The first time was in the mail room, 8:30 on a Thursday night. Work had kept Dex late and he always checked his mail before going up to his apartment for the night. He remembers feeling frustrated that the day ran long, an unnecessary briefing he believed he shouldn’t have had to attend in the first place, so he was edgy by the time he arrived home. Dex stomped into the mail room and beelined to his box, but still took the time to notice you.

Standing in front of an open mail slot dressed in a soft, worn t-shirt that was wet at the neck because your freshly washed hair was leaching into the fabric. You had glanced at him for a brief second then went back to rifling through your own mail. Your face was shiny and smooth in the dim light of the room, recently moisturized. When Dex brushed past he caught a whiff of your body wash, something cool and reminded him of the color green.

He grabbed his mail and by the time he turned back around you were gone. 

A few weeks later when he got home after another late night, hands shaky as he slid open the door of his safe and snatched the tape player, he sat on his couch and looked out the window of his apartment. Deep breath in, hold, slow exhale. The soothing voice of Dr. Mercer played in his ears as Dex looked out into the courtyard of his apartment complex. It was early spring, the days were getting a little longer and people had their windows open letting in the fresh air. Down in the courtyard someone was sitting on the bench near the tree that was turning green again.

Dex was a few stories up but he already recognized you. Wet hair, dewy skin, baggy sweatpants and a pair of slides. An old, faded Polo Sport t-shirt with a marlin printed on the front. He wondered if you were cold as you sat on the wooden bench watching the squirrels run past. Out of instinct Dex grabbed his telescope and watched as you slowly sprinkled out the contents of a ziplock bag into the ground in front of you. Squirrels and birds gathered at your feet but you seemed unbothered, sitting still and quiet as they pecked around you. They came, then the went, and when they were gone you got up and headed towards the entrance to the mail room. 8:30 on the dot.

At 8:45 Dex is still looking out the window, his heart no longer racing in annoyance from his long day, and he catches movement in the corner of his eye. He looks up and sees into the window directly across the yard from his, and it’s you. Dropping your mail on the table in front of your couch, a brown tabby cat jumping up on the furniture to greet you, and you falling onto your sofa. 

A neighbor. A girl. A nonthreat.

Weeks go by and Dex almost forgets about you. A cold snap hits and you keep your curtains closed while Dex gets caught up in a major case at work. His team successfully pulls off a sting operation against the Albanian mob. There are raids and Dex picks off two men from a rooftop with his rifle making him feel antsy and giddy which was maybe why he agreed to go to the bar after work with a few of the guys. Another case closed, another criminal off the street. A routine and a purpose that kept Dex good.

11 PM on a Friday night and while his colleagues were just getting started Dex was itching to go home. The bar was getting more and more crowded, Ray had already left to go home to his wife and son, and Dex had no desire to have another drink. But still he stayed, keeping up with the self-assured cocky persona he had created for work. He smiled, he laughed at jokes, and he looked normal even though the nagging thought about how he should be home cleaning his pistol kept making his fingers feel itchy.

A quarter till midnight he finally decided to head out when his colleagues decided to switch bars. Dex stood against the sticky bar counter as the tender left to close out his tab. He was half heartedly paying attention to his surroundings, his head pounding from the loud talking and annoying music. A girl next to him was telling her friends how she found another friend’s fiance on Tinder.

“That’s terrible.” A soft voice murmured, sounding genuinely hurt in regard to the story. “How did she react?”

“What do you mean?” The original girl asked. The bartender had dropped Dex’s card and receipts in front of him. He slowly signed his name as he continued to listen. This was the most interesting conversation he had heard all night.

“Is Leah okay? How did she react when you told her? That’s heartbreaking.” The soft voice said. Dex finally glanced over and was shocked when he saw you. Neighbor. The girl across the yard. You had left your cozy clothes at home and instead wore a black cropped tank-top and baggy, ripped jeans. You had heavy boots on and a leather jacket draped over your right arm.  

Your friend scoffed and your face winced with hurt. “Why would I tell her? I am not getting involved with that. They’re supposed to get married in four months.”

“Because she’s our friend.” You said steadily. You swallowed harshly and tucked a stray hair behind your ear. “It would be wrong not to tell her, cheating is a horrible thing to do.”

“Babe,” Another girl said, standing across from you and placing a hand on your shoulder, “it’ll come to light, but it’s not our job to make that happen.” You shrugged off your friend's hand and clutched your jacket over your arm. 

“Yes it is our job!” You hissed. Dex could see the rise and fall of your chest, rapid and unsteady. Your knuckles were white with how hard you were ripping at the fabric of your jacket. “I’m telling her, she has the right to know.”

You turn around and you leave and your friend makes a half-hearted effort to stop you. Once you’re out of sight they scoff again and murmur something about how you were starting unnecessary drama. Dex stares straight ahead counting liquor bottles on the shelf, one for every second, then he leaves.

You’re already at the end of the street when he spots you but he knows which way you’re going. Your apartment complex was close, another reason why Dex agreed to go out. With each step, each slight movement to stay out of your line of sight, he reminds himself that he is just going home and you happen to live in the same building as him. There’s nothing wrong with what he is doing.

He almost avoids getting into the elevator with you, not wanting you to notice him quite yet, but you’re distracted by your phone which is already held to your ear. Dex can hear the line ringing, your baited breath as you pick at the skin of your nails. The elevator dings and you part ways. When he rounds the corner of the hall he sprints to his door, wanting to get in front of the window before you’re back at your apartment. 

He leaves his lights off so he remains unseen and looks through his telescope to see your cat lounging in the windowsill perk up when you open your front door. You’re talking, presumably to Leah, and you’re running your hands through your hair. The more he watches the more you look upset. You start to hyperventilate, you wince again, you pull the phone away from your ear abruptly and collapse onto the floor in front of your couch. Looks like Leah didn’t take the news well and blamed you for something that was never your fault.

And even though Dex had seen you around the apartment this was the first time he had really seen you. Noticed you. Paid attention in any meaningful way because as you tried to calm your breathing by stroking your cat's fur the voice of Dr. Mercer echoes in his brain. 

“Your North Star.”

All this time Dex had been following her words like the gospel. Years of rigid military service directly followed by Quantico which provided the job in the FBI. Structure, discipline, strict routine with occasional release that came from pulling the trigger had kept him sane. Every monotonous minute of every day had brought him to you, and you had been right in front of him for so long. Finally he was able to look up to you. His North Star. 

The moment at the bar intrigued him. You had the opportunity to look the other way but instead you decided to gamble all of your social credit knowing what it would cost you. Friendships put on the line just so you could do the right thing.

Dex Decided to cash in some long accrued PTO claiming he needed some time off from the last case. The department psychologist signed off on it saying some mental health days were in order because Dex’s job could be oh-so taxing, and Dex decided to get to know you a little better.

He wouldn’t lie and say he wasn’t delighted at what he learned. 

You had a routine. Not just weekly habits or a schedule that you semi-adhered to no, a strict routine that you followed diligently. Dex wondered if your routine brought you that same peace it brought him, that every task that was lined up and completed throughout the day brought you relief. He watched with fascination and found ways to rework his own schedule so it could align with yours. 

Sundays were for errands. You woke up at 8 AM and spent ten minutes in bed petting your cat before getting up and washing your face, then applied serums, then brushed your teeth, then moisturized. You’d get dressed in silence and Dex would always turn away to give you privacy, then you’d inspect your small fridge and pantry and make a list. He found out that you liked lists and you especially liked when you could cross something off of one. When he tailed you in the grocery store he couldn’t help but notice how your lips would curve into a smile every time you stopped and placed an item in your basket and got to cross off the item in one swift line of ink. 

When you got home you would do laundry and paint your nails one of four colors that you kept on hand and watched a movie. Whatever you watched he would watch too. It seemed like you weren’t just a creature of habit with your routine but with what you consumed as well, whether it be music or food or media. You stuck to the same handful of meals every week. You watched a rotation of about fifteen movies. He found your Spotify and listened to all your favorite songs. 

At night you would read before getting ready for bed and it seemed like reading was the only part of your life you felt the need to branch out. You would read anything ranging from horror to non-fiction. Books littered your apartment as the tiny bookshelf in your living room was already stuffed full. He read what you read and he found himself enjoying it too. 

During the week you worked at an accounting firm in the operations department. You assisted with billing and worked out of a decent sized cubicle in a quiet part of the office. He observed you Monday through Friday, sitting alone at your quiet desk listening to the same music and podcast episodes that you enjoyed. 1 to 1:30 you had your lunch break where you sat outside your building on a bench and ate whatever leftovers from the night before you packed. You fed your crumbs to the birds, watching as they fluttered around you without flinching. You kept to yourself at work, friendly but you didn’t have anyone you were close with. You left at five every day and took the same train home. 

By 6 you were making dinner and Dex mirrored you. Ate when you ate with baited breath, smiling when he tasted what you tasted. Then you showered and so did he and while he didn’t change his body wash or shampoo to yours, he did buy the bottles and smelled the soapy contents of them while standing under the showerhead. By 8 you were dressed in your usual soft sweats and t-shirts and headed outside with a ziplock of birdfeed. Doves and chipmunks swarmed around you, occasionally you would place birdseed in your hands and sit unmoving as pigeons pecked at your fingers, and when it was all gone by 8:30 you would check your mail. Dex started checking his mail at that time too, the one time a day when you would share the same space and he found himself looking forward to it more than anything. 

The following week when Dex returned to work, refreshed and happy with a few new adjustments to his routine, he kept you in his thoughts and made time for you when he could. 

He sat in his car across the street during your lunch break. He tailed you to and from work telling himself that he was just making sure you were safe. He grocery shopped with you on Sundays and followed you to the bookstore every Friday night when you picked up whatever you’d be reading for the week. On Saturdays you went to the farmers market a few blocks down where you’d buy a new bouquet of flowers that you kept in the apartment all week. Dex would buy a duplicate of whatever bouquet you picked out and stared at them longly. 

Dex learned what you liked and disliked. You enjoyed the company of animals, something Dex found difficult at first considering his troubled past with small creatures as a kid. When he observed you feeding the birds he listened to the recording of himself as a child recounting how he killed a family of robins with skipping stones. When you sat on the floor of your apartment next to your cat, who he learned was named Penny, he recalled the time he kicked a stray dog nearly to death as a teen. 

This is good for me. He thought to himself as you pet an outdoor cat on your walk to the subway station one afternoon. You were kind to animals so therefore he should be too. You were good and to be good like you he needed to be kind to animals too. He bought a hanging birdfeeder over the weekend and installed it outside his window so while he watched you feeding the birds he could feed them too. Just like you.

You didn’t like leaving your apartment once you got home on weekdays. Errands and time out of the apartment were meant for weekends whether it be a trip to the store or the diner you went to for breakfast on Saturdays. Dex liked that you were a homebody. It meant you were more likely to be safe. 

You enjoyed quiet moments. Your lunch break on the bench. Time spent in your living room watching your cat take a nap. The book store. You kept to yourself and you liked when other people did too.

You liked being clean. You swept and dusted your apartment every other day which Dex could appreciate because he took care of his own apartment diligently. You liked showering. You liked laundry. You liked fresh smells like cucumber and pear and wheatgrass. Your perfume was Elizabeth Arden Green Tea and Dex kept a small bottle on his nightstand just so he could remind himself what you were like up close. The scent made something in his chest unravel.

He found himself smiling more. You had become something for him to look forward to. He was less snippy at work and found himself actually laughing at a few of the guys' jokes in the breakroom. Paperwork was no longer as trivial as it used to feel. Briefings and strategy meetings suddenly not as mind numbing. Dex often thought about what you were doing at that exact same moment, at work dressed in your pleated skirts that went past your knees and logging bills for tax clients while listening to a podcast.

Ray even picked up on the shift. While sitting in a van on a stakeout he asked if Dex had been seeing someone and all Dex could do was smirk and try not to make eye contact. 

“Kind of.” Dex allowed himself to say and Ray grinned. 

“Oh yeah? I’ve known you for almost five years and this is the first I’ve heard of something like this.”

That’s because I keep it that way.

“It’s new.” Dex replies as he watches their mark who is sitting outside at a restaurant and is a suspect in a high profile human trafficking operation. He’s dressed in an expensive suit and smiles at his wife who is wearing designer shoes, all bought from the blood of their unsuspecting victims. Dex pictured ripping the fork out of the man’s hand just before he went in for another bite and stabbing him in the eye with the utensil. His wife would scream but he’d shut her up by taking her champagne flute and throwing it into her windpipe. He’d kick the man’s chair out from underneath him and watch him tumble to the ground then end his life by slitting his throat with the steak knife. The man and his wife deserved it because their operation targeted young women like you.  

“Well whoever she is, must be good for you.” Ray said as he popped his gum and smiled over at Dex who had been ripped away from his own thoughts. Dex nods in agreement, cracking his own while he pictures the way your hair falls over your neck. 

“She keeps me sane.”

By the first week of May it seemed like spring was finally deciding to stick around in New York. The magnolia tree in the courtyard started to bud and you don’t look like you’re shivering anymore when you feed the birds. Dex has gotten to know you for weeks. Your routine folded and adapted into his.

However as the weeks went by he couldn’t help but notice how morose you seemed to be. Sadness clearly induced by loneliness as your friends hadn’t reached out to you since the fateful night. The few times you talked on the phone were with your parents every few weeks. When he was able to view your phone screen you were rarely texting anyone and you hadn’t posted on social media in over a year. Penny provided as much companionship as any cat could and it seemed to quell your despair, but more often than not you were going to bed exhausted with red rimmed eyes. You started leaving your bedroom window open since it had gotten warmer leaving Dex with an uninterrupted view into your most private space. 

It all came to a head on a Wednesday night.

You had just returned to your apartment, mail in hand and an empty ziplock in the pocket of your shorts. Through the telescope Dex could see how tired you looked. Work must’ve been difficult because you ate on your usual bench with your head hung low and that evening you barely paid Penny any mind when she rubbed against your shins when you got home. Even when feeding the birds you seemed uninterested, scattering seed at your feet aimlessly and not paying attention to the critters milling around you. Your constant state of almost bursting into tears tugged at something deep inside Dex’s chest that he tried to expel at the shooting range earlier in the afternoon. 

As you laid on your couch with the television off and only the surrounding hum of the neighborhood keeping you company your phone buzzed for the first time in almost a month. Dex watched as you shot up and grabbed at your device. Leah’s name was on caller ID and with shaky hands you answered her call. 

Years of sitting behind lenses, watching and waiting for the perfect time to pull the trigger, allowed Dex to be skilled at lip reading. While raking your hands through your hair you asked, “Hello?” and Dex imagined your soft spoken voice he had listened to a handful of times. 

You waited patiently as Leah spoke on the other end, biting at your lip as your breathing picked up. You tried to speak at one point but got interrupted causing Dex’s nostrils to flare in anger as Leah wouldn’t let you get a word in. After a minute he watched as your face crumpled and you let out a sharp gasp that cut through the silence of the courtyard and into Dex’s own open apartment window. 

The phone slipped from your hand and thumped against the couch cushion. Bottom lip wobbling as you harshly rubbed at your eyes and heaved for air. Penny, aware of your distress, nosed at your arm but you ignored her as you stood shakily and went to your kitchen.

In your half-present state you managed to bump the bookshelf near the doorway which shelved your special glass vase that you kept your weekly bouquet in. If Dex had been with you he would’ve caught it instinctually but by the time you turned your head it was already toppling to the floor. The shatter was loud enough to echo into the courtyard and you stood in its broken wake looking helpless. 

Penny was scared by the crash at first but then became curious as she watched you stand silently amidst the mess of broken glass. When she tried to walk to you to investigate you finally snapped out of your daze and shouted for her to not come any closer. The uncharacteristic volume of your voice startled her and she ran away into the bedroom and you winced in regret. 

Through his telescope Dex watched the first tear spill over your lashline as you knelt to the ground. Everything was finally boiling over. The loneliness, the phone call, the accident with the vase and to wrap everything together was the lash out against Penny who Dex figured was your only friend at this point. You struggled for air as you let out a choked sob and something white hot zipped down Dex’s spine and settled in his hips.

It was the first time he had witnessed you cry. All this time you had been keeping and repressing and ignoring the inevitable and it was all coming out in this one moment. Angry, betrayed tears spilled onto your face as your shoulder wracked with harsh cries. Dex’s own chest felt tight and his hands shook, he lowered the telescope and let out a few deep breaths in an attempt to steady himself. After a beat he raised his lens just in time to find you sweeping the glass and flowers into a dustpan all while still letting out pained sobs. 

Something was gnawing into Dex’s ribs as you held the dustpan over your trashcan, hesitant to throw everything away. You must’ve been attached to the vase, or maybe it was everything else that was making you wait. Foot on the lever that keeps the lid open, you hover and let tears drip onto glass shards and flower stems. With a shaky hand you reach out and pick up the largest of the broken pieces. 

Holding in tears your chest starts to heave again. Deep breaths in and out as it looked like you tried to calm yourself but then you started gripping the glass in your delicate hands and Dex watched as sharp edges pierced the skin of your fingers and palms. He gasped at the sight of you hurting yourself, his mind screaming as blood dripped into the open trash. Eventually the shard was crushed in your grip and smaller pieces of glass tumbled into the waste. You gasped for air again and more tears welled up in your eyes as the hurt and pain started to set in. You finished cleaning with an injured hand and cleaned your wounds in the kitchen sink after. It was difficult for Dex to see the total damage done but it was sure to scar.

While you were in the privacy of your own bathroom away from Dex’s prying eyes he laid on his comforter and processed what he just witnessed. His North Start intentionally hurting herself in a response to her own loneliness and maybe as an act of punishment. He wondered if this wasn’t the first time. You were good. So good. Too good. You got sad when you saw missing dog posters and always took a picture of the flyers in case you saw the pet somewhere. You assisted your elderly neighbor down the hall with her groceries and treated your cat with the most care Dex has anyone ever seen give to an animal. You sorted your trash and read the AP. You always did the right thing even if it meant losing everything. 

And yet you punished yourself for it. 

All you had was Penny at this point and as much as Dex had come to respect her, she wasn’t enough. You needed someone who you could talk to. You needed a companion. Someone who could understand the routine as much as you did someone who could keep you safe even from yourself. 

Dex could be that someone for you.

+++

You had never met a guy like Dex before. 

Before he was Dex he was “Mail Guy” because he was the attractive man who usually got his mail at the same time as you. 8:30, right after you finish your “outside evening time”, and he’d be there in the mail room standing in front of his box reading through whatever bills or coupons he had received. The first thing you noticed about him were his broad shoulders and the way his hair always looked neat and parted. He was a bright, small moment of your day that appeared during a dark and intense stretch of isolation. 

A guy like Mail Guy would never be into you anyways, or at least that is what you had always told yourself. Attractive guys, guys who were normal and didn’t carry a mental checklist around in their heads at all times, guys who didn’t feel guilty all the time.

You were the type of girl who was a little too quiet in an off-putting way rather than a cute, shy way. Blue Planet was your favorite television show. Animals were more comforting and loads more interesting than people. Books were your best friends until freshman year of college. At parties you were the first person to leave or, if your friends managed to convince you to stay, you would go so unnoticed that you’d start cleaning up while everyone danced. One time you managed to reorganize a frat house’s entire kitchen in an entire night, your greatest but also most pathetic accomplishment. In class on Monday you overheard one of the boys who lived in the house say that they were convinced a ghost had done it, unaware that the culprit had been in a group project with him a semester earlier. 

His comment made you realize that you were sort-of a ghost in a few ways. You had drifted through your life only occasionally noticed by others, free to roam as you pleased if you were quiet enough. Similar to a ghost you also tended to have the same haunts. 

The routine. 

The routine, the to-do list, the pattern. An entirely made up and self imposed procedure that you adhered to religiously, the first iteration of it dating back to sixth grade. The method had changed and evolved over the years, guiding you through high school then college til the present, post-college early twenties routine that allowed for the most freedom which is why you kept it so monotonous. The fear of falling off track or messing up so badly that you were in complete social and financial ruin plagued you so relentlessly you often found yourself clutching at your chest in an effort to sooth your racing heart as your mind replayed images of you homeless, or unemployed, or so terribly broke that you lost everything and had no one to turn to. 

So instead you lead a simple life filled with simple pleasures and kept your head down and your savings account full so you could enjoy the little things like getting breakfast every Saturday morning or caring for your cat Penny; the first love of your life. 

Your friends had never understood your anxieties and you envied their abilities to be careless. To them, your routine was limiting and annoying, something that got in the way of their abilities to be totally free. They never understood the importance of bed time, the joy that “outside evening time” brought you, or how you had to do your laundry on Sundays or else you would feel like a failure. 

“One night out won’t kill you.” Mary chided over text when you declined to go out on a Tuesday night. 

“A few years ago the Avengers fought an alien invasion in Manhattan. Maybe it will.” You responded, too tired to give any other explanation that they wouldn’t pay attention to. You liked your friends and sometimes it seemed like they liked you too, but they would not ever be able to understand you. No one would, and you knew that was your own fault. 

At night when you buried yourself in a book during your designated reading time in an attempt to stay off your phone you could still remember the way Leah screamed at you when you told her the truth. 

“Why the hell would you accuse him of something like that?” She spat, already crying because even though she was in denial, deep down she knew that you wouldn’t make something like this up.

“This is the truth Leah. Mary and Izzy just told me about it and they did not want to get involved which I would argue is worse.” You tugged fingers through your hair as you paced your living room and Penny started swatting at a stray thread in your jeans. “I’m not lying, Izzy said she found Jeremy on Tinder. I’m telling you because I don’t want you to be with a cheater. You don’t deserve that. You’re my friend.”

“Friends don’t make up lies! You just don’t want me to be happy. You’re jealous because I’m not miserable and single like you are so you’re going out of your way to make me just like you!” Leah was practically hissing and the loathing in her voice made your heart shatter. 

That’s what she thought of you?

You had known Leah since college. At one point you were roommates for almost two years before she met Jeremy and eventually moved in with him. You helped her send wedding invitations and next week you were supposed to go out to brunch. The sage green bridesmaid dress you saved up for was hanging in your closet in a dry cleaning bag and the matching heels were sitting untouched in their box. Leah was your friend who you watched Planet Earth with and was there when you adopted Penny. And now she was telling you that you were a miserable piece of shit trying to ruin her life. 

“I-” You stutter, tears threatening to fall but you hold it in because it would be too embarrassing to cry, “Leah how could you say something like that?”

“Next time we speak it better be an apology!” She shouted before hanging up so you couldn’t have the last word. You yanked the phone back from your ear at the shriek and let it set in that something terrible just happened.

Izzy and Mary texted you later that night after Leah called them and they berated you in long paragraphs and said that you always started unnecessary drama even though you had never started drama in your life. When you tried to defend yourself Mary told you to keep your head down and your nose out of everyone’s business which you found ironic because all you ever did was keep your head down your whole life. 

Three friendships down the drain in the span of four hours. Your already meager social life dwindled down to small interactions at work and the attention Penny gave you. Anxiety ate away at you for days as you clung to your routine that would never hurt you in an effort to stay alive.

So Mail Guy was kind of a blessing. For roughly 55 seconds every day except Sundays you could admire the side profile of your handsome neighbor who would wear things like tight fitting quarterzips that showed off his biceps. One time when he came into the mail room he was still dressed in work clothes and when he opened his box you saw a gun in a holster on his hip. It made you a little nervous but it also made him a little more attractive. 

