oh my god I had completely forgotten I'd posted this fic on this website and I never uploaded the second chapter! If anyone remembers me - I'm so sorry. I've published it on ao3 and then moved on ... but here it is. forgive me. I am an idiot.

II

mugs&galaxy bed sheets

Had Leo not woken her up, Mattie probably would have slept until 12.

She glared up at him from under her hair and pillow, then hid again under the covers.

'Goway.' she said very maturely, ignoring his chuckle and shove. 'Go away, mate.'

'Come on, Mattie.' Leo insisted. 'I have to get you back home.'

That was enough to wake her up; she got out of the covers to look at him, her face blank.

'Sorry?'

Leo gave her an apologetic smile, and even had the nerve to sit on the edge of the bed.

'You can't stay here.' he continued, seeming strangely interested by the details on the palm of his hand. 'It's too dangerous.'

Mattie remained silent for a few minutes, tried to get a better look at him. He didn't look like he'd got that much sleep either - hair more ruffled than usual, deep blue stains underneath his eyes. Red smudges on his neck. He kept avoiding her glance and she felt her anger boil against her throat. She blurted:

'You can't do this.'

'I'm sorry, but -'

'That's not fair, Leo.'

He looked at the ceiling, took a long breath, as if looking for something appropriate to say. Mattie didn't give him the time to reply.

'I've been working my ass off for the past two months, just to give you guys the chance to - to live, to be able to live freely and with no fear of seeing yourselves dismantled under the pretence that you couldn't possibly exist. You can't just shove me away like this, and pretend it's because I'm in danger.'

'But you are!' Leo replied, his voice less controlled than before. 'I can't let you get involved in this! It's not safe, and it's already hard enough to deal with the impending doom over my family's heads, without having to protect you too -'

'Oh, cut the crap Leo. I can look after myself. You don't get to patronise me like this. I want to help - there is nothing waiting for me at home, there is no real difference I could ever make there, and I want to make a difference.'

He looked at her then; she could see how much he was tempted to accept, how much he longed for the company of a human - she had gotten there, had gotten through his barriers and wore him off of his eternal mistrust of the organics. But he couldn't accept, she could see it - and she couldn't understand why.

'That's not the kind of life you want.' he finally said, his voice shaky. 'You have a family who loves you, you have a home and a future.'

'So could you.' Mattie replied matter-of-factly. 'All of you. That's why I'm here. I'm not going anywhere.'

Leo let out a strange sound - frustration, defeat and irritation all at once.

'I don't want anyone to get hurt.'

'I won't.'

'You're -'

Mattie waited.

' - insufferable.'

'That's my middle name,' Mattie replied. 'So now, will you kindly get off my bed so I can get dressed?'

Leo's cheeks flushed pink and he got up, giving her one last look with that same expression one gave to a puppy they'd impulsively gotten for Christmas, wondering how the hell they could get rid of it or have it cooperate. But as Mattie went for the bra she'd left lying on the floor, he fled the bedroom. She remained there, getting dressed while watching the colourful wallpaper made out of pirates and princesses fighting sea monsters, and she thought of Sophie, and realised it had been a long time since she'd taken the time to talk to her, play with her or even listen - she'd been off, recently. Her parents had taken her to a shrink. Mattie'd been so focused on her studies, fixing Odi and the consciousness code, she'd almost forgotten all about her family - she didn't even know much about Niska's trial.

She looked at her phone - there were now 20 missed calls altogether, from her dad, mum and Toby. Her chest constricted with the temptation to call them for some news.

She wondered if maybe Hester had something to do with Leo's insistence that she leave. She thought of the previous evening - of that toothpaste stain on her cheek and Leo's warm fingers on her skin. Of Hester's look when she stood by the door of the bathroom, watching them quietly.

Mattie was not naive; she remembered how it had been, when they first met, that spark, that little something they'd both slipped in between their words and stolen glances. That feeling of belonging, of finally finding their kin, their intellectual equal, with which they shared a passion for unholy hours of coding and Internet depths. Underground work - dark web and unknown forums over a black background. She'd been well aware that somehow, her eagerness to get back to his side wasn't solely based on her need for adventure. She'd missed him.

