It wasn't long after their first meeting that all of Mondstadt knew about their relationship. While it was obvious that it would become known quickly, it wasn't because rumors spread fast in Mondstadt, but because the Vice-Captain wanted everyone to know.

Lohen mentioned her whenever he could, constantly. During patrols, meetings, training sessions, even casual conversations that had absolutely nothing to do with her somehow still circled back to her.

He was hopelessly and embarrassingly devoted to the witch living outside the city.

And the laughter and comments of others did not embarrass him, did not stop him, but quite the opposite. They seemed to function as motivation, as if they only encouraged him to do more, to be more affectionate, more shameless, more eager to follow her around her cottage carrying crates, gathering herbs, chopping ingredients, or allowing himself to become what Lisa jokingly referred to as the witch’s favorite lab rat. Lohen personally preferred the term devoted assistant, and she preferred willing lover.

And in a way, they were all right.

Over the months they had been a couple, they’d tested harmless sleep tinctures, enchanted teas, truth serums that made Lohen spend forty uninterrupted minutes praising her beauty in an incredible detailed way, and even a pastry experiment that had temporarily caused glowing flowers to bloom in his hair every time she kissed him. And Lohen had love every second of it.

“Most men would fear being experimented on by a witch,” she had said during one of the first tests together.

Lohen, sprawled comfortably across her couch with his hair a dark color, different from usual, and his eyes a more bluish color, thanks to the appearance-changing potion, had only smiled lazily. “Well yes, most men are weak… And you know I'm not like them, I’m better.”

And she knew it. Lohen was the most obedient, the most willing, the most... devoted, ready to help her try anything.

And he was going to prove it to her once again.

It all started with Varka, again. Specifically, with the crate he dropped onto her kitchen table one rainy afternoon.

“Straight from Sumeru!” he’d announced proudly. “Exotic herbs, flowers, spores, roots. The researchers there said you’d probably know what to do with this,” then he had paused. “Actually, they also told me not to mix some of them together.”

That had been the least helpful warning imaginable. Especially to a curious witch like her, she had a fascination with trying things she shouldn't, investigating and experimenting with things she didn't know.

For three days she sorted through the ingredients carefully, identifying properties, reactions, magical traces, describing everything down to the smallest detail in her notebook. Most of them were harmless, some medicinal, others are a bit more fun, some have stranger and more curious effects and a few mildly dangerous.

And then, there was that one flower. With deep crimson petals, dusted with golden pollen and a scent just sweet enough to put her immediately on edge.

The moment she crushed a few petals beneath the mortar’s pestle, she knew the flower was anything but ordinary. Heat unfurled slowly through the air around her, subtle at first, then almost dizzying, carrying with it an intoxicating aroma that clung to her senses despite the small amount she had used.

Curiosity overpowered caution soon enough. She continued testing it, documenting every reaction with growing unease as hurried notes accumulated across the margins of her notebook. Heightened stimulation. Noticeable amplification of the senses. Emotional responses intensified beyond normal parameters. Each observation seemed to build upon the last, forming an increasingly alarming pattern until, at the bottom of the page, she underlined her final conclusion twice: Potentially catastrophic aphrodisiac.

And that was precisely why she should have gotten rid of it; it was perhaps too dangerous, especially seeing that it seemed to have such a large effect in such a small amount, much more than any aphrodisiac she had studied before.

But the curious, fascinated part of her, the alchemist in her, the side that swelled with pride at having managed to extract and create something so rare, ultimately proved stronger than her better judgment. Because in the end, she kept a sample. A tiny one, carefully sealed away under the excuse of ‘research purposes.’ She had no intention of using it, of course, it was merely a keepsake of her discovery, a small trophy commemorating her success.

Unfortunately, she had overlooked one very important detail.

Lohen spent more time in her cottage than at the headquarters of the Knights of Favonius, and he was every bit as inquisitive as she was. So, it took him far less time than it should have to find the sample she had hidden away.

“You made a mysterious potion and didn’t tell me?” he asked, sounding genuinely betrayed. "You hurt me, sweetheart."

She looked up from her notes flatly. “It’s potentially dangerous.”

“And?” he questioned, as if that weren't reason enough to justify not having said anything about it.

“And I’m not giving it to you, Lohen.”

He leaned against the doorway of the kitchen, arms crossed, clearly unconvinced by her words. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t know exactly what it’ll do yet.”

“That’s what makes it interesting,” he smiled excitedly, causing her to frown.

“That is what makes it concerning.”

“Oh, there she is,” he murmured fondly, unable to stop looking at her, his eyes almost shining. “My beautiful and responsible witch.”

She looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Don’t flirt your way around this, Sir.”

“I’m not flirting, sweetheart.”

“You called me beautiful and looked at me like that,” she answered, raising an eyebrow, while he smiled trying to look innocent.

“I call you beautiful constantly.”

"Yes, but you used that voice you use when you want something and that look you know the effect it has on me, I already know your tricks, Vice-Captain.”

Letting out a low laugh, Lohen pushed off the doorway and crossed toward her worktable, gaze dropping toward the small glass vial which he was holding in his hand as he placed it on the table. The liquid inside shimmered dark gold beneath the candlelight, looking irresistible, as if it were calling to be drunk.

“You tested it already?” he asked, standing next to her.

“On diluted elemental reactions only.”

“And?”

“And I’m fairly certain it acts as an extremely intense aphrodisiac.”

Lohen stared at her in silence, blinking several times without saying a word or making any gesture, until finally a sound of surprise escaped his lips. “Oh,” that single word carried entirely too much interest.

She pointed at him immediately, shaking her head and causing the witch's hat she was wearing to wobble a little, but it didn't fall off thanks to Lohen gently holding it. “No, don’t even think about it.”

“What?”

“You’re making that face.”

“What face?” he questioned, pretending not to understand what was happening.

“The one that means you’re about to volunteer yourself for something reckless.”

His smile widened slowly. “I love that you know me so well, sweetheart. But I promise I have a good argument,” he said smoothly, “if not me, then who?”

She groaned softly and set her quill down. “Lohen, no.”

“I’m serious.”

“More like delirious if you think I'm going to let you try it,” she muttered. “You are absolutely not drinking an unidentified aphrodisiac flower potion for my research.”

“Again,” he said reasonably, “who else would you trust? I am your most reliable test subject, your partner, your volunteer.”

“You’re impossible,” she sighed.

“And yet you love me madly”

“…Unfortunately.”

He grinned like that answer alone had already secured victory, and then his expression softened slightly as he crouched beside her chair. “I trust you,” he said quietly. The teasing remained in his eyes, but beneath it sat genuine sincerity. “You’d never let anything truly happen to me.”

Her chest tightened helplessly. Archons, that man was going to be the end of her.

“Lohen, I still don’t know how strong the effects could be,” she warned, struggling to keep her voice steady. “I don’t know how much it might affect you or how your body will react to it.”

“Then you’ll monitor me.”

“And if something goes wrong?”

“You’ll fix it.” His answer came without hesitation, spoken with such unwavering certainty that it stole the breath from her lungs. “I meant what I said before. I trust you completely,” his gaze softened as he drew her a little closer by the waist. “I have absolute faith in you and your abilities.” Then, quieter this time, even more gentle. “I’m not worried,” he murmured. “Because I have you, sweetheart.”

The way he said it, low and warm against her skin, was devastating enough on its own. But paired with the look in his eyes, with the gentle touch of his nose brushing against hers, with the slow circles his thumb traced over her waist as though he already knew she was losing the argument… it became impossible to resist him. And he knew it.

She let out a slow, defeated breath, closing her eyes for a brief moment as if trying to gather what remained of her resolve. It was useless. Every bit of caution she had clung to was crumbling beneath his touch, his voice, the impossible certainty with which he looked at her. When she finally opened her eyes again, there was reluctant surrender shining in them.

“…Okay,” she muttered softly, already knowing she was going to regret how easily he affected her. The corner of his mouth lifted immediately, smug and warm all at once, but she pressed a hand lightly against his chest before he could say anything. “No teasing,” she warned, though the lack of firmness in her voice ruined the effect entirely. “You won, alright? We’ll do it.”

His expression softened at once, satisfaction melting into something gentler, more affectionate, and the way his hands settled more securely at her waist made her heart stumble again.

“But,” she continued quickly, trying to salvage at least a little dignity. “We’re doing this carefully. I’m monitoring everything, and the second I think something is wrong, we stop immediately.”

Lohen’s gaze never left hers as he leaned in just enough for his forehead to rest against hers.

“Whatever you say, sweetheart,” he murmured, far too pleased with himself. He was sure that the experiment was going to be very interesting and educational.

At first, nothing happened.

Lohen sat comfortably across from her at the kitchen table, one elbow resting lazily against the wood while she observed him carefully over the rim of her notebook.

“No dizziness?” she asked.

“No.”

“Heart rate normal?”

“Mhm, beating only for you.”

“Vision changes?”

“Only the usual overwhelming distraction caused by your beautiful face, sweetheart.”

She sighed deeply and continued writing. “Lohen focus, please.”

“I am focused.”

“You’re flirting.”

“I can multitask, one of my many talents.”

Ten minutes passed. Then twenty and still nothing.

She was beginning to suspect the potion had either failed entirely or required stronger concentration when suddenly Lohen went quiet. She immediately focused her gaze on him, noticing the tension in his shoulders.

“…Lohen? Are you okay?”

He inhaled slowly through his nose. “There it is.”

Her attention sharpened instantly. “What are you feeling?”

“Warm.”

“How warm?”

“Not painful,” his brows furrowed faintly. “Just… is like something spreading inside, everywhere.”

She took notes as she noticed how the changes in him were gradually becoming evident. The tips of his ears had begun turning pink and his pupils looked slightly larger too, his breathing quickening a little.

“Any other change?” she asked carefully, holding his wrist for a few seconds to measure his pulse.

Lohen swallowed once. “…More sensitive.”

“How so?”

He leaned back slightly in the chair, exhaling slowly. “It feels like everything’s sharper suddenly,” his voice had lowered slightly. “Your perfume, the candles, your voice, everything, specially you.”

Her writing slowed slightly, observing him, analyzing his reaction, his gestures, his face. “And physically?”

A faint shiver rolled visibly through him then, his gaze flickered toward her hand hat was now resting near the notebook. “When you touched my wrist earlier,” he said quietly, his gaze fixed on hers. “It felt like an electric current running beneath my skin.” His fingers curled slightly at his side, as though remembering it even now. “I could still feel it minutes later, as if I still had your touch.”

Her breath caught slightly despite herself. “And now?”

Lohen laughed softly under his breath, though it sounded strained around the edges. “Now I’m trying very hard not to think about you touching me again.”

Heat curled unexpectedly through her stomach but she ignored it, mostly at least. She nodded, continuing with her notes while they waited a few more minutes to see how his condition would continue to evolve.

“Any discomfort?” she inquired, her eyes fixed attentively on him.

“No.”

“Pain?”

“No, sweetheart.”

“Can you still think clearly?”

He looked at her then, directly, and the sheer intensity in his expression nearly made her lose her train of thought entirely. “Barely,” he admitted, taking her by surprise.

The warmth beneath his skin seemed more obvious now, a faint flush spreading slowly across his throat while his pupils continued dilating wider and wider the longer he stared at her. And he was staring, constantly, like he physically couldn’t stop, as if taking his eyes off her would kill him.

“How strong are the urges currently?”

His jaw tightened slightly before he could answer. “…Manageable,” the way he had said it, with a half-strangled voice, the Adam's apple moving with difficulty in his neck and his eyes fixed on it, made it more than obvious that he was lying.

She stood immediately and moved toward one of the cabinets, taking out another small bottle, this time with a violet liquid. “After obtaining the sample, I looked for a way to make an antidote, just in case.”

Behind her came a soft laugh. “You really prepared for everything.”

“Unlike you, I think ahead.”

"Another one of the many things I adore about you,” he said, causing her to roll her eyes while waving the small vial.

But the moment she turned back toward him, her breathing became shallow and her lips parted slightly in surprise, because Lohen looked wrecked. He was still seated, still trying to behave, but barely. His hands flexed slowly against his knees like he was physically restraining himself from reaching for her, his breathing had deepened and the look in his eyes… It looked almost hungry now.

“You should take this,” she said softly, holding out the antidote.

Lohen stared at the vial, then at her and then very deliberately at her mouth, while licking his lower lip. “…Question,” he murmured.

“What?”

“If not the antidote…” His voice had gone rough around the edges. “What other solutions are theorized?”

Heat rushed instantly into her face. “I mean, there are rumors,” she admitted carefully. “But nothing verified, nothing too certain.”

“What kind of rumors, sweetheart?”

The nickname should not have affected her as much as it did in that precise moment. Lohen had been calling her that since the day they met, shamelessly slipping the endearment into conversation with that infuriating confidence of his until it eventually became something familiar, something warm. Over time, it had grown softer around the edges, threaded with unmistakable affection and quiet tenderness.

But this time… this time it sounded different. This time, the word left his lips low and rough, steeped in something far more dangerous than fondness alone. There was restraint in it, strained thin at the edges, but beneath that restraint lurked hunger, deep, aching and barely contained. The sound of it wrapped around her like heat crawling beneath her skin, making her pulse stutter helplessly.

She hesitated, only for a second, but he noticed immediately. Of course he did. he was watching her with the sharp focus of a hunter tracking prey, attentive to every tiny reaction she gave him no matter how subtle. And somehow, her hesitation only seemed to intrigue him further. Something darkened in his expression then, not cruel, never cruel, but intent, interested, starving. His gaze dipped briefly to her mouth before returning to her eyes, enough to make her breath catch.

“...Physical intimacy may counteract the effects,” she said quietly. “Temporarily, at least.” Silence followed, a silence that felt heavy, even dangerous in a good way, thick enough to suffocate the air between them.

For one suspended moment, Lohen simply stared at her as though the words had not fully settled in his mind yet, as though he was forcing himself to process them carefully instead of reacting immediately. She could practically see the restraint straining inside him, stretched painfully thin. Then he stood, slowly. The movement itself looked deliberate, controlled with visible effort, but the second he straightened to his full height, a sharp shiver rolled through him from shoulders to spine, powerful enough that she noticed it instantly. His hand tightened briefly against the edge of the table beside him, knuckles whitening for half a second before relaxing again.

Her breath caught, the effects were worsening faster than she had anticipated.

Heat seemed to radiate from him now, subtle but unmistakable, filling the small space of the cottage until it became harder to think clearly herself. His breathing had deepened, slower than before but heavier somehow, and every muscle in his body appeared taut with restraint, as though he was holding himself back through sheer force of will alone. When he lifted his gaze to her again, the sight nearly made her pulse stumble. His pupils had blown wide enough to consume almost all the colour in his eyes, leaving only a thin ring of colour visible around the edges. Hunger burned there openly now, dark and intense enough to make warmth curl low in her stomach despite herself.

“Physical intimacy,” he repeated softly. The words came out rougher than before, quieter too, as though speaking required effort. His gaze did not leave her face for even a second while he said it. It dragged over her slowly afterward, unbearably attentive, and she suddenly became acutely aware of every inch of exposed skin, every shallow breath she took. Another shiver passed through him, smaller this time, and he exhaled through his nose with visible control. “Sweetheart,” he murmured after a moment, voice low enough to send heat racing up her spine, “you really should’ve led with that part.”

Her throat suddenly felt dry. “It’s only a theory.”

“Mhm.”

“You should still take the antidote, Lohen.”

Lohen crossed the space between them carefully, as though moving too fast might snap whatever fragile restraint he still possessed. Every step looked measured, deliberate, but she could see the tension coiled beneath it, in the tightness of his shoulders and in the way his fingers flexed once at his side like he was resisting the urge to reach for her immediately.

When he finally stopped in front of her, he was close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his body. It wrapped around her instantly, warm and dizzying, carrying traces of cedar, leather and something distinctly him beneath the lingering sweetness of the flower’s effects. His gaze dipped briefly toward the antidote vial still clutched in her hand before lifting back to her eyes.

“Or,” he murmured, voice low and wrecked and wanting enough to send heat down her spine. “We could test the theory properly.”

The words sent a pulse of heat straight down her spine.

She hesitated. The antidote remained loosely trapped between her fingers while Lohen stood impossibly close, close enough that one small movement would bring them flush together. The warmth pouring off his skin felt almost feverish now and she became painfully aware of how uneven his breathing had grown.

“Lohen,” she said softly, trying very hard not to focus on the way his eyes kept drifting to her mouth between sentences. “You’re not thinking clearly right now.”

A quiet laugh escaped him, breathless around the edges. “My love,” he murmured, the endearment sounding almost unbearably tender despite the roughness in his voice. “I never think clearly when you’re near me.”

Heat bloomed instantly across her cheeks. Archons, even now, even half-drunk on the effects of a dangerously potent aphrodisiac, he still flirted with her as naturally as breathing.

“The potion is affecting your judgment,” she insisted weakly, though her voice lacked any real conviction now.

“It’s affecting a great many things,” he admitted honestly, his gaze dragging slowly over her face before settling back on her eyes with enough intensity to make her stomach tighten. “But not that, I am really sure of that.”

“You shouldn’t decide something like this while under the effects of an unknown aphrodisiac.”

Lohen stepped closer again, close enough now that the antidote vial trapped between them pressed lightly against his chest. And the reaction it caused in him was immediate, a visible shiver rolled through his entire body at the contact, his eyes fluttered shut briefly, like he was fighting to steady himself, and when they opened again the restraint inside them looked dangerously thin.

“You don’t understand,” he said quietly. “I already wanted you before this.” The words settled between them, warm and heavy enough to steal the air from her lungs. His gaze held hers with almost painful intensity now, honest in a way that made her chest tighten. “I always want you,” he admitted softly. “I want to hold you. I want you in my arms whenever I can get you there,” his fingers tightened faintly at her waist as though the confession itself cost him restraint. “Half the time you’re talking to me, I’m trying not to think about pulling you closer. This only…” he exhaled shakily, jaw tightening as another tremor passed through him. “Intensified it.”

“Lohen…”

“I’m serious,” his hands remained carefully at her waist, gentle despite the tension visibly straining through him, like he was still trying, desperately trying, to behave even while every instinct inside him screamed otherwise. “If you tell me no,” he said softly, voice quieter now, almost reverent despite the hunger threaded through it, “I’ll drink the antidote.”

That alone nearly undid her. Because he meant it, even like this, even visibly suffering through whatever hellish concoction she had created. He was still placing the decision entirely in her hands.

“But if you’re asking whether I want you…” his jaw tightened faintly, like even the question itself strained something inside him. “Archons, sweetheart.” A helpless laugh escaped him then, the sound thick with frustration and need. He dropped his forehead briefly against hers, exhaling shakily as though trying to steady himself and failing miserably. “You have no idea,” he murmured hoarsely. “You have no idea how badly I want you.”

His fingers flexed against her waist, restrained tension trembling through the movement.

“I fucking need you,” the confession came out rougher, almost desperate now, like the words had been dragged out of him against his will. His breathing faltered for a second before he continued, quieter but somehow even more devastating. “Need to touch you. Need to hold you,” his eyes lifted back to hers, blown dark with aching want. “Need you close enough that I can’t think about anything else. “It’s always like this,” he admitted quietly, the confession slipping out of him before he could stop it. His gaze stayed fixed on hers, painfully intense, stripped completely bare now. “You probably wouldn’t even like being inside my head,” he murmured with a breathless, almost self-deprecating laugh. “You’d see how bad it really is. The things I think about when it comes to you…” his fingers tightened faintly at her waist again, like he needed the contact to ground himself.

“Archons,” he shook his head once, visibly overwhelmed by the admission alone. “Sometimes I think you’d be terrified if you knew how much I need you,” he confessed softly, the words sounding almost torn out of him. “Not just like this. Not because of the potion.” His gaze dropped briefly, like admitting it aloud made him feel too exposed, too vulnerable. “It’s constant,” he murmured. “You’re in my head all the time.” A shaky breath left him. “Sometimes it feels less like wanting and more like… an addiction I never learned how to survive. Like my body recognizes you before my mind even has the chance to catch up.” His fingers flexed weakly against her waist. “Like being near you is the only time something inside me finally settles. And when you’re not with me,” he admitted, quieter now, “I still catch myself reaching for you.”

Another breathless laugh escaped him, strained around the edges.

“Sweetheart… if you could see the inside of my mind, you’d probably realize this stopped being reasonable a long time ago.”

“You don’t mean all of that.”

“I do.”

“It’s the potion talking.”

Lohen shook his head immediately. “No,” he said firmly. “The potion only removed what little self-control I had left,” his forehead dropped lightly against hers then, his skin fever-warm, almost burning against her own. The contact drew a shaky breath from him, like even something as innocent as this had become overwhelming now. His hands tightened faintly at her waist before relaxing again, as though he was painfully aware of every ounce of pressure he put on her. “You think I haven’t imagined something like this before?” A strained laugh slipped out of him, quiet and breathless. “Half the time I’m around you, I’m trying to act like I’m not completely losing my mind over the fact that you’re standing so close to me. I’ve imagined kissing you until neither of us can think straight… Pulling you into my lap whenever you look at me like this.” His voice dipped lower. “Keeping you underneath me just so I could hear those little sounds you make when I touch you.”

The confession visibly cost him composure. She could feel it in the uneven way he breathed, in the tension wound tight beneath his skin.

“And if I need to get on my knees and beg for you properly,” he murmured, gaze dark and devastatingly sincere as it locked onto hers again, “I will.”

Her breath caught sharply. “Lohen…”

“I mean it,” his fingers tightened faintly at her waist. “Don’t leave me like this.” There was desperation creeping into his voice now beneath all the devotion and teasing, painfully intense, focused entirely on her. “Please,” he whispered. “I only want you. I need you.”

Archons.

That destroyed the last of her resistance almost instantly. She exhaled slowly, the sound shaky despite her best efforts. Every rational thought in her mind was still screaming at her that this was reckless, irresponsible, an absolutely terrible idea.

Unfortunately, Lohen was looking at her like she hung the stars over Mondstadt, trembling with restraint while still waiting for her permission like it was the only thing that mattered. And she was only human, a human weak for him.

“…Fine.”

Lohen went completely still.

For one suspended heartbeat, he simply stared at her as though he wasn’t entirely certain he had heard correctly. The tension running through him froze all at once, sharp and stunned, before something softer, something dangerously adoring, flooded his expression so quickly it made her chest tighten. The look he gave her afterward bordered on reverent, like she had just handed him something precious. And somehow, impossibly, that expression alone made heat rush straight to her face faster than any of his shameless flirting ever had.

But before he could speak, she immediately lifted a finger toward him in warning. “Under my conditions.”

The Vice-Captain of the Fifth Company nodded so fast it was almost embarrassing. “Anything.”

“You’re still technically my test subject.”

“I happily volunteer.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I, my love.”

Her lips twitched despite herself and the sight of it seemed to affect him instantly. His gaze dropped to her mouth again with visible hunger before he caught himself, inhaling sharply through his nose like even that tiny expression of amusement from her nearly shattered whatever restraint he still possessed.

“Sweetheart,” he said quietly, sounding genuinely overwhelmed now, “you have no idea how difficult you’re making it for me to behave.”

She stepped closer, fingers sliding lightly beneath his chin to tilt his face toward hers. “I want to continue observing the effects,” she murmured softly.

Lohen looked moments away from losing his mind entirely. “You can observe whatever you want,” he said immediately.

“That eager?”

“My love,” he breathed, looking at her like she personally held the fate of his soul in her hands, “you could ask me to sign my life away right now and I’d ask where to place the signature.”

A laugh escaped her and Lohen visibly shuddered at the sound. “Gods, don’t laugh like that right now,” he muttered weakly. “You’re making this worse.”

“And yet you still agreed.”

“Enthusiastically,” he confirmed it, nodding his head.

“Poor decision-making skills,” she said, unable to suppress the smile that blossomed on her lips.

“Severely compromised by how beautiful you are.”

She barely had time to roll her eyes before Lohen suddenly moved.

One moment he was standing in front of her, looking entirely too pleased with himself, and the next his arms slid beneath her knees and around her waist with effortless confidence. A startled sound escaped her as the floor disappeared beneath her feet.

“Lohen!”

“I’m being efficient,” he replied smoothly, already carrying her toward the hallway before she could properly protest.

“You’re impossible.”

A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth, warm despite the visible strain still lingering beneath it. “You like me impossible.”

Unfortunately, she did. Very much. Especially like that, carrying her through the cottage as though she weighed nothing at all, one arm firm beneath her legs while the other held her securely against his chest. Even in his current state, every touch remained careful, almost instinctively protective despite the tension visibly coiled through him. She could feel it in the tightness of his muscles beneath her hands, in the uneven rhythm of his breathing against her temple, in the way his fingers flexed slightly whenever she shifted in his arms.

The effects of the flower were only getting worse. Every accidental brush of her fingertips against the exposed skin of his neck seemed to hit him like a physical blow now. His breath would catch immediately afterward, shoulders tightening for half a second before he forced himself to relax again.

By the time they reached the bedroom, Lohen already looked thoroughly unraveled. His pupils remained blown wide enough to swallow nearly all the colour in his eyes, and there was a flush spread across his skin now that hadn’t been there earlier. He set her down carefully beside the bed, though his hands lingered at her waist for one extra second before he reluctantly stepped back.

Her pulse skipped traitorously at the sight of him standing there. Archons, the man looked devastating.

She pointed toward the bed, forcing herself to maintain at least some degree of composure.

“Lay down.”

Lohen obeyed immediately. Without hesitation, without teasing argument, not even the faintest attempt to challenge her authority.

And honestly, that affected her far more than it should have.

He stretched back against the mattress, eyes following her every movement with open anticipation as she approached slowly. There was trust in that gaze too, complete and unquestioning, threaded so naturally beneath all the hunger that it made warmth tighten painfully in her chest.

He was waiting, watching her, looking completely hers in this moment and the realization sent another dangerous thrill through her body.

Then soft green light flickered around her fingertips, which he noticed instantly. His eyes widened just slightly before recognition settled over his expression, followed almost immediately by a slow, delighted grin that made heat rush straight to her face.

“Oh?”

The amused sound barely left his mouth before thick ivy curled upward from beneath the bedframe. The vines moved smoothly at her command, winding around his wrists first before securing them carefully, but firmly, against the wood above his head. Then came his ankles, restrained just as effectively beneath twisting green vines that tightened enough to hold him in place without causing pain.

A feeling similar to that time when they had first met and she had tied him to a post.

Lohen exhaled shakily the moment the restraints settled around him. Not fearful, Archons, no. If anything, the idea of him restrained seemed to affect him even more. His head tipped back briefly against the pillows as though he needed a second to process it, throat working visibly before he looked at her again with flushed cheeks and pupils blown impossibly dark.

The expression on his face bordered on worshipful now. Entirely too pleased and too affected.

“You really have no business looking that beautiful while tying me up,” he murmured, eyes following her every movement with shameless appreciation as she removed her hat and carefully placed it aside. The warm candlelight caught briefly in her hair afterward, softening her features in a way that made his breath hitch again. “I swear every time you use those vines on me, I fall in love with you a little harder.”

She stifled a laugh when she saw his completely lovestruck gaze. It was ridiculous, honestly. Completely ridiculous. The man was restrained to her bed, visibly half out of his mind from an aphrodisiac strong enough to make his hands shake, and somehow, he still looked at her like she was the most breathtaking thing he had ever seen.

“There’s something deeply wrong with you,” she informed him, unable to fully suppress her smile now. “You know that, right?”

“Oh, sweetheart, I’ve known that for years.” His grin widened immediately, mischievous despite the heat still burning behind his eyes. “But thank the Archons they sent me someone just as concerning as I am.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly in mock offense. “I am not concerning.”

Lohen actually laughed at that, low and warm and entirely unconvinced. The sound softened into something fonder as he shifted lightly against the restraints, the vines creaking faintly around his wrists. “My love,” he said gently, “The first time we trained together, you threatened me with carnivorous plants.”

“They were defensive plants.”

“You said they could dissolve bone.”

“They can dissolve bone.”

“That does not help your argument.”

She rolled her eyes, though the smile tugging at her lips betrayed her far too easily. Lohen watched it happen like a man witnessing something sacred, completely enthralled by even the smallest changes in her expression.

Slowly, she stepped closer again. The mattress dipped softly beneath her knees as she climbed onto the bed, settling carefully between his legs. The movement drew an immediate reaction from him. His breath caught sharply, shoulders tightening against the pillows while his gaze darkened with helpless intensity.

Her fingers drifted toward the fastening of his shirt, brushing lightly against the fabric stretched across his chest. The contact earned another visible shiver from him, one strong enough that the vines around his wrists creaked faintly in response.

“Well,” she murmured, slipping open the first button slowly, “if you’re technically my test subject, I should probably continue observing how sensitive you’ve become.”

Lohen let out a shaky laugh at that, though it dissolved halfway into a breath the moment her fingertips brushed accidentally against the warm skin beneath his collar. His head tipped back briefly, throat working hard.

“Sweetheart,” he warned softly, voice already strained, “you’re discovering entirely too quickly that I’m weak for you.”

Another button came undone and then another. With each inch of exposed skin, his reactions only worsened. A faint tremor ran through him every time her fingers grazed him, his breathing growing progressively more uneven beneath her careful attention. And the worst part, the part making heat creep steadily higher into her own face, was how openly affected he allowed himself to be. No shame, no attempt to hide it, just completely beneath her touch.

His eyes never left her face while she pushed the loosened fabric aside, exposing more of his chest. The look in them nearly made her lose her composure entirely, dark with want but softer too, threaded through with so much affection it almost hurt to look at directly.

“There it is again,” he murmured quietly.

She blinked. “What?”

“That look you get when you’re focused.” His smile softened, utterly smitten. “You have no idea how beautiful you are when you’re studying something.”

Her fingers paused briefly against his chest. “You’re flirting while tied up and half delirious.”

“And somehow it’s still working.”

Unfortunately for her dignity, it absolutely was.

Clicking her tongue, she leaned down and kissed him. The reaction was immediate, a sharp breath caught in Lohen’s throat the second her lips touched his, his entire body tightening beneath her as though she had struck something unbearably sensitive. The restrained sound he made against her mouth nearly undid her on the spot, low and shaky and so obviously affected that warmth curled instantly through her chest.

He kissed her back like a starving man despite the vines keeping his wrists pinned above his head. Every movement carried restraint stretched dangerously thin, his shoulders tensing whenever instinct told him to reach for her only for the ivy to hold him in place. Her hands slid upward slowly, fingers brushing across his shoulders before tracing down the exposed skin of his chest, and the contact earned another visible shiver from him. Goosebumps rose beneath her touch almost instantly, his breathing growing heavier each time her palms wandered lower.

Lohen’s head tipped back briefly against the pillows when she kissed along his jaw, then lower toward his throat. A strained exhale escaped him at the feeling of her mouth against his skin, the sound rough enough to send heat flooding straight through her.

“Sweetheart,” he breathed, already sounding wrecked, “you’re enjoying this entirely too much.” She hummed softly against his throat in response, entirely unapologetic.

The vines loosened slightly at her silent command, just enough for her to slide his shirt from his shoulders and tug it fully off him. The fabric disappeared somewhere onto the floor beside the bed moments later, leaving him bare beneath her hands. And Archons… That did not help her composure in the slightest. Lohen was already unfairly attractive under ordinary circumstances, but flushed and half undone beneath her, chest rising unevenly with every breath while ivy curled around his wrists, he looked genuinely devastating.

Worse still was the way he looked at her, completely open, trusting and overwhelmed by her.

Her fingertips drifted lower again, exploring slowly, deliberately testing the limits of his reactions now. Every brush of her nails against his skin made his muscles tense beneath her touch. Every kiss she pressed against his chest earned another shaky breath from him.

And when she finally reached the edge of his trousers, Lohen broke. A low, helpless sound escaped him before he could stop it, somewhere between a groan and a muffled moan, deep enough to vibrate through his chest. His head fell back against the pillows again, throat exposed as he inhaled sharply through clenched teeth, the noise sending a pulse of heat straight through her.

“Oh?” she murmured softly, fingertips resting just at the edge of his waistband. “That affected you more than expected.”

Lohen laughed weakly at that, though the sound dissolved immediately into another unsteady breath when her fingers shifted slightly. “My love,” he said hoarsely, eyes half-lidded now as he looked back at her, “at this point, breathing near me is affecting me.”

Her fingertips lingered at the waistband of his trousers, tracing the edge of the fabric with infuriating patience. Back and forth. Slow enough that it felt deliberate.

Every reaction was immediate.

She could feel the way his stomach tightened beneath her touch, muscles jumping instinctively whenever her fingers brushed too close to a particularly sensitive spot. His breathing, once merely uneven, had deteriorated into shallow, ragged pulls of air. Each exhale sounded strained, as though maintaining even the smallest amount of composure required conscious effort.

Leaning down, she pressed a soft kiss just below his navel and the response was instantaneous. Lohen's entire body tensed beneath her, a sharp breath escaped him before he could stop it, and the sound alone sent a flicker of satisfaction through her.