Mail Guy was part of your routine, a welcome addition to your mental checklist that gave you satisfaction every time you could cross it off. 

The checklist is what kept you sane for all of your weeks of social quarantine. It was timed down to the minute. Perfectly planned so every thirty minutes would keep you occupied and just enough time to anticipate what was coming next. The routine kept your mind off of the clusterfuck that were your friendships and without it you probably would’ve hurt yourself a lot sooner than you did. 

But even the pattern couldn’t cover up the fact that you had barely had a meaningful conversation in over a month. You filled the void by talking to yourself and Penny but the lack of response was starting to drive you crazy. If Penny wasn’t in your life you often wondered if anyone would notice if you were alive or not. It would be easy to slip away if no one was looking for you. Work could easily fill your position and write you off as a no call no show. Your ex-friends would never know you were gone because they made it clear they didn’t want to talk to you anymore. It would probably be a few weeks before your parents realized you weren’t returning their calls. But Penny would notice. If you did kill yourself you’d probably do it in the soft comfort of your apartment where Penny would be. You wouldn’t be able to feed her so at some point she’d start eating you and even though most people find that sort of thing morbid you always thought it was nice. Good. Penny deserved to eat you. You’d hate for her to starve. That would be so sad. 

It would be worse if she got taken by animal control and would probably be put down after your body was finally discovered. You loved Penny more than anything so for her sake you stayed alive.

Then Leah called. 

“Jeremy and I talked it out.” She said firmly. “We are still getting married. He made a mistake and I have forgiven him.”

“Cheating isn’t just a mistake Leah.” You said softly, scared of provoking her as you recalled the way she screamed at you last time you spoke. 

“I have forgiven him.” Leah reiterates. “But neither of us feel comfortable having you at the wedding. You’re not allowed to come.”

“What?”

“It was a mutual decision between Jeremy and I. What you did caused me a lot of pain for the past few weeks and if you would go as far to do something like this now then I don’t know what you’d do at the wedding. You’re not allowed to come and that is final.” She hangs up the phone quietly this time and you are left speechless. 

It’s all your fault. You officially have no one and it was all your fault. You did this. Pushed everyone away. You made the mistake. It’s all on you. 

Your chest felt so tight and you realized you were hyperventilating so you attempted to get water but because you’re such a fuck up you broke your favorite vase. Then you embarrassed yourself by crying then you shouted at Penny who was just trying to check on you and that was worse than anything you did to Leah. You were a bad, bad person. Evil. Despicable. You deserved to be punished. The glass was almost silent as you crushed it in your hand and let it dig and break skin on your fingers. You deserved this. 

That night you went to bed with aching skin and Penny didn’t sleep by your side like normal. By morning she was laying on the foot of the bed and the hurt under your skin wasn’t as present. You changed your bandages and winced at the large cut that was on your palm. It was no longer bleeding but it was sure to scar. 

Work went by with no issue like it always did. You had what you dubbed “outdoor lunch time” and tried to soak up the sun. You always hated crying but you did feel a bit lighter. The calm after the storm. That evening you could only wash your hair with one hand because your fingers stung when you would bend them. Your hand ached from typing on the computer all day but it didn’t look like you were getting an infection. You pressed into the center of one of the wounds over the wrapping and felt the dull twinge. 

Then you went to feed the birds like you always did at 8 dressed in black sweats and an Umbro t-shirt. You headed down the stairs to your usual bench and had to stop yourself from gasping when you saw someone sitting next to your usual spot reading a book. 

Mail Guy.

He was wearing a soft crewneck and baggy pants while reading a copy of Jaws. He chewed on his bottom lip as he read and looked up at you slowly and then grinned politely. Turns out, Mail Guy had really nice teeth, but sort-of an intimidating smile that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up. You felt your hands start to sweat. 

“Evening.” He said coolly. “Do you mind if we share the bench?”

A tiny gust of wind could knock you over if it wanted to. 

“Sorry,” He cringes but it’s cute because he is unfairly good looking, “I noticed you out here a few times so I know this is your territory but I couldn’t stand being cooped up in my apartment on such a nice day.” He gestures around the small courtyard and you nod your head before trying to crack a smile of your own. 

“You noticed me?” You asked dumbly, chastising yourself mentally for already making such a terrible impression on Mail Guy. You assumed he probably thought you were weird. Feeding the birds and squirrels wasn’t the coolest hobby but “evening outdoor time” was one of your favorite parts of your day. You enjoyed the way the animals interacted with one another and how if you were still enough, sometimes a bird would land on your foot. 

“Yeah, once or twice.” He scooted further into the other side of the bench to give you room and you sat down in your usual spot. Already, pigeons were starting to flock around the two of you. “It’s sweet that you feed the birds.”

“Oh!” You blush and suddenly wish you were wearing anything but the ratty old shirt and pants you had on. Your hair was still wet and your bandage probably made you look like a freak. Mail Guy was just being nice so you wouldn’t feel bad, no way a guy like him thought someone like you was ‘sweet’. “Yeah I feed them every day. I really like animals.” You mumble as you throw your first bit of seed in a wide ark around you. Doves coo and flutter around you and you hear squirrels chatter in the magnolia behind the bench. 

“But this bench isn’t mine or anything,” You said as you recalled the way he said ‘your territory’ and wondered if any of your other neighbors had taken notice of your antics, “it’s a public space. I don’t mean to hoard it to myself or anything.” You look at him out of the corner of your eye and take note of the way the sunshine made the white-blond hairs on his temples glitter in the light. Mail Guy smiled again, his eyes crinkling at the edges. 

“I’ll try to be quiet so no one is disturbed.” He says before running a hand through his hair and settling into the corner of the bench.

There's a moment of silence as just the chatter of animals fills the air surrounding you and him. He goes back to reading and is sitting just as still as you are only occasionally moving to turn a page in his book. You try to keep the fresh bandages on your hands as clean as possible by brushing extra seed onto the hem of your sweats after every throw. A lady bug lands on a blade of grass by your feet and you watch it crawl lazily along the grass before a sparrow lands near it and it flies away. 

The bag dwindles down and soon you will go inside and get your mail before returning home but the fact that you’re sitting next to your silly apartment crush makes your heart go wild. The two of you are sitting close enough together that you can smell his cologne, something that reminded you of teakwood and made your stomach flutter. 

“Do you like it?” You hear yourself ask, voice low as to not disturb the wildlife. You try not to look at him, instead fixating on some of the tape of your wrapping already peeling off of your skin so you try to flatten it down. Mail Guy looks up from his paperback.

“The book?” He asks, holding up his copy. You nod, still fiddling with the tape and trying to ignore the weight of his stare. You think his eyes are hazel but you can’t quite tell yet. 

“Mmhmm.” The last bit of seed is scattered around the two of you and all the courtyard animals flock for one last frenzy. “I read it for the first time a few weeks ago.”

“Well what did you think?” He bookmarks his spot with a yellow post-it that still looks crisp. His movements were clean as he stuck it on his page then closed the book, each action seemingly very intentional. Mail Guy adjusted his posture so he was facing you directly, knee thrown up on to the bench casually but just enough room so he wasn’t touching you. You finally turned to face him, still ducking under his gaze and looking at his chin dimple rather than his eyes. 

“I enjoyed it, it was different than I thought it would be but I think that’s what made me like it more. I don’t wanna spoil anything for you though.” You say, a smile forming on your face the longer you speak as you recalled your experience from a few weeks ago.

“I’ve never seen the movie either.” Mail Guy admits, almost looking sheepish. He lowers his head so he can catch your gaze and you blink up at him surprised which makes him flash his sharp smile again. “But it’s good so far. I think I enjoy non-fiction more than fiction if I’m being honest, but it is keeping me entertained. The cheating plotline though…” He trails off and sucks his teeth, “Not my favorite.”

You nod politely even though the mention of ‘cheating’ makes your chest twinge at the thought of Leah and her soon-to-be husband. “You’ll probably enjoy the ending.” You say offhandedly and Mail Guy is still smiling. The tape on your hand is still peeling and it is 8:30, you should be leaving.

“Is your hand alright?” Mail Guy asks, pointing to your poor attempt at first aid that you’re fidgeting with before you can excuse yourself. 

“Oh!” You blush again and scramble for an explanation that doesn’t make you look crazy in front of your cute neighbor, “I stupidly broke a vase last night and underestimated how sharp the glass was when I was cleaning it up.” A half-truth that he seems to believe because he lets out a soft hum as he appraises your hand. 

“You know,” He says softly as he looks at the already fraying gauze on your fingers, “I’m first aid certified. I can take a look at your hand and bandage it a little more comfortably.”

The offer shocks you and for a second you think you might be dreaming. First Mail Guy admits to noticing you now this direct offer of help. “Is it that bad?” You ask shyly, holding up your injured hand weakly and cracking a self-depricating smile and he chuckles. 

“Let’s just say we can’t have our friends out here in the courtyard going hungry because of your injury.” You smile which makes him smile. 

You consider his offer for a second. On any other day you would’ve been in the stairwell walking back to your apartment so you could sit with Penny and read for the remainder of the evening and a part of your brain was already getting antsy because you were behind schedule. You hadn’t even gotten your mail yet due to this conversation. But the other half of you knew that if you accepted this offer you’d not only get to spend more time with the mysterious Mail Guy but because he’d be fixing your bandages he’d have to touch you. You hadn’t been touched in months.

“Only if I can check my mail really quick first.”

The elevator ride to his apartment was short and when you stepped out of the car you realized you were on your own floor. “This way.” He nodded, heading left when you would’ve gone right to your own unit. You don’t even know this guy's name nor does he know yours but you’re following him back to his apartment. He could be crazy, a psycho killer who was luring you to your demise but you didn’t even care because you were so intrigued at the possibility of feeling someone else’s skin on yours.

His unit was just like yours except it was sparser and exceptionally tidy. A loveseat in the livingroom, a perfectly aligned stack of newspapers on the edge of the kitchen counter, a small breakfast table with a chair on each side spaced evenly apart from the edge of the table. He pulled out one of the chairs for you and asked you to wait for a moment while he got everything in order. By the door you noticed one of the few framed pictures on his walls. A picture of him and a group of men in army fatigues taken somewhere in a desert. Mail Guy was on the edge of the group smiling a bit awkwardly while holding the largest gun you’ve ever seen. 

He returns to the table just after stopping in the kitchen to turn on his electric kettle then settles in the chair next to you. Mail Guy peels the tape and bandages off of your hand so tenderly you think you might melt into his hardwood floors. Once it is all removed he tuts softly, maneuvering your hand gently in his grasp as he inspects the wounds. A large slice into the palm of your dominant hand with four smaller ones on each of your fingers.

“Ouch.” He mumbles, his thumb tracing the edge of the largest cut. “Poor girl.” His voice is a low murmur and you almost don’t hear the last comment and try not to blush again. 

“Where’d you learn first aid?” You ask softly. You were standing over his kitchen sink with the kettle coming to a slow simmer behind you. Mail Guy is washing your hand for you and even though the soap causes your ache to return you don’t mind because his touch is so warm, contrasting the cold water lapping against your skin. 

“Oh! Uh,” He ponders his next sentence as he dabs your skin dry with a dish towel, “It was mandatory for my work. I’m an FBI agent. I do a decent amount of field work.” Mail Guy, or rather FBI Guy, mumbles and you raise your brows in surprise. No wonder he was so attentive. 

You’re back at his table and Mail Guy is prepping each item he plans on using. Unwrapping fresh gauze, pre-cutting ribbons of tape, opening a packet of antibiotic salve, and laying it out in a neat row in front of him. 

“This will sting a little.” There’s an alcohol wipe in his hand and he glances at you like he’s waiting for your permission before he begins his work. You stifle any reaction to the burn, staying perfectly still and hoping you’re a good patient as he works to disinfect each cut perfectly. “I’m Benjamin Poindexter by the way.” 

Finally a real name. You repeat it in your head and your first thought is that his last name is actually kind of dorky and it makes him a little less intimidating. 

“My friends call me Dex.” He adds just as he finishes disinfecting your hand. Suddenly his edge is back. Poindexter is a little silly but Dex is kind of intense and you think it suits him with his sharp smiles and orderly apartment. His hands reach out and grab one of the clean gauze squares with that same precision you noticed earlier and he narrows his eyes as he places it onto your palm. 

“No one calls you Ben?” You quiz, keeping your hand steady and your own eyes on his face. Soaking up all his attention as he wraps medical tape around your hand, each movement completely deliberate. First he admits to noticing you feeding the birds, then he makes an effort to pay enough attention to you to notice your injury, he takes it even further by offering to patch you up with the most tender care anyone has given you in a long time. You wonder if this guy was noticing you in the mailroom all this time. 

“You can call me anything you want.” Ben says, a sharp smile gracing his features once again, but this time it doesn’t make any part of you want to turn and run. 

After ten more minutes of careful and precise work you are left with a much more professional and comfortable dressing than you could’ve managed by yourself. The tape won’t peel and the smaller cuts on your fingers have their own individual gauze squares that Ben cut down to the perfect size. The tape is tight but not too tight and wrapped around your fingers in a way where you can still bend them comfortably. He leaves the table so you can admire his work by yourself while he fixes mugs of tea for the two of you and you can’t help but feel incredibly wooed. 

“I can redo it for you tomorrow if you want.” Ben says almost eagerly but you can tell he’s trying to hide it. You sip your tea, something herbal that reminds you of your favorite restaurant. His soft yet sure touch and willingness to help you is starting to become overwhelming and you wonder if you should’ve been eased into receiving small acts of service rather than all at once. “Just leave it unbandaged after you shower. I’ll meet you in the courtyard at the same time and after we can come back here.”

As you finish your tea and he cleans everything up you gaze out his window. His apartment has a clear view of your spot in the courtyard and it’s interesting to see it from a different angle. Your eyes flick up and just across the yard in the window parallel to his you see a familiar shape. It’s Penny, sitting in her usual spot on your living room windowsill watching a crow hop around on one of the branches of the magnolia. Maybe meeting Ben was fate. 

The next day he’s already waiting for you on the wooden bench, a copy of Jaws still in his hands but this time he’s almost all done. He tells you it’s the final showdown, Hooper has just been eaten and now Brody and Quint are determined to kill the shark. 

“I kind of like the shark.” Ben admits as he inspects your hand in his apartment that evening. “I guess I kind of like sharks in general but it’s a shame he’s being persecuted for what he’s best at. What else is a shark supposed to do?” You let out a laugh which makes him grin and for a second you think that Ben is kind of shark-like himself.

In hindsight you probably should’ve been more cautious when it came to letting a stranger patch you up daily. If one of your friends told you that they were going to an older neighbor's apartment once a day to allow them to perform first aid despite having minimal contact prior, you would’ve told them to be cautious and to go to a doctor. But you don’t have those friends anymore and medical bills are outrageous and besides, Ben isn’t a stranger, he's a Mail Guy. He’s your neighbor. More importantly, Ben is an FBI agent and you remind yourself that psycho-killers don’t work for the FBI because they probably have to go through screenings and training. At least that is what you tell yourself.

The thirty minutes a day in Ben’s apartment allow you to get to know him better. He’s tidy which you admire and appreciate. Ben has shockingly good aim and a good throwing arm because he’s always able to throw your old, balled up bandages in the trash can which is on the other side of the room closer to the kitchen in a single throw and never misses. The third time he does it you wonder if he’s trying to impress you, which he succeeded at, and you ask him if he ever tried to be a professional baseball player. 

“I did honestly consider it back in high school.” He says as he applies ointment to your cuts. Your hand has dramatically improved since Ben started working his certified first aid magic on it. You kind of want to heal a little slower just so you can spend more time with your neighbor. “But baseball can be boring. Also they kept pulling me halfway through the game because I’d strike everyone out the whole time. I never got to  pitch a perfect game.” He lamented, working the salve over each cut with undeniable precision. “There are other ways to have a good aim.”

Through quiet conversation and cups of tea you also learn that Ben has a routine of his own, and not the simple kind that most people have, a strict one that he says is timed down to the minute. “I know it’s kind of weird, most of my colleagues and friends growing up always told me to loosen up but it’s good for me. Keeps me in the right direction.” 

“Trust me,” You’re staring into your mug of tea, decaf because Ben said he doesn’t allow himself caffeine after four PM, in an effort to hide the flush on your face and neck, “I completely understand.”

After a week and close inspection of your hand Ben tells you it doesn’t need to be bandaged anymore and gives you a fresh tube of antibiotic ointment. For a second you’re disappointed, your new extra step in your routine had filled the deep dark hole of social isolation you had been suffering in. But then Ben shyly asked if you’d still like to join him for tea after you feed your friends and check the mail, admitting that he didn't have many people he knew in the city outside of work and had been enjoying your company. You agreed, and suddenly you and Ben made space for one another in your lives. 

Two weeks ago you thought that you’d be spending the rest of your life in almost total isolation and tried to come to terms with your new fate. Making friends had never been easy and with your college connections severed you felt hopeless. It had been so much harder to make friends as an adult and it was difficult for you to relate to many of your peers. The incident with the broken vase had been a lapse that was a long time coming, boiling under the surface the longer you had to ruminate in your self-loathing. For a minute it seemed pointless, you would remain a terribly sad girl who had issues with pain and punishment for the rest of your life. Then, suddenly, you had Mail Guy’s phone number and a promise from him that he would text if he was getting held up at work and couldn’t make your meet up. You had someone and it seemed like your someone needed you just as much as you needed him. 

Evening tea with Ben also became Sunday morning grocery shopping with one another and he always offered to carry your bags for you and push the cart. He tagged along to the farmers market with you and helped you pick out your weekly bouquet and met up with you at the bookstore on Fridays. Ben cooked you dinner once a week on Wednesdays because you mentioned they were your least favorite day of the week. You introduced him to Penny and he’d come over on weekends and watch nature documentaries with you and wouldn’t complain. Thirty minutes a day morphed into almost any moment you had when you weren’t asleep or at work. Your hand was fully healed and the hurt from your old friends was just a scar.

One summer night you’re curled up on Ben’s couch while he sits a little more properly next to you. You’re listening to an audiobook that is playing through the speaker system in Ben’s living room because he mentioned he liked listening to audiobooks during his morning runs. The two of you sit in silence as you listen to the narrator of Sharp Objects talk about the dead body of a teenage girl who was found in an alleyway with all her teeth ripped out. It was your choice, you liked fiction and Ben liked true crime so a murder mystery seemed like an appropriate choice that suited both your tastes and Ben appeared to be enthralled with the story so far. After each chapter he would pause his phone and you would discuss what you just listened to. 

But as the narrator drones on, your attention fades out of focus and you begin to appreciate the slope of Ben’s nose and the way he keeps his jaw clenched as he listens to something with full attention. He’s tapping his index finger on the rim of his white mug. Ben has very well manicured nails despite the rough calluses that you know are on his fingers. He shifts in his spot and your eyes flit back up to his face and hazel eyes are staring back at you and if it was anyone else you’d apologize for staring but instead you hold your gaze. 

Ben is so pretty it could almost make you jealous. He was blessed with even, symmetrical features and good bone structure with cute cheek and chin dimples to top it all off. His high cheekbones and chiseled jaw made him look more like a model than an FBI agent. Still, as you stared at one another while an audiobook echoed around you talking about a gruesome murder, you wondered if Ben’s good looks were the one blessing that Dex received in life. Pretty privilege was a lucky thing to acquire and despite Ben’s perfect features there was something about him that always looked a little haunted. After all, you did see his medicine cabinet the week prior. 

His bathroom is just as clean if not more pristine than the rest of his apartment. Ben admitted that he wiped it down after every use which was evident by the roll of paper towels under the sink and the squeegee hung up in the shower. You asked if you could steal some floss, Ben had made salmon for dinner and it was lovely but something was poking at your tongue. He said it was in the top left hand drawer of his vanity but you were feeling bold and Ben was your friend so when you peaked in his medicine cabinet you expected to find cologne and moisturizer, not a pharmacy. 

Several pill bottles stood in a neat line on the middle shelf of the cabinet, each of their labels faced proudly outward all labeled with his full name and with four refills noted on the bottom corner of the stickers. At first it shocked you, you closed the cabinet quietly and returned to the living room where Ben was sitting on his couch waiting for you to start the next episode of a documentary about the Cold War you were watching together. The rest of the night went on as normal and Ben even walked you back to your apartment afterwards leaving you with a warm feeling blooming through your chest. The second you closed the door you rushed to your laptop where you looked up each of the medications. 

Anti-depressants, anti-psycotics, and mood stabilizers. Sterile web articles illuminate your computer screen and you click link after link trying to figure out what all of these pills would be used in combination for. BPD and PTSD are among most of the results and an ugly, evil, unwanted thought rips through you. 

Ben was almost too perfect. He was attractive, your cat liked him, he enjoyed the same music that you did and even remembered you liked honey more than plain sugar in your tea. Ben understood the importance and sanctity of repetition and even made the time to alter his life so you could fit into his already curated schedule. Ben was perfect, so therefore the universe made sure he was not, all because you liked him. Of course the one, meaningful, companion you were finally able to hold space for would have such a giant issue. Ben’s routine was probably not something he found satisfaction in, it was probably a lifeline. The more you read about borderline personality disorder the more it scared you. 

Before clicking on another web article Penny jumps up next to you on your bed and nuzzles at your hand hovering over the trackpad. Her rough tongue scrapes over your palm and you wince a bit as the familiar ache and sting blooms over your skin. The night of the vase incident plays through your memory like a film and then your greatest, or rather worst, hits flick through your mind after.

The one guy you had any sort of fling with in college telling you that you’re not very fun to be around but you give decent blowjobs which is why he stuck around for so long. You had asked him if he wanted to get dinner at the dining hall after class and that was his way of cutting things off with you. That night you didn’t eat and laid in bed while digging your thumbnail so hard into the skin above your hipbone you managed to break skin. The time you messed up a project at work and had to redo it all resulting in a condescending email from your boss and the four parallel scars on your right shoulder. You were fifteen and your mom just yelled at you for getting a C on a biology exam so you use cuticle scissors to cut off one of your toenails.

You remember that you have issues too and you might be clinging on to your own lifeline more than Ben is. Ben is medicated at least, and if he’s medicated then he goes to therapy regularly and has a psychiatrist and you haven’t seen your GP in two years. The ugly thought fades and you appreciate Ben even more than you did before. It also helps that Ben is very pretty.

Ben has become less intimidating over the weeks that you’ve known and it’s less of you becoming used to how intense he can come across and more of him acting softer around you and only you. It’s evident that he likes you the same way you like him and knowing this information gives you great satisfaction. You’re not the type of girl that guys fawn over and yet Ben does. He speaks softly, he buys your favorite snacks when you have movie nights, he still checks your hand every now claiming he just wants to make sure it’s healing alright. It’s an obvious excuse to touch you and you happily pretend like you don’t notice. It’s fun to dance around one another because Ben is smart enough to pick up on your obvious reciprocated feelings. A brush of the knee feels electric and eye contact burns in the best way possible. The way Ben looks at you while sitting on the couch that night can only be described as vulnerable. 

The chapter of the book ends and you know you’ll have to ask him to replay it because none of the words had any sort of lasting effect in your memory. Ben presses pause on his phone without even looking at it, maybe because he can’t stand the idea of missing out on looking at you. For a guy who works for the FBI he’s not very brave when it comes to his feelings and you know he is too scared to make the first move. By no means are you renowned for being fearless but if Ben hadn’t been so obvious in his affection you wouldn’t have gotten the courage to reach your hand out and brush his cheek with your finger tips.

