I Write Stuff!

The circle was small, just ten people. Twelve if you counted the man asleep near the radiator and an elderly woman named Marie, who was knitting. The coffee was bad and the biscuits were stale. The walls were decorated with cheerful little posters about honesty and surrender and hope, which made you want to peel your skin off because honesty was hard, surrender sounded humiliating, and hope felt like a last resort people offered you when they had run out of practical advice.

Then the chair beside you scraped.

You looked over.

The man at the door had now approached you. 

Up close, he looked simultaneously worse and prettier, too, which was annoying. He looked tired, probably not attributed to a single bad night but to years stacked inside him. He had clear blue eyes and dark stubble. His left hand stayed in his pocket. His right hand still held the coffee like a prop.

“Seat taken?” he asked.

You blinked at the twenty empty chairs around the circle. “No,” you said.

He managed a smile before you sighed and moved your bag.

He sat down.

Neither of you really spoke for the rest of the sharing. A man named Dennis talked about hiding vodka in a mouthwash bottle. Marie talked about walking past the same liquor store six times and going home crying but sober. Someone laughed and another cried. The last person said they were ninety days clean and the room clapped.

You clapped too, but it was a second late.

The man beside you didn’t clap. He looked at his hand instead, like he had forgotten what applause was for.

When the meeting leader asked if anyone new wanted to introduce themselves, the room went quiet in that gentle, expectant way that made you want to crawl into the carpet.

You stared at your shoes.

The man beside you exhaled.

“I’m James,” he said.

Every head turned.

His voice was rough around the edges. He sounded like he was confessing a crime instead of a name.

“Hi, James,” the room said.

His jaw flexed. He hated that. You could tell immediately. 

He looked down at his coffee. “I don’t know if I’m supposed to be here.”

Nobody interrupted. Nobody corrected him.

His thumb rubbed once over the rim of the paper cup. “I can’t get drunk.”

Your eyes flicked to him.

He said it like a punchline without the mercy of being funny.

“I used to be able to, a long time ago.” His mouth tightened into a flat line. “Then things changed, and my body changed. And now alcohol doesn’t do anything,” he looked down, almost disappointed in how much he was disappointed by his own inability to get buzzed. “I can drink the bar dry and still feel every second of my life perfectly.”

You stopped breathing a little.

“It made me angry,” he admitted, quieter. “I was angry I couldn’t have that. I never cared about fun or the parties.” He gave a humourless laugh. “I wanted the off switch, and when it didn’t work, I hated myself. I hated that that has been taken from me.”

Something in your chest folded. Which one was he? Was your first shameful thought. In a world of superheroes and gods and aliens and people disappearing for five years and then coming back, you really didn’t have the time to memorise names of every Avenger by heart. 

His eyes stayed down.

“So, no. I don’t know if I count. I don’t know if this is taking up space from people who need it more. But I know I keep thinking about it, keep trying to find something that’ll do what it used to do. And I know that probably means I shouldn’t be alone with the thought.”

Then Marie, still knitting, said, “You count.”

James looked up.

The meeting leader nodded. “You’re welcome here.”

You felt a little sting behind your eyes.

Fuck, it shouldn’t have been that moving. It should not have mattered that much. He was a stranger in a church basement with untouched coffee and a voice like a bruise. But there was something so painfully familiar about wanting oblivion and being ashamed of wanting it, about standing at the edge of yourself and wishing there was a button, a bottle, a burn, anything that made being alive more bearable.

The meeting moved on, and you decided not to speak.

You were proud of not crying until the end, when everyone stood and started stacking chairs. People exchanged numbers while stirring powdered creamer into coffee. The world did not change. Nobody looked at you and said, we know what you are, or pointed at your throat and said, liar.

You grabbed your coat and made it halfway to the stairs before his voice found you.

“Hey.” James stood a few feet behind you, hands still in his pockets.

You considered pretending you hadn’t heard him. Maybe you could be rude. You considered leaving and buying the smallest bottle you could find and telling yourself it didn’t count because it was only small

Instead, you said, “What?”

His eyebrows lifted slightly.

You winced. “Sorry. That came out mean.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve heard meaner.”

For some reason, that made you almost smile.

He stepped closer, careful like you were a wounded animal that might bolt. “First meeting?”

You looked at the stairs. “Is it that obvious?”

“A little,” he said.

You huffed. “Great.”

“I’m new too.”

“I know,” you chuckled dryly, “you spoke.”

“Yeah.”

“I would rather be shot.”

He looked at you for one long second. Very dryly, he said, “It’s overrated.”

A startled laugh escaped you before you could stop it, and his gaze brightened so subtly you almost missed it.

You leaned against the stair rail, suddenly too tired to keep standing like a real person. “I’m not like you.”

James tilted his head.

Your fingers tightened around your coat. “It works on me.”

His face changed, eyes more attentive than just pity.  

You swallowed. “It works too well on me.”

You didn’t know why you said that, but you hated how small your voice got. You hated how much the truth could make you feel naked, and saying it out loud made your whole body ache for a drink with such vicious clarity that you had to grip the rail harder.

James didn’t look away.

You laughed once, but it broke wrong. “You wanted the off switch, I get that. But mine works fast. It works so well that I start thinking maybe I’m only good when I’m drinking. I think maybe the best version of me is the one that can’t feel anything. Or remember anything. Or ruin anything because I’m not really there.”

His teeth clenched, but he stayed quiet.

“And then I get sober,” you said, unable to stop baring your soul to this stranger. “And everything is worse.”

Your eyes burned. You looked down immediately, furious at yourself.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

“Because I told you first,” he said.

Your throat tightened more.

He shifted his weight, and for the first time, you noticed the way he held his left side still, like he was always aware of the space his body took up. He looked like he had spent a long time making himself smaller for other people’s comfort and had never quite learned how to stop.

“I’m Bucky,” he said.

You blinked. “I thought you said James.”

“I did.”

“So you lied at AA?”

His mouth twitched again. “James is my name.”

“So Bucky is what?” You managed a chuckle, “A nickname?”

“To some people.”

“Do you like those people?”

He paused, before looking down, “I’m trying to.”

You looked at him properly, at the tired eyes, the gloved hand, the too-perfect posture. You could see grief sitting on him like a cloud. You didn't know him or his life, but you knew enough about wanting to be someone else. 

You gave him your name.

He repeated it once, like he was trying to get it right.

For a moment, neither of you said anything. Behind him, the meeting leader laughed with Marie near the coffee table as someone dragged a bin bag out of the kitchen. The basement smelled like burnt coffee, wet coats, old wood, and the possibility that maybe you could come back here. 

Maybe this terrible room could exist again next week. Maybe you could still exist next week

Bucky nodded toward the door. “You got somewhere to be?”

You almost lied, but you shook your head.

“Me neither,” he said. “There’s a diner around the corner. Coffee’s bad, but it’s not this bad.”

“You asking me out?” You tilted your head.

He just shrugged, as if duh. Why wouldn’t I want to ask out the pretty girl who’s also struggling with life, like me? “Yeah. I mostly like the pie.”

You narrowed your eyes. “What kind?”

“I don’t know. Pie kind.”

You managed a smile. “That is such a man answer.”

He looked vaguely offended. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

And there it was again, your accidental laugh. You could feel him noticing it, not in a smug way, but like he was relieved there was a sound in you that was not pain.

You should have said no and gone home.

You should have taken the bus and white-knuckled your way through the evening and called it a victory if you made it to bed without stopping at the shop on the corner.

But Bucky stood in front of you like a man who understood the shape of a craving, even if his body refused to let him drown in it. 

You were opposite tragedies meeting in the basement.

And you didn’t want to be alone.

Same terrible coffee.

So you pulled your coat on properly and said, “Fine. But if the pie is bad, I’m leaving you there.”

Bucky smiled and climbed up the stairs next to you, opening the door like a true gentleman, because apparently your standards were that low.

Cold evening air rushed in, and he said, “Fair.”

You stepped outside together.

For the first time all day, feeling sober didn’t feel like a punishment.

Bucky fell into step beside you, close enough to be there, far enough away to be respectful, and when your hands shook in your coat pockets, he pretended not to notice.

You loved him a little for that.

Not love-love. Just the strangest beginning of it.

—

A year later, you were sitting in the same basement where you met him.

The church still smelled faintly of old wood, overbrewed coffee, rain-damp coats, and whatever industrial cleaner someone used on the floor every Tuesday evening. The chairs were arranged in the same uneven circle as always, but there were more rows now. Nobody here had ever managed to make a circle properly, and maybe that was appropriate. Recovery was not exactly known for pretty geometry.

You sat three chairs away from the radiator now.

Now your coat was folded over your lap. Your coffee was cooling between your palms. Your breathing was almost steady.

The dog tags around your neck shifted when you leaned forward.

You saw them slip out from beneath your sweater, the familiar feeling of them falling against your chest, warm from your skin. They caught the basement light for a second, dull silver flashing against the knit you were wearing, and the man beside you noticed.

He was new, you could tell.

New people had a look to them. Sometimes it was fear or anger. This man was sitting with his shoulders held too high and his hands wrapped too tightly around his cup, staring at everything except the people in the room.

His eyes flicked to the tags.

“You serve?” he asked.

You looked down.

For one stupid second, your fingers closed over the metal before you could stop yourself. “No,” you said. “My boyfriend did.”

The man nodded, still looking at the chain. “Oh.”

“They’re his,” you added, tucking them back beneath your collar as if you had been caught showing a memory too intimate. “He gives them to me while he’s away at work.”

“At work?”

“Yeah.”

You managed to say it with a straight face, which was honestly heroic of you, considering Bucky’s “work” very rarely involved conferences or meeting rooms. His work included Captain America showing up at your apartment three days ago with that charming, apologetic smile that always meant, I’m very sorry, but I’m about to borrow your boyfriend for a classified and incredibly stupid mission.

You had rolled your eyes, and Sam did have the decency to bring him back in one piece

You looked down and added, “it’s for safekeeping.”

After all, that was what Bucky called it too.

He had stood in your kitchen two mornings ago with his duffel bag by the door and his boots not quite tied, looking too handsome for a man who was leaving you for a couple of days. His hair had still been damp from the shower, tucked behind one ear, darkening the collar of his shirt. He smelled like soap and coffee and the lavender shampoo you bought for yourself, which he continued to deny using even though you told him he could. He had been quiet all morning.

He washed his mug even though you told him to leave it. He checked the lock on the window he had already fixed months ago. Eventually, he found you by the counter when you were pretending to look for something in a drawer you had already opened twice. His hands came to your waist from behind, and he folded himself around you without a word. His chest pressed to your back, chin resting against your shoulder. For a minute, he simply held you there in the kitchen, reluctant to leave.

You covered his hands with yours.

“You’re doing the clingy thing,” you murmured, not at all complaining.

His mouth pressed to the side of your throat, not a kiss at first. Then he did kiss you, his stubble rubbing against your skin.

“Maybe I just like holding my girl before work,” he said.

“Work,” you repeated, dryly, “As if you’re dealing with team building exercises and doing trust falls with Captain America.”

“I would rather be shot.”

“Bucky.”

“What? I’ve been shot before.”

“You’re banned from making those jokes before nine in the morning.”

He hummed, amused, and turned you in his arms so your back was against the counter and he could look at you properly.

His thumbs slipped under the hem of your sweater, just enough to touch skin. The intimacy of it made your chest ache. You had lived with him, slept beside him, showered with him, kissed him breathless against this exact counter, and still there were moments where his hands on you felt new.

He bent his head and kissed you.

It was meant to be a goodbye kiss. It became sweeter, heavier. His body pressed yours into the counter, careful of his strength even when the kiss deepened and your hands found his hair. He made a sound when you tugged, more breath than voice.

“You’re going to be late,” you whispered against his mouth.

“Probably.”

“Very professional.”

“Never claimed to be.”

His metal hand stayed at your waist. His right hand came up to cradle your jaw, thumb brushing your cheek as if he could smooth the worry out of your face. He kissed you once more, lingering, then pressed his forehead to yours.

“I’ll call when I can,” he said.

“I know.”

“Marie has your number?”

“Yes.”

“Food in the fridge?”

“Yes.”

His eyes searched yours. “You’ll eat?”

“Bucky.”

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly at his worry. 

You wanted to tease him more, because that was easier than saying please don’t go. So your fingers tightened in the front of his shirt.

Bucky took the dog tags from beneath his own shirt and lifted the chain over his head. Your throat tightened before he even touched you. “Buck.”

His eyes softened at the name.

It still did that to him, even after a year.

Buck.

You had been saying it for a while now. At first by accident, then on purpose, then so often it became part of your life. You said Buck when you needed him to pass you a mug from the high shelf, a whiny Buck when he stole your side of the bed and pretended he hadn’t. You had gasped Buck when you woke up from a dream with your heart trying to claw its way out of your chest. 

The name had started in the diner, if you were honest.

That first night after AA, when he took you for pie because neither of you were ready to go home alone. Bucky had sat across from you with the menu in both hands, frowning at the pie section as though it was a tactical document.

You had not known yet whether you were allowed to joke with him. Whether he would flinch or he would shut down. 

“I remember it being less confusing than this,” he said. “There’s too many options now.”

It would take him three months to admit the last time he had pie there was 1944.

You lifted your eyebrows. “You’re panicking.”

“I’m assessing my options.”

“You’ve been looking at the word ‘cherry’ for almost a full minute.”

He had looked back down, gravely. “Maybe I like cherry.”

You squinted, then decided. “You don’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

You managed a smile.“I know everything.”

That was the first time he smiled at you properly, and it changed his whole face.

You remembered staring at him across that sticky table and thinking, oh, that is pretty.

Later, he walked you home in the rain.

He didn’t ask if he could or assume he should. He just stood beside you outside the diner, hands in his jacket pockets, and said, “I’m going this way.” and it just happened to be the same as where you were going.

So you let him walk you home.

A week later, he saved you a seat. A month later, he was going out for coffee with you every other day. Two months later, he fixed your broken window latch and stayed for dinner.

Four months later, he kissed you in a supermarket car park because you had called him crying from the frozen food aisle after the shop rearranged itself and put the wine where the pizzas used to be. He had come so quickly you were sure he must have run part of the way. He found you with your basket on the floor and your hands shaking, and he stood between you and the aisle like his body could block out the whole world.

You cried because you wanted a drink. Then you cried because he came. Then you cried because he looked at you like none of it made you difficult to love.

He kissed you after he got you outside, so gently, his hands hovering until you grabbed his jacket and pulled him closer, like he had been waiting months to be allowed to want you like this. 

After that, Bucky became yours all at once.

Your meetings became his meetings, and his nightmares became your 3 a.m. tea in the kitchen. Your cravings became walks around the block with his metal hand at the back of your neck. Your bad days became less lonely. 

