#Those are the lines I draw further down on Wren’s cheeks

[venacoeurva]

I forget people don’t like mid-cheek grooves because they’re cute and endearing to me, but heaven forbid faces, things that have all sorts of angles and concave and convex areas, have indents and folds and not be smooth textureless swaths of skin I guess

[sky-scribbles]

Some Chargestep cuddling for warmth because it’s cold, I’m sappy, and I was begged to write it. ~1400 words, nb!Sidestep x m!Ortega, Sidestep days, Ortega POV. Tw: mentions of canon-typical injury.

You hate waking from unconsciousness. But this isn’t so bad.

There’s no pitched battle seething around you, like usual. Instead there are arms, familiar arms, holding you still as you move to rise. A groan slops from your lips and the arms squeeze tighter. A voice says, ‘It’s okay. I got you.’

You breathe, blink, and the grey fuzz of your vision resolves itself. Into Wren. They’re kneeling, mask off, face smeared with bruises, and you’re draped over their lap with your head against their arm. The dull concrete walls of a warehouse surround you, and the air against your face is cold - but Wren, Wren is warm.

‘Hey,’ you manage, and their lips flicker into a smile.

‘Don’t move,’ they say.

Their eyes are fixed not on your face, but on your arms, where they’ve peeled back your suit to above your elbows. A tangle of cables snakes from the exposed ports across the room and into a fuse box. It’s a bizarre awakening, finding yourself at the centre of a labyrinth of wires, like you’re the product of a bizarre summoning circle.

(Your suit is unzipped at the back, too, baring the spinal ports. Which means the skin there is separated from Wren’s skin only by their coat and suit. Your breathing hitches in a way that’s nothing to do with the beating you took.)

‘Your mods went into overload.’ Wren’s arms uncoil from around you, and you almost grab them before they can let go. But they move too fast, and your limbs are too heavy, and a second later they’ve propped you against the cold of the wall, not the warmth of their lap. ‘I dragged you here, dug up some cables, and plugged you into the mains. Switched on your emergency venting.’

‘Mierda,’ you say, with feeling. Because that’s closer than even you usually come to death. ‘What would I do without you?’

‘All kinds of dumb shit.’

This time, you catch the nervous tremble of their lip, so you squeeze their arm. ‘Wouldn’t want that. Thanks, Wren.’

They look away, wrapping their arms around their body as if your gratitude is somehow dangerous. ‘Epsilon got away. You fried her armour with that last hit, and she ran. I could have gone after her, but you were…’

They gesture at your jury-rigged charging ports, your bloodied knuckles, your bruised face.

‘Don’t beat yourself up. Not for saving my ass.’ You give their arm one last squeeze before letting them go. ‘I mean, it’s a good one. Someone’s gotta keep it intact.’

Wren rolls their eyes, but there’s the faintest of smiles on their face as they reach down to detach the wires. ‘You’re back to full capacity. If you’re okay to move, and you’re not too worried about your ass, we should get after her.’

You push yourself a little more upright. ‘Wait. How long was I out?’

‘A few hours. It’s past midnight.’ Wren doesn’t look up from the cables. ‘I let her get away, and now she’s ahead of us, we need to –’

‘Have you slept?’

This time they do look up, and you know those eyes well enough to see the tiredness in them. ‘No. She might have come back to finish the job.’

You’re still groggy, because your body feels how nearly it died – but that’s not what makes you shake your head. It’s the darkness seeping in through the windows, the fact that you’re close enough to the desert and deep enough into winter that the night is biting. That Wren’s shivering under their coat. That they stayed awake for hours, cradling you, guarding you, keeping you warm.

‘Not a chance,’ you say, and pat the floor beside you. ‘You need to sleep.’

‘That could give her time to fix her armour -’

‘And it gives you a chance to not fight her half-asleep.’ They hesitate, and you roll your eyes. ‘Jesus, Wren. You don’t get to keep my dumb ass alive if you won’t let me keep your dumb ass alive.’

A half-second where they hover, biting their lip, watching you. Then they tuck their gun back into their belt and slump onto the floor beside you. ‘Ricardo Ortega, are you seriously arguing for caution?’

‘Where you’re concerned, yeah. Always.’

They raise their eyebrows, and you shrug and smile. Some things are not negotiable. Wren’s safety is one of them.

(You found that out after Psycopathor. After the way they screamed as the wreckage shifted and crushed them further into the ground.

Did they feel like that today? Burn like that, hearing you cry out, watching you fall?)

They fold their mask into a pillow and curl into a ball, drawing their knees against their chest. Still shivering, and you roll your eyes. ‘Wren. Don’t lie there on your own, it’s freezing.’

‘I’m good.’

You’re not having that. ‘Well, I’m cold.’

You lift one arm, and they glare at you for a second, then huff. ‘Do not make this weird.’

Which, fair. You kissed those bruised lips, after you dug Wren from the rubble. And then you never talked about it, because you were too afraid to hear them tell you it was a mistake, a brief madness, it won’t happen again. You’ve kept up the flirting and the grins, and Wren hasn’t stopped you. But every day you both act as if you never found out what it was like to feel the other’s breath in your lungs. That definitely qualifies as weird. 

But Wren shifts over anyway, rests their head against you, lets you drape your arm over their shoulders.

They’re a quick sleeper. A few minutes and their breathing’s different, slower, softer. And you hold them against you, wishing things weren’t weird so that you could play with their hair a little. You settle for watching their face, mapping out imaginary constellation-lines between their moles. An hour in, and the rhythm of your breathing has steadied to match theirs. You’re not close enough to feel their heartbeat but you can somehow sense it, as if every inch of your body has attuned to them.

It occurs to you that you’d really, really like to kiss them again.

But even more, you want to not do it, so they can sleep. You want to let Wren rest, hold them and feel their heartbeat, not because you think they’re fragile but because you know they’re strong. And you want them to be strong when you find Epsilon again, because then they can’t be hurt. You want them to never hurt again. You want  –

Shit, you want so much. You want everything. You don’t ever want your lungs to stop matching Wren’s breathing. You want to stroke their hair away from their face. You want to warm their body against yours until they forget what it was ever like to be cold.

A breath leaves you, slow, crystallising in the air before dispersing. It’s cold, and Wren’s warm, and you –

- You’re in love with them, of course.

Now how the hell did that happen?

Wren stirs in their sleep, and you let out another breath. Later. Later, you’ll give a damn. Later you’ll second-guess and soul-search and flail over what you’re supposed to do about this. But right now Wren is asleep against you and there are goosebumps running through your insides, and you’re smiling, you’re full, and you love them.

And maybe you run your thumb over their cheek. Ever so slightly. Barely enough to feel the friction of their skin against yours.

When they stir awake a few hours later, there’s a moment where they look at you. And you’re still looking at them, and you both know why you’re looking, and it would be so easy to lean a little closer and –

But you’re pretty sure that would qualify as making it weird, so you just smile and bop their forehead with one finger.

And it doesn’t feel all that strange, walking out into the morning together, laughing with them and fighting with them and knowing that you love them. You’ll deal with it later, so for now it just feels a little breathless, and a little cosy. Like jolting from unconsciousness into warm and waiting arms.