She continued downward at an agonizing pace, leaving a trail of lingering kisses across warm skin, without rushing, as if she were precisely planning everything she did. Every touch seemed calculated to observe, to test, to discover precisely where his limits were. And every discovery made her increasingly aware of how little restraint he had left.

The vines around his wrists shifted faintly as his hands flexed against them on instinct. Not enough to break free, just enough to reveal how badly he wanted to reach for her.

"God’s sake…" he breathed, the words emerged rough and unsteady.

She hummed thoughtfully, as though making a note of the reaction.

His eyes narrowed immediately. "You are enjoying this far too much."

A smile tugged at her mouth. "Research requires thorough observation, didn’t you know that?”

The look he gave her was almost offended.

Then her fingertips slipped beneath the edge of his waistband, barely enough to make contact, but it was enough to get a reaction from him. His breath caught sharply, every muscle in his body seemed to lock at once before slowly releasing again.

The reaction was fascinating under her eyes. And if she was being honest with herself, it was deeply satisfying, so she repeated the motion, letting her fingers brush lightly against warm skin before withdrawing again. Then once more, never giving him enough time to adjust, each touch left him looking progressively more undone. And by the third time, he had abandoned any attempt to hide it.

Lohen’s head rested against the pillows, eyes half-lidded and fixed entirely on her. The flush coloring his face had spread further now, and there was a tension in his expression that made it obvious exactly how much effort it was costing him to remain still.

Then, just as abruptly as she had started, she stopped, making Lohen look at her. She lifted her head, resting her chin lightly against him as she studied him with open curiosity, noticing how his chest rose and fell heavily, his pupils remained blown wide and every line of his body looked wound tight with anticipation.

"Tell me how you feel right now," she said softly.

For a second, he simply looked at her blinking, trying to process what he had asked her. Then a strained laugh escaped him. "You're conducting an interview?"

"I'm collecting data."

"Of course you are,” despite everything, a faint smile touched his mouth. But it lasted all of two seconds before another shaky breath ruined it. While she waited patiently, Lohen closed his eyes briefly before answering. "When you touch me, it feels like every nerve in my body notices,” the honesty in his voice made something warm twist inside her chest. "Everything feels stronger than it should. I can feel where you've touched me long after you've stopped, as if my body refuses to let go of it."

Her fingers drifted toward the fastening of his trousers, and for one glorious second, hope flashed across Lohen's face. Then she stopped, and the realization hit him almost immediately.

"You're doing that on purpose," he accused, though the complaint lacked any real bite.

A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "Doing what?"

Lohen let out a disbelieving laugh and tipped his head back against the pillows. The vines shifted faintly as he moved, and when he looked at her again, there was a mixture of exasperation and unmistakable devotion in his eyes.

"Sweetheart," he said, voice rough with restraint, "I need you to stop conducting experiments on my patience."

That earned a quiet laugh from her. Unfortunately, hearing it only seemed to make things worse for him. His gaze followed her every movement, every tiny expression, as though she had become the center of his entire world. And so it was, she had become his whole world.

"Please," he murmured after a moment, the teasing finally giving way to something more vulnerable. "Do something. Anything, just... Do something, please, please sweetheart. I need more, more of you, more of this.”

She tilted her head slightly, studying him with a smile that was far too pleased with itself. The expression was playful, almost innocent on the surface, but her eyes betrayed her immediately. There was amusement there and something darker too. A mix of satisfaction, curiosity and the unmistakable thrill of discovering exactly how much power she held over him in that moment.

"Hmm,” her gaze drifted lazily over him, taking in every visible sign of his unraveling. "I don't know if you've earned it yet." The words drew an immediate reaction, Lohen let out a strained breath, his chest rising sharply before falling again. "You look so pretty like this," she continued softly. "All flushed and desperate."

His eyes closed briefly, the fact that she sounded genuinely pleased by that observation was almost worse than the teasing itself.

"Maybe I should make you wait a little longer."

The threat hung in the air between them and then her hand finally moved, the contact drew a sharp inhale from him. Every muscle in his body seemed to lock for a heartbeat before tension flooded through him all at once. His head tipped back against the pillows, a broken sound escaping before he could swallow it down.

The vines around his wrists tightened as his hands instinctively flexed against them, enough to reveal how badly he wanted more. A quiet, helpless noise slipped from him as he shifted beneath her touch, his entire body responding before his mind had a chance to catch up.

A small click of her tongue broke the silence. "You should already know struggling is pointless,” there was no real reprimand in her voice, only amusement. "We both know how strong my vines are.” The vines curled slightly against his wrists, almost as if responding to her words. "These aren't going anywhere until I decide otherwise."

Lohen laughed, a short, breathless sound that carried more frustration than humor. His composure was slipping faster now, every controlled breath seemed harder to manage than the last, every second stretched his patience thinner.

And she knew it.

"Sweetheart..." the nickname sounded rough, almost pleading. "Please,” the single word carried enough sincerity to make her heartbeat stumble. “Please, I beg you to do something,” his voice dropped lower, quieter, more vulnerable. “Anything, I don't fucking care what,” a shaky laugh escaped him. "Just don't stop touching me and then disappear again. Please, please, please.”

For several long seconds she simply looked at him in silence. Watching him, taking in the flushed skin, the uneven breathing, the way his eyes never once left her face. Then her expression finally gentled, the mischief remained but affection slipped through it now, warm and undeniable.

“Shh,” her voice came out quieter. "It's alright.” The words seemed to affect him immediately, because some of the tension left his shoulders. "You've been very patient, very obedient… and incredibly easy to study." Lohen groaned softly upon hearing how she praised him. "I think," she murmured, brushing a hand through his hair, "you've earned a small reward."

She hummed softly at his obedience, satisfaction flickering across her features as her attention finally shifted to the fastenings of his trousers. Her movements remained unhurried, deliberate enough to make his patience fray further with every passing second. She undid the button first, then the zipper, acutely aware of the way his breathing hitched in anticipation.

Lohen watched her through half-lidded eyes, every muscle in his body taut with expectation.

When she finally hooked her fingers beneath the fabric, he lifted his hips as much as the vines allowed, eager to help despite the restraints. The sight drew an amused smile from her.

"Look at you," she murmured. "So cooperative."

A strained laugh escaped him. "You've made it very difficult to be anything else."

The fabric slid slowly down his legs until it was discarded somewhere beside the bed. Freed at last, he exhaled shakily, his head falling briefly against the pillows as though the relief alone was enough to overwhelm him. His cock sprang up against his abdomen, flushed dark and painfully hard, already leaking at the tip, it was as if it were calling for her.

Her gaze lingered on him, enjoying the view, appreciating every detail that her eyes fell upon. And judging by the way heat immediately climbed higher into his cheeks, he knew exactly what she was doing.

"Sweetheart," he warned weakly.

"What?"

"You're staring, a lot.”

A smile tugged at her mouth. "Research."

"That excuse is getting less convincing every minute."

She laughed softly before her next move.

Her hand settled around him at last, careful at first, testing his reaction. The response was immediate, his entire body tensed beneath her touch before a shudder rolled through him from head to toe.

"Fuck—“ the curse escaped from his lips as his hips jerked upward, chasing her touch.

She stroked him slowly, more curious than hurried, watching every expression that crossed his face. His breathing grew increasingly uneven, chest rising and falling in sharp, ragged pulls while his fingers flexed helplessly against the restraints above his head.

She smiled, repeating the soft caress, letting her thumb brush over the sensitive head and spread the bead of precum. Every touch drew another hiss or low groan from him, his body twitching and straining against the vines as he tried to thrust into her fist.

"How does it feel now?" she asked softly, slipping back into her role as researcher despite the warmth steadily spreading through her own body, while she continued moving her hand up and down.

Lohen let out a gasp with a groan, a disbelieving breathless sound. "You are unbelievable."

"I'm asking a scientific question."

"Of course you are." His eyes closed briefly before opening again. "It feels like every nerve in my body is awake, I can feel everything… Fuck, don’t stop please, don’t stop.”

Deciding she had tortured him enough for now, she tightened her grip and began stroking him properly with firm, steady strokes from root to tip. Lohen let out a long, shuddering sigh of relief, his head falling back against the pillows as a deep, broken moan vibrated through his chest.

“Fuck yes…” he gasped, voice hoarse.

She kept her eyes on him the entire time, drinking in every reaction. The way his abs tensed and fluttered, how his thighs trembled, the way his cock throbbed hot and heavy in her hand, thick, flushed dark, and leaking steadily now, clear beads of precum sliding down the shaft and over her fingers with each slow, deliberate pump.

Lohen’s breathing was ragged, chest heaving as desperate little sounds fell from his parted lips, half-moans, half-whimpers that made heat pool low in her belly. His fingers twisted in the sheets, knuckles white, fighting the urge to grab her head and thrust.

But she wanted more, just like him. So, with a wicked little smile, she shifted lower between his spread legs, her hair brushing over his thighs. She held his gaze for one heartbeat longer, watching the raw anticipation flash across his face, then lowered her head and took him into her mouth without warning.

“Fuck—” Lohen’s moan was loud and wrecked, torn straight from his throat as wet, velvet heat enveloped the sensitive head of his cock. His hips jerked up instinctively before he forced them back down, trembling with the effort.

She didn’t tease this time because she wanted to feel him lose control. Her lips stretched wide around his thickness as she sank down, taking him as deep as she could in one smooth motion. The taste of him, salty, musky, purely masculine, flooded her tongue. She hummed around him, the vibration pulling another broken groan from his chest, her tongue pressed firmly along the thick vein on the underside, tracing it slowly while she sucked hard, hollowing her cheeks.

One hand stayed wrapped around the base of his cock, stroking in perfect rhythm with her mouth, twisting gently on the upstroke. The other slid up his tense abdomen, nails lightly scraping over his flexing muscles, feeling every twitch and shiver.

“Archons, sweetheart” he rasped, voice hoarse and wrecked. “Your mouth— Fuck, it’s so fucking good…”

She took him even deeper, relaxing her throat until her nose brushed against the dark hair at his base. The wet, obscene sounds of her sucking filled the room, filthy, slick and simply perfect. Saliva dripped down his shaft, coating her hand as she worked him faster, tighter, hotter.

It didn’t take long. Only a couple of minutes of her warm, wet mouth and rhythmic stroking had Lohen unraveling. His hips began to stutter, thrusting shallowly into her mouth as his control slipped. His entire body went rigid, powerful muscles locking up from his chest down to his trembling thighs.

“I’m… fuck, I’m going to—” he choked out, voice strained and desperate, cracking on the words.

She didn’t pull away. If anything, she took him deeper, sucking harder, her eyes locked on his face with wicked satisfaction.

Lohen came with a deep, guttural groan that bordered on a broken cry. His cock pulsed violently against her tongue as thick, hot spurts flooded her mouth. Wave after wave of his release coated her throat, and she swallowed greedily around him, milking every last drop with slow, firm strokes of her hand and rhythmic pulls of her lips. His body shuddered violently beneath her, abs clenching, thighs quivering as helpless moans spilled from his lips.

Only when his orgasm finally began to ebb did she ease off him slowly, letting his spent cock slip from her mouth with a wet, obscene sound. A thin string of saliva and cum connected her bottom lip to the flushed head for a moment before she licked it away, savoring the taste of him.

For a few moments, he simply lay there trying to recover. Trying being the important word.

A soft laugh escaped her as she brushed her fingers lightly across his thigh. “Gods, Lohen,” his gaze shifted toward her sluggishly. “You usually last far longer than that.” The words immediately earned a groan from him.

“Sweetheart...”

“No, really,” her smile widened. “I don't think I've ever seen you unravel that quickly.”

A mixture of embarrassment and disbelief crossed his face. “Neither have I.”

And it was true, because Lohen was not someone easily overwhelmed. Even at his most affectionate, most passionate, he typically possessed remarkable control over himself. The fact that he had lost it so quickly was concerning from a scientific perspective and fascinating from every other perspective.

“Is that fucking flower, it definitely has to be,” Lohen muttered, dropping his head back against the pillows with a groan. “Because if this is being recorded in your research notes, I'd appreciate a footnote explaining that this is absolutely not normal for me.”

She laughed at his words. “I'll be sure to document your complaints.”

“Thank you,” the dry response made her laugh even harder.

For a brief moment the tension in the room softened, but then both of them froze because something was happening.

Her gaze dropped first, Lohen followed a second later and silence settled over the room.

“...Oh.”

The effects hadn't faded, if anything, they appeared to be escalating. Despite having barely begun recovering, despite the lingering exhaustion visible in every line of his body, the evidence was impossible to ignore. The flower wasn't allowing his body to rest.

“Archons…” the sound was filled with equal parts frustration, embarrassment and resignation. “It won't stop.”

A fascinated smile tugged at her lips. “Interesting.”

“Interesting?” He turned his head toward her in disbelief. “Sweetheart, I am experiencing a crisis.”

“A fascinating crisis,” she said, unable to suppress the smile on her lips.

Lohen groaned immediately.

“Please stop sounding excited about this.”

“I am a researcher.”

“You are enjoying this far too much,” the accusation only made her smile widen. “You are impossible.”

“Yet here you are.”

“Yeah, because apparently,” he murmured, gaze fixed entirely on her, “I seem to be completely obsessed with you.”

The admission made her smile warm, affectionate, dangerously pleased. Then she rose to her feet beside the bed and for a moment, Lohen simply watched her, confused until the realization dawned.

Without a word, she began undressing for him.

She unbuttoned her shirt slowly and let it slide off her shoulders, revealing her skin. Then she hooked her thumbs into her pants, sliding them down her hips and legs at a deliberately teasing pace and every trace of coherent thought appeared to abandon him. Lohen’s gaze never left her, dark and intense, completely captivated and unable to look away, his cock twitching visibly against his stomach as he watched her strip down to just her underwear.

By the time she turned her attention back to him, he looked almost stunned. “Archons...” he breathed. The words emerged rough and reverent, like a prayer. “You're beautiful, so fucking beautiful, I’m a damn lucky bastard.”

She climbed onto the bed with slow, deliberate grace, now dressed only in a delicate set of black lace that left very little to the imagination. The sight alone seemed to steal what little composure Lohen had managed to recover. His eyes followed her every movement, dark and intent, as though looking away was physically impossible.

When she settled over his hips, she took her time. Her hands wandered across his chest, tracing the contours of warm skin, occasionally dragging her nails lightly downward just to watch the resulting shiver travel through him. Every reaction fascinated her, every hitch of his breath and every tightening of muscle beneath her fingertips.

Lohen groaned softly when she shifted closer, his gaze fixed entirely on her. “Sweetheart…” the warning lacked conviction, it sounded far more like a plea.

She smiled. “What?”

“You know exactly what.” His answer dissolved into a shaky breath as she rolled her hips in a slow, deliberate motion. Not enough to give him what he wanted, just enough to keep him constantly aware of her presence. The vines around his wrists creaked faintly as his hands flexed against them on instinct. “Please,” he breathed, the word emerged rough and strained. “Stop teasing me… I need you,” the honesty in his voice sent a pulse of heat through her.

For a moment she simply looked at him, until she finally relented. A little.

Slowly, she lowered herself until the thin lace separating them became the only barrier left. The instant contact drew a sharp gasp from him. His entire body reacted, shoulders tightening, chest expanding with a sudden breath and head falling back against the pillows as though the sensation alone was enough to overwhelm him.

“More, I need more, please.”

She braced her hands against his chest for balance and started moving, slow, deliberate rolls of her hips, sliding her soaked panties up and down his cock. She rocked back and forth, then added small circles, grinding her clit against his throbbing shaft with every motion.

Each motion drew another reaction from him, his breathing grew increasingly uneven. Low sounds escaped him that he clearly had no intention of making, the flower had stripped away too much restraint for that. Lohen had always been expressive around her, but never like that, never so completely incapable of hiding what he felt. Every emotion crossed his face openly. Need, relief, frustration, affection, desire and more. All of it laid bare beneath her.

"My love..."

The words dissolved into another shaky breath and his body shifted instinctively beneath her, chasing every bit of contact she allowed.

The friction was driving him insane.

Every slow roll of her hips sent sparks of overwhelming pleasure racing up his spine. The soaked lace of her panties clung to her, creating a slick, teasing barrier between them. The wet heat of her arousal pressed right against his throbbing cock as she moved above him with such confident, sensual grace. Each grind pushed him closer to the edge, until he couldn’t hold back anymore.

Without warning, Lohen’s entire body tensed violently. His abs clenched hard, thighs shaking beneath her as his hips stuttered upward in erratic thrusts.

“Fuck,” a deep, guttural moan tore from his throat as he came again, hard.

Thick, hot pulses of his release spilled across his own abdomen in messy streaks, some of it splashing onto the front of her ruined panties. He kept twitching and spilling, the orgasm ripping through him with surprising intensity for a second release so soon.

She slowed her movements but didn’t stop completely, gently rocking against him as she watched the blissful agony play across his face. Lohen’s cheeks were flushed a deep crimson, his eyes half-lidded and glassy with overwhelming pleasure and clear embarrassment. His chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath, looking almost mortified at how quickly he’d fallen apart again.

But her own desire was burning far too hot to let him retreat into shame. So, she leaned down closer, her hair falling around them like a curtain, and whispered softly against his lips. “Don’t even think about feeling shy, Lohen,” her voice was low, warm, and dripping with lust. “You’re so sensitive tonight… it’s honestly really fucking hot.”

She kept moving in slow, teasing circles, rubbing her soaked panties against his spent cock, spreading the evidence of his release between them. Lohen let out a broken whimper, still trembling from the aftershocks.

Even as he panted heavily, trying to recover, she felt it happening again, his cock twitched beneath her, thick and insistent. Slowly but surely, it began to harden once more, swelling against the messy, ruined fabric of her panties. The aphrodisiac was merciless, refusing to let his body rest.

“Please…” he begged, his voice hoarse and wrecked, barely more than a desperate rasp. “Don’t stop. I need more… I still need you so badly.”

His cock was already fully hard again, throbbing urgently, as if the last two orgasms had done nothing to ease the fire burning inside him.

She reached back with one hand and slowly slid her lace panties down her hips, lifting herself just enough to pull the soaked fabric off completely. The ruined garment was tossed carelessly aside, leaving her fully bare and glistening above him. Lohen’s eyes darkened with raw hunger at the sight of her exposed, slick folds hovering just over his aching cock. It twitched hard against his stomach, leaking steadily in desperate anticipation.

Straddling him once more, she wrapped her fingers around his throbbing length, stroking him with slow, torturous pulls before guiding the swollen, flushed head to her dripping entrance. Their eyes locked and with a shared, shaky breath, she sank down onto him in one smooth, deliberate motion.

A loud, synchronized moan filled the room as he stretched her open, filling her completely. She was incredibly wet and scorching hot around him, her walls fluttering and clenching as she took every thick inch. The delicious stretch made her eyelids flutter and her lips part in a silent gasp. Once fully seated, with him buried to the hilt inside her, she paused, savoring the feeling of being so perfectly full.

Then she began to move.

At first, her hips rolled in slow, sensual waves, grinding down so her clit rubbed deliciously against his pelvis with every stroke. Lohen groaned helplessly beneath her, his arms straining hard against the vines that bound his wrists to the bed. He tried to thrust up into her, chasing more of that tight, wet heat, but she immediately pressed her hands down on his chest, pinning him firmly in place.

“Uh-uh,” she murmured. “You stay still. I’m in charge right now.”

She kept riding him with deep, luxurious rolls of her hips, but every time his hips jerked up instinctively, she slowed to an agonizing stop, lifting just enough so only the tip of his cock remained inside her.

Lohen let out a wrecked, frustrated sound. “Please… don’t stop,” he begged hoarsely, eyes glassy with need. “I need you to move. Fuck, please ride me properly.”

Instead of giving in, she smiled down at him and sank back down torturously slow, clenching around him on the way. She repeated the cycle again and again, riding him hard for a few blissful moments, then slowing or stopping completely whenever he tried to take control, leaving him throbbing and desperate inside her.

The room was soon filled with the wet, filthy sounds of her pussy taking his cock, soft, slick noises every time she sank down, mixed with his deep, broken moans and her breathy sighs. She braced her hands on his chest, nails digging lightly into his skin as she picked up the pace for a while, bouncing on him with rhythmic, powerful strokes that made her breasts sway beautifully.

Lohen’s head pressed back into the pillows, veins standing out on his neck as he panted and groaned. “You’re killing me… Please, sweetheart. Let me move. I need to fuck you harder.” Every time she denied him, his cock throbbed angrily inside her, twitching and leaking. His thighs trembled violently beneath her, muscles rock-hard from the effort of holding back. “Archons, please…” Lohen’s voice was completely wrecked now, raw and desperate. “I’ll be good, just please don’t stop. I need to feel you, I need you.”

She smiled, unable to refuse his pleas and finally gave him what he wanted. She started riding him harder, faster, her hips slamming down onto him with wet, obscene slaps. The vines creaked as he pulled desperately against them, lost in overwhelming pleasure, moaning her name like a prayer every time she took him to the hilt.

Suddenly, Lohen’s entire body locked up beneath her. His powerful muscles strained hard against the glowing vines, veins standing out along his arms and neck as his hips jerked upward in short, desperate thrusts, the only movement the bindings allowed.

A deep, guttural moan tore from his chest, bordering on a broken cry as he came for the third time. His cock throbbed violently inside her, pulsing thick and hard with every powerful spurt. Hot, heavy ropes of his release flooded her walls, filling her completely as her pussy clenched rhythmically around him, milking every last drop. His whole body shuddered violently through the orgasm, thighs quivering, abs contracting in waves, chest heaving as a string of raw and broken moans spilled helplessly from his lips.

She slowed her movements but didn’t stop, continuing to ride him with slow, deep rolls of her hips, drawing out every second of his pleasure. The wet, filthy sound of his cum mixing with her own arousal filled the room with every glide.

When his breathing finally began to calm, just slightly, she leaned forward and brushed damp strands of hair from his forehead with surprising tenderness. Still fully impaled on his cock, she looked down at his flushed, blissed-out face. “How do you feel, love…? Is the effect starting to fade at all?”

Lohen let out a shaky, breathless laugh that quickly turned into a low groan. His eyes, still dark, wild and burning with insatiable lust, met hers with an almost feral intensity. “Fade?” he rasped, his voice hoarse and wrecked from moaning, while his chest continued to rise and fall rapidly. “I feel like I could fuck you for days… and still not be satisfied. This fire in my veins hasn’t even begun to die down. I’m still so fucking hard for you, Sweetheart. Can’t you feel it?”

As if to prove his point, his cock gave a heavy, insistent twitch deep inside her, still buried to the hilt in her cum-slick heat.

He swallowed hard, eyes pleading. “Please… untie me. Let me go, my love. I’m dying to touch you.” His voice dropped into a low, sensual growl. “I need my hands on your body, I want to feel you, all of you.  Please, I’m begging you.”

His desperate words were cut off by a sharp gasp as she deliberately rolled her hips in a slow, teasing circle, grinding her swollen clit against his pelvis while keeping him fully sheathed inside her. The movement made her walls flutter around his oversensitive cock, drawing a needy, broken sound from deep in his throat.

“Hmm… I don’t know,” she muttered, repeating the same torturous grind, sliding her soaked pussy along his entire length without ever lifting off. “You look so good when you’re like this, all tied up, flushed and begging so sweetly. Maybe I should keep you bound just a little longer…”

Another slow, sensual roll of her hips made Lohen’s breath hitch sharply. He strained hard against the vines, the magical bindings creaking as his muscles bulged with effort.

“Fuck, please,” he begged, voice cracking with raw need. “I’ll be so good for you, I swear. Just let me touch you… I need to feel you. I’m losing my mind, sweetheart. Please untie me.”

His cock throbbed angrily inside her again, another thick bead of precum mixing with his previous release as his body demanded more.

Nodding slowly, she moved, lifting her body slightly to separate from him, a gasp escaping her lips as she felt the emptiness when his dick left her, while he bit his lower lip hard, already missing being inside her. Finally, with a soft hum, she reached out and flicked her fingers. The vines responded instantly, loosening and retracting smoothly from around his wrists before disappearing entirely.

The moment the vines dissolved, Lohen didn’t waste a single second.

With a low, hungry growl, he surged upward and captured her mouth in a deep, desperate kiss. There was nothing gentle about it, it was raw need and pent-up hunger unleashed. He bit down on her lower lip, tugging it between his teeth before soothing the sting with his tongue. When she gasped, he took full advantage, sliding his tongue against hers in a heated, possessive tangle. The kiss was messy, urgent and completely intoxicating.

His hands roamed greedily over her body, finally free to touch what he’d been aching for. Strong fingers skimmed down her sides, gripped her waist, then slid up to cup her breasts possessively. He trailed hot, open-mouthed kisses along her jaw and down the column of her neck, sucking and licking at her pulse point until she shivered.

Lower still, he lavished attention on her chest. He took one sensitive nipple into his mouth, sucking hard and flicking his tongue over the stiff peak. His hand kneaded the other breast firmly, thumb brushing over her nipple before pinching it lightly. He switched sides with a needy groan, giving the neglected breast the same hungry treatment, sucking, licking and grazing his teeth over her soft flesh. Every mark he left was deliberate. Dark hickeys bloomed across the curves of her breasts, along with the faint imprint of his teeth, clear signs of his claim on her. He groaned deeply against her skin, the vibrations traveling straight to her core as he worshipped her.

She arched sharply beneath him, pressing her chest closer to his mouth with a loud, breathy moan. Her fingers threaded through his dark hair, tugging hard as pleasure coursed through her. “Lohen…” she gasped, her voice wrecked and needy.

The sound of his name on her lips only seemed to spur him on. He released her nipple with a wet pop and looked up at her, eyes dark with lust, lips slightly swollen and glistening.

“You have no idea how badly I needed to touch you,” he rasped, voice rough with desire. “How crazy it drove me… being tied down without being able to touch all of you.”

And unable to stop himself, he captured her lips again in a desperate, hungry kiss, as if she were the only one capable of mitigating the craving he was experiencing.

He pulled back from the desperate kiss, breathing heavily as he hovered above her. His eyes were dark, ravenous and completely feral with need. For a moment he simply looked down at her. flushed, marked by his mouth and utterly beautiful beneath him. His cock, already hardening again with unnatural speed thanks to the aphrodisiac, throbbed hot and heavy between them, still slick from her earlier attention and the remnants of his previous releases.

Without a word, he shifted lower, his strong hands spreading her thighs wide apart. He settled firmly between them in a deep missionary position, caging her body with his own. Bracing himself on his forearms, he lined up the thick, swollen head of his cock against her dripping entrance.

With one smooth, powerful thrust, he buried himself to the hilt inside her and both of them moaned loudly at the overwhelming sensation. She was incredibly wet, scorching hot and still so tight around him, her walls fluttering and clenching greedily as he stretched her open.

Lohen let out a shaky, broken breath against the side of her neck. “Archons…” he groaned, voice hoarse and low. “You’re so fucking tight. Even after everything we’ve done tonight, you still feel perfect around me.”

He started moving with slow, deep rolls of his hips, pulling almost all the way out before sliding back in with deliberate, powerful strokes. Each thrust made her breasts bounce beautifully, the dark hickeys and bite marks he’d left earlier standing out against her flushed skin. He leaned down and captured her mouth again in a deep, messy kiss, swallowing her moans as he gradually picked up speed. Soon his thrusts grew harder, more intense. The obscene sound of skin slapping wetly against skin filled the room, accompanied by their ragged breathing and desperate, needy sounds. Lohen buried his face in the curve of her neck, sucking and biting at her sensitive skin, leaving fresh red marks and blooming hickeys that made her gasp and arch sharply beneath him.

“Lohen!” she cried out as he sank his teeth into the tender spot where her neck met her shoulder.

“You feel incredible,” he rasped hotly against her skin, punctuating his words with a particularly deep thrust. “So hot… so fucking wet. Every time I push in, you squeeze me like you never want me to leave.” He groaned deeply, the sound vibrating against her throat as he drove into her harder, angling his hips to hit that perfect spot inside her with every stroke. “Fuck, I can feel you pulsing around me. That fucking flower is making everything more intense… I can’t get enough of you, sweetheart.”

He hooked one of her legs over his arm, spreading her even wider, allowing him to sink impossibly deeper. The new angle made her cry out in pleasure, her nails digging hard into his back as he began pounding into her with long, powerful strokes. The head of his cock dragged perfectly against that sensitive spot inside her with every thrust, sending waves of sharp pleasure through her body.

Lohen kept kissing and biting along her neck, her collarbone, and the swell of her breasts, anywhere his mouth could reach, leaving a trail of possessive red marks. Between heavy thrusts, he whispered filthy praises against her ear, his voice rough and dripping with lust.

“I love how you take me… so deep. Can you feel how hard I am for you?” He groaned as he slammed into her again. “Even after coming so many times, I’m still so fucking full for you.”

His pace became almost punishing, fast, deep and relentless. The bed creaked loudly beneath them with every powerful thrust as he fucked her hard into the mattress. Their bodies were slick with sweat, skin gliding together sensually with every movement. Every time Lohen bottomed out inside her, a wet, filthy slap echoed through the room, accompanied by the heavy sound of his balls smacking against her ass.

And she was completely lost in pleasure, her head thrown back against the pillows as broken, unintelligible sounds spilled from her lips. The words melted into desperate whimpers and breathy cries that barely formed coherent thoughts. Each brutal thrust punched the air out of her lungs, turning her moans into high-pitched, needy noises she couldn’t control.

Unable to stop himself, Lohen captured her mouth again in a heated, messy kiss, their tongues sliding and tangling desperately while he continued driving into her without mercy. Her moans vibrated against his lips, her legs wrapping tighter around his waist, heels digging into his lower back as she urged him even deeper.

His breathing grew more erratic, chest heaving against hers. His thrusts started losing their steady rhythm, becoming wilder and more desperate as he chased his release. “I’m…  I’m going to come again,” he groaned against her mouth, voice strained and rough. “Come with me, sweetheart, I know you are almost there… I want to feel you clenching around me when I fill you up.”

She could only respond with another string of incoherent sounds, a trembling cry mixed with a desperate whimper as the pleasure coiled tighter and tighter inside her. Her nails raked down his back, her walls fluttering and pulsing wildly around his thick cock.

With a few more brutal, deep thrusts, Lohen buried himself as far as possible and came hard. A loud, guttural groan tore from his throat as his cock pulsed violently inside her, flooding her with thick, hot spurts of his release. His entire body trembled above hers, muscles taut and straining as the intense orgasm ripped through him again and again.

She cried out sharply, her own pleasure peaking as she felt him filling her. Her walls clenched tightly around him in rhythmic spasms, milking every drop while broken, ecstatic sounds continued falling from her lips.

Even after the strongest waves passed, Lohen kept moving, slow, deep grinds of his hips, pressing himself flush against her as he drew out every last spark of pleasure for both of them. He kissed her softly through the aftershocks, swallowing her quiet, trembling whimpers while their bodies remained tightly joined.

For a long moment, neither of them moved. The room was quiet save for the sound of their breathing gradually slowing, the last remnants of laughter, affection and exhaustion settling comfortably around them. Lohen eventually shifted, pulling back just enough to press a kiss to her forehead before collapsing beside her with a dramatic sigh.

She immediately narrowed her eyes. “That dramatic sigh means you're thinking something.”

“I would never.”

“Lohen.”

“Alright, maybe a little.”

She snorted softly and turned onto her side to look at him. His hair was thoroughly disheveled, there were bite marks scattered across his neck and shoulders, and somehow, he still managed to look entirely too pleased with himself. “How do you feel?” the question immediately brought back her researcher instincts.

Lohen considered it seriously. “Better.”

“Better?”

“Much better.”

She hummed thoughtfully. “The effects seem weaker?”

“I think so.”

For several seconds, silence settled between them. Until Lohen blinked and his expression changed.

“Oh.”

She immediately noticed. “Oh?”

He stared at the ceiling and then let out a long sigh. “Nope,” a pause. “There it is again.”

She groaned. “Are you serious?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Lohen.”

“I wish I was joking, my love,” he rubbed a hand over his face.

She dropped backward onto the mattress. “You've got to be kidding me.”

“Sweetheart, this is entirely your fault.”

Her head snapped toward him. “My fault?”

“Yes,” he pointed at her. “You created that thing.”

“You drank it.”

“You left it where I could find it,” he said it as if that were a valid answer.

“I told you not to take it, Lohen,” she murmured, raising an eyebrow. “I offered you the antidote!” Lohen smiled at her words, the audacity of that bastard. “Honestly,” she declared, sitting up, “I should leave you here to suffer the consequences of your own actions, I've already done too much.”

She made a show of climbing out of bed.  “Sweetheart,” the wounded tone immediately made her suspicious, so she ignored it. A second later she heard: “Sweetheart.” even more pathetic that time. “You wouldn't abandon a wounded knight, would you?”

She laughed. “Oh, now you're wounded?”

“I am suffering tremendously.”

“Somehow I don't believe that.”

Before she could escape any farther, strong arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her backward. A startled laugh escaped her as she landed against his chest.

