QueenOfSlowBurn

If anything, he moved with the same steady pace he had before when catching you in the woods - unbothered, unaffected - as if the weight of you and the noise you made were nothing more than background to his thoughts.

Shapes shifted around you as he passed through the settlement - figures pausing in their work, glancing up at the commotion. You caught glimpses of them in fragments.

But no one stepped in.

No one said a word.

They watched.

And then they looked away.

“Joel - Joel, listen -” Your voice cracked hard enough to hurt, the words tumbling over each other in your rush to get them out. You twisted against him as you tried to catch his attention, tried to make him hear you. “I won’t - I won’t do it again, I swear, I’ll behave, I’ll -”

Your breath hitched, then broke.

“Just tell me what you want me to do,” you forced out, desperation bleeding into every syllable. “I’ll do it. Anything. I’ll stay, I’ll work, I won’t try to run again - just -”

His hand tightened where it held you in place.

The rest of your plea dissolved into a choking inhale as he mounted the small set of steps to his cabin, his boot coming up hard against the door. The wood gave with a dull crack, swinging inward before slamming shut again behind you just as fast.

Inside, it suddenly felt too still.

“Told you already,” he said, voice low and even as he crossed the room. “Got a task for you.”

Your stomach dropped.

You knew this place - at least, the parts of it he’d allowed you to see. The front room was bare, almost stripped down to the bones. A worn couch that had seen better years, a rough wooden desk littered with maps and scraps, a stool with peeling paint that flaked under the slightest touch.

You’d been here twice.

Once when they’d brought you in, dirt-streaked and shaking, shoved forward for him to look over like something newly acquired.

And once after that - when you’d carried food in, careful and quiet, pretending your eyes weren’t cataloguing every detail they could reach.

That had felt like control, then.

It felt like a joke now.

You barely had time to register the shift in direction before he pushed into the back room, the door creaking faintly as it opened and shut behind you. The scent of old wood and something worn into the bed that sat against the far wall.

“I don’t -” Your voice broke completely now, the words collapsing under the weight of everything pressing in on you. “Please -”

“As I said,” he cut in, and then his hands were on you - firm at your hips as he pulled you down from his shoulder.

For a fraction of a second, there was weightlessness, then he dropped you. The mattress dipped beneath you with a creak, old springs protesting as you landed awkwardly, breath knocked out of you in a soft, startled sound.

The moment you hit, instinct took over.

You scrambled back - clumsy, unbalanced with your hands still bound - until your spine met the cold metal of the bedframe. As far away from him as you could get without falling off entirely.

Joel just stood there at the foot of the bed, arms crossing over his broad chest as he watched you. That same expression sitting easy on his face - something dark and faintly amused that made your skin crawl.

“Joel,” you tried again, your pulse hammering so hard it blurred the edges of your vision. “You don’t mean - you can’t -”

“Oh, I can,” he said, almost casually. A small nod, like he was agreeing with something simple and obvious. “Can do just about whatever I want.” A slight shrug lifted one shoulder. “Perks of the job.”

Another sob forced its way out of you, your balance slipping as you tried to wipe at your face - only to remember too late that your hands were still tied. You caught yourself awkwardly, breath stuttering.

“Look at you,” he murmured, something almost like a chuckle threading through it as he shifted his weight, leaning back against the door. One boot crossed over the other. “Already fallin’ apart.” His gaze dragged over you. “Haven’t even touched you yet.”

The air in the room tightened.

You felt it in your throat, your chest, the way your lungs refused to take in a full breath no matter how hard you tried.

For a second, you almost did it - almost broke completely, let yourself collapse into it, into the fear and the pleading and the uselessness of it all.

And then - 

You stopped.

Because something in his face told you it wouldn’t matter.

Worse - it might even be to his liking.

So you swallowed it down and forced your breathing to slow, even as it shook. Forced your shoulders back just a fraction, your spine straightening against the frame behind you.

“Joel…” Your voice trembled anyway. You couldn’t stop that. “I’m - I’m sorry.” The words tasted like ash. “I won’t try again.” A beat. “I’ll do what you say.”

Silence stretched for half a second too long.

“I bet you are.” The grin that followed wasn’t kind. “Thing is, you’re only sorry ‘cause I caught you,” he added, pushing off the door at last.

You moved without thinking - one leg sliding down off the bed, your weight shifting like maybe you could - 

“Ah -”

That was all it took. Just that low, warning sound.

You froze.

“Let’s not start that again,” he said, almost gently, as he stepped closer. “Wouldn’t be smart.”

You scrambled back instantly, your movement jerky and uncoordinated as you retreated fully onto the mattress again, making yourself smaller without meaning to.

His hand closed around your wrists before you could react.

The force of it dragged you backward with a sharp jolt, your breath caught as your body followed whether you wanted it to or not. Your shoulder hit his thigh, your head knocking lightly against him as he pulled your arms up higher behind your back.

Pain flared - sharp, stretching too far, too fast - and a broken sound tore from your throat.

And then - 

It stopped.

The restraint was gone.

For a second, your brain didn’t catch up. Didn’t understand why the tension was gone - why your wrists weren’t held tight together anymore. You yanked your hands forward on instinct anyway, staring down at them as you flexed your fingers, rubbing at the reddened skin where the binding had been.

Your gaze snapped up and confusion flickered in your eyes - because he was still right there, still too close.

And then you saw the knife, resting easy in his hand like it belonged there.

Your breath hitched as he reached out, cold metal kissing skin, the blade catching lightly against your jaw and tilting your face up with a touch that was almost - almost - careful.

You went still.

“Don’t get any ideas,” he said quietly. “This is only temporary.”

Swallowing felt like dragging glass down your throat, but you tried anyway, your body betraying you in the way it tensed, the way your pulse jumped beneath the edge of the blade.

“Turn around,” he then added. The knife traced a faint line beneath your chin before pulling away, the pressure gone but the threat lingering heavy in the air.

Do as I tell you or suffer the consequences.

You didn’t argue nor did you hesitate.

You shifted clumsily, moving onto your knees, turning until you faced him properly. Your hands came to rest in your lap - open, empty, visible as a silent surrender.

You hated how it felt. Hated the way it put you beneath him.

Joel stood over you, the knife flipping idly between his fingers now, his gaze slow as it moved over you. Taking you in with an amusement that made you sick to your stomach.

That same dark, quiet satisfaction settling into the lines of his face.

“See?” he murmured, satisfaction threading through the word as he took a step back. “You can listen. Just needed the right… motivation.”

The space he created should have felt like relief. Instead, it left you unsteady. Your lungs dragged in air too fast, too shallow, as if he’d taken all the oxygen with him when he moved.

For a fraction of a second, you thought - hoped - that maybe this was it. That he would stop here. That whatever line had been approaching would remain uncrossed.

Then - 

“Undress.”

The word didn’t land.

Not at first anyway.

It hung in the air between you, too flat, too casual, like you had misheard it - like your mind had twisted something else into something far worse.

You just stared at him and your vision blurred at the edges, tears gathering without your permission, your chest tightening around a breath that wouldn’t come.

“Joel…” It barely made it out, more whisper than anything else.

“Don’t ‘Joel’ me, sweetheart.” His voice stayed even, grounded in that authority he carried with him. “You heard me just fine.” A small tilt of his head toward the edge of the bed. “Up. Off. And get out of those clothes.”

Your body didn’t move.

It wasn’t defiance - not really. There was no strength behind it or resistance you could follow through on. It was more like a full-body refusal that locked every muscle in place and turned your limbs heavy and unresponsive.

You could only look at him and could only hope - irrationally, desperately - that he would see it. That he would read the fear sitting plain in your eyes and understand what he was asking of you.

That something in him would stop this.

It didn’t.

A tired breath left Joel instead, the faintest flicker of impatience crossing his face.

“Listen, darlin’,” he said, quieter now, but no less firm. “I don’t like repeatin’ myself.”

The knife flipped once in his hand with ease - until the blade pointed your way.

“So you got about a second,” he continued, almost conversational, “to get down here and start movin’… before I decide to help you along.”

Your pulse slammed hard against your ribs.

Still - nothing.

Your body refused you.

His shift was quick enough to steal the breath from your lungs before you could react. His hand closed around your arm, fingers digging in firm and unyielding as he yanked you forward off the bed.

Your feet hit the ground awkwardly, balance faltering as you stumbled, barely catching yourself before your knees gave out.

“No - please, I -”

Too late.

In one smooth motion, he turned you, your back colliding with his chest as he pulled you flush against him. The sudden contact knocked the air from your lungs again, your body going rigid as his arm slid across your upper chest, locking you in place.

Your hands came up instinctively, clawing at his forearm, your nails bit into his skin and the fabric of his flannel where it was rolled at the sleeves. But it didn’t even seem to reach him.

The panic that followed came instantly and broke through whatever control you’d tried to hold onto. Your breaths turned ragged, uneven, sobs spilling out without words as hysteria crept in at the edges.

And then - 

Cold metal pressed lightly against your throat again, making you freeze all over.

“There we go,” he murmured, his voice right against your ear. “That’s better.”

His cheek brushed your temple as he leaned in, his presence wrapping around you from behind.

“Easy,” he went on like he was talking you down from a atupidity. “Ain’t done nothin’ yet.” The contrast made it worse. That calm. That control. It make you shudder and break another whimper.

“Shhh…” The knife shifted, gliding from your throat down along the line of your collarbone. “Just gonna help you outta this,” he added absently, as the blade traced over the front of your tanktop, following the damp, dirt-streaked fabric. “Don’t want you catchin’ a cold now, do we?”

His beard brushed faintly against your skin. The scent of him pressed in inescapably.

Your eyes squeezed shut and you tried to block everything out. The proximity. The strength behind you. The way his chest rose and fell steady against your back, like none of this was anything out of the ordinary.

“Now,” he said, the edge in his voice returning just enough to cut through the haze, “be a good fuckin’ girl...” The knife lingered, hovering just enough to remind you it was there. “... and take it off, before I slip.”

Your grip on him faltered just a fraction. Your fingers, which had been digging into his arm hard enough to leave marks, loosened as something in you shifted - not giving in, not accepting, but… adjusting. Surviving.

At the same time, his hold eased just enough to allow movement.

Your hands trembled as you lowered them, your breath still coming in uneven pulls as you forced yourself to focus.

Slowly, carefully, you reached for the hem of your top.

Your fingers fumbled at first, uncoordinated, numb from the rush of everything flooding through you. It took effort - more than it should have - to get a proper hold.

The fabric dragged upward, catching briefly before sliding over your ribs, your chest, your shoulders - until it came free, leaving your skin exposed to the cold air of the room.

Your arms dropped again, the shirt clutched loosely in your hands.

And for a moment - 

Everything went very, very still.

“There we go.” His voice came low behind you, threaded with sick satisfaction. “Not so hard, was it?”

Your arms came up instinctively, folding across your chest and bra, a poor attempt at shielding yourself.

Joel didn’t seem to care. You felt the shift of him behind you, close enough that the heat of his body still lingered, and then the faint brush of his hand as he took the discarded top from your grip. It slipped from his fingers a moment later, landing somewhere on the floor with a soft, final sound.

You squeezed your eyes shut.

Because you already knew what would follow.

“Those jeans next, darlin’,” he said, tone easy, like he was giving instructions for something mundane. “Don’t need more mud in my bed.”

Something in you wanted to hesitate again. To stall. To cling to what little control you had left. But that had already been taken from you the moment he decided it would be.

So this time, you didn’t fight it.

Your shoes came off first, kicked away clumsily, landing somewhere in front of you. Then your fingers found the button of your jeans - fumbling at first, shaking too much to get a proper grip.

The zipper followed, the sound unnervingly loud in the quiet room, and you pushed the damp fabric down your legs, shifting awkwardly to step out of it. The cold hit harder without it, your thighs pressing together as if that could make any difference.

“I’ll be damned.” The low huff behind you made your stomach twist, followed by a soft whistle that carried just enough weight to make your skin crawl. “Didn’t figure you’d get cooperative this quick.”

You swallowed hard, keeping your gaze fixed somewhere ahead - anywhere but on him.

“Want me to fight back again?” The words slipped out before you could stop them, sharp-edged and brittle, your voice carrying more bite than you had any right to show.

You regretted it instantly.

A short laugh left him and he stepped closer again.

“Now that,” he murmured, “sounds like a fun way to spend the evenin’.”

You flinched before you could stop yourself as the tip of the knife found your back and dragged slowly along the line of your spine. 

“Wouldn’t mind puttin’ you back in your place just now,” he went on, voice dipping lower. “Wipe that attitude clean until there’s nothin’ left but sense.”

The blade shifted, catching lightly at the back of your bra, and your breath hitched, a sob threatening to break free before you forced it down.

You felt him lean in, the rough brush of his beard against the back of your head, his breath warm where it ghosted over your hair as he inhaled.

Your eyes squeezed shut tighter.

“But,” he added after a moment, and the word alone carried enough weight to still you, “that ain’t what this is.” The knife lifted and the pressure vanished. “This here’s about patience.” His voice softened for a torturous fraction. “Need you to understand somethin’. Not fear, it’s about realizin’ what your new life will be.”

Before you could make sense of it, he stepped away.

The loss of him - of the heat, the presence - felt just as abrupt as when he’d first created distance, leaving you standing there, exposed and unsteady.

And then his hands were on you again.

He pushed you forward without warning, and you stumbled, catching yourself only barely as your knees hit the mattress, your hands coming down hard against the worn fabric of the bed.

“Just -” The words tore out of you, sharp with something that felt dangerously close to anger now, rising where only panic had been before. “Just get it over with.”

You turned slightly, enough to look at him over your shoulder, your jaw tight, your eyes burning.

Joel didn’t answer right away.

His gaze moved over your body instead - taking in every detail you wished he wouldn’t see. The way your shoulders tensed, the way your body tried to fold in on itself despite your attempt to hold steady.