There were mornings where you woke up with his face buried against your stomach, one arm heavy across your hips, his hair a disaster against your bare skin. There were evenings where he cooked badly and you ate it anyway because he looked so proud and because he kissed the back of your shoulder while you washed the dishes. There were nights where the two of you ended up tangled on the sofa with a film neither of you watched, his mouth moving slowly along your neck while your fingers slid under his shirt, both of you laughing between kisses.

It wasn’talways easy, but it was worth it.

So when he gave you the tags, standing in your kitchen with the mission waiting downstairs, it seemed like a little too much.

He slipped the chain over your head. The tags settled against your chest, cool for half a second before your skin warmed them.

“For safekeeping,” he said.

You tried to smile. “They’re metal, Buck. I think they’ll survive your l work trip.”

His thumb touched the chain. “It’s not about them surviving.”

You looked up at him.

His voice dropped. “It’s about me coming back for them.”

Oh.

Bucky kissed your forehead, then your mouth, then the corner of your mouth when you tried not to cry. He was so careful with you when he left, like one wrong touch would make both of you admit how much you hated this. He’d been gone for daytrips before, but four days seemed unbearable now.

“I’m proud of you,” he murmured.

Then he kissed you again, and for a few seconds you forgot the whole world beyond his mouth. His hands were firm at your waist, yours around his neck, the tags caught between you. He kissed you until you were breathless and clinging, until Sam honked downstairs and Bucky muttered something unflattering about him under his breath against your lips.

You laughed. He kissed the laugh out of your mouth.

Then he left.

At first, you were fine.

You made breakfast, answered messages, and washed the mug Bucky had already washed, only because it gave your hands something to do. You wore the tags beneath your sweater and touched them whenever you passed the mirror. You went to work and came home. Then ate leftovers standing in the kitchen.

The first night without him was always strange. Then the hours stretched.

The refrigerator hummed too loudly. The upstairs neighbour moved around too much. Your phone stayed blank for too long, and every time it lit up and it wasn't him, disappointment scraped through and you felt childish.

You watched half a film and absorbed none of it.

You opened the fridge, then closed it. Opened the cupboard, then closed it.

Checked your phone, no message.

The next day was the same.

By nine, you were bored. By nine-thirty, you were restless. By ten, your mind had started to tilt.

It was jarring how quickly it happened. No one warned you about it properly, or maybe they did and you had not believed them, but the craving arrived out of nowhere because you were bored. 

You were putting away a clean plate when you thought about the shop on the corner. Then you were gripping the counter so hard your fingers hurt.

You are alone. You are bored.

Nobody would know.

The tags felt too heavy. You pulled them out from beneath your sweater and held them in your hand, the chain slipping between your fingers. Bucky’s name was pressed into your palm, and you stared at it until the letters blurred.

“I’m fine,” you said out loud.

Your voice sounded odd in the empty kitchen.

You put the tags back under your sweater and changed into pyjamas. You brushed your teeth and got into bed. Five minutes later, you got out of bed. You checked your phone. You opened your messages with Bucky and looked at the last thing he sent before takeoff: Be good to yourself for me.

You threw the phone onto the bed.

Then, somehow, you were putting on shoes.

When you thought about it later, that felt frightening, how blank you were. It wasn’t exactly a blackout, because you remembered every moment, but there was a strange sequence to it, as if your body had become a machine built for one purpose: Shoes, coat, keys, stairs, and corner shop.

The bell above the door rang. You told yourself you were buying milk.

You did buy milk. In fact, you carried it to the counter with both hands like evidence of innocence, and then your eyes moved to the tiny bottles behind the register. 

You could leave. You should leave.

You heard yourself ask for one.

The man behind the counter reached back.

You almost said, nevermind. You didn’t.

The bottle was cold when he passed it to you, but it was small enough for your brain to start building arguments before you even reached the door.

It’s little. It’s one. It’s not like before. I have been good for a year. I can stop after this. I just want to know I can.

The walk home felt unreal as the milk knocked against your leg. 

At your door, your hands shook so badly you dropped your keys. you put the milk in the fridge and took the bottle out.

You placed it on the kitchen counter.

You stared at it.

Then you walked away. Then you came back. Then you picked it up. Then you put it down again.

Your whole body was hot and cold at once. Your thoughts were moving too quickly to hold. Bucky’s dog tags rested against your chest beneath your sweater, and you kept touching them, pressing them hard into your skin as if it could bring willpower.

“I won’t drink it,” you whispered.

Then you opened it.

Then you drank.

And alcohol worked on you with humiliating ease. It hit your empty stomach like warmth pretending to be mercy. For a few minutes, missing Bucky became manageable. You stood in your kitchen with the bottle empty in your hand and hated how much relief you felt

Then the relief curdled into horror. Your stomach dropped and skin prickled. The empty bottle looked terrifying in your hand, stupid and catastrophic. You sank to the kitchen floor.

The tiles were cold beneath your thighs. The dog tags swung forward when you bent over, clinking once against the empty bottle still in your fist.

You cried with your whole body, in ugly, breathless sobs that hurt your ribs and scraped your throat. 

You almost called him. You saw your hand reach for the phone.

Then you saw him in your mind, answering because he would always answer if he could. You imagined his face changing when he heard your voice, hearing the guilt he would somehow make his own, because Bucky had never met your pain he didn’t try to carry.

You couldn’t do it.

You rinsed the bottle instead. You stood at the sink with the water running and realised what you were doing and hated yourself so violently you had to grip the counter again.

Evidence.

You were rinsing evidence. You were going to get rid of it, as if this was something to hide from a parent or a teacher or a boyfriend.

You threw the bottle in the bin. Then you took it out. Then you put it back in. Then you sat on the floor until the kitchen light started to feel too bright.

You didn't sleep. Or if you did, it was full of waking.

By morning, your mouth tasted sour and your eyes were swollen.

By night, you were in the basement, a year later.

Marie was talking about her daughter’s wedding. She had her knitting in her lap, a pale yellow scarf growing slowly between her hands, and she was describing the open bar with a detail that made you want to crawl out of your own skin.

Usually, Marie made you feel safe. Tonight, she talked about champagne flutes, toasts, ginger ale, and smiling for the photos. 

The dog tags were hot against your chest.

You shifted in your chair.

The new man beside you was staring at his coffee again. The meeting leader nodded gently as Marie finished.

“Thank you, Marie.”

Everyone said thanks, and the leader looked around the circle.

“Anyone else?”

You stared at the floor. No.

Your heart began to pound so hard you felt it in your throat.

No, no, no.

Still, apparently your body was on autopilot now, because you opened your mouth before you were ready. “I’m—”

Your voice broke so bad that several heads turned at once.

You stopped as heat rushed into your face. You said your name.

The room answered, like it always did.

You could not look at anyone. You looked at your coffee instead, at the small tremors moving across the surface.

“My boyfriend and I met here,” you said, and the words came out thin.

You swallowed hard and tried again.

“My boyfriend and I met here. In this room.” Your thumb moved over the raised letters stamped into the tags beneath your sweater. 

Your breath hitched.

“He doesn’t know I drank last night because he’s away.”

The basement seemed to go still around you.

You let out a broken little laugh that was barely laughter at all. “I was just bored and spiralling and I…” You shook your head, tears spilling hot down your cheeks now, impossible to stop. “I got a little bottle.”

Your fingers curled around the tags.

“It was only a little.”

You knew better than anyone that it never was a little.

—

After the meeting, you cried into Marie’s shoulder in the church hallway until your throat hurt.

You wished you had done it in a dignified way when other people were trying to help you. You cried with your whole face pressed into her cardigan, both hands in the wool while she held the back of your head and kept murmuring, “Oh, sweetheart,” like you hadn’t done something unforgivable, as if you were not disgusting. As if you were just a person who had fallen and was still, somehow, worth helping back up.

She didn’t tell you it was fine.

She only walked you around the block twice in the cold, one arm linked through yours, talking gently about calling Bucky, about honesty, about how a slip didn’t get to eat the whole year unless you fed it the rest yourself.

By the time you got home, you were almost an hour late.

Your eyes were swollen and your face felt tight from drying tears. Bucky’s dog tags were still tucked under your sweater, pressing against your chest.

You opened the door, expecting darkness.

Instead, the kitchen light was on.

Bucky turned from the counter.

He was still in grey sweats, hair damp from a shower he had clearly taken too quickly. There was a smear of frosting on his thumb, and on the counter beside him sat a small, lopsided cake from the grocery store, with too much white icing and little piped flowers around the edge.

Across the top, in blue gel writing, slightly uneven and very obviously done by him, were the words:

ONE YEAR!

Your body went cold.

Was it supposed to be the one year anniversary today? You… hadn’t been counting. Your boyfriend, had, apparently

Bucky’s whole face lit up when he saw you.

“Mission got called short,” he said, so proud and so happy it hurt to look at him. “Happy one year sober, sweetheart.”

You stared at the cake.

The keys were still in your hand. Your coat was still on. You didn’t move, didn’t blink properly, didn’t breathe right.

Bucky kept smiling for a few seconds, but then his smile faltered. “Baby?”

You couldn’t answer as  blue icing blurred in front of you.

Three full minutes passed, maybe less, maybe more, you didn’t know. You only knew that you spent every second of them staring at that little cake like it had been made for someone who had died last night.

You didn’t even realise Bucky had been walking towards you. 

One moment, he was standing behind the little cake, his smile slowly disappearing as he watched you fail to answer him. The next, his hands were on you.

You flinched so hard the keys slipped from your fingers and hit the floor, but Bucky didn’t let go. His flesh hand closed gently around your upper arm while his metal one came to your face.

“Hey,” he said gently. “Hey, look at me.”

You couldn’t. You stared somewhere around his shoulder instead, hardly aware of his thumb brushing beneath your eye, wiping away a tear you hadn’t felt fall.

His eyes moved across your face with alarm. “Are you hurt?”

You shook your head.

“Did something happen today?”

You shook your head again

“Did someone touch you?”

“No,” you managed, but the word was barely there.

Bucky’s shoulders loosened by a bit, but the worry certainly didn't leave his face. His eyes dropped quickly over you anyway, ever so aware of blood, bruises, torn fabric, any danger. There was none.

Bucky looked over his shoulder at it, then back at you.

“Oh,” he said quietly. You didn’t know what he understood. Maybe he thought the anniversary had overwhelmed you, or maybe he thought you were crying because he had remembered, maybe he thought you were happy.

His hand slid from your cheek to the back of your neck. He drew you closer, slow enough that you could have resisted, but you didn't understand what he was doing until your forehead struck his chest and his arms folded around you.

Bucky cradled you against him, metal hand across the back of your coat. His other arm wrapped around your head, his palm cupping your skull as he tucked your face beneath his chin.

You stood stiffly inside his embrace, hearing his heartbeat as your hands remained hanging uselessly at your sides.

Bucky rubbed his palm over your back. “It’s okay,” he murmured, kissing the top of your head. “Whatever it is, it’s okay.”

It wasn’t, and he had no idea.

You couldn’t seem to pull enough air into your lungs. Every breath caught halfway, and your body refused to complete it. Bucky must have felt the change because his grip tightened, holding you together while your knees began to feel like cooked spaghetti.

“Easy,” he whispered. “I’ve got you.”

Your fingers finally curled into the front of his shirt. You clutched him with both hands as if the floor had opened beneath you and he was the only thing left at the edge.

Bucky bent with you when you folded.

He lowered you both to the kitchen floor without ever taking his arms away, one knee touching the tile before he settled against the cabinets and pulled you fully into his lap.

A sound finally came out of you. “I-I’m sorry.”

Bucky startled, but only for a second.

You buried your face against his throat, the apology coming again before you could breathe. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Shh.”

“I’m sorry, Buck, I’m sorry—”

“Shh, sweetheart.”

He held the back of your head while you began to sob. There was no dignity left in it now. You cried so violently that your body jerked against his, words breaking apart between gasps while Bucky gathered you closer. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“I ruined it.”

Bucky’s hand paused against your hair.

You felt the second he understood that this wasn’t an overwhelmed anniversary reaction. “What happened?” he asked.

You shook your head against him.

His lips pressed to your temple. “Tell me.”

“I can’t,” you hiccupped, “You’ll hate me.”

Bucky pulled back just enough to look at you. His hand remained behind your neck, supporting your head when you tried to turn away. The excitement was gone, but fear remained.

“I won’t,” he said.

“You don’t know.”

“I know I won’t hate you.”

Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

You talked before you could think. “You were gone, and I—”

Your voice collapsed. Bucky waited, one arm around your waist, his thumb moving through the damp hair at your neck, while you tried to force the words past the pressure closing your throat.

“I drank.”

It came out abruptly. 

Bucky went still beneath you.

“Last night,” you gasped. “I bought one of the little bottles and I drank it. I drank the whole thing.” The confession tore itself out of you all at once. “I rinsed the bottle. I was going to hide it from you.”

Bucky’s face changed, but instead of disgust, it was recognition.

He knew how a craving could take over your body. He knew what it was to want an off switch badly enough to hate yourself for reaching for it.

“It’s okay,” he whispered.

You recoiled inside his arms. “No, it’s really not.”

“It’s okay.” His hand tightened against the back of your head. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

“I ruined the whole year—”

“No.”

He didn't need the details explained to him. He understood every humiliating little ritual because addiction had taught him the same language, even if his body no longer let alcohol answer him.

“I wore your tags,” you choked out. “While I did it.”

Your hand flew to your chest, gripping the metal through your sweater hard enough for its edges to bite into your palm.

Bucky caught your wrist. “Don’t.”

“I shouldn’t have them.”

He gently pulled your hand away from your chest, but he didn’t take the tags. He only folded your fingers around them more carefully, covering your fist with his own.

“I didn’t keep anything safe,” you managed.

Bucky dragged you back against him before you could see more, tucking your face beneath his chin. His palm spread across your back as you broke open in his lap.

“It’s okay,” he repeated into your hair. “It’s okay.”

You shook your head violently, and he kissed your temple.

It’s not that what happened did not matter. It did. You both knew it did.

But he knew what you were convinced of: the certainty that one mistake had poisoned everything that came before it, insisting that because you had fallen once, you might as well stay on the floor.

Bucky knew better than to let that voice speak alone.

“You should be angry.”

His arms tightened, pressing his face against your hair and breathing through it.

“I should’ve called you.”

“Yeah,” he whispered, voice breaking. “You should’ve.”

You flinched.

Bucky immediately drew back enough to cradle your face between his hands. “But I know why you didn’t.”

His thumbs moved beneath your eyes, wiping away tears that were replaced almost immediately.

He knew what shame did, and how it convinced you isolation felt like mercy.

“I thought you’d hate me.”

He shook his head. “Never.”