“Lohen!”

“You can't leave, my love.”

“Yes, I can.”

“No.”

“That's not how that works.”

“It is today, you can’t leave me.”

She rolled her eyes, though she couldn't stop smiling. Then she suddenly froze, upon feeling something firm against her belly. “Wait.” Lohen looked entirely too innocent.

She pointed accusingly.

“Is that...?”

“Mhm.”

“Seriously?”

“Mhm.”

“Archons above.”

His grin widened. “That would be the effect you have on me.”

“You are impossible.”

“You've said that several times tonight.”

“Because it's true.”

He laughed and buried his face briefly against her shoulder, the sound warmed her from the inside out. When he finally looked at her again, his eyes were bright with mischief.

“So...”

“No.”

“You don't even know what I was going to say,” he blurted out with mock indignation.

“I absolutely know what you were going to say.”

His grin became completely shameless. “Still.”

“Lohen.”

“Sweetheart.”

She tried very hard not to laugh but failed immediately, and his smile softened.

“Looks like we might be here a while.”

She groaned dramatically and dropped her forehead against his shoulder. “This is why Albedo says I shouldn't test experimental compounds at home.”

“Well,” Lohen began, unable to suppress a smile. “I think you should keep doing it.”

She immediately narrowed her eyes. “That is not the lesson you're supposed to take from this.”

“I disagree.”

“Lohen.”

“Sweetheart.”

The smile on his face only widened. “I think you should keep experimenting, with me as the test subject, especially if the experiments are going to be like this one. This is by far my favorite investigation,” he declared, and it was clear that although he was joking, there was truth in his words. “In fact, I think we should try it again after the effect of this one wears off. Perhaps you should do something to increase our energy, if we're going to be up all night...”

She slapped him on the arm, causing a laugh to escape his lips. “Shut up, we're not going to do this again, ever."

“Mhm, say what you want sweetheart, but we both know that's a fucking lie.”

“It is not.”

“It absolutely is.”

“It isn't.”

“Mhm,” the infuriatingly knowing look remained firmly in place. “Maybe I should ask Varka for the contact information for the people in Sumeru to see if they can get us more of those flowers.”

She sat upright so quickly she nearly headbutted him. “No””

Lohen blinked. “No?”

“No,” she pointed a threatening finger at him. “Do not ask Varka.”

“Why not?”

“Because!”

“Compelling argument,” he said, stifling a laugh.

“Lohen.”

“Sweetheart.”

“Neither Varka nor anyone else needs to know about this.” The amusement in his eyes intensified. “I mean it.”

“Then how exactly do you intend to stop me from doing it?”

“I'll go get the flowers myself, if necessary,” the words left her mouth and silence followed. Her eyes widened while Lohen's grin became positively wicked.

“Ah…”

“No, don’t.”

“So, you do want this to happen again,” he blurted out in an arrogant tone.

She buried her face in her hands. “You are the worst.”

His laughter filled the room, warm and victorious, entirely too pleased with himself. “I knew it.”

“You know nothing.”

“I know enough.”

She groaned, because he looked unbearably smug. “If I start planning a trip to Sumeru…”

“If you finish that sentence,” she interrupted, pointing at him again. “The only company you're going to have for the rest of the night until the effects wear off is your own hand.”

Lohen looked genuinely horrified, utterly scandalized, and the reaction was so immediate that she almost laughed.

“Sweetheart, you wouldn’t…”

“Try me.”

“That's cruel.”

“Try me.”

He opened his mouth again, but she didn't even let him finish. “Just shut up.”

Then she grabbed him by the front of his shirt and kissed him and the rest of his protest disappeared instantly. A pleased sound escaped him as his arms wrapped around her waist, hopeless, completely hopeless.

But then again, so was she.

The Party Car in the Astral Express was quiet, aside from Shush—the drinksmith robot—tidying up the counter, you sat on one of the empty navy stools, nursing a half-full glass of Paper Moon—sweet, strong, and refreshing, just what you needed for the night.

“ . . . Hey Shush, what do you think of . . Sunday?” Your insides coiled in a tight knot as regret immediately flooded your body.

What an odd question to bring up, so out of the blue and downright strange. You thought but surely, the robot wouldn’t mind such a question, right? There was no one else around to ask anyway, why not turn to the robot? The drinksmith halted its ministrations and turned to you—who now leaned over the counter with both elbows atop it, eagerly waiting for it’s answer.

“Sunday? I always see him here at the Party Car, though, he never asks for a drink. Often, he’d be sat at the lounge corner writing away in his book.”

Just as you’d expected—Shush’s answer more or less mirrored your own. Sunday wasn’t a mysterious individual per se but he piqued your interest, more than ever, from the moment he joined the Astral Express. Not because of his past but something entirely different—something you couldn’t make out even if you wanted to.

But maybe, deep down you knew what had grown in your chest—a bloomed flower that donned a deep shade of crimson, and it was beyond embarrassing because you barely knew the man, and to harbour such intense feelings . . was a bit odd.

It had been quite some time now after Sunday’s decision to join and since then, you and him had been dancing around one another. Akin to two celestial bodies locked in a gravitational bond, the two of you seemed to push and pull one another—not too much, not too little. Just the ample amount.

But that ‘bond’ was what greatly confused you because despite the gravitational pull, Sunday seemed to limit his interactions with you. Sure, he would engage in a conversation with you if other people were involved but never a one-to-one. Though, formalities such as mere ‘Good Mornings’ and ‘Good Nights’ were uttered toward you but that was it.

Sunday never initiated idle conversations the same way he did with the rest of the crew. Even Pom-pom received such privileges. Though, on your end, you didn’t treat the Halovian man differently; most of the time, it was you who initiated talks—whether it be asking about his opinion over trivial matters or simply getting to know the him.

Although, there were moments where you caught his citrine gaze which lingered for a second or two longer before he ultimately looked away. Other times, his clothed arm would brush against your own during meetings with the crew which would remind you the lack of distance between your bodies. Or how he had hovered over your shoulder close enough to get a whiff of his intoxicating scent when you had asked to save his number on your phone; you swore you felt a subtle brush of his feathered wing against your hair.

But that was it—mere moments that left you wondering what the reason behind his actions meant. Maybe it meant nothing at all but no individual would act that way unless 1. He had no sense of shame (which was highly unlikely as Sunday seemed like a refined man) or 2. He simply did not appreciate your presence—much to your dismay.

But surely if it were the latter, Sunday would have a valid reason, right? If anything, you barely interacted with the man to even justify his odd behaviour. Hm, maybe he had already figured out your naïve feelings for him and his actions were a way to let you know of his disapproval?

It was likely.

“What about you? What do you think of Sunday?” 

A second passed as the question hung heavy in the air; you parted your mouth to reply to the drinksmith but before words could slip out, the door to the Party Car slid open which stole your undivided attention from the robot.

Your heart skipped a beat. Speaking of the devil.

Sunday stood at the balcony, the door behind him closed shut. For a brief moment, genuine surprise washed over his face as your gaze met his citrine ones but it was swiftly replaced with a neutral expression. The soles of his shoes stayed rooted against the carpeted floors, from his rigid stance, you were convinced he wanted to turn right around and leave.

“Oh . . . I didn’t expect you here.”

Was that disappointment in his tone? No, it was something you couldn’t decipher. Sunday’s voice echoed throughout the walls of the Car, a reminder that you and him were the only individuals present. Well, not entirely since Shush was here too.

“Can’t sleep?” You tilted your head, feigning nonchalance as you tried to ignore the way your heart hammered against your ribcage; you’ve never been alone with him before, and naturally, you didn’t know how to handle the situation because despite your efforts to befriend him, you did harbour feelings for him. He nodded at your question, ivory wings behind his ears twitching ever so slightly.

“I hope I’m not interrupting?” 

Your gaze followed as Sunday descended the stairs, a hint of hesitation in his voice. Huh, if anything, you expected him to bid you a Good Night before turning around to leave you alone—at least that’s what you’ve concluded from his previous behaviour when it came to you. Perhaps, Sunday had a spontaneous side to him as well, one you’re yet to uncover. 

“Not at all,” An amused chuckle slipped past your Paper Moon stained lips. “It’s just me, myself, and I here. And Shush, of course.” You’ve noticed Sunday had a habit of making himself small as to not cross anyone in the crew—not that any of the members would be—which was both interesting and, frankly, quite amusing. This was a clear example of it.

It wasn’t like the Party Car was yours to claim and you certainly couldn’t dictate whether he could stay here or not. This Car was a space for everyone on the Express, including him.

“Do continue with your previous matters. I will simply situate myself in the lounge corner.” Sunday slowly made his way over to the cozy corner of the Car, just beside the stairs to your room. Heat crept up your cheeks at the proximity between you and him; he wasn’t close to where you sat on the bar but he also wasn’t far.

The conversation died there—not that you had anything else to add—but it left you wanting more. Maybe it was the rush of Paper Moon inside your body that turned you greedy but you deemed it was the best time to address the elephant in the room.

You couldn’t stand the thought of Sunday acting all civil with you tonight when he had been nothing but strange towards you. There was nothing better for you to do and you didn’t want to continue your conversation with Shush now that the topic was here. Plus, the robot went back to the task it previously tended which left you alone.

After a few minutes or so, you finished what was left in your glass before standing up from the stool. Sunday, who now sat on a vermilion armchair looked up from his book at the sound of your actions. Were you leaving already? What a pity. He thought. Even if the two of you only exchanged a few words, he appreciated your presence. But of course, he’d rather swallow a needle than tell you that.

Sunday wasn’t shy or anything of the sort, its just that . . . getting involved with someone—specifically, you—was all toosudden. He had more pressing matters to tend to such as learning from the past and breaking stubborn, old habits, and those were no easy feat at all. If he were to jump head first into whatever the two of you had going on, it might just lead you and him in a house of flames.

Or worse, Sunday would revert back to his old ways and try to control anything and everything, including you. After all, he absolutely despised not having control over things.

If anything, limiting his interactions with you was for the better.

“Mind if I sit here?” At your sudden intrusion of his thoughts, Sunday jolted in surprise, he did not expect you to go out of your way and join him. Though, not entirely unpredictable. Pushing down hesitation, he shook his head, 

“Of course not. Please, join me.” Who was he to refuse, anyway? It’d be rude of him to do so.

Despite the uncertainty painted on his face, you noticed the way Sunday’s plea almost sounded a little . . . desperate. As if he had been waiting all night for you to join him. Muttering a small thank you, you sat on the crimson armchair across him, eyes glued to the starry window on your right. You felt awkward and you were already beginning to regret your irrational actions; if you left now, it’d seem rude and you didn’t want to give him that impression. 

Sunday, on the other hand, returned to his book—albeit a little stiff in action, he feigned nonchalance and scribbled on the blank pages, leaving trails of ebony ink with each thought that came to mind.

“. . . May I ask you something, Sunday?”

His breath hitched at how his name rolled of your tongue but he ignored it, “I’m all ears.” He tucked his feathered pen between the pages and rested the closed book on his lap before turning his attention to you. 

“What do you think of me?”

Dumbfounded. Sunday was absolutely dumbfounded by your question—caught off guard, even. In all honesty, he was clueless on how to approach it; was it in a romantic sense or merely general curiosity from his point of view? Sunday sat there for a while, citrine gaze anywhere but your face, he tried to think of an appropriate answer to your question but his mind seemed to draw blank.

“I’m not quite sure what you mean by that . .” He quietly confessed, eyes finally meeting your expectant gaze. The wings behind his ears twitched.

A small sigh escaped your lips, “Pardon me if you find my boldness rude but I’ve noticed you treat me differently from everyone else. If there’s anything I did to offend you in someway then please let me kn—”

“No, no, you’re wholly mistaken, Miss.” Sunday abruptly cut you off, desperation now more evident in his tone. He leaned forward a bit, the book on his lap threatening to fall on the floor as he tried to explain himself,

“I should be the one apologising; I didn’t realise my actions offended you. I’m sorry.” He averted his gaze, ivory wings slightly drooping.

Oh, so he was aware of his actions.

“Then why . .”

“It’s complicated but I assure you I have nothing against you. Moreso an inner turmoil I am dealing with.” Sunday met your gaze once more, you still held that expectant look in your eyes and he figured you weren’t going to let this go unless clear answers were given.

With a sigh, he spoke once again, “. . I think you’re interesting—lovely, even. And I know you’re aware there is something between us and I am, too, but I feel as though I am unworthy of such a connection.”

“I mean, you’re aware of my past, correct? It’s not easy to break free of old habits when it was once routine . . but heavens I cannot bear the thought of being apart from you . .” Sunday looked away, as if holding your gaze for a second longer would deem him the greediest man in the entire cosmos. His heart threatened to leap out of his chest and into your arms but he swallowed that feeling, he also ignored the way his gloved hands trembled slightly; this was foreign to him, the concept of baring his heart.

Usually, Sunday was on the receiving end when he was Bronze Melodia back in Penacony, he’d listen to people’s vexations and problems but to be on the other end was rather unexpected. He did not like how his emotions were out in the open for prying eyes to judge but somehow it felt okay with you.

“Would it be greedy of me to confess that I deeply desire to kiss you . . ?” Sunday whispered lowly, his eyes were on yours once more but this time it carried desperation, as though he pleaded with his gaze for the touch of your velvet lips.

At his sudden confession, your breath hitched and blood rushed to your cheeks, heat spreading a little farther this time, reaching the tips of your ears and the column of your neck. The feeling was akin to a thousand needles poking your skin—hot and uncomfortable but you didn’t mind at all.

Trying to find a response, your lips parted and closed several times, mind completely blanking at Sunday’s words, 

“. . . Then, be greedy with me, Sunday.”

That was all he needed to hear before he leaned over the table between your seats to cup your face with both hands and kiss you. The book on his lap fell with a faint thud, long forgotten.

The kiss started off chaste; Sunday didn’t move his lips, he merely pressed it against your own to savour the feel of it—the softness and warmth, and how it felt right. His gloved hands gently caressed either side of your face, thumbs slowly circling over your smooth skin. There was a bit of rigidness in his actions but it slowly dissipated with each passing second, and soon enough, Sunday melted into the kiss.

Every single worry etched in his mind cleared and all he could think of right now was you, you, you. Slowly, he parted his lips and darted out his tongue to which you accepted without any hesitation. At your pliancy, Sunday groaned, heavens, you submitted to him so easily it almost felt dangerous.

He eagerly explored your mouth akin to a starving man, he could taste the sweet flavour of the beverage you had earlier, it dizzied him. The smack of your wet lips against his own rang in your ears, mixed with yours and Sunday’s occasional moans, it was beyond lewd.

As if holding you in his hands weren’t enough, his wings curled inwards, its ivory feathered tips brushing your face as though to pull you in even closer; it twitched and shuddered against your soft skin and in the back of your mind, you wondered if it indicated that Sunday was nearing his limit.

The kiss was intoxicating—his lips, the taste of his tongue, the shape of his groans inside your mouth, everything. And you wanted more, no, needed more.

Sunday must have guided your body over to him because you found yourself straddling his lap. It was uncomfortable to say the least, the armrests dug at the sides of your thighs but you couldn’t care less. Not when he devoured you with such sinful fervour.

A few more seconds went on before Sunday pulled away to catch his breath, a thin, glistening string of saliva connected your kiss-bitten lips to his. You looked down at his flustered state, his cheeks were covered in deep crimson and his citrine eyes were hazed with pure carnal desire. Heavens, Sunday looked devastatingly beautiful—the man was already handsome enough but paired with such a scandalous state . . . it drove you mad.

Halovians were truly something else.

With his gloved hands still cupping your face, he placed a thumb over your lips, you responded by opening your mouth to fervently suck as he slipped it in. Sunday cursed beneath his breath, teeth biting down on his bottom lip. He wasn’t one to curse freely but oh the emotions you made him feel were simply beyond his vocabulary. Marvelous. You were absolutely marvelous—how could someone with the face of an angel act this wicked?

“I need you. Desperately.” Sunday breathed out.

The next few moments were a complete blur—hasty steps up the stairs, a trail of discarded clothes, and messy kisses where he asked a million times in between if you were sure you wanted this—but the two of you ultimately made it to your room. Now, with the door closed and locked behind him, Sunday guided your naked body to the bed.

You fell onto the mattress with a soft thud, the bed frame groaning beneath your weight, “Isn’t it a bit unfair how I’m the only one naked?” With your elbows planted on the mattress to support your torso, you watched as Sunday stood at the foot of the bed. Apart from his scarf and tailcoat, the rest of his outfit remained intact.

He didn’t reply, instead, he stripped off everything and the sight of his hardened cock against his abdomen had your cunt desperately clenching around nothing. It wore the prettiest shade of crimson at the blunt tip and it glistened with pre-cum beneath the warm lights.

Heat pooled at the pit of your stomach as your gaze raked over his physique—Sunday wasn’t the most muscular guy out there but he also wasn’t scrawny, with his build, you were certain he wouldn’t struggle if hauled your body around. The scarlet that blanketed his cheeks deepened, he could feel your curious, wandering eyes all over his bare form and he couldn’t help but feel a little shy.

It was unfair. Sunday didn’t even have the chance to explore your body with his eyes yet but that was fine, he’d do it with his hands and mouth instead. He climbed on the bed and lowered himself over you just enough for his lips to reach the plush of your right thigh. An experimental kiss, a chaste one, before a trail of open-mouthed kisses slowly made its way up your exposed skin—thighs, the spot just below the bellybutton, stomach, and between the valley of your breasts.

With each searing kiss given, a small whimper escaped your lips. Sunday’s touch was beyond addicting and not to mention how the tips of his wings brushed ever so slightly against your sensitive skin which formed goosebumps beneath its feathered ministrations.

“Mhm! S-Sunday, right there—Ngh!” You moaned as his mouth eagerly closed around your left nipple while the other gained attention from his hand. Sunday sucked and used his teeth to lightly tug at the sensitive spot, you hissed at the sharp sensation which he responded by soothing his tongue around it a couple of times.

While Sunday’s ministrations continued, all you could do was arch your back and press your bare chest further into his face; your hands unceremoniously wandered everywhere ‘til it found home beneath his wings.

It twitched as the tips of your fingers languidly rubbed the area, hands intertwined with his azure strands. Sunday smelled faintly of vanilla and musk, a scent that drove your senses further into the borders of lust. He whimpered into your skin, a small shudder trailing down the length of his spine as you went on to stroke his wings; they were truly sensitive and pulled the most melodious sounds from him.

Sunday pulled away from your chest, hair mussed and breath uneven; the golden halo behind his head shone underneath the warm lights, from where you laid, it almost seemed like it was glowing.

As though it had a life of its own. Sunday straddled your thighs, he traced every dip and curve of your body, you looked absolutely exquisite laying beneath him like that. If only he could savour the moment for hours.

But alas, desperation gnawed at his very bones and he was certain you shared the situation given how your thighs squeezed together, as though trying to satiate the merciless thirst between them. After untangling his body from yours, Sunday pried your legs open and bent your knees to allow the soles of your feet to be planted on the mattress. He audibly gasped at your wetness; it beckoned him like sinful salvation to which he wholly accepted without an ounce of hesitation.

A trail of wet kisses on your inner thigh slowly led down, down, down ‘til he finally reached your sopping cunt. Sunday kissed it once, twice, thrice, allowing your essence to blanket his lips before giving it a long experimental lick. With his arms secured around each thigh, the entirety of his wet muscle was pressed flat against your heat, he dragged his tongue upwards, determined to collect your wetness.

A wanton moan slipped past your lips, hands once again buried in his hair as he eagerly lapped at your cunt. Sunday slowly traced his tongue around your sensitive nub before he pressed down and rubbed at it. Lewd sounds that left your throat fuelled his actions further, a sense of pride blooming across his chest.

“Y-Yes! Aah! Yes! Right there, Sun—mhm!” You let out a sharp gasp as Sunday placed his thumb and forefinger on either side of your clit before moving his tongue side-to-side. He couldn’t help but rub his bare cock against the ivory sheets beneath him, heavens, the song you sung engulfed the entirety of his body in pure bliss.

With your orgasm right around the corner, you used all your remaining strength to completely pry Sunday away from your cunt. Through his wet lashes, he looked up at you, dazed and confused, his lips glistened with an abundant amount of saliva and your essence.

“Wha-What’s wrong? Are you okay?” He panted, a wave of concern washing over his lust-filled face.

You nodded, “Everything is fine—great. I just . . need you in me. Badly.”

At your words, he moved upwards and found your lips once more, allowing you to taste yourself. While Sunday busied your mouth with a kiss, he expertly reached between your bodies to stroke his cock several times before he rubbed it up and down your slit.

“Don’t—haah!—tease . .” You whimpered in between the kisses. He merely responded by letting out a soft chuckle against your mouth but heeded your words.

The two of you gasped in unison as the bulbous tip slowly inched inside you. Sunday couldn’t remember when the last time he felt such a sweet, sweet sensation—how your eager walls hugged him oh so tightly, not to mention its addicting heat. The man above you was practically reduced into a mere puddle as you swallowed more of him ‘til his hips kissed your own.

He let out a forceful breath, face buried at the junction of your neck, wings curled towards you—as if going for a hug. Sunday lightly trembled, heavens, he was actually inside you. He wasn’t dreaming, right? You felt absolutely unreal, like you were made just for him. The stretch was a pleasurable burn, it had your eyes rolling back and your hands tugging at his hair.

“Are-Are you okay?” He rasped against your ear, not bothering to lift his head to meet your gaze, he feared he’d lose it the moment you’d lock eyes with him, and just that thought alone was embarrassing as is. For now, Sunday found comfort at your neck, he was way too stimulated for eye contact.

You breathed out, fingers playing with his soft strands, “Yes . . Please keep going.”

Without another word, he shakily pulled his hips back ‘til only the tip remained before thrusting in. He shamelessly keened at the squeeze of your cunt, spine shuddering as you gripped his cock like a vice. Sunday started with a languid pace which allowed both of you to feel one another, the slow drag of his cock against your walls made your head spin and toes curl.

The shape of his cock allowed an easy reach to your sweet spot and with every thrust, the blunt head repeatedly kissed it. It pulled oxygen from your lungs which left you gasping for air while trying to chant his name like a sacred prayer, one which Sunday only could answer. Breathless sighs of pleasure and the soft creaking of the bed frame beneath your bodies filled the entire room, the atmosphere grew impossibly thick and you felt your skin growing hot with sweat.

Heavens, Sunday fucked you into the mattress so good to the point where you couldn’t think straight—your mind and body were filled with and him alone. He finally lifted his head, glassy eyes meeting your own lustful ones, his face remained a breath away from yours, wanting to witness your pleasured state.

Sunday brought a shaky hand to caress your cheek while the other dug at the mattress to support his weight, you leaned into his touch, brows furrowed as you lovingly cooed his name.

“I know, my dearest. I know. You’re doing so well for me.” He placed an innocent kiss on your forehead before picking up the pace, causing your body to jolt in response. You clung onto him tighter, legs instinctively wrapping around his waist to pull him in closer, the sharp sting of your nails against his bare back only fuelled his stamina further.

You were close—heavens, you were so fucking close you couldn’t even breathe. Sunday could feel the way your body stiffened beneath him, how your cunt grew impossibly greedy by squeezing around him without restraint.

“P-Please don’t stop, Sunday—aah! ‘M so—mhm! So close!”

“Let go for me, my dearest. Let me hear it.” He panted, hot breath fanning over your face.

A broken moan in the shape of his name escaped your lips as you came undone, the tight knot within the depths of your core violently snapping. Sunday eagerly pressed his lips against your own, swallowing your shameless moans in fear of the others potentially hearing your lewd sounds, he claimed them like a prized possession.

At the feel of your hot cum coating his cock, he neared his climax. Sunday didn’t know if you knew he was close but the way your legs pulled him impossibly closer hinted that you didn’t want him cumming elsewhere. 

Oh, how wicked of you.

He swallowed thickly, the entirety of his cock fully sheathed inside your walls as he came. Thick, hot ivory ropes of cum painted your cunt and Sunday made sure to firmly press the blunt head of his cock against your sweet spot, shamelessly grinding and fucking his cum deeper into you.

“O-Oh god! Ngh—haah! I love you. I love you. I love you.” He unceremoniously moaned, the sudden confession that slipped past his lips had you involuntarily clenching around him. Sunday’s wings stretched outwards, it twitched and trembled just like his body—a sight that was truly beautiful.

He collapsed on top of you, face once again buried in the crook of your neck. The two of you stilled for a moment, allowing yourselves to breath and process what had just happened. Surprisingly enough, the feeling of regret never came, instead, four words formed in your throat, eager to be spoken.

“I . . . love you too.” 

At your words, Sunday lifted his head, a mix of several expressions painted on his flushed face but you could tell he was relieved.

Not entirely surprising, the call of his name went verbally unanswered, leaving you to wince with every indignant click and scrape of his cane against the tiles. You'd already put your book aside, debating if it would be futile to offer assistance despite how the urge to do so crawled like beetles beneath your skin.

It was truly a terrifying thing how rapidly Zandik's body had decayed over the past few years. Having never fully understood the premise enabling the segments to exist, you could only infer from the state of the man hobbling through the living room and collapsing into an armchair that it was a closed system. There was a finite amount of 'life' to share between them, and the body that truly breathed would suffer the most from having a reduced amount.

Of course, he was also getting old as any human would. For all his brilliance and stubborn temper, there had been little he could do to spare himself from atrophy.

"You're staring again," he grumbles, audibly straining to settle into a comfortable position.

You huff, shaking your head to distract from how right he was, "I was thinki-."

"Judging," Dottore corrects, spreading his arms in a mockery of flamboyance, "tell me then, what is your verdict?"

"You look," the words weighed heavily upon your tongue, yet not nearly as heavily as the guilt for adding to his worries weighed upon your heart, "like someone who would benefit from a week of rest."

The creases around his eyes grew deeper as you spoke, only making him appear all the more worn. Zandik discarded his leather gloves with almost painful carelessness, revealing hands that now bore more bruises and cuts than you could care to count but only longed to kiss. Your chest tightened at the sight, such dexterous tools reduced to a shaking mess.

He tossed the monocle aside to better rub at his eyes. The dark circles beneath only seemed to grow with each passing day despite Zandik now maintaining the healthiest sleep schedule he had in decades. Possibly centuries. Not that he had much choice, unable to keep himself awake far into the night.

"What an astute observation. You know very well I can't do that if I want to keep the rest in line. They're already plotting, I know they are. Perhaps you are as well?"

Your body shifts to face him fully, trying to school your expression before he can spot the look of pity. This was no time for you to feel hurt at the accusation he'd so carelessly tossed into the space between you. Zandik had never taken well to your inquiries about his health, but it was clear that he felt less secure in his position these days, always snapping at and punishing anyone under his authority.

You sigh, giving him a once-over while trying to piece together memories of days that bled into each other. "How about accompanying you into a shower instead?"

Zandik mimics your sigh, his shoulders slumping in what had to be defeat. The subtle nod of his head could easily be mistaken for exhaustion, but you get up all the same to stand between his legs, offering a hand instead of the cane.

There's nothing dignified about how you lead him towards the bathroom, one arm wrapped so firmly around his waist that your bicep starts to cramp up within the first ten steps. Meanwhile Zandik, so used to being by himself that it is more than second nature, hobbles at your side while clearly trying to put as little weight onto you as possible. Absolutely infuriating that for all the years spent together, learning to rely on each other, the moment he truly needed aid with something so tangible as moving about, he pulled back into the shell of that lonely boy he'd told you about.

The child who'd been cast aside and scorned by all.

Who'd set his sight on something impossible, on transcending every rule laid out by reason. Whether to earn the praise and acceptance of his peers, or to prove once and for all that they had been right to think him a monster was something you'd never truly been able extract from him.

Your heart, and the mood, sank further once you'd gotten him undressed. Though aware that it was decades since he could last have been considered conventionally attractive, his body having long been littered with the results of countless experiments performed on himself, it was clear that the sudden turn for the worse had caused him grief. Now, Zandik would shy away from your gaze, curling in on himself as if to shield wrinkled skin and the jarring loss of muscle from you.

"..here," you muttered, helping him step into the shower and down onto the shower stool.

It was quiet while you undressed yourself, the lack of smoldering eyes roaming your form somehow more disturbing than their presence had ever been.

"I can still wash myself, you know."

You hummed, stepping in beside him and turning on the water, angling it away from both of your bodies to let the icy stream heat up. Stepping directly under the water was a mistake you only made once in Snezhnaya, the biting cold akin to millions of glass shards shredding the skin.

"Yeah, but doing it together is more comfortable, right?" A small smirk tugged at your lips while slowly moving your wrist until the freezing water hit his feet, causing Zandik to jerk in surprise. "And it lets me do that."

For a moment, silence and tension choked the air before it was broken by a raspy chuckle. "Cruel monster, kicking a man who is already down.."

Relief bubbled in your chest, the little smile on your lover's lips a treasure more precious than the sum of whatever exotic acquisitions The Regrator had stashed away. And these days at least, it seemed exactly as rare.

"Don't they say cold showers are healthy?"

The look he shot you was almost scathing, but in that fond way where his eyes crinkled at the corners. "I suppose every sane man must have his limits."

You laughed, testing the temperature of the water with your hand. It was warm enough that you placed the showerhead back above you both. "And you draw the line at cold showers?"

"Absolutely."

Silence settled between you, but no longer the kind that could choke you like smoke, this was comfortable. Zandik slowly relaxed a little when you stepped behind him and began rubbing at his shoulders. His hair had gotten messy from neglect, so you took your time slowly untangling the knots before reaching for shampoo.

By the time steam coiled around your ankles, Zandik seemed to have shed his earlier reservations and was leaning against your legs, his head turned so his cheek was pressed against your stomach. If not for the little grunts and groans of pleasure you'd have thought him asleep. There was something about how swiftly his guard had dropped despite everything that made your chest flutter.

You reached for a washcloth and let warm water soak through before leaning down to carefully scrub his shoulders and chest. Both of your arms were draped around him in a near hug as you wiped away layers of grime and dead skin. Every little grumble when you were being too rough was soothed by pressing a kiss to the tip of his ear.

Even sweeter was the little sound of protest when you moved away, one shaky hand gripping and squeezing your thigh for as long as he could reach. Zandik's eyes widened when you sank to your knees in front of him. Any attempt at hiding himself behind his arms was abandoned within seconds when he caught your little smile. You watched him roll his eyes, careful not to let any semblance of pity into your expression.

"Want me to shave you after?"

Zandik snorted and shook his head. "Even if there were infinite parallel timelines, there wouldn't be a single one where I let you close to my neck with a sharpened blade."

Both of you chuckled, memories of countless times where you'd hastily helped him shave spots that he'd missed or forgotten coming to mind. But he always said that same thing. He leaned into the touch when you cupped his cheeks, thumbs running along the patchy stubbles that he insisted on calling a beard.

You released his face and instead leaned forward, pressing a kiss just beneath his belly button and trailing your lips down the thick patch of hair. Zandik jerked and you immediately felt an almost frantic pull at your hair.

"Don't-"

"Relax," you whispered. It didn't do much, but Zandik did go quiet. The interested twitch of his soft length told you what you needed to know. He might still feel embarrassed, but his base desires remained. "Let me remind you how much I love every inch of you."

You pushed his legs open a little further, shuffling forward on the wet floor as water continued to drip down both of your bodies. Zandik shivered beneath your touch as soon as your lips met his inner thigh. A quiet hum left you when he tugged at your hair once more, not as insistent and certainly not to pull you away this time, but impatiently trying to guide you towards his crotch.

That little glimpse of your arrogant and selfish lover made you smile. Another time you might have teased or even scolded him, but now you simply obliged and pressed a kiss to his soft tip.

The skin was soft and a little wrinkled, cooler to the touch than the rest of him. You wasted no time poking your tongue out and licking up along him, water collecting on your tongue and dripping down your chin. Above you, Zandik sighed in pleasure and you heard the little thud of his head hitting the wall behind him.

Breathless sounds soon filled the enclosed space as you continue to lick and kiss while he steadily grew harder. One of your hands gently cupped his balls while the other rubbed at his hip, everything about him having turned soft and pliant where there used to be nothing but hard lines and lean muscle. Perhaps you should make sure to tell him that you appreciated this new development, no longer having to worry about protruding bones pressing uncomfortably against you when cuddling.

Zandik groaned in relief when you took his tip between your lips and suckled, tasting a little hint of tangy pre when you pressed your tongue against the slit. You felt him twitch against your tongue, his hips momentarily pushing against your hand in an attempt to get deeper. Once more you obliged, wanting nothing more than to satisfy the man breathing shakily above you.

Slowly, you lowered your head and took all of him into your mouth, relishing how every muscle in his body seemed to tense up.

"Darling.. careful.."

You wrapped a hand around the base and squeezed before hollowing your cheeks. The pull at his length and your aid in keeping the blood vessels constricted made Zandik hiss out your name in another warning.

It had been a while since he'd let you this close, clearly, he was pent up and hard pressed to keep himself under control. Well, you'd just have to show him that there was no reason to hold back.