“Oh,” he clicked his tongue. “So impatient now? Don’t get me wrong, costin’ me a lot not to fuck you right away. But… When that time comes, you will want it just as much as I do, I promise.”

A faint tilt of his head.

“For now -”

His hand moved fast.

It caught your ankle before you could pull away, his grip locking around it with an ease that sent a jolt of panic straight through you.

For a split second, your mind went somewhere worse - anticipating him spreading your legs, forcing himself over you and pining you down with his body.

But that wasn’t what he did.

Instead, he pulled you - just enough to shift you closer to the foot of the bed, toward the iron frame.

And then you saw it.

The metal glint caught your eye too late.

“No -” The word barely formed before the cold bite of a handcuff closed around your ankle with a sharp, final click.

You jerked instinctively, pulling back, trying to wrench yourself free - but the chain held fast, short enough to keep you close, strong enough to make resistance pointless.

“No more runnin’, sweetheart.”

Your hands scrambled at it, fingers fumbling over the cuff, searching for anything that might give.

But it didn’t budge.

Your gaze snapped back up to him, panic surging all over again.

“What are you - what will you -”

“As I said.” He cut you off with a shrug. “Patience.” There was something unsettling in the way he said it. “You’ll see,” he added, giving you one last look over. “Soon you’ll beg for very different things.”

His expression shifted again, that same dark edge curling at the corner of his mouth.

“Gotta admit,” he went on, almost idly, “takes some patience on my end too. But I want you to understand,” he said as he reached the door, his back half-turned to you now. “Where you are. What this is.” His hand rested briefly on the frame. “This is your place now.” The door creaked open. “And you’ll learn how to be fuckin’ grateful for it.” Joel clicked his tongue, lips splitting into a darker grin. “And next time you’re beggin’, you’re beggin’ that I take you, ‘cause it’s the only thing that’ll make you feel safe.” 

Then he stepped out.

The door shut behind him with a dull, solid thud.

And just like that - 

He was gone.

For a second, you didn’t move.

Didn’t breathe.

Then it all rushed back in at once.

You lunged for the chain, pulling hard enough to rattle the frame, the metal biting against your skin as you tried - again and again - to force it loose.

“Joel?”

Your voice cracked, louder now, sharper.

Nothing.

“Joel!” The name tore out of you, echoing off the walls. “JOEL!”

Silence answered.

And no matter how hard you pulled - 

Nothing gave.

Time lost its edges somewhere along the way.

At first, you had tried to keep track of it - counting the hours by the thin sliver of light that crept through the small, covered window, marking the slow crawl from dim gray to daylight, then back again to night. You had clung to it like it mattered, like knowing how long you had been here could somehow anchor you to something real.

But it slipped.

Blurred.

Days bled into nights into something in between, until the difference stopped meaning anything at all. The rhythm of it dissolved, replaced by a dull endlessness that stretched on without shape or structure.

You barely moved anymore.

Your body had learned quickly what it could and couldn’t afford, and movement had become something costly. The chain at your ankle dictated most of it anyway - its short length forcing you into a small radius that had long since become your entire world. The bed beneath you had molded itself around that limitation, the only position that didn’t pull or strain or send a sharp reminder through your leg being the one you’d settled into days ago.

Curled. Small. Still.

You remembered being different.

At the beginning, there had been anger. Sharp and biting, it had cut through the fear like a drive that could keep you standing. You had argued - God, you had argued. Thrown words at the walls, at the silence, at him whenever he had stepped through that door. You had tried to bargain, to reason, to push back in whatever ways you could manage.

And you had listened, too.

Every sound outside that room had mattered. Voices drifting in from the camp, footsteps passing by, the occasional shift in routine that you tried to piece together into useful information.

An opening.

A mistake.

Anything.

Now - 

Now all of it felt far away. Like something that had belonged to someone else in another life.

Your body lay curled on its side, knees drawn in just enough to ease the pull on the cuff around your ankle, your arms tucked close in a weak attempt to preserve warmth that never quite came. The blanket beneath your fingers was rough, worn thin in places, but it was the only constant you had left.

Your tears had stopped days ago.

Not because you didn’t want to cry - God, you did - but because your body had simply… run out. There was nothing left to give. No moisture to spare, no energy to waste on something that didn’t change anything.

Everything felt dulled.

The hunger had faded first, gnawing and sharp until it wasn’t, until it slipped into the background like a distant.

The thirst stayed though.

Relentless and consuming it turned your throat dry, every swallow a small, painful effort that gave you nothing in return. Your lips felt cracked, your tongue heavy in your mouth, your head pounding with a dull, persistent ache that never quite lifted.

When had he last come in?

You couldn’t remember.

The thought drifted through your mind without finding anything solid to hold onto. His visits had become… brief and infrequent. A presence that came and went so quickly it almost felt imagined, if not for the small, undeniable traces he left behind.

A shift in the air. A sound at the door. Proof that you hadn’t been abandoned entirely.

Because that - somehow - felt worse.

The idea of being left here, alone, with nothing but the forest outside and whatever might wander through it… that still sent a flicker of panic through you, even now. Even in this dulled, distant state. Raiders. Strangers. Infected. You had nothing left to fight them with. No strength, no weapon, no chance.

At least here - at least with him - 

There was… something.

A boundary.

A cruel kind of safety.

Sometimes, in the long stretches of night, when the dark pressed in too close and the silence grew too loud, your thoughts drifted somewhere you didn’t want them to go. To places that whispered of an easier end.

But a stubborn force in you refused to let that thought settle. Refused to let go completely.

It kept you here, kept you breathing.

Even when every part of you felt like it was slipping further and further away.

You hovered there now, on the edge of sleep - not true rest, just the empty kind that came when your body had nothing left to give - when the sound reached you.

The click of the door.

You didn’t move or lift your head, didn’t even open your eyes. It took too much.

It was always him anyway.

The slow, measured sound of Joel’s boots crossing the room followed, each step unhurried. You could track him without looking, could feel the shift in the air as he moved closer, closer - 

Until the broad shadow fell over you.

“Not lookin’ too energetic, sweetheart.”

The words settled over you, carrying that same steady calm that had never once faltered. Not at the beginning. Not now.

You tried to swallow.

Your throat protested immediately, the motion dry and painful, leaving you with nothing but the faintest rasp when you attempted to answer. No words came. Only a weak shift of your fingers against the blanket, a reflex more than anything.

The mattress dipped beside you.

Your eyes fluttered open and for a second the world didn’t quite come into focus. Shapes blurred together, light and shadow bleeding into each other until they settled enough for you to see Joel’s broad figure.

And the glass in his hand.

Your entire focus snapped to it, your head lifting just slightly, barely enough to track the way the light caught against the surface.

Joel let out a quiet, humorless huff.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Figured as much.” His gaze flicked back to you, something unreadable sitting behind it. “You thirsty, darlin’?”

You managed the smallest nod and a faint, broken sound escaped your throat with it, barely there.

“Shh.” His voice softened even though it lacked real gentleness.

His hand came up, sliding beneath your head, lifting you with surprising care until you were more upright, your body swaying slightly with the movement.

“C’mon,” he murmured. “Stay with me.”

The glass hovered close enough now that you could almost feel the coolness of it against your skin. Your eyes tracked it, slipping in and out of focus, your entire body leaning toward it without thinking.

“You want some?” he asked, like it wasn’t already obvious.

You nodded again.

Weak.

Desperate.

“Didn’t quite catch that.”

The calm in his voice made something twist in your chest.

“P-please…” The word scraped out of you, so thinned out…

His mouth curved faintly.

“That’s my girl.” His hand shifted, cupping your cheek to steady you, his thumb brushing lightly over your cheekbone. “Open up for me.”

You did.

Instantly.

The moment the glass tipped and the water touched your lips, everything else disappeared. The restraint you’d been clinging to - what little of it remained - shattered under the sheer need of it. You drank greedily, swallowing too fast, too much, the liquid spilling at the corners of your mouth as you tried to take in as much as you could.

A small cough broke through, choking you briefly, forcing you to pull back just enough to catch your breath.

Joel let out a low chuckle, his thumb brushing away the water that had run down your cheek.

“Easy,” he said. “Ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

He gave you a moment, then brought the glass back.

“That better?” he asked, watching you as you drank again, slower this time, your body still trembling slightly with the effort.

You nodded faintly against his hand.

“Yeah,” he murmured, almost to himself. “Thought so.”

When the glass finally emptied, he set it aside, his hand still steady at your jaw as he adjusted you, lifting you just a little more.

Your gaze followed the glass as far as it could.

Then snapped back to him.

“M-more…” The word came easier this time, but only just. “Please.”

It was instinct now. Need overriding everything else.

He watched you for a moment.

Long enough to make your stomach tighten.

“Maybe,” he said slowly, like he was considering it.

His fingers tilted your chin slightly, guiding your face up toward him, while his other hand brushed through your hair, pushing the tangled strands back from your face. You knew how it must look - greasy, unkempt, clinging in uneven pieces - but you couldn’t bring yourself to care.

Not when the dryness in your throat screamed louder than anything else.

“Tell you what,” he went on, his tone shifting again into something almost casual. “We’ll get you a bit more.”

A pause.

“But first -” His thumb dragged lightly along your jaw. “We clean you up some.”

How you were supposed to manage that, you had no idea.

Holding your own weight upright for more than a few seconds already felt like too much, your head swimming with the effort, your body barely responding the way it should. The thought of moving - of doing anything beyond the small, careful shifts you’d limited yourself to - felt almost impossible.

Luckily, Joel didn’t leave it to you.

His hands steadied you first, lowering you back against the mattress with a care that felt almost out of place after everything else. Then you felt him at your ankle - fingers brushing over the cold metal there - and a second later, the distinct click of it releasing.

For a moment, your mind didn’t catch up.

Didn’t process what that meant.

Because before you could, he was already moving again, one arm sliding beneath your knees, the other bracing your back as he lifted you up with ease.

Your body reacted before your thoughts could catch up, your head lolling against his chest as your arms curled in close, instinctively seeking stability.

You hated the way it felt. Because it was good somehow.

The steady rise and fall of his breathing beneath your cheek, the solid warmth of him holding you close - it pulled at something deep and desperate inside you, something that had been starved of contact, of anything resembling care.

You curled in without meaning to.

You didn’t need to see his face to know that he noticed it - the slight shift in his hold, the way his grip settled more comfortably around you, like he was exactly where he wanted to be.

“When was the last time you had a real bath, hm?”

His voice was close to thoughtful as he carried you out of the room, the place that had become your entire world fading behind you with each step he took.

The room he brought you to was small.

A bathroom that had long since lost whatever comfort it once held, but the sight of the tub - actual water filling it, faintly steaming in the low, flickering light of a worn out camping lamp - felt almost surreal.

Joel crouched slightly as he approached it, adjusting his hold on you.

“Gonna get you outta the rest of this, alright?”

The question wasn’t really one.

You both knew that.

Still - your head shifted faintly against his chest.

A weak nod.

“Yes.”

The word came easier now and with a quiet compliance.

He set you down on the edge of the tub, the cold porcelain biting into your skin as your body slumped forward slightly before you forced yourself upright again, your balance wavering but holding - for now.

Joel crouched in front of you but even like this, he felt larger than you by far.

“Gonna have you feelin’ brand new,” he murmured, his hand brushing slowly along your arm.

Your body reacted immediately. A small shift toward him before you could stop it. The need for contact overriding your better judgment for just a second too long.

It vanished though the moment his fingers moved higher, finding the clasp at your back, undoing it with practiced ease before sliding the straps of your bra from you.

Your shoulders pulled inward automatically, a weak attempt at covering yourself that you didn’t have the strength to fully follow through on.

“Now, now,” he muttered amused. “No need for that. Nothin’ I haven’t seen somewhere already.”

His grin wasn’t kind.

“Now help me out here.”

His hand moved lower, fingers grazing your side before hooking lightly at the edge of your panties, tugging just enough to guide you.

And again - 

You followed.

Your body shifting with his touch, hips lifting just slightly as he pulled the fabric down, over your skin, over your thighs, your knees - until it caught briefly at your ankles.

He took his time then.

Lifting one foot free.

Then the other.

His fingers brushing lightly over your skin in a way that lingered just a second longer than necessary.

“You’re doin’ real good,” he praised and it washed over you. “See? Ain’t so hard.”

You nodded again in automation. You weren’t even sure what you were agreeing to anymore - only that going along with it seemed to make things… easier.

“C’mon.” His hands guided you gently, lifting your legs over the edge of the tub and lowering you into the water.

The warmth hit instantly.

A shock at first - then relief.

Your body sank into it and tension unraveled in a way you hadn’t realized it could, every muscle loosening as the heat seeped in, easing the stiffness, the ache, the constant strain you had been carrying for days. The water bit only at the skin where the cuffs had scraped over the past few days.

“There you go,” he murmured, watching you as you settled, his voice carrying that same quiet approval. “That better?”

You nodded again, slower this time.

His hand hovered in the water near you - not touching, but close enough that you were aware of it.

“Yeah,” he said, almost to himself. “Figured. C’mon,” he added after a moment. “Lean back.”

His hand slid beneath your neck, supporting you as he guided you down, your head tilting back into his palm as your hair sank beneath the surface. The water closed around you and muffled everything for a bit.

His other hand moved then, scooping water, letting it run slowly over your scalp, careful and controlled, keeping it from your eyes.

You let them close.

Let yourself drift in it.

For a moment, it felt like actual safety. Like care or something you could almost trust.

That was because you didn’t see the way his gaze shifted.

Didn’t catch the way it moved over your naked body - taking in every detail with a quiet intensity that bordered on predatory.

Instead, you only felt his hand again, moving from your hair to your arm, fingers tracing slowly along your skin.

Up.

Down.

Your breath caught faintly, your body tensing just a fraction before it eased again, caught between instinct and the overwhelming relief of the warmth around you.

His hand moved further.

Your side this time, following the curve there, slow and unhurried.

Your eyes only snapped open when his fingers suddenly found your nipple, softly tweezing it as if testing.

