Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other in Literature.
- A father-daughter version in American Pastoral when Swede and Merry reunite for the first time in five years. Despite all the terrible things that happened between them, they cry and hold onto each other and express their love... and then trouble starts again.
- A Brother's Price has several of those. When Corelle, who is a bit of a bully, goes out to face a potentially dangerous group of strangers, Jerin realizes that he does love his sister after all. Also, heartwarmingly adorable with Trini when she takes Jerin's hand and acknowledges their engagement, despite having had "better things to do" than spend time with him beforehand.
- In the 2nd book of The Chronicles of Prydain, Taran is yelling at Eilonwy for following them into danger, but when Ellidyr echoes the sentiments Taran defends her. That kind of thing happens a lot where those two are concerned. It doesn't hurt that Ellidyr is The Rival and an all-around Jerkass.
- In the ColSec Trilogy, Jeko and Heleth's interactions consist primarily of him needling her and her lashing out at him (usually by calling him a "yeck-mouth," but occasionally by outright getting violent) in response. But every so often, they'll turn around and display genuine concern for one another.
- Dark Lord of Derkholm: Derk and Mara. They seem to be drifting apart over most of the book, but eventually are brought back together, and decide to have another baby (with wings, even).
- Played with in Stephen King's Dolores Claiborne. When her husband is trying to drag her into the well along with her, Dolores has a sudden image of her neighbours finding their bodies together and thinking that they committed suicide like this to show how much they loved each other. The fact that people would think this give Dolores the strength to struggle free from her husband's grasp.
- In Emma Mr. Knightly and Emma are always arguing or disagreeing about something. However, they both really do care about each other's opinion and are truly the very best of friends.
- Happens a lot between Ron and Hermione in Harry Potter. For instance, early on in Order of the Phoenix, after they had spent most of the book so far bickering at each other as usual, Hermione unexpectedly offers to finish Ron's overdue homework (which she almost never does), to which Ron replies "Hermione, you are the most wonderful person I have ever met!"
- The Host (2008) gives us brothers Ian and Kyle who spend most of the story against one another, especially where it relates to Wanda, and it gets to the point where Ian is briefly the main person trying to kick Kyle out of the caves. Just when you think they are going to fall into Cain and Abel territory, they get moments that reveal their bond and love for each other.
- Howl and Sophie in Howl's Moving Castle. The sequel outright says that they're happiest when they're bickering, but when they're reunited at the end of the book, Sophie glomps him. Also, Michael had commented to Sophie that the day Howl forgets to take two hours every morning to perfect himself would be the day that he has truly fallen in love. So when Sophie gets kidnapped by the Witch of the Waste, Howl arrives to rescue her looking like absolute, bedraggled hell.
- Katniss and Haymitch have one of these moments in Mockingjay, the third book of The Hunger Games series. Katniss breaks down crying because she is upset over Peeta's capture and torture at the hands of the Capitol. Though she could have asked for just about anyone, she only wants to be comforted by Haymitch. Haymitch, who is usually a Jerkass, sits down and consoles her.
- Bertie Wooster and his Aunt Dahlia in the Jeeves and Wooster stories are a non-romantic version of this; they bicker and snark constantly, but whenever matters turn (relatively) serious, they quickly rally around and support one another.
- Kidnapped has Alan and David, who frequently have disagreements, but are still good friends.
- The Locked Tomb: This is pretty much the entire point of the relationship between Gideon and Harrowhark, despite them being violently at each other's throats since childhood.
- Gideon the Ninth:
- When Harrow goes missing, Gideon's initial concern is that if she's been murdered, when should she start the party? Will she have to marry the murderer out of gratitude? However, when the Sixth House explains to her that Harrow is in actual trouble, Gideon has to be physically held back from rushing to Harrow's side. She comforts Harrow when Harrow explains her Dark Secret, and at the end sacrifices herself to force Harrow to consume her soul, ascending to Lyctor and saving herself from the other Lyctor.
- After Gideon sacrifices herself, Harrow can't stop crying, and only barely manages to get the job done. When she meets the Emperor, having gained everything she ever wanted, she throws herself at his feet and begs him to undo everything she has done to give Gideon back to her.
- Harrow the Ninth:
- Despite Harrow having somehow managed to completely forget that Gideon ever existed, she still becomes inconsolable at the thought of what she did in the previous book, that she somehow "wasted" something that she barely remembers as important. It eventually turns out that the cause of her amnesia was her deliberately giving herself brain surgery as part of an attempt to partition off Gideon's soul and keep it from being fully consumed. In the epilogue, as she hides in a bubble in the River waiting for Gideon, she smiles when she sees one of Gideon's (fake) dirty magazines.
- When Gideon comes back in Harrow's body, she is extremely confused, and keeps focusing on the fact that she can't seem to keep Harrow's body safe for more than ten seconds. The space station is under attack and Harrow's body has a Healing Factor, but Gideon just can't let go of the idea that she's failing Harrow somehow, and she needs to keep the body safe for when Harrow comes back to claim it.
- Nona the Ninth:
- Despite Gideon initially only seeming mildly curious as to why there's someone else running around in Harrow's body (and being even more acerbic than usual), once she gets Nona alone she begs to know what happened to Harrow.
