Chapter Text
It was a few hours before the midnight would hit and it’ll be the New Year
Snow had been falling for hours the slow, steady kind that settled into the world like it belonged there. The cabin windows glowed soft amber from the fire inside, painting warm shapes on the frosted glass. Everything outside was silent, save for the quiet hum of winter.
Inside, Panam Palmer was a mess.
Not externally externally she paced like she was planning a heist. Internally? Pure chaos.
She stalked across the cabin for the fifth, maybe sixth time, her arms crossed tight, jaw set in a line that said something is happening and I hate that I don’t understand it. The fire crackled. The wood floors creaked beneath her boots. She ignored both.
Vincent watched her from the couch long legs stretched out, flannel shirt hanging open just enough to tempt her peripheral vision as she sees his hairy chest. He wasn’t even trying to look good. That was the worst part.
“You okay?” he asked softly.
“I’m fine” Panam snapped
He raised his brows “You’re pacing holes into the floor”
“I’m thinking”
“You pace when you overthink”
“I pace when I feel like pacing” she shot back.
Vincent smiled that warm, unbearably gentle smile she’d started associating with safety and irritation in equal measure.
He sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“What’s going on in that head of yours, Panam?”
Panam stopped. Breathed in. The cedar-and-vanilla scent of his flannel drifted toward her and she immediately regretted breathing.
She turned away “Nothing”
“Panam”
There was something about the way he said her name. Not demanding. Not prying. Just… offering. A steadying force she didn’t know how to resist.
She sank onto the arm of the couch, putting distance between them distance he quietly, patiently allowed but desperately wanted to close.
“This day…” she began, then gestured vaguely “It’s just been… weird”
“Weird how?”
“You keep… looking at me” she muttered.
Vincent blinked “I’ve been looking at you since we got here”
“Yes, but now you’re doing it differently”
“Oh” Vincent murmured, leaning back slowly. His voice dropped to a deep rumbling tone. “Like this?”
And he looked at her really looked at her eyes soft, warm, deep enough to melt the damn snow outside.
Panam’s breath caught “Don’t…don’t look at me like that”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re waiting for me to… to say something. Or do something”
Vincent’s expression gentled.
“I’m waiting for you to not run from something”
Panam sucked in a slow breath.He wasn’t wrong. He wasn’t wrong at all.
The cabin felt too small suddenly. Too warm. Too quiet.
She moved to the window, watching snow swirl against the glass.
“I’m not good at this” she whispered.
Vincent stood, footsteps soft. He approached not too close, but enough that she felt him. His warmth. His steadiness. His patience.
“You don’t have to be” he said “You just have to be honest”
Panam laughed quietly a strained, trembling sound.
“Honesty isn’t my problem. It’s what happens after honesty”
“What happens after?”
She hesitated.
“…People leave”
It slipped out before she could stop it the truth buried under sharp humor and old wounds.
Vincent took one step closer. Just one. She didn’t move away.
“Panam” he said softly “I’m not going anywhere tonight”
She swallowed hard.
Tonight.
Not forever.
Not promises.
Not pressure.
Just tonight.
“Why?” she asked, voice barely audible.
Vincent’s answer came without hesitation.
“Because I want to be here with you”
Her chest tightened. A slow, dangerous warmth spread through her ribs.
“You make it sound so simple”
“It is simple” he murmured “With you, it is”
Panam turned really turned and faced him fully. His height, his steady, warm red eyes, his quietly hopeful expression. Like he’d been waiting for this moment all along.
“You don’t know what you’re asking” she whispered.
He shook his head “I’m not asking for anything. I’m… offering. The rest is up to you”
Panam’s heart hammered. He was too close. Not close enough.
“Vincent…” she breathed.
He held out his hand.
Not grabbing.
Not pulling.
Not assuming.
Inviting.
Panam stared at it at his open palm, at the trust in the gesture, at the space between them trembling with possibility.
Her pulse thundered. Her throat tightened.
“…If I go with this” she whispered “it changes things”
He nodded once.
“I know”
“And you’re still standing there?”
“Yes” he said softly “Always”
Panam’s breath shook.
She reached out.
Her fingers brushed his a spark, a jolt, a soft, electric surge neither of them pretended not to feel.
Then slowly so slowly it nearly broke him she slid her hand into his.
Vincent exhaled like he’d been holding his breath for weeks.
Panam stepped closer one small movement, but in Vincent’s eyes, it was the whole world shifting.
“Alright” she whispered “I’m ready to not run”
It was barely a sound.
Barely a confession.
But to Vincent Hale, it was everything.
He squeezed her hand gentle, grounding, steady.
“Then come here” he murmured.
And Panam did knees weak, heart racing, walls lowering brick by brick letting herself lean into the warmth, the quiet, the truth, and the night that was about to change everything.