Work Text:
"What the fuck is that?"
Robin didn’t lift her eyes from the page, didn’t answer. Just shifted the end of her pencil between her teeth. Granted, it wasn’t one of the greatest habits to have; the wood already chewed too soft, a bitter tang taking over her tongue. But—
(Let him figure out whatever it was on his own. She really didn’t care right now. He was, God forbid, an adult with a somewhat functional brain of his own.)
Ten minutes. She’d sent Steve upstairs to her room to fetch her Spanish workbook at least ten minutes ago. Ten. For a walking distance of at most one minute (one-way). Even accounting for his tendency to get sidetracked by the slightest thing, ten minutes was way too much. He’d wanted to be helpful, had insisted he wouldn’t bother her while studying for tomorrow’s exam; he’d said it with a fist to his chest like he was making a pledge. And yet, first, he was taking so long and second, now he was blocking all of the little light particles dripping across the pages of the conjugation exercise she was trying to—
"Hey!"
—the said exercise was ripped away from her and pushed to the other end of the table.
How rude.
She’d ignored him for like one second and what? He immediately had to be a child about it?
Her jaw tightened, molars pressing together. The pressure showed in the shape of a dull stabbing pain behind the shells of Robin’s ears. The pencil finally dropped from her mouth and clattered against the tabletop. It didn’t take it long to roll off that one too, vanishing beneath the table with a soft, final tick against her little toe. Great. Another thing she’d have to retrieve before being able to finish the verbs.
Glaring at Steve had become one of her specialties, especially in the sense of never meaning it on a deeper level. But now — now Robin had probably never meant it more as she tilted her head back, leveling him with a stare otherwise effective enough to let him know she wasn’t in the mood for bickering. She could barely make out the distinctive shape of his face, with the kitchen’s only source of light all bundled up behind his back, only a halo of it outlining his shoulders and hair. Didn’t matter. Only just she’d managed to cram a few of those bulky grammar rules into her head and then he had to—
"What? Took you long enough. Did you get my book? Steve?"
He waved something into her face. Too close, too swift for her to see what it was.
Something papery, maybe. It whispered as it moved. But far too thin and flabby to be a book. No. Definitely not her book.
Robin felt a wave of ugly annoyance wash over her, through her. Starting behind her eyes like a sharp headache before sinking into her gut like car sickness. And it wasn’t the fond, tingly, superficial kind of aggravation she more often than not reserved for him and his silly antics. He just knew how hard she was panicking about tomorrow; she knew he did — she hadn’t shut up about it during the whole drive home. Now wasn’t the time to tease her — she thought she’d made that clear enough?
"That’s not my book," she said, already starting to push her chair back to get it herself—
"Robin," Steve said, in his all-serious adult voice, the one she didn’t hear very often. And never directed at her. In return, that mischievous tilt she’d expected it to bear was missing.
Something unwelcome transpired between her ribs. A hitch, like from skipping a stair.
Details emerged as Robin tilted her head slightly to the side — Steve’s mouth drawn into one horizontal line, eyes reflecting the weak light like glass and then breaking it up into triangles.
Maybe it was a blend of all of that what caused Robin’s limbs to stop working. She sagged against the back of her chair, the wood pressing into the spot between her shoulder blades. A familiar cold that had become much more seldom in the past few weeks was inching its way back into her core, somewhat paralyzing her. Her toes were losing sensation, her fingertips tingling. The doorway to the living room yawned dark and hollow just beyond Steve’s shoulder, one gaping mouth of dusk. Oh God, she was choking again—
"Shit. Oh my God. What happened? Is it Max? Did she—? Or is it— did something else happen? Did something… crawl through those cracks? One of these Demo-things? Did it attack someone? Oh Jesus — it’s not one of the kids, right? Or Nance— is it Nance? Is she okay? Is— Steve! Fucking say something!"
Robin punched his thigh, the closest part of him she could reach with her hand.
Steve, however, was a pinhead and had the audacity to just ignore all her questions, that—
"What is that?" he asked, and shit— was she hearing a teary edge in his voice?
It must be death, then. Someone must have died. Or— worse, because of course her brain would go there next— everyone. The tick of the clock suddenly swelled into a deafening, terminal pounding, a countdown. Or Vecna… Vecna had got him. Vecna had gotten Steve and Steve had just seen his first vision and that… that would give him… how long? Robin strained to remember. Had he complained about headaches over the past few days? Had she caught him hastily wiping blood from his nose?