“J-Joel…” You searched his eyes but he only looked at you with the same unraveling calm. His fingers retreated slightly, the pressure easing as if nothing had happened, as if it had meant nothing at all.

“Easy,” he said, that same quiet tone slipping back into place. “Just helpin’ you out.”

Your pulse picked up.

But you didn’t pull away.

Instead, you let your head fall back into his hand again, your body sinking deeper into the water, your mind too tired, too worn down to hold onto a sane reaction.

“See?” Joel’s voice dropped low next to you. “Whole lot better when you just let go, darlin’.”

The words drifted over you, wrapping around the warmth of the water, around the heaviness in your limbs that made it easier to sink into it. His touch followed soon after, returning without hesitation nor rush. His fingers brushed along your collarbone, traced the line of your neck before moving over your shoulder like he had all the time in the world.

The path of his hand as it cupped your breast, slid further, over the softened curve of your stomach beneath the water. A faint, involuntary flinch slipped through you when the touch tickled just slightly, your breath catching on it.

A low chuckle answered it.

“That feelin’ alright?” he murmured, close enough that you could feel the vibration of it through the water. “Me takin’ care of you?”

Your head tilted back just slightly in his hold.

You nodded.

Because somewhere beneath the exhaustion, beneath the haze of everything you had been through, there was a pull - a need - that reached for exactly this. For steadiness. For something that felt like being held together instead of pulled apart.

Joel’s voice shifted again, something deeper threading through it now.

“Want me to take real good care of ya?”

There was something in it.

An edge you should have caught.

But your mind… lagged. Sluggish, dulled by days of deprivation, by the overwhelming relief of warmth and water and touch that didn’t hurt.

So you nodded again.

“Yes, Joel.”

Your eyes had already slipped closed again, your body settling further into the water, into him - so you didn’t see the change in his expression. Didn’t see the way a darkness settled behind his gaze, paired with that faint, unsettling curve of his mouth.

His hand moved further from your stomach until he dipped between your legs, cupping your mound. He kept still then, letting you feel the warmth of his hand in contrast to the warmth of the water. It blurred together, your body too slow to react the way your mind tried to. There was a disconnect there, you should scream, object, push away. 

Instead your hips shifted against him - just slightly, barely there - but enough for him to notice.

“Look at you,” Joel murmured, shifting beside the tub as he sat at the edge, his focus fully on you. “Real pretty like this.”

His voice dropped lower.

“Soft… open…”

His middle finger traced lazily along your slit and your mouth opened without meaning to, a faint, unsteady breath slipping free.

“...vulnerable.”

He shifted closer as he applied more pressure with his finger, parting you and sliding once up and down before giving your clit a small, testing flick. There was a subtle increase in pressure and your body answered before your mind could catch up.

Joel made a low, almost soothing sound, meant to calm, to steady, as if he could feel that split inside you.

“That’s it,” he murmured. “Ain’t nothin’ to fight here.” His touch slowed, drawing rhythmic circles around your sensitive spot. “That’s what you needed?” he went on. “Someone takin’ proper care of you?”

Part of you recoiled.

The contradiction sat heavy in your chest, tightening your breath, even as your hand moved on its own accord, finding his arm beneath the water. Your fingers curled there, seeking something to hold onto as the surface shifted in soft ripples around you, each small movement of his hand sending them outward in quiet, overlapping waves.

“That’s it,” Joel murmured and the approval in his voice was coaxing. “Sweet girl… I got ya.”

His finger pressed at your entrance, and when it nudged at you more firmly, your body reacted instantly. A sharp inhale broke from you, uncontained, your back arching just slightly before the strength left you again, leaving only that trembling, uncertain tension behind.

“Shhh… shh…” he soothed, the sound close to your ear, his hand at your neck tightening just enough to steady you when you wavered, his thumb brushing slow, grounding strokes along the sensitive line there. “Easy now. Just relax.”

It shouldn’t have worked.

And yet -

Somehow, it did.

The tension softened at the edges as you let out a long, shaky breath. Your body followed it, sinking just a fraction deeper into the warmth, into his hold.

He didn’t hesitate.

The moment you gave him that inch, he took it.

His finger moved and pressed in, and the sensation made you jolt weakly, a broken sound catching in your throat as your grip on his arm tightened without strength behind it.

“There we go,” he smiled, satisfaction threading through the words. “That’s it, baby girl… gonna do you some good.”

His movements stayed steady, controlled in a way that gave you no choice but to adjust and to follow along, your body slowly giving way to the rhythm he set with his finger pumping in and out of you even though it felt too much already.

Your eyes stayed shut though.

Like that alone could block it out, could distance you from the reality of Joel fingerfucking you in a state of haze and hallucination.

Because if you had opened them - if you had forced yourself to look - you would have seen it. The way his gaze lingered on you, tracking every reaction you couldn’t hide. The slight shifts in your expression, the way your lips parted without sound, the way your brows pulled together when he hit deeper than before, burying his finger to the last knuckle.

You would have seen how closely he watched.

How much he noticed.

And you would have caught the way something darker settled into his expression. The quiet satisfaction. The intent behind it. Maybe even how his body responded in turn, the bulge in his jeans growing.

But you didn’t.

You stayed in the dark.

And in that darkness, everything blurred together - the warmth of the water, the weight of his touch, the exhaustion that dulled your thoughts and softened your edges until all that remained was sensation.

Because all there was with Joel was darkness, sweet, coating, everlasting.

His movements shifted - firmer now, more insistent - though they never lost that same controlled rhythm. It pulled small sounds from you before you could stop them, caught somewhere between resistance and a plea for more.

“What’s that, sweetie?” Joel’s voice carried that low, knowing edge again. “You need a little more?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. Didn’t give you the space to form one. Instead, he added his index finger, splitting you further open and giving you little to no time to adjust as his palm pressed against your clit.

A broken sound slipped out of you and your body betrayed you once more - leaning into him, seeking the steadiness of his arm, your hips shifting just enough to meet the motion rather than escape it.

Joel huffed a quiet laugh at that.

“So eager, darlin’,” he smirked. “Can’t wait to get that sweet release, do you?”

The water moved around you in uneven ripples, echoing every subtle shift, every reaction you couldn’t fully control. Your legs tried to draw in, instinctively, but his arm kept you where he wanted you - open and surrendered.

His fingers pushed harder and it forced another breath from you - sharper this time, breaking unevenly as your head dipped slightly, the water brushing higher along your skin.

“You’re doin’ so good,” he muttered, though there was no real softness in it - only control. “Want me to give it to you, sweetheart?”

Your body tried to keep up, tried to ground itself, but everything felt blurred - too much and not enough all at once. The warmth, the exhaustion, the constant pull between pushing away and leaning in - it tangled together until it was impossible to separate one from the other.

“C’mon,” Joel pressed, his voice dropping lower and his hand pumping unrelenting. “Use your words.”

His grip at your neck tightened just slightly, to keep you from slipping further under the surface when your balance wavered.

“Speak.”

Your eyes fluttered open then, barely, your gaze catching on his through the haze - unsteady, unfocused, something pleading sitting behind it without form or clarity.

“P-please…”

The word came out thin.

He tilted his head slightly.

“Please what, darlin’?”

You didn’t know.

Part of you wanted it to stop - to end, to pull away, to reclaim something of yourself that felt like it was slipping too far out of reach. But another part clung to it instead. To the way it filled the silence, the emptiness.

A tear slipped free, tracing down your temple.

A faint smile touched Joel’s mouth.

“‘Please continue’?,” he murmured, almost to himself. “‘Please go harder’? ‘Please more’? Want me to fill you up real good?”

That made you shake your head immediately. You were more than certain that your body would not be in a state to take him fully. Not now. Not ever.

Joel answered with a condescending laugh. “Yeah, no, that time will come. But we have to prepare you for it, don’t we? For now”, he pulled from you nearly completely only to drive in even deeper than before, making you gasp and your insides twist, “for now, I just need you to come for me, baby girl.” 

Your breath stuttered, your grip tightening weakly against him as your body tensed, that unfamiliar pressure coiling tighter and tighter beneath your ribs.

“Almost there,” he guided you through it. “Just let it happen.”

You didn’t fight it.

Not anymore.

There wasn’t anything left in you to hold it back.

The tension snapped suddenly, pulling you under in a way that stole what little breath you had left. The water rose around you, covering your ears and dulling everything for a moment - your own moans, his voice - the world narrowing to that single, overwhelming sensation that ran through you in sharp, unsteady waves.

Joel stayed buried deep in you, feeling your spasms pulling his digits deeper.

“Oh, darlin,” he cooed, “I can only imagine what you must feel like around my cock. Can’t wait for you to be ready for me.” His muffled words carried you through it, stars bursting before your inner eye and the sensation rippling through your weakened body. 

You barely registered the way he shifted, the low sound he made under his breath as your body tightened and then slowly, slowly began to ease again.

It took time.

Your breathing came back first - shallow, uneven - your body following in slow increments, the tension draining out of your limbs until you felt heavy again, spent in a way that left no room for anything else.

“Well done,” he spoke after a moment. “That must have cost you.”

He curled his fingers once more and made sure to collect every spasm and after effect his touch had on you before he slipped his fingers from you and gave your pussy a last affirmative pat.

Then his hand moved upward through the water, cupping your face this time, steadying you as he leaned in just enough to press a hard long kiss to the top of your head.

“Did so good for me,” he said softly. “Ain’t so bad when you listen, is it?”

You shook your head slightly, the movement weak, your eyes already drifting shut again as the exhaustion settled back in fully.

He adjusted his hold, his arms sliding beneath you once more as he lifted you from the tub, water splashing everywhere. The warmth left you too quickly this time, replaced by the cooler air that made you shiver faintly.

So, again, your body leaned into him, seeking what little warmth remained, what little steadiness he provided.

“Let’s get you back,” he muttered, already moving. “You’ve had enough for tonight. Think you owned a real blanket now, right?”

The thought alone nearly made you beg for it even though you knew deep down this was exactly what he intended with this. Making you compliant. Docile. 

It didn’t matter though as he set you down on the bed because when he returned shortly with the blanket, wrapping you up, that was all that you could ask or really.

Because humiliation was a small price to pay for safety.

You did not even register him leaving. But you knew he’d return. And he would continue to mold to into his world of darkness.

Part 2 (coming soon)

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Amy slid back into Kazeem’s waiting arms as Harry slid from his, the grip turning into another of those rough, affectionate embraces that made your chest ache. There was warmth in it, the kind of long friendship that didn’t falter with years.

Then coats were on, doors locked, and the cold air of the stairwell bit your cheeks. Harry’s hand found the small of your back as he guided you down the steps. It was almost enough to make you stumble, your knees threatening to give in.

Your Uber was already waiting at the curb, headlights bright against icy pavement.

“Ladies first,” Harry murmured, opening the door with a bow of mock chivalry.

You rolled your eyes but slid in, heart thumping as he followed, the space in the backseat suddenly too small when he settled closer than necessary. Your thighs brushed. He didn’t move away. Neither did you.

You gave the driver your address, voice a touch too light. “I really didn’t tidy my flat,” you blurted as the car pulled off, as though that might anchor your nerves.

Harry chuckled. “I really don’t give a fuck.” His arm came around your shoulders, pulling you into his chest.

The city streaked by outside - blurred neon, slick asphalt, strangers crossing streets under yellow lights and some late fireworks - but you didn’t see any of it. All you felt was the steady beat of his heart against your cheek, the rise and fall of his chest, the warmth that seeped into your bones. You were drunk, yes, but this wasn’t just alcohol.

Your laugh came breathy. “I don’t even have coffee in the morning. And maybe we’ll have to share a toothbrush.”

His lips brushed your hair as he leaned down, words smug. “You want me to go home, just say so.”

He knew. He knew you wouldn’t. The curve of his smile told you so.

“I’m just lowering your expectations,” you muttered, though the excuse sounded thin even to you.

His hand slid lower, settling on your thigh like it belonged there.

You inhaled sharply, tried to focus on the road lights flashing red, yellow, green. Your voice wavered. “That’s all I’m saying. Don’t expect much.”

“Oh, baby,” he murmured, so soft it wrapped around you, “expectations are high. I know exactly what I can look forward to.”

His fingers pressed lightly, not moving up yet, but the heat of his touch bled straight through your tights. You shifted instinctively, pressing your thighs together - not to stop him, but to stop yourself from melting.

The driver’s silhouette remained steady, eyes on the road. Maybe he didn’t notice. Maybe he’d learned to ignore what happened in backseats.

Harry’s mouth brushed your ear, his words low and wicked. “I’ve dreamed of this. Claiming you again and again until you’re hoarse from screaming my name.”

Your breath punched out of you raggedly. “Fuck, Harry.”

“Yeah,” he breathed, fingers sliding higher, grazing the hem of your dress. “Practice already.”

You didn’t even make it to your floor without losing yourselves.

Mouths clashed, breath hot and frantic, coats tangled between you. Harry pressed you back against the cool wall of the stairwell, his weight pinning you as if he had been waiting years for this. His hands were everywhere: tugging at your coat, catching in your hair, skimming the hem of your dress as if he couldn’t decide which piece of you to claim first.

Your fingers fumbled with the keys, clutching them in your palm like a lifeline. You tried blindly to slot the right one into the lock while Harry’s mouth stole every scrap of concentration you had left. He kissed you like oxygen was overrated, like air itself was secondary to the taste of your lips.

You crashed against the wall beside your door, laughter breaking between heated kisses when the keys slipped from your grip and clattered to the floor.

“Harry -” you gasped through a laugh, crouching to grab them, your hands unsteady.

“Don’t mind me,” he murmured against your neck, already pressing in from behind, lips trailing along your skin. His voice vibrated into you. His palms slid up your thighs, his fingers pushing the fabric of your skirt higher and higher until you could barely stand still long enough to find the lock.