- When Alecto rises from the Locked Tomb and swears service to Harrow (as the last descendant of Anastasia, who Alecto swore to previously), Gideon yells at her to get in line.
- Gideon the Ninth:
- Shadow and Déaspor in Murderess have their moments, in between comedic fights that almost lead to death.
- Buttercup's parents in The Princess Bride. They bicker so much that they keep score, but when Buttercup's father feels that his life is so sufficiently complete that "now [he] can die," his wife looks at him fondly and replies, "Don't." The narration further states that when he really does die a few years later, she dies almost immediately afterward, with the majority of their acquaintances being of the opinion that it was the 'sudden lack of opposition that did her in.' (This does not apply to The Film of the Book, where Buttercup's parents are neither shown or mentioned.)
- In the Ramona Quimby series, Ramona and Beezus are a classic Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling pair who constantly drive each other crazy, especially in the earlier books where Ramona is a particular pest to Beezus. But every now and then, and increasingly often as they get older, they show how much they truly care for each other. For example, in Ramona and Her Mother Beezus lets Ramona snuggle with her in bed after their parents have an upsetting argument at dinner, and in Ramona Forever, they resolve a misunderstanding as they bury their cat Picky-Picky together and afterwards become closer than ever before, just in time to be able to stay alone together while their mother gives birth to a third sister.
- Near the end of Red Moon Rising (Moore), each member of Danny's family individually come to peace with what he's going through and show their love for him in different ways. The most blatant is Paige, who writes him a letter talking about how lame everything he's going through is and that she hopes he'll be okay.
- Tal and Milla from The Seventh Tower book series. When they first met they alternate between wanting to kill each other and fighting about their cultural differences, but when it comes to what matters they work together very well and by the end they had a strong bond of trust and friendship.
- The Sisters Grimm is the definition of this trope. Sabrina and Puck spend most of the time together arguing. When they're not arguing, they are giving each other silent treatments. Puck frequently tells Sabrina that she's ugly, but then, when he finds out she's experimenting with makeup, he tells her that she doesn't need to wear it.
- Alanna and George in Song of the Lioness. George has made his feelings known to her, though Alanna has been avoiding talking about it, thinking it might ruin their friendship. But when they were on a trip and George was badly wounded, she was panicking, begging him not to die and not moving from his bedside the whole night until he woke up. Appropriately, he's the one she chooses in the end and they end up Happily Married.George: [teasing her] I didn't know that you cared.
Alanna: [wiping her tears] Of course I care, you unprincipled pickpocket! Of course I care!
- Star Wars Legends:
- The novels take Han and Leia's moments from the films further. Whenever they're together it's hinted at, and in The Courtship of Princess Leia finally results in Han winning a planet in a game of Sabacc to give it to Leia as a gift in a fit of jealousy after the Hapan Consortium offers her a shitload of shinies to marry their prince. This doesn't work, so he kidnaps her, takes her to the planet and makes her a bet: if he gets her to love him in seven days or less, she has to marry him. Of course the trip goes horribly wrong but she does end up loving him and they do get married. Later books show that they have kids.
- In Razor's Edge, set just before The Empire Strikes Back, for all of their bickering, Leia trusts Han implicitly and completely, which Han himself is startled to realize (she's glad the Millennium Falcon is going to be their backup ship, because she trusts Chewbacca, and by implication his partner). She never once considers that he might be the Imperial mole; among the crew of Leia's ship, only General Willard himself rates the same consideration.
- The Supervillainy Saga: Specifically, Tales Of Supervillainy: Cindy's Seven, Cindy finally confesses to Gary that she does love him more than anyone else on Earth or other realities. She also admits, to herself, that she loves her children but is an objectively terrible parent.
- In Tales from Netheredge, Queen Verne has a strained relationship with her uncaring and unfaithful consort, Prince Charna. However, when they find themselves in the clutches of a sadistic usurper, she is horrified at the prospect of her husband being abused in front of her, and Charna feels very protective of her as well, surprised that she cares this much. After the crisis is over, Verne genuinely looks forward to their reunion.
- The whole point of Mil Millington's Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About. Though the protagonist and his girlfriend live in a state of open war and have raging argument down to a science, it's really just surface noise; their relationship is the most solid one in the book. This is based on the author and his girlfriend's real life together, which he describes as "The secret to happiness is to become irretrievably embroiled in a bitter fight to the death."
- In Joyce's Ulysses, the last chapter is the main character's wife's internal monologue. She's ordered him around and cheated on him through the whole book, and portions of the monologue are her debating whether to leave him or not. But the word "yes" keeps popping up even when not warranted by the sentence. In the last lines, the reader discovers that she's stuck on the word "yes" because she's remembering the day she accepted his marriage proposal, by saying "yes, yes I will, yes."
- Warrior Cats
- Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw are almost the poster couple for this pairing. There's at least four fights between them a book.
- Also, Firestar and Sandstorm in the first arc suit this trope, too. Sandstorm hates Firestar until he saves her life in Fire and Ice, when she starts to like him.
- Wonder Woman: Warbringer: Nim and Theo bicker a lot, but it's clear they actually do care about each other.