You began bobbing your head, small movements at first while your tongue rubbed along the prominent vein on the underside of his shaft. Your movements steadily grew until you were pulling back and leaving just the tip between your lips. Every time, you tried to look up at Zandik and enjoy the way he had brought one hand to his lips to bite down and stifle his sounds.

It didn't work half as well as he undoubtedly hoped, a strangled whimper leaving him when you took all of him into your mouth and swallowed.

"I said careful-.."

He cried out when you did it again, tugging harder at your hair this time. His hips weakly bucked beneath you, thighs trembling on either side of your body.

Zandik's release was sudden and for a moment you feared that he might fall onto the floor with how he was writhing as small spurts of his seed shot into your mouth. You dutifully swallowed, keeping him inside for a while longer while both your hands were stroking along his hairy thighs. Only when you pulled back and turned off the water did you realize that tears had been gathering in his eyes.

It made your heart squeeze with fondness and pride, having reduced him to such a mess so easily. He truly had been pent up.

"You expect me to just-..." Zandik paused momentarily to heave a sigh. "Get up and walk to bed after that?"

You gave his knee a little pat, careful not to put any real force behind it. "Well it's not like I can carry you."

One hand came to rest atop your head and play with the wet strands of hair. Without the water running, the water that clung to your skin was swiftly becoming unpleasant. You knew you should get up and fetch a pair of plush towels before either of you got cold, but perhaps you could both be allowed just a moment longer of this fragile peace.

A devious idea wriggled its way to the forefront of your mind and you perked up, lips pulled into a grin that you couldn't control. "How about this.. if you're in bed within the next few minutes, I'll do this again."

The idea seemed like lightning striking a sleeping body when it registered in his mind. Zandik sat up straight within seconds, too much going on behind those crimson eyes. No doubt he was plotting how to get out and dry as fast as possible.

The first time it happened, you'd been mortified. It was a gorgeous, spring morning, and you'd entered the Church of Favonius with your head held high, cheeks sun-kissed and glowy like your content smile. You carried pages of the day's scripture readings, neatly organised into their respective orders, and ended with them scattered messily across the floor, swiftly forgotten.

Who could blame you when you were greeted with the sight your heart lurched at, and had you screaming til you were breathless?

It had been the third row from the front, and the second-to-last seat away from where you stood rock-solid in the aisle. Your eyes were puffy and as red as the blood splattered across the wooden seating and the grand marble tiles.

No amount of comforting from your fellow sisters would've expelled the morbid memory now engraved into your brain. They'd arrived moments after in a panicked frenzy upon hearing your scream to find you sobbing on the floor, your beloved scriptures in disarray around your kneeling figure, and your hand pressed so tightly to your mouth you were surprised your shock hadn't suffocated you.

They'd all paled even greater than you had when their eyes followed your shaky pointing.

The second time was the 48th day following; the morning of Mondstadt's Ludi Harpastum Festival. You'd screamed until your voice was hoarse, but you didn't fall to your knees this time. You'd also clung onto your scriptures (granted they were squeezed between your fingertips until they were practically unreadable), which had been such a pain to clear up last time. You were sure there was a little more blood than last time.

By the third and fourth, you didn't scream, but you still cried. You'd wondered what you did to deserve this; if perhaps you hadn't prayed the night before correctly, or had said something wrong to the other nuns, or thought something mean about the irritating man who lingered in Mondstadt's centre and always had something inappropriate to say to you and your lady friends.

You couldn't help the attacks from feeling personal—you were always the one to discover them. So, you were extra grateful and loving when you bowed your head at night, and you were careful with your words around your sisters, and you bit your tongue, averted your gaze and walked a little faster past the man in the centre.

It had worked, thankfully—until it hadn't, and three months had passed before the pew was red again. You didn't scream, didn't cry, and most certainly didn't ruin your scriptures this time. Instead, you'd stood numbly, expression remarkably blank, because you'd already known it was coming. You'd smelt the tangy, putrid stench the moment you'd stepped through the doors to the grandiose halls of the Church of Favonius; tasted the iron on your tongue until you felt like you were going to choke on it; noticed the atmosphere shift as if the Devil was having fun breaching the limits of where he didn't belong.

You'd informed the Knights stationed outside the entrance with only a couple of shaky breaths, and had even fought back the bile in your throat to help mop the floors of the grime afterwards.

Everybody questioned it, but nothing seemed to change. Seamus Pegg had issued wanted posters to be plastered across the city at every turn, but they'd only lasted for a day. There had been rumours of blackmail and deceit among the Church, and when Seamus had been questioned on the topic, he'd excused it as not wanting to dissuade the community from the safety of the House of Barbatos, and—more importantly—a job for the Knights of Favonius to handle. And so, it was kept quiet, a burden for the nuns and priests to bear alone.

But you were terrified. All of you were. You could tell by the way voices shook during readings; how many twitched and twiddled their thumbs anxiously, keeping their hands to themselves instead of holding their guests and each other welcomingly; and nobody ever held eye contact any longer than necessary.

That was exactly why you were here now, alone in the cathedral and running on a fraction of the sleep you deserve, with a blood-soaked rag clenched within your fist and an undeterrable will to rid the bench of its gore before anybody else entered the hall. You'd been dismissed as an incredibly committed member of the monasticism for your early arrivals, which you were happy with as long as it meant your brothers and sisters could sleep a little more peacefully at night. In their eyes, the stone-hearted monster hadn't struck the Church in six months; now a phantom memory that you'd heard a few of the priests remark as a 'plague sent by Lord Barbatos, as punishment for our sins'. 

Only you were aware that this was now his seventh morning in a row of defiling your Lord's name. A week straight. He'd never left his gifts so commonly before, and you would've wondered why if it weren't for fear of driving yourself crazy.

Frankly, it might've already been too late. You certainly felt crazy, with the way you spent your mornings frequently cleaning blood off the pews of Mondstadt's holiest venue rather than spreading teachings of joy and freedom of your faith to the citizens who needed it. Your fear had swiftly morphed into anger the longer the recurring nightmare continued, for all you could think now was how badly you wanted this villain to be caught and brought to justice under scrutiny of your trustworthy Knights of Favonius.

Perhaps that could be accompanied by a stern talking to of your own—you're sure Lord Barbatos wouldn't mind in this case.

Honestly, you weren't even supposed to know what the scent of blood sourced from the corpse of Archons knows what smells like!

And you certainly weren't supposed to be kneeling to anything other than your Lord; with a concoction of gore and soap trickling down the narrow bridge of your fingers and between your veins pulsing with life, as you rub and wipe and wash and cleanse the wood, up and down and round and round and round until—

"Are you trying to scrub a hole through that seat?"

You shoot backwards, ankle slipping from your control and knocking the soapy bucket to your right across the blood-dazzled marble. The alarm ignites your nerves; gasp robbing the breath from your lips as you quickly whip your head towards the knight you recognised well. He lingers in the aisle, and seems partly amused by your shock.

Lohen of the Fifth Company of the Knights of Favonius. A man of countless victories, fearsome bloodlust and an unjust, unchangeable loyalty to Mondstadt—a man you'd heard to most definitely stay away from. You clear your throat as the hem of your tunic soaks in your mess.

"Sir Lohen! Archons, you scared the life out of me! Forgive me, I... I was cleaning, and I guess I didn't hear the door open. Or close. I apologise." You must've looked foolishly ridiculous as you bow your head to the wet floors, the epitome of embarrassment which only seemed to amplify in the presence of a Vice Captain. "Is there anything I can help you with—"

You choke on your words when you notice Lohen, eyebrow raised and head tilted, curiously observing the pew beside you. Oh. Oh, no no no.

"Should I be asking you that?"

You stand in a hurry, gathering your tunic from the puddle and positioning yourself to block it from his view. You're grateful when he's distracted easily and his eyes abruptly begin following you like steel to a magnet, even if it does make your skin crawl. Lohen naturally exuded that effect, you imagine, since if it were anybody else, you would've approached with haste and taken their hand to lead them away from the brutal scene. You were supposed to be a guardian, after all.

Instead, you hover awkwardly in place, rag still clutched in the hand you kept rooted behind your back, because getting closer to the man you'd been warned about seemed like an invitation for trouble. You had enough of that in your life already.

"It isn't what it looks like, Sir Lohen, I swear. Father Pegg likes to paint, you see, and sometimes he gets these creative visions—like last night! A masterpiece, really, if he'd actually managed to keep his pigment on the canvas..." Lohen takes a step towards you, and you despise how it automatically has your words trailing off, point escaping you in the caution.

You hardly imagined Seamus ever having the time to pick up a paintbrush; unfortunately, it was too late for take-backs now.

There's an odd expression on Lohen's face—one that exhibits a mixture of amusement, intrigue and pity all in one, and compliments royal indigo swirled with rich magenta in the eyes currently staring you down. Then, he laughs.

"Miss [name], I can assure you I've won enough battles in my lifetime to recognise the splatter of blood shed when I see it." He speaks it like he's boasting. (Inwardly, you wonder how that's anything to be proud of, even if he is a knight. You also wonder how he knows your name.) "I take it he's returned, then."

You have the defensive urge to inquire who he means, though it hits you rather embarrassingly that, ah, of course, he is a Knight of Favonius, and they, bar the members of the Church, were the only citizens of Mondstadt who knew of the recurring vandalism. You nod your head, pressing your lips into a thin line.

"This is the seventh morning in a row that Devil has pulled this stunt." Lohen clicks his tongue in pity.

"Poor thing. You've been sitting here cleaning it all by yourself? Where are the other nuns?" Your eyebrows furrow when his tone portrays itself as demeaning you, but you excuse it as poor social skills. You'd heard of Lohen spending a lot more time on the battlefield than actually conversing with real humans.

"They don't arrive until seven, Sir."

"What makes you different?"

You don't respond. How in Tevyat were you meant to? You really didn't have a direct answer; you'd reasoned it down to a request from both Barbatos and your heart, yet now it seemed a little silly to admit that to Lohen for some reason. Luckily, he speaks for you, smiling so sweetly you could've been fooled to believe that the rumours of ruthless murder and endless carnage were only ever that—rumours.

"Kindness, [name]. You're too kind. It'll get you eaten one day." He scolds, running his gaze down, then up your figure as if he were the one who wanted to carry out that promise. He then hums thoughtfully. "Though I suppose that's your job, isn't it? To reassure? To please?"

"More so to teach, if anything." You correct, though you can't help but feel it falls on deaf ears as Lohen suddenly busies himself with studying the intricate architecture, bejewelled with sapphire and diamonds, arching above your heads like he's bored.

You'd never pictured a man like Lohen to be the religious type. It made it all the more confusing and difficult to work out why exactly he was here, though, of course, you'd never openly judge. "May I inquire why you're here, Sir Lohen?"

He sighs dramatically, shoulders slouched and eyebrows raised, his lips twitching down into a pitiful frown. Then, his eyes are back on you, and they don't leave for a second. "I have a problem, [name]. Truthfully, it's chewing me from the inside-out, and it's the worst. The Church is good for this stuff, right? I know I have these issues because of bottling them up, avoiding them, yada yada, I just..." He cocks his head to the side, though it's nothing innocent. "...I don't want you to gain a different impression of me."

Lohen slumps onto the pew dejectedly within a hairs breadth of the blood splatter, and your gaze switches between both him and the grime in apprehension. Did it not bother him? You must've been gawking, because the pout that had originally taunted you shamelessly swiftly converts to a wicked grin. His teeth sink into his bottom lip as he scrutinises you for all your worth; your fear feeling rather like a meal to him than an opportunity for reassurance.

You look at the clock. Ten minutes before Father Pegg and your sisters were due to arrive. You then look at the mess on the pew, and now the floor as well. Archons, you really were in over your head. There'd be no time to finish your cleaning and indulge the knight in his evident need for confession.

You wanted your heart to ache; to leap forward and snatch the misery from Lohen's, because that was your job. You didn't want anyone to suffer. And if Lohen's problem was significant enough to drag him away from his knightly duties all the way to the Church, then naturally, you should be jumping at the chance to aid him.

This was exactly why you felt guilt—since despite all this, even if it was small, there still lingered a nagging, unavoidable and annoying inkling of doubt for his true intentions.

And nuns should never doubt.

You finally look at Lohen, inhale deeply, and force the polite smile you'd rehearsed for situations exactly like this.

"If there is anything you need the Church to hear, we will always listen. Just because you are a Knight does not make you any less welcome in the Lord's home. I can't imagine we'd see you any differently than we do now, Sir Lohen."

He regards you with a soft smile, wrecked with pity and an unfamiliar stare of adoration, as if you're the equivalent to watching tiny puppies play. Why was he looking at you like that?

"You think it's because I'm a knight?"

"What else?" He snickers while you frown.

"Never mind. You're a pretty liar, [name]."

"What—?"

"Alright!" You think you'll develop whiplash from the speed Lohen shoots to his feet, clapping his hands together in satisfaction. You almost slip as you stumble a few steps away in a panic. Lohen cocks his head towards the gore. "I can see you have business to attend to in the mean time, so I'll come back later and take you up on your promise then. I won't judge upon whatever reason you have to sacrifice your happiness for your colleagues, but for the sake of your health, I promise I'll have this personally investigated and closed."

"You will?" Your voice is shaky with a mix of skepticism and hope.

"Mm-hmm! You won't have to worry about it anymore, Miss [name]. I swear."

Lohen clamps an enclosed fist over his heart—the Knights of Favonius' gesture of loyalty. You would've argued against the hassle, though realistically, it was a hassle worth taking if it meant the perpetrator would finally be caught. Lohen was certainly more than capable enough of tracking someone down (you almost felt sorry for the culprit for having such a terrifying knight on their trail now), and your shoulders tense a little less when hearing the promise.

"If—" You tense again. "—you're the nun to hear my confession when I'm back. Only you. I've got a tight schedule so I can't tell you exactly when that will be. But I'll make time. Promise me you'll be here?"

"Of course I'll be here. Where else would I be?" You attempt a joke to lighten the intoxicating tension overwhelming your senses, Lohen's sly fox-like eyes not helping in easing the promise that seemed a little too intimate than allowed.

"Attagirl. I'll catch you later then, dovey!" You linger idly beside the pew, watching Lohen saunter down the aisle with a spring in his step and far too happy a melody on his tongue. He throws a hand up, index finger extended to catch your attention one final time.

"Just a heads up—it'll probably take me at least a month to handle it, since I won't be in Mondstadt. Useless business trips and all that. If this idiot is anything unoriginal, you can expect him to follow the pattern and return tonight. Maybe he enjoys testing the limits, huh? I'll request guards to station the entrance overnight. Good luck with the service!"

You don't see Lohen again after he slips through the exit of the Church of Favonius.

. * , ' * .

You were smothered with a concoction of emotions for the rest of the day.

After Lohen's departure, you'd stood rather numb in place, almost still enough for someone to mistake your figure for one of the holy stone depictions scattered around Mondstadt. An entire month? You'd always tried your best to root gratefulness in your blood; to be thankful for what you're provided with, as that is the Lord's will.

And it wasn't that you weren't so incredibly appreciative of Lohen's gesture. He'd sacrificed his own precious time to investigate a wanted criminal and personally see to it that they atone for their sins, all to guide you and the Church from misery.

You were grateful—but you also weren't sure just how much longer of it you could take.

When your sisters and the priests had trickled in one by one, with not a word to say about the pew so clean it practically sparkled, you'd almost cried. It was pitiful. You were much stronger than this, and you weren't going to let it get you down again.

Even if it did suck a little soul from your belief in Lord Barbatos. It still felt as though He was punishing you, after all.

The service had progressed beautifully as usual, a perfect transition to the sunny afternoon which kissed your cheeks with soft breeze and warm rays of golden hue, yet it might as well have been a foggy, miserable storm with the way you couldn't bare to lift a smile to your lips. At least then the weather would've matched the turmoil your thoughts had created in your mind. They swirled in circles as if they were caught in a makeshift tornado, crashing down and destroying what little remnants of hope remained like a merciless tsunami the later into the day it got.

By evening, you sulked over your dinner, head and heart pounding twice as violently. At some point during the day, you'd realised something vital in Lohen's final words.

'If this idiot is anything unoriginal, you can expect him to follow the pattern and return tonight.'

You'd heard Lohen was crafty and careless, but you'd also heard he was rarely ever incorrect in his assumptions based on his targets. Once, he'd even cleared the entire southern border of Wolvendom of a pesky tribe of hilichurls that adventurers had been tracking for months. They were almost as shady as Lohen, sentient enough to hit the road often enough they'd keep hunters off their tails. Nobody knew exactly where they'd head to next—except the Vice Captain, who refused to share his secret knowledge and claimed the bonus consolation prize because he'd been 'bored'.

At least, so you've heard.

It was admirable in a way that had the hairs stand on the nape of your neck. The Knights of Favonius were so frighteningly brave—it was an utter shame they'd unfortunately proven so useless when it came to matters of the Church.

This was why you'd ultimately come to the conclusion that the solution had to fall into your own hands.

With Lohen, the more capable of the Knights apparently, away on expedition for at least a month, you saw no other choice than to at least explore the minute hint you'd been accidentally given. Besides, you wouldn't be entirely alone, and back-up would be called the moment you caught the Devil.

Lohen had said he'd request overnight guards!

Which was odd because—as silvery moonlight blanketed the cool concrete steps to the magnificent oak doors of the Church of Favonius, and your boots stifled pebbles beneath their soles with every slowing step you took—you didn't see anybody shielding the entrance.

The surroundings were deathly silent, in fact. Perhaps he'd forgotten.

For a moment, you're about to turn around. To abandon ship and run with your tail tucked between your legs before you could meet a grisly untimely doom. It was the sensible choice.

It didn't help that you weren't a quitter. It also didn't help when something crystal or porcelain smashes ahead of you from inside the Church's lobby; barely audible behind the thick walls but undeniably broken.

For the first time since you enrolled in the monasticism, you feel a sickly urge to curse. This was real. This was happening, and you needed to run and alert the guards, alert anyone, just run, run, run—

The door is slightly ajar.

It catches your eye the moment the universe realises you don't want it to. And this time, you do curse, even if it is feeble and mumbled under your breath, because your feet move before your head has a chance to stop them, and your heart beats a little faster the closer you approach the open door, a wordless invitation to quench curiosity.

Your fingers curl around the wooden frame, as silent as you've ever been; an attempt at evading the Reaper of Death, because if you were careful, you'd be able to spy a face detailed enough to describe to the Knights, and escape with your life still intact afterwards. That was all you needed, you remind yourself, as you pry the door to.

Inside, the Church feels otherworldly. It's unfamiliar and hellish, drowning in ink-black darkness without the warmth of the aureate chandeliers decorated with candles to guide the way. You'd always hated the dark. There's no love in the hall at night; no joy and no hope, freedom squashed between the fingertips of the void, stomped beneath the boot of the moonbeams which bore down onto the marble tiles, offering irritatingly minimal light for its extravagance. You regret to admit even the presence of Lord Barbatos himself appears to be lacking. You swallow a solid lump in your throat before you can choke.

You discern no evidence of broken shards scattered across the floors, much to your horror. Had your mind played tricks on you? No, surely not—you knew what you'd heard. But then, what had broken? And where was it?

Unfortunately, you don't have time to dwell on it further when your squinting eyes spot something far more troublesome in the dark. You wordlessly battle blurry vision when your body considers passing out.

There, beneath the arches bejewelled with sapphire and diamonds, perched a hunched figure, lifeless and still, upon the third pew from the front, second seat from the left. They were barely visible within the shadows, yet real enough to rob your heart of its ability to pump blood, and your lungs of their capacity to expand. Your body runs cold; ice cold, like an anaesthetic breaching the nerves from the nape of your neck, to the bridges of your fingers, and to the tips of your toes. You don't breathe; don't blink; don't move for fear of being heard, until by some miracle, the moonlight beams a little brighter on the individual, and the safety lock on your senses clicks off, refusing to release fire so soon because that head of earthy mint-green locks is frighteningly similar to—

"Lohen?" You feel as though your voice has sliced something invisible in the atmosphere of the aisle.

"Hmm? Miss [name]?" Yet again, your feet move first, with a speed your mind doesn't find reason to complain about by the time it's caught up. You hurry down the aisle, only stopping to tentatively peer over at the man still concealed in the shadows. Your chest rises and falls with the urgency of a hunted prey, and you don't need the light to recognise the hint of a smirk in Lohen's tone. "Oh! It is you!"

"Are you hurt? Did you catch him? Something smashed, did you hear it too—?" Your inquiries spill from your lips like water from a broken dam, unfiltered by your desperation and embarrassing you foolishly when the glint of a silver rosary, tangled between digits clasped together, causes you to falter mid-sentence. You gasp, fingers pressing to your lips in a manner of horrific disbelief, because you, a nun of the Church, had interrupted a guest from the midst of their prayers.

You'd never broken such a rule before, and even in the absurdity of the situation, rules still applied.

"Sir Lohen, please forgive me. I didn't realise you were—" Argent streams pour through the windows and pool at your feet, and you can just about catch Lohen's eyes regarding you from behind his fists, accompanied by the soft smirk you already knew was there. The rosary entangled within his palms is an Anemo sigil embalmed with teal crystals, attached to a woven chain of mauve beads that dip and hang between the veins painted beneath his skin. Something stains Lohen's hands the longer you stare, though you look away when he clears his throat. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be ridiculous, [name]. I was only testing something out, anyway." His voice is uncharacteristically low, like he wanted to suit the aesthetic of the setting purposefully. You regain some missing remnants of your confidence as you linger in the aisle, taking a moment to control your breathing when you realise Lohen isn't the threat you'd imagined his shadow to be. You can't help but be drawn to the rosary again. It looks so perfectly natural in the fingers of a boastful murderer, and it sends your mind spiralling in confusion, because such juxtaposition shouldn't exist in the real world.

"Are you a follower of the Lord, Sir?" He scoffs behind his hands softly, like your question is amusing.

"Somewhat. Your God teaches ideas of freedom. I like to be free. I have a different opinion on such things I deem my own, though. Why should they be free while under my scrutiny? You get it?" You want to say no; that for someone who studies and teaches complicated holy scriptures daily, you'd never encountered something quite as cryptic as Lohen. Surely he'd mean his belongings; but then that would also mean they are inanimate objects, so how in Tevyat would they be free anyway?

He must've comprehended your confusion, perhaps from the way your lips twitched into an unpleasant frown, because he speaks again before you do. "Never mind. You'll understand soon enough. For now, I rather enjoy your naivety."

Lohen stretches languidly like a cat across the pew, unashamed to flaunt himself while your cheeks burn, because you'd then noticed he'd rid himself of his armour and instead lounged in his dress shirt like he were at home. To make matters worse, he'd taken the liberty of undoing the top three buttons (at least you assumed it was three, it wasn't like you were actually looking!), graciously exposing the bare expanse of his collarbone and sternum to virgin eyes.

He was littered in scars, some small and light where they'd faded with time, and some large and disturbingly new, still tainted with dried blood around the borders. You knew you shouldn't look any longer, even if a little part of you wanted to.

It's when your eyes pull away up to his face, that the blood floods from your cheeks and your heart misses a crucial beat.

In this position, the moon casts directly upon his face, and what was once clouded in darkness now illuminates and presents a vibrant, alarmingly fresh stripe of crimson across his cheek. Lohen was a fiend for battle—you knew this, and that's why you wouldn't have doubted the knight of his intentions once again because of a silly mishap on his face, had he not adjusted his grip on the cursed rosary and drawn your attention to the hands doused in matching blood.

Or brazenly revealed the human head on the pew beside him now he wasn't hunched forward, a stream of gore from where the rest of its body should've been splashing to the tiles and decorating them with droplets exactly like the ones you'd grown used to cleaning in the morning.

Archons above, have mercy.

You were speechless; afraid that if you tried to speak, bile would be the only thing to come out. You stumble away a single step, nausea spreading like wildfire and causing your vision to spin. It's only when you hiccup loudly through a sob that you realise you're crying.

"Oh? Is there a problem?" Lohen's grin is something of pure evil, too inhuman for man. "You told me so sweetly earlier that I'd always be welcome in the Church. That's still the case, right?"

Wicked teeth stretch wider, showcasing the fangs you wonder have ripped out necks.

And to your horror, he stands.

. * , ' * .

"What have you done?" Your voice trembles, unapologetically terrified of the man mere metres away. It's so heart-achingly adorable, Lohen's sure he feels his cock twitch.

He was already undeniably worked up the moment he'd seen the first tear trickle down your ghostly cheeks, yet for his ears to be blessed with the sound of your sweet voice, vulnerable and pleading for him to say something, anything that indicated it wasn't real—ah, that was true pleasure.

He stalks you like the prey you are, taking a step forward for every one you took back. Honestly, he was surprised (and a little disappointed) you hadn't attempted to run. He was a sucker for the chase—that much was known by everybody who'd heard of the man—yet here you stood, eyes gorgeously glossy and a pitiful tremble in your bottom lip, not retreating just yet like you were attempting to defend your territory.

Lohen supposed this was your home, after all. He'd intruded, of course, to achieve your attention. Countless times by now, in fact. He could argue that the pay off was well worth it. He tuts once, purses his lips to feign innocence, and smoothly curls his fingers into the scalp of the decapitated head, lifting it to present it to you fully and relishing in the way your face contorts into something of pure terror.

"What, this? Come on, don't tell me you don't recognise him. Take a good look, pretty." Oh, how beautifully you were obeying, fighting the urge to turn your gaze away completely as you study the displayed head through tears. The addictive realisation blossoms across your cheeks, shifts like a roaring fire in your eye, a drug for Lohen to soak up whole. "That's it, baby. You know him, don't you?"

He watches you with the manner of a hawk as your lips part and close like a fish out of water, yet no words come out. Now, it seems as though you find it easier to look at the damned head than Lohen himself as you fight to keep your expression steady, fixing him with a glare of tearful repulsion. It's adorable.

"Now, now, don't give me that look." Lohen's tone reeks of condescension and an eerie lust for humiliation. "This man caused you so much trouble, did he not? Disgusting behaviour, really—who even gave him the impression that lurking around Mondstadt's centre and preying on the poor, helpless women just trying to get on with their days was a good look?"

You must not have realised he was cornering you, based on the way your eyes shoot as wide as china saucers, until your back hits solid wall; a lost little doe, paralysed by the oncoming headlights. Lohen thinks he'd love to see you as roadkill. "I mean, God, the way he looked at you, [name]. It was so... so animalistic. Like he'd ravage you alive. Who in their right mind would ever believe that's an okay way to think?" He tilts his head, tongue running across his bottom lip.

"And the things he said, hah!" He laughs maniacally, unhinged and shameless but incredibly strained, like something had pained him detrimentally but he'd rather bleed out than establish weakness openly. "He's lucky I ended things for him nicely. You probably would've preferred for me to drag it out, huh? I know you've fantasised about it before in that pretty little head. Don't be too disappointed in me, angel."

The head crashes to the floor with a sickening splat when Lohen releases his hold, admiring the strength you had to still look at him while he approaches. His other hand lifts up; two fingers playfully tap the supple flesh of your cheek twice, leaving behind a generous coating of the dead man's blood. You flinch like a bunny in a trap, too stunned to push him away. Your nose scrunches with the gory stench so close, and Lohen disregards the temptation to smother your face in it entirely until you pass out.

"If it makes you feel better, this scumbag had no family, no friends, no nothing. It's the first thing I check. Nobody will even notice he's gone!" He's perfectly sincere, until his teeth sink into his bottom lip and he stifles a laugh behind a poorly mannered snort. "Well, besides you and me, I guess."

"There is something disturbingly wrong with you, Sir Lohen." His eyes burn a hole through your skull, surprised you'd found your will for speech.

"You still call me Sir. Cute." He only studies you for a moment, eyes devilishly narrow and smirk ghostly, haunting the crevices of his lips, before he pulls away from you abruptly, kicks the skull on the floor further down the aisle and relishes in the way you squeeze your eyes shut to avoid it. "Every man who yearns for confession has something wrong with them, though, otherwise why would they feel the need to confess? Surely you know this?"

He's not surprised when you don't reply.

Again, you don't make any move to run. It's like he'd glued you to the quartz pillar; a mere bystander to observe his gruesome antics.

"Also, if you're confused, I lied about the mission away. I know, it's abhorrently cruel of me and definitely not something to land me in the Lord's good books, and I promise I won't ever lie to you again. You see, I had a little extra time tonight, and thought what better way than to spend it confessing after I promised you I would. So this—" He jerks his head towards the grime splattered across the floor. "—is my confession. It's funny that you showed up when you did to hear it. Must be Barbatos' will, huh?"

"Never speak to me of the Lord's will. You are of the Devil's spawn, you monster!" Oh. There it is. The growing sparks of a raging inferno as it's taunted and teased by sticks and paper and unkind words. Lohen always knew you had it in you; it was exactly what had caught his attention in the first place.

Sweet, docile Sister [name] of the Church of Favonius—the one with the most inappropriate thoughts and needs of them all.

The one Lohen needed to see broken.

"And you aren't?"

"What do you mean?" You were exquisite with such steadfast determination, fists clenched to your side like you were ready to swing no matter how much your voice shook with trepidation.

"Come now. I already said I know about what you'd wanted to do to that man. I'm sure that couldn't have been the only case, baby. I mean, look—you still haven't bothered to wipe that blood from your cheek."

Surprisingly, you still don't, sniffling a pathetic sob when he reminds you it's there. You bristle as Lohen turns to you fully. "And you don't run. Why is that?"

"You'd catch me." Your throat bobs.

"True." His smile is wickedly proud.

"Are you going to kill me?"

"No."

You blink, tongue pressing into the side of your blood-stained cheek while your eyes dart between left and right like you're weighing up options. "Then I'll report you to the Knights of Favonius and have you rot away for your crimes."

Lohen's laughter is explosive and immediate. "Go ahead. You think I don't have everyone in that damn institution wrapped around my finger? They are terrified of me, [name]. Terrified of what I do to our enemies, and what I could do to them. Terrified in exactly the way you are, though arguably not as sweet. Were you really stupid enough to believe the Knights hadn't been able to find a conclusion for your Church's mysterious killer?"

Lohen thinks you're about to burst into tears again by the way you squeeze your eyes shut like you had done before, and he's gutted when you don't. He thinks nothing would've satisfied him more than pushing you over that edge continuously; enough so to produce a pond of salty fluid for him to lap up to quench his thirst.

You shake your head as he nods his. "Oh, they knew. They just didn't care as long as I ordered them not to."

It finally looks as though you've snapped—tipped over the brink of exhaustion into pure delusion now as you wail and fall to your knees, soaking your tunic in the stream left behind from where the human head had skidded across the floor. You don't seem to care about it anymore, though, as you kneel before Lohen like he was your God instead.

He has to admit he much prefers it like this. You look divine from this view; he ponders if it's worth having the image painted and hung as the centrepiece of the Church of Favonius, a flawless example to your fellow sisters and believers on the right way to pray and beg.

And if he took you home with him, he'd undoubtedly wake up to the real thing every day. How poetic.

He nudges your chin up with his boot, humming in satisfaction when there is little resistance on your part. Blue and magenta meet your gaze, holding you captive within a silent dare to move.

You don't.

He absorbs the dark circles beneath your eyes; smiles because he knows he's the cause of your sleepless nights. He loves you tired enough to have your brain short circuiting. It makes you easy. Pliable. His.

He hums, crouching down to level his face with yours; brutal in the way his hand reaches out to cup your cheek, messily smearing the blood with his thumb across your skin until he's content with his artwork—the shape of a love heart, imprinted on your flesh like a tattoo.

And while admiring your hopeless despair, he speaks with heavy-weighted truth and deathly promise.

"Forgive me, Lord Barbatos. I'll have to take from you what's yours tonight. If she was ever yours to begin with."

∧ ,,, ∧ ( ̳• · • ̳) . ݁₊ ⊹ . thank you for reading ! ᝰ.ᐟ / づ♡

✦ smut tags. marriage kink. oral fixation. oral sex (m receiving). vaginal fingering. vaginal sex. the smut is actually really tender just a heads up.

You awake with a start.

Your first breath is a jagged inhale that burns with the strange, raw sensation of a throat that hasn’t been used in years. Everything is stiff. Your joints creak like rusted clockwork, and your skin feels thin and fragile, as if you’ve been carved out of cold marble and only just now been granted a pulse. You take the time to blink out the spots in your eyes, trying to clear the fog from your vision. The ceiling is cracked and low, typical of the cramped, utilitarian apartments in Nasha Town. It looks exactly like your own place, yet the shadows in the corners feel wrong.

Turning your head slowly, you scan the rest of the room. There are no personal effects nearby, nothing to tell you who lives here. But then, a scent drifts over you. A complex, bracing profile: the gin-like snap of frostlamp flowers and pine needles, anchored by the damp, earthy depth of oak moss. Beneath it all is a lingering trace of cold smoke, like embers of a signal fire extinguished by the sea.

It’s the smell of a Lightkeeper.

