Work Text:
Oh, I've been dreaming through my lonely past
Now I just made it, I found you at last
ABBA
It hits her like a bullet blooming through her skin.
The thought flows and flows until she reaches the inevitable conclusion. It wasn’t enough that Loid changed completely after the whole truth was out between them—the way he talks without a fake honey tone, the soft looks, the gun showing on his coat as he glances at the knives peeking under her dress.
It’s the domesticity with the smell of wet cigarettes.
But something else has changed.
Yor knows it in the way he touches her: there’s no moment his hand isn’t holding hers when they go grocery shopping, his arms wrapped around her waist as she washes the dishes, the need of showering together, wiping the corner of her mouth with his thumb, the way he braids her hair whenever she falls asleep on his chest.
How he winces like a child whenever she has to pull away from his touch for whatever reason.
Then she understands.
Her husband is touch-starved.
At first she thinks it’s adorable. Yor giggles as she pampers him, touching him back whenever he reaches for her—smiling brightly as she caresses his cheek and he leans against her touch like a cat. She lets herself float in this domestic bliss: his white button up shirt on her body just out of the bath falling to her tights, the smell of almonds and lavender from his half-dry hair, the sheets covering them as they murmur about their day and his fingers look higher, higher on the skin of her waist until they fall asleep like children.
But other times, her husband is a hungry storm.
The first time it happens, it’s after a mission she gets after a sudden call from the Shopkeeper in the middle of the night. Loid is hesitant to let her go, wrapping his arms around her waist as she gets dressed for her usual hunt, and she doesn’t need Anya to read her mind here: he’s overthinking what to do and what to say—even if, all in all, he trusts her completely. That’s why Yor smiles, and kisses him long and soft until he’s melting between her hands, slowly letting her go.
Yet when she comes back, his eyes shine like a piercing moonlight.
He’s there when she comes back, awake and sitting on the couch—leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees and his hair a mess, probably after nervously coming it too many times.
Yor slowly closes the door, careful to not awake Anya and a sleeping Bond. She licks her lips, and her blood shivers when she notices his eyes staring at the movement of her tongue. He has been waiting—he was worried to death. The mission took hours and hours longer than what was promised to her, which means that she was in actual danger, and Loid knows it.
He knows it, and Yor can see the faint tears swimming in the orbit of his eyes.
“Darling”, she murmurs, “I’m—”
But he doesn’t let her finish. He won’t.
Loid gets up and walks towards her—slow, careful, dangerous. A silent rage. Yor can only press herself against the door as she lets him come. She could easily avoid him, kick him, but she’s sucked into this dance between them that she trusts and loses control. But she doesn’t see the intensity coming, and his lips are desperate and seeking as he pins her against the door. The music of his heartbeat against her chest plays in her ears as he gives short, quick kisses on each bruise on the corner of her lips until his mouth lands again on her lips—demanding her to open them, drowning in her taste. His mouth is fast and demanding yet his hands are slow and tender—moving on her back and waist carefully, tracing the contours of her dress the way they search for meaning in a dictionary.
They stand like two shadows against the door with hearts in tandem: lips locked, sweaty palms, tongues wrestling to wring silent words. Loid squeezes her hand, she bites his lower lip—turning pink as she can’t breathe anymore. Her husband has mercy between the seconds, and lets her go, kissing her swollen lips one last time. With soft hands he brushes her face and in a movement that flows with grace their parted lips gently press against each other again, slow and tender, and soon enough their tongues caress.
They adjust, reconnect and sink back into each other. Again and again. A nebula is born in their mouths—each brush is thousands of electrons hitting each other. Again and again. Until the taste of her is imprinted on him as if it’s their first kiss. Again and again.
And then, Loid pulls away.
“You’re here”, he breathes heavily.
Yor tries to catch her breath together with him and nods. “Yes, I’m home, darling.”
He lets his head fall as in defeat, even if he’s filled with relief. His arms slide from the door to his side again, and all Yor can do is cup his face between her palms and kiss him repeatedly in the temple, repeating over and over that she’s home, that she’s here and alive and safe. But soon she understands that he wasn’t talking to her—he was telling himself that she’s back. He had been waiting for hours, after all—like a child waiting alone, knowing that there’s a war outside, unable to fight back. So he repeats to himself you’re here, you’re here until he lets his wife guide them to the bath and he makes sure to bandage all of her wounds.