They had to find him a walkman. Hers broke last week when she accidentally dropped it down the stairs and her mom stepped on it while vacuuming but… no reason to worry. It wasn’t too late yet, they could still— call someone, borrow one, turn on the radio—
Only when the edge of that ominous paper pricked her cheek did Robin realize he was, again, waving it into her face. What? And oh. What had he asked her? What is that?
"What… is what?"
"Uh— this?"
So he did mean the stupid paper he continued to wag. It bent limply with each motion.
Maybe… she was the one trapped in a Vecna-vision. That would actually explain a lot. Because so far, he was making very little sense. Or. Confusion. A belated reaction to those bats biting him? Unlikely. It’d been weeks, literally an entire month. But not entirely excludable, right? Perhaps she should add forgetfulness to the list of symptoms. He did forget her book, it seemed. Which she still was a bit pissed about, admittedly (unless he was being sick, because if he was, never mind the stupid book).
"Maybe… if you would hold it still, dingus, I’d actually be able to see what—"
"Oh, as if you don’t remember—"
"Jesus! I don’t!"
"—the suicide notes you casually keep in your drawer?"
Heat flushed straight up her neck, the instant burn enough to clamp down on any hint of nausea.
"Why were you— I said the book was on top of—"
Steve cut her off, "Christ, Robin, that’s so not the point here!"
It kinda was, Robin thought to herself, crossing her arms, then uncrossing them again. If he had listened to her and hadn’t gone around snooping (consciously or not), he wouldn’t have found… and they wouldn’t be having this conversation now. He wouldn’t be all — like that. Steve shifted his weight, the warm light flooding half of his face, cutting him down the middle. One side of him still familiar and softened by the dark, the other — he looked… devastated, for lack of a better word. His skin all red and slack, bottom lip trembling.
Robin wanted to jump to her feet and hug him so very tightly. But she also wanted to slap him. Hard enough to knock some sense back into him.
"That… that was…"
Unfreezing her back from the chair and then her feet from the floor, Robin lunged forward, trying to tear the folded paper from his grip. But. But she’d always had terrible coordination (a lifelong curse), and Steve had been captain of nearly every sports team there was at Hawkins High at some point. So it was hardly surprising who ended up gaining the upper hand. Quite literally.
Steve reacted on instinct, shoulders tensing as he stepped back, stretching the hand holding the letter high over his own head. Robin copied him and attempted to reach it, but as usual she was missing just a few inches — her fingers brushed through empty air, the paper’s edge teasingly close — she tried to jump but—
"That," Robin snapped, breathing a little heavier, pulse hammering in her ears, "was private, dipshit."
"Yeah?" Steve raised an eyebrow. "And why is my name on that one then, huh?"
"Give it back."
"Hell no."
"Steve."
"Technically it’s mine, right?" He shook the paper once. "You know, since you apparently meant to give it to me anyway. Or rather, let me find it? I might as well read it now."
He made a show of unfolding the paper high over both their heads. Seeing him like this, all high-and-mighty just to cover something else — Robin didn’t know what fraction of his behaviour exactly twinged it in her brain, but for a second it was hard to unsee the version of him he used to be. Back when she would have taken a detour if she’d spotted him acting like that, ducked down another hallway or pretended to check her locker, just to be and remain on the safe side of invisibility.
Now was fortunately quite a different time, a different Steve, a different her, and so she had little qualm about kicking him in the leg. It sent a sharp jolt up her own shin. And it did make him stumble sideways a little, accompanied by a surprised grunt, but it didn’t bring her any closer to the letter. It fluttered once above his head, like it was amused by her pitiable attempts.
"Steve," she whined, testing whether that change to her own tone might cause him to sway—
While he did blink twice before continuing, the frenzy etched into his features didn’t let up.
"Let’s see. I might be able to give you a few tips, you know, things you could improve about it—"
He tilted his head back, angling the page toward the lamp, squinting to make out her scrawled writing, though she had really tried her best to make it at least a bit more readable — rewriting and restarting until her wrist ached. Since, well, in case those letters were needed, she’d never get the chance to straighten out any uncertainties for anyone.
