We IKEA It
The first thing Penelope notices is that her spine hurts in a very specific sex dimension came to visit way.
The second thing she notices is that Jack is awake.
Not up, not doing anything. Just awake in that quiet, half-still way he gets when he’s thinking but pretending he isn’t.
He’s propped on his elbow, hair wrecked, one hand resting on the side of her knee like her leg is a normal place for his palm to live. The sheets are everywhere. The room is gray and soft with late-morning light. Her shirt is gone. His shirt is gone. The world is technically functioning without them.
Which feels suspicious.
Penelope blinks once. Twice.
Jack’s hand shifts.
His fingers slide off her knee and hook under his own leg—quick, routine—just repositioning so something isn’t pulling weird. It’s nothing. It’s not even a thought.
Her brain, because it hates her, immediately offers up a highlight reel anyway.
The way he moved. The way he’d looked at her. The way he’d said Tell me like it wasn’t a joke.
Heat hits her so fast she has to roll onto her back and stare at the ceiling like she’s doing a wellness exercise instead of a full-body panic.
From beside her, Jack’s voice is scratchy with sleep. “I can feel you thinking from here.”
Penelope groans and covers her face with both hands. “No you can’t. My thoughts are private now. We had one night of an honesty promotion and it has expired.”
Jack huffs a laugh. The bed shifts; the sheets whisper. He adjusts again—another small, unremarkable leg correction, the kind he’s done a thousand times without ceremony.
Penelope’s nervous system does a tiny electric flinch anyway.
Jack, of course, notices.
“Morning,” he says, too casual. “How’s physics.”
“Shut up,” she says into her palms.
“You shut up,” he counters, softer. “You okay?”
There it is. The serious check hidden under a joke like it’s contraband.
Penelope peels one hand back enough to squint at him.
He’s on his side facing her, head propped on his hand, jaw rough with stubble, blanket pooled low around his hips. His eyes are not “I just woke up.” They’re sharp in that quiet, braced way she’s starting to recognize as Jack making space for impact.
“I’m fine,” she says.
Jack raises an eyebrow.
“I’m…” She waves a hand in the air, searching for a word that isn’t feral, exposed, or humiliatingly horny. “Acclimating.”
His mouth curves. “Acclimating,” he repeats. “To…?”
“Oh my god,” she mutters. “We are not doing a follow-up survey at eight in the morning.”
“It’s ten-thirty,” he says. “And I feel like we are doing a follow-up survey, because last night we were very…” He makes a vague circling gesture with his hand, searching. “Specific.”
Penelope makes a sound like she’s being forcibly removed from her body. “Stop.”
Jack’s smile softens at the edges. Not teasing now. Just looking at her like he sees the seam she’s trying not to show.
“Pen,” he says.
She stares at the ceiling.
Last night, in the bubble of his room—with everything dark and close and his voice in her ear—it had felt possible. Saying it out loud. Letting him see the exact shape of the thing she’s been trying to keep in a drawer with a chain and a padlock.
Now there’s sunlight and dust motes and his dresser and the reality that he will—at some point today—do normal human tasks while existing in the same body that just made her lose her mind.
She makes a small, dying noise.
Jack watches her for a beat, then reaches under the blanket and finds her shin. His hand curls there—warm and steady—like he’s anchoring her without making it a whole production.
“You don’t have to be ‘regular’ about it yet,” he says quietly.
Penelope’s throat tightens. She hates that he’s good at this.
“I just don’t want to be weird,” she says, which is objectively hilarious given everything that happened twelve hours ago.
Jack snorts. “Newsflash: we blew past ‘not weird’ around the time you—” he pauses deliberately, eyes glinting, “—said something very honest.”
Penelope drags both hands down her face until her eye sockets distort. “Do not summarize like that.”
“Like what?” he asks. “Accurately?”
She makes a sound like a wounded animal and pulls the pillow over her head.
Jack laughs—low, warm—bed shaking slightly with it. Then, softer: “Hey.”
Penelope lowers the pillow just enough to glare at him.
Jack’s thumb strokes once along her shin under the blanket.
“You don’t have to pretend it lives in a separate universe,” he says. “It’s still me. I still need… adjustments. You liking that doesn’t mean we need to play the national anthem every time I move.”
