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"Hey." It sounded a lot like the one he'd said before nudging her to the bathroom earlier. His hand slid up her back, past some of her hair, and to the cheek she left exposed. "Don't lump me with 'people'," he said, pulling his head back down to look at her.

He paused and then continued, strangely quiet, "I know I don't have an...idyllic record with you." Broken plates and drunken one night stands and this is an open relationship. "But you said it yourself: we can both ******** up as many times as we want as long as we don't leave the other behind."

"Go ahead," he answered with a small yawn he couldn't hold back, curling his fingers around hers.

He probably should have expected that question, but he hadn't. "I don't know, to be honest," he began after a moment. "I've asked myself that in the past, even before we were dating." With little success, he didn't have to add.

"I guess it's—There's this quality when we're together." Jack frowned a little as he tried to think of how to explain it. He had to think above the pain that came from her weight on his body and his arm merely existing. "Maybe no-one else sees it because all they know is the appearance. One opinionated, obnoxious idiot who can't type, and one generic smartass douchebag who's as self-centered as they can get. No-one understands how that would work even if they know us. But people other than Chris don't really know you, and people period don't really know me."

He shifted, pushed himself up with a wince because he was starting to slide down the pillow. "I don't know what that quality is. But I trust you, Chel. There's very few people I can honestly say that about." And the thing he couldn't convey in his exhaustion was how frightening it was to admit it, how much that security was necessary to him; he had no energy to do so tonight. "And I know you're more than what you present to people, just as you know I'm more than just a smooth ********," he added with a small, tired smile.

That iota was enough to stop him from rebuffing with a joke. (Are you sure? Did you hit your head?)

He didn't know what was more surprising: her admission, or the fact that in spite of her disclaimer he was already saying in the midst of it, "I love you, too." In defiance of her knee jerk to backpedal (always offering something and then a way out, always putting herself out there and never demanding the same respect in turn) and of his own inner censorship, and because hearing it made more sense than the unnecessarily convoluted mess he had tried to levee on her. (Annoyance. Acquaintance. Resourceful contact. Friend. Friend with benefits. Girlfriend.) "******** sake," he muttered to himself with a strange look, not aware he had spoken what was supposed to stay an inside thought.

He found himself growing inwardly tense immediately afterward. Jack Hawthorn wasn't supposed to blurt out s**t without careful thought to phrasing. It sounded so childish and thoughtless to him, even though in reality his gut told him those were the right words anyway. It wasn't possible to describe how he felt through more evasive lingo ("I have a deep fondness for you", "you mean a lot to me", "I care about you") because that was toeing the edge and watering it down, and hell but he couldn't half a** s**t anymore.

It wasn't a big show, the grand declaration led up to by a series of romantic misadventures: outside a car alarm went off and the rain made white noise and their bodies ached and bled and healed in a room he had no business booking. But he had. Look at what I can get us. Yes it's a convenient location, yes it's expensive as ********, but it's worth it for you. He'd put up plastic stars in her room in some misguided attempt to be meaningful. I can't give you the same sky back but I still remember it. They had a ******** silent language, god damn cues and nuances picked up from spending so much time together because—

"I'm a ******** idiot, and the quality is that I love you," he said just a little bit louder than previous muttering to be clear, because if they were going to walk into this ocean they might as well dive. The inward tension began to subside, and a new wave of tiredness replaced it. He was too drained for bullcrap to explain away what was already there and had been there for he didn't know how long. A part of Jack wish he hadn't said anything; loving someone was just another step past the warning sign he'd ignored in the tub the night before.

But he was only human.

He squeezed their hands and tightened his arm around her in lieu of something more active, watching her but not demanding her to look up. It was enough to get used to the old, immature thrill of confession thrumming in his chest. One that he knew meant something this time, even if the norm dictated one shouldn't say love after only a month. (Bad ideas, you don't know what love is, it's way too early. Did you hit your head are you sure.) Hunters didn't fit inside the norm anyway, least of all them in particular.

Some tiny piece of him absolved still of emotion was aware they'd veered too far off the original path of the conversation; the rest floated in a mix of exhaustion and satisfaction, too sleepy to bother to point it out. Why bother anyway when he could just nudge their joined hands under her head and kiss her slow? He couldn't begin to think it'd help the noise in her head, but Jack still pulled away feeling victorious, grinning lazily at her ideas.

"Sounds good, babe," he replied simply before going in for a second one.

He turned his head and coughed as she rolled away, sucking in the air he couldn't get before, and then he turned his head back to her as Chel laid back down; trying to turn his whole body right now seemed like a bad idea.

"Genius. The civilians won't notice a thing," Jack said, his sarcasm slowly returning as well. With his glasses askew but with no free hand to remove them, he probably looked even more comical as the lenses seemed to hover over his face rather than be worn. "We'll fill it with hotel brand s**t, booze, and kitschy souvenirs."

Jack groaned softly into the pillow at the pet name. "Yeah," he replied, "right on top of the trash pile. Take these damn things away from me, please. ******** everything else, once we get back my first order of business is getting contacts. I'm not dealing with this bullshit on missions."

And of course getting that bracelet off her wrist would happen before that, but he had long assumed it as at the top of his list.