It was the only reassurance he gave you because it was the only one you could believe.

Bucky pulled you against him again and let you cry until there was nothing graceful left in your chest. He held you through every shaking breath, his mouth pressed to your hair, murmuring the same words whenever your apologies started again.

It’s okay. It’s okay. I’ve got you.

Eventually, the strength went out of your body. You sagged against him, exhausted, your fingers still trapped around the dog tags between your palm and his.

Bucky stayed on the kitchen floor with you until your breathing slowed.

Then he carefully shifted you from his lap and stood, bringing you with him. Your knees nearly folded, but his hands were already at your waist, holding you upright before you could fall.

“Go shower,” he said.

You frowned. “What?”

“Go take a shower,” he repeated kindly. “Put on something comfortable. I’ll make tea.”

You stared at him when his hand slid around the back of your neck, drawing you forward until his forehead rested against yours.

“I’m gonna be here when you come back,” he said.

“You promise?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re not going to leave?”

“No.”

“You’re not going to throw the cake away?”

His eyes flicked toward it.

“No,” he said after a moment. You nodded, though you didn’t entirely believe him.

Bucky kissed your forehead and let you go.

—

The shower took longer than it should have. You stood beneath the water until it ran lukewarm, scrubbing the dried tears from your face, replaying the conversation again and again until it turned into comfort.

When you eventually returned to the kitchen, wearing Bucky’s shirt and a pair of pyjama bottoms, two mugs of tea sat on the table.

Bucky was standing over the cake with a butter knife in his hand and an expression of intense concentration usually reserved for dismantling weapons.

You stopped in the doorway. “What are you doing?”

He glanced at you, then back at the cake.

The blue icing was a mess.

Bucky had scraped away most of the word YEAR. There were deep trenches in the white frosting where he had smushed the letters together, dragging the gel across the surface with very little artistic skill.

ONE YEAR! had become:

ONE DAY!

The exclamation point was still there, slightly crooked.

You stared at it.

Bucky put down the knife.

“I figured we celebrate this instead,” he said.

Your throat closed. “One day?”

He shrugged, suddenly looking uncertain. “That’s what they say, right?”

One day at a time.

But there were so many fucking days.

But there was only this one now.

You managed to walk yourself to the kitchen and threw yourself into his arms.

Bucky caught you, his arms closing around your body. You buried your face against his chest while he kissed the top of your head.

“I’m still proud of you,” he whispered.

You shook your head.

His hand moved down your back. “That’s okay,” he murmured. “I’ve got enough for both of us.”

Later, he cut two uneven slices.

The cake was too sweet, the tea had gone cold, and the blue icing stained your tongues. Bucky sat beside you, his thigh pressed against yours and his metal hand resting open on the table.

When midnight passed, his fingers closed gently around yours.

One day.

You had made it through one day.

—end. 

General Bucky taglist pt 1:

The man waited outside.

Your stomach sank.

You pulled out your phone and called Dex. It rang once before going to voicemail, which meant he was either working or already packing his things and moving towards you. You left the line open anyway, slipping your phone into your coat pocket as you stepped back onto the pavement.

“I’m on Stanton,” you said, quiet as you could, knowing the microphone would catch it. “I’m going on the safe route, and there’s a man following me.”

You headed towards the twenty-four-hour diner two streets away. At least there were lights, cameras, and most importantly, people there.

You almost reached it, but the man caught you when you passed the narrow service road behind an apartment building. One moment his footsteps were behind you; the next, his hand gripped around the back of your coat and dragged you hard enough that the thicker collar choked into your throat.

Your keys fell from your fingers, and all you could manage was a pathetic little scream before he could cover your mouth.

His palm immediately struck your lips and teeth, crushing the sound back into your skull as he hauled you into the darkness of some random New York alley. Your heel scraped uselessly across the pavement as you bit down until you tasted blood that wasn’t yours. It worked! He swore, jerking his hand away.

Immediately, you drove your elbow backwards.

Dex had shown you where to aim for, and you were trying to retrieve it from the rolodex of information in your mind, not quite the ribs, but lower in the soft tissue. 

The man grunted, but he didn’t let go. His arm locked around your throat instead, squeezing until firework-white sparks burst across your vision.

“You stupid fucking—”

You stamped on his foot before he could finish his sentence and threw your weight forwards, turning beneath his arm, exactly as Dex had taught you.

Eventually, his hold broke.

You stumbled free and ran, but the man recovered faster than you initially expected. His hand found its way and tangled his fingers in your hair, snapping your head backwards so violently that your neck burned.

He slammed you face-first against the brick wall.

Oh. Fuck. 

A burst of pain exploded through your cheek, teeth unintentionally biting into the inside of your mouth. Warm, fresh blood flooded on your tongue, thick and metallic, while his body pinned you against the wall.

The panic bells ringing in your head turned everything white-hot. “S-stop!”

He didn’t.

No. No. You were better than this.

You reached behind blindly, clawing for his eyes, his throat, anything you could find. Your nails found skin, raking down as he cursed and drove you against the brick again.

Maybe your nose broke, you couldn’t really tell.

His hand slid beneath your coat, and that’s when your vision went red. Rage flared hot inside you, burning through every thought in your head. You threw your skull backwards and felt his cartilage collapse beneath it.

His grip loosened, howling in pain.

You spun and shoved him with both hands.

He stumbled off the curb at the edge of the service road. His ankle twisted beneath him, and he went down hard. The man managed to catch himself on one palm before his shoulder struck the pavement.

You could have run.

The diner was less than a hundred yards away. You could see its red sign glowing at the end of the road, bright as a fresh exit wound.

That was when the man looked up at you.

A sick, satisfied feeling churned in your stomach as red poured from his nose and over his mouth.

And… he was smiling.

Oh. 

He still believed he was going to win.

He pushed himself onto one knee. “I’m going to fucking kill you.”

Your hand found the loose brick beside the wall, and it was heavier than you expected. Its edges bit into your palm as you lifted it with both hands.

When the man saw it, his smile vanished in an instant.

You brought the brick down across his temple.

The sound that came off it was shockingly small. It sounded like a damp knock, followed by the scrape of his body collapsing onto the road.

He rolled onto his back, blinking rapidly. One side of his face had already begun to swell around the ripped skin as a blotch of blood ran into his ear and disappeared beneath his head.

You stood over him, panting.

He was still conscious. “Wait.”

You could’ve stopped. You could’ve shown mercy. 

Instead, you struck him again.

This time, the brick split the skin above his eyebrow. Blood sprayed across your coat and speckled your face in warm droplets.

He raised one arm to protect himself.

Huh. Cute. 

You hit that too.

His arm gave beneath the brick with a muffled crunch. His forearm bent where it shouldn’t have been bent, and he screamed, the sound travelling through the empty service road.

You dropped the brick.

For half a second, the sight of his ruined arm nearly pulled you back into your logical self.

Then, his good hand closed around your ankle.

You shrieked and kicked him in the face. Your heel connected with his mouth as teeth snapped together. One of them even skipped across the pavement and vanished beneath a parked car.

He released you, but you fell on top of him.

Your knees struck the ground on either side of his hips, and your hands seized the front of his jacket. His blood made the material slippery beneath your fingers.

Before you could think any better of it, you dragged his head upwards, then slammed it against the curb.

The back of his skull struck concrete with a thick, hollow crack.

His eyes rolled, and it horrified you how much you liked it, seeing the man who wanted to touch you fucking bleed out. 

So you did it again.

Blood spread beneath his hair.

Again.

The hard crack now sounded wetter as the skin split and bone began to cave in. His body jerked beneath you, heels scraping against the pavement, but there was no strength left in it.

He made a noise through his broken mouth. You didn’t know whether it was a plea or merely air left escaping.

“You followed me!” you sobbed. “You fucking touched me!”

You brought his head down again.

The edge of the curb disappeared beneath blood. It ran between your fingers, coating your palms each time you pulled him upwards.

“I did everything right.”

Again.

“I—”

Again.

“Have—”

Again.

“A—”

Again.

“Fucking—”

Again.

“Boyfriend—”

Again.

“You—”

Again.

“Asshole—”

Again.

“He’ll fucking kill you!”

The last word broke somewhere in your throat, ragged. You were crying now, maybe. You couldn’t really tell. Your face was wet, your hands were red, and the whole world had shrunk down to the most-likely-dead man in your grip and the curb beneath him and the memory of his hand on you where it never should have been.

The back of his skull was now the shape of the concrete underneath.

You felt the structure collapse beneath your hands where there should have been resistance. It didn’t feel dramatic or righteous. All you could think was how it felt gooey in the wrong places. 

You pulled him up again anyway.

“I told you,” you sobbed, or screamed, or whispered. You couldn’t tell anymore. “I told you to stop.”

But his eyes were open and empty, staring past you at nothing, and when you tried to lift him one more time, your hands slipped in all the blood and he dropped back against the curb with a sound that made your stomach sink

That was when the anger went out.

All at once, as if someone had blown out a candle inside your chest.

You stared down at your hands and the red beneath your nails. You saw a dark smear across your wrist where he had grabbed you. “I did everything right,” you said again, smaller this time.

His face had lost all expression. Blood bubbled faintly at his lips before spilling down his cheek.

He was dead.

You knew he was dead.

You screamed as you struck him again, though you no longer knew whether you were furious or terrified.

You remembered Dex telling you never to stop until you were safe.

Make sure they cannot get back up. 

You had done everything he told you to do.

The man’s head struck the concrete one final time and didn’t bounce.

You released him.

His ruined skull settled crookedly against the ground. The road beneath him shone black-red beneath the distant streetlights, and blood soaked through your tights at the knees and dripped from your hands in heavy threads.

The dead man’s head no longer looked human.

Your stomach heaved.

You tried to stand, but your legs folded beneath you. The world tilted violently, the brick walls stretching upwards as though the road had dropped away beneath your body.

Footsteps thundered behind you, but you couldn’t turn around.

Your vision narrowed until the alley became a tunnel.

Then a hand touched your face, but this time, the touch was gentle.

His thumb swept carefully beneath your eye, avoiding the swelling along your cheekbone, as an arm curved around your waist before you could collapse fully onto the body.

“There you are,” Dex whispered.

His voice sounded distant beneath the rushing in your ears.

You tried to tell him what you had done, but your lips would not let you.

Dex’s palm cradled the back of your head, carefully nudging your nose back into place. He pulled you into him, turning your face away from the ruin on the pavement.

“My smart girl,” he murmured, stroking your hair with bloodless fingers. “You remembered everything.”

The praise sank through your heart as he felt his lips press against your temple.

“You saved yourself.”

Eventually, dazed and overwhelmed by the adrenaline crash, your eyes closed.

The last thing you felt was Dex’s thumb moving across your cheek, wiping away a tear.

—

Dex knew you.

He knew you were nothing like him.

That much had been obvious almost from the beginning, though he hadn’t understood it properly. Dex’s first instinct had always been violence. Whenever a problem appeared, his mind found that the bloodiest way was often the fastest way to solve it. Even inconveniences made his skin crawl, from a jammed drawer, a car alarm that would not stop, to a man looking at you for half a second too long across a restaurant. 

You were different.

You were gentle in ways Dex had once found impractical.  

You apologised to furniture when you bumped into it. You cupped moths in your hands and carried them outside. You left sugar water out for bees in summer and lowered your voice around frightened dogs. You once stopped walking entirely because there was a snail on the pavement after rain, and you refused to let anyone step on it until Dex moved it safely into the grass with a leaf.

He had stood there watching you then, half-annoyed, half-fascinated.

“It’s just a snail,” he had said.

You had looked up at him like he had spouted bullshit from his mouth. “It’s alive.”

From then on, he realized alive mattered to you.

Even small alive. Even when it was inconvenient .

Dex hadn’t been raised with that as a natural instinct. As a boy, he had thrown stones at birds because he found that he liked the little burst of movement. He hadn’t thought of it as cruelty then. It was just aim, maybe boredom. 

Then you bought a bird feeder for your apartment.

You hung it outside the kitchen window with such bright delight that Dex hadn’t even known what to say. You filled it every morning, scattering seed with your bed hair falling over your face, then stood there with your coffee while sparrows and blue tits flickered down. You loved them. You loved their stupid little hopping, their bright feathers.

You loved listening to birdsong most of all.

You whistled back sometimes without realising it while you watered plants or folded laundry. At night, when you were deep enough asleep that your body forgot to be self-conscious, you made the same small breathy sounds in your dreams, sweet enough that Dex would lie awake beside you and listen as he calmed down.

So instead of throwing rocks at it like he used to, he learned how to imitate their songs.

At first, only because you smiled when he whistled them. Then, he did it because you looked at him like he had performed a miracle when a robin landed on the feeder while Dex stood still by the window, unknowingly calling them closer.

Without realising, he had learned to mimic their distinctive calls.

He even stopped exterminating annoying bugs because of you. 

You were afraid of spiders, yes, but when one of them showed up in the nightstand and you screamed, hiding behind him like a shield, you would make this horrified and pleading sound because he reached for a shoe instead of a cup. To you, being afraid of the little thing didn’t mean it deserved to die. 

“Dex, no. Outside. Alive.”

So for you, he learned to trap spiders beneath glasses and slide envelopes carefully underneath them. He learned to carry them to the windowsill instead of crushing them. 

Eventually, he learned not to flick beetles off the balcony, because you worried about whether the fall would hurt them. He learned to scoop flies out of half-open windows with hands while you hovered behind him whispering, “Careful, careful,” like he was defusing a bomb.

He learned to pretend he cared whether tiny, ugly things lived.

Eventually, he cared because you cared, and caring about what you cared about was the closest thing to general empathy Dex had ever understood.

And that was why Dex knew that you could not wake up knowing what you had done.

Because you had not even wanted him to kill spiders.

How the hell were you supposed to survive knowing you had killed a man?

Dex had known that the moment you went limp in his arms, your bloodied hands curled weakly against his shirt, your body giving up its adrenaline high only after it was finally safe to stop fighting. You had passed out before he could praise you properly, even before he could look you in the eye and tell you that you had done exactly what he taught you to do.

You had saved yourself.

Dex was proud of you in a way he knew he couldn’t show when you woke up.

Especially not with the body in the trunk of his car and your clothes stuffed into a sealed black bag hidden in the closet. His own clothes in there too, soaked with blood where he had held you, smeared bleach where he had poured it over the concrete. 

He would deal with it later, when you were properly asleep, because the body could wait and you could not.

So Dex got you, half-passed out and half mumbling nonsense, home. Perhaps it was simply your mind coping on a traumatic memory.

He stripped you carefully, cutting fabric where it stuck, easing sleeves down your arms, peeling everything off your skin piece by piece until there was nothing left between you and him. His clothes came off too, though nothing was ever sexual about that, but because his soaked shirt was evidence, too. 

