“Ethan Hunt is so cool,” Lucas says an hour later, two chopsticks full of noodles half to his mouth. “Just hanging off that mountain like it’s nothing.”

Sarah looks over at him. He always seems excited, but particularly right now; his blue eyes are lit up, his grin wide enough that she can see the slight gap in his teeth on one side. “If you were a secret agent, I bet you could do that too.”

Lucas shakes his head. “No way, Sarah. I don’t like heights.”

She laughs. “I don’t think you’d be afraid of heights if you were Ethan Hunt, Lucas.”

“Hey.” He points a finger at her accusingly. “I’m not afraid of heights, buddy. I just don’t like them.”

Sarah grins and quirks her head. “Is there a difference?” she teases.

“You bet your ass there is, Sarah. Now come on, quiet on set.” Lucas nudges her knee with his knuckles. “He’s getting a secret message.”

Sarah mutters teasingly under her breath, “Don’t change the subject. You’re sounding a little too sure of yourself for a guy who’s scared of heights.”

Under the dirty look he throws at her, Sarah smiles to herself at the irony of him telling someone to be quiet - he’s probably the loudest person she’s ever met - but she obeys. She leans back on the couch, a container of spicy noodles in her blanket-covered lap, and continues to eat quietly.

She hasn’t eaten a lot today, but she’s still not feeling great and she’s never that hungry when she’s sick, so Sarah’s stomach fills pretty quickly. She sets her half-empty container down on the table, curls her feet beneath her, and tugs the blanket to her chin.

A little while later, Lucas finishes his own noodles and peers into her takeout box. “That all you’re eating, Sarah?”

“Yes, I’m full. I’d tell you to eat my leftovers if you want, but you’ll probably get sick.”

“You’ve been breathing on me all day, Sarah, if I’m going to get sick it’s going to happen anyway. But nah, I’ll put them in the fridge. You need the noodle energy to get better!” Lucas stands up and begins to clear the takeout containers.

Sarah looks up at him with a smile. “The noodle energy?”

Lucas raises his eyebrows very seriously at her. “Yes, Sarah. The noodle energy.”

“Okay, Lucas.” She turns her gaze back to the TV, but the corners of her lips don’t drop. “I don’t know where you get some of that from.”

“Some of what?” he calls from the kitchen. There’s a slight clanging noise that Sarah recognizes as cutlery hitting the steel of the sink, probably having fallen from the drying rack. “Oh, sorry buddy,” she hears him apologize. “Back in here you go.”

“Your … Lucas-isms,” Sarah replies, tugging her blanket out of his way as Lucas walks back into the living room. “Noodle energy. The garlic thing. You know, Lucas-isms.”

Lucas drops his large frame back onto the couch. He’s a little closer to her this time, she can’t help but notice. “This head’s a wild place to be, Sarah,” he says, tapping his ear. “But ‘the garlic thing’ is just common sense! Everybody knows that!”

“I’m not sure that’s true,” Sarah laughs, “but okay.”

“You doubt me now, but when you wake up tomorrow feeling right as rain, you’ll be a believer,” he informs her. “Now you going to share this blanket or what, Sarah?”

It’s warmer under the soft polyester with him, she notes. Part of that is probably because she’s had to scoot a bit closer, but in general, he seems to be radiating heat. As someone who is usually too cold, Sarah is jealous, and she tells him so.

“You’re cold?” Lucas says, sounding alarmed. “Well come here, Sarah.” He lifts an arm up, gesturing with his hand for her to move beneath it. “Heater at your service if you want.”

This feels to Sarah like it’s crossing some kind of line, but absolutely everything she knows about Lucas tells her that this is nothing more than another genuinely kind gesture, so she acquiesces. She tucks herself in closer, lets his arm drape over her shoulders, and honestly, it feels pretty nice. He’s warm and comfy despite the thick muscle that she knows is there beneath his soft t-shirt, and large enough that she feels pretty enveloped by the whole experience.

“You really are a heater,” she says, resting her hands awkwardly on her lap.

“Yes!” he replies cheerfully, rubbing his palm on her goosebump-ridden bicep. “Jesus, Sarah, your skin’s freezing, Maybe you should go see a doctor.”

“It’s just a cold, Lucas, I’m not dying.” Sarah lifts the blanket a bit higher. Lucas takes the hint and tugs the edge of it over her shoulder, then slides his arm down behind her back. She shifts slightly to get comfortable, her right shoulder now leaning against his chest instead of beneath his arm. She’s also facing fully and mercifully away from him now, and she hopes there’s no way that he can see how red her face must be.

Pathetic, she tells herself. She can’t believe it’s really been that long since she’s done so much as cuddle with a man, even platonically like this, that the simple touch of Lucas’s hand near her hip makes her blush. It had to have been about a year since she’d broken up with her last boyfriend, and at least six months since she’s been on a real date. She’s had other priorities, sue her.

“This is why you need the noodle energy, Sarah,” Lucas says matter-of-factly.

“I’m still not following.”

He squeezes her waist, then lets his big hand rest there, wrapped around her side. It is fine, completely fine. “There’s nothing to you, Sarah. More noodles, more energy, then boom! More heat.”

His statement is pretty untrue. There’s plenty to her. She isn’t and never has been a naturally slender person, the type that could eat anything and not gain weight. On the contrary, she’s pretty acutely aware of the impact of every thousand calories. She’s not overweight by any means, but that’s probably just because of the whole marathon training thing and her own valiant attempts to eat more healthily.

She’s still a little ashamed to admit that she liked hearing it.

Sarah swallows, closes her eyes briefly, and makes an executive decision to just get out of her own head. She’s going to enjoy this dumb action movie and the big, comfortable goof who is nice enough to sit with her during it. “I’ll take that under advisement, Dr. Foster,” she says dryly.

The scene turns suddenly dark, and in the reflection of the TV, she can see him grin.