A laugh bursts out of her, sharp and surprised. “I would absolutely stand for the anthem,” she says. “Drop a tiny flag. Maybe a flyover.”
“There it is,” Jack murmurs.
“Shut up,” Penelope says again, but the panic has drained out of it.
Jack watches her for a beat, the joke fading from his face like he’s choosing care on purpose.
“Serious part,” he says. “If this ever gets too much, or weird, or you feel like you’re drowning in it—tell me. We pull back. No charts.”
Penelope swallows. Nods.
“And in the meantime,” Jack adds, lighter again, “you’re allowed to be a disaster in daylight. I can take it.”
His confidence in that lands somewhere deep and wobbly inside her.
Unfortunately, her mouth is still connected directly to her brain.
“Yeah,” she mutters. “That’s kind of the problem.”
Jack laughs, startled and delighted. “Jesus, you’re awful.”
His eyes are warm when he says it.
“Come here,” he adds.
Penelope scoots closer on instinct and Jack tugs her in, letting her fold against his chest. His heart is steady under her ear. His hand rests easy on her back, drawing slow, absent circles like they have nowhere to be, like the lights being on doesn’t automatically mean the bubble has to pop.
Penelope breathes.
Okay.
Maybe she can do this.
Maybe she can be a person who lives in daylight and also—unfortunately—has a brain that lights up over extremely specific things.
⸻
By the time they make it to the outside world, Penelope has mostly convinced herself she’s normal again.
This illusion lasts approximately ten minutes.
They’re in line at the coffee shop near his place—the little corner one with plants and baristas who write people’s names like they’re aggressively fond of them. Jack’s chair glides between the taped floor markings. Penelope stands close to him in that way she’s been doing lately—like the space beside his shoulder is her default spot.
Her fingers land briefly on the back of his neck as she leans in to say something, then slide away like it’s nothing. Casual. Normal. Totally not her trying to siphon heat through skin contact like a deranged lizard.
They’re arguing quietly about shipwreck documentaries.
“I’m just saying,” Penelope insists, “if you call it Ghosts of the Deep and nobody even tries to frame a barnacle in a spooky way, that’s false advertising.”
“Pen,” Jack says, “they found intact hulls from the sixteenth century. What do you want, a jump scare.”
“Yes,” she says. “At least one ghost captain. Minimal dripping noises.”
Jack huffs. “This is what happens when your baseline for horror is IKEA on a Saturday.”
Penelope opens her mouth to retort—
—and stops.
Not because anything dramatic happens. Just because Jack rolls forward and his foot shifts slightly on the plate.
He fixes it without thinking. Quick. Efficient. Done.
Penelope’s grip tightens at the nape of his neck for half a second, like her hand is trying to keep her brain in her body.
Jack glances back at her—just a quick look over his shoulder, eyebrow raised: you good?
Penelope forces her face into a normal shape.
“Hi,” she says, overly bright. “Can I get an iced vanilla latte.”
Jack’s mouth twitches like he’s trying not to smile.
The barista nods. “Anything else?”
Penelope says, immediately: “Nope. Perfect. Thank you.”
They move down to wait.
Jack angles his chair toward her. His voice drops low enough that it won’t carry.
“You paused,” he says.
Penelope’s eyes narrow. “I did not.”
“You did,” Jack repeats, mild.
Penelope sighs, staring at the espresso machine like it’s going to save her. “Okay, fine. Maybe my brain had a micro-event.”
Jack’s mouth curves. “Micro.”
“You can’t do casual leg physics in public,” she says, dead serious. “It’s irresponsible.”
“I fixed my foot,” Jack says. “Because it moved.”
“Yes,” Penelope mutters. “I know. Unfortunately I noticed.”
Jack’s expression does that slow, pleased shift like he’s trying not to enjoy this and failing on principle.
Penelope points at him. “Don’t.”
“What?” Jack asks, innocent.
“Don’t be smug. I hate smug.”
Jack holds up a hand. “I’m not smug.”
Penelope squints. “You’re smug quietly.”
Jack laughs under his breath. “Okay. Serious question. Is this… too much? Because we can—”
“No,” Penelope says immediately.