He washed you in the shower while you leaned against him, barely conscious, your forehead pressed to his shoulder, your knees buckling every time the warm water hit another bruise. He did this all while murmuring sweet nonsense into your ear, words he knew your body understood even when your mind was tuned out. “You did so good, baby. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

He washed you until water at your feet ran pink, then red, then thin and clear.

Your hands took the longest as he held each finger between his own, washing beneath the nails, over the knuckles, around the raw places where the brick and pavement had scraped you open. You whimpered once, so quietly he almost missed it, and he kissed your wet temple before continuing.

He had to make them clean because you would look at your hands first.

When it was done, he carried you to bed and lay down naked beside you, pulling you onto his chest before the cold could bite.

The skin to skin was its own kind of intimacy, no barrier, but his body around yours.

By 2 a.m., he had not slept. He had tried, once or twice, mostly for the performance, because if you woke up and found him sitting upright in the dark watching you breathe, you would know something was wrong. 

So he lay with you until dawn, and every time your breathing hitched, Dex tightened his hold. Every time you made a frightened sound, he kissed your head and whispered until you settled. He kept one eye on the bedroom door, one ear tuned to the street.

But mostly he watched you.

You looked smaller when you slept after fear, lashes clumping from old tears. Your mouth was swollen and a bruise was blooming along your cheekbone where the man had slammed you against brick, and Dex had to look away from it more than once because all he felt was red-hot rage. 

But it wasn’t like he could do anything. The man was already dead.

You woke up sometime around 3 a.m.

Dex felt it when you choked on a breath, curled against him, cheek on his chest, one leg tangled with his. Your fingers twitched against his ribs, and he knew some part of you had surfaced too quickly.

Your eyes opened.

Almost immediately, panic tore through you.

You jerked upright so fast the sheet slipped from your chest. 

Your hands flew up in front of your face, fingers spread, as though blood might still be dripping from them. They were clean, but you stared anyway. 

You turned them over, looking at your palms, backs, nails, and wrist.

You seemed shocked to find them… clean. 

Dex sat up behind you. “Baby.”

You flinched at his voice, and that knee-jerk reaction hurt more than he expected.

You twisted towards him, naked and shaking, eyes wide with a terror that had no full memory attached to it yet. 

Dex could see your mind reaching and clawing through fog, finding only flashes of memories. Maybe you remembered a streetlight, maybe a hand on your throat. 

Your lips parted, but no sound came out.

Dex reached for you.

You scrambled back half an inch, and he frowned immediately. 

He tried to make himself look harmless, like there was nothing hidden near the closet, nothing dead cooling in the back of his car.

“There you are,” he murmured.

Your face fell, but the sob didn’t come out. It got trapped in your chest, making your whole body shake. You looked down at yourself then, at your bare skin, at his bare skin, at the tangled sheets, and your confusion quickly became fear. 

Dex moved carefully, scooting closer until his thigh touched yours.

“You were cold,” he said, pulling the duvet back up around you before you could ask. “ I had to get you warm.”

Your eyes darted around the room.

The bedroom looked normal. That made it worse. 

There was no proof of anything, no blood, no alley, no proof of anything but your body remembering what your mind could not grasp.

Dex placed one hand over your knee.

You stared at it.

He expected you to pull away, but instead your breath hitched and your whole body tilted towards him, helplessly, like a compass finding north. He gathered you before you could think better of it.

You collapsed into his lap.

Dex wrapped both arms around you and pulled you against his bare chest again, tucking your face beneath his chin. You were shaking so hard it passed into him. You pressed your hands flat to his shoulders, then curled, then opened again, like you could not stand the idea of grasping flesh too tightly.

“There,” he whispered. “That’s it. Come here, baby.”

Your breath hitched against his throat, and he felt the first wet tear hit his skin.

Then you were crying without sound, which was worse than sobbing. Violent tears shook you from the inside while your body stayed stiff with shock.

Dex rocked you slowly, enough to give your panic a rhythm to follow.

“You’re home,” he murmured into your hair. “You’re with me. No one’s gonna touch you.”

Your fingers dug into him. “I—I…,” you whispered, not quite coming out with words yet

Dex closed his eyes for half a second. “It’s okay, baby.”

Your eyes darted in a panic. “I don’t know what happened.”

He tried shushing you. “You don’t have to know all of it right now.”

“I-I don’t know, Dex.”

“I know, baby. I know.”

Your breathing grew shallow, almost choking. You tried to pull back and look at your hands again, but Dex caught them between your bodies, folding them against his chest where you could feel his heartbeat beneath your palms.

Focus there.

You did.

“I-I remember him,” you managed to say.

Dex stroked the back of your head. “Okay.”

“I remember walking. I took the right way.”

“You did.”

“I did what you said.”

“You did everything right.”

The sentence seemed to be a trigger, ripping a sob out of you.

Dex held you tighter.

“I-I did everything right,” you repeated, smaller now. “I promise.”

“I know.”

“I went inside. I waited. I called you.”

“You were so smart.”

Your face pressed harder into his neck.

“So smart,” he whispered again. “My girl, you did so well.”

You shook your head, frantic, because praise did not fit beside the images cutting through you. 

You didn’t remember much, but you saw flashes of blood and concrete behind your eyelids. 

Your breathing stopped.

His hand slid up the back of your neck and held you close. “No,” he murmured, soft as velvet. “Stay with me.”

“I saw—”

“You saw too much.”

“I… did something.”

“You protected yourself.”

“No, I—”

“You protected yourself,” he repeated, more insistent this time. 

Your fingers twisted against his chest.

Dex let his voice warm up, like honey in warm water. “You were scared and hurt and you did what you had to do.”

He felt you take the information in, but your panic continued circling it like vultures on corpses.

Dex kissed the top of your head, then your temple, then the bruised corner of your brow. “You’re okay,” he breathed. “I promise.”

You made a wounded noise, and he knew exactly what he was doing.

The kindness was not accidental, it was architecture. He was building a room inside your memory, where the bloodier parts could be locked outside until you forgot where you held the key.

“Where is he?”

Oh. So you vaguely knew there was a he now. 

“He’s in the hospital.” He lied easily. 

Dex knew this was how it would happen. One lie was enough to sound like mercy, and you would hold on to it because you trusted him more than you trusted your own shattered memory. He was making you need his version of the truth because he truly believed it was the only one that would save you.

You froze in his arms, and Dex held you through it.

“The hospital?” you whispered.

“Mm.”

Your hands clutched him harder. “He looked...”

“I know what it looked like.”

You pulled back just enough to see his face.

Dex hated it, and not because he couldn’t lie to your face. He could, he had, and would again if it meant it would preserve and protect your sense of self. Instead, he hated it because you looked so desperate for him to make the world kinder than really it was, and he loved you so much it nearly made him crueler.

He cupped your cheeks.

“Head wounds bleed badly,” he said. “You know that, sweetheart.”

Your eyes blazed into his, and he knew he made a mistake then. You didn’t remember that part.

“H-head wounds?” You breathed out in disbelief, unable to claw the memory now. 

“He was breathing when I got there,” Dex lied again.

A strangled sob left you, but it didn’t sound like relief yet. For now, it was only the body realising it had been offered a way out.

“Head wounds a-are dangerous.”

“I know.”

You hiccuped. “I thought— I remember—”

“Pieces,” Dex murmured. “You remember pieces.”

“But I saw blood.”

“There was blood.”

“On me?”

“Yes.”

Your face fell, Dex pulling you back in before the horror could.

“That’s why I cleaned you up,” he whispered, and that part, at least, was not a lie. His thumb moved slowly along your cheek, careful in a way Dex was rarely careful with anything that wasn’t you. “That’s why we ended up like this. You were shaking so hard, and I couldn’t get you warm. I tried. I swear I tried.”

His mouth brushed your temple, barely a kiss.

“I kept trying to move,” he murmured. “I kept thinking I should get you a shirt, but every time I pulled away, you reached for me again like you thought I was leaving, and I couldn’t—” His voice snagged, just slightly. “I couldn’t make myself do it. Not when you looked at me like that.”

You stared at him, still heavy-limbed, your thoughts coming back to you in pieces. It sounded embarrassingly believable, because there was a warmth in your chest that remembered him. Your hands had always found him before the rest of you caught up.

“I did?” you asked quietly.

“Yes.”

Your eyes narrowed, weakly suspicious. “You’re lying.”

Dex leaned down and kissed your forehead, lingering there like the answer mattered more than the accusation. 

“About you needing me?” His voice dropped. “Never.”

You cried harder then, finally making messy little sobs that broke against his chest while Dex rocked you, He ran his hands up and down your back, whispering into your hair. He called you precious until the word stopped sounding like a word at all. 

You shook your head.

Dex closed his eyes and held you tighter.

“You’re my girl,” he whispered. “Nothing about you changed.”

His gaze drifted once, towards the closet.

The black bag waited.

Behind the wall, beyond the apartment, beneath the ordinary morning, the dead man waited too. 

Later, he would get rid of the body. Later, he would burn what needed burning. For now, you were shaking in his lap, believing him because you needed to.

“Dex,” you whispered.

“I’m here.”

“You promise?”

He knew what you were asking.

You promise I didn’t? You promise I’m still me? You promise whatever I don’t remember isn’t real?

Dex pressed his lips to your temple and held them there. “I promise you’re safe.”

It was not the answer you wanted, but it was the one he gave.

You sagged against him after that, emptied by tears, your body surrendering. Dex eased both of you down until he was lying on his back and you were draped over him, skin to skin beneath the sheet. Your cheek rested over his heart, hand curled weakly near his ribs.

He kept touching your scalp, your spine, and the back of your neck in gently repetitive strokes until your breathing evened out. 

Eventually, sleep took you again. Poor girl, still so tired after murdering an evil man. 

Every few minutes, you twitched. Every time, Dex whispered you back down.

My precious girl, he would praise. You did so well.

At last, your body grew heavy over his, your fingers stopped moving. Your mouth grew pliant against his chest.

Dex waited for five minutes, then ten, then twenty.

Only when he was certain you were properly asleep did he turn his head towards the closet again.

He had things that needed doing.

But you stirred faintly against him before he could move, and Dex froze. Your brow pinched, your hand tightening on his skin, some nightmare threatening to pull you under.

He settled back immediately.

Not yet.

The dead could wait a little longer.

Dex brushed his mouth over your hair and smiled.“My sweet girl,” he whispered.

His hand covered yours, pressing your clean palm flat over his heart.

“You did everything right.”

He adored you for last night, even if he could never let you know exactly what you had done.

He adored the shaking, furious thing you had become when there had been no one left to save you. He adored the fact that some part of you had remembered him, remembered every warning, every lesson, every instruction, just in case. 

He adored that you had survived. More than that, in some terrible private corner of himself, he adored that you had survived violently.

He adored that for a split second, you had become him. 

But he knew you best, and he knew you weren’t made for that. 

So he would take that truth to the grave, and you would wake up tomorrow with the love of your life beside you.

You would wake up believing you had done only enough to live.

And Dex loved you enough to make that true.

—end.

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Dex taglist part 1:

You were forbidden from going anywhere near it. So, naturally, it was the most interesting thing you could see from your window.

Sometimes, a raven came to sit with you on the sill.

He was a sleek, handsome thing with feathers black enough to reflect blue beneath the sunlight and eyes that seemed far too clever for an ordinary bird. He never startled when you moved too suddenly or tried to touch him. He simply watched you, head tilted, while you complained about your lessons, your father, and the latest dreadful man being considered for your hand.

The raven was your only friend.

You had started leaving scraps of breakfast for him, though he never really ate them. Most days, he seemed content merely to listen. Occasionally, he would tap his beak against the window sill or make a croaking sound at exactly the right moment, as though offering an opinion.

Every morning followed the same rhythm of breakfast before lessons, before war planning, before a walk in the palace gardens with no fewer than six guards pretending they weren’t following you, before fencing, before dinner.

Occasionally, your routine was interrupted by another prospective husband. Sometimes it was a prince, other times it would be a duke or a marquess. Once, it was an unfortunate count who spent twenty uninterrupted minutes explaining taxation while trying to court you.

Your father always watched these meetings with hopeful eyes.“What do you think of Prince Alistair?”

“He called me ‘adequate.’”

“He meant well.”

“He compared me to wheat,” you rolled your eyes.

He could only sigh. “Wheat is valuable.”

“I don’t want to marry a man who thinks my greatest quality is being agriculturally useful.”

Your father sighed, and it was the weary sigh of a king rapidly discovering that raising a stubborn daughter was considerably harder than negotiating peace treaties between entire territories. “You cannot refuse everyone.”

“I haven’t refused everyone,” you corrected, which was technically true.

“You’ve refused twelve.”

You held up a finger with a sly smile. “Twelve so far.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You are one day going to become queen.”

“I know.”

“You need a husband.”

“I know,” you slumped to your seat, though the corset was now digging into your spine. 

“A suitable one.”

“I know.”

“So what exactly are you waiting for?”

You glanced past him, beyond the castle walls, toward the ancient forest shimmering on the horizon.

“I don’t know,” you admitted. “But I feel like if I marry any of them…” You paused. “I’ll be settling.”

Your father smiled sadly, mistaking your hesitation for youthful nerves. “You’ll understand soon enough.”

You smiled back because it was easier than arguing.

The truth was, you already understood.

You simply wanted more than a political alliance and polite conversation over dinner. You wanted someone who made your heart race.

Someone worthy of becoming the subject of stories.

You looked out and simply wondered, if any human prospect was ever going to be remarkable.

—

You had never escaped six armed guards before, but today, you found out that it was surprisingly easy.

They were watching for assassins, kidnappers, enemy soldiers, perhaps even a dragon if the kingdom had been having a particularly difficult week. They were not watching for their princess to lift her skirts, squeeze through a gap in the palace hedge, and run directly into the trees.

By the time anyone shouted your name, you were already gone.

Why did she even do this? Your father would probably ask, but there was really only one answer: boredom. 

You were bored of the same rooms, the same lessons, the same walks through the gardens. You were bored of waking each morning already knowing exactly how the day would end.

The raven had visited your windowsill that morning, but he stayed only long enough to tilt his clever little head at you, and then flew back toward the forest.

You had watched him disappear beyond the palace walls and thought, with a miserable pit in your stomach, if only I could be that free.

Perched beside you in the tower one moment, exploring the forest the next.

So you decided to do something about it and ran.

The forest began as ordinary woodland,

 but grew stranger the farther west you went. The trees became older, their roots rising through the earth like sleeping serpents, and silver mist gathered between the trunks even beneath a clear sky.

That mist marked the border: Your kingdom ended on this side, and the fae realm began on the other.

You were not stupid enough to cross it.

