You had stolen away to your special place hours before he did, letting the rare bits of sunlight filtering through the maple leaves flit across your face as you imagine your marriage to the one you love the most. To outsiders it might not have been what they envisioned, but as you smooth down the crinkled fabric of your simple white dress all you can feel is an incandescent glow and genuine happiness.

This feeling is a dangerous one. It clouds your judgement and has you thinking of another, whether on the battlefield or in between his sheets. It has you craving his affection, for his hands that can either cradle your face with the utmost care or end his enemy’s life. It’s a feeling you weren’t familiar with before you crossed paths, but it’s now all-consuming as you allow yourself to wander amongst the trees and twist the little pendant he gave you as a gift.

It’s not like the other jewels he keeps in his collection - no, this one is quietly elegant. It sits at the hollow of your throat, the teardrop shaped ruby surrounded by diamonds and lain in white gold. You still remember the way his hands shook when he clasped it around your throat, of the kiss he placed on your cheek before letting the two of you look at how it rested between your collarbones in the mirror. His cheeks had grown pink at the sight, and he murmured something in a language you didn’t understand before spinning you around and pressing you into the mirror.

That memory grounds you as the hours slip by your promised time, the light that was dancing across your face rapidly disappearing. You’re now shaking in this thin dress, feeling worry and fear spread throughout your body as you think of the worst case scenarios.

Did something happen to him? No, he’s much too smart to get caught up in something petty. Did he get swept up in something work related? Entirely possible, except he’s cleared out his schedule for this exact day. You know, because he showed you his empty calendar save for this exact date and time marked down.

So what does that leave?

You’re shivering from the cold when you return to your home, chilled to the bone and utterly confused. What could have caused him to miss your wedding day? Why would he miss your wedding day?

Something’s amiss. You can tell by the way Luke and Kieran aren’t hovering around his usual study, or the way Mephisto doesn’t greet you in his usual way of landing on your shoulder and ruffling the hair by your ear. It’s too still, and you feel your spine stiffen as you try to find the reason why.

You pass by his study, where you hear a hushed whisper accompanied by a sharp laugh. He hasn’t had a reason to sound like that in years - only electing to be soft with you. You stand in front of the ajar door, feeling your heart clench when you hear him whisper something in a tone he usually only reserves for you.

But this time, it’s not towards you, but towards someone else.

Your stomach clenches painfully, suddenly aware of the choice that faces you. You can either live in delusion and brush this underneath the rug. Or…

You push open the door tentatively, letting yourself linger in the shadows as you look at the scene before you.

Him and a woman you’ve never seen, her dressed in the neat uniform of the Hunter’s Association. Ruby eyes flashing with an unreadable emotion that makes your stomach roil unpleasantly as her face flushes a pretty pink - too pretty for a place like the N109 Zone. The bit of energy holding their wrists together, entwining them together and marking them as one.

Your hand flies to your mouth at the scene unfolding before you, shock dousing your system before you can comprehend what’s happening.

You thought that you were his, and he was yours.

The universe thought otherwise.

“Are we done here?” His voice is thick with annoyance, though his fingers twitch lightly at his side. He leans down, mouth by her ear as he whispers something into her head. The scene is so intimate that it has you gasping, and you can tell he hears it by the way he stills ever so slightly. His eyes begin to scan towards the ajar door-

-you stumble back, hand covering your mouth as you move quickly to the safest place you can think of. You burst through the doors of your bedroom, slamming them shut and locking them tightly before you make your way to your closet. You begin packing, shoving things into random bags and ensuring you have the most precious things - which you honestly find hilarious because you had little to nothing when you two had first crossed paths.

At the thought of him, you feel yourself stop for the quickest moment. Your hands fly to your pendant as you think of the quiet yearning you had for him, only for your wildest dreams to come true when he admitted he fell for you, too. All of the stolen touches and whispered promises - the life of light and care you two promised for each other.

The life you so foolishly believed in.

Your hands slip around your neck and you let your fingernail catch the clasp of your necklace. It takes a few attempts for you to clumsily remove the piece, but once it’s in your hands you feel yourself tremble. Something warm slides down your cheeks, and you take a deep breath in to try and stop the gnawing ache in your chest. You shouldn’t have stopped. You should have kept packing and moving and not thinking but here you are, sinking to your knees as you finally, finally sob at the realization that’s just hit you full-on in your chest.

It’s not you.

It was never going to be you.

It’s the end of your world as you knew it.

And as your tears dry against your cheeks, you swear to yourself that you will never let yourself be weakened by idiotic things like love again.

Upon your graduation from training, they give you the codename Yue.

And these days, you relish this new name.

It’s easy to slip into the personality of Yue. You suppress every emotion you’ve ever felt in your entire life before adopting a cold and calculated demeanor. It’s everything that Doomsday taught you, honing your skills with a sharp precision before shipping you off on your first objective with only a name and a single photo.

You never question, you only execute. Why would you question the people that gave you a second chance, anyways? They took you in when you had nothing and turned you into…this.

You’re still not sure who you are these days, now that you think about it. When you catch glimpses of yourself in the mirror, you think you still look like yourself. Maybe a little bit worn, eyes a little more dull, but you still resemble yourself.

When the objectives stack a little too high, you sometimes think features of yourself have been replaced by Wanderer parts. Claws where your nails usually are, your eyes hollow sockets. It takes a few blinks in the mirror to restore yourself to your humanity - to remind yourself you’re not a Wanderer.

The worst is when you wake up after a beautiful dream. You claw at your throat for a necklace that isn’t there as you try to gulp air into your lungs, hot tears leaving tracks down your cheeks while you frantically wipe your mind blank of a soft smile and strong arms that pull you into their embrace. It takes longer to erase yourself of those memories, having to breathe deeply while you lock the vision of ruby eyes somewhere deep in whatever’s left of your heart.

It was awful those first couple of months. Those eyes haunted your every moment, and you think you got a combined twenty hours of sleep each week that passed slowly. You had thrown yourself into training, releasing every bitter feeling into knives and guns until all you could feel was the recoil of a pistol in your hands or the cool handle of the daggers you chose to wield.

You can swallow it down more easily now that two years have passed. The taste is barely bitter on your tongue, and other things weigh more heavily on your mind now that you’re at the top of the Doomsday Division.

You don’t want to say you’re important to the cause, but you’re certainly no middleman or messenger. Since you’re the top cleaner, you’re allowed to sit in on important meetings. You keep to yourself, but your eyes are ever sharp as you examine the way Soren curses a defected Backtracker from his past and the movements of the Farspace Fleet. It’s amusing to you, how they move and whisper about their plans and the Fountain of Atei and believe that you won’t do anything. You won’t, but you still keep every bit of information tucked carefully into the file folders of your mind.

Anything to keep your mind thinking.

Something feels different when you step into this meeting, though. It’s more tense, and you can feel their stares boring into the side of your head as you take up your usual spot in the shadowy corner of the room. The conversation starts out the same: questions about progress and how far along the Fountain of Atei is. It slowly shifts, though, to a Protocore dealer who used to work hand in hand with Soren, who’s since defected and started leaking information on EVER’s movements.

It’s honestly incredibly stupid, you think. You have the shadow organization backing your every move, and you blabber out their secrets in response? That’s just sheer stupidity and practically begging for a knife to the throat.

“Cleaner Yue.”

Soren’s voice parroting your codename snaps you out of your stupor, and you barely glance up with thinly veiled annoyance. “What?”

“You’re the one slated to hunt down this target.”

“Tch.” It’s a dismissive sound, and you make a show of straightening your spine and standing up taller. “A fifty-something year old Protocore dealer who defected? Easy work, and you all know that.”

Everyone’s face grows tight at your statement, but Lihua has the grace to look amused as she regards you coolly. “It’s not just a cleaning, Yue.”

“Oh?” Now this is interesting. You’ve dealt with your fair share of cleanings, and you honestly think you’ve seen them all. What could possibly make this different?

“This cleaning won’t involve you heading into an alternate space.” Lihua pulls up a map that’s marked down with all of your recent cleanings. Most of the dots are clustered within abandoned parts of Linkon City and Skyhaven, with some further dots marked in Chansia and Dawnlight City. 

There’s a section of the map that’s not marked though.

And something sinks in your chest when you see Lihua zoom into it.

“Our target, Daniel Kim, has somehow found cover here.” She points to a specific section of the map, and you begin to sweat as Soren pulls up more information. “You are to go in and do what you do best. And since you’re familiar-”

“-no.”

The room falls silent, every eye suddenly on your too tight body.

“I said specifically I would never head back there.” Your voice is cold, but you can’t quite mask the tremor in your hands. You tuck them away, shoring yourself up so that all of these important people can’t see how shaken you are. “You can send me to the Arctic for all I care, but I will never-”

“Yes you are, lest you forget yourself.”

A tall man in an imposing suit and tie steps forward, and you can’t quite mask the way your eyes widen at the sight of him. This is the most important person in the building - the spearhead behind EVER’s efforts. This was the one man you never wanted to cross paths with-

-and now you’re directly on his radar and his line of vision.

He steps forward, hands held neatly behind his back and steps calculated. Despite the fear roiling in your stomach, you stand straighter and meet his gaze head on.

You’ll be damned if you show fear in the face of this man.

“There is only one thing I requested when I agreed to train for Doomsday.” You surprise everyone in the room, including yourself, with how shrewd you sound as you meet him word for word. “I would do your bidding and execute your plans, but in exchange you would never send me back there. I left for a reason, and there’s no need for me to return there.”

“On the contrary, ____.”

Hearing your name makes your breath catch in your throat, bravado wavering as his lips quirk up slightly. He knows he’s hit a chink in your armor, and you curse yourself for letting your weakness show.

“You are precisely the person we’re looking for.” His hand reaches up to cup your cheek, and you fight the urge to recoil as you stare at him with thinly veiled hate. “The best killer for Doomsday…quiet, clean, obedient.” His thumb delicately strokes your chin, and you swallow thickly so you don’t spit in his face.

“Know this, however.” His hand goes from gently cupping to gripping your jaw, and your hands shake when you feel his nails digging into the delicate skin of your cheeks. “You follow my orders. I hold power over you, and I won’t hesitate to use it for your entire life.”

His hand loosens, and he pushes you just enough that it has you stumbling back. You gasp and clutch at your face, your pride and your ego torn to shreds for the entire top of EVER to see.

“That’s all, Yue.” He’s gone back to his seat, face only showing boredom as he begins to upload detailed files into your comms device. “Prepare for your mission. You get however long you need, but by the end of this you will have completed your cleaning.”

Such an easy dismissal for someone with so much power, but for you it feels like the walls are closing in and you can’t find the way out.

Your worst scenario is happening.

You’re going back to the N109 Zone.

It doesn’t feel monumental when you step back into the streets of the N109 Zone.

You thought that it would be overwhelming for you, but you’re grateful in some twisted way that your training with Doomsday has left you with little patience for sentimentality. You’ve also effectively locked your emotions somewhere deep inside, so you’ve managed to maintain a bored face on this entire thing.

Inside of your mind is a different story, however. Your mind races and constantly writes and rewrites scenarios over again, catching every little detail that hasn’t changed since you’ve left. The staff of the luxurious hotel you’re staying at barely bat an eye as you check in, but you make note of the glances they pass to each other as well as the registrar that sits plainly on their desk. You see your target’s name on the paper, confirming the details EVER sent you before taking your key and leaving without tossing them another look.

Once in the privacy of your suite, you prepare yourself for whatever scenario could possibly happen. Pulling on your usual outfit that helps you blend in, tucking knives into various pockets and the sturdy boots you couldn’t do a mission without, and making sure your gun is properly secured in its holster - it’s your methodical putting on of armor, your way of washing away ____ and putting on Yue’s mask. It helps you wipe yourself clean, honing your focus into your listed objectives.

And you’re going to damn well finish your objectives so that you can get out of this godforsaken place in record time.

“Objective in play, Cleaner Yue requesting coordinates for target.” It’s cold, straight to the point as you hop onto your rented motorcycle and speed into the general direction your dossier had listed. As much as you hate to say it, your previous knowledge of the N109 Zone is helping you tremendously. It has you avoiding areas that could cause obstacles as well as taking streets that cut down your travel time.

Soren’s voice enters your comms device, and you scowl when you hear his sugary sweet sarcasm. “Say please, Yue.”

“Fuck off, Soren.” You take a right turn, gripping the handles a little bit tighter in annoyance. “Give me the damn coordinates so that I can finish this faster.”

“Fine, jeez Yue.” You grit your teeth at his annoyance, but you still murmur a begrudging cool under your breath when you see your desired information flash through the screen of your helmet. “By the way, what’s got you so twisted about the N109 Zone?”

“Why do you care?” It’s venomous, and you’re thankful he can’t see your face because you know your expression doesn’t match your tone.

“You showed up randomly one day two years ago and said you’d join Doomsday under the agreement you’d never go back to the N109 Zone.” It’s a fact, but it’s still one that makes your stomach twist as you continue to speed to your objective’s site. “You trained and you cleaned for two years, rising so quickly to the top and yet you never talk to anyone else. What gives?”

“It’s none of your business, Soren.” You’re a couple of miles out to your site, and you pull over and park your motorcycle in a shadowy street corner. Removing your helmet, you place it on the motorcycle and note its location on your communication device before beginning to walk towards your desired location.

“It is my business.” Soren’s voice comes out crackly through your earpiece, and you wince at the static as you lower the volume. “What a mystery you are, Miss Yue of Doomsday…”

“And I’m remaining that way. Now leave me be so I can finish my job.”

You don’t wait for a response, you simply end communication as you take point to investigate your surroundings.

It looks like a normal alley of crumbling buildings, but you can tell that something seedier runs afoot amongst the debris. Your eyes quickly flicker to quick movement, however, and your breathing slows when you see your target exiting a building with his forehead as the perfect target.

Look at that, you’ll be in and out before the N109 Zone even sees a sunrise.

You let him move slightly ahead of you before you start moving, tailing him quietly so that you don’t draw any sort of attention to yourself. As you walk, however, you see more people than what’s normal in what’s supposed to be a deserted street. Sure, there was the building this guy exited from, and you’re sure that there are more safe houses and black markets nearby, but what gives?

The street slowly grows emptier as you continue forward, and you pull on your half mask to disguise the lower half of your face. Something feels off to you, and you need to get in and kill this man before something happens-

“I wouldn’t move any further, Mr. Kim.”

The voice is projected from the speakers scattered around the street, and your target stops dead in his tracks. You stop as well, tucking yourself in between a pile of boxes and a crumbling brick wall as you assess the scene before you.

“W-who’s there?!” Daniel’s voice is panicked, and you can see his hands beginning to go towards the waistband of his pants so that he can grab blindly at the gun tucked in there. You also ready yourself, unsheathing two of your daggers as you take aim at his vulnerable state.

Now’s your chance.

“You don’t recognize me?” The voice is honey sweet, and you feel yourself begin to sweat at the familiarity of it. “We did just make a deal, after all.”

No.

No.

Something slices cleanly through Yue’s mask, something  ____ thinks is fear as a reddish black mist begins to surround the area. Somewhere above your head, you can hear a mechanical cawing of a robotic crow and you press yourself as close to the brick wall as you can while breathing harshly through your nose to maintain your composure.

Keep it together, Yue.

You grit your teeth and take aim again, fighting the bile rising in your throat when you see a figure emerge from the hazy mist that’s gathered. He’s wrapped in his usual trenchcoat, hair mussed and ruby eyes flashing in amusement as he regards your target. He carries no weapons, but why would he need to when he’s the most powerful being in the N109 Zone?

Sylus Qin.

The sight of your ex-fiancé has your heart pounding but you’re still able to keep your hands still while you assess this new factor. Daniel Kim, however, has stumbled back onto the ground where he’s begun begging for his life.

“Mr. Qin!” Daniel is full of panic as he begins blabbing about how nice it is to see him, but you note that Sylus looks distracted. And when you look a little closer you see that he looks…disheveled.

That’s a rare sight. Whatever happened to him that caused him to look like this? He would never let himself look like this on the streets of the N109 Zone.

Does it have anything to do with his lady friend? You smile bitterly to yourself at the thought.

Good, let him suffer as much as he’s made you unknowingly suffer.

“-or I could tell you about the new protocores EVER has recently acquired!” You snap back into focus when you hear Daniel beginning to blab out all of EVER’s secrets, and you grip your knives tighter as you take your stance. This stupid idiot is going to ruin everything you’ve ever worked for-

“-I could also tell you about the Doomsday Division and their top cleaner!” It’s a choked squawk, but it stops you in your tracks.

How does this idiot know about your division?

You can see the slight pinch in the corner of Sylus’s mouth, eyes flaring with irritation as he picks up your target by his jacket’s lapels and brings him close to his face. “Why would I give a damn about one of EVER’s secret divisions?”

“Because…” Daniel pauses for dramatic effect, lips slowly curling into a smirk even when he’s dangling in the air. “Because, Mr. Qin, their top cleaner might be someone of interest to you.”

Your heart stops.

How does Daniel know this? Doomsday isn’t a widely known division on account of the fact that everyone there is dedicated to cleaning out targets. EVER has a public reputation to maintain, and advertising your assassin division isn’t exactly the smartest thing to do.

So how does he know? How does he have information on something that’s been under lock and key - something so dirty that EVER hides it with news about the Fountain of Atei and their Protocore research? How does he know about you? And how does he know that Doomsday’s top cleaner is you?

This is very bad.

You realize now why Daniel Kim is so high on EVER’s list, despite only being a Protocore dealer. He knows all of their dirty little secrets, and if he exposes them? They, you, are absolutely done for.

You know what you need to do now, and you ready yourself for your next course of action.

From your vantage point, you can’t see the expression on Sylus’s face. But you do see the way his fingers slightly loosen their hold on Daniel’s lapel, shock evident in the way his fingers tremble against the cheap fabric. You take aim, ready to throw your knife straight into Daniel’s jugular, but Sylus’s shaky voice stops you for a split second.

“Where is she?”

What?

What does he mean, where is she?

“If you let me go, I’ll tell you all about Yue.” Daniel’s slimy voice saying your name like that has you clenching the handle of your daggers tighter, an ugly feeling flaring in your chest as your lips twist into a scowl. “Where she is, how long she’s been in the program for-”

You don't even think, you just do.

You flick your dagger towards Sylus’s shoulder. You know he sees it coming from a mile away, but that’s the point. In his dodging of your dagger, he loosens his hold enough on Daniel’s jacket for you to throw the other dagger - making Sylus completely let go of Daniel’s clothing.

Daniel, with some of his brains restored, has enough common sense to run away. This is going to be an issue for later you, but for right now all that matters is he’s alive. He’s revealed why he’s so dangerous, and the spite coursing through your veins won’t let you rest before you clean him from this world yourself.

What matters is right now. Right now, it’s you in this deserted street-

-alone with him.

“An assassin?” He sounds vaguely amused at this idea, his right eye glowing red as he scans his surroundings. “What a novel thing in the N109 Zone. Come out, you’ve thoroughly impressed me.”

He thinks he has you cornered, but you’ve already decided on your escape route a long time ago. All you need is the element of surprise, and you know you have enough of that in your identity.

You stand up, slowly moving aside from the boxes and facing him. For all of your panic earlier in the moment, all you know now is peace as you cock your head at him, sizing him up. Sylus also takes his time in examining you, and you stamp down the traitorous flicker of desire pooling in your stomach when you feel the way his eyes trace lines of fire up and down your body.

Focus, Yue.

“Shorter than I imagined.” There’s some amusement in his voice, and you don’t share it as you simply stare him down. “I can’t make a joke?”

“It’s a bad joke.” Your voice is slightly hoarse from disuse, and you unsheathe two daggers from your sleeves. “I expected more from the Leader of Onychinus.”

Sylus scoffs at that, and you see the way his finger twitches as he summons his Evol. That little tell is all you need, and you gracefully roll out of the way right before it can grab onto you. He whistles at your movement. “I’m impressed.”

“I’m not.” This is bad, you shouldn’t be talking to him in this way because it’s bringing up feelings that should be buried when you have on the mask of Yue. But the banter is so reminiscent of when the two of you would talk late into the night about everything and nothing while sparring each other-

You’re slower to dodge the next attack on you, but you’re still able to roll towards your exit. You estimate that all you need is one more quick movement and you’re able to run-

“-ah!”

His Evol knocks you flat on your back, and you register something clattering to your side as you hear footsteps slowly clicking towards you. You take a deep breath to steady yourself and you push yourself up to your feet just in time to see your half mask by your boots.

Nonononononono-

You smell him then, smoky wood and pomegranate. His dress shoes come to a stop in front of you, and you freeze when you see his Evol weaving in and out between his fingers.

“Who are you?” It’s cold, but his voice being so near you still manages to stir a messy flurry of feelings within your chest. “What is your business here?”

Now’s your time.

You lift your head, and you meet Sylus Qin’s gaze for the first time in two years.

And you see the exact moment he recognizes you. You know it, because you feel something twist painfully in your chest when your eyes catch his. It’s perfectly in time to the way his eyes widen, jaw going slack at the sight of your straight face and disheveled hair.

The world’s stopped, and it’s now just you and him.

“____?”

His voice is full of shock and something that matches that painful twinge in your chest. His eyes frantically scan every part of your face, drinking you in as his hands slowly begin to travel up so he can…you don’t know what, but you don’t want to find out. “____, I-”

You use his defenselessness to push him square in the chest, making him uncharacteristically fall to the street. He catches himself easily on his forearms, but your knives are quick to pin him to the asphalt of the cold ground. You step back to see him in a state few will ever get to see Sylus Qin in: pinned by his shirt, hair mussed and chest heaving as he looks at you with the sick realization of just who you’ve become in the two years you’ve been gone from the N109 Zone.

You just stare back at him coldly. What else is there to say? Everything good between the two of you has long withered and died, anyways.

“It’s Yue.”

And before you can let him decipher that meaning, you turn and run as fast as you humanly can, accidentally leaving your mask by his dress shoes.

“Let’s get this straight, Yue. You had a direct line with the target and instead of killing him you…let him run away?”

Soren’s voice is equal parts irritated and amused, but you’re anything but as you flop back onto your bed. “Yes, but I have reasoning for it.”

“Tsk tsk…” You can tell he enjoys relishing in your failure, even if it’s calculated on your end. “What’ll Lihua and the big bossman think about their top cleaner letting her target escape?”

“They won’t think anything because they won’t know.”

Soren laughs, actually laughs at your failure as your shoulders curl tighter in on themselves. For the first time in a long time, you feel anxiety flare in the pit of your stomach as the reality sets in: this is the first time you purposefully let a mission go awry.

You’ve never let this happen before.

“Well, Miss Yue, you better make it up to me.” Soren uploads new information into your communication device, and you breathe a sigh of relief when you see multiple coordinates for Daniel’s movements. “We’ve been tracking his movements for weeks now, and I’ve condensed the most likely places he’ll be in this list here. I anticipated you finishing sooner but…here we are.”

“And I'll still finish it faster than anyone else could.” You’ll never say thank you to Soren, but this is enough for him to know he has your gratitude as you end the call. You recognize the first coordinate of the list being a bar nearby the hotel you’re staying at, so you prepare yourself for both a cleaning and maybe a long night in between someone else’s sheets.

You had showered after you had gotten back, so you’re able to take your time getting ready for the night. You pull on a silky, ankle-length black dress with a dangerous slit up your thigh before sitting back down and zipping up a pair of heeled leather boots complete with your favorite knives tucked into hidden pockets. Your hair gets piled up on top of your head and secured with a metal hairpin that could act as a weapon if needed, and you finish your ensemble by sliding on a floor-length coat with a hidden gun holster.

You look in the mirror, satisfied with your ensemble. You look dangerous and nothing like yourself - exactly how you like it.

How you look right now paired with his reaction to you catching him off guard bolsters your confidence and reminds you of who you are as you leave your hotel, quickly crossing over to where you know the coordinates lead to. It’s an unassuming bar with flickering lights, almost dead in its appearance except for the music that pours from its closed doors. Soft jazz mixes with the ambient laughter from inside, and you’re sure you’ve found your target location as you push open the door and let yourself in.

The lounge is lush, velvet booths and chairs paired with dark stained mahogany. The bar is busy, the bartenders sliding slips of paper to guests while the jazz music hides secrets that lurk around every corner. You find an unassuming booth tucked in the corner, but you see more: the ornate mirror by the booth provides a direct view of the entrance, while being away enough from the entrance so you can slip into the back rooms if you need to make a quick escape.

There’s the added bonus of it being by the dance floor, and men of all types try to vie for your hand. You simply wave them off, sliding into the empty booth and letting the soulful saxophone lull you into a calm mindset. A waiter drops by with some water and offers their liquor menu, but you simply accept the water with a nod before turning your eyes back to the mirror in front of you, waiting for your target.

As you slowly sip, you mull over the past few…hours? You can’t believe it’s been hours, to be honest. You never purposefully would’ve slipped like that, but you think that it’s the best decision now. Daniel Kim will die a painful death, and you’ll relish every second that you’ll spend eradicating his existence and your truth from this mortal plane.

As for the other person in that encounter…

The bar stills as the front entrance opens, and you feel yourself sigh minutely when you see a flash of red and black cross the threshold. It’s almost comical how the music stops, and you feign disinterest as the clack of well-polished dress shoes comes to a stop.

“Why did you stop? Keep enjoying yourselves.”

The bass is plucked back up a little too quickly, but everyone slowly picks themselves up as you pretend not to notice how his steps walk towards where you’re situated.

“Hello, darling.”

A voice wrapped in velvet reaches you, almost lulling you into a place of your heart you don’t dare to enter. There’s an undercurrent of something bitter underneath his tone, however, and you feel yourself stiffen as you feel something brush against your ankles.

“What do you want?”

It’s flat, but your eyes stay sharp as you examine the way his Evol travels up your leg before undoing itself from your body, rewrapping itself around your wrist in a whisper of a touch. Your frown deepens when you see his signature red and black hue, and your hands slowly curl up into a ball as you begin to count your breaths.

“That’s no way to treat your fiancé, is it?”

You force your shoulders to stay straight as Sylus sets himself across from you, placing his drink right next to yours. But even with your straightened spine, you avoid his eyes as you fix your attention to his Adam’s apple, noting how it slightly bobs in the silence.

He’s nervous.

Good.

“Ex fiancé, thank you.” You can’t quite hide the bitterness as you reach for your cup, sipping slowly on the water as you try to absorb its chill into your soul. “And if I remember correctly, you were the one who didn’t show up.”

You don’t have to look into his eyes to know you’ve hit the chink in his armor - you can see it in the way the upward tilt of his mouth completely vanishes, replaced with a straight line. His fingers begin to tap an erratic rhythm onto the marble of the table, and you slowly count the tempo he’s mindlessly tapping out as you wait for his excuse.

“I showed up now, didn’t I?” You know Sylus means for it to be teasing, but there’s a raw pain hidden in the meaning as he looks at you with a depth you used to be able to decipher. “It’s been too long, ____.”

His Evol that had been tracing your wrist slowly makes its way to your ring finger, and it gently settles itself there like you had never taken off your engagement ring. You frown at the sight but for some reason, you can’t find it in yourself to make it disappear with a wave of your hand.

You try to swallow down the feeling that bubbles in your chest, but it still stays. How annoying.

“Yue.” You run your finger on the rim of your water glass, noting a quick brush of fabric in one of the rooms beside your booth. You lazily flick your eyes back to Sylus, not betraying your findings as you stealthily unsheathe a knife. “I’d prefer to be called as such, by the way.”

“I know you as ____ so I’d prefer to call you that.” His lips quirk up in the corners, and his eyes drop to your ring finger still wrapped in his Evol. “Or would you rather I call you my darling?”

Heat pools in your stomach at that intimate name, and a flashback of him sighing that blasted pet name into your ear as his hips rocked against you has you rattled to your bones.

“Stop that.” You can feel the scowl on your face deepen when you see Sylus’s lips curl into a teasing smile at how much he still affects you. “You’re two years too late, and don’t you have another woman somewhere in one of your safe houses?”

This makes him pause, and his eyes grow guarded as he examines you carefully. “What do you mean by that, ____? I’ve only ever been faithful to you-”

“Were you really?” You see the same brush of fabric from the corner of your eyes, and you toy with your knife hidden underneath the table as you stare at Sylus head on. “I saw what happened in your study the night we were supposed to get married.”

Your knife’s handle slips into your palm, and you grip onto the handle as you see a figure approach closer. Sylus wracks his brain, and at the same moment he realizes what you saw is the same moment your unknown assailant makes himself known.

With a flick of your wrist, your knife sails seamlessly through the air. It whizzes by Sylus’s ear with a silent whoosh, thudding neatly into his assailant’s chest. You stand as if nothing has happened, reaching over and draining your water cup while he looks at you with surprise and guilt.

“____-”

“-Yue.”

Your cup clinks a little too hard on the table, and you prop your hands onto the sturdy wood of the table as you lean down and glare at him with thinly veiled…you don’t know, but it’s not a pleasant feeling. “I saw you and her on a day that was supposed to be ours. You do not get to waltz back into my life after I’ve buried everything successfully.”

It’s a big fat lie if you’re still feeling your heart flutter in your chest at the sight of his ruffled state, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“____, I need to explain myself to you-” It’s a messy spill of words from his mouth as he stands so he can meet your gaze, but you push at his chest a little too harshly and force him back down to the booth.

“How many times do I have to tell you it’s Yue, dragon?”

It’s bitter poison, the name he hates so deeply falling from your mouth. You feel the slightest twinge of guilt at his pained face, but how does that compare to the agony he’s inflicted on you? How does it compare to you walking in and finding your fiancé too close to a girl who’s too good to be true, who’s everything you can’t be?

You step away from the booth, brushing your dress of nonexistent lint. The Evol that had wrapped around your ring finger quickly dissipates as you shake your hand free, grabbing your coat and not sparing the man moaning behind him another glance. You do look into ruby eyes, however, and you feel that familiar cold seeping into your chest as you regard his face for what you hope is the last time.

“____ is long dead and gone, Sylus Qin. Don’t spend your time fruitlessly chasing after a ghost just because you’ve found someone who looks similar to her.”

You walk away from the booth with your head held high, but inside, you’re shaken to your core.

As much as you want to believe this is your last encounter with him, you know that it won’t be.

Not by a long shot.

You can hear the mechanical cawing of a robotic crow from outside of your window, but you choose to ignore it as you scroll through your communication log and groan at the changes.

The crow has been a constant, but at least you haven’t seen a whisper of him since that night two weeks ago. You’ve been far too busy to dwell on your ex-fiancé, anyways - Daniel has ramped up his security since he was threatened, and you can tell it’s been bad at headquarters because Soren is being even more of a whiny bastard than usual.

You’re slipping, and you know it. You have been since you saw him.

You don’t want to admit it, but he’s sliced cleanly through your mask - leaving you somewhere in between Doomsday’s Yue and ____. A person who’s in between times, in between identities, and in between feelings. You don’t know whether to lean into one side or the other - but you know it’s costing you.

You can practically feel Lihua’s disapproval even though you're miles away, making you shudder in your room.

At least it’s only Soren and Lihua, though. If it were the boss…

The constant tapping on your window breaks you from your stupor, and you look outside in annoyance to see that familiar shape pecking its beak against the stained glass. Your frown deepens when you see the crow on your windowsill, but you don’t stop yourself from getting up from your chair and swinging the window wide open.

“What are you doing here?” Unlike when you were with him, your voice takes on a much softer tone as you see Mephisto circle around your room before settling on the chair you were previously on. He gives out a shrill caw!, hopping around on the chair before sticking his leg out for you to look.

“Hmm?” You approach the crow and sit down in front of the chair, immediately noting the little piece of paper stuck onto its leg. You’re quick to undo the string that ties the paper to his leg, and Mephisto lets out a noise of thanks followed by what you can only assume is his approximation of a grumble.

“Yes, yes,” you grumble softly, although you feel yourself soften slightly when Mephisto hops onto your shoulder and nuzzles his head against your cheek.

“November, Charlie, Oscar, Quebec…” You list off the words, recognizing the common phonetic alphabet from a previous time. The words don’t make sense, though. With an alphabet like this, the capitalized letters would spell out the code - but he’s just sent you a bunch of gibberish.

“Your programmer annoys me, you know that?”

Mephisto gives a gleeful cry, and you sigh before grabbing a pen and paper and settling into the chair to decipher the puzzle he’s so graciously decided to give you.

It takes you a couple of tries but when you decipher the code, you crumple and throw the paper out of sheer frustration.

FOLLOW THE CROW.

You turn your head and give Mephisto a withering look. “You knew all this time, didn’t you?”

Mephisto merely cocks his head in a mockery of your own before cawing once more and flying out of your open window.

You sigh heavily. “Stupid programmer…”

You still go, getting onto your motorcycle and following a distant crow in the distance. Why wouldn’t you? He may prove valuable yet.

Mephisto leads you to an abandoned laboratory from a time gone by, and your curiosity reaches another level when you vaguely recognize some of the facade. You push yourself off of your motorcycle and ignore Mephisto’s insistent cawing, instead walking towards a crumbling wall and wiping the soot off of the surface. You’re surprised to see a mirror, and that surprise slowly morphs into shock when you see EVER’s logo printed neatly in stained white paint.

You know that the N109 Zone used to be a prosperous place before it was reduced to the way it is now, and you also know that EVER had something to do with this destruction. Why is this here though? You thought it was only a few small laboratories, not a giant complex that now sits abandoned.

What are they not telling you?

Mephisto caws once more, and you push yourself away from the wall with shaking hands.

“What are you playing at, Sylus Qin…”

“Nothing, actually.”

You nearly jump out of your skin at the unexpected voice, and your head whips around to find Sylus leaning against a crumbling pillar. Instead of the fine business clothes he usually has on, he has on a more casual motorcycle outfit that matches your own with his leather jacket and sturdy boots.

“Don’t do that.” Your face automatically forms a deep frown at his visage, and you run your hands over your head to soothe your nerves. Sylus’s eyebrow quirks at your slight scare, and amusement slowly forms on his face at the realization that he rattled you for a split second.

“Aren’t you supposed to be a great assassin, Yue?”

He emphasises your codename, turning the syllables over his mouth as if tasting it to see if it’s to his liking. As much as you try to suppress it, you hate the shiver that runs up your spine at how his voice drops - the low timber of his voice making it sound like you’re in a much more intimate setting compared to where you actually are.

“I am.” Unlike the subtle flirtatiousness, you’re much more stoic as you look at him with what you hope is boredom. “Top of the pyramid, if you will.”

“I know that much.” He does approach you at this, and you sidestep a little bit away to maintain your distance from him. “Once Daniel told me that information, it was easy to dig it up. A long record after only two years, silent and deadly…”

He steps closer, and you force yourself to look up at his ruby eyes. You’re not going to back down from him; you’re going to keep staring at him to the bitter end.

“You’ve become an enigma when I used to know you so well.”

There’s no bitterness in the statement, only a sort of accepted melancholy that makes your chest tighten because it’s true. You used to trust Sylus with everything in you, knowing he would never let anything hurt you. You willingly gave him your heart, but that trust was broken when you witnessed what happened in his study.

“People change.” It comes out even and you’re thankful that it does. “Circumstances and things that are supposed to be secret come out, and it leaves the party who got hurt scrambling for ways to fix it. So I did.”

“No doubt about it, ____.” Sylus’s hand reaches up, about to touch you but he instead lets it fall limply by his side. “People can change, but their past still follows them and reminds them of who they are. Does that happen to you?”

Your breath hitches.

Because it does. More than you care to admit.

It goes against everything you’ve ever been taught at Doomsday. You’ve gotten good at hiding it, sure, but you were supposed to kill that part of you once you graduated from training - after your first cleaning.

So the fact that you coexist with Cleaner Yue is dangerous.

Sylus, still oblivious to your tumultuous thoughts, continues on with his own musings. His eyes really look at you, searching for something before he settles on, “I guess what I really wonder is, ____…did you ever think about me? What exactly ran through your head during those two years?”

This is bad.

This is not the conversation you were expecting. You were expecting him to threaten you, to try and kill you, maybe make a joke about what you’ve become but not this.

Not his attempt to crack you open - to try and see the part of you that you’ve hidden deep inside of yourself. The part of you that still dreams of him and aches for his touch, the part that still wears a ruby necklace around her neck and waits for a wedding underneath the cover of maple leaves.

You’ll be damned if he manages to pull her out. Not after everything you’ve gone through to try and kill her.

“What does it matter?” You step back a little further, creating space that slowly diminishes because he still takes a step towards you. “Why do you want to know? Don’t you have someone else waiting for you at the base?”

Your words are bitter, but there’s something that colors that bitterness and makes it turn a shade of grey. It makes your chest ache and your throat feel a little bit tighter, and as much as you try to swallow it away you can’t because it’s that awful feeling that’s been bubbling in your heart since he betrayed you.

