A/N: Hello from day eleventyfive-trillion of quarantine! Please accept this humble offering of Ron/Hermione fluff/angst (yes, it is both) and stay safe, everyone.

Title borrowed from "Lover" by Taylor Swift.

She can't stop kissing him.

Right here, tucked into the sun-drenched, humid confines of his childhood bedroom, with her head on his pillow and her fingers twisted into the front of his paper-thin shirt, she thinks she actually might die if she has to stop. That she might defy science and logic and reason and simply cease to exist should their lips part for even the briefest second.

It's dramatic, to be sure, but all of this feels dramatic. It feels like the sort of thing that only gets sung about in the sort of overwrought ballads that, less than a month ago, she would have rolled her eyes at. She never expected herself to be the sort who would feel her heart thumping in her chest when he kisses her, or her stomach flipping over simply when he smiles, but she can't help it. This is the very thing she's wanted for years, and now - miraculously, because the odds are that they should all be dead right now - she's got it. And it's even better than she expected.

They've gotten very good at it, very quickly. Fallen into the relationship like jumping out of an airplane with no parachute, just leaping headfirst into an unending thrill. There's been no awkwardness, no fumbling, no confusion, and none of the miscommunication that used to plague them. Just, at long last, the two of them.

Ron's hand slips up the outer edge of her thigh, drifting up, skipping over the hem of her shorts to curve over the slope of her hip. His mouth, blessedly, never leaves hers as his fingers edge their way under her shirt, just enough to graze the heated skin of her stomach. Even the slightest touch from him is like tossing a lit match onto kindling: he ignites something in her that she didn't yet know existed. Shifting her hand up his chest, then his neck, she lets her fingers cradle the side of his face.

Her mind, as it so often does in these moments - these moments, amazingly, that have transformed from fantasies to dazzling reality - begins to wander. It pulls up scenarios that, until recently, only existed as hazy vignettes in the deepest corners of her imagination, and begins to paint them in color. Vivid, tantalizing color. The sort of sharp focus that makes her want to turn them into reality sooner rather than later. Perhaps even here, now, today, as Ron's mouth leaves hers to travel down the side of her neck. At the slightest nudge of his hand on her waist, she tips onto her back and lets his weight engulf her.

It could happen today. Or later tonight, perhaps, when there's more time and more privacy and the sun isn't beating down on them through the dusty window panes. Tomorrow, even, or next week. Perhaps a month from now, or two months…

But when? And how? Suddenly she can see the end result, see it so clearly that it makes her stomach quiver, and yet she cannot see a clear path to getting there. The newness, for all the thrills it provides, is tinged now with the doubt and anxiety that always accompanies the unknown.

Normally, when faced with a situation like this, she educates herself. Devours literature until her brain is bursting with cold, hard, indisputable facts, but she's not sure there's a section in the library dedicated to this. (Well, she supposes that there is, technically, but it leans more on the side of tawdry paperback novels rather than anything particularly informative.) This isn't like Transfiguration, where she can study the theory until she knows it off by heart. It's not like Potions, where she can follow each step to the letter and end up with a favourable result. There is nothing that tells her what to do when she's tumbling madly, irretrievably, head-over-heels in love with her best friend of seven years and needs to know the right way to properly act on it.

Ron pulls his lips from her neck, and his eyes align with hers. His cheeks are flushed, both from the late spring heat and their enthusiastic activities, and his lips are tilted in just the slightest hint of a smile. Hermione lifts her face up toward his, expecting more - craving it, even - but he doesn't kiss her yet, instead tilting his head inquisitively.

"What?" he breathes, eyes crinkling at the corners.

"What do you mean, what?"

Hermione takes it upon herself to kiss him, but he breaks it off after only a few mind-numbing seconds.

"You're thinking about something."

She raises her brows defiantly. "Is that such a bad thing?"

"No." His lips brush over hers, far too lightly to be satisfying. "So what're you thinking about?"

You. Us. "Nothing," she says. "Nothing, just come back here."

He obliges her, and several happy minutes pass in which her mind grows fuzzy from the increasing intensity of his lips on hers and the pressure of his long, lean torso against her own. But then his hand slides under her shirt again, warm against her skin, and that same little thought works its way from the back of her mind to the front, where she can't ignore it.

"Ron," she says, still kissing him, "Ron, what…"

Her words die on her lips as she realizes she has no idea how to phrase what's on her mind.

Ron rolls off of her and props himself up on one elbow. "Ahh, here it is," he grins, holding his other arm over his chest to shield himself from her playful, indignant swats.