To feel relieved by touching her.
He always needs to touch her to feel safe.
Yor notices that, everytime Anya comes back from school, Loid will always hold her in his lap: helping her with homework, watching her cartoons with her or simply listening about whatever happened in her day.
There’s a small, velvet smile on his lips as he listens to his daughter—and all Yor can do is smile happily as she sings a tune, watching from the kitchen. This is a little detail she has learned about her husband as well: he’s clingy when it comes to her daughter, almost as much as she is with him. He complains whenever she wants a ride on his shoulders or his back, but secretly, he adores it; he also makes sure to hold her hand whenever they go out, and wants to be the one to carry her to her bed whenever she falls asleep.
Hugs her tightly whenever he’s back from a long mission.
“Papa is clingy”, Anya complains once, but she isn’t really complaining.
And Yor understands that this is what her husband needs: the reassurance that her daughter is there with him, that she isn’t gone—that she exists.
Whenever he comes back from a late-night mission, Loid will sneak to Anya’s room to softly stare at her and confirm that she’s here, not hiding under the sheets or lost between the debris, but sleeping soundly hugging her chimera and Bond on a side. Then he kisses her softly in the top of her head, caressing her hair, letting the touch last a few seconds longer than in his mind.
Then he silently walks to his room, their room, tossing the gun over the little night table and stripping from his suit. Even when Yor wakes up and whispers that she will tend his wounds, he says, do it tomorrow, please, I need this now— only to wrap himself around her like branches around a rose. His arms sneak around her waist and his legs between hers, nuzzling his nose against the space between her shoulder and neck, losing himself in the waves of her scent.
Yor combs her fingers on his hair until he’s fast asleep—and she knows that right now, he feels alive and safe from any danger.
Anya tells her a secret: papa used to hug mama’s red sweater to sleep before he stopped being a big liar. After that , Y or can’t stop blushing for the rest of the day.
But there are nights where insomnia haunts like a claw—a flowered ghost.
A part of it comes from his lack of sleep in his lonely days as a spy. But deep down, he always stayed awake to avoid the nightmares—the grave of his childhood, the ruins of war, the blank faces staring back at him, blaming him for something that he can never figure out. Then he would stay awake and think about anything else: about the mission, the strategies and tactics. Anything from thinking about what his soul really traveled to. Before the Forgers, he would walk around the house he was staying to let the thoughts wander, but as Loid Forger he had to pretend to be asleep.
To play that he’s the good, healthy worker everyone needed to trust.
This is what he tells Yor the first time they sleep together in the same bed and a nightmare shakes him like a growing beast. That sleep scares him, he explains. He feels that he has never slept in his life: as a child scared of the bombs, as a soldier in alert for the enemy, as a spy for the fear of the past. He has lost the ability to sleep peacefully.
That’s why they take it slow.
Yor stays awake with him, even if he insists she doesn’t have to. She holds his hand and lets him know he can squeeze as hard as he needs, because it will never hurt, not to her. As soon as she touches him, his breath becomes calm, even. Then, his head resting on her shoulder, on her chest, holding her by the waist, until her hands find his back and caress there until her skin becomes wet under her.
He cries silently, very silently, as if a secret she can’t tell anyone.
Yor promises.
Still, sometimes, their daughter joins them. Anya says: I think papa needs more company tonight. And it’s not that she says it because she has read their minds—she just knows. Yor smiles and extends an arm, thanking her daughter, letting her cuddle against her papa as he slowly falls asleep as they both hug him.
He doesn’t have to play a role anymore. Not with them. The fearless, always-smiling-no-matter-what Loid Forger is now gone.
The real him rests next to her now.
Whenever Anya isn’t home, he unravels himself completely: pushing her against the wall or the table, running his fingers under a fever over the latex of her dress, closing the door of their room loudly as he wraps her legs around him, carrying her, no room for escape.
He buries her in the warmth of his embrace—drowning her in the scent of home.
Then they fall asleep like that: skin-to-skin, their bodies two lands finding each other. In the middle of the night, Yor wakes up with the sound of faint rain, and behind her she can feel her husband moving and placing himself on top of her again before she can notice he is awake. Then he starts, over and over again. Feverish. Euphoric. Endless. Sinking into her until she’s moaning against his temple—his name becomes her only vocab.