The heavy creak of the front door makes you flinch, a sound that echoes too loudly in the quiet space. Someone steps inside, their silhouette framed by the dim light of the hallway, arms laden with paper bags from the market. You brace yourself as the instinctual fear of the unknown surges forth, until a pair of pale yellow eyes find yours.

Recognition hits you like a warm tide. The tension that had been pinning you to the mattress suddenly gives way, and your whole body relaxes into the sheets.

“You’re awake,” Flins says calmly.

Flins. Your fellow Lightkeeper. His presence serves as a sudden, steadying hand against the frantic blurring of your thoughts, and you feel the hammering of your heart start to mellow. He moves with his usual steadiness as he sets the groceries on a small wooden table. Despite looking rather exhausted, his gaze softens when they settle on your form once more.

But not even that can dispel the bubbling unease.

“Where... where am I?” Your voice is a rasping ghost of itself. “What happened?”

“My home,” he answers gently, pulling a chair closer to the bed. “Our superiors didn’t quite know what to do with you. Since you have no family left to look after you during recovery, and your injuries were rather… extensive, I have been tasked with your care.”

You look down at your hands. They look the same, yet you feel an inexplicable distance from your own body. Memories are flickering at the edges of your mind—flashes of blinding light, a crushing cold, and then a silence so absolute it felt like some premature ending.

“I don’t understand,” you whisper as cold dread begins to seep into your marrow. “The last thing I remember was... Flins, what exactly happened to me?”

Flins doesn’t look away. He reaches out, his fingers hovering just inches from yours, and a sad, fragile smile touches his lips.

Nothing could have prepared you for what he is about to say.

“You died in battle,” he murmurs, the words falling like stones into a deep well. “And I brought you back to life.”

Death is no stranger to you.

It is a quiet neighbor when you are a Lightkeeper. You grow up seeing the empty chairs in the mess hall and the fresh names added to the memorial stones before the ink on the last one has even dried. It is the tax paid for keeping the beacons burning against the encroaching Wild Hunt.

For you, that tax was always higher. Without a Vision to manipulate the elements—no flames to cauterize wounds, no winds to carry you out of reach—you had to be twice as fast, twice as ruthless, and twice as lucky. You lived your life at a sprint just to keep pace with those who were born blessed by the Seven.

The memory of the skirmish that killed you is a jagged thing, appearing only in flashes. You remember the roar of a Wilderness Hunter, the stench of blood and ichor, and the sudden, horrific weight of a rusted blade nearly cleaving you in half. You remember the heat of your own life spilling onto the ground, and then a cold so profound it felt like the very stars had gone out.

By all rights, you should be another statistic in the war against the Abyss. You should be buried beneath the earth, returning to the cycle like the countless comrades who fell before you.

But you don’t ask questions. Every time you try to piece together how exactly Flins “brought you back”, a sharp, throbbing ache would bloom behind your eyes. It’s easier to believe he was just being hyperbolic—a grim, poetic way of saying you’d simply been on the brink and never actually crossed that boundary. People don’t just come back from the dead. It’s impossible.

And yet…

You’ve seen Flins stand at dozens of funerals over the years, his expression a mask of timeless indifference while others wept. He has buried more comrades than most people have met, yet for some reason, he had looked at your broken form and simply refused to reach for the shovel.

The entirety of your recovery period, he always sat by the bed (his bed because he insisted he’d rather keep an eye on you in his home than take up space in yours). He never mentions death again, and you don’t bring it up. You just accept all the food and drink and medicine he offers, your fingers trembling slightly whenever they brush against his.

But ever since you returned to active duty, the air between the two of you has shifted from the sterile quiet of a sickroom to something far more difficult to navigate. You expected things to go back to the way they were—two Lightkeepers tending to the flames of the oath. But Flins has other ideas.

His care didn’t stop once you were back on your feet. If anything, it intensified.

It’s in the way he tugs on the straps of your gear before you head out, his voice a little too tender when he reminds you to recheck the contents of your pack. It’s the way he quietly slides his own ration of smoke-grilled fish onto your plate during mess, or how he always seems to be standing just windward of you during a storm, using his own body to break the biting gales of the North.

His gentleness is a slow siege. It whittles down the defenses you’ve spent years building as a Visionless warrior. It’s hard to stay guarded against a man who knows exactly how you take your tea and exactly how many layers of wool it takes to keep your shivering at bay. It doesn’t help that the stupid little crush you’ve harbored for him has begun to bloom into something dangerously vivid.

Last night, the exhaustion of the watch finally pulled you into a dream so vivid it felt less like a fantasy and more like a memory you hadn’t lived yet.

You weren’t standing on a blood-stained battlefield or bracing against the freezing winds at the edge of the Abyss. Instead, you were on Hiisi Island, where the air was unnervingly soft and smelled of fragrant flowers. You stood before a small, private altar with Lauma of the Frostmoon Scions presiding over you; a silent witness to a ceremony that felt older than the stars themselves.

Flins stood before you, his silhouette softened by the moonlight. Between you hung the delicate, frosted filigree of a wedding veil draped over your head, blurring the world into a haze of white and silver. In the dream, he didn’t look like a weary soldier or someone who had spent centuries digging graves; he looked like a man finally coming home.

You had exchanged vows—promises that bound your souls tighter than any Lightkeeper’s oath. Then, with hands that didn’t tremble, he reached out to lift the veil. The cool night air hit your skin just as he leaned in, sealing those vows with a kiss. It was a union bound by frost and moonlight, a moment of peace so precious it felt like a sacrilege to wake up from it.

That dream made today’s patrol feel like a march toward an execution.

You keep your gaze fixed on the shimmering, crystalline dunes of Starsand Shoal, refusing to meet his eyes. Every time Flins brushes past you to check a perimeter marker, your heart does a frantic, uneven dance against your ribs. You feel like a fraud, a ghost dreaming of a life she has no right to claim.

“You’re quiet today,” your companion comments.

His voice is just as quiet, cutting through the whistling wind. You don’t look at him, instead focusing on the way the light hits the sand. “Just thinking about the schedule. Young Master Illuga wants a double rotation on the western beacon, but our forces are stretched incredibly thin right now.”

Flins regards you for one moment before saying, “You’re a terrible liar.”

He stops walking, forcing you to halt as well. When you finally risk a glance, you find him watching you with that same citrine gaze, though the mask of the stoic ratnik has slipped. There is a terrifyingly tender warmth there that mirrors the very heat currently rising to your cheeks. He steps into your space, close enough that you can catch that familiar scent of frostlamp flowers and cold smoke. Flins doesn’t reach for your gear this time. Instead, his hand rises, thumb grazing your jawline with a reverence that makes your breath hitch.

“I didn’t bring you back just to watch you turn away from me,” he whispers.

The realization hits you then, sharper than any blade: the dream on Hiisi Isle wasn’t just your longing. It was a premonition of a debt he intends to collect.

And a love he has no intention of letting the grave take twice.

Several weeks later, a single tallow candle is alight on your nightstand, but the flickering light does little to chase the shadows from the corners of your apartment. Usually, the familiar cramped walls of your home offer a sense of privacy, but tonight, they feel like a cage.

The silence is the worst part. It’s heavy with the ghosts of the afternoon—screams that were cut short by a surge of the undead forces of the Wild Hunt, the sight of an entire squadron of ratniki being swallowed by the abyssal decay pervading Kipumaki Cliff. You can still see the way the contaminated ground turned that sickly, steaming crimson. You can still smell the ozone and the rot.

Flins is there, a silent sentinel by your small kitchenette. He had followed you home without a word, sensing the way your hands had begun to shake the moment you both left Cliffwatch Camp after the debrief. He moves quietly, preparing a pot of tea that you know you won’t drink. Every so often, he murmurs something meant to soothe you, but the comfort slides off you like rain on stone.

Grief is not a wound; it is a bottomless pit. It devours your rationality and your gratitude until there is nothing left but a hollow, aching cold.

“Why not them?” you whisper, your voice cracking the brittle silence.

Flins pauses as his hand hovers over a ceramic cup. He turns to look at you, his pale yellow eyes catching the candlelight like he doesn’t quite have the words. A silence that makes you stand up as tje chair scrapes harshly against the floorboards. The unfairness of it all bubbles up in your chest, hot and suffocating.

You take a step toward him as your eyes search his ageless face. You’ve known for a long time that Flins wasn’t like the rest of you. It wasn’t just the way he didn’t age or the way he moved through a blizzard as if it were a spring breeze. It was how the world seemed to bend slightly in his presence, as if he were a guest in a house that everyone else was born in.

“Can’t you do for them what you did for me?” you ask as the words tremble with a desperate, jagged hope. “Can’t you bring them back, Flins? If you have that power, why let them perish?”

For a long moment, Flins doesn’t move. The otherworldly air that usually clings to him like a faint mist seems to thicken, making the small apartment feel suddenly vast and cold. On any other day, he would indulge your curiosity, answering your questions with his characteristic, cryptic patience. He would explain the mechanics of the beacons or the lore of the Isles in a heartbeat.

But he does not answer this.

Instead, Flins sets the cup down with a soft clink. He crosses the small space between you, his presence momentarily eclipsing the dim candlelight. He doesn't offer a lecture on the laws of life and death; instead, he leans down and presses a lingering, cool kiss to your forehead.

“Stay here. I’ll be back,” he murmurs against your skin.

When he leaves, the wait feels like an eternity stretched thin. Your mind is a loop of the today’s failures. If only we had reached the ridge faster. If only we hadn't let the vanguard push ahead without us. The “if onlys” are a poison, stinging your eyes and making your chest ache with every shallow breath.

By the time the latch finally turns again, you are curled into a tight knot on the edge of your bed. Flins returns, not with news of a miracle, but carrying a familiar, weathered wooden box.

You watch, blinking through the haze of your grief, as he sheds his heavy coat and pulls up a chair. He doesn't say a word as he removes his gloves, laying them neatly aside. With practiced, rhythmic motions, he opens the box to reveal a glimmering hoard—an assortment of raw gemstones, polished sea-glass, and intricate jewelry.

It’s a hobby of his that has always puzzled you. In the middle of a war against the Abyss, here is a man who spends his few free hours meticulously cleaning and polishing trinkets he’s collected. It’s an endearing quirk, one that usually grounds you, but tonight it feels surreal.

“Remember that dream you told me about?” he murmurs. “The one where we got married on Hiisi Isle, with Miss Lauma as our witness?”

The sheer, sudden whiplash of the question sends a jolt through you. The grief is momentarily eclipsed by a wave of mortification so intense you actually yelp, diving headfirst under your heavy wool covers.

“Read the room, Flins!” your muffled voice wails from beneath the blankets. “Why would you—how are you even bringing that up now?”

You stay under there for a long minute, your face burning hot enough to rival the tallow candle. When you finally muster the courage to peek out, your cheeks are still flushed. Flins is looking at you now, his expression softened by a terrifyingly real tenderness.

“Because I cannot do for them what I did for you,” he says, his voice dropping into a low, somber register. “The balance of this world is a fragile thing. What I did was… a transgression. It was a theft from the natural order, an act of defiance that the gods may very well punish me for one day—much like how they leveled those who dared to play at being divine in the ages past.”

His gaze drifts toward the tallow candle. The flame is steady, but the wax has already wept halfway down the brass holder. Flins continues.

“Life is a flickering wick, and once it is extinguished, the ashes belong to the earth. To reach into that void and pull a soul back... I can only do that once. I would only do that once.” He looks back at you, his yellow eyes glowing with an ancient, possessive light.

“And I chose to do it for you.”

You stare at him, your mouth hanging open slightly as you try to process the gravity of his words. Flins has always spoken in riddles. It’s part of his charm, or perhaps just a symptom of being whatever immortal thing he truly is, but this feels different. The air in the room feels charged with the weight of a debt you never asked for but can never repay.

Before you can spiral back, he reaches out. His hands are usually as cold as the permafrost, a constant reminder of his otherworldly nature, but when he takes your trembling hand and brings it to his lips, the kiss he presses into your skin is as warm as a hearth.

“What I can do,” he murmurs against your knuckles, his citrine eyes never leaving yours, “is distract the love of my life with jewels and gemstones. Pick any rings of your choice from the box. They will be our wedding bands.”

Your heart doesn't just flutter; it practically drops into your stomach with the sheer force of the whiplash.

“Flins!” You explode, the embarrassment surging back with a vengeance that finally burns away the last of your grief-stricken chill. You launch into a frantic, red-faced rant, gesturing wildly with your free hand. “People died today, and you’re—you’re just weaponizing my feelings! Using my own embarrassing dreams against me just so you don’t have to explain your terrifying, forbidden magic powers!”

There isn’t any real weight to your scolding, though. Your voice cracks with a desperate, hysterical sort of affection because, as much as you want to be angry, you have always been hopelessly weak for him. And from the way he watches you, it’s clear he knows he’s already won. Flins is just as weak for you; after all, he’s willing to risk the wrath of the gods just to keep you in his sight.

“The silver ones. With the sapphires,” you finally mutter, your rant dying out into a bashful grumble as you point toward the box.

You pick out a set of rings, delicate silver bands gilded with brilliant cornflower blue sapphires that catch the dying candlelight. They look like frozen fragments of a summer sky, out of place in the grim gray of Nasha Town, yet perfect for a union born of frost and moonlight. But Flins doesn’t wait for a formal ceremony. He slides the sapphire ring onto your finger with a proprietary slowness, his touch finally losing its chill as he draws you toward him. The shadows of the apartment, once like a cage, now feel like a sanctuary.

Flins holds your hand for a long moment, tilting it slightly so the gem catches the flickering light. The vibrant blue sparkles against the silver band, delicate yet unyielding, just like the man who placed it there. A faint smile curves his lips as he admires it. Then, without a word, he lifts your hand to his mouth and presses a lingering kiss to the back of your fingers, right above the new ring.

The gesture is so simple, so courtly, yet it sends a flush rushing straight to your cheeks. To him it might be nothing more than natural affection, an old habit from whatever long life he’s led before you. To you, it’s devastating.

His pale yellow eyes lift to meet yours, glowing softly in the dim room. The look he gives you is heavy with intent—possessive, tender, and ancient all at once. Before you can catch your breath, he leans in closer, his fingers gently grasping your chin to tilt your face up. His lips find yours in a slow, deep kiss that steals the last of the grief from your lungs and replaces it with liquid warmth.

This isn’t the frantic, desperate closeness you’ve shared in stolen moments since the two of you quietly crossed that line. Those times had always stopped at heavy petting and breathless touches, as if he were still afraid you might shatter. Tonight feels different. There’s a quiet certainty in the way he kisses you, a promise that he has no intention of pulling back this time.

He parts from your lips to murmur against them, his voice rough with want. “Let me see you.”

Then he begins to undress.

At least, he tries.

It should be seamless—seductive, even—but Lightkeeper uniforms are built for survival in the brutal north, not for easy removal. His outer coat and gloves are already discarded, but the layers beneath are a maze of straps, buckles, reinforced belts, and hidden fastenings. The elaborate rigging that keeps his gear secure in battle now becomes an unintended comedy of errors. He tugs at one buckle only for another to catch; a chain that usually sways dramatically with his movements gets tangled for a second. You can’t help it. A soft giggle escapes you, breaking the thick tension like a crack in ice.

Flins pauses, one brow arching in dry amusement, the corner of his mouth twitching.

“Something funny, love?”

“You look like you’re fighting a particularly stubborn Wilderness Hunter made entirely of leather,” you tease, still flushed but now smiling.

He huffs a quiet laugh of his own. “Then come help me defeat it.”

You shift closer on the bed, your fingers joining his in the task. Together you work through the layers; unfastening the intricate belts, loosening the high collar of his inner tunic, sliding the heavy fabric off his shoulders. He kicks off his boots with a couple of solid thuds, the sound echoing faintly in the small apartment. As more of him is revealed, the candlelight paints warm highlights across pale skin and the lean, corded muscle earned from all the centuries he’s walked the earth. Scars you’ve never seen before catch the glow—old, faded lines that speak of battles long before you were born.

For a fleeting moment, your gaze lingers on those ancient marks, and a quiet melancholy slips into your chest. He had already defied death once for you. But that impossible gift had been his to give only once. When it eventually came for you again, there would be no second resurrection, no more defiance of the natural order. You would fade as mortals do, while he carried the memory of you through whatever endless winters still lay ahead. The thought settles heavy and cold, a reminder of the fragile imbalance between his timeless existence and your ephemeral life.

Before the melancholy could take deeper root, Flins’ hands find you again, pulling your focus back to him with gentle insistence. You shake the somber thought away with a slow exhale, letting it dissolve like frost under the warmth of the candlelight. This moment was not for borrowed time or future grief.

It is simply for the two of you, here and now.

Once he’s down to simpler under-layers, your lover’s touch turns even more reverent as he helps you out of your own uniform. The heavy wool coat comes first, then the reinforced vest, the multiple belts and straps that mirror his own. Each piece is set aside with care. Between every removal Flins leans in, pressing slow, open-mouthed kisses along the column of your throat, his breath cool at first, then warming against your racing pulse.

Your “wedding bands” gleam in the sparse light whenever your hands move—silver and sapphire catching the flame like tiny frozen stars. The sight makes something deep in your chest constrict with a sweet ache you’re too lightheaded to refuse.

He takes his time, savoring every inch of newly bared skin. His mouth trails lower, following the path of his hands as he peels away the last layers. There’s no rush tonight; the world outside can burn or freeze for all he cares. Right now, the only thing that matters is the quiet space between you, the way your breath hitches when his fingers skim your ribs, the soft sound he makes when you press a kiss to his collarbone in return.

When you’re both finally bare, he draws you down onto the bed with him, his body covering yours in a protective, enveloping warmth that chases away every lingering shadow in the room. Your fingers threading together so the rings click softly against each other.

You bring his hand to your lips without breaking eye contact, pressing a soft kiss to his knuckles first. Then, slowly, you draw his thumb into your mouth. Wet lips close around it with gentle suction. Your gaze stays locked on his as you swirl your tongue along the pad of his thumb, tasting the faint salt of his skin. Something ravenous flickers briefly across Flins’ face. His pupils dilate, the pale yellow of his irises burning brighter, and his breath catches momentarily.

But before he can react, you surge upward, using the momentum and a surprised huff of laughter to flip your positions. Flins lands on his back against the sheets with a soft thud, eyes wide with genuine astonishment as you settle between his spread thighs.

“What are you—”

You cut him off by wrapping your fingers around his hardening cock, giving one slow, firm stroke from base to tip. His words dissolve into another sharp inhale.

His gaze drops to your hand as you work him. The delicate silver band with a gem of cornflower blue catches the light with every smooth pump of your fist. It gleams against your skin like a brand of ownership, and a possessive sound rumbles in his chest at the sight of it: his ring on your finger while you stroke his cock.

“Just let me take care of you tonight,” you murmur. “Let me make you feel good.”

Flins’ protest dies on his tongue as you lean down. You start with a teasing lick along the underside of his length, dragging your tongue across the sensitive flesh in one languid motion. Then you take him into your mouth, warm and wet and unhurried, savoring every inch as you sink down. You hollow your cheeks around him, pressing your tongue flat against the thick vein underneath while you take him as deep as you can.

The sounds you make are deliberately filthy: soft, wet slurps and quiet hums of pleasure that vibrate around his cock. You bob your head with a steady rhythm, one hand stroking what your mouth can’t reach, the other resting on his thigh, nails lightly scratching in time with every downward glide. Drool escapes the corners of your lips, slicking his shaft and making each slide smoother, messier.

Flins’ hand finds the back of your head, lithe fingers threading through your hair with trembling restraint. His usual composure is cracking. You hear it in the quiet groans that vibrate from his chest. You feel it in the way his hips twitch involuntarily when you swirl your tongue around the head.

“Archons—” His voice comes out fractured, the ancient calm shattered by the heat of your mouth. “You’re going to ruin me one of these days.”

You pull off to look up at him, eyes bright with mischief and devotion.

“Good,” you whisper, before taking him deep again, relaxing your throat to swallow around his length. The wet, obscene sounds fill the small room, mixing with his ragged breathing and the occasional broken moan that slips past his control.

You pour everything into it—every ounce of gratitude for the life he stole back for you, every quiet fear of the future, every overwhelming surge of love—channeling it into the tight heat of your mouth, the eager swirl of your tongue, the way you moan around his length like you could never get enough. Flins’ thighs tense beneath your palms. His fingers tighten gently in your hair as his control frays thread by thread, the ageless Lightkeeper reduced to trembling need beneath your touch.

His breathing grows ragged, hips jerking up in shallow thrusts.

“Love, wait,” he gasps. “I’m close. Let me just—”

You feel the warning twitch of his cock against your tongue, but instead of pulling away, you tighten your grip on his thighs, nails digging in just enough to hold him in place. With a moan that rings more like a whimper, you take him even deeper, relaxing your throat and swallowing tightly around the head of his cock.

Flins’ protest melts into a broken groan. His body goes rigid, then shudders violently as his release crashes over him. Thick, warm spurts flood your mouth and slide straight down your throat. The sensation is overwhelming—your eyes sting with reflexive tears, but the taste of him, salty and unmistakably his, sends a deep wave of bliss rolling through you. He trembles beneath you as helpless sounds escape his lips, and you keep working him through his high, milking every last pulse until his hips finally still.

When you finally pull back for air, a thin string of saliva and cum connects your swollen lips to his softening cock. A small smear of his release glistens at the corner of your mouth.

Flins is still breathing hard, chest heaving, when his hand moves almost absentmindedly. His thumb gently cradles your jaw, brushing across your lower lip to wipe away the mess. The moment his finger touches your mouth, you part your lips and draw it inside again, sucking softly with the same eager devotion you’d shown his cock.

His yellow eyes darken further as he watches you clean his thumb with kitten licks and swirls of your tongue. You hold his gaze the entire time, then swallow visibly, letting him see the motion of your throat as you take everything he gave you.

For a long moment, the only sound in the room is the heavy rhythm of his breathing and the faint crackle of the dying candle.

Flins stares down at you, something between awe and raw hunger etched into his usually composed features. His thumb stays between your lips a second longer, pressing gently against your tongue, before he finally withdraws it with a soft, wet pop.

“Hm…” he murmurs. “Such a good wife for me.”

The words land like a spark in dry tinder—small, almost careless—and then everything catches at once, hunger leaping from kindling to flame before you can smother it. Heat floods your chest and sinks straight between your legs. You surge upward without thinking, climbing onto your lover’s lap and crashing your mouth against his in a messy, desperate kiss.

Flins meets you instantly, one hand sliding to the nape of your neck to pull you closer, the other winding around your waist to hold you steady. There is nothing gentle in the way he kisses you. He claims your mouth with slow, devouring hunger—sucking your tongue between his lips, licking into you like he wants to taste every little noise you make.

You swing a leg over his hips, straddling him as you deepen the kiss. Your bare breasts press against his chest, nipples already tight from arousal. Flins groans into your mouth once again and the sound vibrates through you both. His free hand roams down your back, then lower, cupping the curve of your ass before sliding between your thighs.

His slender fingers find you soaked.

An appreciative hum rumbles in his throat as he drags two fingers through your slick folds, spreading the wetness from your entrance up to your swollen clit. You whimper against his mouth, hips twitching instinctively into his touch.

“Already so wet and ready,” he breathes between kisses, the words coming out dark with satisfaction. “Did sucking my cock make you this needy?”

You can only moan in response as he traces tight circles around your puffy clit. It doesn’t take long for him to slip a finger inside you. The stretch is perfect—not enough to completely satisfy, but enough to make you clench around him. Flins coos softly, murmuring low words in that ancient tongue he sometimes slips into when his control starts to fray. You don’t know the language, but the raw hunger in every syllable curls around you like incense, making you understand all the same.

I want you. I needyou.

A moment later he adds a second finger, curling both slowly against that perfect spot inside you while his thumb continues its relentless, teasing strokes over your clit. Your hips rock against his hand, grinding down shamelessly. The kiss grows sloppier as you both pant and gasp into each other’s mouths. Every thrust of his fingers draws wet, lewd sounds from between your legs. Every soft whimper you make is swallowed by the man who so rarely lets his hunger for you spill over like this.

You feel his cock begin to twitch and thicken against your inner thigh, growing hot and heavy as he keeps working you open with steady, practiced strokes. He groans when you roll your hips and brush against his returning erection, the friction making his fingers falter for a moment.

“Fuck—” he hisses against your lips, the curse rare and raw on his tongue. “Do you feel how hard you make me again? Just from touching you like this…”

He pumps his fingers deeper, faster, the heel of his palm grinding against your clit with every thrust. Your thighs tremble around his hips. You kiss him harder, messier, chasing the building pleasure as his cock continues to swell and press insistently against your skin, ready for more.

He pumps his fingers deeper, the heel of his palm grinding firmly against your clit with every thrust. Your thighs tremble around his hips as pleasure coils tighter and tighter in your core. You kiss him like you have all the time in the world. You kiss him like you want to stay with him forever.

Flins finally pulls his fingers from you with a wet sound, making you mourn the loss with a disheartened whimper. Ever-so attentive to your needs, he murmurs softly against your lips in that lilting tongue again. A quiet means to soothe. His hands slide under your thighs as he lifts you with effortless strength. You brace your palms on his broad shoulders, breath coming in short, shaky gasps while he positions you above his now fully hard cock.

You feel the blunt head of his cock nudge against your slick entrance. But instead of lowering you onto him, Flins holds you suspended just above his length, teasingly rubbing the tip back and forth along your glistening slit. The slow drag catches on your swollen clit with every wicked pass, sending sparks of frustrated pleasure through you.

You whine whilst you attempt to sink down onto him, to sheathe his length in the molten heat of your cunt, but his grip on your thighs is unyielding. He keeps you hovering there, letting the head of his cock kiss your entrance again and again without ever pushing inside.

“Flins…” you plead almost brokenly.

He pulls back just enough to look at you, those citrine eyes gleaming with wicked amusement beneath the heavy-lidded hunger.

“Use your words,” he murmurs, switching back to the common tongue as the corner of his mouth curves into a teasing smirk. “Tell me what you want. Beg nicely.”

Heat floods your face, but the ache between your legs is far stronger than any embarrassment. You’re far too desperate to play coy.

“Please,” you whimper, fingers digging into his shoulders. “Please, Flins… I need you inside me. I need your cock—please fuck me.”

The words barely leave your lips before your lover lets out a guttural noise, the teasing mask cracking beneath the weight of your total surrender. With a smooth, powerful motion, he pulls you down onto his length, impaling you fully in a single thrust.

A choked moan tears from your throat as he stretches you open, filling you completely. The sudden fullness is overwhelming—perfect and almost too much all at once. Your walls flutter and clench around him, adjusting to his thickness while he holds you there, buried to the hilt.

Flins presses his forehead to yours and smiles.

“There you are… my good wife.”

Flins holds you there for a breathless moment. The golden flicker of the dying candle paints warm light across your joined bodies, highlighting the flush on your skin and the faint sheen of sweat beginning to glow on his.

He starts slow. Agonizingly, reverently slow.

Your lover’s hands stay firm under your thighs as he lifts you until only the head of his cock remains inside you, then guides you back down with expertly controlled strokes. You feel him so deeply it steals the air from your lungs. Every time he bottoms out, the blunt head presses against that sensitive spot inside you, sending ripples of pleasure through your body.

Your head lolls back for a moment, lips parted around soft, muted moans that spill freely into the quiet room. The ring on your finger catches the candlelight as you anchor yourself on his shoulders, the blue stone flashing like a secret vow with every rise and fall of your body. Flins gazes up at you like you are something sacred—like he has loved you across lifetimes and is only now allowed to touch you again. His pale yellow eyes are dark with devotion, drinking in every flutter of your lashes as your bodies meet with every thrust.

But you can’t look away from his face for long.

You lift your head, eyes locking onto his handsome features as he continues to fuck up into you with that same patient yet devastating rhythm. How did you—a mortal, Visionless soldier who was never meant to last—manage to capture the heart of someone who walks through decades as though they were mere seasons? The thought makes your chest ache with overwhelming tenderness even as pleasure coils tighter inside you.

You slide your left hand up to cup his cheek, the cool band of silver pressing gently against his skin. To your surprise, Flins leans into your touch, turning his head just enough to press a kiss to your palm without breaking the slow roll of his hips. The gesture fills you with so much affection for him, your self-control practically slips and snaps.

Leaning down, you capture his lips in a long, languid kiss. It is nothing like the desperate, messy clash from earlier. This one is gentle and unhurried, tongues sliding tenderly, breaths mingling as you rock together. Between soft, wet kisses and broken moans, you whisper against his mouth:

“I love you… ah— Flins… I love you…”

The words come out trembling, half-moaned, half-sighed, each one punctuated by the slow, deep thrust of his cock filling you completely. Flins sighs into the kiss as his fingers begin to tighten on your thighs, pulling you down harder onto him, burying himself even deeper.

“I love you,” he breathes between kisses, “My wife… my only one.”

He keeps the pace slow and sensual, lifting and lowering you with reverent strength, letting you feel every inch as he slides in and out of your slick heat. Your bodies move together like they were made for this—like the world outside with its war and its graves has no claim on this quiet, candlelit sanctuary.

But as always, he catches you off-guard.

In one swift motion, he lifts you completely off his cock and lays you back onto the mattress. But the sudden movement stirs a soft gust of air that snuffs out the already dying tallow candle, plunging the small apartment into complete darkness.

For a moment you’re disoriented, blinking into the sudden blackout. Your lips part—half-ready to suggest relighting the candle—but before the words can form, you feel Flins moving above you in the dark. Strong hands guide your body with practiced ease: one of your thighs is lifted and draped over his broad shoulder, the other wrapped snugly around his waist. The new angle leaves you open and vulnerable beneath him, heart hammering against your ribs.

His breath ghosts hot against your ear, and it sends a shiver racing across your skin. You bite back a moan as the heavy, heated length of his cock slides teasingly along your soaked folds once more, the blunt head nudges your entrance with every slow rock of his hips.

In the pitch-black room, his citrine eyes suddenly ignite—glowing with the same ethereal blue as the cold flames of his lantern. The haunting glow illuminates just enough of his face to make your breath catch. He looks almost unearthly like this, ancient and beautiful and entirely focused on you.

Flins leans closer. “Do you trust me? This wretched, selfish thing that defied the gods… all because I was too greedy to let you go?”

There is no hesitation in your answer.

“Yes,” you whisper, reaching up to cup his glowing face with both hands, your sapphire ring catching the faint blue light like a beacon in the dark. “I trust you. Always.”

A low, relieved sound rumbles in his chest. He presses a lingering kiss to your forehead, then to the corner of your eye where a single tear of overwhelming emotion had slipped free. His lips brush it away tenderly before he finally pushes forward.

His length sinks into you in one deep thrust, the new position letting him reach even deeper than before. A broken moan tears from your throat as he fills you completely, stretching you open so perfectly it borders on overwhelm. Flins stills for a heartbeat, buried to the hilt, letting you adjust while he kisses away another stray tear that escapes down your cheek.

“That’s it… good girl,” he praises softly, the words thick with adoration. “Taking me so well. My brave, beautiful wife.”

Before you can start unraveling from his praise alone, he begins to move—slow yet powerful rolls of his hips that drag his cock against every sensitive spot inside you. The lack of light makes every sensation sharper: the slick sound of your bodies meeting, the heat of his skin against yours, and the way his glowing eyes never leave your face even as the pleasure builds towards the inevitable.

You cling to him, one hand still cupping his cheek while the other digs into his back, nails lightly scoring his skin. However, between gasping moans and whispered endearments you can’t help the quiet pushback that slips out—the familiar guilt of being cared for so earnestly by someone who has already given you everything.

“You don’t… ah… you don’t have to be so gentle with me,” you manage between thrusts, voice trembling with emotion. “Y-you really should let me take care of you more—”

Flins silences you with a deep, claiming kiss, swallowing your words as he drives into you a little harder, a little deeper. “You already do,” he murmurs against your lips, the blue glow of his eyes softening with affection. “Every day you’re alive and breathing beside me… you’re taking care of me more than you know. Now let me love my wife the way she deserves.”

He angles his hips just right on the next thrust, hitting that perfect spot that makes stars burst behind your eyelids. A louder moan escapes you, and Flins rewards it with another tender kiss to your tear-damp cheek, his praise flowing like warm honey in the dark.

“Good girl… just like that. Let me hear you.”

The combination of his glowing eyes, his deep, steady thrusts, and the constant stream of praise and gentle kisses to your tears quickly overwhelms you. The sensation coils tighter and tighter in your core while the emotional weight of his love—this impossible, defiant love—wraps around your heart like an oath only you two know the words to.

You’re already teetering on the edge, every deep thrust pushing you closer to the brink. Flins seems to sense it—he always does. His hand slides between your bodies, and the pad of his thumb finds your swollen clit, rubbing tight, steady circles with just the right pressure.

The pleasure crests violently.

A sharp, broken cry tears from your throat as your orgasm crashes over you, blindingly bright even in the total darkness. A supernova of sensations. Your back arches off the bed, thighs trembling around him as your cunt spasms and flutters wildly around his cock. Wave after wave of overwhelming ecstasy rips through you, leaving you gasping and shaking beneath him.