Jack blinks.
Penelope exhales, slower. “It’s not too much. That’s the problem.”
Jack’s eyebrows pull together. “Okay, you’re going to have to use more than three brain cells on that one.”
Penelope drags a hand through her hair, sending a fall of strands onto his shoulder. Great. More offerings for the caster gods.
“I spent weeks trying not to let it show,” she says quietly. “Doing this whole ‘I’m a cool girl who doesn’t have thoughts about any of this’ performance.”
Jack watches her, listening the way he does—like he’s actually here for the full sentence.
“And now,” Penelope continues, “every time you do anything remotely… you, my brain’s like, ‘Oh. That. We know that.’”
Jack’s mouth tips. “So you’re saying mundane life is now, regrettably, hot.”
“Tragically,” Penelope says. “Yes.”
A slow, slightly stunned smile spreads across his face. “You realize that sounds like the opposite of a complaint.”
“It is absolutely a complaint,” Penelope says. “I cannot stand in line at a coffee shop like a functioning adult because your foot moved an inch.”
Jack looks like he is trying very hard not to look pleased.
The cups hit the bar with a soft thunk. JACK and P scrawled in thick marker.
Jack grabs both and hands her hers. Their fingers brush.
Penelope’s brain flashes last night again, like it’s trying to be helpful and failing.
She swallows.
Jack sees it. Of course he does.
“Hey,” he says, low. “If this is making you feel weird outside the bedroom, we can put it on a dimmer switch. I can keep it in the room. You don’t owe me—”
“No,” Penelope says, too fast.
Jack blinks. “No?”
Penelope stares at the green straw like it holds the secrets of the universe.
“I don’t want you bracing every time you need to adjust,” she says finally. “Like you’re about to set off a bomb. And I don’t want to pretend it doesn’t exist. That’s… not what this is.”
Jack studies her, quiet.
Penelope takes a sip to stall. Cold coffee. Sweet. Sharp.
Then she looks at him and forces the sentence out.
“If I get weird and melty and forget how to speak English,” she says, “you are legally required not to apologize for existing.”
Jack goes still.
Then, slowly, he nods. “Deal,” he says. “With a caveat.”
Penelope narrows her eyes. “Of course there’s a caveat.”
“If I’m not apologizing for existing,” Jack says, “you’re not apologizing for whatever your brain is doing.”
Penelope’s stomach does a slow, traitorous swoop.
“I’m not apologizing,” she says automatically.
Jack’s mouth twitches. “Pen. You just described your attraction to me as a filing system malfunction.”
“That’s because it’s funnier than crying,” Penelope says.
Jack’s voice drops a fraction. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “I know.”
The air shifts. Subtle. Real.
Jack reaches out and catches her wrist for half a second—light pressure, a brief anchor—then lets go like nothing happened.
Penelope’s brain promptly files it under Unhelpful.
“Hey,” Jack says. “New plan.”
Penelope exhales. “God.”
Jack smiles. “We treat it like IKEA.”
Penelope blinks. “You want to give it meatballs?”
“Tempting,” Jack says, “but no. We treat it like the IKEA thing. It’s just part of the maze now. Sometimes you see a fake kitchen and nearly cry over cabinet hardware. Sometimes you see my leg do something dumb and briefly forget nouns. We keep moving.”
A laugh escapes her—shaky but real.
“That’s a lot of metaphor,” Penelope says.
Jack’s mouth tips. “I contain multitudes.”
Penelope looks at him over the lid of her cup.
He’s serious under the joke. Offering her a framework that doesn’t make this a problem to solve—just something they can live inside.
It’s terrifying.
It’s also… maybe the best thing anyone’s ever offered her.
“Okay,” Penelope says finally. “We IKEA it.”
Jack grins. “That’s a terrible verb, and I support it.”
They head for the door, sunlight spilling onto the sidewalk beyond the glass.
Penelope falls into step beside him, coffee in hand, trying to convince her nervous system that they’re just two normal people leaving a coffee shop.
Her heart is still doing that stupid arrhythmic thing.
It’s fine.
They’ll just… IKEA it.
No comments:
Post a Comment