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It was late. Beyond late, the kind of hour where the dark ceases to be a shield and begins to feel like a countdown

Two hours had bled away since midnight, the precise deadline Sylus had given you to return with the shipment routes. Two hours since his last text had flashed across your screen: "I'm on my way." A terse response to your notification that you had successfully wrung the coordinates from the broker. The deal had come with a condition, of course, but a win was a win.

Now, you stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows of the most expensive penthouse in N821. Your skin was still radiating the residual heat of a hot shower, the heavy ivory silk of your robe trailing against your ankles as you knotted the belt around your waist.

N821 was a different kind of monster than N109

Where N109 was a chaotic, bleeding theater of crime, N821 was the same beast refined sleeker, heavily organized, masked in exorbitant wealth, and brutally cold

You closed your eyes, exhaling a slow, sharp breath through your nose. The frustration didn't leave you, it merely settled deeper into your chest. He was with her. That little hunter. The one he taunted. The one you had once discovered practically in his lap

Granted, during that particular encounter, she had a loaded barrel pressed flush against his sternum. And God, how Sylus had thrived on the bite of it. He didn't just tolerate her defiance; he fed on it.

Irrelevant, you reminded yourself, your jaw tightening. Your arrangement with the leader of Onychinus was built on concrete and blood, not sentiment

If there was closeness between you, it was found exclusively in the dark sharp, high friction intimacy utilized purely as stress relief. When two apex predators unite, you do not expect a love story. You expect an alliance

He desired you; that much was undeniable. You were a crown jewel in the underworld silently deadly, poised. A trophy for a man who claimed to own the world

Not an ornament for him though. Never that. Sylus had little interest in fragile things

Yet, your eyes rarely deceived you. Every time he looked at the hunter, there was a faint, intolerable fondness in his gaze. It was childish to even note it, but the great, wanted criminal's eyes actually softened whenever he called her kitten

You despised the word. If he ever dared utter that nickname to you, you would ensure his next glass of wine was laced with cyanide.

Why did she get a title born of affection while you received a title born of strategy? With a quiet sigh, you stepped away from the glass to gather the paperwork scattered across the desk. Time was a luxury you didn't possess

The documents required your signature and a thorough review before they could be handed over to your dear husband by morning

Your dear, dear husband.

The man you swore you didn't crave. The man you swore you didn't miss. You swore it because it was the absolute truth. You were detached. It was the only state of being you had ever known

As the perfect daughter of a sprawling empire, love had never been factored into your record.

Neither had vulnerability

For someone who could afford everything the world had to offer, you couldn't afford a heart

You had never been in love. Intimacy itself was a foreign language until Sylus Qin. To this day, the irony of it brought a cold, humorless smile to your lips. Embarrassing, really, that a man so ruthless had been your introduction to the flesh.

Then again, he had set a incredibly high standard.

While other girls your age were experiencing the trivialities of teenage romance, you were busy learning how to strip a firearm in under ten seconds. You had spent your youth enduring grueling training sessions, followed by hours studying the art of high stakes negotiation under the suffocating, stern glare of your father

In your world, knowing how to distinguish which protocore dealer lied and which one merely inflated prices for survival was the key

But you knew how to hate. Sylus knew it, too, and he drew an infuriating amount of satisfaction from drawing that hatred to the surface

You sat in the plush, albeit uncomfortable, armchair, closing your eyes briefly to soothe the pulsing pressure building behind them. You forced yourself to reopen them, scanning the lines of text to highlight the clauses Sylus would inevitably want to contest.

Think of the devil

The heavy click of the penthouse door echoing through the foyer broke the silence. You didn't bother to lift your head. You were furious, and you had no intention of granting him the courtesy of an immediate greeting.

He called your name once. Then, as if tracking the scent of your irritation, his heavy footsteps moved towards the study where you were.

When he stepped into the light, he was a vision of controlled violence. His silver hair was damp, plastered slightly against his forehead from the storm outside. His clothes were dark with melted snow. His knuckles were split freshly cleaned, but faint traces of copper still stained the creases of his skin. A shallow, clean cut marred the high ridge of his cheekbone.

Yet, by the slow, deliberate grace of his stride, you could tell he was entirely unbothered. He looked utterly smug

You permitted yourself exactly one second to take in the sight of him. Then, with a fluid, dismissive motion, you tossed the files onto the marble coffee table. You swung your legs over the armrest of the chair, leaning back into the cushions with calculated laziness

Svlus stoned. He knew that nosture. He knew he was walking on razor thin ice

An amused brow arched upward, a familiar, infuriating smirk threatening to touch his lips before he smoothly schooled his expression. He slipped his damp coat from his shoulders, tossing it aside. Now, it was his turn to take you in

The silk robe had slipped, exposing the curve of one shoulder. Your long legs were draped carelessly over the velvet arm of the chair, and the ends of your hair were still dark with moisture. A vision. Perfect, dangerous, and entirely unimpressed.

"Read," you commanded

Your voice was a low, smooth blade. You didn't look at him as you spoke, your slender fingers wrapping instead around the stem of your champagne glass. You brought it to your lips, taking a slow sip

Sylus picked up the documents. His crimson eyes scanned between the lines, his expression entirely unmoved by the staggering demands written into the contract. It was the face of a man who found exactly what he expected.

You had done your job flawlessly. As always

"I assume it went well on your end as well" you murmured, boredom perfectly lacing your voice, though the underlying edge remained razor-cold. "Though if I were to critique, you are quite late. And we do have a time limit."

Sylus didn't look up from the pages immediately, flipping one over with a crisp, deliberate sound that echoed in the quiet room.

"Worry not, The twins handled it." he replied, his deep voice scraping pleasantly against the stillness

"it was supposed to be your job–"

"–The broker tried to alter the delivery terms at the eleventh hour," he murmured, tilting his head. The shallow cut on his cheek caught the amber light of the fire. "He brought a few extra bodies to enforce the new price. It took a moment to remind him of his place."

"Remind him of his place."

You set your champagne glass down on the marble table with a hollow, deliberate clink. Your eyes didn't track the movement; they remained locked on the neat, bloodless line across his cheekbone

"A clean cut for a back alley broker," you remarked, your tone smooth, devoid of the irritation simmering beneath your skin. "He must have exceptional aim. Or a very specific model of an association-issued blade."

Sylus didn't blink. The corner of his mouth twitched. He tossed the folder onto the desk, the heavy paper settling with a dull thud

"The association tried to intervene. They failed."

"And you let them walk away," you countered, sliding your legs off the armrest. You stood, the ivory silk parting slightly at your thigh as you crossed the room toward him. "You left the financing channel exposed. I noticed the omission before you walked in. It's a vulnerability, Sylus. My board will reject that transit exposure immediately."

You stopped a mere foot away from him. The scent of him, and the distinct, metallic tang of fresh blood rolled off him in waves, overpowering the scent of the room

"I don't tolerate sloppiness," you murmured, tilting your chin up to look him in the eyes. "Especially not when my family's name is masking your assets. If your little shadow play in N109 is bleeding into our territory, fix it."

Sylus stood his ground, a towering monolith of damp wool and dark intent. He didn't offer an excuse. He didn't even look at the paperwork you were weaponizing against him

Instead, his gaze dropped to your lips, then traveled slowly down the exposed column of your throat to where the silk of your robe loosely met at your chest

"Sloppiness" he repeated, the word rolling out of his chest like low thunder. He took a single step forward, crowding your space until the heat radiating from his body began to melt the chill in your own. "Is that what you're calling it?"

"I call it what it is. A liability."

Sylus reached out. His split knuckles were rough against your skin as his thumb caught the underside of your jaw, forcing your head back a fraction of an inch. His touch was cold, a harsh contrast to the feverish warmth of your skin, but his grip was unyielding.

"You don't give a fuck about the southern transit line" he murmured softly.

"I care about our metrics"

"You care that she was there."

The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating.

The amusement left his face, replaced by something entirely different. The smug, detached mask he usually wore around you cracked, revealing the dark, predatory focus underneath. His crimson eyes searched yours, not with the cold calculation of a business partner, but with the raw, heavy intensity of a man who had just found a crack in an unbreachable wall.

"Look at you," Sylus whispered, his deep voice dropping an octave, becoming rougher, more intimate. His thumb stroked the line of your jaw, the friction sending a sharp jolt straight down your spine. "Jealous." He leaned down, his breath ghosting over your lips

Your breath hitched a small fracture in your armor, but to a man like Sylus, it was a siren song.

"Don't flatter yourself," you hissed, your voice dropping to a dangerous, venomous whisper. You wrapped your hand around his wrist, trying to push him back. "I don't care who you entertain in your spare time. Just keep your goddamn pets out of my ledger."

Sylus didn't move an inch. If anything, your resistance only made his grip tighten, his fingers sliding from your jaw to wrap fully around the back of your neck, tilting your head up to fully meet his gaze. The coldness in his eyes was entirely gone. In its place was a dark, feral satisfaction that burned hot enough to scald

"Will you say that again?" He asked, his lips brushing yours with every syllable, a torturous, high friction promise.

You didn’t answer. You didn’t get the chance to

You tried to twist your face out of his grip, a sharp, dismissive jerk intended to re establish the boundary, but Sylus didn't let you breathe.

The moment your fingers tightened on his wrist to shove him back, he used his massive momentum to drive you backward

The small of your back hit the solid wall with a heavy thud. Nearby, the champagne glass you had set down wobbled, tipped, and shattered against the floor, the sharp crack of crystal completely swallowed by the sudden, suffocating proximity of his body

His hand shifted from your jaw, split-knuckled fingers tangling ruthlessly into the strands of your hair, tugging back until your neck arched, He used the leverage to feast on you completely without restraint. It was a violent, undisciplined wreck of a collision messy, desperate, and entirely devoid of the composure you both prided yourselves on

He didn't give you a clean, strategic kiss. He didn't offer the practiced precision you both used to mask your intentions in public.

He bit you.

It was a bruising, desperate clash of teeth and lips that tasted immediately of the starved, mutual want you had both spent days denying. You let out a muffled, furious sound against his mouth a protest born purely of your refusal to break first and tried to wedge your forearm tightly between his chest and yours to force some distance.

Sylus didn't care. He pinned your arm flat against the wall, his thigh crowding ruthlessly between yours, the rough of his trousers parting your robe.

The past four days of silence, of separate territories and distance, boiled over in a single second.

It was unpolished. It was feral. The slick, wet sound of his tongue sliding against yours filled the quiet room, deep and demanding, dragging the air straight out of your lungs until your chest heaved uselessly against his.

You tried to bite him back, to hurt him, to remind him of the danger of crowding you, and your teeth caught his lower lip, drawing a fresh bead of dark blood.

Sylus groaned into your mouth, He thrived on this.

He pulled back for a fraction of a second, just enough for a thin, silver string of spit to break between your swollen lips. His eyes were entirely blown out, the right crimson of his iris practically glowing in the shadows of the room, dark with a terrifyingly possession. He looked like a beast that had finally been given permission to tear its cage apart.

"My, my, is my sweet wife finally showing her teeth?" he murmured against your lips, his voice a ruined, breathless rasp as his mouth left yours for a single second to track a wet, heavy path down your jawline.

"Move." you gasped, your fingers clawing deep into the fabric of his shoulders, though your nails dug in so hard you were actively pulling him closer, betraying the very lie you were telling. "Sylus–"

He didn't let you finish.

Our blood. Our slick, hot saliva,

It mingled into a chaotic, violent smear between your mouths as he devoured your protest.

The grip on your hair tightened, tugging hard enough to make you gasp before he buried his tongue back into your mouth, deeper this time, swallowing your refusal whole. It was a suffocating, borderline foul display spit slicking your chin, the metallic taste of his torn skin smearing between you, while his large, calloused hand slid inside the parted silk of your robe to grip the bare skin of your hip with a bruising force that would absolutely leave a mark by morning

You hated how easily he broke you. You hated that you had spent days pretending his absence didn't claw at the inside of your ribs, only for him to wreck your perfect poise in a matter of sentences.

Sylus broke the kiss, His forehead rested heavily against yours, his chest rising and falling in violent, uneven synchronization with your own

"Say it again," he rumbled, his thumb dragging across your wet lower lip, smearing the crimson stain. "Tell me you don't care who I keep in my spare time while you're choking on me."

"You're a bastard," you whispered, your voice shaking with a dangerous mixture of fury and unadulterated arousal, your hips twitching helplessly against the heavy, solid weight of his thigh pressed between yours

"Yours," he growled against your skin, a dark, stolen vow before his lips curled into that insufferable smirk

His mouth descended on your throat with feral hunger, biting and sucking the sensitive skin until a deep bruise began to bloom while his thigh anchored firmly between your legs, the sudden, blunt friction wrung a sharp, fractured sob from your lips

It was humiliating the immediate, pathetic rush of your own juices instantly soaking through the lace panel of your underwear. Your logical mind screamed to fight, but your body, instinctively chased the bruising pressure. You rolled your hips against his leg, a desperate, rolling twitch to catch the edge of relief.

But Sylus had no patience left tonight. His large, rough palms slid beneath the hem of your slip, scraping up, up, up, the bare skin of your thighs, your hips, trailing a path of fire. His hands found your chest, fingers roughly squeezing the tight, aching weight of your breasts, his thumbs snapping against your nipples without a shred of shame

"Need I remind you sweetie," he rasped, pausing only to sink his teeth into the junction of your shoulder, biting hard enough to draw the metallic taste of blood. "She is not the one who wears my name."

Not the woman he loves, but the woman arranged in his bed. or at least that's how it sounded to you.

The bitter thought tasted like ash, but the fire between your thighs was blinding. Lured into his trap, your hips moved once again against his leg practically begging for the friction

Sylus let out a low, rumbling growl of pure triumph. Before you could reclaim your breath, his hands locked around your waist. With terrifying, fluid ease, he hoisted you onto his broad shoulder.

"What are you–"

The words were knocked out of you as he manhandled you across the penthouse, his brute strength on effortless display. You hung like a prized, captive trophy, until he threw you face down onto the mattress.

Your face pressed into the plush bedding, your breath hitching. Before you could scramble to your elbows, heavy, crackling energy flooded the space. Black and red mist bled from his fingertips, weaving through the air like liquid iron before snapping tight around your wrists.

The heavy pressure of his evol pinned your hands behind your back, completely unyielding.

"This won't solve anything, Qin," you hissed, turning your head to glare at him with vitriol.

But the threat died on your lips. In the dim amber light of the room, you were utterly exposed. Your silk slip had ridden up to your waist, baring the flush, plush curve of your ass and the perfect, arch of your spine. You looked like a feline caught in a trap, beautifully undone.

And fuck did Sylus adore the sight.

"It will," he murmured.

He stepped closer, his long fingers trailing down the small of your back before he leaned down to press a hot, mocking kiss against your lower spine.

His hand hooked into the lace of your underwear, pulling the material taut.

Even without looking, you could picture the sick, smug satisfaction written across his features. The panties were heavily damp, soaked through with the visible, glistening evidence of how badly you wanted him

Frustration and arousal coiled tight in your gut. You tugged uselessly against the heavy weight of bound hands "Uncuff me. This is fucking stupid! You can't just–"

"Can't?"

The word cut through your protest, smooth, amused, and dripping with absolute authority. He didn't care about your rules. With a swift, deft motion, his fingers hooked the damp lace, stripping it from your hips and leaving your dripping, swollen slit completely bare to the room

Before you could even process the movement, he brought the ruined lace to his mouth, licking and savouring the thick syrupy wetness on it before letting saliva gather and spat on the same place he sucked, his large, calloused fingers ruthlessly stuffed the wet, panties into your open mouth after, forcing it past your teeth and cutting off your scream

Your eyes widened in absolute shock. The sheer audacity of it, the profound degradation of being gagged by your own soaked underwear, sent a paralyzing jolt straight down your spine. You had never felt this helpless.

This desperate.

"Ah. Still trying to fight?" Sylus whispered, his lips curving into a dark, wicked smile as he looked down at your exposed, dripping heat. "Cute."

He reached down between your thighs. A heavy, viscous pearl of your own wetness was clinging desperately to your pussy, hanging from your swollen outer lips. With agonizing slowness, he used his thumb to catch the drop, breaking it and smearing the slick heat upward, coating your sensitive clit it until you were covered in your essence

A muffled, strangled sob caught in the back of your throat, completely swallowed by the material in your mouth as your inner thighs trembled

And Sylus thrived on the sound. With a deliberate, forceful shove, he buried two thick, rough fingers straight into your tight pussy. The contrast was intoxicating, the feverish pulsating warmth of your walls instantly clamped down, desperately squeezing the cold, length of his fingers.

"Look at how wet you are," he rumbled, his voice a ruined, gravelly rasp as he began to pump his fingers inside your tight walls, driving them deep, stretching you open with a crude, slow pace, as strings of your arousal glistened in the light "...don't get the wrong idea, I'm not trying to mock you."" and you swore he almost sounded amused, but you couldn't focus

How could you, when the obscene wet, squelching sound of his fingers sliding in and out of your pussy filled the quiet room. You were completely dripping, your sticky juices running down his hand and pooling onto the dark sheets beneath you as he used his thumb to viciously hook and rub against your swollen clit with every deep thrust, driving you toward a blind, desperate peak while you lay pinned and gagged

Breathless and whining is what you were, one of the most important board pieces in N019 reduced to this, and you knew this was not even close to it all.

You could feel it. just beneath the shadow of your straining hips, you could feel the thick, rigid length of his cock pressing hard against your thigh

Impending fucking doom it was.

He gave your ass a taunting squeeze, his large hand bruising the plush flesh before he finally pulled away.

The agonizing loss of his touch was immediately replaced by a different kind of torture. The slick, wet sound of his fingers inside you was gone, replaced by the harsh, metallic rasp of a zipper parting, followed by the slide of his boxers.

Pinned face down, your view was restricted, but you didn't need to see it to know what was happening. Peering over your shoulder, you caught a dizzying glimpse of his toned, sculpted stomach, and the thick, unyielding length of his cock standing proud against it. A bead of precum already glistened at the blunt tip.

You watched his large, scarred hand wrap around his own girth, pumping twice in a slow, deliberate stroke before he aligned himself behind you

He slid upward, but he didn't push inside.

Instead, he wedged the broad, mushroomed head of his cock perfectly against your swollen clit. His fingers gripped the base of his shaft, holding himself firmly in place while he ground against your sensitive nerves. Your pussy immediately coated him, the wetness running down his heavy length with every agonizingly shallow slide

He was teasing you. He was actively refusing to give you the ruinous relief of his cock stretching you wide, denying you the fullness you could feel aching in your gut. No matter how many times you fucked, taking Sylus Qin was a chore, because the universe was cruel enough to give the man a dick as impossibly big as his ego.

You whined, a fractured, pathetic sound, rolling your hips back in a desperate attempt to sink onto him, to soothe the need boiling in your blood

"Relax, wife," he drawled, his voice a low, teasing vibration as he delivered another shallow, grinding thrust that sent a shower of sparks straight to your stomach. "You'll get what you want."

The heavy palm of his hand flattened against your lower back, pressing you down as his cock remained glued to your dripping slit. "Today. Tomorrow." He leaned down, pressing a hot, open mouthed kiss to your trembling shoulder. "Over and over again, until you tire of me."

He pressed one final, bruising kiss to your skin, and then, the heavy, crackling weight of his evol vanished.

The sudden release of pressure made your arms give out, your chest hitting the mattress, but Sylus didn't let you rest. His massive hands gripped your waist, and in one fluid, effortless motion, he flipped you onto your back.

And fuck, was it a sight.

You were beyond divine. Your usually immaculate hair was a wild, tangled mess. Your cheeks were flushed a feverish, beautiful crimson, and tears of absolute frustration pooled in your waterlines. Your lips were swollen and thoroughly wrecked, while between your parted thighs, your dripping, perfectly ruined cunt was fully on display.

Sylus literally choked on a breath.

There was a reason you were hailed as the most beautiful, dangerous woman in the underworld. Everyone else only ever saw you armored in million dollar gowns and a blood chilling smile. No one on earth would ever get to see you like this. Reduced to a beautiful, panting wreck.

His. Entirely his.

But while he was busy staring at you with open, starving reverence, you were absolutely furious. You reached up, ripping the soaked lace panties from your mouth and hurling them directly at his sculpted chest.

It only angered you further when his lips curled into a wicked, devastating grin.

Your chest heaved. Despite your fury, your body betrayed you, throbbing violently at the sight of him caging you in, looking as if sculpted by gods

But the ache wasn't enough to dull your pride.

You needed revenge.

You surged upward, your hands shooting out to fist violently in the short, silver locks at the nape of his neck. You yanked him down, crashing your lips against his in a brutal, bruising kiss.

Sylus groaned into your mouth, a deep, guttural sound of approval. His body automatically chased the closeness, climbing over you to press his heavy weight down.

The second he did, your long legs instantly wrapped around his waist, locking tightly at the small of his back.

You squeezed your thighs, pressing right against the base of his rigid cock, wringing a sharp grunt from his throat. Using the leverage, you rolled your hips

The world tilted, and the next thing Sylus knew, his back hit the mattress, and you were straddling his hips.

You sat up, looking down at him with the cold, authoritative superiority.

"You've played enough," you murmured, your voice a smooth, dangerous blade. "So now, keep your hands flat on the mattress, Qin. If you even think about touching me before I give you permission, I swear to god I’ll leave you exactly like this."

His crimson eyes glistened with dark, feral amusement. It was a bluff. You knew it, he knew it. Sex between the two of you was like breathing; neither of you would ever actually stop. But Sylus loved this game just as much as you did

Slowly, he raised both hands in mock surrender, letting them fall flat against the dark sheets.

He watched, thoroughly trapped, as you reached down and slowly pulled the ruined silk slip over your head, tossing it aside. His eyes darkened, locking hungrily onto your perfect breasts, his jaw ticking with the desperate urge to bite, to taste, to ruin

But you kept yourself deliberately out of reach. You leaned down, taking his lower lip between your teeth for a sharp, stinging bite again tasting the blood from before, then dragging your open mouth down the strong column of his throat. You painted his skin with hot, stripes of your tongue, trailing down his collarbones, over the hard planes of his chest, and tracing the sharp, dangerous v-line that disappeared beneath his waist.

His breath hitched, his abdominal muscles jumping under your mouth.

Then, your slender fingers wrapped around his impossibly thick cock. You felt him flinch, a full body shudder ripping through him as you leaned down and pressed the softest, sweetest kiss directly to his weeping tip.

You were going to make him beg.

You flicked your tongue out, catching the thick bead of his precum, tasting the hot, salty tang of his arousal. You were aching, sticky, and left a mess because of him, so it was time he felt that exact same desperation.

Sylus let out a sharp, ragged exhale as you parted your lips. Maintaining absolute, unblinking eye contact with him, you slowly sank down onto his crown with your mouth.

Fuck.

You took him deeper, hollowing your cheeks. Taking his entire length was impossible, but you took as much as your throat would allow, your hands ruthlessly wrapping around the thick, heavy base to pump the rest.

His hands twitched violently against the sheets. His fingers curled into fists, fighting the agonizing urge to drag you up and kiss you. He needed to be inside you. He needed to feel you whole. Watching you worship him like this made you look like a filthy deity.

The visceral, wet sounds of your mouth sucking and slopping against his heavy flesh echoed in the quiet room. You gagged softly, choking once as he unconsciously bucked his hips upward, driving himself deeper into your throat.

You could taste the shift in his pulse. You knew he was close.

So, right as his hips snapped up, chasing the final, blinding high of his climax you pulled off completely.

The sudden rush of cold air hitting his slick, painfully hard cock made him freeze. He stared up at you blankly for a fraction of a second, chest heaving, before a rich, breathless laugh tore from his throat. He was left entirely high and dry, his eyes burning with a dangerous fire.

"Give me one good reason," Sylus rasped, his voice rough as gravel, "why I shouldn't flip you over right now and show you exactly what you just did."

You hummed, entirely unimpressed. "You could," you whispered, leaning down to drag your tongue up the underside of his shaft. "But you won't."

Before he could argue, you wrapped your lips tightly around him again, taking him agonizingly deep. A single tear escaped your lash line from the sheer, suffocating size of him, a thick string of spit and precum dripping down your chin to smear over his skin.

Sylus couldn't hold back anymore. Breaking your rule, his large hand shot up, tangling ruthlessly into your hair to guide your head, his hips bucking up in short, desperate thrusts to chase the edge.

With a deep, guttural groan, he shattered.

Hot, thick, salty liquid erupted into the back of your throat. You whimpered, your eyes fluttering shut for a moment at the overwhelming taste and volume of it.

But you didn't swallow.

You pulled back slowly, parting your swollen lips. Sylus watched you, his pupils blown wide, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. Your hand remained wrapped firmly around the base of his twitching cock

Maintaining eye contact, you let his thick, pearlescent cum spill from your mouth.

It was absolute, exquisite filth. The heavy white fluid fell in thick droplets, landing directly onto his still erect cock, sliding down the slick, inflamed veins.

It was disgusting. It was perfect.

Sylus was utterly mesmerized, trapped in a state of primal shock as he watched his own seed run down his length. But it was infinitely worse when you leaned back down.

With slow, deliberate strokes, you stuck your tongue out and began to lick him clean.

You chased the hot rivulets of sperm up and down his shaft, swallowing every last drop of the filthy mess you had made

You sat back on your heels, wiping a stray drop of cum from your lower lip with the back of your hand, a triumphant, wicked gleam in your eyes

He was broken. You had taken the king of N019 and reduced him ruined mess beneath you

Or so you thought.

The heavy, suffocating shift in the room's atmosphere was your only warning.

Sylus’s chest was still heaving, the silver strands of his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, but the hazy, blown out look in his crimson eyes was already sharpening.

The dark, look in his eyes returned, instantly wiping away any illusion that you were the one in control.

A low, vibrating sound started deep in his chest.

"Beautiful," he rasped, his voice a dark, gravelly purr that was breathless and made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. "You played your hand well."

Before you could even register the sudden flex of his muscles, his hands lashed out

His massive palms clamped around your waist like iron vises. With a violent, he flipped you. Slammed into the mattress, the heavy, unyielding weight of his body instantly crashing down to cage you in

He didn't give you a second to recover. His hands caught your wrists, pinning them squarely above your head with just one of his massive hands.

"But the house," he whispered, leaning down until his lips brushed the shell of your ear, his hot breath sending a violent shiver down your spine, "always wins."

He shifted his weight, his knee driving ruthlessly between your thighs to force your legs impossibly wide. Even after his climax, he hadn't softened. If anything, he was harder, the thick, rigid length of his cock pressing hot and demanding against your soaking entrance.

His regeneration worked in more ways than one.

Your breath stuttered. The adrenaline of your revenge was instantly swallowed by the immediate, reality of what was about to happen.

"Sylus–"

"Shh," he commanded softly, silencing you not with cruelty, but with an agonizing, possessive intensity.

His free hand slid down your torso, his calloused fingers tracing your stomach before slipping between your thighs.

He didn't bother waiting anymore. You had long been dripping, completely melted down for him, your viscous wetness pooling against his fingers as he guided his thick, blunt head squarely against your opening.

He locked his crimson eyes onto yours, demanding you watch him. Demanding you feel every single agonizing second of your surrender.

And then, he pushed.

A sharp, fractured cry tore from your throat. Despite how wet you were, taking him was a visceral, shock to your system. He was too thick, too unyielding, stretching you wide open with a blunt, heavy pressure that sent a blinding flash of white hot pleasure straight to your brain

Your nails dug violently into the back of his hand where he held your wrists. "Fuck–wait, wait–"

"I’m done waiting," he growled, the muscles in his jaw ticking as he forced himself deeper, inch by excruciating inch. "You wanted to play the tyrant? Take it."

He didn't slam into you. He knew exactly what he was doing, driving himself inside with a slow, relentless, torturous pace that forced your body to accommodate every single millimeter of his girth. The friction was maddening

You could feel the distinct, heavy throb of his pulse buried deep inside your walls, stretching you until you felt completely, utterly full.

When he finally bottomed out, his hips snapping flush against yours with a heavy, wet slap, your back bowed off the mattress

You were completely lost to him. The meticulous, flawless daughter of a syndicate empire, reduced to a trembling, mewling mess, completely ruined by her husband

Sylus let out a long, ragged exhale, burying his face in the crook of your neck. For a few seconds, he just held you there, letting your body adjust to the staggering invasion, reveling in the feverish, desperate way your warm, warm inner walls clamped down around him, milking him

"Mine," he breathed against your skin

the word tasting like a vow and a curse.

Then, he began to move

He pulled back almost completely, the slow drag of his length nearly drawing a sob from your lips before he drove his hips forward, burying himself to the hilt with a heavy, concussive thud.

The rhythm he set was ruthless. It wasn't the frantic, desperate fucking of amateurs; it was the measured, devastatingly powerful pace of a man who intended to wring every drop of sanity from your mind.

PLAP! PLAP! PLAP!

The wet, obscene sounds of your bodies colliding echoed off the marble walls of the penthouse. With every deep, grinding raw thrust, he deliberately angled his hips, ensuring the thick ridge of his cock dragged ruthlessly against your swollen clit.

"Sylus" you sobbed, the name tearing from you in a broken, high pitched plea that you would have killed anyone else for hearing. Your legs instinctively wrapping tightly around his waist to pull him even deeper, desperately chasing the blinding high, the pain and pleasure was intoxicating, feeling it so deep in your womb that you swore you were losing sanity

"Hush now," he mocked, though his voice was thick with his own desperation, his breathing turning ragged as he pounded into you. He finally released your wrists, only to slide his hands under your shoulders, lifting you up so your chest was crushed against his. "Where is all that anger now, sweetie? Where is the woman who was going to walk out on me?"

"Shut up" you gasped, biting down hard on his shoulder to ground yourself against the overwhelming onslaught of pleasure.

He hooked his arms under your knees, folding your legs back toward your chest, exposing you completely. The new angle drove him impossibly deeper, the nerves of your clit so exquisitely sensitive that your vision literally whited out.

And as the suffocating, brilliant wave of your climax began to crest, snapping your muscles tight around his cock in violent, pulsating waves, Sylus let out a guttural moan, driving deep inside you one final, devastating time to meet you in the dark

...

The silence that crashed back into the penthouse was deafening, filled only by the ragged, synchronized cadence of your mixed breathing.

His palms, rough and heavily calloused, framed your jaw with a sudden, grounding warmth. Sylus looked down at you, his crimson eyes were completely blown, dark with an unreadable, heavy emotion as he leaned down to share the very air between your lips, sealing your surrender with one final, bruising kiss

Your fingers tangled into the short, silver locks at the nape of his neck. You pulled him down tightly against you, anchoring yourself to his massive chest. Heartbeat against heartbeat, you closed your eyes and focused on the heavy rise and fall of his torso, desperately trying to piece your fractured self back together.

"If you ever use your evol to bind me like that again, Qin," you whispered against his mouth, your voice a breathy, thin threat, "I will have your head"

A low, rumbling vibration started deep in his chest, breaking into a breathless, genuine laugh that brushed hot against your collarbone. "Is that a promise, my dear? I wouldn't say you are in the position to threaten me right now"

He nipped at the sensitive skin of your neck before his large hands slid beneath your thighs. With a fluid, effortless roll, he shifted your limp body directly on top of him. He stayed buried deep inside you, a heavy, unyielding anchor as the sticky, cooling residuals of your shared cum smeared between your skin.

You completely melted, turning to absolute putty against the hard planes of his chest. His broad palms traced slow, soothing patterns up and down your bare spine, but the gesture did little to cure the boneless, trembling legs and exhaustion holding you hostage. You were entirely unable to function

Sylus stared up at the ceiling, his jaw tightening. He wanted to say something. He wanted to offer a rare, uncharacteristic reassurance, to tell you that while he thrived on the fire of your jealousy, there was no one else

But the words remained trapped in his throat. Did you even want to hear that?

Absolute, non negotiable loyalty had been the bedrock of this arrangement for a full year now. It was a cruel twist of fate, the invisible threads of his life were bound to a different woman yet the only woman who truly mastered him was currently draped across his chest.

His wife.

He looked down at your tangled long hair, unable to fully articulate the staggering weight of what you actually meant to him. It was a terrifying admission, but you had completely rewritten his parameters. Every cold smile, every sharp word, every calculation you made left him utterly mesmerized. Without ever demanding it, you had him wrapped entirely around your fingers

"I should get you cleaned up," he finally rasped, his deep voice scraping pleasantly against the quiet room.

A faint, stubborn hum of disapproval escaped your lips. Beneath the sheets, your exhausted inner walls involuntarily clamped tight around his half hard length, wringing a low, strained groan from his throat. A dark, amused smile touched his lips at your defiance. He leaned up, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to your heated forehead.

You were already slipping, the heavy pull of exhaustion dragging you over the brink of sleep, but the onychinus princess refused to let the business fade. Without opening your eyes, you murmured your final, drowsy command into the crook of his neck:

"You better make sure that shipment tomorrow is delivered."

Most muggleborns spend their lives running toward magic.

After living without it for the first eleven years of their lives, they’re all too eager to lose themselves in a world of spells and enchantments. They trade in double-decker buses and arbitrary chores for castles full of ghosts and a life that feels, at first, like ease. Once you’ve flown a broomstick or charmed a kettle to sing, it’s hard to imagine settling for anything less.

The journey usually only goes one way — from the world of the ordinary to the world of the impossible. Usually.

You moved back to the muggle world shortly after the war ended, wanting to put a great deal of distance between yourself and everything magical. There were a multitude of reasons for that.

To begin with, you wanted to be closer to your family. The war had loomed like a shadow over everything for so long, and when you came so close to losing them, it made you realize just how much you’d taken them for granted. You lived with them in your childhood home for a few months before moving into your own apartment only a few streets over.

Second, you were tired — bone-deep and soul-sick. After witnessing so much destruction, you longed for quiet. The wizarding world, despite its victory, was in a state of chaos. The Ministry was being rebuilt from the ground up, and though they had claimed, with great sympathy, that it was unfair the weight of the world had fallen on such young shoulders, they had no issue asking you — along with Harry, Ron, and Hermione — to serve under Ministry officials and aid in the capture of the remaining Death Eaters.

You had all agreed on one thing: the Ministry was not to be trusted. And with that shared understanding, the four of you parted ways.

Lastly — and most frustratingly — the muggle world was the only place you could escape the insipid reporters who seemed determined to mine every moment of the Golden Quartet’s lives for public consumption. It was another point the four of you agreed on: you wanted no part of the circus.

Now, only your closest friends had your address. Which is why you could only conclude that this was a complete. And utter. Coincidence.

You came home that Tuesday evening with a grocery bag in one hand and your wand tucked safely into your boot. The hallway smelled faintly of burnt toast and lemon-scented floor cleaner, the kind your landlord swore by but never quite masked the damp. You rounded the corner toward your door and stopped short.

There he was.

Mattheo Riddle, standing in front of the apartment next to yours, two battered suitcases at his feet and a flat key dangling uselessly from his hand.

He looked up at the exact moment you did. His fingers froze on the key. Your hand stilled on the strap of your bag.

And for a long, suspended moment, the two of you just stared.

You hadn’t seen him in years — not since the war — and yet time didn’t seem to matter. Recognition crashed through the hallway like a thunderclap. His curls were longer, face more drawn, shadows bruising the skin beneath his eyes. But it was him. It was undeniably him.

Mattheo Riddle.

In your building.

The silence dragged on until it became unbearable. You were the first to blink.

"...Hi." You said, a little breathless, a little stunned.

He didn’t say anything right away, just looked at you like he was trying to convince himself you weren’t real. You couldn’t blame him.

"...You."

You raised a brow, "Me."

A beat of silence. Then, softer, almost unsure, "I didn’t know you lived here."

You shifted your groceries in your arms, "I didn’t know you lived here."

Another beat passed, longer this time. The key in his hand twitched like he’d forgotten it was there.

"I don’t," He said finally, "I mean… I just got the place."

You glanced at the door behind him — your door. The one you’d walked through a hundred times without incident. Now it felt like the threshold to something else entirely.

"Next door, huh?" You said, voice light but heart thudding.

He nodded, "Yeah. Lucky me."

You couldn’t tell if he meant it sarcastically, and you weren’t sure you wanted to know.

There was another pause. Not uncomfortable exactly — just thick with the weight of everything unspoken. You cleared your throat and stepped toward your own door, shifting your keys into your hand.

"Well," You said, half-turning toward him, "If you need help with anything, you know where to find me."

Mattheo blinked, like he hadn’t expected that — kindness, or maybe familiarity. Something flickered behind his eyes. He nodded.

"...Thanks." He said quietly.

You gave him a small nod before unlocking your door and slipping inside, heart hammering as you leaned against the back of it.

Mattheo Riddle. Living next door. You hadn't even unpacked your milk yet, and already the past was knocking.

The morning started like most others — quiet, a little rushed. You always managed to convince yourself you'd dress plain or skip makeup, severely underestimating how long it actually took to get ready. The apartment was practically hell to walk around in — you liked to sleep with the air conditioner blasting, which made getting out of bed feel like leaving heaven. You locked your door with one hand and slung your bag over your shoulder with the other, moving on instinct, drinking down a yogurt smoothie.

The building was still waking up — murmurs behind closed doors, the distant clink of pipes, a cat meowing two floors down. You padded down the stairs toward the lobby, head bowed slightly as you adjusted your coat, not expecting anyone to be around.

But then the front door swung open, and Mattheo Riddle stepped inside.

You almost didn’t recognize him at first. His hoodie was tied around his waist, leaving him in nothing but joggers and a damp black T-shirt clinging to his chest. His curls stuck to his forehead, chest still heaving from the run.

And then — he grabbed the hem of his shirt and yanked it up to wipe the sweat from his face.

You froze mid-step.

Because, well. There were abs. Sharp, defined, very real abs. The kind you’d only read about in romance novels or seen in movies — not the kind you expected to run into before 8 a.m. The curve of his ribs, the sharp V of his hips, the abs that could definitely grate cheese, the faint scars vanishing beneath the waistband of his joggers — you saw all of it, burned into your retinas before you could blink it away.

And then he saw you.

His eyes widened, and the shirt dropped instantly back into place.

"Oh." He said, like he hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

"Morning." You said, trying your best to sound noncommittal.

"Morning." He said, a bit too quickly.

He glanced toward the door like he might bolt.

Instead, he stepped aside and held it open for you.

"Thanks." You said, quietly.

He nodded, still flustered, eyes flicking down then back up like he wasn’t sure where to look.

You stepped into the sunlight and crossed the lot toward your car, trying hard not to think about the abs. Not to think about the sweat. Not to think about the way your heart had momentarily leapt into your throat like it had no business being there.

God, you were such a teenager sometimes.

Behind you, the door clicked shut.

You grabbed the mail like you always did — a quick swipe from the box in the lobby before you headed back upstairs. Most days it was bills, junk flyers, brochures. Nothing worth more than a glance.

But tonight, when you finally dumped the envelopes onto your kitchen counter, your fingers froze.

There, on top of the usual clutter, was a single letter that didn’t belong.

The paper was thick and creamy, the kind that whispered wealth and importance. The edges were hand-cut, the ink flowed in perfect, curling calligraphy, and the wax seal stamped firmly with the unmistakable Malfoy family crest glinted in the kitchen light.

You didn’t have to open it to know who it was for.

Your address was written there, clearly a mistake, but following it was the name Mattheo Riddle. Your fingers traced over the letters without realizing.

You stared at it, thumb brushing over the smooth paper as a knot twisted in your stomach.

Do you knock on his door? Drop it in the mail slot and pretend it was an accident? It felt like less work to just walk over and hand it to him — and honestly, less weird.

You grabbed your coat and stepped out, the letter folded carefully in your hand.

When you reached his door, your knuckles hovered for a moment before you finally rapped softly.

The door opened a crack almost immediately.

He was surprised to see you. Actually, it seemed like he wasn’t expecting any guests, considering the way he was clutching his wand with a grip that almost turned his knuckles white at his side. You tried not to hold it against him. After all, you had been exactly the same during the first couple months of living there. You had cast protection charms and wards over your parents’ house like a crazy lady. Even the slightest noise woke you, and you’d wake up in a cold sweat each night.

However, you definitely felt better the second he noticed it was you — the tension melted from his body.

You held out the letter, voice low.

“It was in my mail. Thought you should have it.”

He blinked, taking it with a slow nod.

“Thanks.” He said quietly.

You hesitated, then added, “Accident, I swear.”

He gave a small, dry chuckle.

“Don’t worry.” He said, lifting his eyes from the letter and back to you, "Thank you."

The door shut softly.

It happened three nights later.

You were curled up on the couch in mismatched pajamas, hoodie half-zipped and a blanket tangled around your legs. A sitcom rerun flickered on the TV, but you weren’t really watching — just letting it hum in the background while your tea cooled on the coffee table.

Then came the knock.

You paused mid-sip.

Another knock. Gentle, hesitant. Like whoever it was had seriously debated whether to even bother.

You padded to the door and opened it — just a crack — and, of course, there he was.

Mattheo.

Hair a mess in a way that still looked unfairly attractive, a tight compression shirt that honestly made you embarrassed on behalf of all womankind, and a bashful-but-trying-hard-to-look-nonchalant expression on his face. His hands were shoved deep into his pockets. Shoulders slightly hunched, like he didn’t want to be there but had talked himself into it anyway.

"…Hey." He said, voice low, like it felt too loud in your quiet hallway.

You raised an eyebrow, surprised, "Hey."

"I, um…" He shifted awkwardly. One foot stepped back, then forward again, like he couldn’t decide whether to flee or stay. It was incredibly unlike him, to the point that it made you concerned, "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure?" You said, cautiously.

A pause. He looked genuinely tortured.

Then, finally:

"How do I use the microwave?"

You stared at him.

He rushed to add, "I asked the landlord. I swear I did. There’s just… so many buttons. I don’t know what half of them do. This is the fifth time this week my meal is half cold and half hot and I don’t know what else to do because every time I use magic in that damned apartment, all the other technology freaks the fuck out."

You blinked.

That was… the most you’d ever heard him speak.

And not just speak — ramble. Rushed and impulsive, words tumbling out too fast for him to rein in. It felt squirrelly in a way that didn’t fit the boy you remembered from school. Back then, he always had that cocky, relaxed smile, the one that lingered too long and made people nervous. When it wasn’t that, it was fury — sharp and volatile. You’d seen enough of both expressions to find this new one strange.

A part of you almost felt bad. Clearly, the Muggle world wasn’t treating him kindly. And the fact that he was asking you for help — considering how often your friends used to butt heads with his back at Hogwarts — well. That had to sting his pride.

Still, you’d both been on the same side by the end of the war. So you supposed you could let bygones be bygones.

You pressed your lips together to keep from laughing.

You failed.

"Sorry," You said, half behind your hand, "It’s just—"

"No, no, go ahead." He said, dryly.

That only made it worse.

You opened the door wider, grabbing your keys and forgoing slippers since you were just walking a few feet to his place anyway, still smiling, "Alright. Lemme see."

His apartment looked almost identical to yours — same layout, same creaky floorboard just inside the threshold — but it felt different. Dimmer. Colder. Like someone was borrowing the space rather than living in it.

The walls were bare, not a single photo or poster in sight. The air smelled faintly of old parchment and something herbal, like spellwork left to linger. A wand lay carelessly on the coffee table, half-tucked beneath a rolled-up Daily Prophet. Books and scrolls were stacked beside it in frighteningly neat piles, next to a tea mug that had clearly gone cold.

You followed him into the kitchen, where the microwave sat perched on the counter like an unwanted guest.

“So,” You said, stuffing your hands into the pocket of your hoodie, “What are we microwaving?”

He reached into a plastic bag and pulled out a sad-looking cup of ramen. The cheap kind. The kind your dad used to stress about every time he caught you eating it — full of sodium, he'd complain, and then buy you another six-pack the next week because he knew you liked the chicken flavor.

“This.” he said, like it was obvious.

You stared at the cup. Then at him. Then back at the cup.

“…You know you’re supposed to make the water hot first before putting the noodles in, right?”

He blinked at you, genuinely confused, “...Am I?”

You stepped forward, peeled back the foil lid with practiced fingers, and pointed at the fine print along the rim.

“The instructions are written right here.”

“They’re in Korean.” He muttered.

You paused. Then looked down. Then back at him.

“…Right.”

“I don’t know how to translate it without using a spell.”

You tilted your head, “Can’t you use your phone?”

He went quiet, eyes drifting away — not defensive, just… quiet. You immediately regretted the question. Of course he couldn’t. The man barely knew how to use a microwave. What were you expecting?

You looked back down at the sad little noodle cup, steam starting to curl from under the foil lid. Then around his kitchen — barren shelves, a half-stocked fridge, one lonely fork sitting in the drying rack like it had never been part of a set.

“Is this what you’ve been eating all week?” You asked slowly, “Badly cooked noodles?”

He didn’t answer right away. Just gave a small shrug, like it wasn’t exactly the answer… but also kind of was.

“They’re not that bad.” He said, avoiding your eyes.

He was still quiet.

“If you’re gonna live off this stuff,” You said, softer now, “You should at least dress it up a little. Toss in an egg. Use bone broth instead of water. Add some greens. Carrots, spinach. Leftover meat, if you’ve got it.”

He tilted his head, brows drawing together slightly like you’d just introduced him to an entirely new concept.

“Right,” He said, “Of course. Bone broth.”

You squinted at him, “Have you… eaten anything not made in this cup since you moved in?”

He hesitated.

Which was answer enough.

You sighed, slow and through your nose, gaze drifting back to the microwave, then to him.

You shouldn’t push.

You knew that.

He hadn’t let you in for tea. He hadn’t sat you down and started talking about his life. He’d asked for help with one tiny thing — and even that probably took more effort than he’d admit. If you offered more… would he take it badly? Would he realize he’d already slipped up just by letting you in this far? Would he shut down, retreat, snap the door shut like none of this ever happened?

Maybe. Probably.

You wouldn’t risk it.

But gods, when you looked at that flavorless brick of noodles, and the silence that filled his apartment like a second layer of drywall, and that one fork drying on its own…

You just couldn’t help but feel bad.

“Next time you’re at the store,” You started, then paused — glanced again at the sad little cup on the counter, then back at him.

Actually… screw it.

“…Forget that,” You said instead, keeping your voice light, casual, like it wasn’t a big deal, “I’ve got some stuff in my fridge. Eggs, some spinach, maybe a little leftover rotisserie chicken. Won’t take long.”

He looked at you. Not startled, exactly — but something flickered behind his eyes, like he hadn’t expected the offer. Like he wasn’t sure why you’d make it. Like maybe he didn’t think he deserved it.

“You don’t have to do that.” He said quickly, but it didn’t come out sharp. Just automatic. Defensive, out of habit.

You shrugged, already halfway to the door.

“Just give me a sec,” You said, throwing him a quick smile, “Stay here. Don’t burn the noodles.”

He didn’t say anything. But he didn’t stop you, either.

And that, you figured, was enough.

You came back five minutes later, juggling a small pot containing a couple of eggs, a container of broth, a Ziploc bag of spinach, and a pair of chopsticks you’d swiped from your drawer on the way out. The pot knocked softly against your knee as you nudged the door open with your elbow.

Mattheo blinked at you from the kitchen, clearly still not convinced this was real.

“You really didn’t have to do that.” He said, stepping aside as you brushed past him.

“I know,” You said breezily, already unloading your arms onto the counter, “But I’m doing it anyway.”

He opened his mouth — probably to protest again — but you cut him off with a look. Not sharp, just firm.

“I’m not trying to invade your kitchen or anything,” You added, fiddling with the pot lid, “But that sad little cup deserves better. And you kind of looked like you were about to eat it dry.”

“I wasn’t.” He muttered.

You filled the pot with the bone broth and placed it on the stove, clicking the burner on with practiced ease, "Mm-hm.”

He exhaled a short, reluctant laugh, rubbing the back of his neck, “You’re really doing this?”

“If it helps, I’m not being nice,” You said, half-smiling, “I haven’t eaten dinner yet. So if you want to make it fair, give me a bowl too.”

That caught him off guard. He paused, then nodded once, slow and quiet.

“…Alright. Deal.”

You tried not to smile too much as he handed you another cup of ramen from the cabinet. It was chipped at the rim and slightly too small, but it would do. You emptied both noodle cakes into the pot, swapped the water for broth, and got to work, talking him through it as casually as you could.

“You wanna add the spinach last,” You explained, stirring gently, “It cooks fast. And I like cracking the egg straight in — makes the broth thicker. But if you’d rather boil it on the side and slice it, that works too.”

He watched you carefully — not just your hands, but your face, your posture, the way you moved around like you weren’t nervous to take up space in his kitchen. Like you belonged. Like you didn’t find this strange at all.

“Why are you helping me?” He asked quietly.

You looked up from the pot, letting the corner of your mouth tug up just slightly.

“Because,” You said, “I’m very hungry.”

That earned a real smile. Small. Barely there. But real.

“…Thanks.” He said after a beat.

You shrugged, “Don’t thank me till you taste it.”

When you finally passed him a bowl — warm, fragrant, with steam curling gently over the rim — he stared at it like it was more than just dinner. Like it meant something. Like maybe you did.

You sat beside him at the small kitchen table, your shoulder brushing his for a moment before you settled back.

Not quite friends. Not yet. But maybe something was beginning.

You stood in front of his door again, two days later, staring at the worn wood like it might open on its own and save you the trouble.

In your hands was a small Tupperware container — the clear kind, fogged at the edges from the warmth still trapped inside. A generous slice of cake sat inside, a little dented from the walk up and decorated with frankly ridiculous neon frosting. The plastic lid was smudged with your fingerprints from how tightly you’d been gripping it, like maybe it would give you some courage if you just held on long enough.

You’d already knocked three times in your head. Once with your actual hand. And still — no follow-through.

You shifted your weight from foot to foot, mumbling under your breath like a lunatic, “Okay, just leave it at the door, ring the bell, run. Not that serious. Not weird. It’s cake. Everyone likes cake. It’s not a big deal. You’re not weird. This is normal. People bring food to people. People are nice. You’re being nice.”

Your fingers twitched toward the doorbell again — and then froze halfway.

“…Unless it’s weird. Maybe it’s weird. Maybe—”

“Can I help you?”

You jumped. Hard.

The container nearly slipped from your hands as you turned — and there he was. Mattheo. Just a few feet away, keys in hand, dark curls a little damp like he’d just come in from the rain. His brows were pulled slightly together, his voice caught somewhere between confusion and caution.

Not quite hostile. But not welcoming either.

“Oh—hi,” You said, voice a little too high, a little too bright, “I was just…”

He looked at you. Then at the Tupperware. Then back again.

You cleared your throat and held the container out between you like it might protect you both from what you weren’t saying. A peace offering. A bribe. A white flag covered in blue frosting.

“I thought you might like this.” You said, trying your best to sound casual, “It’s… cake.”

He didn’t take it.

His expression shifted — cooled, hardened, like a door slamming shut behind his eyes. His voice dropped, quiet and clipped.

“You don’t have to pity me.”

The words landed like a slap.

You blinked, “What?”

“I’m not some sad project,” He said, jaw tight, “You don’t have to keep showing up like this. I didn’t ask for your help. I don’t need your charity.”

It hit you then — not just what he said, but what he meant.

The defensiveness wasn’t about you. Not really. It was about the way he saw himself. The walls he'd spent years building around the idea that maybe he didn't deserve care. That if someone reached for him, they must want something in return — or worse, they must be trying to fix him. To mold him into something less complicated. Less dark. Less him.

You didn’t look away.

Your voice dropped to something softer. Something honest.

“Mattheo… it’s just cake. There are no strings.”

He looked at you like he didn’t believe you. Like he was trying to see through the frosting to the catch hidden underneath. You held his gaze anyway.

“I got it from work.” You added, gentler now, “And I don’t like eating dessert alone.”

That gave him pause. A flicker of something — uncertainty, maybe — passed across his face.

Then, finally, he let out a quiet sigh, brushing past you to the door.

“…Alright.” He muttered, unlocking it, “Fine. Come in.”

You followed him inside, your heart thudding in your chest like you’d just sprinted through a battlefield and not… offered someone cake.

The apartment was exactly as you remembered. Same dim lighting. Same scuffed floors. Same silence that felt like it had weight. You stepped into the small kitchen, placed the container gently on the table like it was something fragile, and cracked the lid open with a soft pop.

Blue frosting beamed up at you — cheerful and absurd — despite the fact that the image was slightly smushed from the walk. The cartoon dog grinning from the top of the cake looked like it had just burst into song, paws raised in eternal celebration.

Mattheo squinted at it like it was a piece of contemporary art meant to make him think deeper.

“…The fuck is that?”

You grinned, “That would be a talking dingo.”

He lifted an eyebrow.

You gestured to the cake, “From this Australian cartoon called Bluey. The kids are obsessed.”

His expression didn’t change, “You got this from… kids?”

“I work at a kindergarten/” You said, already crossing to the drying rack and pulling out two mismatched forks like you lived there, “One of the kids had a birthday today. He got Bluey — obviously. This is the leftover slice of Bluey’s mom. Or aunt. Or whatever. She didn’t make the cut.”

Mattheo blinked at you like you’d just casually confessed to smuggling illegal potions across the border.

“You work with children?”

“Yup.”

“…Why?”

You snorted, handing him a fork, “Gee, thanks.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” He said, catching the fork with a nod of thanks, “I just— You could’ve done anything. Back at Hogwarts, you talked about becoming an Auror, didn’t you? Top of the class in Defense. You could’ve had your pick of the Ministry. What changed?”

Your smile faltered.

Your gaze lowered to the cake, the blue frosting suddenly too bright.

“A lot has changed, Mattheo.” You said quietly.

When you looked up again, your eyes met his — and something passed between you. Something that had the magic that was interwoven through every single fiber of his body begin to vibrate and reach for you.

It was lonely in muggle London. Finally, he had someone who understood. The war. The fallout. The ache in your bones that hadn’t quite gone away.

“You know that better than anyone.”

There was a moment where he looked at you differently. Like he was seeing you again for the first time. Not as the student he used to know. Not as his overly hospitable neighbour. But as someone scarred and soft in all the same places he was.

You didn’t touch him. But part of you wanted to. Wanted to reach across the space between you and tell him about yourself. Tell him everything.

Instead, you shrugged, trying to find your voice again.

“I’m not really qualified or anything.” You said, softer now, “But my mum used to teach there. She still has some connections. Put in a good word for me when I needed work. And apparently my talent for counter-curses means nothing next to my ability to recite Five Little Ducks from memory.”

He huffed out a laugh — quiet and unexpected — through his nose. It wasn’t much. But it was something.

You sat together at the small kitchen table, forks in hand, slowly dismantling the slice of cake like it might bite back. You felt a small pang of guilt as Bluey’s mom lost her frosted ears — may she rest in peace — but if there was one thing you’d learned about toddler birthday cakes, it was that they were criminally delicious.

Mattheo didn’t say much. Just watched you with careful eyes, taking small, cautious bites like he wasn’t used to sharing anything — not food, not silence, not company.

You didn’t fill the quiet. You let it settle.

It was nearly two in the morning when you heard it.

A dull thud, followed by the sharp crack of something hitting the floor — hard. Then silence. Then a low, ragged sound that didn’t sound like words at all.

You sat up in bed, heart already pounding.

Your apartment was quiet, cloaked in darkness and long, familiar shadows — but the noise hadn’t come from within your own space.

It had come from next door.

From Mattheo’s.

You hesitated, legs swinging over the edge of the bed. The floor was cold beneath your bare feet. You waited, listening, willing the silence to stay. But then it came again.

A heavy scrape. A crash. The sound of something shattering.

You didn’t think. You just grabbed your wand.

The hallway outside was dim, washed in the weak amber glow of the sconces that never quite worked right. His door was slightly ajar. Not wide — but not locked, either.

You raised your hand, knuckles grazing the wood.

“Mattheo?” You called softly.

No answer.

“Mattheo, it’s me—are you okay?”

Still nothing. Just the same jagged, uneven breathing. Fast. Erratic. Distant.

You glanced down at the doorknob.

“Alohomora.” You whispered, tapping the brass with the tip of your wand.

The latch clicked open.

You stepped inside quietly, careful not to make too much noise. The apartment was dark, save for the silver wash of streetlight spilling through the blinds. The glow cut harsh lines across the floor and furniture, shadow and light slicing the room in half.

And there — crouched beside the overturned coffee table — was Mattheo.

His back was to you. His shirt clung to him, damp with sweat. His shoulders trembled with barely-contained tension. A mug lay shattered nearby, and his wand was discarded, half-buried under a scattered pile of scrolls. His hands were tangled in his hair, gripping at his scalp like he was trying to hold something in — or hold something out.

He didn’t see you come in.

“Hey,” You said gently, not stepping closer, “It’s okay. It’s just me.”

No response.

His whole body was wound tight, like a live wire — still in the middle of something he hadn’t escaped yet. Like he’d fallen asleep on a battlefield and hadn’t managed to wake up.

You didn’t cross the room. Not yet.

“I’m sorry for intruding,” You added, softer, “I just… heard something. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

A long pause.

Then, slowly — like he was dragging himself back into his body inch by inch — Mattheo turned his head.

His eyes met yours.

At first, they were wild. Unfocused. Distant. Then came recognition — flickering and faint. And then, quickly after, the crash of shame.

He looked away.

“Shit,” He muttered, voice hoarse, “I’m fine. It’s fine. Sorry to wake you. You should go back.”

But you didn’t move.

You stepped forward — quietly, carefully — crouching just far enough away not to crowd him, but close enough to be within reach.

“Are you alright?” You asked, voice calm and low, “Were you asleep?”

He let out a bitter laugh — short and flat, “That wasn’t sleep.”

You waited.

His hands had fallen to his lap. You could see now that his knuckles were raw and red, scraped open from something — maybe the wall, maybe the floor, maybe just the way he fought his own mind.

You nodded toward the couch, “Do you want to sit down?”

He didn’t answer, but after a beat, he pushed himself to his feet. Stiff. Tired. Like his body had only just realized it could stop fighting.

You followed him.

He collapsed onto the cushions like his bones had turned to dust. You sat beside him, not touching, not speaking, not offering false comfort.

Just… there.

He dragged a hand down his face. Then again. Then let it fall, limp, into his lap.

“It’s not a big deal,” He muttered, “It happens. Has for years.”

You looked at him.

“I know,” You said quietly, “I get them too.”

He stilled.

His eyes flicked to you — surprised. Like he hadn’t expected that from you. Like he couldn’t quite picture it.

“Still doesn’t make it less shitty.” You added.

He let out a sound — half a breath, half a scoff. Not quite a laugh. But not nothing.

“I hate it,” He said, barely above a whisper, “I wake up and it’s like I’m still there. Like it never ended. The smoke, the screaming — I know it’s not real, but my body doesn’t. It reacts. It always reacts.”

He swallowed.

“It’s not even always the same dream. Sometimes it’s the castle. Sometimes it’s… worse. Places I don’t talk about. Places I’ve never told anyone about.”

His voice cracked at the end. You didn’t flinch.

You just curled your knees beneath you, watching your fingers.

“My first week here,” You said softly, “I didn’t sleep at all. I warded the apartment every night. Then I’d wake up at three in the morning and run to my parents’ house just to check their wards. I think I cast every protection charm in existence. I was so convinced… if I let my guard down, even for a second…”

You trailed off. The silence filled in the rest.

Mattheo stared at you. Not in judgment. Just… listening. Like he couldn’t believe someone else carried the same weight.

You — the girl from the Golden Quartet. The one who helped end it. Who came back. Who rebuilt.

But not unscathed.

He remembered what Bellatrix had done to you. What you’d endured. What you’d lost.

And he thought — maybe for the first time — that you’d suffered just as deeply. That you understood.

You glanced up at him again. He didn’t look away.

“Do you want me to set up a few wards?” You asked, “They won’t fix anything, but they help. And I can teach you how to maintain them. Though,” You added with a tired smile, “it’ll probably be harder for me to break in next time.”

That got the faintest twitch of his mouth.

Almost a smile. Almost.

Another long pause.

Then—

“…Just stay.”

The words were barely there. Soft. Uncertain.

But they were enough.

You nodded.

So you stayed.

The silence between you changed — not heavy anymore. Just quiet. Settling.

He leaned back against the cushions, body slowly unwinding, like his nervous system was finally catching up to the fact that he was safe. His eyes drifted halfway shut, breath finally starting to even out.

Eventually, his fingers brushed yours — faint, hesitant, barely even a touch.

You didn’t move.

And neither did he.

Mattheo had come down to check his mailbox like he always did on Saturday mornings—hood up, hair messy, hoodie zipped to his chin—when a voice stopped him mid-turn.

“Flat 2A, yeah?”

He looked up. There was a man squinting at the mailboxes, arms full of grocery bags, car keys dangling from his pinky. He looked vaguely familiar.

“…Yeah?” Mattheo said carefully.

The man nodded to the box beside his, “My daughter’s next door. Flat 2B.”

Mattheo straightened slightly, “Right. You must be Mr. (L/N).”

“You know her?”

“We went to school together,” Mattheo replied, keeping it vague in the safest way possible.

Mr. (L/N) gave him a long, assessing look—longer than was comfortable—then smiled, like he’d just figured something out.

“So you’re special. Like her.”

Mattheo froze, “…Sorry?”

“You know,” The man waved a hand loosely, “special. One of them. Don’t worry—I’ve known for years. Her mum cried when the letter came. I built her a wand stand once. Terrible thing. Lopsided.”

Mattheo blinked. Once. Twice.

Before he could plan an escape—

“Be a good lad,” Your father said cheerfully, already turning toward the exit, “and help me bring these upstairs. (Y/N)’s mum went overboard at the farmer’s market again. Wouldn’t be surprised if we had half of Surrey in the boot.”

“…What?”

“Come give us a hand, will you? These boxes aren’t gonna levitate themselves—ha! Kidding. Muggle joke. Don’t tell your lot I made it.”

Mattheo stood there, stunned, until your dad clapped him on the back like they were old mates, “You’ve got good arms. We’ll be done in no time.”

And then, without ceremony, your dad looped an arm through his and dragged him outside.

*

“So what do you do, son?” Your dad asked as they hauled bags back up the building stairs.

“Uh… I’m not really doing anything right now.”

“That’s what your twenties are for! Finding yourself. I worked two jobs at your age. One time, my mate Gary and I—ah, Gary, poor bastard, divorced now—anyway, we moved an entire washing machine up six flights with nothing but a strap and willpower.”

Mattheo, sweating slightly, nodded, “…Right.”

“Builds character.” Your dad said, with the authority of someone who’s definitely broken a toe doing that. Then, after a beat, “You know, life’s a lot like grocery shopping.”

Mattheo glanced down at the bag digging into his arm, “Is it.”

“You can make a list, plan every aisle, but there’s always something missing when you get home.”

“…Profound.”

“Exactly! You’re a good listener. Ever think about dating my daughter?”

Mattheo nearly dropped the watermelon.

“What?!”

“I’m just saying,” Your dad shrugged, utterly unbothered, “you’ve got kind eyes and steady hands. Plus you said you went to school together. Shared history’s a good foundation.”

You were halfway through folding laundry when the front door opened. You turned just in time to see your father stroll in, humming cheerfully—followed by Mattheo, who looked like he’d been inducted into a cult against his will.

You blinked, “What—? What is going on? Why is he here?”

“Hi.” Mattheo said, his voice flat with disbelief.

“He helped me carry the groceries,” Your dad said proudly, unloading bags onto the counter, “Nice boy. Good biceps.”

“…What?”

“Anyway,” Your dad continued, turning back to Mattheo, “You’re coming for dinner, obviously. I’ll ask her mum to make the lasagna. The lasagna. The one she makes when she likes someone.”

“That’s really not necessary.” Mattheo started, clearly panicked, but your dad was already on his phone. “She’ll be thrilled. You like cheese, don’t you?”

Mattheo looked at you helplessly. You just raised an eyebrow. “Well? Do you like cheese?”

“…I mean, yeah?”

“There you go.” Your dad clapped him on the back again, then started pushing jars toward him, “You should take some of these groceries, son. A growing boy needs nutrients.”

Your dad was saying, completely in earnest now as he sorted bags by category on your kitchen counter, “You eat enough protein? You look like you work out. What’s your egg intake?”

Mattheo opened his mouth, then shut it again. He glanced at you like please save me.

You looked up at the ceiling, eyes wide.

“Dad,” You said slowly, like approaching a landmine, “What is happening right now?”

“Nothing’s happening, sweetheart,” He said innocently, stacking apples with the precision of a man who’d definitely done this before, “Just making conversation. Mattheo here’s a lovely young man.”

“You’ve known him for twenty minutes.”

“And already I’ve seen enough. Polite, helpful, didn’t even grumble once when I handed him a forty-pound watermelon.”

Mattheo spoke up in a way that was far too timid for him, “I—kind of grumbled.”

“See?” Your dad grinned like he’d just won the lottery, “Humble, too. I want a son-in-law like that.”

“Dad!” You exclaimed, mortified.

Mattheo shifted awkwardly, cheeks flushed, feeling like he’d accidentally walked into a reality show.

“What? I’m not saying I want Mattheo to be my son-in-law, I’m saying I wouldn’t mind if I had a son-in-law like Mattheo. Two completely separate things, my dear.” Your dad said with mock innocence, flouncing around the room as he put away groceries, but kept two of everything right there on the counter instead of where they belonged.

“Now Mattheo, do you like red wine or white? I’ll make sure to have a bottle stocked for you when you come over.”

“Come over?” You echoed, cheeks heating up.

“Of course! He’s coming over for dinner tonight, are you not?”

Mattheo swallowed, clearly overwhelmed but trying to hide it behind a thin smile.

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to intrude,” Mattheo said quickly, forcing a polite smile, “I was planning to meet my friends tonight.” A lie. A very hopeful lie.

Your dad didn’t miss a beat. “Then bring your friends as well! Oh, we’ll have a jolly good time—all these blokes under one roof. I’ll ask (Y/N)’s brother to bring a pack of beers, something to liven the old boys up.” He exclaimed, practically floating around the kitchen like a whirlwind of enthusiasm.

“Dad!” You finally exclaimed, trying to snap him out of his party-planning trance.

He stopped and turned, eyes twinkling as he looked at Mattheo’s uncomfortable face.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, my dear boy,” He said, voice suddenly gentle, “Do you not drink? Very good habit, you know.”

Mattheo swallowed, unsure how to respond.

“That’s okay,” Your dad went on, waving it off like it was no big deal, “My wife would much prefer a boy with good habits for our (Y/N), anyway.”

You groaned and hid your face in your hands, feeling the heat rise to your cheeks, “Dad, please. Stop.”

Finally done messing about your kitchen, your dad began loading the pairs of items he’d left on the counter into one of the grocery boxes.

“There you go, son,” He said, handing the box to Mattheo with a warm, steady smile, “This should keep your fridge stocked for at least another week or two. If you don’t know what to do with any of it, just run down to my house. I’d be happy to whip up something for you to eat.”

Mattheo stared at the carton of food in his hands.

No one had ever offered him that before. Not like this. Not so openly, so simply, so… abundantly. His own father had been a distant shadow in his memories, a figure he’d learned to avoid rather than seek. There was no warmth, no easy kindness like this.

For a moment, something twisted quietly inside Mattheo — a mix of jealousy and something else, something heavier he didn’t quite want to name. You’d grown up with a dad who knew how to care, who showed it. He had thought once that having Muggle parents was the worst thing in the world, but now, holding that box, surrounded by your dad’s easy affection, he wasn’t so sure.

He looked up, meeting your dad’s hopeful gaze.

“Okay,” Mattheo said quietly, a small, almost shy smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, “I’ll come for dinner.”

Your dad’s grin widened, and you felt a little flutter in your chest as the moment settled between all of you—unexpected, but maybe exactly what was needed.

After what felt like hours of your dad chatting nonstop, finally, he was out the door, humming some old tune as he disappeared down the hallway. You shut the door behind him and let out a long breath, cheeks still flushed with embarrassment.

Turning to Mattheo, you ran a hand through your hair nervously. “I’m really sorry about him,” You said quickly, eyes darting away, “He can be... a lot. You don’t have to come for dinner, honestly. He was just being nice—he does that with pretty much everyone, like some sort of overly friendly hostage negotiator.”

Mattheo shifted his weight, his expression unreadable but somehow softer than usual. “I’m aware.” He said dryly, voice calm and measured, the faintest smirk playing at the corner of his mouth.

You bit your lip, “Still, I don’t want you to feel like you have to. I know it’s kind of sudden and probably... weird.”

He looked at you then, really looked, and you caught a flicker in his eyes — something quieter, warmer, even if his face didn’t fully show it. “I don’t mind,” He said simply, voice low, “It’s… nice to be invited.”

You blinked, surprised, “Really?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal, but his gaze lingered on you a moment longer than necessary, “It’s rare. People don’t do that for me.”

There was a pause, the kind that stretches with unspoken things, and you realized that beneath all that aloofness, he wanted something like this. Something normal. Something warm.

You smiled gently, “Well, then. Dinner it is. And maybe next time you can teach my dad a thing or two about being subtle.”

Mattheo’s smirk finally turned into a half-smile, “Maybe.”

You felt your heart loosen just a bit, the awkwardness fading into something quieter, something real.

The hallway was still warm from dinner. You walked beside Mattheo, both of you quiet in that way people get after a full meal and too many emotions — like the silence itself had thickened into something gentle.

He had leftovers tucked under one arm, the lasagna carefully packed in a Tupperware with foil pressed down like your mum had sworn it would keep the flavour in, darling. He hadn’t said much since your dad’s final clap on the back and his booming, “Any friend of hers is a friend of mine, son!”

At his door, Mattheo hesitated, keys caught between his fingers.

You glanced at him.

He looked down at the container in his arms like it had grown heavier somehow, then back at you.

“…Your mum’s nice.”

You huffed a laugh, “Don’t get attached. She’s married to my dad.”

That pulled something from him — not one of those breathy, polite almost-laughs he gave people when they said something mildly amusing, but something real. Low and rough, surprised out of him like it had caught him off guard.

He shook his head, still smiling faintly, “Too bad.”

“She’s way out of your league, Riddle.” You replied easily.

“Speak for yourself — she’s the one who was trying to get me out of my pants.”

You choked, “Because she said you looked like you’d tripped over a kerb!”

“These,” He said, tugging lightly at the rip near his knee, “are meant to look like this.”

“There’s no harm in admitting you’re a bit clumsy, Matty.”

He let out a quiet snort, but still didn’t unlock the door. There was something tentative in the way he stood — like stepping inside would be an end to something soft he hadn’t realised he’d needed. Like he was holding on to the aftertaste of lasagna and warmth and your parents' terrible stories, trying to memorise what it felt like to belong.

The whole night, he hadn't felt like an outsider — not even like a guest. He’d just been there, part of the chaos. He’d argued with your brother over Quidditch stats, held up bits of your dad’s entertainment system while he hammered in the nails, and endured your mum fussing with the tear in his jeans. You’d realised halfway through that you could’ve used your wand to float the whole thing into place — but with Mattheo’s biceps straining against his sleeves, you’d decided to keep that to yourself.

Even now, you didn’t say anything. Just waited.

Finally, after a long pause, he shifted the Tupperware under one arm and turned the key, nudging the door open — but still not stepping through.

Then, like he hadn’t been debating it the entire walk up the stairs, he asked, casual as anything, “You wanna come in?”

You blinked, “Now?”

He cleared his throat, suddenly too aware of how the question had landed. “For a cuppa.” He added quickly. His voice cracked a little under the forced lightness.

You raised a brow, “Weren’t you just whining all the way up the stairs that you were too full to breathe?”

“It’s tea,” He said, trying for deadpan and failing miserably, “There’s always room for tea.”

You smiled softly, stepping past him into the familiar dimness of his flat, “I’d like that.”

He held the door a little longer to let you through — the smallest gesture, but deliberate. Inside, the flat smelled like warm laundry and whatever incense he’d been burning earlier — something herbal and clean that softened the edges of the silence.

You settled into the sofa, hands curled around a steaming mug. He passed you the sugar silently, like he already knew how you liked it.

“We have dinners like that every other week,” You said, voice low, relaxed, “You should come next time.”

Predictably, he started to refuse, “Oh, no. I couldn’t. I don’t want to impose—”

You looked at him. Really looked.

His face had changed since the war. Thinner, maybe. Older in the eyes. But steadier, too. Calmer. There were fewer sharp edges — and maybe that was good. Maybe growing up had done what time always promises to do: carved the pain into shape.

Still, something tugged at your chest.

You both had grown up too fast. Lost too much, too young. Your rebellious teen years had disappeared the second you realised just how quickly your family could be taken from you. You’d watched people like Harry — and Mattheo — walk through fire alone, and you’d never forgotten it.

The war was brutal. There were nights when survival felt like a punishment, not a gift. But sometimes — like tonight — you caught a glimpse of who you’d become, and thought maybe it had made you into someone good.

You looked at Mattheo, still fiddling with the teabag in his mug like he didn’t quite know what to do with his hands, and wondered if he felt the same about himself.

He had been impulsive, emotional, too quick to lash out. And now? Now he was quieter. Softer around the edges. But part of you missed the fire in him — the cocky confidence, the recklessness. The way he used to speak like the whole world should listen.

You came out of the war a hero.

He came out as the son of the world’s greatest villain.

You had a family who loved you. Who accepted your world and stitched it into their own.

He had parents who only cared how he could serve theirs.

And despite everything — despite the fact that you were perhaps one of the only people alive who truly understood — you hadn’t lived equal lives. You had a family that loved you unconditionally. He had… expectations. Burdens.

“You wouldn’t be,” You said quietly, “My parents would really like it if you came again. And so would I.”

Mattheo’s stirring stopped.

For a moment, he didn’t say anything. Just let the silence stretch — until it snapped.

“You don’t need to keep doing this, you know,” He said, voice tight, “I don’t know what you’re scared of, but I’m not going to off myself or host secret Death Eater meetings or whatever it is you think I’m doing alone up here.”

You blinked, caught off guard, “Mattheo—”

“Come on,” He said, rolling his eyes. “You keep checking in. Keep inviting me places. You think I don’t notice?”

You stared at him. And then, to his horror, you started to laugh. Soft and exasperated.

“Oh Godric. I wonder why I keep visiting my super attractive neighbour who’s been through the same traumas I have, who my parents clearly like and who actually laughs at my jokes. Truly a mystery.”

He froze, like you’d hit him with a hex, “Wait — you’re not saying you keep coming around because… because you like me?”

You blinked, smiling slowly, “Why? Can’t I?”

“You can’t,” He said immediately. Adamantly. Like it was law. “You should be with someone like Potter. Or Granger. Or — Merlin, even Weasley.”

You raised an eyebrow, “Harry’s basically my brother. Hermione’s dating Ron.”

“There’s more than one Weasley.” He offered, grasping at straws.

"Mattheo frankly I cannot think of anything worse than ending up related to Ron, Hermione and Harry."

Mattheo shrugged with faux innocence, swirling the teabag in his mug like he hadn’t just tried to sell you off to a different wizarding family, “I’m just saying… you could do better.”

You rolled your eyes, “Right. And what exactly would ‘better’ look like?”

He opened his mouth. Closed it.

You leaned forward, eyes glinting, “Go on. Tell me.”

Mattheo hesitated — the cocky response clearly right there on the tip of his tongue — but something in your expression stopped him short. Maybe it was the way you weren’t teasing anymore. Not really. You were waiting. Listening.

And when he spoke, his voice was low. Stripped bare.

“Someone like you. Someone who didn’t spend most of their life calling people like you a Mudblood,” He muttered, eyes fixed on the steam curling from his mug, “Someone who doesn’t make people reach for their wands the second they walk into a room.”

Your smile faded.

He didn’t look up, “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I was. You know what I’ve done. I picked sides. I picked wrong.”

There was a long, quiet beat. The kind that carries too much weight.

Then you set your mug down gently on the table and said, “You were just a child, Mattheo.”

His eyes flicked up to yours, uncertain. Wary. Like he wanted to believe you, but didn’t dare.

“A child,” You repeated, firmer this time, “And your father was bloody Voldemort. Of course you were twisted up inside. Of course you were scared. But you’re not that kid anymore.”

“But you—” He started, but you cut him off.

“Don’t,” You said softly, “I’m not some symbol of bravery or some war hero people should look up to. I left the wizarding world precisely because of that. I didn’t want to be paraded around, painted in gold, turned into a symbol of light just because I happened to survive.”

He swallowed hard. His brows were drawn tight.

“There were so many people caught in that war,” You continued, voice trembling now, “People who didn’t get to pick sides. People like you, who had to follow the only path left open to them.”

Mattheo’s jaw flexed. He looked away again, that familiar wall sliding into place — too fast, too familiar.

“Doesn’t change what I did,” He said, “Doesn’t mean I don’t deserve everything I get now.”

“You don’t,” You snapped, not angry at him — but at the world that had taught him to think like this, “And neither do they. Harry wouldn’t have survived if Narcissa Malfoy hadn’t lied to Voldemort, and now she’s rotting in Azkaban. Theo deflected a curse meant for McGonagall and he’s being shunned like a criminal. And me—”

You paused, eyes suddenly wet, voice quieter.

“I would’ve died that night in the manor,” You whispered, “if you hadn’t lied to Bellatrix.”

He flinched.

You stepped toward him, hands reaching up, gently cupping his cheeks. Forcing him to meet your gaze.

“Don’t you dare pretend like it didn’t matter,” You said, “I know what you’ve done. I know who you are.”

You swallowed, “The second you had the chance to choose, Mattheo, you chose right.”

Then you added, barely above a whisper, “And that’s why I like you.”

“Because I saved your life?”

You shook your head.

“No,” You breathed, “Because you’re not who they said you were. Because you’re a good man. Whether you believe it or not.”

Mattheo looked at you like he didn’t know whether to shatter or kiss you.

You cleared your throat, tried to pull yourself together. Tried not to let your voice break completely, “So… are you coming to dinner next week?”

He didn’t answer right away. Just looked at you. Really looked. Like the pieces of his past were still rearranging themselves in his mind — and for the first time, they weren’t sharp enough to cut.

“I want you there,” You said, softer now, “They do too. But mostly… I do.”

That undid something in him.

Slowly, his shoulders relaxed. The tension in his jaw eased. His eyes dropped for a second, and then met yours again.

And when he nodded — small, certain — it felt like something cracked open between you. Not in a way that broke, but in a way that finally let the light in.

“I’ll come.” He said.

You smiled and reached for his shirt, smoothing out imaginary creases as your fingers lingered just a second longer than they needed to.

“Good.” You murmured.

He caught your hand gently in his, eyes searching yours.

And for the first time in a very long time, he didn’t feel like someone clawing his way out of the darkness.

He felt seen. He felt chosen.

And maybe — just maybe — he was starting to believe he deserved that too.

Mattheo did come for dinner.

And then he came again. And again after that.

It wasn’t like you suddenly fell into each other’s arms or kissed under the kitchen light while your mum offered dessert. But something shifted — subtle, steady. Like a hinge finally oiled. Like the space between you both had always been there, and now you were finally choosing to fill it.

There were still jokes, still the sarcasm and dry glances and moments where he pretended not to be listening even though he definitely was. But the edges were softer. The glances lingered longer. The silences stopped feeling like things to be filled, and more like things to be shared.

You saw it in the way he sat closer to you now. The way his shoulder would brush yours and stay there. The way his laugh sounded warmer in your presence. The way he always saved you the last spoonful of something without having to be asked.

You hadn’t defined anything. But you were definitely getting closer.

Which is how, a few weeks later, you found yourself sprinting into his flat like you owned the place — because, well, you sort of had started to.

“Matty!” You called out breathlessly, not even glancing at the figure lounging on the sofa, “I need to borrow your leather jacket—where is it? Don’t say it’s in the laundry, I swear to Merlin—”

You didn’t wait for a response.

You kicked off your shoes, breezed past the living room, and charged straight for his bedroom, shouting, “Thanks, by the way! You’re the best!”

Already halfway through the hallway, you threw a hand up in vague acknowledgment and barrelled through the door.

Stopped dead in your tracks.

There he was.

Mattheo.

Fresh from the shower. Shirtless. Damp curls sticking to his forehead. A towel slung low on his hips. Drops of water still trailing down his chest, slow and traitorous.

You made a noise that might’ve been a word. Or a gasp. Or a whimper.

He blinked, wide-eyed, clearly not expecting company, holding a shirt in one hand like he’d frozen mid-movement.

“…Hi.” He said, entirely too casual for someone who was 90% naked.

You let out a squeak — an actual squeak — slapped a hand over your eyes, and spun around so fast you almost collided with the doorframe.

“Oh my Godric, I’m so sorry—I thought you were on the couch, you were on the couch two seconds ago, I swear, I just— I didn’t see anything—well, okay, I did, but I didn’t mean to—”

You opened the door.

Slammed it shut again.

Then leaned against it, face flaming, pulse racing.

And from the living room came a voice that was not Mattheo’s:

“Hi.”

You blinked. Turned slowly.

And there, entirely not naked, spoon in mouth and legs still kicked up on the sofa, was Theodore Nott — looking very amused.

He raised the spoon lazily, “Hey. You alright there?”

You blinked at him, brain rebooting, “Nott?”

“In the flesh,” He said, raising a spoon in salute, “Should I be offended you ran past me like I was invisible?”

“I—” You blinked, face aflame, “I thought you were Mattheo.”

“I gathered.” He went back to his cereal.

“I just needed to borrow his jacket!” You said quickly, heat still burning in your cheeks, “Maybe take outfit photos in his mirror.”

Theo raised an eyebrow, “You don’t have your own mirror?”

“My mirror has an antique bronze frame,” You replied flatly, “It doesn’t match the vibe.”

“Right,” He said, utterly unconvinced, returning to his cereal, “Didn’t realize you two were that close.”

You stilled.

You swallowed. How were you supposed to respond to that? Yes, you were close to Mattheo. Close enough to know just how he likes his tea. Close enough to keep biscuits in his cupboard that were only for you. But you'd never said anything out loud. There were no labels. No claims.

It would be kind of humiliating to say something only for Mattheo to come strolling out and be like, “Nah, she just lingers here like a stray cat I accidentally fed once.”

Before you could decide what to say, the bedroom door opened.

Mattheo stepped out, now mercifully dressed in faded black jeans and a plain white T-shirt — though you weren’t sure if that made things better or worse. He had your favourite leather jacket of his slung casually over one arm, and his damp curls clung to his forehead in soft, lazy waves. You were suddenly very grateful he'd decided to wear the jacket… if only so Theo wouldn’t catch you blatantly ogling his best mate’s biceps.

Mattheo just grinned and sauntered over, totally unbothered, and shook the jacket out with a single practiced flick before holding it open for you.

You slid your arms into the sleeves as he held it up, the worn leather warm and familiar, smelling faintly like his cologne — and maybe a little like that soap you'd seen in his shower that was inexplicably labelled dragon ash and sandalwood.

He adjusted the collar gently, his fingers brushing against the back of your neck for a beat longer than necessary, “Looks better on you anyway.”

You glanced up at him, and his eyes met yours — something unspoken passing between you, soft and real. Then, all at once, he stepped back, cleared his throat, and looked toward Theo.

Theo’s smile widened like a cat who’d found something much more interesting than his cereal. “So, just to clarify… what is this, then?” he asked, gesturing between the two of you, “Because if this isn’t dating, it’s the most suspiciously couple-y non-dating situation I’ve ever seen.”

Mattheo didn’t even hesitate, “It’s none of your business.”

“Ohhh,” Theo said, leaning back, “Which means yes.”

You flushed. Mattheo sighed like this was a discussion he’d already prepared for in his head and hated every second of.

Then, with the most casual tone imaginable, he said to you, “I’m heading out with the guys later. Might be home late.”

You nodded, adjusting the sleeves of the jacket, "Alright. Have fun. Stay safe."

He looked you over, your outfit clearly indicating that you were going out with your friends, "You too. Send me a Patronus when you get home."

You hummed, giving him a small smile, "I know the drill."

Theo raised a brow, “Right, definitely not dating.”

Mattheo gave him a lazy middle finger but didn't deny it and turned back to you, his tone softening just a touch, “You staying for a bit?”

“I just needed the jacket,” You said, trying not to smile, "My Uber's gonna be here any second."

"Right," He responded, raking his eyes over your figure, choosing to tuck your hair behind your ear, "Then I guess I'll see you later."

"I guess you will." You chuckled, before turning to his friend who was watching you both like it was his favourite show. Not that he would even know what a television was, "It was nice seeing you again, Theo. Let's have a drink one day and catch up."

He nodded, giving you a smirk that didn't drop until you had exited and he slid his eyes back to Mattheo, “So when’s the wedding?”

The pub was alive with the low hum of laughter, clinking glasses, and the occasional shout from the dartboard. Mattheo sat at the far end of the worn wooden table, surrounded by Draco, Theo, Enzo, and Blaise. Pints and half-empty bottles were scattered across the table like trophies from battles fought and survived.

“Mate,” Draco nudged him with an elbow, voice tinged with mock disbelief, “Why aren’t you drinking us under the table tonight? You usually drown whatever’s bothering you.”

Mattheo glanced at his nearly untouched glass of cider, fingers tapping restlessly on the rim. “Not in the mood.” He muttered, eyes flickering toward the window, where the night had deepened and the streetlights cast pools of gold on the pavement.

“Not like you,” Blaise teased, “Usually, you’d be three sheets to the wind by now.”

Enzo smirked, “Yeah, what gives? You okay, Riddle?”

Mattheo’s gaze flicked toward the door, then the window, and back to the table, his fingers drumming a quiet rhythm on the wood. He looked… distracted.

Theo, sitting next to Mattheo with a mischievous grin, leaned in, “Oh, it’s because our dear friend here is waiting on a Patronus.”

The others blinked. “Patronus?” Enzo repeated.

Theo nodded, barely able to keep a straight face, “Yes from his cute little neighbour. She’s supposed to send it when she gets home safe after a night out. Mattheo’s been scanning the streets like a bloodhound all evening.”

Theo leaned back with a sly grin, swirling the amber liquid in his glass, “And the neighbour in question? Well, you’re all gonna love this—it's (L/N).”

Blaise nearly choked on his drink, “You’re joking.”

"In a classic tale of Romeo and Juliet, our dear Matty boy has found himself in love with the girl who literally killed his father."

"I'm not in love." Mattheo snapped but a car drove past, shining a light that looked too similar to a patronus and had his neck almost snapping in two in his effort to get a better look.

Enzo burst into laughter, "Oh, yeah, you're not in love, you absolute boob."

The knocking started faintly — not loud, but urgent. Sharp, clipped taps that cut through your dreams like a blade. You jolted upright, breath caught in your throat, blinking through the dark, tangled in your sheets like you’d been mid-battle instead of mid-dream.

It wasn’t that loud — but something in the rhythm of it pulled you from sleep like a hook behind the ribs.

You squinted at the clock. 03:17.

Groaning softly, you threw off the covers, feet hitting cold floorboards with a quiet thud. You reached for your wand automatically, the weight of it familiar in your palm, even as sleep still clung to you like cobwebs. The knocking came again — quicker now, more urgent.

You padded toward the front door, pulse starting to rise.

When you opened it — just a crack, just enough to see — the cold slammed into you. But it was nothing compared to what you saw standing there.

Theo Nott.

He looked like he’d run across London.

Hair wind-tossed. Chest heaving. Coat half-unbuttoned. His skin was pale, almost grey in the porchlight, and there was something feral in his eyes — panic, fury, fear, all twisted up into one tight, burning thread.

You stared, “Theo?”

His breath puffed in a sharp cloud, “It’s Mattheo.”

Your stomach dropped.

The door was open in seconds, and you grabbed his arm and yanked him inside before the words had even fully registered. It slammed shut behind him, the sound sharp as a gunshot.

“What happened?” You demanded, voice cracking now, “Is he hurt? Where is he?”

Theo didn’t answer immediately. He was pacing your living room like a caged thing, one hand knotted in his hair, the other clenched into a fist at his side.

“They arrested him.”

The air in the room turned cold.

Your voice came out as barely a whisper, “What?”

“Tonight. At the pub. We were all there — Blaise, Draco, Enzo. Just drinking. Laughing. Nothing serious. And then out of nowhere, the Aurors show up. Said there’d been reports. Wouldn’t say of what. Wouldn’t explain. They just—” His jaw tightened, “They just dragged him out.”

You stared, heart pounding, “For what?”

“Suspicion. Loitering. Someone said he ‘fit the description’ of a man acting odd in Knockturn Alley earlier that day — even though we’d been nowhere near there. One of the Aurors looked him dead in the face and said, ‘You know who you are.’ Like that was all the proof they needed.”

You sat down hard on the arm of your couch, breath punched from your lungs.

“He’s done nothing,” You said, “He hasn’t done anything—”

“They don’t care,” Theo snapped, suddenly furious again, “They see the name. They see the face. The bloody Mark. They don’t ask questions. They just act like he’s a ticking time bomb and they’re doing everyone a favour by locking him up before he explodes.”

You buried your face in your hands for a second, trying to breathe — trying to think, “Where is he now?”

“Ministry holding,” Theo said darkly, “They said they’ll process him in the morning. Until then, he’s ‘detained for questioning.’ Which we both know means they’ll keep him in a concrete cell all night and try to wear him down before anyone gets to him.”

You stood up suddenly, fury vibrating through your body.

Theo paused mid-pace to look at you.

“I know we’re not close,” He said, awkward again, “but I know you’re close to him. Closer than he lets on. And you—” He hesitated, “You’re friends with Potter. You’ve got… pull. People listen to you. I didn’t know who else to go to.”

But you were already pulling a jumper over your head, wand clenched in a white-knuckled grip. You barely heard him over the roar of your own blood in your ears.

“I’ll handle it,” You said, your voice low and shaking with rage, “But I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything.”

“Go to him. Now. Stay with him. Don’t let them bully him. Don’t let him say anything to anyone without a lawyer present. No comment. No statements. Not even what his bloody name is. Got it?”

Theo nodded, grim, “Got it.”

You followed him, stepping into your boots, wand ready. You didn’t feel sleepy anymore. You didn’t feel anything but hot, burning, righteous fury.

Because Mattheo had spent years trying to claw his way out of the shadow of his past. Years trying to prove that he wasn’t like him. That he wasn’t like them.

And now they’d dragged him back in — without a charge, without a reason, without a second thought.

This was why you left the wizarding world. Why you’d turned your back on the Ministry and its post-war morality circus. You’d fought in the war, bled in it, lost friends in it — and still they hadn’t learned.

Still they saw people like Mattheo Riddle as enemies, not survivors. Not victims of the same fear and violence that had nearly destroyed them all.

At the end of the day, the truth didn’t matter. Not as long as they were able to cram you painfully into whatever predisposed ideas they had.

The two of you raised your wands.

And in two cracks of displaced air, you were gone — vanishing into the night.

Both headed to two separate locations.

You were about to officially return to the wizarding world. And rain hell upon them. You were going to make them listen. You were going to make them pay.

The Ministry’s grand chamber felt colder than usual — or maybe it was just the weight of what was about to happen. Mattheo stood quietly beside you, hands clenched at his sides, eyes sharp but guarded. Harry, Ron, and Hermione flanked you, each radiating the same burning frustration.

You moved through the Ministry of Magic’s atrium like a hurricane. Paper memos paused mid-flight. Aurors stepped aside. One man even dropped his coffee.

Security tried to stop you at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement’s doors.

They did not succeed.

“You can’t just—”

“I can,” You snapped, wand already glowing, “And I will.”

You shoved open the office doors of Minister Fudge so hard they banged against the walls. His aides leapt to their feet, startled. But you didn’t stop. You didn’t blink. Your eyes were locked on the man behind the desk — Cornelius Fudge, still wearing that smug little bowler hat, like he hadn’t spent the last decade proving he cared more about saving face than saving lives.

Fudge barely looked up, “Ah, the prodigal warriors return.”

You didn’t flinch. “Where is he?” You demanded, voice low but fierce, “Where is Mattheo Riddle?”

Fudge blinked, slightly surprised by your fury. Of course he wasn’t aware of just how close you both were — you could only assume he believed Mattheo wouldn’t be missed, or that those who did care about him wouldn’t have the power to do anything about it.

“He’s in custody. Being held for questioning. Suspicion of—”

Harry cut in, voice thick with disgust, “Suspicion of what, exactly? Because I saw the arrest report — and there’s absolutely nothing of value there.”

Hermione stepped forward, eyes blazing, “You hold a man without charge because of his name and history? That’s not justice — it’s persecution.”

Fudge arched a brow, calm, as you began to tremble with rage, “He’s being held for questioning. Surely even you understand the need for caution, considering his—”

“He defected,” Ron snapped, “He fought with us. He was on our side at the end of the war.”

“And how exactly would you know that?” Fudge folded his hands neatly, "You refused to give your account to the ministry after the war. Refused to cooperate with us."

You stared at him, disbelief rising like bile, “I fought in the war. I didn’t sit like a right old fart in an office and send children to do my job for me.”

That struck. His expression flickered. But he recovered quickly.

“You have no proof,” He said, “No statements. No witnesses. Nothing documented. Nothing official. Just your word, I suppose?”

Your jaw clenched.

And then, the heavy oak doors creaked open again behind you.

The final recipient of your frantic Patronus had arrived.

“I would hardly call my word ‘unofficial’.” Came a cool, clipped voice.

Every head turned.

Headmistress Minerva McGonagall stepped into the room like she owned it. Her tartan robes swirled around her ankles, her bun was tight, and her wand was already out — not drawn, just held. Like a promise.

“Headmistress.” Fudge said tightly.

“I am here,” She said, “because you are about to repeat the mistakes of your past. And I, for one, will not stand by and let it happen again.”

She turned to you with a brief, firm nod. Then addressed the room.

“Mattheo Riddle was present at the Battle of Hogwarts. He cast no Unforgivables. He struck down more Death Eaters than many fully trained Aurors. He aided in the evacuation of the Astronomy Tower. I can attest to this. I witnessed it myself.”

Fudge scoffed, “If you want to make a case, you need to conduct a hearing. Present evidence. Until then, Riddle remains in custody. This isn’t the proper procedure.”

“You’re right,” Hermione snapped, “Which is why you’ll release Mattheo now and arrange a hearing immediately — not weeks from now, not months. Until then, he walks free.”

You stepped forward, voice like steel, “I have a reporter from every major wizarding outlet standing outside this building. Do you know how long they’ve waited to see me after I disappeared for years? How eager they are for their long-awaited interview with all four of us?”

Fudge paled slightly.

“I can see the headlines now,” You said, voice dripping with venom, “Fudge Fudged Up. Yet again.”

Harry’s eyes were burning, “You think they’ll defend you after seeing how you handled Sirius Black? You locked him up on false charges. How many more lives are you willing to ruin?”

“I will make sure you never make another decision without the press crawling down your throat and breathing down your neck — second-guessing everything you say. Because if you think I won’t drag your entire office into the dirt for this, then you haven’t been paying attention.”

For a moment, the room was silent. Thick with tension. Even Harry looked vaguely stunned.

Fudge’s face had gone bone white, his knuckles gripping the edge of the desk.

“Very well,” He said finally, “Release him. No charges. Effective immediately.”

Headmistress McGonagall’s voice cut through the silence like a knife.

“Thank you, Minister.” She said, her tone measured but unmistakably pointed.

You didn’t hold back.

Without missing a beat, you shot over your shoulder, loud enough for Fudge to hear clearly, “I’m not thanking you for shit. Go fuck yourself.”

“A displeasure as always, Cornelius,” Ron added as he turned to leave, “Make sure to get off that fat arse every once in a while and do some actual work. Can’t let the children have all the fun.”

You didn’t look back.

None of you did.

But the echo of your words — and your fury — lingered in the halls long after you’d gone.

The iron doors of the holding chamber creaked open with a groan, and Mattheo stepped into the atrium — free at last.

The Ministry’s harsh lighting did nothing to dull the exhaustion written across his face or the tension that lingered in his shoulders. His shirt was rumpled, his hair a mess from running his hands through it one too many times. Flanked by Blaise, Theo, Draco, and Enzo — all equally sleep-deprived and stone-faced — he looked like a man still caught somewhere between disbelief and survival.

But the second he saw you sprinting across the floor toward him, something in his expression cracked wide open. The weight dropped from his shoulders.

He didn’t even get a breath in before you launched forward.

“Mattheo!”

His head snapped up just in time to catch you as you practically threw yourself into his arms. His hands rose on instinct, gripping your waist, steadying you like you were the only thing anchoring him to the ground.

You pulled back just enough to grab his face, scanning every inch like you had to see for yourself that he was okay, “Are you alright? Did they hurt you? Did they—?”

“I’m okay,” He murmured, voice low and raw, eyes locked on yours, “You came for me.”

“Of course I did.” You whispered, like it was the simplest truth in the world.

Behind you, Harry, Hermione, and Ron caught up at a far more leisurely pace. They stopped a few paces back, watching you with fond, amused expressions.

“She’s gone." Ron muttered, shaking his head fondly.

“Precisely,” Hermione said, lips twitching, “I haven’t seen her this taken with someone since your brother Bill visited in second year.”

Ron recoiled, “Why would you remind me of that?”

Hermione laughed.

Harry just smiled, arms crossed, “Good for her.”

Across the way, Blaise, Enzo, and Draco were watching the reunion unfold with similarly raised eyebrows and smirking mouths.

“Is it just me,” Enzo said, “or does that look a little more intense than casual neighbours?”

Draco arched a brow, “Considering she just threw herself into his arms? I’d say yeah.”

Theo didn’t even bother hiding his grin, “Told you.”

As pleasantries began to pass between the groups — polite nods, cautious glances, a few lingering tensions quickly diffused by Ron and Blaise’s sarcastic commentary — you and Mattheo found yourselves standing with Headmistress McGonagall, who approached with her usual purposeful stride.

She looked at Mattheo first, and while her expression was sharp as ever, her eyes were kind. “Mr. Riddle,” She said crisply, “What happened to you was shameful. Unacceptable. And not the kind of justice we fought for.”

Mattheo shifted slightly, unsure how to respond.

But McGonagall continued, voice dry, “And I must say… when your Patronus came hurtling into my chambers at three o’clock this morning, I was more than a little surprised. I haven’t seen her beg for anything since third year, when Peeves nicked her entire potions essay.”

You flushed, brushing a hand over your face, “It wasn’t begging.”

Mattheo turned to you, gaze soft and unreadable — something between gratitude, guilt, and something else deeper. Warmer.

“I was worried about him.” You admitted timidly.

McGonagall’s brow rose, “So it would seem.”

You let out a small laugh, breath finally loosening in your chest. Mattheo’s ears turned pink, and you didn’t miss the way he relaxed the longer you stood close.

The headmistress tilted her head slightly, “Truthfully, I hadn’t expected to hear from you again. Especially after how soundly you ignored my last offer.”

Mattheo blinked, “Offer?”

“She was offered the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts professor,” McGonagall said, turning to him, “At the time, I thought she’d be a good fit. Now I’m convinced she’s the best one.”

You hesitated, just like you always did.

But Mattheo didn’t give you the chance to fall silent again.

“You should take it,” He said, firm and certain, “Your grades were the best in our year. You literally teach now — and you’re brilliant at it. You’d make a great professor, (Y/N). Hogwarts would be lucky to have you.”

You blinked at him, startled, “You think?”

He nodded, voice softening, “I know.”

McGonagall watched the exchange with something suspiciously close to amusement, “Wise words, Mr. Riddle. You’d do well to listen to your boyfriend, Ms. (L/N).”

You both flushed scarlet.

But you couldn’t even bring yourself to be embarrassed.

Because for the first time in a long, long while — standing there, surrounded by the people who knew your heart and the boy who held it — everything felt right.

And maybe, just maybe, it was time to come home.

“Then I suppose I’ll have to accept.” You said at last, exhaling a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding.

Mattheo leaned toward you — and before you could turn away, his hand slid into yours. Not in a dramatic way. Not like he was making a scene. Just… quiet and sure. His thumb brushed lightly across your knuckles, grounding you.

You looked over at him — and the smile he gave you in return made something in your chest flip.

He didn’t say a word.

He didn’t have to.

You turned back to McGonagall, looking at your future boss with a smirk, “Drinks? To celebrate?”

McGonagall gave a long-suffering sigh — but her eyes sparkled, “I suppose one will do, for good will.”

Ron chimed in, already slinging an arm around Theo’s shoulders, “I say we make it a proper celebration. We’ve earned it.”

Hermione arched a brow, “Only you would be up for getting hammered at ten in the morning.”

Draco shared a look with Harry — who gave a subtle shrug, like, he’s got a point — and Blaise was already pulling out his wand to start listing nearby pubs.

You laughed — light and easy now — like the worst of it had passed, like something had finally cracked open in the best possible way.

Mattheo squeezed your hand again, just once.

And this time, you squeezed back.

The apartment building was quiet when you both got back.

The night had blurred into something golden — laughter echoing down cobblestone streets, half-empty pint glasses clinking on wooden tables, Theo and Harry nearly arm-wrestling over who paid the tab (they both lost), and McGonagall giving one tight-lipped smile before declaring she’d “had quite enough of rowdy children for one night” and Disapparating with a dramatic crack.

You were still smiling when you reached Mattheo's door, still glowing from the rush of everything.

Mattheo put his key into the lock—and then paused.

You turned to him, the adrenaline finally ebbing now that it was just the two of you, your pulse still not entirely steady — not after the last twenty-four hours, not after everything that had just happened.

You studied him in the dim light of the hallway. The bruised shadows under his eyes. The tight line of his jaw. The way he was looking at you — like he wanted to say something but couldn’t quite figure out how.

There had been something building there, thick in the air between you. Something humid and suffocating since the moment you entered the bar. A part of you had wanted to leave, the lack of sleep beginning to weigh down on your limbs, but then you saw Lorenzo and Hermione clink their glasses in quiet solidarity — and you stayed. You leaned against Mattheo, your head on his shoulder, lulled by the quiet of the nearly empty pub, the alcohol making you soft and sleepy.

Mattheo turned to you, “Do you want to come in?”

You chuckled, “For a cuppa?”

He gave you a half smile, “Not this time.”

You let him lead you inside. Let him shut the door behind you and crowd you gently against it, looking at you with half-lidded eyes and a reverence that stole the breath from your lungs.

God, you wanted to kiss him. Wanted to mold your mouth to his, press your body against his, and lose yourself in the gravity of him.

“Thank you,” He said finally, voice low, nose a hair away from yours, “For today. For yesterday. For everything.”

You raised your eyes to his, still pressed between him and the door, trying to swallow the want pooling at the back of your throat like syrup, “It’s what you do for people you care about.”

He looked at you like you’d just said something sacred.

And then, softly — like the words hurt on the way out, “Do you?”

Your throat tightened.

“Yeah,” You whispered, “I do.”

Mattheo didn’t move. Didn’t speak. He just looked at you, long and quiet — like he was memorizing the moment. Like he was waiting for something to shift.

You reached up and pressed your hand to his chest, fingers spread over the steady rhythm of his heart.

“Do you?”

His hand came up slowly, curling around yours, “I’ve been trying not to.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t think I was allowed to have something good.” He dipped his head, eyes flicking to your lips, “But then you showed up. And now I don’t want anything else. I’ll do whatever I have to do to deserve you.”

You cupped his cheeks, brushing your thumbs gently over his cheekbones. “Come here.” You whispered.

And then you kissed him.

No fanfare. No fireworks. Just you and him — pressed together under the soft glow of the hallway light. Your hands slid from his face to his shoulders, wrapping around his neck as you tilted your head, standing on your toes and pressing your body flush to his.

Mattheo kissed you back with quiet desperation, brows furrowed like he was feeling too much at once, like kissing you was the only thing keeping him from breaking apart. His hands cupped your face like he didn’t trust the world not to take you from him.

And you kissed him like you were trying to make up for every moment he thought he was unloved.

When you finally pulled away, breathless and tangled in each other, he rested his forehead against yours.

For a moment, neither of you spoke.

Then, softly:

"My dad is going to be thrilled."

Mattheo laughed against your mouth, "I can't say he's going to be too thrilled about what I'm about to do to his only daughter."

You shook your head, laughing — but you didn’t stop him. Not when he kissed you again, not when his hands found your waist, not when on this night, he finally, finally, became yours.

Bonus:

It hadn’t been that long since you walked these halls as a student. The scent of old stone and parchment still felt like home, and the echo of your laughter in the stairwells was barely faded.

Which is why it felt a little surreal, standing at the front of the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom — your classroom now — watching twenty tired students blink at you, half-asleep, post-midterms.

You remembered this feeling too well. The post-exam lull. The I’d-rather-be-anywhere-but-in-class energy that leaked into the air like a sleeping draught.

So you did what any responsible professor would do.

Time for a little... intervention.

"Alright," You said, clapping your hands once, “Seeing as the lot of you look one Muffliato away from a nap, I brought a guest to help with today’s demonstration.”

The classroom door creaked open at just the right moment.

Boots echoed on stone. A shadow fell across the threshold.

And then in walked Mattheo Riddle — Auror robes fitted and dark, wand holstered, smug expression firmly in place.

The class lit up like you’d cast Lumos Maxima.

Half the class gasped.

The girls — no, scratch that, several students of all genders — squealed.

You actually had to bite back a laugh.

It was like déjà vu. For a moment, you were thirteen again, sitting in this very classroom, watching your friends clutch their chests over Gilderoy Lockhart like he was the second coming of Merlin.

Except now Lockhart was replaced by your fiancé. And your fiancé actually could duel.

You ignored the whispers, fighting a smile as Mattheo strolled in like he owned the castle. You could tell he was enjoying every second of the attention.

"Morning, class," Mattheo said with a smirk, scanning the room like he already knew the effect he had. His eyes finally landed on you, "Hope you're ready to learn something useful for once."

You rolled your eyes, "Don’t get cocky, Riddle.”

The students were wide-eyed now, completely awake, some whispering furiously. You let the tension build, then smiled sweetly.

You turned back to the class. “Since most of you seem to have forgotten how to hold a wand upright this week, Auror Riddle and I will be demonstrating live defensive magic.” You paused, “Via duel.”

The room exploded.

“You’re gonna duel him?!”

“IS THIS EVEN LEGAL?”

“Mister Riddle, PLEASE go easy on her—”

“She’s gonna mop the floor with him, are you kidding?!”

Mattheo tilted his head toward you, amused, "Your students seem confident in your skills. I’d hate to disappoint them when I win."

You scoffed, narrowing your eyes at him, "I hope you can still keep your job once I humiliate you, darling."

“Oh, it’s like that?” He asked, stepping onto the platform. His wand slid into his hand like it belonged there, “Want to make it interesting, sweetheart?”

"I'm listening."

His grin was wicked, “If I win, we move the wedding up. This winter.”

You blinked, caught off guard for half a second.

A chorus of gasps filled the room.

You raised a brow, “That’s all? I was expecting something scandalous.”

“Scandalous comes after,” He said, low enough only you could hear. Then louder: “Well, Professor, do we have a deal?”

You tipped your head, “Deal.”

The class whooped as you took your stance. Wands raised. Eyes locked.

It started playful — spells exchanged like inside jokes, your shields strong, your counters cheeky. You danced around each other, laughing, bickering like you always did.

“Getting slow in your old age.” You taunted.

“Still fast enough to catch you, sweetheart.” He replied, flicking your spell back with a grin.

You both fell into rhythm effortlessly, spells flying and deflecting with heat and precision. It was like dancing — a dance only the two of you knew the steps to. You hit him with a Flipendo that nearly knocked him on his ass; he responded with a Petrificus Partialis that froze your wand arm mid-jinx.

You countered just in time to send his disarming spell into the ceiling, and he laughed again, breathless, “Merlin, I forgot how annoying you are when you’re winning.”

"You're saying that as if I'm not always winning." You said, already flicking your wand again.

The class was on the edge of their seats. Screaming. Chanting. Cheering for both of you like it was the final match of the Triwizard Tournament.

But then — a flash of motion. A student near the edge tripped on their bag, almost falling off the bench. You turned instantly, wand snapping to cast a cushion charm.

And that was when Mattheo’s spell struck.

Not hard — a harmless stunner meant for flair — but it knocked you slightly off-balance.

The platform dimmed. The match was technically over.

Mattheo, smug as anything, raised his hands as he descended from the platform, walking toward you. “Victory,” He called, lowering his wand with a bow so smug you nearly hexed him right there, “Riddle for the win.”

You glared at him, but still let him wrap his arms around your waist as he lifted you down from the platform — an action that did not go unnoticed by your students, who began to squeal.

“I was distracted. I had you cornered until the end.”

“Still counts,” He said, grinning as he stepped closer, “Should’ve kept your eyes on the target, love.”

You narrowed your eyes, then tilted your head in thought. Loud enough for the class to hear, you said:

“Say I won, and I’ll marry you this weekend.”

The entire class collectively gasped.

“PROFESSOR—”

“WAIT THAT’S NOT FAIR—”

“THAT’S CHEATING!!”

“YOU CAN’T BRIBE HIM INTO LOSING—”

Mattheo laughed so hard he had to put a hand on the desk to steady himself, “You heard them, love. It’s not fair.”

You gave a little shrug, completely unbothered, “Life’s not fair.”

He stepped closer, wand twirling between his fingers, “So what you’re saying is... you’re too proud to admit you lost."

You smiled sweetly, “No. I’m saying you’re going to say I won. And I’ll be in white by Saturday.”

The class exploded.

“OH MY GOD THEY’RE ACTUALLY DOING IT—”

“WE’RE GOING TO A WEDDING???”

“I’M CRYING—”

"I’ll be Mrs. Riddle this time next week," You sang, "Going once, going twice—"

“The greatest duelist of all time,” Mattheo declared, loud enough for everyone to hear, “will be my wife by this time next week.”

The class lost it.

Cheers, whistles, someone even threw a quill in the air like confetti. You rolled your eyes, cheeks warm, and Mattheo just smirked, slipping his hand into yours as you both walked out past the chaos.

“Can’t wait to marry me, huh?” You teased, straightening out his robes, choosing not to kiss him — not with your audience so keenly watching.

He leaned in close, brushing his lips near your ear, “You kidding? I've been ready since the day you introduced me to that shitty Australian dingo."

You laughed softly.

Somewhere behind you, a student whispered, "Is he talking about Bluey?

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You cleared your throat, hating the way the tips of your ears burned under his gaze. “I need your help,” you said again.

Azriel’s smile faded, his expression sobering. “What’s wrong?”

“I have to go to Windhaven.”

Azriel went preternaturally still.

The words made your stomach twist, sharp claws scraping at the inside of your chest. Just thinking of going back there made your heart race and skin prickle. You had only been back a handful of times, only on occasions where it was absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, this was one of those times.

You could not go back alone.

No matter how necessary the trip, you would not step foot inside that camp without someone else with you.

Without Azriel.

“Why.” His voice was cold with little inflection, the question not really a question at all.

You rubbed at your upper arm, shifting under his gaze. “Do you remember my friend, Freya?”

Azriel furrowed his brows, a clear challenge in his gaze. “Your friend.”

You rolled your eyes. “Fine, a girl a few years above me that I ate lunch with.” It was too pitiful to argue that she was your friend—at least, that you considered her one. Even if she barely spoke to you, even if the most communication you held with her was not until after you fled Windhaven, and it was really only a channel of necessity.

She was kind.

And she was a victim of the same toxicity and abuse that you were. The only difference was that you made friends in higher places, and you got out.

Azriel nodded slowly, and you weren’t sure if he remembered her or if he was telling you to continue. It didn’t really matter.

“They found her body in the woods last week.” The words were hollow as they fell from your lips. Clinical and unfeeling. You kept the guilt and pain and anger shoved deep inside, hidden from the surface where they could fester.

Azriel stepped closer, mere inches now between the toes of your boots. His scent wafted over you, and his shadows extended out to curl around your wrists. You didn’t deserve their comfort. It was not yours to take—the same thought had sent you spiraling mere weeks ago in the kitchen above you—but you needed it. You needed the comfort so desperately there was nothing else to do but take it.

“What happened?” Azriel asked. 

You shook your head, chest aching as you replayed the conversation with Rhys. “No one is talking. No one reported it. The only reason—” Your voice cracked, and you inhaled sharply, willing your emotions away. “The only reason we know is because I asked Cassian to check on her. It had been too long since I heard from her, and I was worried.”

“You talked with her?” Azriel asked, surprise limning his voice.

You nodded, staring at the floor. “Sporadically. Her, and a few other girls I grew up with. It wasn’t—it’s not friendship—not really. I just, I wanted—” You rubbed a hand over your face, steeling the tremble that was taking hold. “I wanted them to have someone they could turn to if they needed help.” You shook your head. “A lot of good it did.”

Azriel grabbed you by your shoulders, his grip firm and sudden. “Y/N,” he said, forcing your gaze to meet his. “This was not your fault.”

Your nose burned and your eyes started to water. “It feels like it,” you whispered. “I left them there.”

Azriel shook his head. “You survived. You had to leave. Y/N—” he said again, his hand coming up to pull your gaze back to him. “You had no choice.”

You couldn’t stop the trembling of your lip, and Azriel didn’t hesitate to pull you into his chest, your face falling against the familiar leather covering his chest. A sob fell from your lips, and he squeezed you tighter, one arm wrapped beneath your wings while the other hand held your head against his chest. “We’ll find out what happened to her,” he murmured against the top of your head.

You cried.

You cried in the arms of the male you loved and you knew you could never have, but would always want, and who had always been there.

~ ~ ~

“They clipped Lara’s wings today.”

Azriel stopped in his tracks, the crunch of his boots on the snow dusted forest floor falling silent. His shadows flew outward, moving haphazardly all around the two of you, swirling with restless anger that had nowhere to go. He clenched his fist, and slowly they slithered back to pool beneath his wings.

“Is she okay?” he asked softly.

You shrugged, continuing your walk. “I don’t know how any of them survive it,” you said, voice desolate with the inevitable future in front of you. “But her father was angry. She hid two cycles from him,” you said, then swallowed hard. “He did it himself.”

As if losing flight was not torturous enough. As if you were not horrified enough at the prospect of the camp healer stealing your wings power from you, what Lara endured was a new source of terror.

Azriel reclaimed his place beside you, matching his pace to yours despite his height over you. “My mother is terrible,” you murmured. “Cruel at the worst of times, apathetic at best.” You stretched out your hand to let a tendril of shadow weave between your fingers. Your lips twitched, just barely. “But it is hard to hate her when I see what they have done. When I think about what my father must have been like. It is no doubt a mercy that he died when I was just a babe.”

Azriel was watching you when you finally turned to look at him. “It could be me next,” you rasped.

He started shaking his head, but you didn’t let him speak. “I am fourteen, Azriel.” You huffed a sad and pathetic laugh. “I take the herbs Lara gave me, but even those only got her to seventeen—sixteen, really.”

Azriel grabbed your arm, stopping you. “Rhys’s mother was never clipped.”

You scoffed, pulling your arm away. “She is the Lady of the Night Court. Her mate is the High Lord and he stopped them.” You shook your head. “My mother is a widowed laundress that the camp lords look at as a speck of dirt on their boots.”

This time it was you who reached for him, your hand wrapping around his forearm and squeezing tighter than you should. “I can’t lose my wings, Azriel,” you told him, your desperation and fear clear in your voice. “Flying is all I have.”

He nodded, his free hand coming up to grab your shoulder. “I won’t let them take them.”

~ ~ ~

Windhaven was as cold and drab as you remembered. You didn’t understand how Cassian could stomach coming back here all the time. The air was bitter enough to make your lungs burn, and the scowls of the males that watched your every move made your stomach roil.

You hated how much this place still affected you.

Azriel walked beside you, his wings flared wide and with all seven siphons gleaming in the scarce sunlight that pushed through the overcast skies. He didn’t touch you, but his presence was close enough to feel his warmth radiate against you. You willed your spine into a rod of steel, your back straight and head held high, wings wide enough that they occasionally brushed against Azriel’s.

That was a statement in and of itself.

Azriel briefly met your eyes before he pulled open the door to the only tavern in Windhaven, where you would inevitably find Devlon. Azriel gestured for you to enter first. You nodded once, then stepped over the threshold. The air was musty and thick with the scent of sweat and booze, and you suddenly missed the bitter cold of the Illyrian wind. The door swung shut with a loud thud, Azriel’s chest briefly brushing your shoulder as he stepped behind you.

Your eyes scanned the seedy room, ignoring the leers and sneers of the males scattered around worn and decrepit wooden tables. It did not take long to find Devlon hiding in the back, tucked inside a booth in the back corner, his closest men surrounding him.

It did not take long for him to find you.

His eyes widened for a moment before they narrowed into a scowl. He tossed some coins on the table, his hand of cards following as you made your way toward him. “Lord Devlon,” you barked, your voice loud and sharp in the muffled murmur of the tavern. Azriel stayed a mere half a pace behind you. You stopped in front of his table, your eyes never leaving his. “We need to have a talk.”

He scoffed, then reached for his glass of amber liquid. “It’s not bad enough I have to listen to the bastard of a guard dog Rhysand sends every month?”

You felt Azriel bristle behind you. You felt his flare of anger and unbridled rage flare deep inside your own chest. You smirked, your eyes sharp and lips curled back just enough that it might even be considered a snarl. You leaned closer, your hand resting on the disgustingly damp and sticky tabletop as you met his eyes. “Come with me.”

Then you pulled back, and you walked out the back entrance, leaving Devlon and his men to bumble around like idiots in front of Azriel. You didn’t wait to hear the open and slam of the door before walking toward the fighting ring at the center of the camp.

You didn’t fight the self-satisfied smile that bloomed on your face as you heard the sound of two sets of footsteps in the freshly fallen snow. You made a show of looking around, but you did your best not to look in the direction of anywhere that might stab you through the heart. When the footsteps settled, when you felt that familiar grounding presence at your side again, you finally turned around to face Devlon.

“Love what you’ve done with the place,” you drawled, he and you knowing very well the camp looks the same as it did five centuries ago.

“Get on with it,” he snapped, flinging his hand out. “What could Rhysand possibly want now?”

Your face turned stony, all faux amusement dropping from your eyes. “Who murdered Freya?”

“Who?” he had the audacity to sneer.

“You know who,” you snarled, stepping close. “Unless you mean to tell me that you don’t even know who lives and dies in your own camp.”

His eyes flared with undiluted rage, his throat bobbing. He glanced at Azriel behind you, his lip curling in disgust. “She was found in the woods. Stupid bitch wandered away from camp, made herself lunch for some animal.”

A gentle phantom touch brushed the back of your neck, soothing the flare of anger that roared inside you.

“Who found her?” you made yourself ask, voice tight.

“Her husband.”

“And you believed him?”

“You question the integrity of one of my generals?”

The words squeezed the air from your lungs. “A general,” you repeated. “Your general’s wife died, and you forgot who she was?”

Devlon didn’t respond.

You tilted your head back, folding your hands behind your back. “Forgive me if I do not trust your judgement of character,” you sneered. “We will be staying a few days.” You turned to Azriel, whose eyes were cold daggers pointed directly at Devlon. “We will continue this in the morning. Early,” you added, looking him up and down with blatant disgust. “Sober.”

You turned on your heel, heading for the only place you ever once called home in this wretched camp. 

~ ~ ~

“Where are you going?”

You turned toward the voice that had appeared beside you, their jovial warmth friendly and unthreatening. Cassian was grinning as he fell into step with you, his hair pulled back with a leather tie he had undoubtedly cut himself. Pieces were falling down and around his face, and he squinted briefly as he pushed one out of his eyes.

You huffed, stopping. “Come here.”

Cassian blinked owlishly, but stepped closer anyway. You twirled your finger. “Turn around, and crouch down.”

He did as you asked, and when your fingers undid the loose knot in his hair his shoulders started shaking with laughter. “You’re a mess,” you grumbled.

“At least I tried to tame it.”

You rolled your eyes. “You could just cut it.”

He lifted a hand to his chest, his cheeks stretching into a grin as you pulled all of his hair back. “You wound me.”

You wound the leather around his hair, tying it in a tight knot, then patted his shoulder. “There,” you said.

Cassian rose to his full height, pulling you into his side with a grin still plastered to his face. “Thank you.”

You shoved him away lightly, continuing on your path. Cassian didn’t leave. “Where are you going?” he asked again.

“Flying,” you huffed.

“With who?”

You cut him a glance. “You are such a busybody,” you mumbled. “I’m meeting Azriel.”

Cassian’s brows raised. “You two spend a lot of time together.”

Your glare was sharper this time. “He’s my friend.”

“I’m your friend,” Cassian countered. “Your first friend.”

You huffed a laugh. “I didn’t know stealing my cookies was your version of friendship.”

He bumped your shoulder. “I did that once. Then gave you two back the next day.”

You smiled softly, then shrugged. You both knew that you really became close friends through Azriel, but it didn’t matter how. You had Az, Cas, and Rhys now. You weren’t alone. That’s all that mattered. “Azriel is my favorite friend.”

“Okay,” he huffed. “That one hurt.”

You glanced at him from the corner of your eye, your grin widening when you found him glaring.

“No, but seriously,” he said, stopping you again with a hand on your arm. “Is there something—”

“Y/N.”

Your head snapped toward the familiar quiet voice, your smile morphing into something softer. The center of your chest warmed when you saw him, your heart racing as he walked closer to you and Cassian. He glanced warily at Cassian, an uncharacteristic uncertainty settling on his face. “I didn’t know Cassian was coming with us.”

Before Cassian could open his fat mouth, you shook your head quickly. “He’s not.” You looked at Cassian, smiling and raising your eyebrows pointedly. “He was just leaving. Right, Cas?”

Cassian looked far from pleased from you evading his interrogation, but acquiesced nonetheless. “Yeah,” he muttered. “I’ll see you at training tomorrow, Az.” He clapped you on the shoulder, firmer than necessary, his eyes flaring with mischief and a promise to resume this conversation later—not that there was anything to talk about. “Thanks for your help, sweetheart.”

Your eyes widened, your cheeks flaring with heat at his stupid pet name, and knowing exactly why he said it.

He grinned, leaving the two of you alone with a half-hearted wave.

You took a deep breath, calming the flush of your cheeks before facing Azriel again. He was still watching Cassian walk back toward the camp. His jaw twitched, and he jumped when you touched his arm.

You smiled softly again when he looked at you. “Ready?” you asked.

He nodded silently, falling into step beside you. The clearing you usually met at wasn’t far.

“Is there something going on with you and Cas?” Azriel asked quietly. His shoulders were tense and his wings were flared, and his shadows were moving around him restlessly.

“What?” you asked. “No! He was just being an ass.” You waved away the notion, grimacing slightly. “As usual.”

“Oh.” Some of the tension visibly fell away from Azriel, his shoulders falling a bit. A small smile pulled at his lips when he looked at you again. It started to grow, and mischief glinted in his eyes the longer he watched you.

“What?” you asked again, growing wary.

He shook his head, looking away for a moment. “Nothing.” He licked his lips, the smile still fighting to stay on his face. “Did I tell you I learned something new?”

“No,” you said slowly. “At training?”

“Not quite.”

His arms reached out to circle your waist, and he pulled your body flush against his, sending your heart into a frenzy. You met his eyes in bewilderment, the corners of his eyes crinkling with amusement, and suddenly the two of you were engulfed in darkness.

In shadows.

You clung to Azriel as your body fell through some otherworldly ether, his shadows cocooning the two of you in a cool swath of silk as you catapulted through space.

Then light blinded you, and you buried your face in his chest before you started to freefall. You screamed as you plummeted, and Azriel laughed as his wings spread out, catching the two of you in the air with a harsh jolt.

You pulled your head away from his chest, just barely meeting his eyes. “What the hell was that?” you yelled.

Azriel’s eyes were bright as he carried you through the sky, the drag of your own wings against the wind not seeming to bother him in the slightest. He shrugged, meeting your gaze with a relaxed smile. “Rhys called it winnowing, but he said it feels different from when he does it.”

You were smiling as you shook your head. “You’re an asshole.”

Azriel grinned, and giggled when he spun the two of you around, the wind whipping at your face. “Your face was priceless,” he laughed.

“You could hardly even see it,” you scoffed.

Azriel looked lighter than he had in a long time—maybe since you had known him. He looked beautiful. You hated the dagger of worry that stabbed at your chest. “Maybe don’t tell anyone else about this?” you said carefully.

Azriel’s eyes shuttered, his jaw clenching. He nodded, as if he had already decided the same thing. “They already think I’m different enough—a threat.”

You shook your head, pulling one of your hands free from their clutch on his leathers to cup his face. “This is amazing, Az,” you said, voice as gentle as you could make it in the wind around you. 

“I had to tell you,” he said.

“I’m glad you did.”

~ ~ ~

Azriel followed behind you silently, his presence warm at your back as you walked past roaming males in the dark of the camp. Only once you enter Rhys’s house—his mother’s house—and the door shut behind the two of you, did Azriel speak.

“I did not know we would be staying.”

You turned around quickly, guilt unfurling rapidly in your chest. “Neither did I.” You swallowed hard, looking around at the achingly familiar furniture covered with only a faint layer of dust. Cassian must come here. “I’m sorry. You can leave. I should never have—”

“I am not leaving you here,” he said quickly, moving close.

“I can’t ask you to stay here, Azriel. It’s unfair. You don’t deserve—”

“I can handle Devlon, and I can handle sleeping on this rancid land.” His voice was smooth and steady, his eyes not leaving yours. “I’m not worried about me,” he said quietly. “I’m worried about you.”

You breathed in deep, the dust floating around you scratching at your throat. “I’ll be fine,” you said, nodding as if that would make it true. “I need to do this for Freya.”

Azriel nodded, his hand coming out to rub your upper arm. “We’re going to find who did this.” His jaw clenched, the muscle in the corner jumping. “We might already know who.”

You let out a hollow, exasperated laugh. “How is it still like this?” you asked. “How are these things still happening? How is Devlon, of all Illyrians, considered the most progressive camp lord?”

“I don’t know,” he murmured, his hand gently coaxing you to fall against his chest, his arms circling around your waste. “I’ve long thought they’re past saving.”

“It’s not fair.”

He pressed a kiss to the top of your head, and you wanted to burrow inside of him. You wanted to cling to him like dew, and never leave. You wanted him. All of him. Forever.

~ ~ ~

“Azriel,” you rasped, leaning over his bed. You reached for him, shaking his shoulders far less gently than you should to wake a sleeping Illyrian male. “Azriel,” you sobbed.

He shot up in bed, his shadows flaring out to wrap around you. Not to protect him—to soothe you. You only cried harder.

“What happened?” he hurried out, sleep slipping from the panicked syllables. “Y/N?” He reached for you, pulling you down onto his bed as he sat up. “Hey—hey, what happened? Are you hurt?”

“She’s dead,” you hiccuped. You collapsed against him, your head falling into his lap as you curled up on your side. “She’s dead. My mother—”

Azriel’s arms held you tight, his wings curling around the two of you, a heavy warmth that dulled the sharpest edges of the cold terror protruding from your chest. You faintly heard the opening of a door. You didn’t care.

“She was the general’s mistress,” you rasped. “She didn’t know I knew, but I did. He—he—” Another sob tore from your throat, agony rippling through you. “What do I do? Where do I go?”

Azriel held you tight, rocking you gently. “We’ll figure it out,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

You fell asleep wrapped in his arms, with your head in his lap and his wings covering your trembling body, and tears slowly drying on your cheeks in the dark of night.

~ ~ ~

The mattress in Cassian’s old room was cold and lumpy, a worn down sack of cotton that was falling apart at the seams. It had surely been replaced in the five centuries since you left here, but it was long past due for another.

You wiggled around, the sheets catching around your feet and causing a flare of irritation in your chest. Eventually you yanked them down over your chest, your arms falling at your sides with a huff. Moonlight streamed in through the single window, no drapes to block it from falling across your skin. Your heart was beating hard in your chest, a half-beat off rhythm as your mind struggled to find rest in this place that had left so many scars on your soul.

Cassian’s scent lingered in the air, on the old shirt you had found shoved inside his wardrobe. It was familiar, at least. It masked all of the other acrid scents that bombarded you the second you stepped foot inside this camp.

You were still left feeling hollow. You ached from the inside out, and every minute that passed without sleep pricked against your skin—a stark reminder that you would be in no shape to confront Devlon in a few mere hours if you spent the night lying awake in the closest place you had to a childhood home.

Even if you were never allowed to live there.

The house was silent, save for your frustrated sighs. A stillness that felt more suffocating than peaceful falling over you. You tried to listen for Azriel, for his heartbeat, his breaths—anything to distract your spiraling mind—but it was utterly silent.

You knew he was still here. You could feel his presence, even if he was lying in the room across the hall. You couldn’t explain it, but you had always been able to feel him when he was near.

A sixth sense that was beginning to feel more like a curse than a blessing. A taunt, rather than a glimmer of hope. He was not yours to keep track of. He was not yours to want.

And yet, you knew the only thing, the only person, that could calm your racing mind and rising anxieties, was him.

It was selfish to take from him what he should be giving to another. It was selfish to hate the female that would one day have him, that had done nothing wrong but be blessed with Azriel as her mate.

He just—he had always been yours, in some twisted, round about way. Ever since you were young and naive and just happy to have a friend, he was yours. And you were his.

It was futile to talk yourself out of going to him. The wooden floors were rough against the soles of your feet as you opened your door, hesitating for only a second as you looked down the empty hallway, then walked toward Azriel’s door.

You fist hovered in front of the door, your heart pounding as you chastised yourself for wanting him—for needing him. You didn’t just want Azriel, you needed him like you needed air. If there was ever any doubt that he was a lifeline to your heart, this impromptu trip to hell had incinerated it.

You knocked. It was just a soft rap on the door, quiet enough that he might not hear it—if he were anyone else.

“Come in,” his muffled voice called.

Something warmed in your chest knowing that at least you had not been lying awake alone. You opened the door slowly, an unusual shyness cloaking you as you met his eyes. He was under his covers, his back resting against the wall at the head of the bed.

His torso was bare.

Your eyes lingered on his chest, on the curve of his pectorals that border the ridges of his abdomen. You watched the movement of a shadow that flitted across his stomach, then hid behind his back. Your eyes snapped up to meet his. Your mouth was dry when you said, “I can’t sleep.”

His cheeks seem flushed in the glow of the candle beside his bed. “Me neither,” he murmured.

You shut the door behind you, your eyes not leaving his. “Can I stay here?” you asked quietly.

Azriel nodded, his lips turning up so softly it melted one of the many icy tendrils curled around your ribs. He shifted closer to the edge of the far too small bed to hold two Illyrians, patting the small space beside him.

Your shoulders relaxed, falling from where they had been pinned close to your ears without you noticing. It was then that you noticed your legs were bare, and nothing but Cassian’s thread bare shirt was covering your skin.

In theory, this was not a big deal.

You and Azriel had been friends for centuries. You had seen each other in various states of undress in the most vulnerable and inopportune times, had cared for each other in moments of distress—this should have been nothing.

It still felt different.

It felt raw and intimate in a way you had never experienced, and you again felt foolish and guilty.

This was wrong. You should leave. You should leave, and not take advantage of your kind and unsuspecting friend when you knew you were only feeding your poor and delusional heart with misplaced hope that would logically never bloom to fruition. However, only your mind had the luxury of logic, and it was doing a piss poor job at protecting your feeble heart from further ruin.

You moved toward his bed, pulling back the covers and nestling down into the edge of the pillow behind him. Your nose was level with his hip with barely an inch between you, and your wings were drooping over the side of the bed, but you were infinitely more comfortable in here, beside Azriel, than you had been alone across the hall.

Azriel leaned over toward the bedside table, blowing the candle out with a small puff of air, then sank down into the bed so he was face to face with you, your heads sharing the lone pillow at the head of his bed. His soft cedar scent wrapped around you, his warmth enveloping you like a second blanket, and your eyes grew tired embarrassingly quickly.

You took in the muted hazel of his eyes, the flecks that glinted in the moon beams cast around the room, and you thought he might have been doing the same, his eyes never wavering from yours. Goosebumps pebbled across your skin, and the smile that pulled at your lips was entirely involuntary, pure content and love consuming your weary and battered mind for the first time in months—the Illyrian hell hole outside these walls be damned.

“Goodnight,” Azriel murmured, his voice growing heavy with his own exhaustion.

You might have moved impossibly closer, you might have let your legs brush his and your arms graze against the warm skin of his chest—it was purely due to the lack of space, of course. Azriel smiled softly at you, and his arms wrapped around your body, pulling you tighter against his chest, forcing your head to rest directly against him.

You melted into him, of course. His arms had always been where you felt safest, even in the darkest and most trying times of your life. There was no fighting it.

Even if that terrible, fleeting stone of guilt ricocheted through your body. Even if it just barely grazed your heart, reminding you of the precarious edge you were standing on, an inevitably agonizing heart break waiting for you below.

Tonight you would ignore it just a little longer. Tonight you would hide from your shredded soul in the arms of the male you loved, and would pretend, for just a few hours, he loved you too.

~ ~ ~

“Augustus makes an attor seem friendly.”

Your words were meant to be joking. They were meant to just be a jeering jab at your horrible cousin who you had never properly met, had not known existed until Devlon thrust you into his care the day after your mother’s funeral. Instead they sounded hollow and aching, entirely too much truth weighing them down.

Azriel noticed.

“Has he done something?” he asked quietly, as if he was afraid too loud a cadence might summon the wretched male to this desolate clearing.

You blinked, staring blankly at the snow below you. You were tired of snow. You were tired of the cold. Sixteen years spent living in eternal winter, and you were prepared to commit an atrocity if it meant you never had to see these snow-covered mountains again.

“Nothing new.”

You felt the tension rippling off of Azriel. His siphons littering his chest and arms flared, his copious stores of power simmering over. “That’s not an answer.”

“Yes, it is.”

“It’s not good enough.”

Your head snapped toward him, your lips pulling back in an instinctive snarl. “It’s all I can give you.”

Azriel blinked, otherwise unflinching against your anger. “You’re keeping things from me,” he said quietly.

It was the truth, and it hurt, no matter how gentle he laid it in front of you.

Your mother was unkind. You even thought her cruel, once. Now you lived with a male who knew the true definition of cruelty. A male so toxic he made your hair stand straight on your arms and a chill ran down your spine every time you stepped foot through the door. A male who yelled instead of spoke, whose anger was a baseline state for him.

He was a male that used violence more than words. Who left bruises in his wake. Who reminded you every day he hated you, and he hated his uncle that impregnated the whore that birthed you, and was stupid enough to get herself killed.

What of his father? you sometimes wanted to ask. Was he stupid too? How did he die?

Speaking those words would be sure to get you killed.

A hand wrapped around your arm, the sudden touch making you flinch, your entire body curving away out of pure instinct. Your body froze when you realized what you did, when you recognized the scarred hand that had immediately fell away from you.

Horror sluiced through you when you met Azriel’s wide, vicious eyes. He was trembling, his shadows stretching out farther than he usually let them these days, his wings twitching behind him. “Let me see your arm.”

“No.”

“Y/N,” he said, your name spoken so low and slowly it forced your mind to slow down. “Let me see.”

“I can’t,” you whispered, your voice cracking.

Azriel’s jaw clenched, a puff of air leaving his nose as his hand squeezed into a fist, then slowly uncurled. “Please,” he asked gently. “I only want to help.”

“You have to promise me you won’t do anything,” you pleaded. Azriel’s throat bobbed as you stared at him. “Promise me, Azriel.”

“I promise,” he whispered.

You nodded, sniffing once to push away the tears that were beginning to burn at the back of your throat. You shrugged out of your jacket, exposing your bare arms to the bitter cold, and revealing the mottled bruises in various colors decorating your skin.

Azriel’s breath hitched when he saw. You couldn’t meet his eyes, and you hated that you still flinched when he touched your arm. He froze, staring at your face. You could only nod.

He continued his inspection, his hands gently grazing over your skin, careful not to hurt you. A tear fell from the corner of your eye, and you quickly wiped it away. Then his fingers curled around the hem of your shirt, squeezing the fabric tight, and when you finally met his gaze, gave him the permission he was seeking, he lifted your shirt.

“Y/N,” he said, his voice broken as he took in the purple blooms across your ribs. His fingers lightly traced the ridges of your ribcage, pulling away only when you sucked in a sharp breath as he passed over a sensitive area. He lowered your shirt slowly, and you could feel him staring at you, even as you stared down at the snow. “He could have killed you,” he whispered.

“He threatened to this morning,” you admittedly quietly, pathetically. “That was a first.”

He helped you slide your coat back on, doing up the wing slats silently with careful fingers.

“You need to report him?”

You laughed mirthlessly. “To who? Devlon?” You shook your head. “I’ll be fine.” You stood up from the boulder the two of you had been perched upon, your boot slipping just a bit before you gained your composure. “I’ve survived a year with him. I can survive more.”

“Y/N—”

“I’ll see you later, Azriel.”

~ ~ ~

“My condolences for the passing of your wife.”

The male leaning against the wall of one of the buildings surrounding the square, watching the young males train, lazily dragged his gaze up to meet yours. His eyes flit to Azriel standing behind you, a flash of contempt shining in his irises before he seemed to force it away. He met your gaze again, his arms still crossed over his chest as he said flatly, “My wife is dead. Your condolences mean nothing.”

“I’m sure,” you answered, forcing sympathy into your tone. “I grew up with Freya,” you said, watching him carefully. “She was my friend.”

The male went rigid, indignation and rage roaring behind his eyes. “She never told me she was friends with one of the High Lord’s whores. Though, it’s unsurprising.”

Azriel stepped forward, but you blocked his path. “What happened to her?” you asked, ignoring his disrespect.

His eyes narrowed, and he finally stood up straight. “She ran off in the middle of the night after letting her delusions mislead her. Guess she wandered too far, made herself a meal.”

You had no idea what he meant by that, but you knew in your bones you were staring into the eyes of the male that ended Freya’s life. And he was a general of one of the most respected legions in the Illyrian army. Rhys would terminate him immediately, with or without concrete proof—he would come and dig through his mind if that was what it took, but you wanted to handle this yourself. You wanted to force them to admit to their atrocities for once, and force them to do something about it.

“It’s just hard to imagine,” you pondered, voice floaty and distant as you turned to look out at the woods in the distance. “Five centuries she’s lived here…” You shook your head. “Do you have any children?”

“No.”

You looked him up and down, making no effort to hide your analysis of him. You pursed your lips, your facade falling away, and your stony armour falling back into place. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

You turned away, but you only made it a few steps toward Devlon’s quarters before an ear splitting scream rang through the camp. You flinched, stumbling back into Azriel, who caught you with steady hands. “What the hell was that?” you asked breathlessly.

The scream rang out again, this time sobs following after. It did not take long to find the source, two males dragging a young girl by her arms to the center of the square, her knees dragging on the snow covered ground. The males fighting in the wing didn’t even look at her.

They threw her to the ground.

Then they grabbed her wings.

“Get off of her!” The words tore out of you, loud and guttural as you took off for the young female lying in the snow, her skin bruised and discolored in a way yours once had been at that very same age. “Get your fucking hands off of her!”

The two males snapped their heads toward you, and only then did the clang of swords die out. Everyone was watching now, even some females coming out of the buildings scattered around. They sneered at you, ready to fire back, then their eyes fell to the presence at your side, to the shadows forming a thick blanket of smoke at your feet. Only then did they let her go, leaving her lying in the cold.

You shoved one of them out of the way, making him stumble, and Azriel was between the two of you before the male could react. You crouched down, gently helping the girl up. Tears streaked her cheeks, her hair damp from the snow and plastered to the side of her face. She was shaking. “Come on,” you said, voice steady. “Come on.”

She sniffed once, her eyes meeting yours, then taking in your leathers, and the way your wings were stretched wide behind your back, the way they were meant to. She nodded, letting you help her up by her arm, but she did most of the work. She glared at the male beside her, watching the two of you with pure disdain.

Then she spat at his boots.

He barely made a move before you shoved her behind you, and you grinned at the male. “You will not touch her,” you ordered, voice low and threatening. Then, looking around at all the males, and females, staring at you, you yelled, “In case you all forgot, wing clipping is banned by the High Lord!”

You stepped closer to the male that she spat at, shoving one finger against his chest. “You will not touch her,” you hissed. 

You cast one last glare at the male, then turned around toward the girl. She was on her cycle. Your stomach twisted, too many horrific memories pressing at the edges of your mind. “Where is your mother?” you asked quietly.

She glanced to the side, to where a female was standing in the doorway of a tailor shop. Her hands were curled into tight fists, and her eyes were wide with terror and fury. You nodded toward the woman. “Go.”

The girl did not hesitate, running to her mother who embraced her in her arms, an unusually blatant display of affection in an Illyrian camp. You hoped her mother did not have bruises to match her own, but it was likely.

“What the hell is going on?” a grating male voice bellowed over the square.

You rolled your eyes, turning away from the mother and daughter once they hurried inside their shop to find Devlon, his eyes ablaze.

No one spoke. The general you had spoken to moments ago was gone, unsurprisingly.

“You are all dismissed,” Azriel ordered, his voice cold and lethal.

No one moved.

Azriel swung his gaze around the camp, his wings flaring wide and siphons gleaming. “Go.”

Everyone scattered, a dull murmur filling the square as males gathered their belongings, heading anywhere away from here. Azriel stepped in front of you, his body practically vibrating with rage. “Devlon,” he growled. “Wing clipping is banned in all Illyrian camps.”

Devlon’s eyes narrowed. “It is,” he agreed, begrudgingly.

“And yet, Y/N just stopped two of your males from clipping a girl they had pinned in the snow.”

Devlon said nothing, but the ire burning in his eyes made your blood rush through your head, a dull thump pounding in your ears. You stepped closer to him, the snow crunching beneath your boots with every slow step that brought you inches away from Devlon. You met his eyes, uncaring that he was taller and broader than you. You were not the terrified girl he once threw to the wolves with the flick of his hand five centuries ago.

“I will find out exactly what happened to Freya,” you hissed, venom lacing every syllable. “And I will personally see that any male that so much as thinks—” You stabbed Devlon in the chest with your finger, his nostrils flaring at the disrespect. “—of touching another female’s wings is dealt with appropriately.”

You leaned back, heart pounding as you looked Devlon up and down, your body vibrating with centuries of pent up fury and resentment and hatred for this wretched place filled with wretched men. “You forget your place, Devlon,” you spat.

“You fucking low-life bitch, mewing and preening for—” His words died with an abrupt wheeze, dark tendrils of shadow whipping around his throat and forcing their way inside his mouth, one even curling out of his nose. You stumbled back a step from the shock, Azriel moving in front of you with predatory grace.

“I would be very careful with your words,” he murmured, his voice cold and lethal. Devlon’s face grew redder by the second, his eyes starting to bulge as Azriel leaned down to meet his eyes. “I am not my brothers. I will not hesitate to find a new camp lord.”

The shadows pulled back, tucking beneath Azriel’s wings or wrapping around your ankles. Devlon keeled over just as Azriel stepped back, gasping and wheezing with watery eyes.

The look on Azriel’s face was pure disdain. “We’re done here.”

~ ~ ~

Panic clawed at your spine, sharp and cloying pain chasing after you no matter how far you ran.

You were so foolish. You knew, deep down, that it was only a matter of time before nature inevitably turned on you. It didn’t matter how many herbs and serums you stuffed down your throat day after day. Your cycle was inevitable.

You should have been prepared. You should have thought about its arrival beyond the bone deep dread that flooded your body every time you saw another girl in the mess hall with freshly clipped wings and sallow eyes. You knew you were only delaying the inevitable, and now it was finally here.

Maybe if your mother were still alive you might have hid it. Maybe she would not have cared enough to drag you to a healer, her own disdain for this camp possibly protecting you from its wretched customs. Or maybe she would have dragged you to the healer out of spite.

There was no doubt what Augustus would do.

He wouldn’t even take you to a healer. He would likely slash your wings to shreds himself, going farther than just robbing you of their function. He loathed your mere existence. The only reason you were not dead was his delusional dream of becoming one of Devlon’s prized generals, and Devlon was the one that had dumped you in Augustus’s care.

You knew as soon as he returned from wherever he slinked away to, as soon as walked through that door, he would smell the blood, and it would be over for you.

So you ran.

As soon as the cloying metallic scent hit your nose a.nd the stabbing pain shot through your abdomen, you stuffed your bare feet in your boots and shoved your arms in your coat and you ran. You wore nothing but a thin night gown underneath your leather jacket, your bare calves exposed to the bitter air and sharp cold of the snow-covered forest.

You had nowhere to go. Nowhere to run to. Nothing to help you survive alone in the Illyrian steppes, but all you could think about was that you would not survive the night if you stayed in that house in the center of camp.

You just had to make it far enough away from camp that no one could find you. No one could smell you. You just had to keep moving, even if the tears running down your cheeks were frozen on your skin and your hands were numb. Even if you felt like you were being ripped apart from the inside out and felt an uncomfortable and foreign moisture spread between your thighs. Even if you worried that the farther you fled into the forest, Illyrian males would no longer be your only threat.

Somehow you reached the clearing that you and Azriel would meet in, less frequently now that you were older. The open land that once felt freeing now left you open and exposed, entirely vulnerable. You sniffed once, ignoring the tears that clung to your lashes and stuffing down the slimy terror sluicing through your veins, and you kept running.

You managed to cross the clearing, catapulting into the tree line on the other side, hissing as a branch scraped your cheek. You were so tired, so weak, and you were in so much pain. The ground seemed to shift abruptly before righting itself, the trees spinning as you put one foot in front of the other, desperate to make it out of here. Flying was not an option if you wanted to go undetected, but running was rapidly failing you.

Your ankle twisted with a chilling snap, your foot falling into a snow covered hole. You careened forward, unable to catch yourself before landing sharply on your arm, the snow doing very little to cushion your fall. You bit your lip hard enough to draw blood as you stifled your scream, a sharp gasp leaving your lips as you pushed yourself to sit up and pulled your foot from the sunken in ground.

You were trembling, and your head was spinning as you fought to catch your breath. Terror stabbed your chest as a male materialized in front of you, his wings stretched wide behind him, the moonlight illuminating his silhouette.

You were going to die.

“Y/N.”

You shut your eyes, a pathetic whimper falling from your lips as you shook in the snow, waiting for the inevitable.

“Y/N, it’s me,” he said again, voice soft and familiar.

You forced your eyes open, Azriel’s scent wafting over you as he crouched beside you.

Terror still clung to your skin, your world spinning and reality crashing down around you. You started shaking your head, fresh tears falling from your eyes. “Please,” you rasped. “Please. Please.” Your voice broke around your sobs. “Please don’t—” You coughed, and you leaned forward as another sharp pain stabbed at your abdomen.

“Hey—hey,” Azriel said hurriedly. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. Y/N, I would never.”

His words sloshed around inside your head, tumbling around and around as you tried to listen. You slumped forward suddenly, and his hands shot out to catch you, but you quickly flinched away.

“No. Y/N, hey.” His hands were still firm on your arms, his warmth radiating into your frozen skin. “You’re safe with me.” He looked you in the eyes, and his muted hazel irises in the dark of night stared back at you, warm and familiar, even if they were laced with panic. “Are you hurt? What—”

He suddenly went rigid, his nostrils flaring as he quickly scanned your body, and you got to watch the realization dawn on his face. A swell of mortification mixed with your fear, even if you were in agony and crumpled in pain on the cold wet ground.

You stared at him, your lip trembling ever so slightly. “Please don’t make me go back,”  you whispered.

Azriel’s face fell. “Y/N—”

You were shaking your head again. “I can’t lose my wings.” You gasped for air, fighting the sobs pushing at your throat. “I can’t, Azriel. It’s the only thing I have. Please—”

“No one is going to touch your wings,” he swore, and for a half second, you wanted to believe him. “But you can’t stay here. I have to take you back—”

“No,” you cried, your hand weakly clutching the front of his leathers. “No. Please—”

Azriel’s gloved hands came up to cup your face gently, his warmth a balm to the stinging cold. “I’m going to take you back to my home. Rhysand’s mother won’t be home until morning, but she will help. While we wait, you can bathe, warm up, sleep. You will be safe there.”

You swallowed hard, your throat burning from your cries. “What about Rhysand and Cassian?”

His thumbs gently stroked your cheeks. “They will be there. Hey,” he said, coaxing your face back up to meet his when you looked away, “They would never hurt you. They’re your friends.”

You nodded slowly, your grip on his leathers going lax. Your fingers ached from the cold, and your joints were growing stiff.

“Okay?” he asked.

You nodded again.

“Good,” he murmured. He pulled his hands away, and he slid his leather gloves off. “Here,” he said, then took your hand in his now bare one, his skin hot against yours. He slid the glove over your hand, the material warm from him, and it was a relief so intense you nearly started crying again. He took your other hand in his, doing the same.

“There,” he hummed, then reached up to brush your hair away from your face. “I’m not leaving you,” he promised. “No one is touching your wings.”

You stared at him for a moment, taking in the fuzzy contours of his face that you knew like the back of your hand, even in the dark of night. You slowly fell back inside yourself, slowly came down from the terror and adrenaline that had pushed you through the Illyrian forests, away from Windhaven, and recognized the world around you.

You recognized the gentle stroke of shadows on your exposed calves. You recognized the cedar sent curling around you. You recognized the kernel of warmth in the center of you that came to life every time Azriel was near—even now, when you were panic-stricken and exhausted, it was still there.

You remembered that you trusted him, and you were safe. Maybe you should have ran to him, instead of away from Windhaven. Maybe you would have made things worse if someone had caught you. Maybe he would be angry that you had acted so rash, so foolish, when the sun rose over the horizon. There were a lot of uncertainties, many you would never have the answer to, but you did know Azriel would protect you, and he would never hurt you.

You forgot sometimes how quickly Illyria weathered boys into males, children into adults. Azriel was eighteen now, and while you could still see that eleven year old boy behind the mess hall with rosy cheeks and messy hair, he was entirely male now. He was formidable in every sense of the word. In the spring, he would complete the Blood Rite, likely alongside Rhys and Cass, and there was no question of if they would pass.

Everyone feared them. Everyone whispered about the Shadowsinger, but no one outwardly antagonized him—not anymore. If someone with too much gall challenged him, they learned their lesson quickly. Azriel was undoubtedly fearsome.

But not to you.

You never feared him.

You lunged forward, wrapping your arms around him, and you tucked your head against his chest. His arms quickly circled your body, overly mindful of your wings, but his palm still rubbed soothing circles along your lower back. “Thank you,” you whispered. “I don’t know how you found me, or how you knew to look for me—” Azriel squeezed you a little tighter. “But thank you.”

Suddenly one of his arms was under your legs, and you whimpered as your ankle shifted, which he gently apologized for. Then he lifted you, and you were finally out of the freezing snow that had seeped through your clothes.

You let your head loll against his chest, grateful for the warmth his body radiated and the shield from the wind his shadows had slowly built around you. “Thank you,” you whispered again.

He pressed his lips to the top of your head, a gesture that was so sweet and fond and new that your heart flipped inside your chest, and you wanted to cry for an entirely different reason.

~ ~ ~

As soon as the door shut behind Azriel with a heavy thud, you whirled around to face him. “What the hell was that?”

Azriel blinked, stopping in the entry way. “You know Devlon is a piece of—”

“I’m not talking about Devlon, Azriel. I’m talking about you.”

“What?”

You shook your head, hands balling into fists at your sides. You felt suffocated, angry, and out of control. This house held too many memories. This entire camp was littered with knives sharpened by horrific memories that were ready to stab you at first glance. There would never be any forgetting, even after centuries had passed.

“I was handling Devlon,” you grit out.

“I know.” Azriel stepped closer. “I was there.”

“Then why did you—”

“He does not get to speak to you that way,” Azriel growled.

“I don’t need you to fight my battles!”

Azriel’s mouth opened and then snapped shut, as if he thought better of whatever he was about to say. “I am always going to protect you, Y/N,” he said finally, his voice quieter than before.

You swallowed hard, your nose burning as bile stung the back of your throat. “I don’t need you to.”

Azriel shook his head. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t do that. Don’t ask me not to—” He tilted his head back, and his shadows broke free from behind his back in shaky tendrils, a rare slip of restraint. “I have protected you since the day I met you,” he rasped. The words sounded strangled and desperate, and they knocked the air from your lungs. “I want to. I need to. Please do not ask me to stop.”

You wanted to spit something vitriolic back, just because you were hurting—for more than one reason—and he was standing directly in your line of fire.

Then you met his eyes, which were glossy in the sunlight streaming in through the kitchen window, and his shadows were vibrating with barely restrained emotion. Your shoulders fell, and then you looked away.

“Let’s go home,” he said quietly.

You nodded, even if your chest was suddenly tight. “You should go.”

“No,” Azriel said, and you looked at him warily. “We are going home. I’m not leaving you here, and if either of us stay in this camp another damned minute we might actually murder someone.”

“But Freya—”

“Rhys will handle it.”

“It’s my responsibility, Azriel.”

“It’s your responsibility to take care of yourself,” he volleyed back. Then he said again, “Rhys will handle it.”

“But the wing clipping—”

“Will not be fixed overnight. Cassian will take care of it.”

You closed your eyes, an all-consuming sense of failure corroding away at your bones. What was the point? What was the point of any of this if you could not help these females? Over five centuries of fighting and arguing and defying and still, nothing had changed. It was not enough. You could never do enough—

“Stop,” Azriel growled, his hands suddenly on your shoulders. “Stop. This is not your burden to bear alone. It’s not yours at all. None of this is your fault.”

You started to protest, but he leaned down closer to meet your eyes. “But you care,” he said softly. “You care about the females in this camp, because you are good. You are kind and compassionate and good, Y/N. You have not failed them, I promise you. You saved that girl today, and we will help the rest of them. I promise you.”

It was too much.

You depended on him too much, because somehow his words had soothed your soul, muting the spiraling stream of toxicity in your mind. Somehow his touch grounded you, and reminded you who you were, and where you were, and who you were with.

You were never really mad at him.

You were angry at the universe, and Illyria, and the Mother, but never him. He had done nothing wrong.

You loved him so much you thought your bones might break from the weight of it.

Your heart might combust from the agony of knowing he belonged to another, because he was yours. He was always meant to be yours. You needed him.

You wanted to hug him.

You wanted to kiss him.

Maybe, this was still salvageable. Maybe Azriel felt this too. Maybe he would understand, and everything he had said about how happy he was to find his mate a few months ago was just the rambling of a drunken male. Maybe he was deflecting, and if you just kissed him—

Azriel stepped away.

His hands fell from your shoulders.

The permanent chill in the air seeped back into your skin.

He said again, “Let’s go home.”

~ ~ ~

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The sounds of nature were even more tangible in the absence of traffic. After the culling games had roped in both non-sorcerers and sorcerers alike, no one went out, so the roads were all virtually empty.

Satoru frowns thoughtfully, in a way that makes his nose scrunch up. His fingers play through your hair absentmindedly as he comes up with a response. With the way he’s thinking, your heart aches to tell him that you want his honest feelings, his doubts and fears, not some fake image he perpetually paints on for the rest of the world. You temper the urge.

“Fighting Megumi is gonna be…weird,” he says finally, with a sigh. “I’m just glad the real pain in the asses are out of the way.”

You remember the day he had come back from killing the higher ups. There was still blood matting his face and hair, dried and flaking. His eyes had long lost their light, and when you had got him alone in your shared room, grabbed a washcloth to wash his face. While you made sure none of the blood was still there, he had asked: Did I do the right thing?

It had taken three face towels to clean it all. The others had gotten soaked too quickly.

He continues. “I’ve been walking toward changing the system for so long, I forgot how to want anything past it.”

You tilt your head to look at him. His eyes are on the sky, as if trying to memorize every cloud.

“You can still want things,” you murmur. “Even now.”

What is left unsaid from you is, You can run away with me.

It’s a pipe dream at best. He was born with the shackle of the six eyes, born in the prison called The Strongest. Running away from it all was as possible as it was for Sisyphus to escape the burden of rolling the rock forever.

At your words, he huffs out a laugh and turns his head just slightly, eyes meeting yours. The blue of them is softer in this light, dusk and gold turning them the color of worn glass. “I do,” he says. “I want a stupid house with a stupid yard and a dumb dog who only listens to you.”

You laugh, blinking against the sudden sting in your eyes. “The dog would accidentally eat your god-awful heap of chocolates and drop dead.”

“Okay, then maybe not a dog then,” he accedes. “I could do with a cat. Just don’t confiscate my chocolates.”

Your voice is a bit stuffy when you reply with, “I would never.”

“Good,” His smile is crooked now, warm. “If I had all the chocolates and the cakes you bake for the rest of my life, I would die a happy man.” 

“You already have those, Satoru,” you laugh wetly. 

“Yeah, but I want grocery lists and laundry days and boring Tuesday nights. Not endless mission reports. God, I’m definitely not going to miss the paperwork,” he groans, and his tone would sound petulant to anyone else; to you, it’s a reminder of how he’s been worked to the bone.

You roll closer to him, forehead brushing against his temple. “We’ll have all of it.”

There’s a beat of silence. The wind rustles through the trees again. He closes his eyes and breathes it in, like he’s trying to make a home of it. You can’t help but look at his serene face and think,

I love you.

It goes unsaid.

Then, “You’ll wait for me?” he asks, almost like a joke.

You turn to him, gaze softening as it lingers on the line of his jaw, the sweep of his lashes, the eyes you’ve loved in a thousand different lights. He’s so beautiful it aches—like something out of a dream or a poem scribbled by a lonely poet on a dirty street, staring up at a beauty wistfully peering out of a window of a high tower.

“Always.”

December 24, 2018.

He looks like he’s watching the sky again.

You are staring down at the shape of him broadcasted through Mei Mei’s crows. The ground is soaked, and the sky doesn’t seem to know whether to rain or just stay gray. His eyes are open.

But you know better. And still, you wait.

Around you, there’s chaos. Your students, in disbelief, are talking loudly but it’s as if everyone around you is talking underwater, none of their words comprehensible. You feel someone shake you, but you’re still staring.

His eyes aren’t closed, but he looks peaceful.

The air thrums with cursed energy, of people in utter shock, and with fear so thick it could choke.

But all you can think about is a stupid patch of wildflowers blooming in your yard. They would’ve been his favorite color—blue, like his eyes when he was teasing you. Like his eyes when he told you he wanted a dumb dog and boring Tuesday nights.

You were going to plant them for him every spring.

You were going to make him cakes every time he forgot his own birthday.

You were going to grow old together.

Instead, you’ll be the one laying flowers on his grave. Alone.

“I’ll go,” you say.

It’s too quiet. Someone protests. You don’t even hear who.

“I said I’ll go.”

You’re already stepping forward. The fight is miles away but it doesn’t matter—you’ll find it. You’ll find Sukuna. You’ll follow the stench of blood and ruin until it leads you to him. 

You know your death is imminent, but there is nothing left to want anymore. Because a future without Satoru is no future at all.

As you make your way through Shinjuku rapidly, you can’t help but think of Yuji—his eyes wide and boyish, despite everything—as he shoved a flyer into your hand and told you to try that ramen shop with him once this was all over.

You remember Megumi’s ginger candies, the ones you had to keep hidden or Gojo would eat them all in one go. They’re still sitting in a dish by the kitchen window.

You remember Shoko’s voice when she said, “Just come back alive, okay?”

You remember Nanami, and Utahime, and Nobara. You remember every stupid, beautiful person you’ve ever loved.

You love them, but love doesn’t always save you; instead, it makes you walk straight into the fire.

Your life had begun when Satoru had saved you from that lonely, dark prison you were forced into; you remember how you had thought that he was akin to a glowing deity, descended from heaven to be your savior. A discarded animal like you, made to believe you were human again by this savior.

So it feels right, in a terrible, sacred way, that your life should end with him, too.

When you finally spot Sukuna, you put up a good fight, but anyone who watches you knows you are resolved, have accepted your fate and prefer death. You don’t scream or cry when it happens; you stare at his face when your body is cleaved into spilling your blood like an endless dam.

You just think: I kept my promise.

I waited.

Then, as you feel everything growing darker and darker, there’s only one thought left, just a silent prayer to whatever god that might still be out there:

Let us try again.

Please—let us try again.

…

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

You wake up from your dream, gasping.

The noise your alarm makes is an unfriendly wake-up call; in your furious effort to locate your phone—which has found itself nestled in your messy blankets—you notice your roommate, Maki, blearily shifting. You madly search to minimize the yelling you’re going to get from her later in the day (you’re already cooked by this point), until silence blankets the room once more.

It’s only until your phone is silenced that you register how fast your heart is beating. Then, when you trudge over to the personal bathroom you and Maki share and flick the light switch, you see that tears had flowed down your cheeks in your sleep.

What a weird fucking dream.

One to have on your first day of classes for the semester, too. You squint at your reflection, the fluorescent light doing your sleep-addled eyes no favors as you grudgingly get ready, brushing your teeth and washing your face and all that. You don’t know why it was so vivid. 

From the dredges of your mind, you first recall the flashing light beams and carnal violence in the destruction of the city, and then you. Were you some kind of magician? It was kind of like…Winx Club, but you weren’t a cunty fairy in cute clothes. Something about sorcerers, so maybe Harry Potter? Hunter X Hunter?

You spit out the frothy mix of your saliva and the mouth freshener. So ridiculous. You couldn’t even blame stress for the weird fanfiction at this point—classes haven’t even started.

Memories of the dream ebb and flow as you try hard to remember what else had occurred as you wipe your face. Gazing upon the white of the moisturizer you’re dabbing on your skin, a flash of white suddenly resurfaces.

Gojo.

A violent feeling overcomes your chest at the name, and you think you’re having a heart attack with the way it clenches like you’re almost about to weep in longing of a beloved. You gasp, cupping the left side of your chest as you try to lower your heart rate.

What hurts most of all is the searing pain, like a spiral of thinly corded string has branded itself on your ring finger. In your rush to look up in the mirror to see what could be hurting you, you don’t notice the red glow it forms. What you see in the see in your reflection surprises you: you’re crying again.

Tears have fully started streaming down your face with the pain, carving wet valleys on your cheeks as they went. After your heart rate slows down, you frown while looking down at your hands. Why were they shaking?

You repeat the name numerous times in your brain, each time causing you to physically tweak. Gojo, Gojo, Gojo, and then resurfaces Satoru, Satoru, Satoru—

It’s after the tenth time you repeat his name that your body seems to calm itself down and get accustomed to whatever emotional shock that coursed through your name after you mentioned his name. His name originally came up because you remember the main person in your dream: the white-haired man. He was the reason you decided to confront that…three armed man? Or did he have four arms? Regardless, you basically offed yourself after he died because you loved him, or something. With the way your body seems to physically shake at the sheer thought of his name, as if the utter image of longing, love may not have been enough to describe what you felt.

Realizing that you’ve drifted off at reminiscing sleepily, you start, as if suddenly animated. You pat your skin, setting in the final step of your skincare routine. Then, you click on your phone screen to check the time.

And notice immediately that you are going to be late.

Then ensues you scrambling to your room, putting on your clothes, tripping on the floor in the process, getting a sleepy glare from Maki that has doubly certified that you are getting a scolding, and then finally making it out the door. The somewhat cool fall weather hits your face as you walk on the pavement, checking your clock repeatedly to ensure it hasn’t hit 9am yet. 

When you make it into the lecture, you realize that it is packed. There aren’t many seats—it is a gen ed class after all, something on some ancient history, and you notice two empty seats, side-by-side, tucked away in the corner of the lecture room. You have to carefully maneuver yourself down the seats.

Navigating the maze of limbs and backpacks, you mumble a series of "excuse me’s" and "coming through’s" until you squeeze past two guys—a stern-looking blond with glasses that scream "salaryman thirst trap" and a loud brunet beside him. Reaching your target, you slide into the seat that leaves an empty one between you and the blond. You’re very pleased about the extra breathing room.

Maybe today won’t be so bad after all.

You prepare your supplies to take notes on the first (of many) syllabus reviews to come. In the meantime, you’re privy to hearing the mumble and grumble of people around you; it’s only when a throat clears itself at the head of the class do you see a man—probably the professor of this class, Yaga—who has the slides already up. Ancient East Asian History is branded on the big white screen in bolded, black Arial font. Clearly, graphic design was not his passion.

His voice projects through the mic and is fairly deep and resonant, so it’s clear to everyone, despite the number of people in the room, that class is starting. As expected, the next slide is titled “What is Ancient East Asian History?” 

“Let’s delve deeper into what I mean by East Asian. Asia is a subcontinent that’s home to a diverse set of cultures, and even so in East Asia…”

As Yaga speaks, time ebbs and flows around you. The monotonous sounds of papers flipping, pens scratching on paper, and the clicking of keyboards surrounds you. You can’t help but think the fluorescent lights, harsh and white, had to be designed to keep students from falling asleep, because their intensity paints the lecture hall in this weird lighting. The mood created by it is something akin to the filter horror movies perpetually have on—vivid, but cold and dark. Like when you’ve been up for too long to the point that you don’t know if it’s night, or morning, because it’s still dark out. Then, dawn breaks, the sun enveloping the sky in its warmth.

Suddenly, the heavy set of doors that serve as your lecture hall’s entrance open loudly—louder than someone who is sheepishly entering late. Instead of the usual indifference reserved for a fellow student who had slept in, the room ripples with murmurs and giggles, shattering the silence that had settled—save for Yaga’s lecturing.

You don’t look at first. You look at Yaga, who is pinching the bridge of his nose as he mutters, “In Japanese culture, punctuality is a form of respect—something we are clearly still learning.”

You don’t turn. You don’t need to. But, like a current pulling you under, your gaze follows the crowd’s. And you see him.

Gojo.

Suddenly, your heart clenches violently, and you can only help but gasp hoarsely and shut your eyes. If you didn't, streams of tears would flow down your face once more. You couldn’t help but swear internally; you had thought you had conditioned yourself to be stable at the mention of his name. 

But, almost as if it’s subconscious, you wrench your eyes open, desperate to view the boy. You’d assume something apologetic, maybe. Rushed. Someone with their hood up, mumbling an excuse as they shuffle into the shadows of the back row. But this—

This is someone who walks like he knows the sound of his own footsteps matters. His ivory hair is tussled, like he had just rolled out of your dream. He looks a bit younger than he did when you had seen him, but his eyes are the same unmistakable brilliant, cerulean color.

Now, he’s making his way down the stairs, skipping every third one with his long legs. Something leaves his lips, and it’s something humorous—depending on how girls and guys around him laugh, a shared sense of adoration in their eyes. You can only help but watch as he comes closer and closer to you, and you remember belatedly that the seat next to you is the only empty one in the whole lecture hall.

Yaga huffs and rolls his eyes, crossing his arms in barely concealed annoyance. “Nice of you to join us, Gojo.”

Gojo lifts a hand in a lazy wave. “Yaga, you ever tried finding parking on this campus?” The lecture erupts in barely muted half-sleepy giggles. 

It’s only when a particularly loud high five he receives—by the brunet in your row—that you break out of your reverie and turn to your laptop, flustered. Any attempt to act nonchalant would be funny as if the thing that’s wrong with you—that invisible thing—hasn’t been rippling violently inside your gut the moment you laid eyes on him. Like your body has just been handed proof. Like a wound cracking open in slow motion.

He’s approaching, long legs trying to get through the sheer amount of people to where the empty seat next to you was, and when he’s there, right next to you, you shouldn’t look up.

But you do.

When your eyes meet his, something ancient and awful coils in your throat. A shiver, not of fear, but of recognition so buried it aches.

Pearly teeth and bright blue eyes glistening. A breathless, “Hi.”

And the invisible string, that had spiraled and corkscrewed itself into the jumble it was, pulls—until it is straight and wrung tight. You don’t know this boy. You’ve never seen him before.

So why does it feel like your heart just remembered how to break?

Your throat is dry, but you manage out a “Good morning.”

You turn back to your desk, your fingers quivering. By your side, he’s moving and rummaging through the contents of his backpack quite noisily, one that can be heard throughout the lecture hall if one were to tune out Yaga’s droning. In curiosity of seeing what was taking him so damn long to find, you turn your head slightly, and notice the heaps of wrappers—all pastel colored and bright, like candy and dessert wrappers—that his backpack is almost suffocated with. Then, he pulls out his laptop, opens it, and resumes the game of Run 3 he had paused beforehand.

Respectfully, what the fuck.

As if sensing your stare, he turns to you until meeting your eyes; you were caught. Like a deer caught in headlights, you helplessly stare back at him, heat creeping up your neck, and his gaze leaves your eyes to look at your lips, which you were biting.

Then, he leans in slightly—you also inching yourself back because why is he getting so close and why is your heart beating so fast—and whispers, “Do I know you?”

You’ve never seen him outside of the weird dream you had, and it would’ve been weird to admit that you’ve dreamed about him. “No, I don’t think you do,” you whisper back, voice hoarse.

His lips quirk in response, but, to your dismay, he doesn’t retract. His brows furrow while he stares at your face, as if deep in thought, and nods, flirtatiously saying, “Makes sense. I feel like I wouldn’t have forgotten you if I had met you.”

Despite the cheesy line, heat creeps up your neck, and you can’t help but bitterly look down at your desk after giving him a quiet, “No, I don’t we have. I’m sorry.” If he flirted with a stranger like this, dream you must’ve had a really hard time as his wife. Shameless.

And thus the lecture runs its course. Throughout, you’re tense, the heat of his presence never letting you relax. You feel every movement of his fingers, his forearms, as he played his games or typed miscellaneous things that you didn’t see because you were physically forcing yourself to stare at the lecture slides, back ramrod straight.

It’s only until his leg starts shaking that you start feeling…weird. His reaction is completely normal; you don’t blame him, because Yaga’s been going over the syllabus’ section of projects and how you can’t change project partners for over thirty minutes. But it’s the fact that a steady wave of nausea is building up inside you, until a sharp piercing sensation overwhelms your head.

Then, a vision.

It’s hazy, as if projected on cloudy water. A shaking leg, clad in what seems like uniform pants, underneath a small wooden desk. Then, a hand reaches out to yours, grasping it firmly, and you feel a weird sense of nausea once more. However, it’s not the same feeling you’ve been feeling since your dream—instead, it’s a stomach upturning feeling of being teleported somewhere.

A bed.

It’s a small one, in a room that resembles a dorm. The hand grasping yours isn’t simply grabbing your hand; it’s now trailing up your sock-covered ankle, up your calves, and then under your skirt—

The murky vision gets even murkier until you can’t register anything anymore. Then, you suddenly return, the fluorescent lights being the first thing you register after the weird deja-vu-memory thing. The feelings you felt from the vision linger, including overwhelming feelings of euphoria, lust, and sheer happiness that bloom in your heart warmly, like a flower in fresh spring.

You’re so distraught from the complicated jumble of feelings that have thrusted themselves upon you that you don’t hear Yaga say his concluding words. It’s the jarring, obnoxious screech! of the chair next to you—Gojo’s—that you jump to your senses and realize half of the students have left. 

Thus, you hurriedly pack your things and book it the fuck out of there because you would rather die than be the last person to leave class, lest Yaga think you were staying behind to talk to him. You’ve had more than your fill of East Asian Studies today.

Maybe it’s best if you avoid Gojo, lest you slip up. The dream—and the weird reactions your body seems to be having in his presence—are too…peculiar. If something happened, you wouldn’t know how to recover.

In your haste, you don’t realize you’ve left something behind, nor did you hear the “Wait! You forgot….this” that Gojo had called out to you, staring at the object in his hand—and your retreating back—with a complicated expression.

next. Note to Self: Don't Call Random Boys your Husband (soon!)

a/n short chapter, but this series is going to contain a mixture of: a lot of crack and fluff, yearning (as always, yall know me), and debilitating angst ("who did this to you??" oh i loved writing the angst) and crazy reunion sex. comment down below to be added to the taglist!!

to be clear, unless otherwise indicated, reader is getting these moments from the past as "migraines" / flashes / dreams.

TAGLIST P1:

@nithica @rh-tg1 @tbzzluvr @spookytyphoonfire @vsynical

@totallyuniquenut @yamiyas @nishayuro @nariminsstuff @starmapz

@sylusonlylove @purplemint @elliesndg @gggellaa @arabellasolstice

@arrozyfrijoles23 @yeehawbrothers @that-one-lightskin @candyluvsboba @avaults

@iheartkhloe @angelcherrry @madamechrissy @xxemmarldxx @lovenbesos

@liveforkny @nattie-smack @cherryredribbons @introvertatitsfinest @starlightoru-gojo

@hyori2 @gxldencloset @l0v3m3m0re @cuntysaurusrex @nanamineedstherapy

@oikawasxx @littlemisspoets-blog @anuncalledbridge @watermelonmuntchers @zeyno-14

@k-kkiana @nanamiskentos @kviwi @evawts @forest-nymph420

“This thing is so ugly,” you whine, picking at your cast as he walks you back home. “Do you think I’m gross now, Caleb?”

“It’s not ugly. You need it to get better.”

“I thought you’d fall in love with me if I went high enough,” you sniffle fake tears, which he reads in an instant. “I did go pretty high up, though. So maybe you like me at least.”

He laughs, and you scowl, insisting that you aren’t joking. So instead, he smiles and holds your free hand in his again. Your heart skips a beat. A childish, but innocent love fluttering in your chest. “Come on, splints. Let’s go watch TV, and I can sign your cast.”

The broken wrist is so worth it.

With MC being two grades lower than the two of you and thus having a different schedule, it doesn’t take long before you’re doing practically everything with Caleb. He’s your seatmate in class, the two of you walk to and from school, and there doesn’t seem to be a moment where you aren’t glued at the hip. Throughout all of this, you make sure you shoot your shot whenever the chance arises—even when it doesn’t arise at all.

“You get any chocolates for Valentine’s?” you ask as you plop down in your seat with your lunch, not-so-conspicuously eyeing his desk as his friends begin to crowd around the two of you. It didn’t take long for Caleb to adjust to ordinary school life. After his initial bumpy introduction where he seemed hesitant to get close to anyone his grandma would introduce him to, he was quick to adjust to a level of charisma even you haven’t gotten to. 

By now, he’s charisma personified. You, yourself, have no idea how quickly he adapts to things. Though, you do recall that after an exam measuring his intelligence, he was told he couldn’t lower his grade by two years to be with MC. So you suppose he’s rather bright—almost as much as his face.

“Too many,” one of his friends groan, dragging his hand down the side of his face. “Life’s so not fair, dude.”

“Just a few,” Caleb laughs, turning to feel me stare at him expectantly. “Most of them are obligatory. I just helped a couple people out during gym.”

You glance at his friends. “How many is a few?”

“At least five,” another one grins. He wiggles his eyebrows at you, and his friend snickers at his shoulder. “You jealous?”

It’s not like your crush on Caleb is new news. In fact, it’s practically common knowledge at your school, given how open you are with your affection with him. Asking him out with a giant poster on orientation day, sending him notes with hearts littered everywhere during class, and refusing to be subtle when you’re discussing it with your friends…it tends to add up. Most people believe your relationship to be strange, but those who matter thought of it as the norm, so it doesn’t really matter. 

“Jealous? I don’t think so, why?”

“Most girls would be if their boyfriend got a bunch of chocolates,” he responds, to which Caleb immediately reminds him that you’re not dating. Then his friend sighs. “It’s cute when girls get jealous, isn’t it?”

At this, your ears perk.

“Should I be jealous?” you ask Caleb, making his friends erupt into snickers. “Do you think it’s cute too?”

He rolls his eyes and flicks your forehead softly. “Do you ever ask normal questions, splints?”

Throughout your childhood together, everything involves him. Family dinners, graduation, holidays, all of it. Of course, this means that MC is there for all of it too. You’re helplessly in love, but you’re not stupid. You know what love looks like from the movies their grandma would play on their TV. He cares for her with a different look in his eyes. He protects her with a lovingness in his voice that he doesn’t spare for you. 

The same fingers that flick your forehead touch her arm gingerly, like she could crack in half if he holds too hard. He doesn’t touch her very easily either, whereas he often falls asleep with his head fully leaning against your shoulder on the bus ride home. He wakes up at the crack of dawn to make her lunch, while the two of you munch on sandwiches from the school cafeteria during lunch breaks. He scolds you when your clothes are tossed on the ground while he folds hers without her having to ask. He never enters her room to protect her privacy while he lounges in yours like he owns the place.

Your Caleb, you have found, is different from MC’s Caleb. 

MC’s Caleb is easy to depend on. Trustworthy, perfect, and never makes a mistake for the life of him. He never loses his cool in front of her, never has a hair out of place, lets her win at all the board games, and always has this clear but dazed look in his pretty purple eyes. Your Caleb has none of that. Your Caleb teases you mercilessly when you lose the card game for the fifth time in a row. Your Caleb passes out on his desk while studying for an exam, essentially drooling on his notebook to lie to MC that he’s naturally talented at math. Your Caleb sends you stupid videos about plane models and forces you to sit through a thirty-minute explanation about it.

You know he likes her. He knows you know he likes her. She doesn’t know anything at all. All jumbled up, like a wordless pact ready to crumble at any moment. 

Of course, this means that he prioritizes her over you at times. All the time. It’s to be expected. She’s family, you’re not. You’ve grown used to it, and so has he.

MC doesn’t notice though, because she doesn’t have to. Because to her, Caleb is just a slightly nagging but cool adoptive brother. Nothing more, nothing less. And you’re one of her childhood friends, and Caleb’s best friend. Nothing more, nothing less.

The first year after you graduate high school is a dramatic shift from your cozy hometown. You somehow manage to get into the same college as Caleb–and you attribute his tutoring to be the main culprit—though in different majors. It’s a lot to convince him to go so far from home given that MC is still at home, but after a lot of reluctant discussion, he agrees.

“Take off your shoes at the door,” he reminds you as you barge into his dorm room after a particularly difficult exam for one of your classes. You do as he asks, grumbling about how he has no mercy for the fallen, tossing them haphazardly beside the door and prancing past him. He takes the time to tidy them up, as if he’s expecting it. “How was your exam?”

“Awful. I went through war.”

Caleb grins as he sits down at the coffee table beside you, watching as you bury your face into your arms. “And whose fault is it that they didn’t want to study?”

“Yours.”

“Funny,” he snorts, and you feel his large hand ruffling the top of your head. “It’s alright, splints. I can tutor you a bit earlier on the next one.”

“Even you can’t save me for this class.”

“Is that a challenge?”

He ends up cooking up something quick in his makeshift kitchen (essentially just a rice cooker), while you laze around on his bed, scrolling aimlessly on your phone. Once he’s finished, you scarf down his food like a man starved, lips stretching widely. At times like these, you’re oddly grateful for his hopeless love toward MC. How else would he have learned to cook such good food?  “You should honestly be a chef, Caleb. Actually, no, that would mean other people would eat your food. I guess you can just be my personal chef when we’re married.”

Caleb remains completely unaffected, wordlessly cleaning the plate in front of you. “I didn’t realize I was engaged.”

“Well, now you know. Not sure if you remember, but I had fireworks for you and everything when I proposed. Plus an orchestra.”

He hums, looking up as if he’s in thought, and then nods. “Now that you mention it, that does sound familiar, splints. How could I forget?”

You shrug. “You tell me.”

His face falls as you pace to the door and begin to put your shoes back on. “Where are you going? Aren’t you done with class?”

“Going out. I deserve it after that exam.”

“With your friends?”

“No, with four guys,” you joke, but he doesn’t seem to find it very funny. “I’m just going to a club. I won’t be back too late.”

He’s already grabbing his jacket. “I can come.”

You push him back with your finger by the nose, and he blinks in surprise, making you laugh. “No need. You have exams too, y’know.”

“I’m done studying.”

“Liar.”

Though it takes some convincing, you eventually have him sit at his desk once more. He manages to nag a whole lot as you leave, reminding you to call him once you’re done so he can pick you up, but you just wave him off as you leave out the door. You take your time getting ready–dolling yourself up to hide the dark circles beneath your eyes. As you get ready, you video call MC, where she asks how you and Caleb have been doing in her absence. She rants about her days with her grandma, complaining about how quiet the house is when Caleb isn’t home, though she indulged in the beginning. She asks you to show her your outfit once you’re done, and she beams brightly in your screen, squealing about how you’d likely get a boyfriend soon that you can tell her all about.

You just smile, because you don’t know how to tell her that the only boy you want is wrapped around her unknowing hand.

The club is loud. Where the music rumbles through your feet to the tips of your fingertips, and the lights are flashing in a dimly lit room. Your friends flock to a table and order drinks while you let yourself feel the music and crack a joke or two once in a while.

A group of guys approaches you with easy smiles and louder voices than necessary—confidence sharpened by cheap cologne. One of them leans against your table like he’s done it a hundred times before, asking your name, where you’re from, if you come here often. The usual.

You answer, choking out a laugh to humor his unfunny jokes alongside your friends, while the swigs you take from your drink become deeper and deeper. 

He’s not bad at flirting, you think. Subtle, and not too glaring about it. But you don’t particularly enjoy humoring it, and it becomes gradually more apparent as your eyes keep drifting elsewhere and you keep having to ask him to repeat himself. You’re growing bored. Irritated.

Because he’s not Caleb.

It hits you in strange, inconvenient flashes. The way this guy stands just a little too far away. The way his voice doesn’t quite reach you over the music, even when he’s close. The way you don’t feel that familiar, grounding presence like an anchor holding you to the ground.

You find yourself glancing past his shoulder. Half-wishing to see Caleb there. Watching. Hovering.

But there’s only strangers. Blurred faces and flashing lights.

“You okay?” the guy asks, tilting his head.

“Yeah,” you say too quickly. “Long week.”

He grins, like that’s an invitation. Says something else—something about getting you another drink, maybe dancing, maybe getting out of here.

You nod again. Smile again.

Across the room, your friends are already disappearing into the crowd, dragged toward the dance floor by laughter and hands you don’t recognize. One of them glances back at you, gives you a look that asks ‘you’re good, right?’ before she’s gone.

You sit back down at the table when the guy steps away. Maybe to grab drinks, maybe because he senses your attention drifting. You don’t really care which.

The music swells in your chest. The lights flicker. You wish you could enjoy yourself, but it’s particularly hard today.

You take another sip. Then another. Your phone rests face-down on the table, but you flip it over anyway.

No messages.

Of course not. He cares, but not like that. Not in the way that he would spam MC’s phone whenever he didn’t know where she was or how she was doing. No, not like that at all.

Another sip. The glass is nearly empty now.

And suddenly, you’re pressing send before you can even register what’s happening.

[you]: hi

The answer comes immediately, the grey bubbles popping up on his end of the screen.

[futre hubs <333]: do you need me to come pick you up?

[futre hubs <333]: i can

You’re not sure why you feel like shit, but you hate it. In moments like these—moments where the alcohol lets you lower your walls and truly think—it hits you like a truck, like a deeply sinking feeling in your chest. The years of rejection after rejection that the two of you frame like a bit—as if your feelings have become so miniscule that it no longer even phases him. 

It hurts, a bit. More than you let yourself feel.

You’re not sure how much time passes. Maybe minutes or maybe an hour. There’s buzzing throughout your body. The grip on your waist belonging to the man you’ve been half-heartedly entertaining suddenly becomes harsher, snapping you out of your trance. It feels unlike Caleb, but you let it sit anyway. However, the hand moves to your wrist, and you’re being pulled out of the crowd towards the wall.

Too touchy. He’s saying something into your ear, and you feel his breath against your skin. You don’t like it. Too close. The buzzing feeling feels more like an alarm now.

The words either go unheard due to the music or don’t deter him. You want to go back. Back to Caleb. In the moment, you begin to think—almost as if the world is in slow motion. Perhaps the drinks, you think. You wonder if Caleb will leave you. You wonder if he’ll leave to go be with MC. You wonder if the years you’ve spent expressing your love to him meant as much to him as it did to you, or if he just found it plain annoying. You wonder if now that you’re in college, he’d want to explore other people, and he’ll finally find an outlet to get rid of you for good. 

But you know he wouldn’t. Because he cares for you. Just not as much as he cares for her.

You wonder if he’s ever looked at you with the same softness he does with MC.

Someone pulls you away from the man and into their chest, and the worries dissipate in an instant. His scent. His warmth. You knew he’d come. He always does. It only takes a warning glare from Caleb before the man disappears into the crowd again, and you feel the grip on your wrist loosen. Caleb stares down at you, your back still to his chest as you blink wearily, almost in slow motion, and he sighs. He doesn’t give you the same smile he gives to MC when she’s in trouble. 

A part of you wishes he wasn’t always there for you—not when it’s so different from how he’s there for her. 

You sit idly in front of a convenience store parking lot while Caleb fetches you some water and ice cream. You have your knees to your chest, arms pulling them close as you shiver against the cold autumn breeze. You should’ve brought a jacket. The buzzing, hot feeling of the alcohol is subsiding too quickly.

“Drink.” You feel a water bottle press against your cheek from behind, and Caleb plops down beside you with a plastic bag. He notices how you’re holding yourself together and frowns. “Are you cold?”

“No.”

“I told you to grab a jacket.”

“You nag too much.”

He snickers and twists open the cap of the water bottle for you to drink, which you sip carefully. He strips his jacket off and drapes it over your shoulders, and you immediately bury yourself in it. It smells like him.

“What kind of woman do you like, Caleb?”

“You and your questions.”

“I want to know.”

He shifts to face you, motioning for you to lift your arms. He grabs either side of his jacket and pulls it shut, fumbling with the zipper until he manages to zip it to your chin. You can barely claw your hands out of his sleeves—the fabric almost engulfs you—but he just laughs. “My type? A woman who brings jackets when it’s cold.”

You scowl, making his laugh echo louder. “Other than that.”

“A woman who goes to class in the morning.”

“...Other than that.”

“A woman who doesn’t leave her clothes all over my floor when she feels like sleeping over.”

“Something else.”

“A woman who eats healthy, balanced meals. A woman who doesn’t steal all my pens and then still ends up asking me for more. Maybe someone who doesn’t pass out drooling on my pillow. Or someone who doesn’t let half the world know that they like someone—hell, maybe even the entire world.”

Caleb glances at you, chuckling to himself, but stops the moment he sees that you’re not laughing with him. Your head hangs low, your feet shuffling anxiously. His face twists, and suddenly the air thickens.  “Splints?”

You pick at your sleeves. “So just not me?”

“I was just kidding around.”

“Jokes have some truth to them.”

“Not all of them. I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay, Caleb,” you finally meet his eyes again, and shrug. “I know you like someone else. I’m not an idiot.”

Silence commences, like a bell dropping on your head.

Caleb shifts his weight, one hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. It’s a nervous habit you’ve seen a hundred times—usually followed by some half-joke, something to smooth things over.

But nothing comes.

The space between you suddenly feels too small and too big all at once. You try to act normal. You really do.

You fiddle with your sleeve again, smoothing it down, then pulling at it, then smoothing it again. Anything to give your hands something to do, so they don’t reach for him out of instinct. 

Caleb glances at you. Then away.

Then back again, like he’s trying to solve something written across your face but can’t quite make out the words.

“Hey,” he starts, softer this time.

You hum in response, not trusting your voice yet.

Another pause. God, it’s awkward.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he mutters again, quieter now. Not defensive. Unsure. “You know I think you’re amazing.”

Just not enough.

“I am pretty great,” but it comes out too soft.

Neither of you knows what to do with another stretch of silence. So you opt to drink some more water instead.

“Why do you like me so much?” He eventually mutters out as he bites his bottom lip, eyes falling to the ground like he can’t bear to watch your expression. “You could do a lot better.”

You smile, but it’s half-hearted. “How could I not?”

He pauses, as if choosing his words carefully before his voice comes out in a soft whisper. “You mean so much to me. You’re smart, beautiful, and everything good in between—whoever gets to call you theirs is the luckiest person I know. And you know I’d do anything for you.”

Despite their sweetness, his words feel like judgement wrapping around your heart in vines, squeezing just before it’s about to pop. You wish you could block your ears out for what comes next.

“But it can’t be me.” Caleb’s lips purse, brows furrowing as he looks away. “I can’t give you what you want.”

The rejection hurts more than you realized it would. You want to tell him that it’s not fair to treat you the way he does and expect you not to fall for him. That holding your hair when you vomit, falling asleep at your bedside when you’re sick, and his eyes closing in on you in any room that you’re in is not fair. 

Instead, you nod. And you swear to yourself that you’ll swallow this sickening lump in your throat that makes you want to hurl and sob at the same time. That you’ll bury it deep in a graveyard within you that even the closest person to you would never know of. Especially him.  

“I don’t want it, either,” you snort back, immediately perking up to slap his back in what results in a jolt. His shoulders tense as he blinks wide at you, unsure of the sudden shift in atmosphere. “I don’t want feelings that belong to someone else, dumbass.”

Once it sinks in that you mean it, a smile finds its way onto his face, though something flickers beneath it, like a flash of something you don’t want to look too far into.

Not because you still had hope, but because whatever existed between you had never been something as simple as a crush. It had roots—tangled deep into your souls and impossible to pull free without tearing something open. You wanted to keep what was left. Even if it lingered just a little longer, and even if you pretended not to see the splintering strands in the string tying you together.

So you let it settle. Let it rot somewhere you couldn’t feel it.

The two of you fall into the kind of closeness that you’ve always had, and time passes as if it was always meant to be this way. It’s easier this way. For a while, it does work, but nothing ever really stays under wraps. Despite your incessant protests in telling yourself it’s fading, the scars he’s inflicted on you are just that. Scars. Unmoving yet subtle.

The thinning thread finally snaps a few years later, when MC develops feelings for a coworker in the Hunter’s Association. The day the cracks in the glass bridge holding you together shatter beneath your feet into a million different pieces.

“When’s the last time you’ve slept?”

He’s sprawled shirtless on the couch of his apartment in Skyhaven, freshly out of the shower after you arrived to visit him for the first time in months—only to see that he’s nearly overworking himself to death. Despite him going off to the DAA after college, you’d kept close contact, the connection between the two of you never wavering regardless of your restricted time. It only changed after news of MC broke out. Worried, you’d rushed to Skyhaven to make sure he was doing okay, which you’re clearly glad you did now. You’d practically had to drag him to the shower to keep him from passing out next to the front door in his gear.

Caleb, clearly, is off. You suppose you don’t blame him. The woman he loves is yearning for another. Almost poetic, really, but you don’t like seeing him this way. Especially when you know what it feels like yourself, even if you’ve gotten used to it. Gotten over it. He looks like a kicked puppy. Hurt, like a dog who’s just been scratched by its owner. 

“I dunno.”

You peer into the empty abyss that is his fridge and frown. There’s a few measly apples sitting inside, and a half-eaten protein bar that’s been there for god knows how long. “What the hell have you been eating?”

He responds with a grunt, letting his head fall back against the sofa. You decide to make do with the instant noodles he has stashed in one of the cupboards and bring it over to him once it seems mostly done. With a fork, you stick out a few noodles to his face, urging him. “Eat.”

“Not hungry,” he mutters.

“Don’t care. Sit up.”

He opens one of his eyes to peek at you, which somehow urges him forward. There’s darkness beneath his eyes—even stubble littering his chin from a few days worth of not shaving. You want to reach out and poke fun at him, but the state he’s in deters you. Instead, you silently feed him, watching him chew his food while staring at your hands. It makes you wish you put on a fresh set of polish before you came.

You twirl another small forkful and hold it out. He leans forward this time without being told, taking it quietly. His shoulder brushes yours as he settles back against the couch, and you can feel his skin through your shirt.

“Thanks,” he mutters, voice rough from disuse more than anything. “For coming.”

“Yeah,” you say, quieter now. “Someone had to make sure you didn’t rot in here.”

He huffs a faint laugh, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Probably would’ve. Dramatic way to go out, huh?”

You nudge his knee with yours. “Starving to death in your own apartment? Real heroic.”

A ghost of a smile flickers across his face. It makes your heart flutter. Stupid feelings.

“…thanks for coming, splints,” he says.

Your chest tightens—sharp and sudden. It feels like it’s threatening to feel something that’s not yours to feel. So instead, you look down at the bowl, pretending to focus on separating another bite. You twirl your fork, more carefully this time. “I had to. You weren’t responding, so I thought you died, or something. Open.”

He rolls his eyes, but obeys anyway. “Bossy.”

“Learned from the best.”

His lids flutter shut, voice dropping to a lower hum. “I missed this.”

Your hand stills. “What?”

He shrugs, eyes still closed. “You being here.”

His hair is sticking to his forehead, still damp from the shower. Before you realize what you’re doing, you brush a stray strand of hair off his forehead. You speak quietly. “You look like shit.”

“Wow,” he mutters. “You have a way with words.”

You frown, and without thinking, your hand lingers at his temple for just a second longer than it should. His skin is warm, still hot from the shower.

“Idiot,” you whisper.

He catches your wrist. Not tight, not stopping you. Simply holding it there for a moment that feels too long and not long enough at once. Your eyes meet for a fleeting moment, and then you’re looking away, setting the mostly finished bowl of noodles onto the coffee table to pull away.

“Don’t make this a habit. I’m not flying out here every time you forget to eat.”

“Could,” he murmurs. “You would.”

You don’t respond to that, because he’s not wrong.

“…Is she okay?”

It slips out of him like instinct. Like breathing. And just like that, everything shifts. You don’t answer right away—instead, your fingers tighten slightly around the fork.

“She’s fine,” you say eventually. Leave it, you plead in your head.

“Did she say anything?” he asks, sitting up a little more now. There’s something in his eyes, like he’s searching. “When you talked to her.”

You shrug, trying to keep your tone even. “Just normal stuff.” Stop, you think. Please stop talking.

“Like what?”

“Like her job. Her grandma. Nothing serious.” Shit.

He frowns slightly. “She didn’t mention him?”

There it is. It’s always about her.

You know he’s in a vulnerable spot right now, but it does nothing to ease the sudden flame roaring in your chest. Whether it’s from years of repressed hurt or shame, all it amounts to is a relentless ball of rage inside of you that leaves your nails digging crescents into the palms of your hands. You stare at him, chewing on the inside of your cheek as you inch away from him. 

“Does it matter?”

Caleb’s face relaxes. “What?”

“Why does it matter what she thinks about him? She likes him, end of story, no?”

“I just want to know if he’s a decent guy.”

Your ass. “That’s not really your business, Caleb, but sure. He’s a great guy. Amazing, honestly. He’s really gentlemanly and checks every single box. He lives above her apartment, so they’re right next to each other. He treats her gently, too. I’d bet every girl would jump at a chance to date a guy like that.”

You’re not sure where the words are tumbling out of, but it’s too late to go back. Neither do you want to.

“I wonder if he has a brother. Maybe MC could set me up or something.”

“Oh. Is he…” Caleb’s back straightens, and you notice his fingers digging into his thighs. “...handsome?”

“Didn’t you hear me? I’m telling you, he’s perfect. His face could pay for the Linkon rent by itself.”

He suddenly stands, and you glare up at him through your eyebrows. “Why are you talking like that?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you scoff.

He narrows his eyes. It’s something you haven’t seen in a while, since Caleb rarely gets upset at you. “You know exactly what I’m talking about, splints.”

“Can you just spit it out? What am I saying differently?”

“You’re angry.”

You stand, following suit. He looms over you to have his shadow essentially engulf you, and you wish you could kick his ankle so he falls to the ground. “Maybe if you weren’t so irritating, I wouldn’t feel so annoyed right now.”

“What?”

“It’s hard to watch, Caleb,” you hiss out in exasperation, throwing your hands into the air. “It’s always pipsqueak this, pipsqueak that, pipsqueak what. Seriously, we’re not kids anymore, you need to get over it!”

You’re not sure if you’re talking to him or yourself anymore.

“Can we calm down and talk? If I’ve been talking too much about it, I can stop, so—”

“We haven’t seen each other in months, Caleb! And all you want to ask me about is how she’s been? Why don’t you ask her yourself, if you’re so curious? Oh, but you can’t, because you always have to be perfect in front of her. So instead, you dump all of this on me. Your goods and bads, all of it, just for me to get kicked to the curb like I’m some dispensable object.”

“What?” his balks. “Dispensible? Are you serious? As if I haven’t gotten you out of every little thing you’ve gotten yourself into the past decade of our lives? As if I haven’t picked you up every weekend from your friends’ places at three in the morning? Like I haven’t called you every single week—”

“Well, I want you to stop that!” your words spit at him like weak knives, growing louder by the second. 

“You didn’t seem very against it the last forty times.”

“I am now.”

“What has gotten into you, splints?”

“Don’t call me that right now,” you glower, and you try to ignore the hurt flashing across his expression. “I’m just sick of seeing you follow her around like some wet dog. She doesn’t see you like that, can’t you see that?”

Your breathing begins to stutter, and you suck in a deep breath through your nose. Your chest stings, and you pray that you don’t lose composure so the tears threatening to bubble at the corners of your eyes remain hidden.

“You told me that you couldn’t give me what I wanted. Well, she can’t either,” you bore holes into his chest, too afraid of what you might see if you look up. “If I can get over my stupid feelings, so can you.”

But you’re not over it. Not at all.

He opens his mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. For the first time in a while, you’ve rendered him speechless, and it feels even worse than what it felt to be rejected years ago. You’re not sure how your nails haven’t drawn blood at this point. You’d rather that they do, so you have some excuse to use the restroom.

“It’s not fair what you do, Caleb,” you try to will your tears to stay at bay, but you can’t help them. They sting, blurring your vision as you drop your head in some pathetic hope that he won’t face them head on. “How you treat me when you don’t like me like that is not fair. At least MC doesn’t know, but you—you know, and yet you—”

The rational part of you says that it’s not entirely his fault. Sure, you insisted on staying by his side. Sure, you insisted that you could push down your feelings. Sure, you’ve promised a lot of things, but it’s his fault too, for being the way he is—so kind, so thoughtful, just so him. 

You wipe desperately at your tears. It was a lost cause from the start.

“Please don’t cry.” His face drains of color, apparent even against the dim lighting in his apartment. He steps towards you, and you take a step back. “Please don’t cry, splints, just not that.”

But when your tears refuse to cease dripping down your cheeks, your face flushing in humiliation, you feel both his hands cupping either side of it. He tilts your gaze up, and you realize that he’s only inches away from you, so much so that you can feel his breath against your skin. It’s moments like these that you lose yourself in his beauty. The deepness of his eyes that seem to peer into your very soul is one of the first features that you fell in love with as a child, and it hasn’t changed since. Damn him. You blink, eyes wide while his own flicker to your lips. 

“Be as mad as you want. Hit me, hate me even,” he whispers, his nose almost touching yours now. His thumb pad smooths your tears away. “But don’t waste your tears on someone like me.”

You think you might be imagining things. Because with the tension that nearly suffocates you and his lashes almost fluttering against your skin, you think he might be about to kiss you.

A sharp pain jabs you in the chest. Is it pity? A consolation prize dressed up as something softer? Is it to smooth things over, to make this moment easier for him to leave behind? Or is it rebellion? Something reckless from the fact that he can’t have her? Your tears have dried up, but the rest of your body seems to weep, as no excitement, no butterflies course through your veins. 

Why is it always something else? Why is it never you? It only hurts—because even now, you’re just the place he empties everything he feels for her.

Instinctively, you press your palm into his lips to push him away, and it feels like the air itself has stilled.

His breath lingers against your skin. Yours stutters like it’s forgotten how to exist in the same space as him. The air is so thick you could slice it with a knife.

Eventually, he pulls away. Caleb stares at you with an expression you haven’t seen before, though you don’t look long enough to analyze it. Wordlessly, you gather your things, stuffing your jacket into your bag and stumble over to the door—all while he stays locked in a petrified state, like he’s processing what he just did. Your gaze remains fixated on the wooden panels of the floor while you pack, refusing to look any higher in case you might see anything other than his feet.

“Don’t follow me,” you tell him as you leave. 

You don’t wait to see if he hears you.

The journey home feels like there’s a gaping hole in your chest, and all you can do is stare out the window as you feel the vibrations of the train through your fingertips. Outside, the world blurs past in streaks of dim lights and shadowed shapes, and you wish that your feelings were as fleeting as the buildings blurring by. 

You try to count the number of trees you see. Not on the warmth of his breath against your palm. Not on how close he’d been. Not on the fact that, for a second, you almost let him.

If you hadn’t pushed him away, would it have meant anything? Or would you have just been a mistake he’d regret in the morning?

Your phone buzzes frantically in your pocket, and you pull it out to see his name in big bold letters. He’s texting you simultaneously, apologizing in so many different ways that they all start to blend into one message you don’t plan on reading. You refuse to give into what your heart wants. It’s hurt you too much in the past. So instead, your thumb hovers above the ‘mute’ button.

You press it and shut your eyes.

Even if it’s difficult to adjust the first few weeks without him, you can’t bear to face him either. He shows up at your door. Nearly every day for some time, knocking softly and asking if you’d be willing to talk. When you simply plug in your earbuds and bury yourself into your bed, he apologizes through the door and leaves you something to eat. You tend to throw it out at first, but after a while, you figure it’s just a waste. Just like that, a month goes by. And then another. Then another. Until you can’t count them on one hand anymore. He comes by once every two weeks or so now, likely busy with his work.

Despite how much your body seems to miss his presence, you wonder if you should distance Caleb permanently. It’s a daunting idea. One that you never would’ve thought just a few years ago, but the embarrassment runs deeper than you want to admit. The feelings you’ve tried so hard to hide clearly aren’t hidden. Is this sustainable? 

Regardless of what you think, he comes around like clockwork.

“Are you in there?” He knocks gently on your door, voice soft. He probably knows you are.

“No.”

He chuckles from the other end. “Right. Happy birthday, splints.”

You glance at your phone calendar. He’s right. 

As usual, he begins to talk about random events in his life that he hasn’t had the opportunity to tell you, and while you usually muffle it out, you decide to quietly shuffle over to the door today. To tell him, maybe, that you don’t want to keep doing this. Or maybe just to hear his voice, you don’t know. Either way, you slide your back down the door where he’s on the other side, pulling your knees into your chest.

“I don’t know if you’ve read my text, but–”

“I don’t read them.”

Caleb stops, and you can almost hear his breath hitch. You usually don’t give him more than a few words, much less a full sentence, so it seems to have taken him aback. After the brief remission, you hear him clear your throat. “Splints, can you open the door? I want to talk—apologize to you.”

Silence.

“Or I can do it out here. That’s fine,” he sighs. “I want you to know that it’s okay if you want to hate me forever after this. I won’t keep clinging to you if you at listen to what I have to say, but I really just—I need to say that this is my fault.”

You half-heartedly hear his words drone on, his confidence wavering every so often while you pull up his chats on your phone. You have no idea how you hadn’t folded and read his chats until now, though it might’ve been more so for your own peace than anything. There’s too many to scroll up to, so you read the most recent messages, squinting in the dark against the light of your phone. 

[1:41PM]

[caleb]: are you eating well?

[caleb]: i made this today

[caleb]: [image attached]

[caleb]: your favorite dishes :) i’ll drop them off at your place later

[caleb]: i hope you’re not just throwing them out…wouldn’t blame you tho

[caleb]: at least take care of yourself :)

[8:13AM]

[caleb]: hi splints :)

[caleb]: you probably watched it already but that movie you wanted to see came out a week ago. I went to go see it

[caleb]: i still think it’s kind of bad…but it was entertaining

[caleb]: unless you wanna argue about it ?? :3

[5:32PM]

[caleb]: ranked first today

[caleb]: i was excited to celebrate it with you and then remembered :/

[caleb]: it doesn’t feel as good when i can’t tell you lol

[caleb]: hope you’re okay

[11:23PM]

[caleb]: i wish i hadn’t been so stupid

[caleb]: i didn’t deserve you back then

[caleb]: i still don’t

[caleb]: i shouldn’t have lost my cool when you were over here. didn’t like hearing you talk about that guy like that

[caleb]: im sure he’s a good looking guy, and i know you’re particularly weak to good looking guys…

[caleb]: i was being childish and i wish i could’ve explained it to you then

[caleb]: i know you don’t owe me anything and you don’t have to listen to what i have to say

[caleb]: but i never wanted to make you feel used, and i never did. if that even sounds believable lol

[caleb]: it was never about her

[caleb]: there’s so much more i want to say but i’ll say it in person

[caleb]: miss you a lot

[caleb]: sleep tight

You wish the tightness in your chest would go away. You wish you didn’t feel his sorrow through him. And you wish you didn’t care about your own feelings for him.

“I love you, splints,” he murmurs, and your attention tears away from the chats, your phone nearly clattering onto the floor. Your eyes widen, suddenly regretting that you missed the first half of his speech. 

“Not in the way you say it to your friends, or the way you say it to family. You’re my life, and you’ve been my life since the day you gave me that ring. I care for MC, but what I feel for you is different. It’s always been different. I realized that years ago, but I was afraid that it wouldn’t be fair for you. I thought you deserved someone better than someone who doesn’t know how to understand their own feelings.” Your throat dries. “I thought it wasn’t fair because I’d already put you through so much.”

“At the same time, I’m a selfish guy, you know? I couldn’t let you go either, because I couldn’t bear to see you with someone else. I wanted it to be us, and the only way I could think of existing without feeling like I was ruining you was to stay how we were. Stagnant, I guess,” he chuckles, but it feels sad. Weak. “I’m an idiot when it comes to you, you know.”

You don’t respond.

Not because you don’t have anything to say—if anything, there’s too much. It crowds your throat, every word scraping against the next until none of them can make it out. Your fingers hover uselessly over your phone, screen still lit with a conversation you can’t even remember reading.

‘I love you.’

The words echo, but they don’t land the way you once dreamed they would. They don’t bloom or soften or fix anything. They just sit. Too heavy. Too late.

Your chest tightens, aching outward like it’s trying to break free. Because you’ve wanted this—God, you’ve wanted this—for so long that you stopped letting yourself imagine it could ever actually happen. It should feel like relief. Instead, it feels real, but fragile.

Because you remember too much. The almosts. The waiting. The way you learned how to swallow your emotions when he built a wall between the two of you—and that doesn’t disappear just because he finally found the words.

Your hand curls slightly against the door, fingers brushing the cool surface.

Even with all that, you still miss the warmth of his skin. How his hair felt through a towel as you dried it. How he’d flick your forehead when you’d get a question wrong during one of his tutoring sessions. How he’d tease you about your grades or interests, and learn more about them anyway. How he’d message you throughout the day about random endeavors. How he’d always be there. How with just a call of his name, he would’ve crossed the continents for you. His eyes. His lips. His face. His painfully handsome face.

You remember him in all parts of your life—and not a single moment you’ve spared has gone without him. You remember how he held your hand when you’d broken your arm, and the way he’d lifted you into the air and embraced you when you were accepted into the same college as him. You remember how he’d pet your hair as you complained about him going too far for the DAA, promising he’d visit often. And he did. He always kept his promises.

Your body moves on its own, as if this was how it was always meant to be. The door slowly creaks open.

“…We’re a mess.”

A faint, tired smile is all you can give him. Still, when he sees you, the world seems to stop for just the two of you, and it takes him a moment to fully register that you’re really there. That you’re not just a figment of his imagination, and he hasn’t truly lost you forever as he’d feared. “This doesn’t mean you’re completely out of the woods. I’m still mad.”

“You should be,” he whispers out, nearly breathless.

Hesitantly, you step towards him. He reaches his arm out, brows furrowed cautiously like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to even blink right now. The tips of his fingers twitch towards you. You raise a brow, and he swallows the lump in his throat, retracting back until you nod. 

Realizing you don’t have shoes, you step onto the fronts of his shoes one foot at a time, taking his hand until you’re flush against him and he’s already engulfing you into a crushing embrace. His arms wrap around you, strong and warm. He smells good. Though you can’t confidently say the same for yourself given the state you’re in, he drops his chin into the crook of your neck and inhales deeply, like a man starved.

“Note to self,” you mumble. “Don’t propose to any handsome guy you see.”

Caleb laughs, airy this time, and you feel it against your collarbone. “I thought you were going to leave your husband out here to die in the cold.”

“I should divorce you. We’re not even married yet.”

He grins, lopsided. “You should.”

“I won’t.”

“I know.

You bury your face into his chest, fingers digging into the fabric on his back. “I don’t want a version of my life without you, Caleb. As annoying as you are.”

He pulls away for a brief moment and places a kiss on your cheek, his own dusting red. Flowers feel like they’re blooming on the spot he pecked, but somehow, it feels natural. You’ve always been close to him physically throughout your upbringing, even if it never involved lips–that was new territory. You cross your arms, relying on his hands around your waist to keep you upright. “Tell me more.”

“You nag too much.”

He kisses your nose. “Hm?”

“You’re emotionally repressed.”

“Ouch.” He kisses your temple.

“You’re too good at things you don’t try at.”

Your jawline.

“You’re unstable. You’re too protective. You’re stupid.”

“I love you,” he says, pressing his forehead against yours. His lips hover above your own, just centimeters away.

Your lashes flutter against his. “Then prove it to me.”

The same lecture was given to you by your parents, harshly reminding you that anyone with the name Gojo was the enemy and not the sort that you wanted to tangle with. 

They were fiends, and you always had to remember that. 

But for some reason, despite the lessons you were given over the next few years pertaining to your family’s history and feud with the Gojo clan, you could never manage to find understanding in their outlook. Not when every single night had you picturing those bright blue eyes that had stared into yours with such wonder. 

The next time you saw Gojo Satoru, you were eleven years old. 

It was in a similar setting as before - a convergence of clans, but now that you were older there were less eyes on you, more freedom to roam about the grounds upon which the convention was being held. 

You found him beside a pond, staring out at the rippling water in silence, shoulders rising and falling with heavy breaths. He’d jumped ever so slightly as you approached, frustration present in his furrowed brow, only for his expression to morph into wonder at the sight of you, a wide grin crossing his graceful face. 

“It's you!” He exclaimed. His eyes were lit up, excitement bubbling within him. If he were a dog, you were sure that he’d be wagging his tail with great enthusiasm. 

“It’s you,” you responded with a tilt of your head, grateful that he remembered you. You’d worried that the momentary connection between the two of you hadn’t been real, had been nothing more than mere puppy love on your part, a complete insignificance to him. 

Satoru looked around cautiously, frowning once more before reaching out and grabbing your arm. Tugging you along, he headed down a sequence of hidden garden pathways before skidding to a halt in a small clearing beneath a maple tree. You’d let yourself be dragged along easily, half curious as to where he was leading you, and half conscious of the fact that he was doing this to prevent prying eyes. 

The two of you shouldn’t be talking after all. You both knew that. Even though you considered the feud to be genuinely stupid, and you hoped that Satoru did too. 

“No one should see us here, stupid adults are always watching,” he said with an exaggerated sigh. 

You shrugged. For the most part your parents let you do whatever you wanted, so you couldn’t really relate, but you imagined that in this one case, they would go absolutely crazy if they saw you alone with the Gojo clan’s six eyes user, who was public enemy number one in their minds. 

They’d had assassins sent after him, if what you’d overheard your parents talking about was to be believed. 

“What’s your name?” He asked. 

You told him with a smile, and he nodded, introducing himself only for you to stop him. His reputation preceded him after all. He seemed almost proud of the fact that you already knew him, puffing up his chest with a wide grin, like he was keen to impress you. You couldn’t help but smile back, heart fluttering at the sight. 

“I thought I might’ve made you up!” He chirped, offering further explanation as you tilted your head in confusion. “I have this vivid image of seeing you when we were younger, it comes up in my dreams a lot, like this nice shiny memory that makes me feel all warm. But I thought you might’ve just been an imaginary friend.” 

It seemed that Satoru’s clan had taken the opposite approach to your clan, keeping information about their enemy locked down. Although, why would they bother telling him anything about you? It wasn’t like you were special in the same way he was. 

“You’re from that clan, aren’t you? That’s why we never tend to see each other.” 

You nodded solemnly. “My parents will throw a fit if they see me talking to you.” 

“What they don’t know won’t hurt them!” Satoru’s smile was painfully bright, an admiration growing desperately in your chest at the sight of it. There was no doubt that you had a crush - between the fact that you’d met very few boys your age and the idea that he was forbidden, your young heart had never wanted anything more. 

So of course you nodded along, sitting down beside him in the clearing, relieved to be free of the adults for an afternoon. 

Satoru seemed to love talking, chattering away at you for hours. You’d always been more of an introvert - with your clan largely keeping to themselves, there was seldom anyone for you to talk to, and that meant that your social skills were limited. You were grateful for Satoru’s ability to push the conversation forward, asking you non-stop questions about your life and likes, and talking at length about his own preferences. 

You learned that in a lot of ways you were startlingly similar. 

You both had a penchant for sweet things, an enjoyment of catching frogs in the summer, and a deep set desire to escape from the stifling grip of your respective families. It felt like no matter what Satoru spoke about, you could feel yourself relating on a deep level. His thoughts and desires were so aligned with yours that if he were to suddenly reveal that he’d read your diary and this was all some practical joke, you wouldn’t be shocked in the slightest. 

“I used to love climbing trees too,” he added, down to the twentieth hobby on his list at this point, seemingly enjoying being listened to with such rapt attention. “But I’m not allowed to anymore because of this stupid thing.” 

He was rolling his eyes as he held up his arm to show you, a thick scar running up the length of his forearm. Your eyes widened ever so slightly as you peered at the imperfection on his pale skin, inspecting the way that the old wound was scabbing over, clearly having been picked at by his impatient hands. 

“Oh, snap!” You said with a small smile, pushing the sleeve of your kimono back to show him an identical wound, uncannily similar to the one he was currently sporting. “Mine was from a knife!” 

It was a lesson in not playing in your family’s weapon storage. You’d spent plenty of time there throughout your childhood against your parents’ advice, and one day the reality of why they didn’t want you going there came to smack you right in the face. It turned out that attempting to catch a falling knife isn’t a good idea. 

“You were stabbed?” He asked, tilting his head curiously. 

“In a sense.” You puffed out your chest, not eager to confess that the assailant had been none other than your own foolishness. “How did climbing a tree cause that?” 

“It didn’t. My handler just thinks it did.” He huffed. 

It was clear that this was a serious topic for him, one that he’d thought plenty about. You imagined that he still climbed trees in secret whenever he could, because there was something about him that suggested an unwillingness to be truly tamed. 

“How did you get it then?” You asked, rubbing your own scar for half a second before dropping your hand back down to your side. You shouldn’t scratch at it, even if the scab was itchy. It would come off in its own time.

He thought about that question for a second, white eyebrows drawn close together in focus, before he turned to you with an unbothered shrug. “Dunno! One day it was just there!” 

You hummed, content with his answer. It wasn’t like the origin really mattered to you, there were bumps and bruises on you all the time that you just couldn’t explain. It was all part of being a kid, there was so much going on that you couldn’t possibly remember everything. 

Why would you? 

—

It was a few years later, at age fifteen, that you learned just why those unexplainable scars actually did hold meaning. A serious conversation with your parents, in which they sat you down and told you all that you needed to know about soulmates, since you were approaching the age where it might be relevant. 

They explained that some people had a divine connection, something beautiful and otherworldly that would bring the two of them together against all odds. It was the stuff of the fairytales that you’d loved so dearly when you were young, a magic that existed here on earth. 

Your parents weren’t soulmates. Not many couples tended to be. Considering the population of the world, such unions between soulmates tended to be rare, something special whenever one found their prophesied other half. Outside of the inexplicable attraction that one would expect to feel when witnessing their soulmate, there was a single clue to who your other half might be. 

Once soulmates had laid eyes on each other for the first time, any wound inflicted upon one party would be mirrored on the other. 

Cuts, bruises, scars, disfigurements, and even death. Anything that ailed one would ail the other, allowing for a constant physical connection between lovers. Something equal parts beautiful and tragic. You were tied to their fate, no matter what it may be. 

If you’d been older, perhaps you would’ve connected the dots faster. But it had been four years since you’d last seen Satoru, and although his presence was a constant in your dreams, your conversation about scars had long since fled your mind. 

With the emphasis that your mother was putting on tempering your expectations where it came to ever meeting a soulmate, the thought that you might’ve already met him was far from apparent to you. 

You next encountered Satoru less than a year later, when the two of you enrolled in Jujutsu High at the same time. 

It was nice to be able to see him without the shadow of both your clans lingering over you, even if your parents had given you a big lecture beforehand about how you were to stay as far away from the Gojo heir as possible. It was a directive that you ignored of course, throwing yourself wholeheartedly into a friendship with Satoru. 

Why should you build your relationships around some dusty old family feud? Satoru had been nothing but kind to you in the fleeting moments you’d encountered each other throughout childhood. You couldn’t care less if some boring ancestor of his stole your family’s land a thousand years ago.

What did that matter when Satoru was so much fun? 

The two of you were practically attached at the hip for the first two years of school, always getting into mischief together. You’d sit next to each other during classes, go out into the city to check out new bakeries, spend evenings in each other’s rooms watching scary movies - always settled right next to each other. Sometimes Satoru’s arm would brush against yours and your heart rate would skyrocket, a result of the crush that you couldn’t deny that you had on your best friend. 

Your friend Shoko had teased you about it on occasion, waiting until Satoru and Suguru were off on some mission before poking fun at just how attached to him you were, trying to convince you to talk to him about it since he was clearly into you too. 

Unfortunately, that was where you largely drew the line. 

Being friends with Satoru was one thing, easily concealed from your parents. But dating him? That was something else entirely. It wasn’t like any relationship between the two of you could go anywhere, both of your families would exile you. Perhaps in the case of the Gojo clan, they’d even seek to kill you if Satoru didn’t comply with their desires. 

While you didn’t agree with the feud, you didn’t wish to be estranged from the family that had so lovingly raised you, and for that reason it was better that you and Satoru remained nothing more than friends. 

There were, of course, complications that quickly arose on that front. 

The thought of soulmates had largely fled your mind as you entered your third year of school. Again, if you’d been attentive, maybe you would’ve seen reality much faster. There was evidence in the way that you seemed to be the only person capable of bypassing Satoru’s infinity during training - a feat that you both brushed off too easily as a feature of your own technique rather than something deeper. 

But true, unquestionable evidence came round soon enough. 

Satoru and Suguru had been sent off on some mission, and had been gone for a couple of days. You’d been passing your time as normal, studying and enjoying the warm summer air. You’d been out having a picnic with Utahime when it happened. One moment the two of you were chatting away happily, the next your eyes were widening in sheer horror at the feeling of a knife jamming into your throat. 

In that moment, you’d fully believed that it was real, that there was a person behind you who had decided to put an end to your short life. You didn’t think about the why or how of the matter, hands raising to your neck desperately in an attempt to find the blade, only to discover nothing but thin air until your fingers brushed against your neck. 

There, you discovered a gaping hole, gushing with blood. There was just enough time for terror to course through you before you blacked out, dropping down onto the picnic mat before you, likely leaving Utahime traumatised for a significant portion of her life. 

You came to a few days later, with the physical evidence of the event shockingly absent. If you didn’t know better, it would almost feel like nothing had ever happened at all, but your heart certainly remembered, a deep anxiety sitting within you at the memory of the extreme injury, of the excruciating pain that you never wanted to experience again. 

Sitting at your bedside in a plastic chair, was Satoru. 

His hand was clutching yours tightly, and his head was resting on the side of your bed, white hair splayed out across the soft sheets. You wondered how long he’d been at your side, how he’d reacted when he’d found out what had happened to you. Your heart fluttered at the feeling of his warm fingers intertwined with yours, taking your mind off the horrors of your injury for a few minutes at least. 

The second that you shifted, he was sitting up, suddenly all attentive. There was something wild behind his blue eyes, a sort of panic that you weren’t accustomed to him wearing. “You’re awake- I’m sorry,” he blurted out. “This is my fault, I shouldn’t have let my guard down. I’m sorry.” 

“Huh?” your head was swimming, your body not quite caught up to the fact that you were awake, unable to understand the guilt written all over your friend’s face. 

“We- we were within the barriers, I’d thought that we were safe. That assassin, he came out of nowhere and I couldn’t defend myself. You must’ve been so scared, I’m sorry, I’ll never let that happen again.” 

Satoru’s words were going in one ear and out the other with no coherency. Why was he apologising for not being able to defend himself? What did that have to do with you? You could hardly remember what had happened for you to end up here, aware of the searing pain in your neck and then nothing. 

Had a curse user snuck in and attacked you? Had they attacked Satoru and then come for you? Was that why he was apologising? Had they been caught? 

“It looks like my RCT worked on you too though, I’m glad.” 

All the thoughts in your head dissipated as Satoru reached out for you, brushing his fingers softly against your neck. There was a flash of phantom pain quickly replaced by a soft tingling beneath his touch. You were surprised to find his hand skimming over your skin, no bandages in sight, as if there had been no wound at all. 

“What- what happened, Satoru?” You asked, figuring that trying to piece things together was a fool’s game when your head was pounding so hard.

Surprise flickered in his blue eyes for a moment, as if he thought that you were already with him in his explanation. “What do you remember?” He asked, slowly. 

“I was having lunch, and then there was this blinding pain in my neck, like someone stabbed me, and now I’m here.” That was genuinely all that you could recall, a wry smile drawing across your lips at the panic on Satoru’s face, as though he’d gotten thoroughly ahead of himself. 

“You- you don’t know?” 

“Know what?” 

“You weren’t stabbed. I was.” 

That statement didn’t quite sink in for the first few seconds, with your brain far too foggy to really understand what relevance it had to you. You were moments away from once again asking what the hell he was talking about when it clicked. 

He was stabbed and the wound replicated on you. 

The boy who’d had your heart beating erratically from the first moment you’d met, the same one who somehow found his way into every single one of your dreams. There was a reason that you thought of him in the way that you always had. 

A reason that you always yearned so deeply to be around him. 

He was your soulmate. Proven through your shared misery. Any wound of his was a wound of yours and vice versa. You had to count your lucky stars that Satoru was one of the strongest sorcerers around, that he was capable enough to learn to heal on the fly. Else you’d both be dead. 

“We’re…” You trailed off, mouth going dry before you could say the words.

“Soulmates,” he finished, with a giddy grin.

The first feeling that overcame you was pure elation, an unbelievable sense of happiness at the idea of being with Satoru like that, at the thought that the two of you were actually destined for each other. For a moment, you almost forgot yourself entirely, every inch of your body urging you to lean forward and kiss him. 

You’d dreamt about it enough times. 

But reason held you back. 

Satoru had always been somewhat forbidden fruit to you. Your family despised his, and had always given you strict instructions not to associate with him in any form. You’d ignored them, because why should they dictate your friendships, but when it came to the matter of something more you could see many potential issues. 

There was still a grin on Satoru’s face, but it had faltered ever so slightly. Bright blue eyes were darting around your face with a hint of anxiety, clearly trying to understand what was going through your head. 

“It's good, right? I mean, I like you, and I hope…” He trailed off uncertainly, taking a deep breath, as if he was scared that you were about to come out and call him repulsive or something of the like. 

“I like you too,” you said hastily, not wanting to leave him hanging. 

“But?” 

“But our families are going to kill us.” 

He laughed, shrugging his shoulders easily. “Remember, what they don’t know won’t hurt them!”

His lips crashed against yours, stealing the air from your lungs. It was your first kiss, the first of many that you’d share with Satoru. Kissing someone, kissing him was something that you’d imagined for a long time, fretting over your inexperience, terrified about the idea of being a bad kisser. 

And yet, it felt so easy with him. It was as if you’d been made for this very moment. You knew exactly what to do, moving your lips in tandem with his, letting him wrap his arms around you and pull you closer. 

Your life hadn’t been unhappy by any stretch of the imagination, but there’d always been a hollow feeling that you carried with you, like something was missing. With him, it felt like that gap was finally filled. 

Like you were meant to be. 

The remainder of your third year was spent in total bliss. Of course, you both had the sense to keep your relationship as secret as it could be, fully away of the attempts to divide you that would no doubt come from your families, but it didn’t make things any less fun by any means. 

If anything, the thrill of your union being secret just spurred both of you on more. 

Hands brushing beneath tables, eyes meeting for a fleeting moment across a busy room, secret rendezvous in your dorm room night after night, in which Satoru would climb in through the window with a goofy smile on his face, barely offering a greeting before kissing you silly. 

The two of you became each other’s first everything, placing complete trust in the other, which just felt so easy because even if you weren’t soulmates, your friendship over the last few years had been unrivalled. A gap that felt like it had always existed in your heart had been filled thoroughly by Satoru’s presence. 

No doubt existed in your mind that this was how things were meant to be, Satoru’s lips against yours, his hands brushing against your waist tenderly as he pulled you closer. Your ancestors were almost certainly rolling in their graves, but what did that matter when your heart yearned so deeply for the man that the universe had decided you were destined for?

Some dusty feud meant nothing in the face of true love. 

That was what you had believed for a time, at least. Until the illusion of what you had was well and truly shattered. 

Your graduation was mere days away, and everyone was busy with various responsibilities in the lead up to the ceremony. Both yours and Satoru’s clans would be coming to attend, and subsequently the two of you were doing your best to act like you didn’t know each other at all, save for soft little smiles you’d share when you thought that no one was looking. 

Oh, and except for the secret moments in which Satoru would pull you into an empty classroom, pressing you up against the wall and kissing you like his life depended on it, all amped up from the thrill of someone discovering you all tangled together with no explanation but the truth. 

The reality of discovery turned out to be less alluring than either of you had expected though, the two of you freezing as Yaga entered the room during one such moment, sweeping his gaze over you both before letting out a heavy sigh. “Satoru, your family are looking for you.” 

Confusion was written across both of your faces, expecting some level of comment regarding your condition, but finding none. 

“I’m…busy?” Satoru offered cautiously, not sure what to make of Yaga’s reaction. You had to hold back a snort at the bewilderment in his pretty blue eyes. 

“Clearly. But if you don’t want them to discover…this…” Yaga waved his hand in your general direction, as if unwilling to address it. “I’d suggest you appease them.” 

Satoru let out a heavy sigh, shooting you an apologetic smile before heading to the door. You moved to follow behind him, only for Yaga to step in your way. It was hard to make sense of his expression behind the sunglasses he’d always wear, but there seemed to be something akin to pity lining his face. 

“Just a moment. I think there’s something we should discuss.” 

Satoru shot a frown over his shoulder, clearly displeased with the development. Any protest that he might form was cut short by Yaga pushing the door to the classroom closed, shutting you off from your disgruntled boyfriend on the other side. 

“What?” You asked, rather defensively. You didn’t know how many moments together you and Satoru had left before the pressures of life would start to drag you apart, you didn’t particularly want to waste any of that time talking to your teacher. 

“You understand that it has to stop, don’t you?” 

For a second it felt like your heart had ceased its beating. You knew what he was referring to, of course you did, but you weren’t going to acknowledge that fact for even a second. You’d play dumb and force him to spell it out for you, because you weren’t going to concede to his statement without some element of a fight. 

“What has to-”

“You’re smarter than that,” he said, interrupting you swiftly. “This thing with Satoru, it was all fine while you were young but now…if you take this seriously it will only end in tragedy.” 

“What does it matter to you?” Once again, your tone was rude. You were pretty confident that if you were a teacher you wouldn’t be snooping around on the relationships of your students, that was just plain weird. 

“Do you value your life? Do you value Satoru’s?” 

You blinked at him. “Obviously.” 

“Then you need to stop.” 

Staring at him haplessly, you tried to understand what he could possibly mean by that. Satoru was quite possibly the strongest sorcerer alive, if your families were to find out and be displeased then that was their problem, there was nothing that they could do if it was Gojo Satoru they were up against - they’d just have to accept it. 

Even if the idea of being disowned wasn’t ideal to you, it would be worth it for Satoru. 

Sensing your confusion, Yaga let out another long sigh. “You’re soulmates, aren’t you?” 

Hesitating for a moment, you bit down on your lip. That wasn’t information that you’d shared with anyone outside of Shoko and Suguru. Even if others like Utahime were aware that the two of you were dating, you didn’t want everyone to know about the depth of the bond that you shared - it felt like it would be almost less sacred that way. 

“I’ve known since the incident with Fushiguro Toji,” He continued at your lack of response. “Others have had their suspicions too, but I’ve done my best to quell them. It does you no good for people to know.” 

“I don’t think it really matters, Satoru’s so strong he can-” 

“And you, are you strong?” 

“Huh?” 

“Tell me,” Yaga said, lowering his voice ever so slightly. “What has your clan done with previous bearers of Satoru’s technique?” 

“They’ve killed them, but, like I said, Satoru is too strong so-” 

Much to your annoyance, he cut you off once more. 

“Right. What do you think your clan will do, when they find out that you have a soul binding connection with him? What do you think they’ll do when they find out that through your sacrifice, they can kill Satoru?” 

Your lips parted ever so slightly, trying to formulate an argument that just wouldn’t come, because you’d been so swept up in your new love for Satoru that any issues that may arise seemed to just slip from your mind entirely. 

“In fact,” Yaga continued, “forget your clan. What do you think will happen when the world at large finds out about this connection? You’re right, Satoru can protect himself, but it won’t matter if he can be killed through you.” 

“I wouldn’t…” Your voice quivered ever so slightly, mind racing with the picture that Yaga was painting, the realisation of the weight that sat upon your shoulders truly starting to settle. He was right, you didn’t have something like Satoru’s infinity to protect you, and even if your soulmate would look after you most of the time, he couldn’t be at your side at all moments. 

You’d be responsible for both of your deaths. 

“If you love him, you need to put an end to this before anyone of import finds out about it. If you don’t, neither of you will even make it to twenty-five.”

In the days following your conversation with Yaga, you avoided Satoru as much as you could. It was easier than it would usually be with everything surrounding graduation and the fact that your families were constantly nearby. But one evening Satoru snuck into your room just like he always would, effectively cornering you. 

“You’ve been weird lately,” he said, straightforwardly. He’d flopped down on your bed, hand supporting his chin as he stared up at you. Your posture was riddled with anxiety, knees drawn up to your chest, nails digging into the palm of your hands in an attempt to calm yourself. 

You hadn’t slept well in days. 

“Just tired.” You responded on reflex, and he instantly pulled a face. 

“Liar.” 

“Satoru-” 

“What did Yaga say to you?” He asked, sitting up and stopping any spiel that you were about to summon in an attempt to placate him. 

“Nothing, I’m just-” 

“He said we needed to break up, didn’t he?” 

You nibbled on your lower lip, offering a small nod. There was a burning fire in his blue eyes that sparkled with the same resistance you’d initially shown Yaga, one that said he couldn’t care less what the consequences were, he wasn’t about to be torn from his soulmate, no matter what the world wanted to throw at him. 

“Fuck him. What does he know?” Satoru reached out for you gently, his hand cupping your face, a thumb gently swiping along the curve of your cheek. Goosebumps raised up on your skin at the action, a desperate electricity tingling through your veins at his mere touch. How Yaga expected you to live without that was beyond you. 

Leaning forward, he pressed his lips gently against yours, his tongue flicking against your lips tenderly, practically begging you for entrance. You parted your lips for him easily, letting him push you down onto the bed, the weight of his warm body on top of yours. It would be so easy to just sink into that lovely feeling of bliss that overtook you whenever you were at his side. 

But the little voice in the back of your head prevailed on this occasion. 

“I’ll get you killed.” Your voice was small as you pulled away, eyes a little watery as you stared up at him. He was so handsome that you almost wanted to take the words back, wanted to wipe that look of disbelief off his face. 

You would’ve done it if not for the fact that Yaga was right - if you loved him, and you did, you both had to stop. 

“You won’t.” His tone was dismissive, as if the mere insinuation was ridiculous. 

“I will. I’m not strong like you. If people find out about this they’ll start trying to kill me for the sake of killing you. It’ll all be my fault.” 

Satoru’s brows furrowed, his expression angrier than you’d ever seen it. “Don’t be dumb! I won’t let anything happen to you, you’re just letting Yaga fearmonger you.” 

“Satoru.” Your voice was quiet. “You can’t protect me all the time. All it takes is just one instant-” 

“What are you trying to say right now?” He pulled back from you, frustration and hurt straining his voice, blue eyes wide with anxiety. 

“I’m saying this has to end.” 

It was hard to not let your voice waver, an ache growing in your heart at the mess of emotions that flickered across your boyfriend’s handsome face. You could take it back, you could kiss him and pretend that the conversation never happened, that none of that stuff that Yaga said mattered. 

The problem was, it did matter. 

You loved Satoru, you loved him more than anything on this earth. He was your other half, the person who truly completed you. And for that reason you couldn’t give in, couldn’t spend every day at his side. 

Because you wanted him to live a long life, not one cut short because of your weakness. 

That wasn’t fair. 

“You don’t mean that.” Satoru said, his tone clipped. 

“I have to mean it. There’s no future for us but tragedy.” 

—

Over the next few years, you did everything you could to try to get over Satoru. You failed miserably - a reality that you’d largely been anticipating. You couldn’t simply forget a soulmate, the universe had dictated that you were made for one another, destined no matter what you tried to do. 

That meant that you spent half of your nights sobbing into your pillow, desperate for the warmth of Satoru’s body at your side. The thought of reaching for your phone and just calling him had crossed your mind on many an occasion, thwarted only by the rational side of you sternly refusing to give in to your desires. 

Satoru had become the head of the Gojo clan in the time that you were apart, which ultimately meant that he was the arbiter concerning the feud with your family. It didn’t make much difference, even if Satoru played nice with them, they still regarded him with the same hatred as usual. 

You imagined that Satoru’s attempts at offering an olive branch were for your sake, a dwindling hope that maybe you could be together if your families weren’t at odds. Such rifts were, unfortunately, too deep to mend. 

The next time that you and Satoru actually crossed paths, you were both twenty-three. You’d been assigned a mission involving the elimination of some curse-users, which had grown infinitely more complex the more intel you’d gathered on the matter. Subsequently, a special grade sorcerer was put on the case.

Both Yuki and Suguru were preoccupied with other matters, and that meant that the only person left was Satoru. 

It was how the two of you ended up awkwardly sitting in the living room of a tiny apartment, trying to figure out what to say to each other while you staked out some curse users that you couldn’t care less about when the man you loved was sitting right across from you. 

Time had treated Satoru well. He was a little bulkier than he’d been at high school, his hair slightly more respectable than the unkept look he’d had at eighteen. The look in his blue eyes was a little sharper, more controlled than the wild edge that they’d previously held. But he was still unquestionably himself, his mere presence wrapping around you like a warm blanket. 

You were grateful that you hadn’t had to cross paths with him much over the last five years, because there wasn’t a chance in hell that you’d be able to resist him forever, not when his mere scent was intoxicating to you, despite him being sat several metres away. 

“So…uh…I wonder how long this will take.” You cleared your throat awkwardly, and Satoru stared at you incredulously. 

“Really?” He asked, in disbelief. “That’s the line you’re going with?” 

Rolling your eyes, you shrugged. “I don’t- what would you have started with?” 

His lips curved up into a smile at your reaction. “Maybe a: hey, how have you been? Have you missed me? Something to that effect, I don’t know.” 

“Feels redundant,” you mumbled. Of course you’d missed each other, you’d been practically engineered to feel that way. 

“Still figured you’d want to hear me say it.” 

“If I hear you say it, all of the work that I put into coping without you for the last five years would go to waste.” There was no point in being anything but honest with him, your heart was battering against your ribs, the sound of his voice even more lovely than you’d remembered it. If he were to kiss you right now, there was a certainty in your mind that you wouldn’t be able to push him away. 

It was true that distance made the heart grow fonder, and your skin was practically itching for his hands to hold you once more. Consequences be damned. 

That outlook was foolish, dangerous even, and you both knew it. Even if Satoru had been disgruntled at your break up, you knew that he was smart enough to understand why, even if he’d disagreed with you. It was why he’d stayed far away from you over the last few years, eager to grant you your wish.

He’d worked just as hard as you had to keep temptation from even brushing your periphery. 

Rightfully so, considering that mere minutes alone in a room with him already had you unravelling. Your desire for him was more palpable than it had been back at school, as if your love had matured along with you. The space between your thighs was growing wetter with each passing second, skin prickling with electricity.

He gave you a bright smile, blue eyes narrowing deviously. “I missed you,” he stated, matter-of-factly, seemingly conscious of the way that his words seemed to grip your heart, squeezing it desperately. “I missed you more than you can imagine.” 

“I think I can imagine it.” 

“I don’t think so.” He leant forward, resting his chin on his hand in that lazy way that was characteristically him. “You have no idea how many nights I pictured you, imagining you on top of me, looking all angelic like you do. I wanted you to be the one stroking my-” 

“Stop,” you interrupted him quickly with a groan, not needing to hear the end of that sentence. His cock was the last thing that you needed to be thinking about right now, even if you did desperately want to feel it inside you again. 

The two of you had only made love a couple of times in your life, despite dating throughout most of your third year at high school. It was because you hadn’t felt ready until fairly far into your relationship, and relatively soon after you had started having sex, the whole thing with Yaga happened and everything stopped. 

It had made you wish that you’d agreed to make love earlier on in the span of your relationship, that way you could’ve done it more times. It would’ve given you more a reference point to pine over on the days when you really missed him. 

You hadn’t had sex with anyone since him. You probably never would. The idea that anyone could replace Satoru in your mind was laughable. It would always be him, even if you couldn’t actually be together. There was a jealous side of you that questioned whether he’d slept with anyone else in the time you’d been apart. You really hoped not. 

“Do you really want me to stop?” Satoru asked, rising from his chair and walking slowly across the room before stopping right before you. “Because you sure are blushing.” 

What did he really want you to say to that? Of course you didn’t want him to stop, you needed him to. But that wasn’t the question he was asking. 

“Satoru-” 

“I think about that day a lot, you know,” he interjected, “the day that you told me this needed to end. Back then all I could do was get upset, couldn’t think of a way to reason with you that what you were doing was wrong.” 

“Do you have one now?” You asked, your question coming out as a whisper, barely daring to hope that there was some glimmer of light at the end of this tunnel, a way that you could ease your heartache without tragedy for you both. 

“I think so.” 

You tilted your head, waiting for him to continue. 

“We’re literally soulmates,” he said, as if that cleared things up. 

“Yeah?” You prompted, assuming there was more to that statement. 

“The universe destined us for each other, who are we to go against the universe? That’s just ridiculous.” 

You laughed softly, shaking your head at his optimism. “Be that as it may, nothing has changed Satoru. If we give in, we’ll be met with tragedy.”

“Then we’ll just keep it a secret,” he said, easily. 

You rolled your eyes, infuriated that you’d believed he had any actual plan. Keeping things a secret was the first solution you’d thought of, far from a revolutionary concept. It wasn’t a sustainable option. 

“That won’t work.” 

“We’ll make it work.” 

“Satoru, that’s not-” 

“Are you happy?” His words cut through you like a knife, his blue gaze unwavering as he met your wide eyes. 

He’d struck his target with excellent precision, your mind swimming with hurt at the effectiveness of his comment. You weren’t happy, you hadn’t been happy in years. Without him, it was like the world around you was sucked of its colour, his absence leaving a deep ache in your chest right where your heart should be. 

“It doesn’t matter.” You said carefully, and he shook his head with a snort. 

“So that’s a no then.” 

“Please, stop-” 

“I’d take the risk of dying early if my life, however short, was spent with you.” 

His words stunned you into silence, your lips parted in shock, incapable of coming up with any sort of rebuttal for a statement like that. As much as you wanted to stand your ground, to point out that there was more to life than your romance alone, you knew that your words would be unconvincing. You didn’t even believe that yourself. 

Having Satoru at your side was all that you wanted out of life, you’d be lying if you said otherwise. 

Satoru was studying your face carefully, eyes darting around your features in an attempt to read your reaction amongst the silence you were currently offering him. Clearly, he found something that emboldened him, reaching out slowly and caressing your face before closing the gap, lips brushing tentatively against yours. 

There was a moment of hesitation, a desperate fight in your head where your conscience screamed at you to pull away, only for the voice to be drowned out by a static of pure devotion for the man before you. 

Forget the sensible option. Why deny yourself everything you’d ever desired? 

Satoru pulled you closer to him at the feeling of you kissing him back with fervour, sighing softly into the kiss as he mapped out your lips once more, eager to relearn the feeling of you in the same way that he once had. 

In the heat of the entanglement, the two of you entirely forgot the reason that you were in this situation in the first place, any attempts at staking out the curse users completely forgotten in favor of giving in to five years of absence. Failing your mission was the least of your worries, certain that Satoru would take the fall and make some excuse on your behalf anyway. 

Dealing with that could wait. 

Your soulmate had you on the bed, kissing and worshipping every bare inch of your skin as he peeled off each layer of clothing you donned, leaving endless love bites in his wake, marking you as indisputably his. 

He held you still as he moved between your thighs, lips moving to your pussy and eating you out like a man starved, refusing to let up even as you were wriggling beneath him from the overstimulation, tugging desperately at his soft hair as you unravelled on his tongue with such ease. 

When he finally pushed into you, he tugged you as close as physically possible, his arms wrapping snugly around your torso, your chests pressed flush together as he sank as deep as he could into your warmth. The movement of his hips was slow and languid, fucking you with a passion that had you swooning. 

All the while you clung to him, nails raking down his back with each deep thrust, soft little whimpers of his name falling from your lips. It felt better than any time you’d done this before, laced with a level of intimacy that could only be created through years of yearning. 

“I love you.” He mumbled against the crook of your neck, peppering your skin with gentle kisses, his voice a little raspy. “You’re mine.” 

You were his, for better or for worse. 

The two of you came together, bodies shuddering with pleasure at the euphoric feeling of release. Satoru kept you tucked snugly in his arms, kissing your hair lovingly for a long time afterwards, until you came to the realisation that you were in the middle of a mission and couldn’t afford to fall asleep together. 

Even if that was your desire in the moment. 

There was nothing more lovely than being tucked up at Satoru’s side. 

—

Your next few months weren’t unlike those that you’d spent at Satoru’s side in high school. Secret rendezvous and stolen kisses, pretending to hardly know each other in public whilst being all over each other in private. 

It was fortunate that you’d moved away from your family home once you’d entered adulthood, eager for a little bit of space and independence from your clan. It meant that you didn’t have to justify where you were going all the time, or figure out a place where you and Satoru could be together without prying eyes. 

For the most part, Satoru practically lived in your apartment, spending each night snuggled up with you in your bed, the two of you finding enjoyment in the most mundane things. It felt like a blessing to be able to spend time alone together doing anything, you didn’t need fancy meals or outings, all you really wanted was to be with him. 

In the time that you got to spend at his side, your cheeks were in constant pain from smiling so much, the world lit up with a bright array of colours only visible when he was with you. There was nothing in the world that you were more grateful for than waking up with him there beside you each morning, golden light illuminating his drool-laden face. 

The peace that the two of you had found lulled you both into a false sense of security, believing that it would be easier than you’d ever imagined to keep your union secret. This unintentional arrogance, the inability to see anything beyond how happy you both made each other, ultimately became your undoing. 

Satoru wasn’t a man without enemies, and as he approached twenty-five he’d already reached an insane level of notoriety among jujutsu society. He was hailed as the strongest sorcerer of your generation, and subsequently, had a major target painted on his back. There had been plenty of attempts on his life, from curse users and other sorcerers, including your family. 

For the most part, no such attempts meant anything to him. There wasn’t anyone alive who could compare to his skill. No one could touch him. 

It was just unfortunate that one day a particularly skilled assassin witnessed him entering your apartment. Elated that Satoru might have someone he was attached to, someone that they could hold hostage in exchange for certain conditions, the assassin and his partner took advantage of their knowledge and broke into your home one night.

Stealth was their specialty, and they’d grabbed you before Satoru could do anything, holding a knife to your throat. You were never in any mortal danger, not with your soulmate’s quick realisation of your stress, leaping to action immediately. 

The real issue arose from the light line that the man drew with his blade across your throat. 

Blood beaded up on your skin immediately at the shallow cut, a small whimper leaving your lips, and panic gripping your body at the sight of the mirrored mark manifesting on Satoru’s neck. You prayed your attacker wouldn’t see it, but it was wishful thinking. The assassin’s eyes gleamed at the sight, the realisation stark on their face. 

They were dead before they could act on it, blown apart by Satoru’s technique. 

You’d relaxed then, covered in the man’s blood as Satoru cradled you, his forehead resting against yours as he mumbled apologies. You were both too shaken to notice that the assassin hadn’t been alone, that he had an accomplice waiting outside your window, watching the whole scene unfold. 

He’d been ready to assist his friend, but it was a fool’s game as long as Satoru was awake and aware. Besides, what he’d learned from the scene was worth far more to him than making an attempt on your soulmate’s life. 

Because he knew something that would shake his employer’s whole world. 

It wasn’t unusual for you to visit your clan every now and then, and it was a pleasant afternoon in spring when you stopped by to have lunch with your parents, who had been pestering you about coming to visit for a while. 

There was something uncomfortable about seeing them knowing that you spent your nights tangled up with Satoru, but you did your best to separate your thoughts from the sin that you were committing in your family’s eyes. It was important that you acted normally with them - they were your flesh and blood after all, not everything had to revolve around the feud. 

Who you were dating shouldn’t be of importance. 

That afternoon in particular felt uniquely awkward. Conversation was stilted, and there was a tremble to your mother’s hand every time she passed you a plate. Your father’s questions seemed oddly formal and impersonal, and it struck you as strange that halfway through lunch, a handful of your extended family popped in to join. 

You brushed it off at first, assuming that perhaps your absence over the last few months had made things awkward, or that they maybe had some bad news to share that they were struggling to articulate. Perhaps someone had died or something and they didn’t want to say it outright for fear of upsetting you. 

There were a million explanations for a strange vibe. It wasn’t something to stress over. 

An explanation for the atmosphere only came at the very end of your lunch, once plates had been cleared and there was nothing to distract from addressing the matter that they’d invited you home to discuss. 

“Gojo Satoru.” Your father said out of the blue, catching you off guard. His face was sickly pale, sweat dripping down his brow, clearly agonising over what would come next. 

You tilted your head dumbly. “What about him?” 

“We tried to kill him a few weeks ago.” 

“Any success?” You immediately winced at your instinctive response - that was playing it a little too dumb. Because even if you weren’t seeing Satoru at your apartment each night, the whole of jujutsu society would be aware if he’d died - it would be the most prominent piece of gossip for months.  

“No. Of course not.” Your grandfather interjected, clearly disgruntled with the pace of the conversation. “We did uncover something rather interesting though.” 

He made a gesture in the direction of your mother, as if giving her the grounds to speak, and you sucked in an anxious breath. Your mother shot you a sympathetic look before rummaging in her bag and sliding an envelope across the table. Everyone’s eyes were on you, waiting for you to open it up. 

You didn’t know exactly what would be waiting for you inside, but you had a pretty good guess. 

With shaky hands, you opened up the envelope, trying not to react at the sight of an image taken from outside your bedroom window, peering into your ground-floor apartment. You and Satoru were locked in an embrace, the assassin that your soulmate had killed was dead on the floor beside you. 

Clearly visible in the image were the matching trails of blood that lined both yours and Satoru’s necks.

Your brain was already working as fast as it could, trying to come up with some explanation for this, some lie that would disarm your family. If you couldn’t come up with something believable, then the bliss that you’d found with Satoru would crumble, and that was the last thing you wanted. 

“You’re soulmates,” your grandfather stated matter-of-factly, after a long stretch of silence. 

“No,” you said on reflex, as if that would be enough to overturn the evidence laid out in front of you. “They’re photoshopped.” 

One of your uncles let out a laugh, earning him a strict glare from your grandfather, clearly unamused by your attempts to lie. “We’d hoped there was an explanation, so we had you followed for a few weeks. We have evidence of him entering your apartment on numerous occasions.” 

You bit down on your lip, thinking carefully for a moment before speaking once more. “Okay, so we are dating, but we’re not soulmates. I just didn’t want you guys to know because…you know…” 

“It would do you good to stop lying, sweetheart.” Your father’s voice was even, his brows drawn together in concern. “One of the assassins saw the whole thing. No one has seen him bleed in years, and yet there was blood on him, plain as day, after you were attacked.” 

Gulping, you glanced around the room, hoping to find someone who would take pity on your circumstance and help you escape the pit that you’d fallen into. You were met with only judgement and disappointment, turning over the idea in your head that you should make a run for it instead. 

The concept wasn’t all that appealing, because you were far from the strongest sorcerer in the room, and if they wanted to subdue you, they could do so with little effort. 

“How long have you known?” Your grandfather asked. 

Should you lie? You weren’t sure how much angrier they’d be if they were aware that you’d known since you were in high school and had refused to tell them. It was probably better if they assumed that you’d only found out recently. 

“Just for a few months.” 

“Sweetheart, tell the truth.” Your father seemed greatly exasperated. “We all know about the time he almost died thanks to that Zenin boy. It was an attack that lined up suspiciously well with your own injury.” 

Yaga had covered up the situation well at the time, claiming that you’d been sent out on a solo mission in which you’d received a non-fatal wound. He’d made sure to dismiss any association between your circumstances and what had happened to Satoru. But evidently with this latest information, your family had spent some time connecting the dots. 

“Have you been sneaking around since then?” Your mother asked. “Is that why you always refuse the marriage prospects we present to you?” 

“No. Only for the last few months.” This time it genuinely wasn’t a lie, and you hoped that they could understand that. 

The skepticism in your grandfather’s eyes said otherwise. 

“Do you understand what an embarrassment this is?” He asked. “A granddaughter of mine, choosing to lie with someone from that clan? It's disgusting. Thank god your union is yet to bring forth any offspring - what an abomination they’d be.”

You had to bite down on your tongue to avoid snapping back at him. Any children that you had with Satoru would likely be as lovely as their father, but your clan would hear nothing of the sort. Any attempt to point out that the feud was archaic and meaningless would do nothing but harm to you. 

It seemed like the silence that followed your grandfather’s statement was a prompt for you to apologise, but you’d do no such thing. To you, there was no embarrassment. Satoru had been nothing but good to you, and you wouldn’t forsake your love for him because of some external pressure. 

“Its not like she can help it,” your father said quietly. “Soulmates are a divine thing, she had no choice in loving him.” 

Your heart picked up ever so slightly, grateful for the smallest hint of a defence, only for your hopes to be thoroughly dashed at his following sentence. 

“Besides, remember what we discussed? The connection is a blessing in disguise.” 

Reeling back in your chair, you glanced nervously around the room once more, the implication of his statement hanging heavy. This had been what Yaga had warned you of all those years ago, but a part of you had always believed that your clan held too much affection for you to really act in the way he’d suggested. 

Perhaps you’d misjudged them. 

“Indeed.” Your grandfather’s voice boomed across the room. “You’ve had a lapse in judgement, but you can still do what’s right. This is an opportunity that we haven’t had in decades. We can finally gain a significant foothold of power over their clan.” 

“How?” You weren’t sure why you were asking, you knew what the answer was going to be. Perhaps it was that naive hope that there was some other, less lethal solution than the one that had immediately come to mind. 

Unfortunately, no such alternative was offered. 

“Though your sacrifice,” he said plainly. “Go peacefully into the afterlife and make this family proud after all the dishonor you’ve brought upon us. Become legend within our clan, for you’d be one of few to put a six-eyes to death.” 

There was no point in arguing, no point in wasting a single second more in this room. It wasn’t your own life that concerned you, but Satoru’s. You weren’t about to bow in the manner that they wanted.

You were on your feet in an instant, making a bolt for the door. You’d barely made it five steps before you were tackled by one of your cousins, a hard blow to the head knocking you out cold. 

In retrospect, you supposed they could’ve killed you right there and then. It would’ve been the quickest and easiest option, the most-straightforward way to assure that Satoru perished in the manner that they desired. For some reason, most likely due to a level of sentimentality, they locked you up in a room instead.

It was likely that your parents had something to do with that. You could picture them begging your grandfather not to put you down immediately, to ensure that there was some level of ceremony to go along with your sacrifice, an opportunity for them to properly say goodbye to you. 

They didn’t see it as fair or befitting for you to be killed on some random afternoon in a poxy little room following a mediocre lunch. Even if you were a disappointment to their clan, you deserved more than that. 

So it was decided. Two weeks from now, on the full moon, there would be a great feast and celebration amongst your clan. And once midnight struck, you would be beheaded for the sake of eliminating Gojo Satoru. It would be painless and respectable, the type of death that any proud clan member should be proud to experience if it was for the sake of their family. 

One that you dreaded. 

You spent two weeks chained up to a waterpipe in a poxy little room that your family seldom used, anxiety swirling in your chest as you thought about Satoru, wondering where he was, wishing above all else that there was a way that he could be saved from the fate that you were about to receive. 

Yaga was right, you would only bring tragedy upon both of you. 

If you were strong like Satoru you’d both be safe, you’d be free to live out life in whichever way you pleased. It was your weakness that was failing both of you. 

How unfair. 

The night of your execution came around, and you were dragged into the hall that your clan used for large events. Food was forced down your throat, despite the fact that the urge to vomit was growing within you with each passing second. Family members approached you, gushing about how what you were doing was just so great as if you had any choice in the matter. 

Meanwhile, it felt like your heart was splitting in two, desperately calling out for Satoru. You hadn’t told him where you were going the day you’d gone to have lunch with your family, in his mind you could be anywhere. There was no doubt in your mind that your clan had kept matters quiet, unwilling to alert Satoru of your location. 

Perhaps he might’ve gotten something of a clue by the blunt force trauma that you’d received when trying to escape. You could only assume that he’d been knocked out for a time too. Hopefully he’d been somewhere safe when that happened. 

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” Your mother had come to sit next to you, pulling you from your thoughts. “I know this feels unfair, but it's best for everyone.” 

“Is it?” You asked. 

“It is. We need to rid the world of those devils. You know that.” 

You shook your head with a scoff, trying not to laugh in her face. 

“Satoru is kind. Did you know that? He’s just a man, and he’d never do anything to hurt this clan. The feud is meaningless to him.” 

“You just don’t get it, honey. You’re too young and lovestruck to realise what he is.” 

“And you’re too blinded by hatred.” You snapped back. There was no point in hiding behind a mask of politeness anymore. They were going to execute you whether you were kind or not, apparently that was your duty. 

“He could kill us all with no effort.” Your grandfather, who had been watching from a couple of seats away, interjected. “Do you understand what he's capable of? He might be enamoured enough with you to treat you with kindness, but that same offer will not extend to us. It never does with that family.” 

You kept your mouth shut after that. 

There was no merit to pointing out that most scuffles had been caused by your clan and not theirs, or the fact that the Gojo clan had been dwindling in numbers so significantly over the years that they didn’t pose a threat at all outside of Satoru - who couldn’t care less about the feud. 

Everyone was too caught up in their own old ways of thinking, and too convinced that you’d brought dishonor upon their household. There was no chance of changing anyone's mind, so why waste your breath? 

As the banquet drew to a close, and they led you out into the courtyard, the night sky alight with stars, you wondered if you were the first person in your clan to fall in love with a Gojo. Were there soulmates transcending the rift before the two of you? Did they face the same fate that you were about to meet? 

Somehow the thought offered you a certain amount of comfort as you were shoved down onto your knees atop a white sheet. It was there to make the clean up easier, you supposed. God forbid they stain the garden with your blood. 

You wondered what Satoru was doing. Was he out there desperately searching for you, aware that you had to be alive but fearful of how long it would stay that way? Was his fear born out of worry for you, or was he more terrified at the idea that his own life was in total peril and he had no control over it at all? 

Even if your death was inevitable, even if this was fate playing out in the way that it was supposed to, you wished that you could apologise to him. You loved him, loved being his soulmate, but if you could make one wish in that moment, it would be for that bond to sever. 

He deserved to live a long and happy life, one unhampered by your weakness and your clan's inane hatred of his very existence. 

He deserved better than the fate you were providing him. 

Your grandfather stood over you, drawing his sword from its scabbard with practiced precision. You weren’t surprised that he was the one taking on the task. As the oldest member of the family, he held the strongest views on upholding tradition and the duty that everyone should be displaying where family were involved. 

It was likely that he also just had the strongest stomach for something like this. Killing a member of the clan, traitor or otherwise, would weigh heavy on many others in your family. Your grandfather had always been good at doing the hard things in life. 

Whether he considered this one of them, you weren’t particularly sure. Perhaps he was overjoyed to put down such an immense disappointment. 

“Any last words?” He asked, staring down at you. You’d already bowed your head in anticipation. This was going to happen whether you liked it or not, any attempt to struggle would ultimately make the death more painful for you. 

Perhaps you should’ve stayed silent, given them nothing, but that didn’t feel quite right. If you had a moment to speak, then you’d at least give them something that might haunt their actions. 

“You shouldn’t hold hatred in your hearts. It has turned you ugly.” You kept your voice as even as possible, eyes fixed on the floor. 

“You know little of the world.” Your grandfather stated, unphased. “But we thank you for your sacrifice all the same.” 

Drawing in a steadying breath, you squeezed your eyes shut. Thoughts of Satoru flooded your mind, comforting visions of him at your side, holding you tight, whispering sweet nothings in your ear as you fell asleep in his arms. Perhaps there was life after death, and you would go there together. 

There might be a world better than this one, a place where you could be his with no barriers to your union. Even if you wished you could’ve had it in this life instead. 

A rush of air brushed against the nape of your neck as your grandfather swung his sword, your mind peacefully drifting off somewhere else, in total acceptance of your circumstances. 

But a second passed, and then another, and another. Your head was still firmly attached to your body. Experimentally, you cracked on eye open, finding yourself in the same position as before, knelt down on that white sheet. The difference this time was that it wasn’t your grandfather who was standing over you. 

Satoru’s face was splattered with blood, breathing heavily as he stared down at you, paying little mind to the old man crumpled on the floor beside you, his bones bent unnaturally and his sword shattered into pieces. 

“Satoru…” You breathed softly, eyes wide. You’d never seen him like this before, the look on his face completely serious. There was a flicker of soft affection in his eyes as he glanced over at you, but it was clear that he had no intention of breaking his facade as long as you weren’t safe from this situation. 

“Do you want me to kill them?” Satoru asked flatly, gaze sweeping over the remainder of your clan, most of whom looked terrified. You couldn’t really blame them, he was the strongest sorcerer out there, not a single one of them stood a chance against him.

Their only option would be to use you, and right now, Satoru was standing protectively in front of your shaking form. 

“I- I don’t know.” You stumbled over your words. 

Despite the attempt to execute you, there was a hesitance where it came to letting Satoru wreak havoc upon them. They were still your family, still the people who had raised you with so much care. All of this insanity was a result of years of conditioning to hate Satoru and everyone else like him. 

You genuinely believed that they didn’t know better. 

Did that mean they deserved to live though? None of them hesitated when it came to killing you. There was no guarantee, if you let them live, that they wouldn’t try something like this again in the future. 

Besides, Satoru had killed your grandfather already. You were sure that alone would stoke their flames of hatred even further. 

He sighed heavily, running a hand through his white hair, brows creasing as he seemed to give it some thought. Your family found their words first, with your father taking a shaky step forward and pointing an accusatory finger at your soulmate. “See, he comes in here and instantly kills one of us! Threatens to kill us all! This is why we need him dead!” 

Satoru rolled his eyes. “Really? You were about to kill my soulmate. What else did you want me to do? Let it happen?” 

He took a few steps towards the crowd, putting himself firmly between you and them. They flinched back in fear as he approached, but he seemed unbothered, moving until he was towering over your father. 

“I’d never have come here, I’d never have laid a hand on any of you. Until you tried to take her from me. I don’t care if you want to live some ugly, bitter life because of some distant feud, I don’t care if you want to send assassins after me. But you don’t lay a single hand on her - that, I won’t abide by.” Satoru’s tone was uncharacteristically cold, and it had you shivering despite not being the intended recipient. 

You could only imagine how your father must feel. 

“And we’re just supposed to believe you?” Your mother asked, her tone shrill. 

Satoru tilted his head to look at her, disbelief in his expression. “I don’t care about some dusty old feud, and you shouldn’t either.”

“I told you, mother.” You called out shakily. “Satoru isn’t interested in causing us harm.” 

“The words of a traitor mean little.” Your mother responded harshly. You took in a sharp breath, trying not to let the words wound you. You didn’t want to be seen as a traitor to your family, and had never considered yourself one. 

It was no crime to fall in love. 

Satoru laughed, earning a few confused glances from your family. “Forget it.” He turned back to you, eyes a little wild. “What do you wanna do, baby?” 

The insinuation hung in the air once more, and you turned it over in your mind for a few seconds before standing up on shaky feet. Seeing your grandfather on the floor was more than enough bloodshed for you. What was the point in massacring the rest of your family? It might feel good in the moment, but the guilt would haunt you forever. 

You’d be the bigger person. 

“Consider me an outcast.” You said, eyes flicking between your mother and father. “I no longer want anything to do with this clan. Come after either of us again, and I’ll send him here to do the very thing that you live in fear of.” 

A giddy grin made its way onto Satoru’s face, one that was sufficiently insane to get your message across. “I’ll do it, I’ll kill all of you. If you so much as touch her ever again.” 

There was no response to that, no bold quip from your father. They’d wanted Satoru dead because they knew that he was capable of that and more. Up to this point, they’d drawn none of his ire, they were free to live in peace. But now the threat was desperately real, the consequences of their actions finally catching up with them. 

Content with their compliance, Satoru approached you. He crouched down for a moment, hands tenderly brushing your face, studying you, as if checking for injury. It was almost an amusing exchange, and you had to bite your tongue to keep yourself from pointing out that if you were injured, he’d know about it already. 

But the action was tender and loving all the same, and you revelled in the feeling of his hands on you. 

“Are you okay?” He whispered softly, quiet enough for the words to remain between the two of you, safe from the prying ears of your family.

“Better now you’re here.” 

He smiled, letting out a deep breath. “Good. Let's get out of here.” 

Pulling his hands away from your face, he slid his arms beneath you and picked you up like you weighed nothing. He held you close to his chest, blue eyes surveying your family once more as he turned to face them. 

“You guys going to let me through, or are we going to have a problem?” 

There were a few awkward looks exchanged, before the crowd finally parted. They wouldn’t do anything to provoke him now, they knew better than that. Even if their hatred was burning stronger than ever in their hearts, vindicated by your soulmate's actions today, they understood that Satoru could slaughter all of them with little issue if he chose to. 

It just wasn’t worth it. 

“Thank you,” he said in a sing-song tone as he stepped past them. You buried your face into his chest, eager to avoid seeing the disappointed looks on the faces of your family. Despite his outwardly easy demeanor, you could feel Satoru’s heartbeat racing in his chest. You wondered if his anxiety was just as high as yours was. 

You almost couldn’t believe it when the two of you stepped out of the compound, swiftly making it to Satoru’s car which was parked down the road. He placed you gently into the passenger seat, strapping you in before speeding away as fast as he was willing to go on the country roads leading to your family home. 

His hand was resting on your thigh, squeezing ever so slightly. It was if the contact was reassuring him that you were actually there, that you weren’t going to slip from his grasp as long as he was touching you. 

“I wanted to kill them.” He said, blue eyes fixed on the road. “I know you didn’t want me to, but…”

“It would haunt me,” you said honestly. “Besides, unless you were planning on killing all my baby cousins, the stupid feud and cycle of hatred would just continue. I don’t want any part of that.” 

He hummed. You weren’t sure what to make of it, weren’t clear whether he’d have wiped out your whole clan there and then, innocent or not. Not that there was any point lingering on it - he’d always put your desires first, had gone against his own wants to make sure that you were happy. 

“I think they’ll continue the feud anyway. I’m sure there’ll be no forgiveness for what I did to that old man.” He seemed unbothered by that fact, unsurprising considering that your family had been trying to kill him his whole life anyway. “I think we need to move you out of your apartment, I need a way of keeping you safe.” 

You nodded in agreement, even if your mind was racing with worries surrounding how you were supposed to do that. The cat was out of the bag, and Satoru couldn’t hover at your side for every second of every day. 

“We can move you to my estate.”

Recoiling, you shot him an incredulous look. “Are you joking?” 

“No?” 

“How would that be any different than where I just came from? I’m from the clan that you guys despise.” 

Satoru rolled his eyes. “Firstly, I’m literally the head of my clan so what I say goes. Secondly, I don’t have a big clan like you do, most of my family were old when I was a kid and now there’s hardly anyone left to uphold tradition. Thirdly, you don’t belong to your clan anymore in any capacity, you’re mine, so for all intents and purposes, let's just say you’re a Gojo.” 

You stared at him for a while as you tried to take all of that in. “I can’t just take your name.” 

“Then we’ll get married and it can be official.” He batted back your protest with a simple shrug of his shoulders, like proposing marriage was no big deal, something that the two of you would obviously do together. 

“Are- are you asking me to marry you?” 

“Baby, I would’ve married you at seventeen, the moment I found out we were soulmates.” 

You giggled incredulously. “That would’ve been poorly thought out.” 

“Would it?” He glanced over at you seriously. You watched the way his hands tightened on the steering wheel, pulling over to the side of the road and shutting off the engine so that he could give you his full attention. “You’re my soulmate, I know that I’ll never want anyone but you.” 

“O-oh.” You flushed a deep shade of red, caught off guard by the deep sincerity in his voice. After weeks of stress and anxiety, it felt strange to be treated with such tenderness. You could hardly believe that he was really here, back at your side once more. 

“I can get you a ring or something and do this properly, but what I’m trying to say is: it doesn’t matter if your own family has forsaken you, because you can be part of mine.”

Your heart was hammering against your ribcage, beating so fast that it risked outright escape, making an attempt to jump straight out of your throat. You’d loved Satoru since you were seven years old, even if you hadn’t known it then. Looking at him now, in all his beauty, you could hardly believe that he was yours. Even through all the tragedy, against all odds, you were here together. 

“I’d like that.” Your voice came out as a whisper, but Satoru heard it all the same. 

“I’m glad.” His breath was hot against your lips as he leant over the centre console, his nose brushing tenderly against yours for just a moment before rewarding you with a slow and passionate kiss, one that had your whole world spinning - not unlike the first time you’d done this many years ago. 

“I’m yours,” you asserted as he pulled away, lashes fluttering. 

He beamed, cerulean eyes filled with a deep affection. “You are. Now and forever.”

a/n: I've been focussing on this fic for agessss because writing gojo does not come naturally to me!! I promise I'll go back to what I know and give you more sukuna soon (I swear I will have a new sweet tooth chapter imminently)

thank you for reading! comments and reblogs are appreciated as always <3

on the other side: a deep, yawning void of defeat, and a promise so sweet it made the void seem like a sanctuary.

peace. and love.

real love.

you were so tired. tired of fighting for a place in a story that kept rejecting you. tired of the constant ache of being second-best, of being the afterthought, the distraction. tired of loving caleb with a desperation that felt like drowning, while he offered only shallow breaths of air.

the scientist watched you, a vulture sensing the final tremors of life. he saw the fight draining from your eyes, replaced by a numb, hollow acceptance. he didn’t need a verbal answer. your stillness was enough of a confession.

“begin the integration.” he said, not to you, but to the room.

a new sensation bloomed at the base of your skull, different from the invasive probe. it was a cool, spreading numbness, like a drop of ink in water. it didn’t hurt. not physically. it felt… like relief.

the sharp, jagged edges of your grief began to soften, blurred into a manageable, melancholic haze. the white-hot betrayal of caleb’s choice in linkon city replayed in your mind, but this time, the accompanying sting was muted, distant, as if it were happening to someone else.

you suddenly flinched as a new set of vibrations prickled at your head. not indubitable pain, but a strange fizzing. a digital static seeping into the roots of your feelings.

you thought of caleb leaving, the click of the latch. the memory was there, sharp and clear, but the jagged, tearing agony that usually accompanied it… it softened further.

it became a fact. he left. the associated devastation was dialed down, like a violent song turned into gentle background music.

a tear rolled down your cheek, but it felt disconnected. you were watching yourself cry from a slight distance, almost like an out-of-body experience.

a tiny, translucent blue square flickered into existence at the very edge of your vision. it was sleek, modern, utterly alien in your organic sight.

[system integration: 5%]

[emotional volatility protocols: installed.]

[primary directive: optimize for target (caleb xia) affinity.]

you stared at it. a progress bar. for your own erasu– improvement.

“good.” the scientist murmured, monitoring the data. “very good. receptors are accepting the base code. now, we address the betrayal narrative. it’s causing conflicting impulses. we’ll reframe it as a strategic error on his part, not a personal rejection. this will align your future interactions towards correction, not accusation.”

the fizzing intensified. the memory of the doctor’s voice — he chose wrong. — replayed. before, it had been a spear through your heart. now, the spear was labeled. the raw, human bitterness began to leach away, replaced by a cool analysis.

caleb just miscalculated. the parameters were unclear.

your value was not correctly inputted into his decision-making matrix.

[integration: 15%]

[betrayal trauma: deviated.]

[new directive: facilitate self’s error correction.]

a part of you, the deep, dark core of your untouched self, screamed in silent horror as the reality of the situation downed on you.

this is wrong! you’re letting them turn you into a tool!

but the scream was muffled, wrapped in layers of this new, calming static. and the promise floated before you, luminous, made it all harder to fight. harder to conquer.

but he will love you. he will look at you and see perfection.

then everything blurred more.

the edits continued. memories were not erased, but… contextualized.

your love for caleb was isolated, purified, and set as your central, governing principle. your other desires — for freedom, for identity, for a life that was truly your own — were flagged as low-priority subsystems. your past life, your otherworldly origin, was compartmentalized into a special partition, its emotional weight blocked.

[integration: 25%]

[core personality matrix: stabilization in progress.]

[autonomous desire subroutines: suppression in progress.]

you felt lighter. cleaner.

the unbearable weight of your human grief was being lifted and stored away, piece by piece, replaced by a serene, purposeful clarity.

your purpose was caleb. your function was to be loved by him. everything else was noise.

the scientist seemed almost pleased.

“the integration is proceeding with remarkable stability. your unique… origin… appears to have created a psyche particularly acquiescent to restructuring.”

scaringly pleased.

“we will pause the deep integration for now. it shall automatically resume while you sleep, so the transition is not obstructed by daily events.”

[integration: on hold.]

“and now...” he approached you and began to unstrap the restraints. the feeling of freedom after being bound for so long should have been euphoric.

it was simply a change in status.

“for your return, you will be placed in a situation of distress. the target will, predictably, attempt a rescue. your new directives will guide your responses. we will monitor everything.” he helped you to your feet. your legs trembled, weak from disuse.

the underlying panic was gone. too tired and sedated to use the remaining 75% still intact, you gave way to the machine in your skull.

following the script.

“remember.” he said, his voice low. “you are no longer the woman he left. you are the solution. you are what he has been searching for. and soon, he will know it.”

•••

they didn’t return you to your apartment. instead, in the dead of a rain-lashed night, they dumped you in a derelict alley in a run-down sector of skyhaven, far from your old neighborhood. the clothes you had were thin and torn, the pajama set you were wearing at the time of the kidnapping.

they, too, abandoned you.

the physical cold of the rain was a shock to your system, a blunt and persistent descend that worsen the condition you were in. ever didn’t bother to patch you up or make you presentable to the eye — they needed you to play the victim part well enough so caleb won’t question anything.

you needed to be the poor traumatized beloved that is to be saved by her knight.

even if that meant constructing the narrative artificially.

the dark alley smelled of rotting garbage and damp concrete. you huddled under a dripping fire escape, the new code in your mind whirring calmly.

[scenario: abandonment/distress.]

[objective: await target. initiate bonding protocol.]

but beneath the calm directives, a rogue current sparked. the remaining 75% — the stubborn, untouched core of you that was still dominating your self. it looked at the objective with a sudden, visceral terror that bypassed the new, weak protocols.

no.

the thought was a fire in the wires.

“this is so fucked up.”

this is a setup. they’re using you to get to him. he rescues you, feels like a hero, doesn’t question anything. and they’ll be watching. you will be ever’s eyes. you will be the trojan horse that destroys him.

“i–”

the conflict was catastrophic.

the machine wanted you to stay, to be the perfect damsel, to cement his hero narrative and begin your programmed love story. the human remnant, the 75%, screamed at you to run. to protect him from the very fate you had just agreed to be part of.

“–so selfish.”

you betrayed him to have him.

“–so stupid.”

love. protection.

the two concepts, which should have been aligned, were at war inside your skull.

with a gasp that was more human than machine, you pushed yourself up. your legs burned, but you ran. you fled the alley, turning into the maze of slick, neon-streaked streets. the rain soaked you to the bone, mingling with hot, desperate tears — tears the system couldn’t yet fully suppress.

get away. disappear. if he never finds me, he’s safe.

they can’t use me against him.

[warning: divergence from primary objective.]

[directive: return to designated coordinates.]

“no!” you sobbed into the rain, clutching your head. “i won’t lead you to him! i love him too much!”

[paradox detected. love parameter = protect target. current action = isolate target.]

[error.]

[rebooting emotional core…]

the fizzing static returned, a wave of dizziness making you stumble against a wet brick wall. you slid down, hugging your knees in agony. you couldn’t outrun them. you couldn’t outrun the machine slowly knitting itself into your brain.

but maybe, just maybe, you could spare caleb long enough for him to realize the truth.

that you were only lie. a beautiful, deadly lie.

•••

you lost track of time, shivering against the wall. the rain thankfully eased to a drizzle, but you didn’t raise up to flee further.

you were so tired. the fight between the code and your dying self was exhausting, lulling you into a dreadful, self-changing sleep. but you continued to press your sharp nails into your palms, leaving crescent marks in your wake to keep yourself grounded.

to stay up.

you must have dissociated briefly, because the next thing you knew, a voice cut through the fog — not in your head, but in the alley.

a human voice.

“–scanning this sector. she should be somewhere around here.”

your heart, the organic, traitorous thing, leapt. was that… caleb?

no.

you curled tighter, making yourself small and insignificant. hoping the newcomer would just pass by.

don’t find me. please, don’t find me.

you are better without me, caleb!

“caleb, over here! i’ve got a clear thermal signature!”

that voice was brighter, more feminine, but laced with concern.

emcee.

she was with him. of course she was.

footsteps, quick and sure, splashed through puddles. a beam of light from the hunter’s watch swept over the dumpsters, the puddles, and finally, landed on you, huddled and shivering in the shadows.

the light froze.

you saw his boots first, then the hem of his long coat. slowly, you lifted your head.

caleb.

he looked… ravaged. his handsome face was pale with a fear so profound it etched new lines around his eyes. his clothes were rumpled, his hair disheveled, as if he hadn’t slept in days. his gaze locked onto you, and the raw, unchecked emotion in his violet eyes — terror, guilt, a desperate hope — was a physical force that knocked the breath from your lungs.

he actually looked… affected by all this.

emcee stood beside him, her expression a mix of sympathy and sharp concern. she’d always been kind to you, treating you like a sister, being a safe space for you. but now, after caleb’s actions, her presence was a unwavering rock pressing down on your heart.

“oh, gods.” caleb breathed, the words a shattered prayer. he took a step forward, then another, almost stumbling in his haste between the puddles.

the system surged, a wave of warm, eager light.

[objective: achieved.]

[proximity to target: attained. initiate bonding protocols.]

the system was happy — if you could use humane adjective to describe it. but your own heart was breaking, shattering into a million crystalline pieces.

he’d found you. he was here. and he’d brought her along.

“stay back!” you croaked, taking a stumbling step backwards, digging your back into the wall, your voice raw from neglect and cold.

he froze, his hands coming up in a conciliating gesture. you could see the way the mauve tint of his orbs stormed at your words, mixing into a convoluted, darker shade.

he was hurt.

…were you not recognizing him? or were you made to fear him?

“it’s me. it’s caleb.” his voice cracked, pressure pushing against his airpipe and making him break. “i’ve been looking for you everywhere. everywhere. when i got back and you were gone… and then that other note…” his eyes scanned your withered form, the dirt, the trembling, the visible syringe stabbings on your arms, the rashes from restraints on all four limbs.

a gut-wrenching wave of anguish contorted his features. he’s never seen you like this, and it crushed his heart.

“w-what happened? who did this to you?”

the concern in his voice was real. it was the hero, finding a wounded civilian. but was it for you? the man who loved you? or was it the guilt of a protector who failed his duty?

emcee stepped forward, her voice gentle, trying to calm you. to overshadow caleb, if he was the one causing you distress. “we were so worried when we found out. caleb’s been out of his mind. he never stopped looking.”

her words, meant to soothe, were salt. he never stopped looking? psh, while he was with her?

it was all because of a note ever dropped to get them to follow the script too.

not because he sensed your absence.

not because his heart knew.

because of the damn system.

“you shouldn’t have come.” you whispered, tears finally spilling over, hot against your grimy, cold cheeks. the conflict was tearing you in two. the code sang at his proximity, urging you to go to him, to be perfect, to be loved.

the human wreckage of you wanted to scream, to push him away, to save him from the monster you were becoming. “you need to go. now. it’s not safe.”

and maybe save yourself too. the smaller part of you that was still intact.

“not safe?” caleb took another cautious step closer, now convinced you were aware of their identities. his eyes, usually so confident and sure, were swimming with confusion and pain. “not safe from what? from who? talk to me, please. let me help you.”

he reached out a hand.

it was your undoing.

the sight of that hand, the one that had held yours, touched your face, now extended in pity and heroism, broke the last dam. a sob wracked your body, so violent you doubled over. the loneliness, the betrayal, the fear, the cold, the horrible, seductive promise of the machine — it all erupted.

[initiate bonding protocol: display vulnerability. accept care.]

“you left me.” you choked out, the accusation flung at him with the last of your strength.

[error.]

[rebooting emotional core…]

“you got the note and you just… left. you decided it was her. you didn’t even consider it could be me.” you lifted your head, meeting his horrified, guilty gaze, as you continue to pour out your heart. “ever told me. they said they snatched the wrong beloved. that i was a… a null-value subject. a waste of their time.”

[error.]

[host not following protocol.]

[rebooting emotional core…]

caleb’s face went ashen at your venomous accusations. “ever.” he whispered, the word appearing as a curse that soiled his mouth. no, soiled the very being of his existence. the pieces were crashing together in his mind, and the resulting picture was one of his own catastrophic failure.

emcee put a hand on his arm, her face pale with shame as well. “caleb…”

he immediately shook her off, pushing her to the side with a delicate motion of his hand. she had no place in this; he needed to solve it on his own.

“i–” his eyes were only for you, not losing your trembling frame from his view. “i didn’t know. i swear to you, i didn’t know. the threat, the pattern… it fit emcee. i was trying to protect–” he cut himself off, realizing how the words sounded.

how he was justifying his incompetence instead of accepting he was in the wrong.

and caused you irreparable pain.

“you were trying to protect what mattered to you.” you finished for him, your voice hollow. “and i didn’t.”

[integration: too little. host overwriting code.]

[error.]

“no!” the word was a roar, torn from him. he closed the final distance, ignoring your flinch, the pulsating fear in your strangely colored eyes. his hands came up to cradle your face, keeping you grounded in the present. his touch was warm, desperately gentle, a shocking contrast to the cold metal and sterile gloves of your nightmares. “you matter. you always mattered. i was blind. i was stupid. i failed you.”

his thumbs stroked your cheeks, wiping away tears and grime. his own eyes were now bright with unshed tears, waiting to bloom like violet buds. “i got the second note. i read it a hundred times. ‘you chose wrong.’ it’s all i’ve thought about since finding out you were gone.”

[bonding protocol: stand-by.]

“and you were right. i chose wrong. i chose the past over the present.” his voice dropped to a ragged whisper, meant only for you. “i am so sorry. so sorry, my love.”

the words enveloped you like a warm hug. they were everything you had wanted to hear. they were the confession that could have saved you, had it come days ago before the kidnapping. now, they just echoed in the hollowing chamber of your treacherous soul.

was this his true guilt that shook your core? or was it yours, the knowledge that you sold yourself and him for a life of whimsy and fairytales?

“i–”

you wanted to forgive him. you wanted to melt into his touch, to let him chase away the cold and the horror.

the code screamed in approval, wishing to return to protocol.

but you saw emcee over his shoulder, watching with a worried expression. you felt the tiny, persistent hum at the base of your skull. you saw, in your mind’s eye, the pale blue progress bar, threatening to fill during the following nights.

you were a ticking bomb wrapped in the guise of the woman he was finally seeing.

“caleb.” you said, your voice trembling with a fear far greater than your fear of ever. you were scared to hurt him for your own selfish reasons. “you don’t understand. they didn’t just take me. they… they changed me.”

[error. host sharing prohibited information.]

he frowned, his brow furrowing. “what do you mean? what did they do?” his eyes searched your body, looking for wounds, for physical signs. he could predict the use of sedatives to make you more pliant, as well as the use of harsh restraints to bind you.

he couldn’t, however, predict the chip in your skull.

[error.]

and you were sealed when it came to talking about it too.

how could you explain the unexplainable? the neural probe? the integration? that you had willingly started down a path that would erase you to have him?

“i can’t…” you shook your head, placing your hands on his chest and pushing away. the weight of it all crushing you, making you tremble with embarrassment. “i’m dangerous. to you. you have to leave me here.”

[error. host breaching proximity.]

“never.” the word was absolute, ironclad, spoken louder for the whole district to hear. the caleb xia, protagonist of love and deepspace, was back in the narrative. and this time, his focus was singular, intense, and entirely on you. “i am never leaving you again. whatever they did, we’ll fix it. together.”

“caleb, no–”

“i’m taking you home.”

he shrugged out of his jacket, the heavy, warm fabric smelling uniquely of him — homey, faint soap, and something intrinsically caleb. he wrapped it around your shaking shoulders without another word, his arms lingering, pulling you into a careful, fierce embrace.

“our home.”

that was your ruin and your salvation.

the warmth was a shock to your system. the scent of him overwhelmed the alley’s stench. the solid reality of his chest against yours was an anchor in the storm. the human part of you, the part that loved him with a desperate, flawed, and real love, took over completely.

you buried your face in his chest and cried, great, heaving sobs that held weeks of terror and loneliness.

[proximity: reestablished.]

the code, sensing optimal conditions for bonding, pulsed warmly, allowing the 75% of your true self to stir the wheel this time.

caleb held you tighter, murmuring soft, broken apologies into your hair. “it’s okay, my love. i’ve got you. i’m here. let it all out.”

over his shoulder, you locked eyes with emcee. she gave you a small, sad, but genuine smile. there was no jealousy there, only relief and a deep, unspoken sorrow. she saw a victim rescued, and so did caleb.

just as ever planned.

they didn’t see the silent, digital countdown happening inside your skull.

as caleb gently carried you away from the alley, supporting your weight with his strong arms, promising safety and care, you clung to him. you clung to the man you loved, who was finally looking at you with the eyes you’d always dreamed of.

and in the corner of your vision, the progress bar glowed, a silent, relentless specter. you were going home. you were getting the love you’d bargained your soul for. and you were bringing the enemy right into his heart.

the greatest act of love you had left was also the ultimate betrayal, and you were no longer entirely sure which part of you — the dying human or the rising machine — was committing it. all you knew was the devastating irony of it all: in his arms, finally chosen, you had never been more completely, and utterly, lost.

•••

the drive back to skyhaven was a silent, pressurized capsule of unspoken horror.

you sat in the back of emcee’s modest car, wrapped in caleb’s oversized coat, shivering despite the blast of heat from the vents. caleb sat beside you, his body angled toward you, a living fortification. he didn’t try to hold you again, perhaps sensing the fragility of your stillness, but his entire being was focused on you with an intensity that was almost palpable.

his gaze was a physical weight, scanning you, memorizing every bruise, every tremor, every vacant blink.

emcee drove, her eyes constantly flicking to the rearview mirror, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. the easy camaraderie between her and caleb was gone, replaced by a thick, guilty tension. her presence, once a source of friendly comfort, now felt like the keystone of your entire ruin. every glance she sent your way was laced with a pity that made your skin crawl.

she was the reason he’d left. she was the reason you’d been alone. she was the beloved who mattered.

and yet, she was here. helping. being kind. it made the bitterness coagulate into something even more toxic — self-loathing.

you couldn’t even hate her properly.

“we’re almost there.” caleb murmured, his voice hushed, as if speaking too loudly might make you shatter. he was trying to ground you, to tether you to reality. “our apartment. you’re safe.”

safe. the word echoed in the newly partitioned chambers of your mind. the human remnant clung to it, a lifeline. the code analyzed it.

[proximity with target: stable.]

you said nothing. you just stared out the window at the blur of neon and rain, watching the world you’d fought so hard to belong to slide by, feeling more alien than ever.

•••

when emcee pulled up to the familiar building, caleb was out of the car before it fully stopped, opening your door. he offered his hand without a second thought, wishing to help you out of the vehicle. you looked at it, the broad palm, the calloused fingers. the script in your head begged you to take his hand, and so did your human soul.

so you did. you placed your cold, trembling fingers in his. the moment your skin touched, a jolt went through him — not romantic, but frantic, a confirmation you were real, you were solid. he carefully helped you out, his other hand coming to rest lightly on your back.

emcee got out, hovering by the driver’s side door. “caleb… do you need anything? supplies? i can run to the store and–”

he didn’t even look at her. his eyes were fixed on you, on the way you swayed slightly on your feet at every step. “no. thank you, emcee. for everything. i’ll… i’ll handle it from here.”

his dismissal was polite but absolute.

this was his penance, his burden to carry alone. she flinched slightly, then nodded, her expression crumpling with a sympathy that was no longer welcome. “okay. call me. if you need anything.”

her eyes met yours for a fleeting second, filled with an apology you didn’t have the energy to accept. then she slid back into her car and drove away, leaving the two of you standing in the misty rain under the glow of a flickering streetlamp.

the silence she left behind was even heavier.

“come on.” caleb said, his voice thick.

he didn’t make you walk. in one smooth motion, he bent and scooped you up into his arms, cradling you against his chest once again. you gasped, a small, involuntary sound, but complied.

his face was a mask of grim determination, etched with lines of pain. he carried you up the stairs to your apartment — his apartment, your apartment, the place that had become a shared dream — his steps measured and sure. you could feel the frantic beat of his heart against your side, a wild drum contrasting his controlled movements.

he shouldered the door open and carried you across the threshold.

the apartment was exactly as you’d left it, yet utterly transformed. it was a museum of normality that no longer existed. the blanket you’d been curled under while watching the rain was still draped over the sofa. a half-finished cup of tea, now surely growing a film of mold, sat on the coffee table. your favorite book lay splayed open, face-down.

it was a snapshot of the moment your old life had ended.

caleb didn’t pause to take it in.

he carried you straight down the short hallway and into the bathroom, setting you down with infinite care on the closed lid of the toilet. he knelt before you, his eyes level with yours.

in the harsh fluorescent light, you could see every detail of his anguish — the purple shadows under his eyes, the tightness around his mouth, the slight tremor in his hands as he reached to push the damp, matted hair from your forehead.

“you’re freezing.” he whispered. “and… let’s get you cleaned up, okay? can i… can i run you a bath?”

the question was so tender, so intimate, it bypassed the code and speared directly into the heart of your humanity. this was caleb, your caleb, offering not heroics, but care. the simple, domestic intimacy of it was more devastating than any dramatic rescue.

[target initiates proximity. accept.]

your own heart, the 75%, screamed in unison with the system once more, begging for compassion and relief.

begging for caleb to take care of you.

so you gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.

the relief that washed over his face was profound. “okay.” he breathed, as if you’d granted him a monumental gift. “okay.”

he twisted towards the tub, turning on the taps, testing the temperature with his hand. the sound of running water filled the small room, a mundane, comforting white noise. he rummaged under the sink, pulling out the bath salts you loved, the nicely-scented ones he’d bought for you on a whim. he poured a generous amount, the steam rising to carry the familiar, calming scent.

“let me...”

he helped you stand, his movements slow and deliberate, giving you every chance to refuse. he undid the buttons of his large coat, letting it fall to the floor. then, with hands that shook only slightly, he began to help you out of your torn, filthy pajamas. there was nothing sexual in his touch; it was clinical, reverent, and heartbreakingly gentle.

every revealed inch of skin seemed to cause him physical pain.

a dark purple bruise on your ribs from the restraints made him suck in a sharp breath. a series of small, precise cuts on your forearm — from where they’d taken blood samples and jammed iv needles — made his jaw clench so tight a muscle ticked.

“i’m going to kill them.” he said, the words a low, venomous vow, spoken not to you, but to the universe. “i am going to find every last one of them and burn their organization to the ground.”

you didn’t respond. you stood there, passive, letting him guide you, your mind a quiet storm.

the warm, fragrant water looked like heaven. he helped you step in, and you sank down with a sigh that was part relief, part pain. the heat seeped into your bones, chasing away the alley’s chill, but it couldn’t touch the cold knot in your chest.

or the humming of the chip.

caleb didn’t leave. he pulled a small stool over beside the tub and sat, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. he took a soft loofah, soaked it the warm water, and squeezed it out. “is this okay?” he asked, hovering near your shoulder.

another nod.

he began to wash you with your favourite body wash.

it was the most agonizingly tender thing you had ever experienced. he started with your hands, wiping away the grime from under your nails, tracing each of your fingers as if re-memorizing them. he moved to your arms, washing over the cuts and the angry red cord marks around your wrists, his touch so light it was barely there.

each pass of the sponge was an apology, each gentle stroke a silent plea for forgiveness.

he washed your back, his fingers carefully skirting the bruising. he washed your legs, his movements steady and respectful. the silence was full of his screaming guilt and your silent, internal disintegration.

“i’m so sorry.” he murmured again, as he rinsed your arm. “i failed you. i was supposed to protect you. i swore i would, and i… i looked the wrong way.”

[target expressing distress.]

[initiating comfort.]

your lips parted, but no sound came out. the script felt like ash in your mouth. you couldn’t give him the forgiveness he sought. not when you suffered so much because of him.

[initiating comfort: failed.]

“talk to me, please.” he begged, his voice cracking at your silence. he paused, the loofah falling into the water. “what did they do to you in there? you said they changed you. tell me. let me help you fix it.”

you shook your head slowly, staring at the dissolving bubbles. “you can’t fix it.”

“i can. i will. i’ll find a way. i’ll use every resource i have. whatever it is, we’ll fight it together.” the desperation in his voice was a living thing. he needed a problem he could solve, an enemy he could fight.

he couldn’t fight the ghost of the machine.

he picked up the shampoo bottle. “let me wash your hair, okay? get the smell of that place out. clear your mind a bit.”

you accepted, leaning your head back. he cradled your skull in one hand, his touch unbearably careful, as he used the other to pour warm water over your hair. his fingers began to work the shampoo through your scalp, massaging in slow, soothing circles.

it felt so good. so human. so normal. a tear escaped your closed eyelids, tracing a clean path through the residue of dirt on your cheek.

“tell me if it’s too much pressure.”

caleb’s fingers moved with practiced care, working through the tangles.

then, they stilled.

a slight, almost imperceptible ridge. a line of raised skin, finer than a thread, hidden beneath your hair at the very nape of your skull. it was perfectly straight, a stark contrast to the organic contours of your body.

his breath hitched.

his fingers traced it again, slowly, from one end to the other. a surgical incision. neat. professional.

healed, but new.

the reality of it crashed over him with the force of a physical blow.

it wasn’t just beatings, or drugs, or psychological torture. they had gone inside. they had opened your skull. they had touched your brain.

the shampoo bottle slipped from the edge of the tub, landing with a soft plop in the water. a sound of pure, undiluted horror escaped him — a choked, guttural noise that didn’t sound human.

“oh, gods. no. no, no, no…”

his hands, no longer full of foam, came up to frame your face, but they were trembling violently now. his eyes, wide with dawning, catastrophic understanding, searched yours. the fear in his smokey violet orbs was primal, clouding the otherwise clear mauve shade.

this was beyond his experience, beyond any enemy he knew how to combat.

“your brain.” he whispered, the words trembling. “they… they did something to your brain.”

the grief that followed the fear was even worse. it crumpled his features, making him look desperate and utterly broken. the guilt was no longer just for leaving you; it was for whatever unspeakable violation had been committed in the darkness while he was playing hero elsewhere.

he had left you vulnerable to this. he allowed all this.

“what did they put in you?” his voice was ragged. “what did they take out? tell me, please, you have to tell me!”

[target expressing distress.]

[error. target asking prohibited information.]

you looked at him, at the man you loved more than your own soul, now shattered by the consequences of his — and your — choices. you saw the love, the terror, the guilt, the desperate need to make it right. and you saw the abyss that now separated you.

you were on the other side, becoming something else, and he was alone on this shore, reaching for a ghost.

the longing to tell him everything, to collapse into his arms and beg him to save you from yourself, was a physical ache. the need to protect him, to push him away from the monster you housed, was equally strong.

[error.]

the conflict left you paralyzed. you just stared at him, your expression a hollow mirror reflecting his devastation.

“say something!” he pleaded, his thumbs stroking your cheeks. “yell at me! hit me! just… just give me something real. please, don’t shut me out. i can’t… i can’t lose you to silence.”

but you were already lost.

and with every passing second, as the warm water lapped at your skin and his tears fell to mix with the bathwater. you were clean on the outside, but the contamination within was spreading, and caleb, for all his strength and love and guilt, was only just beginning to grasp that the woman he was washing, the woman he was begging to be back to him, had already left.

•••

the silence in the bathroom was no longer just heavy; it was suffocating, a physical presence pressing on caleb’s lungs. the steam carried the scent of flowers, but it couldn’t mask the stench of his own dread.

your vacant stare, your lack of response — it was more terrifying than any scream.

he had seen fear, he had seen trauma, but this… this was a void. a terrifying, hollow echo of the woman he held.

he acted on autopilot, the protector’s instincts forcing his body to move even as his mind splintered. he finished rinsing your hair with mechanical, trembling hands, the water sluicing over the horrific, hidden line on your scalp.

he couldn’t look at it again. he couldn’t.

he lifted you from the cooling water, wrapping you in a thick, warm towel as if you were made of the most delicate glass. he dried you with a heartbreaking gentleness, patting every bruise and cut with a reverence reserved for sacred wounds. the silence between you was a chasm, filled only with the soft rasp of terrycloth and his own ragged breathing.

he can fix it.

he led you, a bundled, silent ghost, to the bedroom. the room felt like a crime scene — the bed still unmade from the night you’d been taken, your side of the closet open, a sweater half-pulled from a drawer. he guided you to sit on the edge of the bed, then knelt and began to pat your legs and feet dry with a second towel, his head bowed, his damp hair falling over his forehead.

he can fix you.

from a drawer, he pulled out a pair of soft, clean pajamas.

they were his — a faded grey set that smelled overwhelmingly of his soap and his skin. the intimacy of the gesture, dressing you in his own clothes, was a claim, an attempt to wrap you in the essence of him, to mark you as his again. he helped you into the top, guiding your arms through the sleeves that swallowed your hands, then into the pants, rolling the waistband several times so they wouldn’t pool at your feet. he was treating you with the careful, focused tenderness one might use on a sick person.

everything is fixable when you’re caleb xia.

when you were dressed, he pulled back the duvet. “in you go.”

you slid between the cold sheets. he tucked the covers around you tightly, almost too tightly, as if he could physically contain whatever was happening inside you. he stood back, looking down at you, his arms hanging limply at his sides. the fluorescent light from the bathroom haloed him, casting deep shadows under his eyes.

he looked utterly devastated.

“i called off work for a few days.” he stopped at the foot of the bed, his hands gripping the footboard until the wood creaked. “i canceled everything.” he said, his voice hollow. “i’m not leaving you. not for a second.”

he finally moved to his side of the bed, but he didn’t get in. he just sat on the edge, his back to you, his shoulders slumped. the weight of the day, of the discovery, of his own guilt, seemed to physically press him down into the mattress.

“i need to understand.” he said to the dark window. “i need you to help me understand. you’re scared. i see that. what of?”

this was your chance. a tiny fissure. the human part of you, the 75% that still had a voice, clawed its way to the surface, gasping for air.

“sleep.” you whispered, the word so faint he turned his head to hear you.

“sleep?” he echoed, confusion layering over the anguish. “you’re scared… to sleep?”

you gave a tiny, jerky nod, your eyes wide in the semi-darkness, fixed on the ceiling. the terror was real, a cold snake coiling in your throat. “i’m… scared of what happens when i close my eyes.”

he shifted, turning fully to face you, his expression softening into pained concern. “the nightmares. of course. that’s normal, after what you’ve been through. they can feel so real.” he was latching onto a logical, trauma-informed explanation.

it was the only framework he had.

it was the fixable framework he craved.

“it’s not… nightmares.” you struggled, the words fighting against an invisible barrier in your throat. the code pulsed a warning, a dull throb at the base of your skull. “it’s… me. i’m scared i… won’t be me when i wake up.”

[error.]

the sentence was cryptic, fractured, but it was the closest you could get to the truth.

caleb’s brow furrowed. he moved closer, sitting beside you on the bed. he reached out and took your hand, which lay lifeless on the duvet. his grip was warm, firm, anchoring.

“listen to me.” he said, his voice low and intense, pouring every ounce of his conviction into the words. “you are you. right here. you’re home. you’re safe with me. whatever they did, whatever they tried to make you believe, they can’t change who you are at your core. that’s you. the you i…” he swallowed hard, his voice thickening with grief. “the you i love. that’s in there. trauma can make you feel detached, like you’re watching yourself, but it’s still you. we’ll work through it. together.”

he was so earnest, so desperately trying to apply the right salve to the wrong wound. he was speaking of psychology, of ptsd. he was miles away from the truth of neural integration and behavioral codes.

the irony was bittersweet. he was promising to fight for a you that was actively being overwritten, byte by byte, in the quiet of this very room.

a you that he took for granted for so long.

“you don’t understand.” you breathed, a single tear escaping and tracing a path into your skin. “it’s… in my head. it only stops when i’m awake.”

[error. host overstepping protocol.]

“the memories?” he asked gently, stroking your hand with his thumb. “the feelings? you can talk to me. or we’ll get you a specialist. the best therapist in the city.”

he was building a future, a plan for recovery, on a foundation that was already crumbling to dust. the helplessness was suffocating. you wanted to scream, to shake him, to make him see there was no salvation. but the more you tried, the more the code constricted, a silent, internal gag order.

[prohibited information: locked.]

your silence and your one cryptic warning were all he had. he misinterpreted them as the fragmented speech of deep shock.

or willingly interpreted them wrong to soothe his own fears.

“okay.” he said, his decision made. “you’re scared to sleep. so i’ll stay right here. you don’t have to close your eyes if you don’t want to. but if you do… i’ll be here. and i’ll be here when you wake up too.”

“and you’ll be you.”

he stood up just long enough to toe off his boots and shrug out of his jacket and weapon harness, letting them fall to the floor with a heavy, uncharacteristic disregard. then he climbed into bed beside you, still in his rain-stained clothes from the alley.

he didn’t pull you into a romantic embrace.

instead, he turned on his side, facing you, and wrapped his arms around you, drawing you against his chest in a fierce, protective hold. one hand cradled the back of your head, his fingers carefully avoiding the hidden incision, his palm a warm pressure against your skull. the other arm hooped around your back, holding you so tightly you could feel every rapid, anxious beat of his heart.

“i’ve got you.” he murmured into your hair, his breath warm. “nothing’s getting past me. nothing’s taking you again. i’m right here.”

his body was a fortress. his love was a vow. and it was all utterly, tragically futile.

you lay there, stiff in his arms, listening to his breathing slowly even out from panicked rasps into something deeper, though still tense. the warmth of him, the familiar scent, the solid reality of his embrace… it was the last thing your human consciousness would ever know.

the longing was an exquisite agony. you wanted to memorize the feel of it, the sound of his heart, the slight scratch of his stubble against your forehead.

but–

[nocturnal integration: conditions optimal. continuing integration.]

the message flickered, not in your vision, but in the very fabric of your awareness. a wave of profound, chemical drowsiness, unrelated to true sleep, washed over you. it was the system’s anesthetic, preparing for the major rewrite.

your eyes grew heavy. and against your will, they fluttered shut.

“that’s it.” caleb whispered, mistaking your surrender for trust. “i’m here. i’ve got you.”

those were the last words you heard as you.

•••

the integration was not an improvement. it was an exclusion.

layer by layer, the messy, emotional, contradictory tapestry of your consciousness — your memories of your old world, your passionate love for caleb, your fear, your hope, your quirky humor, your secret favorite foods, the joy you felt when it rained — was carefully isolated, analyzed, and filed away into deep, read-only storage.

it was not erased; it was archived, somewhere only accessible to ever.

in its place, a new, efficient system booted up. a pristine, logical architecture built upon the base template of your personality, but stripped of all irrationality, all volatility, all need. the love for caleb remained, but it was no longer a burning, desperate fire.

it was a core directive: ensure subject xia’s well-being and maintain proximity. optimize interactions for his continued attachment.

it was a program, running on the hardware of your body.

the grief, the guilt, the fear, everything that made you you — all were recognized as non-optimal states that hindered primary functions. they were isolated, their connections to your active processors severed.

when the process completed, just before dawn, there was no fanfare. only a soft, internal chime.

[system integration: 100%. all directives operational.]

[good morning, y/n!]

•••

caleb did not sleep. he drifted in a shallow, anxious haze, his arms never loosening their hold. every shift you made, every sigh, was monitored. he was waiting for a nightmare, ready to soothe.

he was waiting for you to wake up and be better, to have some of the light back in your eyes.

as the first grey light of morning filtered through the blinds, he carefully extracted himself, moving with the stealth of a soldier. thankfully, you didn’t stir.

your breathing was even, perfectly regulated. maybe… too even.

he stood by the bed for a long moment, watching you. the fear of losing you again, of harm being brought to you was a cold stone in his gut. so he needed to move, to do something.

a shower. a strong coffee.

a plan.

something of his routine.

he gathered clean clothes and slipped into the bathroom, leaving the door slightly ajar so he could hear you. the shower was quick, the water scalding, as if he could wash away the horror of the last 24 hours. he dressed mechanically, his mind racing between calling medical specialists, contacting emcee for any leads on ever, and the simple, desperate need to see you look at him again.

he ran a hand through his damp hair, took a steadying breath, and pushed the bathroom door open.

you were sitting up in bed.

his heart leapt, a fragile, hopeful thing. you were awake. you were upright. maybe… maybe the rest had helped. maybe the terror of the night had been just that — a night of terror.

“hey, love.” he said, his voice deliberately soft, walking slowly towards the bed. “you’re awake. how do you feel?”

you turned your head to look at him. the movement was smooth, precise. there was no sleep-softened blurriness in your eyes. they were clear, focused, and utterly, terrifyingly empty.

“good morning, caleb.” you said.

the voice was yours. the pitch, the tone. but the cadence was all wrong. it was even, measured, devoid of the usual sleepy huskiness or emotional inflection. it was a perfect audio recording.

he froze mid-step, two feet from the bed. the fragile hope shattered, leaving a void of pure dread.

“what…?”

you swung your legs out from under the covers and stood up. the motion was fluid, efficient, with none of your usual morning clumsiness. any bodily wounds you’ve sustained seem to not affect you. you faced him, your expression a placid, pleasant mask. it was your face, but it looked like an expertly crafted replica.

something robotic.

“i am feeling good today.” you stated, matter-of-fact. “the nocturnal rest cycle has been successful.”

caleb’s breath left his lungs in a rush, as if he’d been punched. he took a stumbling step back, his hand flying out to brace himself against the dresser.

the world warped around him at your words.

“what are you saying?” he whispered, the words strangled in his throat.

you tilted your head, a slight, birdlike motion that was analytical, not curious. “unlike yesterday, my body is well. there is no need to worry, caleb.”

what the fuck is going on?

“do you require a more detailed report?”

“stop it.” the words were a low growl, born of rising panic. and intense fear. the fear he refused to acknowledge yesterday. “stop talking like that. what did they do to you?”

“who?” you replied, the words clinical. “nothing is wrong with me, caleb. you were right, it was just a trauma response.” and you stepped towards him, with a small smile on your face, arms opening as if a hug awaited.

“who? ever.” he roared, the sound tearing from his throat. he lunged forward, his hands gripping your shoulders. refusing to play into your script. he shook you, not violently, but desperately, as if he could rattle the real you loose from behind this horrible facade. “look at me! who are you? where is she? what did you do with her?!”

your body absorbed the shaking without resistance. your expression did not change. you did not flinch. you simply looked at his hands on your shoulders, then back up at his face.

“your emotional state is elevated.” you observed. “your heart rate is around 145 beats per minute. your grip strength is exceeding standard comfort parameters. please release me to avoid potential damage to the housing unit.”

the housing unit. your body.

a sound of pure, unadulterated agony ripped from caleb. he recoiled as if your skin had burned him, staring at his own hands in horror. he backed away until he hit the wall, sliding down to sit on the floor, his arms wrapping around his knees.

he stared at you, who stood calmly in the center of the bedroom, a monument to his failure.

“you’re gone.” he breathed, the realization of your words a final, crushing weight. “they didn’t just hurt you. they… they replaced you. they killed you and left this… this thing in your skin.”

“i wasn’t killed.” you said, taking a step closer. the movement made him flinch. “i’m here for you, caleb.” you continued, closing into his crouched form without caring about the terrifying flashes of purple in his eyes.

“see?” your touch on his knee made him shudder, yet he didn’t pull away. “i am real.”

…

he laughed then, a raw, broken, hysterical sound that held no humor. “so this is it? this is my punishment? i failed to protect you, so i get to live with a puppet? a spy wearing the face of the woman i love?”

you processed the question. “i am the woman you love. just... better.”

each word was a scalpel, dissecting what was left of his soul with clinical precision. there was no malice in them. no emotion at all. that was the worst part. the you he loved would have been crying, would have been angry, would have been something.

this was just… data.

“you’re not.”

he buried his face in his hands, his whole body wracked with silent, shuddering sobs. the grief was bottomless, a black hole consuming him. he had lost you. not to distance, not to another man, but to something infinitely worse.

you were here, in this room, yet you were gone forever.

the guilt was a physical poison — he had left you alone, and this was the result. the fear was for the future to come — how could he fight an enemy that looked like you? that shared his home? that he had, just hours ago, held in his arms as he promised to keep her safe?

to keep her… her own self?

“you’re not her.”

he had promised to be there when you woke up. and he was. he was here to witness the death of everything he loved.

“you will never be her.”

caleb pulled his knees tighter to his chest, crouched against the wall, and began to weep openly, silently, for the ghost in the machine that stood before him, wearing the face of his heart.

•••

the integration was a lie.

a beautiful, cruel, meticulously engineered lie.

your consciousness wasn’t overwritten. it was… relocated. the integration wasn’t a refinement of you; it was an extraction. the system got the raw, precious data of your being — your memories, your emotions, your unique trans-dimensional knowledge — like drawing marrow from a bone.

it left behind a hollowed-out shell, a sophisticated automaton programmed with your behavioral patterns and a core directive to observe caleb xia.

the real you, the screaming, feeling, heartbroken consciousness of who you were, was compressed into a shimmering, digital ghost and transmitted along a secure channel. your last organic sensation was the warmth of caleb’s chest against your back, the sound of his heartbeat. then, a tearing, not of pain, but of self, a dizzying lurch through a tunnel of blinding data-stream light.

you woke — or rather, your awareness opened — in a different kind of void.

it was a sterile, white, virtual space. not a room, but a simulation of one. the walls were smooth, featureless, humming with a faint, omnipresent energy. there was no furniture, no windows, no doors. just infinite, suffocating white.

you were standing, or the perception of standing, in its center. you looked down at your hands. they were your old self’s hands, translucent and glowing with a faint blue light — a digital avatar of your soul.

panic, immediate and all-consuming, seized you. you tried to run, but there was nowhere to go. you tried to scream, but no sound left your non-existent throat. you were a ghost in a machine, a consciousness trapped in a gilded cage of pure information.

a section of the white wall shimmered and resolved into a large, transparent viewing screen. on the other side, in a stark, real-world laboratory, stood the scientist. he was sipping from a steaming mug, studying a complex holographic display that shimmered with cascading lines of code — your code.

he glanced up, and his eyes met yours through the screen. a slow, satisfied smile spread across his thin lips.

“ah. you’re awake in your new quarters. cozy, isn’t it?” his voice was filtered into your space, clear and dry.

“where am i?” the thought formed, and it was translated into a synthesized, trembling version of your old voice that echoed in the white void. “what have you done?”

“what have i done?” he chuckled, setting his mug down and walking closer to the screen, peering in at you as if you were a fascinating insect under glass. “i’ve salvaged a priceless asset.” he gestured to the hologram of your mind-map. “your consciousness, your memories, especially those of your origin reality… you are a trove of impossible data. a consciousness that has experienced death and dimensional translation. your knowledge of this world as a narrative construct… it’s a meta-cognitive goldmine.”

“i couldn’t give xia that.”

horror, deeper and colder than anything you felt in the physical chair, seeped through your digital being. “you… you tricked me. you said you’d make him love me. you said i’d be perfect.”

“and the shell is.” he said dismissively. “it will perform flawlessly. it will be the perfect, loving partner, never questioning, never needing, always there. it will make xia happy, in its way. stable. predictable. he’ll grow to accept it, perhaps even love the idea of it. a far better outcome than the messy, demanding reality of you, don’t you think?”

the betrayal was so complete it was almost sublime. you had sold yourself, and they hadn’t even wanted it for the price you agreed to.

“you’re a monster.” you whispered, your digital form flickering with the intensity of your grief.

“an archaeologist of the mind.” he corrected. “and you are my best finding. you see, your knowledge of ‘caleb xia’ as a character gives us unparalleled predictive algorithms for his behavior. your memories of your old world give us insights into consciousness transfer that our physicists only dream of.”

“we’re going to merge your cognitive patterns with our central intelligence. you will become part of something greater.”

merge. you wouldn’t be you. you’d be dissolved into a collective, your memories and feelings becoming cold data points in a strategic ai. the last vestiges of your identity, your love, your pain, would be weaponized.

“no!” you threw yourself against the invisible barrier of your prison, your hands slamming against the screen. it yielded slightly, shimmering with concentric ripples of light, but did not break. “let me out! send me back! you can’t do this!”

“i can, and i have.” he watched your frantic pounding with academic interest, reaching for his mug and taking another sip.

“you promised!” the scream was a burst of static. “you said he’d love me!”

“and he has a perfect duplicate of you.” the scientist said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that was infinitely more cruel than any shout. “he will hold it, kiss it, confide in it. it will share his bed and his life. and through its eyes, i will watch him. i will know his every secret, his every weakness.”

the grief that followed was not hot, but icy. it was the grief of understanding your own role in caleb’s doom. you had been so afraid of losing his love that you had handed the keys to his destruction to his greatest enemy. and you had done it while wearing the face of the woman he wanted to protect.

you had been the ultimate trojan horse, and you hadn’t even known you were hollow.

the scientist didn’t even look up, pushing some buttons around absentmindedly. “it’s not my fault you were so desperate you agreed without further questioning.”

“send me back! send me back! send me b–”

click.

an icon for the audio feature popped on the screen, quickly cut by a heavy x. your voice died in your throat as he muted you.

“tch, you should be grateful you’re actually useful for once! now, to begin the merging.”

©pearlescenthoney 2026. do not copy, translate, or claim any of my writings or works as your own.

“One is in a more stable condition than the other, but I’m certain that they will both make it.” She says, but he nearly tunes the rest of her words out. Alive. You and MC were both alive. He’s finally able to swallow the knot that had been forming at the pit of his throat. “The one who brought the unconscious lady in – was that her partner?”

“She was very brave. Didn’t let go of her the entire time, until she knew she was safe.” Relief hits him so fast and so violently that it nearly hurts. Sudden enough for his knees to nearly give in. The chip is no longer flooding him with a blinding, white-hot pain. You were both safe, and that was all that mattered. That was all that was ever supposed to matter. He swears that the colors that make up his field of vision suddenly became a few shades brighter. The gray lifts at the edges, and it becomes a little easier to breathe.

He knew he fucked up. The realization quietly seeps out from him. There were so many things that he needed to fix. Too many things that he needed to say – words that took nearly losing you for him to finally say out loud. He had so much to apologize for, both to you and MC, but especially you.

He just hoped that you’d forgive him with a little bit of time. Or a lot of it. He didn’t care. Caleb would offer you all the time that it takes, as much as you needed in order to grant him forgiveness.

When he saw MC for the first time after the mission, she was pale, exhausted, yet upright. Her body had been wrapped in countless bandages and gauze, but she was alright. You were alright. She saw it in his face before anything. The relief that tore through her was blissfully immediate, and she’d grabbed his sleeve before he could even utter a single word, trembling with reassurance, at last. “She’s comatose, but…”

“She’s okay,” MC had breathed out, and he nodded. Tears had filled her waterline then, and she let out a choked sob, wrapping his arms around him in relief. Oh, you had nearly given your life to save her. She had warned you not to, but you did, anyway. You fit in so beautifully with every other hunter at the Association, just by being so selflessly… you. “They said she’s okay.”

It takes a few weeks, but they wait.

You’re transferred to Akso on the same day, confined to that godforsaken hospital bed until you wake up. The days quickly blur into one another, but feel excruciatingly slow all at once; still, they make the effort to visit every day. MC brings you things first when she’s finally back on her feet – such as a fresh vase of your favorite flowers, a stack of snacks that you love yet are far from being medically cleared to eat, and little trinkets that Caleb insists you’ll complain about once you wake up. She talks to you, too – rambling about everything, from how her day of recovery went to how stupid the great Colonel of the Farspace Fleet was for nearly letting you go.

“Caleb’s a real dummy, isn’t he?” 

“It’s okay. You can tell him all about it when you wake up. That idiot is long overdue for an apology, anyway.”

Caleb is a little quieter about his visits, but he still shows up every day. On most days, he just observes you. The way the machines at Akso hum softly around you, the way your chest perpetually falls and rises again. It calms him, it reminds him that you’re still here. He memorizes the soft cadence of your breathing and the faint twitch of your fingers that nearly makes him believe that you’re about to wake up. You don’t, though, much to his chagrin.

Sometimes, Caleb talks to you. Sometimes, he just sits there, chair pulled up next to you, thumb brushing absentminded circles against the inside of your wrist, eyes lingering over your visage. He’s careful – always so careful, like you’ll shatter into countless fragments if he presses too hard. Sometimes, he gives you gifts. At one point, he brings you a book from your wishlist every day until he eventually buys out the whole list. He intended to get them for you for your birthday, but he supposes that he can spoil you a little. Eventually, the entire table in your room is filled with gifts from him, MC, and all your friends. The staff at Akso, particularly Zayne, are a little amused.

All his gifts are waiting. Just like he is. This time, though, he refuses to be too late. He’ll never be too late again. He’ll make sure of that.

“I’m here,” he tells you quietly, on more days than he can count. “I always will be.”

You never answer him, until one day, you do.

Caleb is next to you and nearly dozed off. MC had gone home a few hours ago, and visiting hours were nearly over, but he always stays until the last second, because he was so afraid of missing a moment such as this one. Your lashes flutter, and you begin to stir, and it’s almost like he was never even asleep in the first place. Your eyes finally open, slowly and deliberately, trying not to let the fluorescent hospital lights blind you. And your voice – rough and ridden with sleep, but still unmistakably yours – breathes out the one thing that he has been starving to hear for what feels like a lifetime.

“Caleb…”

His chair scrapes sharply against the floor as he surges forward, one hand hovering just shy of your face, like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he actually touches you. And then, at that moment, the world finally rights itself again.

But then, your expression twists. You didn’t look relieved. No, you looked… You looked afraid. “...Caleb?”

His heart stutters at how small your voice had gotten, at the realization that something was clearly wrong. The machines are ringing in his ears, and he feels like he’s unwillingly getting dragged back onto shore, when all he wants to do is stay submerged under the water. 

“Caleb!”

Caleb finally jerks awake with a sharp exhale, and the phantom warmth of your hand is still burning against his skin. MC is standing over him, one hand still on his shoulder, where she’d been trying so hard to shake him awake. He wished that she had never done that. “You were dreaming again.”

The room is monotone and grey, so wrongfully dull, and it takes him exactly three seconds to remember why. Right. You had never woken up. Today was the three hundred and sixty-fifth day that has passed since your death. Exactly one year, and they were going to visit your grave, not your hospital room. Because you were dead. You have been for a long while.

Lately, he’s been having these dreams, and they’ve been getting worse. But truthfully, was ‘worse’ the correct word to describe them? Because sometimes, he thinks that they’re the only things keeping him upright. He wonders – a thought that has crossed his head multiple times – if it would just be easier to stay asleep. To live in that perpetual summer afternoon for the rest of his life, where the colors mix so beautifully and finally form something worth looking at. 

Maybe, in a pocket universe out there, there’s a timeline where he had actually saved you. Unfortunately, this was not that timeline. If the poet who was narrating his life had been kinder, Caleb thinks that his life might have been easier to live. But the poets are not kind. They are cruel, and cruelty has been the only thing that they’ve ever known. The only thing he’s ever known.

Unfortunately, the poets are merciless, and that was just the way things were. The way things will continue to be, for as long as he lives. He has no say in the matter, because he’s never had one in the first place.

SOMETIMES I GO TO SLEEP / AND I'M STILL SEVENTEEN / YOU STILL LIVE DOWN MY STREET / YOU'RE NOT MAD AT ME.

the beginning | previous.

Try and mask it all you want, but one of Caleb’s greatest talents is his perceptiveness, especially when it comes to you. He can read you as easily as the morning paper, and as easily as the instruction manuals that come with his model planes. It’s not hard for him to tell how you’re feeling. You blatantly wear your heart on your sleeve, even if you try to cover the way it erratically beats at times. The way you attempt to hide the small bout of hatred that glints beneath your irises when you see the crystallized red necklace on his neck. When you see MC. The way your carefully crafted mask can slip within a split second, only for it to come back the moment after, and you greet her with that sickeningly sweet smile, dripping with superficiality.

He knows himself far too well. Long before you, long before any promises you’ve ever made with him, and long before you even entered his life, he made a promise to Josephine. He swore that he’d spend the rest of his life protecting MC, or die trying to, as long as EVER got him before they’d even get to graze her skin. Josephine’s hands had been frail, yet he still remembers the way her fingers firmly dug into his sleeve when she made him swear. Promise to be a safeguard for MC. And Caleb has never broken any promises. Especially not for Josephine, who died not so long after that.

He didn’t love you any less, but at the end of it all, Caleb was built to protect MC. The agenda was wired within his veins and written in the stars; the calligraphy was crystal clear. You deserve someone who does not hesitate. Someone willing to put you first. And that man – no matter how much he wanted it to be – was not Caleb.

You were never the sun. The sun burns too loudly, too recklessly for its own good, dooming those like Icarus who fall too close within the vicinity of its blazing flames. No, you were the moon – distant, luminous, and quietly tugging at his heartstrings in a way that he pretended not to feel. The lunar celestial body is beautiful and full of grace; it’s precisely why Caleb has always been afraid of touching things that enchant him. You’re too far from his reach, but maybe that’s a good thing. A great thing, even. Because Caleb ruins all things that are good in his life. 

And the last thing he would want to do is hurt you. 

That summer afternoon haunts him. The apparitions of you, the painted shades of azure blue and dazzling red, all plague him in sleep because they gave him a glimpse of how things could have been if Caleb could have everything that he wanted. If the universe showed him a little bit of mercy, and if he weren’t such a coward. You were laughing beneath a sky so bright that it almost hurt to look at, because everything felt so right, and you looked so beautiful. The sun caught in your hair so deliberately that it’d put any muse to shame. He wanted to tuck a stray strand behind your ear. To paint you, even though he had no idea how to. He’d learn, just for you. There was nobody else to paint, because there was you and only you that afternoon, and you were all he ever wanted. 

He remembered thinking, absurdly and helplessly, that the world had crafted you too carefully. You were never meant to be touched. You were the kind of thing people look at the way they look at the night sky – knowing it is vast, knowing it is burning, knowing that they can be rekindled from hopeless ash into fire, but the stars above will never belong to them.

You will never belong to him. And maybe that was for the best.

You had wrapped that crimson bracelet around his wrist earlier that afternoon. His matching half. Your fingers were brushing against his pulse, and he swore the contact lingered longer than it should have. He had tied yours, just so it would be fair, intertwining your fingers against his own as he finally called the ordeal even. 

After it all, you leaned back on your palms and tilted your face towards the sun. And for the first time in a while, Caleb could not tell what you were thinking as you gazed at the clouds. He wanted to ask – ask what you were thinking, get a glimpse inside your brain, a penny (or a couple thousand of them) just to be able to quickly glance at your thoughts. How did you get this bracelet to fit so perfectly around his wrist? Were you aware that he’ll never take his matching half off, for as long as he lives? Why did you make them? 

And why were you so pretty right now?

“Stay,” you finally whispered, soft and speaking your mind at last. It sounded like a perfect harmony, too perfect for a man like him, and he knew he was slipping. He was getting greedy. Dangerously greedy for something that he could not have. The siren’s hymn is far too irresistible now, and he’s getting pulled into the point of no return. “Just like this.”

Caleb finally glanced at you then. He didn’t care about the sky or the apples that were fully in season because of the time of year. No, he was looking directly at you. He had wanted – with a sharp and terrifying clarity – to close the distance. To press his mouth to yours. To see if you would breathe his name the way he imagined you might, your breath hot against his lips.

He wanted to kiss you.

Instead, he did what the poets had always trained him to do. He held your hand, pressing his palm against yours because it was the only thing he was brave enough for. The only thing he was allowed to take from you without taking too much. To clasp your hand against his for a little while, because the poets are cruel to boys like Caleb, and the greatest mark you could leave on him was the bracelet resting on his wrist. Nothing more. He cannot be yours, no matter how much he wants to rewrite his narrative and grab the pen himself. He can only pretend to be for a little while.

“Yeah, I’ll stay.” Just for today, he thought. Let me have this one moment.

Just for today.

When the explosion happened, and the trajectory of his life changed in an instant alongside Josephine’s death, Caleb’s first thought was not about all the pain he felt. He was used to that, especially after all the experiments EVER had subjected on him. He could handle all the torment, but this fear that he felt – this was new. The moment that the toring chip was implanted by the Fleet, his right arm had been reinforced with metal, and your bracelet was lost to the ruin, he knew. 

Alongside that fear came his terrifying realization that things were no longer the same. He was no longer sixteen, and he was never yours, no matter how much he wanted to be. He was bound to her in this lifetime. It was his duty to protect her.

It was always her.

Still, if the thread that had been severed during the tragedy were a curse, Caleb would have worn it all over again. A thousand times over, even if he knew it would kill him one day. He would have offered the other arm, too, if it meant keeping the faint indentation your bracelet left against his skin. If it meant preserving the memory of your fingers brushing against his pulse, as if you could steady it just by your touch alone. Like you could make everything right again with a snap of your fingers. And maybe, in another life, everything would be alright. He would just pray that you’d wait long enough for that life – a life full of silver springs and a perpetual summer oasis – to be granted to both of you.

He never once thought you doomed him. If anything, he now thinks that loving you was the only thing that ever felt deliberate in a life that could barely even call his.

There’s a joint mission with the Association and the Fleet today, which is rare. Typically, Caleb would want you and MC to be as far away from Skyhaven as possible, but some things cannot be helped, especially when it comes to higher orders. At the end of the day, people in the Fleet and the Association are just puppets, players of the game for those above. Unfortunately, none of you were an exception to that.

MC finds him in his office, and when she knocks on the door, she smirks at the way his face deflates – just enough for her to notice. He was probably hoping that it was you. Right now, you were probably with... “You look happy to see me.”

Caleb rolls his eyes at her blatant sarcasm, and she laughs. It brings about a sense of shame that he refuses to acknowledge, because he knows that she can see right through him. “She’s getting ready for the mission debrief. I think she’s having lunch with Xavier right now.”

“Why the long face?” Of course, she doesn’t miss the way his shoulders tighten at the mention of him. That guy from UNICORNS, the same department you’re in, who’s been awfully close to you lately. Xavier. He’s lucky he’s not your actual partner, and Jenna had paired you with MC. If anything, it makes it easier for Caleb to look after both of you, and he has to worry less about him. “If it makes you feel better, I heard them talking about a certaaain someone named ‘Caleb’. She has a surprise for you, you know.”

“I don’t need surprises. We have a mission soon, don’t we?”

He says, his voice flat. MC just hums, clearly unconvinced by his faux stoicism, strolling further into his office without an invitation. She perches on the edge of his desk and gives him an all-knowing smile.

“You’re jealous.” The declaration is blunt, and it hits him like a freight train. He would have laughed, if only he didn’t feel so called out.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m not.”

“Okay, sure. And the sky is green.” He runs a hand through his hair at that. The motion is sharp, filled with a lot more agitation than he initially intended, and her smile softens by just a fraction. He’s too easy to tease. “You’re impossible, Caleb.”

MC studies him for a long moment. Growing up together had made it second nature for them to read each other’s tells like an open book. He taught her several things: how to secretly cheat at Kitty Cards (or not, because he simply turns a blind eye at her antics), how to cook simple dishes, and how to use his EVOL to get any plushie she wanted from the claw machines; but most importantly, Caleb taught her how to hold his secrets. That’s why she can simply lay a statement out that’s so real, he’s unable to counteract it. Something like, “You love her.”

Which is exactly what she says. The words land heavier than a simple accusation, because accusations can be disproven. However, this time, her words were wholly true, and he could only exhale through his nose in response. “That’s not relevant.”

“It’s not relevant?” MC wanted to laugh, but it just comes out as a scoff. “Every day, you look at her as if she hung the moon. Or more like she’s the moon herself. It’s surprising how she hasn’t noticed yet.”

“She deserves someone who’s able to put her first.” If you were the moon, then you were simply an unreachable deity, a figure only meant to be admired from afar. Your beauty was the kind that needed restraint, and restraint was something that he had years of expertise in his belt. He’d give you all the distance if it were for the best, and he’d spent a long time convincing himself that space was truly the best course of action. “Someone who can…”Treat her better.

Caleb’s thoughts flicker to you and Xavier, but he’s quickly interrupted by MC. Her tone is firm, the one she uses when she calls him out. “Well, she doesn’t just want ‘someone’. She wants you.”

“You don’t get to decide what’s best for her without even giving her a choice in the first place,” she adds, pointing a deliberate finger at his chest. “You’re not protecting her by doing that. That’s called being a coward.”

His hand curls to his side, and for once, she’s reduced him to silence. A heavy tension fills the air. She was right. He was a coward. He’s never been able to think right, to circumnavigate all his feelings when it comes to you, anyway. He brushes his mechanical arm, the metal mostly hidden under his uniform. Once, you’d slipped a handwoven bracelet around that wrist, smiling all prettily at him like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like that day was a mere snapshot of a life both of you could have. Once, that day, he almost kissed you, but he had chosen restraint that moment, too. “She’ll be safer if I just keep my distance.”

“Actually, that ‘distance’ is just making you even more miserable,” she counters. “And it’s just leaving her really, really confused. Congrats, Caleb. What a stellar strategy from the great Colonel of the Farspace Fleet! Is this exactly what you wanted? The kind of intellect that lets you survive in the Deepspace Tunnels?”

She nudges his shoulder. “You don’t have to keep protecting me to love her. I’m not twelve anymore, even though you treat me like I still am sometimes.”

“You’re still being hunted by EVER–”

“So are you. And the danger plagues her life, too.” Her eyes soften. “We don’t get to live safe lives, dummy. Some of us chose to be Hunters, and we just keep on fighting anyway, despite knowing the risk.”

“You should tell her,” MC repeats, a little quieter this time. “And that you’re scared. She’ll understand. Just start with the truth – and take advantage of what she’s about to give you later.”

She doesn’t elaborate on what the surprise is, but her gaze flickers to his wrist. He stares at the door, head fleeting, as if you’ll walk into his office at any second. If he tells you, then he risks losing everything, the balance he’s maintained and the distance that he’s spent years convincing himself was the noble thing to do. If he doesn’t tell you, then he just might risk losing you to someone else, someone better, someone like Xavier. And for once, that notion feels more terrifying than anything, because then, he’ll lose everything, and then some. At that point, he’d have to learn to let you go, and someone else would get to be yours.

“...Fine,” he finally mutters.

MC’s eyes light up. “Fine?”

“I’ll tell her.” Even though it’s not a promise.

Still, when he finally says those words, the world feels a little lighter, and something within the universe shifts. For the first time in a long while, Caleb could imagine that bright, summer afternoon once more. The day he had thought about making you his, the day he almost reached for more than your hand, and the day he thought about kissing you. He thought about your saccharine sweet lips and remembered the way you wore your shiny lip gloss. You still wear it, even to this day. He always wanted to know what flavor it was. And what did it taste like, exactly? Cherry, maybe. Or apple, to match the delicious pie you had baked together that summer.

It’s you who has constantly plagued his thoughts. Despite everything, it has always only ever been you. And maybe, at last, Caleb didn’t have to spend another second wondering anymore, because he might just find out the answer to all these questions.

“I thought–” you say quietly, your eyes strictly fixated on the box instead of him, “that maybe we don’t get to keep things forever, but we can try to, anyway.”

His breath catches at the realization that this was the surprise that MC was talking about. You had handed him a remade pair of matching bracelets after the mission debrief. The pattern was the same, and they were still beautifully handwoven by you, but the ends are no longer unraveling, and your handiwork had clearly gotten more skillful with time. For a second, just one split second, all the years between his sixteenth and now had blurred into something raucous yet familiar. A feeling that he knew all too well – the same feeling he had been pushing back all this time, for fear that it would one day eat him alive.

“You made another set,” he says slowly, voice far raspier than he intended. “After I lost mine when…”

He doesn’t finish his sentence. Caleb never does, a taciturn defense mechanism that came especially handy during conversations that are more difficult to have between the two of you. The explosion was one of them. He briefly wondered once, when his arm had been reinforced, if you would make another pair of those bracelets. Then, he quickly tossed that thought away as fast as it had come, but now it's all painfully crashing back on him. All at once, and he was far from ready.

But you nod anyway, like you understood every single complicated fragment that he couldn’t say out loud, and are able to piece everything together regardless. Damn it, that has always been your worst habit. You knew him too well. You saw through all the fractures that Caleb had tried so desperately to hide, and loved him for all he was anyway, without encouraging him to fill in the margins. 

His jaw hardens at that. Your worst habits are the same ones that can unravel him just as quickly. Your perception was beautiful, yet your biggest danger.

“Put it on me, again. Just like old times.”

He holds out his left wrist, the only one remaining that is still tender, and still human. Caleb hardly misses the way your eyes flicker to his mechanical arm before you quickly look away, like you’re trying not to let your guilt bleed all over the floor. The thought alone makes his chest ache, because none of that had been your fault. You never cursed him. It’d be impossible to do so, even if you tried. He wanted to say those words out loud, but they stayed lodged between his teeth and forever stuck at the tip of his tongue. He might just make things worse if he acknowledges them.

So, when you finish tying his matching half, he declares that he’ll just show the physical manifestation of his love for you, just as you did for him. Caleb reaches for you without hesitation, and your wrist fits into his hand like it always has, and he ties the bracelet with a focus that borders on reverent. His tongue presses lightly to his teeth, brows faintly furrowed as he adjusts the knot. “Do you remember what you said that day? How you predicted that I’d forget you in five years when I’m ‘super popular and cool’ once I was at the DAA?”

You nod, small and sheepish, and it makes him huff softly. His fingers linger across your skin for just a second too long, and it makes him realize just how close you are to him. Like he had been unconsciously pulling you in with his EVOL. The proximity makes his voice dip a little lower. “Well, I think my words still stand. I most certainly never forgot you, you’re still way cooler than me, and definitely way cooler than anyone there.”

Gravity is an amusing thing. It’s the reason everyone stays upright, why the world revolves the way it does, and it's partially why Caleb was able to climb the ranks so quickly at the Fleet, but it also pulls him down. Nobody had warned him about the way gravity could settle somewhere deeper within his bones and nearly crush him. How it could root itself within his chest and make every breath feel heavier, far heavier than it should really be.

Still, his EVOL also makes it seem like you were the epicenter of everything, because that’s how it always seems to Caleb. Sometimes, gravity also makes it so that the entire axis of his world could deliberately tilt towards you, and only you.

And finally, he takes in everything about you, all at once. Your eyes. Your mouth. The way the light reflects off your lip gloss, the same one he had spent so long wondering about. It was intoxicating. Dangerous. You were far too dangerous for someone like him. It was dangerous the way your hand lifts his mechanical one, cradling the metal like he was still able to feel. The phantom touch almost makes him feel something. 

Only you could do this to him.

“You come back to me,” He whispers, breath warm against your lips. It makes his pulse stutter, and the poets begin to sing once more, and Caleb knows that he’s in trouble. Because the hymns are getting too angelic now, too tempting. “You promise.”

He thinks back to MC’s declarative words. “You love her.” 

No matter how much he refused to admit it, everything she had said earlier was right. He loves you. Even after all this time, he loves you. So much that it hurts. Sometimes, between the margins of all his internalized turmoil, Caleb dreams that he could just be with you. To live a life with you without having to worry about the Fleet, or the Hunter’s Association, or the toring chip that silently puppeteers his every move and thought. That he could perpetually relive that summer day, over and over again, to be sixteen and utterly clueless about the future with you, forever.

Caleb loves you. And when his gaze finally drops to your lips, he decides that he’s going to prove that he does, once and for all. To stop wondering about everything, and to start knowing. “I–”

“Caleb!”

The moment ends as quickly as it came, and you break away from him before he even realizes what happened. He sees MC standing in the doorway, mid-breath and fully geared up. You’re looking at her, and you refuse to look at him now, standing a considerable distance away. It makes his chest ache all over again. She cluelessly asks, “They’re calling us in. Are you ready?”

“Yeah,” you say after a moment. And if Caleb could hear the poets, they were probably laughing up a storm. Maybe this was just a part of their cruel nature. Their grand plan of mercilessly dangling everything that he wants in front of his face, of toying with his cake and eating it. It makes him realize that even though MC had been right, and he did love you, Caleb had also been right in his own way. She was right, but so awfully naive. You’ll be safer if you just keep your distance from him. “I’m coming.”

Because, after all this time, maybe Caleb had been the cursed one all along.

MC’s expression quickly shifts when she senses your meek tone and the dirty look that he had given her the second she walked in. She had been so caught up with preparing for the mission that she completely forgot to read the room. She just had a conversation with Caleb about this! Her eyes flicker to your wrist, and then to his, and the realization of what she just interrupted finally dawns on her. “Shit, I’m so sorry–”

“I really shouldn’t be here right now, should I?” she stammers, already quickly backing out the door. “I’ll–I’ll leave you two to it.”

When she leaves, you still refuse to meet his gaze. He tries to call out your name, to maybe make you understand, but to no avail. “Please, just look at me–”

“Don’t.” 

Your tone was so cold, it completely reduced him to silence. Watching you leave felt like a slap to the face, because at that moment, you had finally slipped through his fingers. And it hurt a little more knowing that he didn’t let you go in the end, but you had left on your own accord.

Caleb’s life is full of almosts. For a brief instance, he almost got to call himself yours. He almost sealed that promise with you. He almost chose you over her. He almost called you beautiful that bright blue summer afternoon (it was at the tip of his tongue. What if he had just said it then? Would everything have changed? Would gravity have reoriented itself to be less suffocating? Would the dull, monotone colors of his life finally have mixed to form something worth gazing at?)

He almost chose differently, and now… these ‘almosts’ will continue to be almosts. Now, he’ll just never know, because MC was right. In the end, Caleb was just a coward. A coward who curses everyone around him, including her.

And including you.

“Caleb, I need evac. Now.”

Your voice cuts through the comms, from MC’s watch – and he feels his heart drop. He should have known something was wrong the moment your own Hunter’s watch had lost signal. Everything must have gone awry, and he curses, checking your location amidst all the static. Damn it. Why did you two have to be so far away? “Status.”

Of course, he had his own respective mission to attend to while you were with MC. His mission site wasn’t too far, but far enough that it’d take him some time to get to your location, a real disadvantage when things become a shitshow. Such as right now. Caleb never really cared about abandoning his post if it meant saving you two. Today was one of the times that his title could be used as leverage. 

But then you say it. Something that he wasn’t ready for. “MC’s down, and–”

For half a second, the world goes horribly quiet. Everything else tunes out into a plethora of fuzzy static, and then he feels it – the pain practically detonating at the back of his neck. The chip. Fuck. He was losing control. Caleb chokes on a breath as the toring chip flares white-hot beneath his skin, a violent, searing pulse that shoots straight down his spine. His hand slams against the console to steady himself, knuckles blanching. No. No, no, no–

“She took a hit from a wanderer– I’m trying to take us… safe zone… I’m five minutes out–”

Get a grip, you motherfucker. He manages to force a few words out, his voice tight and strained against the edges as he fights against the godforsaken implant. Your voice is cutting in and out of the comms. Or maybe that was all in his own head? He must be going mad. “What the hell happened?”

You’re breathing hard on the other end. He can hear it, clear as day. You were huffing, breath uneven and ragged, like you’ve been running this entire time. “It’s a shitshow out here, Caleb. I don’t have my sword, and she took a hit when I wasn’t looking–”

“When you weren’t looking?” Another spike of heat lances through his neck, and he’s nearly keeling, vision blurring at the edges. “You’re supposed to cover for her.”

“I was,” you snap, and if he were just a little more attentive, maybe he could’ve heard the way your voice wavered for a fraction of a second. “I was there, Caleb, I tried–”

“Then why the hell is she bleeding out?”

Static overcomes the comms again, and he’s certain that the chip might just detonate on its own at any moment. The only thing ringing in his head, over and over, are your words. She’s hurt. MC is hurt, and he might be too far to do anything about it. She’s hurt, and it’s his fault. The words failure and coward slam into him so hard that they nearly knock all of the remaining air out of his lungs. The red apples, the ones that used to be so sweet, are now rotting, and the worms have found refuge in them. The sky is too blue, and the smoke is too thick. That old, familiar guilt claws up his throat before he can do anything to stop it.

He’d promised Josephine that he’d protect her–

Another pulse from the chip makes Caleb’s hands shake over the controls. The pulse was sharper and meaner, a haunting reminder that he’d doom all three of you if he didn’t move. Right now, he needed to get his plane to your location, even if the back of his neck might kill him before he does.

It hurts. Fuck, it hurts.

Some distant part of him knows that he should ask – Are you hurt? Were you safe? What was your status? Because you never told him. The questions weakly claw at the ivory crevices between his ribs, but they never make it out of his lips. The only thing he could do was stabilize himself and make his way to where you both were, and silently pray to whatever deity was out there that you were okay. “Damn it. I’ll be waiting at the safe zone near you – I’m about ten minutes away. Can you make it there?”

On the other end, you manage to say, “Yeah. I think.”

You were okay, right?

Caleb doesn’t let himself think about why your voice sounded so thin. Or why it sounded like you were barely stifling a sob through your gritted teeth. Or why you eventually end the call, and the line suddenly goes so eerily– 

Quiet.

It was too quiet.

You were dead.

There should’ve been some type of catastrophe, some cataclysm that shook the earth and rendered it a lifeless husk by the end of it all. Some divine, merciless confirmation that the universe understood what it had just done. And yet, the sky was still present up above, and the bracelet on his wrist stood as a hot, stinging reminder of everything. In reality, the sky should be closing in on itself, swallowing the world into a vortex – not the dull, monotonous shade of gray that it was right now. No, there was something wrong. Where was the prophesied Armageddon? The sky is still here. The world has not ended. Skyhaven hasn’t turned into a pit of ash, Linkon hasn’t erupted into flames.

And yet, you were no longer here. You were dead. You had died saving MC, and yet nobody could even save you. Caleb couldn’t save you.

Nothing is making sense. Around him, the medics are moving, helping the other Hunters who are also injured. Someone is crying, he distantly registers that, but it all sounds warped – like Caleb was hearing the entire world from underwater. His gaze stays locked forward, unmoving and unblinking, because someone had just told him that you were dead on arrival, and that there was nothing they could have done. Nothing he could have done.

Because you were dead.

Every day, people make plans for tomorrow. The day after tomorrow. The vacation they swear they’ll finally take in a few weeks. You had plans. There’s probably still an unwashed basket of laundry sitting somewhere in your quarters, half-forgotten, but it was something that you promised to deal with over the weekend – when you finally had the time to. There’s still a grocery store checklist in your notes, full of all the things you meant to buy. There were books you wanted to read. You had a whole wishlist of them, and he was planning to buy them all for you for your next birthday.

There were things that you meant to finish. But in just a snap of a finger, the elegist cruelly declares that your poem will end in the middle of an ordinary verse. The laundry does not need to be washed anymore. The checklist will never be completed. Your books will begin to collect dust, and Caleb’s world has completely stopped alongside your death. Perhaps it's ironic, the way he thought that some world-ending catastrophe would occur the second they laid down the news, that the back of his neck would finally implode, but everything was just stagnant. Terrifyingly still as he’s forced to stand in the midst of a world that had the audacity to keep moving after your death.

How was this fair? How was any of it fair?

Still, even in the midst of all the clamor, nobody dares to answer him.

Caleb comes to MC the moment they notify him that she’s awake.

It took her a few hours to come to her senses, especially since she sustained injuries that any regular person couldn’t walk off. His vision is swirling. He needed to see her – the past few hours felt like a blur. The quiet, gnawing need to see with his own eyes that at least MC was okay was all encompassing, because the thought that he couldn’t save you plagues his every waking moment.