And it didn't feel like she'd entirely gotten him back - only the previous night, and only for a few seconds. She'd thought her attraction could've been reciprocated - but again, she was not naive. She understood the mechanics of the world - the odds were against her. She wouldn't get the boy.

He couldn't trust humans yet - secretly longed for their company, perhaps. But nothing more.

He felt like ants were crawling up his skin - shame and anxiety at once, like his body was alien and moved out of his control. It had been nothing more than an occasion to bond. Why then - why did it feel like so much, too much? And they were both there, both looking at him with all too-knowing eyes and smiles, and all he wanted was to go back to Mia's understanding smile, her kind embrace and Max's cheerful grin, Fred's wise words and Niska mocking him in a sing-song voice.

He missed them so much - and his anger came back. He escaped the silence of the two women he was now forced to look after by heading to the back of the house, walked a bit around the forest and let his thoughts finally run free.

Leo had not been expecting Mattie - not at all. He'd thought it was just an extraordinary coincidence at first, before remembering that such things did not exist and that instead of his family, it was her, the small woman who had almost broken down his walls a few months before, who he'd thought he could safely leave behind him as a painful what-if memory -

He wanted her gone. He didn't need this, didn't need her quirky comments and witty sarcasm. He didn't want to be caught off guard with the offer of a coffee, random yet relatable tales of her Uni experience, or her adorable face smudged with toothpaste. He didn't need Hester's knowing looks and possessive comments - he didn't need Hester to tell him she was a disposable addition to their team. Because it wasn't true - she didn't know Mattie. She refused to consider her extraordinary capacities. All she'd done was shut him up with overwhelming kisses and too much touch to process, all the while urging him to ask her to go. He'd asked her to stop - that was all he could do recently. Try to slow her down, stop her and prevent catastrophes - but even he couldn't stop a hurricane, and sometimes it was just too much and he capitulated, only to hate himself later, and go back in a full circle, on and on and on.

He wanted to see Max. Max would know what to do. Max wouldn't go in circles, he'd say whatever crossed his mind.

'Hey.' he heard, and saw Mattie walking towards him, her arms half crossed against her chest, holding a cigarette in between her fingers. She was biting her lip nervously and avoiding his eyes.

Leo grunted a vague reply - he wanted to be alone.

'Can I?' she asked, indicating toward the log next to the bench he was sitting on. She was holding two fuming mugs. He nodded.

She sat with a long sigh, handed him his drink and remained silent, taking a long whiff of her cigarette and holding it in for a few seconds, before letting it out slowly. The smoke flew around her face, waves against the corner of her lips and getting lost in her hair. He looked away - he didn't like how mesmerising she could be. He didn't like how it made him feel.

She'd gotten him coffee - an Avengers mug.

Mattie seemed like she enjoyed the silence - she stood there, eyes lost in the vast greenness of the forest around them. What was she thinking? What did it feel like, to think normally? He didn't remember how it felt - all he had now were algebraic thoughts that went around in codes and numbers. They would sometimes add up in formulas that would trigger a feeling - sadness and anger, mostly. And when it came to Mattie, the equation turned into something almost unbearable - unknown and yet too familiar

The silence had become too much.

'That's bad for you.' was all he could think of saying.

Mattie shrugged. 'Well, I'm young.' She wasn't wrong. 'D'you want one?'

'No, thank you.'

He hadn't had one in years - Max didn't like to see him smoke. Mattie remained silent, lost in her thoughts, and Leo thought that maybe, a little cigarette might help him settle down.

'Actually -' he said, and Mattie chuckled, before rummaging through the pocket of her jacket and getting out a pack of blue Camels. 'Thanks.'

'You're weak.' she mocked him.

He shrugged. 'You know what it's like.'

'Guilty as charged.' she snorted - and with a cigarette, the silence didn't feel that heavy.

They smoked 'til they reached the filter, and Mattie seemed to finally gather the courage to speak.