She knows his everything and he knows hers.
But her husband can also be overprotective.
Sometimes, it’s too much. Not the caring or the protection—his rage is, the stubbornness.
It happens after she comes back from a job where she’s too badly injured, almost passing out in his arms after she comes back home. Loid treats her quickly and softly, washing her in the bath and carefully bandaging her. Never letting go until he’s done, cradling her in his arms.
Yor would finally relax and fall asleep if it wasn’t for the rage in his eyes.
“Who did this?”
His question the echo of a god in the walls.
Yor looks up at him, sighing. “The job is done, Loid, there’s no—”
“Who did this, Yor? I know who you were sent to. I know there are more of them.”
Yor bites her lip, knowing what this means. He wants this to be taken care of by himself, or not taken care of at all. Locking her away from danger, and she understands, she does , really. She understands his fear, the feeling of losing everyone in a war, in killing. But she’s here, she’s alive, isn’t that enough?
She lets those thoughts out loud from her weak voice, and it becomes worse. Yor is naive enough to think it’s done as her husband sighs and carries her to their bedroom, carefully putting the blankets over her and sliding to her side when she tugs on the sleeve of his shirt, asking him to join her.
But the next day, their second or third big fight happens: Loid doesn’t let her go to any more of her own missions, and doesn’t even want her to answer the phone in case that it’s the Shopkeeper asking for her. That’s when she unravels as well—an angry storm against a raging beast. They become a furious sea collapsing in the air. It’s not too long until they notice Anya watching with teary eyes, peeking from behind the door (and a scared Bond behind her too).
That’s when they finally stop, but they don’t talk for the rest of the day.
It’s torture for them, still.
When they make up, knitting promises to each other about being alive and trusting one another, Loid doesn’t let go of her at all: his arms wrapped around her as she washes the dishes, his hand caressing her leg and hand under the table as they eat, kissing her for hours and hours until they fall asleep.
She knows he has missed her terribly, even for less than a day.
Sometimes, when he’s out on a mission, longer than usual, he calls.
Yor knows it’s because he needs to hear their voices.
She talks for long eternities that last minutes, smiling like a young girl talking to her sweetheart as they talk in code—pretending that he’s out on a business trip even if he is in fact in another city, so far away, so out of touch. He whispers sweet nothings to her and she whispers back, touching with the words, each syllable carrying a sigh.
“Anya wants to say hello too!”, her daughter tugs on her sweater, followed by Bond happily waving his tail.
Giggling, she hands her the phone, and Anya is loud and happy and filled with summer euphoria. Yor can hear Loid’s voice louder too, following his daughter’s excitement as well as he can, and both giggle when she passes the phone to Bond, telling him to say hello too.
Yor doesn’t know that her husband is holding back choked tears whenever he listens to them.
She loves working on missions together with him.
But this time, she wishes they both would be together with their daughter at home—safe.
She can’t promise him that everything will turn out to be alright, because everything is too blurry, and the bruises on her skin bloom like poisoned flowers, and—
Far away, she can hear her husband’s pleading voice.
Is he hurt too? Is he holding her right now? Is he safe and alive, away from here, where he should be?
The battlefield is empty now, and they’re two lost children lost in the ruins.
A haunting memory comes back from the depths towards him.
In the darkness, he runs, carrying her in his arms. He battles himself to take her home or to a hospital, and comes up with the best lie he can. He looks down at her ripped dress and dry blood tattooed on her bruised skin. He recurs to Twilight, peeking through his mind, but even he doesn’t know how to act. Seconds are slipping through his fingers and her breath becomes slower and slower—and Loid remembers it, the nothingness, the haunting silence after the battle, the voices of those he knew now gone. He looks down at his wife, and she looks so peaceful it scares him.
So he runs and runs, faster, like he’s a child again.
She wants to tenderly touch his face and feel the warmth from his skin that it’s now gone. She wants to bury herself in the scent of home of him. She wants to reassure him: You have me, darling. Until every last star in the galaxy dies. You have me.*
But as if floating in an endless void, she falls asleep.
The sound of rain awakes her, and he’s there, next by the window of their room—gazing at her.
