How do they Hug? Kiss? Tease? Flirt? Comfort?

No good comes out of a bad month at a dream job and an over-caffeinated twenty something at the cusp of her quarter-life crisis.

Prompt lifted shamelessly from Tumblr and adapted to fit my nefarious agenda: How does your OTP behave [in these circumstances]? Hints at sexy-times, so PG-13 I guess.

An outtake from Hello, Again, if you will – more of a character study, really. Drabbl-y. Behold, my Original Characters and their layers of dysfunction – and my cautious attempts to say very little by saying too much.

~~~
Disquiet

Of Adam And Amelia
~~~

He holds her like he's dying.

Amelia finds it a little odd sometimes, and funny the others – never, ever sentimental, of course – the way his arms wrap around her, pinning her arms down with his own, his palms cupping her jaw.

He looms over her – and she can't say she doesn't like it, he's so tall – but he leans in, bends her back a little bit and presses his body against hers, holding and touching and kissing and kissing like he's afraid she'll vanish if he didn't keep her right here.

…

He's afraid she'll vanish if he didn't keep her right here.

Of course, he'd never tell her that – he hasn't even told himself that, yet.

But he can't help it – can't help drawing her in and letting his hands trace the shape of her body, the measure of space she occupies in this universe, mapping and memorizing and it's not enough.

So he holds her tighter, brings her into himself, letting his fingers caress the curve of her cheeks, the corners of her earlobes, the tender skin underneath her jaw.

It still doesn't feel enough.

All this time spent committing her to his memory and yet, yet he can't touch enough, feel enough, hold enough in his hands. It makes him panic sometimes, this fucking need inside him – he wants to kiss and hold and fuck of course but-

But he needs more. He needs more. He can't tell what it is right now but he needs it, needs it like he needs air in his lungs. Even when she is curled into him, her hair swinging as she throws her hair back and bares her throat to him and parts her lips just so – even when she is here, with him – he needs-

She sighs – a soft, shaky sound that goes straight to the base of his spine and he can't, he can't-

…

Amelia feels it, of course. She feels the way his body tenses when they're kissing sometimes, the frantic energy, the force of his fingers around her wrists. He's never hurt her, not once – but she'd be lying if she didn't admit she hasn't felt the repressed recklessness.

So she sighs. She throws her head back and presses her body against his and drapes her arms around his neck, fingers languorously carding through his hair. She lets him bend her back a little more, and pulls back just enough to get his attention, looks at him with half-lidded eyes and her mouth open just so.

There's a savage satisfaction to be had in seeing his eyes get darker.

And this, this she can give – this satisfaction, this response, a gasp here and an arch there, let herself melt into his arms like she's never been touched before.

…

When they lie side by side, silent but for their laboured breathing, Amelia bares her throat just a little more, lets him take in the mess he's made of her.

When she looks over at him, coy and almost circumspect, his eyes are on hers. Still dark, almost intimidatingly open. Still that strange hunger lingering in the cerulean of his gaze.

Amelia doesn't mean to, but she gulps.

This, right here, right in this moment, she doesn't know how to deal with yet. This strange disquiet, this moment stretching between them with nothing but silence and more, more silence, and the way he looks at her-

He doesn't seem to notice the arch in her back, not now. Nor the delicate curve of her throat. He turns on his side, sidles a palm under her cheek and brings his forehead against hers. She can feel the stiffness, the tension, in his fingers. She wonders if he can feels the tremble in her spine.

Maybe next time, he'll look at how she looks and smile. Maybe next time, he'll look at her in motion – just the heave of her chest, just the curl of her toes – and lie there, content. Next time, surely next time, she'll put on a better show.

For now – this stillness will have to suffice.

…

Author's Note: I want to write about these very fictional people and their very real issues so goddamn much ugh send help someone's vacuuming time out of this dimension (eh, if nothing else, I might just do a whole bunch of these to at least keep the memory of my own plot alive in my head).