'Sorry about before.'

Leo looked at her and frowned.

'What for?'

'For raising my voice, and - stuff. You know. I don't want you guys to... I don't want to be a burden.'

'Mattie.' Leo sighed. 'You're not. More than anything, you're an asset. You always have been.'

She didn't reply - although her cheeks had turned a little bit pink. She looked away, got her drink to her mouth in order to hide her contentment - and Leo's heart melted a little.

Mattie threw her faggot somewhere into the depths of the woods and got up, left and walked away quite awkwardly. He felt an unusual rush of confidence and blurted out, stuttering the words slightly:

'It's good to have you here.'

She didn't turn back, kept walking towards the house and waved her hand feebly:

'Yep.'

Leo smiled.

Leo insisted Mattie remained at the base, but she didn't mind - she'd heard of their plans and was settled in her opinion that it was complete bollocks. Two people against a whole armada of security guards in a high-functioning scientific institution? It was a suicide mission.

She didn't want to take part in that.

So she waited in the house - TV turned on while she ate some of the snacks Leo had bought while she was still asleep. There was nothing on, so she settled on watching some good old cartoons. That would distract her from worrying and chewing her nails clean off.

And that was how, one hour later, Leo and Hester came back to find her half asleep watching Steven Universe in a very unladylike posture - bowl of crisps under her chin and crumbs all over her chest, belly and lap (and probably her face), hair pulled up in an extremely messy bun (and not the cute, hipster-ish kind of messy bun - the really messy bun that one did when no one was around and played with sometimes, pretending to be a unicorn (which Mattie absolutely hadn't been doing)).

Hester looked at her with her usual blank expression while Leo frowned at the screams and comical voices coming from the TV - Mattie blushed, tried to dust some of the mess off of her lap and sat up, knocking the bowl over the sofa and blushing even more.

'Fucking hell.' she said, jumping on the floor to clean up the mess.

'Your heart rate is elevated.' Hester stated.

'Hester.' Leo sighed, joining Mattie in her frustrated attempt to get rid of all the crisps while Hester remained by the door, watching them.

'I wasn't expecting you so soon.' Mattie replied, glaring up at her and shooing Leo away as he tried to interfere. 'Let me.' she snapped, and Leo obeyed, sitting on his heels and watching her work, frowning. She took a deep breath, trying to settle the beating of her heart, which had started racing from the moment she'd seen Leo was back and jumped into some frantic dance of mortification. 'What happened?'

'It's stupid, really.' Leo replied, still looking concerned. 'We read the map wrong. We went from the wrong side - ended up trying to break in the main entrance. Bad idea.'

'Are you two even for real?' Mattie said, rolling her eyes at Leo.

'Please, don't.' Leo said, getting up and joining the table to work on his laptop.

Mattie laughed.

'I don't understand why that is funny.'

Mattie glared at Hester.

'It's called irony.'

'I don't understand its purpose.'

Leo chuckled. 'There is no purpose, I guess.'

'Nope.' Mattie confirmed, getting up with her mess and joining the kitchen to throw her snacks in the bin. 'What's the plan, then?'

'We'll go again this evening.' Leo said from the other room.

Mattie bit her lip. She didn't like it - the two of them against an entire corporation, and the technological advantage they had on Qualia didn't weigh enough in the equation. They were only two people - a crippled man and a month-old synth.

'Or you could wait.' Mattie said, turning on the water and getting her hands busy with the mugs and plates they'd left in the sink. 'Think of a better plan.'

Neither Leo nor Hester replied - she sighed, washed up the dishes and went to look in the fridge. All Leo had bought were beers and a couple of pizzas. She could hear their whispers and half-spoken calculations as to what was the better way to their goal.

Mattie rolled her eyes - they were ridiculous. The whole situation was.

She'd been utterly deluded.

Thus, in order to calm her nerves, she settled on cooking for the two organics in the house. This involved the very difficult task of taking the plastic bags off the pizzas and getting them into the oven.

In five minutes, she was done - she still needed something to occupy her hands - so she went for her laptop and glossed over her newly missed classes.