Silence rings out as you let him process your words, and your arms slowly wrap around your body so that you can keep yourself warm. Everything feels too thin - the silence, his thoughts, your patience. This was a bad idea and you shouldn’t have gone here-

“-let me make a deal with you.”

From your peripheral, you see a hand reaching up to tuck itself neatly underneath your chin. You neatly deflect it by whacking his arm away from your face, and you let the opening allow you access to grab the collar of his jacket and pull him down to your height.

“I’m listening.”

Sylus’s eyes glint at your little show, and his lips slightly tilt up. “Cute.”

Your fingers tighten ever so slightly, and you unsheathe a knife from your sleeve in warning.

“Fine,” he huffs. Your fingers tighten and you focus on his nose as he begins his proposition. “Daniel is still on the large, but I’ve gotten all of the information I need from him. All you need to do is kill him, right?”

“...yes.”

His eyes gleam at the inch you’ve given him. “I’ll help you track him down and eradicate him. All you need to do is be willing to work with me for however long it takes.”

“That’s it?” Suspicion sinks heavily over you, making your fingers loosen as you regard him with curiosity. “Just…work with you?

He nods, and you hate the way his face softens at your disbelief. “That’s all I want, ____.”

What are the benefits to this?

You’re going to be able to clean Daniel Kim from this world with the help of someone who rules this area. While this is happening, you can take this closeness and use it to kill the part of you that still holds something deep for him. You can run after this.

EVER wouldn’t want you collaborating with the enemy, though. Especially not one that’s so high on their list. You’ve already messed up to the point of mission leaders changing, and you know their patience is running thin. You may be the best, but even the best is dispensable in the face of a massive entity like EVER.

But all of that pales in comparison to the one thing that’ll make or break you.

He’s currently in the palm of your hands. He leans tall at six foot two, and his ruffled head is bent down to your height as he waits patiently for your response. Even in this position, though, he has all of the power and influence - not just for how this mission ends, but for how you may end up feeling about him in the end.

You hate it.

You hate it, yet it’s your only option.

You know what you need to do.

“I’ll work with you.” You can see the surprise on his face mixing with something more as you glare at him with little heat. “I’ll work with you, but know this.”

You pull him down even lower, holding your knife to his throat as you direct his eyes onto your heated stare. Sylus’s eyes widen at your sudden display of aggression, but that shock slowly smooths out into an even, almost amused look that has you burning hot with annoyance.

“One foot out of line, one comment, one single attempt to fix the past will result in a bullet through your head and me transferring all of your assets to my private bank account.” Your fingers tighten on the collar of his shirt to maintain control of the situation, but your ire only burns hotter when you see the smirk on his face grow even more. “This is a professional team and nothing else, understood?”

In your focus, you don’t notice how his hand hovers near your face. But your entire body goes still when you feel his calloused fingertips tracing a strand of hair that had fallen onto your face. His eyes stay on yours through the movement, making your stomach turn with an emotion you can’t quite decipher.

All you know is that it makes your heart beat faster when he tucks the stray hair behind your ear and lets his fingers fall to your chin. And it certainly doesn’t help when he wraps his other hand around the wrist that holds your knife to his throat, his thumb running soothing circles against the sensitive inner skin as he steadies your shaking arm while slightly pressing the point of your knife just a little bit harder to his skin.

“Crystal, darling.”

Sylus takes you out on your first scouting mission the next day, and you decide to follow.

Why not follow, anyways? You’re close to a dead end, and you need all of the help you can get to clean Daniel Kim.

You meet him in an abandoned district, crumbling walls lining the trash filled streets. Your nose wrinkles at the stench, but you still approach the coordinates he sent you. It leads you to an empty looking building, and you’re careful to conceal your face as you enter stealthily.

Inside, you see the same EVER logo on the wall that matched the logo you saw on the wall where you met Sylus. previously. Seeing that logo has your stomach turning uneasily. You’ve always had your own reservations about EVER, but seeing their presence here is…disconcerting.

Like two worlds that should have never been introduced to each other.

“Odd, isn’t it?”

You nearly jump out of your skin at the new voice, and you glare at the man who’s seemingly materialized out of the wall where he was watching you from.

“You’ve got to stop doing that, you fool.” You scowl, and you breathe deeply to calm your heart rate as Sylus’s lips quirk up in amusement. You shake your head and turn back around, examining the wall. “You’re right, though.”

“I am, aren’t I?” He’s teasing, and you roll your eyes. He moves easily so that he’s standing in front of you, head cocked to the side as he sizes up the logo on the wall. “In all seriousness though, ____…”

Curiosity gets the better of you, and you decide to size up the man next to you instead. Even though he’s completely relaxed next to you, Sylus still exudes strength and power. He’s not an easy man to take down - there’s power in every single step he takes as he examines his surroundings.

You’d be a fool not to see it, anyways.

“How have things been with you?”

It’s an inane slip of your tongue, your brain craving for familiarity and going against your training. Your mouth snaps shut as you realize your idiotic move, because why would you even ask your enemy how life has been with him recently? Embarrassment roils in your stomach, and you begin to clear your throat-

“It’s been the usual.” He shrugs, and the gesture is so reminiscent of easy conversations the two of you had that you feel a punch in your gut at how…familiar it is. “I, uh, I discovered some things about my past in the past two years. It made me realize things.”

“Oh?” You cock your head at him, curiosity sparking as you regard him. “What did you find out?”

It’s a genuine question, and you feel alarmed that there isn’t any sort of poison in it. It’s as if you’ve asked about his day after he came home, excited and warm to see him. You just…genuinely want to know.

“I found out some things about my Evol.” His hands flex, summoning that red and black energy that he easily manipulates in between his fingers. “How it came to be, things of that nature. All of it was quite…enlightening.”

“Is that so?” You’ve subconsciously inched closer in the confession, heads bowed together as you examine the energy that transfers itself from his fingers to your own. You were never an Evol wielder, but you can still feel the crackle of his traveling across your fingers and up your arm with the slightest twitch of his fingers. It almost feels like…home.

What an idiotic thought.

You clear your throat, trying not to convey your warring thoughts as you ask, “Anything else that you managed to find out about yourself?”

You take a chance to tilt your head up, and you feel your eyes widen at how close you and Sylus have gotten in the exchange. His lips are just above your forehead, and if you make yourself stand still, you can almost imagine he’s going to brush his lips across your head in a sweet kiss like he always does before either of you leave the base-

“We’re too close-” It’s a gasp, and you stumble back while still keeping your eyes on him. “I, that was-”

“It’s fine.” Sylus’s voice is characteristically flat, almost angry at how dejected he is from your shock as he clears his throat and looks away. “And ____, I don’t know if I should share my findings right here.”

“Oh.” That familiar icy feeling creeps back up, shrouding ___ in Yue’s cynicism. You shake your head to steel yourself, and when you come back your voice is cool and no longer curious. “All right, then. Keep your secrets.”

“____, I didn’t mean it like that-” He tries, but you’re bending down to pick up a file folder on the ground to save face and also conduct yourself back to Yue. While creased and worn with time, it’s still barely legible. You open it, and feel yourself freeze at the title you see on the screen.

DIVISION: DOOMSDAY.

“____?” Sylus’s voice comes up behind you, and you pull the file close to your chest as he attempts to peer over your shoulder. “What is it?”

“I just need to read this.” Your tone is steady when you’re everything but as you begin to flip through the pages, scanning the text and trying to score the key details into your brain. Everything you read sends a chill up your spine because this is the entire training process of Doomsday, right down to initiation before graduation.

What is a file like this doing at the N109 Zone? Wouldn’t they have kept it with them? You turn back to the front, feeling something in yourself tighten further when you see the Lihua and the boss’s name on the front as the proposed developers of this unit.

Your fingers continue shaking, and you flip towards the back of the file. You scan the new section, and you feel your mouth going dry at the new information that’s been revealed to you slowly. It makes you grow dizzy with anger and also fear for your livelihood because how could you not see this coming, ____? You thought it would just be servitude, not a lifetime sentence.

You didn’t know that failure meant immediate execution once you returned back to base.

No chance of escape, of wiping your slate clean. It’s only EVER or death.

You hate them, but you hate yourself more for damning yourself to this life.

“____?”

You flinch back when you feel the ghost of his fingers brushing along your shoulder, trying to ground you in the present. You shake his hand off, clutching the file tightly to your chest as you take a few deep breaths, trying to decide your best course of action. You could keep the file. Let it burn to the ground. Toss it away…

“I’d like to be alone for a couple of days while I think about some things.” You can’t stop your hands from shaking, why are you shaking? Of course you knew EVER was evil, but you didn’t know to this extent - of treating their own people as dispensable. You laugh bitterly at the thought, and something in your soul grows more tired of the thought.

Dispensable in marriage and work. What a joke your entire being is.

“____-”

“No, Sylus.”

It’s the most emotion you’ve shown, your voice cracking at the end of his name as you continue to walk out of the building and clutch the folder like a lifeline and the thing that damns you, because it is. “Leave me alone, please.”

You don’t wait for an answer, you simply walk away before he can see how your eyes have glossed over in tears.

He keeps to his word, and you’re thankful that he listens.

The days pass by in a blur, and the only constant has been the file staring at you in the face. You’ve gone through all of the stages of grief in what feels like a demented merry-go-round, going from anger to depression to bargaining and back to anger.

You think you’ve made it to acceptance, though. You had spent the previous afternoon burning pieces of paper one by one, watching the corners curl into themselves and melt into ash of the wood of your fireplace. It made you feel a little bit better as the flames warmed your cold body, but it still sits heavy in your mind as you look out the window. A crow circles above your building, cawing multiple times and it almost makes you smile with comfort.

He may not be there physically at times, but he’s still there in the form of Mephisto knocking on your window. You’ve let Mephisto come into your room a few times and also let him accompany you on walks to make it look like you’ve moving, just so you have an alibi. He’s proven to be useful, cawing when there’s immediate danger and also just serving as your companion.

You like Mephisto. Mephisto is sassy but still affectionate, rubbing his head against your cheek and helping you complete recon while giving you a knowing sound when you stare at him too long.

Mephisto is practically his own entity, you having separated him from his programmer long ago. Mephisto is safe and doesn’t turn your stomach into a weird roiling bubble whenever you start to think a little too hard about how he still listens and respects you - of how he still acts like he cares.

Like right now.

He had written little on the scrap piece of paper Mephisto was practically crying for you to remove from his leg, only some coordinates with promises of information and an additional note of “look nice.” What even is nice to him, anyways? Is it underground opera nice or jazz bar nice?

You settle for something in the middle - a nondescript black silk dress and a nice enough coat where you won’t look like a fool if it’s an extremely fancy event or extremely overdressed if it’s more casual. You feel naked without your gun, but you have plenty of hidden daggers and you’re plenty resourceful. Other people may have automatic weapons on them, anyways.

You’re relieved to see that the building that shows up is less bar and more upscale restaurant teeming with influential people craving information. You find a shadowy corner across the street, and you decide to wait for Sylus as you scan the premises for your target and any additional information you can file away. You find nothing of interest, though. Sure, you recognize some people from past dossiers you peeked at EVER, but they’re not high threats for Doomsday.

You’re not interested in completing Doomsday tasks right now, anyways. Not since your recent discoveries.

You pull your personal phone out, frowning when you think you see your lipstick smudged under your chin. You pull out the tube from one of your coat’s many pockets and uncap it, angling your phone so that you can find the right lighting to make sure it doesn’t become even more of a mess-

“You should find a better light, ____.”

You’re quick to pull your lipstick away from your mouth, and you scowl at the person behind the sleek motorcycle helmet. You can’t see it, but you know his ruby eyes are sparkling as he glances at you from behind his visor and it just makes you all the more annoyed.

You cock your head when Sylus flips up his visor, however. The lighting of the streetlamp above the two of you catches the tint of his visor just enough to make it opaque, and if you tiptoe up…

“Hold still.” It’s curt from your mouth, but Sylus pauses his movements just enough for you to lean in just enough so you can flick his visor down over his eyes. You feign disinterest the entire time, but you can’t quite hide the way your hands shake ever so slightly as you peer into his visor and begin to fix your lipstick. 

It’s reminiscent of a time gone by, when you would apply skincare in the comfort of your shared bathroom. The fleeting domesticity is almost enough for you to soften, but you swallow down the silly sentiment as you rub your lips to even out the color and place the cap back on the tube.

“All done.”

You’re thankful you sound only bored, even if your mind is frantically stamping down memories that threaten to surface. You flick Sylus’s visor up, expecting him to crack a joke, but you feel your mouth turn dry when you see his eyes and the little sliver of visible skin.

In that short moment you touched yourself up, it’s as if he’s been wrecked by a lifetime of memories. His pupils are dilated, the red of his irises a thin ring as he gazes at you with an emotion you can’t quite find it in yourself to decipher. The little bit of skin you do see is flushed a soft pink, and you swallow thickly as you turn your head away and gesture towards the restaurant.

“Should we head in?”

“Yes.” He cuts his shakiness off with a cough, and you almost smile to yourself as you begin to walk towards the restaurant, not waiting to see if he follows. You know he will.

Once inside, you’ve both composed yourselves enough where you’re back to square one point five. Not too cordial but not too venomous towards each other. It almost feels as though you’re two coworkers with one who has a greater disdain for the other, which is hilarious given the past couple of events and your entire history with each other.

You settle into the table the server’s led you to, and you frown when you don’t see any sort of tells or ways to keep track of your surroundings. Isn’t this supposed to be a reconnaissance mission? Why is he ordering your favorite pasta and refilling your water while looking at you with eyes you don’t want to think about?

“So, ____…” Sylus tries to begin, but you can only stare at him witheringly as you continue to poke at your pasta. 

“What?” Your tone is biting with no heat as you shove a noodle into your mouth. “You brought me to this restaurant for reconnaissance, so where’s the information I want?”

Sylus merely smiles at your annoyance, only serving to fuel your displeasure at this entire situation and making you prickle in your seat as he picks up his wine glass and takes a slow sip. “What happened to enjoying beauty and taking it slow, ____?”

“Being slow kills a person,” you counter back, though the heat isn’t as intense as you reach for your own wine glass and take a sip. “Sure, it allows for someone to go through all possible options, mapping out the best strategy. By the time that person makes a decision, however, there’s already a knife in their back and a bullet in between their eyes.”

You drain your wine in one more gulp, welcoming the buzz that simmers through your veins as you allow yourself to really look at him. This man used to be your fiancé, after all - and you’d be an idiot if you didn’t admit to yourself that Sylus Qin is still as devastatingly handsome and charming as you remember.

His silver hair is ruffled, red eyes glimmering with mischief and a deeper feeling as his eyes do their own calculated sweep over your visage. He has on a black turtleneck with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and the outfit is reminiscent of date nights he used to take you back when you were still…here. The thought causes searing pain but you stamp it down as you continue your slow catalogue of everything about Sylus Qin.

This is all objective, Yue. It’s a chant in your mind, a weak attempt at categorizing these details you’ve missed so deeply as a part of your mission, but you can feel that thought slowly slipping away when he laughs at your matter-of-factness.

“How your opinions have changed,” he murmurs softly, and his soft tone of voice has a shiver running up your spine as he leans in closer. “While I would usually agree with you, I want to know what brought about this shift?”

“Take a wild guess,” you retort back, but you can’t help the quick upturn of your lips as you happily indulge in his word war. “What could have possibly happened in my two years of being away that caused me to be like this?”

His smile falters for a little bit, eyes sobering up as he regards you with seriousness. “Doomsday.”

You simply nod, placing another forkful of noodles into your mouth and chewing so he can mull over just what you could have possibly been put through while training for Doomsday. Once you swallow, he opens his mouth again to ask the question you’ve dreaded him asking since you left all those years ago.

“Why EVER?”

The question hangs heavily in the air, and you both know that by answering, you both will be opening a can of worms. You both hate EVER for the things they’ve done to the N109 Zone, but he seems to have grown an even bigger disdain for them ever since you’ve returned. You have your own, newer reasons of hating EVER, but you still feel a twisted sense of defensiveness creep up your spine as you try to wrack your brain for an answer that won’t offend the both of you..

“They didn’t ask questions.” It’s blunt, but you still flinch at the way Sylus’s eyes glint dangerously at your statement. “They didn’t ask why I showed up, begging to join their cleaner division. They just…took me in and refined my training.”

“That’s it?” He sounds incredulous and he has every reason to be so - you ran into the arms of the enemy, after all. “You went to EVER because it was…convenient?”

“Yes.” The two of you have reverted back to square one, enemies across different lines sitting across from each other. All it would take was one wrong look, and there would be blood staining the expensive tablecloths. “I needed an out. I needed a way to…disappear.”

“Disappear?” This time, the words are much more bitter, and you look at Sylus in surprise because of his sudden display of anger. “Disappear? ____, I-”

He drops his face in his hands, rubbing his temples as his eyes close in frustration. His hand moves from his forehead to the bridge of his nose, pinching tightly as he takes a few deep breaths to compose himself. All the while, you’re sitting frozen in your seat because why is he so worked up over this?

“Why does it matter?” You can’t help but inject a little bit of poison in your voice, slowly growing more frigid in the passing seconds. “Full offense, but are you truly delusional to believe I wanted to be found after what I witnessed that night in your study?”

Sylus’s head whips up, and you feel yourself grow colder at the burning anger in his expression. “But ____, did you really need to go to EVER to disappear? You could have gone to any other agency-”

“With my skillset?” You can’t help but cut him off with a laugh, gesturing to yourself. “Sylus, I am an assassin. I kill people. What did you want me to do, go to the Hunters Association and work together with your Hunter friend?”

“I don’t give a damn about her, ____. I never gave a damn about her.” It’s a lethal slice of an admission, one you choose to ignore as the both of you prop yourselves up on your arms to better look at your opponent. “____, you went to the enemy because you needed to disappear? ____, that’s a cheap excuse and-” “Maybe because I did not want to be found, Sylus Qin.”

Everything stops at those words, and Sylus’s eyes widen as he realizes just what you mean.

You don’t let your guard down, instead choosing to examine his reaction as you lean back and cross your arms over your chest. Sylus’s eyes blink rapidly, trying to come up with a reasonable explanation to your statement, and he comes to it just as you let out a short laugh.

“Did you really think that after witnessing my fiancé in such a state with another woman after what was supposed to be our wedding day, I wanted to stay? To be found?” You laugh again, the noise devoid of all joy. “I wanted to disappear. I wanted to be gone, I wanted to be away. Partly because I needed the distance to think for myself and get over what happened, but also because I wanted you to feel just a fraction of the agony you gave me.”

The silence that used to be amiable becomes sour with your confession, but you only feel a little bit lighter with sharing the weight with him as you continue your tirade once more. “You know…when you’re training with Doomsday, they pair you up with someone. You build a rapport with that person, and then they subject you to a battle of the death. That’s how you graduate from training. They mark down your closest ally as your first cleaning and it serves as a reminder that love and looking out for another person is a critical weakness to the entire division.”

It’s the one bit of information you’re willing to share with him from that file. Not that you’ll be killed if you fail, or that Doomsday was conceived a year before you left him. 

Just that you’re a monster who committed betrayal to the highest degree.

“____-” Sylus tries to begin, his voice hoarse, but you simply shake your head and stand up at the table.

“Love is weakness, Sylus Qin.” It’s frigid, straight to the point as you stab the words straight through his chest so that he can feel the pain you’ve carried with you these past two years. “Love is a fatal flaw, and I was rife with it. Seeing you in your study woke me up, and now I don’t seek it. I never should have in the first place, anyways. I don’t think I ever deserved it.”

“____, please listen to me-” He goes to grab at your hand, but you simply pull your hand to your chest and step away from the table, not sparing him another glance.

“I’m getting air.”

The warning is there, though. Don’t follow me. Don’t try to spy on me.

Once you’re outside, you feel your shoulders sag as you approach the alleyway by the side of the restaurant. The moon shines brighter here, only serving to remind you of the passage of time and the codename they gave you upon graduation. You had effectively rubbed your first cleaning free of your mind, but you still see a hazy recollection of your companion’s face in your mind. Of their silent admission, eyes shining with acceptance as they tilted their head back to show you their throat.

You hadn’t allowed yourself to cry or dwell on it. It would have set you back if you did.

So you settled for the hollow ache in your chest that’s since followed you.

God, maybe they did replace you with a Wanderer. How could you even live with yourself after that?

Don’t think about it, Yue, don’t think don’t think don’t-

A buzzing in your pocket stops your spiral, and you take it as a blessing in disguise as you fish out your communication device and look at the name displayed on the screen.

Main Supervisor Lihua.

Main Supervisor Lihua? What happened to her working with Soren?

Your spine straightens, all senses on alert as you look at the buzzing phone in your hand. All of the new information you’ve learned comes rushing back, paired with the need to be a good subordinate and answer. It makes your head spin-

Your finger slides across the screen and you press the device to your ear without thinking, not allowing yourself traitorous thoughts as you wait for Lihua to speak. The seconds stretch as she lets you ruminate in the silence, and you can feel your palms sweat before she finally allows herself to speak.

“Status report, Cleaner Yue of Doomsday.”

You release a breath you didn’t realize you were holding in, swallowing deeply before responding in your clean, cold voice. “Target MIA. Security increased, more time needed to complete objective.”

“My, Yue…” It’s a soft purr, but you still don’t let the tension leave your body as Lihua hums on the other side of the line. “You would usually be done by now, my dear. Why all of these unexpected delays?”

You almost break.

You almost tell her about the war that’s been ravaging your head, of the chaos that’s been inflicted in your mind ever since you stepped back into the N109 Zone. Of how you really don’t give a damn about finding and cleaning Daniel Kim…not as much as you should, at least. Of how your thoughts have been consumed by someone higher on their list, but that the thoughts aren’t what they trained you to think.

You almost tell her that you know. You know how she helped conceive the entire division, of what will happen to you if inevitably fail.

You almost tell her that this mission will be a failure, which you’ve never uttered in your time as the top cleaner of Doomsday. But maybe that you might actually want failure because you don’t have to do this anymore.

You don’t have to live a lie anymore.

Instead, you swallow thickly to gain back some of the moisture in your mouth as you come up with a response. “Daniel Kim has…proven to be a challenge, Supervisor Lihua.”

You know she doesn’t buy it, not by the way she snorts gracelessly across the phone. “Daniel Kim? Barely ranked seventh on our list? Cleaner Yue, surely you jest. This was supposed to be your easiest cleaning.”

“Things change, Supervisor Lihua.”

You can’t quite keep your tone even at that last statement, and you know she’s heard by the way she clicks her tongue. “You’re slipping, Yue. You know why this matters, Yue-”

“-and why does it matter, Lihua?”

As soon as the words leave your lips, you feel yourself heat in embarrassment and maybe fear.

How stupid are you, Yue? Why does it matter?

You literally examined a file about the conception of your division, about what makes the perfect killer and what happens to those who are less than perfect.

What does it matter?

It’s only your entire livelihood on the line.

Everything you’ve known, dedicated, killed for these past two years. Eliminating Daniel ensures your safety, and not eliminating him condemns you to a life forever wearing the shackles of EVER or being erased forever.

“...I don’t know what has gotten into you, Cleaner Yue.” Lihua’s voice is frigid, and you feel yourself tighten at the words that come out of her mouth. “You’ve gotten sloppy, my dear. You don’t want the boss to know, do you?”

“No, Supervisor Lihua.” It comes in that calculated, almost robotic tone of voice they drill into recruits at Doomsday, and it works for now because you hear Lihua’s exhale of relief over the line.

“Good, Yue.” Her voice turns soft, but you don’t drop your guard - you never drop your guard when Lihua is involved. “What’s your report then? And give me your real report, Cleaner Yue.”

“Nothing of interest as of yet.” It comes out so smooth you almost believe it as you list out details that could be of some interest to EVER but also get them off your back. Enough story woven in to be dutiful to the cause, but enough hidden so they don’t test you. Enough to hide the fact you’ve been associating with the enemy.

“Good.” Lihua sounds more relaxed, and you let yourself swallow just enough as you scan your surroundings for anything amiss. “Finish your job and come back.”

The call ends, and you nearly collapse into the wall as you hold your communication device to your chest. Your breath is uneven, and your eyes close as you let yourself shake for just a split second.

You’ve never done that before, omit something from EVER.

What have you become, Yue?

As you compose yourself and prepare to leave the premises without telling him goodbye, though, you miss two crucial details.

The first is a ruffled crow, uncharacteristically silent as he takes off to a familiar base.

The second is a flash of gray fabric, hidden in the shadows and witnessing your damning state.

You work on your own for the next few days.

You’ve taken to rising early and sleeping late, avoiding all of the hot spots you know him and his crow are frequenting to keep their eye on you. A lot of your avoidance stems from annoyance from the dinner, but there’s a tiny part of you that screams to keep them, him, safe from the reaches of EVER and you as their top monster.

You’re sure EVER doesn’t know about your contact with him, not yet at least. Lihua didn’t show any sign of knowing, and you’d rather keep it that way. You don’t need your superiors to know that you have ties to the N109 Zone.

You’re nearing the end of your mission, anyways. You had managed to finagle with Mephisto when he went offline, downloading some footage he had gathered in hopes of finding any evidence of Daniel and his location as well as programming your own features. You’ve narrowed the list Soren gave you to three places, and you feel fairly confident in your mission ending today as you make your way to the coordinates you had carefully plotted out on your device. You’re so confident, in fact, that you’ve suited up in your full uniform: thick leather boots, the uniform you had made for yourself, even a replacement half mask to cover the lower half of your face as you hold your gun up while examining your surroundings.

Your body moves on autopilot, pressing your body into shadowy corners. It gives you the time to reflect on the past couple of weeks and the connection you’ve…re-established in that time.

What a mess your emotions have become in just a few meetings with him. You’ve fully accepted that Sylus Qin has thrown a wrench into everything you’ve worked to become and that he’s made himself a throne on your ever turbulent thoughts. All of that progress had simply vanished when he murmured your name to you, and you’re deeply annoyed by the fact that he still has this effect on you.

The part that screams at you to protect him from EVER is that same traitorous part that wants to run home into his arms, though. It’s the part you refuse to give into because you know that if you give in, you’ll never be able to return to EVER and Doomsday.

That thought shakes you to your very core. Because if you go back, everyone you’ve cleaned would have been for nothing.

How could you even live with yourself? You don’t think you can.

Anxiety flares in the back of your skull at the thought, but you quickly stamp it down as you round a corner. ____ shouldn’t be thinking right now, this should be all Cleaner Yue. You’ve got to stop thinking about this, and you have to get a hold of yourself, ____.

You peer out, now at the exact coordinates you’ve marked down for yourself. You peer out into the alleyway-

“You know, ____, you never even offered to pick up the tab.”

You almost scream in frustration when you see Sylus standing at the end of the alleyway, lazily looking through the abandoned buildings as he walks closer to you. You know he’s not your enemy, in fact he’s little more than a thorn in your side, but you still unsheathe a knife and hold it up at his head in anger.

“What are you doing here?” Your half mask can barely hide the anger simmering in your veins, and Sylus matches your mood for once with the way his lips are pressed into a thin line. He’s a couple of feet away from you and you know you can’t win this battle, but you’ll be damned if you don’t try.

“I came to look for you after you so rudely dined and dashed.” Neither of you find it funny, and you see his fingers twitch as he summons his Evol. You’re moving before you can even think, throwing your dagger directly towards his face before rolling away. He merely steps to the side and dissolves his Evol, stepping closer to you and dodging your attacks while you make your way towards your escape.

“Fight back, Sylus Qin.” Your voice is a warped, angrier version of yourself as you continue to give everything to his apathy. You’re running low on knives, all of them having clattered to the side due to his Evol shielding him as he continues to step towards you. “You’re the great leader of Onychinus, right? Why won’t you fight back?!”

You decide to ignore your knives, and you rip your half mask from your chin and throw it to the side so he can see the wrath twisting your features. You expect him to match your energy, but you stop for a split second when you see a familiar ache on his face, matching the hurt that festers in your chest and makes your anger boil over.

You throw yourself at his body, screaming obscenities as your fists hit his chest. He stays still, though, allowing for you to hurt him in the same way he hurt you.

“We were supposed to be married, Sylus!” Your voice cracks along these words, splintering with how hoarse your voice has gotten from your screaming but you still fight on. “We were going to get married and live in the maple grove, and now we’re fucking here and I’m this and I…I fucking hate you for making me like this!”

The words sear your tongue, almost as if something is punishing your lie while everything you’ve locked deep for so long surges forth in a messy, incoherent stream of hurt and longing.

“Do you want to know the worst part?” Your voice is scratchy, but you’re no longer screaming and hitting his chest as you breathe harshly. “I dream about you and that stupid necklace at least once a week.”

You think you hear a sharp intake of breath above your head, but you can only laugh bitterly to yourself. “I dream about you. I dream about the life we could have had. I dream about a greenhouse in that grove of maple leaves, of your loud singing to our record collection, building another bird to accompany Mephisto. All of these promises and hopes…all for nothing.”

You begin to step away, but his hand stops you - one circling your wrist, the other tilting your chin up so you can look at him fully in his face. You pull yourself away from him harshly, even when you feel your chest constrict at the look on his face.

You can’t find any sympathy for him right now, though. Not after two years worth of hurt has spilled forth, leaving you bare for him to examine and crush beneath his boots.

“What, Sylus Qin?” You hope the cold fury in your voice hides the tears gathering in the corners of your eyes. “What’s keeping you from speaking honestly with me? What was so important that you missed our wedding and made me turn to a program that’s reduced who I am-”

“-we were both experimented on by EVER, the Hunter and I.”

The admission shocks you into silence, though your icy mask doesn’t slip. He doesn’t let his guard down, too, and his emotions are locked neatly away as he tells you about his heavy history as if it were the weather.

“We were both experimented on and forced to fight each other.” You see a flicker of pain flash across his face at the irony, but he quickly smooths himself off as he continues to tell you all he knows. “We…we share a past and-”

“-and nothing.”

You should listen to him, you know, but frustration and fear and devastation at being left has turned the emotions you’ve kept locked so deeply inside of you an ugly, gnawing monster that’s clawing its way to the surface as you rant at him. “We’ve all been fucked by EVER here, the N109 Zone and it’s lawlessness wouldn’t fucking exist if it weren’t for EVER! We’ve known this, everyone here knows it. What I want to fucking know is what was so different about this Hunter that made you miss our wedding. Why were the two of you connected, huh? Devotion to me, my ass.”

Your voice wavers on those last couple of words, and you make a show of wiping your entire face free of sweat to mask how you stealthily wipe away the tears that are threatening to spill out. You swallow thickly and begin to breathe deeply, counting to ten before composing yourself and wiping yourself clean of emotion.

You step further away from his shaky body, not trusting to look at his face as you process final words to say to his shoes. “...you felt something for her, I could see it on your face.” While you’ve managed to school yourself to be carefully neutral, you can feel yourself seizing up as you wrap your arms around your body to stop your shivering. “We were engaged and you-”

“What I felt, ____, was relief because I finally found the solution to all of the pain and issues my Evol caused me.”

That makes you pause.

Because, oh are you intimate with his pain.

You flash back to the rare few times you saw his Evol negatively affected him - of his bloodshot eyes and trembling body that you had to support back to the Onychinus base. Of his sleepless nights when the ache in his chest got too intense, and the way you dragged him into his arms and cradled him as he fought with the phantom agony that wracked his body.

Knowing he found the solution to his issues makes the anger slowly fade, but there’s still bitterness in your being.

“I still don’t know if something happened between the two of you.” It’s less accusatory and more self-conscious as you step back, avoiding his face as your eyes begin to water slightly. “For all I know, something could have happened with the pretty Hunter woman who you were bound to-”

“And nothing, because nothing happened, ____.”

In your confrontation, you don’t realize that the two of you have completed a dance. With every step you take back, he steps forward until you’re backed into a corner and he looms above you - not in an intimidating way, but in desperation as he begs his former betrothed to listen to the bit of truth he’s only recently discovered.

“That night when we were to be married…I discovered that our bond came from a curse that she placed.” His eyes go distant as he thinks about his shared past, but there’s no bitterness or any romantic affection in it. He only sounds tired as he recalls it. “The bit of energy that you saw…it was a result of the curse. It took a while to dissipate, but I was anxious knowing I was missing our ceremony. But by the time it had been fixed, I went to look for you and…”

You were gone.

The words hang heavy in the air, but he shakes it off as he continues to tell you the truth you didn’t realize you were craving. “It took half of a year to get rid of the curse and work things through. I was so angry the entire time, knowing that you were gone and I was the probable cause of that. The entire time, I could only think about you and how you just…vanished. It nearly killed me not knowing where you were, ____. I couldn’t bear to look at her or even touch her, because every bit of it felt like a betrayal to the promises I made to you.”

His confession steals your breath away.

You thought you would be upset at his admission, but you only feel sheer relief and maybe a little bit of warmth at his honesty. Maybe it’s because it’s the first real vulnerable moment the two of you had since you’ve come back to the N109 Zone. You’re not cleaner Yue, and he’s not the feared leader of Onychinus.

The two of you are just ____ and Sylus Qin - two fiancés who used to share the world but now don’t know how to find their way back to each other.

Something still festers in your soul, though, and you look up at him just enough so you can see the torture on his face that matches the agony that burns in your soul. “Two years, Sylus. Why didn’t you look for me?”

“I did, ____.”

He steps forward again, and he reaches out to link his pinky finger against your own before letting his hand fall away. “I looked for you every day that I could. And in those days I couldn’t, I sent Mephisto and Luke and Kieran out. ____, I…”

“How can I trust that?” You know he’s trying, but you’re scared. You’re scared he’s lying, and you’re even more terrified he’s telling the truth. “How do I know you’re not just trying to weave me a beautiful story?”

The tension is thick, almost suffocating as you let your words hang in the air. You’ve given him an opening, a chance to explain himself in the face of your impenetrable cynicism.

A minute passes, and then another.

His answer comes with no words. No, Sylus answers with a simple action that has your breath catching in your throat.

His hands reach into his pocket, and he pulls out a simple chain for you to see. You know what it is already, but it still makes your heart beat faster when you let the pendant rest against your fingers.

“I never stopped.” He whispers as you slowly turn the ruby pendant over in your fingers. “Looking, caring, aching for you, I mean. Time and distance mean nothing to a man who lost the one person he cares for the most.”

The one person he cares for the most?

The realization of his confession hits you at the same time it hits him, and you’re suddenly acutely aware of him. How his breath is shallow and washes over your face slightly, how his chest trembles as he looks at you with something that looks dangerously close like hope, and how his hands flex at his sides like he wants to pull you close but knows it’s your decision.

At this moment, you have all of the power in your hands.

Your hands reach up, but you feel yourself freeze slightly when you see Sylus close his eyes and relax his shoulders. His head tilts back ever so slightly, and you realize with a start that he’s surrendering to you - trusting you with his most vulnerable spot. He’s given you access to his throat and, if you look down, you can see the center of his chest.

Your throat closes in on yourself and you swallow back tears as you gently place your hand on his cheek. His breath comes out in a shudder at the first contact, and he practically melts into your hand as you allow yourself to run your thumb along the skin underneath his eye. His hand reaches up and holds you steady, pressing your palm harder into his skin as if he’s trying to leech the warmth from your hand and soak it directly into his soul.

“I have to think about this.” You murmur softly. “This is…a lot, Sylus.”

It’s not a direct answer - it's all you can give him at this exact moment with how jumbled your thoughts have become. Sylus’s eyes fly open, though, and he looks at you like you’ve given him the world straight into the palm of his hands.

“I’ll wait for however long it takes, ____.” It’s a promise, one he seals with a brush of his lips against your palm before letting you pull yourself away from him. “As long as you need.”

You don’t trust words right now, only allowing him a small nod as you blink back your tears. You nod in thanks when he gathers your knives with his Evol, depositing them and your half mask into your shaking hands before you turn your head down and walk away from where he stands. You don’t spare him a second glance because you know if you do, Yue will be completely gone and it’ll just be ____.

____, who wants him and only him.

You’re in the middle of staring out of your window when you hear a sharp cry from Mephisto.

You simply turn your head to the other side, too busy ruminating in your thoughts to be disturbed by a robotic crow. Everything that’s been told has thrown you for a loop, and you don’t know how to digest everything you’ve learned. You’ve taken to ignoring the world outside of your hotel room, no longer giving a damn about what EVER may think.

No, you don’t care. Not when you’ve been torn clean apart.

Mephisto’s crying outside of your window, and you grow annoyed at his pitiful cries as he continues to tap on the glass with his talons. You wrench open the window and glare at the bird, but the words die on your tongue when Mephisto starts chirping out a code only you recognize.

