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It was fucking cold. That had nothing to do with the shivers racking up and down her frame, however. Woken abruptly from a nightmare, she’d sat up in her room—more like closet, to be fair—and paced. Tears trekked in non-uniform paths down her face, and her nose was running like the Falls. A rather brutal shudder ripped through her once more, and she squeezed her eyes shut against the images bombarding her brain.
The moment passed, and she cracked her eyes open, hesitant for reasons she didn’t want to think about. She looked up to the lone window in her blue room—large chunks of frozen, crystallized water floated from the sky to add onto the permanent blankets of snow. One bright light that was fastened to one of the buildings annexed in the compound tore a hole in the inky blackness, shining through the flakes; silent shadows slid onto the floor beneath her feet, with their physical counterparts only separated by a thick pane of glass.
As she watched the hushed scene, she felt herself settle. Even if she felt like she was in turmoil, it was nice to know that the rest of the world was okay and unaffected. She swiped the sleeve of her cardigan against her eyes, willing the nightmare in all its freshness to go away. A skeptical snort bubbled up and out of her chest. Like that’d ever happen, she thought to herself.
Casting one more weary glance at her bed, she shook her head and padded toward her dresser. She wasn’t tired anymore. Well, that was a lie, actually, but she couldn’t even consider getting back into that bed. A grim creature smiled at her in her mind, and the tears started to flow again. Fuck, okay. Yeah, there was no way she was going back to sleep.
She rummaged her dresser for a pair of woolen socks. The pair that Misha’s mom made for her last Smissmas were sitting toward the side, and she felt a fuzzy pleasant feeling envelope her for a moment. She pulled them on, reveled in the softness for a minute too long, then crouched over by the door to slip on her moccasins.
With a shaky hand, she wrapped the cardigan tightly around her frame and opened the door. The door didn’t squeak anymore, thanks to Dell and a can of WD-40. Appreciation swelled lowly in her stomach, quelling the nausea for a moment as she snuck through the halls to the kitchen. She deftly avoided the one floorboard that squeaked by the wall that skirted the mess—she guessed dining room was a better term to use?—and caught herself as she tripped on Scout’s fucking baseball. Spy nearly killed the kid last week because he’d tripped on it, but it didn’t seem like the Boston boy had learned his lesson.
Holding her breath, she peered around the doorway of the kitchen and released it through her teeth when she saw it was empty.
She moved to the porcelain farmer’s sink and flipped on the switch. A faint, yellow glow illuminated the space over the sink—she needed to replace that bulb tomorrow—and provided enough light to see the nearby cabinets.
Ransacking her mind for the recipe, she began to pull the necessary ingredients from the cupboard. Searching for everything was a mite repetitive, but that’s what she wanted—it took her mind off what it so badly wanted to ruminate over.
When she was a young teen, the nightmares had started up. Slowly, at first. At the time, she could brush them off. But, they continued; they left her exhausted, red-eyed, and oftentimes traumatized the following day. Seeing the problem, her mom had brought up the idea of baking—a calm, hands-on activity that could remove her from her problems for a time.
At first, she'd hated it. Lacking any kind of patience, she had burned countless pans and charred hundreds of unsuspecting cookies. She nearly laughed at the memory now, remembering the time the oven began to smoke something fierce when she accidentally put in wax paper instead of parchment. Over time, though, and many, many attempts, she began to enjoy it. Normally, trial and error was an approach she almost never took—it was embarrassing to get things wrong more than once—but in this particular case, it was quite rewarding.
Stirring the batter despite the burn in her arm, she allowed herself to get lost in the reverie. The recipe came to her so easily now, after years of having it committed to memory; she hardly had to measure the amounts anymore, her hands just knew.
Adding a scoop of brown sugar, she cou—
“[Y/n]?” a voice cut in, sleep thickening the syllables of the apparent southern drawl.
Her heart leaped from her chest and into the batter as she whipped around. She brought a hand to her neck in surprise, eyes big like saucers on the shadow of an unexpected visitor. They moved forward into where the light was cast, and she saw it was just Engie—her heart settled somewhat and a jumpy smile pulled at the corners of her mouth.
“Oh, hi, Dell,” she warbled.
The man was in his pajamas; a BLU mandated shirt—it was old, she ventured to guess from the faded look of it—and a pair of wrinkled sweatpants. Something warm, something familiar ached in her chest and her face scrunched up against her will as the tears started again. Fuck! She brought the sleeve that had the least amount of flour on it and caught the bandits sprinting down her cheeks.
Dell’s eyebrows pinched up in worry.