She'd had no idea, before starting Uni, that she was a thorough student - and still, while the logical part of her brain had been forced to recognise the signs, it still didn't feel like studying. It felt like having an incredible access to resources she would have been forced to look for in illegal corners of the internet before, and going to intellectual gatherings with her peers, and getting in touch with brilliant minds that could, for once, follow her thoughts. She didn't have to force herself to look back at her class notes - it would come automatically. It felt just like her own personal research, or going to some informative webpage - the difference was was that her webpages had become her own notes. (rewrite)

She was trying to learn the coding sequence of BPC (also known Behaviour and Politeness Components) and groaning as she kept confounding If I may and If you please when she heard Leo mumble way too closely to her ear:

She startled and her heart rushed as she felt the hem of his jacket brush against her neck. She wondered why he needed to always get this close to her screen - maybe he needed glasses.

'Knowledge is always useful.' she managed to reply.

Leo chuckled and went to check on the pizzas, whispering a small 'Smells good' before looking around the cupboards looking for dishes. Mattie took one last regretful look at her diagram before joining Leo and helping him setting the table for two.

They ended up with a table way too pretty for such a grotesque meal, and she thought of Hester, who remained in the living room and probably wouldn't join them. Mattie would have to face Leo in a setting that she thought was a bit...awkward. Almost - yeah, kind of romantic.

She didn't like this.

Leo didn't seem to mind or notice anything - instead, he seemed quite intrigued by the contents of a cupboard, in which an impressive collection of mugs could be seen.

Mattie had quite enjoyed discovering them that morning - there were almost twenty of them and each belonged to a different franchise, or had ironic inscriptions on them.

'I liked this one best.' she said, tiptoe-ing to grab a flaming red one in which the words 'Keep calm and - oh, who are we kidding?' were printed in white.

'I like this one.' Leo replied, pretending to sip from a moustached one.

'Looks better than yours.' Leo glared at her and she couldn't hold back a giggle. She stopped just as abruptly as she noticed it, and turned around, checking on the pizza.

A few minutes later and it was ready. They sat opposite each other, and battled with their food. She didn't feel like talking - she was too well aware of the domesticity they had settled into over the last fifteen minutes, and she was almost sure her cheeks were blatantly red.

She had to breathe - gather her thoughts and stop reacting like a fourteen-year-old. She was a young woman who knew how to deal with her emotions and keep them at bay when they were misplaced.

Although - she couldn't shake off the memory of his fingers resting against her cheek, nor the phantom burn that lingered on her skin every time her eyes settled on his hands.

She had to stop.

'How's uni?' he asked then, in between two large bites.

He was entirely hunched over his plate, fighting with his slices and his hands covered in cheese and grease - he looked almost comical, and she couldn't resist a friendly smirk.

'You've got some beard in your food.' she said.

He wiped the dirt with the back of his hand.

'Uni's fine.' She paused, thinking of her University and beloved library, unable to hide a content smile. 'Better than what I'd expected.'

'You didn't sound that positive yesterday.'

'I'm a teenager.' she replied, rolling her eyes. 'Complaining is what I do best.'

Leo laughed. 'How old are you, by the way?' she added, because she realised that while she'd done the math before, she had actually no idea what his real age was.

'I'm twenty-one.' he replied with a shrug. 'Not a teen anymore.'

'You like to complain though.'

He shrugged.

'You look older.' she said. 'Closer to thirty.'

'That's the beard.' he said.

'That's what you get for being a hipster.'

He glared at her. 'Well, you look younger.'

'I do not.'

'You do.'

She glared at him and he chuckled quietly, cutting another slice of pizza with difficulty - it really wasn't a good pizza. It felt like cardboard to cut and plastic to eat, but at least it was warm and full of fat.

They had settled for another long silence - Mattie didn't like it, although Leo didn't seem to mind. He wasn't a very talkative person. Hester walked into the kitchen and looked at them, her eyebrows slightly furrowed. Mattie could almost hear the synth's contempt towards such a waste of time.