Ben shutters and leans into your touch so your light graze turns into you cradling his face in your hands. The scratch of stubble threatens to irritate your scar but you pay it no mind as Dex looks up at you with wet, almost puppy-like, hazel eyes. You lean in and he moves to fill the remainder of the gap and presses his lips to yours. It’s a soft kiss, sweet and almost chaste and it tastes like wintergreen toothpaste and your nose is filled with his teakwood cologne. You pull away and he rests his forehead against yours as one of his hands cards through your hair and the other wraps around your waist. 

It’s your first kiss in years and you wonder if it’s his too, not because it’s bad but because he pulls you in for a tight hug after and takes a deep inhale of your hair and the skin on your neck. You quickly realize that Ben’s nice arms are not just for show because he kind of manhandles you during your hug so you’re practically on his lap as he pulls you closer. His touch is greedy, like your first kiss opened the floodgates for all his yearning to spill out. Ben presses a kiss to your cheek and you have to stifle a whimper, unused to all this touch. It feels like you’re drowning but at the same time you welcome it with open arms because Mail Guy is smothering you with affection. It's almost like a dream. 

You kiss him again and this time he does moan into your mouth and an undeniable pang of attraction makes your stomach twist. Ben wants you, maybe even needs you with the way he’s kissing you, like he could die tomorrow and be perfectly happy. His callused hands rest firmly on your waist and back keeping you in place as you make out like teenagers on his couch and you don’t stop until Ben accidentally knocks his phone onto the floor and the steady voice of the narrator announces “Chapter Two” loudly into the living room. You jolt away from Ben and his eyes are wide and frantic until you start laughing as he scrambles to find his phone on the floor to shut off the audiobook. Once it’s quiet again he chuckles along with you, leaning his head into the crook of your neck once again. 

That night he walks you home and leaves you with a kiss on the lips and a warm hug goodbye. When you sit on the couch to give Penny some much needed affection you glance out your window to see Dex neatening up his apartment from across the yard. He notices you looking and waves with a shy smile. You blow him a kiss and you swear you can see his blush rise to the tips of his ears. 

The next night you tell Ben that you can’t handle a casual relationship, it’s all or nothing and you already knew he would understand. He also agrees that he wants the pace of the relationship to be whatever you want it to be which in this case is slow.

Dating Ben is easy because not much changes except you touch more. He’s awfully clingy in the best way, always wanting some form of contact even if it’s just linking fingers as you walk down the street or a knee resting against your thigh when laying on the couch. Sometimes when he gets home from work he gifts you with small trinkets that he said made him think of you. A very smooth stone he found while he was out on his run that morning, a foreign coin, a petal from a poppy that he kept safe in his suit pocket all day. 

He buys you birdseed refills and even helps you scatter it during your evening routine and helps you trim Penny’s nails without complaint. At night when you listen to audiobooks or watch television he’s often draped over you with his head resting over your stomach while his arms are wrapped around you. You comb your fingers through his hair and you swear he actually purrs. Penny has even started getting so used to him that often she’ll lay on his back during these moments.

The first time you spend the night together is at your apartment on a Friday night. When you met up at the book store after work he insisted on buying you whatever your selection for the week was and even bought you one of the cute bookmarks that sit next to the register made out of pressed flowers preserved in resin. You cooked him dinner, pasta and homemade pesto which is one of your favorite meals and he compliments you after every bite. He leaves to shower at his place and grab an extra change of clothes and comes back with damp hair that you think makes him look charming. You feed the birds as normal, sitting in his lap this time while he rests his chin on your shoulder, then check the mail like always and return to your apartment where you watch Blue Planet. 

That night is also the first time you slept with one another and you learn that he is shockingly submissive in bed but in the way a guard dog is submissive to their master. Ben thrives when he’s told what to do even if it’s just a simple direction like “kiss my neck” or “touch me here”. His special precision is perfect in these scenarios because on the first try he finds the pulse point on your shoulder that makes you moan as he leaves a purple, crescent shaped hickey while his thumb presses into your clit. He makes you come remarkably fast with just his touch and practically begs to go down on you after.

Your old friends had you convinced that guys who liked to eat pussy were rare but Ben must’ve been an outlier or they just had terrible taste in guys. He loved having his head in between your thighs, pressing your legs against the side of his head seemed to give him some sort of comfort and he made you come again with his tongue buried in your heat while you tugged at the short, blond strands of his hair. Coming down from your high he presses his face into your slit, taking in a deep inhale whimpering at your ripe scent.

“Fuck.” He says, voice gruff and low as he kisses the bend in your knee. “My perfect, lovely girl. All for me. All mine. Mine, mine, mine.” You realize Ben is not speaking necessarily to you but rather about you, his stream of consciousness slipping out of him in his pussy-drunk state. He crawls up your body and gives you a searing kiss where you taste yourself on his lips and you moan as he slips his cock into you in one slow thrust.

In truth you haven’t had much experience with guys and had only seen a handful of dicks but you have a feeling that Ben’s is larger than most. He certainly walks like there’s something sizable between his thighs and as he presses into you it feels like you’re being split open in the best way possible. You’re undeniably full as he reaches the hilt, his cock is practically in your brain because it’s all you can think about. 

“Jesus fuck.” You mumble, sweat forming at your brow as Ben lets you adjust to him. He presses his forehead against yours and his eyes are completely blown out. All traces of hazel gone as he stares at you in a way that would make anyone else run and cower. But you stay put because as he finally moves in shallow thrusts, you know that Ben is yours and yours alone.

He doesn’t last long but you don’t care as you were more than satisfied by the time he fucked you and the fact that he came so quickly from just your pussy alone is kind of hot. Beautiful and pretty Ben spills inside of you in just a couple of strokes and the sound he made when he finished was so sinful you made sure to commit it to memory. You shower him in kisses and praise as he shutters through his high and eventually he pulls out and carries you to the bathroom so you can clean up before bed. 

That night you fall into a dreamless sleep and are awakened by Penny kneading biscuits into your thigh over the blankets and Ben curled into your chest as you held him all night long. He buys you your bouquet at the farmers market and that night he paints your toenails in perfect strokes so he doesn't get any polish on your skin.

Summer carries on and so do you and Ben. He visits you on his lunch break as often as he can. He buys you books and nail polish and never complains if you want to watch a nature documentary for the fourth time in a row on movie nights. He buys Penny treats and gains her full approval, always greeting him at the door when he comes over and nuzzling at his legs when he sits on the couch. You run errands with him on weekends and stand in line with him at the pharmacy when he needs refills on his meds. You never ask him to explain why he needs them and you know he’s thankful for it. He tells you he made you his emergency contact at work and you do the same. On the nights that one of you sleeps over he fucks you however you want and you fall asleep tangled in each other’s embrace. 

“I very much enjoy our time with one another. You’re the best part of my day.” You know he’s trying to say that he loves you and you know it’s probably too early to admit feelings like that; but you welcome it and tell him you’re glad he’s in your life.

So when you wake up at three o’clock in the morning on a Monday, alone because you only do sleepovers with your boyfriend on weekends, and hear the floor shift in the darkest corner of your room you pretend like you didn’t hear a thing. You haven’t given Ben a spare key yet, you’ve thought about it in the case you’re not home and Penny needs to be checked on, but you haven’t made that next step yet. Instead you try to fall back asleep and pay no mind to the fact that you think you can hear someone else breathing and how Penny keeps staring at the corner of the room.

Ben doesn’t always eat lunch with you but you notice on the days he doesn’t there’s always an unmarked car parked across the street of your building. It’s far enough away that you can’t tell if anyone is in it or not, but it always arrives just before you go outside and leaves just after you go back in. 

He has a Walkman with an old pair of headphones tucked into his nightstand. The first time you saw it was when he was pulling out a condom and when he saw you notice it he shut the drawer quickly and kissed you so hard you almost forgot about it. A week later when he was in the shower and you were laying in his bed you brought it out, put on the headphones, and pressed play. You only listened to it for a minute, thinking you would find a mixtape not a therapy session. You regretted your snooping the second you heard Ben’s young voice, so clearly him with the quiet and measured tone of voice he’s always had. He talked about baseball and his resentment for his coach and then you stopped listening because it was much too personal. 

In his hall closet there’s a large safe that you’ve never seen him open but you know what’s probably inside. He’s never explicitly shown you his gun that he carries for work but it’s always in its holster on his dresser, sitting neatly next to his black belt he always wears for work. You wonder what else is in the safe. His social security card, cash, maybe even more tapes, but most definitely more guns. 

Soon it is early October and your friends in the courtyard are begging for food so they can prepare for winter. You sit on your bench curled into Ben’s side as he murmurs to you in a low voice about his day at work. They’ve been tracking an illegal arms dealer that has ties to one of the scientists that was involved in the Sokovia incident a few years ago. It all sounds very intense but he says they aren’t planning any busts soon, just tracking and monitoring.

“And if there was a field assignment I’d probably be halfway across town perched on a roof, far away from any of the action.” He assures, smirking a little as he pictures it which makes you shiver so he wraps his arm around you a little tighter because he assumes it’s the autumn air making you shake. Ben had told you his actual role in the FBI about a month ago. You had assumed he was just a regular investigator but turns out he had a more specialized position, sniper. It made sense and explained the picture of him and his military squad he had hung by his door, but you had to quickly come to the realization that Ben has definitely killed people and will probably kill more people because that was his job.

The same hands that had pulled the trigger countless times were the same ones that took the time to love and heal your wounded ones all those weeks ago. A trained killer bought you flowers every weekend. A murderer always thanked you every time you had sex with him. It was a little ironic but it was all Ben, and you loved Ben. 

The next day at work you were logging an expense report when your phone buzzed. You expected it to be Ben, who texted you about three times a day while he was at work. Usually a picture of an animal, a plant, or an interesting building he saw while he was out. If you were lucky there would be an occasional selfie, only half of his face while he took a picture of something behind him, and sometimes a picture of his coworker Ray who you had heard about.

Only it wasn’t Ben, it was Leah.

Hey. If you don’t want to talk I will understand, but if you do would you be willing to meet up? I would like to apologize to you in person.

For a second you had forgotten about Leah. The past few months had been filled with anything and everything Ben that the fallout with your friends felt like a distant memory. Last time you checked she had you blocked on everything but when you opened Instagram she was following you again. Half of her pictures had been deleted, including her engagement pictures, and there was no trace of a wedding. 

Yeah, we can meet up. Does this Friday work?

“I don’t like this.” Ben says that night after you show him the messages. Leah asked if she could take you out to dinner and you agreed on the one condition that you go out to your favorite restaurant. She agreed instantly and you mentally started to go through all the items in your closet trying to figure out the best thing to wear. Something that made you look nice but in a sort-of effortless way that made you look nonchalant about the whole situation even though it had your stomach in knots. 

Ben’s reaction doesn’t surprise you, the past few months you hadn’t exactly told him any of the good facets about Leah, the reason why you were friends in the first place, so his view was biased. It also wasn’t shocking that he was feeling a little protective.

“If you go out to dinner we won’t have time to go to the bookstore, or watch a movie together.” His voice was steady but the way he had his arms crossed while sitting on the foot of your bed indicated his frustration.

“I know, and that is annoying because I want to buy the next Earthsea book, but would you be willing to go with me on Saturday after the market?”

“Yes.” He agrees instantly, you knew he would and admittedly you were frustrated that your usual Friday night plans were straying from their usual course, but you also knew you had to do this. Despite the hurtful things Leah had said and done to you a few months prior she was willing to extend an olive branch so it was the right thing to do to meet her half-way. 

“And we will definitely still have time for a movie. We’re meeting at 6:30 and I want to be home by 8:30 at the latest.” You said as you rifled through your closet looking for a very specific plaid skirt. “Do you think you would be willing to feed the birds for me?”

“Only if you let me drop you off at the restaurant.” Ben said, his voice closer to you than you recalled. When you popped your head out of the recess of your closet you jumped as Ben was right next to you. Sometimes he moves so quietly he reminds you of an electric car.

Friday evening you walk twenty minutes downtown hand-in-hand with your boyfriend to the little conveyor belt sushi restaurant that has always been a favorite spot of yours when you have a little extra cash to spend. Ben compliments your outfit three times on the walk over. “My beautiful girl is so dressed up,” he murmurs, brushing hair out of your face as you wait outside the restaurant for Leah to arrive. You’re predictably five minutes early.

At 6:34 Leah rounds the corner and waives tentatively at you as she approaches. You smile and wave back trying to hide the fact that your stomach is twisting and you’ve had to wipe the sweat on your hands onto the fabric of your skirt three times since you arrived. Ben stands firmly next to you with an arm wrapped around your waist, face unreadable.

“Hey,” Leah says breathlessly, pushing her hair behind her ears and wrapping her jacket around her to protect herself from the autumn chill. “Thanks uh, for meeting me.” She glances at Ben nervously and then settles her attention back to you. “Is this your boyfriend?”

“Yes! Yeah um-” You motion to Ben who smiles tightly at her and sticks his hand out for her to shake. 

“Dex, I’m just dropping her off.” His voice is a little more measured than usual and this time Ben smiles with his teeth, shark like, and it makes Leah look a little on edge. A part of you kind of enjoys the fact she seems nervous around Ben, it’s like you have a Belgian Malinois by your side. 

Ben turns to you after he releases Leah’s hand and gives you a tight, warm hug and a kiss to your cheek and temple. “Text me when you’re wrapping up and I’ll walk you home.”

“I promise.” You respond, shy from all his PDA that Leah is witnessing. Ben smiles, warmer because this one is meant for you, and kisses you softly on your lips before leaving you with a final squeeze on your shoulder. Ben disappears into the crowd and when you turn back to Leah she looks a little dumbfounded. Is it because she found Ben intimidating, or was she just shocked you were able to find a boyfriend in the first place. You grab the door and hold it open for her, “After you,” You said softly and Leah smiles before heading inside. 

The first five minutes are awkward. The two of you sit next to one another at the bar and small, multicolored plates pass pay on the conveyor belt in front of you. A waitress takes your order, tea for you and Diet Coke for Leah, and you exchange pleasantries with one another while you wait on your beverages. Leah’s old engagement ring is noticeably gone from her ring finger. After you take your first bite of food Leah finally cuts to the chase. 

“Jeremy and I broke up two weeks before the wedding.” Leah’s pretty face is pale behind her foundation and she’s ripping her napkin into tiny shreds of paper. You chew and swallow as fast as you can, coughing as it goes down so you take a sip of water while Leah looks like she will be ill. 

“Oh?” Is all you manage to say. What exactly does someone say in a situation like this? An ‘I told you so’ would be warranted but also you felt like it was too cruel. “I’m sorry-”

Leah held up her hand in order to cut you off, laughing a little as she brushed shredded paper off her jeans. “Don’t be sorry, you’re the last person who should feel sorry about any of this.” She grabbed salmon nigiri off the belt and set it in front of her before unwrapping her chopsticks and breaking them in half. “I’m sorry. I said terrible things to you and cut you off when all you wanted to do was look out for me.”

The restaurant buzzes around the two of you as you eat in silence for a few minutes. Leah is staring intently at the bubbles in her Diet Coke and your gaze is drawn towards the windows. New York City is bustling outside despite the cool autumn air. People getting off of work, couples getting dinner, college kids preparing for a night out. In the hustle and bustle you think you catch a flash of a familiar navy baseball hat from across the street.

“He was cheating on me with Mary.”

“What?” Baseball hat be damned, you whipped your head back around so you were looking at Leah as tears pooled in her eyes. “Mary?” You ask, confused and suddenly angry.

“Yeah, it had been going on for a while. It’s why she wanted to keep his infidelity hidden so badly and why she got so upset with you when you told me. I think she was afraid of getting found out.”

Colorful plates keep passing by and your chopsticks are making your fingers feel sweaty. Izzy’s behavior was still unexplained but you chalked it up to her just being a bad friend who could apparently excuse cheating. 

That’s so evil. Ben had said when you explained the whole situation over tea only a few weeks into seeing one another. Cheating is immoral. I’d never do something like that. Loyal. Just like a dog.

“Obviously I knew he had been cheating but he swore it was a one time thing and that he’d never do it again.” Leah wipes fallen tears and pushes hair out of her face, trying to stay composed even though Calvin Harris is playing over the speakers in the restaurant and it all feels so ridiculous. “But apparently I’m an idiot and not only was he cheating with random girls he was also cheating on me with my maid of honor.” She laughs coldly and shoves a piece of sushi into her mouth as you try to process it all. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry. And please don’t feel obligated to forgive me because you aren’t. I said terrible things to you, things no one should ever say, especially not to someone who was the only one looking out for me. I don’t know why I thought you betrayed me when in reality is was Jeremy and that fucking bitch.”

Your face feels flushed and you set your chopsticks down so you can wipe your hands on your skirt again. Something nasty is licking at your heart, making it bloom with anger and frustration and suddenly your hand starts to ache again. All that hurt and pain you thought you had left behind a few months ago comes crashing down as you remember how Mary and Izzy and of course, Leah, had lashed you with their words and left you for dead in the wake of their betrayal. They hurt you so bad you felt the need to hurt yourself. Their actions had left permanent scars and it was all for nothing.

Herbal tea wafts through the air and cuts through your anger like a hot knife. The waitress is serving the person next to you, an older gentleman who is already grabbing sashimi off of the belt. The cup clinks against the saucer and suddenly you’re sitting in Ben’s apartment and he’s inspecting the damage done to your hand while his electric kettle is simmering in the kitchen. Despite his rough hands he had handled you so carefully as he washed, disinfected, and rebandaged your hand every day for a week until you were healed. Then he served you herbal tea, just like the kind they served at your favorite restaurant.

You’re jealous because I’m not miserable and single like you are so you’re going out of your way to make me just like you!

Leah is reaching for a drink but you surge forward and wrap her in a tight hug. Yes, she caused you pain. She hurt you more than any friend ever had. But without that pain you wouldn’t have made the connection with Ben, and without Ben you would no longer be miserable and single. As much as Leah’s words had cut you it wasn’t like they were a complete lie. You were miserable. You had been living in a lonely existence, never truly seen or understood until you made your connection with Ben. 

“I forgive you.” You mumble, Leah hugs you back and laughs wetly before letting you go so she can finish drying her tears.

The next hour feels sort-of perfect. Leah gives you all the gritty details about how Jeremy’s mother cussed her out after cancelling the engagement and how she lost 3 grand on her deposit for the venue. She moved back in with her parents in Brooklyn but she did get a promotion at her job so she should be able to save up and move out soon. Mary and Jeremy were still seeing each other apparently but neither of you could stalk them on social media because you were blocked, and Izzy seemed to cut ties with everyone and hasn’t been seen since the summer.

“Jeremy can rot in hell.” You say, throwing back the shot of sake that Leah had ordered once the real tea had started to spill. She laughed, a little shocked at your statement because you weren’t the type to usually be that bold, but it’s what Ben would’ve said if he had been there.

Maybe you should’ve held your grudge towards Leah for a little longer, most people would’ve in a similar scenario but you couldn’t. For the past few months it seemed like Leah was experiencing the same type of isolation that you had gone through earlier in the year so you couldn't help but empathize with her. Jeremy and Mary had manipulated her and she seemed genuinely sorry for her actions. Evil guys could make even the most normal girls do crazy things, plus you weren’t really the type to hold a grudge against anyone unless it was yourself. 

By 8:20 you’re waiting for the check and despite insisting on paying for at least your share of food Leah says she’ll foot the bill. “It’s only fair, trust me.” She says as she hands the waitress her card.

“Well then I’ll get it next time.” You say with a smile and Leah grins because you just said ‘next time’. It’s nice knowing that you have a friend again, they came in rare supply.

“So, you gonna tell me about your boyfriend or do I have to wait?” Leah says as she signs the receipt. You smile, blushing as you recall how Ben had kissed you so sweetly before leaving earlier.

“I guess I can share some.” You say coyly. You’re loose and flushed from the alcohol and a little excited because this is the first time you get to gush about your boyfriend. “We’re actually neighbors, he lives in my building and noticed me feeding the animals. We started seeing each other a few months ago, just before spring.”

“Aw,” Leah says, resting her cheek in her hand. “He’s handsome, is he older? No judgement, obviously.” Her eyes widen and her laugh and shake your head in reassurance.

“It’s okay, and he is. He’s 34, but it’s kind of nice. He’s more settled in his life and has an important job. It’s nice having a boyfriend who values routine and stability. I think it’s really good for me.” You say fondly.

“What does he do for work?”

“He’s an FBI agent.”

Leah’s brows raise in surprise. “Oh! Yeah that is really important. I guess that kind of tracks he seems, um…” Her voice trails off and you can tell she’s trying to choose her next words carefully but you know what’s about to come next, “intense.” 

“He is. I like it.”

By 8:30 you’re out the door and it’s already nightfall in New York City. You hug Leah goodbye and wrap your coat around your waist as you watch her head towards the train station. You should’ve texted Ben twenty minutes ago so he could have enough time to walk over and pick you up so you could head home. Instead, you walk down the street for half a block. Normally, you would be in a rush, paranoid even. Anything can happen in the city at night, especially to a young woman like you; but there’s no need to feel scared. Nothing is going to happen to you. The street is empty and you look around at the vacant buildings surrounding you.

“Ben,” You say in a steady tone. Nothing happens, the street is still empty but you stay put. “Ben, I know you’re there.” Still, nothing. It’s getting chillier and you tuck your hands into your pockets. “Dex, come out.” You command. 

The name felt foreign on your tongue. You never called him Dex, always feeling like the name was a little too harsh for you even though that’s what everyone else called him, including himself. It seemed to get his attention though, because after you said it he finally revealed himself as he came out of the shadows of the alleyway across the street. He crosses over to you, walking steadily even though his eyes are wild and red-rimmed. Wet and illuminated in the harsh streetlight that makes the lines of his face look more intimidating. You don’t startle and stand your ground. Ben stops in front of you, further away than he usually would be and despite his broad stature he looks like a scared little boy.

You stare at one another, his lip wobbles, your cheeks grow hotter from the alcohol and nerves that are signaling that you should be running but you’re not. You stay put, so does he, always waiting for your command.

“I’m not mad at you.” But you should be. You should be freaked out and changing your locks and blocking his number.

“You’re not?” Ben blinks rapidly as he tries to hide his tears, his fear that should rightfully be yours even though it’s not.

“I’m not.” You take a step forward and Ben flinches but you ignore it. “I could never be mad at you.” You say softly. Ben looks down at you and bites his lip and furrows his brows.

“But you should be.” He mumbles. You shrug and nod. What’s the point in being mad? You’ve known for a long time that Ben has issues even though he never explicitly said anything about it. You never talked about your problems either but you know that Ben knew the real reason behind your scars. 

You reach up and place your hand on Ben’s cheek and he nuzzles into it immediately. Scruff against scar tissue that makes you shiver. Reaching out you grab his jacket and he immediately pulls you close into a hug. You’re engulfed by his lovely cologne and feel as he kisses along your hairline. You stand on your tiptoes so you can reach the shell of his ear.

“I love you.” You whisper. Ben moans into the curve of your neck, holding you tighter as you comb your fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. 

“I love you too.” He whispers back, kissing you behind your ear then your jaw then he places a tentative kiss onto your lips as you hold onto the collar of his jacket. When you pull away he rests his forehead on yours and smiles. 