Flins doesn’t stop moving. He keeps thrusting through it, talking you through every pulse with that low, reverent voice. “That’s it… good girl. Come for me. Let it take you. I’ve got you.”

His glowing blue eyes never leave your face, drinking in every second as you fall apart so beautifully for him. He leans down to kiss away the fresh tears slipping from the corners of your eyes while he whispers soft praises between thrusts.

This is the culmination of everything—the colleague who stood beside you on freezing watch shifts, the man who refused to let death claim you, the lover who risked divine wrath just to steal back one more lifetime with you. In this moment, the bond between you feels sacred and defiant all at once: two souls who should never have had this chance, clinging to each other in the dark.

Only when your trembling starts to quiet does Flins allow himself to let go.

With a long, winded groan that sounds almost pained in its relief, he buries himself to the hilt one final time and comes deep inside you. You feel the hot pulses of his release filling you, his cock twitching with every spurt as he empties himself completely. His forehead drops to yours, breath ragged, the ethereal blue glow in his eyes flickering like a lantern in the wind.

For a long while, the room is silent except for your shared, slowing breaths.

The darkness remains, broken only by faint slivers of moonlight and the distant lights of Nasha Town spilling weakly through the far window. Flins carefully lowers your leg from his shoulder and shifts so he can gather you against his chest. His skin feels warmer than usual, almost human in the afterglow as the fire in his eyes simmers down to that same citrine stare you know and love. He cradles your face gently in one large palm, the cool metal of his matching sapphire ring pressing against your cheek.

You lean into the touch, eyes fluttering shut.

“…You really won’t bring our comrades back, will you?” you whisper after a while, the grief from earlier softened but not quite gone.

Flins is silent for a moment, thumb stroking slowly over your cheekbone.

“No,” he tells you at last. “As I’ve said, what I did for you… it was already a fracture in the order of things. To do it again would break the world in ways even I cannot mend. Some debts the gods collect with interest.” He presses a soft kiss to your temple. “But I chose you. Out of every soul that has ever slipped away, I chose you.”

You swallow, feeling like your throat is stuffed with cotton. “That feels… selfish.”

“It is,” Flins admits, a faint, rueful smile in his voice. “But I have lived long enough to know that love is rarely selfless. The beacons must stay lit. The fallen must be mourned. And I… I get to hold my wife in the dark and pretend, for a little while longer, that time cannot touch us.”

The words settle over you like a warm blanket. You turn your face to kiss the inside of his palm, lips brushing the cool silver band.

“Then stay selfish a little longer,” you murmur.

Flins chuckles softly—a rare, precious sound. “As my lady commands.”

He finally eases out of you with a gentle hiss, then gathers you closer, tucking your head beneath his chin. His fingers trace lazy, soothing patterns along your spine while he murmurs in that soft voice of his; asking if you’re sore, if you need water, if the blanket is too heavy. You answer each question sleepily, content to let him fuss over you for once without protest.

In the quiet dark, with his wedding band still warm against your skin and the distant lights flickering beyond the window, the weight of the day finally begins to lift.

For tonight, and many more nights, death simply has to wait.

His clothes are pristine. Barely show a sign of your scuffle. He even wears a collar around his neck like he's a goddamned dog. The only sign that he's involved in the violence rather than a kindly passerby is blaring red and wet. Your blood on his gloves. It stains his palms and fingers in the way you'd always imagined a victim's blood might the hand of their killer.

“Are you going to cry?” His voice grates on your ears. Makes the ache of your nose worse. You think he might have broken it.

“Piss off,” your voice cracks when you speak and he laughs. He fucking laughs.

“You said yes and I did what I said I was going to.”

His eyes crinkle at the edges, but there's no light in them at all. Wine-dark and deep enough that you avert your gaze as soon as you catch his. If you don't, you might never stop looking. The rabbit-fast pace of your heart makes your nose thump with pain. Even with your eyes anywhere but on him, you can't spot an exit path.

“You told me your name and asked if I had a good reaction time!”

The bell at the Church tolls. There's no time to change. It seems like you'll be heading to prayer covered in your own blood.

“And you lied,” Lohen laughs louder. “I didn't, just so you know.”

You run toward him, to get past him and onto the main road, and he grips your shoulder painfully tight. Then he lets you go, and you speed up, feet thundering against cobblestone. You cast a hesitant look back.

The bastard is waving at you.

"I'll get you back someday," you whisper. You're not sure if it's a threat or a wish.

Two weeks later, you spot him on your way out of the Angel's Share. The moon is bright against the night sky, the stars a glittering tapestry, and Lohen leans against the bar wall like a creature out of the Abyss.

“What,” you spit. “Do you want from me.”

He tilts his head, all animalistic and curious. His eyes are wide and sharp. Remind you of the drink you've just had. Tangy grapes turned wine that went down sour. It courses through you still, making the evening pleasantly warm and hazy.

Your nose is still bruised from his punch. Droning crickets and patrolling knights and noisy drunks make the night feel far less dangerous than the quiet alley did. But something about him makes your hackles raise.

“Must I want something from you?” He asks instead of telling you anything upfront, smile as audible as it is visible. He has sharp canine teeth. You support yourself against the wall so you don't lose your balance. Drunkenness has never suited you in the way it does every other citizen of Mondstadt.

“You're staring like you do,” you answer. “And I don't know why else you'd be here, if not for a second try.”

“Hah,” his laugh is short, dry. “You know me better than most already! Am I so easy to read?”

You launch yourself at him. His grin only widens. Fucking reaction time— Barbara started panicking when you walked in, and what could you say? Oh, some knight punched me in the face because I got a little proud of myself for once? Lohen's laughter is as sickening now as it was then.

His knee finds your gut. Your nails find his cheeks. You spit bile and wine onto his clothes as you feel skin give way underneath your fingertips. A hard shove down, and the stone street is against your back, or your back is against it, and minty hair dangles in front of your face, smelling nothing like the plant. He stinks of sweat and iron.

“Screw you,” you shout into his face. Someone from the bar opens the door. Lohen drags you, you think, because the light doesn't reach your eyes.

“Stop fighting or I'll stop you myself.” The stranger says. Their voice is warm. Deep. A comfort as you lie on the cold ground, nauseous, dizzy, blood pooling where you've scratched. There is no response and the door closes.

Lohen punches you in the face again, and then he's hoisting you up by the arms, laughing still.

Freak.

“Are you sure I'm the only one who wanted that?” He sounds barely out of breath, and doesn't even flinch when you vomit all over his shoes.

Three days later, Lohen shows up at your door covered in blood. His face is still bruised, scratched like a cat was trying to kill him, but he's smiling.

You are not sure of how he knows where you live. Knights privileges, maybe. You watch as he drips all over the cobblestone and a little on your wooden floor, and you consider trying to kill him right then and there.

“Hello,” he says, raspy. “I was hunting, oh, sorry, I mean— tracking down a band of escaped Treasure Hunters.”

You swallow the bile that threatens to rise. Try not to think of how you threw yourself at him like you could have won. A murderer on your doorstep who punched you in the face twice. Barbatos must hate you specifically.

“And?”

“And I was wondering if I could teach you some tricks on how to not end up like them.”

You try to close the door and he grabs the side of it, holds it open. You push harder and it doesn't give a single damned inch.

“It'd be good for you,” he says, all chipper. You eye the hilt of a blade at his belt. You thought knights considered it immoral to fight with anything but a sword. But of course this one doesn't. Assaulting a civilian in broad daylight, and all. Even if you'd technically said yes. Even if you'd jumped at his throat later.

“You aren't giving me a choice,” you say.

“I always have a choice,” Lohen's voice, usually all light and sweet twists into something sharp, something like a blade. “You could end up like that, if you wanted.”

You close the door.

A few seconds pass. You do not hear him walk away. There are no weapons in your house, no tools to defend yourself with, only your body.

A memory strikes you, unbidden; Lohen on the ground due to nothing but surprise, the way he'd dragged you away from the light of the bar, safety just out of reach.

You open the door. His answering smile makes your blood turn to ice. It doesn't look like he expected anything else.

Four months later, you are knocking down wooden stands with as much force as you can muster. The sound as they fall hurts your ears, and you can't quite tell if the violent thumping noise is the rush of your pulse or the training sword smacking into cloth.

Lohen watches from the side with a dull expression. You don't know how long he's been standing there, aren't sure of when he arrived, but you're duly ignoring him. Training is exhausting. You're no knight. And yet…

“Stop,” he says. You don't flinch. Your grip tightens on the hilt of your sword.

He walks toward you with a casual pep, little capelet bouncing in the breeze, and a bruise still healing over his chin. There is a sword in his hand. Not his favored weapon, you've learned. The polearm or the dagger or the poison— he hasn't used a ranged weapon of his own choice in years.

“How long has it been since we practiced together, again? I swear, it's been ages since I've had a good fight!”

You roll your eyes. You put up little struggle next to knights.

“Two days,” you say.

Lohen laughs something ugly and charming. “Two days too long, clearly!”

A gloved hand comes to rest between your shoulders. There is still blood on them. He never washed it out. He never does. It could be yours, or it could be the treasure hunters’, or it could be his own. You don't know which option you favor. His hand is cool where it touches you, even through the cloth.

“Your form is off,” he says, smiling. “Do I not train you hard enough?”

You stiffen, and his hand presses harder, hard enough that you stumble and have to regain your footing by jumping a few paces.

His eyes are shadowed despite the light of the setting sun. You can't quite read him. You think you thought you could, when you met him, but now every expression slips between your fingers like powdered milk. Spoilt. Rotten.

You raise your sword to position. He grabs a training lance from the rack and puts his sword, sharp and deadly, down on the ground beside it.

Ah. He's going serious on you. For once.

The sight makes you swallow and you find that your own spit feels like swallowing a toad. Nerves bundle up. Your fingers shake. Your stomach hollows. Bastard knows how to frighten you.

He says nothing as he pounces on you, legs kicking out to sweep your feet from under you, and it is practice and luck combined that means you avoid it. A hard blow from up above makes you have to block with both hands, one on the hilt and one on the blade, wood splintering into your skin.

“Come on,” he says, his rasp somewhere between laughter and a sigh. “Are you going to risk that with a real weapon? Stupid, but brave…”

You thrust up a knee, aiming for his stomach, and find a softer spot instead. He giggles, pained, and you don't know how to feel about how satisfied the wheeze in his breath makes you feel. His clothes do little to obscure his movements. Leaning over, hand on his polearm, all blue and white… He almost looks like a true knight.

You don't let pity get you. Don't let the pained look fool you. He's smiling through his wince. Lohen is a bastard, and you raise your sword high, aiming for the soft spot between neck and shoulder blade.

He blocks it with the wooden blade of his spear, fast and hard, hard enough that your foot kicks into his thigh and makes him fumble. It might leave a bruise.

“Nice one!” Lohen laughs, and you're surprised enough by his praise that you don't see the hand that grabs your throat coming at all.

It knocks you down flat. Familiarly so. His legs around your waist, knees tight like he's restraining a wild animal. His gloved fingers squeeze around your neck, just enough to make you struggle to breathe with how hard the exertion made you pant.

“But,” he starts, tilting his head, leaning down until the wispy bangs of his hair brush your skin. “Nice isn't good enough, you gotta want it to hurt me.”

His eyes are wide. Empty. Fucking wine-dark. You never noticed it before but he has a little mole underneath one of them. Once, you heard someone say that a mole like that signifies a life of hardship and tears. You've never seen his eyes water even a little.

“Okay,” you say just to fill the silence, to distract yourself. The bruise on your nose has healed long ago, but it lingers in your mind. “Wanting that is easy enough anyway.”

Lohen's smile twists into something so sharp you think it might be satisfied.

“We'll make a fighter out of you yet.”

Five hours later, you are sitting by his side in the infirmary. The blood has mostly been cleaned off by now, removed with more patches of cloth than you'd ever seen used in your life. It colored the water in the bucket a deep red.

Lohen, for his part in things, seems awfully happy. He kicks his legs back and forth despite the flesh wound on his calf, smiling so brightly that the white of his teeth rivals the white of the bandages wrapped around his head.

They're already staining. You think he might have a concussion, but Barbara swore he didn't.

They called her over because of the severity of the wounds. You tried not to meet her gaze when she asked who did it, what happened, who else got hurt. It was you and not you. It was you and the people you fought and really, that makes it all Lohen's fault.

If you'd been stronger, neither of you would have gotten hurt. If you'd never accepted the desire to get stronger, neither of you would have been there at all.

Nausea climbs your throat at the memory of slack expressions. Empty eyes. Sinew and bone.

“You're lost in thought,” Lohen says, chipper. He waves a hand in front of your face and you push it down with a groan. “Care to share?”

“Not really,” you mumble.

Your own wounds were treated last, because they weren't as severe. Scratches and cuts on your arms, a thin injury from a blade along your back. Lohen couldn't keep his eyes off of them when you'd first helped each other walk back. He'd stepped down hard on his own bleeding leg. Not even limping.

You swallow at the memory. Try not to think about what the bastard made you do— about the blood on your hands. His. Theirs. Your own.

“Did you not like it?” He asks, and you look at him to find his face awfully empty. Familiarly empty. The thought of him dead strikes you hard, like sickening lightning, and you shake your head just to clear it.

You clench your hands in your lap. Lohen takes them into his own, thumbs the calloused skin of your palm, brushing hard enough to make the scratches sting. Turned up like this, they look awfully normal. Like nothing has changed.

“You barely even did half of the work, I was the one wiping the floor with them,” he says, sounding not-quite-enthusiastic. Not like usual. “But there's nothing wrong with enjoying yourself when you're fighting to survive.”

You watch a knight pass by the open infirmary door. Armor shining in the light of the day. Weapon sheathed at their belt.

“I think we could've done it less…” Less what? With less mortal consequences?

Lohen laughs as you trail off. He sounds like himself again. You think his expression still looks off.

“That's the kinda mindset that gets you killed, and you won't even have lived enough to make your mercy worth it!”

You can't quite disconnect from the moment, can't think of the bodies, because his thumb presses harder into your palm. The sting keeps you tethered. Keeps you awake. Makes blood bubble to the surface.

You are alive because you killed. Lohen won't let you forget it.

Six days later, you find yourself in Lohen's small apartment. It's a single room on the upper story of a house where several knights live, with a small window that lets the sunlight in, and a view of the rolling fields outside Mondstadt's walls. You can even spot Dragonspine in the distance.

He'd explained to you that the room was on a rotating schedule amongst knights in his company, that whoever lived in it was whoever was stationed in Mondstadt at the time, and that someone else had lived in it for over a year while he'd been on the expedition.

“Is that why it's so clean?” You ask, half-joking, and he laughs but doesn't answer.

When you poke around, you find knives hidden under pillows on the couch-bed. It's a miracle you don't cut yourself by accident.

“I invite you here for dinner and you make fun of an apartment that's barely even mine,” he rolls his eyes. He's dressed more casually today than you've seen him in… Forever, you think. White and blue, but no pomp, no knightly symbols. Covered from head to toe.

Every so often he looks back at you from where he stands in the tiny kitchen, hair falling into his eyes. “You know perfectly well I keep my weapons sorted.”

“And your collection,” you say instead of pointing out the polearm hanging precariously above the rickety dinner table.

He nods, gives you a look you can't read. His smile is too soft. “And my collection.”

The smell of fish and cream permeates the apartment, warm and cloying. You lean back against the bed where you sit. It's softer than you thought it would be. Somehow you'd just assumed Lohen was the kind of masochistic idiot who slept on hard mattresses to prove something to himself.

“Taste test before I serve it or I'll make you lick it up from the floor,” he calls, and you rise, flicking him across the forehead. You never know if he might make good on it.

Only mostly serious, you ask a question that gets you the reward of a wink and then a shake of the head as you step toward his side. "Did you add anything weird to it? Poison, maybe?"

You grab for the spoon but he dips a finger into the boiling mixture and raises it to your mouth.

“What,” you say, but that's too much of an opening, clearly, and he stuffs it between your lips. You bite down like you're faced with a carrot, annoyance hot in your chest, and he winces, but doesn't pull back.

Slowly, biting harder all the while, you lick the cream from his finger. It tastes buttery and sweet. You let his finger go from between your teeth and watch as blood pools, marks visible on his pale skin like bruises on fruit. He's an apple nobody but you would ever pick, you think.

“It tastes fine,” you say, looking into his dark eyes to avoid looking at the marks. “But you're a real freak, you know that, right?”

Lohen's answering smile is more real than you've seen since the fight.

“I know,” he grins. Leans too far into your space. “Want to test out just how true that is?”

Seven months later, you are crouched in the tree at Windrise. The breeze is blowing leaves up from the undergrowth, rustling every branch with such noise that it hides your labored breathing.

Beneath you, a dark blue dot shadowed against the bright blue sky, Lohen approaches with his polearm in hand. This far up he looks like a rabbit on the ground, face twitching, hunched up like a prey animal ready to start running. You swallow the excitement. This has been months in the making. Over a year.

It is your test, to see how far you've come, how much his training has pushed you, and— and you want to prove that you're not going to take a single hit and go down. You'll rip his throat out today. Eat him alive.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he shouts, sing-song and delighted, and you curl so that the leaves will hide you better.

Your grip on your blade tightens. The leather handle brushes against the scars left over from the fight all those weeks ago. You don't think about it much anymore. It happened. You lived. Lohen lived.

All things considered, there were few better outcomes to have.

He steps further toward the tree, careful and quiet and if you hadn't been up here, you never would have seen him coming. His polearm is kept up just-so, ready to strike and yet never hitting the ground and telling you of his position.

You watch him tilt his head, looking around, and you can just about picture ears on his head darting toward every sound. You crouch lower.

A step more, and the position will be perfect. You don't even dare breathe. Too great a risk.

And then he looks right up at you.

And the bastard smiles.

It is entirely on impulse that you leap from the tree, blade outstretched— iron, sharp, a real threat —toward his neck. That little collar has pissed you off since you first met him. You are going to cut it off as you cut his throat.

That's how Lohen has trained you, after all. You even have the reaction speed to lean back when he swings the polearm toward you, just barely out of reach as it swims through the air in front of your nose.

“Fuck you, I fucking had you,” you say, and he laughs, swiping a leg toward you. “Fuck you!”

You jump up to avoid it, use your sword to balance and relish the satisfying feeling of a sharp edge sinking into soft dirt. A kick toward him has him staggering back, and then he stabs the polearm toward the arm you're leaning on, and you have to raise it so fast you nearly take your own eye out with the blade.

“It was a good try,” he says, panting, and you punch him with your free hand. You think you might have broken his nose. He doesn't so much as wince, just smiles wider, using the long handle of his spear to take out a leg from under you.

Fighting with Lohen feels like dancing, now. It's a test too. It always has been. But you dodge under and over the long, hard swings of his spear, and every time he tries to get close you use your blade to drive him away.

“A good try,” he says again, ducking just under the swing of your sword, and you swear you can see that you take a few hairs off his head— and then he rises, forehead meeting your chin. You gasp, lean back, a hand where it hurts, but you spot where he's going to go next, and… “But not good enough.”

This time, when he makes for your throat with a hand hidden just underneath the shadow his spear casts on the ground, you grab his wrist and twist it around.

He falls along with you, as you push your elbow against his back, right into soft flesh. His polearm goes careening, and you hold your sword high. When he lands facedown in the grass, you're on his back, digging the blade into the ground right beside his cheek.

You pant. Lohen wheezes beneath you. You can feel the uneven breaths where you sit, both of you shaking from the fight. His hair covers much of his face, but he tilts his head, letting the sharp edge of your sword cut into his skin, and meets your gaze.

“That was great,” he says, sucking in a harsh breath. Blood from his nose runs down into his mouth. Stains his teeth. “You've learned how to take a punch, and how to dish one out..!”

The hand trapped between you and his back wriggles, and you tighten your grip. Sitting down, you can feel where your ribs will bruise, where your body will ache tomorrow. It doesn't matter, though. You won.

He runs cold, but when you tilt the blade a little closer, digging a little further into his flesh, you can see that his pale skin is warming up. Blushing red.

“You gonna get up and let me go for a second try?” Lohen asks, sounding awfully excited about the thought. “Or are you gonna take your time making me pay?”

The answer is clear as day to both of you. Sometimes he asks questions just to feel the sting of a denial.

You have several months of things to make him suffer for.

It takes only a few seconds of consideration before you lift him by the hair, bringing the sword to his throat. The blood from his nose and cheek drips onto it. By now, both the edge and the flat of the blade are red with his blood.

Carefully, without remorse, you dig it under the collar, and strip it off like you would when unleashing a trapped dog.

Lohen's giggle sounds hoarse, muted, and the way he sniffles could fool anyone else into thinking he was crying. But you can see the smile. Know it's only the blood. You don't know how far you'd have to go to get him to sob, but you think you might want to find out.

You yank him up higher, dig your fingers into the thick of his hair and clench around the roots, and feel the way he fights against your pull. Just to feel the ache, you bet. Bastard. Freak.

This close you can look him in the eyes, see the little mole under one of them, the long arcs of his lashes. The blood on his teeth.

“You don't seem too upset to have lost,” you say aimlessly, considering what you might do, what revenge you can take. You sit up further, holding down the arm on his back with your weight, and tilt the hand you're using to hold the sword so close that you're nearly taking out his eye just so you can brush the skin underneath it.

Soft. Too soft for someone like him, you think, and then he's leaning up into you and kissing you with too much teeth. The taste of his blood is metallic and you're sure you must look awfully shocked because he's laughing again, biting your lips, all coppery stench and impulse.

Lohen's tongue swipes across your teeth, and you're not sure what possesses you to do it— whatever drove you to agree to training with him in the first place, perhaps —but you lick against the inside of his cheek like you're tasting fresh kill. There is a bite wound there, biting his tongue doesn't seem like his thing, but now that you're thinking back on it…

“You fucking freak,” you spit, laughing at the red on his cheeks, laughing at the way the memory of his lust for violence mixes with the memory of him in his kitchen, cooking you a meal. “You love me!”

Then he kisses you again, sharp and hungry and painful, biting down your lips to your chin and to your neck. It hurts like you imagine being bitten by a desperate animal might. The funny part is just that he keeps leaning up into you, keeps chasing after you even when you rise.

“Don't stop there,” he half-groans and half-wheezes, out of breath. You hit him over the head and he makes a miserable, delighted noise.

It probably makes you a freak too, you're realizing, that you think this act of hurting each other is a fitting reward for the past year of dancing around each other. You don't have much time to think about it, though, because Lohen is kicking back at you to upheave you from where you sit.

It takes maneuvering and strength and a little bit of luck for you to remain sitting, but you're on the ground instead of on top of him, and his hands find your shoulders with surprising speed. He's shaking, but you think that's excitement, and his fingers squeeze so tight that it hurts.

Your knee is between his thighs where his cock is hard in his pants, your teeth are on his now-bare neck, biting into pristine skin. His fingers are calloused under the gloves he almost always wears, but here he's soft, delicate, a word you'd never use to describe Lohen otherwise.

“Too easy," you mumble, and he bites into his glove to drag it off, then digs a hand under your shirt. He scratches down your back with his nails like a wildcat, and you dig your knee up so that you're both wincing. He's grinding against you with no rhythm, and you're no better where you sit on his thigh, and dully you think that you're both really fucking lucky that there's a festival in Dornman Port and most people are far away from Windrise. It means that when Lohen lets out a sound somewhere between a keen and a mocking laugh at the way your hips stutter, you don't have to stuff your fingers into his mouth to keep him quiet. You think he might want you to do that, though, because he kisses your palm on your way to burying it in his hair. The palm with the scars from your fight all that time ago. The sight makes you swallow thick and bitter. "Fuckin'," you start, gasping out when he grinds his thigh harder against you. "Sappy bastard." "Can't you see how delighted," he breathes against you, cool despite the heat of the situation, the closeness of your bodies, the way his blood still runs down his face in warm rivulets. Cryo vision. "I am, that you've figured out how to be cruel?"

"Gross," you say, and he laughs hard enough that he smears the blood on his face against your skin. You're both covered in it. It's everywhere, and you both stink of iron and dirt and arousal, and you can't help but laugh along with him. His eyes are impossibly dark. Still that same color that gets stuck in your head, that lingers when you close your own.

Wine-dark.

Behind him, your sword lays in the grass, green and grey dotted with red. You kiss him this time, and fumble for the hilt, and... There, you have it. His eyes are closed, long dark lashes fluttering against his pale, bloodied skin. You bite his lip, lick the open wound, and press the blade of the sword to his throat. He laughs. The edge cuts into his skin just-so. His smile is wide and alive and joyous. "You've got it out for me," Lohen says like you've promised him the world, out of breath and hard against you, leaning further so a single movement would cut his head from his body.

It's the merciless press of your blade against his skin and the cruel, slow grind that does him in, and with your faces so close together, you can see the satisfied look on his face as he comes with a frenzied giggle.

You don't stop moving, not when the grip of his fingers and the harsh scratching makes you grit your teeth, and you shake on his thigh as if the risk of slitting his throat with one awkward movement wasn't hanging right above your heads.

"Guess you really did screw me in the end," Lohen laughs, and you roll your eyes, dropping the sword at your side. You brush your finger across his neck. The blood pools and mixes together until you can't tell which of you was the first to start bleeding.

It takes a good few minutes until either of you speak again, but you don't bother counting them.

"...Satisfied with your revenge yet?" Lohen asks, breathing hard. Grinning.

You hum. As if you were considering it. Let the silence settle in, nothing but your breathing and the breeze to occupy it. Watch his face fall from a smile to an empty frown. The hollow nothingness that settles in after the joy. It'd be a cruel fate to condemn anyone to.

But you have the choice, now. You always will.

You look him over. His white clothes, knightly as ever, are stained with blood. Discolored by grass. A blush dusts his bleeding cheeks, there's a little cut on his throat that's sure to scar. His lips are red and wounded. He looks debauched. It was your hand that did this to him. It's a nice thought.

Amidst your mental war, you had climbed atop him; too clumsy and out of it to get comfortable. Your hands gripped his shoulders, clawing at him to hopefully ground yourself to resist your selfish desires. Though he did not seem to mind any of this. Not your hunger, your crazed mind, nor the way you were slowly sinking closer and closer to his neck.

He gently placed a hand at the small of your back, hoping to aid in settling you down. But alas, he did not care whether you bit him or not. "Dear, are you feeling alright?" He knows he didn't need to ask that question; it was written all over your face. You were undoubtedly about to lose yourself.

You never wanted to feed from him; there's no way he would even taste good. Fae blood? Who knows if you could even digest it? But all rationality had been thrown out the window, and you couldn't tear your gaze away from the silken skin of his neck— at least the small sliver you could see hidden from his overcoat's collar.

"... I'm fine." Strained, you murmur. You try to take deep breaths, pushing away the thought of tasting blood. Flins stroked stray hairs from your face; his gloved touch is soft and gentle. He gently takes hold of your chin to force you to meet his gaze. "Are you thirsty?"

Am I thirsty? What a silly question to ask. Instead of becoming irritated with him, who seems to not understand the severity of this, you answered honestly. "Very." Your grip tightens as you have to bear the thought of just how thirsty you are. "Flins— I don't think you understand how bad this is right now." Grimacing, you try to swallow, but to no avail, your throat still burns.

"I believe I understand; however, I can't bear to see you in such a state." He cups your cheek, stroking it softly with his thumb. "If it will relieve the ache, then by all means, please—" You knew how that sentence was going to be finished.

"No— don't say that." Desperately, your hands rake over his chest, nails dragging over the thick material. You grip his shirt, wrinkling the already tight fabric. "I can't." He sighs softly at your defiance, leaning in to pepper kisses on your cheeks.

"This body is but a vessel. Your indulgence will not wound me, just this body I reside in." His voice is low and almost sultry, his hand bracing the back of your neck. "Its quite alright. I've always been curious to know what the bite of a vampire would feel like." He intentionally mentioned being bitten to further persuade you. It matters not to him the state of his body; it's just a bite from his beloved, hes certainly sustained worse injuries while fending off the wild hunt. He whispers into your ear words of affirmation, telling you that it will be alright and that he can handle your desire.

As he convinces you to give in, his hand opens the buckles on his high collar, opening it and exposing more of his neck. Your eyes zero in on the skin, your breath hitching as the overwhelming need for blood takes over your senses. Words fizzle into faint sounds, and all you can do is claw at the lilac dress shirt that covers the most delicious spot of his neck. He aids you, still whispering sweet nothings even though you were too far gone to hear them.

Finally, the pale skin of his neck is exposed. Your breath flutters as you tuck your face under his jaw. He tips his head up for you, his pulse quickening as he can feel your heavy breath against his cool skin. Your lips glide over his skin as the world around you slows. You swear you could smell the blood beneath his skin, or maybe you were losing your mind. It all felt the same; the only thing you could think of was his blood.

Your lips parted, fangs achy and in desperate need to be sucken into flesh. Everything hurt and felt exhilarating. tantalizingly slow, you dragged your dangerous fangs up his neck, feeling the goosebumps flare underneath the sharpness.

Flins had never felt something so passionate, yet terrorizing. Knowing that in an instant, your teeth would devour him and indulge on his succulent blood made him shiver. This exchange ignited something in him, and he wished you had given in to temptation sooner. It roused a desire that's been hidden within him for ages, and he couldn't help but succumb to the pleasure of you on top of him. Laving you tounge against his skin; all the while you subconsciously squirmed in his lap, rubbing up against him in ways where he sighed softly, leaning against the cushions behind him.

It felt immaculate to him; your breath was warm against his cold body, and hes sure the quick pain of the initial bite would fizzle into something pleasurable, something that would wring out sweet sounds from him and hopefully you. But there was no need for him to fantasize about it, not when it was bound to happen within the next minute or so.

You were determining the best place to have your meal, lips skimmering over his skin, before you paused, your heart was beating so fast you were sure Flins could feel it with how close you were pressed together. You dragged your tongue over the chosen spot a few times as if prepping the area. Your arms were wrapped tightly around him, one behind his back and gripping towards his shoulder blade, the other on the opposite side of his neck to brace him. As he tipped his head away for your feasting pleasure, your sharp fangs barely pressed into his skin, feeling the way it gives beneath the sharpness.

The suspense was heavy and overbearing. With your fangs already set on a spot, Flins closed his eyes in anticipation, bracing for the jolt of pain. You swallowed thickly before your jaw abruptly shut, piercing his skin and letting your teeth penetrate into the meat of his neck.

Flins tensed, flinching as the shoot of pain radiated from his neck. He groaned, his hands on your back gripping you to keep him steady. And oh, the pleasure that filled you was immeasurable. The thick, warm blood instantly filled your mouth. The intense iron and bittersweetness made you moan in relief. His blood was rich and silken against your tongue, satisfying that intense desire that had taken over you.

You suck, hands adjusting their hold on him as you tilt his head further away, exposing his neck more. He lets out a pained, subtle sound, only to fall on deaf ears. Quickly, the room smelled metallic; it only filled your senses more, making you fall further into a state of delirium. The taste of him was something you didn't expect; it wasn't as hot and lacked the sharpness that most humans had, but you were too drunk on it to care— and it was blood, Flins' blood, to be exact.

Amazing was an understatement for how good this felt. Finally getting to drink something— especially from the neck. It satiated something deep within you, making your mind settle with a hazy fog from how lost you were becoming in this. He was patient, letting you take as long as you needed.

Soon, the current of blood jutting from the puncture wounds had slowed, and it was laborious to suck it from his skin. The obscene sounds had become too loud for your liking. Gently, you retracted your fangs from his neck, and blood was smeared across the wound sloppily. Your breath came out in shuddered gasps, fanning over his sensitive neck. As you pulled away from his neck, he sighed in relief, his shoulders releasing the tension, and his hands no longer holding you so tightly.

Shakily, you drag your teeth up his neck again, dirtily carrying blood streaks along with them. Flins opened his eyes, gazing at nothing as the intense moment was finally dying down. He felt oddly dizzy; he wasn't sure whether it was from blood loss or from the adrenaline. His hands softly rubbed your back. You must have felt better after drinking so much.

Suddenly, Flins yelped as your teeth sank into him once more. He groaned and jerked; his neck was already sensitive, yet you paid no mind to his reactions, greedily drinking more of his delicious nectar. Your hand on the side of his neck held him too tightly for comfort, and he fought the urge to throw you off of him. You had become barbaric and animalistic, groaning while you devoured him.

He called your name once, twice, then a third time before he grabbed your shoulders tightly. The movement made you jerk, effectively pulling you out of that drunken state. You were dazed, eyes barely opening as you struggled to remember what was happening exactly. All you could think about was blood.

"Mercy, please, dear."

With his quiet and faint voice, everything hits you at once. How many times did you bite him? How long was he trying to get your attention? How much blood did you drink? You gasp and pull back abruptly, taking in the sight of him before you.

He was panting shallowly, his neck littered in angry shades of crimson as the blood had smeared over his skin. His eyes were unfocused, gazing at you with a hint of a smile, somehow. Frozen in terror, you could only stare at him, looking at how you utterly destroyed his neck. His hand slowly and gently reaches up, brushing some of the hair caked in blood away from your face.