'Will you be finished soon?' Hester asked, walking towards Leo's side of the table and sitting next to him.

Leo nodded.

Hester looked at Mattie, frowned, and declared: 'Your heart rate is elevated. Again.'

Panic settled in Mattie's chest - she smirked, because sarcasm and contempt were the best defense in all situations:

'I'm eating.'

'Hester.' Leo sighed, giving her a warning glance.

'Or, you're scared, like before, or angry, or expecting something -'

'Hester, she's fine!' Leo snapped.

Hester remained silent but still. She kept her eyes on Mattie, who did her best to remain calm and hide her discomfort behind a long sip of water.

'We should get going.' Hester said.

'I'm almost done.'

'Are you going with the same plan?' Mattie asked, without looking up from her plate. She didn't like the idea of them running into danger again, head first and without minding the consequences.

'We are going to disarm the security guards and find our way into the facility in order to locate the conscious synths.'

'Mattie doesn't need to know all of the details.' Leo said, getting up and bringing his plate to the sink.

'You said she was fine.'

'No one is getting hurt.'

'Apart from a few security guards.' Mattie retorted, almost angrily. 'Or even one of you.'

'We're just going to take a look!' Like a cornered animal, his teeth were bared, and insolence almost dripped from his voice. 'That's all.'

Mattie held his gaze - she wasn't afraid of him. Especially not in the face of a tantrum. Or disrespect.

'Do what you like.' she said. Her moves were calm and precise - she washed her plate and returned to the kid's bedroom.

She hid her thoughts behind Freddy Mercury's voice and went back to her notes - she would learn those formulas by heart, even if she had to pull an all-nighter.

He managed to haul Hester to the house with a great deal of pain, dropping her against the table of the living room and battling with her manic twitches in order to lay her down.

Mattie came to the rescue in a matter of seconds, looking calm and decided, laptop at the ready. Hester was babbling some nonsense, as if trying to ask for help but unable to, as her body betrayed her again and again and again - all Leo could do was panic and try to calm her down, whisper whatever crossed his mind to settle her, telling her she would be OK, it would all be OK.

Hours might have passed, or maybe they were only seconds (what was time, if not an abstract concept tainted with urgency and fear?), but Hester finally stopped twitching and Mattie told him - once, twice, he didn't even know - he could turn her off. So he did - realised Mattie had had the situation under control while he was frozen in place, unable to think of anything.

What would have he done, had Mattie not been there? He didn't want to think about it - he'd been useless. No. He didn't want to think about it. Mattie was looking at him, eyebrows furrowed and serious concern showing in her eyes - he looked away, blinked away the tears and asked her for a cigarette.

He left - he had to shake himself off and reorganise his thoughts, fight the vivid images and store them at bay. It was the only thing he could do against the vividness of his memories, the only coping mechanism he had found in order to feel a bit more human.

Mattie didn't go after him - he walked in circles in the garden, around the swing and the tool shed. She went outside a bit later on, but still, she kept her distance, standing by the entrance - a dark silhouette in the light of the porch, eyes fixed on her phone. She probably had it synced to her laptop, so she could keep an eye on Hester's condition.

He sat on the swing - smoked his cigarette to the filter, remained there and watching her from afar. She probably couldn't see him.

She didn't last long, and went back inside five minutes later - the distraction had left and he felt suddenly empty, way too aware of his surroundings and the mesmerising sounds of the forest. Shivers ran through his arms as if he could hear the echoes of his childhood fears - how afraid he used to be of the surroundings of his old house. Mia would try to appease him at night, closing all the windows and curtains, but the house was old and it moved with the wind, creaked and whistled and projected shadows of the tree branches against the walls.

He went back inside - Mattie was going over Hester's internal code and fixing minor glitches, little by little. She almost didn't notice him - nodded quietly in recognition as he sat next to her.

'She'll be alright.' she mumbled under her breath without looking at him. 'Her code went static - went against her firewall and rebooted her basic system. We just have to wait for it to finish uploading.'

'Good.' he sighed, hiding his face in his hands.