Your keys slipped once more, then finally - miraculously - the door gave way. You stumbled inside together, coats half-on, half-off, your mouths colliding again. You tossed your keys toward the bowl on the entry table. For the first time in weeks, they landed perfectly with a satisfying clink. You almost wanted to laugh at the small victory, but Harry didn’t give you room.

He pulled back just enough to flash a grin, his dark eyes glinting in the dim light. “Shoes?” he asked, mocking you gently, a callback to that first morning in his apartment.

You laughed breathlessly, already tugging yours off while he kicked his sneakers aside without ceremony. He grabbed your coat as you shrugged it off, tossed it carelessly to the floor, and shook his head.

“Really no need for formalities, I see” he scoffed with mock solemnity, then closed the space again in a heartbeat, his lips pressing back to yours.

Both of you stumbled toward the sofa, laughter muffled between kisses. You landed against the armrest first, teetering for balance before Harry pushed you down gently but firmly, following you like a tide crashing over the shore.

Your dress rode up your hips under the force of his hands, his body pressing hot and heavy against yours, leaving you pulsing and restless. You arched beneath him, desperate, every nerve ending lit. His hands skimmed your waist, your thighs, mapping you.

Then - he pulled back, just slightly, eyes locking onto yours with intent that made you shiver.

“Those tights,” he said, breath rough. “Got any sentimental value?”

You blinked, then let out a breathy laugh, forehead creasing in disbelief. You shook your head slowly, already knowing what was coming.

In one swift motion, Harry grinned wickedly and tore the thin fabric. You gasped and threw your head back against the cushions, laughter bursting free as the rip echoed in the room.

“You’re insane,” you managed, your voice dissolving into a laugh that turned quickly into a moan as his fingers slipped over bare skin.

Harry kissed his way down, trailing soft kisses along your thigh, your hip, your inner leg. The brush of his lips burned. His mouth lingered just above the edge of your panties, his eyes never leaving yours - dark, hungry, and amused at the way your breath hitched.

“Harry -” your voice broke, half-laugh, half-plea.

His hands were steady on your thighs, spreading you just enough, teasingly making you wait. Then he shifted, pulling the fabric of your panties aside with practiced ease, and his breath warmed your core.

“I want to taste you,” he whispered, his words vibrating against you in a way that made your whole body clench.

Your giggles were gone in an instant, replaced with a soft, unguarded moan as his tongue flicked over your folds, gentle at first. Just a tease - barely there, light as a brush of silk - but enough to make your toes curl and your breath stutter. He lingered in that tenderness, slow licks that sent sparks up your spine, tasting you with quiet reverence as if he had all night to memorize you.

Then he deepened. One long stroke, the pressure firmer, his tongue flattening and circling until your thighs trembled around his shoulders. Every motion felt calculated to unravel you inch by inch.

Your fingers clutched the sofa cushions tight, and your nuckles whitened, as your body gave itself over to the steady tease of his tongue. Your carefully knotted bun loosened strand by strand, falling into wild disarray as you writhed beneath him.

“God -” you breathed, your voice already shaking.

Harry hummed low against you, the vibration sending another ripple of pleasure through your core. He was indulgent, greedy, but never careless - taking you apart with precision, worship woven into every flick of his tongue.

When his fingers joined, you nearly jolted off the cushions. The first slid in easily, probing and moving in perfect rhythm with his mouth. He set a pace that was steady, letting your body adjust to the stretch. Every slow curl made you arch, every press drew another broken sound from your throat.

Then came the second finger, sliding alongside the first, filling you further. Your gasp broke into a moan. He didn’t rush but pulled you higher while keeping you grounded with the weight of his other hand pressed firmly to your lower stomach. Each time your hips tried to buck into him, he pinned you steady, holding you there so he could dictate the rhythm and you could only take exactly what he gave.

The pace grew steadier, then spiked - faster, harder - whenever your hips twitched or your breath hitched too sharply. He read your body like a score, and you were the music spilling out between his lips and fingers. Pleasure coiled tighter and tighter in your belly, a rush you couldn’t hold back even if you tried.

You were undone. The room blurred at the edges, your vision swimming, every sound muffled by the relentless pulse in your ears. Your thighs shook around his head, desperate to both close around him and push him away, though you could do neither under his hold. Your breath came in sharp, uneven gasps, your body straining against his control as he pushed you closer to your climax.

Every nerve ending was alight, every second stretched unbearably until you were no longer sure if you were begging him to stop or to never stop at all.

When release hit, it was overwhelming. You cried out, voice raw, as pleasure swept through you like a tidal wave. He didn’t stop, not until you were slack against the cushions, your chest heaving, your body humming in the aftermath. His mouth slowed, then softened, and with that easing you down gently, guiding you through the storm he had created.

Your hands were still buried in the sofa, clutching tight like you’d fall away otherwise. Your head tipped back, your hair finally collapsing from the bun into a wild halo across the cushions. You were breathless, undone, glowing and trembling under his hands.

Harry pulled back just enough to look up at you, lips glistening with your arousal, expression equal parts smug and tender. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand almost lazily before leaning over you, pressing his lips to yours, giving you a faint, heady taste of yourself. You shivered at the intimacy of it.

“You are divine,” he murmured, his fingers already sliding back between your thighs. He teased you, dipping in just enough to make you clench around him, not enough to let you chase the crest again. The motion was infuriating and delicious, and your legs still trembled against the arm rest.

“I look like a mess,” you managed between breathless laughter, lifting your hands to tear the pins and elastics from your hair. It tumbled down in a tangle, falling in wild waves around your face and shoulders.

“Not nearly enough,” he countered, grinning against your cheek. “Wait until I’m done with you.” The promise was a spark straight to your core. Your body tightened in anticipation, heat gathering low and fast. “Will you let me lead you tonight, darling?”

The word darling alone melted your resolve, made you ready to agree to anything he asked of you. You nodded before you could even think.

He tsked softly, shaking his head. “Not enough, Emily. Use your words. Tell me.”

You swallowed, throat suddenly dry, your body betraying you with how much you craved giving him that answer. “Yes,” you whispered, your voice hoarse. “Lead me.”

Satisfaction carved across his face. “Very good.”

He rose, pulling away from your body. You blinked at the sudden absence, until he offered his hand and drew you up with him. His palm engulfed yours, steadying you when your legs threatened to give. He turned you gently, his touch gliding down your bare arms in a fleeting brush that was as reassuring as it was commanding. Then, without a word, he swept your hair over one shoulder, exposing the line of your back.

His fingers found the zipper at your spine. He drew it down achingly slow. The fabric fell away from your shoulders in a whisper, sliding down your body until it pooled at your feet. Instinct tugged you to turn toward him, to meet his gaze, but his hand was already on your shoulder, pressing you forward, holding you in place.

“Tsk, tsk,” he breathed behind you. “Didn’t say you could move, did I?”

Your skin prickled at his words. You had been naked before him already, had given yourself fully, but this was different. This was deliberate surrender, your body arranged for him, waiting for his next move. The air seemed cooler against you, your bra still strapped across your chest, your panties torn askew beneath the shredded tights. Somehow it made you feel more bare than actual nudity. Exposed. Offered.

And God, you craved it.

His hands traced the line of your spine, before unclasping your bra in one fluid motion. You froze, unsure whether to shrug it off or wait. He chuckled low against your neck, seeing your hesitation, and stepped closer until his chest warmed your back. His fingers nudged the straps from your shoulders, letting the fabric slide down your arms until it joined the heap at your feet. He was savoring this - the power in peeling you open so slowly.

Then he knelt, lips brushing fleeting kisses along the curve of your hip, your thigh, while his hands worked at the ruined tights. He tugged at the torn fabric until it slipped from your legs, lifting each of your feet carefully to free you.

You barely had a chance to ground yourself before his touch changed again. A brush of lips against the swell of your ass, a palm dragging down the back of your thigh, then a sharp tug. Your panties slid down fast, yanked with such force you stumbled forward a step, your gasp breaking into the charged air.

His laugh was darker now, edged and unyielding, vibrating against your skin as he stood. You felt him behind you, his height, his heat, before his arm looped suddenly around your throat. Not choking, but firm, his forearm resting like an iron bar across your collarbones as he pulled you back flush against his chest. Your body locked in his grasp, naked against him.

His lips found your ear, breath hot, voice low. “You tell me to stop, I stop immediately. Do you understand?”

Relief and hunger hit you at once. You nodded automatically, the instinct to yield immediate, but his voice was already there again, correcting.

“Words, Emily.”

You swallowed, heart hammering, and forced them out. “Yes.” Your voice cracked, but then you added, almost without thinking, “Yes… sir.”

The word had meant to come out sharp, playful, a teasing jab - but it didn’t. It left your mouth weighted and real.

You felt him grin against your skin, a satisfied, almost feral smile. And you knew you had just handed him more than permission. You had given him the reins.

Next Chapter

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There was something deeply unsettling about how someone capable of tearing a man apart with his bare hands could touch you with such impossible care. Every movement of his was so patient, almost reverent, as though he feared you might crack apart beneath too much pressure.

Part of you suspected you already had.

The warmth of the water only made the coldness beneath your skin more noticeable. You could feel it now in quiet moments, the subtle wrongness of your body - your heartbeat absent, your breathing optional and your senses stretched too far beyond what should have been natural.

“When does it stop feeling strange?” your voice was barely audible beneath the water.

Max’s hand slowed instantly where the cloth moved over your shoulder. He dragged it lightly along your collarbone before lowering it entirely, his gaze lifting to yours.

“When do I feel like myself again?” you clarified quietly.

For a moment something painfully tender crossed his expression. Not pity exactly. Something sadder than that.

“You don’t,” he admitted softly. “Not completely. It changes eventually, though. Becomes... something else. Something you learn to live as.”

You lowered your gaze, absorbing the answer without really knowing what to do with it. Then, after a second, you reached for the cloth in his hand. Your fingers brushed, and Max’s expression softened further as you carefully began wiping the remaining blood from his face instead.

“If it helps,” he murmured, leaning almost unconsciously into your touch, “you still feel like you to me.”

To your own surprise, the words eased something inside you.

You decided not to linger there emotionally before you drowned in it entirely.

“Here,” you muttered instead, tugging lightly at the soaked fabric plastered to his chest. “Help me with that.”

A grin immediately tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Second time tonight you are trying to undress me.”

You flicked water at him in response. “Just trying to keep things fair.”

His laugh rumbled low in his chest as he peeled the shirt over his head and tossed it carelessly onto the floor outside the shower. Water rolled over bare skin and the fading marks where bullets had nearly ended him only hours ago. Your gaze dropped there instinctively while you ran the cloth carefully across the healed wounds, fingertips trailing after the movement.

“Better?” he asked knowingly, one arm braced against the tile beside your head.

“Much,” you admitted, entirely unapologetic.

The cloth drifted lower toward the waistband of his pants more out of instinct than intention.

Max’s eyes darkened with amusement. “Say no more, sweetheart.”

The nickname settled warmly beneath your ribs, familiar enough to make you smile despite yourself. He pushed away from the wall long enough to undo the button and zipper before stepping out of the drenched fabric, leaving it abandoned beside the rest of your ruined clothes.

You barely had time to properly look at him before he crowded close again, pressing you gently back against the cool tile. You remembered him perfectly from the night you had spent together before everything shattered apart, but now every sensation arrived heightened, sharpened nearly unbearably by what you had become. His warmth. His scent. The solid weight of him against you.

When he finally kissed you, it hit like drowning.

Your arms slid instinctively around his neck, fingers disappearing into wet curls as you pulled him closer. The restraint dissolved quickly, mouths parting, breaths mingling even though neither of you truly needed them anymore.

“We should sleep,” he managed eventually between kisses, voice rough and low against your mouth. “We’re exhausted.”

You laughed breathlessly against his lips. “Who says I’m staying here?”

You felt his smirk before you saw it. “Good luck finding sleep in your own bedroom without blackout curtains then.”

Before you could answer, he reached behind you to shut off the water entirely. The sudden absence of sound left only the quiet drip of water and your uneven breathing filling the bathroom. Then, without warning, Max lifted you effortlessly from the tub.

You instinctively wrapped your legs around his waist, looking down at him through damp strands of your hair.

“Then at least -” you started.

Max cut you off with another kiss, deeper this time, his forehead briefly resting against yours afterward while his voice dropped into something almost wrecked.

“For the love of God, Ashley,” he murmured against your mouth, “stop talking and let me fuck you.”

Their first time together had been born from tension sharp enough to cut through skin, from suspicion and adrenaline and weeks of resisting.

This felt entirely different.

The apartment remained wrapped in darkness, every curtain drawn tight against the full morning while the city beyond the windows slowly drifted toward another ordinary day. Max carried you through the quiet flat without hurry, his hands steady beneath you as though he feared rushing even this. When he lowered you onto the sheets of his bed, you barely had time to settle before your fingers curled into him again, pulling him down into another lingering kiss.

And for once, Max let the moment breathe.

There was no urgency in the way he touched you now. No frantic edge beneath it. Instead he moved with impossible patience, as though relearning you slowly mattered more than anything else in the world.

You lay back against the pillows while he kissed his way across your skin with deliberate care, starting at your mouth before wandering over your jaw.

When his lips brushed the thin pink line along your throat where Torres had slit it open only hours ago, something in his expression softened almost painfully. He lingered there longer than anywhere else, pressing slow kisses over the scar as if affection alone could somehow erase the memory carved into your body.

Then he continued downward.

His mouth trailed across your collarbones, over the curve of your chest, the faint scrape of his beard against sensitive skin making you shiver beneath him. Warmth pooled low in your stomach while his kisses traveled lower still with maddening slowness until he reached your side and you jerked with sudden laughter.

“Good to know,” you gasped between giggles, twisting slightly beneath him, “that being ticklish is still a thing.”

Max grinned against your skin, the expression warm and entirely too pleased with himself. “Oh yes, heightened senses are definitely an upgrade for your sexlife.”