"It’s not like tha—"
"Dear Steve—"
"You serious right now? Will you just listen to—"
"—I know you’re not the most avid reader but I do hope you’re gonna take the time to—"
"Oh, okay, stop it, will you! Please!"
Robin clutched her face in her hands, not really expecting for her words to have any impact.
"I just don’t get it," Steve’s voice said, cracking near the end, and oh— that wasn’t part of the letter. That was just him.
Parting two fingers to uncover one eye, Robin peeked through the narrow crack of humiliation currently burning across her cheeks, ears ringing faintly with her own pulse. The snippet of the world it let her see was small, tilted and watery; it still revealed enough of Steve to make her certain that he had indeed lowered the creased paper. Nearly forgotten it hung at his side now, like an extension of his own arm. He was staring at her, still wide-eyed, expectant.
Did she owe him an explanation when, strictly speaking, he owed her an apology first?
"Rob," he croaked.
Okay, okay. Fine. One crisis before the other.
If it stopped those beaten puppy eyes from remaining so wide and glossy and frantic.
Slowly, she lowered her palms from her face, her skin prickling where her hands had been. The knot of tension in her gut pulled tighter instead of loosening. Shit. She’d blanked out how miserable seeing him so miserable made her. The Russians must have found a way to manufacture drugs that could wire brains or nerves or both — she stuck to that theory now as much as before. How else could she reasonably explain that Steve’s shaking shoulders made her want to sob out of nowhere? That her own chest ached in sympathy?
Even though she knew. She knew. He didn’t.
"Steve, okay, I know it looks bad…"
"Bad’s a fucking understatement!"
Steve scrubbed the hand not clutching the letter over his face, ruffling his eyebrows.
Seeing him all tired and drained wasn’t exactly a new sight, not to Robin anyway. Maybe to the kids, who still seemed to think he was the coolest guy, unbreakable by default. But she wasn’t one of his kids, not someone he constantly had to worry about on top of everything else — or so she kept telling him, anyway. Not that he would listen to her. She ached to rip some of that weight off of his shoulders, the memory of that letter included, bury it all somewhere he could never retrieve it. Where neither of them would have to look at it ever again.
Instead of giving in and attempting another headless scramble, however, Robin tried to compel her senses to try out another approach, a less frantic and more mature one as her mother would have labeled it. She lifted both hands, palms turned toward him.
"Let me explain, okay?"
"What’s there to explain, Rob? You— Jesus. When were you planning to do this? And how? And where and— oh. Hold on. Did you even plan to say goodbye? Oh my god, is that why you asked me to stay?"
"So, first of all I didn’t ask—"
"Why? Why? I mean, I know it’s a lot. All that shit with Vecna and… the Upside Down and… if that’s too much, if you’re scared, if it’s that, you can just cop out, you know? I know they technically closed off the town but maybe — I dunno — maybe we could get Murray to smuggle you out or somethin’ and you could go off and… do your thing?"
Robin groaned. "Jeez. Steve. It’s not that. It’s nothing actually, it’s—"
"Then… what is it?" His voice morphed into something smaller. "Why didn’t you talk to me? Why aren’t you talking to me?" He took a half-step closer, knocking over one of the chairs without seeming to notice. "I’m right here, alright? I know I’m saying, like, stuff about you, like that you’re annoying me or somethin’ but I thought you knew I was just joking, I never meant it, I swear, I’m sorry, you’re really—"
"Okay, Steve. Steve. Hey."
Robin grasped both his shoulders, shaking him enough to not interrupt her this once.
"Alright. Calm down. Listen to me, silly. It’s not like you think."
"Oh, really?"
His gaze darted to her hands still gripping him, lingered there for a moment, then zeroed in on her wrists — or what he could see of them at least. Robin’s own stomach churned, imagining what he might be fearing to see there. She opened her mouth to contradict before he could spiral any further, but Steve’s frantically jumping gaze — now skimming the length of her arms — distracted her a little.
"Oh my God," Steve gasped, sounding half-mad at this point. "Fuck. Did you…" He leaned forward a little too close, trying to peer at… her eyes? Instinctively, Robin leaned back, narrowing her eyes. "Did you — Jesus, Robin — did you already… take something? Like, like pills?"
His empty hand leapt to her left wrist. Before Robin could even open her mouth and dispel his unnecessary, anxious worries — and that had to mean something because she was usually very quick to do so — Steve was tugging her by her wrist, forcing her to stumble after him around the table. His grip had closed over her artery, so viselike it could almost be described as painful.
