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They’d made their own stories, in years apart. Music and sunlight and fame. Bow Street work, solving crimes, patiently building the Division and finding good constables, good people, to help.
To help: because they both did that. John with music, joy, stories and operettas, bright colors and commitment, a songbird that’d moved into Sam’s bed and promised to never leave, to be here, to bring that light home. Sam with the office, which he’d leave in good hands, because he’d done right by them, his constables and his responsibilities.
He said, “And you won’t steal anything else. Promise me.”
“Sam. Would I?”
“Would you?”
“They were just to make a point, anyway.”
“John…”
“I promise,” John said, grinning. The light brushed his face, the ink-tumble of his hair, with gold. “I can come up with other ways to be wicked. Many other ways. Involving you. And your fantasies. I’ll make you tell me about them.”
“Couldn’t you just ask?”
“Yes, but I like the idea of making you admit them. Out loud. While naked and bound to the bed, by preference.”
Sam considered this. Then held out a wrist.
John dissolved into laughter a second time, astonished, because Sam could successfully do that: could amaze him.
“I’m all yours.”
“I know you are.” John gathered him up, held him close: the two of them in bed, a bed that was no longer plain or practical, because it held dreams and promises of delights to come. All those fantasies, just waiting. “I told you I wanted you to see me. You do. You know who I am, and you come up with plans and solve problems, and I love you, and you love me. I told you I felt safe with you. You’ve always been home. Everything else is just sorting out what that looks like.”
“In the morning,” Sam said, “we’ll talk to Kit and Harry, and then you can tell me what you want in a studio, and I’ll teach you how to make decent coffee.” And neither of them would ever be alone, not any longer; because they had this, they had each other, their Midwinter gift, their promise. He was not an empath, but he had John’s arms around him, and the whisper of melody John hummed at the curve of his ear, which looped invisible ribbon around Sam’s wrists and tugged them together and then just stayed put.
Justice. Rightness. Fantasies come true. Home. All the same story, the same emotion, shivering and singing through and spinning gold into Sam’s bones.
“Yes,” John said, watching him.
“Yes to what?”
“To everything,” John said. “Everything I didn’t expect, tonight. Everything I hoped for. Everything I’ve ever wanted, coming true.”
“Once you’ve moved in,” Sam told him, “you can decorate for Midwinter if you’d like to. I think I’d like that, for a change.”
“Can I? I will, if you let me.”
“This house is all yours,” Sam said, “do whatever you want, I want that too.” He knew John heard the unspoken words, from the smile.
John murmured, “Oh, then I definitely will,” music under and around that voice like the opening up of gold and silver stars, before kissing him again, and then again; and Sam knew they both had found precisely where they belonged.
THE END
