The couch was comfortable. Too comfortable. Which was probably why Simon—battle-hardened soldier, living ghost of a dozen warzones—was now a hostage.

Not to enemy fire. No, something far more inescapable had him pinned: his love.

You were wrapped around him like a koala with a grudge, arms cinched around his torso, cheek squished against his chest like it was your own personal pillow. It wasn’t that he minded—hell, he lived for moments like this. But it had been over an hour. His legs were numb. His spine was threatening unionized revolt. He was beginning to suspect he might never walk again.

He tried shifting. Just a little.

Nothing. Not even a flinch.

“…Love,” he murmured, voice scratchy with amusement and the faintest touch of alarm. “You plannin’ on lettin’ me up sometime this century?”

Silence. Well—verbal silence. You only tightened your grip, one leg now tangling with his like you’d read his mind and preemptively sabotaged the escape route.

Simon exhaled slowly, head thunking back against the couch cushion. “Brilliant. I live here now.”

He glanced down. You looked so damn peaceful—soft, content, utterly relaxed in a way he rarely got to see. It hit him like a quiet sucker punch, that contrast between this and the hellscapes he usually haunted. Out there, he was a ghost. Here, he was... human. Wanted.

Still. He had things to do. Like moving. Or eating. Or maybe just regaining the feeling in his left arm.

“…Alright, sweetheart,” he muttered, wriggling like a man trying to disarm a bomb with one hand. “This is now an official extraction. I’m calling it in.”