Under stress Steve had a tendency to think without using his wits, she knew that. To act first and reason later, or never. Still—
"What the hell— Steve!"
"Let’s go," was all the response he deemed to share with her. Let’s go?
"Go? Go where?!"
No answer from him. Just this pinch of his lips drawn tight that made him look like his mom.
When Robin tried to wrench herself free now, planting her heels and twisting her arm, his only response was to let the letter sail to the floor and grab her other arm as well. Again — it was the same as with the coordination — his physical condition was very unfairly different from hers. Still, Robin braced her feet against this tug that had long since crossed the line into a yank, straining the muscles in her lower arms until they burned and trembled. Not that it did anything to deter him.
They’d already made it into the hallway, Steve gracefully stepping over her mom’s collection of shoes lined up along the wall, whereas Robin, so focused on shaking him off, of course clipped the edge of those fuzzy slippers her mom refused to throw out and nearly went down.
(There, she was at least slightly glad for Steve’s arms holding her up on her feet.)
However. This was still eerie, even by their standards. Robin was aware of her pulse skidding unevenly. Maybe… Vecna after all? Could someone please finally get the music going?
"Steve. Let go," she ordered in the sternest tone she could muster, twisting her arms in his grip. "You’re acting crazy. I mean, even more than usually, okay? Let me go. Let go."
"Nope. Not happening, no."
Steve shook himself, not solely his head, but the rest of himself too. He’d turned his face away from her, facing the door he was trying to haul them both toward, apparently with the aim to get them outside? Jesus, she wasn’t even wearing shoes! Her socks slid uselessly over the floorboards with every step he forced her to take.
"We’re going to get you— like, help or something. Like… a hospital. Do you— how much did you take? Like— do you already feel dizzy? Tired? Black spots in front of the eyes? Do you know who I am?"
It dawned on her then that for all her meager attempts to explain herself, she hadn’t in fact said it out loud yet. Well. Her mistake.
"I’m not… holy shit, Steve. I’m not planning on killing myself!"
Maybe it was the intensity with which she said — well, sort of screamed — it. Robin was fairly sure her neighbors were enjoying the show if they were home.
But it made Steve falter, thank God. Finally, he paused in this deranged mission of dragging her after himself like an animal. His breath came uneven and loud. He didn’t look at her directly, but he did focus his gaze on her reflection in the oblong hallway mirror, which was good enough for now, she figured. The old glass warped their faces slightly, stretched them thinner than real life, like something out of a funhouse. Robin tried to return her attention through the looking glass, meeting his eyes there instead of head-on.
"You’re not?" he asked, nearly a whisper.
"No! I mean. Yes! I’m not."
His grip slackened, not all the way, but enough for blood to circulate again the way it should. Warmth rushed back into her hands in an uncomfortable, prickling wave.
"And you didn’t… take anything?"
"I didn’t," Robin said slowly, wanting to make sure he could digest every syllable for what it meant. "The only thing in my system right now is that donut you got me. If you didn’t put anything in that one, I think I should be just fine."
Steve pulled a grimace, one of genuine pain maybe. His eyes squeezed shut for a second. "Robin…"
"I’m just saying!"
"Is that… are you lying to me?"
Robin scoffed. "You know how bad I am at lying. So just look at me."
"Fair point."
His shoulders sagged.
"Can you…" Robin cleared her throat, all while staring down at his hands still gripping her wrists, needlessly tight; it’d become less painful, but certainly not comfortable. "It’s kinda—"
"Oh, shit," he muttered, horror flashing across his face. "Sorry. I just—"
He dropped her wrists so abruptly that her hands swung through the air like they were lifeless, if only for a beat. Until they seemed to remember that they formed part of her body, and flew on their own toward her torso, where they landed and cradled each other, Robin’s fingertips gingerly prodding the skin there. It wasn’t too bad, especially with her thoughts now buzzing louder than any physical concern ever could.
"I’m sorry," Steve muttered, sounding… crushed.
He’d turned his back to the door and his face toward her. He was staring at her. At least, trying to. But his eyes strayed from her face, kept flicking to her hands and away. As if he couldn’t bear to look too long. Robin dropped her own hands as though they were scorching her. It kinda felt like that. In her chest, just behind her ribs.