“Aw, hell, [y/n],” he started, then moved toward her with his hands out. She flinched as he got closer, and he visibly recoiled. Now look what you did, he doesn’t want to touch you, a voice sneered after Engie brought his hands back to his sides. “I won’ hurt ya,” he said firmly with a hand over his heart. A promise.
She nodded—she knew he wouldn’t hurt her, she knew that, but her body stayed rigid. What was wrong?
Engie moved toward her cautiously and tilted his head down—not by much, he was only a handful of inches taller—and locked his shockingly blue eyes with hers. For a foolish moment, she wondered what it would be like to swim in them; what would it feel like to swim in twin cerulean pools?
He broke the silence: “Ya gotta talk ta me, darlin’, I can’ read yer mind.”
The damn shattered. Her face crumpled up again, tears falling freely as the memories of countless lonely nights spent in the Coldfront sprayed her like a bucket of ice water to the face. How many times had she come to the kitchen in the years she’d worked here as the Maintenance? How many times had she tried to evade the devils in her nightmares by baking them away? How many times did anyone ask? She could count the number of times on one hand, and they were all from the same person—him.
A broken sob wrenched itself from the base of her stomach, and she all but collapsed on him. Dell spread his feet to balance their combined weight as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and placed her face in the crook of his neck.
Lord, he was so warm and she was so, so cold. No amount of wool could thaw her insides from the ice licking up the marrow in her bones. But, by God, he was like a fire—everywhere and anywhere, swallowing her whole. Another sob pulled itself free from the base of her spine, the noise only muffled slightly by her face being pressed against his neck.
“Whoa, hey, now, it’s okay,” he cooed, running a hand over her hair. A tremble clawed through her frame, but it didn’t deter him. He was a rock, her foundation for the time being—holy fuck he was like molten lava against her skin—and he held her up straight.
“I-I’m so s-sorry,” she choked out in between the waves of tears. I’m so sorry, God, I’m so very sorry to do this to you. She tattooed the words onto his heated skin, over and over, hoping he understood.
"Shh,” he reassured, “Let it out, s’all right, I gotcha.” Her grasp on gravity changed as he slipped his free arm under her rear, effectively holding her up off the floor. “C’mon, now,” he urged, tapping her legs. Getting the message, she wrapped them around his torso and tightened her grip on his shoulders.
Dell ran his hand over her hair again and again and again, humming softly as he held her. Tears continued to roll onto his neck, and a small shiver shredded through her core once more.
His hold on her tightened.
***
Twenty minutes passed, and her lungs hurt from heaving. Hiccups tripped out of her as she tried to catch her breath, and she wondered how he managed to hold her for so long. Carting those toolboxes around all day on the field must’ve conditioned him more than she thought.
She moved her head to the side, so it was resting fully on his shoulder, and tucked her still-freezing nose into his soft skin. As she moved, she could feel his beard brush against her cheek; a small giggle hiccuped out of her.
Dell stopped his rocking and humming, and readjusted his grasp on her.
“Well, now, ya gotta tell me what’s so funny,’” he rumbled in her ear. His voice was purely saccharine in nature and etched with honey; she could feel herself forming one wicked sweet-tooth.
“Your beard is tickling me,” she whispered back.
“Oh, that so?” he questioned, then began to move his head in honest, causing the beard to brush over her skin. This elicited several giggles. She pulled her head back and put both hands on each side of his face. A tentative smile tugged at her lips. She was sure she looked like hell right now, but he continued to look at her like… like she was worth something. His expression cracked the hard molding around her heart.
She mumbled, “Thank you, Dell.” Leaning her forehead against his, something raw ached in her chest. A smidgeon of shame and guilt still lingered, but this felt different.
“It weren't no thing, darlin’,” he comforted, his arms growing a little stronger around her midsection. The warmth flared up, again, and her brain went stupid. Very stupid.
Clenching her legs around his torso, she felt a puff of air escape his lips. He was so close. Her nose traced over his own, slowly, gently, and she turned her head to the side. You could ruin your friendship! Don't do this! His beard roughly passed over her upper lip, then, she did something so irrevocably senseless, it left her brain sputtering.
In one swift go, she tilted his head up with a hand and pressed her lips to his. This was—
Wow.
Good heavens, his lips were so feathery, and boiling—she was melting. She was simply just a puddle of snow, turning to mush in the sun that was his arms. The musk of metal that she associated with him filled her nose, and she found that she quite liked that smell. God, she wanted to do this all the time—
A sound of surprise clicked in the back of his throat and he went stock-still.
Fuck.
Shit, bad idea, this was a terrible, awful, foolish idea! Look what you did! Boundaries were there and you just completely ignored them! Her mind screamed at her as she reeled, and she instantly broke it off.