You were still catching your breath by a rock when you heard something crying in the undergrowth.

The sound drew you deeper into the woods long before you saw its source.

It was not a cry of pain so much as a weary exhale, the sort a creature made after running farther than its body wished to carry it. The forest seemed reluctant to reveal where it came from, as ancient oaks stood shoulder to shoulder like old kings in round tables, their branches weaving together until only ribbons of sunlight reached the moss below. Blue-white motes drifted lazily through the shade, vanishing whenever you tried to follow them with your eyes 

The doe lay only a few paces away, as though she had collapsed the instant she reached the safety of your kingdom. She was a beautiful hind with a pale face and enormous dark eyes that blinked sleepily rather than fearfully. The white arrow with black feathers rested against her flank, though when you looked closer your brow furrowed.

There was no blood or torn flesh.

The arrowhead shimmered with threads of pale gold that flowed over the deer’s body like sunlight through water. Wherever the light touched, the muscles beneath her coat relaxed. Her breathing remained calm.

“Oh.” You crouched beside her. “You aren’t hurt, are you, my love?”

The doe lazily lifted her head and nosed your shoulder before letting it fall again into the grass with contented resignation, determined to finish its nap.

You laughed nervously under your breath. “What have they done to you?”

“The Sleep of Rowan.” 

The voice came from somewhere inside the silver mist, beautiful enough that it almost seemed to belong to the forest itself.

You looked up.

He stood where the mist was thickest, and somehow the trees seemed arranged around him rather than the other way around. His leathers were the deep blue of the ocean down by the south border, embroidered so finely with bronze thread that every movement caught the light like autumn leaves stirred by the wind. 

A longbow rested loosely in one hand, carved from white wood that glimmered with faint silver runes. His hair was slightly tousled, sometimes dark brown and other times it was slightly golden. He was… Fair Folk.

There was no mistaking it.

He had pointed ears peeking through his hair, a strong jaw softened only by expressive lips that looked almost permanently on the verge of a knowing smile. His amber eyes were startlingly bright, flecked with molten gold, his fingers were glowing blue at the tips.

Then there was the scar, crossing one cheek in a narrow line, and one on top of the eye.

It should not have been there. Whatever had given him that one must have been vicious.

You knew now, that any sensible person would walk in the opposite direction.

Unfortunately, you had never been particularly sensible.

“Sleep of Rowan?” you blinked.

He inclined his head toward the doe. “The arrow contains no iron.” His voice carried no arrogance, only certainty. “It numbs the body before it strikes. By the time the arrow lands, the creature feels only warmth. They grow sleepy.”

The doe punctuated his explanation by yawning.

Your heart immediately melted. “Oh, sweetheart.”

The fae watched you smile at the animal. His expression changed so subtly you almost missed it.

Interest, maybe. Recognition, perhaps. 

You looked from the doe to the bow resting in his hand. “You mean to kill her?”

“When the forest gives permission.”

You blinked.

He nodded toward the ancient trees surrounding you, fingertips brushing across the carved wood of his bow.

“We never hunt mothers with young,” he continued. “Never more than the Court requires. Every hide is worn and every antler is carved. Every bone shall be returned to the old groves before the first snowfall.”

He spoke not like a man explaining himself, but someone with rules and guidelines so ingrained into his bones it might as well be prayer.

“We borrow a life,” he said quietly. “We are expected to return honour in its place.”

You looked down at the sleeping doe as she twitched once in her dreams.

“Then…” Your fingers drifted automatically to the white patch between her ears, stroking it with infinite care. “…couldn’t you borrow another?”

The fae regarded you with an expression you couldn’t begin to understand.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’ve already proved you could catch her.”

His brow lifted.

“You did.” You gestured toward the shimmering arrow. “She’s asleep.”

“She is.”

“So you’ve won.”

A tiny smile threatened the corner of his mouth. “I have.”

You looked back at the doe. “Please let her go.” The words escaped so quietly they were almost carried away by the breeze. “Please.”

He didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, he looked only at you, but not at your dress or the small golden circlet resting in your hair, but into your eyes and then to the way your hand never stopped stroking the sleeping animal.

The silence stretched so much you began to wonder whether you had insulted him.

Then, without a word, he reached for the arrow. The runes dimmed beneath his fingers, the arrow dissolving into the afternoon air like scattered pollen.

The doe stirred, blinked twice, and climbed to her feet.

She stood for a moment, swaying gently as though waking from the deepest sleep she’d ever known. Then she nudged her nose against your shoulder in what could only be gratitude before disappearing into the trees with three graceful bounds.

Only then did you turn back. “You just… let her go.”

“Yes.”

“Because I asked?”

He smiled. “You asked kindly.”

“That can’t possibly be enough reason.”

“It appears to have been.”

“I’ve just ruined your hunt,” you managed a nervous laugh, “and you’re not angry?”

His eyes held yours. “No.”

“Why?”

He considered the question far longer than it deserved. “Because I preferred watching you.”

Unexpectedly, heat crept up into your cheeks.

There was nothing crude or flirtatious in the way he said it. It sounded like a fact. 

He looked at you the way scholars looked at miracles and priests looked at altars: with complete attention, as though every movement you made deserved remembering.

“You have leaves in your hair,” he observed.

You huffed, taking one. “I escaped six guards.”

“I know,” he stepped ever so closer. “They’re still looking for you.”

“How do you know that?” You raised an eyebrow, taking a cautious step back. 

His smile deepened ever so slightly. “They’re remarkably loud.”

“I suppose they are.” You sighed. “They worry too much.”

His expression remained pleasantly calm. “They are guarding a princess.”

You sighed, and he merely tilted his head.

After a moment’s silence, you simply asked, “Do… you have a name?” 

“Dex.”

“Dex?”

“It will suffice.” You nodded.

“Very well, Dex.”

A brightness flickered across his face at the sound of the name in your voice. Approval, perhaps. Or satisfaction.

He rested the bow across his shoulder with effortless grace. “And you, Princess,” You didn’t even notice that he had done it again. “have convinced me to let my dinner wander off. The least you can do is point me towards the blackberry bushes.”

He knew the forest better than any living creature. Yet somehow, you found yourself leading him through it anyway.

And Dex, Crown Prince of the Wyld Fae, followed without the slightest complaint.

Because, according to every sacred law of the hunt he had ever been taught, once you found something worth following, you did not let it out of your sight.

—

The blackberry bushes grew wild along the riverbank, their thorny branches weighed down with fruit so dark they looked blue beneath the fading light. Dex moved through them selecting one berry from dozens as though there was an art to it. He plucked a particularly lavish one between two fingers and held it toward your mouth.

You stared at the blackberry, then at him. “I’m not stupid.”

Dex managed an infuriating smirk. “It appears you are.”

“Excuse me?”

His mouth pulled into a chuckle. “You think I’m trying to enchant you with fruit that grew in your own kingdom.”

You simply crossed your arms “I am smarter than eating or drinking anything offered by the Fair Folk.”

“The roots are in human soil,” he said, pointing to the roots of the tree. “Made of human rain and human sunlight. You will not be bound to me.”

Ah. Right. 

Still, you narrowed your eyes. “No secret marriage?”

Dex looked more amused by your paranoia, as if enjoying toying with it. “No.”

“No hundred-year sleep?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“No waking up in your palace wearing a crown?”

Dex’s eyes dipped briefly to your mouth before returning to your eyes. “Not from the blackberry.”

You should have been more concerned by the distinction. Instead, you leaned forward and took the fruit from his fingers.

It was sweet enough to make you hum, wild and far richer than anything cultivated in the palace gardens. Dex watched you eat it with a satisfaction so singular it was almost ridiculous, as though convincing you to accept one perfectly harmless berry had been the greatest victory of his life.

After that, you talked, mostly about nothing. Then about everything.

You told him about the tower and how the wind made noise through the stones during winter. You complained about your governess, your embroidery lessons, and the latest nobleman your father intended to parade before you like an expensive horse. Dex listened with his full attention, asking questions in places where most people would have nodded politely and waited for you to stop speaking.

He told you about the forest in return, about flowers that only opened beneath eclipses and streams that remembered every person who crossed them. He showed you which mushrooms laughed when stepped on and warned you never to follow lanterns that moved. When you asked whether every fae hunter was as strange as he was, he told you that he was considered perfectly reasonable by the standards of his court.

You didn’t believe him.

The evening came around you while you wandered along the river, eating blackberries you picked yourself and talking until the light turned gold, then rose, then a deep violet between the trees. Dex stayed close. Sometimes, his hand hovered near your waist when you stepped over roots. 

By the time the first stars appeared, you had almost forgotten you had escaped the palace at all.

That was until, the distant toll of the evening bell carried through the woods. You stopped beside the river. Dex stopped with you.

“I have to go.” The warmth left his eyes so quickly, and in its place was something coldly neutral. Still, you kept talking. “My father will be very furious.”

“Oh,”

It was all he could say. 

You looked at him for a long moment, taking in the burnished gold hidden in his dark hair “I like you, Dex,” you said.

He went completely still.

It pleased you, strangely, to know you could surprise him. “Are all fae this kind?”

A glint passed through his mischievous eyes. “Is that what you think I am?”

“My mother says your kind are manipulative,” you said, “She says every gift is a trap and every kindness hides a bargain. She doesn’t trust your kind. Should I?”

Dex glanced toward the silver mist in the distance, then back at you. His frown had gone softer, though no less intent. “I suppose you will have to make up your own mind.”

You considered him as the fae hunter who had released a doe because you asked, as the stranger who had followed you through the forest, listened to every complaint, and fed you nothing that could bind you.

Before you could lose your nerve, you stepped closer and rose onto your toes and pressed a light kiss to the scar on his cheek.

When you drew back, he looked almost dazed, one hand lifting slowly toward the place your lips had touched. For a creature so graceful, so composed, and so clearly dangerous, he appeared wonderfully unprepared for affection.

“Goodnight, Dex.”

You began walking backward toward the palace path.

He remained by the river, watching you leave with that singular concentration.

“Will you be here again?” he asked.

You only smiled. You knew better than to give a promise to a fae. 

But you thought the answer was obvious.

—

By the time you slipped back into the palace, dusk had swallowed the gardens.

Your father stopped you only long enough to ask where you had been. You could tell he was furious under his skin, having sent half his kingsguard on a fruitless search party.

You lied with the ease expected of royalty, telling him you've been reading in the reclusive west tower all afternoon. After all, you have been trained to lie to foreign dignitaries from birth. 

“You are the Crown Princess,” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You should have told us if you wanted to be one. You cannot simply disappear.”

“I won’t do it again,” you said, fully intending to do it again.

Once safely inside your tower, you dismissed your ladies, locked the door, and collapsed onto your bed with a sigh.

The ceiling stared back, and so did your thoughts.

You, of course, thought about Dex.

You smiled before you could stop yourself.

You knew the fae hunter was a terrible idea. But he was beautiful enough that every story your mother had ever told suddenly felt painfully believable.

You rolled onto your side, hugging one of the embroidered pillows to your chest. It was only harmless fun, right?

You weren’t making bargains. You weren’t wandering into Faerie. You weren’t accepting enchanted feasts beneath silver trees.

You knew the rules.

You couldn’t eat his food, but surely…

Surely you could have some fun with him.

That wasn’t forbidden.

…Probably.

You buried your face in the pillow with a groan. “This is how princesses end up cursed.”

Suddenly, you heard a gentle tap against the window, followed by another a few seconds later.

You turned immediately, your smile widening as familiar black feathers came into view. “There you are.”

The raven hopped onto the stone sill as it had done a thousand times before, folding his wings neatly against himself before fixing you with that strangely thoughtful stare of his.

You opened the window, and he stepped inside as though he’d always belonged there.

He gave one little chirp.

You laughed under your breath, pretending to be able to talk to him, because you always seemed to pretend he knew everything on your mind. “I know.”

He hopped a little closer.

“He’s a bad idea.”

The raven blinked.

“A very bad idea.”

He seemed to furrow his amber eyes, which was ridiculous to even imagine, right.

“…But he’s awfully gorgeous.”

The bird made a small little croak.

“I know.”

You smiled helplessly, as he nuzzled to your fingers. 

Your heart melted immediately. “Oh, you.”

You gathered him carefully against your chest, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. His feathers were warm beneath your cheek, damp with the scent of leaves and evening air.

“You’re still my favourite,” you half-promised. “Even if Dex is very pretty.”

The raven settled into your arm, satisfied.

You held him while looking toward the distant forest, completely unaware that he had arrived much later than usual.

—

You had not slept properly in three nights.

Every time you closed your eyes, you saw Dex was waiting beneath the trees. Sometimes he stood beside the river with evening light caught in his hair. Other times he was close enough that you could see every tiny fleck in his eyes and the faint silver edge of the scar you had kissed. Once, in a dream so vivid you woke with your heart racing, he had simply watched you from the other side of the mist while you tried to find the path back to him.

By the third night, lying awake and pressing your face into a pillow had begun to feel undignified.

So you abandoned your bed, pulled a cloak over your nightdress and crept down to the oldest part of the royal library with a candle cupped between both hands. 

The palace was unnervingly still at that hour, thanks to the portraits watching you pass through dark corridors, and every floorboard that determined to announce that the crown princess was wandering barefoot toward a locked collection of forbidden books because she could not stop thinking about a beautiful stranger.

The books concerning the Fair Folk were kept beneath the main library, behind an iron gate whose hinges had bled rust into the surrounding stone. Your mother kept the key in her study, hidden beneath a false-bottomed drawer so obvious that you suspected she had never once considered you might look.

The lower level library smelled of old leather, damp parchment and extinguished fires. Shelves climbed toward the vaulted ceiling, crowded with books no one had touched in decades. Some of them were even bound shut with iron clasps. Others had charms stitched into their covers or warnings written across their spines in three different languages.

You found the passage about the Wyld Court in a green leather volume, frail with age.

Several dried anemones had been pressed between its pages. Their white petals had yellowed around the edges, and one crumbled beneath your thumb when you turned to the chapter on the Hunt.

The first few pages were almost reassuring.

Human stories called the Wyld savage because they hunted often, but the account insisted this was ignorance rather than truth. 

The Wyld do not kill for purely sport. Their hunters study the land before taking anything from her, sometimes watching a herd through an entire season to understand which lives could be spared without leaving young unprotected or weakening the group before winter. They never hunt during birthing months. They never took more than the court required. Every part is used and every hunt ends with a rite beneath the oldest trees.

You smiled.

You remembered Dex's voice when he explained why he wasn’t ashamed to hunt. He had simply believed it should be done with his ancient ritual. 

The next section described how Wyld hunters selected their quarry.

They never choose impulsively. 