His smile is filled with indolent things. But she can notice the sadness and tiredness on the corners.
Yor touches her legs and feels the fabric of the bandages under the tip of her fingers. Loid has healed her again, just like he always does. With difficulty, she tries to get up, feeling all pain gone but her body heavy with the aftermaths of fighting. Her husband quickly gets up and helps her sit, and the warmth of his big palm on her back brings her back to life. Yor smiles, relieved and grateful, she’s happy; but when she looks up at him, he isn’t smiling at her—a pained, scared expression draws on the shadow of his face, and she knows that the terror on his bones isn’t gone.
She places a palm on his cheek, gently moving his face to look at her, and when she notices the teary eyes on the ocean of his orbits, her heart breaks.
“Loid”, she calls, voice fragile and made of stardust. “I’m here.”
Her husband places a hand on her palm resting on his face. “But for how long?”
She lets out a choked sob, hating herself for giving him this fear he doesn’t deserve to revive. “Forever. Until you get tired of me.”
He lets out a noise between a sob and a chuckle, resting his forehead against hers. “Don’t ever say that again. Without you, I’m only half of myself.”
Yor smiles, kissing the single tear sliding on his face.
“It’s the same for me. That’s why you help me live, and I help you”, her whisper echoes in the silence of the room. “And Anya helps us both.”
He nods, and her chest is filled with cotton when she sees the smallest smile on his face.
They stay like that for long minutes. The sound of rain lulls them, carries them, each drop on the window becoming a word they don’t need to say. The darkness of the room is eternal, and no one waits for it to be illuminated. Loid says something else that makes her giggle, and their kiss is soft and filled with more glory than pain—just like their first kiss. Yor notices the hesitation of his hands on her, as if he’s afraid to touch, as much as he needs to. So she guides his palms: to her cheeks, her shoulders, the exposed chest on his button up shirt dressing her. She murmurs— it’s alright, I need you too. But her husband still hesitates, and she kisses the corner of his lips with a sweetness that takes him out of breath. Then she remembers the words echoing on the drowning waters of her mind.
You have me. Until every last star in the galaxy dies. You have me.*
This time, she murmurs these words out loud, and they are enough for him to nuzzle his face on her shoulder and carefully let her fall into the bed.
His hands are cotton and rough velvet. They are everywhere, as if touching her for the first time. But she insists—guiding his hands under the fabric of the shirt, wrapping her bandaged legs around him. This is all she ever needed, all she ever wanted.
Her husband floats together with her, and his touch on her skin replaces each wound with a star.
“I’m here”, she sighs in bliss, and when he sinks home inside her, he knows.
The dust of sunshine peeks through the window on her exhausted face.
Yor breathes in and out, in and out, until she extends her arms and the little ball of blankets is handed to her—and she feels reborn. It’s, in some way, the same feeling when she became Anya’s mother, even if the situation is different, after the long waiting and pain in the last hours.
Two big red eyes welcome her, curious and filled with age, and Yor’s teary smile expands as she whispers hello to her son. She stays like that for long, peaceful minutes, until Loid enters the room.
His eyes are filled with awe and fear.
“Darling”, she calls merrily. “He’s here.”
Loid opens his mouth to speak, but closes it immediately. He carefully walks towards his wife, as if he’s afraid to disturb the peace that lulls her. He peeks to the little person on his wife’s arms, and his breath hitches. It’s not after a moment when Yor offers him the little ball of blankets, until he finally accepts. The image of him carrying their child feels like out of a dream: the sun washing over his features, the golden hair like his and his son a mess, and his eyes filled with everything good.
Suddenly, somehow, everything in the world feels fixed.
“Yor”, he says, still in awe. “He’s here.”
She giggles and nods, and when Anya enters the room with hesitation and fear, Loid holds out a hand towards his daughter to let her know it’s alright. He sits at his daughter’s level to let her see her new brother, and when her smile of cherries fills her little face, Yor knows they will be alright. “Yes, darling, we’re here”, she sighs.
Loid looks up at her, and smiles brightly. There’s a fear gone from his eyes, a weight lifted from his shoulders. Yet she still sees the silent question in his eyes: for how long? And yet, Yor has had the answer to such a question stored within her for four years, nine months and two days—from the very moment she met him at that store:
"All my life."