missmaggie

Tonight had been the first time you really let it in. Not in words – God, no, saying it out loud would’ve made it real – but in action. You’d left your friends earlier than planned. Skipped the last drink, turned down the offer to crash on the couch. Your excuse was innocent enough: “early shift,” “migraine,” “I’m just tired.” But you knew why you were leaving. Why you stuck to lit streets, checked over your shoulder every few steps, kept your hand curled tight around the pepper spray in your coat pocket. You didn’t want to say the truth, even to yourself, but it sat heavy in your chest the whole walk home: someone was watching you. Not just today. Not just tonight. But for a while now. You’d been feeling it in your spine like a thread pulled taut – at the bus stop, in the reflection of shop windows, in the too-long pause of a stranger’s gaze. You told yourself it was paranoia. It didn’t help. The feeling didn’t leave. Not even now, standing in front of your apartment door, key in hand, heart beating harder than it had any right to. You glanced over your shoulder once more before sliding the key in, like it would matter. Like if something was there, it hadn’t already decided what came next.

The door shut behind you with a heavy clunk, the sound louder than usual in the hush of your apartment. You stood for a moment just inside the entryway, listening to the silence – too sharp, too absolute, the kind that made the walls feel closer than they were. You weren’t usually this jumpy. You liked living alone. Liked the freedom, the stillness. But lately, the stillness had started pressing back. The overhead light flickered once as you flipped the switch, then came on with a weak, yellow warmth that barely reached the corners of the room. You let your bag slide off your shoulder and kicked off your shoes without looking down, your gaze still fixed on the window across the room, blinds drawn but not tight enough. You crossed quickly to tug them shut, taking in your own reflection in the glass – face pale, pupils wide, lips parted like you were about to say something. But you didn’t. You just stood there a second longer than you needed to, hand against the glass like you were waiting for it to move.

Your apartment didn’t look different. That’s what unnerves you. Same coffee mug on the table. Same hoodie half-draped over the arm of the couch. Same unfinished book by the bedside, spine cracked where you’d left off. It was all in place, exactly as you’d left it – and yet it felt wrong. Too perfect. Like a set piece waiting for the actor to walk back in. You shook it off, rubbed your hands over your face, and exhaled hard, like that could shake off the electricity still prickling at the nape of your neck. You’re fine. You’re home. It’s late. You’re tired. You told yourself that on loop, moved into the kitchen with muscle memory more than will, flicked on the light, and opened the fridge just for something to do. The hum of the motor was too loud in the quiet. You grabbed a can of whatever and shut the door harder than you meant to, the thud echoing down the hallway like a door closing somewhere it shouldn’t. You waited, breath held. Nothing followed. No footstep. No creak. Still, you turned slowly, glancing toward the bedroom like you expected to see something standing there. But there was nothing. Not yet.

You made yourself sit. That was the rule, wasn’t it? You come home, you unwind, you do the normal things in the normal order until your body believes it. So you sank onto the couch, cracked open the drink with a hiss that felt too sharp, and turned the TV on just for sound. The screen flared to life, spilling cold blue light across the room, painting your legs in shifting shapes from some rerun you didn’t care to register. You let it play anyway. It helped mask the quiet. Helped give your heart something to sync to besides its own climbing beat. You tucked your feet beneath you, stared blankly at the screen, and tried to ignore how it felt like the cushions behind your spine were colder than they should be. You didn’t cry. You weren’t that far gone. But your jaw ached from how tight you’d been holding it all day, and the tension behind your eyes pulsed like something begging to be let out. Still, you sat. Still, you tried. Until the TV cut to static.

No buildup. No flicker. Just a sudden shhhhh of white noise swallowing the voices mid-scene, screen sputtering with shifting snow like a storm had rolled through the signal. You blinked, remote still in hand, and hit mute instinctively – but the sound didn’t stop. It kept going, loud and scraping, rising and falling in irregular pulses like breath. Your stomach dropped. You turned the volume all the way down. Nothing changed. It was still there. The noise wasn’t coming from the speakers. It was coming from behind the wall. Not in the apartment next door – no, it was too close, too focused, like someone had put their mouth right up to the drywall and exhaled. You stood slowly, the can of whatever still half-full and forgotten on the table. The TV went black. Not off. Just dark. No buttons pressed. No signal lost. Just…waiting. And then you heard it. Not static. Not breath. A footstep. Inside.

You stood in the middle of the living room for what felt like an hour, waiting for the noise to return. The television stayed dark, the air conditioner kicked on once and then died again, leaving the apartment in that awful, humming silence that amplifies every small sound your body makes. Your heartbeat became the rhythm of the room. You turned toward the hall, toward the darker half of the apartment where your bedroom door waited open, and something about that open doorway pulled at you. You should have gone for the front door; you should have gone outside and called someone. Instead, you moved the other way, slow, careful, each step sinking into the old carpet with a muffled sigh. The hallway smelled faintly of detergent and rain from the jacket you’d hung there earlier. When you passed the mirror above the console table, you caught your reflection—eyes wide, face washed pale. You pressed a hand to your throat, felt your pulse hammering. “It’s fine,” you whispered, just to hear a voice.

And then something answered.

It came not from the hall, not from outside, but from the kitchen. A man’s voice—low, familiar—threaded through the quiet like it had always belonged there.

“Hey,” The voice said, too familiar, too casual, like a friend easing back into a conversation they hadn’t finished. You knew that voice. Not in the vague, I’ve-heard-this-voice-before kind of way that leaves you guessing, but in that unmistakable, blood-deep knowledge that comes when something familiar turns inside out. You’d heard it three weeks ago in the corner booth of a coffee shop downtown, where the light had fallen soft across his hands as he stirred his drink and smiled at you. His name had been Rory – at least on the app – and the match had felt like a fluke, the kind you don’t expect to go anywhere. The app photo had been grainy, almost too ordinary to trust, but the charm in person had been disarming. He was clever. Careful. The kind of charming that didn’t announce itself. You liked the way he listened more than he talked, how his texts had been just a little too observant, like he’d already started memorizing you before you met. You’d gone on one date. Just one. But it had stayed with you in that low-simmering way that good things sometimes do. You remembered how his voice dipped when he said your name, how warm his hand was when it pressed against the small of your back, how he didn’t try to kiss you until you were already leaning in. He’d laughed in the right places. Asked about the book in your bag. Offered to walk you home when it got late. And you’d let him. Because there had been something about him—self‑contained, almost shy—that felt safe.

You remembered that walk now with painful clarity: the quiet stretch of sidewalk, the cool wind off the river, his shoulder brushing yours in a way that didn’t feel accidental. When you’d reached your building, he’d lingered just long enough to say, “I had a good time,” and you’d said it back, meaning it. Then he’d leaned in, not quite close enough to kiss you, and murmured something that stuck for days after: “I like when you look at me like that.” He’d pulled back with a faint, self-conscious smile and added, “My name’s not actually Rory, by the way. It’s Vessel.” You’d thought it was a joke – a musician’s stage name or an artist’s alias – and laughed, told him it suited him. But when you checked your phone the next day, his profile was gone. Unmatched. Vanished. No message. No explanation. Just silence. You told yourself not to overthink it. You deleted the app. You moved on. And still – when you lay awake at night, there were times you imagined what you might’ve said if he’d texted. If he came back.

Now he had.

You didn’t call his name. You didn’t ask how he got in. Your body moved on its own, instinct overriding thought. The moment the sound of his voice touched your spine, you backed down the hallway and turned into your room, heart hammering against the cage of your ribs. You didn’t slam the door. You closed it. Quietly. Quickly. As if slamming would’ve made it worse, would’ve acknowledged him too directly. Your fingers found the lock and turned it in a single sharp click, and only then did you allow yourself to breathe. The bedroom was small but familiar: laundry basket in the corner, candle burnt halfway on the desk, the blanket on your bed slightly crooked from the night before. Still your sanctuary. Still your control. You didn’t move at first. The lock clicked into place beneath your palm, but your hand stayed there, like if you let go, the barrier might fail. Your breath was coming hard now — not frantic, but shallow, tight, as though your lungs were shrinking with the space. The room felt smaller than it had five minutes ago, the walls pressing inward, every sound heightened, every shadow too still. You backed away slowly, eyes locked on the door as if it were a living thing. And in a way, it was. Because he was behind it. Somewhere out there. The space beyond the bedroom had become unknowable, unsafe — and you could feel it, like the atmosphere had thickened with his presence. You took another step back until the back of your thigh bumped the edge of your bed. The frame creaked softly, a harmless sound, but it still made you flinch. You didn’t sit down. You didn’t dare. Your body was caught between two instincts — hide or flee — but both had already been cut off.

And then, from the other side of the door – not close, not loud, but unmistakable – you heard him speak.

“Baby, do you really think that’s going to keep me out?” A pause, before: “You shouldn’t have run.”

He said it through the door, like it wasn’t a barrier but a boundary he was gently correcting. Not angry. Not cruel. Almost…disappointed. Like you’d let him down. Like this was all just some misunderstanding you could still clear up if you’d just open the door to talk to him. His voice curled through the air with that same quiet patience he’d shown on the date – the one that made you feel like you were the only person in the world. “You made me wait so long.” You bit down had on the inside of your cheek to keep from answering. He didn’t knock. Didn’t try the handle. Just stood there – breathing, waiting, letting the silence gather weight around his words. “I was good, wasn’t I?” He asked, quieter now. “You said you liked how patient I was.” You remembered saying that. The exact moment, the way he’d smiled without teeth and looked down at his hands like the compliment embarrassed him. That was the trap, wasn’t it? He’d never come on strong. He made you lean in first. Made you feel like it was your idea. And now – now he was using that same warmth like a rope to drag you in. “I didn’t want to scare you,” He added, and it almost sounded genuine. “But you started pulling away. You stopped looking for me. I had to do something.”

“You remember that night?” He asked, like this was a conversation between two people on opposite ends of a phone, not a door. His voice drifted lower, threatening, not even urgent – just close. “You let me walk you home. You smiled when I touched your wrist. You didn’t want me to leave. I know you didn’t.” You stared at the knob, the lock, the thin brass barrier that suddenly felt like paper, flinching away from its surface and instead reaching for the solidity of the dresser behind you. Your nails bit into the wood. It didn’t make you feel any safer. “So why are you acting like I’m a stranger?” He murmured. And God – the thing that unmoored you wasn’t the question. It was how honestly he asked it. Like this hurt him. Like he couldn’t understand why you’d hide from someone who had only ever tried to be exactly what you said you wanted.

You hadn’t realized you were backing up again until your hip bumped the corner of the nightstand. You caught yourself, half-turning to brace your hand against the wall, your palm flat against the plaster like it might let you feel if he was still there. But you didn’t need to feel him. You knew. He was there – not just in the hallway, not just outside the door, but pressed into the shape of every memory you’d let yourself keep. His voice had never left you. It echoed in your dreams for weeks, in that empty space between waking and sleep where he’d say your name like it was already his. 

“You don’t have to pretend you don’t feel it,” He said now, softer, like the words were something tender. “It was real for me too. I never wanted anyone like I wanted you.” That tone – low and unshaken, wrapped in velvet guilt – didn’t belong on the other side of a locked door. It belonged in a lover’s mouth, tangled in your sheets, whispered against your neck. But here, now, it made your pulse spike with something worse than fear. It made your breath catch with grief. Because part of you had wanted him. And he knew it.

“Say it,” He murmured. Not a command. Not a demand. Just…gentle. Almost reverent. Two syllables, cradled in velvet, like the beginning of a confession you hadn’t meant to hear. “Say it,” He said again, a little firmer this time – not louder, but deeper, the way someone speaks when they’re no longer asking for a truth, but retrieving it. “You’re mine.”

The silence after stretched taut across the room like a wire pulled between two open windows, humming with tension. He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t move. He just waited, and somehow that was the worst part – because you knew he would keep waiting. You could feel him on the other side of the wood, head tilted to listen, mouth parted like he could already hear your answer in the way your breath stuttered. And fuck, your breath was stuttering. You pressed both hands to your mouth, trying to slow it down, trying to stop the way your throat tightened with something that wasn’t a sob but wasn’t not one either. The worst part was, it wasn’t the word itself that terrified you. It was how easy it would be to say it. To let it fall from your mouth like a secret you’d never wanted to keep. He said it like it was inevitable. Like it had always been yours, you just hadn’t used it yet.

You didn’t answer. You couldn’t. Your lips were parted, yes, but the shape of the word stayed caught somewhere between your tongue and and your throat, thick and sticky as blood. You didn’t want to give it to him – not because it wasn’t true, but because it was, and that made it worse. That made it real. Your whole body sat clenched like a held breath, heart rabbiting behind your ribs, fingers clawed into the weave of your blanket where you’d sunk halfway to the floor, knees bent against the bed frame. You felt like a wire pulled tight between denial and something older, something deeper than fear. Because fear didn’t hum like this. Fear didn’t make your skin feel electric. Fear didn’t make you press your thighs together or remember the weight of his hand at the small of your back that night, the way he’d leaned in just close enough to feel the air move when he whispered your name.

The silence between you rang like a bell. And he heard it. Of course he did. That was his whole thing, wasn’t it? Not force. Not chaos. Listening. Vessel had always known how to take what you didn’t say and make it gospel. You hadn’t said yes, but he didn’t need you to. Your silence had teeth. Your silence trembled.

“You don’t have to say it,” He said softly – a smile in it now, almost tender, like he was proud of you for being so loud without speaking. “You’re saying it anyway.” You closed your eyes, a soft, shuddering breath slipped between your fingers as you pressed both palms harder to your face. Shame curled through you in slow, smoking tendrils – not just for wanting, not just for remembering the heat of his palm through your coat – but for this. For sitting on the floor of your own bedroom, shaking like a girl who’d never been kissed, while the man who’d vanished from your life broke reality down one careful world at a time.

Then came the touch. Not sudden. Not violent. Just a shift – the faintest brush of weight against the other side of the door, so subtle you might have missed it if you weren’t already tuned to the pressure of every molecule in the room. You didn’t hear his footsteps. Just…felt him arrive. Like the hallway exhaled, and he filled the absence. It was the smallest thing – the door didn’t creak, didn’t rattle – but the air changed. Your breath caught as you heard the weight settle, a palm pressing flat to the wood like he was holding it in place just to feel the warmth of you through it. You didn’t move. Couldn’t. The sound was heartbreakingly gentle, a kind of intimacy no lock was made to hold out.

"I know what this is,” He said – so low you barely caught it, like the words were meant for the wood, not for you. “I don’t blame you for being scared. You were always so careful. So sweet.” You could hear the grin forming, slow and crooked. “You always wanted to be good.”

You swallowed hard, throat working against something thick and rising. A part of you wanted to scream. To throw the dresser against the door, open the window, do something. But another part – the quieter one, the one that still remembered how he smelled like clove smoke and cedar when he leaned in too close – stayed. Rooted. Listening. He tapped the door once. Just once. A soft, deliberate sound like a signal, like a rhythm he wanted to teach your heartbeat. “Say it,” He whispered, almost plaintive now. “Say it so I don’t have to prove it to you.” That was the worst part – he didn’t sound threatening. He didn’t sound angry. He sounded desperate. Like the only thing keeping him on the other side of the door was the hope that you’d let him in because you wanted to. Because some part of you already had.

You didn’t speak. Not because you didn’t want to – you weren’t sure of that anymore – but because everything inside of you was too full. The fear, yes, thick and wet and clinging, but tangled now with heat, with memory, with the unbearable knowledge of how it had felt to be seen the way he saw you. Like you were something sacred. Like you were the only thing that had ever made sense to him. Your body hadn’t moved in minutes, but you were shaking now, trembling so finely it felt like the whole room might be vibrating with you. You pressed your back harder into the wall, legs bent, knees pulled close, but the cold of the floor didn’t ground you. Nothing did. All of it – the light, the door, your own skin – felt secondary to the sound of his breath, just inches away on the other side. Not ragged. Not frantic. Just…steady. Devoted. Listening. 

“You don’t have to hide anymore,” He said. The words so quiet they almost dissolved, but not quite. “I’m right here. You’ve got me. You’ve always had me.”

And that was the second the door exhaled.

Not a rattle. Not a jolt. Just a shift. A slow, creeping sigh of weight as the wood bowed slightly inward, not enough to open, just enough to yield. The sound of it was delicate – the sound of something considering whether to break. Your breath hitched. You stared at the handle, and you swore you could see it twitch. The lock didn’t move. But the pressure on the other side had changed again – heavier now. Not violent, not even forceful. But sure. Certain. Like his body had committed to the lean. Like he could feel the answer in your silence and was letting the door learn it too.

 “You know what I’ll do,” He said. And fuck – his voice wasn’t a threat. It was a promise. It was a lullaby. “If you say it now, I’ll be soft. I’ll take my time. I’ll be exactly what you asked for that night.” A pause. You knew the words before he said them. “You remember that, don’t you? How your hips shifted toward me. How you looked up through your lashes like you were already mine. I saw it. I felt it. You said it without words.”

Then, as if he’d been waiting for the exact moment your silence twisted into surrender – not full, not spoken, but soft around the edges – he said your name. Just that. Nothing else. Not with bite, not with a grin. It came slow, shaped with care, laced with something so gentle it knocked the breath clean from your chest. He said it like it was something fragile he’d kept hidden in his mouth this whole time, something he’d only just now unwrapped.

“I didn’t want it to be like this,” He murmured, the consonants softened, vowels hushed. “I was trying to be good. I waited. I watched. I let you go.” You could hear the breath he took – deep, shaky, honest. “But you didn’t forget me. You couldn’t. And that means you know. This was always going to happen. You were always going to come back to me.”

You were still on the floor, but something in you tilted forward. Just slightly. Barely an inch – not even a full shift of weight – but it changed everything. Your body stopped bracing. Your spine relaxed by a fraction. You didn’t crawl to the door. You didn’t speak. But your breath moved like a tide toward him. And he felt it. Of course he did. That damn silence again – he fed off it like oxygen. And that’s when the handle moved. Smooth. Precise. Like he wasn’t testing resistance anymore, just meeting you there. You flinched – not from the sound, but from certainty. That soft turn of brass, that click of teeth giving way – it was a sound you’d always known would come. He didn’t kick the door open. Didn’t rush. He just waited, hand on the knob, pressure steady. Waiting for the last thing. 

“Say it,” He said again. But this time, it wasn’t a whisper.

It was a promise.

The door opened like it wanted to – like it had been waiting for the excuse. No creak, no sudden burst, just a low shhh of wood against frame as the pressure gave and the latch clicked out of place. A draft swept in first, carrying with it something warm, something him – like the scent of clove and salt and worn leather had been bottled in the dark and just got uncorked. He didn’t move into the room. He didn’t need to. He simply filled the doorway, one shoulder leaning against it like he’d been there all night. His coat hung open, black as ink, and beneath it, a plain fitted shirt, dark jeans, gloves – nothing overtly threatening, nothing you could point to and scream. But it was him. That same quiet coiled presence you’d felt that day at the coffee shop when he’d first leaned over the table, asked your opinion on that book you hadn’t expected anyone to know. He looked like someone who knew exactly how much room he took up – and how to make you want him to take more.

You didn’t move. You couldn’t. But your eyes found his without meaning to. And there they were – dark and bottomless and burning with something that looked an awful lot like longing. He didn’t smile. Not at first. Just looked at you with that steady, slow-focus kind of gaze that made it impossible to lie. Not to him. Not to yourself. Your breath stuttered, chest rising too fast, and he saw it. Watched it. Drank it in. And then, finally, he smiled – not wide, not smug, but deep. Like it came from somewhere in his ribs.

“There you are,” He said, and you hated the way your stomach turned molten at the sound of it. “I missed you.” He stepped forward once. Just once. One boot over the threshold, and suddenly, the room felt smaller. Warmer. Like he’d brought a storm in with him and set it down at your feet.

He didn’t reach for you. That would have been too easy, too fast. He just stood there, a single step inside your bedroom, one hand still resting on the doorframe like he was reluctant to let it go. Like the frame itself might try to keep him tethered, to hold him back from coming closer. But his eyes never left you. Not once. They drank in every inch of you, knees pulled up defensively, fingers clenched into the hem of your shirt, eyes wide and rimmed in a sheen you hadn’t meant to let show. He tilted his head slightly, like he was studying a painting that had changed while he wasn’t looking.

“You’re scared,” He said – not cruel, not mocking, just…noting it. Accepting it. “But not enough to run.” His gaze dropped lower, slow and deliberate. “Not enough to scream.”

The floorboards beneath his second step didn’t creak, but they felt like they should have. It was that kind of movement – quiet, smooth, inevitable. He closed the door behind him without looking, a hand sliding up to guide it back into place with the soft click of the latch. You flinched. He noticed. His lips parted like he was going to apologize, but instead, he exhaled through his nose, long and quiet, like your reaction hurt him just a little. He stood there, three feet from you, and crouched to your level slowly, lowering himself like he was afraid you might spook. His knees cracked faintly. His gloves creaked. And still, he said nothing. Just knelt across from you on the worn bedroom carpet, and looked at you like you were something holy he didn’t know how to touch without breaking.

Up close, he looked…softer than you expected. Not gentle, not safe, but softened – like something bladed left too long in the rain. The sharpness still there, of course, beneath the calm, beneath the stillness in his posture and the unnervingly delicate way he crouched before you like a worshipper, like a penitent, like someone who didn’t want to be forgiven but wanted you to know he was sorry anyway. His eyes searched your face the way he had on the date – like he couldn’t stop cataloging you, couldn’t help reading you the way someone studies a prayer they’ve rewritten a thousand times but never dared say aloud. 

“You’re even prettier like this,” He said quietly, voice soaked in something like awe. “I thought maybe I remembered it wrong. I thought maybe I made it better in my head. But no. You’re worse. You’re better. I don’t know what to do with you.”

His hand moved – just a fraction. Not toward you. Not yet. He just shifted it on his thigh, palm up, fingers relaxed. Offered. Not a command. Not a grab. Just a presence. A question. The gloved tips hovered inches from your knee, and even that tiny gap between your bodies buzzed like it was charged with static. You hadn’t moved. You couldn’t. But God, your body wanted to. Every nerve ending in you was screaming with the wrongness of sitting still when someone was looking at you like that.

“Can I?” He asked finally – barely more than breath, voice dipping into something hoarse and fraying. “Not to scare you. I just…I just want to remember how you felt.” His voice cracked at the edges of the word remember, and something in your chest squeezed hard enough to hurt.

You didn’t say yes. You didn’t nod. But your knee twitched forward by half an inch – a betrayal of stillness so small it might’ve been an accident, if not for the way his eyes lit up the moment it happened. He didn’t pounce. Didn’t press. He just…moved. Slowly. Like he was touching an animal he’d coaxed out of the woods. Like he was scared you’d bolt. His gloved fingers found your knee first, resting just behind the curve, barely enough pressure to register. And then he shifted his hand lower, palm warm even through the leather, until it settled over yours where you were still clutched at your shirt hem. He didn’t squeeze. Didn’t pry. Just laid his palm there like a weighted stone, anchoring you with contact so deliberate it felt like it rewrote the way your body understood gravity.

“You feel that?” He asked, so softly it could’ve been the wind. “That’s real. I’m real.” His eyes searched your face again, and this time, something cracked through the calm – something that looked achingly like relief. “I don’t have to imagine anymore.” He said. “I don’t have to watch you from behind glass. You’re right here.” His thumb brushed the ridge of your knuckles, slow and delicate, like he thought your hands might vanish if he held too tightly. “Do you know what that means for me?” His breath trembled as he exhaled, like the answer scared him. “It means I get to earn it now. All of it. Everything I’ve waited to show you.”

“Vessel,” You breathed. It wasn’t a question. Wasn’t even a plea. It was something older than either – like a name carved into the underside of a desk, found years later with your fingers. Your voice broke around it, not from fear but from pressure, from the sheer weight of saying it aloud again after all this time, after all that silence. His reaction was instant. Not dramatic, not dangerous – just profound. His lips parted, eyes widening with something raw and nearly ruined, like the sound of his name in your voice undid him more completely than a scream ever could. His hand tightened over yours, not harsh but firm, grounding you both with the first note of something real, something mutual.

“That’s the first time,” He whispered, almost to himself. “The first time you’ve ever said it like that.” The look in his eyes shifted – still reverent, still burning, but now laced with something hungrier. Something that pulsed beneath the skin like heat. “Not Rory. Not the fake thing I made up to get close. Me.” His thumb ghosted over your pulse, tracing the beat like he was trying to memorize its rhythm. “Say it again,” He murmured, and you could feel the need rising off him like steam – not for violence, not even for sex yet. Just for that sound. That single syllable, shaped in your mouth like a gift you didn’t know he’d been dying to open.

“Vessel.” The name landed different this time – not whispered in panic, not curled in the back of your throat like it might cut you. It came smooth. Steady. And worse: warm. Like your body was finally catching up to what your heart already knew, like saying it again made it yours too. His shoulders dropped – not in relief, exactly, but in something heavier. A letting-go. A deep exhale from somewhere buried. He leaned in, not to cage you, not to crowd you, just to close the space his body couldn’t bear anymore.

“That’s it,” He murmured, the words almost lost in the space between your faces. “That’s you. That’s mine.” His hand slid from yours, a reluctant lift, and dropped instead to your thigh – high, warm, gloved, deliberate.