“Take me home?” You ask sweetly.

“Of course.” Ben replies, grabbing your hand and placing a warm kiss on your knuckles. You cling to his side and Ben wraps a warm arm around your shoulders, keeping you close.

+++

Authors Notes:

About a month ago I rewatched season 3 of Daredevil. The only other time I've seen it was back in 2018 a week after it premiered and I remember being blown away by it. What I remembered most was Dex, who upon rewatch is still so captivating and not only because he is played by a handsome guy but also because the way he's teetering on edge and so easily manipulated into a monster, directly contrasting Matt, is so deeply entertaining. I know Born Again season 2 just wrapped and Dex finally got to continue his story almost 10 years later, but I'm unsure if I will watch it. At least not for a while. I think the strongest iteration of Dex's character is the way he was portrayed in season 3. There's something extra special about the way he is so haunted throughout those 13 episodes that really makes him a standout character.

I do want to continue this story but probably just in smaller one-shots capturing more mundane, intimidate moments between this reader and Dex. I'd like to think that this story and anything related to it that I may make in the future is set in an ideal world where Dex is never manipulated by Fisk and Fisk dies in prison where he belongs so both Dex and Matt can know peace :).

“Henry!” you gasped, hoping they mistook the horrified look on your face for innocent shock, “oh my god…” 

Without any warning, the next thing you knew, he’d yanked your stunned form into a hug, “how the hell are you?” he clapped your shoulder as if you were old school chums, “it’s been so long.”

“I’m–, uhm, fine,” you managed to reply. 

“Yeah?” he smiled, the insincerity in your tone completely flying over his head, “that’s great.” 

Simply to be polite, you awkwardly asked, “…how are you?” even though you truly didn’t wish to know the answer.  

“I’m good, yeah, life’s been kinda crazy lately because–, oh,” he suddenly paused to glance back at the girl by his side, “Y/n, you remember Rebecca, right?”

“Mhm,” you hummed and offered her a glance, fearing steam might billow out of your ears at any moment, “hi.”

“Hey,” she smiled brightly as she tossed her luscious locks over her shoulder, “and please don’t mind him,” she clapped a palm over Henry’s chest, “he’s just freaking out, you know, usual guy stuff before finally getting tied down.”

“I’m sorry,” you blinked, nearly pinching yourself to test if this was a nightmare or not, “before what?”

Rebecca then held up her left hand to flash you the massive rock nestled on her fourth finger. 

“I finally popped the question!” Henry grinned and draped an arm around his fiancé.

“Wow, oh wow, that’s–…” you sputtered as the blonde promptly shoved her hand in your face for you to get a better look, “that’s a really big rock, right there, on your finger…” your touch floated up and tilted her palm slightly, the light from the neon sign close by glinting in the diamond, “congratulations…”

“Thanks!” she smiled down at the ring herself before her fingers suddenly captured your own and twisted your hand around, “oh wait, congrats to you too!” 

“What?” you still simply tried to keep breathing through this agonising gut-punch of an encounter. 

“I know they say that size doesn’t matter,” Rebecca eyed the tiny green stone that adorned your grandmother’s ring, “and it doesn’t! I mean, that’s so pretty,” she uttered in a sugary sweet and insincere tone that made you feel as if you were back in high school again, “understated, simple.” 

“Ah, no way,” Henry peeked down at your hand, “you’re engaged too?”

“Uh…” you let out a shaky breath, “yep,” the lie then suddenly flew out past your lips before you had a chance to stop it, “that’s me! I’m getting married.” 

“That’s amazing,” your ex let out an airy chuckle, “who’s the lucky guy?”

But before your lips could part and let out another lie, Josie returned, “here you go, hon,” and slid four beer bottles across the bar to you before adding, “and would you tell Foggy to stop sitting on the edge of the pool table? It’s old and I can’t be responsible if it breaks on him.”

“Sure thing,” you promised and snatched up the drinks. 

“Is that your man?” Henry cast a glance to the lawyer Josie had gestured to, “Foggy, was it?”

“Foggy?” a soft giggle couldn’t help but bubble out of your lungs, “no! Don’t get me wrong, he’s great, but no, sadly, he’s already taken.” 

“Then who is it?” 

“Is it the other guy over there?” Rebecca chimed in as they both sent their glances towards your friends, “the one in the light blue shirt and tinted glasses?”

“Uh, yeah…” you squeaked as you slowly turned to look at Matt as well, “that’s–, uh, that’s him,” you watched as he readjusted his grip on the cue stick in his hand, “that’s my future husband…”

“Hm,” a sliver of judgment slipped out of Henry, “wouldn’t have pegged him to be your type.”

“Well, maybe my type has changed,” you stated, letting your lingering resentment show before you noticed how harsh it had come out and your stomach immediately began to twist and knot in regret, “I–…” you swiftly winched, “sorry,” and averted your gaze, “have a nice evening, uh–, I’m gonna go back to my friends,” you stumbled as you tried to escape. 

Though as you turned to walk away, Henry’s voice found your ears one last time, “bye!” before you heard his fiancé turn to him. 

“Pookie? Would you order me a cosmo?” her voice began to fade into the background, “I’ll go find us a table…” 

You simultaneously felt as if a truck had just run you over as your feet carried you back towards your friends, yet also completely numb, as if you’d been turned into a floating ghost of the person you used to be. 

“Who the hell was that and why do you look like you’re about to throw up?” Foggy asked cautiously as he grabbed two of the bottles in your grasp and handed one off to Matt. 

Passing one of the remaining drinks off to Karen, you then lifted your own up to your lips before tipping it back and downing around half of its contents. Once you tilted the dark green bottle back down, you were out of breath as you began to explain, “that,” you wiped your bottom lip with one of your knuckles, “was my ex,” you used that same finger to hazily point back over your shoulder, “and his fiancé,” your eyes stayed fuzzy as you added, “who happen to be the girl that he cheated on me with for a year before I one day finally caught them together.”

“Oh my god…” Karen breathed, her bottle frozen halfway on its journey up towards her lips. 

“It was on easter,” you shared, “he thought I had gone back home to see my family, but I’d actually decided to secretly do this whole big surprise, like I thought I was in fucking rom-com or something,” you sighed at your past self, “but then when he got home from work, and I was all decked out, waiting on the bed, in bunny ears and everything,” you heatedly gestured to the top of your own head, “he wasn’t alone.”

“Wow…” Foggy stared. 

“Yep…” you exhaled heavily, taking another swig before you made the mistake of glancing back over your shoulder just as Rebecca shrugged off her coat and slinked onto a stool at one of the small tables, “fuck!” you exclaimed as if you’d just stubbed your toe, “she’s even hotter than I remembered. How is that possible?” 

“Oh, she’s not that pretty,” Karen tried, but you swiftly cut her off. 

“You shut your face, she’s basically a human-sized Barbie,” your glare roamed one last time from the top of her platinum locks to the bottoms of her high stilettos, “god…” you sighed as you finally averted your gaze and lifted your bottle to drown your sorrows, “I was such an idiot back there. It was like my brain just stopped working and–, oh my god!” your palm shot up to cover your mouth as you then suddenly recalled the lie that had slipped out. Slowly, your wide eyes drifted to Matt, who still remained silent, “oh no…” 

“What is it?” Foggy chimed in. 

“Matt…” you uttered tensely, knowing your friend well enough to be aware of just how much of the interaction with your ex he had overheard, “I am so sorry…”

“What?” Karen’s glance darted between you both, “what’s going on?”

Paralysing embarrassment churned your stomach and choked out any attempt you made to share the truth. But luckily, as your erratic heartbeat thumped and found Matt’s sharp ears, he eventually filled in instead, “…they thought that she was engaged as well and then assumed that I was the guy.” 

“I am so, so sorry,” you gasped, “I don’t know why I didn’t correct them.”

But to your amazement, Matthew simply shrugged and offered you a reassuring smile, “it’s okay, don’t worry about it.”

“I was just fiddling with my ring and then they just–…” you then snuffed out your frantic explanation and instead repeated once again, “I’m sorry…”

Saddling up beside you, Karen planted a palm on your shoulder, “hey, if that was my ex, then I’d wanna give him some of his own medicine as well,” she stated, “if not just straight up cut off his balls, which is what he really deserves.” 

A faint smile then began to soften your expression as you glanced around at your supportive friends, Foggy briefly reaching out to pat your other shoulder. 

But as you averted your eyes to the nearly empty bottle in your grasp, a thought suddenly struck you like a bolt of lightning, “wait, I have an idea…” your gaze slowly lifted to lock on Matt, “I mean, you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, I totally get it, but would you mind, just while they are here, to–, uhm…”

Cocking his eyebrow, he finished your sentence, “…to pretend to be your fiancé?” 

“I know, it’s stupid, and I should probably just go home right now instead of playing some weird and immature game of revenge or whatever,” you uttered as you made the decision to lie in the grave you’d dug for yourself, “but I would forever be in your debt, I'm serious.” 

Sucking in a breath, he barely had to think about it before he murmured, “sure.”

“Really?” you gasped, your brows shooting up, “you’ll do it?” 

“Yeah, why not?” Matt shrugged, “it’s the very least he deserves for treating you like that.”

“Oh,” you crossed the short distance between you two and threw your arms around him. It took a second before you felt him hug you back, but when the alcohol got to your head and made you mutter, “I love you,” into his shoulder, a low chuckle rumbled in the lawyer's chest before you parted ways. 

“So,” Karen then began to fish out the colourful spheres and roll them back into the green felt, “do we still wanna play another game?”

“Hell yeah,” Foggy picked a cue stick back up before adding a playful threat, “you’re not beating me again this time, Page.”

Once the table was set up for another round of pool and you were a few turns in, your gaze couldn’t help but wander back towards the other end of the bar too often to keep track of. Though, soon on one of the fleeting looks, your eyes grew wide as you discovered you weren’t the only one sneaking glances.

Discreetly, you shifted closer to Matthew and leaned in to whisper, “he’s looking over,” however, when he then draped an arm around your frame, you couldn’t help but stiffen up, as you hadn’t thought that far in the plan yet, “what are you–”

“Shh,” Matt hushed your squeak, “just lean into me,” he shifted to stand tall behind you, arms enveloped around your form as he slowly drew you back against his chest, “smile,” his low voice tickled the shell of your ear and caused goosebumps to erupt across your skin, “and don’t look at him.” 

Redirecting your vision back towards the game before you, you narrowly managed to catch sight of the silent slut-shaming the other lawyer flashed his friend with but a glance, before he went back to the mischievous mission he was on. 

“Foggy, would you quit it?” Karen grumbled at the man beside her as he wildly waved both of his hands in her periphery, successfully knocking off her concentration as she tried to line up her shot. 

“No way,” he kept up his flapping, even causing Karen’s golden locks to get picked up by the breeze he produced. 

“You’re cheating.”

“Nope, I am not touching you nor the table,” he stated as if he was in court, “distracting you doesn’t break any rules.”

And as she finally made her attempt, the ball didn’t go in, causing her to explode in a roar, “damn it, Fog!”

“Ha, ha, yes!” he jumped as she straightened back up, “you know, I taste something right now, what could that be? Oh yeah, victory. And it tastes sweet as candy store.” 

“Urgh,” Karen rolled her eyes at him before her glare landed upon the both of you, “Matt, your turn. Would you please set him in his place?”

“Gladly,” Matt chuckled, and as he shifted closer to the pool table, he nudged your side and asked, “hey, would you give me a hand?”

Swallowing a chuckle as you already knew he very much didn’t need it, you cocked an eyebrow, “you want my help?”  

“Yeah,” he uttered clearly and let his real message seep through his tone, guiding your gaze to flicker back toward Henry, who’s stare was still locked upon you both, “so come help me.” 

“Oh!” it finally clicked in your brain, “right,” and you swiftly slid in beside him. 

With bated breath, you grabbed Matt’s hand that wasn’t clutching the pole, and guided it over the ivory ball that rested close to one of the corners. As you began to map out and tell him where each of the other spheres were, your eyes flicked over to notice just how close you now stood, as your nose nearly grazed against his stubbly cheek as you murmured guidingly. When you retracted your touch, you barely noticed how a few of Matt’s fingers reacted, faintly following your fading palm for but a second before it floated back down to the white orb below it. 

Once he’d made his shot, you lingered in the proximity and whispered, “do you think they’re buying it?” 

“Hm?” 

“This,” your eyes momentarily flickered back towards your ex across the bar, “us.”

Matthew’s brows then floated up as you reeled him back in to the matter at hand, “oh, I–, probably.” 

“Or should we do something else?” your mind kept on spinning, “I don’t know, I feel like I’ve completely forgotten how all of that works,” you shared, “kinda just numbed and cut off that part of myself after he broke my heart, it was just how I had to get through it, shut down a little bit because suddenly romance was terrifying…”

“...can I ask you something?” he asked quietly after a breath, and when you offered him a hum in confirmation, he uttered, “are you still in love with him?” 

Time stretched out before you finally replied, “I was, for a very long time…” your voice stayed small, “…but no, not anymore… I kind of thought I was, but then seeing him again cleared it all up. All I feel when I look at him now is rage,” you exhaled, “and pity, just because I know him too well, know everything that’s messed up about him…” silence encumbered you both for a moment before you then opened your mouth once more and said, “so, should we hold hands or something?” you asked plainly, though when a genuine laugh then began to billow out of Matthew, your eyes blinked up at him as your brows swiftly knit together, “what?”

“You know,” he tried to snuff out his chuckle, “if I was actually your fiancé, I wouldn’t just stand around and hold your hand all night,” he then leaned in the short distance till his lips nearly tickled the shell of your ear, “I would have dragged you into the bathroom by now and forced the whole bar to hear us fuck.” 

“I–, u-uhm,” you flusteredly stammered as your face began to heat up, “y-yeah, yeah, that’s good too,” you barely registered your own words as they slipped out past your lips, “if that’s what you wanna do–, I mean! Shut up!” you squeezed your eyes shut as soon as you regained your own senses, “just hold my hand, you dick,” you cursed over his laughter as he swiftly slipped his palm into your own.

“Cut it out, Karen,” Foggy’s voice cut through your haze and caught your attention. 

Glancing over, you spotted as Karen was giving him some of his own medicine, pettily leaning into his eye line, “what? You were the one saying that distractions weren’t against the rules,” she continued to glare in hopes of throwing him off his game, “why? Is this not working? Do you need me to scream directly in your ear instead?”

“Oh, would you?” he sarcastically looked to her, his pitch climbing up high at his words, “going deaf in one ear is exactly what I need to beat you.”

As your wandering gaze then flickered back towards the opposite end of the bar, your eyes grew wide as you spotted only Rebecca still seated at the small table, pink cocktail in her grasp. 

“Shit,” you spotted Henry as he crossed the room, confidently walking precisely in your direction, “he’s coming over,” you hissed, and in your muppet-like panic, your hands clasped each side of Matt’s face and yanked him in for a kiss. 

At first, he froze up as you continued to freak out, but then, as his broad palms slowly slid over your waist, all of your alarm began to melt away. It felt as if you were drifting off to sleep as you relaxed into the kiss. Never in your wildest dreams had you imagined that kissing Matt would feel like this, not that such a fantasy was something you pondered often or even at all, but as you felt his tongue flicker out to dance softly against your own, your knees beneath you wobbled as you lost yourself completely. How long the peck drew out remained a mystery, as when you eventually parted, the reasoning behind it wouldn’t emerge in your memory no matter how hard you tried. 

Though as you stood there, blinking back at Matt, still utterly spellbound by the unexpected feelings currently bubbling and bursting inside of you, the man now standing off to the side cleared his throat and brought you back down to earth. 

“Bunny–, I mean, Y/n,” you whipped your head around to catch sight of your ex, “just thought it would have been awkward if I didn’t come over here to introduce myself before me and Becca took off,” he muttered before his gaze fell to Matt, his arms slowly fading from your form, “I'm Henry, nice to meet you,” your ex then offered his hand, though the lawyer by your side didn’t grasp it, even if his heightened senses had lent him to pick up on the gesture. 

“Matt Murdock,” he uttered on a cold exhale. 

Stuffing his rejected palm into his pocket, Henry then asked, “what do you do?” 

“Matthew’s a lawyer,” you took over, slotting yourself into Matt’s side before you dramatically clasped a hand over his chest, “saves people for a living. That’s actually why we’re out celebrating tonight, he just won yet another case.” 

“Oh, well congratulations then,” Henry offered in well-forged petty politeness. 

“Yeah, I was there, watching him do his thing,” you uttered as some bitter goblin of resentment then took over your soul and caused you to say, “and oh boy, I tell you, if only it would have been socially acceptable for me to interrupt the trial just to rip his clothes off, because wow.”

A scoff then rippled in Henry’s chest, “okay, sure,” his stare upon you narrowed as he then grumbled, “we both know you’re not exactly the groupie type of girlfriend.” 

“Well, maybe your sorry ass was never worth her supporting you in that way,” Matt suddenly cut in, “maybe because you never bothered treated her that way in return,” his guess hit the bullseye, “and maybe that has a little something to do with why I was the one to put a ring on her finger and not you,” your heart thumped in your chest as Matt’s touch returned to the small of your back, protectively sliding over your waist as he continued to speak in a low and chillingly stern tone, “that or you really are as terrible of a lay as she told me you were, during those very first nights when she finally learned what it was like to be with someone who wasn’t a complete fucking idiot.” 

Utterly stunned, you watched Henry’s expression as he scrambled his brain for a way to crawl back from that, but eventually, when no suitable words came to his pea-sized brain, his feet slowly began to shuffle back till his hand had snatched up his fiancé’s and he’d yanked her with him out of the bar. 

As the door swung closed behind the pair, a celebratory squeal burst from your lungs, “oh my god! Matt, that was incredible!” you jumped in place before throwing your arms around him, “I don’t know how to thank you.” 

Tangling his own arms around you, he uttered, “I’m sure we’ll come up with some way you can make it up to me.” 

And as you withdrew, just enough to smile back at him, your gaze began to drift back down towards his lip just before Foggy’s voice cut through the palpable tension.

“Do I need to remind you guys that you’re not actually engaged?” 

“No,” Matt then murmured as the two of you parted ways, quietly enough for his words to be completely inaudible, “but we could be...” 

“What?” you glanced over at him. 

“What?” he echoed in return, though a bit too quickly. 

“Did you say something?”

“Me? No,” he tried to conceal his lie with a cough, “I-I, uh, think it’s your turn,” he then changed the subject, gesturing to the pool table behind you. 

You had no idea how long you had been flying. Time had become a strange, slippery thing, measured only in the beat of Moonfyre's wings and the burning ache in your thighs and the way the stars wheeled overhead like they were dancing just for you. The terror had not faded, not really. It had settled into something you could carry, a low hum of fear that lived in your chest alongside the wonder, because how could anyone be truly calm when they were clinging to the back of a dragon with nothing but their own trembling fingers to keep them from falling into the endless dark sea below?

The wind was pushing against you, pulling at your hair, stealing your breath every time you tried to take a full one. Your eyes were streaming from the cold and the speed and the salt spray that occasionally kicked up from the waves far beneath you, and you had long since given up trying to wipe them clear. You just squinted, your cheek pressed against Moonfyre's warm scales, and watched the world blur past in shades of silver and black and the deep, impossible blue of the night sea. Every now and then you caught a glimpse of something below, a whitecap on a wave, the dark shape of a rocky outcropping, once the distant glow of what might have been a ship's lantern far to the south. But mostly there was nothing. Just water and sky and the steady, powerful rhythm of the dragon carrying you away from everything you had ever known.

Your hands hurt. That was the thing you kept coming back to, the mundane, ridiculous detail that anchored you to reality when the wonder of it all threatened to sweep you away entirely. Your fingers were cramping from gripping Moonfyre's scales so tightly, the ridges of her spine digging into your palms, your knuckles white and aching. You had tried shifting your grip a few times, loosening one hand at a time to shake out the stiffness, but every time you did, a gust of wind would catch you or Moonfyre would adjust her course with a subtle tilt of her wings, and you would grab on again with renewed desperation, your heart leaping into your throat. You were not going to fall. You were not going to fall. You repeated it like a prayer, like a spell, like if you said it enough times it would become true.

Moonfyre did not seem concerned about the possibility of you falling. She flew with a steady, purposeful grace, her wings beating in a rhythm that felt as natural as breathing, her body warm and solid beneath you. Every now and then she would turn her head, just slightly, and you would catch a glimpse of one golden eye looking back at you, checking, perhaps, to make sure you were still there. You always were. You always would be. Where else would you go, clinging to the back of a dragon a thousand feet above the sea?

Moonfyre banked slightly to the left, and you grabbed her scales with renewed panic, your knuckles screaming in protest. The sea tilted beneath you, a vast expanse of darkness that suddenly felt much closer than it had a moment before, and you squeezed your eyes shut and pressed your face into her spine and waited for the world to right itself again.

The stars began to fade. You noticed it slowly, the way the black of the sky softened to a deep, bruised purple, then to grey, then to something that was almost blue. The horizon ahead of you began to glow, a thin line of gold and pink that spread like a promise across the edge of the world, and you watched it with aching eyes and a heart that was too full to speak. You had seen sunrises before, of course. You had seen them from the cliffs of Dragonstone, from the window of Marta's cottage, from the deck of a fishing boat on the rare mornings when old Tom let you come along. But you had never seen a sunrise like this. You had never seen the sun rise from above the clouds, from the back of a dragon, with the whole world spread out beneath you like a gift you had never asked for and never deserved.

The light grew stronger, painting the sea in shades of rose and gold, and you could see the water clearly now, endless and empty and beautiful. There was nothing out here. No ships, no islands, no signs of land at all. Just the sea and the sky and the dragon carrying you toward a horizon that never seemed to get any closer.

And then, just as the sun crested the edge of the world and the sky exploded into color, you saw it.

A speck of green in all that blue. Small at first, so small you thought you might be imagining it, a trick of the light or a wishful thought given shape by exhaustion. But it grew as you flew toward it, resolving from a blur into a shape, from a shape into an island. A small island, perhaps no larger than Dragonstone itself, but greener than anything you had ever seen. The cliffs of your home were grey and jagged, bare rock and sparse grass and the constant, unforgiving wind. This island was different. This island was lush and verdant, its slopes covered in trees that looked almost tropical from this distance, its beaches pale and soft and utterly untouched.

Moonfyre began to descend.

Your stomach dropped along with her, a sickening lurch that made you grab her scales so hard your fingers went numb. The island rushed up to meet you, the green slopes and pale beaches growing larger and larger, and you could see now that there was a waterfall on the far side of the island, a thin ribbon of silver that cascaded down the rocks and disappeared into the trees. You could see birds wheeling in the sky below you, startled by the dragon's approach, their cries lost in the rush of wind. You could see flowers, actual flowers, splashes of color against all that green, red and yellow and purple and white.

Moonfyre landed hard on the beach, her claws digging into the pale sand, her wings folding against her body with a final, decisive snap. The impact jarred through your entire body, rattling your teeth and nearly dislodging you from her back, but you held on, your legs shaking, your arms trembling, your whole body one long ache from your shoulders to your ankles.