Oh, fuck.

“Shit, shit shit,” you chant to yourself as you pull on your boots, only grabbing two knives as you sprint out of your hotel room. You don’t even grab your half mask, instead bursting out of the hotel and running after Mephisto’s form in the sky to take you to your location.

At some point in what feels like an endless run, you see Mephisto’s form hover over an alleyway before flying high up in the sky and disappearing from your line of sight. Something in your stomach clenches at the sight, but you know you’ve found your target as you turn into an abandoned alleyway a few streets down from your hotel.

You’re thankful you only have to run for a few minutes, and you don’t bother to disguise your heavy breaths and uneven footsteps as you quickly scan your surroundings. There’s only trash, anyway. Trash and broken glass and-

“-help me.”

The voice is hoarse, on the verge of death as your head whips down to where your feet are. You see a thin river of blood staining your boots, and you follow the trail to an unrecognizable lump on the floor.

“Help-” it gasps again, and you swallow the bile that rises thickly in your throat as you steel yourself and grab the thing’s shoulders, turning it so you can face you.

Daniel Kim’s face is no longer filled with sleazy charm, instead broken and bruised beyond recognition. He’s five seconds away from death, and your heart begins to hammer violently in your chest when you realize just exactly the situation you’re in.

This is not good, ____.

You wind your fingers against his torn collar, pulling his face close to yours as you begin to pry for information. “Stay awake. I need you to tell me everything you know and every detail you saw.”

“H-hurts-” he whimpers, but you don’t have the patience in you to coddle an already dying man. You shake his body, and he chokes on his blood as he continues to wheeze.

“Focus.” You’re harsh, you know, but this is pure desperation driving your actions because you need to know exactly who did this to your target. Daniel Kim was only ever known by one entity, and this is no accident. You need to confirm it, because right now you know you’re still living in denial at the truth staring at you plainly in the face.

“Who did this?” Your fists tighten on his collar as your tone turns frantic, fingers shaking against his collar as you continue to shake his body awake. You know it’s far too late, though - Daniel only coughs blood directly onto your face as he begins to slip. “Please, I need to know-”

“-gray clothes-” he wheezes out. “Masks. C-couldn’t see their face-”

Your heart stops at his details. He’s still coughing in your hold, but all you can feel is a flare of panic that spreads throughout your body as you realize what he’s just said.

Your body moves on autopilot, neatly disposing of Daniel before tossing his body aside into a pile of trash. Your hands are shaking as you pull out your communication device, marking the cleaning as a success before hastily shoving it back in your pocket because what does this mean, ____?

Gray clothes, masks…all markings of Doomsday trainees. But there’s no way, right? They’re trained to kill the second they have their sights on a target, not beat them into an unrecognizable pulp. Doomsday cleaners are never sloppy.

So why now?

Why can’t you stop shaking, ____?

A buzzing noise distracts you from your rapid thoughts, and you pull out your communication device before you’re even registering what you’re doing. You feel yourself seize, though, when you see his name on the screen.

Congratulations on completing your assignment, Cleaner Yue of Doomsday.

What happened to Lihua being your supervisor? Why is the head of EVER overseeing this mission now?

Isn’t your mission done?

Your breath escapes you in uneven beats as you wait for the catch. Do they know that you know? What’s going to happen to you-

You’ve been assigned, Cleaner Yue. You have three days.

I suggest you complete your task. You’re on the brink, after all.

Your heart freezes at the new notification on your communication device, and you feel the breath you fought so hard to keep even begin its erratic rhythm once more as you see the new file pop up on your screen. You press a finger to the file, praying and hoping-

NAME: SYLUS QIN

OCCUPATION: LEADER OF ONYCHINUS

CLEANER: YUE

INSTRUCTIONS: KILL ON SIGHT. RETURN TO HEADQUARTERS ONCE COMPLETE.

For the first time in two years, you let yourself cry.

Not because of the pressure or how much of your humanity has been stripped from you - but because you realize what’s just happened. What’s about to happen.

You have to kill the man you never stopped caring for deep in what remains of your soul - the man who you only now started to make amends with, the man who you now know never stopped looking or aching or caring for you.

You have to kill him, or risk everything you’ve become crumbling away into nothingness.

You successfully avoid everything that lurks outside of your hotel room for two days before the silence is broken by a tapping on the window.

You let yourself up, scrubbing your face of dried tear tracks as you settle yourself on the ledge and open the window, peering out and expecting a little crow hopping around on the windowsill. Instead, you see ruffled silver hair holding small objects he throws against your window to get your attention.

Against your better judgement, you feel yourself soften as you tilt your head curiously at him. “What do you want?”

His eyes widen at the sight of your melancholy, but he quickly composes himself as he does an exaggerated bow that makes the corners of your lips tilt up. “I’m here to help a princess escape from bad guys.”

“I’m no princess.” It’s immediate from your mouth, but you feel yourself loosening at how relaxed he looks as you lean against the wall. “And what makes you think I need saving?”

“Who said anything about saving you, ____?” His eyes twinkle and he smiles. “I never claimed to be a prince, either. Now come on, Mephisto’s been begging for your attention.”

You roll your eyes, but for the first time in years, you feel different.

Lighter, somehow. Like everything will be okay if you just stayed by his side.

You hesitate, though. From what you can gauge right now, Sylus doesn’t know that he’s your new target. He’s still looking at you with that quiet faith - like a man who’s simply asking the woman he cares for out on a date tonight.

He notices your hesitation, and his smile falters slightly. “Should I leave, ____?”

You know at that moment, he would do it if you asked. He would turn around and never look back, sparing you the action of breaking his heart. He would walk away to give you peace, to allow you to return back to Doomsday without anything holding you back.

“No.”

His eyes flash at the word, and his lips tilt back up quickly. “Come on then, Miss Assassin.”

The smile you give him is real before you’re moving quickly, making sure your communication device and anything related to Doomsday is off of your body before you run down to where he is.

Once you meet him at his car, he looks at you with a look that makes you want to cry. It’s reminiscent of the looks he would give you on your date nights, the ones where you would dress up and he would take you out on fancy dates you used to dream of. He looks at you like you’re the air he breathes, like you’re the reason he keeps on fighting and pushing forward.

You break the silence first, not trusting yourself in the heavy silence because you may actually spill everything you know if you’re not careful. “What is it? Do I have something on my face?”

“No, no…” He replies almost instantaneously. His hand reaches up and he tucks a stray strand of hair behind your hair, careful not to touch the delicate skin of your cheek before opening the passenger side seat and gesturing for you to enter. “After you, my lady.”

“Gladly, sir.” You slip into the seat and he shuts the door behind you, and you feel yourself tense slightly. Something’s missing, and you don’t know exactly what it is.

The answer makes itself known when Sylus slides into the driver’s seat and starts the car, gripping the steering wheel with both hands as he begins to drive towards the Onychinus Base. Your eyes slide from the devastating slope of his nose to the furrow of his brow as he focuses on the task at hand before settling on his lithe fingers, tapping erratically to the soft music that plays in the car’s stereo.

That’s what’s missing.

Him, holding your hand.

“You’re staring, ____.” His tone is sing-song, though rippling with something that makes your stomach turn deliciously as he continues to focus on the road ahead of him. “What are you thinking of?”

“Nothing in particular.” You let him stew in the amiable silence before you throw in a soft, “Trying to figure out the best way to catch you off guard, is all.”

He laughs at your statement, the sound rich and genuine. “____, all you have to do is smile at me and I would be off my rhythm for the rest of the night. You being around me is the only way I would ever be caught off guard.”

“Is that so?” You fight the smile that threatens to spread across your face, but your lips still quirk up at his sheer honesty. “Careful, Sylus, or I may use that against you the next time.”

“I would let you.”

You’re struck by his sheer honesty, eyes wide as you look at him in bewilderment. “Even after everything?”

“Especially after everything, ____.” He turns onto a familiar road, Onychinus’s base looming in the distance. You know that you only have a few more moments before you have to get out of the car, so you take the chance to examine him and his body language fully so you can look for a lie-

-but there’s nothing, only honesty.

Sylus catches you staring, and his lips slightly quirk up at your disbelief. “Do you not believe me?”

He pulls into the garage just as you respond. “I just…after all of these years? After everything I’ve become?”

“Especially after that.” He’s quick to kill the engine, sliding out of the driver’s seat and opening your door before you can even blink. You take his waiting hand and pull yourself out of the car, but instead of letting you pull away, he laces his fingers tightly against your own and guides you through what used to be your shared home.

The layout is still the same - a long hallway leading to a multitude of rooms. Display cases line the walls, and you feel yourself pause when you see something familiar glinting in the light.

“Sylus?”

“Mm?” It’s a soft hum as he continues trying to lead you to where the kitchen is, but you instead pull him towards where your half-mask lays.

“Why is this here?” You’re not really mad, you’re just surprised that it’s here. You would have thought he would have left it on the street to be crushed into a million pieces, but as you approach the display case, you feel your breath catching your throat.

Your half-mask is displayed with your ruby pendant, along with a plaque. You let go of his hand just enough to peer what it says:

MY GREATEST FAILURE.

“Sylus?” Your voice doesn’t waver, but you’re still shaken to your core as you look at him in bewilderment. His gaze is directed to the floor, and for the first time, you see shame color his expression - and you absolutely hate it.

“I thought about what you said.” His confession is soft, and he moves to stand next to you. “Of how I’m the reason you’re like this. It’s because of me you’ve suffered and became something you shouldn’t have ever become, ____.”

His hands hang limply by his sides, and his eyes grow distant as he stares at your half mask. “I’m sorry, ____.”

You feel yourself freeze slightly at his apology, and you take the chance to look at him. His mouth is pressed thin, mind caught up in the different scenarios. Of where the two of you would be if he had reached you in time. Of what would have happened if he had just explained himself.

Your heart aches in your chest, because while he did hurt you, you chose to leave. You went straight to EVER because you thought it was your only option, and you chose to do this. The two of you are staring at the result of just missing each other, and it hurts because if things had lined up perfectly the outcome would have been completely different.

The two of you wouldn’t be in this situation now - you, caught between him having to kill him or risk your own livelihood. Sylus, having to contend with his shadows while also trying to reach through you.

Before you’re thinking, you’re opening the case and pulling out the pendant. Once it’s securely in your hands, you close the case and grab his hand, leading him to the kitchen based on your memory alone.

“____?” Sylus’s voice is shocked, but you simply squeeze his hands as you continue to guide him through his own house.

“This happened because of the decisions the two of us made.” The beginning of your speech is soft as you finally make it to his kitchen, and you lean against the marble countertop. He stands in front of you, and the two of you look at the ruby glimmering in between your fingers as you try to think of the words you locked away deeply. “We…we both made mistakes, Sylus. We hurt each other.”

“I regret it every day, ____.” Sylus’s voice is raw, and his hands land at the countertop behind you so that you’re caged in his arms. You’re not intimidated in the slightest, though - you simply tilt your head up and look at him. “____, you never left my mind. I tried to find you, and I knew that when I found you, I would make it up to you.” His fingers curl tightly on the edge of the counter, and your eyes slip shut when he presses his forehead against yours. “It’s only ever been you, ____.”

“I know that now, Sylus.” Your chest is aching, but you feel sheer relief at his words. His nose slides slightly against your own, and you relish in the comforting feeling as you try to find your next words - words that you think have always sat heavy in your soul. Words you want to be out there before everything falls apart. “I…I never stopped caring and aching for you, too.”

You feel his breath wash across your face when he registers your words. His fingers slowly undo the necklace from your hold, placing it gently onto the counter before he wraps his arms around your waist and pulls you in for a tight hug.

Your arms twine around his neck, and the two of you hold each other like that for what feels like an eternity. It’s exactly what the two of you need, though - just to hold each other like this again after so long and after so much hurt has you trembling in his arms.

“____, my darling, my world…” The words reverberate through your head, and your arms tighten around his neck as you attempt to pull him even closer to you. “I…I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you if you’ll let me.”

The rest of his life.

You don’t have the rest of his life. Or yours, for the matter.

You don’t know how much longer you have.

“I’m leaving tomorrow.”

It’s a quick slip of your tongue, but it’s enough to douse the two of you in freezing clarity as you realize the reality that lies outside of his house. Of how you’ll be their target the moment you step outside because you refuse to do their task. Sylus’s hands loosen at your sides, and his gaze darkens slightly as he registers your words. 

“You are?”

“Yes.” It spills out of your mouth, and you begin to speak even faster because the alternative is to crumble in his hold and sob your eyes out and you would rather not do that. “Mission accomplished, you know? EVER needs me back, and-”

“____, shh…”

His tone is soft, not like the anger you expected. He moves one of his hands from your waist to the back of your head, and he cradles you to his chest as you begin to tremble in his arms. Your eyes sting, but nothing comes out - even when your fingers tighten on his shirt. His breath is slow and deliberate, and you feel yourself begin to breathe in time with him.

“Were you reassigned? Or do you just need to leave since the mission’s over?”

You want to be honest. You want to tell him that they’re making him your target as punishment for forgetting their first lesson, that you’ve been discovered and that they’ve put you in an impossible situation. There are so many things you still want to say but the only thing that comes out is a raspy gasp of, “I’m so sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” Sylus is cupping your face in between his steady hands, making you look at him as you continue to fight to even your breath. “____, don’t you dare be sorry. I got exactly what I wanted, which was to see you again.”

“But our time.” It’s a painful gasp, and this time you can really feel tears gathering at your lashes as you blink up at him. “I don’t know if they’ll ever send me back here. I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again-”

“But you will.” Sylus’s hands tighten ever so slightly, pulling you as close as humanly possible as he holds his gaze steady on yours. “Now that I’ve found you, I don’t ever intend on letting you go, ____. No matter the cost or what it takes, I will find you over and over again.”

There it is, that sheer devotion to you just for you. His eyes are clear, nothing hiding his true feelings and you find yourself swimming in his gaze. Sadness at you leaving, anger at EVER for existing, steadfast dedication to you, and heady desire at having you in his arms again.

His gaze slowly travels across your face, sweeping across the tears that you rapidly blink back to the way your teeth bite at the soft skin of your lips. His gaze lingers there and you hold your breath to see what he’ll do, but he instead pulls himself slightly back and looks back into your eyes - searching for your answer.

He’s waiting for you to give him permission.

And for the first time in two years, you don’t have to think about what you want.

“Sylus-” You gasp, and he takes his whispered name against his lips as an invitation to press his mouth against yours.

The first kiss after two years isn’t gentle, not by a long shot. It’s full of heat and want and rushing emotions that have been repressed for too long. His hands leave fire in their wake - from grabbing at your face and angling your lips juuust right against his to pressing into your sides so that he can push the entire length of his body as close as he can to you. It slowly heats you from the outside in until your chest is heaving and you feel like you’re burning alive.

You pull away first, the need for air searing your lungs and making your head spin. He still chases after your mouth, though, leaving small pecks along the sensitive skin of your lips as you gasp heavily.

“I’ve waited so long for the chance to kiss you again.” It’s a heavy whisper, his voice having dropped a few octaves as he runs his nose along the length of your chin. His mouth wanders down to your neck and leaves kisses that have you sighing at the feeling, your fingernails digging into his shoulder when he finds your sensitive spot with ease.

“I don’t know if we should do this.” It’s a garbled confession, cut off with a moan when he bites down on the sensitive skin of your collarbone. Your hips unknowingly grind against the growing bulge in his pants, and you feel him moan against your neck before pulling his face away from your body.

“Tell me to stop.” Sylus’s voice is raw, eyes wide as he looks at you like a man deprived. “Tell me to stop and I will. I’ll let you walk away for good and never speak to you again-”

You cut him off by pressing your hands to his face and kissing him again, deeper and more intense this time. Sylus groans in your mouth, licking against your lips and begging for entrance inside. Your mouth falls open and he exhales sharper, letting his tongue tangle against yours.

It’s messy, almost animalistic as the two of you continue to grab and cling at any inch of the other’s body. Sylus’s hands make their way to your ass, and he massages the supple flesh - guiding your rhythm and making you grind against his clothed cock. You roll your hips hard in response, and the groan that leaves his mouth makes your head spin. His hands quickly move to the back of your thighs and you take it as your sign to jump up, letting him wrap your legs around his waist so he can carry you while the two of you continue to kiss.

It’s a blind scramble to get to his bedroom, but the both of you have the path engrained into your mind. He kicks the door open and makes a beeline for his massive bed, gently laying you down on the plush mattress as he takes the opportunity to kick off his shoes. You prop yourself up on your elbows, taking the chance to appreciate the sheer desperation on Sylus’s face as he begins to fight with the buttons of his shirt so he can get to you faster.

“Come here.”

It’s a quiet whisper, but he takes it as the most pressing command as he settles himself onto the bed, pressing his back against the headboard. You turn, settling yourself on his lap and ghosting your fingers along the buttons that still hold his shirt together.

“You’re going to tear them off if you’re not careful.” You can’t help but tease him as you slowly undo the first button, revealing some of his skin to your greedy eyes. Sylus groans at your slow pace, head falling back to the headboard as he looks at you with hooded eyes.

“Do you blame me?” His hands rest on your hips, and he absentmindedly moves your hips back and forth as you continue to slowly undo his buttons. “I’ve waited to have you again for so long, my darling. Forgive me if my patience is too thin.”

“Mmm…” Your breath catches in your throat when you feel his clothed cock rut against your wet heat, and your fingers slip on the last button as he pulls your hips flush against his thick length. Your head falls back slightly and you fist the loose material of his shirt, feeling muted pressure begin to build in your head as he exhales at the sight of you on his lap.

“What has you so pent up, sweetheart?” There’s a quick rustle as he quickly pulls his button down off of his body before his fingers slide idly under your own shirt, dragging the thin fabric up your body slowly. “Could it be that you thought about this, too?”

“Don’t flatter yoursel- ngh-” It’s meant to be scathing, but your voice cracks when his thumbs lightly run across the skin of your torso, hands slowly inching up to your chest. Your hands settle on his stomach, hips continuing to slowly rut against his as he presses his palms flat against your chest.

“So beautiful,” he murmurs softly, hands massaging your sensitive breasts as you gasp. “Still fills my hands perfectly, too…”

He pinches your nipples through the lace of your bra, making you whine and hold his hands against your chest. “Sylus-”

“I have you, ____.” He’s quick to lean back up, pulling your shirt over your head before pressing his mouth against yours once again. His fingers make work of the clasp of your bra, flicking it open and toying with the loose strap before letting it fall down your shoulders. Sylus pulls away ever so slightly, pressing his forehead against your own while looking down so he can see your bare breasts swaying with your every heavy breath.

“I dreamt of this.” His confession is warm on your lips, and he pulls your bra from your body and tosses it off of the bed before gripping tightly at your hips and flipping you over so that you’re on your back and he hovers above you. “Having you in my arms again. Of kissing you and bringing you pleasure the way that you like it.”

Sylus leans down and brushes a soft kiss against your forehead, and the sweet gesture is nearly enough to reduce you to tears as he continues to press kisses into every inch of skin his mouth meets. His lips travel from your forehead to your eyes, the tip of your nose to your cheeks, to the corner of your mouth before finally pressing against your neck once more. He inhales deeply then, as if he’s memorizing your scent before he moves on and continues to kiss his way down your body.

Nothing goes untouched from Sylus’s mouth and teeth. He treats your skin as if it’s the night sky, and every scar and mole he finds as the stars that add to your beauty. He pays special attention to your breasts, pulling one of your nipples into his mouth and sucking slowly while pinching the other until you’re whining and soaking your panties, fingers pulling lightly on his hair.

“D-don’t tease me you idiot-”

“What makes you think I’m teasing?” There’s laughter in his voice, though he follows your wishes and presses wetter kisses down your stomach. “Maybe I’m just taking my time and worshipping the one woman I only ever want in my life.”

You freeze when he mentions taking his time, mind slightly sobering at the throwaway sentiment because you’re almost out of time with him. When the clocks read 12:00 am, EVER will begin their countdown, and you know that when you do, you’ll never be able to see him again.

Sylus stills in between your legs, and his hands gently squeeze your thighs to ground you. “____? Are you okay, darling?”

“Y-yeah.” You both know that you’re not convincing in the slightest, and his eyes flash with concern as he begins to pull away from your body to check on you. Your thighs try to tighten around his neck, but he gently pries them apart so that he can peer at you.

“Do you want to stop?” His gaze is gentle, holding no expectations as he waits for you to decide what you need. His thumbs rub soft circles into the skin of your thigh, grounding you and slowly bringing your thoughts away from the things that plague you and back to him.

Your legs tighten around him, and you bring him closer to your weeping core. Sylus’s eyes flash dangerously, and he holds himself back juuust enough to technically be away from your pussy, but close enough that his lips just barely brush against the fabric of your underwear.

“I need your words, my darling.” His fingers reach up, sliding and rubbing the fabric of your panties as your hips buck up to meet his lips. He’s quick, though, pressing his hand flat against your stomach and pinning you to the bed with ease.

“Tell me what you need, ____.” Sylus pulls the elastic taught, snapping the waistband to your skin and making you gasp. “I need to hear it from you, sweetheart.”

“Please-” You whimper. Your head spins from desperation, and your hips continue to try to buck against his mouth even when he’s pinning you flat onto his bed. “I need you-”

You barely hear the whispered expletive spill from his lips before he pulls your panties to the side and presses his tongue flat against your pussy.

“Sylus!” Your back arches as you cry out his name, his tongue immediately working you in the way he knows you like. He circles your weeping hole with the tip of his tongue before spelling his name with broad strokes, faithfully avoiding your clit. As he makes his tongue work, he moves his hand from your stomach and grips your thighs with his hands, placing them on his shoulders so that you’re spread open for him like the feast he’s craved for the past two years.

He moans when you gush at his movements, and his lips are quick to move up to your clit. He moves one of his hands down, too, his ring and middle fingers barely pressing into your entrance as he looks up at you with drunken eyes.

“I need you,” you implore with a dry rasp. Your body is hot with desire, head spinning from how good he’s making you feel with just his mouth. “I need more of you, please Sylus-”

You feel his groan rather than hear it, the little vibrations traveling throughout your body as he slowly sinks his fingers into your weeping cunt. His teeth graze your clit lightly, and a little scream leaves your body when he finally sinks his fingers deep inside in time to him pulling your clit into his mouth and giving a little suck.

It’s heaven and hell, the pleasure he leaves all of your body. You didn’t realize how much you ached for his touch until you had it again, but now that you have it, it suddenly feels like too much all at once. He knows all of the spots that make you tick - crooking his fingers at just the right angle so he catches that spongy spot inside of you that makes you gush in his hand while suckling on your clit so he can continue to build your end for you. Your fingers pull tightly on his hair, and you hear the expletive that slips off his tongue before he doubles his efforts so he can help you meet your end.

“‘m s-so close-” you mewl, hips bucking against his face. “N-need you, Sylus- ah-”

He doesn’t stop or slow down, not when he’s been desperate and dreaming to see you like this after so long. He simply hums in knowing, pressing his fingers into your sensitive spot and flicking his tongue against your clit - triggering your end.

You cry out, back arching almost painfully as you cum. Stars dance behind your eyelids while your pleasure travels across your body in heavy waves, leaving you panting and boneless as your hands travel back and forth from his forehead to his hair. You’re not sure whether to pull him away or push you closer, but he decides for you as he continues to press against your g-spot and play with your clit.

“Give me another, darling.” His voice is gruff, heavy with need as he looks up at you with drunken eyes. “Need to feel your pretty pussy clenching around my fingers one more time before I give you my cock-”

“Sylus-” you slur, nearly going cross-eyed at the overwhelming feeling. “T-too much-”

“You can do it,” he replies softly, pressing a kiss to your thigh as he continues to fuck his fingers in and out of your pussy sloppily. “I know you can, sweetheart.”

Your second orgasm rolls over you with his encouragement, yet no sounds leave your open mouth. Your thighs clench around his face, and something in you unravels further because you feel yourself suddenly gush all over his face.

“Fuck,” he whispers, feeling his boxers tighten even more at the sight of you boneless and breathtakingly beautiful in his bed. “Absolutely perfect.”

You blearily watch as Sylus slowly pulls away from your soaked core, making his way back up so he can hover above your face. His chin is streaked with your slick, gaze slightly dazed as he looks at you with concern. His fingers reach up, brushing along your cheek before reaching up to your forehead and pushing the sweaty strands of hair that cling to your temples off of your face.

“Do we need to stop?” It’s a rasp on his end, and your eyes quickly flash down to the bulge that stands heavy in between his legs. His fingers lightly grip your chin, though, and he brings your eyes up to his so that all you see is his face. “Don’t focus on me, darling. Think of what you need.”

What do you need?

Your brain tries to think of some sort of twisted joke, but the only thing you can focus on is Sylus. Not just his physicality, but of his gentle care and steady devotion. His hands holding your face as he kisses you. The laughter in his voice when you say something that matches his wit.

You think you’ve ached for him for a long time now.

Your legs quickly wrap around his waist, pulling his lower half flush against your own as you lean up to kiss him. Your tongue flicks out to lick the evidence of you off of his chin and he groans at your movements, the hand that was on your chin moving to blindly tangle in between your fingers and giving you a tight squeeze.

“Please,” you whisper against his mouth, and he sighs in response.

“Okay, ____.” Your name is a reverent prayer on his tongue, and both of you make quick work of his underwear. He kicks off the offending piece of fabric before he presses himself flush against your wet heat, his cock sliding in between your pussy. Your legs tighten around his waist at the feeling, whines spilling from your mouth when he ruts his hips just right so that the head of his cock catches your clit with ease. “Fu- sweetheart-” He moans, and the hand not holding your own untangles your legs from his hips before he leans back and flips you over so that your front is pressed against the mattress and your back is arched, presenting your ass to him in the most enticing way. Your face is buried in his pillows, and you bite down on the fluffy material when you feel his hand ghost along your spine.

“My ____.” Sylus’s chest presses against your back, your arch falling flat as you’re pressed deeper into the mattress with his weight. The tip of his cock catches your weeping hole, and the two of you gasp when it nearly slips in. “My beautiful ____…”

He presses in deeper, and you feel yourself clench when the tip of his cock lodges neatly into you. The going is slow, him fucking every inch into you slowly while whispering sweetly in your ear. You’re begging in response, mind slowly going stupid with the way he stretches you out on just a few inches of his dick until you’re practically blabbering nonsense when he’s fully seated inside you, his entire body pinning you to the mattress and his cock throbbing deep inside of you.

“You still take me so well after two years apart…” The thought tapers off, tinged slightly with bitterness at the thought that this could have been your every day if things had gone right. The thought flies out of your brain, though, when his body moves slightly to kiss your shoulders, making his cock jostle slightly in your wet cunt. The two of you hiss at the sensation, and you can’t help but tighten around him.

“D-don’t do that-” he grunts, his hands gripping tightly at your hips. “I want to go s-slow for you-”

“Please.” It’s a quiet moan, your hips fucking back against his own in a bid to get him to move. “Please, Sylus-”

“Fu- I have you, ____-” Sylus begins to move his hips at your request, slowly pulling out until the tip of his cock remains in you before pushing himself back in with one fell swoop. He hits deeply then, and your cries come out garbled from your throat as his pace slowly picks up.

“Did you miss this as much as I missed you, ____?” His lips linger by your ear, and he presses a kiss to your temple as he continues his ruthless pace. “Did you dream about this while you were away?”

“Yes!” It’s almost a shriek from your mouth, the head of his cock hitting a place that makes you gush. You feel yourself begin to tear up, mostly from the pleasure but also from the part of you that never got the chance to mourn what happened and…oh God, ____, you’re still so in love with Sylus and this might be the last time you’ll ever see him.

The thought makes the tears you’ve tried to suppress the entire time you’ve been in the N109 Zone finally spill out, and you press your face into his pillows, pretending that the sobs that escape your mouth are from the intense pleasure he’s leaving all over your body and not the crushing devastation that sits heavy in your heart. Your mind is floating, caught in between trying to enjoy the moment and also racing through scenarios of what tomorrow might bring-

“-are you with me, ____?”

You slowly register that Sylus pulled out and flipped you over so that you’re on your back, and he’s looking down at you with concern and a little bit of fear. He presses the back of his hand onto your forehead, and his gaze is gentle as he slowly guides you back down to your body.

“Are you okay, my darling? Or do we need to stop?” Sylus’s hands land on your hips, rubbing soothing circles into the skin as he waits for you at your own pace. You know he means well, but it only brings back the thoughts that have been plaguing you.

You take a deep breath to calm your nerves, and you decide to leave yourself vulnerable for him to see. “I want to continue but…I’m scared about tomorrow. Of what’s going to happen. If I’ll ever see you again.”

His eyes soften, and he wraps your legs around his waist once more as he begins to leave kisses all over your face. “Of course we’ll see each other again, sweetheart…EVER will never be able to keep me from you.”

The atmosphere turns from heady to steadfast, the two of you clinging tight to each other as you let his breaths calm you down. He kisses your tears away, letting the both of you relish in the closeness. After the tears have mostly dried, his mouth begins to leave soft tracks across your face; from your chin to the tip of your nose, before letting his lips linger against your forehead in your favorite kiss of his. 

“Sylus-” you try to begin.

“Shh, ____,” he murmurs back. He tilts his head back so that he can peer fully down at your face, glowing from pleasure and stained with sadness. “Let me take care of the both of us, my darling.”

His fingers tighten in between yours as he leans back down again to capture your mouth with his. The kiss this time is gentler, full of longing and a warmth that was never fully extinguished. No, this kiss is soft and speaks the language of two fiancés whose devotion for each other never really went away. His cock slides back into you, smooth yet gentle as he gives you exactly what you want.

It’s much softer, much closer to love-making rather than the desperation that first consumed the two of you like a raging fire. His fingers tighten against yours as his hips continue to move, mouth never really leaving your own as he lets his forehead rest against your own. It’s the most comfort you’ve ever felt in your life, and the tears that slide down your cheek aren’t sad at all - they’re content, overwhelmingly full of care for him.

You feel yourself growing needier though, the two of you rapidly approaching your ends. Your fingers tighten around his, and his name leaves your mouth as a whine as you look into his eyes imploringly. “‘m gonna cum-”

“It’s okay, ____.” He kisses you gently, hips maintaining their pace as you begin to unravel. “Cum for me-”

The roar of your ears is loud as you meet your end, but it’s not as earth-shattering as the first two. This one washes over you like gentle waves on the beach, and the feeling of him kissing you deeply as he finishes inside of you has you gasping his name loudly against his mouth. He simply swallows your moans, coaxing more kisses from you until your head spins from the overwhelming care of it all.

It’s the warmest and most content you’ve ever felt in your entire life.

He settles into your side after gently pulling out, pulling you into his embrace and having your head rest on his chest. He kisses your forehead once more and you feel yourself growing sleepy, but you have to fight it because you have to prepare-

“Let me hold you, ____, my sweetheart.” It’s a soft slur from him, a hint to you that he’s slowly nodding off as he nuzzles his forehead into your hair. He whispers something in a language you can’t quite understand then, but it still makes your heart clench painfully as you allow him this last moment of peace before you disappear forever.

You float somewhere in between sleep and awake, not letting yourself fully succumb to dreams because your mind races with the need to act. You wait until you know he’s fully asleep by the way his chest rumbles slightly under your head before undoing yourself from his embrace, pushing yourself up on the bed.

You gather the blankets up to your chest, turning your head so that you can look at Sylus sleeping next to you. In this light, he looks younger - not stained by his past and everything that’s happened to him. It makes your heart clench painfully, thinking about him in this light and in a universe where the two of you just lived…peacefully.

A universe that doesn’t exist now.

Your vision grows watery, but you allow yourself to lean over and brush your hand across his forehead, slowly brushing his hair off of his face before running your hand down to rest on his warm cheek. He stirs softly, mumbling something under his breath before pushing his mouth into your palm and leaving a kiss on the center of your hand. You retract your hand instantly, almost as if you’ve been burned by fire because it feels like you have been burned.

This is the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do, but you need to do it.

You slip from the covers, wincing when you feel the ache in your body from your long night with him. You hobble to his bathroom, taking the time to relax your muscles and clean yourself before going back to the bedroom, picking up your clothes and getting dressed as quietly as you can. All the while, you keep an ear out for his sounds, but Sylus is still dead asleep as you finish getting dressed and approach the door to his bedroom.

You stop at his doorframe, contemplating turning around and giving yourself one last chance to look at what could have been your happily ever after if things had gone differently. Your fingers tighten on the wood, about to turn but you stop, pushing yourself off of the door and forcing yourself to keep moving. If you look back, you’ll never leave and you’ll damn the both of you to a life of torment - and you would never subject your Sylus to that.

There is something that does stop you, though, and it sits on his kitchen island when you’re about to leave through his front door. Your ruby pendant lays on the gleaming marble, and its sparkle catches your eye. Against your better judgement, you approach the island and pick up the ruby, turning it in the light and remembering what this necklace represents. Of your devotion and commitment to each other, even more than rings ever could. Of how the two of you never stopped thinking and caring for the other.

How the two of you will always be tied to each other.

You don’t hesitate to do it. You slide the necklace around your neck, making sure it’s secure before going for the door and leaving. It’s as if an old friend is with you, keeping you company in the face of all of the pain you’re going to have to endure for the rest of your life.

It’s your one allowance of him and the life you could have lived.

You almost smile at the thought, twisting the pendant between your fingers as you continue to your hotel so you can complete your escape.

You’re a couple of feet away from the divide that marks the end of the N109 Zone and the beginning of your self-imposed exile when your communication device buzzes against your leg.

It makes you freeze, hand tightening on the straps of the one backpack you allowed yourself to take before you reach into your pocket hesitantly, pulling out the device that was supposed to be turned off and dead of battery. Why is it still buzzing? You purposefully drained the thing when you made up your mind so that no one could track you or contact you.

Yes, the battery is still dead. But your eyes widen when you see text begin to scroll across the screen, the script making your mouth dry as your eyes read the words.

I KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING, ____.

DO YOU REALLY THINK YOU’LL BE FREE?

You should be terrified of his all-knowing, but you only feel tired. You should have expected this - EVER never lets go of those who betray or abandon them. They hunt them until they’re brought back or killed. 

It’s only now do you realize how fucked you are, though. He used your name. Not Cleaner Yue, but ____.

DID YOU THINK ONE NIGHT WITH THE LEADER OF ONYCHINUS WOULD SAVE YOU?

YOU WILL NEVER BE FREE FROM DOOMSDAY.

IN FACT, HE WILL BE EXTERMINATED VERY SOON.

AND YOU WILL CONTINUE TO SERVE AS PUNISHMENT.

Your communication device slips from your hands at that.

Very soon?

You frantically kneel, grasping at the shattered device but there’s nothing else on the screen. The only thing that remains is the word EXTERMINATE flashing erratically, fractured yet still legible.

Something splatters onto the screen, and you reach up to find tears streaming down your cheeks and landing on the device. They sink into the cracks and only fuel your panic even more, because you know this means they’ll be acting soon.

Right now, if you have any approximations on how EVER operates.

You stand up shakily, tossing the device aside and placing your backpack down at your feet. You force yourself to suit up, strapping your knives and your gun holster to their appropriate places before tossing the backpack aside. You look at the border between the N109 Zone and the normal world and, for a split second, you indulge in the idea of just…walking away.

You’ve spent the entirety of the past two years doing the bidding of others, staining your hands for people far more evil than you. You could just…leave. Be on the run, sure, but not be tied down to anything or anyone. Always moving, always planning, but never needing to think or dwell on your mistakes or your past anymore.

Despite yourself, though, you think about the past few hours. Of Sylus holding you in his arms, kissing your tears away. His fingers bringing you pleasure and comfort. Of the devotion in his eyes whenever you met his gaze with your own.

One step towards the border, and then one more.

The way he looks underneath candlelight, mirth on his face as he annoys you over and over again. How he tilted his head back to expose you when he knew you could easily end his life, yet not hesitating in the slightest so you could build trust in him.

You stop, feet hovering right over the border.

Sylus on one knee, rare tears streaming down his face as he asked you to spend the rest of your lives together, whether this one or the next. The way his lips moved against yours when you said yes, sealing his commitment to you with passion and warmth and care and lo-

You stumble back, nearly falling onto your back as you propel yourself away from the border. You turn back around to the streets that may signal your end, but you don’t feel anything else as you push yourself back up and run to the motorcycle you left abandoned.

No, you’re not scared.

You only feel peace and steady resolve with your choice as you begin to navigate your way back to Sylus.

It takes you a few tries to find him.

You first looked at the restaurant he took you to, mostly because it’s the closest destination when you enter back into the N109 Zone. You weren’t surprised when you found it empty and closed, though.