You were sure you looked a mess right now. You could feel the sticky blood coating your lips and chin; it was probably dripping down on your chest at the moment. Your lips part to speak, and all that can come out are apologies. He smiles, huffing out a small laugh weakly. "It's quite all right."

"Oh my god— Flins, I'm sorry—" Desperately apologizing, guilt settles in your stomach. You hold his face, watching how his eyes stay lidded and his head wants to fall back. He shushes you, his hand resting on your shoulder. "Don't let a drop go to waste, now." He tilts his head up, exposing his neck again.

"But— I can't take more from you!" You felt terrible; this was never supposed to happen. He shakes his head, his hand on the back of your neck bringing you closer. "Just clean it up, dear. It has already left my body, it's yours."

You grit your teeth. Yes, it was true the blood that is so obscenely smeared over his neck would be wasted if you didn't lap it up, but there had to be more pressing matters, right? He seemed faint; he probably needs nutrition and rest. Instead of going against his wishes and complicating things further, you tucked your face into his neck and gently licked the remaining blood.

You tried to be as gentle as you could, moving slowly and applying minimal pressure. He gently rested his hand on your head, and his breathing had started to even out. With all the remaining blood cleaned up, you pulled back again, guilt knotting your eyebrows as you locked eyes.

"I-I didn't mean to bite you more than once. I'm sorry— I got lost and—" He shushes you once again, your apologies seemed to have no effect on him, as he was not upset at all.

"Don't be sorry, my light. That has brought me things I have never felt before." His voice is low, and he wraps his arms around your waist, pulling you closer into his lap. "This roused something within me; the feeling of you satiating your thirst from me, squirming, and all the while letting out the sweetest sounds has had an effect on me." You start to understand why he pulled you closer...

"Do vampire bites have a sort of, venom...? One that makes the victim ache with desire? Not a want, but a need to be satiated that only you, my dear, could fulfill?" His tone is curious and gentle, yet he holds you firmly. He gazes at you with almost a pleading look, his golden eyes dilated fully, and his brows knotted together beneath his wispy indigo hair.

You could only watch, frozen in a mix of shock and delirium from feeding off him. Shaking your head, you murmur a faint "No." He deflates slightly, his gaze flicking around in thought. "...I see."

His hands snake further around your waist, pulling you flush against his chest. The proximity makes you flush slightly; the tension in the room has changed— it was oddly sensual. "I suppose it was just you."

He takes your hand in his, gently pressing his lips to your knuckles. "Then, please, dear, will you indulge me in your sweetness tonight? Your actions have deeply aroused me... I apologize for the sudden change, but you are simply irresistible— especially in this carnivorous and uncontrollable state— all I ask is for you to please consider my request, love."

Perhaps you should hear him out...

Sure, it was annoying at times, having to venture down to the fortress to see him, otherwise needing to wait for his journeys to the surface that rarely came. Yes, you hated how cold it was in there, the metal walls constantly radiating a chill that you could feel in your bones. Yes, you hated the inmates whose eyes would linger on your figure as a guard escorted you to the Duke’s office. Yes, you hated how stressed he was, how often you had to question whether it was a good time to visit.

But that chill was always quickly soothed by Wriothesley’s heated palms, cupping the sides of your thighs, and then up to your waist, his skin pressing warmth into your bloodstream all the way to your face. When you would tell him about the wandering eyes of the people in his prison, he’d have them in solitary within fifteen minutes, and those particular set of eyes would never be a problem again. And no matter how stressed he was, how little time he had for you, you always noticed the relief and comfort behind his gaze when you’d reach the top of the stairs.

He was a busy man. But, Archons, he loved being busy with you.

But he hated feeling like he was holding you back. Sometimes you’d talk about getting a place together on the surface, and it was dreadful for Wriothesley to know that even if you did, he’d seldom be there. He lived in the fortress during your time together, and even then, it never felt like he spent enough time behind his desk to keep up with the workload. You’d talk about trips, he didn’t have time. You’d invite him to your house every single day of the month, but he’d only make it a handful of times. 

You were the most important thing in the world to him. The only person he trusted, the woman he loved. And he felt cruel for shackling you to him of all people, a man who didn’t feel like he was fulfilling the role of what he knew you deserved. So despite your cries, your protests, your begs for one more chance as if you had done something wrong, he walked away.

If only you had known, you would’ve visited more. Spent more hours in front of a cup of tea in his office, finding entertainment in the wrinkle between his eyebrows that came out when he focused on whatever case came across his desk that day. You would’ve spent more time memorizing the swarm of scars planted across his body, you would’ve painted them and hung them in your apartment in The Court of Fontaine so part of him could always be with you.

If only you had known. That he’d leave. You’d have nothing left but the memories and a dreadful feeling, wondering if you could’ve eventually changed his mind with your choked reassurances. You’d be forced to look into your future and no longer see the blue in his eyes, the grey streaks in his hair, the scar under his eye you would trace with the tip of your pointer finger every chance you got.

This has been your reality for three years.

You haven’t seen him since a few days after the break-up, when you travelled down to his living quarters within the fortress to pick up your clothes and other belongings. You remember avoiding his gaze, trying to hold onto some of your pride by not begging anymore, and you knew you would if you locked eyes. You didn’t want to hear him tell you noagain.

He kissed your forehead before you left, and you sobbed the whole way home.

And now you’re on a date, with a man whose last name you don’t remember, who ordered a drink for you insisting you’d love it, and you had to hold down a gag when you sipped it and it tasted like dish water. He demanded you didn’t bring your wallet, but then complained about the price of the food you wanted, so you had to settle for a vegetarian appetizer that lacked as much taste as it did appeal.

And like every other time you’ve tried dating again, you’re thinking of Wriothesley.

You push him into the back of your head, forcing a smile. The man in front of you, first name Lewis, last name still a mystery, watches you with a sparkle in his dark green eyes, his blonde hair lazily styled to stay out of his face.

He hasn’t done anything wrong, but his gaze on you feels terrible. Like you’re entertaining someone you shouldn’t, like you’re a committing a crime by letting him get excited thinking of what you might let him do at the end of the night.

“So,” you start regrettably, clearing your throat and awkwardly tapping your full glass with your nail. Your forearms rest on the table, sitting in the middle of your side of the booth. Lewis is spread out on his side, resting his back against the corner that connects the booth and the wall. You think you’re supposed to find it hot, the laid-back attitude, but it sort of makes you feel dismissed. “You grew up in Fontaine?”

“Yeah.” 

You blink at his exhilarating response. 

Nod slowly. “Mhm. Me too.”

“Cool.” Lewis nods, licking his lips in a way that was clearly meant to be seductive yet again, but it just reminds you of a panting dog. Doesn’t exactly get you going. “You’re very beautiful, anyone ever tell you that?”

Yes.

You fiddle with your bracelet, holding your tight-lipped grin to appear polite and invested. It’s interesting how much more effort you’re putting in to seem absorbed when he’s the one pining to get laid. “Thank you. You look nice, too.”

“You think?” He cocks an eyebrow.

You nod dishonestly. You met this guy through a mutual friend who claimed he was the perfect guy to help you forget about your ex, even if just for one night. When she told you that, you figured this guy would be exciting. Have you on your feet and dancing or rambling your heart out so much that you wouldn’t have time to think of Wriothesley.

You were mistaken. What she really meant is that this guy would flirt with a plate of jello if it meant getting his dick wet. 

Maybe that could work, too. It might not make you forget, but a distraction couldn’t hurt, right?

You straighten your spine, looking at Lewis with a glint in your gaze that makes his face drop. “Do you want to get out of here?”

He smiles like he just won a first-place medal for something he didn’t even think he’d get bronze for. “Ha, hell yeah.”

-

What a nauseating mistake.

Your forehead is to Lewis’s front door, hands braced on either side of your body. You’re still dressed, Lewis grinding his erection against your ass with an arm swung over the front of your body, rubbing at your underwear with a lack of coordination that’s almost impressive.

You bite your lip out of annoyance. You’re not surprised by his lack of decorum, not waiting long enough to get you to his bedroom before jumping your bones, but not even the couch? Seriously? It’s seven feet away.

You reach down, grabbing his hand beneath your skirt and trying to guide him to your clit, so at least his ministrations, as unappealing as they are, actually do something for you.

He moves his hand back to it’s original position.

You want to die.

You feel his hot breath in your ear, a low chuckle making you feel uneasy. “What is it? Too much? You gonna come?”

You want to kill this guy, especially when you think of where you’d end up if you did.

You close your eyes tightly, sighing before turning your head to see him. “Stop.”

Lewis freezes. “Huh?”

You turn around, pushing him back and flattening your skirt with a defeated huff. You’ll try again next year. “This isn’t working. I’m leaving.”

Lewis laughs humorlessly, throwing his arms out. “You’re leaving? Are you kidding me?”

You look up at him, reaching back to open his door. He looks vastly confused, and there’s a hint of anger that makes you want out of here as soon as possible. 

You turn and set off down the hallway, your stomach dropping at the sound of footsteps in your wake. He’s following you?

“The fuck did I even do?” Lewis calls out, still trailing you as you take quick steps down the stairs. Your jacket is long forgotten on the floor of his apartment, and you’re actually thankful he told you not to bring your wallet now. Your only objective is getting out of here, your quick footsteps in sync with your panicked breathing. “Come on, stop being a bitch.”

The second you make it out of his apartment building and onto the streets of Fontaine, a hand comes down on your shoulder, and you yelp as you’re roughly turned around.

“What is your issue?” Lewis demands, closing his fist tightly around your upper arm. Pain shoots through you, more terror setting in. “You can’t just leave after getting me all worked up like this.”

You hold your ground despite the lump in your throat. “I can. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“Fuck that.”

Your eyes pop at his demanding tone, and just when you think your next move is to scream, fight, run, a new figure separates the two of you, Lewis’s hand being abruptly ripped from your arm.

“Do you know her?”

Lewis scoffs. He’s entirely blocked off from you now, the new person’s form shielding you from his view. “Yeah, she’s the bitch who thinks she—”

“Wrong answer. Get out of here before I have you arrested.”

“Have me arrested? And who the fuck—”

The man grabs at his belt, pulling off a pair of handcuffs and spinning them on his pointer and middle fingers.

Wait.

Silence for a moment, and then you see Lewis bolt down the street from behind the man’s body.

You almost consider doing the same thing. You hold your breath when the man turns, holstering the handcuffs, and when he opens his mouth to speak, likely to ask something along the lines of are you alright, he freezes to mirror your expression when he processes who you are. 

He whispers your name like a question, as if contemplating that you’re real. You have to ask yourself the same thing.

You swallow, intertwining your fingers behind your back like you’re scared you’ll reach for him if you don’t. “Wriothesley.” You say, and somehow addressing him still feels as natural as it did. “What—What are you doing…”

“Are you alright?” He cuts you off, his tone alarmed, like it’s just now hit him what situation he got you out of. “Who was that?”

You sigh, dropping your head and shaking it. “That was—Uh, Lewis.” You awkwardly point in the direction your date ran off to.

“…Lewis?”

“We were on a date,” You tell him swiftly, but you hate to admit it. You don’t want to give the impression that you’re over him, God, you want him to know how he left you. You want him to know how he’s ruined you for every other man you’ve tried to let touch you over these past years. “Didn’t go very well.”

“I can see that,” he mumbles. “Did he hurt you?”

“No.” You shake your head, not bothering to mention the lingering pain where he had your arm in his grip. “I… Uh, thank you. For your help.”

“Of course,” his voice is low, almost sad. You know this is hard for him, too, seeing each other, and that fact almost angers you. How could he be sad? You could’ve been by his side every second of the past three years, he’s the reason you haven’t been.

And yet, he’s talking like he’s missed you.

How the hell could he feel that way?

You suck in a breath sharply. “What are you doing above the surface?” You ask, dropping your arms to your sides, and Wriothesley almost looks guilty.

He reaches up to scratch the back of his neck. He dresses the same way you remember, give or take a new tie and pair of pants. 

“I have a place up here now.”

A sinking feeling weaves into every inch of your body at seven words. For a second, you’re not sure you heard him right. There’s no way you did, right?

I have a place up here now.

He has a place up here now. In the Court of Fontaine, like you two had always dreamt of doing together. Something he swore he would never actually do when he broke your heart. Hell, it’s basically the reason he convinced himself to leave.

You stare at him, but he doesn’t meet your eyes. 

“Who is she?”

His eyes snap to yours. “What?”

“What’s her name?” You prod. “The woman that convinced you to buy a place. Tell me her name.”

He blinks a few times, looking beyond shocked at your accusation. “There’s no woman.” He insists, but you don’t believe him for a second. He always said his love for you was the only reason he’d even consider moving out of Meropide, so the only logical explanation for this is that he’s found a woman he actually treasures enough to go through with it.

You nod once, feeling the bitterness on your face and the sting of the tears welling up in your eyes. “Right.”

You haven’t even been able to find a man you like enough to laugh at his jokes, nevermind something like this. God knows you aren’t even capable.

Betrayal, sadness, regret, it all barrels into you at once, and all you can do to combat it is hope none of it is real. 

But it is.

You should’ve never gone out tonight. You think you’d rather have just never known. Hope may be paralyzing, but it doesn’t hurt. Not like this.

“Can I walk you home?” He mutters. His black hair with the silver streaks is the same as you remember it. How can be so familiar and not the same at all? “You don’t look well.”

Wonder why.

“Do what you want, Wriothesley.” You snap, turning and setting off down the street. His presence doesn’t disappear from your personal bubble, his large frame taking place beside you, matching your pace.

He says your name. 

You ignore him.

You hold down the tears. Right now he thinks you were just on a date, he probably thinks you do that regularly. He probably believes you moved on just like he did. He doesn’t deserve your tears. He doesn’t deserve to know that your shattered heart has been waiting on the day where he finally comes to his senses, a day that will never come.

He didn’t even come see you. You didn’t even know. How long has he been spending his mornings before work somewhere above the surface? How long has he been bidding farewell to the guards at the end of each night, smiling to himself as he thought about what was awaiting him at a place he called home?

Who is she? What about her could you not compare to?

You walk faster, but Wriothesley has no problem keeping up with your pace until you eventually find yourself on your porch. He stays on the stone walkway, yet you can still feel his eyes pinned to you.

He says your name again, quietly, desperately. Against your better judgment, you turn to him.

“What does she have?” You command, and you despise how broken you sound. How defeated you seem, how desperate you are to know what you were lacking. “What does she do for you that I didn’t?” You point to your chest angrily.

“It’s you.”

You narrow your eyes, watching him closely as he ascends your porch steps to stand across from you. “What?”

“You’re the woman.”

You knit your eyebrows together, the action making you realize that the tears you’d been desperately holding in have started to stream down your face. “What are you talking about, Wriothesley?”

He sighs, leaning back against the railing. Your eyes trail him, noting his body language. His chest is rising and falling slowly, and there’s a tightness to his jaw like he’s clenching his teeth. His eyes flit around your shared surroundings, searching for something solid to focus on other than you. You haven’t seen him this nervous since the day he told you he was in love with you.

“I made a mistake when I called it off,” he starts. “I know I did.”

You tilt your head, your bottom lip jutting down in a silent cry. It should feel like a victory, him admitting that, but it doesn’t. “I would’ve—”

“I know.” He whispers. “I know you would’ve. You would’ve kept coming down to the fortress every single day, sitting with me even when I couldn’t offer you my attention. But I didn’t want you to make anymore sacrifices for me, and it didn’t cross my mind that I owed a few sacrifices of my own.”

You listen intently, eyes locked on him.

“About eight months after I broke up with you, I really started to realize how much I messed up. I thought I was doing the right thing, but even after so much time, I still wasn’t confident in the decision I made. I wanted to make it right, and I started by hiring some help in the fortress and buying myself a house in The Court of Fontaine.”

Eight months after.

Over two years ago.

You shake your head, confused. “Why didn’t—”

“I tried,” he cuts you off. “I did. The day I got the keys, I came straight here, to your house.” His eyelids are heavy, nearly concealing the blue irises that you used to stare into for hours on end. “And you were here, outside.” He nods his head to the front lawn. “With… Some guy. He was kissing you.”

Your heart plummets.

You remember that guy. Vaguely. Even his first name is lost to you now, but you went on a few dates. He was your first attempt at trying to get over Wriothesley. The whole ordeal lasted a total of two weeks, if not less, before you realized that you still didn’t have eyes for anyone except The Duke.

He thought you moved on. That you fell in love with someone else. In eight months.

“Wriothesley.” You almost sob.

“It’s not your fault, I just thought—”

“Wriothesley.” You close the distance, putting your hands on the sides of his face. Your voice drops to a low whisper, tainted with the same regret you used to pray he felt every day. “Oh Gods.”

He looks down at you, swallowing. His voice is rough. “I take it you broke up.”

“I was never with him,” you correct, and his face twists. “God—I was just trying… You really think I’d be with someone else after eight months?”

He blinks. “You weren’t dating him?”

“No,” you say quickly. “God, that was probably the last time I spoke to him. I haven’t—” You pause to catch your breath. “It’s still you. It never wasn’t, Wriothesley.”

You can only decipher the look in his eyes because you’re feeling the same exact way.

Two years. Two years you’ve been waiting on each other.

You could’ve had him back two years ago. Had the life you wanted, above the surface, holding him at night, having breakfast with him in the morning.

He exhales shakily. “Are you serious?”

Your bottom lip quivers, one of your hands sliding to the back of his neck, the other still cupping his face. “You should’ve—” Your voice cracks. “You should’ve came back. Even if I was with him, I’d drop everything if…” You trail off, biting down on your lip.

“You’re right,” he whispers. “I should’ve.”

You choke out a breath as his hands find your waist. “I’m so sorry.”

He lowers his eyebrows. “For what?”

“I can’t believe you thought I was with him,” you say. “That I could love someone else, especially that soon…” You slide your hand again, from his nape to his collar, where you squeeze.

Wriothesley shakes his head. “I’m the one who should be sorry.”

You frown, your gaze dropping to his chest. You have so much to say to him, so much to ask him, so much to mend. It feels like there isn’t enough time in the world to sit him down and dissect every thought he’s had since the day he left, but it’s the only thing you want to do.

You peer back up.

“Will you come inside?”

-

You place a cup of tea on the coffee table in front of Wriothesley. You’re quick to note his body language, the way he sits up straight, intently focuses on your movements with genuine intrigue, and not just a hope to get in your pants. 

There were times that, while holding all these other men to a standard Wriothesley set, you had to ask yourself if it was all as good as you remembered it, or if it was just something you fabricated in your grief.

But, no. He’s everything no other man could ever be. Even now, you can tell how well your memory has served you. 

You sit down beside him, soaking in the way he leans down and picks up the cup to take a small sip before placing it back on the saucer. It’s almost domesticate, almost familiar. A dangerous thing to want to get used to. His jacket is discarded on the hook by the door, and he’s stripped other extraneous accessories. His attempt at getting comfortable fills you with a fragile optimism.

“Wriothesley,” you whisper.

His eyes meet yours, and within a millisecond you have his full attention. There’s a longing in his blue eyes, and you want to mend the pain that caused it. The pain that three years worth of misunderstandings caused you both.

He moves closer to you, and the closeness, the intimacy, you only just got control of yourself, and you want to sob again.

“I missed you so much,” you tell him, and you have to focus on anything but his face to maintain control of your voice. “I’ve thought of you every day, I can’t tell you how many times I considered just showing up in the fortress, to see if you’d turn me away, or if you’d change your mind, maybe even just give in to one more night together.” You furrow your eyebrows, your lips staying parted through your short pause. “I hated not knowing how you were feeling, if you regretted it, if you missed me, too…”

He says your name, gently, almost like a coax, and it successfully draws your gaze to his.

“I know,” he says, voice just above a whisper, and it’s such a simple thing, but it’s validating. It lifts a weight off your back, knowing that he understands, not just because you’re telling him, but because he’s been dealing with the same thing. The same way you’ve been waiting on him changing his mind, he’s been waiting for you come back to him. 

He’s provided you a freeing amount of clarity already, a delicate hope blooming deep in your chest, but you still have so much to ask.

“Have you…” You hesitate, adjusting yourself on your couch that suddenly feels rock solid. You’re still in the outfit from your dumpster fire of a date, a skirt veering on the shorter side and a long sleeve tight enough that you feel physically restrained with your quick heartbeat and laboured breaths. “Been with anyone else?”

You don’t know if you have the right to ask, but you want to know. It’s a miracle in itself that you two found each other in the first place with how demanding his job is, or was, but his options have since broadened. You wonder if missing you was a good enough reason for him to ignore that.

“Not really,” he answers easily, like he’s not shocked by your curiosity surrounding the subject. “I went on a blind date that I was tricked into and a blind double date that I was also tricked into. That’s it. Can’t confidentially say I remember either of their faces, so I don’t know if that counts as being with someone in any capacity.”

No. He hasn’t.

He hasn’t had his hands on another woman, and their hands haven’t been on him.

You gulp, flattening your palms over your skirt. “You’re making it sound like you were waiting around for me,” you say, only half-joking.

He chuckles. “Well, that’s not untrue.”

You flush, forgetting how to use your voice well enough to muster a response. 

“You?” He murmurs, his gaze dropping to look you over before settling back on your eyes. His body is turned toward you, one arm propped up on the back of the couch, his hand ghosting awfully close to your head. “I know you’ve been on dates, but…”

“I haven’t had sex with anyone,” you answer, and you’re pleasantly surprised that you were able to make a coherent declaration. “I tried. I thought that it would help with moving on, if I just bit the bullet. But I was never able to go that far with anyone.”

You feel the heat of Wriothesley’s stare, unrelenting and leaving a weakness behind in your limbs.

“How far did you go?”

“They’ve… Um…” You think about Lewis’s front door. “Touched me. But I never liked it very much, and always ended up asking them to stop. It just felt…” There’s a million words for it. Their hands made you feel dirty, undervalued, and out of place. But above all else, “wrong.”

He exhales slowly. “Wrong,” he echoes.

“Yeah.” You nod. “Wrong. For a lot of reasons.” What they were doing, who they were, why they were doing it.

“Did any of them make you come?”

You nearly choke at his bluntness. You stare at him with wide eyes, expecting him to backtrack and apologize for being so bold, but he just watches you as he awaits an answer he seems to believe he already has. 

“No.”

Wriothesley frowns. Like it genuinely upsets him to know that you’ve gone so long without anyone taking care of you adequately. You’d be lying if you said that reaction wasn’t enough to make you dizzy.

He takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he starts, and his face suggest the words feel bitter on his tongue. Not because he doesn’t want to apologize, or believes he shouldn’t need to, but the statement just doesn’t seem sufficient. I’m sorry that we lost years together. I’m sorry about how easily it could’ve been prevented.

You pull your knees onto the couch, folding your hands together in your lap.

“I’m sorry for all of it,” he continues, voice gentle. “I just… I love y—loved you so much, and I wanted better for you.”

“I didn’t want better,” you whisper. “I wanted you.”

Wriothesley bites his gums, dropping his head in defeat with a long sigh. “I know. I felt the same. It just seemed like the right thing, to let you go, hope you would find someone who had more to give you.”

You press your lips together. “I didn’t.”

He offers you a slow nod. “I know you didn’t.”

“He doesn’t exist,” you continue. “This person you made up that could ever be better for me than you are.”

A weak smile tugs at his lips, curving up on the side of his face where his scar is. “Didn’t you do the same thing?” He offers with a cock of his head. “Thought I was up here for another woman.” His arm that was slung over the back of your couch shifts, his fingers absentmindedly starting to twirl loose strands of your hair. “There hasn’t been a single woman other than you.”

You want to tell him there hasn’t been a man other than him, even though he already knows that isn’t true. It feels true—No one came close to him. There might as well have been no others. 

“There hasn’t been a man like you,” you decide to say. “Someone who—”

“Got you off?”

You blush. “Partly.”

He nods, his eyes pinned to where he fidgets with your hair. Even this touch, no skin, no real connection, makes your body feel warm. “What else?”

You exhale shakily. “Someone who makes me laugh.”

“Mhm.”

“Who cares about what I have to say, who listens to me when I speak, who remembers the little things.”

You bet he still has everything you’ve ever told him committed to memory.

“Keep going.”

You lean into his touch, his knuckles grazing the side of your head. “Who knows how to touch me.”

He hums.

“How to please me.”

Now he’s cupping your face. 

“How to love me.”

Your chin. He’s closer now, you’re not sure when he shifted, but you could swing your leg over his and be in his lap in one quick movement.

“Who took the time to learn these things.” You don’t stop. His face is close now, his breath and yours meeting, but he’s intent on listening to every point you make. “Who…”

You trail off. Your eyes are pinned to his mouth, and Gods, he’s so close. Your house is only illuminated by a dim lamp you flicked on beside the couch, and the moon pouring in through your open curtains. You can smell his cologne, the same scent that welcomed you on his sheets during so many early mornings. The warmth radiating off of him doesn’t leave a lingering chill, neither is it so much that you feel a burn.

Everything about him was crafted to tend to each and every one of your individual needs, your wants, the impractical ones, the filthy ones. Now more than ever, you can’t believe he ever thought that someone else could fill that void.

“Who?” He prods.

Your hand comes up, fisting the front of his shirt, and your nose just barely swipes against his. 

“Someone who’s you.”

Wriothesley tips your chin up, encouraging you to bring your eyes back up to his.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, like he’s praying that the two words mean enough to keep you this close. “I’m sorry that I took all of that from you. I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you,” he murmurs. “If you let me.”

The only response you can muster is a nod, desperate enough to ignite a small smirk on a face. 

“I think I know where to start.”

Then he’s kissing you.

Your hands dart to the sides of his head, sliding into his hair and grasping. He lifts you into his lap, one arm curling around your lower back and the other cupping the side of your face.

It’s hurried, desperate, but there’s no real rush. Just a need verging on animalistic. His lips move against yours as if he’s taking time to relearn the shape of them, and hell, it doesn’t take him long to find a rhythm that feels like two puzzle pieces falling into place.

You murmur his name, not to ask for anything, just to ground yourself.

He hums affirmatively, as if helping you remember that it’s him. Not Lewis. Not any of your other unfulfilling dates you’ve been on.

You’re getting properly taken care of tonight.

His palm cups your nape, holding your mouth flush against his. You wait until your chest constricts before pulling back for air, and Wriothesley begins to trail kisses over your jaw, down your neck, immediately tending to a sensitive part of your neck by sucking and biting.

You whimper at the feeling, your hips pressing down against his instinctively. Your fingers curl tighter in his hair, resting your cheek on his head. “You remember.”

He pulls back, just a bit, soothing a bite with a swipe of his tongue. “How I forget something I’ve recited every day?” He tugs his head from the crook of your neck, and you drop your forehead to his. “I’ve thought of this, thought of you, every moment without fail. Ever since that day.”

You slide one hand under his shirt, just to rest it on his midsection, have his skin on yours. You listen to the melody of his confession, and it works to soothe the cracks in your heart, while simultaneously building that primal need entwining deep in your stomach.

“My own face has become nothing but a place your hand used to sit, my name nothing but a word you used to say.” He kisses you, quickly, like he needs your lips against his like oxygen in his lungs in order to continue. “How could I forget how to make you feel good, what draws those sounds from your lips?” 

He uses his arm slung around your hips to pull you forward, rocking against him again. You purse your lips, a whine barely breaching the air between you.

“I still love you. Not for a second did I stop, I couldn’t. I can’t.”

“Wriothesley,” you breathe.

“I love you,” he mumbles, diving back in to trail kisses up the side of your face, across your forehead. “I love you.” 

“I love you,” you say back, and you mean it.

He groans, and then he’s standing. Your legs circle his waist, and your mouth finds his again almost magnetically. He doesn’t need you to stop, he easily navigates to your bedroom like each step is natural.

He leans over the side of your bed, bracing a hand behind your head as he slowly lowers you to the mattress. He squeezes the sensitive nerves on your waist, and when your lips part in a whimper, his tongue darts out.

He licks into your mouth, like he’s trying to swallow you whole, or fuse your beings into one. Anything that keeps you here, and you want him to know it’s unnecessary, that there isn’t a thing that could rip you away from him again. Not him. Not the Gods above. You’re not letting him go.

His fingertips descend agonizingly slow, dipping under the hem of your shirt and tugging. His knuckles glide across your skin, and you moan into his mouth.

“So needy,” he murmurs, reverence coating his rough voice. “My poor girl. No one around who could take care of her. For so long.” He leans back, watching himself as he lifts your shirt higher, just below your breasts. “My baby deserves so much better than that.”

You can’t speak. You don’t even bother trying.

“Can this come off?” He asks.

You nod swiftly. He doesn’t waste a moment, guiding your arms above your head so he can peel the fabric off your body. You arch your back once he’s tossed it aside, giving him access to the clasp of your bra as he smothers your chest in lazy kisses.

He snaps the clasp open, pulling the straps off your neck and getting rid of that, too.

“Fuck,” he grunts. 

You hum. “Did your memory serve you well?”

“Nothing my mind could conjure up compares to this,” he tells you, and you roll your bottom lip into your mouth at the tender words. “You’re perfect. The only flawless thing to come out of this nation. This world.”

He palms one of your breasts and dips down to take your other nipple in his mouth. Your breath hitches, eyes fluttering shut at the feeling of the wet warmth enveloping you. You grasp at the back of his shirt, pulling roughly. 

He pops his mouth off your nipple, grinning up at you. “So impatient.”

“I’ve waited long enough,” you reply breathlessly.

He cocks his head at that, leaning up until he’s kneeling on your bed with your thighs thrown around his hips. He curls his fingers in the bottom of his shirt, tugging it over his head in one swift movement. 

The scars. God, the scars. You didn’t think you would ever miss them. They made you frown at one point, knowing the pain Wriothesley endured to earn them, but after sitting him down and having him explain the tale behind each one, you stopped feeling that way. They weren’t reminders of losses, they were reminders of victories. And you loved how each of them brought him closer to the day you saw him for the very first time.

You lean up, quickly flattening your hands over his lower stomach. They roam upwards, pausing at each discoloured line to trace the marred skin. You’re sure you could do so just as accurately with your eyes screwed shut, but you want to see him. 

He lets you continue your silent exploration, head tipped down to watch your careful movements.

“Anything new?” You murmur.

“None,” he responds easily. “Couldn’t risk it.”

You look up at him. “Risk what?”

His gaze meets yours. “Something happening to me before I got you back.”

You exhale shakily, sliding your hands to his face and pulling him back down to the bed with you. “I’d appreciate it if you kept that up. The whole not-risking-your-life thing.” 

He smiles at that, pressing a quick peck to your temple. “Anything for you.”

His mouth is on yours again, not wasting any time now before swiping his tongue past your lips. You take it greedily, meeting him with the same amount of vigour, but it’s not enough. You want all of it back, everything you’ve missed out on.

You push up, grinding yourself against the front of his slacks. He grunts against your lips, reaching one hand down to steady your hips, and you squirm defiantly and pull from his mouth.

“Archons—I’m trying to take my time with you,” he complains, but there’s no real strictness in his words.

“I told you I’ve waited enough, Wrio,” you repeat. “So have you, and I want you.”

Your words draw a chuckle from deep in his chest. “I’m supposed to be making up for two years of absence here, baby. I don’t want to rush.”

“I don’t feel very made up to,” you grumble, and you grind up again when his grip on your hip finally loosens.

“Gods, you’re killing me here,” he groans, but concedes, meeting your action by rocking his hips forward. You can feel his bulge straining against his slacks, meeting your clit through the thin fabric of your panties. You reach down, hooking your fingers in the waistband of your skirt and tugging, just wanting less between the two of you.

Wriothesley is quick to assist you, leaning up just enough to help pull the skirt all the way off before tossing it to join the existing pile of your shared clothing. 

He looks down at you, inadvertently biting his lip as he takes in your appearance. You feel a little shy with his heated gaze drinking you in like this, eyes narrow with arousal and fists opening and closing like he’s resisting grabbing hold of you. It never used to make you nervous when he’d look at you this way, but you don’t take it as a bad thing.

“Wriothesley,” you say quietly.

“I could stare at you forever,” he mumbles.

You smile, cupping your hands on the sides of his neck. “That’s sweet. However, I’d prefer something more… Physical.”

He chokes out a laugh, tilting his head and meeting your eyes. “I can do that, too.”

Yes.

Wriothesley presses a kiss to your chest, trailing down the middle of your body until he’s right above your underwear. They’re a bit fancier than what you’d usually wear, only because you were anticipating someone seeing them, even if you weren’t thrilled about that before. 

You couldn’t be happier now.

Wriothesley tucks the tips of his fingers under the hem, fidgeting with the red fabric. “He see these?” He questions, voice barely above a mutter.

“No,” you answer, and it’s true. He touched them, but didn’t see them. 

“Did he touch you?”

You swallow, contemplating lying to him and saying no, but the last thing you need right now is to be dishonest. “He did.”

He cracks his neck, saying something indiscernible under his breath.