His palm molded to your skin like it had missed you. Like it had ached for the place it used to rest. He didn’t squeeze, didn’t drag, didn’t spread your legs open – not yet. He just let it sit there, fingers curled slightly, thumb brushing the outer line where denim met warmth. Your breath caught. And his did too. “You’ve been thinking about this, haven’t you?” He said, not asking, not accusing. Just knowing. “The way I’d feel. How deep I’d go. How slow I’d fuck you the first time I got to really touch you.” His thumb swept up, grazing under the hem of your shirt where it had ridden high over your hip. “Tell me you thought about it,” He urged, voice gone velvet-thick with hunger, with restraint. “I need to hear it. Just once.”

You opened your mouth to answer, some messy tangle of need and memory and yes rising in your throat – but the words didn’t come. Not the right ones. Not his words. And he saw it. He felt the hesitation like a heartbeat under your skin, pulsing against his palm where he held you steady. His grip flexed – not cruel, just enough to remind you what your silence cost. 

“There it is,” He murmured, almost tender. “That pause. That space where my words should’ve been.” He shifted closer, knees bracketing yours, one hand still spread low on your thigh, the other slipping forward to brace beside your hip. “I told you, sweetheart. I gave you the chance. You say it – you’re mine – and I’d come in soft. Gentle.” His breath kissed your cheek, but the heat behind it had sharpened. “But you didn’t. This is twice, now, that you haven’t done as you’re told.”

The way he looked at you was almost heartbreaking – not rage, not resentment, but something worse. A kind of aching that sat behind his eyes like hurt pride. “You made me beg,” He said quietly, gloved thumb stroking the inside seam of your jeans with a touch so slow it bordered on cruel. “I was out there, aching for you. Listening to the way your breath broke. Letting you feel me through the door.” His hand cupped you fully now, no more teasing, the leather warm and relentless against the damp heat between your thighs. “And still you didn’t say it.” His voice dropped lower, thick with something deeper than lust. “So now you’re going to feel what you earned. Not what I would’ve given. Not the softness.” He leaned in, lips grazing your ear, and whispered like a promise: “You’ll still come. But you’ll know who it belongs to.”

His hand moved without ceremony, without pause. Just unfastened your jeans with quick, practiced ease – a single flick, a drag of a zipper, and then his fingers were inside. Gloved still, the leather dragging smooth and obscene between folds that were already soaked for him, the kind of wet that shamed you to feel. The kind that told him everything. He groaned – quiet, choked, the sound of a man denied softness and still starving to love you anyway.

“Jesus, look at you,” He breathed, forehead leaning in to rest against yours like he couldn’t bear the distance anymore. “You’d have let me go my whole life without knowing how this felt, wouldn’t you?” His fingers pressed harder now, not to hurt but to remind – rubbing slow and relentless against your clit through the leather, pushing slick heat over every inch of your most helpless part. “You were going to walk away. Pretend I wasn’t yours. After all that.” His mouth curled into something too reverent to be cruel. “But your body never lied.”

You gasped – you couldn’t help it – as one finger slid just barely lower, grazing your entrance, teasing, circling, but not pushing in. Not yet. His other hand caught your jaw, tilting your face up, holding you in place like he was making sure you watched every syllable that passed his lips. “You could’ve had this bare,” He said, tone almost dreamy with imagined softness. “Skin to skin. My hand under your shirt. My mouth on your cunt. All of it.” He let his lips hover near your cheek, breath fanning warm. “But no. You didn’t say it. So now I keep these on – and you take it.” He pushed two fingers inside, sudden and deep, slow only in that he wanted to feel every inch of resistance stretch around the shape of his glove. “You feel that?” He asked, voice low and hungry. “That’s mine now. That’s what you gave me instead of the answer I was looking for.”

The leather shouldn’t feel this good. It should’ve been too much – too foreign, too smooth, too unrelenting – but it was perfect. Slick from your own heat, impossibly deep, and his. He pressed in slow, then pulled back just as slow, letting you catch the seam at the base of his knuckles, the stretch of your walls trying to keep him, the loss of it every time he slipped out. Then he pushed back again, steady and full, his wrist rolling at the end to make the angle impossible – to make you jerk, gasp, choke back a moan like it might save you. It wouldn’t. Not now. His hand on your jaw shifted, thumb brushing your cheekbone with the gentleness his fingers below denied. “This is what it takes,” He murmured, watching your eyes flicker, your mouth fall open. “You don’t want to say it? Fine. I’ll fuck it out of you.”

Your back hit the wall harder than you meant, hips canting forward to meet his thrust like your body couldn’t stand to be good anymore. And God, he saw it. He loved it. “There she is,” He breathed, mouth dragging against your jaw, not kissing – drinking. “You think I don’t know what that silence meant? You didn’t want gentle. You wanted this. You wanted to be ruined for it. For me.” His fingers fucked into you faster now, not punishing exactly – not brutal – but intentional. A pace you couldn’t squirm from, couldn’t talk over, couldn’t pretend you weren’t already clenching around. “You were already mine,” He whispered against your neck, his breath hot and shuddering as he worked you open. “You just didn’t want to admit it until I was wrist-deep in your cunt.”

His fingers didn’t stop. Didn’t even slow. Each slick thrust stretched you more, made your hips chase the motion like you couldn’t help it – like he couldn’t help it either. The glove made everything worse in the best way – the frictionless drag, the slick heat soaked into leather, the way it sounded, filthy and constant, echoing off the walls as he filled you again and again. Your head tipped back against the drywall, eyes fluttering shut, but his voice yanked them open. “No, no,” He cooed, low and rough, chest brushing yours with every breath. “Eyes on me. I want to see you break.” His free hand tipped your chin back toward him, fingers splayed warm across your jaw. “You don’t get to go all quiet now. Not when you’ve got something to say.”

You couldn’t speak. Not yet. Your mouth was open, lips trembling, breath coming out in ragged gasps as your body climbed higher, tightening around his hand like it could hold him in place forever. But he wouldn’t let you come like this. Not until you gave him what he asked for. “Say it,” He growled, and the softness was gone now – stripped down to something bone-deep and needy, but still in control. Always in control. “Say you’re mine. Say it while I’m inside you, or I’ll make this last all fucking night.” His fingers curled just right – that devastating crook that made your body seize, made your moan crack into something ruined. “Say it,” He said again, voice breaking like he’d waited too long to hear it. “Say it. Now.”

“I’m yours,” You gasped – not pretty, not poetic, just real. Desperate. Raw. It cracked out of you in a voice you barely recognized, and the second it did, everything changed. His whole body shuddered – not a flinch, not surprise, but relief. Like he’d been holding something in for weeks, for years, and the sound of your voice shattered the last wall between what he wanted and let himself take.

“That’s it,” He said, almost hoarse, his hand moving faster now, brutal in rhythm but precise in aim. “Say it again.”

He didn’t need to tell you – it was already spilling out of you like a prayer. “I’m yours – yours – Vessel, I’m yours –” And your voice cracked as he fucked his fingers into you like he could brand the shape of them into your walls forever.

Something broke in him. You felt it before you saw it – the stutter in his breath, the way he leaned in so hard his body was almost shaking, how his mouth caught your cheek like he was afraid of kissing you too soon, like it would ruin you faster than he meant to. “That’s all I needed,” He growled against your skin, voice gone low, ragged. “You could’ve had it easy. Could’ve had it soft. But you waited. You made me–” He didn’t finish. Couldn’t. He pushed in deeper, somehow, hand fully soaked, wrist against your cunt now, pace merciless, and still – still – it wasn’t enough for him. Not when he had you like this. Not when your head tipped back and your thighs shook and your moans came out broken and wet and completely his.

Your orgasm hit like a crash of something too big to name – not a wave, not a fall, something louder, heavier, more final. Your back arched off the wall, hands scrabbling for purchase – his shoulders, the edge of his coat, the hair at the nape of his neck – anything that would anchor you as your body clenched around his fingers and held. You heard yourself cry out his name, not Rory, not the mask, but Vessel, and that sound seemed to detonate inside him. He moaned – real, deep, like it hurt – and surged forward to catch your face in his hand. His gloved palm cradled your jaw, not to hurt, not to control, but to hold you there, to witness you. 

“That’s it,” He breathed, pressing his forehead to yours, fingers still working you through every tremor. “That’s my girl. That’s what I wanted. Just like that. Let it happen. Let it fucking happen.”

You were shaking – legs too weak to hold you, breath hiccuping in your throat, tears hot at the corners of your eyes and no idea when they’d started – but still he didn’t let go. His fingers slowed finally, easing back from where they’d stretched you so deep, now just circling, coaxing, like he was sculpting your aftershocks with care. His other hand slid up, fingers wrapping gently around the side of your neck, not squeezing, just holding. Anchoring. His thumb brushed your jaw, tilting your face toward him as he looked down at you with something deeper than triumph. Worship.

“Look at you,” he whispered, awed. “God, you’re beautiful like this. Ruined for me. Marked.” His lips brushed your cheekbone, feather-light, reverent, like you were still some fragile thing in the aftermath — but the shake in his breath said otherwise. That kiss, too soft for the man currently trembling with restraint above you, landed like a lit match against paper. “You’ll never come like that for anyone else,” he murmured, voice low enough to graze your bones. “You know that, don’t you?” And you did. You fucking did. It bloomed inside you — not shame, not even pride, but something headier. A raw, sweet ache that crawled under your skin and whispered that this moment had always been inevitable. From the first look. The first touch. The first time he said your name like it already belonged to him.

And then – the shift.

It was subtle. Not in his hands – they were gentle, still trailing soft across your trembling thighs – but in the stillness that followed. The silence that filled up behind your answer. His body was too still. As if he were waiting. Measuring. Breathing slow and hard through his nose like he’d just passed the point of no return. His hand curled around your hip, not stroking now but holding – firm, possessive – like he was grounding himself with the weight of you. “You could’ve had it soft,” He said at last, voice cracked open. “You could’ve had me take my time. Make it last. Make it perfect.” His thumb dragged slow across the curve of your waist, and you felt it shake. “But you didn’t say it. Not when I told you to.” Another pause. Another breath. Then, with a finality that made your heart seize – “And now I can’t stop.”

He sat back on his heels like he needed the space just to look at you. His eyes trailed down your body — flushed, heaving, open — and something in his expression fractured. Not cold. Not angry. Worshipful. But it didn’t soften him. He reached for his gloves first, fingers slipping under the edges, and peeled them off one at a time like he wanted to feel what he’d done to you. The sound was faint, barely a whisper of leather tugging free, but it carried in the quiet like a gunshot. One glove hit the floor. Then the other. His hands — long-fingered, veined, shaking just slightly — hovered over your hips again, skin bare now, and for a moment he just held you. Let himself feel you. Then his hands moved up, slow and heavy, and he reached for the coat. Shrugged it off in a smooth roll of muscle, the collar slipping down his back until it fell behind him with a dull thud. He looked leaner like this. More real. Less nightmare, more hunger. The black shirt underneath clung to his chest with sweat, dark at the collar, sleeves pushed high enough to bare the hard line of his forearms. His breath came slow and shallow, eyes fixed between your legs, his expression torn between reverence and a need he’d tried so hard to bury.

His belt came next, the quiet snick of leather sliding through loops a death knell for whatever mercy might have been left between you. He didn’t unbuckle it fast – he didn’t need to. He watched you the whole time, jaw locked tight, like it was taking every ounce of self-control not to tear through the last barriers with his hands. The metal clasp clinked once against his palm as he loosened it, then let the belt fall in a slow spiral to the floor, where it coiled like something waiting to strike. Then his fly – one button, then the next, each undone with steady fingers, the kind of unhurried confidence that came from knowing the moment was already his. Not pending. Not requested. Taken. You felt it in your bones before he even pushed his pants down: the shift in him. The tremble barely masked by discipline. The way his breathing changed when he freed himself and you saw the thick, flushed length of him at last, already dripping, already aching, already fucking furious from being kept waiting this long.

“You think I’ve been patient?” He rasped, voice thick with something unnameable as he gripped your wrist and hauled you upright, breath leaving your lungs in a startled gasp. He didn’t give you time to find your balance – didn’t want you steady – just manhandled you onto the bed like a weightless thing, body folding, twisting under his hold until he had you exactly where he wanted you. Face down, ass up, spine arched hard with your knees barely catching against the mattress edge. His hand pressed firm between your shoulder blades, forcing you lower, grinding your cheek to the sheets. The other curled tight around the meat of your hip, fingers bruising as he angled you up, tilting you open like a prize being displayed. You heard his breath – ragged, ecstatic – as he knelt behind you, the heat of his bare thighs pinning yours apart. “This,” He growled, cock dragging heavy between your folds, slick already painting your skin, “is mine now.”

And then – with a single, brutal snap of his hips – he buried himself to the hilt in one savage thrust that cracked a sob from your throat and dragged a curse from his. “You didn’t say it,” He snarled, pulling back only to drive deeper, harder. “So now I’ll make sure you never fucking forget.”

He didn’t stop to savor it. Didn’t pause to let you adjust, didn’t lean down to kiss your neck and whisper sweet things to make it easier. That was the version of him you could’ve had. The one who would’ve pressed his lips to your ear and fucked you slow, deep, adoring – if you’d just said it. But you hadn’t. And this was the aftermath. He fucked you like it was punishment, like your silence had gotten under his skin and stayed there, rotting into obsession. Each thrust slammed your hips into the mattress with enough force to creak the frame, his grip iron-clad around your waist as he hauled you back onto his cock again and again, using the slick mess between your legs like it owed him. And it did.

“Fucking tight,” He snarled, sweat dripping down his jaw as he rutted into you like he was chasing something – not release, not even pleasure, but possession. “You hear that?” He growled, punctuating the words with another snap of his hips that made the whole bed jolt against the wall. “That sound you make when I stretch you open? That’s mine now too.”

His hand fisted in your hair then, yanking your head back enough to arch your spine like a bow, to hear you cry out when he bottomed out so deep it felt like he was splitting you in two. “Thought about this every night,” He panted against your ear, hips pistoning like he’d lost any concept of rhythm – just need, just drive, just ownership. “Thought about how good you looked on that fucking sidewalk, smiling like you weren’t already mine.” His hand moved from your hip to your ass, slapping down with a crack loud enough to echo, then gripping hard enough to bruise. “Should’ve said it. Could’ve had my fingers inside you all soft, slow, sweet.” Another punishing thrust, your breath ragged now, tears pricking the corners of your eyes from how deep he hit. “But you didn’t. And now I’m gonna fuck it into you.” He leaned down, mouth open against your shoulder, voice gone low and mean. “Gonna ruin this pretty little cunt until it can’t forget who it belongs to.”

He fucked like he’d snapped something – restraint, reason, whatever thread had been holding back the full weight of his obsession. You were just a body to him now, a shape molded to take him, to keep him, and every time his cock slammed home, it was with that same single-minded ferocity: like he was carving his name into the deepest parts of you. Your arms buckled beneath you, legs shaking, forehead pressed to the mattress where the sheets had gone damp with sweat and tears and drool. But he didn’t ease up. If anything, the sounds you made – broken, strangled, wrecked – only spurred him on. He growled something filthy under his breath, grabbed your hips in both hands, and pulled you back to meet his next thrust, your spine screaming with how hard he used you.

“That’s it,” He hissed. “Take it. You fucking take what you ask for.” Another brutal slam. Another sob ripped from your lungs. “You didn’t say you were mine, so now you get used like this. Ruined. Owned. Used.”

One hand left your hip, fingers ghosting over your lower back like they might soften — but they didn’t. They moved higher, sliding up your spine until they closed around the back of your neck, holding you down, in place, right where he wanted you. “You’re not getting away again,” he said, voice lower now, not shouting but still vicious, reverent in the way worship turns dangerous. “You’re not going to walk out of here and forget me. Not this time.” His cock punched deeper with that promise, thick and unrelenting, and you felt it in your fucking soul — every inch, every snap of his hips, every breathless growl in your ear. “You made me do this, sweetheart. You could’ve had love. Now you’re gonna get everything else instead.” His pace turned ragged, brutal, hips slamming forward with wild rhythm, chasing his own high like he couldn’t even stop himself now if he tried. “I’ll fill you up so deep they’ll hear it in your voice,” he panted, each thrust stealing air from your lungs. “You’ll walk different. Speak different. Breathe different. And when they ask what happened to you, you’ll remember —” another slam, this one so deep your vision whited out — “you’ll remember who fucking owns you.”

He was unraveling — not in fury, not in punishment anymore, but in something messier, more desperate. The rhythm faltered for a breath, just long enough for a sob to punch out of him — not yours, his — low and guttural, like the weight of what he felt had finally cracked him open from the inside. “You—fuck, you—” he choked, fingers biting into your hips like he was holding onto the last solid thing in his world. “You made me—made me like this,” he gasped, voice warping into something half-broken, half-ecstatic. “I was good. I was fucking good, I waited, I was soft with you, I was gentle—” He slammed in again, and this time the sound he made was damn near a whimper, thick and wrecked with need. “And you—you made me this.”

He bent low over your back, chest heaving against your spine, mouth open against your shoulder like he couldn’t breathe without tasting you. His voice caught in his throat, cracked around the edges as he thrust deep, desperate, frantic. “God—God, it’s so good, it’s so fucking good—” The words spilled from him like prayer, like pleading, like awe. “I can’t stop, I can’t, you don’t understand—this is heaven, you’re heaven—” He was crying now, you realized. Silent tears tracking down his face where they soaked into your skin. “You made me like this,” he whispered again, lips trembling. “You made me lose everything, and I’d do it again. I’d do it a thousand times. Just—just let me stay. Let me—fuck, let me come inside, I need to—please—”

He didn’t stop. Couldn’t. Every thrust now came like a plea, deep and messy and needy, the kind of fucking that no longer had precision, only hunger. “God, I’m so close—fuck, I’m right there,” he moaned, forehead pressing into the sweaty line of your spine, voice shaking with every ragged breath. “But I can’t—not yet—not ‘til you do. Not ‘til you break for me again.” His hand moved around your waist, frantically, blindly, fingers finding your clit like he’d been searching for it in the dark his whole life. He circled it fast and tight, moaning when your hips jolted. “Come on,” he begged, voice cracking with how badly he needed it, needed you. “I need to feel you fall apart. Need to feel you take it. You owe me this.”

You sobbed as he fucked you harder, hand relentless where it worked you, his cock drilling into the same bruised spot over and over until your whole body clenched tight like a fist. “Please,” he choked, right against your ear now, hot and shivering. “Please, I can’t—I can’t hold it. I want to, I have to. I need you to come, baby, need you to let go, need to feel it—need to feel it again.” The sound he made then was obscene, a wrecked little cry torn from his throat as your walls fluttered around him and your breath hitched high, and he felt it, felt your release build and crest and crash.

The moment you came, everything inside you tightening, pulsing, grinding back against him like you were trying to bury him even deeper—that was when he broke. “Yes,” he gasped, a shudder exploding through him, hips stuttering as he buried himself to the root and finally, finally let go. His whole body locked up, his breath punched out of him in a sob, and he held you so tight it hurt. “That’s it—fuck, that’s it—I’m yours, I’m fucking yours—” The last thrusts were erratic, desperate, his voice a raw mix of worship and grief and relief as he spilled inside you, deep and hard and endless.

🏹 Chapter One: The Reaping 🏹 Chapter Two: A Train to Tyranny 🏹 Chapter Three: Robin’s Ghost 🏹 Chapter Four: Tension on the Trolly 🏹 Chapter Five: A Thief of Time 🏹 Chapter Six: Meeting Cinna 🏹 Chapter Seven: Rewriting the Rules 🏹 Chapter Eight: The Midnight Black Parade 🏹 Chapter Nine: The Tribute Training Center 🏹 Chapter Ten: Passarounds 🏹 Chapter Eleven: An Olive Branch

🏹 Chapter Twelve: Eyes on Me, Ren. 🏹 Chapter Thirteen: Press Day Prep 🏹 Chapter Fourteen: Fire Incarnate and the Fallen Angel 🏹 Chapter Fifteen: Symbol of Rebellion 🏹 Chapter Sixteen: The Capitol Gala 🏹 Chapter Seventeen: Pixie Dust 🏹 Chapter Eighteen: Suite Sparring 🏹 Chapter Nineteen: Dissecting the Districts 🏹 Chapter Twenty: Dalmatians and Dinner 🏹 Chapter Twenty-One: The President’s Luncheon 🏹 Chapter Twenty-Two: Dismantling the ‘Short-Game’

Apparently, Tumblr believes in randomly saying "HEY! NO MORE FUN FOR YOU!" >:[ so because of that stupidity, here are the remaining chapters for ALL OF BOOK ONE.

It wouldn't let me include them all in this singular post, so I'm afraid it'll have to be all scattered. But please follow all the links to the next books below as well :)

📗

BOOK TWO: Catching Fire “I See Fire” Series

🏹 Chapter One: 72 Questions 🏹 Chapter Two: Winter’s Bone 🏹 Chapter Three: Sexiest Man Alive & Covergirl 🏹 Chapter Six: A Hidden Love Affair? 🏹 Chapter Six: The Whipping Post 🏹 Chapter Six: Second Star to the Right

🏹 Chapter Seven: The Victory Tour 🏹 Chapter Eight: Shot Onsite 🏹 Chapter Nine: Sticking to the Script 🏹 Chapter Ten: Sleepless Nights 🏹 Chapter Eleven: The Banquet 🏹 Chapter Twelve: Can We Always Be This Close?

🏹 Chapter Thirteen: The National Quell 🏹 Chapter Fourteen: A Favor 🏹 Chapter Fifteen: Chariots of Fire 🏹 Chapter Sixteen: Consent Was Never Mine to Give 🏹 Chapter Seventeen: Scouting Allies 🏹 Chapter Eighteen: Nationwide Shock Value

🏹 Chapter Nineteen: Blood Before Battle 🏹 Chapter Twenty: Powerplay 🏹 Chapter Twenty-One: Demodog Mutts 🏹 Chapter Twenty-Two: Morphling Martyr 🏹 Chapter Twenty-Three: The Hourglass 🏹 Chapter Twenty-Four: Tethering Time

🏹 Chapter Twenty-Five: High Ground 🏹 Chapter Twenty-Six: The Basin 🏹 Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Fog & Its Horrors 🏹 Chapter Twenty-Eight: Real or Not Real? 🏹 Chapter Twenty-Nine: Jabberjays 🏹 Chapter Thirty: Who is Max?

🏹 Chapter Thirty-One: I Need You 🏹 Chapter Thirty-Two: The Plan 🏹 Chapter Thirty-Three: Dear Johanna 🏹 Chapter Thirty-Four: The Final Arrow 🏹 Chapter Thirty-Five: You’re a Liar 🏹 Chapter Thirty-Six: No More Hawkins

📘

BOOK THREE: Wildfire “I See Fire” Series

🏹 Chapter One: TBD 🏹 Chapter Two: TBD 🏹 Chapter Three: TBD 🏹 Chapter Six: TBD 🏹 Chapter Six: TBD 🏹 Chapter Six: TBD

🏹 Chapter Seven: TBD 🏹 Chapter Eight: TBD 🏹 Chapter Nine: TBD 🏹 Chapter Ten: TBD 🏹 Chapter Eleven: TBD 🏹 Chapter Twelve: TBD

🏹 Chapter Thirteen: TBD 🏹 Chapter Fourteen: TBD 🏹 Chapter Fifteen: TBD 🏹 Chapter Sixteen: TBD 🏹 Chapter Seventeen: TBD 🏹 Chapter Eighteen: TBD

🏹 Chapter Nineteen: TBD 🏹 Chapter Twenty: TBD 🏹 Chapter Twenty-One: TBD 🏹 Chapter Twenty-Two: TBD 🏹 Chapter Twenty-Three: TBD 🏹 Chapter Twenty-Four: TBD

🏹 Chapter Twenty-Five: TBD 🏹 Chapter Twenty-Six: TBD 🏹 Chapter Twenty-Seven: TBD 🏹 Chapter Twenty-Eight: TBD 🏹 Chapter Twenty-Nine: TBD 🏹 Chapter Thirty: Safe Haven

📙

BOOK FOUR: Hellfire “I See Fire” Series

🏹 Chapter One: TBD 🏹 Chapter Two: TBD 🏹 Chapter Three: TBD 🏹 Chapter Six: TBD 🏹 Chapter Six: TBD 🏹 Chapter Six: TBD

🏹 Chapter Seven: TBD 🏹 Chapter Eight: TBD 🏹 Chapter Nine: TBD 🏹 Chapter Ten: TBD 🏹 Chapter Eleven: TBD 🏹 Chapter Twelve: TBD

🏹 Chapter Thirteen: TBD 🏹 Chapter Fourteen: TBD 🏹 Chapter Fifteen: TBD 🏹 Chapter Sixteen: TBD 🏹 Chapter Seventeen: TBD 🏹 Chapter Eighteen: TBD

🏹 Chapter Nineteen: TBD 🏹 Chapter Twenty: TBD 🏹 Chapter Twenty-One: TBD 🏹 Chapter Twenty-Two: TBD 🏹 Chapter Twenty-Three: TBD 🏹 Chapter Twenty-Four: TBD

🏹 Chapter Twenty-Five: TBD 🏹 Chapter Twenty-Six: TBD 🏹 Chapter Twenty-Seven: TBD 🏹 Chapter Twenty-Eight: TBD 🏹 Chapter Twenty-Nine: TBD 🏹 Chapter Thirty: TBD

THE PARALLELS

Steve Harrington -> Katniss Ren Everdeen -> Peeta Jim Hopper -> Haymitch Dustin Henderson -> Primrose Nancy Wheeler -> Gale (*does not follow canon, nobody panic) Billy Hargrove -> Finnick Odair Chrissy Cunningham -> Madge Tommy H. -> Cato Carol Perkins -> Clove

All role reversal characters remain true to their origin, based on their assigned universe, whether that is as an established afab! or amab! character (i.e. Steve is still male, versus Katniss — who was written as female; Ren is female, versus Peeta — who was written as male)

Other canon characters from the THG universe not listed remain canon compliant.