You search through alleys, random side streets, even the hotel you stayed at - but there’s nothing, no indication of anything going wrong. Your brain wracks for any sort of idea of where he might be, when you remember the crumbling EVER laboratory at the city center.

That’s where they’ll be, you know it.

Your heart is racing as you speed over there, mind running through all of the possible scenarios that could happen. What if EVER is just luring you back here to take you back to base? What if this is a cruel joke by another larger, even more insidious entity?

What if Sylus is already dead?

No.

You refuse to entertain that thought. He won’t be dead, he’s not stupid enough to get himself killed. EVER doesn’t stand a chance against a man they’ve wronged over and over again.

Still, you rev your motorcycle so that you can get to the laboratory a little bit faster. The more time you waste means a higher chance of the scenario you don’t want to happen becoming a reality.

You immediately know something is wrong when you get to the laboratory. The air feels heavier, the scent of ozone and smoke thick as you get off of your motorcycle and run towards the first sounds you hear. You hear bullets ricochet off of metal and the sounds of struggle, and your heart beats a little bit faster as you sprint towards where you know he’ll be.

You find yourself in the middle of a crumbling grand entrance, lighting muted from the black and red Evol that flashes throughout the sky. A crow caws high above your head, and you use that body’s position to find approximate where you know he’ll be. You don’t even think, you simply plunge in and begin fighting your way towards the center.

You take stock of a few facts as you move through the carnage. There are gray clothes and black clothes, which means both Doomsday trainees and veterans are here right now. Masks are scattered throughout the floor, the bodies they’ve fallen from not far from them. You smile bitterly at the thought - these people used to be your…coworkers. Now, you’re enemies.

You don’t quite care, though.

You approach the center of the field, where the fighting is its heaviest and most brutal. You jump into the fray, firing a bullet into an assailant and making your way to the dead center. You push past his strong Evol-

-and find Sylus, face bored as he continues to wipe out enemies left and right. You can tell he’s gotten careless, though, and your eyes widen when you see someone running up behind him. You quickly take point, firing a bullet cleanly through the person’s head.

“I thought you left.” It’s not accusatory, but you can see the relief in his eyes as his hand brushes your own. You give him a reassuring nod, taking up point to cover his weak spots as the two of you begin the dance you perfected a long time ago.

“I had a reason to come back.” It’s a loud yell, ducking underneath his arm to throw a knife. His lips tilt up at your reasoning, but you can see him falter just a little bit as his energy begins to wane.

“Where’s Luke and Kieran?” You begin to fight back with more fervor, but you frown to yourself when you notice EVER’s assailants begin to attack Sylus rather than you. “Shouldn’t they be back up?”

“They’ll be here soon.” He leans his body to the side to dodge a dagger, and his Evol wipes the person away. “There are much more than I expected, though…”

It’s true. It’s almost like EVER sent the entirety of Doomsday just to deal with two people, and you wouldn’t put it past them to have done that just to teach the two of you a lesson.

While it should be unfair, you’re somehow an even match between the horde. He is ranked among the highest on their hit list, and you’re the best cleaner for a reason. It’s almost laughable at how easy it is, but the two of you don’t know how long he can maintain his energy to maintain his consistency and ensure the two of you stay alive.

You continue to fight, but you truly begin to notice just how much they avoid trying to hurt or target you - instead choosing to throw every bit of energy and weaponry onto Sylus. Even when you deliberately target someone, they shift their attention to the man you’re trying to defend, and you realize what this is immediately.

This was never meant for Sylus, it was meant for you.

They’re testing you to see if you’re still capable and worthy of being saved, but you know that there’s no more out for you anymore. Even if they do kill him, nothing stops them from dragging you back to headquarters. If you kill him, you damn yourself to a life of serving them - even if you manage to run. If you both somehow manage to survive, EVER will spend the rest of their lives pursuing the two of you.

There’s only one solution that you can see. One that you hope won’t have to happen, but somewhere deep down inside, you know it’s the only outcome to this entire situation.

You mentally throw yourself back into the fight, watching Sylus’s back and making sure he stays alive. For every time his back is exposed, you step behind it and fire a round into a person you see far away. The two of you move like the unit you’ve both trained for so long - fluid, dangerous, and natural extensions of each other.

You’re almost out of weapons to use, though, and you can tell Sylus is growing exhausted from constantly using his Evol by the way he begins to get sloppy with attacks. The assailants are thinning out, but you don’t know how much longer the both of you can hold out or last.

“How many more do you see?” You huff out, neatly throwing one of your last knives at one of the two people you see. Sylus whips his head around to look at the area around you quickly, before looking back at you with a quick smile.

“About five more,” he replies. He tries to give you a wink, but his face is ashen and strained with the effort he puts into maintaining and using his Evol. In fact, his Evol drops for just a split second, making two assailants jump at the opening. He’s able to quickly take one out, but the other manages to leave a scratch along his arm and he winces, stumbling uncharacteristically.

From the corner of your eye, you see the last assailant taking aim at the back of Sylus’s head with their gun. The first assailant that left a mark on Sylus lunges at you, seeing the window of opportunity to keep you distracted but you’re faster, much faster-

You don’t think, you just do. You throw your last knife, embedding itself into your assailant’s chest with a sick thud. You barely take the time to look at them fall, instead diving forward to push Sylus’s body behind your own just as the assailant behind him fires their gun.

It’s almost as if you’re seeing the events happening from an outsider’s perspective as the bullet pierces your body. Your body recoils, falling back into another as your chest begins to bloom red. Somewhere behind you, you hear a panicked shout of your name and you blearily see the last assailant being dealt with a reddish black smoke before you register that you’re being cradled in someone’s arms.

Time stills, and you can vaguely hear something racing into the field and someone chanting your name above your head as your vision swims. You don’t take stock of much else, though. You just feel yourself slowly growing colder, a warm liquid soaking into your clothes and making your skin sticky.

“____.”

You feel something thick wrapping around your body, hands pressing into the center of your chest but oh, it hurts. An unholy sound crawls its way out of your mouth, piercing through the silence as you cry out weakly from the pain radiating and spreading throughout your entire being. The agony is inescapable - you can feel it with every twitch of your body and you think you’re sobbing, but you find that as the seconds pass that the pain is slowly fading away into a sort of numbness you can’t describe.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” The voice above your head wavers in and out alongside your consciousness, and you blindly grasp onto whatever material is by your cheek so that you can attempt to distract yourself from the pain slowly fading away. A hand captures your own, and you feel your cold skin press against something warm.

“____, can you hear me? Please keep listening to me-” The voice is growing desperate, you’re sure, but why would they be? The pain is finally fading and you’ve settled for shivering in these strong arms, the little warmth you’ve managed to leech from this solid wall not working to keep you alive anymore.

“It wasn’t meant for you.” The voice cracks the tiniest bit, making something in your chest throb more than the site of your injury. “It was meant for me and I saw it coming, why did you do it?”

Your vision clears for a second, and you think you see Sylus’s face hovering above your own. He has your stained hand pressed to his cheek, and you can see him frantically trying to keep you warm so that Kieran or Luke can do something he’s asked. Dream Sylus is rambling the few medical facts he knows as he grips your hand in a death grip - something about how he can’t reach in to take out the bullet that’s in your body, that he has to press his hands into your wound to stem the bleeding as much as he can, that he’s getting help and that you’ll be okay and stay with him, please stay awake my darling-

-but you’re so tired.

You don’t know how much longer you have.

You need to tell him something important.

“Sylus.”

Your voice is a rattled gasp against your chest, but dream Sylus hears you just enough to pull you in closer. He sniffles, and the sight of tears gathering at the corners of his eyes makes you want to fight harder to keep living, keep breathing, keep finding the strength because you two have just managed to come back to each other-

-but you’re freezing. You have been for so long. And it’s nice, finally being warm and feeling safe and cared for. Maybe you’ll settle here, in this place where you feel protected enough to fall asleep.

“I love you.”

It’s a labored whisper, and yet it holds your final thoughts as you let yourself be taken towards that dreamless sleep. You can feel your body relax as your eyes finally, finally blissfully slip shut.

“____? ____, my darling, I lo-”

The last thing you see before you fall into the abyss’s embrace is the look of his tears racing down his face and mixing with the blood you smudged on his cheek.

Sylus Qin is no stranger to fire.

He’s experienced ruthless heat multiple times over, whether directed towards him or otherwise. He felt the agony of being burned alive and almost welcomed it like a home because, in some strange and twisted way, it was. It was the only way he knew warmth.

That was before you.

You, on the streets of the N109 Zone who was capable of taking care of yourself despite the conditions. You, who after he took you in, made warmth mean something different. Maybe heat and fire didn’t have to be painful and destructive. It didn’t have to be an explosion signaling ruin and the end.

It could be something as simple as the heat of a shared pot of soup. The brushing of hands in the corridor because it was the only thing the two of you could manage for a while. Him draping a blanket over your sleeping figure and allowing himself a fleeting touch to brush the stray hairs off of your face.

As time went on, warmth morphed into something more comforting. It was the sun when he was able to manage it, paired with your delirious laughter as the two of you soaked in the atmosphere a grove of maple trees provided. It was the rare hesitation he felt when he first turned your face towards his, looking into your eyes for allowance. It was the way your eyes slipped shut, waiting for him to kiss you.

Something had burst forth in his chest when he got down on one knee to ask you to marry him. Hot tears made rare tracks down the slope of his nose as he slipped the ring onto your finger, and passionate kisses shared throughout the night as he made love to you over and over again felt like the fire he wanted to feel for the rest of his life.

That warmth left for two years, when he found someone who could undo what he now knows is a curse on his very soul. The entire process, he was angry - angry at the situation, at being powerless to not undo things himself, at how things unraveled when he discovered you were gone with your necklace shining up mockingly at him. He couldn’t bring himself to move on, instead spending every moment he could to find you.

He rarely slept, plagued with pain mixed in with memories of you that had his gasping for air. Once the curse was undone he told the Hunter to leave and to never seek him again. He threw every bit of himself into finding you, because all he ever needed was you.

His purpose was you. It was always you and it’s always going to be you.

He had been so cold for two years, simply coasting on the ghost of gentle fire across his cheeks and his hands. When he saw you standing there, he thought he had found his reason for burning again. But then you pinned him to the cold ground and he realized his only source of kind warmth had gone cold, too.

He searched for you. Confessed the truth he’s held heavy in his heart and waited for you as best he could. All so you could answer on your own terms.

And you did. 

And the night he finally held you in his arms again? It was the warmest he ever felt.

But now, he’s frozen solid. He can’t feel his fingertips as he strikes a match and drops it carelessly in a small pile of kindling that leads to a ruined building. He steps back and watches EVER’s headquarters go down in ash and melted material and he still only feels a bitter chill deep in his bones. He’s burned it all to the ground yet he feels nothing. No relief, no satisfaction.

Only frozen, his heart resting in the hands of a body far too cold.

He speeds home on his motorcycle, ignoring the directions leading him to his usual base and instead taking a detour. Vibrant cityscapes give way to lush forests, and he soon finds himself in a clearing of maple trees. A house is resting there, not big by any standards but comfortable enough to hold two people in love. Attached to the house is a modest greenhouse, and both structures are dappled in sunlight that’s filtering through the maple leaves. He pushes himself off of his motorcycle and makes his way to the greenhouse, slipping off his coat and rolling up his sleeves.

The greenhouse is a pleasant temperature, the sunlight dancing through the glass panes and providing warmth against the slightly cool temperature. He tosses his coat onto the table near the entry, barely closing the door behind him before making his way briskly into the main room of the greenhouse. He approaches a linen curtain, and he swallows deeply before forcing himself to push the piece of fabric aside and take in the sight before him.

You, in a hospital bed and connected to a multitude of medical devices. Your heart rate is steady, and if he focuses only on your face he can almost pretend you’re in a restful sleep. That you’re seconds away from waking up and smiling at him before pulling him down for a kiss.

He knows it’s not true, though. It’s this exact reason that he hates seeing you like this. Somewhere in between life and death.

His mind flashes back to those awful moments where he held you in his arms while you bled out. As you had faded from consciousness, Luke and Kieran had come by with the car. He made one of them drive as he sat in the back with you in his hold, pressing his hands to the deep wound in your body while he called in a favor from a doctor he knew from a time gone by. The doctor had shown to the base, black hair ruffled and hazel eyes serious as he took in your state, and he made Sylus step aside as he took you into a makeshift operating room and began the race to save your life.

He doesn’t remember much from that time, now that he thinks about it. His entire body had been locked in panic, his mind a prison for all of the agonizing scenarios that could emerge from that operating room. The doctor could walk out with your blood on his hands and you would be gone, gone right after he found you and before he could make everything the two of you right.

Gone from this world. His meaning, his purpose…buried for good.

The hours both stretched too long and felt too short before the doctor finally emerged from the room, looking exhausted yet not…defeated. He sat himself down next to Sylus and began to speak in a tired tone about your condition and what he was able to do. He talks about how if he had gotten there a little later, this would be a far different conversation, but Sylus can only feel sheer relief as he closes his eyes and lets himself cry silently.

You’re alive.

You’re alive, but you’re not here with him.

He sits heavily on the chair he’s occupied for far too long, brain laden with thoughts he doesn’t even want to entertain. His fingers weave themselves in between your own and he lets the slight pressure ground his thoughts. He works through his words, before settling on a hoarse, “It’s done, ____.”

He wishes you were there to see the downfall of the people who tormented you for so long. You above all people deserve to be the one to strike the match and let it fall, but he can at least do it for you while you continue to heal.

“Lihua asked about you before she died.” It’s bland, but he hopes you can still hear him as he speaks. “She asked if you were okay. I think, in some fucked up way, she truly cared for you. I told her that it doesn’t matter anymore, and she looked relieved. Like she knew I was taking care of you.”

His eyes drift up to the necklace against your chest, and something constricts tightly in his own body. It looks wrong on the hospital gown you’re wearing. It should be worn with a white dress, with one of his shirts - not this thin, flimsy material.

“Is this really taking care of you, though?” His voice trembles as his fingers tighten against yours. “Keeping you alive. As much as all of this is for you, there’s that part of me that’s selfish. I’m doing this for me, because I can’t bear the thought of being away from you. Of being alone after I found you again.”

Sylus lifts your hand up to his face, and he examines your fingers. Lithe and dextrous, able to throw a knife with terrifying precision or stroke his hair with an even scarier gentleness. Hands he dreams of holding his face, thumbs softly wiping away the tears now streaming down his face as his breath escapes him in a shaky rattle.

“I’ll wait for you.” He can’t quite contain the waver in his voice at his promise, and a tear slides down his cheek as he presses his mouth against your hand. “As long as it takes. I’ll wait for you to wake up, and I’ll help you through your recovery process, and I’ll wait until we build ourselves up again. Just please, ____, my darling…please wake up.”

He rests his forehead on your stomach, and he swallows down the cries that claw their way out of his throat. The waiting is agony. He wants you here with him now. He wants you to be awake and to pull him into your arms, to smother his face with your kisses as your fingers rake through his hair.

The other option is unthinkable. He hates the other option with every fiber of his being, so he’s willing to wait in this limbo for as long as he takes. Whether it be two years or two lifetimes from now, he’ll wait for you.

He’ll always wait for you to come back to him.

[a/n 2: i'm really sorry again, i hope this is better]

“One is in a more stable condition than the other, but I’m certain that they will both make it.” She says, but he nearly tunes the rest of her words out. Alive. You and MC were both alive. He’s finally able to swallow the knot that had been forming at the pit of his throat. “The one who brought the unconscious lady in – was that her partner?”

“She was very brave. Didn’t let go of her the entire time, until she knew she was safe.” Relief hits him so fast and so violently that it nearly hurts. Sudden enough for his knees to nearly give in. The chip is no longer flooding him with a blinding, white-hot pain. You were both safe, and that was all that mattered. That was all that was ever supposed to matter. He swears that the colors that make up his field of vision suddenly became a few shades brighter. The gray lifts at the edges, and it becomes a little easier to breathe.

He knew he fucked up. The realization quietly seeps out from him. There were so many things that he needed to fix. Too many things that he needed to say – words that took nearly losing you for him to finally say out loud. He had so much to apologize for, both to you and MC, but especially you.

He just hoped that you’d forgive him with a little bit of time. Or a lot of it. He didn’t care. Caleb would offer you all the time that it takes, as much as you needed in order to grant him forgiveness.

When he saw MC for the first time after the mission, she was pale, exhausted, yet upright. Her body had been wrapped in countless bandages and gauze, but she was alright. You were alright. She saw it in his face before anything. The relief that tore through her was blissfully immediate, and she’d grabbed his sleeve before he could even utter a single word, trembling with reassurance, at last. “She’s comatose, but…”

“She’s okay,” MC had breathed out, and he nodded. Tears had filled her waterline then, and she let out a choked sob, wrapping his arms around him in relief. Oh, you had nearly given your life to save her. She had warned you not to, but you did, anyway. You fit in so beautifully with every other hunter at the Association, just by being so selflessly… you. “They said she’s okay.”

It takes a few weeks, but they wait.

You’re transferred to Akso on the same day, confined to that godforsaken hospital bed until you wake up. The days quickly blur into one another, but feel excruciatingly slow all at once; still, they make the effort to visit every day. MC brings you things first when she’s finally back on her feet – such as a fresh vase of your favorite flowers, a stack of snacks that you love yet are far from being medically cleared to eat, and little trinkets that Caleb insists you’ll complain about once you wake up. She talks to you, too – rambling about everything, from how her day of recovery went to how stupid the great Colonel of the Farspace Fleet was for nearly letting you go.

“Caleb’s a real dummy, isn’t he?” 

“It’s okay. You can tell him all about it when you wake up. That idiot is long overdue for an apology, anyway.”

Caleb is a little quieter about his visits, but he still shows up every day. On most days, he just observes you. The way the machines at Akso hum softly around you, the way your chest perpetually falls and rises again. It calms him, it reminds him that you’re still here. He memorizes the soft cadence of your breathing and the faint twitch of your fingers that nearly makes him believe that you’re about to wake up. You don’t, though, much to his chagrin.

Sometimes, Caleb talks to you. Sometimes, he just sits there, chair pulled up next to you, thumb brushing absentminded circles against the inside of your wrist, eyes lingering over your visage. He’s careful – always so careful, like you’ll shatter into countless fragments if he presses too hard. Sometimes, he gives you gifts. At one point, he brings you a book from your wishlist every day until he eventually buys out the whole list. He intended to get them for you for your birthday, but he supposes that he can spoil you a little. Eventually, the entire table in your room is filled with gifts from him, MC, and all your friends. The staff at Akso, particularly Zayne, are a little amused.

All his gifts are waiting. Just like he is. This time, though, he refuses to be too late. He’ll never be too late again. He’ll make sure of that.

“I’m here,” he tells you quietly, on more days than he can count. “I always will be.”

You never answer him, until one day, you do.

Caleb is next to you and nearly dozed off. MC had gone home a few hours ago, and visiting hours were nearly over, but he always stays until the last second, because he was so afraid of missing a moment such as this one. Your lashes flutter, and you begin to stir, and it’s almost like he was never even asleep in the first place. Your eyes finally open, slowly and deliberately, trying not to let the fluorescent hospital lights blind you. And your voice – rough and ridden with sleep, but still unmistakably yours – breathes out the one thing that he has been starving to hear for what feels like a lifetime.

“Caleb…”

His chair scrapes sharply against the floor as he surges forward, one hand hovering just shy of your face, like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he actually touches you. And then, at that moment, the world finally rights itself again.

But then, your expression twists. You didn’t look relieved. No, you looked… You looked afraid. “...Caleb?”

His heart stutters at how small your voice had gotten, at the realization that something was clearly wrong. The machines are ringing in his ears, and he feels like he’s unwillingly getting dragged back onto shore, when all he wants to do is stay submerged under the water. 

“Caleb!”

Caleb finally jerks awake with a sharp exhale, and the phantom warmth of your hand is still burning against his skin. MC is standing over him, one hand still on his shoulder, where she’d been trying so hard to shake him awake. He wished that she had never done that. “You were dreaming again.”

The room is monotone and grey, so wrongfully dull, and it takes him exactly three seconds to remember why. Right. You had never woken up. Today was the three hundred and sixty-fifth day that has passed since your death. Exactly one year, and they were going to visit your grave, not your hospital room. Because you were dead. You have been for a long while.

Lately, he’s been having these dreams, and they’ve been getting worse. But truthfully, was ‘worse’ the correct word to describe them? Because sometimes, he thinks that they’re the only things keeping him upright. He wonders – a thought that has crossed his head multiple times – if it would just be easier to stay asleep. To live in that perpetual summer afternoon for the rest of his life, where the colors mix so beautifully and finally form something worth looking at. 

Maybe, in a pocket universe out there, there’s a timeline where he had actually saved you. Unfortunately, this was not that timeline. If the poet who was narrating his life had been kinder, Caleb thinks that his life might have been easier to live. But the poets are not kind. They are cruel, and cruelty has been the only thing that they’ve ever known. The only thing he’s ever known.

Unfortunately, the poets are merciless, and that was just the way things were. The way things will continue to be, for as long as he lives. He has no say in the matter, because he’s never had one in the first place.

SOMETIMES I GO TO SLEEP / AND I'M STILL SEVENTEEN / YOU STILL LIVE DOWN MY STREET / YOU'RE NOT MAD AT ME.

the beginning | previous.

Try and mask it all you want, but one of Caleb’s greatest talents is his perceptiveness, especially when it comes to you. He can read you as easily as the morning paper, and as easily as the instruction manuals that come with his model planes. It’s not hard for him to tell how you’re feeling. You blatantly wear your heart on your sleeve, even if you try to cover the way it erratically beats at times. The way you attempt to hide the small bout of hatred that glints beneath your irises when you see the crystallized red necklace on his neck. When you see MC. The way your carefully crafted mask can slip within a split second, only for it to come back the moment after, and you greet her with that sickeningly sweet smile, dripping with superficiality.

He knows himself far too well. Long before you, long before any promises you’ve ever made with him, and long before you even entered his life, he made a promise to Josephine. He swore that he’d spend the rest of his life protecting MC, or die trying to, as long as EVER got him before they’d even get to graze her skin. Josephine’s hands had been frail, yet he still remembers the way her fingers firmly dug into his sleeve when she made him swear. Promise to be a safeguard for MC. And Caleb has never broken any promises. Especially not for Josephine, who died not so long after that.

He didn’t love you any less, but at the end of it all, Caleb was built to protect MC. The agenda was wired within his veins and written in the stars; the calligraphy was crystal clear. You deserve someone who does not hesitate. Someone willing to put you first. And that man – no matter how much he wanted it to be – was not Caleb.

You were never the sun. The sun burns too loudly, too recklessly for its own good, dooming those like Icarus who fall too close within the vicinity of its blazing flames. No, you were the moon – distant, luminous, and quietly tugging at his heartstrings in a way that he pretended not to feel. The lunar celestial body is beautiful and full of grace; it’s precisely why Caleb has always been afraid of touching things that enchant him. You’re too far from his reach, but maybe that’s a good thing. A great thing, even. Because Caleb ruins all things that are good in his life. 

And the last thing he would want to do is hurt you. 

That summer afternoon haunts him. The apparitions of you, the painted shades of azure blue and dazzling red, all plague him in sleep because they gave him a glimpse of how things could have been if Caleb could have everything that he wanted. If the universe showed him a little bit of mercy, and if he weren’t such a coward. You were laughing beneath a sky so bright that it almost hurt to look at, because everything felt so right, and you looked so beautiful. The sun caught in your hair so deliberately that it’d put any muse to shame. He wanted to tuck a stray strand behind your ear. To paint you, even though he had no idea how to. He’d learn, just for you. There was nobody else to paint, because there was you and only you that afternoon, and you were all he ever wanted. 

He remembered thinking, absurdly and helplessly, that the world had crafted you too carefully. You were never meant to be touched. You were the kind of thing people look at the way they look at the night sky – knowing it is vast, knowing it is burning, knowing that they can be rekindled from hopeless ash into fire, but the stars above will never belong to them.

You will never belong to him. And maybe that was for the best.

You had wrapped that crimson bracelet around his wrist earlier that afternoon. His matching half. Your fingers were brushing against his pulse, and he swore the contact lingered longer than it should have. He had tied yours, just so it would be fair, intertwining your fingers against his own as he finally called the ordeal even. 

After it all, you leaned back on your palms and tilted your face towards the sun. And for the first time in a while, Caleb could not tell what you were thinking as you gazed at the clouds. He wanted to ask – ask what you were thinking, get a glimpse inside your brain, a penny (or a couple thousand of them) just to be able to quickly glance at your thoughts. How did you get this bracelet to fit so perfectly around his wrist? Were you aware that he’ll never take his matching half off, for as long as he lives? Why did you make them? 

And why were you so pretty right now?

“Stay,” you finally whispered, soft and speaking your mind at last. It sounded like a perfect harmony, too perfect for a man like him, and he knew he was slipping. He was getting greedy. Dangerously greedy for something that he could not have. The siren’s hymn is far too irresistible now, and he’s getting pulled into the point of no return. “Just like this.”

Caleb finally glanced at you then. He didn’t care about the sky or the apples that were fully in season because of the time of year. No, he was looking directly at you. He had wanted – with a sharp and terrifying clarity – to close the distance. To press his mouth to yours. To see if you would breathe his name the way he imagined you might, your breath hot against his lips.

He wanted to kiss you.

Instead, he did what the poets had always trained him to do. He held your hand, pressing his palm against yours because it was the only thing he was brave enough for. The only thing he was allowed to take from you without taking too much. To clasp your hand against his for a little while, because the poets are cruel to boys like Caleb, and the greatest mark you could leave on him was the bracelet resting on his wrist. Nothing more. He cannot be yours, no matter how much he wants to rewrite his narrative and grab the pen himself. He can only pretend to be for a little while.

“Yeah, I’ll stay.” Just for today, he thought. Let me have this one moment.

Just for today.

When the explosion happened, and the trajectory of his life changed in an instant alongside Josephine’s death, Caleb’s first thought was not about all the pain he felt. He was used to that, especially after all the experiments EVER had subjected on him. He could handle all the torment, but this fear that he felt – this was new. The moment that the toring chip was implanted by the Fleet, his right arm had been reinforced with metal, and your bracelet was lost to the ruin, he knew. 

Alongside that fear came his terrifying realization that things were no longer the same. He was no longer sixteen, and he was never yours, no matter how much he wanted to be. He was bound to her in this lifetime. It was his duty to protect her.

It was always her.

Still, if the thread that had been severed during the tragedy were a curse, Caleb would have worn it all over again. A thousand times over, even if he knew it would kill him one day. He would have offered the other arm, too, if it meant keeping the faint indentation your bracelet left against his skin. If it meant preserving the memory of your fingers brushing against his pulse, as if you could steady it just by your touch alone. Like you could make everything right again with a snap of your fingers. And maybe, in another life, everything would be alright. He would just pray that you’d wait long enough for that life – a life full of silver springs and a perpetual summer oasis – to be granted to both of you.

He never once thought you doomed him. If anything, he now thinks that loving you was the only thing that ever felt deliberate in a life that could barely even call his.

There’s a joint mission with the Association and the Fleet today, which is rare. Typically, Caleb would want you and MC to be as far away from Skyhaven as possible, but some things cannot be helped, especially when it comes to higher orders. At the end of the day, people in the Fleet and the Association are just puppets, players of the game for those above. Unfortunately, none of you were an exception to that.

MC finds him in his office, and when she knocks on the door, she smirks at the way his face deflates – just enough for her to notice. He was probably hoping that it was you. Right now, you were probably with... “You look happy to see me.”

Caleb rolls his eyes at her blatant sarcasm, and she laughs. It brings about a sense of shame that he refuses to acknowledge, because he knows that she can see right through him. “She’s getting ready for the mission debrief. I think she’s having lunch with Xavier right now.”

“Why the long face?” Of course, she doesn’t miss the way his shoulders tighten at the mention of him. That guy from UNICORNS, the same department you’re in, who’s been awfully close to you lately. Xavier. He’s lucky he’s not your actual partner, and Jenna had paired you with MC. If anything, it makes it easier for Caleb to look after both of you, and he has to worry less about him. “If it makes you feel better, I heard them talking about a certaaain someone named ‘Caleb’. She has a surprise for you, you know.”

“I don’t need surprises. We have a mission soon, don’t we?”

He says, his voice flat. MC just hums, clearly unconvinced by his faux stoicism, strolling further into his office without an invitation. She perches on the edge of his desk and gives him an all-knowing smile.

“You’re jealous.” The declaration is blunt, and it hits him like a freight train. He would have laughed, if only he didn’t feel so called out.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m not.”

“Okay, sure. And the sky is green.” He runs a hand through his hair at that. The motion is sharp, filled with a lot more agitation than he initially intended, and her smile softens by just a fraction. He’s too easy to tease. “You’re impossible, Caleb.”

MC studies him for a long moment. Growing up together had made it second nature for them to read each other’s tells like an open book. He taught her several things: how to secretly cheat at Kitty Cards (or not, because he simply turns a blind eye at her antics), how to cook simple dishes, and how to use his EVOL to get any plushie she wanted from the claw machines; but most importantly, Caleb taught her how to hold his secrets. That’s why she can simply lay a statement out that’s so real, he’s unable to counteract it. Something like, “You love her.”

Which is exactly what she says. The words land heavier than a simple accusation, because accusations can be disproven. However, this time, her words were wholly true, and he could only exhale through his nose in response. “That’s not relevant.”

“It’s not relevant?” MC wanted to laugh, but it just comes out as a scoff. “Every day, you look at her as if she hung the moon. Or more like she’s the moon herself. It’s surprising how she hasn’t noticed yet.”

“She deserves someone who’s able to put her first.” If you were the moon, then you were simply an unreachable deity, a figure only meant to be admired from afar. Your beauty was the kind that needed restraint, and restraint was something that he had years of expertise in his belt. He’d give you all the distance if it were for the best, and he’d spent a long time convincing himself that space was truly the best course of action. “Someone who can…”Treat her better.

Caleb’s thoughts flicker to you and Xavier, but he’s quickly interrupted by MC. Her tone is firm, the one she uses when she calls him out. “Well, she doesn’t just want ‘someone’. She wants you.”

“You don’t get to decide what’s best for her without even giving her a choice in the first place,” she adds, pointing a deliberate finger at his chest. “You’re not protecting her by doing that. That’s called being a coward.”

His hand curls to his side, and for once, she’s reduced him to silence. A heavy tension fills the air. She was right. He was a coward. He’s never been able to think right, to circumnavigate all his feelings when it comes to you, anyway. He brushes his mechanical arm, the metal mostly hidden under his uniform. Once, you’d slipped a handwoven bracelet around that wrist, smiling all prettily at him like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like that day was a mere snapshot of a life both of you could have. Once, that day, he almost kissed you, but he had chosen restraint that moment, too. “She’ll be safer if I just keep my distance.”

“Actually, that ‘distance’ is just making you even more miserable,” she counters. “And it’s just leaving her really, really confused. Congrats, Caleb. What a stellar strategy from the great Colonel of the Farspace Fleet! Is this exactly what you wanted? The kind of intellect that lets you survive in the Deepspace Tunnels?”

She nudges his shoulder. “You don’t have to keep protecting me to love her. I’m not twelve anymore, even though you treat me like I still am sometimes.”

“You’re still being hunted by EVER–”

“So are you. And the danger plagues her life, too.” Her eyes soften. “We don’t get to live safe lives, dummy. Some of us chose to be Hunters, and we just keep on fighting anyway, despite knowing the risk.”

“You should tell her,” MC repeats, a little quieter this time. “And that you’re scared. She’ll understand. Just start with the truth – and take advantage of what she’s about to give you later.”

She doesn’t elaborate on what the surprise is, but her gaze flickers to his wrist. He stares at the door, head fleeting, as if you’ll walk into his office at any second. If he tells you, then he risks losing everything, the balance he’s maintained and the distance that he’s spent years convincing himself was the noble thing to do. If he doesn’t tell you, then he just might risk losing you to someone else, someone better, someone like Xavier. And for once, that notion feels more terrifying than anything, because then, he’ll lose everything, and then some. At that point, he’d have to learn to let you go, and someone else would get to be yours.

“...Fine,” he finally mutters.

MC’s eyes light up. “Fine?”

“I’ll tell her.” Even though it’s not a promise.

Still, when he finally says those words, the world feels a little lighter, and something within the universe shifts. For the first time in a long while, Caleb could imagine that bright, summer afternoon once more. The day he had thought about making you his, the day he almost reached for more than your hand, and the day he thought about kissing you. He thought about your saccharine sweet lips and remembered the way you wore your shiny lip gloss. You still wear it, even to this day. He always wanted to know what flavor it was. And what did it taste like, exactly? Cherry, maybe. Or apple, to match the delicious pie you had baked together that summer.

It’s you who has constantly plagued his thoughts. Despite everything, it has always only ever been you. And maybe, at last, Caleb didn’t have to spend another second wondering anymore, because he might just find out the answer to all these questions.

“I thought–” you say quietly, your eyes strictly fixated on the box instead of him, “that maybe we don’t get to keep things forever, but we can try to, anyway.”

His breath catches at the realization that this was the surprise that MC was talking about. You had handed him a remade pair of matching bracelets after the mission debrief. The pattern was the same, and they were still beautifully handwoven by you, but the ends are no longer unraveling, and your handiwork had clearly gotten more skillful with time. For a second, just one split second, all the years between his sixteenth and now had blurred into something raucous yet familiar. A feeling that he knew all too well – the same feeling he had been pushing back all this time, for fear that it would one day eat him alive.

“You made another set,” he says slowly, voice far raspier than he intended. “After I lost mine when…”

He doesn’t finish his sentence. Caleb never does, a taciturn defense mechanism that came especially handy during conversations that are more difficult to have between the two of you. The explosion was one of them. He briefly wondered once, when his arm had been reinforced, if you would make another pair of those bracelets. Then, he quickly tossed that thought away as fast as it had come, but now it's all painfully crashing back on him. All at once, and he was far from ready.

But you nod anyway, like you understood every single complicated fragment that he couldn’t say out loud, and are able to piece everything together regardless. Damn it, that has always been your worst habit. You knew him too well. You saw through all the fractures that Caleb had tried so desperately to hide, and loved him for all he was anyway, without encouraging him to fill in the margins. 

His jaw hardens at that. Your worst habits are the same ones that can unravel him just as quickly. Your perception was beautiful, yet your biggest danger.

“Put it on me, again. Just like old times.”

He holds out his left wrist, the only one remaining that is still tender, and still human. Caleb hardly misses the way your eyes flicker to his mechanical arm before you quickly look away, like you’re trying not to let your guilt bleed all over the floor. The thought alone makes his chest ache, because none of that had been your fault. You never cursed him. It’d be impossible to do so, even if you tried. He wanted to say those words out loud, but they stayed lodged between his teeth and forever stuck at the tip of his tongue. He might just make things worse if he acknowledges them.

So, when you finish tying his matching half, he declares that he’ll just show the physical manifestation of his love for you, just as you did for him. Caleb reaches for you without hesitation, and your wrist fits into his hand like it always has, and he ties the bracelet with a focus that borders on reverent. His tongue presses lightly to his teeth, brows faintly furrowed as he adjusts the knot. “Do you remember what you said that day? How you predicted that I’d forget you in five years when I’m ‘super popular and cool’ once I was at the DAA?”

You nod, small and sheepish, and it makes him huff softly. His fingers linger across your skin for just a second too long, and it makes him realize just how close you are to him. Like he had been unconsciously pulling you in with his EVOL. The proximity makes his voice dip a little lower. “Well, I think my words still stand. I most certainly never forgot you, you’re still way cooler than me, and definitely way cooler than anyone there.”

Gravity is an amusing thing. It’s the reason everyone stays upright, why the world revolves the way it does, and it's partially why Caleb was able to climb the ranks so quickly at the Fleet, but it also pulls him down. Nobody had warned him about the way gravity could settle somewhere deeper within his bones and nearly crush him. How it could root itself within his chest and make every breath feel heavier, far heavier than it should really be.

Still, his EVOL also makes it seem like you were the epicenter of everything, because that’s how it always seems to Caleb. Sometimes, gravity also makes it so that the entire axis of his world could deliberately tilt towards you, and only you.

And finally, he takes in everything about you, all at once. Your eyes. Your mouth. The way the light reflects off your lip gloss, the same one he had spent so long wondering about. It was intoxicating. Dangerous. You were far too dangerous for someone like him. It was dangerous the way your hand lifts his mechanical one, cradling the metal like he was still able to feel. The phantom touch almost makes him feel something. 

Only you could do this to him.

“You come back to me,” He whispers, breath warm against your lips. It makes his pulse stutter, and the poets begin to sing once more, and Caleb knows that he’s in trouble. Because the hymns are getting too angelic now, too tempting. “You promise.”