“He didn’t make me feel good,” you add. “That’s why I left.”

Wriothesley knits his eyebrows together. “Poor thing.” He presses a kiss to your hipbone. “I’ve got you now.”

He hooks his fingers in the sides of your underwear, tugging them down to the middle of your thighs and pausing only to groan at the sight of you. He’s quick to pull them the rest of the way, leaving you entirely bare in front of his face.

“Fuck, you’re wet,” he notes, which makes you whine and flush. “Did you get like this for him?”

“No,” you answer quickly. “I didn’t for any of them.”

Wriothesley grabs your thighs, guiding you open for him. He kneels at the side of the bed, like he’s worshipping you. You wouldn’t say that’s too far off. “Good.”

He licks a stripe up your slit, and you gasp at the initial sensation, the warmth, the lingering reminder in the back of your mind that it’s him. You slide a hand into his hair, not tugging or guiding, just resting. He hums approvingly at the way you can’t help but reach for him.

He takes your clit past his lips, sucking gently, experimentally. He pulls back when you moan, a wicked grin planted across his lips. “You taste even better than I remember.”

You sigh. “You’re so crude.”

He chuckles, and you can feel his breath against your cunt when he does. He slides one of his arms under your thigh, forcing it up onto his shoulder and grabbing your hip to hold you still, entirely at his disposal. 

You’re aching for him, immediately trying to grind up against his mouth when he finally dives back in, but his iron grip keeps you still. He groans against you, his tongue toying with your clit in a way that’s as much teasing as it is consuming. 

“I missed this so much,” he says, and you can barely make out his words over your own panting. “Did anyone else do this for you?”

You shake your head, not even attempting to speak. Your need for him is getting to a point of suffocating, your cunt clenching around nothing every time he touches you, every time he speaks. 

“Fuck—Good.” His hand that was on your hip flattens over your stomach, his thumb darting out to rub your clit with coordinated strokes. You shudder, breathlessly moaning his name. It spurs him on, his head dropping and his tongue swiping over your fluttering hole before dipping inside.

Your fist closes in his hair, your tongue swiping over your bottom lip before you bite into it. He pushes his tongue deep into your channel before retreating entirely, sucking your clit back into his mouth firmly and clutching your hip once more.

“Wriothesley, oh Gods,” you whimper, your back lifting off the bed. His other hand moves from pinning your thigh open to instead find your hand, intertwining your fingers with his own.

“I got you,” he reassures, voice thick with his own arousal. 

Your breath hitches when he releases your hip to probe your cunt with the pads of his fingers, and all it takes is one encouraging roll of your hips for his thick digits to press inside of you. 

He continues working at your clit, and the added sensation from his fingers dragging along your inner walls before curling in the perfect way has the tightly-wound coil in your stomach beginning to unwind.

He doesn’t falter, especially not when he recognizes the signs of you quickly hurling toward your peak, hungrily lapping at your cunt with the desperation only a man who has waited could possess. He suddenly pulls his mouth back without slowing his fingers thrusting and bending inside of you. “Come on,” he tempts. “Come on, baby. Give it to me.”

He gives your clit one more hard suck, and you come apart for him at his demand. You cry his name, tugging roughly at the dark strands of his hair and squeezing his hand in yours. Wriothesley works you through every wave of your orgasm methodically, rhythmically rolling your sensitive clit under his tongue.

He grunts when you slacken against the mattress with his name still quietly falling from your lips. “There you go, such a good girl.” He gently takes your thigh off his bare shoulder, placing it back on the bed. “Did so well for me, just like you always have.”

You coax him back to you by reaching out to him, and he’s quick to put himself back in your embrace, your arms thrown over his neck and his mouth pressing against yours. You groan at the taste of yourself on his lips.

“Gods,” he says, voice muffled against your mouth. “I love you. I’ve loved you, I love you.”

“I love you,” you murmur, your heart aching at his tenderness, the affection and desperation in his strangled voice. “I want you so bad, Wriothesley. Please.”

“My needy girl,” he murmurs fondly, and then he snakes his hands around your body and hoists you into his arms. Your legs circle his waist, and he only holds you up long enough to readjust you, pulling back the covers of your bed and laying your head down on the pillow. “Want me to take care of you?”

“Yes,” you nod, exhaling, your voice choked from the intensity of your recent orgasm. Still, you don’t feel even remotely fulfilled. You need all of him.

Wriothesley kneels above you, and you watch with hungry eyes as he unbuckles his belt with one quick motion of his hand.

“You’re gonna be good for me?” He coos, continuing to undo his pants with one hand while the other trails up the side of your shuddering thigh. 

You nod again, resisting the urge to reach up and tug his cock out for him. Wriothesley tosses his belt aside, stepping out of bed just long enough to entirely strip his pants and boxers, freeing himself. He’s somehow bigger than you remember him, or at least he looks that way.

Your mouth waters as he grabs his wallet from the pocket of his pants, fishing out a condom before getting back in bed.

“You okay, baby?” He checks up on you even though you couldn’t be more obviously ready for him.

“Yes,” you respond eagerly, half-lidded eyes tracking him as he positions himself on his knees in front of you. You watch as he rips the condom open and rolls it onto his cock, hard and begging to be buried deep inside of you.

“I’ll be gentle,” he soothes, leaning over you and kissing your cheekbone. “It’s been a while, yeah?”

You nod, meeting his eyes when he pulls his head back. “Yeah.”

He braces his forearm beside your head. “Have you done anything by yourself?” He asks, wondering if you’ve really gone years without anything satisfying.

“Barely,” you answer quietly, your hands finding his shoulders. “No one else could make me feel good, and I could only make myself feel good if I thought of you.” He curses at that. “And I didn’t think I should.”

He shakes his head. “You have no idea how happy that makes me.”

You laugh once. “Yeah, take it in, Wriothesley. You have ruined me for every other man.”

“You don’t need any other man.” He retorts quickly, dropping his head until his lips ghost right over yours. “Not anymore.”

He kisses you. Slowly, and it’s more than just that. He’s promising you, devoting himself to you all over again, and this time, you get to relish in the feeling of any doubt for the future whisking away.

He reaches between your bodies, and you gasp in his mouth at the feeling of the head of his cock pushing against your fluttering entrance. He rocks forward, just the tip pushing inside of you, and he swallows the whimper that emerges from your throat greedily. He holds your thigh open, keeping you spread as he keeps pressing deeper, your walls stretching to accommodate him.

“Wriothesley,” you moan.

“I know—Fuck.” He grunts, pausing when he’s halfway in to give you time to adjust. “I know, baby. You feel perfect.”

You clench around him at the praise, and he chokes at the feeling of you trying to tug him deeper. Your nails sink into his skin, leaving crescents behind as he chooses that moment to bottom out in one fell swoop.

You cry out, your neck arching against the pillow and your jaw unhinging. Archons. You had forgotten how right he felt. For years, you’ve been drowning in a weird, dreadful feeling of everyone else being so wrong. It was the only word you could ever conjure up for how those men made you feel. 

Wrong.

Nothing has ever been less wrong than this.

“Never go again,” you beg, wrapping your arms around him and tugging his face into the crook of your neck.

Wriothesley barely draws back before thrusting back in, filling you to the brim. Your walls ache around his thick cock, but it’s a good pain, a dull pain that’s already fading. Your legs encircle his waist, heels digging into his lower back. “I’m not. I’m not going anywhere, baby.”

You whine, clenching around him again like you’re physically holding him to that promise. He takes this as an invitation to pull back again, nearly exiting you entirely, then he fills you again in a slow thrust that knocks the air from your lungs. He turns his face into your neck, finding that same sensitive patch of skin and sucking a mark into it as he repeats that same long, deep thrust. 

You rake your nails down his back, feeling the dents of the existing scars under your fingertips, and it’s a weird comfort to know none are new. It’s like you were never apart. No new stories, nothing physical that serves as a reminder how long it’s been since you had each other in this way.

He gradually increases the pace, filling you over and over again, each snap of his hips against yours more intense than the last. You writhe beneath him, the joint sensations of his cock stretching you open and his teeth nipping at your skin coming together to send shockwaves through your veins. You feel everything, every ridge of his cock dragging through you, and it’s bordering on overwhelming. 

He pulls his head back, his forehead falling to rest against yours as he easily maintains a bruising pace. “I can’t believe I ever walked away from this,” he grumbles. “Away from this face. This woman. This—This fucking feeling.” He presses forward hard, seated as deep as possible. “I’ll make up for every minute.”

He’s making solid progress.

He continues to rock his hips, pressing his mouth to yours to swallow the desperate sounds emerging from deep in your chest. You cling to him, using his form to anchor yourself and not drift out of the moment for even a second. You soak in every single grind of his hips greedily, murmuring in his ear how amazing he feels when he takes you like this.

Wriothesley’s hand slips down the front of your body, finding your sensitive clit and rubbing firm circles. You let out a broken cry, squirming as the added stimulation has you quickly barrelling toward another high. 

He shushes you, kissing you tenderly as he angles his thrusts to give you more than you think you can handle. You scream out, one of your hands having to drop to cling to the sheets as your body rocks forward with every push of Wriothesley’s cock. Your headboard slams into your wall, and you’re sure your neighbours will file a complaint about the noise, but you can’t find it in you to care. Not when you’re so close to tipping over the edge—

You’re laying beneath him in a daze, barely able to discern the sound of him spurring you on, encouraging you to let go for him. All it takes is a few more thrusts for you to obediently follow through, squeezing his cock as the most harsh orgasm of your life crashes over you in near paralytic waves. 

“That’s it,” Wriothesley encourages, breathless as he fucks you through your climax, rapidly chasing his own release. Despite the exhaustion tugging at your limbs, you press your hips to meet his hurried thrusts, angling them to let him in impossibly deeper.

He groans, his hand retreating from your clit to instead slip beneath your body, pulling your chest flush to his as he spills into the condom, cursing in the midst of rough gasps. The sensitivity makes it feel like your nerves are on fire, but even if you were confident in the current ability of your vocal cords, you wouldn’t complain.

He finally stills inside of you. He now has you caged in with a forearm on each side of your head as he catches his breath, allowing you to do the same. You fight the tiredness, the need to curl up against his chest and let the world fade away, to watch his face as he pants. His eyelids are barely fallen shut, lips parted, sweat beading down his forehead.

He’s beautiful.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” you whisper tiredly.

Wriothesley chokes out a laugh, opening his eyes. “I really didn’t make my presence known?”

His presence is still known. 

As if on cue, Wriothesley slowly begins to pull out of you, rolling the condom off his softening cock and discarding of it in the trash can beside your bed. He smooths his hands over your thighs, gently soothing the muscles with a soft massage. “Are you alright?”

You nod lazily, glancing up at him, and you’re sure there’s hearts in your eyes. Either that or birds circling your head.

“Feel like you’ve been taken care of?” He teases with a smile, rubbing your hipbone with his thumb before reaching over the side of the bed and retrieving his boxers.

You nod again. “Even if I didn’t, I don’t think I could stay awake for another round.”

“Eh, I could keep you up.” He quickly pulls his boxers back up, and then he’s on you again, smothering your face in firm kisses. You smile, bold and real. 

“I’m here,” he says. “Right here. I’m real, and I’m not going anywhere.” When he reaches your lips, he slows, savouring the taste and the feeling of you. “You did so well for me.”

And suddenly, the future isn’t scary anymore, because it’s not lacking him. The man that made you believe in soulmates, in there truly only being one person out there for you. And he’s your one person. And you’re his.

You smile then, and he draws back to return the gesture at the sight of you. “I can’t wait to see your place,” you tell him. His place above the surface.

He chuckles, kissing your cheek and rolling over with you in his arms, settling you on his chest. “I can’t wait for you to live there.”

His eyes regard you with careful attention. “I trust your journey to the island was amenable? The spirits have been unusually quiet this evening. They only manifested twice during my rounds.”

He pauses, then adds: “Which, given your imminent arrival, suggests they were either being respectful or clearing the way. I suspect the latter.”

You smile. He always talks like this. Polite and intentional. But there’s a dry humor underneath that catches you off guard sometimes.

“It was fine,” you assure him.

“Ah. Fortuitous.” Flins clasps his hands behind his back, and you recognize the gesture now. It’s what he does when he’s uncertain what to do with them. “The weather can be unpredictable this time of year.”

He’s looking at you now, and you can see him trying to navigate the social protocols of greeting someone he’s clearly happy to see but doesn’t know how to show it.

“Would you…” He hesitates. “That is to say, if it would not be an imposition, I thought perhaps we might walk the grounds together. The evening is mild.”

Your heart does something soft in your chest. “I’d like that,” you say.

Relief flickers across his features. Brief but unmistakable. “Excellent. I shall endeavor not to bore you with excessive talk of gravestone preservation techniques.”

You’re fairly certain that was an attempt at humor. “I actually like hearing about your work,” you tell him honestly.

Flins blinks, like the concept genuinely surprises him. “Do you?”

“Yes.”

“…I see.” He processes this for a moment, then offers his arm. “Shall we?”

You take his arm, and he goes very still for half a second—like he wasn’t entirely sure you would—before beginning to walk.

The path winds through the cemetery, lanternlight casting long shadows across weathered stone. Ratniki who fell defending this place.

Flins tends each stone with careful reverence, though he rarely speaks of what happened here.

The wind picks up. You shiver slightly. Not from cold exactly, but from the sudden gust.

Flins stops walking immediately.

“Ah.” He’s looking at you with genuine concern. “I had not considered… you would be susceptible to the cold.”

Before you can respond, he’s already removing his coat. He drapes it carefully over your shoulders, adjusting it with unexpected gentleness.

“The dead, you understand, do not complain of cold,” Flins says matter-of-factly. “I sometimes forget the living have such requirements. Warmth. Sustenance. Rest.”

He glances at you, and there’s the faintest hint of amusement in his eyes. “Though I confess, you do seem rather more resilient than most who visit. I have had guests request to return to the mainland within minutes of arrival. You, however…” He pauses. “You appear determined to stay.”

It’s said lightly, but you catch the question underneath: Why?

You pull his coat closer around you, trying not to smile at the observation. It smells like him. Clean and herbal.

“I’m fine now,” you assure him. “Thank you.”

“You are welcome.” Then, after a moment, he adds: “The coat suits you rather well, I think.”

It’s such an unexpectedly personal observation that you glance up at him in surprise.

Flins is not looking at you. His gaze is fixed firmly on the path ahead, though his fingers tighten slightly where your arm is linked with his.

You continue walking in comfortable silence, and you notice he stays closer now. Close enough that his shoulder occasionally brushes yours. Whether it’s to shield you from the wind or because he wants to be near you, you’re not sure.

Probably both.

“I heard some of the townspeople talking about you the other day,” you say.

Flins’s steps don’t falter, but there’s a new alertness in the way he holds himself. A careful attention. “Ah. I trust it was not too scandalous.” His tone is light, almost playful, but you can hear the guard underneath it.

“They were talking about your stories,” you continue. “How you can make even the saddest tales somehow beautiful.”

He’s quiet for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice has gone carefully measured. “That is kind of them to say.”

“One person said you have ‘the most elegant way of speaking they’d ever heard.’ That even your ‘rather dull attire’ somehow seems memorable because of how you carry yourself.”

“I see.” A slight smile tugs at his lips. “I must inform the waistcoat it has been deemed insufficient. It will be devastated.”

Then, more quietly, the humor fading: “Though I confess I am uncertain what the appropriate response to such observations might be. They are… generous.”

You can’t tell if he’s deflecting or genuinely doesn’t know how to accept praise.

Probably both.

“They’re fascinated by you,” you say quietly, glancing at his profile in the lanternlight. “But they don’t really know you, do they?”

Flins stops walking. Turns to look at you. “…No,” he says finally, and there’s something raw in that single word. “I do not believe they do.”

“I’d like to,” you say. “Know you, I mean. Not just the stories you tell. You.”

Something flickers across his face. Surprise, perhaps, or disbelief, or something more fragile that he quickly tries to hide. His lips part slightly, like he wants to speak but can’t quite find the words.

“Would you?” he asks finally, and his voice is softer than you’ve ever heard it. Almost wondering.

“Yes.”

He studies you for a long moment, those eyes searching yours like he’s trying to determine if you mean it. Like he’s afraid you might be mistaken, or worse—that you might change your mind once you truly see him.

Then, slowly, almost hesitantly, he begins walking again.

But something has shifted in the air between you. You can feel it in the way his arm tenses beneath your hand, in the careful way he’s not quite looking at you now.

You’ve walked this route with Flins before, and you’ve learned to read the subtle shifts in his posture, the small tells that indicate his mood.

Tonight he seems different. More pensive. Like your words have lodged somewhere inside him and he’s still trying to process what they mean.

You walk in silence for a few moments, and then you remember.

“Actually,” you say, reaching into your coat pocket, “I brought you something.”

Flins stops walking, glancing at you with surprise. “You… brought me something?”

You pull out a small package wrapped in cloth. When you unfold it, you reveal a set of delicate wind chimes. Simple in design. Elegant. Thin metal tubes that catch the lanternlight.

“For the lighthouse,” you explain, suddenly feeling self-conscious. “Or anywhere you’d like to hang them. I just thought… you’re here alone so often. Maybe these could be company, in a way. Something that sounds when the wind blows.”

Flins stares at the wind chimes for a long moment, not moving.

Then, very carefully, he takes them from your hands. His fingers trace the metal tubes with that same reverence he shows the gravestones.

“I…” He seems genuinely at a loss. “I confess, I did not anticipate… that is to say, I am unaccustomed to receiving gifts.”

There’s a pause, and then that dry humor surfaces: “Though I suppose now I shall have the spirits, the sea, and melodic metal to provide commentary on my work. I shall be quite overwhelmed with society.”

But his voice is softer than usual, and he’s still holding the wind chimes like they’re something precious.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, and when he looks at you, there’s something raw in his expression. “This is thoughtful.”

He tucks the wind chimes away. “I shall hang them tonight,” he says. “In a location where they might be heard clearly.”

You start walking again, and for a while, neither of you speaks.

Gradually, you notice him growing quieter still. More pensive. Like your words and your gift have both lodged somewhere inside him and he’s still trying to process what they mean.

“You’re quiet,” you observe gently.

“Am I?” Flins glances at you, then away. “Forgive me. I have been preoccupied with thoughts.”

“Want to share them?”

“I…” He pauses, and you feel his fingers tighten where your arm is linked with his. “Perhaps later. They are not yet properly organized.”

But there’s something in his voice now, something vulnerable beneath the formal composure. Like you’ve opened a door he’d kept carefully locked, and now he’s not quite sure what to do about it.

You nod, giving him space.

You pass a section of particularly old graves, stones so weathered the inscriptions are barely legible.

Flins slows, running his fingers along one with absent reverence.

“This one is old,” he murmurs. “The carving technique is quite remarkable. You can still see the chisel marks if you look closely.”

You move closer to look, genuinely interested.

His eyes light up. Just barely, but you’ve learned to catch it.

“The stone itself is remarkable,” he continues, warming to the subject despite himself. “Likely quarried from the cliffs. Note the slight iridescence when the light catches it just so. And the durability despite centuries of weathering…”

Flins keeps talking, and you let him, watching the way his whole demeanor shifts when he’s discussing something that fascinates him. His voice loses some of its careful formality. His hands move as he gestures, tracing the patterns in the stone.

His expression softens into something almost boyish.

It’s one of your favorite versions of him.

Flins pauses, studying the worn inscription. The carving is beautiful but weathered, the words barely legible now.

“This stone reminds me of something,” he muses. “I recall hearing of a grave once, in some distant place. The epitaph read: ‘Here lies one who loved the stars, whose spirit soared beyond earthly bounds.’”

Something wistful crosses his face. “A beautiful sentiment. To love something so distant, so unattainable. There is a certain poetry to unrequited celestial affection.”

Flins tilts his head slightly. “Though I was told she also insisted on being buried facing north, with her favorite fishing rod, and a detailed map to what she believed was a secret Mora deposit.” A pause. “So perhaps her spirit was somewhat multifaceted in its aspirations.”

The shift from romantic philosophy to practical treasure-hunting is so unexpected that you laugh. A genuine, surprised sound that echoes softly among the graves.

Flins glances at you, and something in his expression shifts. His eyes widen slightly, like he hadn’t expected that reaction. Like he’d been testing whether you’d understand his particular brand of humor.

The corner of his mouth quirks up. Barely there, but unmistakable.

“The fishing rod was apparently quite essential to her vision of the afterlife,” he adds. “One cannot commune with celestial bodies on an empty stomach, I suppose.”

You’re still smiling, and you can see him absorbing that. Processing the fact that you find him genuinely funny, not just polite.

“Forgive me,” he says after a moment, but there’s something warmer in his voice now. “I have… as you might say… ‘gone on.’”

There’s something almost shy in the way he says it, like he’s expecting you to be bored or impatient.

“I like listening to you talk about things you love,” you say softly.

Flins goes very still. “Do you?” His voice is quieter now, uncertain.

“Yes.”

He’s looking at you with an intensity that makes your breath catch. Like he’s trying to understand something, work out a puzzle he can’t quite solve. “…I see,” he says finally.

He carefully reaches into his pocket and withdraws something. A small stone, smooth and dark with veins of silver running through it. He turns it over in his fingers with obvious affection.

“I found this last week,” he says quietly. “It is not particularly valuable, I suppose. But the mineral composition is quite unusual.” He holds it up to the lanternlight, where the silver veins catch and shimmer. “Beautiful, in its way.”

“It is,” you agree.

He looks at the stone for a long moment, then—with what seems like sudden decision—extends it toward you. “I would like you to have it,” he says.

Your heart stumbles. “Flins…”

“If you would accept it,” he adds quickly. “I understand it may seem strange. But I thought…” He trails off, then tries again. “You said you enjoy hearing me speak of such things. I thought perhaps you might also enjoy possessing such a thing. To remember.”

The implication hangs unspoken: To remember me. To remember this.

You take the stone carefully, cradling it in your palm. It’s still warm from being in his pocket.

“I love it,” you whisper. “Thank you.”

The smile he gives you is small, but it reaches his eyes in a way that makes your chest tight. “You are most welcome.”

You slip the stone into your own pocket, and something in his expression gentles further. Like seeing you keep it means more than he’s willing to say.

You walk in silence for a while longer, and gradually you notice him growing quieter again. More pensive. The thoughtfulness from earlier has returned, but now there’s something else beneath it.

His arm is still linked with yours, but his grip has tightened slightly.

“Flins?” you ask softly.

He doesn’t respond immediately. Just keeps walking, gaze fixed somewhere in the middle distance.

Then, he stops.

You nearly take another step before you realize he’s no longer beside you.

The absence of his presence is immediate, tangible.

“Flins?” you ask again, turning back.

He stands very still in the lanternlight, hands clasped behind his back. His eyes are lowered. His expression is caught somewhere between composed and fragile.

When Flins finally speaks, his voice carries that careful, measured quality, but underneath it, you can hear something else. Something uncertain.

“I have been attempting to formulate…”

He stops. Starts again. “That is to say, there is a matter which has occupied my thoughts with some frequency, and I find myself in the unusual position of being uncertain how to…”

Another pause.

“This would be significantly easier if there were established protocols for such conversations, but I find the social conventions rather vague on this particular subject.”

He’s stalling. You’ve never seen him stall before.

“I wished to speak with you,” Flins says finally, and his voice is quieter than usual. Careful.

You take a step closer. “You can tell me anything.”

His throat works as he swallows. He still doesn’t look up, and you can see the tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers tighten where they’re clasped behind him.

“That,” he murmurs, and there’s something almost anguished in his tone, “is precisely the problem.”

You blink, heart beginning to beat faster. “How so?”

The lighthouse beam sweeps past again, briefly illuminating his face—and you see something raw there, quickly hidden.

“I fear,” Flins says slowly, “that if I continue to speak freely with you as I have been… I will say something I cannot retract.”

Your heartbeat stumbles over itself.

“What kind of something?” you ask, barely above a whisper.

At last he lifts his gaze. His eyes are luminous in the lanternlight. That strange, otherworldly color. They’re wide, vulnerable, full of things he’s trying desperately not to say.

“Something unwise,” Flins whispers. “Something I have no right to voice. Something that would…” He stops. Breathes carefully. “Something that would reveal far too much of what I feel.”

He straightens slightly, as if remembering himself. “That is to say, it would be… inappropriate. Given the circumstances. You are—”

He stops, seeming to realize he’s trying to hide behind etiquette again. His shoulders slump. “Forgive me. I am attempting to maintain propriety when what I truly wish…”

Flins doesn’t finish. Can’t finish.

The air between you feels charged suddenly, like the moment before lightning strikes.

You take another step toward him.

He doesn’t back away, but you see the way his breath catches, the way his fingers tighten behind his back until his knuckles must be white.

“Flins,” you say quietly, and his name on your lips makes him close his eyes briefly. “Look at me.”

His breath shudders out. When his eyes open again, they’re already looking at you.

You’re close enough now to feel the faint warmth radiating from him despite the cool night air.

Close enough to catch the scent of him.

Close enough to see the way his composure frays at the edges the longer you hold his gaze.

His eyes drop to your hands—yours loose at your sides, his still clasped rigidly behind his back—and something inside him breaks.

“I…” His voice cracks. He swallows hard and tries again. “I wish to touch you.”

The confession comes out raw, stripped of his usual careful articulation.

“Not in any improper manner,” he adds quickly, like he needs you to understand. “Only because my entire being seems unwilling to settle unless I am certain you are near. Unless I can touch you. Assure myself that you are real. That this is real.”

Your chest tightens so hard it’s almost painful.

“Then touch me,” you whisper back.

Very slowly he brings his hands from behind his back. His fingers find your wrist. The touch is careful but sure, like handling something precious that requires exactness.

You feel him still for just a moment when contact is made, like he’s memorizing the sensation.

His thumb finds your pulse, and his eyes widen slightly. “Your heart,” he breathes. “It races.”

“Because of you,” you whisper.

The look he gives you is intense. Wonder and disbelief and want all tangled together.

Then you lift your other hand and gently cup his jaw.

He goes utterly still. His eyes flutter closed for a moment, and when they open again they’re bright with unshed tears.

“Flins,” you whisper, thumb brushing across his cheekbone. “I want this too.”

A quiet sound leaves him—something between a sigh and a plea—and he steps closer, drawn forward like he doesn’t know how to resist you anymore.

His other hand comes up to cover yours where it rests against his face. To hold it there. Like he’s afraid you’ll take it away.

“This is unwise,” he murmurs, and his forehead comes to rest against yours. His eyes close briefly. “I have spent so many years maintaining distance.”

His voice drops to barely a whisper. “And I know what it means to remain when others… cannot. I had thought it wiser to want nothing I could not keep.”

“And now?”

His eyes open. “And now I find I want everything anyway.” The confession breaks something open in him. “With you. For however long—”

“Then stop maintaining distance,” you whisper.

“I fear I no longer know how,” Flins admits, but even as he says it, his hand slides from your wrist to your waist. Still careful, but with growing certainty. Like he’s allowing himself something he’s denied for too long.

His other hand frames your face, thumb tracing your cheekbone.

“Then learn,” you whisper.

His breath catches. For a moment he just looks at you. His thumb traces your cheekbone, and his gaze drops to your mouth. Lingers there.

“I have thought,” he murmurs, voice dropping to barely a whisper, “of little else but this. But you.” His eyes meet yours again, and they’re burning with quiet intensity. “For weeks now. It has become something of an obsession.”

Your heart nearly stops.

His forehead is still resting against yours. You can feel his breath on your lips. The space between you has disappeared entirely.

“Then stop thinking,” you whisper, “and show me.”

His eyes close briefly, like he’s steadying himself.

Then he closes the last breath of distance.

Slowly.

His eyes open again, locking with yours as he leans in.

And then his lips meet yours. Soft. Tentative. Careful. Barely a brush at first, feather-light, as if he’s terrified of overwhelming you or doing it wrong or breaking whatever spell has brought you to this moment.

But when you sigh into him and part your lips slightly, he exhales a sound so wrecked, so tender, so full of longing finally released that it almost hurts to hear.

The kiss deepens.

Flins tastes faintly of night air and something herbal. He kisses you like he’s memorizing you. The warmth of your mouth, the way you taste (he makes a small sound at that, surprised and pleased), the way you lean into him, the way your fingers slide into his hair.

His hair is exactly as soft as it looks, impossibly fine and silky, and when you thread your fingers through it, Flins makes a quiet sound against your mouth. Half wonder, half pleasure, like the sensation surprises him.

His hand at your waist comes to rest more firmly, steadying himself more than you.

He kisses you with the same focused attention he gives to everything else. Like you’re precious. To be studied, understood, cherished.

Each movement is deliberate, exploratory, learning what makes you sigh and then repeating it with dedication.

When you make a soft sound, his fingers press just slightly firmer at your waist, anchoring himself. When you tilt your head to deepen the kiss further, he follows eagerly, a quiet noise of want escaping him.

He kisses you like he’s been waiting his entire long, lonely life for this.

When he finally pulls back, his forehead comes to rest against yours. His eyes are still closed. His breath comes uneven, mixing with yours in the small space between.

His hand is still cupped against your cheek, thumb stroking absently like he can’t bear to stop touching you.

“I fear,” Flins whispers, voice barely there, completely wrecked, “I shall not recover from this.” He pauses, and when he speaks again there’s something like wonder in his voice. “Nor do I wish to.”

You smile, brushing your nose against his in a gesture that makes him inhale sharply.

“Good,” you whisper back. “Neither will I.”

His eyes flutter open. Luminous and vulnerable and full of something that looks like devotion.

A soft, helpless smile curves his lips. Small but genuine, reaching his eyes in a way that transforms his whole face. It’s unguarded, free of the careful composure he often wears.

He looks younger somehow. Lighter.

“I find,” he murmurs, “that I wish to do that again. If you would permit it.”

Your laugh is quiet, warm. “You don’t need to ask permission every time.”

“I shall regardless,” Flins says, but he’s already leaning in again, “as it seems courteous.”

This kiss is different. Less hesitant, yes—but there’s heat beneath it now. Urgency that wasn’t there before.

Flins kisses you like he’s been restraining himself before and has only now realized he doesn’t have to. His hand slides from your face into your hair, cradling your head. The other arm wraps around your waist, drawing you against him with that newfound urgency.

You can feel the lean strength of him, the way he holds you like you’re precious but also like he can’t bear even a breath of space between you.

When you part your lips, he makes a raw sound, and the kiss deepens with a thoroughness that steals your breath.

His fingers tighten in your hair, holding you to him. His other hand presses firmly against the small of your back.

You feel surrounded by him, like nothing else exists except this moment, this touch, this kiss.

When he finally pulls back, you’re both breathing harder. His eyes are half-lidded, dark with hunger barely restrained.

“Forgive me,” he whispers, but he doesn’t loosen his hold. If anything, his arms tighten slightly. “I fear I am… less restrained than I ought to be.”

“Don’t apologize,” you manage.

He studies your face, like he’s trying to read every thought. Then, carefully, he releases his grip in your hair—though his hand stays cradling your head, thumb stroking your temple.

“I have been alone for a very long time,” he says quietly. “I had forgotten what it feels like to want.” His forehead rests against yours. “It is rather consuming.”

You can feel the tension in him. The effort it takes to gentle himself, to not overwhelm you with the full weight of whatever he’s feeling.

“You don’t have to hold back,” you whisper.

His breath shudders out. “I fear if I do not, I shall quite forget myself entirely.” It’s said with a hint of his usual formality, but you can hear the truth underneath. The intensity he’s keeping carefully leashed.

Flins doesn’t kiss you again. Instead, his lips move to your neck.

You feel the deliberate inhale, the way he’s breathing you in like he’s trying to memorize you by scent alone. His hand tightens at your waist, holding you closer, and you can feel the tension in him.

“I find I am…” he murmurs against your skin, voice rough, “rather overwhelmed by proximity.”

He stays there for a long moment, just breathing, before slowly drawing back.

His eyes when they meet yours are darker than usual. Hunger lingers there, yes, but also wonder. Like he can’t quite believe you’re real.

“I should…” He stops, seems to lose the thread of thought. His thumb traces your pulse point. “I should escort you back,” he finally manages, though his grip doesn’t loosen. “It grows late.”

“In a moment,” you whisper.

“In a moment,” he agrees.

Neither of you moves.

When he speaks again, his voice has regained some of its usual composure though you can still hear the edge beneath it.

“They do not mind, you know,” Flins murmurs against your temple, and you can hear the smile returning to his voice. “The spirits. I believe they rather approve.”

You huff a soft laugh, grateful for the return of his humor. The intensity from moments before still lingers, but this is familiar ground.

“You asked them?”

“They have been quite vocal about it, actually.” His thumb traces your cheekbone. “Apparently I have been, in their words, ‘insufferably melancholic’ and they are pleased to see me ‘finally doing something about it.’”

It’s so unexpected that you laugh properly now, and he holds you closer, that small smile back on his lips.

And Flins holds you in the lanternlight, looking completely, perfectly at peace.

⋆ ✦ ⋆

A/N: Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it. :)