A hunter watches first. They learn where the animal drank, where it sleeps, which trail it favours and how it behaves when startled. They study the rhythm of its body, the sounds it makes when content, the direction it turns when frightened and the places it instinctively returns to when it believes itself safe.

You shift the candle closer. 

It was practical, of course. A skilled hunter had to know what he followed.

Dex had been like that with the doe, you supposed. 

The book continued.

Once the quarry has been selected, the hunter begins appearing along its path, never close enough to alarm it, and never so often that it flees the territory entirely. They learn of its world before stepping inside it, careful not to disturb the habits they wish to understand.

That sounded…. strangely gentle.

You imagined Dex moving through the forest without snapping a twig, following the doe from somewhere beyond the trees. 

A note in the margin had been written in a shakier hand than the rest:

The Wyld considers attention an act of reverence. 

You traced the words.

“Mmm,” you whispered, though there was no one there to agree with you.

He had seemed to have undivided attention. 

Dex had listened to you with the same concentration gave the forest. 

You had assumed he was simply considerate.

The book described a hunter’s patience in borderline devotional language. 

The hunter does not chase too early. He lets the quarry become accustomed to his presence, appearing at familiar places until their presence no longer causes alarm. If it looks toward them instead of away, that is considered progress. If it remains nearby willingly, it is a sign that the pursuit has entered its next stage.

Your mouth curled up. The doe, freed, hadn’t remained near Dex.

You had, but surely it must be different. You were not prey.

You barely entertained the intrusive thought before returning to the page.

The Wyld believes pursuit should be quiet. A careless hunter frightens away what they hope to bring close. A patient one learns how to make his presence welcome. They leave signs along familiar paths, small objects chosen with care that the quarry would recognise they have not appeared by accident. They remove thorns and stones from frequently used trails. They frighten away other predators before they are ever seen.

You pressed your thighs together beneath the table without thinking.

It was not fear that you felt. It was the memory of Dex following you beside the river, the way he had watched you eat the blackberry as though the smallest movement of your mouth fascinated him. The way his eyes changed when you said you liked him.

Perhaps Wyld hunters were simply intense people.

Some men at court barely remembered the colour of your eyes after spending an entire dinner speaking about themselves. Dex had looked at you once and seemed to notice everything.

That was hardly frightening. It was flattering.

You turned another page.

The descriptions grew more… intimate.

A hunter learns the sound of their quarry’s footsteps before they ever see it. They can identify its scent beneath rain, smoke, or crushed leaves. Over time, they begin to anticipate where it would go before it had made the decision itself.

You smiled dreamily, picturing Dex somewhere in the western woods already knowing which path an animal would take.

Perhaps he would be waiting near the river. Perhaps there would be anemones beside the blackberry bushes.

You hoped there would be.

A final passage sat at the bottom of the page, separated from the rest by an inked border of thorns. You bent closer to read it.

Wyld fae are occasionally known to form attachments of extraordinary depth to their prey. Once a hunter has chosen, fixation may last years, centuries or the full span of an immortal life. Distance rarely weakens it. It may delay the pursuit, but seldom ends the attachment itself.

Well… that sounded a little excessive.

You turned the page quickly.

The next chapter concerned Wyld courtship.

Anemones appeared again in the illustration. You expected this part to be filled with poems and stories. Maybe an explanation of some elaborate fae ritual performed beneath a full moon. You expected several paragraphs at least.

Instead, the chapter contained a single sentence with  letters that were larger than the rest of the book, boxed in black ink and surrounded by a border of thorns:

WARNING: WYLD FAE DO NOT RELIABLY DISTINGUISH BETWEEN COURTSHIP AND THE PURSUIT OF PREY.

Huh. You thought. How vague.

—

The next morning, your mother returned just after sunrise with thirty riders, two foreign ambassadors, enough sealed documents to keep the council occupied for a fortnight, and a potential husband.

Ugh. 

The palace bells rang the moment her party crossed the outer gate.

Servants hurried through the corridors carrying fresh flowers, guards straightening their uniforms. Courtiers appeared from nowhere, already smiling before the queen had even dismounted.

Queens inspired that sort of efficiency.

Your kingdom had always been matriarchal. Daughters inherited crowns. Queens wore crowns and commanded legions while kings negotiated peace treaties. 

Kings advised. Queens decided.

Which meant your marriage had always been your father’s responsibility. The fact that your mother was now getting involved meant one of two things: you were becoming a spinster, or your prospects have started to look so concerning, even the head of state had to lend a hand. In your case, probably both. 

She embraced you only briefly before holding you at arm’s length. “You look tired.”

“I’ve been unable to rest, mother.”

There was the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth. “You’ve inherited your father’s habit of avoiding sleep.”

She smoothed an imaginary crease from your sleeve before her eyes settled back into regal.

“I’ve brought guests.”

You looked past her, and one of them was already looking at you.

You recognised him immediately as Lord Edmund, though you’d never met him.

You’d heard enough.

You heard ladies from across the land whispering his name behind fans at winter banquets, and their maids lowered their voices when he walked past. A merchant’s daughter had once refused to dance with him at a feast, that she’d been sent away to live with an aunt before the week was over.

Nothing had ever been proven, but you heard these things happened because of his very unpleasant behaviour.

He was handsome enough, and more importantly rich enough, to make the rumours inconvenient.

“My lady.”

He bowed and took your hand. His thumb traced the inside of your wrist with lazy familiarity before releasing you immediately tucked your hand behind your back. “You’ve grown even lovelier than your portraits.”

“I wish I could say the same.”

He laughed.

Your mother looked between the two of you with quiet satisfaction. “Lord Edmund has spent the last month travelling with our delegation.”

“I’m honoured,” he gave a saccharine smile, 

“You should be.” She said it lightly, but you knew that tone. She had already decided this alliance made sense.

Oh. No. 

As her conversation moved elsewhere, you took half a step backwards, and Lord Edmund took half a step forwards.

No one noticed when his hand settled lightly against the small of your back with enough pressure that you felt every finger through the silk of your gown.

Your body stiffened.

“So tense,” he murmured.

You moved away, and of course mother turned just then.

“There you are.”

You forced yourself to smile.

The bastard looked every inch the perfect gentleman. 

“Lord Edmund has mentioned going on a hunt tomorrow,” She mentioned, adjusting one of your curls behind your ear. “You’ll accompany him.”

Your stomach dropped. “Mother…”

“It will do you good to leave the palace.”

“I don’t enjoy hunting.”

“You enjoy forests.”

Not the same forest, you thought, Not the same hunter.

Your hesitation lasted a heartbeat too long.

Your mother frowned slightly. “You’ve refused every suitor your father introduced.”

“I barely know any of them.”

“Exactly,” her voice lowered. “You cannot know a person’s character across a dinner table.”

She glanced toward Lord Edmund, who was speaking pleasantly with your father.

“Watch how a man behaves when he’s armed.”

It was advice every queen passed to every daughter: A gentleman could lie, but a hunter rarely did.

“I think you’ll find him disciplined.”

Oh, you very much doubted that. 

—

The next day, you did go hunting with Lord Edmund.

The only alarming detail was that you returned dragging his dead body behind your horse.

By the time you reached the palace gates, the rope around his ankles had rubbed the leather of his boots raw and left a dark trail through the dirt.  His expensive hunting coat was torn open at one shoulder, caked with mud and dead leaves, and his head struck every uneven stone with a dull, ugly rhythm that made several of the guards flinch as they rushed to meet you. 

You rode straight through the gates, eyes blank beneath the grime, skirts streaked green and brown from the forest floor, one hand wound tightly around the reins while the other still trembled despite your best efforts.

Your father reached you first. He looked relieved to see you alive, only to collapse into horror when he noticed what followed behind. Your mother arrived seconds later, still fastening the clasp of her cloak, and stopped so abruptly that the entire courtyard seemed to halt, too, as she looked down at Edmund.

You dismounted without assistance and untied the rope from the saddle. His entire body dropped heavily onto the cobblestones at your feet.

“He went into fae territory,” you said. Your voice sounded remarkably calm. 

Your mother stared at the arrow buried cleanly through Edmund’s chest. Fae work, unmistakably.

You nudged his shoulder with the toe of your boot and looked down at him with exhausted contempt. “Very sad.”

What a lie.

The truth was that Edmund had never intended to hunt anything.

He had looked convincing enough when you left the palace that morning in fine hunting leathers and a freshly carved bow. 

For the first hour, he thanked the servants, praised the hounds and kept his hands where everyone could see them.

Then, he began thinning the party.

The dogs were too noisy, so he sent the handlers east. The scouts had supposedly found fresh tracks near the ridge, so the huntsmen followed. The guards were told to wait with the spare horses near the stream because too many riders would disturb the game. His instruction sounded reasonable by itself, and even though you had been suspicious, you didn’t understand what he was doing until you were alone. 

Only then did you notice that he had not examined a single track all morning. He had not tested the wind, drawn his bow or once looked into the bushes. 

He had watched your body instead, not listening to what on earth you were saying. He hungrily watched the sway of your body in the saddle, and how your skirt shifted when you dismounted to cross a fallen tree. Whenever you tried to turn the conversation back toward the hunt, his attention slid away from the forest and returned to you with the same damp, crawling persistence.

By the time he guided you toward the border, silver mist was already visible between the ancient trunks.

You told him you wanted to turn back. You even pulled your horse around, but Edmund blocked the narrow path with his own and smiled at you as though your fear amused him. 

There was no deer trail or quarry, no reason to be there except the isolation and the knowledge that no human voice would carry far enough for help to come.

That was when the performance ended.

He caught your wrist when you reached for the reins and dragged you down badly enough that your shoulder struck the side of the saddle. Your boots hit the ground unevenly, and before you could recover, his body pressed yours up against the horse.

You told him no, I’m not interested. 

You said it clearly and shoved at his chest and tried to twist away, but he only laughed under his breath, as though refusal were a nervous habit he expected to train out of you after marriage.

And when his hand forced its way beneath your skirts…. An arrow came through the silver mist so suddenly that the air scarcely had time to whisper around it.

It struck Edmund through the heart. 

You knew the arrow immediately. It was the same white arrow with black feathers, the same fine silver runes carved along the shaft. It was the same one he had used on the doe, except there was no Sleep of Rowan in his mercy. 

Oh. This one hurt.

Edmund’s hand tore away from you at once, his face blank with shock as he staggered backward, looking down at the arrow as blood welled dark through his coat. He collapsed first to his knees and then onto his side, choking on a breath that would not come properly.

The mist moved between the trees, and somewhere inside it stood a hunter who had watched long enough to understand exactly what Edmund had intended. 

Edmund was still alive when you walked over to him.

His eyes found yours, wide now, stripped of all his arrogance. His mouth opened as though he expected you to help. Perhaps he thought you would call for the guards. 

Instead, you looked down at him, shaking with fury, and relief so vicious it almost felt like joy.

Then you spat in his face.

He died seconds after.

You stood over the body for several long moments, wrist throbbing where he had held you. 

Dex had killed him.

Dex had seen and he had known exactly what was happening and had not hesitated for even the space of a heartbeat.

You should have been horrified, you should have looked at Edmund’s blood soaking into the moss and felt sick over the life extinguished at your feet.

Instead, you felt safe.

It took you nearly an hour to secure Edmund’s ankles and drag him back through the woods, following a vague trail of blackberries that ensured you made it back safely, knowing exactly who put them there. You didn’t remove the arrow; wanted your mother to see it. 

Now, standing in the palace courtyard with your parents staring at the corpse, you folded your hands in front of you.

Your mother crouched beside Edmund and studied the entry wound. Her face remained composed, but her eyes flicked once toward the bruises around your wrist before returning to the arrow.

“He crossed the border?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“And the fae killed him without warning?”

You met her eyes. “He should have known better.”

Your father looked stricken. Your mother looked unconvinced.

Neither of them asked why Edmund’s bow was still strapped neatly across his back, unused. They didn’t even ask why one side of your skirt had been torn near the hem.

Neither of them seemed to want to ask why you showed no grief.

—

That night, your mother sent you back to your chambers to sleep. 

And you should’ve at least tried. 

Instead, you lay tangled beneath your blankets, staring up at the canopy while your mind wandered helplessly back to the western forest, and the dead body of a potential suitor.

Soon enough, your mind wandered back to Dex.

His name alone made heat unfurl in your stomach.

It was ridiculous how easily he ruined you. He had barely touched you the one time he saw you. Tonight, he hadn’t even shown his face. 

But somehow, before you called for him, Dex had known you needed him.

Your thighs pressed together beneath the sheets.

What a sick fucking thought, you scolded yourself, what a sick fucking mind I have, that this makes my core weep? 

“No,” you whispered to yourself, but your body had no interest in your dignity.

But your hand was moving between your legs before shame could stop you.

Beneath the blankets, your fingers slipped lower, tentative at first, then less so as you imagined Dex with your eyes closer. 

A soft gasp left your lips. 

“Dex.” The name came out needy, more pathetic than you meant it to. Still, pleasure sparked through you at the sound of it.

You said it again, quieter this time. 

“Dex.”

Your fingers moved faster.

You bit your lip and tilted your face into the pillow, trying to swallow the next sound, but it escaped anyway, in the form of a helpless gasp that made your whole body shiver beneath the sheets.

You were shameless, lying alone in your tower, touching yourself to the thought of the fae who had killed the man meant to court you. 

Another tremor of pleasure rolled through you as your back arched faintly from the mattress.

“Dex,” you breathed again, a little broken now.

It felt like summoning him. It felt like a confession.

You imagined him at the foot of your bed, hearing exactly how his name sounded when it left your mouth like that. You imagined his head tilting, his eyes darkening, his perfect composure cracking because you were not afraid enough, because you wanted him. Because some wicked part of you had read all the cautionary tales about fair folk and and thought yes.

Yes, him.

Yes, please.

The thought made you whimper into the pillow.

Pleasure built slowly, then all at once, warm and dizzying. You chased it with your eyes shut and his name on your tongue, thinking blood on moss and the beautiful fae monster who had looked at you through the mist.

“Dex, please—”

You didn’t know what you were pleading for.

You only knew you wanted more than just your fingers. You wanted more of that shameful sweetness rolling through you. 

Your fingers twisted in the sheets. Your lips parted around a mewling sound. The pleasure crested so suddenly you nearly sobbed, your body going tight and shaking beneath the blankets as his name fell from your mouth one last time, helpless and utterly damning.

For a while, you could only lie there, glassy eyes staring up at the canopy as though it had witnessed your fall from grace.

An absent-minded smile made its way to your mouth before you could stop it.

“You really are a terrible idea,” you sighed into the darkness.

The words held no conviction at all.

Outside your window, the raven landed silently upon the stone sill.

He watched you through all that, head tilted thoughtfully, black feathers gleaming blue beneath the moonlight. 

That night, you didn’t notice him. 