💌 my favorite love letters for i see fire

*~*~*

The ocean was your first love.

The way it twists and rolls, the waves swaying against the current. Like it’s got something to prove. Sometimes the waves became haphazard, and you’d get stuck in the rip, drawn out to sea like the helpless buoy at the periphery of where it was no longer safe. A boundary you didn’t adhere to. Sometimes you’d be struggling to breathe, to do anything but swim. And you’d just let yourself sink further into its depths, surrounded by a murky darkness of another world you could imagine yourself a part of if you just let yourself lose enough oxygen.

Is this what it’s like,

to live in a body that’s constantly fighting,

with a mind that so tries to die?

Sometimes the waves lift its head like a great rearing horse, its hooves crashing against the shore in unruly defiance, leaving you spluttering and heaving on the sand as it draws away again. Only to claim you once more. Soon, the dread slowly seeps back in, you won’t be on land for much longer.

Often, you’re swimming out of your depth. And it’s often because you’d wade in of your own accord, just to feel the caress of the water against your skin, gently bobbing. It’s the kindest anyone’s ever treated you. But you suppose, like all inevitabilities, you’d be pulled out from under your feet, every time. It’s what you’re used to, isn’t it?

You coexist with your ocean. Time surpasses you when you’re in its embrace. You turn back- realise you’re a lot further out than you’d thought. Floundering in a storm that’s too angry with arms that are too tired.

Sometimes you tread water for so long that your body turns to mush. You’re so incredibly heavy, maybe you could just slip away for a while? You sink again. You don’t fight it. Nothing out of your control; the waves now calm, the temperature perfect. But you like to make problems out of nothing, don’t you? You simply just became too exhausted to keep treading.

You always knew your ocean was far too vast and strong to be tamed. Whilst there remains an ocean, in turn, will always remain the waves.

You suppose that’s why you sit here now, on the farthest rocks, away from the gleeful cries of happy children and their too-fond parents. You feel it with the rocks; how much they’ve had to withstand, crashing waves and bitter sea spray wearing away their surface for god knows how long.

And that’s when he first saw you. By yourself. Sand painted on your legs. Sparkling in your hair. Eyes closed to the sun, skin glowing, head tilted to the breeze. You didn’t occupy yourself with activities he’d seen humans so often partake in on the beach. You just sat there. He felt like your simple existence was the closest thing to friendship he’d ever received.

The next day, he came back. Just to look. You were there, always. Walking along the jetty. He’d follow beneath your feet, green eyes peering up through cracked planks of wood. Matching your pace with his tail. Gaze trained on your legs.

Every day passed much like that. He’d hide behind the rocks below where you’d unknowingly sit, far enough to be out of sight, close enough to take in your quiet beauty. He was entranced. Transfixed. Sometimes, you’d even wade through the water. It seemed even the ocean was in awe.

He found himself dreaming of your laugh. Pure and tinkling with mirth. He’d heard it once when you finally gave in to the pestering of children, dragging you across sand to help them build a castle. He’d watched them run around you like you were some kind of goddess.

He wasn’t prepared for the night he caught you crying. It had seemed the cold, salty wind and waves helped to calm whatever ailed you. It made his chest ache. For once, he found himself uncaring of being seen. He breached the surface closer than he’d ever done before. Even if you still didn’t see him, eyes burning into the bottle that was halfway empty, grasped in your shaking hands… it was a quiet reassurance he channelled into the wind. I’m here.

You were sunk into the sand in a white night dress, the fabric pooling around your waist as you looked up to the night sky. He saw the tear tracks down your cheeks. Soft tendrils of hair clung to your damp face, your mascara running. Water glistening off your skin like liquid silk. Beautiful. He couldn’t think of anything else. Couldn’t feel anything but the constriction of his lungs as he hurt for you.

The night grew darker as he watched. He didn’t know what was stopping him. Fear of repulsion? Losing what little fantasy he’d built for himself? Of just being seen? Your cries grew softer. He stored them away in his brain alongside your laugh, distant now. He watched as your eyes grew heavy. Watched as you slumped into the wet sand, fingers still clutching the neck of the bottle.

He couldn’t leave you there. Anyone could wander by, could grab you, take advantage of you. Carefully, so, so carefully, he swam to you. Let enough time pass for you to wake and leave. But you didn’t. He had no choice, right? So he lifted you out of the sand- no place for a goddess of the sea to be washed up- and carried you through the shallows to his best hiding place. A little patch of mangrove trees behind the rocks, tucked away from prying eyes. His stomach skimmed the shore as the gentle current aided him in cradling your body against the soft makeshift bed of moss and leaves.

It was the most beautiful and heartbreaking sight he’d ever seen. You didn’t stir, not once, your tears dried against your skin. He wondered what it would feel like to curl up beside you, to match his breathing with yours, to feel the rise and fall of your chest against his own.

To feel loved, for once.

But it was a dream he knew he could only have in his fantasies. So he stored the image of you sleeping peacefully, tucked in the back of his mind like a mental snapshot. He gave himself this one, small pleasure, of staying by your side, watching over while you slept. Just to make sure no harm would befall you…

It was the closest he’d ever been to you. He could really take you in now; the flutter of your eyelashes as you searched for something he couldn’t see. The curl of your wrist under your temple. The goosebumps that dotted your skin. He ached to touch you, to stifle your unconscious shivers, but he knew that was too far. Instead, he sat there, chin bobbing in the waves, keeping his thoughts quiet, his actions quieter.

Keeping you safe.

The night was almost over. Already, the first golds and pinks of sunrise were peeking over the horizon. He needed to retreat before the beach became crowded, but the thought of leaving you alone gave him pause. What if you woke in the cold water? Or didn’t? Or if someone, some human, found you unconscious and vulnerable?

No. He couldn’t let that happen. He’d sacrifice his presence before that would ever happen.

So he stayed.

And when your eyelids finally peeled apart, a soft yawn passing between your lips as you sat back on your elbows to rub the sleep from your eyes, his heart twitched.

You reached down, but instead of your sheets, you grabbed fistfuls of sand. Your neck screamed at you like never before.

“What…?” you mumbled, blearily looking down at your wrinkled fingers. You’d spent the entire night on the beach. What was wrong with you?

Fresh tears pricked at the edges of your eyes all over again.

A soft splash to your right tore you from your reverie. You turned just in time for your eyes to lock with a pair of bright green ones, before they vanished into the water below. He had no business watching you anymore, now you could protect yourself. So why did his heart ache as he swam further into the depths?

You rubbed your arms, and that’s when you realised- this isn’t where you’d passed out. You were somewhere else on the beach entirely. It was a beautiful spot – the sunlight filtering through the dense foliage above you. Whoever had moved you here had known of its existence well in advance; you knew from your days of scouring this very beach that it simply couldn’t have just been stumbled upon in the dead of night.

Your skin flared with alarm. Someone had brought you here. But the alarm faded when it dawned on you… they hadn’t brought you here with the intention to harm. They’d carried you to safety.

And judging by the glimpse of them you were graced with, had stayed, all night, to ensure it.

Any normal person with decent survival instincts would have left the chance encounter at that. Moved on with their lives. Normal people didn’t vow to find their captor after a night of weakness. Normal people didn’t close their eyes and see the same fiery emerald as they sat in the warm shower just to spark some feeling back under their skin. Normal people didn’t bake a fresh tray of pasta in the hopes of enticing them out to simply thank them, and maybe, if they were amicable, talk to you.

You were trying not to be nervous about it. To not let your anxiety eat you alive at each kiss he pressed down on your stomach, going lower and lower.

You wanted to turn off the lights at least, but you completely forgot about them when Steve started kissing you senseless, touching you all over with his hands, manhandling you towards the bed, and then ravishing your neck. You were so gone that you didn't even notice the moment he took his shirt off, or the moment you did to turn off the lights at least.

But now, as you lay there in your bra only, and he just kept going downwards, your self-consciousness returned, eyes wide as you looked around the room. Because he would not only feel it, but see it. It was going to be a double blow, and you were so scared.

So scared he would not like what he saw down there.

You were conscious about it, too much for anyone's liking. Your friends told you that you were exaggerating, that no guy ever cares about it, but your ex situationship proved that wrong when he decided to tell you straight up what was happening when you asked him why he didn't eat you out.

'I'm sorry, I'm just— Down there, it doesn't look that… nice. Kinda turns me off…'

And for a second, you wondered if he talked about pussy in general… But you realized he meant yours. Just yours.

You looked at yourself with a handheld mirror, and before that comment, you never had a problem, but now— You did. You fucking did. Everything looked wrong. Everything looked disgusting, unflattering, just not ideal. You even started doing research for vaginal rejuvenation, or whatever that was.

So, you had sex later on, with lots of precautions. Lights off, avoid him from going down on you, avoid him from touching you, and do it yourself to get wet. If he could see it, he could feel it. You preferred not to.

But then you met Steve.

And Steve looked… perfect. He was nice, beautiful, attentive, caring, funny… and sexy. Of course he was. Too good to be true. You went on various dates, kissing, rubbing, but whenever it started moving for more, you backed off. He respected you, every single time, but the truth was, you were scared. More scared than at any of the other times in the past. You were terrified.

"Steve—" You breathed out, and he hummed against your stomach, his fingers playing with the elastic of your underwear.

"Mmm?" He purred out, and you just wanted to let go. You wished you could. You wanted to feel him. His tongue, his fingers, just everything, but you couldn't risk it. You couldn't risk losing Steve.

"Wait— Wait!" You panicked, and his head went up instantly, eyes wide, hair disheveled, and lips red from the make-out session from minutes ago.

"What is it? Did I hurt you? Did I fuck up?" You frowned with sadness at his words, and you shook your head, taking a deep breath in, closing your eyes.

"No! I— You just don't have to do that… You don't have to do anything, trust me—"

"But I want to, darling. I promise I can take good care of you," He smirked your way, and you wished you weren't so pathetic. You wished you were those kinds of girls who did not care about what they thought about their bodies. But you weren't.

"I know you would, but— Still, I'm— I'm already wet, so you don't really have to—" He sighed, kneeling up between your open legs, looking down at your body.

"What's going on?" He looked pissed. Or stressed? Or worried? You didn't know. You really didn't because anything was possible with the way you were acting. You slowly sat up, shaking your head a little bit desperately.

"Nothing's wrong…"

"Right… Then if nothing's wrong, let me continue." He pressed, and you knew he caught you. You knew by the way he was looking at you. You gulped, looking down at his lap.

"Promise… You won't laugh?" His eyes widened, and his features turned into worried ones.

"Wait… Did you never… Oh my god, I didn't— I should have asked—" He was nervously moving away from you, and you shook your head again, grabbing at his arm so he wouldn't leave.

"No! No… I'm not a virgin, no…" He settled back down, tilting his head with curiosity, and you could feel your ears ringing as you looked away from his gaze. "I just don't want you to… think it's bad…"

He pursed his lips, frowning, "What could be bad?" Your cheeks are set ablaze, as well as your entire body.

"My… down there…"

He stayed silent for a second, processing your words. You were still not looking at him, and he was just trying to make sense of what you just told him.

"You… I'm not sure what you mean—?"

"God, Steve, my pussy is not pretty." Your eyes finally met his, and he stared at you for a long time, and you felt your stomach turning and turning, almost making you nauseous. He finally scoffed, shaking his head.

"I'll be the judge of that." Your eyes widened, and you shook your head at him.

"No— No, someone already was, and I've seen it, and I just don't want this to stop because of it," You breathed out quickly and desperately, while Steve kneeled there in front of you. He could see the nervousness in the way your eyes went back and forth on his, the dent on your eyebrows going downwards, and he wondered… Who was the asshole that made you feel like this?

"Sweetheart… Do you have teeth down there?" You frowned now, confused.

"What? No?"

"Tentacles?"

"The fuck—"

"Some kind of HPV—"

"Steve, why are you asking all of this nonsense?" You thought he was making fun of you, but he smiled sweetly, shaking his head.

"Unless you've got any of those, you're perfectly normal." You sat there, a little shocked at his reassurance, and for some reason, it calmed you down, even if a little. He put a strand of your hair behind your ear, his lips coming to brush against yours, and your heart skipped a beat as he whispered against you. "Can I make you feel good now?"

You hesitated, but something inside you told you to trust him. Maybe it was his eyes, a mixture of need, of lust, of approval, and of determination. He was set on making you feel good, and you could feel it. So you lay back down, slowly, worried about the lights around the room, but a kiss on your calf distracted you, making you gasp.

He was holding your leg up, a smile on his lips, and you felt your body burning up at the attention you didn't know you missed. Or the attention you never had.

"Just look at me, darling. Look at me." His fingers went back to dancing on the elastic of your underwear, letting your foot touch the bed again, your legs bent on each side of his body. You could feel your heart coming out of your chest, blood pumping on your throat as he started to urge you to lift your hips up so he could take your underwear off.

You took a deep breath in, lifted your hips just a bit, and then helped him with each leg, so he could take the thong off. Your knees met against his chest, not letting him gaze down at you. He growled a bit, shaking his head, rubbing his hands on your knees. He did a 'nuh-uh' sound with his throat, and you wanted to whine, to fight, protest, but your gut told you to believe. So, you slowly opened up your legs for him.

You were almost shaking as you avoided looking at his face. Avoided looking at his reaction. Avoided seeing the disappointment. His eyebrows knitted in the middle, but not in disgust… In pleasure.

"And you almost hid from me… God—" You weren't expecting those words. You really weren't. You turned your head again to look at him, but his gaze was fixed on your center, moving down to rest on his stomach, coming face to face with your pussy. You still didn't know if he liked it, if he didn't, if he was faking it to make you feel okay with yourself. So many thoughts were racing in your mind, but your entire body jerked as sudden pain shot through your right inner thigh, making you snap your head to look down.

"What the—" You saw the red bite mark he left on your skin, and his eyes were gazing up at you.

"Don't think," Steve commanded, and you gulped, trying to follow his instructions, and he noticed your hesitation, so he planted a soft kiss on your belly, urging you to calm down. "You're beautiful. You're so pretty…"

You could feel your bottom part melting under his kisses. He kissed your inner thighs, above your clit, close to your lips, but not yet your center. You started to squirm under his touch, not noticing the smile that was forming on his lips.

"Steve…" You breathed out, and he kept kissing you, breathing against your clit, only to go back to your inner thigh. You fluttered around nothing at each graze of his nose against you, and you could barely handle it. "Steve,"

"Mmm?" He was playing dumb, his eyes closed, not looking your way. He couldn't see your pleading eyes, your sighs at each brush of his against you.

"Can you please…?" You couldn't help the little groan, the little whine at the back of your throat. The complaint. He noticed, and he lifted his head up from between your legs.

"Please, what?" He pressed on, and you realized what he was doing, so you averted your eyes, a little bit embarrassed. "You want me to stop?"

"No!" Your head snapped up, looking down, and he was smirking delightfully.

"Then, what do you want me to do?" He could see your nervousness, probably having never done this before, so he decided to take it easy on you. He pressed his lips at the top of your clit, making your back arch slightly at the sensation. "Please, ask me… Ask me to eat you out…"

He sounded desperate. He sounded so needy of you, and you couldn't deny him any longer. Even with your insecurities, and even when your stomach was in knots of pure nerves, your need for him was much stronger than all of that, and it was all thanks to what he did to you.

"Please, Steve… Please, make me feel good…"

"Good enough…" And you heard him take a breath before the flat of his tongue pressed against your clit, and then his lips followed right after. Your mouth opened, a soft moan coming out of your throat as you stared at his bedroom ceiling.

And he wanted to take it slow. He really did. He wanted you to get accustomed, he wanted you to get more comfortable with his tongue, but, god he loved to hear you moan. So he licked a strip through your folds, tasting you, moaning in his throat as he took you in. You shivered at the feeling, your hands gripping the sheets below you.

"Steve—" Your eyes widened when he suddenly lost control. His arms were wrapped around your thighs, hands pressing at the front to push you further into his mouth. His nose rubbed against your clit as his tongue lapped through your folds like a starved man.

You moaned loudly, squirming underneath him as you panted, having missed the feeling of someone taking care of you. Of someone worrying about how you felt during sex. Of someone actually giving a fuck about making you feel good.

"You taste so good…" You heard him exhale against you, giving a kiss to your clit, "So sweet…" Then he sucked on it, giving a pointed lick with the tip of his tongue. "So, so, so pretty for me…"

You never received so much praise in your life. You never heard a man talk about you the way Steve was doing.

God, you might just fall in love.

Suddenly, you felt his tongue dip inside of you, making your eyes widen, your hands flying to grip at his hair. Your back arched, and whimpers came out from your mouth. His hold on you was strong, fingertips digging into your skin as you squirmed underneath him.

"Oh, fuck, Steve— Don't stop, holy shit—" You were not measuring the words coming out of your mouth, which rarely happened, but Steve was going to make you cum with just his tongue. You could feel it. The coil, just tightening the more he slurped, the more he moved, the more his nose rubbed against your now sensitive clit.

"Don't plan to." He mumbled quickly, before returning to eating you out, breathing heavily against you. If only you weren't so out of it because of the pleasure, you would have seen how Steve was rubbing himself against his mattress. You could hear the slurping, the gulping, of how messy he had become just from having you.

Your fingers gripped his hair, making him moan because of the pain, and knowing he was making you feel this good. He could feel you shake underneath him, making his eyes open to take a look at you, as best as he could, because the position didn't allow him much vision. Whenever the arch of your back went down, he could see your mouth wide open, moaning out, huffing, and your eyes were probably staring into the ceiling.

He growled at that, jerking your body, making you snap out, your head looking down to connect your gaze with his. Tears were forming on your waterline from pleasure, and he licked a stripe from your folds, getting his tongue out of you, to flick your clit with it. Your eyes widened again, your hands pushing him more into you as you felt your belly tighten.

"Oh god— Fuck, I'm—!" His lips connected with your clit, his tongue never stopping, and you finally lost it, jerking into him as your back arched upwards, head thrown back as the climax hit you like a train wreck. It was too powerful. You clenched around nothing, and he didn't stop, so you could ride it out. You cried his name out, over and over again, as your body shook, trembled, and moved underneath him.

He only stopped abusing your clit with his tongue when your fingers started to slowly release his hair. You were breathing heavily, eyes closed, feeling as if your entire body started to melt away. You unclenched from the nothingness, and you finally felt the last lick of his tongue along your slit, making you gasp and jerk away from overstimulation.

He chuckled against you, and he slowly released your thighs, letting them flop on the mattress. Your hands released his head, and he kneeled up once more, looking down at you. You looked wrecked. So fucking wrecked.

He might just fall in love.

You finally opened your eyes to see him staring down at you, and your slick was all over his mouth, his nose, down his neck, and his pupils were completely dilated. Your eyes traveled south, seeing his bulge trying to break free from his denims. A smirk displayed on his lips, wiping himself with the back of his hand.

"One thing you should know about me, baby… I love, LOVE, eating pussy."

He crawled on top of you, looking down at your eyes, and you knew right then and there that Steve Harrington was your doom. He could see the surprise in your eyes as his lips came to peck yours. You were sure that if you were to lick your bottom lip, you would be able to taste yourself. He continued, a breath away from your lips,

"And I can't wait to make you feel good, over… and over… and over again…"

---------

You tell yourself the nerves are normal. Everyone gets nervous. Everyone second-guesses whether they’re qualified. Everyone wonders whether the students will smell fear like blood in the water. You tell yourself that the unease has nothing to do with the classroom next door, and you keep telling yourself that even though the hallway is empty and no one is here to accuse you of lying.

When you reach your door, you stop short because it isn’t closed all the way. The metal latch rests against the frame instead of inside it, leaving a thin slice of light visible from within. For a moment, you just stand there, feeling your heartbeat tick upward in that slow, creeping way it does whenever your instincts whisper that something is off. You know this feeling by now. You’ve walked into it half a dozen times over the summer. You place a hand against the door, push it open the rest of the way, and the sight that greets you is enough to drain every drop of ease from your body.

Your classroom looks wrong.

Not destroyed, no overturned desks, no graffiti, nothing so dramatic. but wrong in the quiet, deliberate way that makes you want to grind your teeth. You step further inside, your eyes narrowing as you take in the evidence. Your library shelf, the one you spent hours organizing alphabetically with little stickers for each genre, is completely reversed. Every single book has been turned around so that the spines face the wall, leaving only the pages visible in uneven white lines. It looks ridiculous. It looks intentional. It looks like someone had far too much time on their hands.

Your pencil jar is half empty again, the green highlighters missing just like they were the last time and the time before that. You scan the room, noticing that your carefully pinned bulletin board border. It was a soft, calming forest green chosen specifically because it didn’t clash with anything but now has been replaced by a loudly patterned strip of yellow paper decorated with tiny basketballs. You stare at it in disbelief, because you certainly didn’t buy it, and you’re quite certain no one else would have picked something so aggressively obnoxious for an English room.

As you cross the room, your gaze lands on the final insult. Your desk chair perched neatly on top of your desk, balanced perfectly like a smug little trophy. It’s not knocked over or precarious or even messy. It’s placed. Arranged. Presented with the kind of careful precision that makes your stomach knot with irritation.

You exhale slowly, the kind of exhale that isn’t calming at all. You close your eyes for a moment, feeling the tension prickling beneath your skin, and when you open them again the chair is still staring down at you like it knows exactly what it’s doing.

“Harrington,” you whisper, the name so bitter it tastes metallic.

It’s not that you have proof. You never have proof. But after a summer of finding your posters shifted two inches lower, your chalkboard chalk arranged in rainbow order except for green mysteriously missing, your lesson plan binder shuffled, and that one time a basketball appeared on your stool like some kind of deranged calling card, you don’t feel the need for proof. You don’t need to catch him in the act. You’ve known Steve Harrington long enough to recognize the pattern. The childishness. The infuriating blend of confidence and carelessness that defined him in high school and, apparently, still trickles into adulthood.

You lift the chair down from your desk with more force than necessary, the legs clattering loudly against the hardwood floor. For a moment, you just stand there, fingers tight around the backrest, breathing through the familiar, simmering frustration that comes whenever he inches anywhere near your life. It’s not that you think he’s malicious. He never was that. But he was thoughtless. Entitled. He floated through high school on charm and hair and stupid smiles, skating by while people like Jonathan struggled and people like Nancy picked up the pieces. And people like you… well. People like you slipped through the cracks unnoticed, invisible except when someone needed an extra body to fill a group project or to take notes for them.

Every little prank, if that’s even what they are, takes you right back to that feeling. Small. Overlooked. Unimportant.

You shake your head, refusing to let the thought fester. You smooth your hand across your desk, straighten a stack of syllabi that were slightly off-center, and pull down the garish basketball border with a sharp tug that’s far more satisfying than it should be. This is your room. Your job. Your first year. You refuse to let him turn it into a joke.

He doesn’t get to matter, you tell yourself as you restore your space piece by piece. He doesn’t get to crawl under your skin like he used to. He doesn’t get to ruin the one thing you’ve worked for since the world fell apart. You’re not sixteen anymore, and you’re not letting him drag you back there.

You’ve barely restored your room to something resembling sanity when the hallway begins filling with scattered teacher voices drifting through open doors. Most of them belong to people you’ve never met. It was new hires brought in through the same fast-track program you used, or older teachers returning after months of reconstruction, so the sound is a mix of introductions, half-joking complaints about early mornings, and animated reunions between coworkers who managed to cling to normalcy through the end of the world.

You sling your bag over your shoulder and step into the hallway just as a door opens beside you. You don’t have to look to know whose it is. Hiis presence hits you a split second before the visual does, like the universe’s own warning alarm system.

Steve Harrington strolls out of his classroom with that same maddeningly casual energy he carried in high school, like he’s never once walked with urgency in his entire life. His shirt sleeves are rolled up, his hair somehow already perfectly tousled despite the hour, and he locks his door with a quick twirl of his key that seems entirely too pleased with itself. Then his attention shifts to you, and there it is. It was that insufferable smirk curling at the corner of his mouth, the one that makes you want to turn around and walk straight back into your classroom forever.

“Well, good morning, neighbor,” he drawls, his voice carrying an easy, mock-cheerful tone that feels specifically engineered to raise your blood pressure. “Your door was already open. Means you’re excited for the first day?”

“Or someone can’t mind their own business,” you answer immediately, sidestepping him as you move down the hall. You don’t break stride, but he falls in step beside you anyway, like this is some kind of reunion tour you agreed to participate in.