"It’s alright," Robin assured, meaning it. "You were only trying to help. I’m okay."
Steve scoffed, unintelligible words muttered into an imaginary beard.
If there was one thing Steve truly excelled at — more than anyone else she knew — then it was blaming himself. He was a fucking magnet for guilt, for piling it onto his own shoulders, whatever or whoever’s it was. As endearing as that level of altruism could be, Robin was sick of it, sometimes.
(Mainly, probably, because it made her feel like an asshole herself.)
"Okay, let’s go sit down for a moment," she suggested, but didn’t wait for his response.
Ushering him back into the kitchen and past the table and the abandoned letter on the floor and into the living room didn’t prove to be any challenge at all. Steve, for sure, was putting up less of a fight than she had on the way in the opposite direction; he let her lead him with a dazed compliance until they ended up on the couch, half-facing each other.
Sensing his worry to see her slip away while reluctant to reach for her all the same, Robin made the first move, letting him hold her hand across the small gap between their legs. Tentatively, Steve’s fingers curled around hers. She rolled her eyes, a deliberately exaggerated gesture meant to shift his attention.
He grinned, still a little uncertain. Just as swiftly the lightness melted again, replaced by something more somber. The space in Robin’s throat tightened again; she tried to ration the air. Who could know how long it would last this time. Talking probably wasn’t such a good idea right now — she did it anyway. Since Steve’s speech had clearly abandoned him temporarily.
Or else he would have recovered enough to bug her further about it already, she was certain.
Her chance to set things straight, at least.
"I can see… why you interpreted what you found the way you did," she started, astonished herself by how easily air kept flowing while she spoke, only to be restricted again the second she stopped. More talking it was, then. Not necessarily a problem. "But, like I said, it’s not like that. I— uh— those letters? All of them…" Robin swallowed, feeling Steve’s grip tighten in response. "They're just… a precaution."
Steve seemed to perk up at that. "A precaution?"
At the same time, he sounded like he had not the faintest clue what she was saying.
So much for people insisting they shared a brain cell. And even if so — that one brain cell was clearly clocked in on her side of it today, and only hers. The thought nearly made Robin snort with laughter, the sound already tickling the insides of her throat but— not the right moment. She knew as much. She forced it down, bit the inside of her cheek to contain it. Tried her best to return to that same earnest tone that had made Steve listen to her before.
"Things are… quiet. For now," Robin said, her gaze drifting toward the window where ash clung in gray streaks to the glass. "I mean, I guess, apart from the cracks in the floor and it raining ash and the military all over the place but… relatively quiet, I mean. Vecna-quiet, y’know. All the same… it’s not going to stay that way, right? We didn’t kill him, and it’s unlikely that he’s just satisfied now and so obviously he’s going to come back at some point. And I’m pretty sure he won’t have forgotten that we literally flambeed him alive— if the way he was still counts as being alive? That’s up for debate, I guess, but— anyway, I don’t think that’s something you can forget or forgive. I wouldn’t. I would be pissed. Like, more than that. Like, I wouldn’t just let it rest—"
"So you’re afraid he’s going to come back and revenge himself?"
He said it like it was so unlikely, frowning at her, which — was he being deliberately dense? Or naive?
"You say it like it’s a possibility, Steve," she couldn’t help letting her voice jump in both pitch and volume. "It’s verging on a fact! We set him on fire! And Nance punched more holes into him than any human should be able to survive, but that’s the thing, isn’t it? He’s not exactly human anymore, right? And the fact that his body was gone when we got out of the house—"
"Doesn’t mean he’s not dead," Steve interrupted. A feeble-minded interjection, Robin thought. And not a very convincing argument, either. Not an argument at all, come to think of it. "He could’ve, I dunno, dragged himself somewhere else to… check out in peace?"
"Are you trying to convince yourself of that or are you asking me, Steve?"
Her tone had been quite harsh, Robin realized; she tried to soften it just a notch.
"‘Cause if you’re asking me— he’s just as alive as you and I are right now. Which… brings me back to—" She waved a hand, tracing the shape of the letter in the air with one finger. "In case something happens— and I’m not saying it will — just in case — I’m just… I just didn’t want to leave anything unsaid. Obviously, something always will be, but just… it didn’t strike me as such a bad idea? I guess Max with her letters for you guys—" Steve winced at that, and Robin inwardly scolded herself for bringing it up. "—just inspired me, is all."