He thinks back to MC’s declarative words. “You love her.” 

No matter how much he refused to admit it, everything she had said earlier was right. He loves you. Even after all this time, he loves you. So much that it hurts. Sometimes, between the margins of all his internalized turmoil, Caleb dreams that he could just be with you. To live a life with you without having to worry about the Fleet, or the Hunter’s Association, or the toring chip that silently puppeteers his every move and thought. That he could perpetually relive that summer day, over and over again, to be sixteen and utterly clueless about the future with you, forever.

Caleb loves you. And when his gaze finally drops to your lips, he decides that he’s going to prove that he does, once and for all. To stop wondering about everything, and to start knowing. “I–”

“Caleb!”

The moment ends as quickly as it came, and you break away from him before he even realizes what happened. He sees MC standing in the doorway, mid-breath and fully geared up. You’re looking at her, and you refuse to look at him now, standing a considerable distance away. It makes his chest ache all over again. She cluelessly asks, “They’re calling us in. Are you ready?”

“Yeah,” you say after a moment. And if Caleb could hear the poets, they were probably laughing up a storm. Maybe this was just a part of their cruel nature. Their grand plan of mercilessly dangling everything that he wants in front of his face, of toying with his cake and eating it. It makes him realize that even though MC had been right, and he did love you, Caleb had also been right in his own way. She was right, but so awfully naive. You’ll be safer if you just keep your distance from him. “I’m coming.”

Because, after all this time, maybe Caleb had been the cursed one all along.

MC’s expression quickly shifts when she senses your meek tone and the dirty look that he had given her the second she walked in. She had been so caught up with preparing for the mission that she completely forgot to read the room. She just had a conversation with Caleb about this! Her eyes flicker to your wrist, and then to his, and the realization of what she just interrupted finally dawns on her. “Shit, I’m so sorry–”

“I really shouldn’t be here right now, should I?” she stammers, already quickly backing out the door. “I’ll–I’ll leave you two to it.”

When she leaves, you still refuse to meet his gaze. He tries to call out your name, to maybe make you understand, but to no avail. “Please, just look at me–”

“Don’t.” 

Your tone was so cold, it completely reduced him to silence. Watching you leave felt like a slap to the face, because at that moment, you had finally slipped through his fingers. And it hurt a little more knowing that he didn’t let you go in the end, but you had left on your own accord.

Caleb’s life is full of almosts. For a brief instance, he almost got to call himself yours. He almost sealed that promise with you. He almost chose you over her. He almost called you beautiful that bright blue summer afternoon (it was at the tip of his tongue. What if he had just said it then? Would everything have changed? Would gravity have reoriented itself to be less suffocating? Would the dull, monotone colors of his life finally have mixed to form something worth gazing at?)

He almost chose differently, and now… these ‘almosts’ will continue to be almosts. Now, he’ll just never know, because MC was right. In the end, Caleb was just a coward. A coward who curses everyone around him, including her.

And including you.

“Caleb, I need evac. Now.”

Your voice cuts through the comms, from MC’s watch – and he feels his heart drop. He should have known something was wrong the moment your own Hunter’s watch had lost signal. Everything must have gone awry, and he curses, checking your location amidst all the static. Damn it. Why did you two have to be so far away? “Status.”

Of course, he had his own respective mission to attend to while you were with MC. His mission site wasn’t too far, but far enough that it’d take him some time to get to your location, a real disadvantage when things become a shitshow. Such as right now. Caleb never really cared about abandoning his post if it meant saving you two. Today was one of the times that his title could be used as leverage. 

But then you say it. Something that he wasn’t ready for. “MC’s down, and–”

For half a second, the world goes horribly quiet. Everything else tunes out into a plethora of fuzzy static, and then he feels it – the pain practically detonating at the back of his neck. The chip. Fuck. He was losing control. Caleb chokes on a breath as the toring chip flares white-hot beneath his skin, a violent, searing pulse that shoots straight down his spine. His hand slams against the console to steady himself, knuckles blanching. No. No, no, no–

“She took a hit from a wanderer– I’m trying to take us… safe zone… I’m five minutes out–”

Get a grip, you motherfucker. He manages to force a few words out, his voice tight and strained against the edges as he fights against the godforsaken implant. Your voice is cutting in and out of the comms. Or maybe that was all in his own head? He must be going mad. “What the hell happened?”

You’re breathing hard on the other end. He can hear it, clear as day. You were huffing, breath uneven and ragged, like you’ve been running this entire time. “It’s a shitshow out here, Caleb. I don’t have my sword, and she took a hit when I wasn’t looking–”

“When you weren’t looking?” Another spike of heat lances through his neck, and he’s nearly keeling, vision blurring at the edges. “You’re supposed to cover for her.”

“I was,” you snap, and if he were just a little more attentive, maybe he could’ve heard the way your voice wavered for a fraction of a second. “I was there, Caleb, I tried–”

“Then why the hell is she bleeding out?”

Static overcomes the comms again, and he’s certain that the chip might just detonate on its own at any moment. The only thing ringing in his head, over and over, are your words. She’s hurt. MC is hurt, and he might be too far to do anything about it. She’s hurt, and it’s his fault. The words failure and coward slam into him so hard that they nearly knock all of the remaining air out of his lungs. The red apples, the ones that used to be so sweet, are now rotting, and the worms have found refuge in them. The sky is too blue, and the smoke is too thick. That old, familiar guilt claws up his throat before he can do anything to stop it.

He’d promised Josephine that he’d protect her–

Another pulse from the chip makes Caleb’s hands shake over the controls. The pulse was sharper and meaner, a haunting reminder that he’d doom all three of you if he didn’t move. Right now, he needed to get his plane to your location, even if the back of his neck might kill him before he does.

It hurts. Fuck, it hurts.

Some distant part of him knows that he should ask – Are you hurt? Were you safe? What was your status? Because you never told him. The questions weakly claw at the ivory crevices between his ribs, but they never make it out of his lips. The only thing he could do was stabilize himself and make his way to where you both were, and silently pray to whatever deity was out there that you were okay. “Damn it. I’ll be waiting at the safe zone near you – I’m about ten minutes away. Can you make it there?”

On the other end, you manage to say, “Yeah. I think.”

You were okay, right?

Caleb doesn’t let himself think about why your voice sounded so thin. Or why it sounded like you were barely stifling a sob through your gritted teeth. Or why you eventually end the call, and the line suddenly goes so eerily– 

Quiet.

It was too quiet.

You were dead.

There should’ve been some type of catastrophe, some cataclysm that shook the earth and rendered it a lifeless husk by the end of it all. Some divine, merciless confirmation that the universe understood what it had just done. And yet, the sky was still present up above, and the bracelet on his wrist stood as a hot, stinging reminder of everything. In reality, the sky should be closing in on itself, swallowing the world into a vortex – not the dull, monotonous shade of gray that it was right now. No, there was something wrong. Where was the prophesied Armageddon? The sky is still here. The world has not ended. Skyhaven hasn’t turned into a pit of ash, Linkon hasn’t erupted into flames.

And yet, you were no longer here. You were dead. You had died saving MC, and yet nobody could even save you. Caleb couldn’t save you.

Nothing is making sense. Around him, the medics are moving, helping the other Hunters who are also injured. Someone is crying, he distantly registers that, but it all sounds warped – like Caleb was hearing the entire world from underwater. His gaze stays locked forward, unmoving and unblinking, because someone had just told him that you were dead on arrival, and that there was nothing they could have done. Nothing he could have done.

Because you were dead.

Every day, people make plans for tomorrow. The day after tomorrow. The vacation they swear they’ll finally take in a few weeks. You had plans. There’s probably still an unwashed basket of laundry sitting somewhere in your quarters, half-forgotten, but it was something that you promised to deal with over the weekend – when you finally had the time to. There’s still a grocery store checklist in your notes, full of all the things you meant to buy. There were books you wanted to read. You had a whole wishlist of them, and he was planning to buy them all for you for your next birthday.

There were things that you meant to finish. But in just a snap of a finger, the elegist cruelly declares that your poem will end in the middle of an ordinary verse. The laundry does not need to be washed anymore. The checklist will never be completed. Your books will begin to collect dust, and Caleb’s world has completely stopped alongside your death. Perhaps it's ironic, the way he thought that some world-ending catastrophe would occur the second they laid down the news, that the back of his neck would finally implode, but everything was just stagnant. Terrifyingly still as he’s forced to stand in the midst of a world that had the audacity to keep moving after your death.

How was this fair? How was any of it fair?

Still, even in the midst of all the clamor, nobody dares to answer him.

Caleb comes to MC the moment they notify him that she’s awake.

It took her a few hours to come to her senses, especially since she sustained injuries that any regular person couldn’t walk off. His vision is swirling. He needed to see her – the past few hours felt like a blur. The quiet, gnawing need to see with his own eyes that at least MC was okay was all encompassing, because the thought that he couldn’t save you plagues his every waking moment.

He couldn’t save you.

The walk to the med bay feels longer than it should. He tries to pinch his skin because part of him is still convinced that this was all a nightmare, a final test that the poets have subjected him to before they end all his misery at last. Maybe it’d just be better for all this to end, anyway. Caleb’s boots sound too loud against the flooring; every step felt like his EVOL was deliberately dragging him down. It was less to do with gravity itself, but more of the way his chest feels like it's been carved hollow. The bracelet on his wrist burns. It felt like another toring chip, in a sense, except it had willfully been implanted by you. But he’d be a fool to take it off. He never will. 

When he steps into the room, MC is already sitting up, and her eyes snap to him immediately. The first thing he senses is relief. Relief flashes all across her face, and she nearly smiles. “Caleb–”

But it falters as quickly as it came when she realizes the expression on his face. He’s never been good at hiding anything from her. Not when they grew up together, side by side. She could tell whenever he was upset, even though he tried to hide it from her every time. “Where is she?”

“Please, Caleb. I want to see her.” Her voice wobbles, and she’s practically pleading at this point. No. “She’s okay, right? Let me see her. Because she said–”

She said she’d be right behind me. That she’d think about herself, too. “I’m sorry.”

“Caleb.” Her eyes widen in horror, tears flooding her waterline at the realization that you died saving her. Even though she had begged you to worry about yourself, too – especially because there were far too many things that you needed to sort out. She was going to convince you to confess to Caleb if the bastard didn’t want to do it himself. To convince you that it was worth it to love him, even after everything. Even after…

Smack!

Even after it all, was he really worth loving?

The slap reverberates across the room, an instinctual move from MC before she even had a second chance to really think about it. Caleb’s head snaps to the side with the force of it, but he doesn’t move to retaliate. He doesn’t move at all, actually. Truthfully, he just stands there, cheek stinging, taking it all in while her hands are trembling. She was shaking in a way that he had never seen before. He was used to seeing her irritated, especially during their petty fights.

But this anger, this was new.

“You–” her voice breaks, nearly turning into a sob as she jabs a finger to his chest, “You idiot! You were supposed to–”

He was supposed to do a lot of things. He was supposed to protect MC. He was supposed to tell you that he loved you, a chance to finally chase after a fragment of that summer afternoon that he constantly longed for. He was supposed to not let you down, to not let MC down, to quit shattering all these baseless promises that he makes.

But that’s all he ever does. He lets people down. Over and over. MC never finishes her words, but he understands. He was a coward. Through and through. 

“I hate you.”

She’s said those words to him a thousand times. She’s said it to him over stupid arguments, over arguing about who has to eat the cilantro, over who gets the last word in. It’s always been over mindless things. Caleb, you’re a dummy. Caleb, I hate you. Caleb, say you’re sorry. It was easy to make up with her. She’d shove him, but come back hours later apologizing, because at the end of the day, MC never really means it. 

But this time, she does mean it. He can hear it in her voice. He could feel it in the way she refused to look at him anymore, the sting on his cheek now serving as a painful reminder of how she felt. And for once in his life, Caleb, the jack of all trades, a star athlete, and the great valedictorian of the Aerospace Academy, had nothing to say. 

The only thing he could find it in himself to do was nod, because he completely understood. And at that moment, something fragile finally fractures beyond repair. Because the three of you had grown up together, but that day – that day, something had died alongside you. And after that, things have never been the same since. 

After your death, Caleb quickly learns that surviving and living are two very distinct things. He often does the first (albeit barely), but is particularly bad at doing the latter. Something in him had calcified in the depths of his bones, the moment that the realization that you were dead had fully settled within him. No amount of time seemed to ever undo the plethora of guilt, emptiness, or blame that he felt. On the outside, he’s still the superficial Colonel of the Farspace Fleet – the mask that he’s used to wearing, prior to even losing you.

However, it’s easier to see that Caleb had retained less of his humanity after, like his mechanical arm had spread to other parts of his body, and the toring chip no longer affected just his neck. There’s a quiet wrongness to it all that nobody acknowledges. His laughter never seems to reach his eyes anymore (but even then, he seldom laughs now), and his office light stays on far too late into the night. Still, the bracelet never leaves his wrist. It wasn’t out of obligation, or maybe even penance. It just made it a little easier to keep going, with that bracelet on. Because it reminds him of everything that he Caleb could’ve had, and a little more.

His relationship with MC never quite recovers. At the end of the day, he knew he still had an obligation to fulfill, and they still fall into the same old habits sometimes – but it’s never quite the same. A keystone, something fundamental, was missing at the apex, but there’s no way to get it back. There’s no way for you to ever come back. They never talk about the argument they had that fateful day, for better or for worse. Sometimes, he catches her looking at his wrist – at the faded threads of your bracelet – before she quickly looks away. Sometimes, MC opens her mouth as if she wants to say something.

But at the end of it all, she says nothing.

Caleb visits you on a quiet afternoon, a day when the sky is the wrong color. 

(Honestly, there’s never been a “correct” color – there hasn’t been one, ever since your death. The clouds have always been a mix of muddy grays and dull, monotone shades. Nothing was paint-worthy anymore. The only scenery that had ever been worth painting was that bright summer afternoon, where all the colors perfectly aligned, and you were so, so pretty.)

There’s a small basket between his fingers, carried by his left hand, the one with your bracelet wrapped around it. He sets it down beside your grave with a careful steadiness that took him months to relearn. It was a basket of red apples, the same kind that had been in season that day. Josephine’s special. He started growing them himself after you died, even though they don’t taste the same. 

They probably never will. But they’re close – close enough that he hopes you’ll like them. Close enough that when he bites into one, he can almost pretend – just for a second – that he’s blissfully sixteen again and unaware. Almosts. He was used to almosts. These almosts were never quite enough. “The texture is a little weird. I’m sorry. I tried to pick the best ones for you.”

Every time he visits, he hopes that the wind will one day answer for him. It never does. For a long moment, he says nothing. He stays there, over your grave, gaze dropped to the bracelet on his wrist. The crimson dye is slowly fading and blending with the ivory. Then, softly, like he’s afraid that the poets would hear this vow and take it away from him too, Caleb makes a promise that he knows he has no right to make. “If you ever grace me with your presence in my next life… If I’m even a worthy enough man to be granted that–”

“Then, for once, I’ll get it right.” His breath hitches, and he inhales, deep and shaky. “I promise on every fiber of my being, that I will always choose you. Over anything.”

“You can always count on that.” His thumb brushes over the bracelet, sealing the promise. 

“I love you.” Caleb finally whispers, and he fails to notice the way the wind stills. He fails to notice that somewhere, far beyond the fragile limits of mortals and their grief, one of the poets lifts their head, in newfound interest. Because vows like that… vows carved from years of regret, desperation, and longing… have always been the most dangerous kind for inspiration.

— LINKON CITY, SOME TIME IN THE DISTANT FUTURE, WHERE THE POETS HAVE GRANTED YOU BOTH A SECOND CHANCE AT LIFE. WILL HE SAVOR THIS OPPORTUNITY, OR LET IT ALL BURN?

Time moves the way it always does. It only moves forward, in a merciless manner, and it is far from forgiving. Still, maybe – just maybe – the poets had finally listened to him.

Because in this life, Caleb and MC do not know each other. 

Truthfully, he still knows of her, because he just needed to know that she was doing okay. He knows that she goes to Linkon University, getting that degree that she’s always wanted because hunters and wanderers are now just a fragment of history – a distant past. She’s happy, probably way happier than when she was ever with Caleb, and maybe that was for the best. They’ve passed each other, maybe once or twice, in the wide sprawl between Linkon and Skyhaven, but as nothing more than strangers, not as people who once grew up under the same roof.

Perhaps that really was for the better.

And you… Caleb remembers everything about you. He particularly remembers that faraway, summer memory – of every distinct feature on your face, the weight of your hand in his, the red apples, and the way that you died. His memory, turns out, is far crueler than anything that EVER had ever inflicted onto him. The pain of losing you does not flare or fade like the pain of that toring chip. It doesn’t grant him any mercy. It just stays the way that it is.

So, Caleb spends the rest of his newfound life searching for a girl that he’s never even met before. All to fulfill that bygone vow that he promised, all those years ago. Sometimes, he wonders if you were just an awfully vivid figment of his imagination – like he had gone mad in his previous life, and you were the only thing he could conjure to keep himself sane. Sometimes, part of him just wants to move on, because he doesn’t even know if you’re here; perhaps you’ve found refuge somewhere far away from Linkon. Somewhere far away from someone like him. And yet, he’s been trying his entire life to find you, because a distant version of himself promised that he would.

Until, one day, all his prayers are answered, in a place so painfully ordinary. 

It was a craft store within Linkon City, a smaller establishment tucked in between two brighter buildings. There was soft music playing overhead, and he caught a faint scent of paper and thread and everything made carefully by hand, and Caleb does not even remember why he entered this place to begin with.

And then there was you.

You, standing behind the register counter, like you had always belonged in this place, somewhere so gentle and forgiving and so rightfully… you. You look up at your phone when he comes in, and you flash him a smile so bright that it makes his chest ache.

Because you looked so happy, and that’s when he realizes everything. No, you were never a figment of his imagination, and nothing had been a dream. They were all memories. Caleb has lived a completely different life before this one, and this second life was one granted to him from whatever deity or poet had been listening to his pleas. All he ever wanted was to live a life with you in the epicenter of it.

Was this the one? Maybe the poets had finally shown him the slightest bit of mercy. Or was this their cruelest joke yet?

But then his gaze flickers to your wrist, and he stops. Wrapped around it was that crimson and ivory bracelet, in the same exact pattern that he remembers, and his entire world freezes. He remembers the careful way you threaded the colors, and the exact shade of red that you favored, and—

Fuck. 

You were real. You were always real. You had just been here this entire time. He thinks back to that beautiful summer afternoon, and he feels like he’s sixteen all over again, sun-warmed and stupid and hopelessly, helplessly, yours. Before he can help it, your name slips from Caleb’s mouth. The two of you have finally crossed paths once more – but wait, there’s something terribly, terribly wrong.

“That’s my name, yeah!” You say, still smiling so beautifully, and he finally feels something in his chest settle into place. Ah, so this was the penance that he had to pay in this life. It was fitting. Definitely more than fitting, especially for someone like him. Still, Caleb would never ask for a redo, no matter what. He’d look for you in every lifetime, and willingly serve this punishment in every single timeline. He’s willing to love you all over again, even if from afar. Even if in this life, you are already bound to someone else. A penance he had to serve for never putting you first in his last life. 

The poet who was writing his story had always been cruel to the touch. But for a man like Caleb, he thinks he deserves nothing less. He almost didn’t want to hear you say it, but he knows that the words are about to leave your lips, anyway. You offer him a small, apologetic smile. Nevertheless, after everything that has happened, Caleb still thinks that you are the most gorgeous woman to grace this wretched world, and in the depths of all his most beautiful memories, he will find you in every single one of them. No matter what happens.

“I’m sorry,” you say gently. “But do I know you?”

WAS I JUST A FOOL? / I’LL FOLLOW YOU DOWN ‘TIL THE SOUND OF MY VOICE WILL HAUNT YOU / GIVE ME JUST A CHANCE / YOU’LL NEVER GET AWAY FROM THE SOUND OF THE WOMAN THAT LOVES YOU.

previous | next (the finale).

end note: hello :D reader’s life post reincarnation is intentionally left ambiguous for you to decide the rest of her story and is NOT answered in the next part. in her new life, she could be matching bracelets with another person. another LI, maybe. hence why she was still wearing it even though she didn’t know who caleb was in her new life. it’s really up to your interpretation. however, in my perspective, i made her wear that bracelet in her next life to silently perpetuate the notion that caleb and reader are still tied to each other in every lifetime, while simultaneously being doomed in every single lifetime as well (i’m sorry…). the aftermath of the ending is for your imagination. does reader get together with another LI? does caleb spend the rest of his reincarnated life loving her from afar? do caleb and reader finally get together, and he spends his entire lifetime getting to know her all over again? its your decision. but just know, that caleb will always love the reader, no matter what happens <3

You had stolen away to your special place hours before he did, letting the rare bits of sunlight filtering through the maple leaves flit across your face as you imagine your marriage to the one you love the most. To outsiders it might not have been what they envisioned, but as you smooth down the crinkled fabric of your simple white dress all you can feel is an incandescent glow and genuine happiness.

This feeling is a dangerous one. It clouds your judgement and has you thinking of another, whether on the battlefield or in between his sheets. It has you craving his affection, for his hands that can either cradle your face with the utmost care or end his enemy’s life. It’s a feeling you weren’t familiar with before you crossed paths, but it’s now all-consuming as you allow yourself to wander amongst the trees and twist the little pendant he gave you as a gift.

It’s not like the other jewels he keeps in his collection - no, this one is quietly elegant. It sits at the hollow of your throat, the teardrop shaped ruby surrounded by diamonds and lain in white gold. You still remember the way his hands shook when he clasped it around your throat, of the kiss he placed on your cheek before letting the two of you look at how it rested between your collarbones in the mirror. His cheeks had grown pink at the sight, and he murmured something in a language you didn’t understand before spinning you around and pressing you into the mirror.

That memory grounds you as the hours slip by your promised time, the light that was dancing across your face rapidly disappearing. You’re now shaking in this thin dress, feeling worry and fear spread throughout your body as you think of the worst case scenarios.

Did something happen to him? No, he’s much too smart to get caught up in something petty. Did he get swept up in something work related? Entirely possible, except he’s cleared out his schedule for this exact day. You know, because he showed you his empty calendar save for this exact date and time marked down.

So what does that leave?

You’re shivering from the cold when you return to your home, chilled to the bone and utterly confused. What could have caused him to miss your wedding day? Why would he miss your wedding day?

Something’s amiss. You can tell by the way Luke and Kieran aren’t hovering around his usual study, or the way Mephisto doesn’t greet you in his usual way of landing on your shoulder and ruffling the hair by your ear. It’s too still, and you feel your spine stiffen as you try to find the reason why.

You pass by his study, where you hear a hushed whisper accompanied by a sharp laugh. He hasn’t had a reason to sound like that in years - only electing to be soft with you. You stand in front of the ajar door, feeling your heart clench when you hear him whisper a soft kitten.

Not towards you, towards someone else.

Your stomach clenches painfully, suddenly aware of the choice that faces you. You can either live in delusion and brush this underneath the rug. Or…

You push open the door tentatively, letting yourself linger in the shadows as you look at the scene before you.

Him and her. Ruby eyes alight with genuine amusement as her face flushes a pretty pink - too pretty for a place like the N109 Zone. The bit of energy holding their wrists together, entwining them together and marking them as one.

Your hand flies to your mouth at the scene unfolding before you, shock dousing your system before you can comprehend what’s happening.

You stumble back, hand covering your mouth as you move quickly to the safest place you can think of. You burst through the doors of your bedroom, slamming them shut and locking them tightly before you make your way to your closet. You begin packing, shoving things into random bags and ensuring you have the most precious things - which you honestly find hilarious because you had little to nothing when you two had first crossed paths.

At the thought of him, you feel yourself stop for the quickest moment. Your hands fly to your pendant as you think of the quiet yearning you had for him, only for your wildest dreams to come true when he admitted he fell for you, too. All of the stolen touches and whispered promises - the life of light and care you two promised for each other.

The life you so foolishly believed in.

Your hands slip around your neck and you let your fingernail catch the clasp of your necklace. It takes a few attempts for you to clumsily remove the piece, but once it’s in your hands you feel yourself tremble. Something warm slides down your cheeks, and you take a deep breath in to try and stop the gnawing ache in your chest. You shouldn’t have stopped. You should have kept packing and moving and not thinking but here you are, sinking to your knees as you finally, finally sob at the realization that’s just hit you full-on in your chest.

It’s not you.

It was never going to be you.

It’s the end of your world as you knew it.

And as your tears dry against your cheeks, you swear to yourself that you will never let yourself be weakened by idiotic things like love again.

Upon your graduation from training, they give you the codename Yue.

And these days, you relish this new name.

It’s easy to slip into the personality of Yue. You suppress every emotion you’ve ever felt in your entire life before adopting a cold and calculated demeanor. It’s everything that Doomsday taught you, honing your skills with a sharp precision before shipping you off on your first objective with only a name and a single photo.

You never question, you only execute. Why would you question the people that gave you a second chance, anyways? They took you in when you had nothing and turned you into…this.

You’re still not sure who you are these days, now that you think about it. When you catch glimpses of yourself in the mirror, you think you still look like yourself. Maybe a little bit worn, eyes a little more dull, but you still resemble yourself.

When the objectives stack a little too high, you sometimes think features of yourself have been replaced by Wanderer parts. Claws where your nails usually are, your eyes hollow sockets. It takes a few blinks in the mirror to restore yourself to your humanity - to remind yourself you’re not a Wanderer.

The worst is when you wake up after a beautiful dream. You claw at your throat for a necklace that isn’t there as you try to gulp air into your lungs, hot tears leaving tracks down your cheeks while you frantically wipe your mind blank of a soft smile and strong arms that pull you into their embrace. It takes longer to erase yourself of those memories, having to breathe deeply while you lock the vision of ruby eyes somewhere deep in whatever’s left of your heart.

It was awful those first couple of months. Those eyes haunted your every moment, and you think you got a combined twenty hours of sleep each week that passed slowly. You had thrown yourself into training, releasing every bitter feeling into knives and guns until all you could feel was the recoil of a pistol in your hands or the cool handle of the daggers you chose to wield.

You can swallow it down more easily now that two years have passed. The taste is barely bitter on your tongue, and other things weigh more heavily on your mind now that you’re at the top of the Doomsday Division.

You don’t want to say you’re important to the cause, but you’re certainly no middleman or messenger. Since you’re the top cleaner, you’re allowed to sit in on important meetings. You keep to yourself, but your eyes are ever sharp as you examine the way Soren curses a defected Backtracker from his past and the movements of the Farspace Fleet. It’s amusing to you, how they move and whisper about their plans and the Fountain of Atei and believe that you won’t do anything. You won’t, but you still keep every bit of information tucked carefully into the file folders of your mind.

Anything to keep your mind thinking.

Something feels different when you step into this meeting, though. It’s more tense, and you can feel their stares boring into the side of your head as you take up your usual spot in the shadowy corner of the room. The conversation starts out the same: questions about progress and how far along the Fountain of Atei is. It slowly shifts, though, to a Protocore dealer who used to work hand in hand with Soren, who’s since defected and started leaking information on EVER’s movements.

It’s honestly incredibly stupid, you think. You have the shadow organization backing your every move, and you blabber out their secrets in response? That’s just sheer stupidity and practically begging for a knife to the throat.

“Cleaner Yue.”

Soren’s voice parroting your codename snaps you out of your stupor, and you barely glance up with thinly veiled annoyance. “What?”

“You’re the one slated to hunt down this target.”

“Tch.” It’s a dismissive sound, and you make a show of straightening your spine and standing up taller. “A fifty-something year old Protocore dealer who defected? Easy work, and you all know that.”

Everyone’s face grows tight at your statement, but Lihua has the grace to look amused as she regards you coolly. “It’s not just a cleaning, Yue.”

“Oh?” Now this is interesting. You’ve dealt with your fair share of cleanings, and you honestly think you’ve seen them all. What could possibly make this different?

“This cleaning won’t involve you heading into an alternate space.” Lihua pulls up a map that’s marked down with all of your recent cleanings. Most of the dots are clustered within abandoned parts of Linkon City and Skyhaven, with some further dots marked in Chansia and Dawnlight City. 

There’s a section of the map that’s not marked though.

And something sinks in your chest when you see Lihua zoom into it.

“Our target, Daniel Kim, has somehow found cover here.” She points to a specific section of the map, and you begin to sweat as Soren pulls up more information. “You are to go in and do what you do best. And since you’re familiar-”

“-no.”

The room falls silent, every eye suddenly on your too tight body.

“I said specifically I would never head back there.” Your voice is cold, but you can’t quite mask the tremor in your hands. You tuck them away, shoring yourself up so that all of these important people can’t see how shaken you are. “You can send me to the Arctic for all I care, but I will never-”

“Yes you are, lest you forget yourself.”

A tall man in an imposing suit and tie steps forward, and you can’t quite mask the way your eyes widen at the sight of him. This is the most important person in the building - the spearhead behind EVER’s efforts. This was the one man you never wanted to cross paths with-

-and now you’re directly on his radar and his line of vision.

He steps forward, hands held neatly behind his back and steps calculated. Despite the fear roiling in your stomach, you stand straighter and meet his gaze head on.

You’ll be damned if you show fear in the face of this man.

“There is only one thing I requested when I agreed to train for Doomsday.” You surprise everyone in the room, including yourself, with how shrewd you sound as you meet him word for word. “I would do your bidding and execute your plans, but in exchange you would never send me back there. I left for a reason, and there’s no need for me to return there.”

“On the contrary, ____.”

Hearing your name makes your breath catch in your throat, bravado wavering as his lips quirk up slightly. He knows he’s hit a chink in your armor, and you curse yourself for letting your weakness show.

“You are precisely the person we’re looking for.” His hand reaches up to cup your cheek, and you fight the urge to recoil as you stare at him with thinly veiled hate. “The best killer for Doomsday…quiet, clean, obedient.” His thumb delicately strokes your chin, and you swallow thickly so you don’t spit in his face.

“Know this, however.” His hand goes from gently cupping to gripping your jaw, and your hands shake when you feel his nails digging into the delicate skin of your cheeks. “You follow my orders. I hold power over you, and I won’t hesitate to use it for your entire life.”

His hand loosens, and he pushes you just enough that it has you stumbling back. You gasp and clutch at your face, your pride and your ego torn to shreds for the entire top of EVER to see.

“That’s all, Yue.” He’s gone back to his seat, face only showing boredom as he begins to upload detailed files into your comms device. “Prepare for your mission. You get however long you need, but by the end of this you will have completed your cleaning.”

Such an easy dismissal for someone with so much power, but for you it feels like the walls are closing in and you can’t find the way out.

Your worst scenario is happening.

You’re going back to the N109 Zone.

It doesn’t feel monumental when you step back into the streets of the N109 Zone.

You thought that it would be overwhelming for you, but you’re grateful in some twisted way that your training with Doomsday has left you with little patience for sentimentality. You’ve also effectively locked your emotions somewhere deep inside, so you’ve managed to maintain a bored face on this entire thing.

Inside of your mind is a different story, however. Your mind races and constantly writes and rewrites scenarios over again, catching every little detail that hasn’t changed since you’ve left. The staff of the luxurious hotel you’re staying at barely bat an eye as you check in, but you make note of the glances they pass to each other as well as the registrar that sits plainly on their desk. You see your target’s name on the paper, confirming the details EVER sent you before taking your key and leaving without tossing them another look.

Once in the privacy of your suite, you prepare yourself for whatever scenario could possibly happen. Pulling on your usual outfit that helps you blend in, tucking knives into various pockets and the sturdy boots you couldn’t do a mission without, and making sure your gun is properly secured in its holster - it’s your methodical putting on of armor, your way of washing away ____ and putting on Yue’s mask. It helps you wipe yourself clean, honing your focus into your listed objectives.

And you’re going to damn well finish your objectives so that you can get out of this godforsaken place in record time.

“Objective in play, Cleaner Yue requesting coordinates for target.” It’s cold, straight to the point as you hop onto your rented motorcycle and speed into the general direction your dossier had listed. As much as you hate to say it, your previous knowledge of the N109 Zone is helping you tremendously. It has you avoiding areas that could cause obstacles as well as taking streets that cut down your travel time.

Soren’s voice enters your comms device, and you scowl when you hear his sugary sweet sarcasm. “Say please, Yue.”

“Fuck off, Soren.” You take a right turn, gripping the handles a little bit tighter in annoyance. “Give me the damn coordinates so that I can finish this faster.”

“Fine, jeez Yue.” You grit your teeth at his annoyance, but you still murmur a begrudging cool under your breath when you see your desired information flash through the screen of your helmet. “By the way, what’s got you so twisted about the N109 Zone?”

“Why do you care?” It’s venomous, and you’re thankful he can’t see your face because you know your expression doesn’t match your tone.

“You showed up randomly one day two years ago and said you’d join Doomsday under the agreement you’d never go back to the N109 Zone.” It’s a fact, but it’s still one that makes your stomach twist as you continue to speed to your objective’s site. “You trained and you cleaned for two years, rising so quickly to the top and yet you never talk to anyone else. What gives?”

“It’s none of your business, Soren.” You’re a couple of miles out to your site, and you pull over and park your motorcycle in a shadowy street corner. Removing your helmet, you place it on the motorcycle and note its location on your communication device before beginning to walk towards your desired location.

“It is my business.” Soren’s voice comes out crackly through your earpiece, and you wince at the static as you lower the volume. “What a mystery you are, Miss Yue of Doomsday…”

“And I’m remaining that way. Now leave me be so I can finish my job.”

You don’t wait for a response, you simply end communication as you take point to investigate your surroundings.

It looks like a normal alley of crumbling buildings, but you can tell that something seedier runs afoot amongst the debris. Your eyes quickly flicker to quick movement, however, and your breathing slows when you see your target exiting a building with his forehead as the perfect target.

Look at that, you’ll be in and out before the N109 Zone even sees a sunrise.

You let him move slightly ahead of you before you start moving, tailing him quietly so that you don’t draw any sort of attention to yourself. As you walk, however, you see more people than what’s normal in what’s supposed to be a deserted street. Sure, there was the building this guy exited from, and you’re sure that there are more safe houses and black markets nearby, but what gives?

The street slowly grows emptier as you continue forward, and you pull on your half mask to disguise the lower half of your face. Something feels off to you, and you need to get in and kill this man before something happens-

“I wouldn’t move any further, Mr. Kim.”

The voice is projected from the speakers scattered around the street, and your target stops dead in his tracks. You stop as well, tucking yourself in between a pile of boxes and a crumbling brick wall as you assess the scene before you.

“W-who’s there?!” Daniel’s voice is panicked, and you can see his hands beginning to go towards the waistband of his pants so that he can grab blindly at the gun tucked in there. You also ready yourself, unsheathing two of your daggers as you take aim at his vulnerable state.

Now’s your chance.

“You don’t recognize me?” The voice is honey sweet, and you feel yourself begin to sweat at the familiarity of it. “We did just make a deal, after all.”

No.

No.

Something slices cleanly through Yue’s mask, something  ____ thinks is fear as a reddish black mist begins to surround the area. Somewhere above your head, you can hear a mechanical cawing of a robotic crow and you press yourself as close to the brick wall as you can while breathing harshly through your nose to maintain your composure.

Keep it together, Yue.

You grit your teeth and take aim again, fighting the bile rising in your throat when you see a figure emerge from the hazy mist that’s gathered. He’s wrapped in his usual trenchcoat, hair mussed and ruby eyes flashing in amusement as he regards your target. He carries no weapons, but why would he need to when he’s the most powerful being in the N109 Zone?

Sylus Qin.

The sight of your ex-fiancé has your heart pounding but you’re still able to keep your hands still while you assess this new factor. Daniel Kim, however, has stumbled back onto the ground where he’s begun begging for his life.

“Mr. Qin!” Daniel is full of panic as he begins blabbing about how nice it is to see him, but you note that Sylus looks distracted. And when you look a little closer you see that he looks…disheveled.

That’s a rare sight. Whatever happened to him that caused him to look like this? He would never let himself look like this on the streets of the N109 Zone.

Does it have anything to do with his lady friend? You smile bitterly to yourself at the thought.

Good, let him suffer as much as he’s made you unknowingly suffer.

“-or I could tell you about the new protocores EVER has recently acquired!” You snap back into focus when you hear Daniel beginning to blab out all of EVER’s secrets, and you grip your knives tighter as you take your stance. This stupid idiot is going to ruin everything you’ve ever worked for-

“-I could also tell you about the Doomsday Division and their top cleaner!” It’s a choked squawk, but it stops you in your tracks.

How does this idiot know about your division?