“You talking about me?” he asks, and he sounds amused in a way that only makes your irritation sharpen. “Because I really don’t have the time or energy to snoop in your room every five minutes.”

“Funny,” you say, keeping your eyes ahead as you walk. “Considering my library was rearranged into a literal book graveyard this morning.”

He gives a low whistle. “That sounds like a lot of effort.”

“Exactly,” you snap. “Your effort.”

“Wow,” he replies, and you can hear the grin in his voice without even looking at him. “You really think I’m that invested in you.”

You glare at him, wishing the look could burn straight through his skull. “I think you’ve been a pain in my ass since 1984.”

“Come on,” he says lightly, “at least give me ’83. I was already annoying by then.”

Your inhale is sharp, pointed, meant to signal the end of this conversation, but he seems content to follow along like some golden retriever you didn’t invite on your walk. You pick up your pace as you near the cafeteria as it was temporary headquarters for the district’s in-service week, but he keeps up easily, hands swinging casually at his sides.

When you push the cafeteria doors open, the room is already bustling with teachers settling into their cliques like homing pigeons. Long tables stretch across the space, each one covered in tidy stacks of welcome packets, schedule drafts, and complimentary pens that look cheap enough to break in half with a single thought. At the far corner, you spot Robin sitting with the band director and the French teacher, animatedly waving her hands about something you can’t hear. Her excitement radiates across the room, and you briefly consider sitting near her before you realize there’s only one open seat left. It was at the very back, next to the wall.

You also realize, unfortunately, that Steve notices it at the same exact moment.

You meet his eyes. He meets yours. Neither of you says a word. But the challenge hangs there, suspended in the air, as obvious as if someone had rang a bell and shouted, “Go.”

You both move.

You’re faster and it’s probably because spite is one hell of a motivator, but he’s right behind you, long strides eating up the distance like this is the Olympics of petty behavior. You reach the chair first, grip the back of it triumphantly, and slide into it with all the dignity of a warrior claiming conquered land. When you look up to deliver a victorious glare, however, he’s nowhere in sight.

Instead, you hear soft murmuring near the front of the cafeteria.

You turn your head just enough to see him. He was four tables away, bending down to pull out a chair for one of the freshman history teachers. She’s heavily pregnant, moving with the kind of slow, careful sway that suggests she’s thirty seconds from going into labor amid the lunch tables. Steve settles the chair behind her gently, saying something you can’t make out, and she beams at him as though he’s personally solved her entire life.

“Thank you so much, Steve,” she gushes, lowering herself into the seat with visible relief. You could hear her shower him with comments that he had always been such a nice sweet boy. 

A few nearby teachers nod approvingly, murmuring compliments in his direction. One of them, a woman in a thick knit sweater covered in tiny embroidered apples, turns to look at you, her expression cool and distinctly unimpressed, as if she’s just discovered you shoved the pregnant teacher yourself.

Your mouth opens slightly, then closes again just as quickly. You don’t owe anyone an explanation. You didn’t do anything wrong. You simply… sat down.

But the heat prickling across the back of your neck doesn’t care about logic. It blooms higher when two more teachers glance your way, following the apple-sweater woman’s line of sight. There’s judgment in their faces. It was not sharp, not overt, just a soft, lingering disapproval that settles into your bones with familiar weight.

Because it doesn’t matter what you did. All anyone sees is Steve being helpful. And you… not being him.

The irritation that follows doesn’t come from guilt. It comes from recognition. This is how it has always worked, he smiles, the world smiles back, and you are the misplaced, overlooked shadow in the corner of the frame.

You straighten in your chair, set your shoulders back, and lift your chin with a quiet defiance. You are not going to compete with Steve Harrington for moral high ground. You are not going to explain yourself to strangers. And you are certainly not going to let the first staff meeting of your teaching career begin with you feeling like the villain in a story you didn’t even sign up for.

But as Mr. Higgins, the high school principal, taps the microphone to begin the session and the room hushes, you can’t help glancing toward Steve again, irritation still simmering beneath your ribs.

He’s smiling at something the pregnant teacher says, that easy, effortless grin he’s mastered since adolescence. You look away before the sight can twist anything deeper.

By the time lunch rolls around, you’ve survived the Mr. Higgins entire welcome-back presentation, three separate handouts about safety procedures, and a twenty-minute tangent about proper hall-pass distribution delivered by the vice principal, as if Hawkins High has not literally collapsed into an interdimensional pit before. You’re fairly certain your soul left your body somewhere between “new copier protocols” and “updated club guidelines.”

The teacher’s lounge is a cramped, mismatched room tucked beside the library, smelling faintly of burnt coffee and disinfectant wipes. The chairs don’t match, the tables wobble, and the vending machine hums loud enough to vibrate your water bottle. But it is quiet. It is cooler than the rest of the building. And Robin has already saved you a seat across from her.

She’s mid-story about her girlfriend, Vickie, and their date last night,  when the door swings open again. The energy in the room shifts a little. It was just enough for your shoulders to tighten.

Steve walks in, already laughing at something one of the other coaches said behind him. You tense reflexively, as if your body has been conditioned to brace itself at the sound of him. You look down at your sandwich, determined not to give him a single second of acknowledgment.

But of course, because the universe thrives on your suffering, he makes a beeline for the table.

He doesn’t take the empty seat by Robin. Doesn’t sit with the group he came in with. Nope. He stops beside you.

And then he pulls out the chair right next to yours, close enough that his knee nearly nudges your leg, and sits facing you.

You scowl before you can stop yourself. “What.”

He frowns, not dramatically but just enough to be annoying. His eyes flick down at your lunch, then up at your face. “You enjoying your lunch?”

You lift your sandwich slowly, calmly, deliberately. “Yep,” you say, voice smooth, cool, utterly unbothered. “Delicious.”

Robin groans into her hands. “Jesus Christ, can you two not start this before the students even get here? It’s September. I cannot referee this for ten months.”

Neither of you look at her. Neither of you say you’ll stop.

You keep your gaze carefully fixed on the table, refusing to give him the satisfaction of direct eye contact. “Why?” you ask mildly, as if you didn’t already know exactly where this is going.

Steve leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “I went to my room to grab my food and the crazy thing is… I  couldn’t find it.”

You let the silence stretch, savoring it.

Then you smile. It was slow, sweet, polite in the most venomous way imaginable, and took a large bite of your peanut butter and jelly sandwich… that was definitely not yours. You had forgotten to pack your lunch of all things.  

His eyes narrow instantly.

“I locked my door,” he says flatly.

You swallow, dab the corner of your mouth with your napkin, and tilt your head. “You know,” you say lightly, “the janitor, Mrs. Phillips, remembers me from high school. I used to bring her cookies during finals week. She’s very sweet. Very helpful.” Another bite. Another bright, innocent smile. “I told her I left something in your room.”

Robin’s mouth falls open. “You did not.”

You absolutely did.

Steve inhales, long and slow through his nose, the kind of breath someone takes when they’re trying not to swear in a breakroom. Then he lets it out in a laugh that isn’t amused at all.

“Well,” he says, wiping a hand across the table like he’s clearing the air, “I just got back from talking to Mr. Higgins.”

Robin perks up. “About what?”

Steve doesn’t look at you. Thank God, but his voice carries that irritating ease again, the kind that makes you grind your molars. “Dustin begged me to convince Higgins to let Hellfire Club come back. And…” He spreads his hands like he’s presenting a magic trick. “After some negotiating, I got him to agree.”

Robin leans forward, impressed despite herself. “How did you manage that? Higgins has shut Henderson down for the past two years.”

Steve leans back, grin widening. “You know, I talked about how it’s Dustin and his friends’ senior year and it’d probably fizzle out once they graduated. I then promised they would change the name instead of Hellfire.”

Robin snorts.  

He  continues. “And that they would have two staff sponsors. At least one of them is required at all meetings.”

“Of course you’re one of them,” Robin says dryly.

Steve proudly nods.

Then she narrows her eyes. “So who exactly did you rope into being the other one?”

And that’s when it happens.

Robin turns her head. Her gaze lands on you. And her entire face twists into a look of dawning horror.

“Oh no,” she whispers. 

Your stomach drops. You turn slowly, stiffly, to look at Steve.

He’s smiling. No he’s grinning. It’s broad and bright and arrogant in a way that makes your pulse spike with pure, boiling fury.

“I told Higgins,” he says casually, “how much you were dying to be involved. And how you already have a great relationship with those kids.”

Then, because he is the devil, he winks.

For a moment, the room feels too still, like someone pressed pause in the middle of your breath. You stare at Steve, unable to process the sheer audacity of the wink. Robin is shaking her head, mouthing something that might be I’m so sorry, but your ears buzz too loudly to catch it.

“Why,” you finally say, each word sharp and clipped, “would you tell him that?”

Steve lifts his shoulders in an easy shrug, as if this is a conversation about borrowing a stapler instead of sabotaging your after-school life for the foreseeable future. “Well, I had to think about it,” he begins, tapping his fingers against the table in a steady, irritating rhythm that seems to sync directly with your pulse. “Realistically? I’m not gonna be able to make most of the meetings. Coaching responsibilities takes over my schedule. And Robin already signed herself up for AV and Spanish club. So I thought to myself, ‘who’s someone that has no life, is definitely single, and won’t have anything better to do after school?’”

The words land with a thud you feel in your gut. Your jaw drops. Robin makes a strangled noise like she’s choking on her own tongue.

“I do too have a life,” you snap, louder than you intended. Heat climbs up your neck, flushing your ears, your chest, the back of your scalp. “And you can’t just… just volunteer me for something without asking! That’s not how anything works, Steve! Ever!”

He doesn’t apologize. He doesn’t even meet your fury with equal heat. He just smirks.That same maddening, slow, self-satisfied smirk that has irritated you since the tenth grade when he used it to get out of trouble for almost everything he ever did.

He reaches forward casually, plucking the unopened bag of chips sitting near your elbow. Before you can pull it back, he’s already taken it. Then he swipes the cookie from your napkin with the same smooth motion, tucking both into his palm.

“Hey—!” you start, half rising from your seat, as if you had a claim on the lunch you had stolen. Finders keepers, you wanted to yell at him. 

He takes a bite of the cookie before he even finishes standing up, nodding thoughtfully as if critiquing a gourmet dessert. 

“You shouldn’t have taken my lunch,” he says simply, voice soft, almost conversational. No venom. No anger. Just matter-of-fact triumph that makes your skin prickle.

Then, without waiting for your response, without a glance back toward Robin, without any sign of remorse, he heads for the door, chip bag rustling in his hand, crumbs dusting the corner of his mouth.

He leaves you sitting there, your pulse thundering, your sandwich half-eaten, and an entire room of teachers quietly pretending not to watch the aftermath of whatever the hell just happened.

Robin leans forward, elbows on the table, and exhales a long, exhausted sigh.

“You two,” she says, staring at you like she’s trying to diagnose a terminal condition, “are absolutely going to kill me.”

You’re halfway through a rerun of M.A.S.H., sucking the soul out of a cherry popsicle. You’re braless. The house is quiet. Peaceful, if a little tragic. Exactly the way Fridays are meant to be.

Until the knocking starts.

Correction: pounding.

Panicked, frenzied, FBI-doesn’t-need-a-warrant kind of pounding.

You groan and peel yourself off the couch, popsicle stick still dangling from your lips. You are not emotionally equipped to accept salvation or Thin Mints right now.

But when you open the door, it’s not a solicitor.

It’s Robin.

Robin Buckley, looking like she just got shot out of a chimney. Her cheek’s streaked with soot and something red that is very much not Kool-Aid.  

You blink. Yank the popsicle out of your mouth with a wet plop.

“Don’t freak out,” she blurts, before you even ask.

Which is Robin Buckley-speak for: Start freaking out immediately. Shit is on fire, metaphorically or otherwise.

The last time she said that, you ended up faking an asthma attack so you could ditch pep band and hit up Denny’s for the $1.99 Grand Slam. The time before that, you drove through three counties to rescue her cousin’s “emotional support ferret” from a petting zoo in Muncie.

This time? She’s brought a car with her.

A sleek maroon BMW, purring at the curb, passenger door flung wide open.

Inside: Limbs. Denim. Blood.

A boy.

Slumped sideways in the front seat, head tilted back at an angle that screams whiplash or maybe already dead. 

You squint.

“Who the fuck is that?” … Steve Harrington.

Steve Harrington is bleeding out in your driveway.

You don’t know him. Not really.

Knew of him, sure. Back in high school, he was all Farrah Fawcett volume and varsity swagger. Heir to the Hawkins High hierarchy, ruling keggers and hallways alike. He had rich parents and a bimmer he didn’t pay for. Threw parties like they were some kind of divine rite.

But then? Senior year hit him like a metaphorical truck. Or maybe a literal one. Hard to say.

Because somewhere between the scorched-earth gossip of graduation and the literal scorched-earth of the mall burning down, Steve Harrington dropped off the map.

Poof. King Steve: dethroned.

Burned out, like the very mall he used to work in.

You missed that whole implosion. Spent that summer in Chicago drowning in vending machine coffee and disaster drills, chasing your EMT cert while trying not to puke during ride-alongs.

You came home to find that Hawkins had gained a mall, lost a mall, and started blaming everything weird on “gas leaks” again.

And Robin Buckley had Steve.     

Her little sidekick from the ice cream wars. Who, allegedly, once confronted a creeper in the food court for harassing her. Ruined his pretty face doing it, too. Walked around with a purple shiner for weeks after that summer ended.

He now stocks tapes with her at Family Video, where helping customers ranks somewhere between abusing the label maker and arguing over who gets to abuse the label maker. 

You ran into him once, alone, in the cereal aisle of Melvald’s.

Dark rings under his eyes. Hair still doing that gravity-defying thing.

He smiled. You didn’t smile back.

You didn’t care.  

It’s the age-old fall from grace: high school royalty faceplants into reality, and the Burger King crown starts hanging heavy. (Well, sailor hat, in his case.)

But now, he’s here.

Dying on your lawn.

Ruining your Friday. … Up close, he looks worse.

Biblically bad.

Like, plague-of-locusts, hail-from-the-heavens, Lamb-of-God-who? kind of bad.

His jeans are shredded, shirt gone entirely. Bright red ligature marks around his throat like someone tried to strangle him with a piano wire. There’s ash in his hair, and something black smeared across his jaw that you’re really, really hoping is just dirt.

His eyes flutter.

Then, absurdly, he smiles.

“H-hey. Heard you know first aid?”

You stare at him for a beat. Then toss your popsicle stick into the grass.

“Yeah. Try not to bleed out on my porch, Harrington.”

He snorts. Gives you a weak thumbs-up.

Then promptly goes limp. … “It’s called compensated shock,” you grunt, dragging six-feet-too-much of unconscious prom royalty into your living room. “He looked okay ‘cause his body was pumping him full of adrenaline. Now it’s wearing off.”

Robin’s on the other end, doing her best to help, which mostly means not helping.

“Oh my god, yeah,” she babbles, smacking his sneakers into the doorframe. “—shit. He got all woozy at Skull Rock earlier.”

You pause mid-haul. “Skull Rock? Like, the makeout spot?”

Robin makes a face. “Yeah, but not for us, gross. That’d be like making out with my brother. Anyway, Steve invented Skull Rock! Took Heather C. there in tenth grade. Remember her? The girl with, like, thirty scrunchies and that creepy obsession with Mr. Connor’s—”

“Robin.”

“Right! Sorry! Panic talking!”

Steve groans from where you’ve deposited him on the couch, more pained by Robin’s volume than the probable internal bleeding.

You ignore him. “Why were you actually at Skull Rock?”

“Uhh walking? You know... trees. Friendship.”

You level her with a look.

She claps her hands. “Anyway! You can fix him, right? You’re, like, certified!”

You glance down at Steve.

His lips are blue at the corners, breath hitching in those tight, silent gulps that mean pain and refusal to show it.

“Yeah,” you say quietly. “Maybe.” … You do fix him.

Because you’re a sucker. Because you trained for this. Because your hands know what to do even when your brain is screaming. 

And maybe, just maybe, because Steve Harrington keeps making these soft, miserable, apologetic noises every time he flinches.

Like he’s sorry.

Sorry for bleeding. For being in pain. For existing.

You hate that.

You also kind of hate how he looks like this—hot, in that tragic, beaten, dog-left-out-in-the-rain kind of way that hits your brain like a chemical imbalance.

You strip off his vest first (Dio patch on the back, which, huh, maybe he has changed) and find a makeshift bandage beneath it, half-dried and crusted with old blood. You peel it off. It comes away with a wet schlorp like opening a bottle of dollar store wine.

And something inside you goes still. 

These are... bite marks.

Not scrapes. Not scratches.

Bites.

His flesh looks shredded, like a rottweiler got bored of chew toys and decided to sample teenage boy instead.

Except: you’ve treated dog bites. This is not a dog bite.

“Jesus christ,” you whisper.

You look up at the boy collapsed on your couch: sweaty, shirtless, and—oh, now he’s got a belt in his mouth.

Robin jams it there. “For the pain,” she says, helpful as ever.

Steve groans around the leather, eyes fluttering. Looks like he wants to die. 

You’re still staring at the worst bite, wondering if it’s actually moving, when you ask, voice low:

“Someone want to tell me what the fuck did this?”

Robin freezes. Eyes the belt like she’d rather choke on it herself than answer.

“Uh… bats?” She offers weakly.  

You blink. “Bats.”

“Like. Big ones? Really big?”

You stare at her. Then at Steve.  

You don’t believe her.

But also… you kind of do.    

Because whatever this thing was, it didn’t just attack.

It fed. … “Okay, but like—” Robin’s pacing like she’s trying to wear a hole in your rug. “He was fine earlier. Like, maybe not fine fine, but, you know, Steve-fine. And then we got out of the Up—uh—the woods, and I was driving him back and he just…”

She makes a dramatic fainting motion. Nearly brains herself on the coffee table.

“So, it could be rabies? Or tetanus? Or maybe one of those parasite things that lay eggs in your stomach? Or—”

“Robin?” you cut in, sharp as the pair of shears in your hand. “There’s towels and vodka in the kitchen. Go.”

“Right. On it.”

She skitters away like a gremlin set on fire, the thud of cabinet doors punctuating her panic.

You turn back to Steve.

His pulse is thin, fluttering weakly under your fingertips, but it’s there.

“Harrington. You with me?”

His hand twitches once, thumb up. … He doesn’t scream.

You wish he would.

Because you know this hurts. You know that when you pour antiseptic into wounds this deep, it’s supposed to rip sound out of a person. A yell. A curse. A sob. Something.

But Steve just… takes it.

His jaw’s locked tight enough to bend steel—no belt, miracle he doesn’t shatter a molar—and his throat works once, twice, swallowing back whatever wants out. His whole body trembles, shoulders twitching, knuckles bone-white, yet his voice stays sealed inside him like it’s chained there.

You kind of hate him for it.

Because you know this type.

Boys who bleed quiet. The beautiful, tragic kind who carry pain like it’s a penance.

You’ve seen them before, at crash sites, in the backs of ambulances.

It’s not bravery. It’s habit.

A mask. 

And Steve Harrington? He’s been wearing his so long, it’s practically fused to the bone.

Still, Robin squeezes his hand like she’s coaching him through labor. Eyes locked on the ceiling, because she’s still pretending she’s never seen boobs or blood or the inside of a human person.

You press gauze to the worst of the bites, just under his ribs, angry and wet and oozing something thick. You have to lean your weight into it.

Steve jolts—full-body, every muscle locking under your palms. His hand lashes out, fast and blind, gripping the leg of your jeans until his knuckles go pale.  

Then, just as quickly, he lets go. Eyes squeezed shut. Shame radiating off him like heat.

“Shit. S-sorry.”

You don’t answer.

You can’t. … It takes two hours.

Three full rolls of gauze. One regrettable vodka break, just to keep your hands from shaking.

It's not pretty. Not even close. But it's enough to keep him breathing, which, all things considered, feels like a decent win for a Friday night.

Now, he’s bandaged. Shirtless under your ex’s old hoodie, the one with the weird bleach stain and the hole in the sleeve, but Steve fills it out like it was made for him.

Of course he does.

In the kitchen, Robin’s hunched over your tiny sink, scrubbing dried blood and whatever else is staining her forearms that awful color.  

As soon as she’s done, you grab her by the sleeve and tug her into the hallway.

“Talk.”

Robin sighs, long and loud. Tries to stall by running a hand through her hair, only to grimace when it sticks up with dried sweat.

“…Demobats.” She mutters.

 “I’m sorry?”

“Demobats,” she repeats, like that’s a word people just know. “From this place called the… Upside Down.”

You wait. There’s no punchline.

“…You’re serious.”

She nods.

And then it all spills out.

Demobats. Some guy named Vecna. Russians. Underground government labs. Scoops Ahoy, for christ’s sake.

You lose the thread somewhere around “telepathic hive mind overlord.”

But you don’t interrupt. Because Robin may be a lot of things—loud, chaotic, deathly allergic to social cues—but she’s not a liar.

And there’s a half-dead boy on your couch with holes the size of teacups to prove it.

“So,” you say slowly, “that job at the mall…”

“Yeah. Secret Russian lab.”

“And you were tortured?”

 “I mean, mostly Steve?” She winces. “But, uh. Yeah.”

“Jesus christ, Robin.”

“I know,” she groans, dragging both hands down her face. “I know it sounds crazy. I didn’t want to drag you into this, okay? But I thought—he looked bad. Worse than before. And I couldn’t exactly walk into the ER and say ‘Hi, my best friend got eaten by mutant bats from another dimension, please ignore the blood trail.’”

She huffs, blowing hair from her eyes, and squints at you. “You don’t believe me.”

You snort. “No. I do. And I think you should’ve called me sooner.”

“Well, I thought he was fine. He was fine. Until we got in the car and he started slurring his words and, like… blinking wrong. Then I panicked.”

You glance back toward the living room. At the boy who didn’t scream. Curled on your couch, twitching in his sleep like he’s stuck in a loop he can’t wake from.

Robin follows your gaze, voice softening. “Look, I know he’s not exactly your favorite person, but… thank you. Really.”

You roll your eyes. “He was bleeding out, Robs.”

She gives you a look. The kind that says she knows you better than you want her to.

You scowl.

“Go. Shower. You smell like a burnt tire.” A beat. “…You want something to eat?”

Robin doesn’t answer. Just throws her arms around you in the tightest, sweatiest, most Robin hug imaginable. All elbows and bones and bloodstained sleeves.

You stiffen. Then sigh.

“Love you,” she mumbles into your shoulder.

You hold her tight for a second. Then let go.

“You owe me, Buckley. Big time.” …   Robin crashes in your bed, dead to the world in ten seconds flat.

You stay on the couch next to Steve.

Not close. Just close enough. So if he does something stupid like stop breathing, you’ll notice.

You keep a cool cloth on his forehead. Check his pulse every half hour. Whisper a soft “motherfucker” every time he twitches, because if he wakes up and asks if you were worried, you want to be able to say no with a straight face.

You stay up.

Because someone has to. … It’s almost 3 a.m. when he stirs.

Your head snaps up, heart launching into your throat like a flare. Your hand goes automatically to the bucket, the cloth, the mental checklist of emergency procedures you’ve memorized so well they’re practically sewn into your DNA.

But then his lips part.

Just a cracked breath through the dryness, small and quiet and impossibly fragile.

“Don’t… don’t let ‘em go back.”

It’s barely a whisper. It slams into you like a freight train.

You don’t know who ‘they’ are, but you know exactly what he means.

You’ve seen this kind of thing before, too. In the shaking hands of people who left something behind where no one could follow. This is what happens when the body survives, but the rest doesn’t.

And goddammit.

Goddammit, you didn’t want this.

Didn’t want some pretty, broken boy bleeding all over your couch. Didn’t want this guilt. This terrifying protectiveness. The quiet, suffocating weight of whatever this is clamping around your ribs like a trap you walked into willingly. 

Didn’t want Steve fucking Harrington, of all people, to break your heart without saying a single word.

But he looks so young like this. Pale cheeks, sweat-damp hair sticking to his forehead. He’s curled in on himself like he’s bracing for another hit, one hand fisted in your throw pillow.  

Without thinking, you lean forward.

Brush his hair back. Cool his skin with your fingers.

“Steve,” you whisper.

No answer. Just a tiny, broken noise. Almost a whimper, almost nothing.

Your throat tightens.

You reach down, and carefully, gently, pry his fingers free from the cushion. Thread yours through the empty spaces.

His grip grows impossibly tight, fingertips paling where they press between your knuckles.

“You’re okay. You’re safe.”

And slowly—like thawing ice, like a held breath finally let go—he stops shaking.

You stay like that, hand in his, until the sun starts bleeding through the curtains. … Robin once told you that you get off on fixing people. She meant hearts. You meant bones. You’re starting to think maybe she was right. … You wake to yelling.

Not normal yelling—whisper-yelling. The kind of frantic, hushed bickering that’s somehow louder than regular voices.

“…can’t just walk out, Steve!”

“It’s not that bad, just—give me a second—”

There’s the unmistakable rustle of struggling. A pained grunt. The telltale shuffle of someone stumbling sideways, seconds away from faceplanting.

“Oh my god, what is wrong with you?!”

“I’m fine,” Steve grits out, in the exact tone people use right before they pass out on you.

“And where exactly are you gonna go, huh? Enlighten me.”

“Just—I’ll go back and change, and then we’ll—”

“Nope. Absolutely not. You can’t even see straight, Harrington.”

“Yes, I can.”

“Really? Okay. How many fingers?”

“Why do you always do that?”

“Because it works!”

You groan loudly, dragging an arm over your face.

“Do I need to put you two in a time-out? Because I swear to god, I will.”

Instant silence.

When you peel your arm back, Steve’s frozen mid‑escape, one shoe on, looking like a kid caught stealing from the cookie jar. He glances your way, sheepish.

“Hey,” he says, like he didn’t just almost eat your tile. “You’re up.”

“Unfortunately.”

Robin flaps a dramatic hand at him. “Please, please talk some sense into this idiot before I duct tape him to the wall.”

You sit up, and immediately regret every decision you’ve ever made. Your spine crackles like bubble wrap. Your skull is pounding. The entire living room looks like a crime scene: blood-crusted towels, empty gauze packets, that one lonely vodka bottle rolling under the coffee table like a sad tumbleweed.

You squint at Steve. “Sit down.”

“I’m good.”

“You’re not.”

“I just need to—”

“Now, Harrington.”

You don’t raise your voice. You don’t have to. It’s the tone you’ve used on half-conscious college boys insisting they can “totally drive, man.”

Steve blinks. Then sighs, slowly lowering himself onto a kitchen chair.

Robin hovers like a human seatbelt, and he bats her away with a feeble flap of his wrist. Still, he grips the edge of the counter like it’s the only thing keeping him vertical.

You scrub a hand over your face. “Coffee? Or are we all just committing to bad decisions today?” … The coffee is yesterday’s.

Bitter, burnt, practically an oil slick in a mug.

You pour three cups anyway.

Steve drinks it black, which tracks. You clock the way his hands tremble as he brings it to his lips and file it away without comment.

Robin’s already rattling off the story again, filling in details she left out the night before. You get more names now. Places. Dates. Vines that slither like snakes. The gate under Lover’s Lake. You get the part where Steve dove in, headfirst, no hesitation.

Well, you already got that part last night, but Robin’s repeating it, and you’re starting to think maybe it’s not for you this time.

Steve just listens, quiet. Winces at certain beats—jaw tic here, hard blink there—but doesn’t interrupt.

You lean against the counter, sip your bitter sludge, and ask, casual as you can:

“So, you just jumped in. No plan? No backup?”

He shrugs, eyes on his mug. “Didn’t really have time to think about it.”

“Clearly.”     

He looks up at you then. Runs a hand through his still-matted hair, blood-sticky at the roots, and releases a quiet breath.

“Thank you. For last night.”

You raise a brow. “Didn’t really have a choice, Harrington. It was either that or explain to the cops why there’s a dead body on my couch.” 

He huffs a weak laugh.

“By the way,” you add, sipping again, “do your parents know about all this monster-hunting extracurricular bullshit?”

Robin makes a sound like a choked squirrel.

“Oh fuck! My parents! Shitshitshit.”

She’s already halfway out of her chair, tripping over her shoes while she scrambles for her jacket.

“Can you—?” she gasps, eyes wide.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll cover.”

“Thankyouthankyouthankyou!” She barrels over, grabbing your face and planting a comically loud kiss on your forehead. Then she turns and grabs Steve in the same breath.

Gives his face a little shake.

“If I come back and find out you even thought about sneaking out, I will tell everyone you still sleep with a nightlight. Got it?”

You snort into your mug. Steve glares at her. “Robin—"

“Got it?”

He scrubs a hand through his hair, rolling his eyes. “Whatever.”

She releases him, then points at you. “You’re in charge. Don’t let him do anything heroic.”

“Oh no,” you deadpan. “However shall I bear the weight of such responsibility?”

Robin snorts, slaps your shoulder, then bolts, keys jingling like cowbells as she shoots out the door.

“Wait—” Steve squints after her. “Are you—Robin! You can’t just take my car! You’re not even—”

Slam!

“—licensed.”

You both sit in the silence she leaves behind. Steve stares out the window, listening to the screech of his precious bimmer as it peels down the street.

Then he turns back, eyes flicking to the trauma floor that used to be your living room.  

He clears his throat. “Sorry about your, uh… couch. And the carpet.”

You follow his gaze. The stains are bad, probably permanent. It stings a little, looking at them.

It hurts worse looking at him.

Steve Harrington, bruised and bandaged and slouched in your chair like he’s trying to disappear into the seams. His stupidly wide, puppy-dog eyes look like they’re about to apologizing for breathing your air.

You blink.

Then slowly, slowly, lean forward across the island.

“Harrington.”

“Yeah?”

“Stop apologizing for almost dying. It’s weird.”  

He opens his mouth. Closes it. Lands on a sheepish smile instead.

You hate how it softens his face, how it creases the corners of his eyes.

“And for the record,” you mutter, lips concealed behind the rim of your cup, “you’re not the worst thing to stain that couch, so. You’re fine.”  

He blinks, brow furrowing. “What’s… that supposed to mean?”

You shrug. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

It takes him a second to process it. Then he snorts quietly, eyes flicking to the side.

You take another sip, watching the pink rise in his cheeks as the sun filters in through the window.

And if you’re smiling too—well, he doesn’t have to know. … You try to make pancakes.

Try being the operative word.

There’s flour in your hair, batter on the counter. Somewhere, the smoke alarm is just giggling with anticipation.

Steve’s still in his spot behind the island, watching you glare down a lumpy pile of batter.

It’s distracting.

It’s fucking annoying, is what it is.

Pancakes aren’t hard. Whisking is not rocket science. And yet, it feels impossible with him sitting there, doing that thing with his eyes. All soft and brown and bruised, like you saved his life and now he doesn’t know how to deal with it.   

“How’s it going?” he asks, voice pitched deliberately neutral.

You don’t turn around. “Fine.”

A beat.

“You sure?”

You slam the next pancake into the pan. It looks like something you'd peel off a sidewalk after a hot summer day. You stare at it, furious.

Behind you, there’s the scrape of a chair.

“I said I’m fine,” you warn.

He ignores that.

Limps over to you instead, his gaze finding you like a physical thing. Warm. Curious. You catch him in your periphery as he stops beside you, close enough that the heat from the stove mixes with the heat of his skin. Suddenly, the kitchen feels about fifteen degrees hotter.

“Here,” he murmurs.

Before you can object, his fingers wrap around yours, gentle and coaxing as he eases the spatula from your grip.

Then: flip.

One smooth flick of his wrist. The pancake lands perfect. All golden and fluffy.

You blink at it, betrayed.

“I was handling it.”

“Sure,” he says, lips twitching. “Looked like it.”

He flips another. Doesn’t even look this time.

You narrow your eyes. “Okay. How are you doing that?” 

He shrugs, adjusting the burner dial like he’s lived here his whole life. “Cook for myself a lot.”

You pause. There’s something in the way he says it—off-hand, casual, but quiet enough to leave an echo.

You file that away, too.

“Of course you’re good at pancakes,” you mutter. “Probably make soufflés and like, caviar waffles or some shit.”

“Caviar waffles? That’s a thing?”

“I don’t know. You tell me, rich boy.”

He just snorts quietly at that, eyeing you sideways. “Well, my French toast is pretty solid. Could show you next time, if you want.”

You glance over, arching a brow. “Wow. Is that line always so subtle?”

He meets your gaze, smirk tugging at his split lip.

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

And fuck, it lands.

It lands hard, right in the soft space under your ribs. That warm, twisting feeling that makes your breath hitch and your stomach go stupid.

You turn away before your face can betray you, yanking open a drawer for a fork.

And then, as if the universe decided to throw you a bone, the kitchen landline starts to shriek like it’s being murdered.

You lunge for it like a lifeline.

It’s probably Mrs. Buckley, confirming her daughter crashed at your place, again.

“Hello? …You WHAT?”

Robin groans on the other end. “Yeah. Possibly until college.”

“Robin, you can’t—” You lower your voice, turning away from Steve and cupping the receiver like he’s not standing two feet away. “—you can’t be fucking grounded right now.”

“I know! But my mom saw the blood on my jeans and I totally panicked. I told her it was ketchup. Ketchup, dude. Now she’s got Toby posted outside my room. He’s just sitting there with his Legos, but he will scream if I so much as leave to go to the bathroom. So... yeah. It’s gonna be a while before I can sneak out. Are you… are you okay to stay with him for a bit? He’s trying to pretend he’s fine, but he’s definitely not.”   

You glance back.

Steve’s standing at the stove, peering at his stomach while waiting for the next pancake to bubble. His hand drifts down and starts poking at one of the bandages under his hoodie. Slow and gentle, like it won’t count as touching if he’s polite about it.    

You stretch the phone cord and smack his hand away.

He startles. Blinks at you like, Seriously?

You raise your brows like, Try me.

You sigh into the receiver: “Yeah. I got him.”

“Ugh, you’re the best. Just don’t let him—ohh, crap, I gotta g—"

Click.

Steve doesn’t turn when you pad back into the kitchen.

“She grounded?”

“Yep. Possibly until retirement.” You pause. “You don’t need to call your folks?”

He hesitates, just for a second. Then shakes his head. “They’re out of town.”

Then, with a one-handed spin of the spatula, he flips the pancake onto a plate.

You glance at the growing stack. They look obscene. You’d punch someone for a bite.

In your head, you run through the math.

Ten days. Minimum.

Ten days before the stitches can come out. Before he can walk out of here without ripping something open. Longer if he keeps poking at his bandages like that.

God help you. It’s gonna be a long week. … Breakfast is awkward.

No other word for it.

Steve eats like he’s on a timer. You eat like you’re trying not to notice.

Trying not to notice the way he keeps sneaking glances at you. Little flicks of his eyes over his plate, always quick, always subtle, never quite fast enough.

Trying not to notice the way he winces. Quiet flashes of pain, there and gone, just long enough for that crease to cut across his brow before he smooths it away.

When both your plates are emptied, he clears his throat.

“Hey, do you… you mind if I use your bathroom?” He gestures vaguely to his face. “Just need to clean up a bit.”  

His hair is still matted. There’s soot smeared along his jaw, a faint line of red where the blood’s dried and half-wiped away.

You nod, mid-sip. “Sure. First door on the left. Just don’t get the bandages wet.”

“Got it,” he nods, starts to rise—then stops halfway, jaw flexing tight.

“Actually, uh…” His hand slides to the back of his neck. His eyes shut briefly. “Can you give me a hand with this? I can’t really…”

He doesn’t finish the sentence. Doesn’t need to.

The white-knuckle grip on the hem of his hoodie tells you enough.

You blink, setting your mug down, and push your chair back without a word.   

He doesn’t meet your eyes as you reach for the bottom of the hoodie.

The fabric peels up inch by inch, sticking to where the gauze bled through, catching where raw skin clings to cotton. He winces, raising his arms awkwardly, the stitches along his sides clearly pulling. So you move gently, painstakingly slow.

Your knuckles graze his stomach, and—

Jesus.

He’s warm. Muscle corded tight under skin that flushes easily, even with all the bruises blooming across his ribs like bad watercolors.

You get the hoodie off.

His chest is bare.

And now you’re standing close. Way, way too close.

His breath brushes your cheek when he exhales. You glance up, just on pure instinct, and find his eyes already on you.

You both freeze.

There’s a beat where everything narrows. Where sound drops out.  

Your hands hover midair, still clutching the fabric, close enough to feel the heat radiating off his skin.

Close enough to trace the moles scattered across his chest.   

You don’t.

You look away so fast it nearly gives you whiplash.

“Towels are under the sink," you mumble. "I’ll get you some new clothes.”

Then you take a quick step back. Like distance will save you from whatever the hell that was.

Steve blinks. Once. Twice. Then nods, eyes flicking away. “Thanks.”

He disappears down the hall, barefoot and bruised.

You stand in the silence with his hoodie clenched in your fists, your pulse trying to beat its way out of your throat. … There’s an old joke your friends like to make.

That you’re a sadist.

That you chose the EMT life because you enjoy it. The blood, the pain. The broken bones and the chaos. Things normal people flinch away from.

But in truth, they’ve got it backwards.

You’re not a sadist.

No. What you are is a fucking masochist.

Because there’s no other explanation for why you keep doing this to yourself. Why you let yourself get this close to people you shouldn’t. Why you torture yourself, again and again, with things you know better than to want.

Why you’re standing outside your bathroom door right now, ears tilted, listening to someone who shouldn’t mean anything to you rinse the blood off his skin.

You told yourself you were just finishing the dishes. That the stovetop needed wiping down. That there were chores to do, reasons to move around.

But your feet kept wandering. Back to the hallway. Back to him.

Back to this spot in the hallway, where you can feel the warmth bleeding under the door. Where you can hear the faucet running in short, irregular bursts—on, off, on again.

You picture him hunched over the basin. One hand braced against the counter, the other shaking under the strain of movement. Jaw clenched. Shoulders bowed.

Something twists low in your stomach.

You roll your eyes at yourself—because god, you’re pathetic—and raise a fist.

A light knock.

“You good?”

A pause, then:

“Uh, yeah. Just… hang on.”

There’s a clatter, a quiet shit. Then the door creaks open.

And Steve—

Well.

He’s wet.

And shirtless. And pink.

Flushed from the steam, maybe from embarrassment. Because his hair—The Hair—is half-lathered and sticking up in foamy tufts, like a soggy cat caught mid-bath. A single drop of water slides slow down the hollow of his throat.

Your gaze follows it.

The sweatpants you gave him ride low. Damp at the waistband, pulled snug across his hips in a way you’re absolutely not thinking about.

He gestures toward the sink, sheepish.

“I, uh… can’t really bend right now. Tried to rinse it out, but—” He winces, fingers grazing his sides. “The stitches are kind of a hard no.” 

Your eyes drop, unbidden, to the bruises blooming purple-black across his ribs. The way his chest lifts a little faster when you step closer.

You should walk away. Turn around. Go wipe down the goddamn stove like you told yourself you would.

Instead, you say:

“Sit.” 

He blinks. “…What?”

“On the floor. Back against the tub.”

There’s a pause. His brows draw together like he’s trying to figure out the punchline.  

You don’t blink.

He exhales sharply, jaw flexing. “No, it’s okay, I can—”

“Steve.”

It lands heavy. The weight of it surprises even you.

His first name, in your voice. 

You’ve only said it once before, when he was unconscious, twitching under bloodstained gauze, fists clenched against a nightmare you couldn’t reach.

But now, he hears it. And something inside him goes quiet.

He studies you for a second longer, then sighs, shoulders dropping.

Wordlessly, he lowers himself to the tile.

One hand braced on the edge of the tub, the other on the floor, every movement stiff. His back hits the porcelain with a soft thud.  

You kneel beside him and roll up your sleeves.

“Lean your head back.”

He shifts, uneasy. “Seriously, you don’t have to—”

“I know.” You pick up the cup beside the sink and check the tap, waiting for the water to warm. “Just tilt."

There’s a long pause.

Then he does.

His head tips back against the curve of the tub. With his throat exposed, the worst of the bruising shines a mottled red-black beneath his jaw. His lashes flutter, lips parting just slightly.

The first pass runs slow and gentle down his scalp. He flinches.

“Too hot?”

He blinks, breath shallow. “No. S’fine.”

So you pour again. And again. Slow rivulets trickling through his hair, carrying blood and soap and grime down the drain. His hair start to fall naturally again, dark strands slicking to his forehead. 

It’s just the water at first. Rinsing out grit, loosening stiff knots and matted roots.

Then you lather the shampoo between your palms, and sink your fingers into his hair.

And that’s when it happens.

The shift.

Steve Harrington—king of easy charm, Mr. Everything’s Fine—goes completely still.

Not in a relaxed way. Not in a sleepy way.

No, he goes rigid.

His breath falters. His jaw locks. You can see the muscles in his neck ripple with tension.

And when you sweep a thumb absently behind his ear, chasing a line of foam, he jolts.

A full-body shiver, running shoulder to spine.

You clear your throat, voice catching before you force it steady. “Been a while, huh? Since someone did this for you?”

His response is delayed, a low rasp. “Uh huh. Long time.”

Then, after a beat:

“Used to be my mom’s thing. When I was a kid.”

Your hands still in his hair. He goes stiff the second he says it—jaw clenched, lips pressed tight, hands curling in his lap.

You blink, then resume drawing slow circles over his crown.

“That must’ve been nice,” you say quietly.

He doesn’t answer. Just breathes through his nose and keeps still.

So you keep going.

Rinse. Lather. Repeat.    

And with each pass of your hands, his breathing changes.

His head rests heavier against the porcelain. His lips part around soft, even breaths. His eyes flutter shut.

Then, he leans.

Barely enough to notice. But you feel it, the subtle tilt of his head toward your hands.

Like a plant bending toward light.

You wonder, not for the first time, how long it’s been since someone touched him like this. How long he’s gone without care, without softness.

And maybe that’s why this hurts so much.

Because you’d had him pegged, hadn’t you?

The hair. The charm. Pretty boy, ladies’ man, heartbreaker.

King Steve.

But this? This isn’t him.

This is the After.                                                                                       

The aftermath of Russians and monsters and lakes with no bottoms. The man who throws himself between danger and kids that aren’t his, time and time again. Like he’s got something to prove. Or maybe something to atone for.

The one who apologized for bleeding on your floor.

This is someone who’s forgotten how to be held.

And right now, he’s under your hands. Throat bared. Hair dripping. Leaning into your touch like he’s starved for it.

And that slow, sinking weight in your stomach settles for good. That gut-churn of realization that you barely know anything about the man who nearly bled out on your couch last night.  

You try to swallow the feeling down. Try to keep your focus on softer things: dripping water, steam-soaked light, the silky-smooth slip of his hair between your fingers.

But every time your hands leave him, even for a second, you feel it. The tension in his frame. The hesitation in his breath. Like he’s bracing for it to end.

And each time you return—thumb grazing his temple, palm cradling the back of his neck—he breathes in. Relief, sharp and silent, tucked between the ribs.

You reach for the conditioner next, fingers trembling a little as you work it through. When you tip his head back, he goes easy. Pliant. Trusting.

And then a quiet thought hits you.   

A hunch, really.

You let your fingers drift lower. Past the crown. Down to the nape of his neck. The hair there is softer, damp strands clinging to skin gone tight with tension and bruising.

You trace gently around the worst of it. Avoid the dark, angry lines where something had closed around his throat. 

Strangled. That’s what Robin said.  

You press into the muscle just beneath it, right where the pain likes to live.

Steve shudders. His head lifts from the tub with a breath, caught on something sharp.

But you don’t let up.

You continue pressing in slow, deep circles, growing firmer.

There’s a sound, then. Sharp. Brief. A strangled thing, torn between a groan and a gasp.

He tries to stifle it a second later, clearing his throat.

“Too hard?” you ask quietly.

His voice comes cracked. “N-no. Just—it’s fine. You don’t have to…”

The rest trails off when you move to his shoulders next, thumb kneading into the dense muscle. You’re not a massage therapist, but you know anatomy. You know where pain settles when it’s been left too long. How it tucks itself into the tender parts: the base of the neck, the hollow beneath the collarbone.  

And god, he’s full of it. All the signs. All the tells.

He lets out another shaky breath, lips sealed around a sound he doesn’t let out.

And there, just for a moment, you let yourself look.

At the bruises. The thin cuts just beginning to scab. The water gliding over his collarbone, beading into the curve of his chest.

That thick, molten part of your brain—the masochist, the idiot, the one who says yes when she should absolutely say no—flares hot.

It wants to lean in.

Wants to touch your mouth to his skin, right there, at the slope of his throat.

Just to see if he tastes like lavender and heat. Just to see if he lets you.

To kiss him slow enough to wash the ache from his mouth. Replace every sharp thing he’s swallowed with something soft.

God, you’re losing it.

You drag your thumb again along the base of his neck. His lashes flutter.

Then, from the corner of your eye, you see it—his hands shifting in his lap.

Cross. Adjust.

You glance down without thinking.

And oh.

Oh.

The sweatpants don’t hide much. Not like this. Not with how he’s sitting, loose-limbed and open, the fabric soaked and clinging in ways it wasn’t meant to. They’re pulled taut across the breadth of his thighs, darkened in patches where the water’s seeped through.

And beneath that?

Yeah.

Your breath stutters. Heat rockets up your neck.

You yank your gaze away, fumbling for the faucet and filling another cup. Your hand trembles as you lift it, rinsing out the conditioner.

His hair sticks to his forehead. Without thinking, you smooth it back.

His eyes flutter open.

And the look he gives you…

It’s quiet. Devastating. Tucked somewhere tender and deep, pressed hard against bone.

Softer than longing. Sharper than want.

It's something that aches.

You don’t know what to do with it.

So you just keep your hands in his hair.

And you rinse.   … You rinse long after the conditioner’s gone.

After his breath has evened out and the water’s cooled to a gentle trickle, steam curling around your ankles like fog.

The bathroom smells like lavender and heat and skin that isn’t yours.

When you reach for the towel and bring it up to his head, he leans.

Blot, pat, smooth. The towel’s too soft, your hands too careful. You graze the shell of his ear, the edge of his jaw, feeling the quick flutter of his pulse beneath your thumb.

His eyes are still on you.

“Thanks,” he says, quiet.  

You nod, not trusting your voice.

The steam’s thinning now, but the air still clings.

Too warm. Too full of something unsaid.

His breath brushes your cheek.

You’re too close.

It’s too much.

You could kiss him. 

God help you, you could.

Just one lean forward. That’s all it would take. His mouth is right there—slightly parted, pink and swollen in the middle where he’s been biting down.

And the look on his face isn’t just gratitude. Not just relief.

That’s want.

And worse? It’s yours too. It’s in the pit of your stomach, burning upward. It’s in your hands, your chest, your throat, curling behind your teeth like smoke with nowhere to go.

You pull back abruptly. The towel slips from your hands and lands in his lap with a soft thud.

“Okay,” you say, voice tight. “You’re good.”

Steve blinks, like you just dragged him up from underwater.

His throat bobs. “Cool. Yeah. Thanks.”

You stand too fast. Your knees pop. You don’t look at him when you speak next. “You should lie down for a bit. Keep pressure off the stitches.”

He nods, a little too slow.

You grab the towel again and press it against his chest. Not hard, but firm enough to make a point. Whatever it is.

Then you turn.

And you walk out.

You don’t need to look back to know he’s still watching you go. ... It starts the way summer storms do. 

Not with thunder. Not with rain.

With pressure.

The kind that presses close to the skin, wrapping around like a second layer. That hair-raising, skin-prickling tingle. Right as the birds go quiet and the trees hold still and the sky forgets how to move.

Stillness so absolute your skin buzzes with it.

The moment before it tips. 

It’s here now. In this room.

In the narrow inches of couch cushion between you. In the weight of the blanket tangled over your legs. In the single, unspoken brush of his thigh against yours.

The TV plays to no one. A dull flicker of static and synth beats, some late-afternoon rerun neither of you are really watching. The glow of it pulses dim blue across his skin, the shadows deepening where his jaw tightens every time you move.

The room smells like clean skin and new sweat. Yours. His. Both.

His voice breaks the quiet.

“Hey, how long ‘til the stitches come out again?”

“Ten days.”

“Hm. I like this show.”

“Knight Rider?”

“Yeah. It’s cool.”

“No. It’s dumb.”

“What? C’mon, the car talks.”

“Exactly.” A beat. “How do the stitches feel?”

“Uh, good. Yeah. They’re fine.”

“You hungry?”

“No, you?”

“No.”

And it builds, again. That low, rolling kind of stillness.

Storm pressure.   

It crawls up your spine. Pools hot behind your ears. You fidget with the hem of the blanket, rolling your shoulder back into the cushion like you can shake it loose.

You can’t.

The blanket’s too warm.

He’s too close.

And he’s watching you. You don’t have to look to know.  

“…You’re doing it again.”

“Hm?”

You turn your head. Meet his gaze full-on. “Looking at me like that.”

His lips part. “Like what?”

Your eyes drop to his mouth.

His pinky brushes yours.

And just like that, the storm breaks. … Steve leans in first.

The same way he had in the bathroom, instinctive and unthinking. Like something inside him keeps tipping forward and you’re the only place left to fall.

Only this time, you don’t let him do it alone.

You meet him halfway.

His nose nudges yours. His breath fans hot across your cheek.

And then your lips meet.

A question and an answer, exchanged wordlessly.

There’s no clean edge between want and need, no way to separate gentle from hungry. One second, it’s the cautious warmth of shared breath, the next—

It’s the pull of his hands. The low, wrecked sound he makes in his throat when your fingers slide up his neck, threading into the damp hair at his nape.  

Heat. Ozone. The bright-white zing of electricity rocketing down your spine.

You move forward without thinking. He shifts to catch you, hands spanning your hips, guiding you into his lap. You straddle him, careful to avoid the bruises across his stomach.

His breath is hot. His lips are plush, a little chapped from the way he’s been chewing on them all night.

Wordlessly, you reach for the hem of your shirt, tugging it over your head and letting it fall behind you. Cool air rushes over your skin.

Steve goes still. “God, you’re…” He breathes, throat working around the rest of the words when you take his hand and guide it upwards. Across your stomach, up your ribs. His thumb grazes over your nipple, soft and reverent, and your breath hitches.

You tug him back into a kiss, hips starting to drag across his lap. The hard press of him burns heat through the cotton of your sleep shorts.

“Good?” you breathe against his mouth.  

“Yeah,” he rasps. “Fuck. Yeah. You?”

You nod, catching your breath.

But he doesn’t stop looking at you

And there’s something about the way his gaze lingers—soft, searching—like he’s waiting for more than just an answer to a question. Something he doesn’t know how to say out loud.

But you know.

You just… know.

The same way you knew when your hands were in his hair earlier. That quiet ache. That silent pull in him, desperate and soft.

So you give him what he doesn’t know how to ask for.

Your hand slides up to his chest, pressing over his heart. It’s pounding. So is yours.

“You feel so good, Steve,” you whisper, close enough for him to taste the words off your lips. “You’re so good. So fucking good.”

He shudders, pulling you in tighter, groaning with his lips buried against your neck like he needs to hide the sound somewhere safe.

Still, you don’t stop. 

You reach for his hand and slide it lower, under the waistband of your shorts. His fingers slip through your slick heat and go still.

“Jesus,” he breathes. 

You kiss his temple, then his cheek. Frame his jaw with both hands and lift his gaze to yours.

“Feel that?” you murmur. “That’s for you. All for you.”

He lets out a strangled sound, nearly pained, and surges up to kiss you again. His fingers start to stroke through your heat, finding the rhythm, learning you. When his thumb grazes your clit and starts to circle, you gasp, hips jerking into his touch.

“Shit, baby…” he breathes.   

And that word—

It’s soft. Unconscious. Slipped out before he knew it was there.

You don’t think he even realizes he said it. His eyes are blown wide, focused only on you: the way your hips grind, the way you cling to him when his fingers push deeper.

Still, there’s that tremble in his voice.

Like that word came from somewhere deeper than he meant to reach. Like it cracked off the part of him that’s always waiting to be turned away but still dares to offer softness first.

You roll your hips again, chasing friction, but your focus has shifted now. You’re watching him instead—flushed and open beneath you, mouth parted, eyes locked to your face like you’re something he’s trying to memorize.

And it guts you. The honesty of it.

How easy it is to see now.     

That this is someone who aches for closeness. Reaches for it before he even realizes he’s doing it. Who says baby like it’s the only word he knows for want. 

Your chest grows tight. The heat in your stomach twists into something unbearably tender.

You roll your hips one last time, savoring the drag of him against you, then shift off his lap. His hand slips from your shorts, reluctant, trailing warmth up your stomach.

His eyes follow you as you slide to the floor. Your knees sinking into the carpet, fingers hooking in the waistband of his pants. He lifts his hips and—

You blink. Your mouth goes dry.

Because he’s—

Wow. Okay.

Noted.

It’s not just the size—though, yeah, that’s definitely part of it. It’s the weight of him. The flushed color, the dusky warmth. Velvety skin stretched tight over thick veins. The way he sits heavy against his thigh, curved just slightly, leaking at the tip and twitching under your gaze.

You swallow hard.

“What?” He stirs, uncertain. “Is something…?”

You look up at him, eyes wide.   

“Jesus, Steve…” you breathe. “Just. Holy shit.”

His brows pinch together, concern flickering across his face—until he sees your expression.

And there it is.

That grin. That stupid, boyish, shit-eating grin.

“Oh,” he says, trying to play it off. “Yeah?”

You narrow your eyes, desperately trying to hide your smile. “Don’t get cocky.”

He raises a brow.  

You realize your mistake immediately. Your cheeks flare hot.

He laughs, breathless. Looks down at you all soft and pleased and fond. It makes you want to bite him until he forgets how to smirk entirely. Kiss him stupid and never let him go.

“Shut up,” you mutter.

“Didn’t say anything,” he says, still smiling.

You roll your eyes and yank his pants the rest of the way down.

He quiets instantly.

Because your hands are on him now.

You stroke his thighs first, warming up the sensitive skin there. Pressing soft kisses along the inside, inching higher and higher until he’s twitching under your mouth.

“You’re so pretty like this,” you whisper. “You don’t even know, do you?”

He makes a strangled sound, part laugh, part disbelieving groan. His hands flex where they rest against his thighs.

You reach up and guide one to your hair, eyes still on his.

“You can touch me,” you murmur.      

His fingers curl, tentative. “You sure?”

You nod. “I want you to. Want you to feel this.”

Then, without looking away, you lower your mouth to him.

Slow. Wet. Base to tip, dragging your tongue along the underside. He jerks, whole body going taut.  

“Jesus,” he hisses. “Okay. Okay.”

You take your time. Because no one ever has, it seems. Not like this.  

Your fingers wrap around the base, tongue gliding along the ridge, licking the salt beading at the tip. Every twitch, every shudder, every wrecked baby whispered from above becomes something you file away silently, cataloguing the way he unravels.

And Steve unravels beautifully.

You glance up through your lashes, watching the way his stomach trembles, how his throat works. All the control he’s trying so hard to hold on to.

Then finally, you wrap your lips around him.

Just the head at first, sucking slow and sweet. You circle your tongue around the crown and let out a soft hum.

“Fuck,” he whispers. “Baby, your mouth—shit—”

His voice keeps catching like he doesn’t quite believe it. You get the sense he hasn’t been cherished in this way, either. Adored. Worshipped.

So you double down.

You ease off for a breath, kissing the flushed tip, thumb gliding over the sensitive skin there. Then you sink deeper, lips sliding lower, jaw loosening, tongue tracing the underside as you stretch around the thickest part of him.  

You keep going until he’s pressed up against your palate, brushing the back of your throat. You breathe into it. Let the weight of him sit there, hot and thick and yours.

“Shit, shit—” he pants. “I’m not—not gonna last if you keep—"

You pull off with a soft pop, lips slick and swollen. A line of spit follows you from the flushed head of his cock.

“It’s okay,” you smile, breath warm against his skin. “Don’t have to. Just want you to feel good.”

He stares down at you, cheeks flushed, eyes glassy.

Then, suddenly, breathless and earnest:

“Wait, can I—can I get you off first?” 

You pause, stunned.  

You blink up at him, hand still wrapped around the base of his cock. “You don’t have to—”

“I want to,” he says, quick and pleading. He cups your jaw, stroking your cheek. “Please. Let me?”

You hold his gaze a moment longer, drowning in that quiet, unspoken vulnerability he carries, one you’re learning to name without words.

Then, finally, you nod.

“Okay.”

You crawl back into his lap, shorts discarded somewhere behind you, it doesn’t matter where.

What matters is the way his hands settle on you again, calloused palms sliding around your hips, drawing you closer. You feel the thick heat of him pressed between your thighs, sticky and flushed and aching.

You roll your hips teasingly, gliding against him before reaching down to line him up. The head of his cock nudges, presses, catches. Then slowly, inch by inch, you sink down.

The stretch is immediate. Hot and all-consuming. You clutch at his shoulders, mouth falling open as you let your weight sink deeper, not pausing until he’s fully seated.

Your thighs tremble where you straddle him.

Steve groans low, one arm tight around your waist, the other gripping your hip.

“Shit, are you—?”

“I’m okay,” you breathe, laughing softly into his skin. “Just… gimme a sec. You’re kind of a lot, Harrington.”  

He kisses you, rubbing circles into your back while you adjust. The burn softens. The fullness remains.

And when you start to move—lifting your hips, rolling them back down—you feel him everywhere.

“God,” you pant, “you feel so good.”

You kiss his jaw, his throat, burying whispers between breaths.

“Can feel you so deep—fuck—”  

The rhythm builds slowly. Wide circles, deep grinds, savoring the way his cock hits just right.

And the more you give him—You feel so good, Fucking me so well, Low how you feel inside me—he melts a little more beneath you.

“Shit, right there—” you gasp, hips stuttering when his hand slides between your bodies, pressing into your clit.

“Come for me,” he whispers, voice rough. “Please. Want to feel you.”

His fingers circle faster.  

And your body breaks.

You cry out, nails digging into his shoulders, every muscle clenched and trembling as the orgasm crashes through you. You collapse against his chest, shaking, gasping his name, everything hot and white and so much.     

He holds you through it, breathing hard against your temple.

“That’s it,” he pants. “That’s it, baby, I’ve got you—fuck—”

You’re still trembling in his lap when you feel him thrust up into you once, twice. He pulls out with a sudden gasp, groaning your name, spilling hot and thick across your stomach, shuddering with the force of it.

You kiss him through the haze of your own come-down, legs still trembling, fingers tangled in the sweat-damp hair at his nape.

“Just like that,” you whisper. “You’re perfect like this, Steve. So good.”

His breath stutters against your cheek. His body, still pulsing with aftershocks, presses into yours like he can’t stand the space between.

And even after the world goes still, after the stuttered breaths give way to silence and the hum of the TV creeps back in, you keep touching him. Stroking his hair, brushing sweat from his brow, pressing soft, open-mouthed kisses anywhere your mouth can reach.

And in the hush that follows, you murmur things you’ve never said aloud. Not to anyone.

Things too raw for daylight.

Things meant only for him. … You never ask him to stay.

Not when he wakes beside you the next morning, bare-chested, sleep-warm, hair sticking up in a dozen directions. Not when he wanders into your kitchen wearing nothing but rumpled boxers, whisking eggs for French toast like it’s an inside joke you’ve shared forever.

Not when you start leaving the sugar bowl out because that’s how he takes his coffee: one teaspoon, no milk. Not when you slip a second toothbrush into the cup by the sink, bristles leaning together like they’ve been kissing too.  

He never asks. You never offer. … You learn the little things first.

That he hums when he cooks, usually something dumb from the radio, sometimes dumber jingles from the worst commercials. That he wipes down your counters when he thinks you’re not looking. That he folds your laundry better than you do, big hands careful with worn-out cotton and delicate lace. It gets to you, the way he touches your things like they matter.

And sometimes, you catch him staring again.

Only now, you don’t look away.  

You’ll be across the room, pretending to read, eyes dragging over the same sentence for the fifth time because you can feel his gaze on you. He’ll be leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed, wearing that stupid smug expression he pulls when he knows exactly what he’s doing.

“Seriously, Harrington,” you mutter, eyes on the page. “Take a picture.”

He doesn’t blink. “I’m good. Like this view better."

You roll your eyes and throw a sock at his face. He catches it one-handed, smug.

Then he moves.

Three steps. That’s all it takes.

Three steps until your back’s against the mattress, his weight pressing you down, mouth dragging hot across your collarbone. His hands sneak under your shirt, warm palms sliding up your ribs. His lips chase yours like it’s a promise he’s been dying to keep.

“You’re annoying,” you whisper, breath hitching as he nips at your neck.

He grins into your skin. “Yeah? You gonna kick me out, then?”

You don’t.

You kind of never do. … The days bleed together after that.  

A quick stop at his house to grab spare clothes turns into a silent pause in front of his dresser. His fingers hover over a framed photo: faces you don’t know, smiles frozen mid-laugh.

He doesn’t explain. You don’t ask. You just wait by the door until he turns and threads his fingers through yours.

He doesn’t let go the whole ride back.

A grocery run on day three turns into a dumb argument in the pasta aisle. You’re ranting about canned tomatoes; he’s trailing behind you like a sulking toddler, forearms slung across the cart handle, sneaking cookies into the basket when you’re not looking.

You scowl at checkout. He grins.

“You’re gonna thank me later,” he says.

You do.

First with a mouthful of chocolate and a grudging laugh.

Then again, ten minutes later, when your 'thank-you's come in the shape of his name and a fistful of his hair between your thighs. … Eventually, the domestic stops feeling borrowed.

It starts to feel owned.  

You vacuum, he sweeps. You cook, he washes up. He steals bites of dinner while it’s still sizzling and you smack him with a spatula, pretending to be mad.

He says, “Ow,” even when it doesn’t hurt. You say, “Asshole,” even when it’s not true.

On the fourth night, you both sit cross-legged on the living room floor, scrubbing blood out of the couch cushions with baking soda and half-assed prayers.

He’s watching you. Again.   

You glance up. "What?"

He shrugs, smiling a little. “Nothing.”

“Steve.”

“I just…” He hesitates. Looks down. “I like this.”

You raise a brow. “Cleaning your blood out of my furniture?”

He shuffles forward, bringing his cushion closer to yours.

“Yeah,” he says.

But it’s not what he means.

You both know that. … The sex changes, too.

In the mornings, it’s quiet. Slow. All languid stretches and sleep-warm skin, coaxing sighs from your lips as the sun peeks through the blinds.

But at night? He’s something else entirely.

He fucks you like he needs it to survive. Like you’re his last breath. Gripping your thighs, your hips—holding you open, holding you still, driving into you like he’s trying to memorize the shape of you forever.

And as the bruises fade, so does his hesitation. 

He knows you now.

Knows what makes you beg, what makes you break. Where to bite, where to suck, where to press until your voice is raw and your nails leave crescent moons down his spine.

One night, he pins your wrists above your head, breath ragged.

“Say it,” he murmurs, grinding deep. “Tell me who makes you feel like this.”

You break on his name.

He swallows the sound with his mouth and doesn’t stop until your thighs are shaking.

And afterward, he stays.

Inside you. Around you.

He never pulls away first. … Not all nights are easy.

Some nights, you wake alone.

You find him in the kitchen, framed by the glow of the open fridge. The light catches the tired slope of his shoulders, the untouched glass of water going warm in his hand.    

You don’t ask. Just step in behind him, press your cheek between his shoulder blades, and wrap your arms tight around his waist.

He breathes out. Sets the glass down. Closes the fridge.

When he turns, he doesn’t speak. Just lets you hold him.

Lets you guide him back to bed. … Your mornings are different now.  

You wake in shirts that smell like him. Brush your teeth while he showers, fog curling across the mirror. He laughs at something stupid from behind the curtain, and you laugh back, still half-asleep.

It all happens so slowly you almost miss it.

The toothbrush that isn’t yours. The second pillow with its permanent dent. The pair of shoes you stop tripping over by the door because you’ve learned to walk around them.

He’s etched himself into your life in the smallest of ways. Fit through the cracks with warm hands and boyish grins and quiet looks in the daylight.

Like maybe he was meant to be here all along. … Somewhere between day seven and eight, you stop keeping count. 

Because every morning, you tell yourself he’ll probably leave soon.

And every night, he gives you another reason to believe he won’t. … Like tonight.

You’re wrapped around each other, skin still damp with heat, covers shoved somewhere near the foot of the bed. His hand rests on your back, fingers splayed. Yours curls against his chest, cheek pressed to the slow, steady rhythm behind his ribs.

It would be so easy to stay here.

To let the quiet stretch. To pretend the heaviness in your chest is just exhaustion, not the weight you've been carrying since the night you dragged his bleeding body across your living room. Since you sat awake beside him, watching every shallow breath, waiting for the next one to come.

But the question’s been sitting on your chest for days now. And with the weight of him beside you, it presses too hard to ignore.

“Why’d you do it?”

He doesn’t answer right away, and you wonder if he’s already fallen asleep. But then his chest rises under your cheek—a careful, deliberate breath.

“…Do what?”  

“The lake,” you murmur. “You jumped in first. Why?”

He’s quiet for a beat too long. You glance up to find the tight underside of his jaw, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

“I don’t know,” he sighs, dragging a hand through his hair. “Someone had to go. And I was the best swimmer, so. Didn’t really have to think about it.”

And you believe him. It’s the part that hurts the most.

That he didn’t have to think. That throwing himself in came as naturally as breathing.

Because somewhere along the way, Steve Harrington decided that his pain was worth less than everyone else's.

You shift closer, hooking your chin on his shoulder. His thumb draws slow, thoughtful circles against your spine.

“Steve,” you say quietly. “You know it’s not about being a hero, right? You don’t have to keep throwing yourself in front of everything just to prove yourself.”

His hand stills.

“I’m not.”  

“Not what?”

“A hero. I’m not.” He lets out a bitter huff, eyes looking at something past the ceiling. “I was… just kind of a selfish asshole for a long time. Didn’t care about much. Or anyone. And even after I tried to fix it, it just—it never felt like enough. Still doesn’t.”

You watch him, the weight of his words like pressing down on a bruise.

“So what, you jump into lakes now to make up for it?”

He almost smiles. “Kinda. Yeah.”

Then, quieter:

“I don’t know, it’s like, if I’m not the one stepping up, then… what’s the point, you know? What the hell am I even good for?”

Your heart aches. Because god, how long has he carried that? How many times has he thrown himself in just to keep from drowning?

You see it then, the fracture that runs through him. Spiderwebbed across everything he is, everything he was. A wound so old it’s fused to him. Clotted over, never cleaned.  

The weight he carries isn’t something he puts on; it’s something that grew with him.

Years of being told he wasn’t enough. Not smart enough. Not serious enough. Just the boy with the car, the smile, the house too big for how small it made him feel. 

That kind of doubt doesn’t heal. It burrows deep.

Sinks its teeth in. Festers.   

Until guilt turns into remorse,

Remorse turns into habit,

And habit drags on as penance.

So he made himself useful.

Built his worth out of protection. Of stepping up, stepping in, taking the hit before anyone else could.

Diving first. Bleeding first.

Hurt first. Hurt worst. Hurt instead.

That’s where his value lives. Not in being loved, but in being needed.

You lift yourself up until you're eye to eye, cupping his face, thumbs brushing the tops of his cheeks.  

“You’re for you, Steve.” 

He blinks, brows knitting.

“You don’t have to earn it. Being loved. Being cared for. That’s not something you have to prove.”

His eyes search yours, like he’s trying to make sense of the words.

Then, slowly, his shoulders ease. He cups the back of your neck, drawing you in. His exhale against your lips sounds like a weight being untethered.

You stay like that for a while, breathing together, fingers laced at his chest.

Eventually, he sleeps.

You don’t.

You stay awake, tracing the lines of his face in the dark. The peace that sleep gives him. The stillness that never lasts.   

You watch as his brow smooths. As his lips part. As his lashes flutter once, then settle into stillness.

You stay up.  

Because someone has to. … You get used to the quiet.

Used to Steve padding around the house in socks, humming half a tune under his breath.

To the way he opens every cupboard before finding the cereal that’s been in the same spot for days.

To the way he claims half your couch, half your bed, half your toothpaste.

You get used to someone else’s heartbeat in your space.

So when the knocking starts—three sharp raps that rattle the wood—it takes you both by surprise.

Steve’s already halfway to the door when you follow, tugging your sweatshirt over your head.

You’ve barely turned the knob before the door bursts open.

“Guess who’s officially un-grounded and here to collect her idiot boy? Oh, and look—I brought backup!”

Robin barrels in first, followed by two figures: a curly-haired kid drowning in a bright yellow baseball cap, and behind him, a taller shape in black denim and leather. Eddie Munson, wearing that same smug grin you remember vaguely from high school.

You’ve heard about them, of course—Steve’s strange little apocalypse crew—but hearing about it is one thing, seeing it is another.

“He’s alive!” Robin crows, flinging her arms around Steve.

“Took you long enough,” he mutters into her shoulder.

“Uh, excuse me. Your fault,” she shoots back, jabbing a finger in his chest. “Grounded, remember?” Then she turns to you, eyes sharp with curiosity. “So? How much trouble was he?”   

You glance over at Steve. He’s already looking back, mouth tugging at the corner like he’s daring you to say something first. There’s a kaleidoscope of memory that flashes between you in the space of a blink.

You look back at Robin and shrug, casual as ever. “Not much. He folds my laundry now.”

Robin gasps. Eddie lets out a low whistle.

“Well, shit,” he drawls. “Steve Harrington, domesticated. Didn’t think I’d live to see the day.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “You guys are hilarious.”

But his ears are pink by the time you close the door. …

After a round of burnt grilled cheeses, the kitchen’s a mess of crumbs and chatter.

Robin perches on a stool, slurping tomato soup straight from the pot. Eddie’s straddling a chair backwards, drumming on the counter. Dustin paces, orchestrating what sounds like a full-scale military operation using a butter knife and a salt shaker. 

“—I’m saying if we shift the rendezvous point closer to the treeline, we can cut our response time in half. Minimum.”

Steve leans against the fridge, nodding like he’s catching every third word.

You’re at the sink, rinsing dishes, the voices behind you fading into a comfortable hum—until Dustin steps in beside you, tone low and careful.

“So… he’s okay to come back now, right?

You glance over your shoulder.

Steve’s got his shirt hiked up for Robin and Eddie to see, scars catching the kitchen light—pale and raised, still tender from where you pulled out the last stitch two days ago. Robin wrinkles her nose, groaning about how she's lost her appetite.

You turn back to Dustin. “I mean, no fever, no infection. Doesn’t seem to be actively dying. So yeah, I’d say he’s good.”

Dustin beams. “Awesome.”

You hesitate. Then, before you can stop yourself:

“Actually… I was thinking I could come with you guys this time.”

The room goes still.

Robin lowers her spoon. Eddie looks up. Even the sink seems to hush.

Steve’s voice breaks the quiet.

“No.”

You turn, incredulous. “Excuse me?”

“No way,” he says, pushing off the fridge, crossing the kitchen with that particular brand of determined worry you’ve come to recognize. “You’re not going.”

You blink at him like, Seriously?

He raises his brows like, Try me. 

You sigh, turning off the water. “I wouldn’t be going in. Just close enough to help. You know, in case someone ends up bleeding to death again?” You shoot him a pointed look.

He ignores it, jaw working like he’s gearing up to argue again. But Dustin cuts in.

“Wait, that’s actually kind of genius,” he mutters thoughtfully. “You could be our medic. Like—Eddie, dude, she could be like our cleric!”

You frown. “Our what now?”

“D&D thing,” Eddie smirks. “Healing spells. Keeps the rest of us idiots alive.”

You laugh softly. “Sure. Okay. Cleric.”

But Steve isn’t laughing.

“Wait, just—hang on,” he steps forward, catching your wrist. “Can I talk to you for a second?” … The hallway is narrow and dim, lit only by the slant of light spilling in from the kitchen.

You lean against the wall, arms crossed, watching him pace three slow steps before stopping, running both hands through his hair.      

He doesn’t look at you. Doesn’t speak.

You wait.

Finally, quietly: “You can’t come with us.”

You narrow your eyes. “You’re not the boss of me.”

“I mean it.” His voice is low. Firm. But it’s not angry. Not that sharp, flinty tone you remember from high school, when he used to wield confidence like armor. No, this is something else.

Fear.

You tilt your head, voice softening. “Steve…”

He exhales through his nose, more of a tremor than a breath. “You heard what it’s like down there. You saw what happened last time.”

“I did. That’s why I’ve decided to go.”

His eyes snap to yours, incredulous. “And you didn’t think to talk to me about it before?”

“Why? So you could freak out and tell me no?”

“I’m not—” He cuts himself off, jaw flexing. “I just can’t ask you to risk that. It’s not fair.”

“You’re not asking,” you say quietly. “I’m offering.” 

For a moment, neither of you moves. He stares at you like he’s searching for something—some argument, some loophole that’ll make you stay here while he walks back into hell. Like if he keep fighting back, maybe he won’t have to admit what this really is.

But when he speaks, his voice isn’t tense anymore. It just trembles.  

“I can’t—I can’t lose you in there. You get that? I can’t. I just…” His eyes flicker away, toward the shadowed doorway behind you. He swallows hard.

“...I just got you.”

The quiet stretches. You gaze at him, heart heavy.

His shoulders are tense when you reach for his hand. His fingers twitch in yours, like he’s ready to pull away—but he doesn’t. He never does.

“Steve,” you start gently. “I know you’re scared. I am too. But I can’t just sit here and wait while you...” you take a breath, squeezing his hand. “If there’s a chance I can help, I’m taking it.”   

He looks down at your joined hands, your fingers laced tight. His thumb drags slow, absent circles against your skin—once, twice, like he’s trying to memorize the feel of it. The fight drains out of him with a sigh that sounds too big for his chest.

He steps forward wordlessly, and pulls you into his arms. His chin drops to the top of your head. You press your cheek to his chest, feeling the wild rhythm of his heart start to slow.

“Fine,” he murmurs. “But you’re staying up here. Radio only. And you’re not going anywhere near the gate, you hear me?”

You smile into his shirt. “Deal.” … It’s almost 3 p.m. when he stirs.

The sunlight’s lazy this time of day, all thick and golden, caught in the slow spin of dust motes above the coffee table. The air smells like coffee and the lavender candle you lit this morning. You’re curled sideways on the couch, a book open but long forgotten on your chest.

“Jesus,” comes a voice beside you, rough with sleep. “How long was I out?”

You smile, already watching. “Couple hours.”  

He squints at the light. “You let me nap that long?”

“You needed it.”

Steve rolls up from where he was buried in the couch, a soft pillow line stamped across his cheek. His hair’s flattened on one side and sticking up in the back. You reach out and comb your fingers through the mess. It fluffs up worse for it, but he sighs and leans into your hand anyway.

He trades the throw pillow for your stomach, draping a heavy arm across your waist. You rest your palm on his shoulder, thumb tracing the ridge of his collarbone.

The house hums around you: the low buzz of the fridge, the steady tick of the clock, the soft creak of settling wood. It’s a silence that no longer feels hollow.

You let it breathe.  

It’s been three weeks.

Three weeks since you stood on the other side of a collapsing gate, heart in your throat, waiting for their silhouettes to break through the mist. 

Three weeks since the air finally stilled, the ground stopped shaking, and the last portal sealed itself shut behind Eddie, behind Robin, behind all of them.

Three weeks since you checked every pulse, cleaned every wound, counted every head, and realized, miraculously, that no one was missing.

That everyone made it out. Alive. Together.

Three weeks since Steve stumbled out of the wreckage and into your arms and didn’t let go.

The bruises have faded since then. The stitches dissolved. The nightmares are fewer now, further between.   

And Steve hasn’t left. Not once.

You're not sure when it stopped being temporary. When duffel bags became dresser drawers, when his shaving cream started living on your bathroom counter, next to the ceramic dish that holds your rings. When the dent in your couch, the dip in your pillow, stopped feeling like borrowed space and started feeling like home.

He still has his edges, the instinct to fix, to shield, to throw himself in front of the next disaster before it happens. But you’ve learned how to slow him down. To be the hand that pulls him back before he burns himself out.

And he’s learning to let you.

You’re halfway lost in that thought when he pokes your side.

“Hey,” he murmurs. “You okay?”

You hum. “Just thinking.”

“Uh oh,” he teases, voice still scratchy with sleep.

You smile, ruffling his hair. He groans and nips playfully at your stomach. When your laughter settles, you say it, quietly:

“I was just… thinking about what you said.”

He stills, blinking up at you. “Yeah? What’d I say now?”

“At the gate.”

That’s all you have to say. You both remember.

The roar, the smoke, the sting of blood and dirt. The ground giving out beneath you when he finally made it out—only to tell you he had to go back. One last time. To help the others out. To step into the jaws of a place that wanted to claim him for good.

I know! I know! Just—I need to tell you something. No, I know, just listen—

You remember the chaos closing in, the sky fractured by fire and screaming metal, and his hands—steady, impossibly steady—as he caught your face. His voice cracking on the words:

I love you. I need you to know that, okay? I love you.

You stare at the book laying on your chest, swallowing hard. “I never said it back.”

Steve looks at you for a long moment.

Then, softly: “Yeah, you did.”

“When?”

He smiles, tracing a quiet pattern along your waist.

“Not out loud. But you did.”

You think back.

To the tremor in your hands as you let his fingers slip away. The hitch in your breath when the walkie crackled with his voice. To how tightly you held on when he staggered out with the others, bruised and shaking and breathing, and realized you could finally breathe too.

Every heartbeat since has felt like a promise.

Maybe words would’ve failed then. Maybe he heard it in all the ways you refused to let go.

Your fingers find his jaw.

“Still,” you whisper. “I want to say it now.”

He tilts his head, waiting.

And you do.

Softly, firmly, the words falling easy like they’d been waiting inside you all along.

And when he says it back, you feel it in your chest long before you hear it. … The house is still too small. The front door still sticks when it rains. The couch still carries the faint stain from that first night.

But it’s home.

More than it ever was. More than it ever could’ve been without him.

The proof is everywhere: his Ray-Bans next to your keys, a battered boombox on your plant windowsill, the Polaroid Robin took where he’s smiling at you instead of the camera.

Some nights still weigh heavy on him. When even rest won’t stay kind.

But on those nights, he finds you. He always will.

And somewhere between the grocery runs and movie marathons, between loud songs in the kitchen and quiet kisses before bed, it stopped feeling like borrowed time.

It’s just time, now.

Yours.

Together. … Robin once told you that you get off on fixing people.

She meant hearts. You meant bones.

Maybe she was right.  

But maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

You've named it something else now, anyway. …

epilogue

You stretch, set the book aside, and head for the kitchen.

You’ve got prep to do for night.

Steve moves in behind you, hair still rumpled, sleeves pushed to his elbows. He leans his hip against the counter, flipping through the Player’s Handbook Dustin left last week, brow furrowed like he’s cramming for a test.

“I swear,” he mutters, squinting, “you need a math degree to play this game.”

You laugh, laying a neat row of apple slices beside a bowl of pretzel sticks and M&Ms—fuel for the chaos to come. “You’ll live.”

“Not if Eddie's dragon eats me.”

“Well, maybe you should listen to your cleric tonight, then.”

He grins, stealing a slice from the tray, then slides closer until he’s flush against you. His hips trap you against the counter, chest warm against your back. He leans into the crook of your neck, lips grazing your ear.

“You know it's kinda hot when you boss me around, right?”

Before you can roll your eyes, he catches you by the hips and spins you around, grin breaking wide and easy. You love how it softens his face, how it creases the corners of his eyes.

Soon, the party will be here—arms full of sodas, dice clattering in boxes, voices overlapping in familiar chaos. The house will fill with laughter, with the easy rhythm of shared lives.

But for now, it’s just him.

Rumpled hair. Soft smile. Apple-sweet kisses and the honey-gold hush of afternoon light. And the sun keeps pouring in.   

it was y/n who took the courage to say something. “eth… do you want my lunch? i know you love my sandwiches.” she said, seeing as he hadn’t taken one bite from his food.

ethan finally looked up from his plate and sent her a small smile, “no, thanks y/n/n. i don’t think i’ll be able to digest anything.”

the rest of the group was shocked. the reason why no one spoke to ethan before a match was because his mood hung from a thread, and any unfortunate comment made him snap.

with y/n, he was like a puppy. looked at her with soft eyes and would rather bite his tongue than bark at her.

“you’ll do amazing, eth.” she squeezed his hand.

“the rival team is really good…”

“and so is our team.” she said confidently. “look, you haven’t lost a game all season.”

“yet.” ethan added.

“there’s nothing wrong with losing sometimes. it happens, you’re good, but you’re not robots, okay? what’s important is what you do after that. do you sit and just wallow? or do you go through what you did wrong and try to make it better?”

ethan finally cracked a genuine smile. “have you ever thought about being a coach?”

y/n made a horrified face “god, no. i adore you, but dealing with more than one hockey player? i’d rather be burned alive.”

“fair enough.” he laughed and then he opened his arms to hug her. “thank you, y/n/n. you’re amazing, did you know that?” he said in awe, and her heart stuttered.

the group exchanged glances once again, they all wondered the same thing; when were those two finally going to admit their crush on each other?

“it’s nothing. feel better?” she asked softly.

“much.” ethan squeezed her tighter. “i guess i should head to training. i’ll see you all tonight.”

“and get some rest!” he heard y/n yell behind him as he walked away. he wasn’t able to stop smiling all the way to the field.

ethan’s optimistic and confident self surprised the whole team. usually, he was ripping his hair out before games. today, he spoke encouraging words and acted all smiley.

“okay. i’m just gonna say it, what is wrong with you today?” one of his teammates asked.

“nothing. i just have a good feeling about today.” ethan shrugged.

“does this confidence come from your little talk with y/n today?” chad asked

“she’s just good with words, you know?” he said, not noticing how dreamy his voice sounded. the team exchanged smirks.

“we are always trying to build up your confidence and you just roll your eyes.” his teammate said, completely offended.

“do you have a sweet soft voice, a stunning smile and give incredible hugs?” ethan asked.

his friend scoffed “yes, in fact, i do.” and ethan rolled his eyes. “i do! the only difference is that i’m not the one you’re smitten with.”

“i’m not smitten with y/n!”

“oh please, you have a crush the size of the football field.”

“i don’t!” ethan got defensive.

“landry! there’s a girl asking for you outside. i think her name was y/n” the coach said

ethan squealed and his friend gave him the look. “oh, shut up” the quarterback spat harshly before making his way to the hallway, heart pounding madly.

ethan smiled widely when he saw her standing there wearing his jersey. “hey.”

“hi, eth. sorry if i interrupted your pre-game routine.”

he shook his head, unable to erase his smile “you just made it better.”

y/n put her hands in her pockets and balanced on her feet, nervous. “i wanted to see how you were doing. you seemed extra stressed today.”

his heart melted. “i’m okay now. talking to you really helped me.”

“i’m glad i helped. and everything i said, i really meant it. you’re amazing, in and out of the field. we all trust you, no matter the outcome. that’s why we chose you as our friend, and why the coach named you captain. you need to trust yourself as much as we all trust you.”

“well, if my personal cheerleader has so much faith in me i should too.” he joked.

y/n laughed. “okay, i see you’re doing good so i should go back with the rest.”

“thank you for checking on me. i appreciate that.” he said softly, pulling her into a hug.

“good luck, eth.” she said, and without thinking, she pressed her lips against his cheek for a kiss.

both of them took a step back from each other, completely taken aback by the action. blood rushed into their cheeks, turning them scarlet.

“you missed.” ethan blurted out. y/n’s eyes widened a bit, before she started laughing. “and you’re laughing at me. great.”

“i’m sorry.“ she said, once her laughter subsided. “let me try again.”

and then their lips moulded together in an awaited kiss. “mm i think i can miss this game.” he said between kisses.

“i’m sure the coach can let you miss a game for a make out session.” she said sarcastically

“well, winning you is like winning the super bowl. he might get it.” he smirked.

“flirt.” y/n pecked his lips. “i’ll see you after the game. wanna chill at my house?”

You had been sluggishly fighting against his persistent grip on you, yet once you heard him speak, a loud gasp of shock escaped you, and your body stiffened under his. The way you tensed up made your back arch and your ass stick out even more. His focus shifted to your half-clad bottom, which was hovering only inches from his face. The drenched fabric of your panties had somehow stuck to the side, teasing him - torturing him - with that mouthwavering sight of you. 

Oh, what a struggle it was for him to refrain from seeking your heat again and then shoving himself inside you, once and for all. He was shivering with restraint while proceeding to keep you pinned to the mattress. He wasn't sure how much longer he could hold himself back, though.

He wanted you to know who he was before he finally and thoroughly claimed you as his. His pride somehow exceeded his yearning.

"B-Brahms...?" You hesitantly whispered his name, hoping to catch a glimpse of him behind your shoulder. You could only make out a dark silhouette in your peripheral vision, for both the darkness of the room and his tight clasp prevented you from seeing anything else. "How-? W-what?"

Your voice was a little louder this time, and you sounded sharper. He also noticed with satisfaction that you were now remaining still under his hold. That was good. It would make things easier. He'd prefer not to fight you, not to force you... But if you were to refuse him... He would not hold back... He couldn't...

"You don't have to be alone anymore in this big, scary house." 

He made sure to stress out the last words, the same ones you used when you had confided your wish to the doll. He wanted you to understand… That wicked side of him wanted you to realise that he had always been there, watching you, listening in on you... That you have never truly been alone.

"Aren't you happy?"

He couldn't hide the impatience in his voice. His palm pressed harder onto your spine, imperceptibly rubbing up and down, seeking your touch. He found himself edging closer to you, his mask nearly touching your asscheek, his other hand ready to commit another despicable sin, the worst one yet.

“Let me see you? Please?"

He stopped in his tracks, momentarily stunned by your words.

You had asked so sweetly, your voice such a gentle caress to his ears, how could he have declined your request? After all, he had longed to have those gorgeous eyes of yours fall on him, finally seeing him, since the first day. And what would have been better than having you looking at him as he ravished you? Watching lust twist your features, the pleasure - he was igniting in you - flooding your lovely eyes. A shuddering breath escaped his lips as the vivid image arose in his mind, aggravating the torture.

Brahms loosened his grip, allowing you to turn around and lie on your back. As soon as your eyes met his, you let out another loud gasp. His gut flipped at the way your wide eyes flitted across his mask, chest, thighs, taking him all in.

You saw him. You were looking at him. Ah, what a dream... What a dream come true...

He wondered what was going through your pretty little head. How did it make you feel to know that the kid's voice you've occasionally heard reverberating through the mansion over the past few weeks hadn't come from a possessed doll or an imprisoned spirit... But from him. Your Brahms, in flesh and blood.

“B-Brahms…”

The way you tentatively called his name while looking up at him like a deer in the headlights was pure bliss.

He nodded enthusiastically in response and drew closer to you. His gaze flickered from your face to your hand, which he noticed slowly reaching up in his direction. He jerked back instantly out of reflex, frightened like a beaten dog meeting a loving hand for the first time, but as soon as he realized there was no threat in your intentions, he leaned back in and allowed you to touch his mask. Oh, how he yearned to feel your soft palm caressing his wounded cheek... to feel your gentle touch skin on skin… But that would have to be enough for the moment.

Now that he had your full attention. Now that you knew who he was and that no harm would come from him… with your eyes staring up at him with such awe and wonder… 

He couldn't wait any longer. 

His hand eagerly slipped between your thighs, fingers greedily seeking your heat. He caught with utmost satisfaction the way your eyes widened again, your lips parting to let out a shocked cry; you looked so adorable… so desirable… so vulnerable…

He kept his ever-attentive gaze fixed on you, desperate to catch your every reaction, as he stroked your wet folds and teased your entrance.

“W-what are you… Ah!~”

A tremor pierced him as he felt your body tremble so sharply when he easily entered you, triggering a loud whine from you as he drove his fingers deep into your walls.

His breathing was extremely shallow, and he could see your chest raise and fall as you began panting as well; the sight only served to add fuel to his burning desire, leaving him eager to make you cry and shiver just like that over and over again. 

His movement against you was firm but frantic, fueled by his long-repressed need, which was causing him to shudder and whimper as he fingered you. He had no idea what he was doing, but your moans and squeals were guiding and urging him to keep hitting that spongy spot deep inside you which seemed to make you scream the loudest.

“N-no… W-w-wait…”

Your hands shakily reached down to seize his and halt his actions, but he quickly grasped your wrists and pinned them both on your belly, holding them down with one palm while continuining on driving his fingers back and forth, unrelentingly, into you. He could tell you liked it, the lewd sounds you were making told him as much. He knew his actions were pleasing you. Your cunt was so wet, and your walls welcomed his long fingers with such hunger, swallowing them fully with each push.

How would it feel to sink inside you? To have your tight, spongy walls suck and squeeze his cock dry? Would his cum leak back out? It always did when he used his doll, the one he had turned to look just like you… He constantly had to push his fluids back inside the hole…

“Brahms... S-stop… Ah!”

Your broken whimpers sounded so cute. You were so cute. What were you asking of him? Certainly not to stop. Not that he would or could. The feeling of making you squirm under his touch was intoxicating, a feeling he had just discovered and yet couldn't get enough of. He had already grown addicted. The sight of you laying there completely vulnerable, completely his, was filling him with such a rush of euphoria. 

He released your wrists, disregarding the way you immediately but weakly started tugging at his hand again in protest. Instead, he reached down to his trousers, letting out a deep guttural grunt when he felt the dampness of the material, soaked with his seed. Leaked precum? Or did he burst into his pants without even realising? It didn't matter. His cock was hard and throbbing when he grabbed it, ready to slip out of the restraining cloth and finally sink inside you… He couldn’t wait, oh no, he couldn’t wait anymore-

“I said stop!” 

His entire body shuddered violently, and his senses suddenly sharpened as if he had just awoken from a trance. Both his hands abruptly came to a halt.

He wasn't sure if he was shaking more from the thrill your imposing tone caused in him or the excruciating hunger that was gnawing at him, demanding to be satiated. Possibly both combined given the intensity of the tension that had taken hold of his body.

Brahms stared at you with bated breath and childish fear, like a misbhehaving boy caught in the act of some deplorable deeds by his strict mother. He didn't dare to make a sound nor move an inch as he waited to be scolded.

A strange glint passed your eyes, one that he could barely catch, let alone decipher. However, your entire demeanour seemed to alter abruptly in response to his reaction.

"What do you think you're doing?"

He gasped. A flood of dread shook his entire being and made his stomach churn upon hearing your stern tone. Did he upset you? Were you angry at him? He couldn't bear it. Oh no… He only wished to please you... Only ever wished to please you...

"What were you doing, mh?" 

Brahms vehemently shook his head, his panicked gaze glued on your hard look. 

“Brahms.”

Your commanding tone made him shudder again. He cowered, crouching down and dropping his head on your lap. He didn't dare admit what he was about to do, what he had been doing long before you woke up.

"Brahms!"

He felt your hands pull on his arms, but he only pressed his head further against you, burying his face in your womb, his whimpers muffled by your skin. His hands reached to your sides, holding you vehemently but not threateningly. He wanted to show you how good he was. How good he could be for you. He was sorry. Yes. He was terribly sorry. He would never upset you again.  

"Please…" He pleaded in his childish voice, nuzzling his forehead into your belly.

"Please, what?"

He tightened his grip on your sides and cried again, "Pleaseee… I need you…" 

His meekness only increased as you delayed to answer. His hands cradled your body, fingers clutching desperately at your nightgown and creasing the material. His head anxiously swayed back and forth as he rubbed his mask against you.

"Use your real voice."

Another tremor shook his body and he quickly obeyed your command. 

"I need you."

His voice came out low and hoarse, such a stark contrast to his childish tone. It caused a vibration in your tummy. He could feel how your body shivered in reaction. 

Raising his head to meet your gaze, he noticed that your eyes had widened significantly. Was it because of his voice? The way he begged? Did you like it? He could beg you again and again in his real voice, if it pleased you so. If that meant you’d let him have you.

"I need you, please…" 

His fingers travelled slowly along your sides, gingerly getting closer to your panties again, quivering with impatience and constraint. He kept his imploring look on you as he stroked his fingertips on the damp fabric before slipping them inside to rub against your folds once more. 

He saw your eyelids flutter and your chest rise harshly as you took a deep breath.

He whimpered as he felt your fingers weave into his curls and then capture them abruptly in a tight clasp.

"Lay down, Brahms." 

He merely lingered for a moment to process what you had requested of him. Then he did it. He lay down on the mattress without question. Eager to please you. Desperate to be in your good graces. He would do anything for you. 

His entire body was trembling with anticipation, a deep-seated urge to be touched threatening to overtake him as you climbed on top of him, claiming his former position. His body craved your touch so badly, yet he had to wait until you decided to put him out of his misery.

“You’re such a naughty boy. You know that?”

When he felt your weight on him and your groin sitting directly on his bulge, he felt his breath catch in his throat and his hips buck up instinctively. Only his unbuttoned pants separated his arousal from your heat.

He was losing his mind…

"Nobody ever taught you that's not how good boys are supposed to behave, mh?"

More whimpers flowed from his parted lips as you began to grind against him, painfully slowly but with force. He struggled to keep his eyes open and locked in yours; his quivering hands went up to hold your hips, seeking to control your movements, but you intercepted them and forced them down on the pillow on either side of his face. He let you keep them still.

"Please…"

"I will teach you… Yes, yes... I will teach you. Bad boys never get their way, no matter how much or how long they beg."

Brahms had always obtained whatever he wanted since he was a little boy. If he couldn't have it, he'd take it himself. But he wasn't going to admit it to you. He merely groaned and twitched in response, every inch of his body ignited by your leisurely and frustrating movement against him.

He craved being inside you... To spill his load deep within your core... but he was so worked up… he had been holding back for so long, too long… and the way you moved was so rousing, provoking him just enough to…

His body abruptly convulsed underneath you, a deep sigh of relief escaping from his lips as a dark and large wet stain appeared on the material of his trousers. All of the desire coursing through him reached a fever pitch that consumed every inch of his body.

He had never experienced such an intense and violent orgasm before. He had jerked off numerous times, but cumming never felt so good... 

Brahms was still trembling and panting when his eyes opened again to meet yours. You had stopped moving when he started spasming. Even in the dark, he could see the blush on your cheeks, the way your eyes were wide and glazed as they stared down at him, your own breath coming in short. 

"F-Fuck-"

His eyes were fixed on you, watching you as you gulped and shivered, clearly shaken by what had just happened. Your gaze kept darting back and forth between his pants and mask. When he felt your hands release his wrists, he pulled yours back, drawing you forward and causing you to fall on top of him with a yelp.

Brahms buried his face into the crook of your neck. Your scent was stronger than before, his nostrils filled with your natural aroma. His fingers trailed over your skin, feeling how clammy it was and relishing the way you shivered at the touch. He moved on along the curve of your neck until he reached the edge of your nightgown and peeled it down without hesitation, this time dragging it low enough to prevent it from rolling back up. The sight of your breasts made his stomach flip, just like it had done the first time. His body started to become stiffer once more. 

“Again…” he whispered breathlessly as he lifted your torso so you could sit on his lap just like before, straddling his groin. He could feel himself getting harder all over again. He could not possibly resist you.

"B-Brahms?"

His hands greedily mapped your body, groping every curve and dip they found. His touch soon became frantic and urgent.

"Again, again, again!"

He hastily freed his growing erection from his pants and without giving you time to register what was happening, he seized your waist and pulled you down onto him. 

At last, you had become one. 

The quiet room filled with both his and your moans of pleasure, which only grew louder as Brahms started guiding your hips up and down, each time with greater force, allowing him to fully sink into you. You were so warm, and the way your tight walls clenched around his cock was more intoxicating than he could have anticipated. It was maddening. The sound of your cunt slapping against his groin was the the best sound he had ever heard. He mentally added it to the list of pleasures he had so quickly become addicted to and sought to experience again and again and again...

He was a mess of sweat and whimpers and tremors, and so were you. 

Ah, to finally have you! To finally take you as his! This was everything he had ever dreamed and yearned for. You would never be alone or feel lonely again, and neither would he! 

Please you night and day, whenever and wherever! That's what he intended to do.

Oh, yes. 

He will be such a good boy for you.

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You knew that your guardian watched, somewhere beyond your reach. He kept your monsters at bay. You wished to know his name. To gaze upon his face and finally be able to thank him. But he was as elusive to you as your own shadow. Always close behind you, but slipping through your fingers all the same. 

Since your discovery, you’d grown accustomed to leaving him “offerings.” As those villagers might have before their old God shrines were destroyed and replaced with a Christian idol. 

Tonight, it is a fresh roll of bread and dried meats that had taken over half your month’s earnings to purchase. You leave the basket on a stump near your door and head inside your home. You throw another log into your fire and begin changing, preparing yourself for bed. 

As always, the moment your curtains close, you hear him. It is impossible to miss his heavy footsteps pushing through the snow, paroling your home before finally taking his payment. Each night, you fight the urge to rip open your curtains and finally force him into the light. 

But he provides too much protection and safety for you to risk losing him over something so simple as seeing his face. No matter how desperately the urge gnaws at you. 

Sleep evades you until you finally hear the sound of his footsteps receding. Until you know he’s tucked back into the shadows of the trees and you will have no hope of greeting him tonight. 

He lives in the forest. That is your assumption, at least. There is nowhere else that provides enough shelter for him to be able to prowl around your home so often. You know not where he came from or his name, but you know he must have traveled a very long way to have found a home as remote as yours. 

Trees do not seem a suitable shelter for a weary traveler such as he is. 

The lumber you’d ordered from the market would be arriving soon today. The men would not help you build your latest endeavor, or even help you pull the wood from the wagon. But you were capable; you had built your home each time you were driven out of a village. You could certainly make your guardian one as well. 

When the wagon approaches and you step from your home, you immediately feel the eyes on your back. Through the thick grove of trees, you cannot see him, but you know he is wary of these men coming so close to you. 

They seem to feel it, as well. For once, they help you unload your order. If only so they might escape the narrow gaze of your guardian. You huff in amusement as they practically fly back down the road and toward the village. You doubt that he would do much to them, not if they didn’t do something to you first. 

“Well,” you let out a sharp breath and eye the large pile of wood. “This will certainly pass the time.”

The eyes do not retreat as they normally would when danger has passed. No, you can feel them on you as you begin to clear a large patch of snow from your land. As you drag each plank and log to form the base of his home. You wonder if he knows it is for him, or if he thinks you are simply expanding your small cabin. 

Hopefully, he would understand it was meant to be a gift. It would be a shame to put all this effort in just for him to not realize its true purpose. 

The work kept your mind busy and your hands moving. You prefer not to be idle. Lest the grim reality of your life settle in and you fall into shadows better left alone.

Sadly, as the sun makes its journey below the horizon, you can no longer afford the distraction of building. 

The cold, which has bitten at you all day, now gnaws greedily at your limbs. You are forced to cover what you’d managed to accomplish and arrange the wood so the snow might not rot it. You’d made decent progress. A home couldn’t be built in a day, after all. But you had been hoping for more. 

Especially since the furniture you’d procured should be arriving sometime in the next few days. There’s not nearly enough space in your cabin for all that you’d acquired for your guardian. 

With a low hum, you walk back into your home. The wolves howl and fear continues to evade you as you hear the footsteps prowl carefully around you. 

You did not leave your home as soon as you awoke. It’s what you most often did, so you might check on your small garden and see if any more rabbits had sifted through it.

It seems, despite the wolf's fear of him, the guardian is incapable of frightening away the smaller pests. 

Rather, you busy yourself making a pie with your spare ingredients. You hope to be able to entice your guardian into his new home with your baking. Though you’d never been quite good at it. You’re certain he won’t mind if the crust is slightly blackened. 

He does live in the woods, after all. There’s nothing more than berries and moss to gnaw on out in the trees.

With the fire crackling and an odd tune being hummed under your breath, you nearly miss the sound of wheels in the snow. Your head shoots up as you grab your finished pie. 

With a curse, you place it clumsily on your windowsill and race outside. “William!” You shout, rushing through the snow as the wagon rolls right past you. 

William’s shoulders jerk to his ears and you swear you can hear him cursing your name as he forces his old horse to stop. Lifting your skirts, you ignore the sharp bite of snow against your legs and hurry toward him. 