'You should go to sleep.' Mattie said. He looked up at her - her expression was blank, although her jaw seemed a bit tense. 'I've got her.'

'I'm fine.'

'You're shaking.'

He was, he realised - probably from the cold. It had been so cold, lately, way too cold, too soon after the heavy summer heat.

'I'll be alright.'

She looked at him, her left eyebrow raised - and she seemed so determined (and somewhat angry) he didn't feel like fighting her. He got up, gathered his things, and went upstairs and hid in the first bedroom he could find. The kid's bedroom, where Mattie had slept the night before. Her backpack rested by the single bed, half open.

He tried not to think too much about it - ignored his usual contempt towards such things as testimonies of personality; toys and medals and plushies and 'for dad, love Rick', clumsy pieces of art and galaxy bed sheets. He tried to push away the tears, and crawled under the covers, hid his face in the pillow and breathed in Mattie's scent. It smelled nice - laundry, strawberry shampoo and mint toothpaste - something a bit more foreign he couldn't exactly put his finger on. Probably Mattie's own scent.

His shoulders relaxed and the world tumbled slowly as he quietly fell asleep - and he dreamt of precise fingers on a purple keyboard, tapping lines of codes with a regularity similar to soft music. (rewrite) (or don't it's very pretty!)

Mattie woke him up a couple of hours later - gently pulling his arm and whispering his name.

'Wha - what?' he mumbled, startled and the shadowy figure towering him - then he processed the previous events and blurted: 'How's Hester?'

'She's fine.' Mattie replied before turning on the starry bedside lamp. Leo blinked at her, startled, and Mattie continued, her voice uncharacteristically tense. 'Leo, Mia's back. My parents called me - she's with them.'

Leo managed to sit against the pillows and passed a hand through his hair, trying to process this new information as calmly as possible.

'How? How is she?'

'We don't know. She's Anita again - I've sent them an override patch to wake her up.'

'She should be here with us.' Leo blurted - both fear and excitement seemed to rush the rhythm of his heart.

'Yes.' Mattie said, calmly. She was avoiding his gaze, focusing on the galaxy pattern of the sheets she was absentmindedly playing with. 'And I should probably leave, too.'

Leo blinked at her. 'What?' What did leaving have to do with anything? And he added, because she didn't look very well: 'Are you okay?'

Mattie took her time to reply, and when she did, her had mouth contorted itself into something that looked almost like a smile - a very sour one. 'Hester had a lot to say when she woke up.'

Leo's blood rushed immediately away from his face and he looked away - indeed, what did it have to do with anything? Why did Hester feel like it was worth mentioning? Why did he feel so ashamed? Constantly, the burden of his mistake seemed to weigh on his chest and shoulders - Leo looked down, biting the insides of his cheeks, unable to find something, anything to say - why would he have to? Mattie had nothing to do with it.

Oh, but she had - she had everything to do with it and every right - maybe? did she? - to want to back off from it all. She had a good life ahead of her. Leo had never met someone as brilliant.

But he didn't want her to leave, not really, so he fumbled for the words, tried to find an excuse, whatever crossed his mind. Nothing came.

Something constricted in his throat - anger, maybe.

'You're out of your depth, you know?' she declared. There was something different about her. She sounded resolute, didn't seem to care what he would think or say. Not anymore. 'You can't take down Qualia, Leo, and what scares me is that I think you know that too but you're going to try and fight them anyway.'

She was right – why was she always right?

'What about the code?'

Mattie bit her lip, avoided his gaze once again. 'It's safe with me.'

'It could be useful to us.'

'It's safer with me.' she snapped.

She got up, grabbed her backpack and looked at him for one split second - hesitating, maybe. She eyed him up, opened her mouth, closed it again.

'I'll be on my way soon.' she finally declared. 'I'll get a cab.'

'Mattie.' he said as she went for the door.