For a long moment, you didn't move. You couldn't move. You just sat there, slumped against Moonfyre's neck, your face pressed into her warm scales, breathing. Just breathing. The air was different here, warmer than Dragonstone, sweeter, carrying the scent of flowers and earth and something else, something green and alive that you had no name for. The sun was warm on your back, truly warm, not the pale, grudging warmth of the Dragonstone sun but a real, honest heat that seeped through your worn cloak and into your cold bones.

You were alive. You were on an island somewhere in the middle of the sea. You had flown here on the back of a dragon.

You started to laugh. It was a weak, breathless sound, more of a wheeze really, but it was laughter all the same. You laughed until your sides ached, until tears were streaming down your cheeks, until you couldn't tell if you were laughing or crying or both. Moonfyre rumbled beneath you, a questioning sound, and you patted her scales with a hand that was still shaking.

"I'm fine," you managed, your voice hoarse. "I'm fine. I just flew. On a dragon. Across the sea. And now I'm on an island. A beautiful island. A completely unknown island. And I have no idea where we are or how to get back or what we're going to eat or—"

Moonfyre shifted beneath you, her body lowering, and you took the hint. You slid off her back with all the grace of a sack of potatoes, your legs buckling the moment they hit the sand. You fell to your knees, then to your hands, then flat on your face, and you lay there for a moment, just feeling the warmth of the sand beneath you, the solid, unmoving ground, the blessed stillness of a world that was no longer tilting and swaying and threatening to drop you into the sea.

You heard Moonfyre move behind you, the soft crunch of her claws in the sand, the rustle of her wings as she stretched them wide. You turned your head just enough to look at her, and she was magnificent, her pale scales catching the morning light and shimmering with that faint purple undertone you loved so much. Her golden eyes were fixed on you, patient and warm, and she made a sound that was almost a purr.

"Where are we?" you asked her, pushing yourself up to sit. Your legs were still shaking, your hands still aching, but the world had stopped spinning and you could think again, more or less. "Why did you bring me here?"

Moonfyre blinked at you slowly, and then, without any warning at all, she launched herself into the air.

You stared, your mouth hanging open, as she rose above the beach, her wings beating hard, her body climbing higher and higher. She circled once, twice, and then she turned and flew back out over the sea, the same direction you had come from, her pale form growing smaller and smaller until she was nothing but a speck against the endless blue, she was gone.

You sat in the sand, staring at the empty sky, and waited for her to come back. She didn't.

The silence was overwhelming. On Dragonstone, there was always noise, the crash of the sea against the rocks, the cry of gulls, the distant shouts of fishermen, the bleating of Marta's goats. Here, there was nothing but the gentle whisper of the waves on the shore and the rustle of wind through the trees. It should have been peaceful. It was peaceful. It was also deeply, profoundly unsettling.

You pulled your knees up to your chest and wrapped your arms around them, your eyes still fixed on the horizon. She would come back. She had to come back. She had brought you here for a reason, and that reason was not to abandon you on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere. She was your dragon. You had saved her life. You had named her. You had kissed her on the snout. You had a bond. A connection. A thing that dragons and riders were supposed to have.

She would come back.

Any minute now.

You waited. The sun climbed higher, warm and golden, and you shrugged off your cloak and laid it on the sand beside you. The beach was beautiful, really beautiful, the sand pale and soft, the water clear and blue and nothing like the churning grey sea around Dragonstone. If you were going to be abandoned on a deserted island, you thought, this was probably the best possible deserted island to be abandoned on. That was something. That was almost comforting.

She would come back.

You waited some more. Your stomach growled, a loud, insistent sound that reminded you that you had not eaten since the bread and cheese you had shared with Marta what felt like a lifetime ago. You had been so focused on the cave, on the empty chamber, on the cold stone and the ashes and the bone deep grief of believing you had imagined the only thing that had ever been truly yours. You had not thought to bring food. You had not thought to bring anything. You had just walked into the darkness and curled up on the cold stone and waited to disappear.

And then she had come back. And she had taken you here. And now she was gone again.

"I'm not crazy," you said aloud, and your voice sounded strange in the silence, too loud and too small at the same time. "I didn't imagine her. She's real. She carried me here. I'm sitting on a beach on an island I've never seen before, and I got here on the back of a dragon. That happened. That's real. I'm not imagining this."

You paused, considering.

"Unless I'm imagining all of this. Unless I'm still in the cave, lying on the cold stone, dreaming that I'm on a beautiful island with warm sand and clear water and a dragon who might or might not come back. That would be very like me, wouldn't it? To dream something wonderful and then wake up alone in the dark."

You pinched yourself, hard, on the soft skin of your inner arm. It hurt. It throbbed for several seconds after you let go. You were not dreaming. Probably. You had heard that people who were dreaming could pinch themselves and feel it, if they believed hard enough that they would feel it. But you didn't feel like you were dreaming. You felt awake. Tired and hungry and sore and a little bit scared, but awake.

"I'm not on Dragonstone anymore," you said, continuing your argument with yourself because there was no one else to argue with. "I've never seen this place before. I didn't know it existed. I couldn't have imagined it, because I didn't know what to imagine. I didn't know there were islands like this, with trees like that and sand like this and water that color. So I must be here. Really here. Which means Moonfyre is real. Which means I'm not crazy. Which means Valarr was wrong and I was right and everyone who ever looked at me with pity in their eyes can go jump in the sea."

You felt better after saying that. Not a lot better, but a little. Enough to uncurl from your tight ball and stretch your legs out in front of you and actually look at the island instead of just staring at the horizon waiting for a dragon who might or might not return.

It really was beautiful. The beach curved in a gentle crescent, bordered by trees that looked like nothing you had ever seen on Dragonstone. They were tall and slender, with smooth grey bark and broad green leaves that rustled softly in the warm breeze. Beyond them, the island rose into low hills covered in more trees and what looked like flowering bushes, splashes of color that stood out against all that green. The waterfall you had seen from the air was visible now, a thin white ribbon against the dark rock of a small cliff face, and you could hear it if you listened carefully, a distant, musical sound beneath the whisper of the waves.

You should explore. You knew you should explore. You should find fresh water, and shelter, and something to eat. You should figure out if the island had any dangers, wild animals or poisonous plants or anything else that might kill a girl who had survived a dragon only to be taken out by a berry. You should be practical and resourceful and brave, the way Marta had raised you to be.

Instead, you sat in the sand and watched the waves and waited for your dragon to come back.

A crow landed on the sand about ten feet away from you.

You blinked at it. It was a large crow, larger than the one you had rescued from the cliffs, with glossy black feathers and bright, intelligent eyes. It tilted its head at you, regarding you with an expression that was almost curious, and you tilted your head back at it, because it seemed like the polite thing to do.

"Hello," you said.

The crow cawed. It was not a friendly sound. It was more of a statement, a declaration of presence, a this is my island and who are you kind of sound. You had heard crows make that sound before, on Dragonstone, when they were defending their territory from other crows.

"I'm Y/N," you said, because you had already established that you were talking to yourself and talking to a crow was only slightly stranger. "I came here on a dragon. She left, but I think she's coming back. I hope she's coming back. If she doesn't come back, I suppose I live here now. Is that alright with you?"

The crow stared at you. Its black eyes were unreadable, but there was something in its posture that suggested it was thinking, weighing, considering. You had never been looked at like that by a bird before. It was unsettling. It was also, in a strange way, comforting. At least something on this island acknowledged your existence.

"I saved a crow once," you offered. "On Dragonstone. Its wing was broken. I found it on the cliffs and I took it home and I fixed it. Marta helped. She knows a lot about healing. We fed it scraps and kept it warm and when its wing was healed, I let it go. It flew away, just like that, without looking back. I was sad, but I understood. It had bigger things waiting for it. A sky. A flock. A life that was bigger than my cottage."

The crow took a hop closer. Then another. You held very still, barely breathing, as it approached. It stopped about three feet away, its head tilted, its black eyes fixed on your face.

"I don't have any food," you said apologetically. "I didn't exactly plan for this trip. I was just going to the cave to be sad, and then there was a dragon, and now I'm here. It's been a very strange day. Night. Whatever. I've lost track of time."

The crow made a softer sound, almost a chuckle, and you could have sworn it was laughing at you. It hopped a little closer, then stopped, its head turning toward the sea. You followed its gaze, and your heart leaped into your throat.

There was a shape on the horizon. A familiar shape, growing larger by the second. Wings, pale and shimmering, catching the sunlight and scattering it like jewels.

Moonfyre.

You scrambled to your feet, your legs shaking, your heart pounding, your eyes fixed on the dragon as she grew closer and closer. The crow took off with an indignant caw, wheeling into the sky and disappearing into the trees, but you barely noticed. All your attention was on Moonfyre, on the graceful sweep of her wings, on the way the sun caught her scales and made them glow, on the dark shape she was carrying in her claws.

She landed on the beach with a heavy thud, sand spraying out from beneath her feet, and dropped her burden onto the pale shore in front of you. It landed with a wet, heavy sound, and you stared at it, trying to make sense of what you were seeing.

It was a goat. Or what had once been a goat. It was charred and smoking, its fur burned away in patches, its flesh cooked through in some places and blackened in others. The smell hit you a moment later, rich and savory and so delicious that your mouth watered despite the strangeness of the situation. It was the smell of roasted meat, real meat, the kind of meat you had only ever tasted in tiny portions, scraps from the butcher's stall or the occasional gift from a grateful patient of Marta's.

Moonfyre nudged the goat toward you with her snout, her golden eyes bright and expectant. She made a sound, a soft, encouraging rumble, and nudged it again, pushing it closer to your feet.

You stared at her. You stared at the goat. You stared back at her.

"You brought me food," you said slowly. "You flew all the way back to Dragonstone, or wherever you found a goat, and you caught it, and you cooked it, and you brought it here. For me."

Moonfyre rumbled again, and this time there was no mistaking the pride in the sound. She sat back on her haunches, her chest puffed out slightly, her golden eyes watching you with an expression that could only be described as smug satisfaction. She looked like a cat who had just deposited a mouse on its owner's pillow and was waiting to be praised for its hunting prowess.

You laughed. It started small, a surprised huff of air, and then it grew, bubbling up from your chest until you were doubled over, your hands on your knees, tears streaming down your face. You laughed until your sides ached, until you couldn't breathe, until Moonfyre started to look concerned and nudged you gently with her snout.

"You ridiculous creature," you gasped, straightening up and wiping your eyes. "You ridiculous, wonderful, absurd creature. You brought me a goat. You roasted it with your fire and you carried it across the sea and you dropped it at my feet like a cat bringing home a bird."

Moonfyre made a sound that was definitely pleased, and nudged the goat again, pushing it even closer to you. The message was clear. Eat. You're hungry. I brought you food.

You knelt in the sand beside the charred goat, and up close it was both more and less appetizing than it had seemed from a distance. The fire had done its work unevenly, some parts were perfectly cooked, the meat tender and falling off the bone, while others were blackened to ash or still pink and raw in the center. But it was food. It was real, fresh meat, and your stomach was growling so loudly now that you were pretty sure Moonfyre could hear it.

You reached out and tore off a piece from what looked like the most cooked section. It was hot, almost too hot to hold, and you juggled it between your fingers for a moment before bringing it to your mouth. The first bite was so good you almost cried. It was rich and savory and slightly smoky, with a depth of flavor you had never experienced before. The meat was tender, falling apart on your tongue, and there was fat that had crisped up from the fire and added a crunch that made your eyes roll back in your head.

"This is the best thing I've ever eaten," you said around a mouthful of goat. "This is better than anything I've ever had. This is better than Marta's cooking. Don't tell her I said that."

Moonfyre rumbled contentedly and settled onto the sand beside you, her great body curling around you in a familiar crescent, her tail sweeping out to encircle your little eating area. Her warmth seeped into your back, and you leaned against her, eating your roasted goat on a beautiful beach with your dragon wrapped around you, and you thought that maybe, just maybe, everything was going to be alright.

You ate until you couldn't eat anymore, until your stomach was full and round and slightly aching in the best possible way. There was still so much goat left, more than you could eat in days, and you looked at it with a kind of wondering gratitude. Moonfyre had brought you food. She had flown across the sea, hunted, cooked, and delivered a meal to you because you were hungry and she knew it. She had taken care of you the way you had taken care of her, all those weeks in the cave, bringing her rabbits and fish and the occasional sheep.

"Is this what it's going to be like?" you asked her, wiping your greasy hands on your already stained cloak. "You bring me food, I eat it, we sit on a beautiful beach and watch the waves? Because I could get used to this. I could very easily get used to this."

Moonfyre blinked at you slowly, and her tail curled tighter around you, pulling you closer against her warm side. The sun was high now, warm and golden, and the beach was peaceful and quiet, and you were full of good food and safe in the curve of your dragon's body. Your eyes began to droop. The exhaustion of the night, the flight, the terror and the wonder and the waiting, all of it crashed over you at once, a wave of tiredness so profound you couldn't fight it even if you wanted to.

You leaned your head back against Moonfyre's scales and closed your eyes.

"Thank you," you murmured, already half asleep. "For coming back. For the goat. For everything."

Moonfyre's only response was a deep, rumbling purr that vibrated through your bones and followed you down into sleep.

—

The sun had been up for hours, but Valarr hadn't noticed. Time had become something that happened to other people, people who weren't tearing apart the eastern cliffs with their bare hands, people who weren't running through the village shouting a name that no one answered, people who weren't slowly coming apart at the seams with every passing moment that she remained gone.

He had barely slept, his dreams full of her hair and eyes and the sound of her voice saying you already lost me over and over until he woke with her name on his lips and tears on his face. He had laid there in the grey dawn light, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out what to do. How to fix this. How to make her understand that he would give up everything, everything, if she would just let him.

He had gone to the village first thing, before anyone could stop him. He had walked the familiar path with his heart in his throat, rehearsing what he would say. That he had told his father. That he had chosen her. That the betrothal didn't matter, the throne didn't matter, none of it mattered except her. That he was sorry, so sorry, for not telling her sooner, for letting her find out from his father instead of from him, for every moment he had let her believe she was alone in this.

The cottage had been quiet when he arrived. Too quiet. Marta was in the yard, her gnarled hands wrapped around a cup of tea, her old face pale and drawn in a way that made his stomach drop before she even spoke.

"She's gone," Marta had said, and her voice was rough, scraped raw by worry. "She didn't come home last night. I thought she was with you. I thought—" She had stopped, her mouth trembling, and Valarr had felt the world tilt beneath his feet.

"She's not with me," he had said, and the words had come out strange, distant, like someone else was speaking them. "She's not—when did you last see her?"

Marta had told him. Evening, after she had returned from the castle. She had been quiet, Marta said, too quiet, the kind of quiet that meant she was hurting and didn't want anyone to see. She had eaten a little supper, helped with the evening chores, and then she had said she was going for a walk.

He had run. He had run from the cottage to the village, shouting her name, asking everyone he passed if they had seen her. The fishermen shaking their heads, the baker's wife clutching her apron and looking frightened, the children staring at him with wide eyes as he tore past them. No one had seen her. No one had seen her since yesterday afternoon, when the guards had come to take her to the castle.

The caves. She had gone to the caves. He had known it with a certainty that settled into his bones like ice. She had gone back to the empty chamber, back to the cold stone and the ashes and the darkness, because she had nowhere else to go. Because he had failed her. Because his father had offered her silver to disappear, and she had refused it, and then she had disappeared anyway.

He had run to the eastern tunnels, his lungs burning, his legs screaming, the path that had become so familiar over the past weeks blurring beneath his feet. He had plunged into the darkness without a torch, his hands outstretched, his voice echoing off the walls as he called her name again and again and again. The chamber had been empty. Of course it had been empty. There was nothing there but cold stone and old ashes and the ghost of a girl who had loved a dragon that wasn't real.

He had searched anyway. He had searched every corner, every crevice, every shadowed hollow where she might have curled up to sleep. He had run his hands over the stone, looking for any sign that she had been there, a scrap of fabric, a strand of hair, anything. There was nothing. She had been there, he was sure of it, he could feel her presence lingering in the cold air like a memory, but she was gone now. She was gone, and he didn't know where.

That was when the panic had truly set in.

He had returned to the castle in a state of barely controlled desperation and had done something he had never done before. He had pulled rank. He had gathered every guard who wasn't on essential duty, every knight who owed his family fealty, every able-bodied servant who could be spared, and he had ordered them to search. His voice had been sharp and commanding, the voice of a prince who expected to be obeyed, and they had obeyed, scattering across the island in search parties, combing the cliffs and the beaches and the village and the caves.

That had been hours ago. Hours of waiting, of pacing, of sending runners back and forth with increasingly frantic messages. Hours of watching the sun climb higher and higher while his heart sank lower and lower. Hours of his father standing in the corner of the great hall, silent and grim, watching his son unravel with an expression that Valarr couldn't read and didn't care to.

The first reports came back negative. No sign of her in the village. No sign of her in the western caves. No sign of her on the northern cliffs. Each report was a blow, a stone dropped into the pit of his stomach, and he absorbed them all with a calm that felt like the eye of a storm, still and quiet on the surface while everything inside him was screaming.

And then Ser Raymund returned. Valarr saw him coming across the yard, his scarred face set in an expression that made Valarr's blood run cold before the man even opened his mouth. He was carrying something. A bundle of wool, stained and torn, clutched in his gauntleted hands like it was something precious and terrible all at once.

"We found this, my prince." Ser Raymund's voice was rough, carefully controlled. "On the rocks below the eastern cliffs. Near the entrance to the caves."

Valarr took the bundle. His hands were shaking, though he didn't remember them starting. The fabric was familiar, painfully familiar, the worn wool of her cloak, the one she always wore, the one she had been embroidering with flowers. The one with the bluebell she had stitched while he watched, her tongue poking out in concentration, her eyes escaping him when he told her she was cute. The fabric was torn, caught on something sharp, and there were dark stains on it that might have been mud or might have been something he couldn't let himself think about.

"The tide was coming in," Ser Raymund continued, and his voice was gentler now, the voice of a man who had delivered bad news before and hated it every time. "The rocks there are treacherous, my prince. If she fell in the dark..."

"No." Valarr's voice was flat. Empty. "No."

"We found no other sign of her, but the sea—"

"No." Louder this time, sharper. He clutched the cloak to his chest, his fingers digging into the worn wool. "She's not dead. She's not. She wouldn't—she promised me. She promised she wouldn't go back to the caves alone. She promised."

Ser Raymund said nothing. There was nothing to say. The evidence was in Valarr's hands, torn and stained, and the sea was vast and hungry and had never cared about promises.

"Search again." Valarr's voice was rising now, cracking at the edges. "Search the water. Search the cliffs. Search everywhere. She's out there somewhere, she has to be, she wouldn't just—she wouldn't leave me. She wouldn't."

"My prince—"

"That's an order!" He was shouting now, his voice echoing off the stone walls of the yard, and he didn't care. He didn't care that servants were stopping to stare, that guards were exchanging uncomfortable glances, that his father was watching from the doorway with an expression that was slowly hardening into something Valarr recognized. "Search the shoreline. Search the caves again. Search the—"

"That's enough."

His father's voice cut through his like a blade, sharp and cold and final. Baelor stepped out of the doorway, his face set in lines of grim authority, and behind him came four guards, their expressions carefully blank, their hands on their swords.

"Valarr." Baelor's voice was quieter now, but no less firm. "You need to come inside."

"No." Valarr backed away, still clutching the cloak. "No, I'm not leaving. I'm not stopping. She's out there, Father. She's out there somewhere, and I have to find her. I have to—"

"Ser Raymund." Baelor didn't look at the knight. His eyes were fixed on his son. "Take him inside."

The guards moved forward. Valarr saw them coming and something inside him snapped.

"Don't touch me!" He stumbled backward, his hand going to his sword, though he had no intention of drawing it, though he didn't even know what he was doing anymore. "Don't—I'm your prince, I order you to keep searching, I order you—"

The guards hesitated, looking to Baelor for guidance. Baelor's jaw tightened.

"Restrain him."

They moved as one, trained and efficient, and Valarr fought them. He fought them like a wild thing, kicking and twisting and shouting, the cloak still clutched in one hand, his sword still sheathed because even in his madness he couldn't bring himself to draw steel on his father's men. But there were four of them and one of him, and he was exhausted and grief-stricken and not thinking clearly, and they had him pinned and disarmed before he could do more than bruise his own pride.

"Let me go!" His voice cracked, raw and desperate. "Let me go, I have to find her, I have to—"

"Inside." Baelor's voice was iron. "Now."

They dragged him into the great hall, still struggling, still shouting, and the heavy doors slammed shut behind them with a sound like a tomb closing. The guards released him only when Baelor gave the signal, and Valarr stumbled forward, catching himself on the edge of the long table, his chest heaving, his eyes wild.

The hall was empty except for the two of them. Baelor had dismissed everyone else, the guards, the servants, the knights who had been hovering in the corners waiting for orders. It was just father and son, standing in the cold grey light, with the torn cloak on the floor between them like an accusation.

"She's dead." Baelor's voice was quiet, but it carried in the empty hall. "You know she's dead. The cliffs, the tide, the dark—you know what happened. You just can't accept it."

"She's not dead." Valarr's voice was raw, scraped clean of everything but denial. "She's not. I would know. I would feel it. She's out there somewhere, and you're wasting time, you're keeping me here while she's—"

"While she's what?" Baelor's voice sharpened. "While she's drowned? While her body is washing out to sea? While there's nothing left to find but a torn cloak and a few strands of hair on the rocks?"

Valarr flinched like his father had struck him. "Don't. Don't say that."

"It's the truth." Baelor stepped closer, his face hard, his eyes blazing with a fire that Valarr had rarely seen. "It's the truth, and you need to hear it. She's gone, Valarr. She's gone, and you are still here, and you have duties and responsibilities and a future that doesn't disappear just because you're in pain."

"A future?" Valarr laughed, and it was an ugly sound, broken and bitter. "What future? The one where I marry a woman I don't love and sit on a throne I don't want and spend the rest of my life wondering what might have been? That future?"

"The future you were born to." Baelor's voice was rising now, matching his son's. "The future I have spent your entire life preparing you for. The future you would throw away for a girl you met in a fishing village, a girl who—"

"Don't." Valarr's voice was dangerous now, low and shaking. "Don't you dare speak of her like that. Don't you dare reduce her to nothing, to some village girl who didn't matter. She mattered. She mattered more than anything. More than the throne, more than the betrothal, more than you."

"You think I don't understand?" He stepped forward, his hands clenched at his sides. "You think I've never loved someone I couldn't have? You think I don't know what it is to want something so badly you can't breathe, and to know that you can never, ever have it?"

Valarr stared at him. "What are you talking about?"

Baelor's jaw tightened, and for a moment, just a moment, something flickered in his eyes. Something old and buried and painful. Then it was gone, smoothed away by years of discipline and duty.

"I'm talking about you," he said, and his voice was hard again. "I'm talking about my son, who is standing in the great hall of his ancestors, weeping over a dead girl and throwing away everything his family has built for two hundred years. I'm talking about the heir's heir, who would let a dynasty crumble because he can't control his own heart."

"You don't get to do that." Valarr's voice shook. "You don't get to make this about duty and dynasty and all the things you care about more than people. You did this. You sent her away. You offered her silver to disappear, and when she wouldn't take it, you let her walk out of this castle alone and heartbroken, and now she's gone. She's gone because of you."

Baelor recoiled. "That's not fair."

