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She brings a hand up to his face, dark nails pressing into the thick hair covering his cheeks, and squeezes lightly. His face puffs up, reminds her of the fish faces she used to make in the mirror as a child, and she has enough liquor in her system to merit this a full laugh. She squeezes again, another laugh tumbling from her lips. “Why is this so funny to me?” she ponders aloud, laughs growing bigger still. He smiles, laughs too, deep and rumbling, leans up to kiss her with squeezed cheeks.
“You’re so drunk,” he chuckles as he pulls away. He lifts a nearby bottle to his lips, the amber colored contents inside almost gone. She scoffs, takes a sip from her own bottle, some beer she can’t even register.
“If I’m drunk, what does that make you?” she queries.
He smirks, secretive and seductive, latches a hand against her hip to pull her standing figure in between his legs. They’re at their local watering hole, a quaint dive tucked into brick walls down on East 7th. There are white Christmas lights around the bar, an old Dylan record oozing through shitty distorted speakers, and they serve the best deep fried pickles she’s tasted since she spent the summer with her Gran down in Bolivia when she was 11. He’s sitting below her in one of the old rugged armchairs in the back room by the pool table, his body loose and supple. She likes when he’s like this: relaxed and limber beneath her hands, warm from several glasses of the aged wolfsbane whiskey Toby has pulled off the bottom shelf. There was a fine layer of dust caked on the cap, Toby’s best stuff- Ah man, Hale, you gotta try this, it’s yours on the house, congrats big guy we’re all just so proud of you, Talia would be so fucking proud of you kid, you’re gonna do big things for this city- an exchange of fingertips digging into broad shoulders and rough pats on the back. She loves seeing Derek happy like this, running off that adrenaline of closing a big deal to design the new arts center in Midtown, and he’s been pressed to her side all night filled with that excitement, that light. She’s proud of him too, called her dad and the pack the moment she found out, and they’ve been drinking and fucking since noon.
“If you’re drunk,” he says lowly, “then I’m horny.” A toothy grin appears and she can’t help but to match it. She hums as he presses his forehead to her stomach, and she runs her nails through his dark curls. His hair is the longest it has ever been since the summer after her freshman year of college and he was going into his first year of grad school. He’ll probably cut it soon, no matter how much she tells him she likes it (“It’s better to grip when you’re... you know.” He smirked then, shirtless and buttoning his jeans. “Better to what? Grip when I’m going down on you?” She’d grinned then, wide and stunning. “So you do know.”), so she relishes in this. Relishes in the pressure of his head pressed to her belly, his fingers finding purchase on her left hip.
“You’re always horny,” she says.
“You’re always really gorgeous,” he mumbles into the cotton of her dress.
She snorts at this, giddy and relaxed. “Hmm. I guess you’re not so bad yourself, Hale,” she says, leaning down to kiss his locks.
She never thought it could be like this, this... easy. The journey from where they came from- squared off and screaming at each other, arrows ripping through the air, claws slicing through leather- to this moment here- smooth, comfortable, wonderful- was a gotdamn war, but they’re not as broken as they could be. Hell, they're not as broken as they used to be, no longer bogged down by the past or the feeling of failure, by fear or weakness or loss of control. They’re not perfect by any means, god no- he still has problems with saying what he feels and she often forgets to ask for help- but this...
This is pretty damn good.
She feels his other hand press into her right side, feels him pulling her in closer, lips leaving soft kisses across her lower abdomen. “What about you?” he says between kisses, his left hand trailing down her past her hip. “You’re something else, Argent. I mean, that hair, those dimples, these legs," and she feels his fingers slip past the hem of her dress to grip the back of her thigh. She shivers, watches him leave more kisses across her stomach and feels his thumb circling the back of her left knee.
That’s enough.
“You want to get out of here?” she says softly.
He looks up at her then, lashes long and eyes dark, and nods. She squeezes his cheeks again and leans down to plant a quick, effortless kiss to his lips. She helps him up from his chair then, both of them a little past drunk, stumbling and snickering, and after they make the rounds saying goodbyes- I promise you’ll see me again, Toby, I’m not kidding, yeah I’ll see you Sunday when the Seahawks crush your precious Jets, yeah yeah alright, we’ll see about that- they’re shuffling out the door, up the stairs into the night, half empty bottle of old whiskey tucked snugly inside of her windbreaker.