"Well, fine," says Hermione loftily, shifting onto her side so they're lying facing each other. "I guess you don't actually want me to tell you-"

"No, no." Ron's hand finds hers in the small gap between them. For a second, he watches as their fingers twist together in the air. "Come on, I want to know."

"It's really nothing."

A disbelieving scowl crosses his face. "At this point, I can practically hear the gears turning in your head. I know when something's up."

Their fingers finally intertwine properly together. Hermione can sense his eyes on her even as her own are cast to the bright orange bedspread, but his gaze is warm and affectionate. She feels safe in it.

But she's still not sure where to begin.

"It's just…"

She looks up just in time to see his tongue graze his lower lip, and briefly she considers just dropping the whole thing and snogging him senseless.

But he… he loves her. It's one of those cold, hard, indisputable facts that she's so fond of. And because he loves her, she knows he wants to know if something's troubling her, and this won't go away. It'll only continue to gnaw at her until it drives her mad.

So she finds her voice again. "How does this work?"

Ron's expression morphs from one of concern to confusion. "How… how does what work?" He bites back a grin. "D'you mean snogging? 'Cause I'd be happy to demonstrate some more-"

Hermione swats his chest again. "Can you be serious for once in your life?"

"Oh, believe me, I'm serious-" But the grin slides off his face when he notices that she's not joking back. "What's going on?"

She fixes her eyes on the bedspread again.

"I'm just not sure how this is supposed to go," she begins, hesitant, the words foreign and uncomfortable as they cross her lips. She's felt uncertainty in her life, if maybe not this particular sort, but she isn't used to voicing it. "You know… us. Physically, that is."

"Physically," he repeats, voice tentative as though he suspects they're wading into uncharted territory. "Okay. Like-"

"Sex."

All at once it seems to hit him: he blinks, then his eyes go wide in shock. "You want to have sex?"

"Well-" She puzzles right back at him. "Don't you?"

"Y-yeah," he stammers, "great - brilliant-" He drops her hand and sits up, almost frantic as he looks around his cluttered bedroom. "Let me just-"

"I don't mean now," she replies with more than a hint of exasperation. "But eventually, right? You'd like to?"

"Obviously," he replies, though he does look a bit relieved. "And you… you do too?"

It feels a bit strange to confess this to him, as if they haven't spent the entire month of May joined at the lips. It's a side of herself that she's only just begun to show to him, one that's new and intoxicating and yet renders her more vulnerable than she's ever been in her life. Then again, she supposes that just proves how much she needs to have this conversation.

"Yes," she says quietly as she sits up so they can be face-to-face again. "Of course I do."

"All right." His hands find hers again, warm and reassuring, as he cracks a smile. "Then you just let me know when you want to-"

"That's my point, though," she goes on. "How do we even get there? How long are we supposed to be together before we actually - well - and are there other things we're supposed to do first, to get ready, or practice? And when is all of that supposed to happen? And do we plan it out, pick a day and time so that we can be prepared and make sure we have privacy, because what if-"

"Hermione," he interrupts, her name laced with an affectionate laugh, "slow down."

But now that her mind is racing, it's completely out of her control.

"Should we slow down?" she asks. "How long do you suppose couples are usually together before they start having sex? It must vary, right, based on experience levels, but-" Her teeth anxiously pinch her lower lip. "Maybe we could ask Harry and Ginny-"

"Let's not," interrupts Ron with a cringe. "I don't want to know, not with them."

"Fine, but you see my point, right? I just don't know what we're meant to be doing."

She's half-expecting to be told that she's barking mad, but instead, he lifts their joined hands to his mouth and kisses her lightly across her knuckles. His fair eyelashes brush across his cheeks as his lips touch her skin, and when his eyes open again, she catches sight of just a few flecks of silver embedded in bright blue.

"I don't know," he says with a shrug. "I really don't."

"But - but you've had a proper girlfriend before-"

The tips of his ears go instantly scarlet as their linked hands drop to the mattress again. "And you know that we never - we never even got close-"

"Well, yes, I know that, but-"

"And you've had a boyfriend," he points out, even as it clearly causes him great discomfort to do so.

"I wouldn't call him that," she replies quickly. "Really more of a penpal than anything."

"Right. But still, all these questions you're asking - I don't know." He sounds much more at ease with this than she feels. "I don't know if we're going too fast or too slow, or what we're meant to do or when, or... I really don't know."

"So we've got to figure it out, then," she declares. "Maybe we could work out a timetable for when we think we'll feel comfortable-"

He laughs, then, and much to her surprise - he is full of surprises lately, and usually she can't get enough - he tips forward and kisses her soundly on the lips.

"You and your timetables," he says with a fond shake of his head. "If I'm honest, I think we should actually just do whatever we want."