"Isn't it?" Valarr stepped forward, his grief transmuting into something hotter, something that burned. "You told her about Kiera. You made her feel like she was nothing, like she was a problem to be solved with a pouch of silver. You took the one good thing I had, the one person who made me feel like I wasn't just a title and a duty and a future I never asked for, and you crushed her. You crushed her, and she ran, and now she's dead. So don't tell me about duty. Don't tell me about responsibility. You killed her. You killed her, and I will never forgive you."

Baelor's face went grey. For a long moment, he said nothing, just stood there with his son's words hanging between them like a blade. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet, rough.

"You think I don't know what I did?" He looked away, toward the window, toward the grey sea and the grey sky. "You think I don't lie awake at night, wondering if I could have done something different? If I should have let you have her, let you be happy, let the dynasty and the alliances and everything else burn?"

He turned back to Valarr, and his eyes were bright, too bright.

"But I couldn't. I couldn't, because I am the heir to the Iron Throne, and you are my heir, and we do not have the luxury of following our hearts. We have duties. We have responsibilities. We have millions of people who depend on us to make the hard choices, the choices that keep the realm stable and the peace intact. That is what it means to be a prince. That is what it means to be a king. And if you can't accept that, if you can't put the realm before your own heart, then you are not fit to wear the crown."

"Good." Valarr's voice was flat. Empty. "Because I don't want it. I abdicate. I renounce my claim. Let Matarys have it. Let someone else carry the weight. I'm done."

Baelor stared at him. "You don't mean that."

"I mean every word." Valarr's hands were shaking, but his voice was steady. "I told you before, and I'll tell you again. I choose her. I choose her over the throne, over the betrothal, over everything. And if she's dead—" His voice cracked, but he forced himself to continue. "If she's dead, then none of it matters anyway. I won't be king. I won't marry Kiera. I won't do any of it. I'll go back to the village and I'll help Marta with her goats and I'll spend the rest of my life mourning the only person who ever made me feel alive."

The silence that followed was absolute. Baelor stood motionless, his face a mask of conflicting emotions, grief and anger and something that might have been despair. When he spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper.

"You would really do that. You would really throw away everything, for a dead girl."

"She's not dead." The words came out fierce, defiant, even though Valarr could feel the doubt creeping in at the edges. "She's not. I would know. I would feel it. She's out there somewhere, and I'm going to find her."

"Valarr—"

"I'm going to find her," he repeated, and his voice broke on her name. "I'm going to find her, and I'm going to marry her, and I don't care what I have to give up to do it. I don't care about the throne or the betrothal or anything else. I only care about her. I only ever cared about her."

Baelor was quiet for a long, long moment. His face was pale, his shoulders slumped, and he looked older than Valarr had ever seen him. Older and tireder and utterly, completely defeated.

"If she's alive," Baelor said slowly, each word dragged out of him like a confession, "and if you find her... then you can marry her."

Valarr's breath caught. "What?"

"I said you can marry her." Baelor's voice was heavy, exhausted. "If she's alive. If you find her. If she'll still have you after everything that's happened. Then I will break the betrothal to Kiera. I will accept the political consequences. I will let you marry your village girl, and I will figure out the succession later." He met his son's eyes, and there was something in them that might have been grief or might have been love or might have been both. "Is that what you want? Is that enough? Will you revoke your abdication if I give you this?"

Valarr stared at his father. His heart was pounding, hope and fear and disbelief warring in his chest. "You mean it. You actually mean it."

"I mean it." Baelor's voice was bitter, but sincere. "I have lost enough today. I will not lose my son as well. If this is what it takes to keep you, to bring you back from whatever edge you're standing on, then yes. I mean it. Find her. Marry her. And come home."

Valarr's knees buckled. He caught himself on the table, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps, his eyes burning with tears he refused to shed. She was out there. She had to be out there. And now, if he found her, he could have her. Really have her. Not in secret, not in shame, but openly, legally, with his father's blessing.

"I'll find her," he said, and his voice was raw but determined. "I'll find her, Father. I swear it. I'll find her and I'll bring her home and I'll marry her, and I'll never let anyone hurt her again."

Baelor nodded slowly, his face old and tired and full of something that might have been regret."If she's gone... if she's really gone... you have to accept it. You have to come back. You have to live. Do you understand me?"

Valarr looked at his father, at the fear and love and exhaustion in his eyes, and he nodded slowly.

"I understand," he said. "But she's not gone. I would know. I would feel it. She's out there somewhere. And I'm going to find her."

—

You woke to the sound of waves. A hushed, rhythmic conversation between water and sand, each retreat leaving behind a brief, shimmering silence before the next whisper rolled in. The sun pressed warm against your closed eyelids, filtering gold and green through the broad, unfamiliar leaves of the trees that fringed your little beach, and for one long, suspended moment, you drifted in the space between sleeping and waking, untethered from place and time and identity.

Then you felt the warmth against your back. The vast, slow rise and fall of something enormous breathing behind you. The particular weight of a tail draped possessively across your hip. And it all came rushing back, you were still here. You were still on the island. You were still with your dragon.

The relief that moved through you was so profound it was almost indistinguishable from grief. You turned your head slowly, careful not to disturb her, and found Moonfyre's great golden eye already open, already watching you. The pupil contracted slightly in the morning light, a vertical slit of darkness in a sea of molten gold, and the expression in that eye—a creature who could bite a horse in half, who could reduce a village to ash and ember with a single exhalation—was impossibly, devastatingly fond.

Her scales shimmered where the sun caught them, pale white shot through with that amethyst undertone you had adored since the moment she first pushed her way into your world. Her wing remained curved over you like a canopy, sheltering you from the salt breeze that rustled through the strange broad-leafed trees, and beneath you, the sand had molded itself to the shape of your bodies, warm and yielding.

"Good morning," you whispered, your voice scraping out of you like something unused to being heard.

Moonfyre made a sound in response, her snout descended, massive and lethal and capable of incinerating anything it pointed at, and nudged against your cheek with a gentleness so precise it stole the breath from your lungs. It was the gesture of a creature who had learned, somehow, that you were breakable. That you required a different kind of care than her own armored, fireproof self.

Your eyes stung. You blinked hard, once, twice, and reached up to scratch behind the ridge of her eye, the spot you had discovered she loved. Her purr deepened immediately into something that was almost a groan of pleasure, her eye sliding half-closed, her wing tightening around you to draw you more firmly against the great warm wall of her side. The sheer domesticity of it made something in your chest crack open and bloom.

"You're ridiculous," you told her, though there was no edge to it, no sting. "You're a terror of the skies. A legend made flesh. Entire armies would flee at the sight of you." Your voice caught, just slightly. "And all you want is cuddles."

Moonfyre opened her eye again, fixed you with a look that communicated with perfect, crystalline clarity: And what of it? Then she closed it once more and settled more heavily against the sand, radiating the unmistakable intention of a creature who had no plans to move anytime soon. You found that you didn't either. The sand was soft and warm beneath you, the dragon was soft and warm beside you, and the world was very far away.

But your stomach had no patience for transcendent moments.

It growled, loud and insistent and deeply unromantic, dragging you back into your body with all its inconvenient, mortal needs. The goat. You sat up, dislodging Moonfyre's wing with an apologetic pat to her scales, and scanned the beach until you spotted the remains of your meal from the night before. It lay a little distance down the shore, looking considerably less miraculous in the unforgiving light of morning. The meat was cold now, the fat congealed into waxy white rivulets, and a constellation of flies had gathered around the blackened edges, their droning a thin, irritable counterpoint to the whisper of the waves.

You approached it with the particular reluctance of someone who had been spoiled by a dragon's freshly fire-roasted offering. Moonfyre made a soft, interrogative sound as you crouched beside the carcass, and you looked back at her with a grimace that you could feel all the way to your eyebrows.

"I don't suppose," you said, hating how plaintive your voice sounded, "you could warm it up? Just a little? A very small, very contained breath of fire?"

She blinked at you with the slow, deliberate patience of a creature who had already gone significantly out of her way to provide you with cooked food and was now being asked to reheat leftovers. There was judgment in those golden eyes. You were certain of it. You want me, the winged death, the scourge of the skies, to breathe fire on your breakfast because you're too refined for cold goat?

"I'm not too refined," you protested, though you absolutely, undeniably were. "I've eaten cold meat before. Plenty of times. In various circumstances. It's simply a matter of preference."

Moonfyre snorted, a delicate plume of smoke escaping her nostrils and dissipating on the morning breeze, and you interpreted that as a definitive no.

Fine. Cold goat it was. You tore off a piece that looked the least compromised by its overnight exposure to the elements and ate it quickly, mechanically, trying not to dwell on the texture. The meat was still good beneath the chill but it was a shadow of last night's feast. Nothing could replicate that meal, eaten in a state of such profound exhaustion and wonder that it had transcended mere sustenance. You had been starving and overwhelmed and trembling with the sheer impossibility of a dragon bringing you a cooked offering, and hunger, you were learning, was the most powerful spice in the world.

When you had eaten enough to quiet your stomach's complaints, you walked down to the water's edge to wash your hands and face. The sea here was breathtakingly clear, the color of pale turquoise glass, and you could see straight down through the water to the sandy bottom, where small silver fish wove between the rocks in darting, synchronized patterns. You knelt at the edge of the surf, cupping the water in your hands and splashing it onto your face. The salt stung your sunburned cheeks, sharp and bracing, startling you fully into wakefulness.

When you looked down at your reflection in the still surface of a tidal pool, you barely recognized the face that stared back.

Your hair was a wild with salt and sand, knotted into shapes that would take hours of patient work to untangle. Your lips were chapped. There was a smear of ash across your forehead.

But your eyes were different. Brighter than they had been in weeks, in months, in maybe your whole life. There was a light in them that you had almost forgotten existed, a wild and blazing thing that had been buried under months of whispers and pitying looks and the slow, grinding erosion of being told, over and over, that the thing you knew to be true was nothing but a delusion. You were not crazy, and you had never been more certain of anything in your existence.

When you turned back toward the beach, Moonfyre was standing. She had risen while you were at the water's edge, her great body unfurling from the sand with the liquid grace of something that belonged equally to earth and sky. Her wings were stretched wide, the pale membrane catching the morning light and glowing faintly at the edges, and her golden eyes were fixed on the vast blue expanse above. She looked at you, then at the ridge of her back, then at you again.

The message required no translation. Get on. We're flying.

"Okay," you said, and you were proud of how steady your voice emerged. "Okay. Let's fly."

Climbing onto her back was easier this time, still not graceful, but easier. Your body had begun to learn the geography of her: where to place your hands, how to find purchase on the ridges of her spine, the precise angle at which to settle your weight between her shoulders so that you wouldn't slide. Moonfyre held herself perfectly still while you arranged yourself, a mountain of patience and warm scales, and when you finally gripped the ridge before you and pressed your knees against her sides, she made a low, questioning sound.

Ready?

"Ready," you said, and the world fell away.

The first seconds were still terrifying. There was no circumventing that particular truth. The ground dropped out from beneath you with a violence that defied the smoothness of Moonfyre's motion, and your stomach stayed behind on the sand for a long, lurching moment before catching up. The wind hit your face like a physical blow, flattening your hair back, tearing tears from the corners of your eyes. Your hands clenched white-knuckled on her scales, your thighs clamped against her back, and for a heartbeat you were nothing but a collection of desperate, clinging instincts.

Then Moonfyre leveled out, her wings catching the currents, her body found its rhythm and you discovered that you could lift your head from where you had pressed it against her spine. You could open your eyes, which you hadn't realized you'd squeezed shut. You could look.

Oh.

You could see the waterfall you had spotted from the air during your desperate flight, a silver ribbon that cascaded down the black volcanic face of the island's central peak and disappeared into a mist of rainbows before emerging again as a river that wound its way to the sea. Beyond it, a hidden valley cupped between two ridges, filled with flowering trees that looked from this height like clouds of pink and white drifting just above the ground. The northern shore gave way to cliffs, black and sheer, against which the sea threw itself in explosions of white foam that you could hear even from this distance, a distant, rhythmic thunder.

The sky was so vast it seemed to have no edges. You felt, suddenly and vertiginously, that you could tip forward and fall into it and never, ever stop falling.

You laughed. The sound was torn from your mouth and flung away by the wind before you could hear it, but you felt it in your chest, bright and wild and ferocious, a joy so sharp it was almost indistinguishable from pain. You were flying. You were actually, truly flying. On a dragon. Over the sea. And the world, which had been so small and cruel and suffocating for so long, had opened up into this, this infinity of light and wind and motion, this impossible gift.

Hours passed. Or perhaps minutes. Time behaved strangely in the sky, stretching and compressing in ways that had nothing to do with the movement of the sun and everything to do with the rhythm of wings. You flew until your thighs ached from gripping, until your hands cramped from holding, until your face was windburned raw and your hair was a disaster beyond all hope of redemption. And you loved every single second of it. You loved the wildness of it, the impossibility, the way the world looked from above—small and beautiful and full of mysteries waiting to be uncovered.

When Moonfyre finally began her descent back toward the beach, spiraling down in wide, lazy circles that made your stomach swoop with each rotation, you felt a pang of genuine loss. You didn't want to land. You wanted to stay up here forever, suspended between sea and sky, a creature of the air with no past and no future and nothing but the endless blue.

But your body had other ideas. Just like last time when you slid off her back onto the familiar pale sand, your legs buckled immediately. They felt like water, like seaweed, like something that had forgotten entirely how to perform the basic function of holding you upright. You stumbled forward, caught yourself on your hands, and then before you could think better of it, you pushed yourself back up and threw your arms around her neck, pressing your windburned face into her warm scales.

"That," you breathed, "was the most incredible thing I have ever experienced. You are the most incredible dragon in the history of dragons. You are magnificent. You are perfect. You are—"

Moonfyre rumbled, a deep and deeply satisfied sound, and her tail came around to curl against your back in that familiar, grounding embrace. She was warm and solid beneath your cheek, her scales smooth as polished stone, and you held onto her as if you might never let go. As if you could, through sheer force of grip, anchor yourself permanently to this moment, this improbable, impossible life.

The rest of the day passed in a blur of discovery, each hour revealing some new wonder of your strange, uncharted home.

You found the fruit trees you had seen from the air, following a narrow deer trail through the forest until you emerged into a grove so beautiful it stopped you in your tracks. The trees were tall and silver-barked, their broad leaves forming a canopy that dappled the sunlight into coins of gold, and from their branches hung hundreds of the luminous fruit you had spotted from above. You plucked one carefully, turning it in your hands—it was roughly the size of your fist, its skin smooth and slightly warm to the touch, glowing from within like a paper lantern—and when you bit into it, the taste was so extraordinary that you actually laughed out loud. Sweet and bright and complicated, honey and sunshine and something floral you couldn't name, the flesh yielding and juicy against your tongue.

Moonfyre, who had followed you into the grove with the patient, slightly exasperated air of an adult humoring a child's treasure hunt, sniffed at the fruit when you offered it. Her nostrils flared. She drew her head back and fixed you with a look of polite but absolute disgust.

You're eating that? Voluntarily?

"It's delicious," you told her, taking another bite to prove your point. Juice ran down your chin. "You don't know what you're missing."

She snorted, a dismissive puff of smoke, and turned away to investigate something more interesting at the edge of the grove. Probably a goat.

You found a stream, the same water that fed the waterfall, running clear and cold over a bed of smooth black stones. You knelt beside it and drank straight from the source, the water so pure and cold it made your teeth ache in the best possible way. You washed the salt and sand from your hair as best you could, working your fingers through the worst of the tangles, and the sensation of being clean, even just marginally cleaner than before, was so exquisite that you almost cried.

You found a cave set into the base of the cliffs on the eastern shore, not deep and dark like the ones on Dragonstone but shallow and warm, its sandy floor soft beneath your bare feet and its walls glittering with veins of something that might have been gold. It would make a good shelter if the weather turned, you thought. A good place to store things, to build something like a home. The thought startled you—home, you were thinking about home, about staying here, about building something permanent on this island that had appeared in your path like a miracle—but it didn't frighten you the way it should have. It felt, instead, like the most natural thing in the world.

As the sun began its slow descent toward the western horizon, painting the sky in watercolor washes of coral and amber and bruised violet, you made your way back to the beach. Moonfyre had disappeared a while earlier, launching herself toward the sea with a purposeful drive of her wings, and you knew without question that she would return with another offering. She was your hunter now, your provider, your fierce and improbable caretaker.

You settled onto the sand, your back against a smooth piece of driftwood, and watched the sun sink toward the edge of the world. The sky was so beautiful it almost hurt to look at, every shade of fire and rose and deepening indigo bleeding into the endless blue of the sea. And for the first time since you had arrived on this island, for the first time since you had fled Dragonstone in the darkness with tears streaming down your face and your heart shattering in your chest, you let yourself think about what you had left behind.

About Marta.

The guilt came immediately, heavy and cold, settling into your stomach like a stone swallowed by accident. Marta would be worried by now. No, more than worried. She would be frantic, pacing the cramped confines of your little cottage with her knotted hands twisting in her apron, her sharp old eyes scanning the path that wound down from the hills. She had raised you from infancy. She had fed you and clothed you and held you through nightmares and defended you against the whispers of the village children. She had loved you with a fierce, uncomplicated love that asked for nothing in return, and you had repaid her by vanishing into the night without a word of explanation.

You should go back. You knew you should go back. Not forever but at least for long enough to tell Marta you were alive. To explain, as best you could, what had happened. To say a proper goodbye, if that was what needed to happen. She deserved better than that life, you would take her with you if she agreed.

And Valarr. Your hand moved to the pendant at your throat without your conscious permission, your fingers finding the familiar shape of it. You hadn't taken it off. You had thought about it, in the dark hours before sleep, but you hadn't been able to bring yourself to unclasp it. Even now, even after everything, it still felt like a piece of you. Like a promise you hadn't quite broken yet.

Valarr, who had kissed you in the meadow with the sunset gilding his dark hair and a tenderness in his hands that had made you feel, for the first time in your life, like something precious. Valarr, who had held you in the suffocating dark and whispered that you weren't alone, that you weren't crazy, that he believed you. Valarr, who had kept the truth of his betrothal from you—the castle, the duty, the woman who was not you—because he was afraid of losing you, and in doing so had lost you anyway.

Valarr, who had looked at you at the end with pity in his eyes.

That was the part that stayed with you, sharp as a splinter that had worked its way too deep to remove. Not the betrothal. Not even the lie. But that loo, the same look everyone else had ever given you. Poor girl. Poor sad, mad girl, inventing dragons because she has nothing else.

You weren't ready to think about Valarr. You weren't ready to untangle that knot of love and fury and hurt and longing. The wound was still too fresh, still weeping beneath the careful bandage of distance and distraction.

So you pushed the thoughts away and focused on the sunset instead. The sky had deepened to violet, the first stars beginning to emerge in the east, and on the horizon, a dark shape was growing larger by the moment. Moonfyre, returning.

She landed beside you with her usual heavy grace, the sand shivering beneath the impact, and deposited her offering at your feet. Another goat or something goat-adjacent, some local variant with slightly longer ears and a sleeker coat, already cooked. And this time, you noticed, the cooking was more even. The meat was tender rather than charred, the skin crisped to a perfect golden brown rather than blackened to ash. She was learning, refining her technique, figuring out exactly how much fire was required to produce a meal that wouldn't make you grimace. A dragon, perfecting her culinary abilities for your sake.

The thought did something complicated to your heart. You ate until you were full and curled up against Moonfyre's warm side. Her wing came down around you like a canopy, blocking the cool night breeze, and her tail curled around your waist with that particular, possessive tenderness you had come to recognize as affection.

"Goodnight," you whispered, your cheek pressed to the smooth warmth of her scales. "Thank you. For today. For everything."

She rumbled, the sound resonating through her body and into yours, deep and content and full of something that might have been love. And you closed your eyes and let the steady rhythm of her breathing carry you down into sleep, into dreams that were not dark and not empty but filled with the wild, impossible joy of flight.

—

The dream started gently, the way the best dreams do, the ones that feel like memories because they are.

You were a child again, small and skinny and perpetually scraped-kneed, with that wild tangle of hair that Marta was always threatening to cut if you didn't sit still long enough for her to braid it properly. You could feel the sun on your face, warm and golden, the kind of sun that only existed in childhood memories, before you learned that the world was mostly grey and cold and full of things that could hurt you. The grass beneath your bare feet was soft and cool, tickling your toes, and the air smelled of wild onions and sea salt and the faint, familiar scent of Marta's herb garden drifting up from the cottage below.

You were in the meadow beneath the Dragon's Tooth, the one where the ghost-flowers grew thickest in the shadows of the rocks, their pale petals glowing faintly even in the daylight. You had spent so many hours here as a child, chasing butterflies and collecting flowers for Marta's tinctures and lying on your back in the grass, staring up at the grey sky and dreaming of places you would never see. It was your secret kingdom, this meadow, the one place in the world that felt like it belonged to you and you alone.

And Marta was there. Of course she was. She was always there, in your memories, a constant presence like the sea or the sky or the beating of your own heart. She sat on a flat rock near the edge of the meadow, her gnarled hands busy with a basket of herbs, her sharp old eyes watching you with that familiar mixture of fondness and exasperation that you had seen a thousand times. She was younger in this memory, her hair more brown than grey, the lines on her face less deeply carved, but she was still Marta, still your Marta, the only mother you had ever known.

"Don't go too far," she called, and her voice carried across the meadow, rough and warm and full of a love she had never quite learned to put into words. "And don't touch the ghost-flowers. They'll give you a rash that'll itch for a week, and I'm not wasting my good salve on foolishness."

"I know, Marta," you called back, and your voice was high and bright, a child's voice, untouched by grief or doubt or the weight of knowing that the world was not as kind as you wanted it to be. You were chasing butterflies, their wings flashing blue and gold in the sunlight, and you were happy. So completely, uncomplicatedly happy. The kind of happy that only exists when you're young enough to believe that happiness is something that can last.

The butterflies led you in dizzying circles around the meadow, their wings catching the light and scattering it like jewels. You ran after them with your arms outstretched, your laughter ringing out across the hillside, and every time you got close enough to touch one, it would flutter just out of reach, leading you farther and farther from where Marta sat with her basket of herbs. You didn't notice how far you had wandered. You didn't notice how the light had begun to change, the warm gold fading to something cooler, greyer.

And then the crow attacked. It came from nowhere and everywhere at once, a blur of black feathers and sharp claws and furious, cawing rage. One moment you were reaching for a butterfly, your fingers outstretched, your face bright with wonder, and the next moment the world was nothing but darkness and pain. The crow's claws raked across your cheek, sharp and hot, and you screamed a high, thin sound that was more surprise than pain, at first. You stumbled backward, your hands flying up to protect your face, but the crow was relentless, diving at you again and again, its beak jabbing at your fingers, its wings beating against your head.

"Stop!" you cried, your voice breaking. "Stop it, please, stop—"

Your foot caught on something, a stone or a root or just the uneven ground, and you felt yourself falling. The world tilted, the grey sky and the green grass and the black crow all blurring together into a smear of color and motion. You reached out, trying to catch yourself, but there was nothing to grab onto, nothing but empty air and the sickening sensation of the ground disappearing beneath you.

You fell.

And fell.

And kept falling.

The meadow was gone. Marta was gone. The crow was gone. There was only darkness, cold and absolute, pressing in on you from all sides. You couldn't see anything, couldn't hear anything but the rush of wind past your ears and the pounding of your own heart. You tried to scream, but the darkness swallowed the sound, swallowed everything, left you alone and terrified and falling through nothing.