His mouth wandered lower again, lingering at your hipbones while his hands slid beneath your legs, drawing you closer to him inch by inch. You propped yourself slightly on your elbows to look down at him, damp hair spilling around your shoulders while anticipation flickered openly across your face now.

“You’re making some very ambitious promises,” you warned lightly.

Max answered with that familiar boyish grin that always looked dangerously out of place on someone capable of so much violence.

“Sweetheart,” he murmured against the inside of your thigh, voice roughened by amusement and want alike, “trying to work on the promises I make.”

You snorted softly at that, though the sound dissolved quickly into a shaky exhale when his tongue wandered over your center and gave your clit a teasing flick.

“You’re ridiculous,” you breathed.

“Mm.” His eyes lifted briefly to yours, gold catching gold in the dim room. “But rarely disappointing.”

Your fingers tightened in his curls the moment he shifted against you, but instead of letting him disappear between your thighs again, you tugged him insistently upward. He gave you two more slow strokes with his tongue, enough to make your breath hitch and your stomach tighten around the anticipation already coiling there, before he finally surrendered to the pull of your hands.

You wriggled beneath him, sliding lower against the sheets until you could cup both of his shoulders properly, your palms warm against damp skin as you drew him back over your body.

“Kiss me,” you breathed, the plea leaving your lips with such fragile urgency that it almost sounded painful. “Please.”

Max did not smirk this time or tease you for begging. Something in your voice stripped the humor clean out of him. He simply came back to you instantly, bracing himself above you as his body pressed fully against yours, all heat and muscle and the lingering scent of soap, water and blood still trapped faintly in his curls.

One hand slid beneath your neck while the other cupped the side of your face, thumb brushing along your cheek as he kissed you with a slowness that captivated you more effectively than anything rough ever could have.

Your hands wandered restlessly across his shoulders, down the broad line of his back. Your fingernails dragged lightly over him and a low rumble vibrated through Max’s chest at the sensation, swallowed between your mouths as the kiss deepened. You could feel the hard length of his cock pressing against your pelvis and every slow roll of his hips against you sent another pulse of need spiraling low through your stomach.

“I need you, Max,” you whispered.

The words surprised even you. It was not simply lust clawing through your body, although there was plenty of that too. It was deeper, rawer, as if something fundamental inside you had cracked open the moment you died and only now, here beneath him, it began stitching itself together again. The hunger, the rage, the grief, the disorientation of becoming something new - it all quieted when he touched you like this.

“I got you,” he murmured against your lips.

The words were quiet, but you felt the weight behind them. Felt it in the way he kissed you again like he was trying to pour every unspoken thing into your mouth instead. Your legs parted instinctively beneath him as his hand drifted lower between you. He stroked through your slickness once, twice, and the small sound that escaped you at the sensation made something heated flash across his face.

Then he guided himself into you.

No rough thrust, no sudden claiming. Just a steady push that stole the breath from both of you. You arched beneath him immediately, welcoming him with a softness that made Max’s eyes close briefly as he bottomed out inside you inch by inch. Your warmth surrounded him completely, tight and impossibly addictive, and for one suspended moment neither of you moved at all.

Max opened his eyes again only to find you staring back at him with an expression so open it nearly hurt to look at.

“This is…” you exhaled shakily, your brows knitting together in disbelief as one leg wrapped tighter around his hip, drawing him impossibly closer. “…something else.”

A quiet laugh escaped him, rough around the edges. “Told you.”

He rolled his hips once, slow enough to make your mouth fall open against his shoulder. Your fingers dug into his back immediately, your entire body reacting before your mind could catch up.

“Holy fu-”

“There’s nothing holy about this, love,” Max murmured against your jaw before kissing his way down your throat again.

Then he began to move properly, setting a rhythm that was neither hurried nor gentle enough to spare you, and you could only cling to him as the world narrowed entirely to the feeling of him inside you.

Max felt the shudder move through you the instant he pressed deeper, your muscles tightening around him in uneven pulses that made restraint suddenly feel like the hardest thing he had ever attempted.

You buried your face against the curve of his throat as though grounding yourself there, your breath hot against his skin, little broken sounds slipping from your lips every time his hips rolled into yours again.

He had spent decades existing with heightened senses, decades learning how overwhelming pleasure could become for his kind, but this was different. Nothing in all those years compared to the way you felt beneath him now, every reaction amplified until it nearly drowned him in it.

He forced himself to keep the pace steady despite the instinct clawing at him to lose control completely. It was too intoxicating watching you come apart like this, watching tension melt from your body. Your fingers dragged helplessly over his shoulders and back while your thighs tightened around his waist as if you physically could not pull him close enough.

“Max…” His name left you in a breathless wreck of a sound, barely coherent, but he already knew. He could feel it in the way your body clenched around him, in the sharp hitch of your movements whenever he drove into you just right.

His hand slid into your hair, easing your head back enough so he could look at you properly. Your pupils were blown wide open in the darkness, lips parted, cheeks flushed despite the coldness that now lived beneath your skin.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” he murmured, his voice rougher than before. “Don’t hold back. Let me feel you.”

He pressed into you again, deeper this time, his chest slick against yours from the steam and lingering heat still clinging to both of you. For one irrational second he wanted to taste every inch of you all over again, wanted to chase the salt on your skin with his tongue just because he could. Instead he kept his gaze locked onto yours, completely consumed by the sight of you unraveling beneath him.

You could no longer separate sensation from thought. Everything blurred together into overwhelming warmth and motion and him. Since waking into this new existence, every emotion had been too sharp, every sound too loud, every instinct too violent, but this eclipsed all of it entirely.

It flooded through you like light breaking through deep water, burning away the cold that had settled inside you since the moment you died. Your hips rocked against his instinctively and when his lips crashed against yours again, the moan caught in your throat dissolved into the kiss as the orgasm finally tore through you.

The force of it nearly dragged Max under with you.

A breathless laugh escaped him, half disbelief and half pure overwhelm, because seeing you like this - open, trusting, completely lost in him - felt dangerously close to happiness.

The devotion in the way you clung to him shattered whatever restraint he had left. He buried himself deeper inside you as his own release hit moments later, his forehead pressed against yours while both of you struggled to catch breaths neither technically needed.

For a long moment neither of you moved. The city outside remained distant and muted beyond the blackout curtains while the room settled into silence broken only by the occasional creak of the old building and the soft drag of your skin against tangled sheets.

Max stayed above you until your trembling eased, brushing his thumb lazily across your cheek as your eyes fluttered open again.

You blinked up at him dazedly before a slow grin tugged at your mouth.

“Okay,” you murmured hoarsely, “that definitely belongs on the pro side of becoming a vampire.”

Max laughed softly against your lips, relief loosening something tight in his chest at the sound of you joking about any of this. “Yeah, that was a first for me, too.”

He rolled onto his side then, immediately pulling you with him so you stayed tucked against his body. One arm wrapped securely around your waist while he scattered absentminded kisses along your shoulder and the back of your neck, unwilling to stop touching you now that he finally could again.

You caught his forearm and tugged it tighter around yourself before twisting slightly to look back at him, amusement glittering in your tired expression.

“So,” you said lightly, “does this mean I’ve popped your vampire-sex cherry?”

Max buried his grin briefly against your shoulder. “Yeah,” he admitted. “Turns out I’ve been seriously missing out.”

Your laugh came softer this time, heavy with exhaustion finally creeping in now that the adrenaline and hunger had faded. You settled back against him fully, eyes drifting closed as you relaxed into the mattress and his warmth behind you.

“Well,” you mumbled sleepily, “good thing we’ve apparently got eternity to practice.”

A quiet chuckle vibrated through his chest. “Something tells me my nights are about to get a lot busier.”

“Obviously,” you murmured. “You’re the one stuck teaching me vampire survival now.”

The teasing faded slightly from his expression at that. His fingers brushed slowly over your arm before he spoke again, quieter this time.

“Would you actually let me do that?” he asked. “Help you through all of this?”

You gave a tired hum that bordered on a laugh. “Considering you dragged me into this mess?” Your hand found his beneath the blanket, squeezing lightly. “Yeah, Max. Least you can do.”

His eyes closed at that, forehead resting briefly against the back of your shoulder. “Careful,” he murmured. “You keep sounding forgiving and I might start believing I deserve it.”

Outside, day slowly overtook the city in brightening light, while inside the darkened apartment two exhausted vampires finally allowed themselves the first real rest either of them had found in a very long time.

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Not a single scrap of ego in sight. No brittle edge of masculinity that so many men wore like armor. Just warmth. Affection. It made you blush and your heart pound, and you had to look away before the butterflies in your chest gave you away.

Amy’s head tilted up from your lap, catching your line of sight. A sly smirk spread across her face.

“If I don’t see a New Year’s kiss at midnight,” she murmured, words syrupy with drink, “I’ll shove you both off the balcony myself.”

You laughed under your breath, trying to bat her off. “Let a girl breathe. I need -"

But Amy didn’t wait for your excuses. She rose fluidly, weaving her way, passing the couch table and crossed legs until she was standing in front of Harry and Kazeem, who were still doubled over with some old university joke.

“I’m beginning to think you’re more in love with him than I am,” Amy teased, eyes on Harry as she slid herself into their circle.

You felt a flush of something that wasn’t quite jealousy, but close - a proud tug like a warm ache. Love. You hadn’t heard Amy sound like that in a long time.

Harry threw up his hands in mock surrender. “Guilty,” he said, grin crooked. “But don’t forget, I’ve seen him naked more times than you can count.”

Kazeem barked out a laugh that filled the room, pulling Amy into his lap with ease. Harry let himself be nudged out of the way, still chuckling as he stumbled lightly back toward the sofa.

And then he was beside you.

He dropped into the seat with a careless grace, a beer bottle dangling from one hand. His other arm lifted, spreading casually across the back of the sofa. He wasn’t touching you - he wasn’t even trying to - but the space he filled, the warmth he radiated, the faint graze of his fingers against the bare skin of your arm as he adjusted… it was enough to make your pulse race.

You told yourself not to lean back. You did anyway, almost unconsciously, your shoulder brushing the crook of his elbow.

Across from you, Amy and Kazeem were already tangled together, their kiss unashamed, long and hungry.

“They’re a sight, aren’t they?” Harry’s voice was low, amusement threading through it, and the vibration of it ran straight down your spine.

“They’ll probably make the most disgustingly beautiful babies alive,” you said before thinking.

His laugh came soft, a sound you felt in your chest. You turned your head to meet his gaze. His eyes, behind the glass, were dark and impossibly warm. Abd he didn’t look away.

And then his fingers brushed your skin again - this time deliberate.

Your breath caught. To shield your sudden spike in pulse you tipped your glass toward him with a crooked smile, voice teasing to mask the thundering in your ribs. “Careful. Someone might think you’re making a move on me.”

The alcohol loosened your tongue, made you bold. But you didn't care. Not tonight.

He leaned closer, grin tugging his mouth. “Just making sure I’m not left alone at midnight.”

You snorted, heat rising to your cheeks. “Wow. Someone’s confident. What makes you so sure you’ll get a New Year’s kiss?”

His reply came as a whisper against your ear, intimate enough to scatter goosebumps down your arms. “Wasn’t talking just about a kiss.”

Your breath stuttered and you open your mouth to reply, but before you could, Amy shrieked from across the room.

“Two minutes to midnight! Everyone out on the terrace!”

The living room erupted. Chairs scraped, coats were grabbed, champagne flutes refilled in haste as people spilled toward the wide glass doors of the balcony. You rose too, slipping away toward the bedroom where Kazeem had stashed your coat earlier.

The pile on the bed was chaos - wool and leather and fur thrown together - but your jacket was nowhere to be found. You cursed softly under your breath, considering just braving the terrace without it.

When you turned, he was there.

Harry leaned against the doorframe, half-shadowed by the dim light, the glow from the terrace spilling faintly around him. Outside, the countdown had already begun, muffled but insistent, voices chanting in unison.

“Ten…”

He pushed off the frame and stepped toward you.

“Nine…”

You let the jacket you just held slip from your hands and straightened your spine. “So this is your grand move?” you murmured, unable to stop the smile tugging your lips.

“Eight…”

“Depends,” he said, closing the space with unhurried confidence. “Is it working?”

“Seven…”

Another step. The room seemed to shrink around you.

“Six…”

You crossed your arms, the smirk barely disguising the tremor in your body. “Only one way to find out.”

“Five…”

Now he was in front of you, so close you could see the flecks of hazel behind the glass of his frames.

“Four…”

His hand rose gently, fingers grazing the line of your jaw before tipping your chin upward.

“Three…”

Your lips parted without your meaning to, breath catching, waiting.

“Two…”

The terrace roared:

“One! Happy New Year!” the crowd bellowed, cheers rising like fireworks.

But you barely heared them.

Because Harry was kissing you.

Softly at first - so soft you thought you might had imagined it. A brush of lips, tentative, reverent, as though he was giving you the chance to pull away.

You didn’t.

You surged instead, hand fisting in the front of his sweater, pulling him down to you. And just as the fireworks cracked over the skyline, the kiss deepened. He tasted of beer, of warmth, of him - everything you wanted, everything you hadn’t let yourself admit you needed until this very second.

Outside, the city thundered with color and sound, champagne glasses clinking, voices shouting greetings to the new year.

Inside, in the shadowed quiet of the bedroom, you pressed yourself against Harry, kissing him like nothing else mattered. Not London. Not the new job. Not the impossible tangle of what-ifs.

Just this. Just him.

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“I’m serious,” Max insisted with complete sincerity. “The guy chipped both his fangs in a motorcycle accident outside Vegas. Completely ruined his life.”

You looked at him in disbelief. “You’re telling me there’s a vampire out there surviving exclusively on stolen blood bags because he face-planted off a Harley?”

“He didn’t face-plant,” Max corrected immediately. “He got hit with a folding chair during a bar fight with motorcyclists.”