However, his wagon is devoid of anything but crates of food and books. “Where’s the furniture?” You ask, breath fogging the air in front of you. You regret not grabbing your cloak on the way out. 

William spares you a brief look, blackened teeth appearing as he grins cruelly down at you. “Tumbled off the wagon. Might be down in them trees.” William tips his hat and urges the horse forward before you can question him. 

You jerk back with a yelp as you narrowly avoid the wheel crushing your toes. “Bastard,” you hiss, watching as he grows smaller against the horizon. It’s not the first time he’s done this. Tossed your orders into the woods and sent you to fetch them. He seems to despise you more than most of the others do. Why? You’ll never know. 

But he’s never been ass enough to drop something as large as furniture into the wolves' territory. With a weary sigh, you turn back to your home to grab a cloak and proper gloves. However, the sight before you freezes you before you can even reach your front door. 

“How the devil…” Your voice is awed as you take in the finished shack beside your home. The roof is thatched, the door put up, and the base is secured. With parted lips, you walk slowly toward it, circling the perimeter before stepping back with a shaky breath. 

This was meant to be a gift for him. But he seems incapable of letting you do anything without providing aid. You truly wished to make this for him yourself. To finally give him the same care he’s given you. But, at the very least, his furniture will have a proper place to be stored now. 

When you get over the shock long enough to turn back toward your home, you notice your windowsill suddenly empty. The pie you’d made vanished. Most likely taken by the man lurking in your trees. 

“It was for you, anyway, you tricky devil.” A smile tugs at your lips as you shake your head. How would you possibly entice him now?

The long path into the woods is a familiar one. You hear the occasional howl of a predator, deep into the bowels of the forest. But that familiar fear does not plague you. No, instead, you think of your protector and wonder what he might think of his new home when you furnish it. 

The only issue to fret about is how you were possibly going to get him to understand this costly endeavor is a gift to him. Perhaps he will view it as another pie. Simply a price to pay after his dutiful guardianship. 

The confidence with which you stroll through the forest would be foolish to anyone watching. But they would not understand where your surety came from. They would not know the security that now wraps around you. 

Just as you did not know that your guardian was busy eating his prize and had failed to notice your absence. 

You spot the blue fabric of your chair just as yellow eyes have spotted the crimson of your cloak. Your heavy boots crash loudly against the snow as you struggle through the tall inches, clumsily making your way forward. 

They mask the noise of the paws padding silently behind you, maneuvering through the snow like they’d been formed from it. Each of your panting breaths is louder than the drool dripping from a starved maw.

This winter has been a harsh one. The deer were few and far between. The humans from the village have hunted the forest to near extinction. The animals that are left are desperate, so hungry they would risk even the giant’s anger for one bite. 

Its howl is louder than your scream as it lunges for you. Your breath stutters in your chest as sharp teeth latch onto your cloak, jerking you back into the snow. The chair slips from your hands as you sift uselessly through soft powder. Three more pairs of wild eyes circle you. 

Four wolves and you have nothing to defend yourself with. The biggest one, with your blood already dripping from his lips, lunges once more. You throw your arm out, screaming again as his fangs sink into the fat and tear through the muscle. 

You can hear the skin being wrenched from bone as he jerks back with a rattling growl. Another pair of snapping teeth rips up your cloak and drags you further toward their den. They keep coming, lunging and biting at whatever flesh they can fit in their mouth. 

Were it not so cold, were they not so weak from such a cruel winter, you would have been dead in seconds. But their ribs are bleeding through their skin, their muscles ache after each tug of your body. It is the only advantage that keeps you alive long enough for someone to finally hear your scream. 

The largest wolf clamps down on your shoulder and then the worst sort of noise echoes through your ears as he is thrown back. It is one of primal fear and desperation, hunger overtaking the urge to protect himself. 

Your blood sprays across the freshly fallen snow as he refuses to let go. A strip of your skin is ripped away as his body crashes into a tree far behind you. The crack of his spine as he falls limp with a whimper is the last sound you register. 

Then you see him. Your guardian. Your evasive shadow. He toweres over you, words muffled as he tries to speak. The wolves run and your eyes fall closed as more of your blood leaks into the snow below you. 

The world fits itself back together in fleeting sensations and the warmth of your fire. Before your eyes find the strength to open, you can feel large, clumsy hands attempting to bind your wounds. He struggles with it, trying not to wake you and attempting to make sure you don’t bleed out. 

You register the softness of your bed, the familiar comfort of your blankets, and figure that he dragged you from the woods. That he’d returned you home so he might take care of you. It’s always him caring for you. 

You had hoped, for just one moment, to be able to care for him. But your dependence on his protection is making you fear that if you had to move again, you might not be as lucky as you are now.

You used to be capable of handling the wolves on your own. Now, bits of you are staining the snow as this clumsy protector attempts to piece you back together. 

When his fingers pinch too harshly at your wound, a low, whining noise of pain escapes you. His hands jump back as his weight shifts along your bed. It’s enough to make you roll toward him as he nearly dents your frame. 

He says your name and his voice is like nothing you had imagined. It is rough, deep and gravelly as no man’s should be. But it is also the softest way anyone has ever addressed you. So tentative and careful, as if you were a fawn who might be scared away with the slightest movement.

Finally, your eyes manage to force themselves open. At that, he shifts, body turned so his face might be hidden in the shadows. 

“Oh,” you whisper, your unmarred arm coming up to wipe cold sweat from your brow. “What happened?”

You know what happened, vaguely, but it seems instinct to ask. As if you might grow lucky enough for it to have all been one bad dream. But the pain shooting along your left arm is already proving you wrong. Each shift is a movement of torn flesh against bandage, your open wounds raw and burning. 

“The wolves,” he whispers. His voice is tainted with something that sounds like shame. “I am sorry. I should have been there.”

You frown, eyes still fuzzy as you clumsily reach out to him. He flinches at the brush of your hand against his sleeve and you reluctantly let your arm drop back to your bed. 

“It’s not your fault,” your words slur as you struggle to collect the pieces of your mind. “Shouldn’t have been out there.”

“I should have been,” he insists, still refusing to face you. 

You do not care for the repentance in his voice. He cannot possibly expect to carry the burden of this accident on his own. You live in the wild, nature surrounds and isolates you from the outside world. If you only have one close encounter with a pack of starving wolves, then you can consider yourself quite lucky. 

But, as your mind is still burdened by burning pain and exhaustion, you cannot find the strength to confess this all to him. Instead, you ask him, “Please, let me see you. Come into the light.”

He shakes his head, unwilling to stand and leave you alone, but incapable of giving that piece of himself to you. “No. You should not see that, you are already in pain.”

“I doubt your face will cause me much more,” you tell him, laughing slightly. But he does not join you, merely hunches further into himself. Your eyes narrow as you struggle to push yourself against your pillows. Your arm buckles and you let out a sharp cry of pain. 

He turns before he can think better of it, quickly reaching out to right you. With that, the firelight behind you gives you a near-perfect view of the face hidden behind his hair. It is seamed and stitched as if someone has created a patchwork doll. 

Your eyes widen as he lifts his gaze to meet your own. Something swims within the depths of his eyes. Longing and searching for something you so desperately wish you could give him. But they widen when he realizes what you’re seeing and he jerks away from you. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t…” He lets out a sound that makes your chest ache. “I had not wanted you to see me like that.”

“Like what?” You ask softly. “As yourself?” He remains silent but offers you a stiff nod. You resist the urge to scold him, to tell him how ridiculous he sounds. It is clear enough that someone has hurt him. Has reviled him so horribly that he thinks himself better off with wild animals than people. 

“You do not scare me,” you chide. He glances briefly over his shoulder but says nothing. “Truly. All I have wanted since the season began is to meet my protector. To be able to thank him properly.”

“Why?” He demands, voice breaking around the question. “I am selfish. I have stolen food from your stoop and destroyed your garden for my own needs.”

Your brows raise and you huff, so it hadn’t been rabbits. “I make the villagers curse the ground you walk on. I… I am a monster for all that I have done.”

“Monster?” Your voice is incredulous as you reach for him again. He flinches at the touch, but he doesn’t move away. Slowly, you let your hand drift down his arm, settling lightly on his chilled wrist. 

“I leave that food for you as thanks for all you do for me. In every village I’ve lived in, I’ve always been reviled and cursed. There is nothing selfish about how you have protected me. You have kept both wolves and man from my door. Offered me comfort I have not had on my own for a very long time.”

He remains silent and you let out a rough sigh. “Whoever taught you that you’re a monster has done the world a disservice. I have not met one as kind as you for as long as I can remember. I was trying to build that shack for you. So you might have a place to rest your head rather than freeze in the snow.”

He freezes and slowly, he begins to turn his head so you can look at more than just his shadows. “Is that why you were in the woods, for me?”

You nod, swallowing down your pain and pushing your body closer to his. Your hand curls more securely around his palm. His fingers flex, but he seems unsure of what to think of your touch. “Yes.”

He lets out a soft sigh, but the timbre of his voice makes it seem like a growl. “Then it is my fault that you are hurt.”

He pulls his hand away and gets to his feet. Though you had known he would be tall by the weight of his body and breadth of his shoulders, you’re still unprepared. You’d never seen a man who towers like him, with strength like his. But you’d also never seen a man with evidence written all throughout his body that someone had ripped him apart and put him back together again to be what they wanted. 

“Has anyone,” you let out a sharp grunt as you throw your blankets back. He steps forward as you struggle to your feet, head swimming. 

“Has anyone ever told you that you are a frustratingly stubborn man?” You ask. His hand hovers over your body, fretting that you might simply collapse. But you’ve survived worse than a few hungry wolves. Today will not mark the beginning of you becoming a complete damsel. 

He says nothing, simply watches you move throughout your small home. His eyes track each movement, each trip of your feet. 

“Did you enjoy the pie, at least?” You ask as he remains silent. 

His face drops and he refuses to meet your eye. “I am sorry. It smelled so good and I was so hungry. I could not stop myself.”

You whip around to him as fast as you can afford and he flinches back slightly. Guilt curdles in your stomach as you survey him. It’s as if he thinks himself to be a mistake. Each breath a burden, every inch of space filled is stolen. It is hard to unwrite that which has been so heavily branded into him. But you can try. 

“It was for you, guardian.” You tell him, lacking a proper name to address him by. When he does not look up, you approach. He watches your form warily but you will not be deterred. You reach out slowly and take his hand in your own. 

Much like the rest of him, it’s a size that seems unnatural to any man. But worse than the size is how cold he is. It’s like he hasn’t been sitting in front of your fire with you this whole time. Looking him over, you see that the few furs he wears are torn and ripped with age. Barely holding on and he still refuses to part with them. 

“Oh,” you click your tongue and lead him to your overstuffed chair by the fire. For a moment, you think he might resist. But he seems to forget how much stronger he is than you. 

He drops to the chair obediently as you rush to fetch every blanket you might find. When you return, arms piled high, he still looks perplexed by your intentions. 

“You have stolen nothing from me,” you swear as you tuck a blanket around his lap. “Every piece of food, every moment of peace you might have found, it’s all that which I wanted to give to you.”

You kneel in front of him, taking his hand in your own and trying to rub life into it once more. The wide look of his eyes has not abated once since you’ve started caring for him. 

“That shack outside, which you so dutifully aided me with, it is for you.”

“Why?” His brows turn in as his fingers flex against your hold. 

You hum, “There never needs to be a reason for kindness, guardian. Sometimes it simply is there, waiting for you to accept it. I had wished to offer you a place to rest your head at night that was not so cold. A place where you might find comfort.”

“I find comfort in watching over you. In making sure that no animal or man can hurt you.”

As you begin to let go of his hand, planning on warming the other. His grip snaps out. He does not jerk your hand back roughly or demand your attention. It seems instinctual. He has lacked touch for so long, unconsciously, he is not ready to part with that little you might give him. 

“Why?” You ask. There has never been anything particularly special about you. No one has ever wanted to help unless they were looking to use you to achieve something. Marriage, perhaps. Or a night away from their family. The intentions were never solely pure. 

He surveys you, your guardian. Such a sad creature, longing so desperately for a gentleness he cannot even allow himself to accept. 

“You seemed lonely, as I am. You had no one out here with you, no one to care for you. The townspeople treat you as they would treat me. As if you’re something to be scared of.”

“But I’m not,” you urge. 

He shakes his head, and the closest thing to a smile warms his face. “No, you’re not.”

You take both his hands in yours now, leaning forward until your chest is pushing against his knees so you can catch his eyes. “Neither are you, guardian. And now that I have seen your face, I’m not planning on letting you believe yourself to be something so monstrous.”

His expression falters, disbelief lining his eyes and breaking your heart. Perhaps the desperate urge to make him see himself as he truly is pushes you forward. You cannot be sure. 

But one moment you kneel before him and the next you find yourself lifting, lips pressing to his cheek as you find the first semblance of warmth under his skin. His entire body stills beneath such a small touch and you feel your own breath stutter. 

“Stay with me,” you ask, pulling back slightly. “We can fetch your supplies from the woods tomorrow.” His hands squeeze yours unconsciously and you smile. “Together,” you add. 

He’s slow to nod, still stunned by your outward boldness. “Together,” he repeats. 

And you laugh as if it were his idea, fixing the shawl that has slipped from his shoulders. “I would like that very much.”

“I think that I would, as well.” You do not take his slight unsurety as an insult. Rather, a step closer to separating him from the beast who made him believe himself to be anything but human.  

The ease with which your guardian draggs the furniture from the woods should not be a surprise. He has ripped a full-grown wolf away from you and thrown it halfway through the forest. Still, watching a man haul a chair and bed frame in one hand each with no pause, it is something to be admired. 

You direct him inside his new home and frown at the lack of logs in the fire. “Hold on,” you rush outside and grab some from the supply he’d created for you. 

“We need you to stay warm, don’t we?” He did not answer, simply observing as you light the fire. Glancing up, you notice he still holds the furniture, frozen as he waits for your instructions. 

“What are you doing? Why don’t you put that down?” You stand, brushing the remnants of the logs off your hands. 

“Where would you like it?” He asks, glancing around the small interior with a frown. You have brought blankets inside for him and a straw mattress that ought to fit his large frame. 

“This is your home now, guardian. It’s your decision where to put them.” He remains still for a long while after that, eyes simply drifting along the walls and floor. You step back, allowing him a moment. 

It hurts that the idea of a home is one so foreign that he does not even know what to do with it. But you cannot make every decision for him. This place will never be his own if it is you who wholly conceives it. 

Finally, he moves away from the wall and begins to shift around his minimal belongings. A smile pulls on your lips as you watch him work. Though it begins to drift when you realize that this arrangement of his is merely an echo of your own home. 

You wish to correct him. To remind him that when something is yours, that means it belongs solely to you. It is not meant to be a repetition of what someone else calls home. 

But this is fresh enough for him. He does not need you scolding him and telling him he is wrong when he is only following what little he knows. 

When he steps back from his work, you would swear there is almost something like pride on his face. It is fleeting and shadowed by how he hunches into himself. But for a moment, you’d seen it. 

“Lovely,” you praise. He nods, moving to sit in the chair while you perch on a stool by the fire. “I hope this will be more comfortable than wherever you slept in the woods.”

A low noise leaves him as he nods. “I rarely slept. Watching you was a way to keep my mind busy. To give me a purpose so I did not have to wander out in the snow without aim.”

You pinch your lips as you observe him. The way the fire crackles and leaps out at you both. It lights up the harsh edges of his face, the gouges where a man had imagined himself God. 

Any man capable of such a grotesque offense against nature must be a monster within themselves. The idea that one such as that could create a being as gentle and kind as your guardian is astounding. And it filled you with no small amount of pain knowing that your creature will never look at himself with such kindness. 

After spending the day settling him into his new abode, you find yourself exhausted. The wounds from the wolves still ache and your body is depleted from loss of blood and too much excitement. Tomorrow, you might have to ask him to try and find some wild weeds in the forest. The gashes along your arm burn with what you fear might be infection. You might be in need of a poultice soon.  

With a weary sigh, you strip from your day's clothes and pull on a shift as you dress down your bed. You’ve barely managed to sit when you hear it. 

Just outside your walls is the heavy crunch of your guardian’s boots in the snow. Frowning, you force yourself up and move to your window. No longer fearing that he might be frightened away, you pull open your curtains. 

Lingering just within the shadows of your home stands you guardian, watching the forest intensely. With a huff, you pull on a shawl and throw open your door. 

His shoulders jump as he turns to face you. The fleeting expression of shame almost makes you smile. “What are you doing?” You keep your voice soft, not wanting him to believe you’re truly upset with him. 

“I do not like not being able to watch for danger while you rest. It makes sleep all the more evasive.” Frowning, you wrap your shawl tighter as a sharp breezes bites at your exposed skin. 

“You should go back inside, keep warm by the fire,” he tells you. You look at his new home and find no smoke drifting from the chimney. 

“That is what you’re meant to be doing.” You chide, already stepping closer and opening your door wide for him. “At least come in.”

His face pales and he shakes his head. “I am not proposing marriage,” you tease. “But wouldn’t you agree the best way to keep watch is at my side.”

“I do not-“

“You mistake that for a question. Inside, guardian, now.” Despite the gentleness of your tone, you allow him no room to evade you. Instead, you dig your feet further into the snow and make it undeniably clear that you will not budge until he is following behind you. 

“And you call me stubborn,” he grumbles as he passes through the threshold.

“Was that a joke?” You laugh, locking the door behind you both. 

He pauses by your chair and gives you a look over his shoulder. “Perhaps.”

The good never lasts and the evil never dies. 

You had not thought you would have long with your guardian. Once, you’d assumed it was because he would eventually move on. Find another stoop to protect and window sill to steal from. 

Then, you had thought that perhaps the villagers would drive you from the village before you were ever allowed the opportunity to know him. 

In a way, you were right. Your time with him was not long for this world. 

You had almost a week together. Small conversations, meals shared by your fire. He never told you his name. He might not have had one, you will never know. He never spoke of his creator, but he did not have to. You could tell what kind of man he had been by how your guardian raised his hands when he broke a glass. Or cowered when he thought he had made a grave mistake. 

He had provided you with more light in your life than you had experienced in many long years. His presence was a gentle one. His stature, his strength, it mattered not when he saw himself as something small. You had wished for more time with him so you might teach him just what a great man he truly was. 

But fate had never been known to bend to man’s will. She would certainly not bend to yours. 

It happened quick…

Early on one of those peaceful mornings when he woke up in your chair and you woke to find him still beside you. You noticed how ragged his hair was. He seemed to enjoy it long, either because it was something to hide behind or because it was something only he had control over. But he did not seem to understand the care required for it. 

“Have you ever brushed that nest?” You teased, smiling as his brows furrowed. Rising from your bed, you lifted your comb from your vanity and approached him. “You have to care for it if you want it to remain healthy.”

Neither of you would acknowledge that you weren’t just speaking of his hair. 

The longer you’ve kept his company, the less wary he is with each time you approach. His shoulders do not tense and he does not raise his hands in defense as you move to stand in front of him. Slowly, you lift a lock of knotted hair and begin trying to tame it back into something kinder. 

“I had not… known. I did not know I was meant to do this.”

You watch him from the side of your eyes as you continue to care for him. “Yes, well, it’s something that we’re meant to learn along the way. It is not your fault if the person who brought you into this world failed you in so many aspects.”

His eyes stay dropped to his lap and you worry you’ve spoken out of turn. He seems to prefer avoiding mentions of his creator. But you desperately need him to know that which he would perceive a flaw, you consider someone else’s failing. 

“I will teach you,” you promise rather than force the both of you to drown in silence. 

His head lifts and you click your tongue, frowning as your comb jerks cruelly through his hair. He cares not for the pain, instead, he simply looks at you. His eyes shine with awe, as if you had not offered him only the barest glimpse of kindness. 

“Why?” The way his voice breaks around the word makes your hands come to a stop. The comb drops to his lap as you slowly move to cup his cheeks. He leans into your touch, the weight of his head and exhaustion resting in the palm of your hand. 

“Because… you deserve it.” It’s a simple statement, but it seems to break him. To rip open a seam he had not been aware of and send something aching spilling out. Your thumbs soothe over the seams beneath his eyes and you watch as his body slowly relaxes in your hold.

All you had wanted was a moment of peace for him. A moment where shame and heartache were not such close companions. But the cruel world had other ideas. 

Wheels circle through snow outside your home and the both of you freeze. Slowly, your hands drop from his face and he hunches back into himself. “I’ll only be a moment,” you swear, already grabbing your cloak and rushing out the door. 

“William!” You shout, chasing after the wagon that has passed your home so often. As always, he comes to a reluctant stop, a series of curses burning your ears. A blackened sneer and puff of smoke from his pipe greets you as you catch up. 

“The package?” You demand, already dreading the answer. 

William nods his head and you scowl. “The woods.” With a huff, you’re prepared to turn on your heel and return to your guardian. But his croaking voice stops you. “My last pass through here… thought I saw something.”

Dread curls tight in your chest as you slowly turn to face him again. “Sorry?”

He hums, puffing on his pipe and staring at you strangely. “Aye, thought I saw that hulking beast lingering around your home.”

The laugh you release is tight, clearly forced, and only makes your stomach ache worse. “I have told you to leave those spotted mushrooms and black weeds from your pipe, William. You’re imagining things. The only beasts around here are those blasted wolves.”

“Haven’t seen many of ‘em of late.”

“A hard winter for us all,” you dismiss. The sudden eagerness to return to your guardian is almost debilitating. 

Finally, after a long glare and twisted scowl, William nods and urges his horse forward, nearly running over your toes as he goes. You wait until his wagon disappears into the trees to go racing back into your cabin. 

Your guardian waits there for you, thumbs idly stroking over the comb you’d used on him. “The old man, again?” He asks, and you let out a strained hum, something still digging at the back of your mind. 

Something is wrong, it seems to tell you. This thought knocks upon your head but does not grant you entrance. Where the fear comes from you cannot be certain. William has always been hateful and odd. Today should not be any different. 

“I will go and fetch it,” he says, getting to his feet as he pulls on the cloak you’d gifted him. You feel as if you should stop him. Warn him to be more careful than he normally is. But something keeps your tongue subdued, dismisses your worries as juvenile. 

Instead, you simply nod and squeeze his hand before he leaves. The door shuts quietly behind him and the echo of your fear ripples in the air around you. 

Something is wrong. 

You always hum while you work. While you tend to your garden or care for him. He’s picked up the habit without realizing it. Of course, his voice is not nearly as sweet as yours. So his noises sound like the growling of a predator rather than anything melodic. 

He does not care, though. The sound, the vibration against his chest, it reminds him of you. That alone is enough to ignore his own shortcomings as he struggles over the melody. 

The old man, William, always leaves the packages in the same place. It is bait for the wolves and a trap for you. Since you have discovered the creature lurking outside your home, he has been more than happy to make the journey for you. Especially as he is not willing to risk the wolves grabbing hold of you again. 

Not so far in front of him, as always, is a parchment-wrapped package with fraying twine. It is just as he reaches to grab it that the sharp crack of gunfire rips through the forest. His blood sprays against the snow as his body falls to the earth. 

No pain, no sounds. Just silence as his vision is devoured by shadows. 

It is smoke he smells when he finally awakens. The light of day is long gone, only the moon is left to guide his way. There is pain, as there always is, as he forces his body to rise again. He can feel the burning ache of where a bullet had driven straight through his heart. 

Crimson has stained his clothes, is buried beneath freshly fallen snow. The fine cloak you had made for him has been stolen away by the same people who tried to kill him. Even your package has been taken. He rubs his head, the ache between his eyes sharpening with each inhale of the burning scent of flesh. 

Flesh

His head shoots up and he begins struggling to his feet. Waking up after death is always the same as the first time. His limbs are as fresh as a newborn fawn. His body will not cooperate as he struggles and pushes himself through the snow. 

He blames his own shortcomings on what he discovers. On the black smoke he sees smothering the forest. The path back home, back to you, is longer than it ever has been before. And when he stumbles out into the opening of your land, he wishes he had never woken up at all. 

The cabins, both of them, are still burning when he discovers them. They’re nearly gone, only the base of them remains. Your garden has been ripped apart. Whatever belongings you might have that were valuable have been stolen away. 

In the snow, written in blood, is the mark of the devil. Beside it, the mark of his bride. What remains of his deadened heart is ripped away as he finally sees the pyre. The stake where a woman had once stood, screaming and crying for mercy. 

When he falls beside it, there is nothing. No body to hold, no bones to bury. Nothing more than ash in the wind. 

The villagers had been boldly celebrating the vanquishing of the beasts atop their hill when they became frozen in terror.

A noise rips through their sky, through their mountains, and it pierces the men who are covered in blood and smoke. It is the roaring cry of pain and grief.

It is the loss of a creature who has been stolen from since the moment he was born and somehow still managed to lose everything that might give his journey meaning. 

The night of revelry ended in blood and vengeance as the creature’s love was taken and he was left with nothing but rage to indulge himself in. 

Fall in…

Fall in love…

Fall in love again & again

PART TWO

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end. — I do not own the characters or the novel/movies Frankenstein, but this writing is my own all rights reserved © not-neverland06 2025. do not copy, repost, translate & recommend elsewhere.