Time stretched and warped. You didn't know how long you fell. It could have been seconds or hours or years. There was only the darkness and the wind and the terrible, gut-wrenching certainty that you would never stop falling, that this was all there was now, an endless descent into nothing.

And then you hit the ground.

The impact drove the breath from your lungs, sent shockwaves of pain through your entire body. But it wasn't ground, not really. It was stone, cold and smooth and unforgiving, the kind of stone that had been worn down by centuries of footsteps. You lay there for what felt like a very long time, gasping, trying to remember how to breathe, your cheek pressed against the cold floor, your fingers splayed out against the smooth surface. The stone was real. Solid. You could feel it beneath you, grounding you, anchoring you to something after the endless, terrifying fall.

Slowly, painfully, you pushed yourself up. You were in a corridor. A long, narrow corridor lined with doors on either side, all of them closed, all of them identical. The walls were grey stone, ancient and imposing, and the only light came from torches set in iron brackets along the walls, their flames flickering and casting dancing shadows that seemed to move and shift when you weren't looking directly at them. The air was heavy, stifling, thick with the smell of smoke and something else, something sharp and medicinal that caught in the back of your throat and made your eyes water.

You didn't recognize this place. But you were here. And you couldn't leave. You stood slowly, your legs shaking, your arms wrapped around yourself. The corridor stretched out before you in both directions, identical and endless, and you had no idea which way to go. The doors on either side were all the same, dark wood banded with iron, their handles gleaming dully in the torchlight. You could try one, you thought. You could open one of the doors and see what was behind it. But the thought filled you with a cold, creeping dread that you couldn't explain. You didn't want to know what was behind those doors. You didn't want to be here at all. And then you heard it.

Coughing.

It was faint at first, so faint you thought you might be imagining it. Just a sound at the very edge of hearing, a wet, hacking sound that made your stomach clench. You held your breath, listening, and the sound came again, louder this time, closer. It was coming from somewhere down the corridor, from behind one of the closed doors, and it was a terrible sound, the kind of cough that came from deep in the chest, from lungs that were drowning in something they couldn't clear.

You started walking toward it. You didn't want to. Every instinct you had was screaming at you to turn around, to run in the opposite direction, to get away from that sound and whatever was making it. But your feet moved anyway, carrying you down the corridor, past door after door after door. The coughing grew louder with every step, more desperate, more agonizing. Between the coughing fits, you could hear someone gasping for breath, could hear a thin, high sound that might have been a whimper of pain or might have been a word you couldn't quite make out.

The sound was familiar. That was the worst part. You had never heard this person before, you were sure of it, and yet the cough, the gasp, the whimper, they all felt like something you knew. Like a name that was sitting on the tip of your tongue, refusing to be spoken.

The corridor seemed to stretch on forever, the doors blurring past you, the coughing growing louder and more desperate with every step. The smoke was thicker here, stinging your eyes, making it hard to breathe. You could feel the heat now, radiating from somewhere ahead, and the smell of burning wood and cloth and something else, something that smelled like meat left too long over a fire. Your eyes were streaming, your throat was raw, but you kept walking. You couldn't stop and you reached the door.

It was larger than the others, made of dark wood that gleamed with age and polish, banded with iron that had been worked into intricate patterns, dragons, you realized, their bodies coiling and twisting around each other in an endless dance. The door loomed over you, imposing and important, the coughing was coming from inside. Loud and wet and agonizing, each spasm followed by a desperate, gasping breath. You could hear the person choking on something they couldn't get out, could hear the way their breath rattled in their chest, wet and wrong. They were dying. You didn't know how you knew, but you knew. Whoever was behind this door was dying, and they were dying alone.

You reached for the handle. The iron was hot against your palm, almost burning, but you gripped it anyway, your fingers wrapping around the metal, your heart pounding so hard you could feel it in your throat. The coughing continued, worse now, mixed with a sound that was almost a scream, a high, thin wail of pain that made your blood run cold. You pulled.

The door swung open and you fell.

The corridor disappeared. The coughing disappeared. The smoke and the heat and the door and the dragons carved into the iron—all of it vanished, swallowed by the same endless darkness that had claimed you before. You were falling again and you hit the ground hard.

But this time, when you looked up, you were somewhere else entirely. Somewhere you recognized, even though you had never been there before.

The throne room. It was vast, cavernous, so huge that the ceiling was lost in shadows, so huge that your footsteps would echo for seconds after you took them. The walls were stone, grey and ancient, and the light came from high windows, tall and arched, their glass stained in shades of red and gold and deep, royal purple.

And in the center of the room, rising like a mountain of blades, was the Iron Throne. You had heard stories about it all your life. Everyone had. The thousand swords of Aegon's enemies, melted and forged into a seat of power, a monument to conquest and fire and blood. But the stories hadn't prepared you for the reality of it. It was huge, impossibly huge, a jagged, twisted mass of metal that seemed to reach toward the ceiling like a grasping hand. The swords caught the light from the windows and glittered like frozen fire, their edges still sharp after three hundred years, their points aimed outward like a warning. It was beautiful. It was terrible. It was the most frightening thing you had ever seen.

And there was someone sitting on it, a woman.

You couldn't see her face. The light from the windows was behind her, casting her in silhouette, turning her into a shape of shadow and light. She sat tall and straight, her hands resting on the arms of the throne, her posture radiating a quiet, absolute authority. She wore a crown, you thought, or maybe it was just the way the light caught her hair, turning it into a halo of silver and gold. She was looking at you. You couldn't see her eyes, but you could feel her gaze, heavy and assessing, pressing down on you like a physical weight.

You wanted to speak. You wanted to ask who she was, what this place was, why you were here. You opened your mouth, but before you could form the words, a sound filled the throne room that drove every thought from your head.

You got to your feet slowly, your eyes fixed on the woman, and you started walking toward the throne. You had to get closer. You had to see her properly. The throne room seemed to stretch on forever, the windows always just out of reach, and then you looked down, and there were dragons at your feet.

You stopped so suddenly you nearly fell. They were everywhere, swarming around your ankles, tiny and perfect and impossibly alive. Five of them, no bigger than kittens, their scales every color you could imagine, red like rubies, gold like sunlight, green like the forest in spring, blue like the deep sea, silver like your the moon. They chirped and squeaked, their little wings fluttering, their tiny claws scratching at your legs as they tried to climb up. They wanted your attention. All of them, at once, demanding to be seen, to be held, to be loved.

You didn't know what to do. You stood frozen, staring down at them, your heart pounding, your mind blank. They were so small. So fragile. So utterly dependent on you, even though you had no idea who they were or where they had come from or why they were here. One of them, the silver one, managed to scramble up your leg and into the palm of your hand, its tiny claws pricking your skin, its warm little body curling against your fingers. It looked up at you with eyes that were gold and green and ancient and new all at once, and your heart cracked open.

"Where did you come from?" you whispered, but the words came out strange, echoing, like you were speaking from very far away.

The baby dragon chirped and nuzzled against your thumb, and you felt tears prick at your eyes. You didn't understand. You didn't understand any of this. The throne room, the woman on the Iron Throne, the dragons in the sky, these tiny creatures at your feet, none of it made sense. But it felt important. It felt like a message you were supposed to understand, a glimpse of something that was waiting for you, somewhere in the future, if you could only find your way to it.

You tried to step around the baby dragons, tried to keep walking toward the throne, toward the woman, but they were everywhere, underfoot, demanding, and you stumbled, your foot catching on one of them—the red one, its scales bright as blood—and you fell.

You were drowning. The water closed over your head, cold and dark and absolute. It filled your mouth, your nose, your lungs, choking you, stealing the breath from your body before you could even think to hold it. You thrashed, your arms flailing, your legs kicking, but there was nothing to grab onto, nothing but water and darkness and the terrible, crushing weight of the deep pressing down on you from all sides. You couldn't see. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. There was only the water and the cold and the slow, creeping certainty that this was it, this was how you died, alone and afraid and so very far from everything you had ever loved.

And then a hand closed around your arm and pulled.

You broke the surface gasping, choking, water streaming from your mouth and nose, your lungs burning as they filled with air. The hand was still there, gripping your arm, strong and sure and unyielding, pulling you toward the shore. You were too weak to fight, too weak to do anything but let yourself be dragged through the water, your body limp and shivering and utterly spent.

When you reached the shallows, you collapsed onto the muddy bank, your cheek pressed against the wet earth, your chest heaving as you tried to remember how to breathe. The hand released your arm, and you heard a voice, rough and familiar, cutting through the roaring in your ears.

"I've got you, child. I've got you. You're alright."

Marta.

You were small again. A child. Your arms were thin and your legs were short and you were shivering so hard your teeth chattered. You remembered this. You remembered the cold of the river, the terror of the current pulling you under, the way Marta's voice had cut through the roaring in your ears and given you something to hold onto. You had been ten years old, chasing butterflies along the riverbank, not watching where you were going. The bank had given way beneath your feet, and you had fallen in, and the current had grabbed you and pulled you under before you could even scream.

Marta had saved you. She had waded into the water without hesitation, her old body moving faster than you had ever seen it move, and she had grabbed you and pulled you out and carried you home. She had wrapped you in every blanket she owned and made you drink hot tea with honey and sat beside you all night, her hand on your forehead, her voice a constant, soothing murmur in the darkness.

"I'm sorry," you tried to say, but the words came out wrong, garbled and weak, lost in the chattering of your teeth. "I'm sorry, Marta. I'm sorry."

She couldn't hear you. This was a memory, just a memory, and you were watching it from outside yourself, standing on the riverbank as Marta gathered your small, shivering body into her arms and carried you up the path toward the cottage. You followed behind her, your feet making no sound on the muddy ground, your voice echoing in the dream-space.

"I'm sorry I left," you whispered, and the words felt heavy, important, like something you had been needing to say for a very long time. "I'm sorry I disappeared without telling you. I'm sorry I made you worry. I didn't mean to. I never meant to hurt you. You're the only mother I've ever known, and I left you without a word, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Marta reached the cottage and pushed open the door with her shoulder, carrying your small, dripping body inside. You followed her across the threshold, and then you weren't in the cottage anymore.

You were in a different room. It was darker than Marta's cottage, colder, the walls made of grey stone instead of worn wood. There was a single window, high up, letting in a thin, grey light that did little to illuminate the space. The air smelled of dust and old stone and something else, something faint and familiar that you couldn't quite name. You were standing behind a door, not the door to Marta's cottage but a different door, heavy and wooden and slightly ajar. Through the gap, you could see a man.

He was taller then you, with long pale hair that fell straight and smooth past his shoulders. It was beautiful hair. He was facing away from you, his features hidden in shadow, and no matter how hard you tried, no matter how much you strained your eyes, you couldn't make out his face. It was like trying to see through fog, like trying to remember a dream that was already fading upon waking.

He was holding something in his arms. A bundle of cloth, pale and soft, that he cradled against his chest with a gentleness that seemed at odds with his imposing presence. He held it like it was preciou. A blanket. And in the blanket, a child.

A baby. Small and new, with a wisp of hair on its tiny head, so fine it was almost invisible. The man was looking down at it, and even though you couldn't see his face, you could feel the weight of his gaze, the intensity of it, the way he was drinking in every detail of that tiny face like he was trying to memorize it forever.

"I did not expect this," he said, and his voice was low and rough, rougher than you had expected, touched with something that might have been wonder or might have been grief or might have been both. He spoke slowly, carefully, like each word cost him something. "Three moons. I have only had her for three moons. And already..."

He stopped. His hand came up, large and strong, and touched the baby's cheek with a tenderness that made your chest ache. The baby stirred, made a small sound, and he went very still, waiting until she settled again before he continued.

"Already she has carved herself into my heart," he said quietly. "I did not think... I did not know it was possible to love something so quickly. So completely. She is nothing. She is a scrap of a thing, barely larger than my two hands together, and yet she has undone me. She has remade me. She has become the center of everything, and I do not know how to let her go."

A woman's voice answered him, soft and warm, coming from somewhere you couldn't see. "Then keep her. Your plans will still work. She doesn't have to change anything. You can find another way."

He shook his head slowly, his hair swaying with the motion. "I cannot. You know I cannot. The life I lead, the things I must do... she would not be safe with me. She would be a target, a weakness, a thing that could be used against me. And I cannot afford weakness. Not now. Not with what is coming."

"She deserves to be loved," the woman said, and there was something in her voice, a gentle reproach, a sadness that spoke of long familiarity with this argument. "And you love her. I can see it. Anyone can see it. You hold her like she is the most precious thing in the world."

"Because she is." His voice cracked on the words. "and that is precisely why I cannot keep her. If I let myself love her, if I let myself become the father she deserves... I will become weak. I will change. I will hesitate when I should act, falter when I should be strong. I will put her before everything else, before duty and honor and the fate of the realm itself. And I cannot afford to do that. Not now. Not with everything that hangs in the balance."

He was quiet for a moment, still looking down at the baby, his thumb tracing slow circles on her tiny cheek. When he spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper.

"She has a greater destiny than I can give her. I have dreamed it. She will be something I cannot be, something I was never meant to be. And I... I am not meant to be part of it. I am meant to set her on the path and then step aside. That is my role. That is all I am meant to be. The one who lets her go so she can become what she was born to become."

The woman was silent for a long moment. Then she said, very softly, "You will regret this. For the rest of your life, you will regret this."

"I know." His voice was heavy with grief, with a sorrow so deep it seemed to fill the whole room.

You wanted to push the door open. You wanted to see his face, to understand who he was, why he felt so familiar, why the sight of him holding that baby made your chest ache with a longing you couldn't name. You reached for the door, your hand outstretched, your fingers brushing against the rough wood. If you could just open it, just a little more, just enough to see—

A hand closed around your arm and pulled you back and then you woke.

The beach was quiet. The stars were still overhead, scattered across the sky like seeds of light, and the moon hung low and silver over the water, casting a pale glow across the sand. Moonfyre was still curled around you, her wing sheltering you, her warmth seeping into your bones, her breathing slow and steady and deep. The pendant was warm against your chest, the two dragons and their ruby heart, and your cheeks were wet. You had been crying in your sleep.

You lay there for a long moment, staring up at the stars, your heart pounding, the fragments of the dream still clinging to you like cobwebs. The corridor, the coughing, the woman on the Iron Throne. The dragons in the sky, Moonfyre and the blue one and the five tiny ones at your feet. The river, Marta's hands pulling you out, her voice cutting through the water. The man with the silver hair and the baby in his arms, the baby he loved but couldn't keep.

She has a greater destiny. I am meant to set her on the path and then step aside.

You pressed your hand to your chest, over your heart, and felt the pendant warm against your palm. You didn't know if the dream was real. You didn't know if it was a vision, a memory, or just the random firing of a sleeping mind. But it felt real. It felt true. It felt like a piece of a puzzle you had been trying to solve your whole life, clicking into place.

And Marta. Marta, who had pulled you from the river and carried you home and raised you with nothing but her own two hands and her endless, stubborn love. Marta, who was probably worried sick right now, pacing the cottage, wondering if you were dead or alive. Marta, who had given you everything when she had nothing to give.

You had to go back.

The thought crystallized in your mind, clear and certain. You had to go back to Dragonstone. Not forever, maybe. Not to stay. But to see Marta. To let her know you were alive. To thank her for everything she had given you, and to tell her that you loved her, that you would always love her, that she was the only mother you had ever known. And maybe, just maybe, to find out if there was anything left of the life you had left behind.

You looked up at Moonfyre. She blinked at you slowly, and you could see the stars reflected in her eyes, tiny points of light in all that gold.

"We have to go back," you whispered. "Just for a little while. Just to say goodbye. And then... then we can come back here. Or go somewhere else. Anywhere. Everywhere. Just you and me."

Moonfyre made a sound, a low, rumbling purr that vibrated through your bones. Her wing tightened around you, pulling you closer, and you knew that she understood. She would take you wherever you needed to go. She would follow you to the ends of the earth.

“Anyone here? I need… I need help.” His voice cracked on the admission.

In that moment, you realized that wild look wasn’t what you expected. It was desperation, pure and fervent in its need. You remember thinking, this is what I’m here for, to help those who need it most. It was enough to pull you out from behind the office door, to reveal yourself fully to him.

His reaction was immediate, stumbling forward to approach you, but he seemed to catch himself in the middle, as if realizing what he was doing. He took a shaking breath, swallowing before unclenching his fists and putting one hand over the other. He must have been military, easily settling into an ‘at ease’ stance, only keeping his hands in front instead of behind. As if he wanted to make sure you knew he was keeping his hands to himself. That you have nothing to fear from him.

“I’m looking for Sister Maggie. Do you know her? I need to talk to her,” he said, quieter, more even.

You could still see it in his eyes, though; the sweat beading in his hairline. He was trying his hardest to maintain composure in your presence, but it was like he was a puppet held together by burning string. Any moment that string would simply burn away, leaving him as nothing but a broken heap on the ground.

Sister Maggie was a familiar name, albeit one you hadn’t heard in a while. She was one of the more experienced nuns who had trained you when you were first assigned to St. Agnes. It had been a long time since you’d seen her, though. She’d left without much word.

“She’s not here,” you answered truthfully, and that seemed enough to burn whatever was left holding him up.

To his credit, the man tried to keep himself together, at first. Several emotions flit across his face, anger, fear, desolation, each more hopeless than the last. It hurt your heart to see. You found yourself wanting to reach out to him as he slowly sunk to his knees.

“Shit, I was really…” he whispered, barely more than a croak in the back of his throat.

You took a step forward, then another. There was a time when you weren’t so different from him. On your knees, ready to give up on everything, no hope in the world. Nowhere to escape. Nowhere, except here. As you got closer, it was like an itch buzzed just under your skin, a frenzied instinct to touch him. Get your hands on him.

Your fingers grazed the man’s cheek. There’s a scar there, rough and badly cared for when it was still fresh. His skin was warm, feverish, almost. Slightly damp with sweat. The beginnings of stubble caught against the pad of your thumb.

Startled by your touch, a breath hitched in the man. He looked up at you, wide-eyed, red-rimmed with unshed tears. His lips parted wordlessly as he hesitantly pressed a gloved hand against yours, urging you to stay.

The chapel was silent, wide as a yawning cave. The only sound was his breath, echoing across empty pews. His chest juddered with a wet inhale. He didn’t speak, but the look in his eyes was enough for you. He was an open book, just for you to read.

Please, his eyes said. Please help me.

A dark thought struck you then, something dangerous. A kind of thought you swore yourself away from the day you kneeled before the altar and pledged yourself in service of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

You swallowed the thought down, refusing to let it seed and bear fruit in your mind.

“It’s alright; you’re safe here,” you said. “What’s your name?”

He didn’t let go of your hand. He kept it there, clutching it against his face like a lifeline. Your fingertips prickled with sensation you’d forgotten you could feel.

“Dex,” he breathed. “Call me Dex.”

“Dex,” you repeated with a nod, letting your index finger trace the shape of his jagged scar. He shivered under your touch. That close, you could get the scent of him: blood and metal. It didn’t scare you as much as it should have.

“What do you need?” You asked, barely above a whisper. It might as well have been a cannon in the chapel’s silence.

Dex’s hand closed over yours, squeezing your fingers. Your nerves were so frayed, so hyperaware, you could feel the roughness of every single groove that lined his glove.

“Absolution.”

You closed your eyes. His voice was so full of emotion, choking with it. That dangerous thought came back to you, revealing itself just a little more within your psyche. You should have pulled away from him, his warmth. You couldn’t help him the way he clearly needed.

Slowly, with great hesitation, you pulled your fingers from Dex’s grasp. He seemed to waver in the wake of your absence, swaying on his knees, no longer supported by your touch.

“I… I don’t have the authority to give that to you.” You tangled your fingers together in the rosary knotted to your belt; a distraction from the tingling under your skin. Father Patrick might still have been awake; he was a night owl. “Let me—”

You had turned away, thoughts on next steps to help the poor man on his knees, but you hadn’t taken more than a step before you had a vice-like grip on your arm. The iron hold stopped you, your words, dead in their tracks.

“No, wait,” Dex said in a rush. You turned back to him, and the expression you wore on your face must’ve been something like shock or alarm, because he immediately pulled his hands away, taking a step back. He didn’t go back to the parade rest as before, but he still kept his hands in plain view for you to see.

It made you wonder if he often scared people in his life, often enough to be so quick to try to seem non-threatening.

“I don’t care if you don’t have the authority or whatever.” Clearly not a Catholic, then. The thought almost made you smile. “Just… please don’t leave. Maybe we can talk?” He spoke so fast, as if he were expecting you to leave in the middle of it all.

Man, is by nature, sinful; from the moment Adam took a bite of that apple, or the moment Eve touched it at all, depending on who you ask. That first sin seeping through to stain every single human thereafter. While you’ve always been aware of this, the original corruption that you were born with, the last few years had been good to you. Your time at the convent, then at St. Agnes had almost made you forget the near-irresistible pull of earthly temptation. There, in that moment, with Benjamin Poindexter, the habit-shaped leash pulled taught.

Which sin would be worse: leaving a man in need of help, or knowingly entertaining a situation that could lead to damnation?

You took a breath, for courage. Instead of returning to your journey to Father Patrick, who you knew would be able to give Dex the absolution he clearly needed, you smiled at him. You sat in a pew and patted the space next to you.

“Alright. Tell me what you want to talk about,” you said.

The look of utter relief that crossed Dex’s features was nearly enough to make it all worth it. Whatever thing that held the rigid tension in his body was finally cut. His shoulders sagged as he settled next to you. As he did so, his knee gently grazed yours, something barely there, then immediately gone. You weren’t sure if he noticed it as he began to talk because that first thought reared it’s ugly head for a third time, fully formed and burying malevolent roots into your subconscious.

He looked so beautiful on his knees.

Poverty: Embracing a life of simplicity, where personal items belong to the community, detaching from material possessions to focus on God.

“How’s Mrs. Smithers?” You asked as Dex approached, squinting against the bright sun behind him.

Several weeks had passed since that first meeting in the chapel. Since then, you’d created a habit of meeting him a couple of times a week at a nearby park. Routine was important for him, and thankfully, routine was also an important part of dedicating one’s life in service to God. Routine leaves less room for sin. Or something. All you knew was that it was nice to spend a moment to relax in the sun three times a week.

“I think she’s starting to warm up to me. You were right about the quiche.” Dex sidled up next to you, sitting on the other end of the bench. He held a greasy bag out to you, which you took after only a brief hesitation.

He hadn’t touched you, not since that first night, and in the daylight, you were grateful. Without the touching, you could almost make yourself believe this was a normal situation, that your budding attachment to this man was something mundane and excusable. At night, however…

“Every time we have a potluck, she always eats at least three slices. Once I’m almost certain she put an entire thing in her purse. Mrs. Liston is still looking for her pie dish.” You dug into the bag, inhaling the oily scent of a bacon, egg, and cheese on a croissant.

It was a rare treat, a greasy little sandwich like that from a nearby bodega. Over at St. Agnes, food was made in bulk for the children and nuns alike in a cafeteria-style kitchen. Money was tight, always tight at St. Agnes; anything made outside of the kitchen was reserved for special occasions.

One bite in, and you already felt the delicate flakes of the croissant falling into your lap, grease from the bacon on your chin.

