Everyone’s got their quirks, their little habits that persist in the quiet, still moments. The tapping of a pen or the jittering of a leg. Maybe scratching your nails across a surface or clicking your tongue. Cracking your knuckles or your neck.

Your worst habit happens to be obsessively chewing your lips and the insides of your cheeks, followed by picking at your fingers. Higgs is always the first to notice it, snapping to attention when he senses the slightest motion from your jaw or your knuckles. He is quick to stop you each time and redirect your attention to something else. Something less destructive.

Higgs’s bad habit happens to be chewing on every damn thing he can get his mouth on. It wears down his teeth and he’s had to go through physical therapy twice for the damage done to his jaw. You’ve gotten him a couple of those pieces of rubber jewelry specifically meant to be chewed on, but he still has trouble keeping himself on track.

Higgs has been chewing all day. The edge of his sweater sleeve is drenched in saliva, and so is the tip of the pen he’s been writing poetry with. You keep offering him the chewelry but it doesn’t stop him completely. And today has already been pretty stressful for you, so by the time you’re making dinner, your teeth are worrying your skin something fierce. Higgs notices, of course, and reaches out to gently grasp your chin.

“Hey,” he says. “You’re biting again, sweetheart.”