You can see the slight pinch in the corner of Sylus’s mouth, eyes flaring with irritation as he picks up your target by his jacket’s lapels and brings him close to his face. “Why would I give a damn about one of EVER’s secret divisions?”

“Because…” Daniel pauses for dramatic effect, lips slowly curling into a smirk even when he’s dangling in the air. “Because, Mr. Qin, their top cleaner might be someone of interest to you.”

Your heart stops.

How does Daniel know this? Doomsday isn’t a widely known division on account of the fact that everyone there is dedicated to cleaning out targets. EVER has a public reputation to maintain, and advertising your assassin division isn’t exactly the smartest thing to do.

So how does he know? How does he have information on something that’s been under lock and key - something so dirty that EVER hides it with news about the Fountain of Atei and their Protocore research? How does he know about you? And how does he know that Doomsday’s top cleaner is you?

This is very bad.

You realize now why Daniel Kim is so high on EVER’s list, despite only being a Protocore dealer. He knows all of their dirty little secrets, and if he exposes them? They, you, are absolutely done for.

You know what you need to do now, and you ready yourself for your next course of action.

From your vantage point, you can’t see the expression on Sylus’s face. But you do see the way his fingers slightly loosen their hold on Daniel’s lapel, shock evident in the way his fingers tremble against the cheap fabric. You take aim, ready to throw your knife straight into Daniel’s jugular, but Sylus’s shaky voice stops you for a split second.

“Where is she?”

What?

What does he mean, where is she?

“If you let me go, I’ll tell you all about Yue.” Daniel’s slimy voice saying your name like that has you clenching the handle of your daggers tighter, an ugly feeling flaring in your chest as your lips twist into a scowl. “Where she is, how long she’s been in the program for-”

You don't even think, you just do.

You flick your dagger towards Sylus’s shoulder. You know he sees it coming from a mile away, but that’s the point. In his dodging of your dagger, he loosens his hold enough on Daniel’s jacket for you to throw the other dagger - making Sylus completely let go of Daniel’s clothing.

Daniel, with some of his brains restored, has enough common sense to run away. This is going to be an issue for later you, but for right now all that matters is he’s alive. He’s revealed why he’s so dangerous, and the spite coursing through your veins won’t let you rest before you clean him from this world yourself.

What matters is right now. Right now, it’s you in this deserted street-

-alone with him.

“An assassin?” He sounds vaguely amused at this idea, his right eye glowing red as he scans his surroundings. “What a novel thing in the N109 Zone. Come out, you’ve thoroughly impressed me.”

He thinks he has you cornered, but you’ve already decided on your escape route a long time ago. All you need is the element of surprise, and you know you have enough of that in your identity.

You stand up, slowly moving aside from the boxes and facing him. For all of your panic earlier in the moment, all you know now is peace as you cock your head at him, sizing him up. Sylus also takes his time in examining you, and you stamp down the traitorous flicker of desire pooling in your stomach when you feel the way his eyes trace lines of fire up and down your body.

Focus, Yue.

“Shorter than I imagined.” There’s some amusement in his voice, and you don’t share it as you simply stare him down. “I can’t make a joke?”

“It’s a bad joke.” Your voice is slightly hoarse from disuse, and you unsheathe two daggers from your sleeves. “I expected more from the Leader of Onychinus.”

Sylus scoffs at that, and you see the way his finger twitches as he summons his Evol. That little tell is all you need, and you gracefully roll out of the way right before it can grab onto you. He whistles at your movement. “I’m impressed.”

“I’m not.” This is bad, you shouldn’t be talking to him in this way because it’s bringing up feelings that should be buried when you have on the mask of Yue. But the banter is so reminiscent of when the two of you would talk late into the night about everything and nothing while sparring each other-

You’re slower to dodge the next attack on you, but you’re still able to roll towards your exit. You estimate that all you need is one more quick movement and you’re able to run-

“-ah!”

His Evol knocks you flat on your back, and you register something clattering to your side as you hear footsteps slowly clicking towards you. You take a deep breath to steady yourself and you push yourself up to your feet just in time to see your half mask by your boots.

Nonononononono-

You smell him then, smoky wood and pomegranate. His dress shoes come to a stop in front of you, and you freeze when you see his Evol weaving in and out between his fingers.

“Who are you?” It’s cold, but his voice being so near you still manages to stir a messy flurry of feelings within your chest. “What is your business here?”

Now’s your time.

You lift your head, and you meet Sylus Qin’s gaze for the first time in two years.

And you see the exact moment he recognizes you. You know it, because you feel something twist painfully in your chest when your eyes catch his. It’s perfectly in time to the way his eyes widen, jaw going slack at the sight of your straight face and disheveled hair.

The world’s stopped, and it’s now just you and him.

“____?”

His voice is full of shock and something that matches that painful twinge in your chest. His eyes frantically scan every part of your face, drinking you in as his hands slowly begin to travel up so he can…you don’t know what, but you don’t want to find out. “____, I-”

You use his defenselessness to push him square in the chest, making him uncharacteristically fall to the street. He catches himself easily on his forearms, but your knives are quick to pin him to the asphalt of the cold ground. You step back to see him in a state few will ever get to see Sylus Qin in: pinned by his shirt, hair mussed and chest heaving as he looks at you with the sick realization of just who you’ve become in the two years you’ve been gone from the N109 Zone.

You just stare back at him coldly. What else is there to say? Everything good between the two of you has long withered and died, anyways.

“It’s Yue.”

And before you can let him decipher that meaning, you turn and run as fast as you humanly can, accidentally leaving your mask by his dress shoes.

“Let’s get this straight, Yue. You had a direct line with the target and instead of killing him you…let him run away?”

Soren’s voice is equal parts irritated and amused, but you’re anything but as you flop back onto your bed. “Yes, but I have reasoning for it.”

“Tsk tsk…” You can tell he enjoys relishing in your failure, even if it’s calculated on your end. “What’ll Lihua and the big bossman think about their top cleaner letting her target escape?”

“They won’t think anything because they won’t know.”

Soren laughs, actually laughs at your failure as your shoulders curl tighter in on themselves. For the first time in a long time, you feel anxiety flare in the pit of your stomach as the reality sets in: this is the first time you purposefully let a mission go awry.

You’ve never let this happen before.

“Well, Miss Yue, you better make it up to me.” Soren uploads new information into your communication device, and you breathe a sigh of relief when you see multiple coordinates for Daniel’s movements. “We’ve been tracking his movements for weeks now, and I’ve condensed the most likely places he’ll be in this list here. I anticipated you finishing sooner but…here we are.”

“And I'll still finish it faster than anyone else could.” You’ll never say thank you to Soren, but this is enough for him to know he has your gratitude as you end the call. You recognize the first coordinate of the list being a bar nearby the hotel you’re staying at, so you prepare yourself for both a cleaning and maybe a long night in between someone else’s sheets.

You had showered after you had gotten back, so you’re able to take your time getting ready for the night. You pull on a silky, ankle-length black dress with a dangerous slit up your thigh before sitting back down and zipping up a pair of heeled leather boots complete with your favorite knives tucked into hidden pockets. Your hair gets piled up on top of your head and secured with a metal hairpin that could act as a weapon if needed, and you finish your ensemble by sliding on a floor-length coat with a hidden gun holster.

You look in the mirror, satisfied with your ensemble. You look dangerous and nothing like yourself - exactly how you like it.

How you look right now paired with his reaction to you catching him off guard bolsters your confidence and reminds you of who you are as you leave your hotel, quickly crossing over to where you know the coordinates lead to. It’s an unassuming bar with flickering lights, almost dead in its appearance except for the music that pours from its closed doors. Soft jazz mixes with the ambient laughter from inside, and you’re sure you’ve found your target location as you push open the door and let yourself in.

The lounge is lush, velvet booths and chairs paired with dark stained mahogany. The bar is busy, the bartenders sliding slips of paper to guests while the jazz music hides secrets that lurk around every corner. You find an unassuming booth tucked in the corner, but you see more: the ornate mirror by the booth provides a direct view of the entrance, while being away enough from the entrance so you can slip into the back rooms if you need to make a quick escape.

There’s the added bonus of it being by the dance floor, and men of all types try to vie for your hand. You simply wave them off, sliding into the empty booth and letting the soulful saxophone lull you into a calm mindset. A waiter drops by with some water and offers their liquor menu, but you simply accept the water with a nod before turning your eyes back to the mirror in front of you, waiting for your target.

As you slowly sip, you mull over the past few…hours? You can’t believe it’s been hours, to be honest. You never purposefully would’ve slipped like that, but you think that it’s the best decision now. Daniel Kim will die a painful death, and you’ll relish every second that you’ll spend eradicating his existence and your truth from this mortal plane.

As for the other person in that encounter…

The bar stills as the front entrance opens, and you feel yourself sigh minutely when you see a flash of red and black cross the threshold. It’s almost comical how the music stops, and you feign disinterest as the clack of well-polished dress shoes comes to a stop.

“Why did you stop? Keep enjoying yourselves.”

The bass is plucked back up a little too quickly, but everyone slowly picks themselves up as you pretend not to notice how his steps walk towards where you’re situated.

“Hello, darling.”

A voice wrapped in velvet reaches you, almost lulling you into a place of your heart you don’t dare to enter. There’s an undercurrent of something bitter underneath his tone, however, and you feel yourself stiffen as you feel something brush against your ankles.

“What do you want?”

It’s flat, but your eyes stay sharp as you examine the way his Evol travels up your leg before undoing itself from your body, rewrapping itself around your wrist in a whisper of a touch. Your frown deepens when you see his signature red and black hue, and your hands slowly curl up into a ball as you begin to count your breaths.

“That’s no way to treat your fiancé, is it?”

You force your shoulders to stay straight as Sylus sets himself across from you, placing his drink right next to yours. But even with your straightened spine, you avoid his eyes as you fix your attention to his Adam’s apple, noting how it slightly bobs in the silence.

He’s nervous.

Good.

“Ex fiancé, thank you.” You can’t quite hide the bitterness as you reach for your cup, sipping slowly on the water as you try to absorb its chill into your soul. “And if I remember correctly, you were the one who didn’t show up.”

You don’t have to look into his eyes to know you’ve hit the chink in his armor - you can see it in the way the upward tilt of his mouth completely vanishes, replaced with a straight line. His fingers begin to tap an erratic rhythm onto the marble of the table, and you slowly count the tempo he’s mindlessly tapping out as you wait for his excuse.

“I showed up now, didn’t I?” You know Sylus means for it to be teasing, but there’s a raw pain hidden in the meaning as he looks at you with a depth you used to be able to decipher. “It’s been too long, ____.”

His Evol that had been tracing your wrist slowly makes its way to your ring finger, and it gently settles itself there like you had never taken off your engagement ring. You frown at the sight but for some reason, you can’t find it in yourself to make it disappear with a wave of your hand.

You try to swallow down the feeling that bubbles in your chest, but it still stays. How annoying.

“Yue.” You run your finger on the rim of your water glass, noting a quick brush of fabric in one of the rooms beside your booth. You lazily flick your eyes back to Sylus, not betraying your findings as you stealthily unsheathe a knife. “I’d prefer to be called as such, by the way.”

“I know you as ____ so I’d prefer to call you that.” His lips quirk up in the corners, and his eyes drop to your ring finger still wrapped in his Evol. “Or would you rather I call you my darling?”

Heat pools in your stomach at that intimate name, and a flashback of him sighing that blasted pet name into your ear as his hips rocked against you has you rattled to your bones.

“Stop that.” You can feel the scowl on your face deepen when you see Sylus’s lips curl into a teasing smile at how much he still affects you. “You’re two years too late, and don’t you have another woman somewhere in one of your safe houses?”

This makes him pause, and his eyes grow guarded as he examines you carefully. “What do you mean by that, ____? I’ve only ever been faithful to you-”

“Were you really?” You see the same brush of fabric from the corner of your eyes, and you toy with your knife hidden underneath the table as you stare at Sylus head on. “I saw what happened in your study the night we were supposed to get married.”

Your knife’s handle slips into your palm, and you grip onto the handle as you see a figure approach closer. Sylus wracks his brain, and at the same moment he realizes what you saw is the same moment your unknown assailant makes himself known.

With a flick of your wrist, your knife sails seamlessly through the air. It whizzes by Sylus’s ear with a silent whoosh, thudding neatly into his assailant’s chest. You stand as if nothing has happened, reaching over and draining your water cup while he looks at you with surprise and guilt.

“____-”

“-Yue.”

Your cup clinks a little too hard on the table, and you prop your hands onto the sturdy wood of the table as you lean down and glare at him with thinly veiled…you don’t know, but it’s not a pleasant feeling. “I saw you and her on a day that was supposed to be ours. You do not get to waltz back into my life after I’ve buried everything successfully.”

It’s a big fat lie if you’re still feeling your heart flutter in your chest at the sight of his ruffled state, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“____, I need to explain myself to you-” It’s a messy spill of words from his mouth as he stands so he can meet your gaze, but you push at his chest a little too harshly and force him back down to the booth.

“How many times do I have to tell you it’s Yue, dragon?”

It’s bitter poison, the name he hates so deeply falling from your mouth. You feel the slightest twinge of guilt at his pained face, but how does that compare to the agony he’s inflicted on you? How does it compare to you walking in and finding your fiancé too close to a girl who’s too good to be true, who’s everything you can’t be?

You step away from the booth, brushing your dress of nonexistent lint. The Evol that had wrapped around your ring finger quickly dissipates as you shake your hand free, grabbing your coat and not sparing the man moaning behind him another glance. You do look into ruby eyes, however, and you feel that familiar cold seeping into your chest as you regard his face for what you hope is the last time.

“____ is long dead and gone, Sylus Qin. Don’t spend your time fruitlessly chasing after a ghost just because you’ve found someone who looks similar to her.”

You walk away from the booth with your head held high, but inside, you’re shaken to your core.

As much as you want to believe this is your last encounter with him, you know that it won’t be.

Not by a long shot.

You can hear the mechanical cawing of a robotic crow from outside of your window, but you choose to ignore it as you scroll through your communication log and groan at the changes.

The crow has been a constant, but at least you haven’t seen a whisper of him since that night two weeks ago. You’ve been far too busy to dwell on your ex-fiancé, anyways - Daniel has ramped up his security since he was threatened, and you can tell it’s been bad at headquarters because Soren is being even more of a whiny bastard and Lihua’s been added as another mission supervisor.

You’re slipping, and you know it. You have been since you saw him.

You don’t want to admit it, but he’s sliced cleanly through your mask - leaving you somewhere in between Doomsday’s Yue and ____. A person who’s in between times, in between identities, and in between feelings. You don’t know whether to lean into one side or the other - but you know it’s costing you.

You can practically feel Lihua’s disapproval even though you're miles away, making you shudder in your room.

At least it’s only Soren and Lihua, though. If it were the boss…

The constant tapping on your window breaks you from your stupor, and you look outside in annoyance to see that familiar shape pecking its beak against the stained glass. Your frown deepens when you see the crow on your windowsill, but you don’t stop yourself from getting up from your chair and swinging the window wide open.

“What are you doing here?” Unlike when you were with him, your voice takes on a much softer tone as you see Mephisto circle around your room before settling on the chair you were previously on. He gives out a shrill caw!, hopping around on the chair before sticking his leg out for you to look.

“Hmm?” You approach the crow and sit down in front of the chair, immediately noting the little piece of paper stuck onto its leg. You’re quick to undo the string that ties the paper to his leg, and Mephisto lets out a noise of thanks followed by what you can only assume is his approximation of a grumble.

“Yes, yes,” you grumble softly, although you feel yourself soften slightly when Mephisto hops onto your shoulder and nuzzles his head against your cheek.

“November, Charlie, Oscar, Quebec…” You list off the words, recognizing the common phonetic alphabet from a previous time. The words don’t make sense, though. With an alphabet like this, the capitalized letters would spell out the code - but he’s just sent you a bunch of gibberish.

“Your programmer annoys me, you know that?”

Mephisto gives a gleeful cry, and you sigh before grabbing a pen and paper and settling into the chair to decipher the puzzle he’s so graciously decided to give you.

It takes you a couple of tries but when you decipher the code, you crumple and throw the paper out of sheer frustration.

FOLLOW THE CROW.

You turn your head and give Mephisto a withering look. “You knew all this time, didn’t you?”

Mephisto merely cocks his head in a mockery of your own before cawing once more and flying out of your open window.

You sigh heavily. “Stupid programmer…”

You still go, getting onto your motorcycle and following a distant crow in the distance. Why wouldn’t you? He may prove valuable yet.

Mephisto leads you to an abandoned laboratory from a time gone by, and your curiosity reaches another level when you vaguely recognize some of the facade. You push yourself off of your motorcycle and ignore Mephisto’s insistent cawing, instead walking towards a crumbling wall and wiping the soot off of the surface. You’re surprised to see a mirror, and that surprise slowly morphs into shock when you see EVER’s logo printed neatly in stained white paint.

You know that the N109 Zone used to be a prosperous place before it was reduced to the way it is now, and you also know that EVER had something to do with this destruction. Why is this here though? You thought it was only a few small laboratories, not a giant complex that now sits abandoned.

What are they not telling you?

Mephisto caws once more, and you push yourself away from the wall with shaking hands.

“What are you playing at, Sylus Qin…”

“Nothing, actually.”

You nearly jump out of your skin at the unexpected voice, and your head whips around to find Sylus leaning against a crumbling pillar. Instead of the fine business clothes he usually has on, he has on a more casual motorcycle outfit that matches your own with his leather jacket and sturdy boots.

“Don’t do that.” Your face automatically forms a deep frown at his visage, and you run your hands over your head to soothe your nerves. Sylus’s eyebrow quirks at your slight scare, and amusement slowly forms on his face at the realization that he rattled you for a split second.

“Aren’t you supposed to be a great assassin, Yue?”

He emphasises your codename, turning the syllables over his mouth as if tasting it to see if it’s to his liking. As much as you try to suppress it, you hate the shiver that runs up your spine at how his voice drops - the low timber of his voice making it sound like you’re in a much more intimate setting compared to where you actually are.

“I am.” Unlike the subtle flirtatiousness, you’re much more stoic as you look at him with what you hope is boredom. “Top of the pyramid, if you will.”

“I know that much.” He does approach you at this, and you sidestep a little bit away to maintain your distance from him. “Once Daniel told me that information, it was easy to dig it up. A long record after only two years, silent and deadly…”

He steps closer, and you force yourself to look up at his ruby eyes. You’re not going to back down from him; you’re going to keep staring at him to the bitter end.

“You’ve become an enigma when I used to know you so well.”

There’s no bitterness in the statement, only a sort of accepted melancholy that makes your chest tighten because it’s true. You used to trust Sylus with everything in you, knowing he would never let anything hurt you. You willingly gave him your heart, but that trust was broken when you witnessed what happened in his study.

“People change.” It comes out even and you’re thankful that it does. “Circumstances and things that are supposed to be secret come out, and it leaves the party who got hurt scrambling for ways to fix it. So I did.”

“No doubt about it, ____.” Sylus’s hand reaches up, about to touch you but he instead lets it fall limply by his side. “People can change, but their past still follows them and reminds them of who they are. Does that happen to you?”

Your breath hitches.

Because it does. More than you care to admit.

It goes against everything you’ve ever been taught at Doomsday. You’ve gotten good at hiding it, sure, but you were supposed to kill that part of you once you graduated from training - after your first cleaning.

So the fact that you coexist with Cleaner Yue is dangerous.

Sylus, still oblivious to your tumultuous thoughts, continues on with his own musings. His eyes really look at you, searching for something before he settles on, “I guess what I really wonder is, ____…did you ever think about me? What exactly ran through your head during those two years?”

This is bad.

This is not the conversation you were expecting. You were expecting him to threaten you, to try and kill you, maybe make a joke about what you’ve become but not this.

Not his attempt to crack you open - to try and see the part of you that you’ve hidden deep inside of yourself. The part of you that still dreams of him and aches for his touch, the part that still wears a ruby necklace around her neck and waits for a wedding underneath the cover of maple leaves.

You’ll be damned if he manages to pull her out. Not after everything you’ve gone through to try and kill her.

“What does it matter?” You step back a little further, creating space that slowly diminishes because he still takes a step towards you. “Why do you want to know? Don’t you have someone else waiting for you at the base?”

Your words are bitter, but there’s something that colors that bitterness and makes it turn a shade of grey. It makes your chest ache and your throat feel a little bit tighter, and as much as you try to swallow it away you can’t because it’s that awful feeling that’s been bubbling in your heart since he betrayed you.

Silence rings out as you let him process your words, and your arms slowly wrap around your body so that you can keep yourself warm. Everything feels too thin - the silence, his thoughts, your patience. This was a bad idea and you shouldn’t have gone here-

“-let me make a deal with you.”

From your peripheral, you see a hand reaching up to tuck itself neatly underneath your chin. You neatly deflect it by whacking his arm away from your face, and you let the opening allow you access to grab the collar of his jacket and pull him down to your height.

“I’m listening.”

Sylus’s eyes glint at your little show, and his lips slightly tilt up. “Cute.”

Your fingers tighten ever so slightly, and you unsheathe a knife from your sleeve in warning.

“Fine,” he huffs. Your fingers tighten and you focus on his nose as he begins his proposition. “Daniel is still on the large, but I’ve gotten all of the information I need from him. All you need to do is kill him, right?”

“...yes.”

His eyes gleam at the inch you’ve given him. “I’ll help you track him down and eradicate him. All you need to do is be willing to work with me for however long it takes.”

“That’s it?” Suspicion sinks heavily over you, making your fingers loosen as you regard him with curiosity. “Just…work with you?

He nods, and you hate the way his face softens at your disbelief. “That’s all I want, ____.”

What are the benefits to this?

You’re going to be able to clean Daniel Kim from this world with the help of someone who rules this area. While this is happening, you can take this closeness and use it to kill the part of you that still holds something deep for him. You can run after this.

EVER wouldn’t want you collaborating with the enemy, though. Especially not one that’s so high on their list. You’ve already messed up to the point of mission leaders changing, and you know their patience is running thin. You may be the best, but even the best is dispensable in the face of a massive entity like EVER.

But all of that pales in comparison to the one thing that’ll make or break you.

He’s currently in the palm of your hands. He leans tall at six foot two, and his ruffled head is bent down to your height as he waits patiently for your response. Even in this position, though, he has all of the power and influence - not just for how this mission ends, but for how you may end up feeling about him in the end.

You hate it.

You hate it, yet it’s your only option.

You know what you need to do.

“I’ll work with you.” You can see the surprise on his face mixing with something more as you glare at him with little heat. “I’ll work with you, but know this.”

You pull him down even lower, holding your knife to his throat as you direct his eyes onto your heated stare. Sylus’s eyes widen at your sudden display of aggression, but that shock slowly smooths out into an even, almost amused look that has you burning hot with annoyance.

“One foot out of line, one comment, one single attempt to fix the past will result in a bullet through your head and me transferring all of your assets to my private bank account.” Your fingers tighten on the collar of his shirt to maintain control of the situation, but your ire only burns hotter when you see the smirk on his face grow even more. “This is a professional team and nothing else, understood?”

In your focus, you don’t notice how his hand hovers near your face. But your entire body goes still when you feel his calloused fingertips tracing a strand of hair that had fallen onto your face. His eyes stay on yours through the movement, making your stomach turn with an emotion you can’t quite decipher.

All you know is that it makes your heart beat faster when he tucks the stray hair behind your ear and lets his fingers fall to your chin. And it certainly doesn’t help when he wraps his other hand around the wrist that holds your knife to his throat, his thumb running soothing circles against the sensitive inner skin as he steadies your shaking arm while slightly pressing the point of your knife just a little bit harder to his skin.

“Crystal, darling.”

Sylus takes you out on your first scouting mission the next day, and you decide to follow along.

Why not see what happens, anyways? You’re close to a dead end, and you need all of the help you can get to clean Daniel Kim.

You meet him in an abandoned district, crumbling walls lining the trash filled streets. Your nose wrinkles at the stench, but you still approach the coordinates he sent you. It leads you to an empty looking building, and you’re careful to conceal your face as you enter stealthily.

Inside, you see the same EVER logo on the wall that matched the logo you saw on the wall where you met Sylus previously. Seeing that logo has your stomach turning uneasily. You’ve always had your own reservations about EVER, but seeing their presence here is…disconcerting.

Like two worlds that should have never been introduced to each other.

“Odd, isn’t it?”

You nearly jump out of your skin at the new voice, and you glare at the man who’s seemingly materialized out of the wall where he was watching you from.

“You’ve got to stop doing that, you fool.” You scowl, and you breathe deeply to calm your heart rate as Sylus’s lips quirk up in amusement. You shake your head and turn back around, examining the wall. “You’re right, though.”

“I am, aren’t I?” He’s teasing, and you roll your eyes. He moves easily so that he’s standing in front of you, head cocked to the side as he sizes up the logo on the wall. “In all seriousness though, ____…”

Curiosity gets the better of you, and you decide to size up the man next to you instead. Even though he’s completely relaxed next to you, Sylus still exudes strength and power. He’s not an easy man to take down - power in every single step he takes.

“How have things been with you?”

It’s an inane slip of your tongue, your brain craving for familiarity and going against your training. Your mouth snaps shut as you realize your idiotic move, because why would you even ask your enemy how life has been with him recently? Embarrassment roils in your stomach, and you begin to clear your throat-

“It’s been the usual.” He shrugs, and the gesture is so reminiscent of easy conversations the two of you had that you feel a punch in your gut at how…familiar it is. “I, uh, I discovered some things about my past in the past two years. It made me realize things.”

“Oh?” You cock your head at him, curiosity sparking as you regard him. “What did you find out?”

It’s a genuine question, and you feel alarmed that there isn’t any sort of poison in it. It’s as if you’ve asked about his day after he came home, excited and warm to see him. You just…genuinely want to know.

“I found out some things about my Evol.” His hands flex, summoning that red and black energy that he easily manipulates in between his fingers. “How it came to be, things of that nature. All of it was quite…enlightening.”

“Is that so?” You’ve subconsciously inched closer in the confession, heads bowed together as you examine the energy that transfers itself from his fingers to your own. You were never an Evol wielder, but you can still feel the crackle of his traveling across your fingers and up your arm with the slightest twitch of his fingers. It almost feels like…home.

What an idiotic thought.

You clear your throat, trying not to convey your warring thoughts as you ask, “Anything else that you managed to find out about yourself?”

You take a chance to tilt your head up, and you feel your eyes widen at how close you and Sylus have gotten in the exchange. His lips are just above your forehead, and if you make yourself stand still, you can almost imagine he’s going to brush his lips across your head in a sweet kiss like he always does before either of you leave the base-

“We’re too close-” It’s a gasp, and you stumble back while still keeping your eyes on him. “I, that was-”

“It’s fine.” Sylus’s voice is characteristically flat, almost angry at how dejected he is at your shock as he clears his throat and looks away. “And ____, I don’t know if I should share my findings right here.”

“Oh.” That familiar icy feeling creeps back up, shrouding ___ in Yue’s cynicism. You shake your head to steel yourself, and when you come back your voice is cool and no longer curious. “All right, then. Keep your secrets.”

“____, I didn’t mean it like that-” He tries, but you’re bending down to pick up a file folder on the ground to save face and also conduct yourself back to Yue. While creased and worn with time, it’s still barely legible. You open it, and feel yourself freeze at the title you see on the screen.

DIVISION: DOOMSDAY.

“____?” Sylus’s voice comes up behind you, and you pull the file close to your chest as he attempts to peer over your shoulder. “What is it?”

“I just need to read this.” Your tone is steady when you’re everything but as you begin to flip through the pages, scanning the text and trying to score the key details into your brain. Everything you read sends a chill up your spine because this is the entire training process of Doomsday, right down to initiation before graduation.

What is a file like this doing at the N109 Zone? Wouldn’t they have kept it with them? You turn back to the front, feeling something in yourself tighten further when you see the boss’s name on the front as the proposed developer of this unit.

Your fingers continue shaking, and you flip towards the back of the file. You scan the new section, and you feel your mouth going dry at the new information that’s been revealed to you slowly. It makes you grow dizzy with anger and also fear for your livelihood because how could you not see this coming, ____? You thought it would just be servitude, not a lifetime sentence.

You didn’t know that failure meant immediate execution once you returned back to base.

No chance of escape, of wiping your slate clean. It’s only EVER or death.

You hate them, but you hate yourself more for damning yourself to this life.

“____?”

You flinch back when you feel the ghost of his fingers brushing along your shoulder, trying to ground you in the present. You shake his hand off, clutching the file tightly to your chest as you take a few deep breaths, trying to decide your best course of action. You could keep the file. Let it burn to the ground. Toss it away…

“I’d like to be alone for a couple of days while I think about some things.” You can’t stop your hands from shaking, why are you shaking? Of course you knew EVER was evil, but you didn’t know to this extent - of treating their own people as dispensable. You laugh hardly at the thought, and something in your soul grows more tired of the thought.

Dispensable in marriage and work. What a joke this is.

“____-”

“No, Sylus.”

It’s the most emotion you’ve shown, your voice cracking at the end of his name as you continue to walk out of the building and clutch the folder like a lifeline and the thing that damns you, because it is. “Leave me alone, please.”

You don’t wait for an answer, you simply walk away before he can see how your eyes have glossed over in tears.

He keeps to his word, and you’re thankful that he listens.

The days pass by in a blur, and the only constant has been the file staring at you in the face. You’ve gone through all of the stages of grief in what feels like a demented merry-go-round, going from anger to depression to bargaining and back to anger.

You think you’ve made it to acceptance, though. You had spent the previous afternoon burning pieces of paper one by one, watching the corners curl into themselves and melt into ash of the wood of your fireplace. It made you feel a little bit better as the flames warmed your cold body, but it still sits heavy in your mind as you look out the window. A crow circles above your building, cawing multiple times and it almost makes you smile with comfort.

He may not be there physically at times, but he’s still there in the form of Mephisto knocking on your window. You’ve let Mephisto come into your room a few times and also let him accompany you on walks to make it look like you’ve moving, just so you have an alibi. He’s proven to be useful, cawing when there’s immediate danger and also just serving as your companion.

You like Mephisto. Mephisto is sassy but still affectionate, rubbing his head against your cheek and helping you complete recon while giving you a knowing sound when you stare at him too long.

Mephisto is practically his own entity, you having separated him from his programmer long ago. Mephisto is safe and doesn’t turn your stomach into a weird roiling bubble whenever you start to think a little too hard about how he still listens and respects you - of how he still acts like he cares.

Like right now.

He had written little on the scrap piece of paper Mephisto was practically crying for you to remove from his leg, only some coordinates with promises of information and an additional note of “look nice.” What even is nice to him, anyways? Is it underground opera nice or jazz bar nice?

You settle for something in the middle - a nondescript black silk dress and a nice enough coat where you won’t look like a fool if it’s an extremely fancy event or extremely overdressed if it’s more casual. You feel naked without your gun, but you have plenty of hidden daggers and you’re plenty resourceful. Other people may have automatic weapons on them, anyways.

You’re relieved to see that the building that shows up is less bar and more upscale restaurant teeming with influential people craving information. You find a shadowy corner across the street, and you decide to wait for Sylus as you scan the premises for your target and any additional information you can file away. You find nothing of interest, though. Sure, you recognize some people from past dossiers you peeked at EVER, but they’re not high threats for Doomsday.

You’re not interested in completing Doomsday tasks right now, anyways. Not since your recent discoveries.

You pull your personal phone out, frowning when you think you see your lipstick smudged under your chin. You pull out the tube from one of your coat’s many pockets and uncap it, angling your phone so that you can find the right lighting to make sure it doesn’t become even more of a mess-

“You should find a better light, ____.”

You’re quick to pull your lipstick away from your mouth, and you scowl at the person behind the sleek motorcycle helmet. You can’t see it, but you know his ruby eyes are sparkling as he glances at you from behind his visor and it just makes you all the more annoyed.

You cock your head when Sylus flips up his visor, however. The lighting of the streetlamp above the two of you catches the tint of his visor just enough to make it opaque, and if you tiptoe up…

“Hold still.” It’s curt from your mouth, but Sylus pauses his movements just enough for you to lean in just enough so you can flick his visor down over his eyes. You feign disinterest the entire time, but you can’t quite hide the way your hands shake ever so slightly as you peer into his visor and begin to fix your lipstick. 

It’s reminiscent of a time gone by, when you would apply skincare in the comfort of your shared bathroom. The fleeting domesticity is almost enough for you to soften, but you swallow down the silly sentiment as you rub your lips to even out the color and place the cap back on the tube.

“All done.”

You’re thankful you sound only bored, even if your mind is frantically stamping down memories that threaten to surface. You flick Sylus’s visor up, expecting him to crack a joke, but you feel your mouth turn dry when you see his eyes and the little sliver of visible skin.

In that short moment you touched yourself up, it’s as if he’s been wrecked by a lifetime of memories. His pupils are dilated, the red of his irises a thin ring as he gazes at you with an emotion you can’t quite decipher. The little bit of skin you do see is flushed a soft pink, and you swallow thickly as you turn your head away and gesture towards the restaurant.

“Should we head in?”

“Yes.” He cuts his shakiness off with a cough, and you almost smile to yourself as you begin to walk towards the restaurant, not waiting to see if he follows. You know he will.

Once inside, you’ve both composed yourselves enough where you’re back to square one point five. Not too cordial but not too venomous towards each other. It almost feels as though you’re two coworkers with one who has a greater disdain for the other, which is hilarious given the past couple of events and your entire history with each other.

You settle into the table the server’s led you to, and you frown when you don’t see any sort of tells or ways to keep track of your surroundings. Isn’t this supposed to be a reconnaissance mission? Why is he ordering your favorite pasta and refilling your water while looking at you with eyes you don’t want to think about?

“So, ____…” Sylus tries to begin, but you can only stare at him witheringly as you continue to poke at your pasta. 

“What?” Your tone is biting with no heat as you shove a noodle into your mouth. “You brought me to this restaurant for reconnaissance, so where’s the information I want?”

Sylus merely smiles at your annoyance, only serving to fuel your displeasure at this entire situation and making you prickle in your seat as he picks up his wine glass and takes a slow sip. “What happened to enjoying beauty and taking it slow, ____?”

“Being slow kills a person,” you counter back, though the heat isn’t as intense as you reach for your own wine glass and take a sip. “Sure, it allows for someone to go through all possible options, mapping out the best strategy. By the time that person makes a decision, however, there’s already a knife in their back and a bullet in between their eyes.”

You drain your wine in one more gulp, welcoming the buzz that simmers through your veins as you allow yourself to really look at him. This man used to be your fiancé, after all - and you’d be an idiot if you didn’t admit to yourself that Sylus Qin is still as devastatingly handsome and charming as you remember.

His silver hair is ruffled, red eyes glimmering with mischief and a deeper feeling as his eyes do their own calculated sweep over your visage. He has on a black turtleneck with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and the outfit is reminiscent of date nights he used to take you back when you were still…here. The thought causes searing pain but you stamp it down as you continue your slow catalogue of everything about Sylus Qin.

This is all objective, Yue. It’s a chant in your mind, a weak attempt at categorizing these details you’ve missed so deeply as a part of your mission, but you can feel that thought slowly slipping away when he laughs at your matter-of-factness.

“How your opinions have changed,” he murmurs softly, and his soft tone of voice has a shiver running up your spine as he leans in closer. “While I would usually agree with you, I want to know what brought about this shift?”

“Take a wild guess,” you retort back, but you can’t help the quick upturn of your lips as you happily indulge in his word war. “What could have possibly happened in my two years of being away that caused me to be like this?”

His smile falters for a little bit, eyes sobering up as he regards you with seriousness. “Doomsday.”

You simply nod, placing another forkful of noodles into your mouth and chewing so he can mull over just what you could have possibly been put through while training for Doomsday. Once you swallow, he opens his mouth again to ask the question you’ve dreaded him asking since you left all those years ago.

“Why EVER?”

The question hangs heavily in the air, and you both know that by answering, you both will be opening a can of worms. You both hate EVER for the things they’ve done to the N109 Zone, but he seems to have grown an even bigger disdain for them ever since you’ve returned. You have your own, newer reasons of hating EVER, but you still feel a twisted sense of defensiveness creep up your spine as you try to wrack your brain for an answer that won’t offend the both of you..

“They didn’t ask questions.” It’s blunt, but you still flinch at the way Sylus’s eyes glint dangerously at your statement. “They didn’t ask why I showed up, begging to join their cleaner division. They just…took me in and trained me.”

“That’s it?” He sounds incredulous and he has every reason to be so - you ran into the arms of the enemy, after all. “You went to EVER because it was…convenient?”

“Yes.” The two of you have reverted back to square one, enemies across different lines sitting across from each other. All it would take was one wrong look, and there would be blood staining the expensive tablecloths. “I needed an out. I needed a way to…disappear.”