She yanked back and pressed her hands to his chest, trying to get him to let go.
“I-m,” she stuttered as she tried to wiggle out of his grasp, “I am so sorry, Dell, I don’t know what I was thinking—if you hate me, God, that’s okay, more than okay—Christ, I’m so s—”
But, suddenly, everything was on fire.
He crashed his lips to hers, beard glancing her marginally, as he held her in a vice-like grip to his chest. She stopped trying to get down and froze for a second. He'd… liked it?
Hesitantly, she kissed back and was met with low grumble reverberating in his chest. His mouth moved in tandem with hers, pressing molten material to her lips. She’d kissed people before but… nothing like this.
The southerner’s mouth parted, allowing his tongue to lave against her lips. She whined high in the back of her throat as she let him in and felt the searing appendage flick over her own. Jesus Christ, she was drowning in her very own brand of Engineer.
Licking across his teeth, she heard him groan, gravelly and restrained in his chest before he moved them toward the counter. She didn’t know how much more she could take before she sizzled through the floor. He shoved the bowl of batter to the side—oh, the cookies—and sat her down in its place.
Dell grabbed her thighs and squeezed, before kneading them with his hands; the same hands that had built and created such beautiful machines. The same hands that have so easily taken lives. He was a craftsman, and he was disassembling her with such finesse that she could hardly make heads or tails of it. She keened into his mouth, kissed him once, twice, thrice, and pulled back for air. It was blistering—she felt like she couldn’t breathe. God, everything was so hot and wow, he was pressing open-mouthed kisses down her neck, leaving a glistening trail with his tongue before he made his way back up again.
“Wanna make ya happy,” he mumbled low in her ear before pressing a kiss—a branding iron—onto the cord of her neck. “Don’ wanna see ya cry again, [y/n].” He shuddered. “I’ll keep ya safe, I promise."
Her chest bloomed with the words, and she moved her hands to his arms. The bands of muscle under her hands rippled, and, interestingly, her head felt extremely light all of a sudden. Chest heaving as she tried to capture and bottle the air she’d lost, she pressed a chaste kiss onto his lips.
“You can’t,” she swallowed, “You can’t protect me from everything, Engie.” She brought a hand to his cheek, and she felt her heart gutter when he pressed into it.
“I’d do anythin’ for ya, darlin’, ya know that, righ’?” His eyes turned dark, and the implication wasn’t lost on her. It spurred in her equal parts fear and something else she didn’t want to consider. Suddenly eye contact was impossible.
“Don’t talk like that.”
“I meant it.”
She turned her gaze back to him and sighed, “I know you did.”
Quickly, she slotted her lips into his. It was sweeter this time, slower, and it twisted a root painfully in her chest with its sincerity. She knew he’d protect her, she was just afraid of the lengths the man would go.
They pulled back, and she looked back at the batter next to her. An idea struck her through the fog in her mind.
“You want to help?” she asked, hooking a thumb toward the bowl. Engie smiled and patted her thighs surrounding him.
“‘Course I do,” he answered, “I make tha meanest batch o’ cookies.” Dell gripped her thighs one last time and grinned like the devil when she squeaked. She punched him on the arm.
“Alright, grease-monkey.” She jumped down from the counter, consequently standing nose-to-nose with the southerner. “Let’s get to work.”
***
It was six in the morning, and everyone was filing in for breakfast. After having it happen multiple times in the past, no one gave mention to the cookies that were on the table, save for Scout, who enthusiastically took four.
Engie was at the stove, grilling up the last of the bacon, and she sat on the counter-top next to him. He’d since changed into his work attire—sans the gloves for cooking purposes—and she couldn’t help but feel a little resentful that she couldn’t see his entire face anymore. She didn’t realize she’d been doing it, but when he looked up, caught her staring and tossed her a sly smile, her face turned a bright red.
She’d changed, too; the cardigan needed to be washed—Dell grabbed her from behind with his hands coated in flour, and tickled her mercilessly to the floor. She began to chuckle at the memory of her smearing cookie-dough in his beard—he’d hated that—and his eventual flour-attack for revenge. The socks, however, she still had on, and Misha gave her a double thumbs-up with his massive hands when he saw them. She beamed at him.
Everyone seemed to be groggily waking up over their coffee and plates of food, and she saw her chance. No one was looking, so she planted a quick kiss on his cheek, before heading for the door—she had a lot of things to do. Dell directed his goggles toward her and grinned. He nodded his head, causing the hard-hat to bob, and waved goodbye with the spatula.
For the first time in a while, she felt safe and happy.
***