The sand was warm under his feet, the kind of heat that felt earned—soft, slow, not the burn of a fight or the sting of sweat in your eyes. Just sun on skin and the sound of the tide brushing in like it had nowhere else to be.

They were ahead of him, toes digging into the hot sand, laughing at something small and stupid—a joke that he hadn’t heard, maybe. Or the way the wind kept tugging at their hair. He couldn’t stop looking.

Knox wasn’t used to this. The stillness. The way the ocean didn’t ask anything from him. No crowd. No pressure. No fists.

Just {{user}}.

And for once, he didn’t feel like he had to hold himself together. {{user}} already knew the cracks. They kissed them anyway. Whether it was when the two were dating, or when they kissed him at the alter.

Knox walked up behind {{user}}, slow, letting the salty air fill his lungs. His arms slipped around their waist without a word, his legs circling around theirs as he sat there.

He buried his face in their shoulder and breathed. “This is nice,” he said, voice low, gravel-soft. Knox gave you that crooked, nervous smile. A smile that hasn’t shown on his face in a while. “How do you feel about this honeymoon so far, hm?”