when you make your bed you do actually have to lie in it’ Charitable Organization, under the sub-heading of ‘Don’t have sex with people who might interact with your arrest record’. 

“Can we go home?”  Astrid breaks the tension, leaning into Ruffnut’s side.  “The meter’s running.” 

“But it’s Hiccup,” Snotlout whispers at Ruffnut, “you know my weirdo cousin—”

“Thanks for that,” Hiccup blushes and Astrid wants to ask why and to hit him and mostly, to never want to see him again, because it’s impossible to stop looking at him. 

“What have you been up to?”  Snotlout punches him in the shoulder and Hiccup looks desperately at Astrid again, undistracted by the distraction.  “Wait—no, you know Astrid?” 

“He got me arrested.” 

“I didn’t know her last name,” Hiccup defends himself, “Astrid—I—there’s no way in any brand of hell that I could stop thinking about you and—”

“You fucked Astrid?”  Snotlout claps his hands against his cheeks, “this is—Oh my God, I don’t think I’ve seen you since high school graduation and now you’re the guy my girlfriend’s roommate hooks up with—”

“Snot!”  Astrid snaps, “let’s go.” 

“Astrid.”  Hiccup stumbles between her and the door, stupid balloon slapping against a corner.�� “You have to listen to me.” 

“Hmm, ok, I’ll listen to you when you’re a witness against me, in court, because you got me arrested—”

“That was one time!”  He yells, too loud for a police station, “sorry, I—too soon, I get it.  I get it.  I—we had two nights together.” 

“Because of a blizzard.” 

“Whatever, I don’t—”  He reaches for her but thinks better of it and his hands shake between them with the desire to make his point.  “We had two nights together and yes, I should have told you about Heather.  I thought about it, but I couldn’t—I didn’t want to waste a second—it might not work out.” 

“And he sees sense,” her heart falls anyway, with all that saturated green staring at her, all that intensity that she can’t make unfamiliar in her mind.  “Let’s go, guys.” 

“No, no.  Please.”  He’s smart enough to only tap Ruffnut on the shoulder, “it might not work out, because two nights is…an insufficient trial period.” 

“I’m not a Netflix subscription!”  She snaps, and he has a way of making her certain that she wants to cling to, no matter how stupid that is. 

“No.  You’re—if we spend more time together, you might realize that I’m…insufferable during game shows.  And I might learn that you’re…really into weird cartoons that I hate.” 

“You did not just say that!” 

He read her mind again, and it’s not allowed. 

“Can we move this along?”  An officer indicates and Snotlout ushers them towards the door. 

“Fuck. Shit.  Fuck.”  Hiccup sputters, “not at you, not at anyone, I just—you can’t storm out again.  You can’t.  Not without hearing what I have to say—”

“You got me arrested.”  Astrid growls, “I spent the last few hours in a cell with someone throwing up, I—this is going on my record, how am I getting into medical school now?” 

“You’re applying?”  He grins, too wide, too bright, and she’d hit him if she could trust herself not to enjoy the authenticity in his reaction.  “That’s—I didn’t know what to do—”

“Not get me thrown in jail?”  She proposes. 

“Can we potentially leave jail out of the argument for why you never want to see me again?”  He winces even as he’s talking and she recognizes the face she’s felt herself make too many times, unwilling to stop even though she’s behind.  “For now, at least.  I truly believe this will be funny later, this is something we’ll laugh about—”

“Jail.”  She re-iterates.  “Like with bars. And cops.  And a single phone call.  Actual jail.” 

“I think it’s one of those jokes that needs time.”  He’s defeated.  She hates it.  She hates herself for hating it. 

“Ok,” she takes her phone from the evidence box on the nearby counter and hands it to him.  “Give me your number.  I will call you the second this is funny.” 

Which is never. 

“Ok,” he nods, and she refuses to look at his quick thumbs programming his number into her phone.  She refuses to see whether he’s Hiccup or Princess Outpost, because it doesn’t matter.  She’s not going to text it. 

“Ok.”  She takes the phone back. 

He hands her the stupid balloons. 

“So…bye,” she makes herself say it, waving him towards the door. 