This suggestion hangs in the humid air between them as the words slowly settle into Hermione's brain. It's such a simple concept, yet she can't wrap her head around it. Things like structure and order and direction make her feel safe, but this feels like heading into a great unknown where anything can happen.

"Think about it," he adds as she continues to contemplate. "I mean, when's the last time we got to just decide for ourselves what we wanted?" Before she can even consider answering, he goes on. "We've always had something getting in our way, or something deciding for us what we should do or what was important, and now… now all that's over. We really can do whatever we want, and I reckon we should."

"I suppose," she says thoughtfully. "You're right, we do have much more freedom than we used to."

"Yeah, exactly," says Ron with a reassuring squeeze to her hands. "I just think if we want to do something, then - then we should, y'know? If we don't, then we don't. Let's not overthink it."

"Overthinking is what I do," she says, heat rising in her cheeks. "I plan out everything. I like knowing what's going to happen, and what to expect, but this… it's completely different from what I expected."

"It is for me too," says Ron with a sheepish smile. "But it's in a good way… isn't it?"

"Very good," says Hermione. "And I think…"

She trails off, summoning whatever courage she possesses. Because it's one type of vulnerability to discuss sex with him, and to bring up her (admittedly silly) plan to create a timetable for the development of their sexual relationship, but to lay bare her deepest fears is another thing entirely. It's that same feeling of leaping off a cliff without knowing what awaits her at the bottom… if she'll end up hurt, or exhilarated.

Ron pokes her on the knee. "What?"

Hermione draws in a breath. She wants to tell herself that she's got nothing to worry about - that it's just Ron she's talking to - but there's never been such a thing as 'just Ron' for her. He is the one who matters most.

But then… it's Ron. And the way he's looking at her right now, with such patience and care, makes it easy to push through the fear.

"I like doing things the way they're meant to be done," she tells him, and he gives a concessionary nod. "I like to know exactly what I need to do in order to make sure that everything goes perfectly."

"I know you do, but nothing's perfect-"

"But I need this to be perfect!" she exclaims, losing control over the words pouring out of her. "I have to go about this exactly the right way, because..."

"Because what?"

She meets Ron's steady gaze with her own. "Because otherwise I might ruin it. I might ruin us."

Now that it's out there, she can't take it back, but Ron is clearly more than ready to face it.

"I really don't think so," he says bracingly with a shake of his head.

"I've told you, I don't know what I'm doing," she laments. "I try to be as prepared as possible for everything I do and I wasn't at all prepared for this, and I - I can't stand the thought that we might do something wrong and mess this up somehow-"

"I know, I know, but it's fine." He inches closer to her on the bed. "It's going to be fine, because everything you're worried about - it's not up to anyone else but us."

God, she really does love him. It hits her at the tiniest moments, like when he's washing dishes by hand at the sink and he uses the back of his wrist to push his fringe out of his eyes, or when he laughs just a little bit at his own jokes. And she loves him now, as he's soothing her frazzled nerves the way he's done since they were children, countering her need for control with another, much better option: trusting him.

"I don't like making mistakes," she says, even as the tightness around her heart begins to ease, "especially when things are important, and this is so important to me."

"It is to me too, but… we get to decide what's a mistake and what's not. This isn't like school, we're not answering to anyone but each other and-" He flushes crimson again. "I reckon we're doing good so far, right?"

"We are."

"Plus, at this point," he says with considerable lightness in his voice, "it'd take a lot for you to get rid of me."

She feels her face relax into a smile. Her mind is still processing, still letting go. It's no easy feat for her to relinquish the security of processes and procedures, but this isn't about achieving the perfect outcome. It isn't another accomplishment to add to her list of successes. It's more of an exploration, a discovery, and she hopes they'll never truly be done.

His hands release hers and move to her hips, and as she rises onto her knees, his arms encircle her waist. Hugging him tightly around the neck, she breathes in the sweet, familiar scent of his shampoo and closes her eyes.

This is where she's supposed to be. Right here, right now. The rest can come later, whenever they decide they want it.

His lips brush against her neck, once then twice, and then there's a warm puff of air as he chuckles.

"You wanted to make a shagging timetable," he says, voice trembling from the effort of not all-out cracking up. "A timetable. For shagging."

She pulls back, affronted, to glare at him. "Oh, Ron-"

"No, no," he laughs, "what would it have looked like, exactly? 'Week one: hand stuff. Week two: oral-" His face lights up. "Would we have had appointments?!"

"Stop it!"

She pushes his shoulder, and he falls back onto the bed, still grinning up at her in a way that makes her heart skip a beat. He uses her hand to tug her down on top of him, and they fall into kisses again.