Nor did you notice that, for the first time since you had known him, he didn’t tap impatiently against the glass to ask you to let him in.

He simply remained where he was, keeping watch over the lonely tower until dawn.

—

By morning, you had decided you only wanted to thank him.

A perfectly reasonable thing, right? A man saved your life and your dignity, even if he was not exactly a man. It was only… polite.

You sat on the edge of your bed, fingers curled into the blankets, staring toward the window.

You… should know better. 

But wanting never really came with a rhyme or reason. 

So, you dressed quickly, perhaps too quickly. 

Your fingers fumbled with the laces of your gown, and you had to redo them twice. Your hair refused to sit properly and reflection looked entirely too flushed, too guilty for a princess who had technically done nothing wrong.

Technically.

You leaned closer to the mirror and frowned at yourself.

“You are going to say thank you in person,” you said firmly. “That is all.”

Your reflection did not look convinced.

“You are only doing this, because he came to your rescue,” you continued, because apparently arguing with glass was where your morning had gone. “Like a civilised woman. You have manners, right?”

Still, your reflection looked at you as if to say that civilised women with manners did not usually wander alone into fae woods after spending the night thinking improper things about the fae in question.

You ignored her.

At breakfast, you had honeyed bread, the sugared fruit, the little cakes glazed gold beneath the kitchen light. You needed to eat, just in case. You cannot find yourself hungry in the presence of Wyld Fae! 

You could not be tempted to eat or drink anything he gives you, that’s all. You needed a full stomach, because you weren’t foolish

Less than an hour later, you were slipping out through the western gate alone.

With your mother’s return, it was even easier to sneak out this time, as many of the guards were preoccupied with the queen’s every whims and needs. A queen, that your father loved to remind you, that you would one day be, too.

Still. 

The morning air was damp, mist clinging to the grass beyond the castle grounds, thin as lace, and the forest stood ahead of you in a dark green wall of ancient trunks and tangled branches. 

Eventually, you stopped at the edge of it.

The trees seemed to notice as it shifted though when there was no wind. Somewhere deep in the woods, a bird called once, then fell silent. The path you had taken yesterday was still there, winding blackberries between moss-covered stones and pale roots, but in daylight it looked… narrower. 

Stranger.

You swallowed.

“Dex?” Your voice sounded terribly small.

Nothing answered an took one step beneath the trees.

The forest swallowed the sounds of the castle almost at once. The distant clatter of carts, the faint bells from the chapel tower, the servants calling to one another across the courtyard was barely noise behind you.

You walked for what felt like an hour.

Then another.

At first, you told yourself he would appear any moment. Dex seemed exactly the sort of person who enjoyed doing that. He would step from behind a tree, and ask whether you made a habit of wandering into dangerous places alone.

You had already prepared an excellent answer.

No, you would say. If I assumed I was in danger, I would not be here.

But Dex did not appear.

By midday, your boots were wet and the hem of your dress had collected half the forest floor. You had crossed the same fallen branch three times, which either meant you were walking in circles or the branch was following you. You had apologetically startled at least four rabbits, nearly tripped over a root that had definitely not been there a moment before, and apologised to a mushroom because it looked like it was wilting when you stepped too close.

“This is foolish,” you whispered.

Then, a branch shifted above you.

You looked up to see your raven friend sat on a low bough. His head tilted, bright eyes fixed on you with unsettling intelligence.

“Oh,” you said. “It’s you.”

The raven blinked.

For a moment, you could not move.

He looked exactly as he had outside your window: watchful and clever, as most corvids are.

Huh. You thought. He travels far, doesn’t he?

Because if this bird knew the forest, maybe he knew where Dex was, or at least where the most dense fae population was near the border. If he did, then perhaps you were not wandering blindly through the woods after all.

You took one step closer towards your friend. “I don’t suppose you could help me?”

The raven gave a small chirp.

Your mouth curved into the smallest smile. “I only want to thank him,” you said.

The raven stared as your smile faded.

“All right,” you whispered, finally admitting to him what you had failed to admit to yourself all night. “I want to see him.”

The raven dropped from the branch and landed lightly on the moss.

Behind him, the mist thickened between two dark trees.

It didn’t drift so much as gathered.

The silver-white started subtly glowing, curling over the roots like silk poured over bone. The path you had followed seemed to end there, as if the forest had brought you as far as ordinary courage could take you.

The raven stepped toward it, then looked back.

“No,” you whispered. “Stay, please. I don’t want to be alone.”

He only watched you.

The air cooled against your skin. Suddenly, the castle felt distant, like it belonged to another princess, a safer princess. A princess who would not follow a raven to the ends of the earth because she wanted to see a dangerous man smile.

And just after giving a little croak, the raven vanished into the white.

You stood at the edge, alone now, cloak ends pooling around your ankles.

For one moment, you thought you saw something through the mist, like gold flowers and black thorns along a path no human should walk. And deeper still, briefly, you could’ve sworn you saw amber eyes watching from the other side.

Your lips parted. “Dex?”

When no answer came, you should have turned back.

You knew that, but longing was not sensible. And whatever Dex had become to you since he met you… that was not sensible either.

You stepped forward and the mist touched your boots first. Then your hem, then your hands.

You should have turned back.

Instead, you took a deep breath and crossed the threshold.

—

Eventually, the mist disappeared. 

It thinned around you in pale ribbons, peeling back from your face and shoulders until the forest revealed itself by degrees. 

It took you a while to blink awake, looking around blankly at the white that was now retreating when…. Oh. Oh, wow.

It was beautiful.

Moss glowed faintly pink beneath your boots. The trees rose black and enormous on every side, their bark veined with silver, their roots twisting through the earth like sleeping serpents. Violet flowers bloomed among thorns, heavy-headed and luminous, turning slightly as you stepped forward as though even the plants wanted to look at you.

It was very clear that wherever you had gone, it was far away from the human realm. 

You looked around, looking for your raven friend. 

You looked through the strange trees, the unnatural sky, and the path of white stones winding away into the woods as if it had been waiting for your feet.

You found nothing.

Your strange little friend had vanished.

You turned in a circle, searching the branches above you and the curling mist behind you.

“Hello?” you called quietly.

Nothing answered.

You frowned, though your heartbeat was too quick for proper annoyance.

“You cannot just lead me through the mist and abandon me,” you managed to say. “It’s rude.”

A drop of water fell from a leaf somewhere overhead.

Still, no raven.

You took another careful step. The moss gave beneath your boots with a cushion-y feel that felt almost alive. “Where did you go?”

At last, a voice behind you said, “Lost, princess?”

You turned so quickly your cloak swung around your legs.

Oh. 

Dex stood beneath a silver-barked tree.

In that moment, all your prepared thoughts vanished.

He looked less like he had walked here and more like the forest had grown him. He was as pretty as you last remembered him, eyes fixed on you with that calm attention that made your stomach tighten and your thoughts go embarrassingly pliant at the edges.

Your breath hitched as his eyes dropped briefly to your mouth, then lifted again.

You remembered yourself with effort.

You had found him, yes, but you had some dignity left in you. You weren't going to make this easy for him. 

“Where is my friend?” You said instead. 

He raised an eyebrow slightly, though he didn’t seem confused at all. “Your friend?”

“The raven.” You glanced over your shoulder, still half-expecting the bird to appear on a branch. “He was right here. He led me through, and then he disappeared.”

Dex looked past you with mild, infuriating faux innocence. “Ravens are difficult to command.”

“I did not command him,” you insisted, trying to look away, even as you have found what you came for. “I asked for help.”

Dex tilted his head. “Did he?”

“He did,” you nodded, “but then abandoned me.”

“Perhaps he thought you had arrived safely.”

You narrowed your eyes. “You say that as though you know where he went.”

“I know very little about the private affairs of true ravens.”

“That sounds like a lie.”

Technically, it wasn’t. 

Dex’s mouth curved up, barely, enough to make heat lick up the back of your neck. “You crossed into fae territory to interrogate me about a bird?”

“No.”

“Then why did you come?”

The question should have an easy answer. In fact, you have practiced it on the walk through the outer woods, when the trees still looked ordinary and you still had the comfort of pretending this was a sensible errand. You had told yourself you would be calm and grateful. You would thank him properly and then go home.

But Dex was looking at you now, all that polite pretenses felt suddenly thin.

“I wanted to find you,” you said weakly.

You hated that the words felt so bare once spoken, because you didn’t even say I wished to thank you or I owe you a debt of gratitude. It didn’t sound like court manners or duty.

I wanted to find you.

Dex took one step closer and asked. “Why?”

You swallowed.

You had many things you wanted to say, none of them a good idea saying. You wanted to tell him you had not slept properly because every time you shut your eyes, you saw the arrow split the mist. 

“I wanted to thank you,” you said.

Dex’s eyes stayed on your face. “For killing the foul creature who wished to touch you against your will?”

You looked down.

Your fingers twisted in the edge of your cloak. For a moment, the forest around you blurred into last evening: Edmund too close, his fingers where they had no right to be. 

The memory made your skin go cold.

You looked up at him. “Yes,” you whispered. “For him.”

Dex came closer, slowly, like approaching prey.

He gave you space to step back, space to turn away. You didn’t.

“You do not need to thank me for that,” he said, “it was my responsibility.”

His responsibility?

It certainly was not. 

You should’ve questioned it. But unfortunately, you had more… urgent matters in your mind. 

“I want to,” you insisted. 

His eyes flicked over your face, lingering on your flushed cheeks, your mouth, the rise and fall of your chest beneath your corset.

“And that is all?” He asked. 

The air warmed between you. Or perhaps that was only your body betraying you.

You lifted your chin. “Yes.”

Dex’s eyes barely changed, but you knew he didn’t believe you for a second. “Princess…” he tsked, almost scolding in nature. 

“I came to thank you,” you insisted, as if repetition could make it any less untrue. Still, you were unable to meet his eyes as you said it.

“I heard what you said.”

“It is the truth.”

“No.” He stepped closer again, close enough now that you could smell rain on leather and pine. “It is part of the truth, isn't it?”

Your back touched the smooth trunk of a silver-barked tree not realising you had stepped back. 

Dex stopped immediately, one hand bracing against the tree beside your shoulder. He didn’t cage you in fully or press his body to yours. He simply stood close enough that your breath tangled with his, close enough that if you leaned forward even an inch, your mouth would find his.

“Do not pretend a you’re welcome is all you should expect from me today,” he murmured.

Your breath caught.

His eyes lowered to your lips. “It is frankly insulting,” he continued.

A scandalised little sound escaped you. “I do not expect anything from you.”

He smiled. “Liar.”

You should have been offended. You were, distantly, beneath the pounding of your heart and the sudden awareness of your own body, there was probably a very respectable princess who objected to being called a liar by a fae hunter in the middle of an enchanted forest.

Unfortunately, she was not currently in charge.

Dex lifted his free hand. You watched it rise, unable to move.

His knuckles brushed beneath your chin, tilting your face up to his in a feather-light touch. 

“Look into my eyes,” he said softly. “And tell me you came only to thank me.”

You held his gaze, and you really did try to force it out, but would not come.

Dex’s thumb brushed the corner of your lips.

“There,” he murmured. “I thought so.”

Your throat went dry. “T-this is very unfair.”

“Is it?” Dex looked amused.

“You know what you are doing.”

“Yes.”

The honesty made something your stomach pull tight.

His eyes darkened, not with cruelty or triumph, but with want so restrained it almost looked like pain.

“Can I kiss you, princess?”

Oh.

You didn’t expect fae to be this… blunt.

Heat rushed down your throat and settle behind your ribs. It made you remember Edmund again,m, because Edmund had not asked. Edmund had pushed close and taken space and treated your refusal like a bug he could smother beneath his heel.

Dex asked.

Dex, who could have been terrifying without trying. Dex, who has killed for you. Dex, whose mouth hovered near yours and still waited.

“Yes,” you whispered.

Only then did he lower his mouth to yours.

He kissed you slowly at first. His lips brushed yours once, and for one second, he let you decide, let you lean in, and let you press yourself closer to him. You fingers curled into the front of his cloak as you kissed him back.

Then you made the neediest sound against his mouth, and his control snapped thin.

He kissed you deeper, his hand sliding to the back of your neck, fingers warm beneath your hair. The tree was cool against your spine, his body warm in front of you, and between them you felt held rather than trapped. 

His mouth opened over yours with a hunger that made your knees buckle, but even then, even with his fingers tightening slightly at your nape, he kissed like you were the singular thing that gave his life meaning.

You clutched his cloak, body tilting toward him before your pride could stop it.

Dex groaned quietly into the kiss.

Oh, what a wonderful sound. 

You pulled him closer, and his other hand found your waist. His grip was warm as though he needed to feel the shape of you. He kissed you until your lips tingled, until your breath came in shallow little gasps.

When he broke away, it was only to press his mouth to your jaw, then your throat.

You tipped your head back before you could stop yourself.

Dex’s mouth curved against your skin with a little hum. 

You were already shaking. “Do not sound pleased with yourself.”

“But I am,” he mumbled. 

His teeth grazed the side of your neck just enough to make your fingers dig into his shoulders.

“Dex.”

For all his composure, his reaction gave him away. He liked your voice like that. He liked you, breathless and honest, he liked that that you had come here dressed in gratitude and were now pressed against a silver tree, melting under his mouth.

His hand slid from your waist to your hip, then lower. over the fabric, dragging heat in the wake of his palm.

Your breath hitched.

Dex froze at once. “Can I touch you?”

Your eyes opened halfway.

He was watching you now, close enough that his lashes cast shadows against his cheeks. 

“Yes,” you said, cheeks burning “Yes, Dex. Touch me.”

His hand tightened once on your hip before he kissed you again and gathered your skirts, agonisingly slowly.

He did so layer by layer, his fingers drawing the fabric upward, exposing your stockings, your garters, the bare skin above them to the cool air of the fae wood. 

You should have felt vulnerable, and part of you did, but you were not afraid. The vulnerability made your heart pound harder and your mouth open against his. 

Dex felt your thighs part before his hand had even reached them.

“Oh, princess.” It was filthy and wondrous at the same time. 

Your face burned as his fingers brushed your inner thigh.

You gasped.

Dex’s eyes darkened as his hand slid higher.

The first touch between your legs made you jolt against him. He found you slick already, shamefully wet, soaked from his kiss and his voice and the humiliating truth that he had been right. Thank you was not all you had come for, not even close.

For one second, Dex didn’t move much.

He dragged his finger through, feeling the slick heat of you against his fingers and your hips giving the smallest helpless tilt toward his hand.

His teeth clenched hard enough to make the muscle jump.

“Oh,” he breathed again, rougher this time. “You really did come here wanting me.”

Your hand flew to his wrist to hold him there. “I c-came to thank you,” you insisted for the third time. 