“Disappear?” This time, the words are much more bitter, and you look at Sylus in surprise because of his sudden display of anger. “Disappear? ____, I-”

He drops his face in his hands, rubbing his temples as his eyes close in frustration. His hand moves from his forehead to the bridge of his nose, pinching tightly as he takes a few deep breaths to compose himself. All the while, you’re sitting frozen in your seat because why is he so worked up over this?

“Why does it matter?” You can’t help but inject a little bit of poison in your voice, slowly growing more frigid in the passing seconds. “Full offense, but are you truly delusional to believe I wanted to be found after what I witnessed that night in your study?”

Sylus’s head whips up, and you feel yourself grow colder at the burning anger in his expression. “But ____, did you really need to go to EVER to disappear? You could have gone to any other agency-”

“With my skillset?” You can’t help but cut him off with a laugh, gesturing to yourself. “Sylus, I am an assassin. I kill people. What did you want me to do, go to the Hunters Association and work together with your Hunter friend?”

“I don’t give a damn about her.” It’s a lethal slice of an admission, one you choose to ignore as the both of you prop yourselves up on your arms to better look at your opponent. “____, you went to the enemy because you needed to disappear? ____, that’s a cheap excuse and-” “Maybe because I did not want to be found, Sylus Qin.”

Everything stops at those words, and Sylus’s eyes widen as he realizes just what you mean.

You don’t let your guard down, instead choosing to examine his reaction as you lean back and cross your arms over your chest. Sylus’s eyes blink rapidly, trying to come up with a reasonable explanation to your statement, and he comes to it just as you let out a short laugh.

“Did you really think that after witnessing my fiancé in such a state with another woman after what was supposed to be our wedding day, I wanted to stay? To be found?” You laugh again, the noise devoid of all joy. “I wanted to disappear. I wanted to be gone, I wanted to be away. Partly because I needed the distance to think for myself and get over what happened, but also because I wanted you to feel just a fraction of the agony you gave me.”

The silence that used to be amiable becomes sour with your confession, but you only feel a little bit lighter with sharing the weight with him as you continue your tirade once more. “You know…when you’re training with Doomsday, they pair you up with someone. You build a rapport with that person, and then they subject you to a battle of the death. That’s how you graduate from training. They mark down your closest ally as your first cleaning and it serves as a reminder that love and looking out for another person is a critical weakness to the entire division.”

It’s the one bit of information you’re willing to share with him from that file. Not that you’ll be killed if you fail, or that Doomsday was conceived a year before you left him. 

Just that you’re a monster who committed betrayal to the highest degree.

“____-” Sylus tries to begin, his voice hoarse, but you simply shake your head and stand up from the table sidestepping outside.

“I’m getting air.”

The warning is there, though. Don’t follow me. Don’t try to spy on me.

Once you’re outside, you feel your shoulders sag as you approach the alleyway by the side of the restaurant. The moon shines brighter here, only serving to remind you of the passage of time and the codename they gave you upon graduation. You had effectively rubbed your first cleaning free of your mind, but you still see a hazy recollection of your companion’s face in your mind. Of their silent admission, eyes shining with acceptance as they tilted their head back to show you their throat.

You hadn’t allowed yourself to cry or dwell on it. It would have set you back if you did.

So you settled for the hollow ache in your chest that’s since followed you.

God, maybe they did replace you with a Wanderer. How could you even live with yourself after that?

Don’t think about it, Yue, don’t think don’t think don’t-

A buzzing in your pocket stops your spiral, and you take it as a blessing in disguise as you fish out your communication device and look at the name displayed on the screen.

Main Supervisor Lihua.

Main Supervisor Lihua? What happened to her working with Soren?

Your spine straightens, all senses on alert as you look at the buzzing phone in your hand. All of the new information you’ve learned comes rushing back, paired with the need to be a good subordinate and answer. It makes your head spin-

Your finger slides across the screen and you press the device to your ear without thinking, not allowing yourself traitorous thoughts as you wait for Lihua to speak. The seconds stretch as she lets you ruminate in the silence, and you can feel your palms sweat before she finally allows herself to speak.

“Status report, Cleaner Yue of Doomsday.”

You release a breath you didn’t realize you were holding in, swallowing deeply before responding in your clean, cold voice. “Target MIA. Security increased, more time needed to complete objective.”

“My, Yue…” It’s a soft purr, but you still don’t let the tension leave your body as Lihua hums on the other side of the line. “You would usually be done by now, my dear. Why all of these unexpected delays?”

You almost break.

You almost tell her about the war that’s been ravaging your head, of the chaos that’s been inflicted in your mind ever since you stepped back into the N109 Zone. Of how you really don’t give a damn about finding and cleaning Daniel Kim…not as much as you should, at least. Of how your thoughts have been consumed by someone higher on their list, but that the thoughts aren’t what they trained you to think.

You almost tell her that you know. You know how she helped conceive the entire division, of what will happen if you fail.

You almost tell her that this mission will be a failure, which you’ve never uttered in your time as the top cleaner of Doomsday. But maybe that you might actually want failure because you don’t have to do this anymore.

You don’t have to live a lie anymore.

Instead, you swallow thickly to gain back some of the moisture in your mouth as you come up with a response. “Daniel Kim has…proven to be a challenge, Supervisor Lihua.”

You know she doesn’t buy it, not by the way she snorts gracelessly across the phone. “Daniel Kim? Barely ranked seventh on our list? Cleaner Yue, surely you jest. This was supposed to be your easiest cleaning.”

“Things change, Supervisor Lihua.”

You can’t quite keep your tone even at that last statement, and you know she’s heard by the way she clicks her tongue. “You’re slipping, Yue. You know why this matters, Yue-”

“-and why does it matter, Lihua?”

As soon as the words leave your lips, you feel yourself heat in embarrassment and maybe fear.

How stupid are you, Yue? Why does it matter?

You literally examined a file about the conception of your division, about what makes the perfect killer and what happens to those who are less that perfect.

What does it matter?

It’s only your entire livelihood on the line.

Everything you’ve known, dedicated, killed for these past two years. Eliminating Daniel ensures your safety, and not eliminating him condemns you to a life forever wearing the shackles of EVER or being erased forever.

“...I don’t know what has gotten into you, Cleaner Yue.” Lihua’s voice is frigid, and you feel yourself tighten at the words that come out of her mouth. “You’ve gotten sloppy, my dear. You don’t want the boss to know, do you?”

“No, Supervisor Lihua.” It comes in that calculated, almost robotic tone of voice they drill into recruits at Doomsday, and it works for now because you hear Lihua’s exhale of relief over the line.

“Good, Yue.” Her voice turns soft, but you don’t drop your guard - you never drop your guard when Lihua is involved. “What’s your report then? And give me your real report, Cleaner Yue.”

“Nothing of interest as of yet.” It comes out so smooth you almost believe it as you list out details that could be of some interest to EVER but also get them off your back. Enough story woven in to be dutiful to the cause, but enough hidden so they don’t test you. Enough to hide the fact you’ve been associating with the enemy.

“Good.” Lihua sounds more relaxed, and you let yourself swallow just enough as you scan your surroundings for anything amiss. “Finish your job and come back.”

The call ends, and you nearly collapse into the wall as you hold your communication device to your chest. Your breath is uneven, and your eyes close as you let yourself shake for just a split second.

You’ve never done that before, omit something from EVER.

What have you become, Yue?

As you compose yourself and prepare to leave the premises without telling him goodbye, though, you miss two crucial details.

The first is a ruffled crow, uncharacteristically silent as he takes off to a familiar base.

The second is a flash of gray fabric, hidden in the shadows and witnessing your damning state.

You work on your own for the next few days.

You’ve taken to rising early and sleeping late, avoiding all of the hot spots you know him and his crow are frequenting to keep their eye on you. A lot of your avoidance stems from annoyance from the dinner, but there’s a tiny part of you that screams to keep them, him, safe from the reaches of EVER and you as their top monster.

You’re sure EVER doesn’t know about your contact with him, not yet at least. Lihua didn’t show any sign of knowing, and you’d rather keep it that way. You don’t need your superiors to know that you have ties to the N109 Zone.

You’re nearing the end of your mission, anyways. You had managed to finagle with Mephisto when he went offline, downloading some footage he had gathered in hopes of finding any evidence of Daniel and his location as well as programming your own features. You’ve narrowed the list Soren gave you to three places, and you feel fairly confident in your mission ending today as you make your way to the coordinates you had carefully plotted out on your device. You’re so confident, in fact, that you’ve suited up in your full uniform: thick leather boots, the uniform you had made for yourself, even a replacement half mask to cover the lower half of your face as you hold your gun up while examining your surroundings.

Your body moves on autopilot, pressing your body into shadowy corners. It gives you the time to reflect on the past couple of weeks and the connection you’ve…re-established in that time.

What a mess your emotions have become in just a few meetings with him. You’ve fully accepted that Sylus Qin has thrown a wrench into everything you’ve worked to become and that he’s made himself a throne on your ever turbulent thoughts. All of that progress had simply vanished when he murmured your name to you, and you’re deeply annoyed by the fact that he still has this effect on you.

The part that screams at you to protect him from EVER is that same traitorous part that wants to run home into his arms, though. It’s the part you refuse to give into because you know that if you give in, you’ll never be able to return to EVER and Doomsday.

That thought shakes you to your very core. Because if you go back, everyone you’ve cleaned would have been for nothing.

How could you even live with yourself? You don’t think you can.

Anxiety flares in the back of your skull at the thought, but you quickly stamp it down as you round a corner. ____ shouldn’t be thinking right now, this should be all Cleaner Yue. You’ve got to stop thinking about this, and you have to get a hold of yourself, ____.

You peer out, now at the exact coordinates you’ve marked down for yourself. You peer out into the alleyway-

“You know, ____, you never even offered to pick up the tab.”

You almost scream in frustration when you see Sylus standing at the end of the alleyway, lazily looking through the abandoned buildings as he walks closer to you. You know he’s not your enemy, in fact he’s little more than a thorn in your side, but you still unsheathe a knife and hold it up at his head in anger.

“What are you doing here?” Your half mask can barely hide the anger simmering in your veins, and Sylus matches your mood for once with the way his lips are pressed into a thin line. He’s a couple of feet away from you and you know you can’t win this battle, but you’ll be damned if you don’t try.

“I came to look for you after you so rudely dined and dashed.” Neither of you find it funny, and you see his fingers twitch as he summons his Evol. You’re moving before you can even think, throwing your dagger directly towards his face before rolling away. He merely steps to the side and dissolves his Evol, stepping closer to you and dodging your attacks while you make your way towards your escape.

“Fight back, Sylus Qin.” Your voice is a warped, angrier version of yourself as you continue to give everything to his apathy. You’re running low on knives, all of them having clattered to the side due to his Evol shielding him as he continues to step towards you. “You’re the great leader of Onychinus, right? Why won’t you fight back?!”

You decide to ignore your knives, and you rip your half mask from your chin and throw it to the side so he can see the wrath twisting your features. You expect him to match your energy, but you stop for a split second when you see a familiar ache on his face, matching the hurt that festers in your chest and makes your anger boil over.

You throw yourself at his body, screaming obscenities as your fists hit his chest. He stays still, though, allowing for you to hurt him in the same way he hurt you.

“We were supposed to be married, Sylus!” Your voice cracks along these words, splintering with how hoarse your voice has gotten from your screaming but you still fight on. “We were going to get married and live in the maple grove, and now we’re fucking here and I’m this and I…I fucking hate you for making me like this!”

The words sear your tongue, almost as if something is punishing your lie while everything you’ve locked deep for so long surges forth in a messy, incoherent stream of hurt and longing.

“Do you want to know the worst part?” Your voice is scratchy, but you’re no longer screaming and hitting his chest as you breathe harshly. “I dream about you and that stupid necklace at least once a week.”

You think you hear a sharp intake of breath above your head, but you can only laugh bitterly to yourself. “I dream about you. I dream about the life we could have had. I dream about a greenhouse in that grove of maple leaves, of your loud singing to our record collection, building another bird to accompany Mephisto. All of these promises and hopes…all for nothing.”

You begin to step away, but his hand stops you - one circling your wrist, the other tilting your chin up so you can look at him fully in his face. You pull yourself away from him harshly, even when you feel your chest constrict at the look on his face.

You can’t find any sympathy for him right now, though. Not after two years worth of hurt has spilled forth, leaving you bare for him to examine and crush beneath his boots.

“What, Sylus Qin?” You hope the cold fury in your voice hides the tears gathering in the corners of your eyes. “What’s keeping you from speaking honestly with me? What was so important that you missed our wedding and made me turn to a program that’s reduced who I am-”

“-we were both experimented on by EVER, the Hunter and I.”

The admission shocks you into silence, though your icy mask doesn’t slip. He doesn’t let his guard down, too, and his emotions are locked neatly away as he tells you about his heavy history as if it were the weather.

“We were both experimented on and forced to fight each other.” You see a flicker of pain flash across his face at the irony, but he quickly smooths himself off as he continues to tell you all he knows. “We…we share a past and-”

“-and nothing.”

You should listen to him, you know, but frustration and fear and devastation at being left has turned the emotions you’ve kept locked so deeply inside of you an ugly, gnawing monster that’s clawing its way to the surface as you rant at him. “We’ve all been fucked by EVER here, the N109 Zone and it’s lawlessness wouldn’t fucking exist if it weren’t for EVER! We’ve known this, everyone here knows it. What I want to fucking know is what was so different about this Hunter that made you miss our wedding. Why were the two of you connected, huh? Devotion to me, my ass.”

Your voice wavers on those last couple of words, and you make a show of wiping your entire face free of sweat to mask how you stealthily wipe away the tears that are threatening to spill out. You swallow thickly and begin to breathe deeply, counting to ten before composing yourself and wiping yourself clean of emotion.

You step further away from his shaky body, not trusting to look at his face as you process final words to say to his shoes. “...you felt something for her, I could see it on your face.” While you’ve managed to school yourself to be carefully neutral, you can feel yourself seizing up as you wrap your arms around your body to stop your shivering. “We were engaged and you still felt things for her-”

“And nothing, because it’s done, ____.”

In your confrontation, you don’t realize that the two of you have completed a dance. With every step you take back, he steps forward until you’re backed into a corner and he looms above you - not in an intimidating way, but in desperation as he begs his former betrothed to listen to the bit of truth he’s only recently discovered.

“That night when we were to be married…I discovered that our bond came from a curse.” His eyes go distant as he thinks about his shared past, but there’s no bitterness or love in it. He only sounds tired as he recalls it. “The bit of energy that you saw…it was a result of the curse. It took a while to dissipate, but I was anxious knowing I was missing our ceremony. But by the time it had been fixed, I went to look for you and…”

You were gone.

The words hang heavy in the air, but he shakes it off as he continues to tell you the truth you didn’t realize you were craving. “It took half of a year to get rid of the curse and work things through. I’ll admit, there were intimate moments but when all is said and done, she wasn’t it for me. She has someone else, anyway. A colonel that serves in the Farspace Fleet.”

You thought you would be upset at his admission, but you only feel cold relief at his honesty. Maybe it’s because it’s the first real vulnerable moment the two of you had since you’ve come back to the N109 Zone. You’re not cleaner Yue, and he’s not the feared leader of Onychinus.

The two of you are just ____ and Sylus Qin - two fiancés who used to share the world but now don’t know how to find their way back to each other.

Something still festers in your soul, though, and you look up at him just enough so you can see the torture on his face that matches yours. “Two years, Sylus. Why didn’t you look for me?”

“I did, ____.”

He steps forward again, and he reaches out to link his pinky finger against your own before letting his hand fall away. “I looked for you every day that I could. And in those days I couldn’t, I sent Mephisto and Luke and Kieran out. ____, I…”

“How can I trust that?” You know he’s trying, but you’re scared. You’re scared he’s lying, and you’re even more terrified he’s telling the truth. “How do I know you’re not just trying to weave me a beautiful story?”

The tension is thick, almost suffocating as you let your words hang in the air. You’ve given him an opening, a chance to explain himself in the face of your impenetrable cynicism.

A minute passes, and then another.

His answer comes with no words. No, Sylus answers with a simple action that has your breath catching in your throat.

His hands reach into his pocket, and he pulls out a simple chain for you to see. You know what it is already, but it still makes your heart beat faster when you let the pendant rest against your fingers.

“I never stopped.” He whispers as you slowly turn the ruby pendant over in your fingers. “Looking, caring, aching for you, I mean. Time and distance mean nothing to a man who lost the one person he cares for the most.”

The one person he cares for the most?

The realization of his confession hits you at the same time it hits him, and you’re suddenly acutely aware of him. How his breath is shallow and washes over your face slightly, how his chest trembles as he looks at you with something that looks dangerously close like hope, and how his hands flex at his sides like he wants to pull you close but knows it’s your decision.

At this moment, you have all of the power in your hands.

Your hands reach up, but you feel yourself freeze slightly when you see Sylus close his eyes and relax his shoulders. His head tilts back ever so slightly, and you realize with a start that he’s surrendering to you - trusting you with his most vulnerable spot. He’s given you access to his throat and, if you look down, you can see the center of his chest.

Your throat closes in on yourself and you swallow back tears as you gently place your hand on his cheek. His breath comes out in a shudder at the first contact, and he practically melts into your hand as you allow yourself to run your thumb along the skin underneath his eye. His hand reaches up and holds you steady, pressing your palm harder into his skin as if he’s trying to leech the warmth from your hand and soak it directly into his soul.

“I have to think about this.” You murmur softly. “This is…a lot, Sylus.”

It’s not a direct answer - it's all you can give him at this exact moment with how jumbled your thoughts have become. Sylus’s eyes fly open, though, and he looks at you like you’ve given him the world straight into the palm of his hands.

“I’ll wait for however long it takes, ____.” It’s a promise, one he seals with a brush of his lips against your palm before letting you pull yourself away from him. “As long as you need.”

You don’t trust words right now, only allowing him a small nod as you blink back your tears. You nod in thanks when he gathers your knives with his Evol, depositing them and your half mask into your shaking hands before you turn your head down and walk away from where he stands. You don’t spare him a second glance because you know if you do, Yue will be completely gone and it’ll just be ____.

____, who wants him and only him.

You’re in the middle of staring out of your window when you hear a sharp cry from Mephisto.

You simply turn your head to the other side, too busy ruminating in your thoughts to be disturbed by a robotic crow. Everything that’s been told has thrown you for a loop, and you don’t know how to digest everything you’ve learned. You’ve taken to ignoring the world outside of your hotel room, no longer giving a damn about what EVER may think.

No, you don’t care. Not when you’ve been torn clean apart.

Mephisto’s crying outside of your window, and you grow annoyed at his pitiful cries as he continues to tap on the glass with his talons. You wrench open the window and glare at the bird, but the words die on your tongue when Mephisto starts chirping out a code only you recognize.

Oh, fuck.

“Shit, shit shit,” you chant to yourself as you pull on your boots, only grabbing two knives as you sprint out of your hotel room. You don’t even grab your half mask, instead bursting out of the hotel and running after Mephisto’s form in the sky to take you to your location.

At some point in what feels like an endless run, you see Mephisto’s form hover over an alleyway before flying high up in the sky and disappearing from your line of sight. Something in your stomach clenches at the sight, but you know you’ve found your target as you turn into an abandoned alleyway a few streets down from your hotel.

You’re thankful you only have to run for a few minutes, and you don’t bother to disguise your heavy breaths and uneven footsteps as you quickly scan your surroundings. There’s only trash, anyway. Trash and broken glass and-

“-help me.”

The voice is hoarse, on the verge of death as your head whips down to where your feet are. You see a thin river of blood staining your boots, and you follow the trail to an unrecognizable lump on the floor.

“Help-” it gasps again, and you swallow the bile that rises thickly in your throat as you steel yourself and grab the thing’s shoulders, turning it so you can face you.

Daniel Kim’s face is no longer filled with sleazy charm, instead broken and bruised beyond recognition. He’s five seconds away from death, and your heart begins to hammer violently in your chest when you realize just exactly the situation you’re in.

This is not good, ____.

You wind your fingers against his torn collar, pulling his face close to yours as you begin to pry for information. “Stay awake. I need you to tell me everything you know and every detail you saw.”

“H-hurts-” he whimpers, but you don’t have the patience in you to coddle an already dying man. You shake his body, and he chokes on his blood as he continues to wheeze.

“Focus.” You’re harsh, you know, but this is pure desperation driving your actions because you need to know exactly who did this to your target. Daniel Kim was only ever known by one entity, and this is no accident. You need to confirm it, because right now you know you’re still living in denial at the truth staring at you plainly in the face.

“Who did this?” Your fists tighten on his collar as your tone turns frantic, fingers shaking against his collar as you continue to shake his body awake. You know it’s far too late, though - Daniel only coughs blood directly onto your face as he begins to slip. “Please, I need to know-”

“-gray clothes-” he wheezes out. “Masks. C-couldn’t see their face-”

Your heart stops at his details. He’s still coughing in your hold, but all you can feel is a flare of panic that spreads throughout your body as you realize what he’s just said.

Your body moves on autopilot, neatly disposing of Daniel before tossing his body aside into a pile of trash. Your hands are shaking as you pull out your communication device, marking the cleaning as a success before hastily shoving it back in your pocket because what does this mean, ____?

Gray clothes, masks…all markings of Doomsday trainees. But there’s no way, right? They’re trained to kill the second they have their sights on a target, not beat them into an unrecognizable pulp. Doomsday cleaners are never sloppy.

So why now?

Why can’t you stop shaking, ____?

A buzzing noise distracts you from your rapid thoughts, and you pull out your communication device before you’re even registering what you’re doing. You feel yourself seize, though, when you see his name on the screen.

Congratulations on completing your assignment, Cleaner Yue of Doomsday.

What happened to Lihua being your supervisor? Why is the head of EVER overseeing this mission now?

Isn’t your mission done?

Your breath escapes you in uneven beats as you wait for the catch. Do they know that you know? What’s going to happen to you-

You’ve been assigned, Cleaner Yue. You have three days.

I suggest you complete your task. You’re on the brink, after all.

Your heart freezes at the new notification on your communication device, and you feel the breath you fought so hard to keep even begin its erratic rhythm once more as you see the new file pop up on your screen. You press a finger to the file, praying and hoping-

NAME: SYLUS QIN

OCCUPATION: LEADER OF ONYCHINUS

CLEANER: YUE

INSTRUCTIONS: KILL ON SIGHT. RETURN TO HEADQUARTERS ONCE COMPLETE.

For the first time in two years, you let yourself cry.

Not because of the pressure or how much of your humanity has been stripped from you - but because you realize what’s just happened. What’s about to happen.

You have to kill the man you never stopped caring for, or risk everything you’ve become crumbling away into nothingness.

You successfully avoid everything that lurks outside of your hotel room for two days before the silence is broken by a tapping on the window.

You let yourself up, scrubbing your face of dried tear tracks as you settle yourself on the ledge and open the window, peering out and expecting a little crow hopping around on the windowsill. Instead, you see ruffled silver hair holding small objects he throws against your window to get your attention.

Against your better judgement, you feel yourself soften as you tilt your head curiously at him. “What do you want?”

His eyes widen at the sight of your melancholy, but he quickly composes himself as he does an exaggerated bow that makes the corners of your lips tilt up. “I’m here to help a princess escape from bad guys.”

“I’m no princess.” It’s immediate from your mouth, but you feel yourself loosening at how relaxed he looks as you lean against the wall. “And what makes you think I need saving?”

“Who said anything about saving you, ____?” His eyes twinkle and he smiles. “I never claimed to be a prince, either. Now come on, Mephisto’s been begging for your attention.”

You roll your eyes, but for the first time in years, you feel different.

Lighter, somehow. Like everything will be okay if you just stayed by his side.

You hesitate, though. From what you can gauge right now, Sylus doesn’t know that he’s your new target. He’s still looking at you with that quiet faith - like a man who’s simply asking the woman he cares for out on a date tonight.

He notices your hesitation, and his smile falters slightly. “Should I leave, ____?”

You know at that moment, he would do it if you asked. He would turn around and never look back, sparing you the action of breaking his heart. He would walk away to give you peace, to allow you to return back to Doomsday without anything holding you back.

“No.”

His eyes flash at the word, and his lips tilt back up quickly. “Come on then, Miss Assassin.”

The smile you give him is real before you’re moving quickly, making sure your communication device and anything related to Doomsday is off of your body before you run down to where he is.

Once you meet him at his car, he looks at you with a look that makes you want to cry. It’s reminiscent of the looks he would give you on your date nights, the ones where you would dress up and he would take you out on fancy dates you used to dream of. He looks at you like you’re the air he breathes, like you’re the reason he keeps on fighting and pushing forward.

You break the silence first, not trusting yourself in the heavy silence. “What is it? Do I have something on my face?”

“No, no…” He replies almost instantaneously. His hand reaches up and he tucks a stray strand of hair behind your hair, careful not to touch the delicate skin of your cheek before opening the passenger side seat and gesturing for you to enter. “After you, my lady.”

“Gladly, sir.” You slip into the seat and he shuts the door behind you, and you feel yourself tense slightly. Something’s missing, and you don’t know exactly what it is.

The answer makes itself known when Sylus slides into the driver’s seat and starts the car, gripping the steering wheel with both hands as he begins to drive towards the Onychinus Base. Your eyes slide from the devastating slope of his nose to the furrow of his brow as he focuses on the task at hand before settling on his lithe fingers, tapping erratically to the soft music that plays in the car’s stereo.

That’s what’s missing.

Him, holding your hand.

“You’re staring, ____.” His tone is sing-song, though rippling with something that makes your stomach turn deliciously as he continues to focus on the road ahead of him. “What are you thinking of?”

“Nothing in particular.” You let him stew in the amiable silence before you throw in a soft, “Trying to figure out the best way to catch you off guard, is all.”

He laughs at your statement, the sound rich and genuine. “____, all you have to do is smile at me and I would be off my rhythm for the rest of the night. You being around me is the only way I would ever be caught off guard.”

“Is that so?” You fight the smile that threatens to spread across your face, but your lips still quirk up at his sheer honesty. “Careful, Sylus, or I may use that against you the next time.”

“I would let you.”

You’re struck by his sheer honesty, eyes wide as you look at him in bewilderment. “Even after everything?”

“Especially after everything, ____.” He turns onto a familiar road, Onychinus’s base looming in the distance. You know that you only have a few more moments before you have to get out of the car, so you take the chance to examine him and his body language fully so you can look for a lie-

-but there’s nothing, only honesty.

Sylus catches you staring, and his lips slightly quirk up at your disbelief. “Do you not believe me?”

He pulls into the garage just as you respond. “I just…after all of these years? After everything I’ve become?”

“Especially after that.” He’s quick to kill the engine, sliding out of the driver’s seat and opening your door before you can even blink. You take his waiting hand and pull yourself out of the car, but instead of letting you pull away, he laces his fingers tightly against your own and guides you through what used to be your shared home.

The layout is still the same - long hallway leading to a multitude of rooms. Display cases line the walls, and you feel yourself pause when you see something familiar glinting in the light.

“Sylus?”

“Mm?” It’s a soft hum as he continues trying to lead you to where the kitchen is, but you instead pull him towards where your half-mask lays.

“Why is this here?” You’re not really mad, you’re just surprised that it’s here. You would have thought he would have left it on the street to be crushed into a million pieces, but as you approach the display case, you feel your breath catching your throat.

Your half-mask is displayed with your ruby pendant, along with a plaque. You let go of his hand just enough to peer what it says:

MY GREATEST FAILURE.

“Sylus?” Your voice doesn’t waver, but you’re still shaken to your core as you look at him in bewilderment. His gaze is directed to the floor, and for the first time, you see shame color his expression - and you absolutely hate it.

“I thought about what you said.” His confession is soft, and he moves to stand next to you. “Of how I’m the reason you’re like this. It’s because of me you’ve suffered and became something you shouldn’t have ever become, ____.”

His hands hang limply by his sides, and his eyes grow distant as he stares at your half mask. “I’m sorry, ____.”

You feel yourself freeze slightly at his apology, and you take the chance to look at him. His mouth is pressed thin, mind caught up in the different scenarios. Of where the two of you would be if he had reached you in time. Of what would have happened if he had just explained himself.

Your heart aches in your chest, because while he did hurt you, you chose to leave. You went straight to EVER because you thought it was your only option, and you chose to do this. The two of you are staring at the result of just missing each other, and it hurts because if things had lined up perfectly the outcome would have been completely different.

The two of you wouldn’t be in this situation now - you, caught between him having to kill him or risk your own livelihood. Sylus, having to contend with his shadows while also trying to reach through you.

Before you’re thinking, you’re opening the case and pulling out the pendant. Once it’s securely in your hands, you close the case and grab his hand, leading him to the kitchen based on your memory alone.

“____?” Sylus’s voice is shocked, but you simply squeeze his hands as you continue to guide him through his own house.

“This happened because of the decisions the two of us made.” The beginning of your speech is soft as you finally make it to his kitchen, and you lean against the marble countertop. He stands in front of you, and the two of you look at the ruby glimmering in between your fingers as you try to think of the words you locked away deeply. “We…we both made mistakes, Sylus. We hurt each other.”

“I regret it every day, ____.” Sylus’s voice is raw, and his hands land at the countertop behind you so that you’re caged in his arms. You’re not intimidated in the slightest, though - you simply tilt your head up and look at him. “____, you never left my mind. I tried to find you, and I knew that when I found you, I would make it up to you.” His fingers curl tightly on the edge of the counter, and your eyes slip shut when he presses his forehead against yours. “It’s only ever been you, ____.”

“I know that now, Sylus.” Your chest is aching, but you feel sheer relief at his words. His nose slides slightly against your own, and you relish in the comforting feeling as you try to find your next words - words that you think have always sat heavy in your soul. Words you want to be out there before everything falls apart. “I…I never stopped caring and aching for you, too.”

You feel his breath wash across your face when he registers your words. His fingers slowly undo the necklace from your hold, placing it gently onto the counter before he wraps his arms around your waist and pulls you in for a tight hug.

Your arms twine around his neck, and the two of you hold each other like that for what feels like an eternity. It’s exactly what the two of you need, though - just to hold each other like this again after so long and after so much hurt has you trembling in his arms.

“____, my darling, my world…” The words reverberate through your head, and your arms tighten around his neck as you attempt to pull him even closer to you. “I…I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you if you’ll let me.”

The rest of his life.

You don’t have the rest of his life. Or yours, for the matter.

You don’t know how much longer you have.

“I’m leaving tomorrow.”

It’s a quick slip of your tongue, but it’s enough to douse the two of you in freezing clarity as you realize the reality that lies outside of his house. Of how you’ll be their target the moment you step outside because you refuse to do their task. Sylus’s hands loosen at your sides, and his gaze darkens slightly as he registers your words. 

“You are?”

“Yes.” It spills out of your mouth, and you begin to speak even faster because the alternative is to crumble in his hold and sob your eyes out and you would rather not do that. “Mission accomplished, you know? EVER needs me back, and-”

“____, shh…”

His tone is soft, not like the anger you expected. He moves one of his hands from your waist to the back of your head, and he cradles you to his chest as you begin to tremble in his arms. Your eyes sting, but nothing comes out - even when your fingers tighten on his shirt. His breath is slow and deliberate, and you feel yourself begin to breathe in time with him.

“Were you reassigned? Or do you just need to leave since the mission’s over?”

You want to be honest. You want to tell him that they’re making him your target as punishment for forgetting their first lesson, that you’ve been discovered and that they’ve put you in an impossible situation. There are so many things you still want to say but the only thing that comes out is a raspy gasp of, “I’m so sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” Sylus is cupping your face in between his steady hands, making you look at him as you continue to fight to even your breath. “____, don’t you dare be sorry. I got exactly what I wanted, which was to see you again.”

“But our time.” It’s a painful gasp, and this time you can really feel tears gathering at your lashes as you blink up at him. “I don’t know if they’ll ever send me back here. I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again-”

“But you will.” Sylus’s hands tighten ever so slightly, pulling you as close as humanly possible as he holds his gaze steady on yours. “Now that I’ve found you, I don’t ever intend on letting you go, ____. No matter the cost or what it takes, I will find you over and over again.”

There it is, that sheer devotion to you just for you. His eyes are clear, nothing hiding his true feelings and you find yourself swimming in his gaze. Sadness at you leaving, anger at EVER for existing, steadfast dedication to you, and heady desire at having you in his arms again.

His gaze slowly travels across your face, sweeping across the tears that you rapidly blink back to the way your teeth bite at the soft skin of your lips. His gaze lingers there and you hold your breath to see what he’ll do, but he instead pulls himself slightly back and looks back into your eyes - searching for your answer.

He’s waiting for you to give him permission.

And for the first time in two years, you don’t have to think about what you want.

“Sylus-” You gasp, and he takes his whispered name against his lips as an invitation to press his mouth against yours.

The first kiss after two years isn’t gentle, not by a long shot. It’s full of heat and want and rushing emotions that have been repressed for too long. His hands leave fire in their wake - from grabbing at your face and angling your lips juuust right against his to pressing into your sides so that he can push the entire length of his body as close as he can to you. It slowly heats you from the outside in until your chest is heaving and you feel like you’re burning alive.

You pull away first, the need for air searing your lungs and making your head spin. He still chases after your mouth, though, leaving small pecks along the sensitive skin of your lips as you gasp heavily.

“I’ve waited so long for the chance to kiss you again.” It’s a heavy whisper, his voice having dropped a few octaves as he runs his nose along the length of your chin. His mouth wanders down to your neck and leaves kisses that have you sighing at the feeling, your fingernails digging into his shoulder when he finds your sensitive spot with ease.

“I don’t know if we should do this.” It’s a garbled confession, cut off with a moan when he bites down on the sensitive skin of your collarbone. Your hips unknowingly grind against the growing bulge in his pants, and you feel him moan against your neck before pulling his face away from your body.

“Tell me to stop.” Sylus’s voice is raw, eyes wide as he looks at you like a man deprived. “Tell me to stop and I will. I’ll let you walk away for good and never speak to you again-”

You cut him off by pressing your hands to his face and kissing him again, deeper and more intense this time. Sylus groans in your mouth, licking against your lips and begging for entrance inside. Your mouth falls open and he exhales sharper, letting his tongue tangle against yours.

It’s messy, almost animalistic as the two of you continue to grab and cling at any inch of the other’s body. Sylus’s hands make their way to your ass, and he massages the supple flesh - guiding your rhythm and making you grind against his clothed cock. You roll your hips hard in response, and the groan that leaves his mouth makes your head spin. His hands quickly move to the back of your thighs and you take it as your sign to jump up, letting him wrap your legs around his waist so he can carry you while the two of you continue to kiss.

It’s a blind scramble to get to his bedroom, but the both of you have the path engrained into your mind. He kicks the door open and makes a beeline for his massive bed, gently laying you down on the plush mattress as he takes the opportunity to kick off his shoes. You prop yourself up on your elbows, taking the chance to appreciate the sheer desperation on Sylus’s face as he begins to fight with the buttons of his shirt so he can get to you faster.

“Come here.”

It’s a quiet whisper, but he takes it as the most pressing command as he settles himself onto the bed, pressing his back against the headboard. You turn, settling yourself on his lap and ghosting your fingers along the buttons that still hold his shirt together.

“You’re going to tear them off if you’re not careful.” You can’t help but tease him as you slowly undo the first button, revealing some of his skin to your greedy eyes. Sylus groans at your slow pace, head falling back to the headboard as he looks at you with hooded eyes.

“Do you blame me?” His hands rest on your hips, and he absentmindedly moves your hips back and forth as you continue to slowly undo his buttons. “I’ve waited to have you again for so long, my darling. Forgive me if my patience is too thin.”

“Mmm…” Your breath catches in your throat when you feel his clothed cock rut against your wet heat, and your fingers slip on the last button as he pulls your hips flush against his thick length. Your head falls back slightly and you fist the loose material of his shirt, feeling muted pressure begin to build in your head as he exhales at the sight of you on his lap.

“What has you so pent up, sweetheart?” There’s a quick rustle as he quickly pulls his button down off of his body before his fingers slide idly under your own shirt, dragging the thin fabric up your body slowly. “Could it be that you thought about this, too?”

“Don’t flatter yoursel- ngh-” It’s meant to be scathing, but your voice cracks when his thumbs lightly run across the skin of your torso, hands slowly inching up to your chest. Your hands settle on his stomach, hips continuing to slowly rut against his as he presses his palms flat against your chest.