Steve pressed his lips together, turning them a pale pink on the border to white.
Absentmindedly, Robin figured, his thumb rubbed over her knuckles. His gaze drifted sideways into the kitchen, to the letter on the floor, now half-obstructed from view by part of the wall and the chairs, its corner only just visible. Waiting for him to respond on his own, to give him time, was important — Robin knew that on a purely theoretical level. However, she’d always sucked at dealing with silence. There was just this… urge to fill it. Especially now as Steve still didn’t seem back to his casual dorky self.
Perhaps… she could at least… nudge him?
"Steve?" she inquired. "Did you OD over there?"
The corners of Steve’s lips twitched upon hearing the callback, just like they always did. Something fixed she could always count on — the fact that it still worked the same was reassuring, really.
"You know," he started, with audible difficulty, "I wouldn’t let that bastard hurt you."
Robin rolled her eyes. "Yeah, keep on talking like that and you can start writing letters yourself."
"I mean it," Steve insisted, not deterred by any of her levity. She both hated and loved him when he got like this. "I’m the reason you got roped into this in the first place and now—"
"If you’re about to say something like I’m your responsibility now, I am going to gag, dingus," she warned him, squeezing his hand once for emphasis, "I mean it."
Steve grimaced. "Don’t make fun of that— I do mean it."
"Oh, I know you do. It’s just stupid, is all. I’m not one of your kids. I made the choice to stay, and I’m sticking with it, alright? Or—" She raised a brow, only half-serious about this, "—is this some roundabout way of you telling me you are only sticking with me because you feel it’s your duty or somethin’?"
Steve’s utterly derailing features alone consoled that tiny, doubtful piece of her before his sputtered answer could— "No, no. Of course not. You don’t really believe that, right?"
She squeezed his hand. "Relax. I know you love me."
"Do you think…" Steve’s gaze slipped back to the kitchen, like it was out of his own control, drawn in. "What if it, like, brings bad luck or somethin’ that I found them? And started reading mine?"
Robin suppressed her initial impulse — to laugh — because he did seem to be serious.
"Bring bad luck? Like… you think we’re jinxed now?"
"I don’t know," Steve muttered, exasperated. He turned back to look at her, eyes pulled a little too wide to come across as his normal self. "That’s why I’m asking you?"
"And I’m… what? The expert on the lore of suicide notes that aren’t actually suicide notes?"
That seemed to give Steve pause.
The focus in his eyes faded once more as he stared over her shoulder at the collection of childhood photos her mom had scattered across the wall in uneven rows, mismatched and nicked frames taken from various neighborhood flea markets over the years.
Robin knew how quietly fascinated he was by the sheer amount of childhood photos displayed all over the house and the many leather-bound albums with even more of them stacked on the bookshelf next to the TV. And she knew the reason why — thinking of the bare, nearly clinical walls of his childhood home was all it needed. Sometimes she’d act like she didn’t see him staring at the pictures, just because she knew he’d be flustered by her noticing, for whatever reason. Wasn’t his fault his parents were gigantic assholes.
"Maybe it’s not such a bad idea," he admitted at last, still staring over her shoulder. "With everything going on… just—" His gaze swerved back to her, calm and yet heavy, pushing her deeper into the cushions. "If— if you… were… a fucking letter wouldn’t make it— I don’t want some letter. I will never want that."
"Dingus," Robin muttered, with a big, ugly lump lodged square in her throat. "It’s not like I want to—"
Steve’s arms were thrown around her, fast and clumsy, her speech cut off by the broad, steady weight of one palm at the back of her head. His fingers threaded awkwardly into her hair, frantic rather than careful, tugging at the roots without meaning to.
"We’ll never need some letter, okay," his voice said into her hair, and she wasn’t sure whether he was stating it or asking, or begging — though it wouldn’t have made much sense as a question.
Either way. She let herself sink into the warmth of his chest, the smell of fresh linen fabric softener, the rise and fall of his breathing, fast at first, then gradually slowing. If Steve wanted to be an optimist for one day, what harm would it do to indulge him?
"Okay," Robin whispered, that one word soft and shaky, pressed against his sweater, and she felt him nod fervently, his chin bumping lightly against her shoulder. "Okay."