His fingers slid through your wetness, and the sound beneath your skirts was utterly indecent.

Your breath broke.

Dex’s mouth brushed the corner of yours. “Yes,” he murmured. “You are thanking me very well.”

The words made you clench around nothing.

Dex felt that too.  His smile felt dangerous against your cheek.

“Ah,” he whispered. “Shameless little thing.”

You would have protested if his thumb had not found the puffy sensitive bundle of nerves, begging for his attention.

The touch was light at first, circling through the slick, making pleasure spark hot beneath your skin. Your head tipped back into his waiting palm. He kissed your exposed throat, open-mouthed, while his fingers learned you beneath your gown.

He was too careful to be rushed but too precise to be merciful.

Every movement had purpose. Every stroke, every firm circle. His thumb pressed a little firmer.

Your knees buckled.

Dex caught you with his body, pinning you gently against the tree while his hand kept moving.

His fingers slid lower. “Still only here to be polite?”

You made a strangled sound. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No,” you gasped. “I don’t.”

His first finger pushed inside you, and the sound of it could be heard within the hush of the forest.

Your mouth fell open on a mewl, and Dex’s forehead dropped to your collarbone. He held still for a heartbeat, letting you clenched around him.

You gripped his cloak with both hands. “No. More.”

His eyes nearly closed.

His composure cracked, hunger flashing naked and bright through the careful mask, and then he kissed you hard as his finger began to move, gently at first, slick and deep, curling inside you until pleasure jolted through your hips.

You cried out against his mouth.

Dex swallowed the sound like he had been starving for it. “There?”

You could not answer.

He curled his finger again, and your body jerked.

“Need words, princess.”

“Yes,” you gasped. “There. Please.”

His thumb circled while his finger worked inside you, the rhythm steady and wickedly exact. Every stroke made a pool of arousal gather around his hand.

His smile should have made you embarrassed.

Instead, it made you shameless, rocking down onto his hand with a broken little whimper.

Dex groaned.

“You hear that?” he murmured.

Your eyes squeezed shut. “Dex.”

“You do,” he said, kissing your cheek. “You hear how badly you want me.”

He added a second finger.

The stretch made your breath catch. 

His fingers moved again, sliding into you with ease that made your face burn and your body melt. He curled them carefully, pressing deep, finding that same place until your thighs shook around his wrist.

Dex watched you like you were the only thing in the forest.

Not like Edmund.

Edmund had wanted you afraid. Dex wanted you ruined by pleasure.

Your hands clutched his shoulders. Your hips chased his fingers. You moaned into his neck, too far gone to care about the old stories warning girls never to follow fae men into the woods.

You had followed. You had crossed.

You were here.

So you might as well make the most of it, right?

“Dex,” you mewled as pleasure flared so bright you nearly sobbed.

“There,” he whispered. “Better than your own fingers, right?”

You should have noticed. You should have asked how he knew what you had done in your tower. You should have questioned how he knew his name had been in your mouth the night before.

But his fingers curled again and your thoughts scattered.

Dex smiled on your throat. “That’s what I thought.”

He didn’t give you time to recover.

His hand moved quicker now, fingers buried deep to his knuckles, thumb steady as pleasure climbed too fast and too high. Your whole body tightened around him, hips rolling shamelessly into his palm, chasing every stroke. You were wet enough that the sound of him touching you filled the space between your bodies, and Dex seemed to lose another thread of control every time he heard it.

“You are so sweet like this,” he murmured.

“Stop talking.”

“No.”

“Dex.”

“You like it.”

You did.

His thumb pressed harder as his fingers curled exactly right.

The climax tore through you in a hot, shaking wave.

You came with your face buried against his shoulder, mouth open on a broken cry, squeezing around his fingers as pleasure pulsed through you again and again. Dex held you upright through it, one arm firm around your waist, his mouth against your temple, his hand still moving beneath your skirts until every last shiver had wrung itself out of you.

Only then did he stop.

The forest around you seemed hazy and unreal, glowing moss beneath your weak knees. Dex withdrew his fingers, and your body gave one last helpless flutter at the loss.

You should have looked away, instead you watched as he lifted his hand between you, his fingers gleamed with your arousal.

Dex’s eyes stayed on yours as he brought them to his mouth and tasted you.

His eyes turned dark with satisfaction. “You really are sweet,” he said.

A scandalised little sound escaped you. “Dex,” you gasped. “You cannot say things like that.”

His thumb brushed your lower lip. “I can say much worse.”

“You should not.”

“No,” he agreed. “I should not.”

Eventually, he guided you carefully away from the tree.

Your legs were unsteady, dress rumpled. Your heart felt as though it had been taken apart and put back together. Dex kept one hand at your waist, watching you with a hunger that had not faded at all.

If anything, it had grown worse.

“How much more gratitude should I expect from you, princess?”

Your breath caught.

You knew you should be careful. You knew enough old stories to understand that words mattered here. Especially words spoken to beautiful fae men beneath magical trees and your heart no longer safely your own.

But then Dex’s hand slid into your hair, guiding you lower, his fingers threading through the loosened strands that your breath caught before you had even reached your knees. The moss gave beneath you, soft enough to feel unreal through the layers of your dress. Around you, the forest went uncannily quiet, as though the trees had closed their eyes and the flowers among the thorns had turned away out of courtesy.

Above you, Dex opened his belt. The buckle came free with a metallic click that seemed to echo as leather slid through its clasp, each small movement made unbearable by the way he watched you watching him. His blue-touched fingertips worked with the same terrible care you had seen when he handled his bow, and that precision made the moment feel even more indecent.

“As much as you want,” you whispered, holding his eyes, unshaded by how badly you wanted him to know the truth.

Dex smiled.

Your eyes lifted to his, licking the tip of his now-free length. 

“There,” he groaned, thumb brushing your cheek as he pulled your mouth almost fully into him. “Now that feels like a thank you.”

You swirled your tongue as he closed his eyes. “Ah— fuck,” he breathed, voice barely controlled. “That’s it.”

You wanted more of that strained, beautiful sounds he tried and failed to hold back immediately. 

So you let your lips and tongue become gratitude, letting every eager movement say what your mouth could not form into words. 

Thank you for the arrow. Thank you for Edmund. Thank you for seeing what I wanted and waiting until I said yes.

Dex’s head tipped back slightly, a rougher, lower sound this time.

You took it as a reward.

“Princess,” he warned, though it sounded nothing like warning. It sounded like prayer.

Your eyes watered from the effort of taking all of him, from how much he was, from just how big he was that he barely fit in your velvety mouth. 

Still, you looked up through wet lashes, and the sight seemed to make him twitch.

“Sweet, reckless thing.” he whispered. 

You gave him more.

Dex groaned and the sound was beautiful.

This was better than court music under a chandelier during the autumn feast. This was the dangerous fae hunter above you losing pieces of himself because your mouth was warm and utterly devoted.

His pleasure was music to your ears and you wanted to make him sing.

“Look at me,” Dex said.

You did.

His amber eyes were dark now, fixed on your face, looking undone and hungry. His blue-touched fingertips glowed faintly where they rested against your cheek, wiping away a tear.

“Good girl,” he said.

You nodded, too full of want to be embarrassed properly.

His thumb stroked beneath your eye. “You are too sweet for your own good.”

You would have rolled your eyes if you had been capable of dignity.

Instead, you bobbed again, more frequent this time.

Dex’s breath broke as you tasted the first bead of arousal coming out of him, proof of how badly he wanted you.

His mouth parted around a breath that was nearly a laugh, nearly a moan.

“Do not look so shocked,” he murmured. “You did that.”

The words made heat flood through you all over again.

You should have felt shy. Instead, pride curled through your chest, wicked.

You had done that. You had made him sound like that.

So you kept going, tearful and greedy until he started murmuring curses in a language older than yours. You wanted him to remember this. You wanted him to know that you were no longer simply thanking him.

In an attempt to go deeper, to feel him in your throat as if you’ve trained all gag reflex away, you tilted your head slightly.

That’s when you saw the quiver of arrows lay in the moss beside you. It must’ve slipped off his shoulders at one point or another.

White ash arrows rested inside, carved with silver runes. You knew those arrows but it was not the arrows that stopped your heart.

It was the feathers that tipped the ends of the arrows, glossy blue-black beneath the fae light. You never noticed them before, but they were… raven feathers.

Your breath hitched.

Oh. 

Oh. 

Suddenly, you thought of the windowsill, your friend tapping at the glass. You remember his clever black eyes watching while you read aloud, lonely and foolish. The little creature had listened to your complaints, your restless dreams, your secrets. 

The raven who had visited for years. The raven who had led you through the mist.

Your eyes lifted slowly.

Dex looked down at you with his amber eyes. 

Oh.

All those mornings, all those evenings, all those years…

You should have known. You heard of stories of fae folk turning into woodland creatures all the time. 

He was the raven.

Your hands tightened.

You should have pulled away and demanded answers. How long? How much had he heard? How many secrets had he carried away? 

Oh, you had been so, so foolish. 

You should’ve known from the first day you truly met in the woods. You should have questioned how he had known to call you princess when you had never told him what you were. 

For a second, real fear flickered through your eyes. Not fear of him, Fear of the fact that some part of you did not hate it enough.

Dex’s face changed the moment you understood.

He knew the pretty princess he had been pursuing for years had finally had it all figured out. 

Pleasure and guilt and hunger crossed behind his eyes in the same vein, you could barely separate them. His hand remained gentle in your hair, giving you room to turn your face away from him and the old magic curling around both of you.

You stared up at him, eyes wet, heart pounding.

You were frightened. But as your mouth kept working him, clearly, you weren’t frightened enough.

Instead, you had felt strangely, terribly cherished by the thought that the raven at your window had waited years to be touched by you like this. 

As you quickened your pace, your eyes burned harder.

Dex’s thumb brushed another tear from your cheek, intended to be an apology in gesture.

You answered by giving him more.

His breath shattered.

You became greedy for his pleasure, greedy for every note you could draw from him. The forest blurred silver and green around you. The flowers bowed their heads among the thorns. Mist curled over your knees, hiding the path back, making you forget the safer version of yourself, who would have stopped the moment she realised the truth.

You were not her anymore.

You had crossed the line.

Dex’s moans were music to your ears, so controlled until they were not. Each one made your own heart pound harder, made your mouth react and your hands more certain. You wanted to ruin him kindly, to thank him until he forgot how to be anything but yours in that moment.

His head tipped back, and the sound that left him was almost helpless. It filled you with vicious pride. You wanted to keep it forever the way he had apparently kept pieces of you.

“You’re going to ruin me,” he said as the blue at his fingertips brightened.

His hand tightened in your hair, then loosened at once, still careful even at the edge of himself. His body went rigid above you, and the final sound he made was the prettiest yet.

His seed spilled into you as he reached his high and no textbook had warned you that a fae could taste like sweetness and binding magic. 

Your throat worked once, eyes rolling back in a haze from the taste.

And you swallowed.

For a moment, you only knelt there, dazed.

Dex, finally catching his breath, finally looked down at you.

He laughed fondly, as though you had done something preciously foolish and still utterly expected.

“Oh, princess,” he murmured.

Then, his hand slid over the crown of your head in an almost patronising pat pat pat.

You blinked up at him, eyes glossy, mouth parted, still too ruined to be properly offended by the way he was looking at you, like you were helpless and had walked directly into his snare and thanked him for setting it.

“Poor thing,” he cooed, “you really don’t know, do you?”

Huh?

Your eyebrows pulled together, confused, mouth still dripping silver-white liquid. “W-what?”

Dex lazily pulled his belt on before crouching in front of you, amber eyes bright with wicked tenderness. His thumb brushed your lower lip, wiping away the last trace of him gently.

“You were right to refuse our fruit,” he said. “And you were right to refuse our wine.”

A strange warmth bloomed beneath your ribs.

Dex smiled wider. “But the old laws never distinguished between feasts and lovers.”

The words sank in slowly.

Your heart stumbled as looked down at your hands in the moss.

For one second, you thought the strange fae light was playing tricks on you. The glow of the flowers, perhaps old magic bending colour where it touched skin.

But no.

Your fingertips were blue at the very tips, like you had dipped them in moonlight and frost. The colour shimmered luminously beneath your skin, not stain, not paint that could be washed away.

A bond.

Dex made a pleased hum and took your hand in his, rubbing his thumb over the new colour as though admiring his own mark.

You should have recoiled or demanded answers. Maybe shouted at him 

Instead, your lashes fluttered, and the golden thread beneath your ribs tugged you toward him until your body swayed towards him, not entirely magical in origin.

Because you truly believed, bond or not, you still wanted him. 

Dex caught you.

His hand settled possessively at your waist, and you looked up at him with a weak smile that made his cold heart melt.

You had not known a lover’s offering could bind as surely as bread and wine. You had not known that he had turned your body into a feasting table and your mouth into a cup.

And the worst part was you did not care enough.

How could you, when Dex looked at you like you hung the moon and stars for him? How could you when the forest seemed to hum approval? 

A distant, sensible part of you understood that you should have reacted. You should have stiffened in his arms, looked back toward the mist, thought of your mother and father, your kingdom, your guards, the frantic search parties that would soon spill into the western woods calling your name. Instead, you only curled deeper into Dex as though the sound had frightened you toward him rather than away from him, and his arms tightened around you at once, pleased by the surrender.

He gathered you closer, one hand beneath your knees and the other firm against your back, carrying you as though you weighed nothing at all. The thorn path opened behind him with a shiver of black branches, parting for their prince and the human princess he had finally claimed. 

Dex kissed your temple once, his mouth lingering there as he murmured sweet little nothings into your hair. I never used the Sleep of Rowan until he wanted to become the kind of hunter you would not fear. I wanted to be good for you. You made me want to be kind. My North Star. My pretty girl. My princess.

The words should have mattered. A foolish part of you heard them and melted, heard the devotion beneath the old loneliness of centuries spent alone. Perhaps some corner of your heart truly did believe a creature like him meant every gentle thing he said, even while carrying you deeper into a realm that had just swallowed you whole. 

All his pretty promises blurred into the darker truth humming through the old magic between you. He could not wait to show you his realm, his palace, his gardens, his bed. He could not wait to keep you spoiled as his lover and his plaything, the future mother to his heirs. You were for as long as the Wyld remembered how to hunger.

You should have been horrified, but you were too full of the sweetness you had swallowed, and the magic now curling through your blood like a second heartbeat. Your cheek rested against his throat, and when Dex’s hand stroked over your back, you sighed as though you were relieved, because being taken felt too much like being wanted.

For Dex, Prince of the Wyld, his three-year hunt for his mate was finally complete. 

If he was being honest, he had thought it would take longer.

Not that he was complaining.

—End. 

Dex taglist part 1: