Este

You surely are about to taste your own blood on your tongue any second now if you keep biting your lip so hard. But all you do is tighten your grip on those messy, dark hair your fingers are knotted into, and you can’t fight the reflex to shift your hips away an inch so that the embarrassing sob that is growing in your throat won’t make it out.

Though you should have known that that would make him stop. His mouth pauses against your clit, and you squeeze your eyes shut.

His hands remain firmly at your thighs, thumbs soothing those slow and drowsy circles against your skin. But his eyes lift to yours, the usual bright blue of them gone dark and concentrated in the dimness of his bedroom. His gaze is fierce enough to make your breath hitch, but melted into its depths is that softness you know is there just for you.

With his gaze still on yours, he begins to kiss a languid path up your stomach, pausing just beneath your ribs and letting his eyes flutter when worshiping your breasts with his skilled tongue. Your mind and soul are soaring up to his high ceilings.

Your teeth are imprinted upon your bottom lip, and you hope you can continue keeping your breathing as even as possible, though you’re not managing all that well.

His hands move slowly across the skin of your hips, pinning you to the mattress. He doesn’t use all his strength but enough for you to feel stuck in his hold.

He crawls further up your body with that deliberate drag that leaves you shivering and panting. He hovers over you and his bare chest brushes your heaving breasts.

His face is now inches from yours, his stubble grazing your cheek, smelling like vanilla and something like cardamom, and you breathe it in automatically. His pupils are blown as they sear into yours.

“Stop that,” he orders, though his voice is a warm whisper. He reaches up, his thumb catching your bottom lip and tugging it out from between your teeth. He soothes the imprint. “Don't you hide those pretty sounds from me.”

“Bucky, the guards,” you breathe out, your voice trembling, still weak from the way he used his tongue on you. Your face burns. The room feels enormous again, full of listening walls. “Your people. They will hear. They will think—”

Something flits across his expression. It seems to be something proud, even possessive. You could say it looks dangerous, but being the person that you are, and considering the sweet albeit intense person that he is, it turns you the hell on and makes you sigh.

“I don't care what they think. I want them to know.” He leans down, his lips hovering over yours, his breath hot and smelling of you. “I want every man on my payroll to hear the way you sound when I’m the only thing on your mind. I want them to hear who I’m answering to tonight. And every other night from now on.”

With a stunned shake of your head, you stare up at him, a huff of embarrassment trying to bubble up and fall out of your mouth but it fails because his mouth is on yours, kissing you aggressively before he dives back down, not waiting for you to argue. You’re entirely overwhelmed, but damn, not in a bad way at all.

His hands lock you into place, and the way he’s eating you out has you flying straight to heaven with a one-way ticket. He’s being greedy. He’s using his tongue with a blunt, feverish sort of worship that makes your head hit his pillow with a thud.

He’s a businessman, that’s what he told you. But as his mouth works over you with all that bottled-up intensity he carries around all day, you feel the latent power he usually keeps veiled behind a tie. He’s a man who takes what he wants, and right now, what he wants is to hear you break, and you might actually, because god is he good, so incredibly good, you could definitely get used to it. Maybe you already are, but who’s to blame you for it.

The first real moan tears out of you, and you cringe internally at how loud and breathy it sounds, the way it vibrates in the cavernous room, landing in the farthest corners of the high ceilings.

Bucky grunts against you, and it sounds so purely satisfied, it even seems to rumble within your own body. You gasp, trying to suppress another moan, and he only presses harder, licking and sucking and slurping, and it makes you feel like you’re the only meal on his plate.

His thumbs dent the soft give of your hips to make sure you’re pinned the way he wants you, the way he has the best access to all of you. It’s dizzying, it makes your gut lurch in the best possible way, and you feel like a queen and a ruin all at once. He’s gentle, yeah, but it seems to be the gentle kind you would use on a porcelain heirloom right before testing its breaking point.

Your hands don’t know what to do with themselves. Gripping the sheets or pillows, touching yourself—it all doesn’t feel like enough, so you go back to sliding your fingers into his hair and basically watch them disappear in it. You feel powerful and helpless, and oh god you should really keep those noises down or you won’t be able to look at his people anymore.

He is a mountain of a man, intimidating in ways you don’t understand yet, full of secrets; and yet here he is, kneeling for you and eating you out as if that’s all he’s been waiting for his whole life.

Damn, you’re a lucky girl.

He is drinking you in, his mouth molding to you with a suction that feels like he’s trying to draw your very soul to the surface.

It feels as though each individual bristle of his stubble is caressing your inner thigh, and it's abrasive and burning but also so damn good. It makes the gliding heat of his tongue feel so soft and vivid, and it pulls the tension right out of your bones.

He tracks you through his lashes, and you’re careful not to meet his eyes or that dark gaze of his would surely make you come already. But he doesn’t stop documenting you and the way you react to him. He thrives on it, so very much that it doesn’t seem to embarrass him in the slightest.

Then he dives past your entrance, his tongue finding that soft, sharp intake of your breath. And your spine bows upward out of pure blinding pleasure. The sound that leaves you is startled, too loud for your liking and so you try to clamp your hand over your lips.

He catches your wrist.

He’s not harsh with it, but he brings your hand down to the mattress and pins it there decisively. His fingers lace through yours.

“What’d I say,” he warns, voice low, husky.

You swallow, your eyes are fluttering. “Bucky—”

“Make the noise,” he whispers as he kisses along your inner thigh, eyes on you. “All of it.”

His free hand slowly wanders upward and it almost feels possessive how he ascends your heated skin. You glimpse that little hint of something feral, something prehistoric in the trail of his eyes. You’ve seen it before, and as always, it pulls you under completely. His ferocity isn’t some thrashing kind of wild, honestly, he seems perfectly comfortable with his position, as though he’s already done the math but there’s no clear solution and he just has to keep calculating. Has to keep going.

He lunges back and buries his face in your heat, his tongue flat and broad, applying a rhythmic pressure that whites out your vision and has you moaning without thought. It’s thorough and hungry, his mouth drawing you in eagerly, and it feels like he’s trying to pull the very center of you into his throat.

“Bucky—,” you gasp, your fingers tightly clamping around his, knuckles white.

He growls, and it rattles his entire chest, it vibrates against your sensitive skin. He uses his teeth—just a graze, a tiny, sharp nip that sends a scalding current straight to your core. Your hips jerk reflexively, his hands are pinning you open, and you are forced to take every unsparing lap of his tongue.

He shifts his weight, his nose dragging through your wetness as he focuses his attention on the very top of your nub. He works his tongue in a cadence so constant it sends the pressure straight to the back of your skull until the room dissolves behind your eyelids. It feels almost like a breaking point, but hell, you would throw yourself out of those high windows if he were to stop now.

He’s fast and skilled and you’re made to take it.

“Open up,” he commands against your skin, his voice muffled and wet although you couldn’t possible open up more for him.

There is no more warning before he fills you with two fingers, sliding them deep inside you and stretching you while his thumb maintains that dizzying pressure, and the friction burns a hole through your focus. The two sensations fight for room in your head, effectively demolishing whatever was left of your pride and it makes you let out the highest moan. You’re straining upward, seeking the release he’s dangling just out of reach.

He looks up at you, his face flushed, his breathing ragged against your thigh. A stray, damp shimmer glistens on the curve of his lower lip, and he licks it clean. You watch mesmerized and utterly overdrawn. His gaze is stripped of any pretense, it’s dark and appeased and entirely fixed on the way your face is breaking.

"That's it," he coos, watching your chest heave. "Scream for me, sweetheart. I'm not stopping until you do."

He dives back in, his tongue swirling deep inside you before curling back to hook against your clit, and suddenly there is no perspective on anything anymore, and the floors are walls and the walls are floors, and—

And then his phone begins vibrating against the mahogany nightstand. It’s a sharp and intrusive sound and it’s stripping the air of its heat.

Bucky doesn’t seem to care, though. He doesn’t so much as glance over at it. His gaze stays welded to yours, his pupils taking up the beautiful blue. His thumb continues trailing your heat, collecting your slick, and he turns to watch in amazement, as he licks a long stripe up your center, making you choke on your spit.

The vibration of his phone still ringing grates against the wood, loud enough to feel like a physical itch.

Bucky is a man who has built an empire on timing, yet he seems perfectly content to let the world outside the bedroom door spontaneously combust.

The phone dies.

He keeps sucking, you keep moaning.

Then, it begins again, more insistent this time. His phone is pulsing. It seems urgent.

You feel his jaw tighten against you. Feel the shift you’ve come to recognize but never quite know what to do with. The air around him thickens by a single degree. The temperature of him changes, not in heat but in authority. Somewhere beyond these walls, the world is knocking its head against his patience.

“Bucky,” you breathe, the word leaning on the dryness in your throat. Your chest is still heaving, your skin flushed a beautiful pink. You softly pull at his hair to make him look at you, a weak gesture that feels like trying to move a mountain. “You should get that.”

His eyes meet yours. There are galaxies in them and something darker orbiting behind them. He leans in and presses a slow, devastating kiss to the inside of your thigh, all calm and relaxed while the phone continues vibrating angrily.

“It can wait,” he decides, voice an octave lower and threaded with promise as he trails a line of punishingly soft kisses along your skin.

Another buzz, the sound now an impatient thrum that seems to vibrate the very legs of the bed. It feels like a summons, a reminder of the business that pays for the guards and the maids and the high ceilings.

He exhales through his nose and lets out a rumble of annoyance. His thumb strokes a calming line along your hip, as if reassuring you that his irritation belongs elsewhere. He looks like some wild animal being interrupted mid-meal.

“Bucky—,” you start, carefully, your hand sliding to cup his face, feeling the heat of his skin, but he clicks his tongue to interrupt you.

“My girl deserves to get off first,” he hums, not letting his lips off your skin, his stubble a deliberate, intoxicating scrape against your thigh.

And when his tongue drives home, flat and strong against that hyper-sensitized knot of nerves, it doesn’t take long for that jolting pleasure to cloud your vision and bleach the dark corners of his bedroom into a searing, blinding white.

Your spine arches and snaps and leaves you suspended between the silk sheets and the cold air, held down only by his weight.

The embarrassing sob you were trying to hide earlier finally tears free, but it isn’t a sob anymore. It’s a melodic wail that echoes off the shadows-drenched ceiling. It climbs high and rings out with a clarity that makes the idea of guards and business feel like a fever dream from another life.

Your body is trying to crush his fingers in a desperate pulse that feels like a heart beating where it shouldn't.

And Bucky drinks it all in. He keeps his head down, jaw locked against you, refusing to let the moment end. That rough graze of his stubble is brutal but it keeps you somewhat in the room. He is taking the time with the mess he made, leaning into the way you are trembling, his mouth ensuring that every last bit of your control is gone.

By the time your vision starts to clear at the edges, and the room starts to solidify back into reality, you feel hollowed out, as if he’d reached inside and pulled the very soul of you to the surface. You slump into the mattress, your limbs too heavy to even twitch, your lungs burning with the effort of remembering how to breathe.

When you begin to squirm in his hold, Bucky finally pulls back, his expression bluntly victorious. He is breathing hard, his lips stained, his eyes trained on the way your ribs are still hitching with those dying tremors. His hand tightens at your hip.

Then he rises over you in one fast movement, bracing himself above you with his weight carefully balanced. You don’t need any more physical proof that he wants you, considering how hard and ready you can feel him against your leg, with his control barely in check; and it makes your lungs seize up.

Wordlessly, he leans down to pull you into a slow kiss that goes so deep, your thoughts evaporate and your fingers tangle in his hair. He groans against your lips, breathing your name. You feel him twitch against you as he lets his hand slide back between your bodies—when the door rattles with a knock.

Bucky stills with his forehead on yours, eyes still closed, jaw a block of ice. “Boss?” a slightly hesitant voice comes through the door.

His nose presses into the crook of your neck. For a long second, he just breathes you in, a deep, possessive inhalation as if he is trying to pull in all of your scent to survive the coming interruption.

With a low curse that is more a growl than a word, he rolls onto his side and promptly pulls you with him, tucking you into his chest. His body angles slightly toward the door, building an instinctive shield. His arms remain draped over you, his left hand splayed protectively across your back.

“What,” he calls, voice suddenly stripped of warmth. There is a pause on the other side.

“Sorry, boss,” The voice is male. Sounding even more hesitant now. And definitely embarrassed. “But, uh— it’s important. You are needed.”

You want to let out a heavy sigh. But you’ve seen this coming, really.

Bucky closes his eyes briefly and there is something pinched around them. He’s not usually a short-tempered man, at least not with you, but right now he looks ready to snap at the door.

“I’m busy,” he replies flatly, and you believe his voice is only calm for your sake.

Another pause. The poor man outside is probably staring at the door waiting for it to shoot him.

“It’s Sam,” he explains carefully, seemingly afraid to say too much.

You know Sam. Or, you have heard Bucky mention Sam. Sam, the colleague. The one your boyfriend refers to with a mix of irritation and reluctant brotherhood. A pain in the ass, he told you with a half-smile. But loyal. Does good work. One of the few men he trusts to argue with him and live. You had laughed at the way he said it so seriously. He hadn't really laughed with you, but he kissed you stupid afterwards and so you no longer thought of it.

Bucky gives a long exhale.

“Give me five.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hurried footsteps retreat down the corridor.

And Bucky doesn’t make a single attempt to leave your side. He just peppers your neck with tiny kisses.

You try to turn to his face. “Bucky, you should go.”

His eyes meet yours, and the stoicism buckles immediately. Back is the softness.

“You come first,” he hums, and his thumb brushes your cheek. There is something apologetic in the gesture, though he hasn’t done anything wrong.

You smile faintly and let a slow pout form on your lips. “I don’t want to hold you back from work.”

“You’re not,” he reassures you softly, leaning down to kiss you with a lack of the urgency he should probably be feeling right now.

But then he’s shifting away, sitting up on the edge of the bed, and the loss of his heat is a stinging chill. The chandelier light spills over his naked back, over the breadth of his shoulders. Your eyes glide down the tiny pink scars on his left shoulder with a sinking feeling in your stomach—those scars are another mystery he hasn’t let you into yet. But all you want to do is kiss them and hope to make it better, even if just a little.

You watch the way he runs a hand through his hair, reassembling himself piece by piece. By the time he stands, he has edges. He always seems different when he’s no longer touching you.

He pulls on a pair of dark trousers and doesn’t bother with a shirt. The phone is in his hand now. He checks the screen, jaw grinding briefly before he glances back at you. And the hardness that stepped into his eyes softens again, dissolving the moment they meet your face. It’s almost ridiculous, how quickly it happens. Like watching a knife remember it was once a piece of silver meant for candlelight.

You’re still half-sunk into the bed, hair falling around your shoulders, limbs loose, and sheets wound around your naked body. Around you, it smells of cedar, expensive soap, and Bucky himself, which is somehow warmer than both.

“Stay here,” he says gently. “I’ll handle it.”

Handle it.

The words mean spreadsheets and contracts in your mind. Annoying colleagues. Late- night negotiations.

He walks back to his bed to press a tender kiss to your forehead.

You push yourself up slightly on your elbows, the blanket sliding down your side. And you definitely see the way his gaze drifts for an appreciative and unashamed moment before it returns to your eyes. There is a small smile tugging at his mouth, and it’s the one you always get to see when you’re the only audience.

“Make yourself at home while I’m gone, yeah?” he whispers, nodding toward the massive wardrobe along the far wall, keeping his attention on you. “If you get cold, grab a shirt of mine. Top shelf on the left.”

You smile at him, nodding softly.

His eyes move over you slowly, and there is something warmly adoring in them that makes your chest tighten in a strange, bright way. He reaches out to brush his fingers along your jaw. The touch is thorough, absentmindedly tender, soothing out something only he can see.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he adds, voice rougher now. Reluctant. “Didn’t plan on having to step out. Told Sam he better handle his own ass today. Should’ve known better, though.”

“You’re the boss, Bucky,” you ease lightly. “I assume dramatic interruptions are part of the brand.”

His mouth curves.

“Unfortunately.”

He kisses your forehead once more, lingering long enough to make your lashes flutter.

“I’ll make it up to you,” he murmurs sweetly. “Soon as I’m done with this.” His thumb traces your cheek. “I’m coming right back. Gonna give you my full attention.” His eyes darken slightly, voice dipping just enough to send a warm shiver through you. “Cuddle you properly. Maybe take things a little further.”

Your stomach does a small, excited flip. “Maybe?”you tease, leaning into his touch.

He presses his smirk against yours. “Definitely.”

With that, he pulls back and straightens, that sovereign steel slipping back over him piece by piece. It’s almost visible, the way he steps into whatever role the rest of his world knows him for. The man who answers phones about Sam and things that sound suspiciously more complicated than spreadsheets.

At the door, he glances back once more. Same softness, just for you. “Lock it behind me, doll.”

The door opens. His phone lifts to his ear.

His voice changes instantly as he steps into the hallway.

“Get Wilson on the line,” he demands, tone clipped. “Now.” And then the door shuts.

You’re left in the echo of him and his scent in the sheets, his warmth still imprinted on your skin.

You don’t get up immediately to lock the door. He can get just a little too protective sometimes, so you don’t deem it necessary to lock the door when he’s just out taking a call. And you’re sure his guards would be in much worse trouble if they were to enter and see you nakedly spread out in his bed.

So you flop back into the mattress—that certainly was expensive too, due to the way it feels—and stare at the ceiling for a moment.

Then you laugh, incredulously. A quiet little wheeze of disbelief escaping into the big room.

Because really. What on earth.

You roll onto your side, pulling the blanket with you, and glance around the bedroom again like maybe you hallucinated the last two hours. Or the last two months.

The place is obscene.

And not in a tacky-rich, or gold-fountain rich kind of way. This is the quiet kind of wealth. Everything is polished wood and deep colors and furniture that probably has a historical backstory longer than your résumé.

There’s a fireplace bigger than your entire first apartment. A chandelier that looks like it was handcrafted by depressed angels.

And somewhere downstairs, there are actual maids.

Maids.

And guards.

Actual human beings whose job description probably includes phrases like protect the property and stand menacingly near large gates.

Meanwhile, you used to eat instant noodles on a couch that leaned slightly to the left like it had given up on life.

And somehow—how the fuck—you have ended up in the bed of a man who owns more suits than you own pairs of socks. A man who is tall and broad and so absurdly handsome, who steps into those razor-sharp tailored suits as though they were invented solely for him. Who wears that self-confident authority in his voice that makes the people around him straighten without realizing why.

And yet, he was on his knees for you just moments ago.

The thought sends heat creeping up your neck again. But in a giddy way.

You bury your face briefly into the pillow with a muffled groan. Because honestly, how did you pull that.

A man like Bucky should logically be dating a diplomat. Or a CEO. Or some terrifyingly poised woman who drinks champagne for breakfast and owns fifteen languages.

Instead, he found you.

You.

Who once tripped over a grocery store display and apologized to the oranges. And yet he looks at you like you hung the moon with questionable hardware.

You grin into the pillow.

Also—objectively speaking—the man is incredible in bed. Like, it’s crazy.

Biting your lip and staring up at the ceiling, you wonder if the chandelier is as baffled by your luck as you are. It’s like winning the lottery without buying a ticket, and you’re silently pleading with the laws of probability to stay bent in your favor just a little while longer; at least until he realizes you’re a mere mortal and not the goddess he’s treating you as.

It’s weird that a man like him noticed you. Weird that he’s so sharp with the world but so gentle with you. Weird that he lives in this fortress of wealth and power and still tells you to steal his shirts if you’re getting cold.

Your eyes drift toward the wardrobe.

Top shelf on the left, he said.

You imagine one of his massive shirts swallowing you as a whole, and snort softly.

Yeah.

You definitely pulled a mob-boss-looking, suit-wearing, ridiculously attentive gentleman who apparently worships the ground you lie naked on.

Weird. Very weird. But you’re not complaining. You’re just mentally haggling with the universe, offering to never ask for another favor again if it just promises not to reclaim its prize or realize he’s a solid ten and you’re way out of his league.

He told you he runs a company.

You imagine glass walls and long tables and men in suits who nod too quickly while he stands in front of them all in his suit, looking all delicious and hot. You imagine paperwork, meetings, a name etched into metal on an office door. He never corrects you. He only smiles in that small way of his—enigmatic, a little asymmetrical, a little careful, as if the smile is something he built from spare parts and polished until it gleamed.

You’ve been dating for a short time. And considering the mystery he surrounds himself with, you guess it’s going to take a while until you truly get to know him. Until he truly starts telling you how his day has been and what he has been up to—and what taking a call means in his business.

But he kisses as though he’s been starving in a snowstorm. As though warmth is an endangered species and your mouth is the last sanctuary. His hands are large and soothing, and they never wander without purpose. He touches and handles you like the first blossom of a century-plant, something that has spent a hundred years preparing to bloom for a single day. And he looks at you as if you are that miracle. As if you are the only soft thing in a life built of stone.

And so, you tell yourself, you can wait for him to be ready to talk.

You don’t know what he does after midnight. You only know he sometimes steps onto the balcony to take calls. His voice changes there. It drops. He doesn’t smooth over his words and instead lets the corners stay pointy. You just never catch his words. The only thing you can do is admire the way the city lights flicker behind him like they’re afraid of him. Or in awe.

And when he comes back inside, he presses his forehead to yours as if he’s returning from war.

Contemplating, you lie there for a moment longer, staring at the ceiling. Then you sit up.

It’s not cold, the room is perfectly climate-controlled in that rich-people way where seasons are merely decorative suggestions outside the window; but you suddenly want one of his shirts.

Not for warmth, but for him, for the smell of him, for the proof that this is all actually happening and you are actually here with him somewhere out there in this huge mansion, waiting to get his mouth back on you. For the possibility that his detergent—whatever luxury forest-scented nonsense it probably is—might trick your brain into thinking he’s still right there.

You glance toward the wardrobe.

It’s enormous, who would have guessed. Cathedral enormous. Dark wood doors that probably cost more than your childhood bedroom set. It suggests that Bucky owns multiple versions of the same devastatingly expensive suit.

You slide out of bed and pad across the carpet, which is so soft it feels apologetic for touching your feet. Putting on your underwear for comfort, you make your way over to his wardrobe. The doors open without making a single sound.

You step inside and it feels like even the air is filtered for perfection. It’s a humbling difference to your own apartment, where the dresser functions less like furniture and more like a high-stakes game of Tetris, with your favorite sweaters perpetually losing the battle against a jammed bottom drawer, and where finding a matching pair of socks requires the luck of a seasoned treasure hunter.

There are rows of shirts, jackets, trousers. Everything spaced just enough apart to breathe. Everything immaculate. A faint scent of sandalwood and something clean and expensive drifts forward to greet you.

You tilt your head up.

The shirt shelf is ambitious.

You stand on your toes but you don’t reach anything. You reach higher, basically for nothing. Your fingers waggle uselessly in the air, far away from touching anything.

You sigh.

Because obviously, the man built like a six-foot-something war monument thinks a shelf near the ceiling is perfectly reasonable.

You walk out of the wardrobe and glance back toward the bed. Then toward the chair near the window.

His jacket is draped there. It looks like it belongs at the head of a mahogany table, brokering peace or declaring war with a single sharp lapel. And in between there’s the shirt he’s tossed aside as soon as you both entered his room, with an untidiness that feels like a glitch in his otherwise perfect Matrix.

It’s the shirt he didn’t bother to put back on when leaving you here. You grin.

Well.

That works too. Perfectly, even.

You wander over, the carpet not letting any sound free. The chair sits near the tall windows, moonlight cascading across the floor in long silver rectangles. It looks graceful somehow. His jacket catches the light along its seams, and you shiver at the thought of how elegant and powerful it makes him look.

You reach for it, intending to lift it aside and claim the bunched shirt.

But the moment you grab the jacket, something feels off. It’s heavy. Not normal-jacket heavy. Weighted. You frown faintly, adjusting your grip. You pick it up fully, wanting to fold it neatly, when something slips out of it.

There’s a short, dense thud against the floor. It makes you freeze.

The object lands on the dark carpet inches from your toe; a short, metallic punctuation mark in the silence. It drinks in the chandelier’s glow and spits it back out with a cold, silver arrogance. It ignites an unmistakable shimmer that makes the air in the room feel ten degrees colder.

Your brain takes a second to translate the shape.

It’s a gun.

You stare at it.

The word sits adamantly on the floor of your mind and turns the room into a crime scene before anything has even happened. It’s a sharp fracture in the timeline—there is the version of you from five seconds ago, and the version of you staring at a hunk of lethal metal.

This thing is real. Very real. Not movie-real. Not plastic-prop-real. More like heavy-metal-object-that-could-alter-the-entire-direction-of-a Tuesday-real.

Your knees grow weak and you crouch down so very slowly. Who knows, maybe sudden movements can already trigger it. You’ve never seen a real gun. You never expected you would, not like this, at least. This feels pretty surreal.

The jacket still hangs half off the chair behind you. The shirt you wanted is crumpled innocently beneath it, but you’re not grabbing it.

Your attention remains on the gun. You don’t touch it.

It’s not like your heart is racing noticeably, but there is a new tightness in your chest and it’s making you feel as though your thoughts all have quietly stood up at once.

Because. Right. Of course.

You know Bucky runs a company.

You know he’s wealthy enough to own a mansion that probably requires a map and a tour guide.

You know he has guards. Actual guards. You knew all that.

But with this gun sitting there on the carpet, it feels like looking through a new lens that snaps the blurry facts you know of this man into a slightly different focus.

If it’s frightening, you’re not sure, but it’s definitely clarifying.

You sit back on your heels for a moment, staring at it. He carried this in his jacket pocket. Casually. Just around. Like a wallet. Or keys.

Your mind tries to rewind through the past weeks. The way he watches exits. The midnight phone calls. The men who seem oddly respectful around him. The commanding note in his voice when he tells someone to do something.

You bite your lip, a hectic internal editor trying to bridge the gap between the little you know about the man and the metal you’ve found. You tell yourself not to panic, because panicking won’t give you any answers. And there’s no need to panic, because he’s just a man with power, a man who’s a boss and bosses tend to have people who don’t like them.

That’s no reason to use a gun on anyone, but it’s probably just a formality. A piece of insurance stored away like a fire extinguisher you hope to never use. Maybe it’s not meant for violence at all, just for peace of mind.

He’s protective. You’ve seen and felt it. Just last week, he was absolutely livid, after one of his guards stepped out of line with one of his maids, who’s this sweet old woman who had been with his family since his father’s time. He was in such a blind tailspin over it, and your soothing touch was the only thing that was able to pull him back to earth.

He would build a wall around everyone he cares about just to keep the wind from blowing too hard. Perhaps this gun is just part of that wall, a safety he keeps close so he never has to feel helpless. It doesn't have to mean he’s dangerous. It just means he’s prepared. It’s a precaution, a tool, a just in case that will likely collect dust until the end of time.

You try to settle the thought, but it feels like trying to pin a map against your chest in a storm; the harder you flatten your palms against the paper, the more wind tunnels through the gaps, ballooning the center and snatching the corners from your grip. If you manage to squash one section still, the air pockets behind the rest, turning the whole thing into a thrashing thing that fights to fold itself back up or fly away entirely. No matter what you do, no matter how much you lean into it, the wind will always be a second faster. The wind will always have the upper hand, hollowing out the space between your hands and the whole truth you are trying to read.

You just have to believe that the man who touches his girl so carefully is the same man who would only ever use that steel to keep the world at bay.

Your gaze lingers on it.

You don’t know much about guns. Your knowledge is mostly assembled from movies, news articles, and the vague understanding that they belong firmly in the category of things you should probably treat with respect. And it definitely belongs to a world you’ve never really stepped into before.

But apparently, Bucky lives there.

You glance toward the door he disappeared through. This is the guy who permitted you to steal his clothes, who pressed a kiss to your forehead with the softest lips. When he looks at you, it’s with that specific focus, that startled sort of wonder that always makes you feel so over-exposed, but also exponentially adored.

Your chest softens despite yourself. Still.

You eye the gun again, and one thing has become very clear in the last thirty seconds. You might be dating a man you know less about than you thought.

And that realization sits in the room with you now, waiting for you to act on it.

But you don’t know how. You simply keep staring. The chandelier light kisses its metal edges until they gleam faintly, indifferent to the fact that your brain is currently eroding into a new shape.

You swallow, and even that sounds strange in the imposing space, like it wandered too far from home.

Leaving this thing on the floor feels wrong.

And if Bucky comes back and sees it there... You don’t know why, but the thought makes your stomach tighten.

So you reach down, only now seeing that your hands are slightly wavering. Your fingers close around the grip, and the first thing you notice is the weight. It’s heavier than it looks, solid in a way that makes your palm immediately aware that this object was designed with very serious intentions.

You lift it slowly. Nothing happens, obviously. The world doesn’t explode. The chandelier doesn’t shatter. The mansion continues breathing its wealthy breath around you.

But holding it still feels like stepping one inch deeper into a room you didn’t know existed.

You turn it slightly, meaning only to orient it so you can slide it neatly back into the inside pocket of his jacket, but you spot an engraving, small letters carved into the dark handle.

JBB

Your brow furrows. You stare at them for a moment, tracing the edges with your eyes.

The metal around the letters looks softened. Not scratched exactly, but worn in the way objects get when they’ve lived in someone’s hand for a long time. Like a favorite pen. Or a well-loved watch.

If guns can look old, this one does. It’s not antique-old, but familiar-old.

You tilt your head. JBB. You try to assemble a name around the letters. The only name you know for the man currently pacing somewhere in this mansion making serious phone calls is Bucky.

Just Bucky.

You don’t know his last name, you realize suddenly, and you don’t like that.

You know his favorite whiskey. You know the exact shape of the scar on his shoulder. You know the way he presses his nose into your hair when he tries to calm himself down.

But his last name leaves a blank space in your mind. You glance down at the gun again.

JBB.

Maybe it belongs to someone else. Someone with a J. Jake? James? John? Jacob?

Maybe it’s a family thing. Maybe it belonged to his father. Maybe it’s one of those rich-man- heirloom objects that get passed down through generations alongside cufflinks and complicated legacies.

You exhale quietly.

That explanation sounds reasonable enough that you decide to borrow it for the moment.

Very carefully, and with explicit intent, you slide the gun back into the inside pocket of his jacket. The fabric settles around it like it knows exactly where it’s needed.

You smooth the lapel automatically.

There.

No evidence.

Your fingers linger on the jacket for a second longer than you want.

It still smells like him. Clean soap. Dried tobacco. Something stronger beneath it that you can’t put a name to but always recognize immediately as Bucky.

You step back, and suddenly the room feels different. Not threatening, but it does feel larger still.

Because now your brain is busy counting the things you don’t know.

You don’t know his last name.

You don’t really know what his company does.

You don’t know why men knock on his bedroom door looking nervous.

You don’t know why he carries a gun like it’s just another accessory.

You rub your arms lightly, because now there is a faint prickle of awareness crawling along your thoughts and it is spreading throughout your body.

You’ve been dating for six weeks. Is this long enough to demand answers? To justify interrogations? Gosh, you’re not sure. You’re not sure about a lot of things right now, really. You’ve been floating through the beginning part—the sweet, dizzy, honeymoon fog where the only facts that matter are the ones you feel.

But now there’s a small string of sunlight sliding through the fog. A string of curiosity. You turn back toward the bed where your clothes lie in a small, careless pile.

Maybe you’re overthinking this.

Maybe.

Still.

You pull your shirt over your head, the fabric rustling softly in the quiet room. Your jeans follow, and then your fingers reach automatically for the necklace resting on the nightstand.

The pearls catch the light when you lift them. Bucky gave it to you two weeks ago.

It’s delicate. Real pearls, because he just can. Everything about him seems to come with an expensive quality attached.

You remember the way he looked when he gave it to you. Almost shy, which was deeply unfair considering how the man is built.

Saw it and thought of you, he’d said. Think about you all the time, he’d added.

Which had melted approximately seventy percent of your internal structure. You fasten the necklace and touch it lightly now.

Gentleman.

Ridiculously good in bed.

Mysterious.

Possibly carrying engraved guns.

You sigh.

You feel a little guilty. Because what you’re about to do is technically snooping. And snooping is not great. Your mother would absolutely deliver a lecture about boundaries if she could see you right now.

You glance around the massive room again. The desk by the window. The bookshelves. The curated neatness of everything.

You bite your lip. You’re not looking for secrets. You’re just looking for context. A clue. A name.

Something that tells you who Bucky is when he isn’t kissing your forehead and telling you to raid his closet.

Your feet move before your conscience can finish filing complaints.

Your steps make no sound as you move across the carpet, wandering deeper into the room and scanning the shelves and surfaces with a caution that can’t suppress your intrigue.

You don’t need all the answers. Just one or two. So you start with the obvious places.

Drawers.

It feels less intrusive somehow; opening something that was clearly meant to be opened. You move slowly, like a guest in a museum after hours, careful fingers, quiet breath, a mild sense that the walls might be watching.

The first drawer slides out with a wooden noise and even that sounds rich. Inside, there are watches. Several of them, lined neatly in velvet compartments. Dark metal, silver, leather straps. You don’t know brands, but you know enough to guess that each one probably costs more than your car.

You close the drawer.

The next one holds cufflinks. Rows of them. Small polished things that look important and serious and entirely uninterested in your investigation.

And it only goes on this way. You open drawer after drawer, and there is nothing strange. Nothing suspicious. Just the belongings of a very wealthy man who liked things neat.

Your shoulders loosen a little. Maybe you overreacted. Maybe the gun is just a rich man's security thing. The guards downstairs carry them too, probably. It doesn’t automatically mean anything bad.

You open another drawer.

Paperwork. Boring looking things. A passport tucked neatly inside a leather sleeve. You hesitate for half a second before closing it again.

That one definitely feels like crossing a line.

You step away from the wardrobe and wander toward the nightstand instead.

The wood gleams darkly under the chandelier.

You pull open the top drawer.

More ordinary things. Wallets. Sunglasses. A small tray of rings.

Further back in the drawer, you find a small stack of Polaroids. You fish them out, because you recognize the first picture. It’s a picture of Bucky and you from a few weeks ago. You had found an old Polaroid camera and wanted to try it out, practically levering him into the frame while he grumbled about how he wasn’t photogenic which was total bullshit in your eyes. But he isn’t even looking at the camera in the photo. He is looking at you with a fond little half-smile.

Looking at a few others, you realize they are of you. All of them. One is a shot of your back as you walk toward a sunset, another is a blurred profile of you sleeping on his shoulder.

There is a warmth prickling at the back of your neck and you feel something slacken inside your stomach as you slowly lower the photos back where they were.

Nothing about all of this screams crime lord. Your nerves ease another notch.

You almost laugh at yourself. Your brain likes to get dramatic. Bucky is archiving your relationship, he is sweet and protective and tender and just—

As you are about to pull your hand out, your fingers brush against something cold and metallic near the back of the drawer.

You pause.

It’s partially hidden beneath a folded black cloth. Just the faint glint of a chain catching the light.

Curiosity taps gently on your shoulder.

You slide the cloth aside and notice the silver chain. It’s thin and tangled loosely like it’s been dropped there without much thought.

You hook your finger under it and lift. Something heavier at the end slips free. Two small metal plates fall against each other with a quiet clink.

Dog tags.

You blink.

That’s not strange, exactly. Lots of people keep sentimental things. Maybe Bucky served in the military. That would even make him hotter, to be real. But it does feel a little hurtful that he didn’t share this information with you.

You turn the tags over idly, expecting to see a name you don’t recognize. However, though, you do recognize the name that’s neatly spelled out on the metal plate. And it has the air in your lungs turn to stone, refusing to move a single inch.

James Buchanan Barnes.

Your stomach drops in such a harsh way, there is no ending to the fall. Your internal organs are unmoored and everything about you feels dizzy and weightless. It’s like stepping down a staircase that isn’t there. You’re still gripping the metal, but the connection between your brain and your hands has been cut, and now your fingers feel distant and wooden, filled with a needling sensation you know comes right before they start to shake.

And they do shake.

A thin tremor at first, then worse, until the tags begin to chatter against each other. Each sharp nick of the steel feels so biting and loud, broadcasting the exact moment you are losing it.

Your mind flips through memory like rifling a deck of cards too fast.

News headlines.

Conversations overheard in cafés.

Podcasts about organized crime.

New York’s most notorious mob boss.

The man whose name floats through the city like a ghost story told after midnight. James Buchanan Barnes.

JBB.

Heat rushes up the back of your neck while the rest of you goes ice-cold. It feels like standing in two climates at once—your skin clammy, your spine rigid, a cold sweat blooming between your shoulder blades.

Every breath you pull in is labored and metallic, coating your lungs in a film of disbelief that makes your chest ache. You can almost hear the gears of your reality grinding to a convulsive, screeching halt, stripping the teeth right off the life you thought you were living.

Your pulse is a furious SOS tapped out against the underside of your throat; a muddled, thrumming reminder that you are standing in the epicenter of a storm you didn't even know was brewing. You feel thin, translucent, like a sketch of a person that someone could erase with a single, hard look.

Your fingers tighten around the dog tags. No.

No no no.

Your brain scrambles to reject it. Because that’s outrageous.

That man—the one people call dangerous in all kinds of languages, the one whose operations stretch across half the city, the one who apparently runs things so carefully that no one has ever managed to pin a crime on him—

That man is a myth.

A shadow.

A name in newspapers. No photos. No confirmed identity.

Just whispers.

James Buchanan Barnes.

JBB

You stare at the letters again. You recall the way his initials were engraved in the gun.

Your mind scrambles for explanations—wrong tags, coincidence, someone else with the same name—but every attempt at reason breaks apart in your hands.

Bucky. James. Bucky. James.

James Bucky Barnes.

Your eyes drift slowly across the room.

The suits.

The mansion.

The guards.

The midnight phone calls.

The seriousness.

The gun.

Your hands are shaking tremendously. JBB.

James.

Buchanan.

Barnes.

Your mind repeats it over and over again. The math is suddenly very simple.

He kissed your forehead fifteen minutes ago. He told you to steal his shirt if you get cold. He gifted you present after present because he simply could. He spoke your name as if he had ingrained it on his tongue.

He is the most dangerous man in the city.

Something uncomfortably glaring and stinging climbs up the back of your neck, and it’s making you feel watched by a predator you once mistook for a protector.

You’ve heard the stories. Everyone has. Illegal shipments. Rival gangs disappearing overnight. Entire businesses quietly changing ownership after one meeting with Barnes.

And yet there is no evidence. Never evidence. Just the name. James Buchanan Barnes. The general public doesn’t know what he looks like. There are no confirmed photographs. Just rumors.

But you know exactly what he looks like. You know the way his hair falls into his eyes when he’s tired. You know the scars on his body, know his reactions to your lips on them. You know the exact sound he makes when you laugh unexpectedly.

You are standing in the bedroom of the most notorious mob boss in New York. Wearing the pearl necklace he gave you.

Sleeping in his bed.

Dating him.

For fucks sake, he’s been inside you. You came on the most wanted dick in this city.

The walls of his seemingly huge room, so pristine and elegant, now seem to turn from a sanctuary into a beautifully curated cage.

You have been falling for the most dangerous man in the entire city and until two minutes ago, you had absolutely no idea.

Your hand moves to put the dog tags back in their place, but it’s like you’ve switched to autopilot. Your fingers operate with a sense of detachment while your mind is still a mile behind, screaming.

You lower the chain back into the velvet-lined dark with a tremble you can’t shake. You should crush it in your fist, should throw it at the ground and stomp around on it, should spit on it for what this man did—to the world, to you—but all you can do is handle it with a carefulness that is usually reserved for unexploded ordnance.

The metal hits the bottom with a tiny clink. The sound is so small, yet it feels like a heavy iron gate slamming shut between who you were five minutes ago and who you are now.

You slide the drawer shut, the wood-on-wood glide sounding like a long, slow exhale of a secret that’s finally been caught. You do it with agonizing slowness, as if by moving quietly enough, you can trick the universe into rewinding the last sixty seconds, or rather the last months so you could have avoided stumbling into his strong but deceiving arms.

And immediately, your brain begins doing what brains do best when frightened—it rewrites the past with fresh ink.

Everything changes. Everything. You look around the bedroom again. But it’s not the same room anymore. It’s not a beautiful space where you spent evenings laughing and tangled in sheets with a man who handled you like he was scared to hurt you.

Now it’s a room belonging to James Buchanan Barnes. Mob boss. Ruler of the underworld. The man people whisper about like saying his name too loudly might summon him like the devil.

Your stomach is curled into a hard stone, your fingers still numb. And suddenly every memory of the last few weeks starts recoding itself.

You remember the first gift he gave you. Not the pearls. The flowers. Three dozen white lilies delivered to your apartment door a day after your first date.

You’d laughed at the absurdity of it, calling him to tell him that this is too much, way too much, but he had smirked over the phone, so soft and unabashed, only replying that you deserve it, that you deserve way more than that.

At the time it felt romantic. But now your mind shears the memory, leaving the colors bled and the angles wrong. You turn all the memories of him over in the light until the shadows fall differently, until they take on shapes that start to build a picture.

Maybe it wasn’t romance. Maybe it was a strategy. Because that’s what men like him do, right? They buy people. They build golden cages out of small, glittering gestures.

You rub your arms slowly.

Another memory surfaces. The restaurant. The one with the insane skyline view where the waiters treated him like visiting royalty.

You’d joked about it. Do you secretly own this place?

He’d smiled that slow, mysterious smile of his and simply offered you more wine. He had looked so pleased.

Tension coils behind your ribs, but your mind keeps going.

The necklace. The pearls. One month together and he gives you something that probably cost more than your entire wardrobe.

You had protested. He’d looked almost offended. He pouted at you. He looked so adorably soft, so hopeful you would take this gift from him, that you thought it to be sweet.

Maybe a little over-the-top.

But that was just Bucky, is what you thought. A little intense. A little larger than life.

However, now the thought hatches, its spindly legs prickling against your focus.

He wasn’t spoiling you, he was buying you. Buying your affection. Buying your trust. Buying your silence.

Heat floods your face. Shame webs across your heart in a dark lace of regret. You feel so embarrassed. It spreads across your whole chest and even stains the air around you.

Because you fell for it. You idiot fell for it.

Hook, line, and embarrassingly enthusiastic sinker.

You believed the soft way he looked at you. The way his voice dropped when he said your name. The way he kissed you like he had been wandering the desert and you were the first water he’d seen in years.

You believed the way he listened to you ramble about dumb things like your coworkers, your favorite movies, the stupid podcast you liked.

You believed the way he touched you. Gentle and devoted, and it all seemed so loving.

Your throat is tight, turned into parchment, the soft tissue shrinking and hardening until it feels ready to crack. Because all that might have been a performance. A simple performance to fool you.

Of course, he would know how to act. Of course, he would know how to charm someone. Men like that survive on manipulation.

But you don’t understand why it’s you. Why you of all people? You’re not wealthy. Not powerful. Not connected.

Which somehow makes it all the more humiliating because maybe that’s exactly why. You imagine the possibilities, and each one feels worse than the last.

Maybe he needed someone clean. Someone with no ties to his world. Someone who could unknowingly hold something for him. Transport something. Sign something. Test something.

Maybe you were never a girlfriend, but a tool. A pawn. A convenient, smiling civilian. Someone harmless enough that no one would suspect anything.

Your hand flies to your mouth to stifle a sound that hasn’t even formed, but you cannot lock out your mind, and a keener thought pushes through.

What if he didn’t need you for anything practical at all? What if you were just entertainment?

A normal girl to play house with for a few weeks. A soft distraction between grating business meetings and dangerous deals.

Your eyes and cheeks burn at the thought that somewhere behind those soft eyes and tender hands, he might have been laughing at how easily you melted. How quickly you trusted him.

You feel sick. Your stomach heaves in a frantic attempt to purge the very air you breathe. It drags liquid heat up from your gut to your searing cheeks.

Your gaze drifts to the chair by the window. His jacket still hangs there. Inside it, the gun rests quietly.

Your stomach flips again.

Because suddenly it feels impossible that the man who carried that gun tonight was the same man who tucked the blanket around you earlier, who swiped his tongue against your pussy this deliciously and stopped you from hiding your reactions.

It was simply a power play, and god, are you a stupid girl.

You hear his voice in your head again. Stay here. Lock the door.

A shiver runs down your spine. Because now the words sound different. There is none of that protective and caring cadence. All you hear is a command. Containment. Showing you he is the one with the power, he is the one dealing the cards.

Oh, god. What have you gotten yourself into. This is definitely the worst thing yet.

You know you have to get the hell out of here. High-tail it. Let your panic lend wings to your feet to carry you the fuck out of the devil’s quarters.

You absolutely cannot still be in this room when he comes back. Pretending you didn’t notice the gun was one thing. Pretending you didn’t discover who he actually is, is another thing entirely.

The lie would be too large. It would sit between you like a loaded weapon much deeper and more fatal than that damned gun.

Your pulse is a vibrating scream inside your throat, your chest, your whole body, because what happens when he sees that you know?

What does a man like James Buchanan Barnes do with loose ends?

Fear and dread pin your lungs against your ribs and make the hairs on your arms stand up.

You don’t want to find out. You grab your phone from the nightstand with shaking hands. Inside your mind, your thoughts are colliding and yelling at one another, memories reshaping themselves into something darker.

He was so worshipful. So attentive. So careful with you.

And it hurts. It hurts so fucking bad.

He really is the best actor you’ve ever met.

You glance once more around the room. The bed. The wardrobe. The luxury of everything.

Then you head for the door. Because whatever this was, whatever he was, you need to be gone before James Buchanan Barnes comes back.

There is that low, now seemingly threatening rattle vibrating through the wood of the door. Somewhere down the long dark of the hallway, a mess of voices spills out—too muffled to catch the words, just a low drone. Then there’s the sound of footsteps on the marble, over and over, like a pendulum, until it gets softened by the rugs.

It’s eerie how this place just functions. No clanking, no friction. Just the invisible, midnight grinding of a house that knows exactly how to keep itself running while everyone else is dead to the world.

Bucky's house.

No—your mind corrects strictly.

James Buchanan Barnes’s house.

You inhale slowly, steadying yourself, and turn the handle.

The door gives a tiny, smug click, and you step out slowly, looking around to see nobody.

Ahead, the hallway just stretches out forever, all that dark, expensive wood shimmering under these wall lamps that just stare at you, glowing like something waiting for its turn to speak.

It’s wide enough that you expect a massive echo, but the carpet is so thick it just eats your footsteps. It’s unsettling. The whole place feels like it’s sucked in its gut, just holding its breath, waiting to see if you’ll decide to jump through the floor-to-ceiling windows to your right in your desperation to leave this place.

The door closes behind you, and even though it doesn’t really make a sound, you flinch so hard, your little jump through the window plan might be accidental.

Your heart begins to pound harder now that you’ve left the safety—no, the illusion—of the bedroom.

Because this house feels much larger and colder out here. Maybe you should have taken the gun with you. But you don’t know how to use such a thing, because you’re a normal person, and normal people don’t carry those things around like an innocent handbag.

You take a few unsure steps and it feels like you’ve stepped backstage at a theater and suddenly realized the play you were enjoying might actually be a crime scene.

You know the way to the front door.

He walked you through the mansion when you first visited, his hand resting lightly at the small of your back, guiding you through endless rooms and hallways with an easy familiarity that felt charming at the time.

But you know better and realize he was just showing you the cage. But at least you were paying attention. Every turn, every hallway he bragged about is burned into your head. That charming tour just became the only map out of here.

Two hallways down. Past the staircase. Through the long gallery with the ample paintings.

Then the front entrance.

Simple.

Except for the fact that his mansion is apparently populated by a small army.

Maids. Guards. Staff who move through the house like quiet satellites orbiting the gravity of one man.

These were all signs you simply overlooked because he’s handsome. You bite the inside of your cheek out of frustration with yourself. How can one person be so fucking blind.

You start walking.

Your footsteps are soft, but your heartbeat is anything but.

A maid appears at the far end of the corridor just as you round the corner, and everything inside you locks up.

She pauses when she sees you, instantly throwing you a smile that genuinely looks pleasant. She recognizes you. You don’t recognize her. Your stomach turns and turns until it is knotted too tight to even be able to move.

“Miss,” she starts politely. “Aren’t you feeling well?”

You force a smile that you hope doesn’t look like it’s made entirely of nerves and the urge to run down this hall, disappearing out of sight.

“Hi,” you say, keeping your voice light, a little apologetic. “Sorry— I just... I think I need some fresh air. I have a bit of a headache.”

The lie comes out smoother than you expected. Maybe panic is a good acting coach.

The maid’s expression softens immediately. She even looks a little too concerned for you for whatever reason.

“Of course,” she says sweetly, and you actually feel bad for lying to her. Does she know who she’s working for? Does she know who you are supposed to be for the man who is her boss? Maybe you could ask her. Maybe she would shoot you for it, who knows. Maybe everyone in this godforsaken building owns a gun, ready to use it. “Would you like me to call the boss—”

“No,” you interrupt quickly, then soften the urgency with a small laugh. “No, it’s fine. He’s busy with work, right? I don’t want to bother him.”

You hate how natural the sentence sounds. How easily you can say work when you now know that word hides a thousand darker things.

The maid nods, but she does seem a little hesitant. “Of course.” Thankfully, she leaves it at that.

With the wish for you to feel better soon, and an awkward thank you from your side, you continue walking.

One corridor.

Then another.

Your mind keeps racing ahead of your body, building plans like emergency scaffolding.

It all suddenly looks so terrifyingly menacing. Especially in the dark. It feels so much like a trap. The lights are down and the shadows feel like they’re actually reaching for you. There’s this dreadful, suffocating weight pressing out from the walls, like the house itself is holding a grudge. Your skin is crawling, and the air feels too thick to actually get into your lungs. It’s stale, as though it’s been sitting in a basement for a hundred years, and now the building has finally stopped pretending to be a home and turned into a giant cave with only dead ends so you will never have a way out and will end up as a rotting corpse in some forgotten corner.

The dark walls feel like they are crowding your shoulders. Those deep red carpets are laid out just a little too perfectly, too insistent on keeping you in the center of the floor. Walking down those corridors feels like being threaded through a needle.

And it’s not that the place is ever actually quiet, it’s just that every sound here is on a leash. There is the clink of glass coming from somewhere deep in the gut of the mansion. The dry, dusty thud of footsteps on rugs that are probably more worth than your life in the eyes of the mob boss. Voices that stay low and thick, never quite hitting the walls. It’s too disciplined. It’s a silence that’s been trained to keep its mouth shut.

He probably won’t notice you slinking out of his home. However, what he will definitely notice, is that you will never see him again, or answer his texts or calls. So that will be a problem.

The man owns a gun, and whatever else he can kill people with. So you can’t go home, is what you think as you descend the wide staircase. When you get out of here, you can’t flee to your apartment.

Because he knows where you live. He picked you up there. Dropped you off there. Walked you to your door like the perfect gentleman.

You almost laugh at the bitter irony.

The most dangerous man in the city knows your address. He played the perfect gentleman just to find out where and how you live.

Which means going home would be like walking back into a trap you’ve just barely escaped.

But you know just who is badass enough to help you out of this situation. Natasha.

Natasha lives across town. Natasha answers calls at ungodly hours. Natasha once helped you move apartments at two in the morning with nothing but her wry commentary and a borrowed truck.

You could stay with her. For a few days, weeks, maybe even longer. You know she won’t mind. She’s just that kind of friend.

You could figure things out from there.

Your hand tightens slightly around your phone as you reach the bottom of the stairs.

You’ll text her once you’re outside.

Not before.

Because paranoia is part of your bloodstream now, and who knows who might glance at your screen, who might casually mention later that they saw you messaging someone.

So you keep walking until the entrance hall opens before you like the lobby of a five-star hotel. It’s extensive, with vast floors and tall ceilings and capacious doors at the far end like the exit to another world, a world you want so desperately to be a part of again.

You wipe your clammy hands on your thighs and try to mentally prepare yourself for this last step.

You cross the obsidian floor toward the doors with what you hope resembles casual determination.

Not too fast. Fast looks guilty. Not too slow. Slow looks hesitant.

You aim for something in between—the walk of a woman with a mild headache and absolutely no catastrophic revelations fluttering around inside her skull.

God, everything about the place seems so much darker now. The darkness even slinks upward into the walls, which are paneled in matte-finished ebony that drinks the light before it can reach the corners. There is no glow, not the one you imagined when you first walked in here, hand in hand with a man you thought you could fall so deeply for and would be safe with. But everything now feels iterative and cold and to feel safe means to leave and never return.

The guards notice you immediately.

Two of them stand beside the colossal front doors, tall shapes in dark suits, shoulders squared in that particular way men stand when their job description includes the possibility of violence. They’ve always been polite to you before. Quietly respectful. The way staff are supposed to be with someone important to the man who owns the house. You only now know the direction this importance takes.

They both straighten slightly when you approach.

“Ma’am,” the left one says with a deep voice that gives nothing away.

You offer another careful smile, layering it with just enough exhaustion to make your earlier excuse believable.

“I’m heading out,” you say, keeping your tone breezy, like this is the most normal thing in the world to do in the middle of the night after spending hours in their boss’s bed. “I have a headache, and don’t want to interrupt Bucky while he’s working.”

Your voice nearly stumbles over the name.

Bucky.

The harmless version.

The one that belongs to the man who kissed you like you mattered. Not the one attached to James Buchanan Barnes.

The guard on the left side of the door glances at the other one. It’s subtle, but you see it. A quick trade of communication.

Then he looks back at you.

“Boss aware you’re leaving, ma’am?”

The way he uses the word boss makes bile rise up your throat. You are actually getting a headache.

You force yourself to keep smiling.

“Oh, he’s busy,” you say lightly, waving a hand as if this entire situation is mildly inconvenient but otherwise harmless. “I would feel bad for bothering him while he’s working. And I could use some fresh air and a little rest. So I thought I would just head home.”

Neither guard moves. The doors remain closed.

You swallow tightly, and it feels like there’s a stone coming down your throat along with it, which makes your limbs feel heavier.

“I will call him,” the second guard offers, already reaching toward the small device clipped at his belt.

“No,” you blurt too quickly.

Both men look at you again, and your pulse tumbles when you feel a subtle shift sliding into place, into the invisible perimeter around this house, the machinery of control that keeps things exactly where James Buchanan Barnes wants them.

Your throat feels dry. Your voice tries to find a hiding place inside the hallway of your throat. You pull yourself together as best you can. “That’s really not necessary,” you add, softer this time, trying to patch over the crack you just made in your own story. “It’s just a headache. I don’t want him to be distracted by that. You can just let him know I left once he is done.”

The first guard studies you more closely now. He doesn’t seem suspicious exactly, but he does seem cautious.

And suddenly the hallway behind you feels very long. Too long. Because if they call him, and he walks in here while you’re standing at the door trying to escape his mansion—

Your thoughts spiral into vile possibilities faster than you can control them.

What does a mob boss do to a girl like you when he realizes she has discovered his identity? Certainly no good things.

Your heart pounds so loudly, it’s a single roar all around your skull. You feel hot, so hot, you could burst into flames.

The second guard lifts the radio slightly, eyes on you. “Sir—”

“Baby?”

The voice comes from behind you and it sounds so soft. Confused.

Your insides startle into a panic so bright, you turn blind for a second.

Your entire body freezes up.

Baby.

A freezing shiver breaks loose at the base of your skull and slides all the way down to your heels.

Baby.

The word traces the line of your back, making every hair stand up.

Baby.

You know you have to react in other ways than fear to your so-called boyfriend, so you turn around slowly, trying to unpin your strained expression.

He’s standing halfway across the hall.

Except, now he looks like a stranger.

While he was gone and taking that business phone call, he had changed into one of his perfectly tailored suits. The charcoal wool is stiff and sits snugly, and it would have ignited a heated flutter in your lower belly just an hour earlier, but now it just makes him look malevolent. He looks terrifying in his elegance. So symmetrical, your lungs are wheezing out of sheer fright.

The sweat on your skin, once warm from him, has now turned into a layer of ice. You look at him and think that no, this man doesn’t love you. All you have been to him is a soft room he stepped into to wash off the smell of whatever he does in that suit.

The business he talked about isn’t spreadsheets and meetings. It’s the way the two guards behind you have gone absolutely still, like dogs waiting for a whistle.

He looks dangerous. You have never associated Bucky with direct danger, only with protecting you from danger. But this is not a boyfriend’s posture, it’s a king’s. Even that softly confused frown he is giving you doesn’t make him seem less threatening. It’s just the look of a man who owns everything he sees and knows what to do with it.

Bucky.

Except now your brain whispers the other name.

James.

Every inch of that expensive tailoring screams that he could have you erased before his morning coffee, and he wouldn’t even get a crease in his trousers.

While you were falling in love, he was just managing a distraction.

Your heart is breaking all over again.

“What are you doing down here?” His voice sounds the same as always, and yet it doesn’t.

The guards immediately straighten although he is talking to you, though you wish he wouldn’t.

“Sir,” one of them starts, but Bucky lifts a hand slightly without even looking at them, silencing whatever explanation they were about to offer.

His eyes are on you. Only you. Concern tightens his face almost immediately.

There is a cold needle threading through your nerves. You feel like a deer that has been eating out of a hunter’s hand, only just now noticing the rifle leaning against the tree.

“I—” Your voice nearly betrays you, cracking halfway through the first syllable. Act. You have to act. You drag in a breath and force your shoulders to loosen, shoving your face into something resembling mild embarrassment rather than existential terror. “I wasn’t feeling well,” you lie, carefully smoothing your tone. “I didn’t want to interrupt you. It seemed pretty important.” You look toward the door, turning your body slightly with it in a gesture of longing. “So I planned on just heading home.”

His brows only pull further together, his expression turning deeper, and it doesn’t make this better at all. “You’re the only important thing, sweetheart. You know that.” His voice is low, but how does he manage to make it sound this gentle? Even soft.

Oh god, he’s coming closer. Of course, he’s coming closer, he’s your boyfriend, pretending to be your boyfriend, pretending to be worried, because his girl allegedly has a headache and wants to leave when he promised earlier to continue pleasing her in bed and asked her to stay and lock the door behind him because he doesn’t expect her to leave in the middle of the night.

But that doesn’t make it any easier for you to handle, doesn’t make your body react less in the horrifying way that this scary man is moving toward you, and he doesn’t know you know what kind of scary he is.

You feel your body fight against itself. You want to swirl around, run, bolt, fly through the door outside into the night, never to be seen again. Or at least not by him and his people. But you can’t. You have to stay, you have to remain planted to the floor. Even taking one step back would be a fatal mistake.

And suddenly he’s right there with all his tallness and built, and he still looks warm, but so much more intimidating.

You feel your insides shrink into themselves, your heart slipping into a corner somewhere deep.

The sheer scale of him in that suit makes your stomach drop. He is not a man, he is an entire system of brutality hidden behind a charming smile and gold cufflinks.

You shiver at the fact that your boyfriend could end a life with a nod of his head, and then come home and press his face into your neck as if his hands were clean.

“You’re not feeling well?” His voice drops into a frequency that is meant to be gentle and soothing, but for you, it just sounds like the rumble of an engine. The furrow in his brow grows shadows on his forehead. His eyes shift between yours so fast and piercing, with such a concentrated focus, scanning for the source of your pain as if he could kill it for you.

His hand comes up instinctively, the same way it always does when he’s worried about you, or when he’s not. It’s just normal for him to touch you. But watching his hand move toward you this time makes your back stiffen and a ring of alarm sounds out in your skull, shrill and poignant.

His fingers brush your cheek.

Your skin crawls of its own accord, and you flinch. You force your reaction to be small, but you can’t suppress it entirely. Your brain blanks, and your heart strikes high.

His hand stills, and so does your heart as it feels like.

Bucky notices everything. You guess it comes in handy with being the most wanted crime boss in the city.

His eyes sharpen slightly, and his concern turns more piercing. He looks at his hand still hovering awkwardly, then at you. His eyes are distraught, hinting at something deeper that just broke in two. And he looks so deeply puzzled.

“Hey,” he lets out, and it sounds a little raspy. You scramble.

“I’m sorry,” you breathe quickly, forcing a small laugh that sounds thin even to your own ears. “I’m just a little dizzy, I think.”

He studies you for a long moment.

The guards are silent now and you feel them watching from behind your back.

The house feels too quiet, too attentive, too alert.

James’ hand lowers slowly, though his gaze doesn’t leave your face.

“You’re pale,” he acknowledges, his voice grainy. He sounds like he is holding his breath.

You shrug weakly. “Yeah, well. Not my best look.”

He’s not smiling, and you start sweating. How did you never notice just how scary this man looks.

He’s thinking. You can see it. Pieces moving behind that stormy gaze. Your heart hammers harder.

Please don’t see it.

Please don’t see that you know.

He exhales slowly, then reaches for your hand, and he doesn’t do it possessively, nor roughly, just tenderly closing his fingers around yours.

“Come with me,” he says quietly, and it could sound like a plea if he weren’t the man that he is.

Your skin is a furnace. You might explode. You force a shaky breath, praying he doesn’t hear the way your heart is trying to kick its way out of your ribs.

“Bucky, I really just—”

“I know,” he cuts in softly, but there is something thick and hunted in the way he talks. “Just a minute.”

He looms over you with his whole presence and those intensely fevered eyes and he sucks the oxygen clean out of your lungs.

He nods toward the hallway behind him.

“My office is right there. We’ll sit down for a second, make sure you’re okay. And if you think I’d let you go home alone with a headache you can think again, doll.”

Doll.

God, you really have been stupid. Doll.

This is not a sweet endearment. This is literal. You are a thing made of porcelain that he is scared of dropping—or since a man like him isn’t scared of anything—you’re a thing he realized he can break.

Your pulse spikes.

Office.

Private.

Closed door.

Every alarm bell in your body begins ringing at once.

In his office, the rules of the outside world—the rules where you are safe—don’t apply. It’s where the blood gets mopped up.

But the guards are watching. The exit is behind them.

They aren’t moving a muscle and stand there like gargoyles, guarding your only hope for escape.

And Bucky—James—is standing right in front of you, his thumb brushing lightly across your knuckles.

“You’re shaking,” he murmurs, concern weaving through his quiet tone.

Well, you’re shaking because you can feel the callouses on his hands, the strength in his grip that suggests he could snap your wrist without his expression changing. He knows you are vibrating with nerves, but he has misdiagnosed the fever.

You force yourself to breathe. To smile. To pretend. Just like he has all these weeks. Just like he does now.

“Just the headache,” you whisper, and it’s tasting like bile.

He studies you for another long second, and for a moment you think he might see the truth. You think the mask is going to be ripped away right here in the hallway.

Then he squeezes your hand gently. “Come on, sweetheart.”

He turns you away from the door that would bring you to safety, moving his hand to the small of your back, and it is the gentlest thing in the world. But that somehow makes it so harrowing, because there is nothing rough in the gesture, nothing that could be called force by anyone watching, nothing but warmth and assurance, leading you into the heart of his house with the grace of a protector, and yet your whole body reads it like a sentence being handed down.

You are now thoroughly trapped, you realize while swallowing down the rising tide of bile. It feels like a master painter adding the final, darkening stroke to a portrait you can no longer step out of.

But there is nothing you can do. You let him steer you away from the door because what else are you supposed to do? Rip away, run, scream? That seems impossible in a house that breathes his name through every vent and doorway. A house where even the air seems employed by him.

The mansion appears to lengthen as you walk through it, as if corridors are being pulled like taffy just to spite you, just to show you how laughably far the front door already is, how absurd it was to think you could simply walk out with a polite excuse and a swallowed scream in your throat, hoping nobody heard it rattling behind your teeth, pretending you were still a girl who had a choice in where she slept tonight.

You try to pay attention. You try to mark the route the way people do in movies when they’re kidnapped or hunted or trying not to fall off the edge of the earth—left at the long console with the black granite top, right at the staggering painting in the gilded frame, straight past the alcove with the antique lamp and the white flowers that smell expensive and funereal at once.

But panic is a vandal and it is paralyzing and it comes in and smashes every useful thought with a chair.

Your heart is beating too hard, your blood too loud, your mind too busy manufacturing horrors to do something practical like remember turns. Foyer, hall, archway, staircase, another hall. No—was it staircase first? Was the office past the library, or past that room with the dark green walls?

Oh god, this is horrible. You're really starting to feel lost and this might be a catastrophic blow to your faith.

You try to pin each detail to the inside of your skull, but they slide off slick as fish, and every second spent trying to memorize the geography of this place only makes you more conscious of the fact that you are being walked farther and farther from the only exit you knew.

Why would he take you this far? The question lets sweat collect at the base of your neck. Why not the room just off the main hall? Why not one of the closer offices? Why not let you leave if you are only dizzy, only pale, only under the weather the way you claimed?

Does he suspect something? Has he already seen it, the wrongness in your face, the recoil you were too slow to hide, the way your voice came out laced too tight? And worse than that, more awful than suspicion because it drips with intention—was there always going to be a moment like this? Had he always been walking you here in one way or another, from the first date, from the first gift, from the first time he looked at you as if you were worth the chase?

Maybe this is what men like him do. Maybe he had a plan long before you ever had a clue. Maybe there has never been a single unarranged second between you, and you were just too lovesick and dazzled to notice the rails under your feet.

His hand stays at your back the entire time, broad and warm, but it makes you want to shove him away from you. When you hesitate, the pressure spikes just enough to remind you which way the door isn't. He is leading you forward and it would have felt gentle, but it doesn’t. No longer.

His thumb-strokes across your back don’t feel comforting at all and more like he is smoothing out a wrinkle in his own sleeve or the way he might polish a piece of silver he has decided to keep.

You suppress a chilling shiver he surely would have felt.

When you glance at him, because some abhorrent part of you still does, still wants to; you find concern in his face and it nearly brings you to the floor. You can’t glimpse any coldness, no strategic thinking whatsoever. At least not the kind you expected to see. His eyes aren’t narrowed and sharpened with discovery, there is no clipped impatience, no telltale crack in the mask.

He looks at you the way he has always looked at you when something seemed off, with his little frown and that determination, as if your problems are things he would like to drag outside and beat to death with his bare hands.

His gaze moves over your face with the same intimate concentration that once made your stomach warm for all the right reasons. It does not help. It makes everything worse.

Because if this is performance, then he is monstrous at it. If this is an act, he’s lived in the skin of it for a lifetime.

A lie shouldn’t feel this solid, shouldn’t have a thumb that knows exactly where your tension hides.

If he is acting, then he deserves a stage and an audience and perhaps a crown.

You can barely stand it, this collision between what you know and what he appears to be. A man can’t look at you like that and still be the most feared name in the city. Except apparently he can. Apparently, men can be two things at once. Apparently, the universe is vulgar enough to make both true.

You pass a maid coming the other way—a small, neat woman in a crisp uniform. She is carrying folded lines in her arms, and Bucky acknowledges her with nothing more than a curt nod, and she responds with a warm little smile aimed at you and the faintest dip of her head—something halfway between greeting and curtsey, so practiced it is almost invisible, but not invisible enough, not to you, not now.

It makes your breath hitch, how he doesn’t swell with importance, or doesn’t put on a show of his control.

He’s so comfortable in his power that he doesn't even need to show it off; he just steers you onward, knowing nobody will do a single thing to stop him.

And your stomach lurches so suddenly it feels as if your bones have missed a step. Because there it is. There, in one small exchange, is the whole persona of him. He is not loud or cartoony with his power, he just has it. It’s real. It doesn’t need to announce itself because everyone in its radius already knows where to bend.

The maid’s smile is kind, almost affectionate, and that somehow shames you more, because it suggests this has been obvious to everyone but you.

They all know what he is. The guards know. The staff knows. The men at the gate, the drivers, the strangers in tailored suits who always nod to him with instant stillness in their spines—they all know.

And you, meanwhile, had been floating around this house in your pretty little ignorance, accepting tea on silver trays, accepting jewelry in velvet boxes, accepting his mouth and his hands and his delicious attention as if you had simply stumbled into the arms of an intense, rich man with old-fashioned manners and a dangerous face completely by accident.

You would like to face palm yourself, but this is a bad moment.

Natasha will definitely do it for you once you get out of here and manage to escape to her apartment.

You had looked at the signs and called them charm. You had looked at vigilance and called it romance. You had looked at fear arranged into etiquette and thought that wow, he really runs this company proficiently.

The embarrassment of it blooms hot under your skin, nearly as painful as the fear. You have been blind. Worse—willingly blind. Blind not by accident but by appetite, by wanting. Love, or whatever this early ferocious thing is, has wrapped a hand-woven scarf around your eyes and led you smiling into a cathedral built from warning signs and decorated with red flags.

And the humiliating part, the part that makes you feel like you could peel yourself out of your own skin from sheer mortification, is that you had even congratulated yourself for being so unbothered by his world.

Look at you, cool girl extraordinaire, dating the beautiful, mysterious executive in his deluxe mansion, pretending not to notice the guards and the driver and the way everyone waited half a beat too long for his approval before moving.

You had thought you were being mature. Sophisticated. Unruffled. Meanwhile, you were essentially a decorative houseplant with a pulse, sitting in the sun of his attention and calling it insight. It would almost be funny if it weren’t your life currently doing a slow and terrible cartwheel off a cliff.

How could you have ever believed that a guy like him would be interested in that naive, silly girl that you are.

Honestly, if you survive this ordeal, you will end up in some corner of your small, meager apartment, bawling your eyes out, and keep living that unlucky life of yours.

He glances at you again as you walk on that burgundy red carpet deeper into the hole that is another hallway, and his hand presses a little more firmly between your shoulder blades. It’s protective rather than possessive to anyone looking in from the outside, but the gesture sends another flare of panic through you anyway.

You wonder if he can feel the fear on you, if it comes off your skin. You wonder if men like him are trained by experience to smell a lie the way dogs smell storms. You wonder whether he is leading you to comfort or containment. Every room you pass seems too opulent to be real with those chandeliers like frozen explosions, rugs plush enough to kill the sound of literally anything, the dark wood twinkling creepily under low gold light, paintings in heavy frames, looming over everything, looking down their painted noses at anyone not born into the frame.

The place no longer looks luxurious so much as fortified. You see the thickness of doors now. The depth of corridors. The strategic sightlines. The subtle placement of people. This house is not merely beautiful. It is defensible. It is a kingdom in disguise.

And you had been letting yourself be loved in it. You stupid girl had let him come way, way too close to you.

But it’s what makes every step hurt more than it should. Because despite everything, despite the gun and the initials and the name on the tags and the avalanche of terror crushing common sense into powder, there is still some small perfidious corner of you that keeps stumbling over the memory of how gentle he was, how attentive, how he watched your face as if your feelings were weather and he meant to learn every season.

You hate that part of yourself right now, and that it even exists in the first place after everything you found out about the man and what knowing him entails.

You want cleaner fear, simpler fear, fear without ache in it. But your fear is contaminated by affection. By memory. By the wrenching possibility that whatever else he is, whatever blood has dried invisibly on his hands, the softness he’s shown you may have been real. And if that is real, then the rest is not easier to understand. It is harder. Infinitely harder. It means the monster did not wear a mask. It means the monster kissed your forehead and tucked blankets around your legs and remembered how you take your coffee. But your brain can’t follow all of that.

Another turn. Another corridor. Another room you cannot catalogue fast enough.

You try again to memorize the path, because panic may be a vandal but desperation is stubborn.

The wall here is paneled more deeply. There is a bronze wolf on a pedestal. A narrow window at the end of the hall. A runner rug patterned in deep red, almost the color of old cherries, almost the color of dried blood if your mind is in the mood to be cruel, which it surely is.

Your thoughts keep darting ahead of you and slam themselves against every worst-case future they can find. If he knows you know, what does that mean? If he does not know you know, what then? Which is safer? Is there a safer version of this at all?

You imagine phones taken gently from your hand. Doors locked with apologetic clicks. Promises made in that low warm voice while your life narrows to the width of his will.

The terrible thing is that none of your imaginings need to be loud to be horrifying. A man like him does not need spectacles. He has infrastructure.

By the time he slows in front of a set of double doors farther inside the mansion than you have ever been allowed, or invited, to go; your nerves are so frayed they feel almost luminous, every sound oppressive, every movement enlarged.

He looks down at you, his face still threaded with worry, and sweeps his hand from your back to your elbow in a gesture so careful it would be beautiful in any other universe. In this one it only makes your chest tighten until breathing feels like work. He leans slightly closer, and his voice drops, intimate as a hand at your throat, though there is nothing harsh in it.

“What’re you thinking about, baby,” he asks quietly, searching your face.

Well, you’re thinking about the front door.

It’s where you left your mind.

Or maybe it was lost in his room already. Maybe it stayed with the gun on his carpet.

And the other, the more rational part of your mind, the one that told you this couldn’t have been true anyway, because you are you and he is him, lingers in every news story you ever half listened to.

You are inside the tormenting, glittering realization that you have not just fallen for a dangerous man, but for the dangerous man, and that all the softness you took as sanctuary may have only been the most exquisite blindfold ever tied.

“Nothing, Bucky,” you reply weakly, trying to ease, but your voice is shaking just that tiny bit, and judging by the uncomfortable twist of his mouth, he caught it.

You’re too lost in your stupidity that you’re hardly present when he opens his wooden office door and ushers you inside, again with the most tender movements.

The office is warmer than the hall, quieter too, and it makes goosebumps rise on your arms and the hairs stand tall at the back of your neck because this room is built to keep any sound inside and secrets fat and sleeping in the walls. Everywhere you look there is dark wood and low amber light and books lined up in stern, handsome rows as if knowledge itself has been drafted into his service.

You feel the world shrink from cathedral to chamber, from public performance to something confined, more dangerous, more indiscreet, because now there are no guards, no maids, no witnesses to help keep either of you inside your assigned role.

There is only him, only you, only that soft snick of the door as he shuts it behind him; and that small, tidy sound feels like it’s happening inside your own chest. You watch his hand leave the brass knob, and the logic in your head just gives up. There’s only a hysterical, messy scramble of thoughts, all of them howling at once and all of them useless.

He turns back to you immediately, all his attention gathering around you with that familiar chilling completeness, and before you can decide whether to stand very still or bolt like a startled animal with nowhere sensible to run, he is guiding you toward the couch near the fireplace with one hand steady at your waist and the other brushing over your arm, then your back again. He’s never forcing or gripping hard, but he’s just not letting go of you and it makes you want to jump against the wall in hopes it’ll crack and you’ll land on the other side because his touch is making you more and more nervous.

He treats you as if he thinks you might faint at any second.

It is infuriating, that gentleness. It feels like a kind of torture that’s impossible to fight because your skin has a longer memory than your head. Your body still knows him first as safety. It still recognizes the heat of his palm and the strength of him, the way he moves as though you’re the center of the room.

And now every instinct is splitting at the seams. All you want to do is run, you want him away from you, you want to be far gone from all of this, you want to scream and scream some more, but the other half of you is remembering how carefully he tucked a blanket over your legs last week when you fell asleep during a movie or the way he has checked you for bruises after literally making love to you with that distressed frown upon his face, scared he’s been too rough with you.

The collision makes you dizzy enough that, absurdly, he may not be wrong. You might actually faint. Just from the sheer vertigo of finding out that the man who kissed you so devotedly has a name the whole city says with a tremble in their voices.

“Sit down for me,” he coaxes, and his voice is low, soft, carrying none of the steel you used to hear when he dealt with his men, and that contrast nearly makes your skin crawl.

You lower yourself onto the couch because your knees are not reliable enough to argue with him. The room seems to have acquired a faint sway, because the blood in your veins feels thin and feverish, and he stays right there, close enough that his thigh nearly brushes yours before he drops into a crouch in front of you.

The sight of this dangerous man folding all that height and breadth down to your level, gaze lifted to your face with plain concern would have melted you an hour ago.

But all it does now is frighten you some more. It feels too intimate, too earnest, too much like care, and care from a man like him is no simple thing. It is not a ribbon. It is a chain in softer clothing.

You swallow hard and that alone almost makes you flinch.

His eyes move over you with increasing worry, taking inventory in little silent increments. Your face is pale, you feel the damp shine of stress at your temples, you can’t keep your fingers still in your lap, and you can’t quite tame the uneven hitch in your breath.

He reaches up and lays the back of his hand against your forehead, then your cheek, his brows knitting tighter, and his mouth presses into a serious line. “You’re sweating,” he murmurs, more to himself than to you, as if he would like to issue orders to your body until it starts behaving properly.

His thumb grazes the curve of your jaw, feather-light, and you have to stop yourself from jerking away too sharply. You have to refrain yourself from slapping his hand away.

He notices even the version of restraint. You guessed, he does. A man like him has to. A man like him would. But it does worsen your situation.

A chill spreads along the base of your neck.

His eyes sharpen, not with suspicion exactly, but with apprehension deepening into something more searching, more troubled. “Talk to me, baby,” he pleads, softer still. “Did something happen? Did I do something?”

You stare at him.

For a moment the question does not make sense, your mind too busy running in circles with sirens in its hair, but you notice the shadow in his face, the hunch, the way his gaze jumps to your mouth, your throat, your posture curled too tight, and it seems bizarre because he honestly looks as though he might dread he pushed you too far, touched you too much, misread your body, took a liberty you weren’t ready for.

The absurdity of that nearly splits your head open because earlier when he—god, when he had his criminal tongue on your pussy—he acted so attentive, he seemed genuinely careful and devastatingly patient, and yet now, knowing what you know, even that lightness now hardens into a new breed of atrocity.

Because if this is him being careful, if this is him holding himself in check, then what does rough look like in a man built the way he is, in a man whose name can make grown men go quiet? What shape does cruelty take when it belongs to someone with this much power and this little need to raise his voice?

“No,” you answer too fast, the word skidding out of you. “No, you didn’t— nothing like that.”

Well, he did do something. A lot, really. Things that would put him in a cell never to be let out.

But he didn’t do anything to you yet. Yet. He might, if you don’t get your shit together.

His shoulders loosen by a fraction, but not enough. Not nearly enough. He still looks wound up. He still looks a little perturbed.

“Are you sure?” he asks, and there is something sincere in his voice, it is disorienting. “Because, honey, you can tell me if I was too much. If I missed something. If I—” He stops, swallows, and the hand at your cheek gentles further, as if he is trying to make himself seem safer. Funny. “I need to know. Need to know if there was ever a moment when you didn’t feel good.”

Something is dipping in the air around you, and everything feels distorted. Your head is hazy and a complete maze, because how is he even doing it this well?

You pull back then, small at first, because having his hands on you for longer will surely drive you insane. You don’t shove him off, or smack his hand away, you simply move out of his palms enough to break the line of his touch, but even that has him looking at you more closely.

You gather your hands together in your lap so he won’t see them tremble and shake your head with a smile that feels stapled on, brittle and thin, and one wrong breath away from snapping in half. “I’m okay,” you say, aiming for sheepish, for embarrassed, for normal. “I just need some sleep, I think. That’s all. It’s probably stupid. I’m probably just a little exhausted and overreacting.”

He doesn’t buy it.

You can tell immediately, and you hate that you can tell, but you notice how his whole face changes in that subtle way his face does when he has decided something is amiss and he is not going to stop until he gets to the bottom of it.

He shifts closer, forearms braced loosely on his thighs, his attention absolute. “Then sleep here,” he deadpans. As if this is simply the answer to all the problems in the world. “You don’t need to go anywhere tonight. 'Specially when you’re not feeling well.”

Your stomach contracts into a hard, cold knot, and it feels like there’s a displacement in your chest. It’s the sensation of a staircase ending one step too soon and you didn’t notice so now you’re hitting air instead of floor with a heart-shaking jolt. It is jarring. It is petrifying, because it means you’re not getting out of here that easily. You might not be getting out of here at all if he continues to look at you like that.

Sleep here.

Stay here.

In his house. In his reach. In the center of the web.

Your pulse stutters so hard it hurts.

“I should go home,” you try, and even to your own ears it sounds small, unconvincing, more instinct than argument.

His frown deepens, utterly baffled by your insistence in the face of what he clearly sees as a solvable problem. “Why?” he asks quietly, and his voice sound a tad hoarse. “If you feel bad, why would I let you leave?”

Your lungs can’t seem to catch any air although it’s all around you.

Why would I let you

He didn’t say why would you leave, no he said why would I let you.

Good god, you really have been a stupid girl. The signs were all in front of you, weren’t they? They were literally speaking to you.

He’s talking in a tender tone, making his voice all soft and gentle, even soothing and so concerned, but that’s just the outside. You never paid attention to what lay underneath, hidden deep inside, because the outside was pretty and alluring enough. And maybe you are imagining it now, the gravelly implications in his tone, maybe your body’s just trying to see and hear things that aren’t there, but perhaps it truly has been there all the time and you were too wrapped in him to notice it.

You stand up quickly.

And you shouldn’t have done that because he will think what the hell you’re doing now, but your body decided and now your body is doing it.

The room sways, your vision going soft at the edges for one humiliating second, and his hands are on you—one at your elbow, one at your waist, and there is no shaking them off.

You flinch despite yourself and he stills as if you have struck him. You know he doesn’t understand your reactions, how could he.

“Hey,” he coos, his voice lowering even further, and there is definitely something thick in his voice. “Easy.”

“I’m fine,” you insist, too breathless, too papery, trying to peel his hands off you without making it look like peeling, which is impossible, because every move feels too fast or too urgent, every instinct either too frightened or too telling. “Really, Bucky, I’m just tired. I’m probably being ridiculous.”

His gaze searches yours with such intensity it feels almost physical. “You’re trying to get away from me.”

The words are quiet, and although there is no anger in them, no threat at all, it has your mouth go dry.

“No,” you answer, and it is not a good lie. “No, Bucky. Of course not. My head’s just really hurting.”

Something in him clicks into a higher gear—not a lack of trust or anything like that, but a kind of piercing, automated focus. Something in his eyes snaps into high definition. All that soft, vague concern is gone, replaced by an attention so bright and infiltrating it feels like being pinned to a board under a microscope.

Carefully, he makes you sit back down on the couch and lands right beside you. You feel the heat of him pressing into your side, though he does give you a bit of space.

His hand comes to your upper arm, stroking once, and you hate your own pulse for noticing how familiar it feels despite it having lost its appeal. “Look at me,” he presses, and it almost sounds like an order. His voice seems serious enough to make you shiver in fear.

You look at him because you have to and refusing would be louder than screaming.

His eyes are so damn blue in this weirdly dim light, clear and intent and lined with such deep worry. He’s definitely denser, his concern losing its fluff, but not its patience. There still is no trace of coldness, no roughness, nothing that is overly intimidating despite the man he is.

Just that same irksome softness, that same look like your distress is something he wants to fix with both hands, with all of himself if necessary.

It rattles you more than if he had come in hard and sharp and monstrous. A monster would be easier. A monster would let your fear stand up straight. But this man looking at you like your pain pains him is a labyrinth with no clean exits.

And it feels foreboding. It has you more on edge. It’s the way the woods go quiet right before something heavy steps out of the brush; a sudden, absolute alignment of intent.

Maybe he knows you know and now he’s waiting for the right moment to pounce. You do your best to keep your fright behind your eyes.

“You can sleep here tonight,” he offers again, gentler now, and it seems as though he believes repetition might soothe you into agreement. “I’ll stay with you. Or I won’t, if you want space. I’ll get you water, food, whatever you need. But I’m not sending you home like this.”

Not sending.

Again that wordless, soft-toned authority.

Again that sense that his care and his control are fused so tightly together they share a bloodstream.

You are running out of room inside your own face. Running out of expressions that can pass for normal. Running out of ways to keep the panic from drawing its blade.

So you do the only thing you can think of, the stupidest thing, the most desperate thing—you lean in and kiss him.

It’s short and small and only meant to reassure, to smooth over, to redirect. Your lips meet his and every cell in your body revolts.

And it’s not at all because he kisses badly, god no. Even startled, even worried, he receives you with immediate tenderness, one hand lifting to cradle your jaw, his mouth warm and careful and heartbreakingly familiar but also so, so foreign, a cold shiver seizes your back.

It is what makes nausea roll through you so suddenly you nearly choke on it. Because this is James Buchanan Barnes.

This is the name on the dog tags, the name on the news, the name people lower their voices around as if it might hear them and turn its head.

This is the most feared man in the city and his mouth is still the same mouth that kissed the corner of your smile with one of his own.

Your stomach turns so sharply you have to concentrate not to pull away in disgust too soon, not to betray yourself with the wrong kind of urgency.

You kiss him once, twice, tasting dread under the memory of want, and every instinct in you screams that you are pressing your lips to a loaded weapon and pretending it is a rose.

When you ease back, you make yourself smile.

It feels gargantuan, the effort of it.

“I’m okay,” you whisper, like that explains anything, like that proves you are only tired and not terrified, only overwhelmed and not trying to survive. “I promise. I can go home like this.”

His thumb brushes under your eye so lightly, and you run your tongue over your lip, trying to get that uncomfortable tingling to go away.

But he still looks unconvinced.

More than unconvinced, actually. Plagued. As if the kiss reassured him of your affection but not your state, and now that mismatch is bothering him in ways he can’t make sense of.

His gaze lingers on your face, then your mouth, then your hands clenched too tightly in your lap. He takes one of them and turns it gently palm-up, his fingers closing around yours. You can feel how much bigger his hand is. You can feel how easily it encloses.

And all at once the room feels narrow as a throat, the walls leaning in, the lamplight too gold, the air too warm, and you are sitting inches from a man who could ruin your life before breakfast and is looking at you like the only thing he wants in this world is to make you feel safe.

“What’s going on, doll?” His voice could even be pleading, just a little bit. It’s definitely croaky. “I— I get the feeling—”

“I told you, Bucky. It’s just a headache.” He sighs to that, but all you can think about is how completely his hand closes over the bones of your own. How easy it would be for those fingers to tighten from comfort into command, from tenderness into something unarguable.

His other palm is at your arm, and your body does this awful arithmetic without your permission, subtracting your strength from his and arriving, every single time, at the same answer—none.

There is none. Not enough. Not nearly enough.

You notice things you never let yourself notice before because before they were part of romance, of safety, of the warm relief of being cared for by someone larger and more grounded than you.

Now those same details come back rearranged into something atrocious. The width of his shoulders. The thickness of his thighs where they bracket the edge of the couch. The controlled way he moves, never wasted, never sloppy, suggesting he has long ago become intimate with force and no longer needs to flaunt it.

Even the gentleness feels frightening because it is so deliberate. You can feel, in every cautious touch, that he is handling you lightly not because he must, but because he chooses to. And choice is a nightmarish thing when done by a man like him. Choice means there are other versions of him. Choice means there are rooms in him you have never seen. Choice means the tenderness is not the whole house, only one lit window.

You sit very still because being still feels safer than moving, and panic has made your limbs feel both too heavy and too ready to misfire. While he studies your face with that immensely worried crease between his brows, your thoughts keep slipping sideways into grotesque little visions of what would happen if he decided to stop being soft.

Not even dramatic visions. That would almost be easier. Nothing so loud as being thrown or shouted at. Your fear is smarter than that now. It imagines quieter things. A wrist caught before you can pull away. A door closed with no visible hurry. Your name said in that low voice while every route out of the room gently, politely disappears.

You hate yourself for thinking it, hate the way your pulse kicks harder with each new image, hate most of all that his touch remains careful through all of it, remains incessantly kind, so that your fear begins to feel almost counterfeit in the face of what he is actually doing, and then the next thought corrects you suddenly—no, not counterfeit. Instinct. Instinct finally dragging itself awake after weeks of sleeping with its face turned to his chest.

He must notice something fresh pass through you, some new tremor or tightening, because his jaw flexes and then he reaches into his pocket for his phone.

He is glancing at the screen and some shutter drops behind his eyes. It doesn’t slam, it just falls shut, as simple as that. Just sliding into place as neatly as a blade returning to its sheath.

He lifts the phone, says a name you don’t catch because your ears are too loud with your heartbeat, and when the person on the other end answers, his voice changes so completely that a chill runs over your skin.

“Bring cold towels to my office. And painkillers. Water too.” That is all.

Simple words. Ordinary words.

But the voice that carries them is stripped clean of softness, and that is what makes your blood curdle. There is no gentle edge worn smooth for your benefit. It is a voice pared down to function, to expectation, to command. Not loud, not theatrical, not cruel in any obvious way, it is just cold the way a simple black stone is cold. Cold the way a locked gate is cold.

There is no room in it for hesitation, no room in it for mishearing, no suggestion that obedience is a favor rather than the natural order of things. Whoever is on the other end responds immediately, and he ends the call without another word, already moving to set the phone aside, already turning back toward you, and your whole body has gone thin with dread because all you can think, stupidly, helplessly, is this is how he speaks when he is not pretending to be gentle.

And if this is his ordinary command voice, then what would he sound like if he knew? If he looked at you and saw recognition staring back, saw the name James Buchanan Barnes fully formed in your eyes, saw that you had found the gun and the initials and the tags and had welded them all together into the truth? Would his voice sharpen? Flatten further?

Would he say your name with that same smooth authority and turn it into a thing that could pin you in place?

The thought is a beaded sweat of ice trailing down the ladder of your back.

You try not to react. You fail a little. He sees the shiver, he sees, because he is James Buchanan Barnes for goodness sake, and immediately his focus softens again as he leans a fraction closer, anguish returning to his face as if the colder version of him never existed at all.

The door catches your eye over his shoulder.

It is simply there. Closed, but not locked, at least not that you can see. Dark wood, brass handle, a square of possibility in a room rapidly losing oxygen.

And once you look at it, you cannot stop.

Your gaze keeps darting back like something hooked. You begin to map the distance with desperate measurements.

If you stood up now—no, not stood, launched—if you shoved him hard enough to buy yourself one puzzled second, maybe two, could you make it? Out the office, into the hall, left or right—God, which one had you come from?—and then what? Down one corridor, past another, through that impassable warren of pragmatic but pristine floors and expensive silence and armed loyalty, praying that your body would remember what your mind failed to memorize?

You picture it anyway. You can’t help it. You picture yourself bolting, slipping on gleaming floors, turning wrong and wrong again, heart exploding in your throat while the mansion multiplies around you like a bad dream, each hallway birthing three more, each staircase leading not to freedom but to another floor full of his money and his people and his reach.

Still, the image won’t leave you. It grows instead, takes on velocity. You imagine the first breath of motion, the clean scary choice of it. The couch under you unweighting. The door handle cold in your palm. The sudden crash of everything becoming honest.

You don’t have a lot of choices here. So maybe fate would take pity on you. Maybe panic would become a compass. Maybe your body would remember a route your mind cannot hold. Maybe the front hall would be merciful and simply appear in front of you, all that dark wood and those massive doors and the guards too startled to stop you before you ripped yourself out into the night. It is preposterous. It is probably impossible. It becomes, nevertheless, the brightest thought in the room. Bright enough to burn.

You are too poised on the edge of movement now, too taut, every nerve drawn tight as wire.

“Baby,” Bucky starts, a little alarmed, and he shifts closer again, one hand lifting instinctively, probably to touch your face, your shoulder, your wrist, some place he thinks he can soothe.

But the sight of that hand coming toward you almost does it. Almost tips you over from imagining escape into choosing it. You can feel your muscles gathering without permission, your body preparing itself in secret, a rabbit under the hawk’s shadow. Run, run, run. For one crazed second you are already halfway gone in your mind—up off the couch, around the table, through the door, don’t think, just move, just run, run, run—

And then his fingers brush your arm, so lightly, so soft, but it breaks something inside you because you want his sweet touch, you want him to hold you, to soothe you, to love you, but you don’t want it to be James Buchanan Barnes, you want it to be Bucky, but he’s no longer Bucky, he won’t ever be anymore, and so you simply react.

You jerk, shoving his hand away before you can stop yourself, not enough to really hurt, but enough that the gesture hangs in the air between you like a shattered glass note.

Your breath is now gone entirely.

There are a few beats where simply nothing happens.

Then his hand drops back.

You stare at him, your own hand hovering stupidly in midair as if all you have to do is snip your finger to turn back the time.

And Bucky—James—just looks at you. For a small moment, he simply looks startled, like a deer in the headlights of your rejection. He looks so tremendously confused, his face totally unglued, but then his eyes shift gears, shift into alarm, shift into a concern so much deeper than before. It seems as if your recoil has unhinged him. As if it has frightened him for an entirely different reason than the one clawing its way through your chest. As if it has confirmed something he’s only lived in a nightmare before.

His features warp into something resembling desperation, his mouth hanging open, his eyes wide and asking, and it is nauseating to watch—the way he’s already cobbling together a version of reality where he isn’t the monster you’re trying to run from.

He is misinterpreting your panic and it makes you sick.

He isn't thinking She knows what I am. His mind is sprinting in the exact opposite direction to protect itself.

He thinks the headache is actually a migraine that has you reacting strangely, or it’s a panic attack, or some hidden trauma he didn’t know about, and he is already frantically building a scenario where he gets to fix it. His mouth stays slightly open, his breath hitching as if he’s about to choke on his own breath. He looks around the empty office with this desperate, wild squint, his eyes darting to the corners of the room as if he expects to find a physical monster standing there—something he can actually put a bullet in to make you stop shaking.

“Alright,” he lets out, and his voice is completely broken, a rough, dry scrape that sounds like it is tearing his throat.

He doesn’t lunge for you or do something big. Instead, he actually hitches his weight backward, trying to make himself smaller, which is harrowing because he is still twice your size and wearing a suit that could be sprinkled with blood in under an hour. His hands stay out in front of him, palms up, fingers twitching with this jittery, helpless energy. He is looking at you with this forlorn begging in his widened eyes, practically pleading with them for you to blame it on the lights, or the noise, or anything else in the world—because the alternative is that he is the thing making you look at him like he’s an executioner.

You might be running out of time to pretend.

“I’m sorry, Bucky, I— I’m so sorry, I don’t—” You don’t even know what explanation you are going to give him now, only that you are suddenly full of the clumsy need to fill the room with words before the room fills with something worse, and so your mouth opens on instinct, on panic, on the miserable little scraps of sanity still fluttering inside you. You hear yourself stammer out some thin, transparent nonsense about feeling strange, about maybe being overwhelmed, about maybe needing air, maybe needing to go home, maybe nothing, because every excuse sounds flimsy the second it leaves you, and every sentence makes your spirit mulch and dissolve into a gray slurry that won’t hold a shape.

And Bucky is still so close and still so beautiful and still so racked with his brows pinched into a severe, pained knot. His eyes are full of shadows, and this is all so bad.

His softness somehow makes all of this worse, not better, because if he were cruel already, if he were cold already, if he gave you even one clean villain’s grin, one sharp look, one thread of honest menace, maybe your fear would have somewhere proper to sit.

But he only examines your features as though it truly physically aches him to see you like this, as though your panic has reached inside him and laid a dirty hand around his heart.

“Don’t apologize, sweetheart,” he starts, and he says it so quietly, with so much care, still, but also with a mounting unease that is just about to reach its peak. “I just wanna know what’s going on. Talk to me, baby. Please. I—” he breaks off with a sigh, his jaw grinding. “If something’s wrong, if something’s going on, then I gotta know.”

You swallow hard in hopes that anything might help soothe the sting behind your eyes. You don’t believe him, not fully anymore, but some humiliating, hopelessly romantic part of you still recognizes the cadence of the man who kissed your forehead this morning, the man who tucked a strand of hair behind your ear with the most tender hands, the man who remembered how you take your tea and which side you prefer to sleep on and the fact that you hate when socks twist inside your shoes.

It is unimaginable, it is desolating how tenderness can survive in the same body as terror, how your heart can continue making a fool of itself even while your mind is setting the whole house on fire.

“Bucky, really, I’m just...” Your voice hitches, the words sticking like thistles in your throat. You look down at his hands and they are so huge and capable, currently flexing with an empty urge to hold you. You know those hands have held weapons. You know they’ve ended lives and carried blood. But right now they are trembling because you won’t let them touch you.

You can feel yourself growing sharper and shakier by the second, every nerve in you pulled too tight, every breath arriving shallow and unhelpful, and still he keeps speaking to you in that quiet and gentle tone, asking whether it was something earlier, whether he pushed too far, whether he missed something, where exactly it hurts. You can’t tell him it’s your heart and not your head that is currently in shambles.

The concern in him seems real. That is the terrible part. It seems real enough to bruise. You shake your head too quickly. You try to smile and feel it crack before it even fully forms. You say you are just tired. You say you do not know. You say you are fine with the kind of desperate brightness you would use when standing on the edge of a roof insisting you are only admiring the view.

His gaze drops to the space you are slowly clearing between you, and his expression hardens. Gears are grinding behind his eyes and suddenly he looks like the man in the hallway, filled with command and so fucking terrifying, your pulse spikes to unhealthy numbers. He doesn’t look at you, he turns his head to look in the direction of the closed door, his posture squared.

“Did someone say something to you?” He asks, his tone dropping into a low, scraping register that makes the hairs on your arms stand up. “In the hall? Before I came out?”

You blink at him in disbelief. Does he think someone threatened you? Does he think one of his own men, or some interloper in his kingdom, stepped out of line with you? The fact that that would cause such an intense reaction in him makes you want to be catapulted straight out of here because this is genuinely just getting all too much. He seems about ready to tear his own house down to find the monster that scared you, completely unaware that he is the one wearing the monster’s skin.

You are about to open your mouth to improvise your way to freedom, when there is a brisk knock on the oak door and it makes your entire body jerk.

Bucky turns toward the noise, but not before you catch the brief, hot flare of irritation that darkens his features. He rises with all his coiled grace and contained force, and for half a second you just stare at his back, seeing even that differently now. He really is a tall man. He is immense. Broad. Space seems to make room for him as he steps to the door. God, what the hell did you walk yourself into. The only thought that gives you a tiny bit of ease is that there surely have to be other girls out there who would have fallen for it all, looking at him.

He cracks the door open. A man stands in the corridor holding a tray balanced with a folded stack of damp, cold towels, a bottle of water, and a blister pack of painkillers. And it’s weird how this would have struck you as absurdly thoughtful just hours before but now it feels sinister. It is purely ominous. It is comfort orchestrated by absolute authority; a display of care that only exists because of total, unquestioning submission.

Bucky, or James, or the most wanted mob boss of all time; thanks him, quickly, absently, not unkind but distracted, his thoughts still hooked to you so visibly that even the man at the door registers the tension.

And that man glances inside just enough to catch sight of you on the couch, sitting there sweating, pale, rigid as a hunted thing.

A manic urge strikes you to scream for help. You want to yell at this stranger to run, to call the precinct, or to simply throw you over his shoulder and get you the hell out of this building. But the impulse dies in your throat. It would be entirely useless. Every single person under this roof operates on his frequency. This man wouldn't take a single order from you even if it would be more of a plea than anything else. All of these people in this damn building listen to his every word. He wouldn’t do a thing to help you.

And before you can even let go of the fantasy, the man immediately drops his eyes again and leaves, because everyone in this house seems trained in the art of not seeing too much.

But you see too much now. That is the problem. That is the irreversible thing.

Because while Bucky’s back is turned, while he takes the tray and shuts the door with his shoulder and crosses toward the sideboard, your gaze begins to snag on the office around you with new eyes, and suddenly nothing is only furniture anymore.

Nothing is only decoration. All the wood in here is dark and expensive, perhaps even that is getting paid to stay silent, and there are details you would once have filed away as masculine and stylish.

But now everything is imposing. Everything reads as evidence.

Like that locked cabinet that is too reinforced to hold unimportant paperwork. There is a map pinned behind glass with inked markings that look less like commerce and more like a tactical grid. A stack of files sits bound with a suspicious kind of neatness. Then there is a heavy antique letter opener glinting on the desk like a civilized version of a threat.

Even the art on the walls seems changed, the frames too severe, the subjects too stern, everything in here curated by a man who does not simply possess things but controls them. He dictates outcomes. He governs people. His office is a single spider web woven from all this darkened wood and his suits, and you are the only thing inside it that is still vibrating, sending signals straight to the center where he stands, and it is making your skin grow cold in patches.

He is opening the water bottle for you.

That tiny, stupid gesture nearly does it—the torturous way he makes this all so normal and so intimate when he says, “Here, baby,” without turning yet, as if this is still salvageable, as if you are merely unwell and he is merely worried and the world has not already split clean down the middle.

Something primitive detonates inside you, and perhaps if it were a conscious thought or a decision or just some other thing in a civilized sense, maybe you wouldn’t do what you are doing, but your body is revolting before your mind can dress the fear in language, and you’re up.

Oh god, you’re up.

You’re off the couch, you’re on your feet, and now there’s no going back, now there’s no sitting down because now you sprang up and now you will run. You will run because the suddenness of your own movement has chosen the path for you.

Without looking back, without another word, your feet move you to the door and they move so fast, the room is moving with you, your vision is filled with streaks. Your hand fumbles blindly before finding the door handle, wrenching it open, and then you are sprinting.

“You love me, you say. You love me, you say. You love me, you say. Then why are you shaking?”

- Richard Siken

A/n: I know this is basically one single scene and I truly don’t know how I managed to make it this long. I always add unnecessary details and emotional spirals wherever possible but I worry that I sit in the emotions for too long sometimes.

So please feel free to let me know if the emotional introspection and all those feelings got to be a little too much at any point because I know I tend to ramble and take a while getting to the point in my writing and it’s getting a little frustrating. Hearing what you guys think would be really helpful 🫶🏻

And if you enjoy my writing and would like to support me, please feel free to consider my ko-fi

"My apologies, but I need to borrow Miss Yuu for awhile." Kifaji said simply, turning his ominous smile to you.

"What for?" Leona practically growled, putting a hand on your shoulder before you could even think to step away from the group.

"On such short notice, we could not procure an outfit for her." Kifaji explained, folding his hands behind his back. "I, however, did not want her to feel left out, so I made arrangements which are now ready. I will return her at your next destination."

"It's fine, Leona." You tried to assure him, patting his hand gently. "I do feel a little left out of the fun."

Leona clicked his tongue in annoyance before releasing your shoulder and crossing his arms.

"We're headed to Ivory Springs after this. Do not be late." He directed the command at Kifaji rather than you.

"B-But, Yuu look at this! And these!" Grim was actually drooling over the meat in the stall, turning back to you with tears in his eyes that practically begged you to let him stay.

You sighed heavily and shook your head. "Vil, can you keep Grim out of trouble for me? I won't be long."

"Of course." Vil nodded, glancing down at the direbeast as he cheered and danced around in a little circle. "I'll try my best to not let him eat through Leona's entire fortune."

"Good enough for me." You chuckled before turning to Kifaji, who smiled again and held an arm out for you to lead the way out of the markets.

You walked side by side with Kifaji to the entrance of the market, only for him to place a hand on your upper back to direct you towards a waiting black car just up the street. As you approached, a beastwoman in full guard regalia opened the back door for you to enter. You thanked her quietly before stepping into the blissfully air conditioned car, Kifaji getting in on the other side.

"It's not that far to the hotel," you chuckled as the driver reentered the car, "and I'm not as prone to heatstroke as Jack is."

"Oh, we aren't going to the hotel." Kifaji said, as if just remembering he "forgot" to tell you about it.

"Oh?"

There was a minute of silence as he didn't answer your unspoken question. A few turns through the city, he broke it, turning to you with a pleasant smile.

"Tell me, Yuu, what is the nature of your relationship with Prince Leona?"

You were shocked for a moment at the bluntness of the question. "Is this because I'm the only girl? Because I can assure you, we're all friends--"

"My apologies, that isn't what I meant." He cut you off with a small chuckle and a lift of his hand. "If you'd humor me?"

"I mean... we're friends? Friendly, at least." You explained, wringing your hands in your lap. "He's helped me out of a few tough spots, I've helped him. We hang out on occasion. He's nice, I dunno." You wouldn't dare say it out loud, especially to the chamberlain, but you sometimes secretly wished there was more there.

He gave you a warm smile, much like a father would give to a daughter talking about her crush. "I see. As you well know, I've seen to Leona since the day he was born, and I haven't seen him so... protective of someone since... well, ever. That boy has never exactly been friendly, let alone "nice" to just about anyone since his mother passed. It's refreshing to see."

You could feel your face getting hotter with each word the chamberlain said. You desperately wanted the subject to change. "S-So, if we aren't going to the hotel, where are we going?"

"The Royal Palace." Kifaji said casually, as if you were on your way to some unnamed park.

"What?! Why?"

"As I said, I made arrangements for your outfit. You need to look the part to represent your team!" He said, another sly smile on his face as he pumped his fist in front of him in an imitation cheer. "And, I regret to say, you stick out like a sore thumb among those boys."

"But-- I-I thought-- we--"

"And here we are. A short drive, is it not? The walk would have been significantly longer."

You looked out the window at the palace, a grand stone building at the top of the hill. It almost looked as if it were carved out of the rock itself. You were startled out of your thoughts as the driver opened your door for you again, the chamberlain outside waiting to give you a hand out. You thanked them both as you took the offered hand and stepped out, following Kifaji closely as he walked.

"So, uh... just pop in, change clothes, and head back down to the market, yeah?" You asked nervously as you glanced at the guards you passed by, feeling eyes on your back.

"Just so." Kifaji assured you, another sly smile as he stopped at a large set of doors already opened, swinging a hand out for you to go first.

You weren't sure what was about to happen. Maybe you'd be thrown in a dungeon for fraternizing with their prince, or maybe they meant to keep you here until Leona himself came to find you, or--

"There she is!" A booming and excited voice came from across the room as you entered, startling you to turn and look.

A mound of long ginger hair twisted into braids was running up to greet you, perched atop a muscle-bound mountain of a man. He was dressed similarly to Leona, but wearing white instead of black, still adorned in gold, an enormous smile on his face. The guards at the door stood at attention as he got to your side of the room, clasping your hand quickly in a firm and enthusiastic handshake.

"You must be the girl Kifaji told me so much about!" He beamed at you, reminding you so much of Kalim in this moment. Wait.

"So much?" You parroted, looking at Kifaji, who simply shrugged.

"Oh, you must tell me how you got Leona to be so... docile? That isn't the right word. He listens to you?! Insane!" The man rambled, still holding onto your hand. "You must tell me everything!"

"Falena, you'll scare the poor girl." Another voice rang out from the other side of the room.

The man, Falena, finally released your hand and turned to see the woman walking towards you. She was elegant and gorgeous and so poised, dressed in similar colors and patterns to her husband, also adorned in gold. You suddenly felt very intimidated as you finally realized just where you were standing.

"Oh, but my love," Falena sighed, still smiling, "think of everything we could learn! What's Leona like at school, anyhow?"

"H-He, uh..." you hesitated as the woman joined her husband’s side. It probably wasn't a good idea to tell them exactly how he was, and it wasn't a good idea to lie. Rock and a hard place. "He's certainly there."

Falena let out a booming laugh at this, his wife joining in with a laugh that sounded like bells in the large chamber.

"We know of Leona's troubles at school." She assured you, holding out a hand to shake. "I am Shani, and I'm sure my husband, Falena, did not introduce himself before launching into his questioning."

"I'm Yuu," you said, gently grabbing her hand and shaking it, "a pleasure."

"Likewise." She smiled warmly at you as you both retracted your hands. "Kifaji has asked me to dress you for the occasion."

"The festival?"

"Leona brought a girl home!" Falena cut in, the smile surely cemented on his face at this point. "A sign things are turning around for my little brother, to be sure!"

"O-Oh! No, wait, I'm--" You practically choked on your words trying to get them out fast enough, feeling your face burning again, "Leona and I aren't a couple!"

"I know! But everything Kifaji told us over the phone just makes it all the more interesting!" He gushed grabbing your shoulders. "Forgive me for being forward, but you smell like him! You must be together often!"

"I-I just keep watch while he naps, it's not like we--"

"Falena. You are making her nervous." Shani said sharply, trying to hide her amused smile as she swatted his hands off you and looped her arm into yours. "Come, we should get you into something else before Leona comes looking for you."

She didn't wait for a response before pulling you off towards the door she came through. You glanced back to Kifaji and Falena, seeing them both smiling at you, though Kifaji's looked nefarious. You faced forward again, looking up at the glamorous woman holding your arm, still amazed that you'd just met the crown prince and princess. Shani led you down the hall and into a large bedroom, turning quickly into a nearly equally large closet. Gorgeous outfits-- if you were to judge just based on the fabric-- lined the walls on either side, the far wall was large, open windows looking over the expanse of the savanna, and the wall behind was adorned with large mirrors. You couldn't help but be impressed as Shani practically floated across the room and picked up a dress that was already waiting on a chair and held it up for you.

"I hope you don't mind, I already picked something out for you." She explained as she approached. "Don't worry about the length, we can work with it however we need. This is going home with you."

"What? No, I couldn't." You said quickly as she deposited the dress in your hands.

"Do you see where we are right now? You absolutely can." She laughed, gesturing to the lines of clothes. "Go ahead and get changed, I'll be right outside, just let me know when you're ready."

Her nose scrunched up adorably in her excitement as she smiled even wider at your for a moment, her hands clapping under her chin once before she exited the room, closing the door behind her. Alone, you sighed at the absolute whirlwind you'd just gone through. You turned to the large mirrors on the closest wall and held the dress up to your body. It would definitely be long, but Shani was a tall woman who seemed to like wearing heels, so you weren't terribly surprised. Resigned to your fate, you began to change out of your current outfit. The dress had very thin straps, so your sports bra would have to go. Once actually in the dress, it fit remarkably well, other than the length. The thin straps spread down into a V neck and stretched to the skirt in the back, the skirt itself starting a little below the bust, similar to a halter top. You couldn't help but notice the patterns on the fabric coordinated to Leona's cloak, bright orange and black not helping the case. You folded your clothes into a neat pile in front of the mirror, honestly a little relieved how well the dress held up to movement, no risk of spilling out the sides or front when lifting your arms or bending over.

"Shani? I'm ready." You called to the door, hiking the skirt up to walk over.

She entered the room again with an excited smile, looking you up and down as you stood there.

"You are definitely shorter than me." She laughed as you let the skirt go, a few inches of fabric bundling up at your feet. "But we can fix that, easy. Ten minutes. First!" She walked over to a chest of drawers, pulling off a length of fabric she'd set on top. "Do you know how to wrap your hair? Keep it off your neck and out of your eyes."

"I do not." You shook your head prompting her to wave you off.

"I can teach you, it's very easy." She smiled, joining you at the mirror again.

She turned you to face the mirror, standing behind you and draping the fabric over your shoulders. She undid the braid your hair was always in, gently combing the knots out of your hair with her fingers.

"I always used to do this with my little sisters." She explained softly as she styled your hair to the top of your head in a large bun. "I love Cheka with all my heart and soul, but I do so hope we have a little girl some day, I miss having girls around to dress up with and do hair and everything."

"What, Cheka doesn't let you do his hair?" You smiled at her in the mirror as she began wrapping the scarf, making sure you were carefully watching her steps.

She laughed brightly. "He does! But as he gets older he may not. Plus, there isn’t exactly a ton of hair to work with, he prefers to keep it short."

"No, I get what you mean though." You said fondly. "I used to have my mom do my hair all the time, but she was always there to fix it when I eventually took it out and complained about it being in my face."

"Where are you from, by the way?"

Your face fell at the question. "It doesn't really matter. Crowley doesn't seem like he's able to send me back anyhow."

Shani looked like she was about to press further, but stopped herself. "There, all done." She said with another warm smile as she smoothed out some of the wrinkles in the turban style she'd done. "Not half bad, if I do say so myself."

"It looks great, thank you." You were smiling again, not pointing out the, again, same fabric Leona had on his scarf. Maybe it was a common pattern? You somehow doubted it.

"Now, I have a few accessories for you to tie it all together." She explained, walking over to a shelf opposite the chest of drawers. "I will have you put these on to see how they look, then you give me the dress and I will hem the bottom up for you."

"Thank you for this, Shani." You said sincerely, turning to look at her with a warm smile. "You really didn't have to go to these lengths."

"Nonsense, a friend of Leona's is a friend of ours." She assured you. "We want to make sure you enjoy your first time to the Sunset Savanna to the fullest."

..

Leona and the others had arrived at the palace, Leona planning to swipe a car to avoid having to take Kifaji with them. However, to his surprise, Kifaji was already outside speaking with one of the guards at the door.

"Oh for fucks sake..." Leona growled as he connected the dots.

"What?" Kalim asked, glancing over to the chamberlain. "Oh, it's Kifaji! Hey Kifaji!"

The chamberlain looked up in surprise at the call of his name, locking eyes with a furious Leona and giving him another sly smile.

"Wait here." Leona snapped at the group, not giving them a chance to protest before marching over to the door. "What the hell?!"

"Ah, Prince Leona." Kifaji said coolly as the guard stood at attention for the prince's approach. "I was under the impression you were not coming home during your visit."

"That why you brought Yuu here?" He spat. "Thought you were goin' to the hotel."

"I don't recall ever saying my arrangements were at the hotel." Kifaji said, though the infuriating smile and raise of his eyebrows suggested he knew exactly what he was up to.

Leona pinched the bridge of his nose, muttering expletives under his breath before looking back up. "Where is Yuu? We're goin'."

"She is changing, currently. You and your friends are more than welcome to wait inside, if you'd prefer."

"Yeah, ya’d like that, wouldn’t ya. Did Falena put you up to thi--"

"UNCA!"

Leona nearly instinctively side stepped the little ball of fiery orange that flung itself into his arms, grunting as the fuzzball impacted into his abdomen. Kifaji, while now safe from the verbal lashing Leona wanted to deal out, was not safe from the deadly glare that was shot his way.

“Quit clingin’ to me like that! Knock it off!” Leona snapped halfheartedly at his nephew who, undeterred by the tone, continued to beam up at him.

“I got so excited when I heard you were coming home!” The boy chirped quickly, grabbing his uncle’s hand and swinging it back and forth. “Can I hang out with you guys?”

Leona ignored the amused muttering of his schoolmates behind him as he rolled his eyes at the child’s antics.

Cheka continued, still swinging Leona’s arm around. “Mama said to be on the lookout for you! Do you wanna come play with me? We could play tag, or hide-and-seek, or--”

“Cheka.” Leona snarled, finally making the boy stop. “What was that about your mother?”

“Oh… I wasn’t supposed to tell.”

“Oh for fff…” Leona let the curse fizzle out into a loud grumble, trying to rub away the headache blooming in his temple. Of course it was Shani’s idea.

“I should go tell Mama you’re here!” Cheka said excitedly, darting off before Leona could stop him.

..

You slipped into the newly hemmed dress, a new length of fabric now flaring out the bottom that, once again, highly suspiciously matched the fabric of Leona's pants. Three times makes a pattern, damn if it didn't look good though. You were about to call out to Shani when you heard giggling through the door, and a boy's voice talking. You waited a moment before Shani knocked, sounding amused.

"All ready in there?" She called out.

"Yeah, ready." You called back, prompting her to enter the room.

Her smile grew ever wider as she looked at your outfit. "I've one more thing, and we need to be quick. Seems we've been found out."

There was a small gasp as Shani walked into the room, a tiny mess of ginger hair standing in the bedroom.

"I remember you!" Cheka said excitedly. "You're Unca's friend! From school!"

"I am! It's nice to see you again, Cheka!" You replied just as enthusiastically as Shani pulled one more thing off the shelf.

"It's nice to see you too! You match Unca!"

"I knew I wasn't crazy!" You nearly shouted, turning to Shani as your face burned again. She at least had the decency to look a little guilty.

"Yuu, you are a beautiful girl in an unfamiliar place." She explained, walking forward and wrapping something around your waist. "These are recognizable patterns of the leader of the Sunset Warriors, of the second prince, no one would dare do anything to you while you are wearing these."

"Do anything?" You echoed as she fastened the belt, which matched the rest of the boys'.

"Swindle you, pickpocket, worse." She listed grimly as she adjusted your necklace. "Sunrise City is as safe a city as any during a heavy tourist season. We want you to enjoy your time here, not wonder where your wallet may have gone."

"I..." you sighed heavily. "I get that. Thank you, really. This is all very generous."

"You can pay me back by marrying my brother in law." Shani teased as she exited the closet, making your face burn tenfold.

"Hey!"

"YOU AND UNCA ARE GETTING MARRIED?!"

"Oops…"

Cheka insisted you carry him through the halls, Shani nearly telling him to return to his studies before you assured her that it was fine. You spent the entire walk trying to explain to the boy that, no, you were not marrying his uncle. Cheka, however, kept talking about the imaginary wedding and all the things you needed to have there. You resigned yourself to not stopping him. He was talking about the cake when you entered the large room you'd first met Falena and Shani.

"Aha! There she is! A much more appropriate look for your guest, don't you agree, brother?" Falena said, prompting you to turn your gaze from Cheka to him, looking just in time to watch him clap Leona on the back.

Leona said nothing, just staring for a moment before clicking his tongue and looking away. You took this as annoyance for a moment before Cheka spoke up.

"Unca, unca!" Cheka said excitedly from your arms. "When you two get married you need to have a BIG cake, okay? And there needs to be chocolate, and 'biscus, and--"

"Married?" He asked incredulously, turning back to look at the boy, not able to hide the red on his cheeks now, before looking to Shani. "What did you do?"

"Children have impressive imaginations, don't they?" She asked pleasantly, taking Cheka from your arms to hers. "Thank you for letting me dress you, Yuu."

"Thank you for dressing me," you smiled at her, ignoring the burning on your own cheeks, "it was fun."

She smiled before taking your hand and leaning in to whisper to you. "If you cannot go home for school holidays, our home is open to you, just say the word."

You nearly teared up at this, simply nodding and squeezing her hand. "Thanks for everything, Shani."

Falena laughed as you walked over to join him and Leona, who had his arms crossed tightly over his chest. "I'd give you some words of warning, but you seem to know how to handle my brother better than I do at this point!"

"He's not so bad." You chuckled as he pointedly refused to look at you. "It was nice to meet you, Falena."

"You too! Come back anytime!" He beamed down at you before Leona grabbed your arm and started dragging you out of the room.

You waved back to the crown prince and princess as you were hauled out of the room and into the hall. Leona dragged you towards the entrance before making a sharp left a few doors down into another hallway.

"Leona--?"

"Shut up."

Your mouth closed with a clack of your teeth at his words, and you suddenly felt ashamed of your actions. Were you supposed to text him an SOS as soon as you realized where you were? When you realized what was happening? Before you could think about it further, he dragged you into a room at the end of the hall and shut the door, quickly caging you with his arms against it.

"What did they tell you?" He growled low, a dangerous tone you'd only heard a few times since you first stepped on his tail in the garden.

"N-Nothing--"

"Don't play dumb with me right now, herbivore, what did they say?"

"Kifaji and Falena kept saying that you're nice to me, and Shani said if I wore your patterns I'm less likely to get robbed." You said quickly, omitting her comment about marriage. "I was mostly with Shani, we talked about her sisters and my mom and the outfit, that's it."

His green eyes stared into your soul for a moment before he grumbled something under his breath, leaning forward to press his forehead against the wall next to your head.

"Leona?"

"Shani thinks she's funny." He said quietly, you could feel his breath against your ear as he spoke. "Makin' you match me, in public no less..."

"I'm sure she didn't mean anything by it--"

"Are you?" He asked, pulling back to look you in the eyes again, closer this time. "She's making fun of me."

"She's not."

"You don't know her."

"She's not making fun of you." You whispered, not breaking eye contact.

"You don't know what I say in those phone calls home." He muttered back. "Lemme guess, Shani already had that dress picked out for you, as if she plucked it from her own closet."

"...Yes?"

"You think the crown princess would ever wear the second-born's pattern?" He leaned in again, his jaw bumping your cheek as he moved to whisper in your ear. "She had that made for you, on purpose, for the day you eventually showed up."

"W-What do you say... in the calls home...?" You asked hesitantly, resisting the urge to reach your arms around him.

"Too much, apparently." He chuckled softly, lips grazing the shell of your ear. You felt like you would combust into flames any second. "Looks good on you though... suits you."

"L-Leona?"

He pulled back again, close enough to bump noses. "We have to get to the springs, otherwise our resident pretty princess won't play tomorrow." He whispered, still making no move to pull away.

"What..." your wet your suddenly very dry lips, not missing how Leona's eyes flicked down for just a second to catch the motion, "what did you mean by "when I eventually showed up...?""

"I said, don't play dumb, Yuu. You think I let just anyone braid my hair? You think I didn't notice that you do that while I'm tryin' to sleep?" He chuckled again, his grin almost looking like he was just flashing his teeth at you. "I pretend to not notice a lot of things."

"I'm not just anyone...?"

"You haven't been "just anyone" for awhile now." He muttered leaning in just a little closer, his nose brushing against yours gently before he stopped. "We need to go."

He let the moment hang in the minuscule amount of air between you for a second longer before finally pulling away, glancing over your outfit again as he did, making a triumphant little noise.

"Looks good on you." He muttered again before grabbing you by the arm to pull you away from the door.

Once you were out of the way, he opened the door again and walked out into the hallway, leaving you feeling like your knees were about to give out. With a moment to look around the room, you realized he'd pulled you into a bedroom that looked a little too similar to his back at the college.

"Herbivore." He barked from down the hall, kick starting you again.

"Y-Yeah!" You called back before hiking your skirt and jogging to catch up to him again.

If your friends, namely Vil, noticed the similarities between your outfit and Leona's, they were gracious enough not to say anything about it. You were, however, highly complimented on it, Kalim making a point to spin you around to see the dress twirl. Kifaji had a very self satisfied look on his face off to the side, which was quickly wiped away when Leona finally announced his plan to leave him in the dust.

..

Back at Night Raven College, you and Leona went back to your normal routine as if nothing had ever happened. You almost wondered if it had been a very sweet dream until you saw the dress in your closet again. You grabbed the skirt, rubbing the fabric between your thumb and index finger, as if to remind yourself that it was real. It had happened.

"What? You longin' for the Sunset Savanna again?" Grim asked from your bed, you'd nearly forgotten he was there. "I am. You really missed out on that meat, hench-human. I wouldn't mind goin' back."

"Yeah... me neither." You sighed, releasing the dress. You stared at it longingly for another moment before shutting the closet door to continue getting ready for bed. A very sweet dream indeed.

I DO NOT GIVE PERMISSION TO USE MY WORK TO TRAIN AI

pt.2 :: pt.3 :: pt.4

“best currency i’ve got.” he grins, lazy and smug, then groans when you drop down harder, taking him to the hilt. his head tips back for a second, throat working. “shit—yeah, just like that. fuck, you feel so good. so warm. so tight. christ, i’m obsessed with this cunt.”

you can’t help the laugh that bubbles out, a little breathless. “you say that every time.”

“because it’s true every time.” his other hand grips your ass, encouraging the slow grind you’ve settled into. “i could live here. never leave. just keep you seated on me twenty-four seven.”

“romantic.”

“i try.”

you lean down, kissing him messy and open-mouthed, tongues lazy, more breath than anything. when you pull back he’s still smirking, eyes half-lidded, looking far too pleased with himself.

“you’re so chatty tonight,” you tease, rolling your hips in a slow circle that makes his breath hitch. “usually you’re just grunting and calling me a good girl.”

“i can multitask,” he says, voice dropping lower. “good girl.”

there it is.

you pick up the pace a little, chasing that particular angle that makes your toes curl. his hands slide up your sides, thumbs brushing the undersides of your breasts before he cups them fully, bringing one to his mouth. he sucks the nipple gently at first, then harder, tongue flicking, teeth grazing just enough to sting. you moan, fingers threading into his hair, tugging lightly.

“there she is,” he murmurs against your skin, switching to the other breast. “my favorite sound.”

you’re both laughing softly between gasps now, trading stupid little barbs that don’t even make sense anymore.

“you’re— ngh—such a menace.”

“takes one to know one.”

“shut up and suck harder.”

“yes ma’am.”

it’s easy, light, familiar. the kind of sex where you can still make fun of each other and mean the praise at the same time.

then something shifts.

you grind down particularly deep, clenching on the upstroke the way you know drives him insane, and his whole body locks up for a second. not in the usual oh-fuck-i’m-gonna-come way. different. quieter.

his hands slide around your back, pulling you down until your chests are flush. he buries his face in the crook of your neck, nose pressed to your pulse, arms banding tight around your ribs like he’s trying to fuse you together. you feel the first shaky inhale against your skin.

then another.

then the softest, wettest sniffle.

you freeze.

everything stills—your hips, your breathing, the lazy rock of the bed. you can feel his cock still throbbing inside you, but the rest of him has gone strangely fragile.

“suguru?” your voice comes out smaller than you mean it to. you try to pull back so you can see his face but he won’t let you, just tightens his hold, keeps his mouth pressed to your throat.

another sniffle, muffled.

your heart does something painful and lopsided. “hey. did i—did i hurt you? shit, i’m sorry, i didn’t mean to—”

he shakes his head once, quick. “no. no, baby, you didn’t.” his voice is rough, thick. “just—fuck. just love you so much.”

you blink.

he pulls back just enough that you can finally see him. cheeks flushed, eyes glassy and red at the rims, long lashes clumped together. his mouth is soft, trembling at the corners like he’s fighting not to let more sound out. he looks wrecked in a way that has nothing to do with orgasm and everything to do with whatever just cracked open behind his ribs.

“sorry,” he mutters, laughing once, wet and embarrassed. “didn’t mean to kill the mood. you just—felt so good and i looked up at you and—” he swallows hard. “i don’t know. got hit with it all at once.”

you cup his face, thumbs brushing under his eyes. “you’re crying.”

“no, yeah.” he huffs another small laugh, turning his head to kiss your palm. “stupid, right? i’m literally inside you and i’m crying like a teen.”

“not stupid.” you lean down, kiss the corner of his eye, taste salt. “sweet. really sweet.”

he groans, half mortified, half pleased, and pulls you back down so your foreheads touch. “i love you,” he says again, quieter this time, like it’s a secret he’s only just allowed himself to say out loud. “so fucking much. like—can’t even think straight when i’m with you. can’t imagine not being with you. and your cunt is perfect and your laugh is perfect and the way you make fun of me is perfect and i just—” another shaky breath. “i got overwhelmed. sorry.”

you smile against his mouth. “don’t apologize.”

“i ruined the porno.”

“you made it better.”

he snorts softly, finally loosening his death grip so you can sit up a little. his hands settle on your hips again, gentler now. “can we just… stay like this for a minute? don’t wanna come yet. just wanna feel you.”

you nod, settling your weight more fully onto him, letting him stay buried deep while you stroke his hair back from his face. “yeah. we can stay like this as long as you want.”

he closes his eyes, lets out a long, slow breath, and presses one more kiss to your collarbone.

“thank you,” he whispers.

you don’t say anything back. just keep carding your fingers through his hair, rocking ever so slightly—not to chase anything, just to remind him you’re still here.

If only that wound wasn't distracting you from his perfectly built and proportioned body, you would be staring at how droplets fell from his chest, down to his abs, and how low that towel was hanging loosely around his waist with his very evident v-line—.

"Leona!" you caught yourself while rubbing your face. You were staring, STARING at something else. Get a grip on yourself; your husband is WOUNDED.

"What?" he exhaled through his nose while he tossed the smaller towel in the dryer.

"What?" you repeated with the most dumbfounded expression you could make, "What?!" you exclaimed this time as you looked at him in disbelief.

"Quit the yelling," he clicked his tongue and clamped his wet hair in a messy hairdo.

"Leona—" You couldn't even create a full sentence. He was that nonchalant. You would only irritate him with endless questions and the wound would be exposed to more bacteria. "Sit down, will you?" you groaned and stood up from the bed.

Without any complaint, he obeyed and sat down. An elbow hoisted on the side table while you wrang the towel dry. The wound was already cleaned during his bath but the liquid the towel absorbed consisted of some antiseptic the elders would use to their wounded soldiers.

"Now stay still."

You leaned down; seeing the wound closer and seeing how deeply red it was. You wondered how he didn't grow faint with blood loss or even know how much it bled. You held onto his broad shoulder and just did one small and gentle pat.

"Fuck!" he jolted and hissed which sent you jumping yourself.

"Oh, now it hurts?!" you scoffed and patted again only for him to hold your wrist and glare at you with a grit to his teeth.

"Stop it," he growled yet it did not intimidate you the slightest.

"No. You stop moving so we could get this over with!" You pulled your wrist away from him, readying your tail in case you needed to swat his hands again. He was harder to tend to than Cheka, a KID!

"It's already fucking clean already. You don't need that shit!" he growled again as he got a grip on your wrist again. It stung, it really did stung but that's the purpose of the antiseptic the maids gave you. It was able to clean the wound further.

"I wouldn't be doing this if you didn't get it in the first place!" You pulled your hand away from him again and made your tail wrap around his wrist. Swiftly and firmly — yet keeping a gentle pressure — you pressed the damp cloth on his wound again.

Leona hissed and grunted under his breath as he looked down at you tending on his wound. Well fuck, it did sting when he cleaned in during his bath but it was nothing compared to the sting now. The more you dressed his wound the lesser it stung until it was tolerable enough.

You looked up at him with furrowed eyebrows before looking back down on his chest. The laceration would definitely scar alright. It started from the top of his left nipple and nearly down towards his right nipple. It definitely look like someone scratched your husband. It wasn't just one scratch after all.

With a sigh, and after seeing him relax, you tossed the towel back into the basin and grabbed the ointment.

"How did you get that anyways?" you asked softly while collecting the ointment in a cotton pad. "You scared me when one of the guards came running in with your shirt bleeding."

"Damn leopard."

"L...Leopard?" you questioningly blinked at Leona who leaned on his cheek. He was visibly irritated and his tailed flicked in annoyance.

"Damn brat decided it was a good idea to jump on me while I was outside," he scowled, remembering how a juvenile leopard around adolescent years attacked him. "He fucking claimed I was disturbing his hunt when there wasn't even any prey in that area. It was ridiculous and shitty."

"And you fought back, I assume?" you sighed and kneeled down in between his legs.

"You think I'd let him just attack me like that?" he scoffed. "Didn't even stand a chance."

"And you decided to come home all bloody and wounded looking like you didn't care while I paled in worry." You shaked your head as you dabbed the white substance on his chest. "If you're like this, how did you leave that leopard in?"

"Ran away like he wasn't a predator himself. Pathetic."

"Leona."

"I barely touched him, got it? All I did was stare him down. Thinking he was scary when he's facing a lion," he scoffed again this time with a smirk as he leaned back with his arms behind him. "I would've been amused."

You glared at him through your eyelashes. His prideful nature never changed — though admittedly, it is attractive. Your other hand held onto his thigh for support before lightly dabbing the ointment on his wound. He hissed again.

"Can't you do this painlessly? It's starting to itch."

"Nope," you deadpanned and made sure the whole wound from the first scratch to the third.

You two fell into a comfortable silence while you remained concentrated on dressing the wound. You believed it would heal faster and the thought of seeing the scar sent shivers up your spine. Leona isn't one to be exactly caring when it comes to wounds and bruises on his body. Just as long as it doesn't bother him. He's just as thick-skinned as any other lion out there.

You didn't hear him let out any noise of discomfort anymore after dressing the final wound. You figured it didn't hurt anymore and, notably, it will not hurt the next day. Best he slept without a shirt tonight to not add any more pressure to the wound. Did that bother you? Not really. More warmth from his body.

Noting his silence you looked up at his face to see his half-lidded eyes staring down at you. You thought he was in a daze — which was less likely. You always found his gaze, his eyes, compliment his handsome nature more appealingly. Maybe he was growing sleepy—

"You look good in between my legs like that."

"Fuck you!" You punched his shoulder out of instinct and stood up with burning cheeks. Despite feeling flustered, this was nothing new to you. You've done everything a husband and wife would do in bed. He was one of the, if not the most, striking lions in the savannah. Anyone married to a tall, dark, and handsome man would still end up receiving butterflies. Cliché but where's the lie?

"Stop laughing!" your voice cracked as you grabbed the bandages and stiffly walked back to him.

"If you wanted it that bad, just ask." He pulled you closer by the wrist. "Don't think I didn't catch you staring when I came out of the bathroom."

"I hate it that you know how attractive you are and I hate it that you're using it against me and I hate it that you're my absolute weakness." You exhaled through your nose with puffed cheeks before wrapping your arms around him chest and pulling the bandages around his back.

"See? You're tempting me." You caught his eyes staring at your loose shirt — his shirt — and your chest was literally for show.

"You'll get it later after I wrap this around you. Now be a good husband and stay still."

You have no idea what you just spat but you know you have to get ready for a long night. After a few more minutes of wrapping his chest, you locked the end of the bandage and admired your work. Now, Leona's wound is wrapped up and you forgot he was literally still naked.

"Done." You grinned, proud at yourself that you were able to pull off basic first aid.

"I'm not."

Leona grabbed the leftover bandage from your hand and tossed it away. Easily pulling you to the bed with you hovering him and him on his back. You sat on his torso and crossed your arms. "Oh. We are." You tried to get off, however, he kept his hands on your thighs.

"Now you stay still."

Fuck.

© 𝐣𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐦𝐢-𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞 2021.

“Do I really have to repeat myself?” He groaned, shoving his face in his hands. It was the first time you’ve ever seen Leona flustered, and you can’t deny that it was amusing. Shoving you to the side, he groaned, “Get that look off your face, herbivore.”

Chuckling, you set out the food you made and said calmly with a shrug of your shoulders and an amused smile, “Well, in my defense, it's not every day you get to see the Leona Kingscholar, so shy.”

“I’m not shy.” Leona grumbled. Taking one of the boxes of food, he began to pick at it like a child.

Poking him with your fork, you scolded lightly, “Leona don’t pick at your food just because you're embarrassed.”

“Jeez, what are you my mom?” Leona huffed.

“If I have to, sure.” You said bluntly. Hearing him huff and sigh, you put down your food and stared at him seriously. With a frown, you asked, “Leona, seriously, I don’t mind going with you. If anything it could be very informational.”

He was silent for a second, before groaning loudly. Flopping down to the ground, he covered his eye with his forearm. A deep scowl embedded on his face.

Picking up your food again, you took and bite. Letting him solve his internal battle. An idea popped into your mind that you knew would get a reaction from him. With a teasing smile, you cooed, “Or is it that you’re too embarrassed to be seen with a herbivore such as myself, hmm? You scared another predator might take interest in me~?”

While you were expecting Leona to grow flustered, you got the total opposite reaction. Sitting back up swiftly, he looked you dead in the eye and deadpanned, “As if someone would take interest in you.”

“And that's the Leona I know.” You said softly. Though if you were to be honest, you did feel a little offended but chalked it up to his remark. You weren’t expecting a grand display about you being his, or whatever. No way. “Then why are you so grumbly about it?”

“It's just Farena expecting me to…to…”

“To?”

“Ugh! It’s stupid royal shit that is complete bullshit!” Leona exclaimed. It shocked you to see him so worked up over this. He’s normally so unbothered by everything. This must really be messing with him.

Blinking away your surprise, you scooted over and placed your hand on his. Staring into his emerald eyes, you coaxed, “Hey, you don’t have to explain. Take your time, Leona, I won’t rush you, okay.” Looking deep into his eyes, you smiled, “I’m here for you, Leona. Don’t forget that.”

He stared at you in shock. His sleepy eyes glowing with emotions you couldn’t pinpoint. Calming down, he averted his gaze and stared off to the side, he murmured “Your breath stinks.”

“Leona!”

Undeniable signs that they are into each other (in case Deuce acts like an idiot and doubts my plan) 

The prefect is always spending time at the Savanaclaw dorm. There must be a reason they choose it over Heartslabyul, where TWO of their best friends reside.

Last time we went over, we literally found a Savanaclaw uniform mixed in the prefect’s laundry. They're already dating in all but name!

Asked the prefect last time what their type was: tall, strong, has a secret soft side. Who else fits all the criteria if not Jack?

They're always talking among themselves when we’re hanging out as a group. 

They always have this stupid lovesick look on their faces whenever they get a notification. I bet my lunch money they're texting each other.

T

“T?” 

“Trein confiscated it before I could finish writing that line.” He scratched his head. “The point is, the signs are right in front of us! Or are you so blind that you can’t see it?”

“I'm not blind-”

Ace sighed. “I know that you don’t have a lot of experiences when it comes to romance, but still-”

“Wrong! I had a whole group of admirers back when I was… ugh. Nevermind, it's not something I'm proud of. I am capable of picking up signs of romantic interest, and my expertise tells me… that you are right. They are interested in each other!”

How gullible. Ace had to stifle his urge to laugh. “I am honored that you deem my opinion valid, oh great romance expert. So are you on board or not?”

Success was pretty much in the bag, but he asked nonetheless, watching as Deuce struggled with his conscience. Finally, with a stern look, he nodded. “I’m in, for the happiness of my friends. When do we carry this out?”

Ace straightened his spine, snatching the paper out of his hands and straightening it. With a sly smirk, he said, “Tomorrow, Valentine’s Day.”

———

The school had this ‘candy delivery’ thing going on for Valentine’s Day, and you happened to have garnered enough secret admirers that the organizers had to pack your sweets into a basket. As soon as you'd gotten it from your locker, you hugged it close to yourself and rushed into the room owned by the Gargoyle Research Society. Malleus was the only one who used it anyway, and he’d long ago given you the permission to enter as you pleased.

Anticipation coursed through your veins as you rummaged through the pile, looking for one specific note. You weren’t sure whether Leona had participated in something like this— chances were he would've considered it ‘an asinine way to help cowards confess their feelings’— but it didn’t stop you from hoping.

After putting aside a few chocolates and their atrocious pick up lines, you finally found the one you’d been looking for. It was a single candy wrapped in a yellow wrapper, and it looked like the kind of stuff teachers gave out to kindergarteners who answered questions in class. 

A note was stapled around it. You unrolled it to find a familiar handwriting. 

Happy Valentine’s Day. Although this event appears to be an asinine way to help pathetic cowards confess their feelings, I reckon that I should still give you something since you mentioned looking forward to it. I will meet you at Ramshackle tonight, 8pm sharp. — Leona 

With a smile curling your lips, you ripped the wrapper and popped the candy into your mouth. The fruity sweetness coated your tongue as you pulled your phone out.

The line rang for a few seconds before it got through. “Hello?” He husked.

“Good morning, is this Mr. Kingscholar?”

“Cut it out.” It sounded like he was shuffling in bed. “I take it that you’ve received the candy thing?”

“Yup. And the invitation. Have you just woken up?”

“Thanks to you, yes.” 

Rapid knocks appeared in the background, and he cussed under his breath.

“Is that Ruggie?” You chuckled.

“Yea. He’s about to break the door. I’ll see you tonight, ‘kay? Don’t forget about it.”

“As if I would. I’ll make sure the coast is clear when you arrive.”

“Yea,” he said with a hint of hesitation, as if he was taken aback by your words. “Okay. Bye.”

Having to sneak around and meet up was nothing new to you. From the very beginning, you’d agreed to keep your relationship under wraps. 

While his brother was usually preoccupied with more crucial matters, Leona was still a royalty, and words spread like wildfire in this school. People were bound to talk if he were to be seen with a romantic partner, and they were probably going to tell their mothers, who would tell the other mothers, on and on until the media caught wind. Then the chamberlains would get involved, eventually alerting his brother.

Knowing Farena, he'd probably make a fuss of you, demanding a dinner and a private audience. On top of that, all kinds of reporters would be knocking on the door, trying to get a candid photo of you two. If that happened, his chances of getting a good sleep would drop to zero. Or worse, they would bring unnecessary burdens to you.

As for you, your reasons were simple: your friends would never leave you alone if they knew of your love life. Ever since they'd noticed the different air around you, they'd been not-so-subtly trying to figure out whether you were seeing someone. They were definitely going to tease the living hell out of you once they figured it out, so you’d rather dodge all the troubles.

Plus, it was pretty nice to have this quiet little thing going on between you, just that it's hard to pretend like you didn’t want to throw yourself at him in the corridor sometimes.

Really, it’s nice.

Despite your intention to maintain discretion, so far two people had already blown your cover. The first was Ruggie, no surprises there. The second was Jack, who walked in on your napping session at the botanical garden. (That one’s on you, you’d totally forgotten to be discreet.) 

Both of them were trustworthy friends, so it didn’t bother you. But if someone like Ace or Deuce was to find out…

A chill crawled down your spine.

As if on cue, you heard their voices outside and hurriedly stuffed the note into your pocket.

“Where did they go?” Deuce asked.

“I don’t know, man. Maybe they went back already?”

“Let’s just call them.”

You scrambled to mute your phone, but Deuce was faster. The ringtone penetrated the silence in the hallway, and not a second later, the door was opened.

“Hey, guys.” You smiled innocently.

“What are you doing here?” Ace poked his head in, a knowing look dawning on his face. “Ahhhh, I see. Are you perhaps looking for candies from a special someone?”

“Nope.” You stood up and hung the basket around your elbow. “I was just checking to see if one of you guys would give me something. The result is heartbreaking, by the way.”

They shared a suspicious look. 

“Allow us to piece your heart back together then. We have a mission from Sam.” Deuce fished out a piece of folded paper from his jacket. “Gotta pick up something from town.”

“Great. Let’s go.” You wiped the invisible dust from your pants. It was always a treat to be able to leave the campus, and the trip might give you an opportunity to buy some flowers for tonight's date.

“Nuh-uh, not so fast.” Ace threw his arm around your shoulder. “We are going to make a stop at Savanaclaw.”

———

Ruggie was the first to greet you as you stepped out of the mirror, a large sack swung over his shoulder. He looked like Santa Claus. “Morning! Are you looking for Leona?”

“Nah, we’re here for Jack.” Ace said.

“Then he should be in his room.” Ruggie pointed vaguely behind himself, and your friends headed over, leaving you two alone.

“You’re quite the popular hyena, aren’t you?” You jutted your jaw at the bag.

“This? Nah. I just collected them from people who don’t like sweets.” He eyed your basket. “Any chance you’re one of them?”

“I mean, I’ve already got the one I want, so…” you handed him the whole thing, and his grin grew wider. Grim would've whined about it if he'd been here, but he was too busy getting his fill at Kalim’s.

“Touche. Between you and me, Leona actually spent days ruminating on what to do for Valentine’s Day. You didn’t hear it from me though.”

Thank the heavens no one was around to catch your lovestruck expression.

Speaking of the devils, Ace and Deuce promptly returned with Jack. Trailing behind by a few steps was a grumpy Leona. His eyes spotted you first, softened around the edges, before returning to drill holes in the back of Ace’s head.

Jack greeted you as soon as you were all standing together. “We’re running errands for Sam right? Let’s get to it.”

“Yes-”

“Not so fast.” Leona spoke over Deuce. “I’m coming. Jack can stay.”

“Woah, Sam’s permit only says our names, so technically you can't be off schoolground.” Ace waves the paper in the air, passing him a pointed look.

“I don’t care. There's no way I'll let you trouble magnets go out on your own.” 

“Relax, we’re not that unruly. Plus Jack's here, he’s our voice of reason.” 

Jack nodded firmly. “That’s right, I’ll make sure they don’t fall out of line.”

The irritation on Leona’s face was indisputable. Something was definitely going on in his head. 

“Be real here, why would you even want to come with us? You don’t care if we got into trouble.” Ace scrunched his face into a frown.

Leona stared down at your red-haired friend before his gaze moved to you, unreadable yet solemn. Perhaps he was anxious that you couldn’t make it back in time for the date.

“Don’t worry, we will be back before it gets dark.” Your addition seemed to be making things worse for him. He clicked his tongue and swiveled around, tearing himself away from this mess. 

After some contemplation, he bit out, “Fine, go have your fun.” 

With that finally settled, Ace and Deuce ecstatically looped their arms around Jack’s and your elbows, as if preventing you from running away, and hopped into the mirror. The last thing you saw was Leona mumbling something to Ruggie and the drop of the hyena’s jaw.

———

The townspeople took Valentine’s Day a lot more seriously than you’d expected. Bakeries had all kinds of pastries displayed readily to the lengthening queue, and customers swarmed into flower shops in hope of grabbing the last bouquets available. Even booksellers decided to join in on the fun, slapping discounts on all romance novels and comics alike. Just around the corner, a few buskers were playing some sappy love songs on their guitars in front of a thin audience.

“It’s like a whole festival here.” You commented as you weaved through the crowd with Jack. He was tall enough that you didn’t have to worry about losing him in the waves. Meanwhile, Ace and Deuce were keeping up from behind, engrossed in their own conversation. 

“I agree. I didn’t expect Valentine’s Day to be such a big deal.” He said.

“You’re not the kind of people who think it unnecessary, are you?”

“Not really. You can express your love any other day, so it’s kind of pointless from that point of view, but I guess it’s a good opportunity for people to confess their feelings.”

“I also like to think of it as a reminder for people to show their love more bravely.” You caught sight of a heart-shaped chocolate the size of a cauldron through a shop window. “...Though it can also become an unfortunate tool for capitalism.”

“I assume that you will be celebrating?”

You sensed what he was hinting at. “Yup, after some convincing. By the way, is it just me or are Ace and Deuce acting a bit weird today?”

“I thought I was the only one.” He looked back briefly, though he couldn't spot anyone with their distinctive hair colors. They were probably just distracted somewhere. “They barged into my room and told me to dress up. Who dresses up to run errands?”

Evidently he went along, seeing as how he was wearing a white dress shirt instead of his usual comfy t-shirts. 

“You don’t think they’re pranking us, are they?” 

“I wouldn’t put it past them.”

Just then, your phone vibrated in your pocket. You tugged at Jack's sleeve to pull him to the side of the road. It was a rare text from Leona.

Leona: where are you?

You: just got into town

You: good thing you didn't come along, you would've gagged at the amount of lovey-dovey stuff here

Leona: so you don't know

You: ?

He spent a few seconds typing and re-typing. In your wait, you looked up and found your two friends still missing.

Leona: they're trying to set you up with jack.

What.

What the heck.

Your thoughts sped up. The picture started coming together in your head. No, it made sense. Them insisting that Jack came instead of Leona, literally telling him to dress up? 'Allow us to piece your heart back together'? All of their actions verified Leona's words. 

You: damn, ur right

You: wait, how did you figure it out?

Leona: they told me in my face when they ran into me just now. said that they were going to be matchmakers and put an end to your 'endless pining'

You: -_-

So that's why he was acting all frustrated back there. You stole a glance at Jack, who was trying to call your friends, albeit to no avail. He was definitely not going to like what he was about to hear.

You: at least we now know of their absurd plan. i'll tell jack

Leona: k

You: are you upset?

Leona: no. even if i were, i would only be upset with your nosy friends

Leona: just make sure to come back on time. you were the one who wanted to celebrate vday after all

You: roger that :)

"Was that one of them?" Jack asked as you pocketed your phone.

"Nope. You can stop calling, by the way. They're not going to answer."

He frowned as you pulled the shopping list out of his hand. "Why?"

"Because they left us alone on purpose. They're trying to play cupid." You waved the unfolded paper in front of his face. He read the content carefully before sputtering. In his head, he tried to put two and two together. The moment it all clicked, his shoulders tensed. "No way."

It was an actual shopping list from Sam, stamped by him and all, but the items were absolutely ludicrous, not to mention obvious. Roses, jewelry, plushies… and the definite proof that he was in on it, or was at least held at gunpoint as he drafted the list: the line ‘Treat yourself, little imps! Everything’s on me’ at the bottom of the page. Despite its absurdity, it was also a binding term. If you failed to get everything as instructed, he had the right to report you for leaving the campus and skipping some classes without a justified cause.

Not that he would, right?

As much as you hated to admit, there didn't seem to be a way you could get out of this mess.

"What do we do?" He shook his head. "I don't even know how they got the idea of bringing us together. And you were supposed to spend the day with Leona, not me. This is so messed up-"

"Hey, it's okay. Leona already knows. He was the one who told me."

He blinked at you blankly. "Is he going to come after me?"

You let out a laugh. "Not on my watch. Look, how about we just go along with it and get everything on the list? Then we will head back on time and I can have my date with Leona. After that we can dangle Ace and Deuce upside down outside Ramshackle."

Jack turned to the crowd, donning his deep-in-thought look. You could almost see the cogwheels moving in his brain, trying to find a way to avoid this. There was none. He shook his head at last, "Alright, let's get the stuff as soon as possible."

———

After deciding that you would buy the roses first, the two of you ventured through the streets to find a less packed flower shop. As you strayed farther from the center of the town, the number of pedestrians dwindled, and soon you could walk side by side without being bumped into and feeling your shoulder dislocate.

The silence between you was not awkward, but it was stretched, begging to be filled. Jack had always had the habit of using his words sparingly, believing that actions spoke louder, but this was different. You could tell that he was on edge, eyes darting around as if trying to catch every passing shadow, hands stuffed in his pockets, tail swishing stiffly. 

He was uncomfortable. And he was acting like he wasn't, because that's what he'd been saying for the past thirty minutes. Eventually you gave up, opting to protect that tense little bubble surrounding you.

As much as you'd like to argue that this wasn't how you usually interacted, you realized that you couldn't. Truth was, you seldom hung out outside of a group setting, and even when you were alone, it was usually for matters like how he could help cover you up as you left the group to find your favorite lion, and homework. 

To be frank, you didn't know that much about Jack.

A humble little shop was chosen at last, but even it had quite the amount of customers loitering around, most of them attempting to conceal their last-minute anxiousness. You assumed that they must've forgotten to buy something beforehand. 

"How may I help you, lovebirds?" A tall woman with baby-blue glasses greeted you enthusiastically. Jack tensed up like someone had just stepped on his tail.

"Would you happen to have red roses?" You asked instead.

"Oh, of course. How many would you like? A lot of couples go for a hundred, but the really earnest ones go for as much as two. You two look quite sweet together, perhaps you would–"

"We're not," Jack rushed to say. "We're not a couple."

"Oh," the shopkeeper squinted at you. "Ohhh… it's like that, huh? In that case, you should take a look at this guide," she pulled out a laminated sheet and slid it across the wooden counter.

It was a comprehensive guide to the number of roses and all of their meanings, from one to twenty, then skipping to hundreds and thousands. 

"Who would buy three thousand roses?" You whispered to Jack.

"I don't know," he said. "How many should we get?"

Most of the numbers carried love declarations, but there was one that fit. "How about thirteen?" 'Friends forever'.

"Looks good."

"Alright, we'll get thirteen," you gave the sheet back to the lady. She checked your choice briefly, looked up, lifted her glasses with her index finger, then nodded meaningfully. 

"Alright, thirteen red roses coming right up. You can fill this up while you're waiting." She handed you another white card and a black marker to be put together with the bouquet. The vaguely printed words instructed you to write some 'sweet words for your beloved'.

When you turned to Jack for help, he looked like he was going to run out of the shop at any given moment.

"Hey, is everything alright?" You questioned. "And don't lie to me, I can tell."

He ruffled his snowy hair, averting his eyes. "I apologize. It's just… I'm not very comfortable with all this coupley stuff."

You nodded slowly, contemplating his words. 

"It's not you, don't worry, it's just…" he shut his eyes, trying to escape the embarrassment. "You're Leona's partner, and I'm just a friend. It feels wrong to do all this with you."

Oh. Oh. 

Shit. You almost felt bad for not figuring that out by yourself. Jack, even after everything, still looked up to Leona as an accomplished role model. Not to mention he was his dorm leader and a literal force to be reckoned with. He probably thought that he was crossing some lines. 

Maybe he was. Perhaps there were unspoken rules among beastmen. And lions were known to be protective of their own pride…

When you thought about it this way, it wasn’t hard to see why he felt like a fish out of water at all. 

You tapped the marker against the counter. You never imagined that dating Leona would inadvertently cause Jack to be extra careful around you, but now that you knew, you were determined to thaw the ice. “How about we treat this as a normal, friendly hangout?” 

He arched his brow, clearly finding the idea of pretending you weren't surrounded by romance-centric decorations all around you unrealistic.

"Valentine's Day is just an excuse to promote love anyways, and love is not limited to romance, you know?" You took off the cap on the marker and started scribbling. "I can write some sweet words for you as a friend too. For one, I admire your unerring determination and your strong morals. There you go."

There was still uncertainty shimmering in his eyes as he took in your written words, but eventually he nodded. "Fine, I'll give it a try. I admire your bravery and courage."

"Aw, thank you, my dear friend." You elbowed him playfully, and he stifled a grin. 

"Here's your order, darlings!" The shopkeeper came back with the roses hugged by a pink wrapping paper. It looked like she was trying very hard not to peek at what you'd written down on the card.  You paid for the flowers and passed your thanks before heading out to the next mission.

“The best pastries in town… should we go to the pâtisserie Vil mentioned before?” Jack suggested. You agreed in a blink; it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to crown it the best among its competitors in the world.

Though on second thought, it didn't seem like a feasible idea after all. A dense group of exasperated customers had blocked the front of the shop, so much so that you could only see the boss' hands waving in the air like a drowning man's. Everyone's voices overlapped, but you could make out some common protests: not enough, waited for a long time, unfair, et cetera. 

"-ys. GUYS!" The boss' squeaky voice somehow managed to calm the ocean of complaints. The whole street dropped to silence at his command. "We are really sorry, but this is the only one we have left!"

"Then you should've baked more!' A gruff voice yelled.

"Maybe you should've ordered earlier!" The boss countered. "Anyways, I know y'all aren't going to leave me alone anyways, so to be fair," he made an air quote. "I'll let y'all fight for it. Whoever is the best at arm wrestling gets the last piece."

You turned to Jack. He bobbed his head knowingly.

Immediately, people got into groups and looked for any kind of flat surfaces– the outdoor seats of a nearby restaurant, the top of the pâtisserie's empty display case. Two men were laying on their stomachs on the gritty pavement. The crowd dispersed like ants under a rock, desperate to get that final piece of cake.

Jack grimaced. "I fear Valentine's Day is driving people insane."

"Hopefully not us." Bowing forward, you tried to take a look at the pâtisserie's sole survivor. An opening between two struggling contestants revealed that it was a piece of fruit cake.

"Pear compote." Jack blurted out.

"What?"

"That's pear compote dripped on top."

There was a distant… longing in his eyes. "Is that what you like?"

"It's my favorite. It's just the right amount of sweet, it's versatile, and my mum used to make it all the time. Everyone in my family likes it, in fact. I wish I'd brought a few more jars with me."

"Well, I'm sure we can get you the cake. I don't think there's anyone who can beat you in arm wrestling."

"No. There's one."

You crooked your brow.

He tipped his head back, staring at the sky as he relieved the memory. "Back then, Leona beat me effortlessly even after I used my unique magic."

"Whaaat." You dragged out the word. "For real?"

"I couldn't believe it at first too. It was humbling, to say the least."

"I bet I can beat him though." You mused. 

He exhaled sharply. "This is a battle of physical strength, not running head first into troubles."

"Unprovoked. But it's also a battle of wits. There's quite a few of his weaknesses I can use." The random theory took a contemplative turn as you started counting the cards up your sleeves: Leona might look like he had a rock for a heart, but you pulled a rare reaction from him the first time you called him your king. Caressing the back of his ears always elicited honest shivers. Would a smothering look or a wink catch him off guard? Hopefully he wouldn't mind you experimenting on him.

"You're probably one of the very few people who can say that." Jack shifted his weight to his other foot, briefly scanning the progress of the contestants before adopting a low voice. "I hope you don't mind me asking, it's been on my mind for some time now. How did you actually end up together? I'm aware that you got close after the Magift tournament, but the rest was a mystery… Nah, forget it. I shouldn't violate your privacy."

"I don't mind sharing," you reassured him. "Obviously it wasn't easy. He barely cared about me at first, even after the tournament, but I was determined to get to know him. There's no shell I can't crack, after all. He's strong and fierce and self-assured, but I also sensed that there was a brightness inside him that got snuffed out over time. I'm sure you're aware too. 

Anyways, the more we opened up to each other, the more I realized that he's not who he seemed to be on the surface. He's caring in his own way, and he's unfaltering when he has his mind set on a goal. His words may appear sharp, but he's not unsympathetic. Despite his arrogance, he's not so full of himself that he can't admit his faults. Where no one noticed, he was the one who found out that I was feeling out of place here… I got to know so many new sides to him. To be honest, I wasn't planning to fall in love, but this kind of thing just happens, like soft knocks on the door."

A tall woman marched past you, cursing loudly after losing her game. You stepped aside, realizing now that Jack had gone quiet. "Sorry for rambling, I got caught up in myself."

"Don't apologize. I think that it's sweet," there was a hint of a smile on his face. "You looked like my sister whenever she sees a pink morning sky just now. It's great to have someone you can rely on wholeheartedly. I'm sure he feels the same about you."

You were certain of that too. "Aw, stop. You're making me embarrassed." You punched his arm without a concern for your force; he probably didn't even feel it. 

The various battles seemed to have narrowed down to a few. The boss was standing in front of two straining men, faces red with blood, veins bulging on their necks. A battle cry forced its way out of one of them, only for him to be overwhelmed immediately. His body was loose as his boyfriend dragged him off the ground.

"Jeez. Alright, is there anyone else?" The boss asked. The victorious guy smashed his fists together, shooting silent warnings at anyone who was bold enough to even consider challenging him. No one moved.

"Me." Jack stepped forward, and you did a small, encouraging whoop from behind. The man glared into his eyes. He wasn't a lot shorter than Jack, and their physiques were similar, but you had faith in your friend.

"Start whenever you want, I'm getting sick of this." The boss mumbled.

Jack bowed his head respectfully before positioning his elbow on top of the counter, flexing his fingers. His rival mirrored him, assuming a strong grip on his hand. 

It started without a countdown, like they managed to communicate with facial expressions alone. All around you were held breaths as they struggled against each other–

–for one second. Jack immediately slammed the man's arm down like he was flipping a book.

"What the hell?" He cried out, holding his wrist in disbelief before making a run for it, as though in shame. 

"Congrats, you've won the cake!" The boss feigned enthusiasm. When the bystanders booed, he resumed his annoyed scowl, "Go home! It was a fair game!"

"That didn't go as expected," Jack told you as you watched the cake enter the safe protection of the corrugated box. "But I'm glad we won."

"All thanks to you. I didn't even get to chant my slogan. We will, we will, rock you-"

"Please stop."

"Okay." 

Laughter bubbled out of you a second later. Even he failed to hold in the titters that slipped past his lips as he shook his head. The ice was melting away already.

Jack volunteered to hold both the bouquet and the cake, so you took on the role of navigation. "Next up, we need to buy jewelry. I know a place."

It was a chain store of a brand Vil had not only done promotion for, but also personally approved of, so the quality was sure to be high. But so was the price. 

The two of you stood silently in front of the suited employee who went by Eris, staring unblinkingly at the silvery chains in the vitrine. The price tags glared back at you, who looked like you'd wandered in by accident.

"I was going to propose getting an expensive one since it's not our money anyways, but even the cheapest earring is worth ten times my life." You whispered.

"I wouldn't compare you with an earring, but I agree with the prices." 

"May I help you?" Eris asked for the third time since you'd entered the shop. 'We'll have a look around' probably wasn't going to work anymore. "Any particular kinds of accessories you're looking for?"

The thing was, neither of you wore that much jewelry anyways. It would only get in the way of his training, and you could barely spare money for your friends' birthdays, let alone luxury like this. But throwing it into your drawer with other miscellaneous trinkets was just sinister. 

"How about rings? We have promise rings for couples–"

"No, thanks."

"How about necklaces?" You suggested, which earned a satisfied look from Eris as she left to find you some styles.

"Why necklaces?" Jack asked.

"Well, neither of us is going to wear it, so I thought, why not give it to your cacti? You can put it around the pot. It'll be like dressing them up."

“A designer necklace for my cacti?” His brows knitted into a disapproving frown. “I mean, they deserve nothing less, but still-”

“Then it’s settled.” You replied. Eris arrived just then and ended any argument that might be forming in his head.

Most of the necklaces came in pairs, and each pair held no significant differences between one another. Sure, the charms varied in shapes and colors, but they were all just… argent.

Your attention landed on the pair on the fair right. Each half had a hand-shaped ornament that fit into each other when put together. The rest were pretty much the same: two halves of a heart, two halves of a cat, the same design but flipped over.

Your mind wandered. Adjacent to you was another couple admiring the opal bracelets hugging their wrists. Streaks of azure swirled within each crystal, as if there was a vast sea contained in every single one.

You really weren’t a jewelry person, yet once in a while, this kind of thing still had you indulging in daydreams. And only daydreams. It would be stupid to wear matching accessories anyways. It defeated the purpose of the whole secret relationship thing.

"In that case, I'll have this one." Jack referred to the pendant with a leaf-shaped charm. "Just one, thank you."

Eris looked bewildered, but she shrugged it off, picking up the chain and shelving the others away. It still hurt when you had to fish out all the money you had and then borrow some from Jack, but the knowledge that you could claim it all back gave a little relief to your throbbing wallet.

Jack pocketed the velvety box. "I hope it looks good with my cacti."

"Of course it will, I have immaculate taste." You wiped the tip of your nose with your thumb. 

Time flew past without a sound. You'd left school mid-afternoon, and now the blue sky had already been painted over with an amalgamation of warm hues. Your phone showed that it was already six. "We're kind of against the clock. Let's grab the last item and head back."

Your last stop was the local gift store, where a bunch of plushies and toys were displayed. As expected, the dolls were all related to love in all kinds of ways. There was a pink bear holding a love letter, two frogs with their hands sewn together, an elephant hugging a pillow in the shape of a heart. The only ones exempt from the influence of Valentine's Day were at the back of the shop. They were graduation plush toys and one that specifically said 'Happy Mother's Day'.

"Once again, this isn't my thing. I feel like you would be more interested…" he trailed off, spinning around to look for you. "Prefect?"

"Jack! Look at this! It's adorable!" You waved him over. In your hands were two avocado dolls, one with the seed in the middle and the other without. "Oh my goodness. And this!"

You picked up two monkeys that had their arms wrapped around each other. The fluffy fur seemed to melt away under your touch, and their hands could reach all the way around your waist. 

Truth was you'd already made something for Leona, but these monkeys? It was love at first sight. He was always complaining about your inability to stay over in his room anyways, so this could work as the perfect substitute. Even though he wasn't the type to hug plushies as he slept (it would probably end up on the floor), it would still remind you of each other. No one would even notice. It's not like people could just wander into his room. And yours–

Your dorm was basically a public area by now. There were times when Sebek and Epel invited themselves over and scared the living hell out of you because you'd left your phone inside with Leona's contact on the screen. Every time you had an impromptu sleepover, they made a competition out of stealing your plushies, except Sebek who had his own Malleus cushion. Deuce might not take note of the new plush member, but Ace was observant to a fault. You could already hear his voice yelling 'why do you have this monkey plush and where is the other one' in your ears.

"Then let's buy it." Jack said. 

You shook your head ruefully. "Ehh, maybe not. Now that I think about it, I don't really have that much space left on my bed."

"I thought you'd started invading Grim's?"

"Yea, but still." Returning the monkeys to the shelf, you turned around and started searching around again. 

If Ace was observant, then Jack was eagle-eyed, always detecting details in the most unlikely places. It wasn't difficult for him to notice where your attention had drifted off to back at the jewelry shop either. 

He cleared his throat. "So, about you and Leona. Have you decided how long the secrecy will go on for?"

You petted each plush you walked past, ruffling their heads. "Not yet. We'll see."

"Right," he turned the words over in his head, looking for a more natural approach. "But you’re both fine with the arrangement, obviously.”

“Of course.” You had to be. After all, you had your own reasons for keeping up the confidentiality, and you’d hate to be involved in any royal scandal Leona had mentioned. Even if the rules weighed on you at times, it was still better than attracting attention, right? “I think so.”

All this time you’d been walking on tip-toes believing that it could do more good than harm, but a short trip down memory lane proved otherwise: That one time you'd had to hide Leona in the closet, his legs had gotten so sore that you'd spent the whole light massaging the stiffness away. Your forehead was swollen for days after running into a tree while staying out of Rook’s watchful eyes. All those times you’d had to swallow the words you wanted to say to each other in public, a much needed embrace reduced to a pat on the shoulder.

It was supposed to get Ace and his naive accomplice off your back, but look where you were now: entangled in a web of misunderstandings, not only did it not work as intended, but you also got Jack into this predicament.

“...Back home, my brother always picks fights with my sister,” Jack started. “He’s at the age where he feels the need to act like an ass in any given situation. He’s stubborn about it too. Never apologizes to her afterwards. They could spend days ignoring each other.

Any time it happens when I’m around, I try to figure out how they feel. My sister thinks that he probably hates her, that’s why they never see eye to eye. Meanwhile he does feel sorry, but he doesn't know how to get over his ego."

"Typical siblings." 

"That's right. And then I sit them down and make them talk to each other."

"And it works?"

"Like a charm. Effective communication can pretty much solve half of the conflicts in the world, but it's hard to take the first step, especially when you don't know what the other person is thinking."

You let his words sink in, turning them over in your head. If you were to lay your heart completely bare, it would certainly be singing a different tune. Perhaps a chat would really make things better instead of pretending that nothing was out of place.

"You have a point there." It wasn't hard to grasp what he was trying to say, but if he wanted to be roundabout about it, then you weren't going to bring it to light. 

The two of you came to a stop in front of a felt box holding five keychains, a sweet rendition of a puppy family. He picked it up carefully. "Would you mind if I got this? My sister has always liked collecting keyrings like these."

"Sure. You're never beating the best big brother allegation, are you?"

A proud smile dawned on his face. "Hopefully not."

By the time you’d ticked off the very last item on the shopping list, night had already fallen. 

“I just realized something awful.” Jack said from behind. He was still holding the roses and cake, while you had the rest. “You didn’t get anything at all. I mean, the cake and the necklace, and even the recipient of this bouquet-”

“Hey, don’t worry. I was the one who ‘invited’ you to hang out, wasn’t I? It’s only fair that I treat you to something nice. Even though it’s Sam’s money. It’s the sentiment that counts.”

His face faltered for a second, then he assumed an earnest expression. “In that case, I promise to make it up to you, not just for the gifts, but also for the amazing company.”

"You're not so bad yourself, Jack."

The mirror portal was situated on a nearby hill, giving you the perfect view of the town under your feet. Streams of people weaved through the streets, the uniform structures and red roofs now adorned by pink banners and decorations. 

A strange sense of satisfaction filled your chest knowing that you’d completely defied what Ace and Deuce had planned for you guys. Although this wasn’t planned, you still had an amazing time roaming around town.

“Let’s head back now.” Jack said. You sent him a nod before stepping through the mirror together.

———

It was 7:45, and you were pacing around your room.

After returning to the campus and claiming the sweet thaumarks from Sam, Jack bid you goodbye and returned to his room trying to juggle all the rewards in his arms, earning envious glares from passing students.

That was half an hour ago. In that time you’d managed to rush back to Ramshackle, got dressed in the most formal outfit you could find in your humble wardrobe, and walked ten laps around the house trying to practice what to say to Leona when he got here. 

Hey, remember when we agreed to keep all of this under wraps? I kind of don’t want to do that anymore. Yea, the press could be after us. Yea, my friends are going to be a pain in the ass. No, I still want to go public with this. 

What if he felt that it was not worth the trouble? You trusted that he would respect your choices, but still-

Rapid knocks on the door pulled you back to reality. You all but stormed down the stairs and rushed to the foyer, swinging open the door.

There he was, clad in a simple black button down shirt and pants, his hair gathered in a high ponytail. In his left hand was a bouquet of roses, and in his right, for some reason, was his broom.

How did he even manage to look perfect in everything he wore? 

“Happy Valentine’s Day, kipenzi,” he stepped in and met you half-way with a kiss, trying to lean in for another when you pulled away. You almost forgot that you’d been anxious just a while ago. 

“Happy Valentine’s to you too, mpenzi,” The nickname never failed to make his tail swish in contentment. You beamed as he handed you the roses. The card indicated that there were 33 in total, and if your memory served you right, it symbolized ‘I love you’ with affection. 

“How was your day with Jack?”

“It was great.” You answered briefly, pulling him into the lounge by his hand.

“Just great?” 

“If you must know, we walked around town and bought tons of stuff. We decided to treat it as a friendly hangout.” 

“I see.” He said tersely, willing his jaw to unclench before you could see it.

“You/re not getting green-eyed, are you?”

“They’ve been green my whole life, sweetheart,” he smirked as you rolled your eyes. 

“Touche.” You headed to the sofa and picked up a huge paper bag. “Ta-da! Here’s something I made you.”

Placing his broom against the wall, he reached inside, expression shifting when he felt the soft fabric. Slowly, he pulled out the content and let it fall to the floor soundlessly.

It was a crocheted blanket big enough to roll both of you into a burrito, the pattern mimicking a chess board. The only detail you’d tweaked were the king pieces, which had been turned into two snoozing lions. 

He spent a good minute observing the blanket, as if trying to take in every single detail. Finally, he asked, “So this is why you couldn’t stay over at my room for the past two months?”

“Yea. It could’ve taken me a month, but I had no prior knowledge about crocheting, so I had to start from the ground up.”

“You could’ve just commissioned someone, you know. Would’ve saved a lot of trouble.” He said mindlessly, running his hand down the smooth yarn. 

“Maybe I should take it back then-”

“Hands off, it’s mine.” His face scrunched up, arms holding the blanket close to himself. During winter, his family had sent him more than enough blankets and duvets, all made with the most exquisite of fabrics, but this might just outshine all of them. “And it’s unique this way. So… thank you.”

If you were going to start the conversation, you reckoned that this was the perfect timing. "There's something I've been-"

"Wait a sec. I have more surprises." He wrapped the blanket around your shoulders so that only your head was uncovered and grabbed his broom. "Close your eyes."

You did as told, pulling the blanket up to shield your face. Some distance away, you heard the light switch flip. "I didn't know you had this many things planned."

It sounded like he was talking from a great height. "You didn't think I was just going to give you roses, did you?" Something cut through the air. "Though it did take me some time to figure out what to do, so you better appreciate it with all your heart."

"Roger that." You paced around in an aimless circle, listening to the faint winds trailing behind him as he flew around the lounge. For a moment you wondered if he was cleaning the place, but it was highly unlikely that he would volunteer doing so. 

"Okay," the next time he spoke, he was right in front of you. "You can look now."

The lights were out, which normally meant the room should be cloaked in darkness, but it was different today. On the roof were densely scattered glow-in-the-dark stickers piercing the dimness, mimicking stars. A few of them extended to the walls, as if the sky was melting. Some were larger in shape, others mere dots, but together, it looked like the whole galaxy had been moved inside.

Your mouth fell open as you took in the constellations spread out in front of you. There was seemingly no word that could encapsulate the feeling welling in your chest.

"I promised that I would show you the night sky of Sunset Savannah before, but the opportunity hasn't presented itself, so this will have to do." He leaned in to observe your face. "Hey. You're not crying, are you?"

"No." You croaked. Half amused and half concerned, he reached for your arm and pulled you into a tight embrace.

Being held by Leona never failed to make you feel like the most treasured person in the world. His fingers threaded in and out of your locks, pressing kisses to the crown of your head as you hid your face in his shoulder. You leaned into him, so close that your hearts might as well melt into one. 

Leona Kingscholar had always shone in every room he was in, but nothing came close to the version of him only you got to see. His love came in both showers and drizzles, both intense and tender. It blew you away and made the lining of your stomach feel warm. He was the island you'd go to when you felt like drowning, the person you could call home in this scarily foreign land. Sometimes it felt like every bad thing would go away so long as he was holding your hand. 

He's undoubtedly the best thing that had ever happened to you, you thought, and you wanted to love him wildly for that. No hushed secrets, no retreating in the dark. You wanted to braid his hair and let the world see. You wanted to let him rest his head on your lap while you worked. You wanted to pass him tooth-rotting notes in class, and you wanted and wanted and wanted. You wanted to liberate all of these hopes and desires.

There was no way you could hide what you felt for him when it was brighter than all the stars in the universe combined.

"I need to talk to you about something." His voice was muffled in your hair. 

"So do I, actually." You tore yourself away, wiping the warm trails on your cheeks.

You followed him and sank onto the floor, shifting closer so you could get under the blanket together. He fixed his gaze on the chair behind you for a second, looking like he was trying to declutter his mind, before returning his attention to you. "What happened with Jack today has got me thinking about things between us."

Your breath hitched. It was like he was reading your mind.

"Most of the blame goes to your dumb friends, obviously. But I believe that some misunderstandings stemmed from us trying to keep everything a secret. And I know I said that it was troublesome to just go public and stuff, which I still agree with, but the truth is…" he ran his hand through his hair and it sprang back into place. "You're worth it. All of it. The press, the nosy halfwits in this school, my family, they are nothing compared to how much I absolutely adore you. Screw the troubles. I want to let everyone know that you're mine, and that I'm yours." A beat later, he added, "Plus, if something like this happens again, I'm not sure I can keep my cool."

He drew a deep breath. "The only question left is, what do you think?"

"I think-" you chuckled, feeling the previous nervousness dissipate. It's funny how effortless it was for you to be on the same page. "I think the absolute same! I've been pondering about how all this secrecy has been keeping us from each other, and I just despise that. Nothing is critical enough that it should be able to make me compromise my feelings..."

His grin grew wider and wider as you rambled on and on, until he had to cut you off with a kiss right there, laced with relief and unbridled joy. You couldn't help but smile into his touch, relishing in the new found solace. It was like your heart had found air again.

Under the starry sky, Leona rested his head against you, hand finding yours and giving it a small squeeze. "I love you."

"I love you more."

"Oh yea, you want to make this a competition?" He quirked his brow, and before you knew it, you were going back and forth without a regard for the passing hours.

You might not have been able to spend the entire Valentines' Day with him, but you knew that there was still tomorrow and the days after that, enough for you to tell him all the ways you loved him as much as you wanted. It would always be like this– bathing in each other's presence, letting the love drape over you two like a blanket. 

Only this time, you wouldn't have to hold back anymore.

———

"Hey," Trey walked up to Cater, who was walking to and fro in the middle of the corridor. "What's this emergency you were talking about?"

"Trey! Thank the Queen of Hearts you're here." He pulled the taller man towards one of the dorm rooms, where the door was slightly ajar. A stern voice could be heard from within, though it was too faint for him to string together a coherent sentence.

"Jack asked me to let him in because he had something urgent to say to Ace and Deuce, and it looked like a storm was verging on his face so I complied," Cater moved aside, signaling Trey to take a peek. "He's been in there for a good while, and it doesn't sound like fun."

Trey let out an exasperated sigh. He'd spent the past few days baking cookies and chocolates, and he could frankly use a break. Still, as the vice dorm leader, he couldn't just turn a blind eye when the underclassmen got into trouble. Bending down, he squeezed one eye shut to get a clear view of what was going on inside.

Jack was standing in the middle of the room, arms in front of his chest, tail moving stiffly. The usual seriousness of his expression was mixed with an edge of irritation. 

On the edge of the bed sat Ace and Deuce, who were as still as twin popsicles, hands clenched on their laps and head low. Deuce looked especially guilty, like he'd just done something terrible like eating Riddle's tarts. Ace was mildly annoyed, but unable to utter a retort.

"...totally inconsiderate and disappointing behavior… the result could've been egregious!"

Trey blinked, then backed away from the door. "We'd better give them some more time. They've done something egregious ."

"Wow. That's a big word. I wonder what exactly they've done…" At Trey's disapproving squint, Cater waved his hand dismissively. "Don't look at me like that! Of course I won't use our cute first years as topics for gossip~"

The two made their ways back to their rooms then. Another thirty minutes later, Jack finally ended his speech in resignation, rendering the two culprits and frankly inadequate cupids speechless. In his deep breaths, he picked up the faint fragrance of roses lingering on his clothes, and let out a soft sigh.