He got up from the bed wincing, managed to stand despite the throbbing pain in his side. Mattie turned around - her face was an entire painting of shadows and orange lights. She waited, and Leo panicked, trying to find something to say. His cheeks heated up as the seconds went by, trying to figure out a way to convince her to stay. Again, nothing came - and again, she turned on her heels with a sigh. Leo rushed forward to grab her arm.

'I like having you here.' he managed to blurt out - and exhilaration pumped through his veins as he saw her back stiffen. 'I'd like you to stay.'

'Right.' Mattie replied, her voice slightly shaky. 'And you wanted me gone this morning.'

'I didn't mean that.'

'Well then.' She twirled once again, only to glare at him. 'When is it that you mean anything? How am I supposed to figure it out?'

'I'm sorry.'

'I always have to guess what you want, Leo, and - well, I don't want to have to do that. I like things to be straightforward.'

'I'm telling you now.' he stammered. 'I want you to stay.'

He strengthened his hold on Mattie's arm, lowering his hand to circle her small wrist, distractedly pulling her towards him, as if that could somehow truly prevent her from leaving.

'Hester doesn't want me to.' Mattie riposted. 'She believes I am going against her – I mean your plans. And she's -'

Don't say it, Leo thought - he was almost crushing her wrist. She didn't seem to mind. Panic was quietly making its way into his chest.

Mattie was probably braver than he was. 'I think she's jealous.' she managed to say, her voice barely a whisper. 'Of me.' Leo's heart was beating hard against his ears - a loud and obnoxious dudun, dudun he couldn't ignore, and which reminded him from time to time of his humanity and, in this precise instance, of Mattie's. He could feel the rapidness of her pulse under his fingers and he released her wrist slowly - but not entirely; he didn't trust her to stay. He was not entirely comfortable with the way her skin felt, though - as if it burned his own.

But her heart rate was really elevated - and something seemed to finally click in his brain.

Of course.

'She probably is.' he breathed, lowering his eyes to the ground, unable to hold the weight of Mattie's gaze. 'And- she probably should be.' His fingers slowly ran against the back of her hand, slowly sliding in between hers.

She was too close for it to be comfortable - he could almost feel the heat radiating from her skin, the electricity hanging in the air and the taste of if in their breaths.

'You think?' she whispered - and he could have almost combusted then in the face of her words, recognising her eternal wit and sass in her tone.

So he kissed her - and it was probably a mistake. All of his logic and pragmatism seemed to urge him to stop and figure out a way to undo it - but his senses, oh, his senses screamed the absolute opposite and seemed to melt at the touch of her lips and the tremble of her fingers, the way she barely dared to move as she tried to assess what was actually happening.

She was nothing like Hester - it was nothing like kissing Hester. It was barely a brush of their lips, just for a few seconds, and then hanging there close, an inch away, playing with the sensitivity of their skin and listening to her breathing.

She let her forehead rest against his - closed her eyes and tried to keep her balance by holding on to his shirt.

He wanted to say something - anything, just to justify the kiss because he was afraid, so afraid he had misread it all (misread her feelings, or even his own), so he whispered a quiet 'I'm sorry.' and kissed her again softly. She hummed against his lips, closed her eyes this time and kissed him back - shyly, awkwardly, still trembling, still cautious as an animal. So he kissed her again, and she kept on kissing him, until something seemed to unlock itself, and they were finally exploring each other's body - arms, necks, backs and waists, all tentative touches and a timid dance of lips and tongues.

Mattie closed the door with her feet at one point, and Leo managed to guide them back to the little bed, both of them still cautious and afraid, testing the waters with embraces and clutching each other so they wouldn't fall.

They ended up curled around each other, just breathing in each other's scent - Mattie had her face pressed against his t-shirt and Leo couldn't get enough of the smell of her hair. They remained silent, processing whatever they could about the situation, then kissing again for a few minutes.

They both felt like talking would ruin it all - maybe the reality of it was too much for them to handle. They could remain like this for a few hours, hidden under the galaxy bed sheets and thriving on the heat of the other - afterwards, maybe, they would talk and finally take some overdue decisions.

Or maybe they could ignore it all.

Thank you so much for the read, and so sorry again for the delay!