“So beautiful,” he murmurs softly, hands massaging your sensitive breasts as you gasp. “Still fills my hands perfectly, too…”

He pinches your nipples through the lace of your bra, making you whine and hold his hands against your chest. “Sylus-”

“I have you, ____.” He’s quick to lean back up, pulling your shirt over your head before pressing his mouth against yours once again. His fingers make work of the clasp of your bra, flicking it open and toying with the loose strap before letting it fall down your shoulders. Sylus pulls away ever so slightly, pressing his forehead against your own while looking down so he can see your bare breasts swaying with your every heavy breath.

“I dreamt of this.” His confession is warm on your lips, and he pulls your bra from your body and tosses it off of the bed before gripping tightly at your hips and flipping you over so that you’re on your back and he hovers above you. “Having you in my arms again. Of kissing you and bringing you pleasure the way that you like it.”

Sylus leans down and brushes a soft kiss against your forehead, and the sweet gesture is nearly enough to reduce you to tears as he continues to press kisses into every inch of skin his mouth meets. His lips travel from your forehead to your eyes, the tip of your nose to your cheeks, to the corner of your mouth before finally pressing against your neck once more. He inhales deeply then, as if he’s memorizing your scent before he moves on and continues to kiss his way down your body.

Nothing goes untouched from Sylus’s mouth and teeth. He treats your skin as if it’s the night sky, and every scar and mole he finds as the stars that add to your beauty. He pays special attention to your breasts, pulling one of your nipples into his mouth and sucking slowly while pinching the other until you’re whining and soaking your panties, fingers pulling lightly on his hair.

“D-don’t tease me you idiot-”

“What makes you think I’m teasing?” There’s laughter in his voice, though he follows your wishes and presses wetter kisses down your stomach. “Maybe I’m just taking my time and worshipping the one woman I only ever want in my life.”

You freeze when he mentions taking his time, mind slightly sobering at the throwaway sentiment because you’re almost out of time with him. When the clocks read 12:00 am, EVER will begin their countdown, and you know that when you do, you’ll never be able to see him again.

Sylus stills in between your legs, and his hands gently squeeze your thighs to ground you. “____? Are you okay, darling?”

“Y-yeah.” You both know that you’re not convincing in the slightest, and his eyes flash with concern as he begins to pull away from your body to check on you. Your thighs try to tighten around his neck, but he gently pries them apart so that he can peer at you.

“Do you want to stop?” His gaze is gentle, holding no expectations as he waits for you to decide what you need. His thumbs rub soft circles into the skin of your thigh, grounding you and slowly bringing your thoughts away from the things that plague you and back to him.

Your legs tighten around him, and you bring him closer to your weeping core. Sylus’s eyes flash dangerously, and he holds himself back juuust enough to technically be away from your pussy, but close enough that his lips just barely brush against the fabric of your underwear.

“I need your words, my darling.” His fingers reach up, sliding and rubbing the fabric of your panties as your hips buck up to meet his lips. He’s quick, though, pressing his hand flat against your stomach and pinning you to the bed with ease.

“Tell me what you need, ____.” Sylus pulls the elastic taught, snapping the waistband to your skin and making you gasp. “I need to hear it from you, sweetheart.”

“Please-” You whimper. Your head spins from desperation, and your hips continue to try to buck against his mouth even when he’s pinning you flat onto his bed. “I need you-”

You barely hear the whispered expletive spill from his lips before he pulls your panties to the side and presses his tongue flat against your pussy.

“Sylus!” Your back arches as you cry out his name, his tongue immediately working you in the way he knows you like. He circles your weeping hole with the tip of his tongue before spelling his name with broad strokes, faithfully avoiding your clit. As he makes his tongue work, he moves his hand from your stomach and grips your thighs with his hands, placing them on his shoulders so that you’re spread open for him like the feast he’s craved for the past two years.

He moans when you gush at his movements, and his lips are quick to move up to your clit. He moves one of his hands down, too, his ring and middle fingers barely pressing into your entrance as he looks up at you with drunken eyes.

“I need you,” you implore with a dry rasp. Your body is hot with desire, head spinning from how good he’s making you feel with just his mouth. “I need more of you, please Sylus-”

You feel his groan rather than hear it, the little vibrations traveling throughout your body as he slowly sinks his fingers into your weeping cunt. His teeth graze your clit lightly, and a little scream leaves your body when he finally sinks his fingers deep inside in time to him pulling your clit into his mouth and giving a little suck.

It’s heaven and hell, the pleasure he leaves all of your body. You didn’t realize how much you ached for his touch until you had it again, but now that you have it, it suddenly feels like too much all at once. He knows all of the spots that make you tick - crooking his fingers at just the right angle so he catches that spongy spot inside of you that makes you gush in his hand while suckling on your clit so he can continue to build your end for you. Your fingers pull tightly on his hair, and you hear the expletive that slips off his tongue before he doubles his efforts so he can help you meet your end.

“‘m s-so close-” you mewl, hips bucking against his face. “N-need you, Sylus- ah-”

He doesn’t stop or slow down, not when he’s been desperate and dreaming to see you like this after so long. He simply hums in knowing, pressing his fingers into your sensitive spot and flicking his tongue against your clit - triggering your end.

You cry out, back arching almost painfully as you cum. Stars dance behind your eyelids while your pleasure travels across your body in heavy waves, leaving you panting and boneless as your hands travel back and forth from his forehead to his hair. You’re not sure whether to pull him away or push you closer, but he decides for you as he continues to press against your g-spot and play with your clit.

“Give me another, darling.” His voice is gruff, heavy with need as he looks up at you with drunken eyes. “Need to feel your pretty pussy clenching around my fingers one more time before I give you my cock-”

“Sylus-” you slur, nearly going cross-eyed at the overwhelming feeling. “T-too much-”

“You can do it,” he replies softly, pressing a kiss to your thigh as he continues to fuck his fingers in and out of your pussy sloppily. “I know you can, sweetheart.”

Your second orgasm rolls over you with his encouragement, yet no sounds leave your open mouth. Your thighs clench around his face, and something in you unravels further because you feel yourself suddenly gush all over his face.

“Fuck,” he whispers, feeling his boxers tighten even more at the sight of you boneless and breathtakingly beautiful in his bed. “Absolutely perfect.”

You blearily watch as Sylus slowly pulls away from your soaked core, making his way back up so he can hover above your face. His chin is streaked with your slick, gaze slightly dazed as he looks at you with concern. His fingers reach up, brushing along your cheek before reaching up to your forehead and pushing the sweaty strands of hair that cling to your temples off of your face.

“Do we need to stop?” It’s a rasp on his end, and your eyes quickly flash down to the bulge that stands heavy in between his legs. His fingers lightly grip your chin, though, and he brings your eyes up to his so that all you see is his face. “Don’t focus on me, darling. Think of what you need.”

What do you need?

Your brain tries to think of some sort of twisted joke, but the only thing you can focus on is Sylus. Not just his physicality, but of his gentle care and steady devotion. His hands holding your face as he kisses you. The laughter in his voice when you say something that matches his wit.

You think you’ve ached for him for a long time now.

Your legs quickly wrap around his waist, pulling his lower half flush against your own as you lean up to kiss him. Your tongue flicks out to lick the evidence of you off of his chin and he groans at your movements, the hand that was on your chin moving to blindly tangle in between your fingers and giving you a tight squeeze.

“Please,” you whisper against his mouth, and he sighs in response.

“Okay, ____.” Your name is a reverent prayer on his tongue, and both of you make quick work of his underwear. He kicks off the offending piece of fabric before he presses himself flush against your wet heat, his cock sliding in between your pussy. Your legs tighten around his waist at the feeling, whines spilling from your mouth when he ruts his hips just right so that the head of his cock catches your clit with ease. “Fu- sweetheart-” He moans, and the hand not holding your own untangles your legs from his hips before he leans back and flips you over so that your front is pressed against the mattress and your back is arched, presenting your ass to him in the most enticing way. Your face is buried in his pillows, and you bite down on the fluffy material when you feel his hand ghost along your spine.

“My ____.” Sylus’s chest presses against your back, your arch falling flat as you’re pressed deeper into the mattress with his weight. The tip of his cock catches your weeping hole, and the two of you gasp when it nearly slips in. “My beautiful ____…”

He presses in deeper, and you feel yourself clench when the tip of his cock lodges neatly into you. The going is slow, him fucking every inch into you slowly while whispering sweetly in your ear. You’re begging in response, mind slowly going stupid with the way he stretches you out on just a few inches of his dick until you’re practically blabbering nonsense when he’s fully seated inside you, his entire body pinning you to the mattress and his cock throbbing deep inside of you.

“You still take me so well after two years apart…” The thought tapers off, tinged slightly with bitterness at the thought that this could have been your every day if things had gone right. The thought flies out of your brain, though, when his body moves slightly to kiss your shoulders, making his cock jostle slightly in your wet cunt. The two of you hiss at the sensation, and you can’t help but tighten around him.

“D-don’t do that-” he grunts, his hands gripping tightly at your hips. “I want to go s-slow for you-”

“Please.” It’s a quiet moan, your hips fucking back against his own in a bid to get him to move. “Please, Sylus-”

“Fu- I have you, ____-” Sylus begins to move his hips at your request, slowly pulling out until the tip of his cock remains in you before pushing himself back in with one fell swoop. He hits deeply then, and your cries come out garbled from your throat as his pace slowly picks up.

“Did you miss this as much as I missed you, ____?” His lips linger by your ear, and he presses a kiss to your temple as he continues his ruthless pace. “Did you dream about this while you were away?”

“Yes!” It’s almost a shriek from your mouth, the head of his cock hitting a place that makes you gush. You feel yourself begin to tear up, mostly from the pleasure but also from the part of you that never got the chance to mourn what happened and…oh God, ____, you’re still so in love with Sylus and this might be the last time you’ll ever see him.

The thought makes the tears you’ve tried to suppress the entire time you’ve been in the N109 Zone finally spill out, and you press your face into his pillows, pretending that the sobs that escape your mouth are from the intense pleasure he’s leaving all over your body and not the crushing devastation that sits heavy in your heart. Your mind is floating, caught in between trying to enjoy the moment and also racing through scenarios of what tomorrow might bring-

“-are you with me, ____?”

You slowly register that Sylus pulled out and flipped you over so that you’re on your back, and he’s looking down at you with concern and a little bit of fear. He presses the back of his hand onto your forehead, and his gaze is gentle as he slowly guides you back down to your body.

“Are you okay, my darling? Or do we need to stop?” Sylus’s hands land on your hips, rubbing soothing circles into the skin as he waits for you at your own pace. You know he means well, but it only brings back the thoughts that have been plaguing you.

You take a deep breath to calm your nerves, and you decide to leave yourself vulnerable for him to see. “I want to continue but…I’m scared about tomorrow. Of what’s going to happen. If I’ll ever see you again.”

His eyes soften, and he wraps your legs around his waist once more as he begins to leave kisses all over your face. “Of course we’ll see each other again, sweetheart…EVER will never be able to keep me from you.”

The atmosphere turns from heady to steadfast, the two of you clinging tight to each other as you let his breaths calm you down. He kisses your tears away, letting the both of you relish in the closeness. After the tears have mostly dried, his mouth begins to leave soft tracks across your face; from your chin to the tip of your nose, before letting his lips linger against your forehead in your favorite kiss of his. 

“Sylus-” you try to begin.

“Shh, ____,” he murmurs back. He tilts his head back so that he can peer fully down at your face, glowing from pleasure and stained with sadness. “Let me take care of the both of us, my darling.”

His fingers tighten in between yours as he leans back down again to capture your mouth with his. The kiss this time is gentler, full of longing and a warmth that was never fully extinguished. No, this kiss is soft and speaks the language of two fiancés whose devotion for each other never really went away. His cock slides back into you, smooth yet gentle as he gives you exactly what you want.

It’s much softer, much closer to love-making rather than the desperation that first consumed the two of you like a raging fire. His fingers tighten against yours as his hips continue to move, mouth never really leaving your own as he lets his forehead rest against your own. It’s the most comfort you’ve ever felt in your life, and the tears that slide down your cheek aren’t sad at all - they’re content, overwhelmingly full of care for him.

You feel yourself growing needier though, the two of you rapidly approaching your ends. Your fingers tighten around his, and his name leaves your mouth as a whine as you look into his eyes imploringly. “‘m gonna cum-”

“It’s okay, ____.” He kisses you gently, hips maintaining their pace as you begin to unravel. “Cum for me-”

The roar of your ears is loud as you meet your end, but it’s not as earth-shattering as the first two. This one washes over you like gentle waves on the beach, and the feeling of him kissing you deeply as he finishes inside of you has you gasping his name loudly against his mouth. He simply swallows your moans, coaxing more kisses from you until your head spins from the overwhelming care of it all.

It’s the warmest and most content you’ve ever felt in your entire life.

He settles into your side after gently pulling out, pulling you into his embrace and having your head rest on his chest. He kisses your forehead once more and you feel yourself growing sleepy, but you have to fight it because you have to prepare-

“Let me hold you, ____, my sweetheart.” It’s a soft slur from him, a hint to you that he’s slowly nodding off as he nuzzles his forehead into your hair. He whispers something in a language you can’t quite understand then, but it still makes your heart clench painfully as you allow him this last moment of peace before you disappear forever.

You float somewhere in between sleep and awake, not letting yourself fully succumb to dreams because your mind races with the need to act. You wait until you know he’s fully asleep by the way his chest rumbles slightly under your head before undoing yourself from his embrace, pushing yourself up on the bed.

You gather the blankets up to your chest, turning your head so that you can look at Sylus sleeping next to you. In this light, he looks younger - not stained by his past and everything that’s happened to him. It makes your heart clench painfully, thinking about him in this light and in a universe where the two of you just lived…peacefully.

A universe that doesn’t exist now.

Your vision grows watery, but you allow yourself to lean over and brush your hand across his forehead, slowly brushing his hair off of his face before running your hand down to rest on his warm cheek. He stirs softly, mumbling something under his breath before pushing his mouth into your palm and leaving a kiss on the center of your hand. You retract your hand instantly, almost as if you’ve been burned by fire because it feels like you have been burned.

This is the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do, but you need to do it.

You slip from the covers, wincing when you feel the ache in your body from your long night with him. You hobble to his bathroom, taking the time to relax your muscles and clean yourself before going back to the bedroom, picking up your clothes and getting dressed as quietly as you can. All the while, you keep an ear out for his sounds, but Sylus is still dead asleep as you finish getting dressed and approach the door to his bedroom.

You stop at his doorframe, contemplating turning around and giving yourself one last chance to look at what could have been your happily ever after if things had gone differently. Your fingers tighten on the wood, about to turn but you stop, pushing yourself off of the door and forcing yourself to keep moving. If you look back, you’ll never leave and you’ll damn the both of you to a life of torment - and you would never subject your Sylus to that.

There is something that does stop you, though, and it sits on his kitchen island when you’re about to leave through his front door. Your ruby pendant lays on the gleaming marble, and its sparkle catches your eye. Against your better judgement, you approach the island and pick up the ruby, turning it in the light and remembering what this necklace represents. Of your devotion and commitment to each other, even more than rings ever could. Of how the two of you never stopped thinking and caring for the other.

How the two of you will always be tied to each other.

You don’t hesitate to do it. You slide the necklace around your neck, making sure it’s secure before going for the door and leaving. It’s as if an old friend is with you, keeping you company in the face of all of the pain you’re going to have to endure for the rest of your life.

It’s your one allowance of him and the life you could have lived.

You almost smile at the thought, twisting the pendant between your fingers as you continue to your hotel so you can complete your escape.

You’re a couple of feet away from the divide that marks the end of the N109 Zone and the beginning of your self-imposed exile when your communication device buzzes against your leg.

It makes you freeze, hand tightening on the straps of the one backpack you allowed yourself to take before you reach into your pocket hesitantly, pulling out the device that was supposed to be turned off and dead of battery. Why is it still buzzing? You purposefully drained the thing when you made up your mind so that no one could track you or contact you.

Yes, the battery is still dead. But your eyes widen when you see text begin to scroll across the screen, the script making your mouth dry as your eyes read the words.

I KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING, ____.

DO YOU REALLY THINK YOU’LL BE FREE?

You should be terrified of his all-knowing, but you only feel tired. You should have expected this - EVER never lets go of those who betray or abandon them. They hunt them until they’re brought back or killed. 

It’s only now do you realize how fucked you are, though. He used your name. Not Cleaner Yue, but ____.

DID YOU THINK ONE NIGHT WITH THE LEADER OF ONYCHINUS WOULD SAVE YOU?

YOU WILL NEVER BE FREE FROM DOOMSDAY.

IN FACT, HE WILL BE EXTERMINATED VERY SOON.

AND YOU WILL CONTINUE TO SERVE AS PUNISHMENT.

Your communication device slips from your hands at that.

Very soon?

You frantically kneel, grasping at the shattered device but there’s nothing else on the screen. The only thing that remains is the word EXTERMINATE flashing erratically, fractured yet still legible.

Something splatters onto the screen, and you reach up to find tears streaming down your cheeks and landing on the device. They sink into the cracks and only fuel your panic even more, because you know this means they’ll be acting soon.

Right now, if you have any approximations on how EVER operates.

You stand up shakily, tossing the device aside and placing your backpack down at your feet. You force yourself to suit up, strapping your knives and your gun holster to their appropriate places before tossing the backpack aside. You look at the border between the N109 Zone and the normal world and, for a split second, you indulge in the idea of just…walking away.

You’ve spent the entirety of the past two years doing the bidding of others, staining your hands for people far more evil than you. You could just…leave. Be on the run, sure, but not be tied down to anything or anyone. Always moving, always planning, but never needing to think or dwell on your mistakes or your past anymore.

Despite yourself, though, you think about the past few hours. Of Sylus holding you in his arms, kissing your tears away. His fingers bringing you pleasure and comfort. Of the devotion in his eyes whenever you met his gaze with your own.

One step towards the border, and then one more.

The way he looks underneath candlelight, mirth on his face as he annoys you over and over again. How he tilted his head back to expose you when he knew you could easily end his life, yet not hesitating in the slightest so you could build trust in him.

You stop, feet hovering right over the border.

Sylus on one knee, rare tears streaming down his face as he asked you to spend the rest of your lives together, whether this one or the next. The way his lips moved against yours when you said yes, sealing his commitment to you with passion and warmth and care and lo-

You stumble back, nearly falling onto your back as you propel yourself away from the border. You turn back around to the streets that may signal your end, but you don’t feel anything else as you push yourself back up and run to the motorcycle you left abandoned.

No, you’re not scared.

You only feel peace and steady resolve with your choice as you begin to navigate your way back to Sylus.

It takes you a few tries to find him.

You first looked at the restaurant he took you to, mostly because it’s the closest destination when you enter back into the N109 Zone. You weren’t surprised when you found it empty and closed, though.

You search through alleys, random side streets, even the hotel you stayed at - but there’s nothing, no indication of anything going wrong. Your brain wracks for any sort of idea of where he might be, when you remember the crumbling EVER laboratory at the city center.

That’s where they’ll be, you know it.

Your heart is racing as you speed over there, mind running through all of the possible scenarios that could happen. What if EVER is just luring you back here to take you back to base? What if this is a cruel joke by another larger, even more insidious entity?

What if Sylus is already dead?

No.

You refuse to entertain that thought. He won’t be dead, he’s not stupid enough to get himself killed. EVER doesn’t stand a chance against a man they’ve wronged over and over again.

Still, you rev your motorcycle so that you can get to the laboratory a little bit faster. The more time you waste means a higher chance of the scenario you don’t want to happen becoming a reality.

You immediately know something is wrong when you get to the laboratory. The air feels heavier, the scent of ozone and smoke thick as you get off of your motorcycle and run towards the first sounds you hear. You hear bullets ricochet off of metal and the sounds of struggle, and your heart beats a little bit faster as you sprint towards where you know he’ll be.

You find yourself in the middle of a crumbling grand entrance, lighting muted from the black and red Evol that flashes throughout the sky. A crow caws high above your head, and you use that body’s position to find approximate where you know he’ll be. You don’t even think, you simply plunge in and begin fighting your way towards the center.

You take stock of a few facts as you move through the carnage. There are gray clothes and black clothes, which means both Doomsday trainees and veterans are here right now. Masks are scattered throughout the floor, the bodies they’ve fallen from not far from them. You smile bitterly at the thought - these people used to be your…coworkers. Now, you’re enemies.

You don’t quite care, though.

You approach the center of the field, where the fighting is its heaviest and most brutal. You jump into the fray, firing a bullet into an assailant and making your way to the dead center. You push past his strong Evol-

-and find Sylus, face bored as he continues to wipe out enemies left and right. You can tell he’s gotten careless, though, and your eyes widen when you see someone running up behind him. You quickly take point, firing a bullet cleanly through the person’s head.

“I thought you left.” It’s not accusatory, but you can see the relief in his eyes as his hand brushes your own. You give him a reassuring nod, taking up point to cover his weak spots as the two of you begin the dance you perfected a long time ago.

“I had a reason to come back.” It’s a loud yell, ducking underneath his arm to throw a knife. His lips tilt up at your reasoning, but you can see him falter just a little bit as his energy begins to wane.

“Where’s Luke and Kieran?” You begin to fight back with more fervor, but you frown to yourself when you notice EVER’s assailants begin to attack Sylus rather than you. “Shouldn’t they be back up?”

“They’ll be here soon.” He leans his body to the side to dodge a dagger, and his Evol wipes the person away. “There are much more than I expected, though…”

It’s true. It’s almost like EVER sent the entirety of Doomsday just to deal with two people, and you wouldn’t put it past them to have done that just to teach the two of you a lesson.

While it should be unfair, you’re somehow an even match between the horde. He is ranked among the highest on their hit list, and you’re the best cleaner for a reason. It’s almost laughable at how easy it is, but the two of you don’t know how long he can maintain his energy to maintain his consistency and ensure the two of you stay alive.

You continue to fight, but you truly begin to notice just how much they avoid trying to hurt or target you - instead choosing to throw every bit of energy and weaponry onto Sylus. Even when you deliberately target someone, they shift their attention to the man you’re trying to defend, and you realize what this is immediately.

This was never meant for Sylus, it was meant for you.

They’re testing you to see if you’re still capable and worthy of being saved, but you know that there’s no more out for you anymore. Even if they do kill him, nothing stops them from dragging you back to headquarters. If you kill him, you damn yourself to a life of serving them - even if you manage to run. If you both somehow manage to survive, EVER will spend the rest of their lives pursuing the two of you.

There’s only one solution that you can see. One that you hope won’t have to happen, but somewhere deep down inside, you know it’s the only outcome to this entire situation.

You mentally throw yourself back into the fight, watching Sylus’s back and making sure he stays alive. For every time his back is exposed, you step behind it and fire a round into a person you see far away. The two of you move like the unit you’ve both trained for so long - fluid, dangerous, and natural extensions of each other.

You’re almost out of weapons to use, though, and you can tell Sylus is growing exhausted from constantly using his Evol by the way he begins to get sloppy with attacks. The assailants are thinning out, but you don’t know how much longer the both of you can hold out or last.

“How many more do you see?” You huff out, neatly throwing one of your last knives at one of the two people you see. Sylus whips his head around to look at the area around you quickly, before looking back at you with a quick smile.

“About five more,” he replies. He tries to give you a wink, but his face is ashen and strained with the effort he puts into maintaining and using his Evol. In fact, his Evol drops for just a split second, making two assailants jump at the opening. He’s able to quickly take one out, but the other manages to leave a scratch along his arm and he winces, stumbling uncharacteristically.

From the corner of your eye, you see the last assailant taking aim at the back of Sylus’s head with their gun. The first assailant that left a mark on Sylus lunges at you, seeing the window of opportunity to keep you distracted but you’re faster, much faster-

You don’t think, you just do. You throw your last knife, embedding itself into your assailant’s chest with a sick thud. You barely take the time to look at them fall, instead diving forward to push Sylus’s body behind your own just as the assailant behind him fires their gun.

It’s almost as if you’re seeing the events happening from an outsider’s perspective as the bullet pierces your body. Your body recoils, falling back into another as your chest begins to bloom red. Somewhere behind you, you hear a panicked shout of your name and you blearily see the last assailant being dealt with a reddish black smoke before you register that you’re being cradled in someone’s arms.

Time stills, and you can vaguely hear something racing into the field and someone chanting your name above your head as your vision swims. You don’t take stock of much else, though. You just feel yourself slowly growing colder, a warm liquid soaking into your clothes and making your skin sticky.

“____.”

You feel something thick wrapping around your body, hands pressing into the center of your chest but oh, it hurts. An unholy sound crawls its way out of your mouth, piercing through the silence as you cry out weakly from the pain radiating and spreading throughout your entire being. The agony is inescapable - you can feel it with every twitch of your body and you think you’re sobbing, but you find that as the seconds pass that the pain is slowly fading away into a sort of numbness you can’t describe.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” The voice above your head wavers in and out alongside your consciousness, and you blindly grasp onto whatever material is by your cheek so that you can attempt to distract yourself from the pain slowly fading away. A hand captures your own, and you feel your cold skin press against something warm.

“____, can you hear me? Please keep listening to me-” The voice is growing desperate, you’re sure, but why would they be? The pain is finally fading and you’ve settled for shivering in these strong arms, the little warmth you’ve managed to leech from this solid wall not working to keep you alive anymore.

“It wasn’t meant for you.” The voice cracks the tiniest bit, making something in your chest throb more than the site of your injury. “It was meant for me and I saw it coming, why did you do it?”

Your vision clears for a second, and you think you see Sylus’s face hovering above your own. He has your stained hand pressed to his cheek, and you can see him frantically trying to keep you warm so that Kieran or Luke can do something he’s asked. Dream Sylus is rambling the few medical facts he knows as he grips your hand in a death grip - something about how he can’t reach in to take out the bullet that’s in your body, that he has to press his hands into your wound to stem the bleeding as much as he can, that he’s getting help and that you’ll be okay and stay with him, please stay awake my darling-

-but you’re so tired.

You don’t know how much longer you have.

You need to tell him something important.

“Sylus.”

Your voice is a rattled gasp against your chest, but dream Sylus hears you just enough to pull you in closer. He sniffles, and the sight of tears gathering at the corners of his eyes makes you want to fight harder to keep living, keep breathing, keep finding the strength because you two have just managed to come back to each other-

-but you’re freezing. You have been for so long. And it’s nice, finally being warm and feeling safe and cared for. Maybe you’ll settle here, in this place where you feel protected enough to fall asleep.

“I love you.”

It’s a labored whisper, and yet it holds your final thoughts as you let yourself be taken towards that dreamless sleep. You can feel your body relax as your eyes finally, finally blissfully slip shut.

“____? ____, my darling, I lo-”

The last thing you see before you fall into the abyss’s embrace is the look of his tears racing down his face and mixing with the blood you smudged on his cheek.

Sylus Qin is no stranger to fire.

He’s experienced ruthless heat multiple times over, whether directed towards him or otherwise. He felt the agony of being burned alive and almost welcomed it like a home because, in some strange and twisted way, it was. It was the only way he knew warmth.

That was before you.

You, on the streets of the N109 Zone who was capable of taking care of yourself despite the conditions. You, who after he took you in, made warmth mean something different. Maybe heat and fire didn’t have to be painful and destructive. It didn’t have to be an explosion signaling ruin and the end.

It could be something as simple as the heat of a shared pot of soup. The brushing of hands in the corridor because it was the only thing the two of you could manage for a while. Him draping a blanket over your sleeping figure and allowing himself a fleeting touch to brush the stray hairs off of your face.

As time went on, warmth morphed into something more comforting. It was the sun when he was able to manage it, paired with your delirious laughter as the two of you soaked in the atmosphere a grove of maple trees provided. It was the rare hesitation he felt when he first turned your face towards his, looking into your eyes for allowance. It was the way your eyes slipped shut, waiting for him to kiss you.

Something had burst forth in his chest when he got down on one knee to ask you to marry him. Hot tears made rare tracks down the slope of his nose as he slipped the ring onto your finger, and passionate kisses shared throughout the night as he made love to you over and over again felt like the fire he wanted to feel for the rest of his life.

That warmth left for two years, when he found someone else who he thought held the answers to what torments him at night. While she did hold the key to freedom, she wasn’t what he was looking for.

No, she didn’t fulfill him in the end.

The answer was you. It was always you and it was always going to be you.

He had been so cold for two years, simply coasting on the ghost of gentle fire across his cheeks and his hands. When he saw you standing there, he thought he had found his reason for burning again. But then you pinned him to the cold ground and he realized his only source of kind warmth had gone cold, too.

He searched for you. Confessed the truth he’s held heavy in his heart and waited for you as best he could. All so you could answer on your own terms.

And you did. 

And the night he finally held you in his arms again? It was the warmest he ever felt.

But now, he’s frozen solid. He can’t feel his fingertips as he strikes a match and drops it carelessly in a small pile of kindling that leads to a ruined building. He steps back and watches EVER’s headquarters go down in ash and melted material and he still only feels a bitter chill deep in his bones. He’s burned it all to the ground yet he feels nothing. No relief, no satisfaction.

Only frozen, his heart resting in the hands of a body far too cold.

He speeds home on his motorcycle, ignoring the directions leading him to his usual base and instead taking a detour. Vibrant cityscapes give way to lush forests, and he soon finds himself in a clearing of maple trees. A house is resting there, not big by any standards but comfortable enough to hold two people in love. Attached to the house is a modest greenhouse, and both structures are dappled in sunlight that’s filtering through the maple leaves. He pushes himself off of his motorcycle and makes his way to the greenhouse, slipping off his coat and rolling up his sleeves.

The greenhouse is a pleasant temperature, the sunlight dancing through the glass panes and providing warmth against the slightly cool temperature. He tosses his coat onto the table near the entry, barely closing the door behind him before making his way briskly into the main room of the greenhouse. He approaches a linen curtain, and he swallows deeply before forcing himself to push the piece of fabric aside and take in the sight before him.

You, in a hospital bed and connected to a multitude of medical devices. Your heart rate is steady, and if he focuses only on your face he can almost pretend you’re in a restful sleep. That you’re seconds away from waking up and smiling at him before pulling him down for a kiss.

He knows it’s not true, though. It’s this exact reason that he hates seeing you like this. Somewhere in between life and death.

His mind flashes back to those awful moments where he held you in his arms while you bled out. As you had faded from consciousness, Luke and Kieran had come by with the car. He made one of them drive as he sat in the back with you in his hold, pressing his hands to the deep wound in your body while he called in a favor from a doctor he knew from a time gone by. The doctor had shown to the base, black hair ruffled and hazel eyes serious as he took in your state, and he made Sylus step aside as he took you into a makeshift operating room and began the race to save your life.

He doesn’t remember much from that time, now that he thinks about it. His entire body had been locked in panic, his mind a prison for all of the agonizing scenarios that could emerge from that operating room. The doctor could walk out with your blood on his hands and you would be gone, gone right after he found you and before he could make everything the two of you right.

Gone from this world. His meaning, his purpose…buried for good.

The hours both stretched too long and felt too short before the doctor finally emerged from the room, looking exhausted yet not…defeated. He sat himself down next to Sylus and began to speak in a tired tone about your condition and what he was able to do. He talks about how if he had gotten there a little later, this would be a far different conversation, but Sylus can only feel sheer relief as he closes his eyes and lets himself cry silently.

You’re alive.

You’re alive, but you’re not here with him.

He sits heavily on the chair he’s occupied for far too long, brain laden with thoughts he doesn’t even want to entertain. His fingers weave themselves in between your own and he lets the slight pressure ground his thoughts. He works through his words, before settling on a hoarse, “It’s done, ____.”

He wishes you were there to see the downfall of the people who tormented you for so long. You above all people deserve to be the one to strike the match and let it fall, but he can at least do it for you while you continue to heal.

“Lihua asked about you before she died.” It’s bland, but he hopes you can still hear him as he speaks. “She asked if you were okay. I think, in some fucked up way, she truly cared for you. I told her that it doesn’t matter anymore, and she looked relieved. Like she knew I was taking care of you.”

His eyes drift up to the necklace against your chest, and something constricts tightly in his own body. It looks wrong on the hospital gown you’re wearing. It should be worn with a white dress, with one of his shirts - not this thin, flimsy material.

“Is this really taking care of you, though?” His voice trembles as his fingers tighten against yours. “Keeping you alive. As much as all of this is for you, there’s that part of me that’s selfish. I’m doing this for me, because I can’t bear the thought of being away from you. Of being alone after I found you again.”

Sylus lifts your hand up to his face, and he examines your fingers. Lithe and dextrous, able to throw a knife with terrifying precision or stroke his hair with an even scarier gentleness. Hands he dreams of holding his face, thumbs softly wiping away the tears now streaming down his face as his breath escapes him in a shaky rattle.

“I’ll wait for you.” He can’t quite contain the waver in his voice at his promise, and a tear slides down his cheek as he presses his mouth against your hand. “As long as it takes. I’ll wait for you to wake up, and I’ll help you through your recovery process, and I’ll wait until we build ourselves up again. Just please, ____, my darling…please wake up.”

He rests his forehead on your stomach, and he swallows down the cries that claw their way out of his throat. The waiting is agony. He wants you here with him now. He wants you to be awake and to pull him into your arms, to smother his face with your kisses as your fingers rake through his hair.

The other option is unthinkable. He hates the other option with every fiber of his being, so he’s willing to wait in this limbo for as long as he takes. Whether it be two years or two lifetimes from now, he’ll wait for you.

He’ll always wait for you to come back to him.

a/n #2: ...........hi! thank you for reading <3

[ taglist: @hirayalia @kingraspberry12-blog @elegantpoliceflower @g0d334t3r ]

⏾⋆.˚ back to me by the marias ⤷ "maybe it's over (try to forget) / it's hard to accept (walking again) / as i'm getting older (roots in my head) / full of regrets"

⏾⋆.˚ bad omens by 5 seconds of summer ⤷ "oh, just make it go away / could you help me rearrange it? / i'm still making sense of having nothing left to save"

You’re still not sure who you are these days, now that you think about it. When you catch glimpses of yourself in the mirror, you think you still look like yourself. Maybe a little bit worn, eyes a little more dull, but you still resemble yourself. When the objectives stack a little too high, you sometimes think features of yourself have been replaced by Wanderer parts. Claws where your nails usually are, your eyes hollow sockets. It takes a few blinks in the mirror to restore yourself to your humanity - to remind yourself you’re not a Wanderer.

⏾⋆.˚ do i wanna know? by the arctic monkeys ⤷ "(do i wanna know?) too busy being yours to fall / (sad to see you go) ever thought of callin', darling? / (do i wanna know?) do you want me crawling back to you?"

⏾⋆.˚ doomsday by lizzy mcalpine ⤷ "i had no choice in the matter / why would i? it's only the death of me." ⤷ "i feel more free than i have in years six feet in the ground."

⏾⋆.˚ fear by seventeen ⤷ [trans] "this is love, consuming all of me / all of my fears, my inner scars / even if you hurt me everyday / the way i love the way i love..."

You’ve been assigned, Cleaner Yue. You have a week. Your heart freezes at the new notification on your communication device, and you feel the breath you fought so hard to keep even begin its erratic rhythm once more as you see the new file pop up on your screen. You press a finger to the file, praying and hoping-

⏾⋆.˚ labyrinth by taylor swift ⤷ "breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out / i'll be getting over you my whole life."

Your hands reach up, but you feel yourself freeze slightly when you see Sylus close his eyes and relax his shoulders. His head tilts back ever so slightly, and you realize with a start that he’s surrendering to you - trusting you with his most vulnerable spot. He’s given you access to his throat and, if you look down, you can see the center of his chest.

⏾⋆.˚ ma meilleure ennemie by stromae and pomme ⤷ [trans] "i had told you not to keep looking behind / your past will follow you and wage war on you." ⤷ "the worst is you and i."

In your focus, you don’t notice how his hand hovers near your face. But your entire body goes still when you feel his calloused fingertips tracing a strand of hair that had fallen onto your face. His eyes stay on yours through the movement, making your stomach turn with an emotion you can’t quite decipher. All you know is that it makes your heart beat faster when he tucks the stray hair behind your ear and lets his fingers fall to your chin. And it certainly doesn’t help when he wraps his other hand around the wrist that holds your knife to his throat, his thumb running soothing circles against the sensitive inner skin as he steadies your shaking arm while slightly pressing the point of your knife just a little bit harder to his skin.

⏾⋆.˚ selfish waltz by ateez ⤷ [trans] "dancing to this endless music / our love song, like a war"

⏾⋆.˚ somebody else by the 1975 ⤷ "i start to believe in anything you're saying / i'm reminded that i should be gettin' over it"

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

✨And many more to come! this is a multi-chapter fic!✨

Tag list is officially now at full capacity! Sorry guys💔

©𝐘𝐎𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐈 — All original works published here are my intellectual property. Please do not copy, repost, or claim them as your own. Unauthorized use or plagiarism of non-fanfiction works may result in legal action.