“You’ll…” He swallows the rest of whatever he was about to say and she shrugs. 

He leaves. 

It’s different being left when the other party doesn’t want to go.  Less lonely.  More permanent, if only for her choice being implicated. 

“Sorry about that,” Astrid says reflexively to the officer who’d dealt with her in the cell and he holds a hand up. 

“That guy was nuts.” 

“Can I get his number though?”  Snotlout asks, scuffing his shoe against the linoleum.  Astrid blinks at him.  “What?” 

“You’re so stupid,” Ruffnut fills in the gap, hugging Astrid a little tighter, and Astrid’s going to miss her.  She’s going to miss this entire miserable, unending, painful period of her life, isn’t she? 

Closing doors always hurts, even when they need to be closed.  Even more when they don’t. 

“He’s my long-lost cousin, and I learn that he’s Astrid’s hostage dick?  I’m curious—”

“Snotlout.” Ruff cautions, careful again. 

And that’s not what Astrid wants.  She doesn’t want people to be careful, she wants honest.  She wants…

She blinks back a frustrated approximation of a tear and looks up at the stupid balloon Hiccup gave her.  One side reads ‘I’m sorry’.  The other reads ‘I’m an asshole’. 

She laughs. 

Not a cynical laugh, but a real bubble of something from underneath the layers.  Her intuition taking the reins. 

“Fuck,” she sits down in yet another shitty plastic chair, pulling up her contacts and finding Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III (an awful name).  His address is there.  So is his social security number.  She’d steal his identity and start over if his name weren’t a bodily function.  “You guys can go.” 

“Are you sure?”  Ruffnut asks, but there’s relief there too. 

“Yeah, I’ll get you back for the bail, ok?” 

“And you’ll get me Hiccup’s number—”

“Snotlout, go.”  She orders him like she has the authority and it seems to work.  And then she calls Hiccup.  It gets through half a ring before he’s picking up, breathless and pathetic and like he needs her.  She doesn’t know if she’s ever been needed, but she likes it.  “You are an asshole, for the record.” 

“Recorded.” 

“And an idiot.” 

“Yeah.” 

“And next time you decide to attempt romance, at least practice your speech first because that was awful.” 

“Basically, I was forced to endure it while like, astrally projecting above myself to judge myself.”  He laughs, sound husky in the speakers, and she thinks he’s outside, in the cold.  “It was awful.” 

“In the spirit of constructive criticism, it was appalling.  Truly.” 

“I’m sorry I put you in jail.”  He answers, authentic, and when she looks at the police station door, he’s outside, watching her hold his stupid vulgar balloon while the officers probably judge her sanity. 

She hangs up and steps outside, not surprised when he kisses her even as she doesn’t expect the tenderness in his hand against the back of her neck, the soft desperation in his lips. 

“Too soon,” she pushes him back, fingers staying fisted in his lapels, largely outside of her control. “You got me arrested.” 

“But have you considered how much tougher you seem now?”  He jokes, gloved fingers twined in hers as he tugs her down the sidewalk. 

“Absolutely,” she snorts, “already thinking about how to incorporate this into my application.” 

“Well, don’t worry about Mr. Johann’s interpretation,” he squeezes her hand and she squeezes back, sure of herself for some reason she can’t be sure of. 

“Oh yeah, did you kill him?” 

“Totally.” 

“Without me?”  She teases, and it’s a new year, the snowbanks on either side of the street barely soot-stained. 

“Too many witnesses out here,” he scans the empty street, “your place?” 

“To be fair, I don’t really have a place, I have a bed for a couple more days of Ruffnut’s charity.” 

“Oh, I only ask because I don’t have a place either,” he says it like he means it and she believes him because she wants to.  Because it feels instinctive in a way she feared she’d forgotten. 

“You’re a catch.” 

“Yeah,” he snorts, and she squeezes his hand first this time. 

“I think I’m ready for that kiss now.” 

“What if I don’t like your prison breath?”  He tucks her hair behind her ear, fingers strong and hesitant under her jaw. 

“Probably shouldn’t have sent me to prison.” 

“Fair enough.”