One Step at a Time

One Step at a Time - Part 13

A/N: ALRIGHT STRAP IN KIDS. Please heed the warnings on this one if you have any material you find triggering. This one is QUITE a ride. As always, thank you to the STUPENDOUS Teletraan_1 for beta reading this for me!

Warnings: implied sexual content, language, canon-typical violence, suicide, character death

Life was good. As good as it had ever been in all the time Chuckles could remember.

There was a comfort that came with falling into a routine. Chuckles would drop the kids off at school in the mornings, go to work in the mine, and then return in the evening to walk Arni and Nita home from school. Sometimes they'd stop by Grinz's to stock up, sometimes Helly, Anj, and occasionally Lu would come over for dinner, and sometimes it would be just the three of them before the kids would go to bed.

Then, Chuckles would head to Endi's apartment.

Those visits varied in how they started, but always ended the same: with Chuckles fucking Endi like it was what he'd looked forward to all day. Everything still felt so new and exciting, and the two of them could hardly keep their hands off one another. They did their best to fit some casual conversation in, asking one another about their day and talking about mundane things like the weather, allowing the tension to grow and blossom until it snapped.

Tonight, Endi had invited Chuckles over under the pretense of sharing a pie she'd baked that day after school. He'd appeared on her doorstep in the dark, and she'd answered the door in a short, satiny robe that didn't appear to have anything underneath. Chuckles had waited patiently, sitting across from her in her kitchen as she set a plate in front of him, carefully placing a dollop of fresh cream on the flaky crust. He'd eaten slowly as she watched and made idle conversation, never breaking eye contact as he licked his fork clean.

As soon as the last crumb had disappeared and the plates had been cleared away, Chuckles had grabbed Endi with a playful growl and pulled her robe open, confirming his suspicions that she was wearing nothing underneath. It didn't take much longer for any pretense of innocent conversation to vanish, and a few minutes later, the two of them collapsed heavily on the kitchen floor next to the remnants of the pie, which had been knocked off the table during their activities.

"Looks... looks like we made a mess," Endi panted with a dopey grin on her face, turning her head to meet his gaze over her shoulder.

Chuckles huffed a laugh before leaning down to press a kiss to her temple.

"Well then we'd better get ourselves cleaned up, huh?" He grimaced at the overturned pie dish. "Sorry about that."

Endi shrugged. "Not my best work anyway."

Chuckles smiled, kissing her again. "I'd beg to differ."

They quickly cleaned the evidence of their activities off of the floor quickly before Chuckles scooped Endi into his arms and carried her to her small refresher. It was only slightly larger than the one on the Starlight, but it did have a decent-sized bathtub pushed into one corner, which Chuckles filled with hot water before helping Endi in. Stripping off his clothes, he stepped in behind her, settling down and pulling her back against his chest. He pressed his hands to her stomach under the water, pulling her close and inhaling deeply into her hair.

"Missed you today," he whispered.

This had become part of his routine too, and he enjoyed it almost as much as the sex. Almost.

"You just saw me last night," she teased, reaching for a hair tie and starting to pile her hair on top of her head.

"Let me," Chuckles said, taking the thin band from her hand. Gently, he gathered her dark curls, combing through them carefully with his fingers until he had managed to smooth out the bumps and ridges in her hair.