“That somehow makes it more pathetic.” You laughed again, louder this time, the sound carrying out across the water while dawn slowly crept over the horizon behind you. Max watched you with an expression you pretended not to notice, something softer than amusement lingering in his tired features.

“There are actual people who need those donations, you know,” you said, trying and failing to sound scandalized through your grin.

“So does he,” Max shot back defensively. “Poor bastard couldn’t even bite into an apple anymore. Had to drink everything through straws since then.”

You shook your head, still smiling as you blinked against the changing sky overhead. You hadn’t even realized how much time had passed until now. The blackness of night had begun dissolving into muted shades of violet and gray, the first pale traces of dawn slowly bleeding into the edges of the world.

For a moment you simply stared at it.

The sunrise.

Or at least the beginning of one.

A strange sadness settled in your chest at the realization that this might become the last one you would ever comfortably witness.

Beside you, Max hissed quietly under his breath.

“This,” he muttered, squinting toward the brightening horizon, “is about to become a problem.”

Your head snapped toward him immediately, genuine alarm flashing across your face. “Hey, you specifically told me sunlight doesn’t kill us.”

“It doesn’t,” he assured you quickly. “But there’s a difference between surviving daylight and enjoying it.”

You remembered then. Every forced daytime meeting you’d had before all of this. The sunglasses. The headaches. The irritation hidden beneath his sarcasm whenever sunlight got too harsh.

“You’re feeling fit enough to move?” you asked, your gaze instinctively flicking over the places Torres had shot him.

Max stretched slightly with an exaggerated groan. “Depends.”

“On?”

“How committed are you to carrying me all the way back to Brooklyn?”

You snorted immediately as you pushed yourself upright, still refusing to let go of his hand and therefore forcing him to rise with you. “Absolutely zero chance.”

“Cruel woman.”

“Get moving, grandpa. Before you burst into flames dramatically.”

He grumbled something under his breath about disrespecting elders while you brushed dirt and loose gravel from your clothes.

You had already turned toward the path leading back through the field when Max’s hand suddenly tightened around your wrist, gentle but enough to stop you.

You turned back toward him instinctively, caught off guard by the sudden closeness as he stepped nearer.

For one suspended moment, uncertainty curled low in your stomach.

Because you knew what that look could mean.

And you weren’t entirely sure yet where your boundaries with him existed now. You had allowed closeness tonight, yes. Allowed comfort. Allowed him beside you despite everything. But a kiss felt different somehow.

Your gaze flicked briefly to his mouth before returning to his eyes.

Max, however, only studied your face for a second before reaching up to brush strands of hair away from your cheek, his finger dragging lightly through one of the dried streaks still staining your skin.

“I think,” he murmured softly, “we should probably wash some of the blood off our faces before rejoining civilization.”

You stared at him for a second longer than necessary.

And suddenly you had a clear answer on what you wanted him to do.

Max wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the expression on your face.

There had been something soft in your eyes for a second too long, something that made him painfully aware of how close you stood. Rather than testing whatever fragile line existed between you though, he simply guided you down toward the water instead, both of you crouching near the edge to wash the remaining blood from your skin as best you could.

The harbor water was freezing against his fingers.

You hissed under your breath the second another streak of pale morning light spread over the horizon. “Jesus Christ,” you muttered, shielding your eyes as you straightened again. “Why is it already so bright?”

Max glanced upward with an expression that mirrored your annoyance. Dawn had barely begun, the sky still painted mostly in deep blues and bruised purples, but already it felt offensively sharp against heightened senses.

“There goes my dream vacation to the Maldives,” you groaned.

Max let out a dry chuckle while rubbing at one eye. “Yeah, tropical islands are probably off the table now. On the upside, I hear Scandinavia is beautiful six months out of the year.”

You barely seemed to hear him. You squinted around the waterfront like someone developing the world’s worst migraine, jaw tightening more with every passing second.

Max was just about to suggest you start heading home before the sunlight got worse when you suddenly turned on your heel and started marching back up the slope toward the trail.

“Ashley - hey.” He stumbled after you instinctively.

You lifted one hand without even looking back, stopping him immediately. “Stay here. I’ll be back in a minute.”

And somehow, absurdly, that was enough.

Max watched you disappear over the rise and felt absolutely no fear that you wouldn’t return.

A few hours ago he would have. A few hours ago he would have expected you to vanish into the city and never look back. But now?

Now you had sat beside him through the entire night. You had held his hand. Saved his life. Laughed with him under the stars.

So he stayed where he was.

The shoreline had become almost peaceful in the growing dawn, the dark water shifting in slow silver ripples beneath the pale sky. Max tipped his head back and took a long unnecessary breath, eyes closing briefly against the cold breeze rolling in from the bay.

Never in thirty years of undeath could he have imagined a night ending like this.

Not after Torres. Not after your death. Not after the look you had given him when you walked out of his apartment hours ago, furious and shattered and certain he had destroyed your life.

And yet somehow you had ended up here instead.

He was still trying to process that impossible fact when movement caught his eye again.

You came jogging back down the hill toward him, slightly out of breath now, a wide grin spreading across your face. Something dangled from one hand as you closed the distance between you.

Max blinked once before barking out a laugh.

“Oh no.”

You held them up triumphantly: two of the ugliest pairs of sunglasses he had ever seen in his entire existence. One pair looked aggressively neon. The other resembled something a retired marathon runner would wear during a midlife crisis.

“They absolutely will not be joining my collection,” Max informed you solemnly while taking the less horrifying pair.

“They better,” you shot back, still breathless. “Do you have any idea how hard it is convincing random joggers to hand over their sunglasses to a woman covered in blood?”

Max slid the glasses onto his face and immediately winced at the design. “You forgot to mention the Halloween pajama pants. That probably complicated negotiations.”

You looked down at yourself before glaring at him over the oversized frames now perched on your nose. “I’m sorry, are you giving me fashion advice while dressed like a divorcee from 1995?”

Max grinned despite himself.

And as the first real sunlight finally began breaking over the horizon behind you, while that reluctant smile still lingered on your mouth, he realized with painful clarity that he wanted nothing more than to kiss you again.

The city had always known how to look away from people who appeared a little broken around the edges. In a place like New York, bloodstains, exhaustion and strange behavior barely ranked high enough to earn more than a passing glance, especially not in the gray-blue hour between night and morning when the first commuters drifted through the streets half awake and wrapped tightly in their own lives.

A few people looked twice as you and Max emerged from Church Avenue station, but nobody stopped you. Nobody asked questions. A woman in scrubs hurried past with coffee in hand. A delivery driver cursed at his phone. Somewhere farther down the block, metal shutters rattled open for the beginning of another ordinary day.

Beside you, Max adjusted the atrocious sunglasses perched on his nose and glanced over with the faintest trace of amusement. “Wish I’d brought my camera,” he said with a grin. “This whole look we’ve got going on deserves documentation.”

You peered at him over the rim of your borrowed glasses and instantly regretted it as the early dawn stabbed into your eyes like needles.

“Trust me,” you muttered, squinting hard. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget this night even without photos.”

Even sitting across from him in the nearly empty subway car earlier had felt surreal enough to burn itself permanently into your memory. You had occupied opposite benches in silence for stretches at a time, the train rattling beneath you while fluorescent lights flickered overhead. Max had lounged back, arms stretched casually across the backs of the seats, ankle resting atop one knee with effortless confidence that should have looked ridiculous considering the state he was in.

Instead, it had only made him look more himself.

His curls were stiff with dried blood. The fabric of his shirt had been torn open where the bullets had hit him, stained brown-red and ruined beyond saving. There were shadows beneath his eyes that no healing could erase immediately, and yet he had still carried himself with that same infuriating ease, studying advertisements above the windows as if he hadn’t nearly died only hours ago.

You had caught yourself staring longer than intended.

“Definitely top five most memorable nights,” Max pulled you from your thoughts.

You snorted softly while you crossed the quiet street toward your building. “Only top five?” you asked, walking backward for a few steps just to keep looking at him. “Wow. I’m offended.”

“What can I say?” Max lifted one shoulder. “LA was a deeply irresponsible place.”

“Before or after the vampire thing?”

“Both.”

You reached the front entrance first and leaned against the wall beside it while Max stepped close enough for the scent of him to wrap around you again, warm despite the cold morning air. He pulled his keys free, caging you loosely between himself and the door without seeming fully aware he was doing it. Or maybe entirely aware.

At this distance you could see the tiny cuts already healed across his face, the faint exhaustion still lingering around his mouth, the way dawn light softened the sharper edges of him. Your gaze dipped briefly to his lips before you could stop yourself.

“Need to hear your top five now, obviously,” you said, and hated how breathless your voice sounded.

The lock clicked open beneath his hand.

“Oh, easy.” His grin deepened as he nudged the door inward. “Fifth place definitely goes to a house party in 1978 where somebody accidentally set an indoor fountain on fire.”

You blinked. “You can’t set water on fire.”

“That was also my understanding at the time,” Max replied solemnly as you stepped into the dim stairwell. “Turns out cocaine and homemade electrical wiring can achieve incredible things.”

A laugh escaped you before you could stop it, echoing softly up the stairs.

Max glanced back over his shoulder, satisfaction flickering briefly across his face before he continued upward beside you. “Anyway, by two in the morning somebody had stolen a police horse, there was a drummer passed out in a bathtub full of oranges, and I distinctly remember escaping through a window because the host’s girlfriend tried to stab me with a fondue fork.”

You stared at him in disbelief. “That sounds made up.”

“It absolutely does,” he agreed. “Which is why it only made fifth place.”

“What’s fourth place?” you asked as you climbed the stairs, nearly missing a step because you were too busy watching him instead of where you put your feet. Your hand caught the railing at the last second, and Max glanced back with immediate amusement.

“My turning, probably,” he answered after a moment of thought. “I don’t remember much of the actual event, but there was definitely a party involved. Feels wrong not to rank it somewhere.”

You hummed softly. The answer settled strangely inside your chest. The wound of your own turning still felt too fresh - too raw to touch directly - but you supposed he was right. Whether you liked it or not, that night would probably carve itself permanently into the architecture of your existence too.

“Fair enough,” you said quietly before forcing a lighter tone back into your voice. “Alright, then what’s third? And please tell me it involves less dying.”

Max laughed under his breath as you reached your floor. “No dying. Technically a felony, though.” He paused dramatically while fishing his keys from his pocket. “Me and a couple school friends broke into the zoo when I was maybe eight or nine. We stole a penguin.”

You stared at him. “You what?”

“I have to say he seemed excited to come with us.”

“That poor animal.”

Max opened the apartment door and held it for you with effortless familiarity - and equally naturally you stepped inside without waiting to be invited.

“I’m telling you,” he continued while closing the door behind you, “I had a solid plan. We had a perfectly functional refrigerator.”

You kicked off your boots near the entrance and snorted softly. “Your mother must’ve loved you.”

“She threatened to send me back to the zoo with him.”

The warmth of the apartment wrapped around you instantly, dim and quiet compared to the cold dawn outside. You removed the hideous sunglasses with visible relief and wandered toward the small brass mirror hanging beside the door. In the softened light you could finally properly see yourself again: dried blood still shadowed the edge of your jaw despite your attempt to clean up by the water, your hair an unruly mess around tired golden eyes that no longer quite looked human.

Behind you, Max slipped off his coat, draping it over the back of a chair. His reflection appeared in the mirror a second later, close enough that you could feel his presence before he even spoke.

“So,” you murmured while rubbing at the stubborn stain on your skin, “tonight only gets second place?”

“It was a strong contender,” he admitted easily.

You looked at him through the mirror. “And first?”

For a second he simply watched you. Then his mouth curved slowly into that infuriatingly smug grin you already knew far too well.

“I assumed that one was obvious.”

You turned fully toward him, brows lifting in confusion as he stepped closer. The distance between you dissolved with dangerous ease until he stood directly in front of you again.

“You played a pretty significant role in it,” he said softly.

Realization hit you all at once, and a breathless laugh escaped before you could stop it. “Wow. That memorable, huh?”

“Life-changing, honestly.”

His hand lifted to cup your jaw, thumb brushing softly across clean skin this time instead of blood. The touch sent warmth unfurling low in your stomach so fast it almost startled you.

“Maybe my memory needs refreshing though,” he added, voice lower now, teasing threaded through the exhaustion.

Your pulse no longer existed, but your body still found ways to betray anticipation. “Remind me,” you whispered, “are there any more rules I should know about?”

Max leaned down slowly, lips ghosting against your cheek without quite kissing you, and goosebumps erupted along your arms instantly. He lingered there for a moment before stopping just shy of your mouth, his gaze fixed steadily on yours.

“Only one,” he murmured. “I’ve had enough blood for one night.”

His fingers slid gently through your tangled hair before he offered you the faintest smile.

“So first,” he said softly, “we clean up.”

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Merry Christmas, Harry.

That means a lot. It really does. Thank you.

Savor the days with your family. Having a loving home to come back to is a precious thing.

Tell London to welcome me with open arms, as New York did for you!

Emily.

Simple. Courteous. Warm without being open, polite without being cold. And yet… it could mean everything.

He had spent nearly two hours composing his own Christmas message, hunched in front of the fireplace in the early hours of the morning.

Drafting, deleting, rewriting - careful not to cross the line into confessions he couldn’t afford.

He had let himself remember then, in the dark, the weight of your laughter against his skin, the way your body had felt wrapped in his arms. He’d carried that memory like a talisman while trying to find words you could accept.

And you had answered. Not indifferently. Not with silence.

Still, it wasn’t clarity.

Harry exhaled through his nose. Enough. He couldn’t spiral into interpretation again. If the evening allowed it, he would speak to you. If you let him.

He went to his closet and chose simplicity: a soft cable-knit pullover, dark jeans, sneakers. No need for spectacle. He smoothed the fabric down his chest, checking the fit in the mirror.

Kazeem had promised the night was casual, a mix of colleagues, friends, and neighbors drifting in and out. Thirty people, give or take. Thirty distractions he couldn’t care less about.

Because all he really hoped - Christ - was that you would show.

