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synopsis: what being in love is like for N.

note: i used second person pov to describe N in some bits so it might get a little confusing differentiating when i'm talking about you (N) and you (hunter). for that reason, any second pov pronouns in [square brackets] are referring to teh hunter.

Being in love goes a little like this.

It’s Saturday morning and you wake up to another body in your bed. Your shared bed. You turn and smile at the scent of your lover’s lotion in your sheets; no matter how many times you wash it out, it always comes back.

You press a kiss to their forehead before dragging yourself out of bed, stumbling to the washroom. You brush your teeth, trying not to smile at the sight of the second brush in the cup—you’ve seen it hundreds of times before, it shouldn’t make you so happy.

You hum as you head for the kitchen, preparing a meal for two. You have different preferences in what you eat, but breakfast is something you manage to compromise on. Today, you make pancakes, decorating smiley faces with chocolate chips. Blueberry is an option, but you don’t like them.

You brew coffee for yourself, needing the bitter taste of it this particular morning. You scroll on your phone, hearing the telltale signs of your lover waking up.

It’s routine.

N’s routine, to be exact. They don’t know if they understood what it was like to be in love before they met [you]. They’ve loved people before, loved things and animals and shows they’ve binged in one night and cried over because they were so upset it was over—but being in love is different.

Their crush on you was ridiculous. They felt butterflies each time you so much as brushed against each other. They cherished every smile with their entire being, no matter how frequent or rare they were. When they’d come home, they’d have to resist the urge to fall onto their bed like a lovesick teenager. Radar witnessed this once, whining and pawing at their chest as N shut their eyes and relived everything that could have been taken as [you] reciprocating their feelings.

Blane was also subject to this.

More than once Blane had to sit through N rambling about not knowing what to say over text, had to listen to them worry about whether [you] liked N back and the insecurities that came with that if you did. More than once, Blane had to grip N by the shoulders and shake some sense into them.

Sometimes N wonders where they'd be if not for those conversations.

They'd still end up with you, they think, just in a different way. Your romance is far from a fairytale as it is.

After all, it involves three years of knowing each other but not truly knowing each other. Months of working side by side. Nights of anxiety seeing the other injured. Weeks of pining, dancing around each other, wondering if the other felt the same spark.

It was far from an easy journey, though that's never what N wanted. That's not to say they wanted the difficulties, but they like how natural things came together. Perhaps the two of you weren't tied by a string of fate, but you got together in the end.

That's all that matters.

N hears [your] footsteps shuffle down the hall and closer to the kitchen. They smile, having just finished washing the dishes for your meal, two empty plates placed beside each other with a mountain of pancakes on a third plate in front.

It goes like this.

You're greeted with a sleepy 'good morning' and a soft kiss on the cheek. You're cheeky and want more, so you wind your arms around your lover and tug them closer, kissing them with fervour. Your lover makes a small noise that you swallow, your tongue curling into their mouth as you deepen the kiss. The two of you pull away panting, but you're not mad, only wanting seconds after seeing your lover's spit-slick lips.

But you're denied with a laugh, given a peck instead as your lover heads for the pancakes. Maybe you should be upset, maybe you can go in for another kiss anyway, but you don't. All you do is smile and join your lover. You whisper against their ear that they owe you later, bumping into them with the expression of an angel. Though their intentions are pure, their words suggest otherwise, making you flush.

At that moment, they understand why the poets wrote so much about love.