He crossed to the bathroom, uncapped his cologne, dabbed it across his neck and wrists with practiced restraint. Reached for his contact lenses, then hesitated, the small case poised in his hand.

For a long moment, he stood there, staring at his own reflection. Tired lines softened now by rest, hair a little more undone than usually in the office, natural curls escaping, beard ruff but tidied enough. His eyes, sharper without the glasses, clinical. The image of the man he presented to the world.

Then, in one swift motion, he put the contacts back on the shelf and reached for his dark-rimmed glasses instead.

There was something in the honesty of it that felt necessary tonight. If he was going to face you, it would not be behind a performance, not shielded by surfaces.

Coat over his arm, keys in his pocket, he cast a last look around the apartment - still, ordered, waiting for his return. Then he stepped out into the hall, heart thrumming, carrying with him both dread and anticipation in equal measure.

Kazeem’s door swung open, and suddenly there was warmth spilling out, laughter, the clink of glasses.

“Mate,” Kazeem said, pulling him in with a grin, a bear hug that knocked the last bit of cold from his shoulders. Harry returned it, brief but firm, breathing in the familiar cologne of his friend, grounding himself in the easy welcome.

Kazeem looked much the same as ever - thick dark curls pushed back, a full beard framing his expressive face, eyes deep and bright with mischief. He wore casual black slacks and a loose shirt rolled at the sleeves, somehow managing that effortless balance between sharp and comfortable.

The party was already alive around them - voices overlapping, music weaving through conversations, someone’s laugh bright and sudden in the next room. Kazeem’s apartment was exactly what he’d expected: a New York industrial dream.

Red brick walls catching the golden wash of dimmed lighting, steel fixtures softened by plants, books stacked between leather chairs. And the terrace - he caught a glimpse as someone stepped outside, the night sky and city lights beyond promising fireworks later. It was stylish, yes, but also warm. Like Kazeem himself, a blend of intention and comfort.

“Get yourself a drink,” Kazeem said, reaching for his coat. “Be with you in a bit.”

Before Harry could answer, another figure appeared from behind his friend. Amy.

Radiant as he remembered. Her hair a halo of untamed curls, her outfit bold - colorful bell-bottoms, paired with a fitted top that seemed to catch every flicker of light. She beamed, stepped right into his space as if they had known each other for years, and folded him into a hug.

“Harry Castillo in the flesh,” she said against his shoulder, then leaned back, her eyes glittering. “Welcome.”

He found himself smiling despite the tension knotted low in his stomach. “Good to see you again.”

Amy tilted her head knowingly, her mouth quirking before she winked. “I’ll let you know when she arrives.”

The words hit like a shot to the chest. Fuck, was it that obvious? Did Amy know what he had done - how he’d failed you, how he’d hidden - and was this friendliness only a veneer stretched over disapproval?

He swallowed, managed a small nod. “Thank you,” he murmured, the words carrying more weight than they should. Thank you for the warning. Thank you for the invitation. Thank you for not looking at me with anger.

He reached for a drink as he slipped his socialite mask into place. He could do this. The room was full, not intimate - perfect cover for easing into conversation.

And he did, letting himself be pulled into easy chatter with two of Kazeem’s colleagues, then teasing his host about the spread on the buffet table. His laugh came easier than expected, a shield polished by years of practice.

But then - 

A shriek. Amy’s voice, cutting through the layered hum of the party.

His gaze shifted instinctively.

And there you were.

Your coat already half off, scarf slipping into your hand, hair twisted into a messy updo that wasn’t careless at all - no, it was deliberate, a few loose strands framing your face, catching the golden light. You were smiling, lips painted a dark red that pulled every part of you into focus, parted as you laughed into Amy’s embrace.

You looked… not just beautiful. Stunning.

Harry froze. Breath held, glass hovering halfway to his mouth. He couldn’t have looked away if he tried.

You kissed Amy’s cheek, spoke something too low for him to hear, then turned to Kazeem with the same familiarity, hugging him warmly, your laughter bright enough to rise above the music. You belonged here, your presence weaving into the room as naturally as if you had been part of this circle forever.

And suddenly, painfully, he was aware of his own distance.

Your outfit struck him next - timeless, understated but striking. Black slip on dress, high collar, sleeveless, hugging your form in just the right places without being loud. No sequins, no flash. You didn’t need it. The red of your mouth was enough. Your smile was enough.

God, you were everything.

Harry tipped his drink back, the burn of alcohol chasing down the ache in his throat. He considered moving - walking over, offering a greeting, anything to bridge the distance - but his feet stayed rooted. Not yet. He couldn’t crash this reunion, couldn’t interrupt the joy on your face as you rejoined your people, your chosen family.

So he stayed where he was, leaning casually against the drink buffet, the practiced mask of indifference set back into place. His eyes, though - they betrayed him, tracing your movements across the room as you laughed with Amy, touched Kazeem’s arm, shed the last traces of winter from your shoulders.

The room swelled around him with music, voices, clinking glasses. But for Harry, the night had narrowed to this - waiting, watching, wondering if fate or chance or sheer courage would hand him a moment with you before midnight.

For once, he let go of the reins.

You spotted him the second he looked away.

He had been scanning the room from the buffet, glass in hand, that subtle way he always measured his surroundings, but then his gaze shifted and he stepped into a cluster of strangers like it was nothing. Sliding into conversation, easy, polished, so terribly Harry. You hated how your stomach dropped, how that warm, familiar pull snapped to life in your chest.

And damn - he looked so comfortable. A cream cable-knit sweater that softened him, well-worn jeans, sneakers that made him seem younger. And then the glasses. Dark-rimmed, devastatingly familiar. They made him look almost… cozy. Home. As if this was where he belonged, exactly here, and you hated how much you wanted to believe that included you.

“Have you forgiven him yet?”

Amy’s voice cut through your thoughts. A drink appeared in your hand, courtesy of your best friend, who was still watching Harry with narrowed eyes.

You startled, heat rising in your face. “I -”

“Or,” Amy added sweetly, “time for a little hate fuck?”

That snapped your head around. You silenced Amy with a look sharp enough to kill.

Amy only grinned, unbothered.

“It’s not about that,” you said finally, taking a long swallow of whatever was in your glass. You weren’t sure you believed your own words. What was it about? Forgiveness? Pride? Timing? All of it seemed tangled, messy.

It wasn’t smart, any of it.

Not with London weeks away. Not with your entire life about to reset across the Atlantic. You would be colleagues soon enough - equals, not boss and employee. You should want clean lines. You should want distance.

Should.

You took another sip, steadying yourself for the lecture Amy would deliver next, but when you turned, Harry turned too. Your eyes met across the room, and everything inside you stopped. The words you’d meant to throw back at Amy dissolved.

Next to you, Amy chuckled low. “Yeah,” she purred. “You two definitely need to fuck that one out.” Then she pressed a kiss to your cheek, a pat to your shoulder, and slipped back into the fold of her people - into Kazeem’s waiting arm, which wrapped around her like she belonged there and nowhere else.

Harry’s gaze didn’t waver. It was steady, a quiet invitation, unspoken but clear as glass: I’m ready. Whenever you are.

Hell. Better late than never, isn’t it?

You drained another sip for courage and stepped toward him, heels sinking slightly into the rug as you approached the buffet. Your voice betrayed you, softer than you intended, shy in a way you loathed. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he answered, and you nearly buckled at the sound. His tone was gentle - softer than you had ever heard it.

For a breath you stood suspended, music and laughter spilling around you, until you both opened your mouths at once. Words collided, tangled, and you both laughed awkwardly. You waved him on, gesturing for him to go first.

“How are preparations for London?” he asked, earnest beneath the casual words.

Alright, we dive right in, do we?

“Fine. Horrible.” You let out a laugh, shaking your head. “It’s a lot. Too much for so little time. I can’t quite believe I’ll be on a one-way flight in two weeks.”

He tilted his head, studying you. “Have you figured out what you’ll do with your place?”

You leaned back against the edge of the table, pretending his presence didn’t unravel you thread by thread. “Keep it for now. A wise man once told me it’s always smart to hold on to good property.” You shot him a wink, watching the tight line of his shoulders ease just slightly.

“Wise men,” he said, attempting a smile that carried weight beneath it, “aren’t always right.”

“Most men aren’t,” you replied dryly, lips curving. “But at least wise ones know when they’ve done wrong.”

The quip landed between you, sharp but not cruel, and for a moment his mask slipped. Harry set his drink down, closing the space just slightly, his height and warmth suddenly nearer.

“Emily.” The sound of your name from his lips was enough to scatter butterflies low in your stomach. “I am truly… truly sorry.”

Your smile faltered into something smaller, tired but honest. “I know. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

Around you, the party hummed - a swell of music, bursts of laughter, glasses clinking, a whoop from the terrace as early fireworks popped in the distance. The noise felt like a cocoon, wrapping you both, offering cover for words too heavy to say in daylight.

“My offer still stands,” Harry said, his voice quieter now. “Whatever you need - finding a place, arranging the move, the firm. I’ll help. Just say when.”

You swirled the last of your drink, deliberately slow, as though weighing your answer. You already knew, of course. You could not quite push him away. Not entirely.

“When,” you said at last, letting the single word hang between you. Then you set your empty glass down with a decisive clink. “But first…” You straightened, lifting your chin. “Let’s enjoy this party, okay?”

A flicker of relief passed through his face, subtle but there. He nodded, a ghost of a smile tugging his mouth.

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Your lashes rested low against your cheeks, expression softened into almost peaceful surrender as you drank. The violence existed only in the reality of what you were doing. In every other sense, you looked transcendent.

Max thought he had forgotten what awe felt like.

Apparently not.

Even with agony tearing through his side, even while blood soaked steadily through his fingers where he pressed uselessly against the gunshot wound, he could not drag his eyes away from you.

The moonlight spilling through the shattered windows overhead mixed with the red downpour until the entire gymnasium seemed suspended somewhere between dream and nightmare.

And at the center of it was you.

Beautiful enough to ruin him completely.

The realization settled heavily into his chest as his strength continued slipping away from him in slow, steady waves. Every movement hurt now. Every breath scraped through him hollow and wrong.

Torres’ traps had already left his senses battered and overloaded long before the bullets hit him, and now the blood loss dragged relentlessly at what little stability remained.

He somehow knew the feeling, inexplicably knew exactly what it meant.

The darkness gathering at the corners of his vision was no longer temporary.

Strangely, he found he did not fear it.

Not really.

Because despite everything, despite the betrayal in your eyes when you had walked out of his apartment, despite the certainty that whatever existed between you had shattered beyond repair… you were alive. Somehow.

Alive and strong and magnificent.

The devotion swelling painfully inside him nearly eclipsed the physical agony.

Because he knew in the same terrible instant that he had both saved you and lost you forever.

Max let his head tip weakly back against the soaked floor, his unfocused gaze still fixed on your shape across the room while his body gradually surrendered to exhaustion. Your name slipped from his lips almost soundlessly, carried more by feeling than breath.

“Ashley…”

The sound cut through the haze enveloping you instantly.

The bliss vanished.

One final swallow slid down your throat as Torres’ pulse stuttered and disappeared beneath your lips completely. His body slackened under your hands, emptied in every possible sense, and suddenly the intoxicating flood filling your system fractured apart beneath the quiet rasp of your own name.

You lifted your head sharply.

Blood stained your mouth, dark against your skin. Your pupils widened as you looked across the gym and saw Max curled against the floor several feet away, one arm stretched weakly toward you while the rest of him remained frighteningly still.

For one horrible second, he looked dead.

Ice flooded straight through you.

You were at Max’s side instantly, dropping hard to your knees and pulling him upright into your lap. His body felt heavy, lacking the impossible strength that had always seemed inseparable from him.

“Max?”

Your voice cracked harder than you intended. One hand slid against his cheek while the other steadied his head against your shoulder.

“Hey,” you snapped, panic sharpening the edges of your tone. “No. No, don’t do that.”

His eyes stayed shut.

You slapped his cheek lightly once, then again, fear rising fast enough to make your chest ache.

“Wake up.”

At last his eyelids fluttered weakly open.

Relief hit you so violently it almost made you dizzy.

“Don’t you dare pull this on me,” you hissed immediately, anger rushing in to cover the terror beneath it as you shifted him higher against you. “You don’t get to die before we have this conversation.”

A weak cough tore through him, followed by something that almost resembled a laugh.

“Honestly,” Max murmured hoarsely, “not convinced I’d survive that conversation anyway.”

You let out a breathless, bitter scoff.

“Yeah,” you muttered. “Me neither.”

Carefully, you slipped both arms beneath his and forced you both upright with unbalanced effort. Even with your new strength, stabilizing him proved awkward; Max half-collapsed against you immediately, one arm draped heavily across your shoulders while you adjusted to the unfamiliar balance of supporting someone who usually felt untouchable.

“But if anyone gets to kill you,” you said tightly as you staggered forward together, “it’s going to be me.” Your eyes flicked briefly toward Torres’ body lying motionless beneath the bloody rain. “Not him.”

An exhausted silence settled between you.

You guided the two of you slowly across the ruined gym floor while Max limped beside you, weaker with every step. The adrenaline that had carried you through the fight still thundered through your veins, making you feel almost invincible now, but beneath it all another emotion pressed harder against your ribs.

Grief.

Not for what you had done.

For who you had done it to.

“Are you okay?” Max’s voice had lost the humor entirely this time.

You shot him a look of disbelief. “You have at least two gunshot wounds,” you said flatly. “And you’re asking me that?”

But you understood immediately what he actually meant.

You passed Torres’s body and felt yourself swallow instinctively as your gaze caught on the stillness of him. Blood continued pooling slowly beneath his neck, diluted by the red rainwater flooding the floor.

Max watched you quietly.

“He deserved it,” you said at last, the words coming cold.

“Maybe,” Max answered softly. “Doesn’t mean it can’t hurt anyway.”

You stared ahead for a long moment.

Then finally you gave a small nod.

“No,” you admitted. “But it sure as hell makes it easier.”

Your grip tightened slightly around him before you forced yourself to look away from the corpse entirely.

“Come on,” you muttered. “Let’s get out of this godforsaken shithole.”

Max was not particularly light, but carrying him through the dark expanse of Floyd Bennett Field proved far less difficult than you would once have imagined. The fresh blood still humming through your system flooded your limbs with unnatural strength and relentless energy, smoothing over exhaustion before it could fully settle in.

The farther you moved from the building, the quieter the world became.

The old airfield stretched endlessly around you beneath the moonlight, all vast open paths and shadowed grasslands interrupted by skeletal remains of structures long abandoned to time.

Somewhere far in the distance, Brooklyn still existed - all its noise and movement and sleepless life somewhere beyond, but here at the edge of the borough, wrapped by dark water on nearly every side, the city felt impossibly far away.

Only the wind remained.

It swept softly through the empty recreational trails and rattled the tall grass lining the paths where joggers and dog walkers would return once morning arrived. For now, though, the darkness belonged solely to you both.

After everything that had happened inside the gymnasium, the silence felt surreal.

Peaceful, even.

You kept moving until the trail opened toward the waterfront. At last your legs gave out beneath the delayed strain of adrenaline and emotion, and you lowered both of you carefully onto the rocky shoreline near the water’s edge. Max exhaled sharply the second he sat down - pain pulling tight across his features despite the weak attempt he made to hide it.

The bay stretched out endlessly before you, black water rippling beneath fractured moonlight. Across the distance, faint lights shimmered along the far shoreline like scattered stars fallen onto earth.

The water lapped quietly against the shore only feet away, steady and rhythmic enough to almost resemble breathing.

But you had no eye for the eerie beauty of this nightly scenery. Your eyes were scanning Max.

“Show me.” The words came more as an order than a request, your hands already moving toward the blood soaking through his shirt.

Max managed the faintest crooked grin. “Wow,” he muttered weakly, “at least buy me dinner first.”

You shot him a glare so sharp it could have cut glass. “You want that engraved on your tombstone?” you asked flatly. “Because I can arrange it.”

His smile lingered despite the exhaustion dragging at him from every angle, but he obeyed. With your help, he peeled the ruined fabric away from his torso, revealing the wounds beneath.

Your expression tightened instantly.

The gunshots looked catastrophic.

One had torn through his side, jagged and blackened around the edges where whatever Torres had used had clearly done more damage than ordinary bullets ever could. The second sat frighteningly close to the center of his chest, blood still seeping sluggishly from the wound despite the healing already fighting to close it.

A human would have died instantly.

Max merely looked like he stood at death’s doorway arguing with it out of spite.

You swallowed hard.

“What do I do?” Your eyes snapped up to his. “Tell me how to fix this.”

Max leaned his head back slightly, exhaustion hollowing out the sharp lines of his face. In the moonlight, his skin looked almost translucent beneath the streaks of drying blood.

“I’d suggest praying,” he murmured. “Though God may be the wrong address.”

“There has to be something.” Frustration crept into your voice. “You said we heal.”

We.

The word slipped out before you could stop it and you felt it land between you immediately. Max noticed too. You saw it in the faint shift of his expression, something softer flickering briefly through the pain.

Still, he only sighed.

“Believe it or not,” he said, “this is my first time dying too.”

The attempt at humor barely masked the weakness in his voice.

Without thinking, you shifted closer when he sagged against you slightly.

You allowed the contact - his weight leaning into your side and the familiar scent of him wrapping around you despite everything that had happened between you.

The anger remained somewhere inside you. But right now, fear sat heavier.

Your gaze drifted toward the dark shoreline around you before an idea surfaced suddenly and violently enough to make you straighten.

“What if you feed?”

Max blinked slowly away from the empty waterfront, overlooking your surroundings.

“Unless I missed a very determined jogger,” he muttered, “I don’t see many options.”

You hesitated only briefly.

“You fed me,” you said carefully, your eyes returning to his. “Didn’t you?”

You did not know how you knew it with such certainty. The memory itself remained fractured and blurred by death and transformation, but something deeper inside you understood the truth instinctively.

Max’s expression shifted.

“Ashley -”

“So maybe…” Your non-existent pulse quickened despite itself. “Maybe it works both ways.”

He gathered enough strength to straighten slightly, one hand pressing harder against his wounded side.

“No.” His brows drew together immediately. “I’m not asking you for that.”

“You’re not asking.” Your voice sharpened. “I’m offering.”

The wind stirred your damp hair across your face as you looked back out toward the water briefly, gathering yourself before meeting his eyes again.

“Please,” you said more quietly now. “I really don’t want two deaths on my conscience tonight.”

For a moment he only stared at you.

Then finally - reluctantly - Max gave the smallest nod.

You moved closer until barely any space remained between you. You could feel the warmth radiating from him despite the blood loss, could smell him beneath the copper and salt and cold ocean air. Weakened or not, his presence still pulled at you with terrifying ease.

Holding his gaze, you lifted your wrist slowly toward your mouth.

Max’s free hand rose instinctively, brushing a damp strand of hair away from your face before settling softly against your cheek.

Pain bloomed briefly as your teeth pierced flesh, followed almost immediately by the metallic taste of your own blood spilling warm against your tongue.

Then you pressed your wrist carefully to Max’s mouth.

At first his touch was featherlight.

A kiss more than a bite.

Blood stained his lips slowly while he let only the smallest amount pass between you, restraint etched into every movement despite the hunger flickering visibly behind his tired eyes. But after a moment his hand slid from your cheek to the back of your wrist instead, holding you there more firmly as he drank deeper.

The sensation that flooded you nearly stole your breath.

Warmth surged through your body in slow, pulsing waves. You could feel something passing between you beyond blood alone, something deeper and older than language, life itself shifting from one body into another.

And beneath it all came understanding.

This was what he had done for you.

Max had not simply saved you.

He had shared himself with you.

Max’s mouth moved carefully against your wrist while the night wrapped itself around you both, endless and quiet except for the water breaking softly against the shore. Time seemed to stretch strangely there beside the bay, the moment lingering suspended between grief and intimacy until you could no longer tell whether seconds or hours had passed at all.

When Max finally managed to pull himself away from the intoxicating warmth of your blood, it felt less like regaining control and more like dragging himself reluctantly from the edge of something sacred. Strength already pulsed back through his body in steady waves, threading warmth through limbs that moments ago had bordered on useless.

The relentless ache in his chest and side had dulled enough that he could breathe without feeling his body splinter apart with every movement.

His lips slipped from your wrist and before he could stop himself, he pressed the softest kiss against the healing wound.

The skin beneath his mouth had already begun knitting itself back together, smooth and warm under the lingering trace of blood. For a second he allowed himself to remain there, eyes shut, forehead nearly brushing your arm.

Then you carefully pulled your hand back.

“How are you feeling?” you asked in hushed tones.

There was caution in your voice now. Not fear exactly, but awareness. As if you still did not fully understand what existed between you after everything that had happened.

Max noticed the slight distance you created immediately.

And despite the instinct screaming at him to close it, to pull you against him and bury himself in the comfort of your presence after nearly losing you twice, he forced himself not to.

Pushing too hard now would only drive you further away.

So instead he leaned back slightly and offered you the faintest smile, sadness lingering stubbornly beneath it.

“Well,” he murmured, brushing a drop of your blood from the corner of his mouth, “apparently we’ve got miracle medicine running through our veins.”

To his relief, the corner of your mouth twitched upward ever so slightly.

It was small. Brief.

But it existed.

“Give me a minute,” he added softly. “Then we can get the hell out of here.”

You huffed lightly through your nose, drawing your knees closer to your chest. “Bold of you to assume I’m sticking around to wait for you.”

For a second he genuinely could not tell whether you meant it.

Then he caught the faint dryness beneath the words and allowed himself the smallest exhale of relief.

“Wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t,” he replied.

This time the humor faded quicker.

His gaze drifted away from you before he could stop himself. Looking directly into your eyes had become almost unbearable now. Those golden irises still stunned him every time he saw them, not only because they marked what you had become, but because he could still remember exactly how soft they used to look when you watched him before all of this shattered between you.

Now every glance carried distance.

And guilt clawed through him every single time he noticed it.

So instead Max looked out over the dark water stretching endlessly before him while you sat beside him in silence. He could feel the wounds inside him continuing to heal slowly, strengthened by what you had given him. Gratitude sat heavily in his chest alongside the guilt, so immense he barely knew what to do with it.

After what he had done to you, you still chose to save him.

You could have left him bleeding out on that gym floor without hesitation. Hell, after everything, he would have understood it. You had gone there for Torres. For revenge. For answers. You could have easily decided that one dead monster beside another solved all your problems at once.

Instead -

“Thank you, Ashley.” The sincerity in his own voice startled him a little.

There was no grin attached to the words. No sarcasm softening them. No deflection hidden behind charm. Just raw honesty laid bare beneath the open night sky.

He kept his eyes fixed on the water because he could not bear seeing whatever expression crossed your face in response.

“You’re welcome,” you answered after a moment.

Max swallowed once before speaking again, though the words barely made it halfway out.

“I cannot -”

“You know,” you interrupted softly, “it wouldn’t actually have changed anything if you’d killed Torres instead of me.”

The sentence hit him immediately, but he stayed quiet and let you continue.

“I never asked for any of this.” Your voice remained calm, though exhaustion frayed the edges now. “Not to become the target of a serial killer. Not to wake up as…” You gestured vaguely toward yourself before letting your hand fall again. “Whatever the hell I am now.”

At last you turned toward him fully.

“And definitely not to become part of your redemption story.”

The words hurt because they were true. You let out a hollow little laugh, one entirely devoid of humor.

“Funny, isn’t it?” you murmured. “Both of you were so busy trying to save me that neither of you bothered asking what I wanted.”

Max closed his eyes briefly.

Because there it was.

The ugly truth at the center of everything.

Torres had tried to save you by killing you.

Max had tried to save your life by changing it forever.

And somewhere between those choices, you yourself had been stripped of any voice at all.

“You both decided for me,” you continued. “And maybe your intentions were different, but the result still feels pretty damn similar.”

The wind shifted strands of damp hair across your face while you turned back toward the water, resting your chin against your knees. Moonlight silvered the sharp line of your profile, softening your expression despite the ache threaded through every word.

“You both took pieces of me I can’t ever get back.”

Max stared at you for a long moment before lowering his gaze.

“I know,” he said finally.

And he did. Far more now than he had in that apartment while holding your dying body in his arms and convincing himself there had been no choice.

“There’s nothing I can say that fixes it.” His voice roughened slightly. “Nothing that gives you your life back.” He paused carefully before continuing. “But I’ll spend however long you let me, trying to make this easier for you.”

You stayed silent.

Max folded his arms loosely across his knees and forced himself to say the part that hurt most.

“And if you decide you never want to see me again after tonight…” He swallowed hard once. “I’ll understand that too.”

The thought alone hollowed him out.

Because despite everything, despite the guilt and the blood and the violence, he loved you with a depth that terrified him now more than ever before.

And if losing you was the price for saving you -

Then maybe this was simply the punishment he deserved.

“You know what’s funny?” you asked after a beat. “I always hated night shifts. Not because of the sleep schedule, although that part absolutely sucked too.” A small laugh escaped you, real enough to make something tighten painfully in Max’s chest. “But because everything that happened at night always felt worse somehow. Darker. Like the city stopped pretending.”

The wind moved through the tall grass behind you in soft waves, carrying the scent of saltwater and asphalt from the distant city.

You tilted your head back to look at the sky, and Max followed your gaze instinctively. The glow of the city swallowed most of the stars, but farther from Manhattan’s endless glare, a few constellations still managed to survive. Pale pinpricks of light shimmered weakly overhead, scattered across deep black.

“I think I hated nights so much,” you continued after a moment, “that I stopped noticing how beautiful the city looks under the dark sky.”

Max watched you more than the stars. Watched the moonlight catch against the strands of hair still clinging to your neck, the softened lines of your face now that rage and grief weren’t consuming every inch of it.

Slowly, you leaned back onto your elbows, eyes fixed upward as if trying to relearn the world from scratch. Max mirrored you again without thinking, lowering himself carefully beside you despite the lingering ache in his chest.

“That’s what it comes down to, doesn’t it?” you murmured. “Making the best out of it.” Your mouth curved faintly, though the expression never fully became a smile. “As far as I understand it, I’ve got a very long time ahead of me to figure this whole thing out.”

Max let out a quiet breath through his nose. “Took me hell of a lot longer to understand that, really. But yeah, because otherwise, what’s the point, right?”

You glanced sideways at him. “Quite the philosopher wasted on you,” you smirked.

“Maybe I am not at the top of my game at the moment,” he grinned weakly.

“Or maybe,” you countered, turning your head toward him, “you just suck at explaining yourself.”

Max huffed out a faint laugh and let his gaze drift back toward the stars. “That too.”

Silence settled more comfortably between you after that, no longer sharp enough to cut. He wasn’t sure if he could already dare his next words but he tried anyway.

“You know what else sucks?”

You turned your head toward him fully now, one brow lifting in cautious curiosity. Slowly he let one canine drag over his lower lip before flashing you a grin that was just arrogant enough to be familiar.

You stared at him for exactly one second before a completely unfiltered laugh broke free from your chest. You hit his shoulder hard enough to make him wince dramatically.

“Your jokes definitely do.”

“Cruel,” he murmured solemnly.

“Honest.”

But your hand lingered after the shove, resting against his arm for a brief uncertain second before sliding lower. Max went completely still beneath the touch, not daring to move, not wanting to risk breaking whatever fragile thing existed between you right now. Your fingers brushed against his hand once, tentative at first, before threading fully between his.

“So,” you said softly, your thumb brushing once against the back of his hand, “since we’re apparently stuck waiting here while you stop dying… why don’t you give me the full Vampire 101?”

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