Being a person in the modern world, you had seen several advertisements and the like describe food as decadent. When a commercial or a magazine described a decadent food, it was a reference to its richness, the quality of the ingredients, and several other evocative phrases to convince possible customers the treat was worth its price tag. If one were to look in the dictionary for decadent, they would find references to moral corruption, hedonism, self-indulgence.

That’s how you felt as salt, and butter, and warmth melted across your tongue. On the edge of a precipice toward gluttony. You needed to stop; you hadn’t even properly thanked Dex for the gift, just taken it without a word and taken bite after bite, as if you couldn’t fit enough of it into your mouth.

By the time your hands were empty, you were practically out of breath, almost cold without the heat of the sandwich. As you woke from your food-induced fugue state, you looked to Dex, who stared at you wide-eyed and rapt.

Shame burned in your cheeks. You must’ve looked like a beast, just a few steps off from unhinging your jaw and swallowing the thing whole. A servant of God should not be so distracted by sensual pleasures. He came to you for help, and there you were, forgetting the world over a sandwich.

“Sorry,” you muttered, absently wiping your chin with the back of your hand, something else Mother Superior would chide you for if she were there. “Thank you for the treat, Dex.”

“You liked it?” His voice was small, almost shy, as he said it.

His tone woke a long-buried instinct in your mind. Back when hedonism and self-indulgence ruled your existence. Bodies upon bodies upon bodies in the throes of pleasure. You, taking your time, taking special care to learn their pleasures so you could inflict it upon them at your will. Always standing above them, benevolent or pitiless, depending on what they needed. Either suited you if it meant you could take what you wanted.

He wants to be good. He wants you to tell him so. He wants to be a good boy so bad, he would beg for it, he’d be on his hands and knees—

“Yes, it was very good,” you said, carefully avoiding the phrasing the dark parts within yourself wanted to use. “Thank you again, Dex.”

A smile, hesitant but genuine, twitched at Dex’s lips. Such a small compliment, but you could see it glowing from the inside out of him. Just like that first night, a tension eased away as he sagged into the bench. Dex was like that, constantly holding himself rigid, hypervigilant of the way he moved through the world, only relaxing when he finally received assurance that he was doing alright.

Warmth, different from the heat of the sandwich, or the searing nature of your previous thoughts, spread through your chest at the sight. Despite his past sins, despite the myriad of ways he had gone astray, moments like that reminded you he truly wanted to be a good man. That was why you were there: to help him back onto a path of righteousness. You smiled back at him.

“You like living at St. Agnes?” He asked, a question that mildly shocked you.

Thus far, your conversations had almost exclusively revolved around Dex. His past, his rage, his need to make up for what he’s done, relearning how to build positive relationships after what happened with Wilson Fisk and living in the hospital. Yes, he had been able to needle a few things out of you, hence the sandwich, but there had always been more pressing things to talk about. This was the first time he had asked you about your life so plainly.

“I do, working with the children is rewarding, and the quiet during contemplation is soothing.” You shrugged. “Of course, it has its challenges, but—”

“Challenges?” Dex leaned forward. “Tell me about them.”

You regarded Dex with slight suspicion. Awfully curious all of a sudden.

“If you wanted to practice your interpersonal skills, you could’ve just asked, you know,” you said with a light huff. “Remember what I said about open-ended questions. ‘Tell me about…’ doesn’t count.”

“I’m working on it. Mrs. Smithers doesn’t complain, though,” he replies easily, almost cheeky, which just makes that warmth inside you bloom farther.

“Mrs. Smithers only needs a quiche and a pet for her cat to win her over.” You slid your gaze to Dex. “Not everyone is so easy.”

“You’re not easy, Sister,” Dex said with sudden seriousness. His gaze on you was heavy, like a weight as the bout of playfulness slipped away. “We’ve been talking about me forever, and I wanna ask about you. That makes it fair.”

You took a breath, nodding. Over time, you had come to see that Dex had trouble identifying nuance in the world around him. Keeping track of actions and “keeping the scales balanced” seemed to be a big concern for him. To an extent, you could understand. For someone for whom selflessness doesn’t come naturally, it’s a good way to keep from seeming self-involved to others.

“You’re right, Dex. I’ve been so preoccupied with learning about you that I haven’t been very forthcoming about myself.” You could stand to be a little honest with him, in exchange for all the things he had told you.

But something inside you still tensed. Over those last weeks, Dex had come to depend on you for your moral guidance. You enjoyed that, it made you feel like you were doing something right in the world, but those thoughts that popped up about him from time to time— he didn’t need to know about that. Honesty, to an extent.

Dex was still looking at you expectantly, his hand tensing over the back of the bench.

“When I took my vows, I had to renounce everything I owned. The vow of poverty we take means that we cannot hold ownership over any material possessions. We share everything with everyone in the community.”

Dex nodded, that rapt expression returning to his face. He looked at you like a puzzle he was trying to solve, or a present he wanted to unravel, you weren’t quite sure. He was a smart man, he had to be to reach where he got in the FBI. Violence just happened to be the thing he excelled at.

“Go on,” he said.

“For the most part, I do like the way we all pool our resources. It’s very rare that anyone ever feels any lack. But…” you swallow. “Sometimes I miss having something to myself. Sharing everything also means that I don’t have much privacy. Anything in the prayer book I use is subject to be read or used by someone else because it doesn’t belong to me.” You bit your lip, fingers toying with your rosary. “Before I took my vows, I journaled a lot. I felt like I could do that, I could write whatever was filling up my mind, get out any scary or evil thoughts I had and it would stay in there, secret. Now, sometimes I feel my thoughts building, but there’s nowhere to put them. At least, nowhere I won’t worry it’ll be seen.”

The admission came out of you in a rush, leaving you feeling a little lighter for it. It was such a small thing, not big enough for you to mention in your weekly confessions, but somehow letting it out made you feel like you had taken your first breath of fresh air in years.

“That sounds hard, really hard,” Dex murmured. He’d told you about that phrase once. That, and others he had practiced with Dr. Mercer as he grew up. The level of sincerity he was able to muster in those words always shocked you, despite his issues with empathy.

“You’ve really got that one down,” you said back with a weak smile.

Dex was smiling at you again. A smile so wide that it made the scar on his cheek crinkle a little at the edge.

“I think I might actually mean it this time, Sister.”

You clutch your rosary tighter. Hard enough to hurt.

The rest of the day went by as normal. Dex and you parted ways after a small conversation about his day and his plans for the week, which seemed innocuous, though something in the back of your mind told you he was holding something back. You wanted to press, but time wouldn’t allow it that day. You needed to be back at St. Agnes to help serve lunch to the children.

At the end of the day, you wandered to your bedroom, your knees ached from the time you spent in prayer. Of course, you prayed every day, but these days any free time you had not dedicated to Dex or the church, or St. Agnes was spent in prayer. Praying to God to release you from the thoughts you had about your new charge, for the strength to help him selflessly, for him to triumph over his nature. You hoped it was enough.

You removed your veil, feeling a cool breeze on the back of your neck. Turning, you found your window slightly ajar. You didn’t remember leaving it that way. It’s possible one of the other nuns had opened it to air out the musty smell that seemed permanently attached to the walls. You closed the window, it was going to be cold that night.

After changing into your nightdress and going through your nightly routine, you laid your head on your pillow, only to feel something hard beneath. In the dark, with searching fingers, you found a book that was not there before. You turned the light back on with it in your hand, finding a plain black leather notebook. The cover was supple, luxurious in feel, but still austere in its way. You had your suspicions where it could have come from, why your window was open, and they were only confirmed when you opened the front cover. On it, in chicken-scratch handwriting was:

Just for you. — D

Obedience: Surrendering one’s personal will in faithful trust, listening with humility to God’s call as expressed through the community and its leaders, and seeking to follow His guidance with devotion and unity.

You looked both ways before you crossed the street, casually checking over your shoulder as you reached the sidewalk on the other side. No one from the church seemed to be watching. With one last casual glance around for wandering eyes, you opened the door and stole into Dex’s apartment building.

This was… wholly inappropriate, meeting a man alone in his apartment. However, you had been careful. You had taken a Vow of Obedience, which meant if one of the church leaders gave you orders, you must abide by them. But, if those leaders didn’t know enough to give you orders to avoid something, the Vow was still technically unbroken. What Father Patrick and Mother Superior didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

On Dex’s floor, you were sure to not only keep quiet, but also an eye on Mrs. Smithers’ door. She was a nosy one, and if she were to see you there, the rest of the parish would know about it in the blink on an eye. You softly knock on his door, eyes flicking between that and Mrs. Smithers’.

A faint click, and creak alerts you that Dex has opened the door, and you, eager to be out of sight of Mrs. Smithers’ front door, quickly move forward to enter.

Dex, apparently, was not ready for your sudden movement. Before you you could comprehend what was happening, you were making contact with smooth, heated skin.

He was not wearing a shirt. Your cheek, your mouth pressed into him. Smooth, plush skin layered over hard and well-worked muscle. Dex’s smell was still mostly the same: blood, metal, but now with an added sting of aftershave. This close, the smell surrounded you, enveloped you in the danger of it. The only reason he’d still smell like blood is if he wasn’t telling you the whole truth of what he’d been up to since your first meeting. In fact, that was why you were there in the first place.

You should have been angry, or at the very least afraid. Then again, you should have been afraid all the way back when Dex confessed to you how many people he had murdered. You weren’t, though. The way he looked at you that first night, you felt a bone-deep certainty that he was no threat to you. It was the same certainty you had when you decided to join the church, that you would find your calling there. In a way, you were starting to believe you had, but maybe not the way you expected.

You couldn’t remember the last time you had skin-to-skin contact with a man. Especially not a man you were having unclean thoughts about. The reaction in your body was immediate and utterly overwhelming. It was like his warmth completely leeched into you, filling your body with a wanton shiver. Just like the day he gave you that sandwich, the force in which your body craved more, more, MORE, stole your breath away.

Taste him, touch him, bite him, make him cry. He’d love it. He’d say “thank you” and ask for more.

“Sister?” Dex’s voice pulled you away from your thoughts. Enough for you to take a step back and look up to see his expression of confusion and concern.

At first, you were at a loss for words. Why had you come there? Your mind was reeling, completely stopped short of what you were supposed to be doing. Instead, you could only take in the sight of him. Low-slung sweatpants, so much bare skin. A dusting of blond fur over his chest and leading perilously down from his navel. You’d seen the suggestion of muscle under his clothes, the way he carried himself. In that moment, you could see it all on full display. You had felt it.

“I…” You breathe. Think, think! You closed your eyes against the onslaught of almost-sensation coursing through your body. Touch, but imagined, leaving your nerves prickling and reaching for more. Another breath to clear your mind. “I’ll let you get dressed first, then we can talk.”

It was the best strategy you could think of. Get space from Dex and a moment alone to gather yourself, remind yourself that you’re more than a beast in heat.

Dex nodded with hesitation, replying, “Sure,” before disappearing into what you assume was his bedroom.

Without him so close, you were finally able to breathe normally again and take in your surroundings. Much like your own quarters at St. Agnes, his home was as austere as it was tidy. No pictures, very little decoration aside from necessary furniture. Very beige.

You’re just settling into one of the two seats at his small kitchen table when Dex reappears in a beater that seemed to cling to all the things you were hoping a shirt would hide. It’s enough, though, for you to keep your focus.

“You want some coffee, Sister?” He asked, unsure. “I don’t have any creamer, or anything like that, but—”

You cut him off. “Was it you that killed all those AVTF agents at the hospital yesterday?” Remembering the reason why you’d come, and how easy it had been for all of it to fly out the window by the mere sight of bared skin made something in your stomach sour.

Dex was quiet for a long time, something hardening in his eyes, even as he avoided your gaze. He flexes one of his wrists, rolls his hand in a circle. You let him stew in whatever he was feeling in the moment, let him take his time to answer, even though you yourself were still reeling between two violently conflicting emotions.

“They’re bad guys, Sister,” he finally said. “They’re taking good people off the streets and making them scared. And God gave me this gift, remember you said that? We talked about him giving me opportunities to use it for good.”

You had to fight not to rub your temples. This was your own fault, to try and help someone with issues you were far from qualified to handle. You thought — maybe pride was more your sin than gluttony or lust. Or maybe it was all three. Maybe you were more corrupted than you thought. You had thoughts that maybe Dex had been brought to you as a test, and that still felt right, but maybe not the kind of test you’d initially thought. Maybe you’d already failed.

“You can’t kill people, Dex. Even if they’re bad guys, even if they’re scaring good people. It’s not up to you to decide who lives and who dies.”

Dex slammed his fists onto his counter, the gunshot of a sound making you jump despite yourself. “Then why did He make me like this?” He flicked his wrist.

There was a sound, a blur too fast to see as a fork bounces from wall, to ceiling, and then down into the wood of the table directly in front of you. You did not flinch. When you looked at Dex, you could see a shadow over his face, nearly identical to the one that weighed him down when you first met.

You stood, approaching him slowly. His brow was creased with anguish, clutching the edges of his counter so tight that his arms shook.

“Take a breath, Dex, please,” you murmured. Together, as his hazel eyes met yours, you took one breath in, counted to three, then exhaled. At the very least, it stopped the shaking enough for you to touch his hand.

“Have you considered God is presenting you opportunities to overcome your urge to hurt?” You asked gently. Your hand slides up the back of his, fingers circling his wrist to feel the flutter of his pulse. Fast, but slowing in degrees.

Dex swallowed thickly, eyes glossy. He did not move away from you, in fact, you could feel him leaning closer, so slowly it was almost impossible to notice. You weren’t even sure if he was doing it consciously.

“Why does it feel so good to hurt them? Why would He make me feel like that?” Dex asked, barely above a whisper.

“There are a lot of things that feel good that we should stay away from.” And you knew that more than most. Yet there you still were, letting a man who just a few minutes ago nearly made your knees buckle with the force of lust you felt lean his weight onto you, forehead on your shoulder.

“I have to balance the scales, Sister,” he croaked. “They made me kill so many good people. I have to make it even.”

“That’s not your job, Dex.”

“It is,” he countered. “I feel it the same way you said you felt it when you decided to go to the church. Don’t you all always say He works in mysterious ways? Maybe He made an exception for me.”

You clutched his wrist a little harder, felt his muscles shift under his skin. This was going too far, it had been too far, long before that moment. Dex was killing people, was going to continue killing people. You needed to tell someone, before he started killing again.

Who would you tell, though? If you went to the police, he would go right back to Rikers, where he would most assuredly die. If you did so, would that be as good as killing him? Maybe you wouldn’t be holding the knife, but it certainly felt like sending him back there would ultimately be the same thing. But if you didn’t tell anyone and Dex killed someone else, that blood would be on your hands as well.

Lord God almighty, you prayed, I see now that this was a test I failed. Please do not let more die because of my weakness. Please help me help this man who has been led astray in pursuit of your forgiveness. Amen.

Slowly, you pulled away from Dex, and the way his face fell made your heart squeeze painfully. He looked lost, afraid.

“Wait—” he grabbed your arm, a little too tight. “Sister, are you leaving me? You can’t, please—”

A scream, coming from outside stopped Dex from continuing. He turned his head to listen, and you both heard another faint cry. The change in him was instantaneous. His posture straightened, tension like a rod in his spine as his eyes hardened. Gone was the man begging for you to stay, now in front of you stood the one who killed and killed and killed.

“Stay here,” Dex muttered and pulled away too fast for you to catch him. Absently, he grabbed several forks from his drawer before swiftly retreating to his bedroom. By the time you followed him in, Dex had already pulled on a mask and had deftly climbed out the window.

With your heart in your throat, you stuck your head out the window to find someone unfamiliar on the ground, curled into a ball. He was surrounded by men wearing spray painted skulls on their bulletproof vests. One had a gun trained on the man on the ground.

You watched, helpless as Dex silently descended from the fire escape, flexible and confident. The metal didn’t even squeal under his weight.

“We didn’t have to do this, you know,” one of the AVTF said to the cowering man below him. “If you’d just told us where your little friend is, we’d leave you alone, but now…” you could hear the sound of the gun cocking all the way from the window.

The gun fired, a blast that echoed deafeningly through the alleyway. You threw yourself away from the window, gripped by a primal fear of watching someone die. Adrenaline zoomed in your veins. Your hands wouldn’t stop shaking as cold sweat pushed its way through your pores.

At first, you’re transported back to the kitchen at St. Agnes, at the height of lunch hour. A cacophony of sound, cutlery squealing, slicing, stabbing through meat and veg. There’s a bang, just like the echoing noise of a rubber ball thrown against the wall too hard. You would chide them for that, but no real punishments would be doled out. Just fun and and games. No one hurt. No one—

You flinched with each successive blast, covering your ears as cold fear gripped your insides. You had to check on the children. It was your job to make sure they were safe. BANG! BANG! BANG!

But there’s a whistle, too. A singing of metal through the air. Cutlery and meat. An aborted cry. There was a part of you that wanted to stay rooted right to your spot, unwilling to bear witness to the violence you knew would greet you outside that window. But another, stronger part needed to see. Needed to make sure Dex was okay.

As the noises died down, you approached the window on wobbling knees.

Please, God, let him be okay. Please, please, please let him live. Amen.

Peering down the alley, there was a heap of bodies, all dressed in black with those painted skulls. The man who had been on the ground was limping away, and Dex stood in the middle, chest rising and falling with exertion. Evidence of what he’d done was all over him. Blood, on his face, the white beater, his bare arms, his sweatpants. No tears, no limping. He seemed completely fine. In fact, after waiving the victim off, he just casually picked up the forks he’d used and made his way back up the fire escape.

Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not kill. Though shalt not kill. Thou shalt not—

You backed away as Dex entered through the window, casually wiping the blood off his forks and onto his pants. With his mask on, he looked like something out of a horror movie, and for the first time since you’ve known him, you were afraid of him. Afraid of the things he could do.

Tossing the forks onto a nearby dresser, Dex finally looked at you. At first, all you saw was that hard gaze, a killer’s eyes. You took a stumbling step back, feeling as if your legs were jelly.

Instantly, Dex threw off his mask, and there he was again. The man you knew, the one trying desperately to be better in a world that kept asking him to commit unspeakable violence. His hands were in front of him, open and beseeching, a reminder that he did not intend to hurt you. He would never hurt you.

“Please, hear me out,” he was saying. “Can’t you see? It was divine timing. He wants me to help people. This is how He wants me to atone.”

Slowly, step by step, Dex moved forward, and you were rooted to the spot. What did this mean? You had watched a man kill, breaking an inviolable law, both legally and spiritually. You had to tell someone; you had to do something about it.

He took your hand. Blood smeared against your skin. You smelled him. Blood and metal and aftershave. He dropped to his knees, pressing his cheek into your stomach. You let him, let his warmth seep back into you to calm your shaking.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured into the softest part of you, hands fisted in your skirt. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please don’t leave me.”

Thou shalt not kill. Was it the heat of his skin that you were feeling? Or blood soaking into your clothes? That man would’ve died. The gun was pointed at his head. They were going to kill him. Dex saved him. Thou shalt not kill. Five men were dead. Five men who were also going to murder someone who could not fight back. Thou shalt not kill.

God’s timing was always right. He worked in mysterious ways. You must tell someone. You must obey the law as it pertains to the Code. You Vowed to do so.

He told you God gave him a gift, called him to action to help those who could not help themselves. God’s timing was always right. Would He call someone to kill? Is that possible? He worked in mysterious ways. Humans were not meant to comprehend His will.

You brought a hand up, fingers weaving into Dex’s hair. In just the few minutes he was fighting, sweat had already beaded into his scalp. He was wet all over. The strands were delicate, soft. He sighed into you shakily.

The first time you tried to speak, nothing came out. Your voice caught somewhere between your chest and your throat. You swallowed, breathed.

“I’m not going anywhere,” you whispered. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Chastity: Committing to a life of consecrated celibacy, offering one’s whole heart and body to God, and relinquishing exclusive human relationships and sexual indulgences.

The spray of the tub faucet was slow to warm against your outstretched hand. Dex was sitting on his bed, looking more than a little like a child in trouble as he stared at you through the door. There were dark stains in your dress, but you were confident in your ability to explain it away as grease stains from working in the kitchen.

Once it reached a comfortable temperature, you gestured for Dex to approach. The floor creaked under him as he did so. After witnessing his silent descent down the fire escape, you knew he was being deliberate. Trying not to scare you away.

“Your clothes,” you said. “Give them to me; I’ll wash them.”

Dex nodded wordlessly, first pulling off his stained shirt. You took it from him, folding it neatly on the bathroom counter. He hesitated, hands on the waistband of his sweats. You trained your gaze on his face, watching him unblinkingly with one hand out. His Adam’s apple bobbed once, and you don’t miss the widening of his pupils just before he silently pulled them down. You only broke your gaze to nod to the tub and fold his sweatpants the same way you had his shirt.

The water sloshed behind you with Dex’s descent. You took a washcloth from a nearby cabinet. Turning to face him once more, you’re struck by the amount of space he takes. The tub was much too small for him, forcing Dex to sit with his knees up and ankles crossed. You smiled, despite yourself. It would be funny if not for all the red on him.

Sitting on the edge of the tub, you dipped the washcloth in the water, and Dex watched with wide eyes as you pressed it to his shoulder.

The blood hadn’t had much time to settle into his skin, it was easy to clean away. As the looped fiber of the washcloth passed over his bicep, his forearm, his skin pebbled, fine blond hairs standing at attention under your ministrations.

Dex’s breath had shallowed, almost imperceptibly, by the time you brought the cloth to his back. You weren’t sure how it got there, but blood had found its way to the back of his neck, droplets meandering down, following the path of his spine.

There was a scar there, too, a long one stretching all the way down his back. You remembered Dex telling you the story, Wilson Fisk had broken his back, and the hospital had replaced the bones in his spine with steel. Then, they proceeded to give him a complicated cocktail of drugs to keep him drooling in art therapy. Anger was a sin deadly, but there were times, when you thought about the Fisks, that you burned. It was a rage that kept you awake at night. The things they’d done to him. Unforgivable.

You traced the ridges of that scar, much cleaner than the one on his cheek, but no groove that perfectly hugged the shape of your finger. His muscles shifted with your touch, Dex letting out a short breath. He had gone rigid under your attention. His hands clutched hard at his knees. His skin was cool to the touch, smooth, coated in gooseflesh.

“Sister—” he breathed.

Your answer came before you had a chance to think. As if the spirit of yourself from before your Vows had possessed you.

“Am I hurting you?” You knew you weren’t. You knew pain, and Dex’s shaking breath was not one of suffering. Not the painful kind of suffering, at least.

“No,” Dex answered with great effort, then let out a hysteric bark of a laugh. “No, not at all, Sister.”

With a small smile, you withdrew your hand, taking up the washcloth once more. Sweat prickled at the back of your neck, under your veil. Suddenly his compact bathroom felt almost stifling. You took his chin into your other hand, tilting his head to look up at you. Most of the blood was splattered against his front. Up his neck, onto his clavicle, then a few mushed stains where it had soaked straight through his shirt.

Dex was malleable under your touch, easily moving wherever you directed him. You pretended not to notice his cock, hard and steadily leaking under the water. Meeting his eyes, his irises were little more than thin lines of color around his blown pupils.

His lips parted, letting out a soft noise as you brought the washcloth to his neck. You followed the sharp line of his jaw, down to his pulse-point, and to the dip in his clavicle. All the while, he looked at you with a glassy sheen to his eyes, his breathing steadily increasing.

You had barely done anything and already he was putty in your hands. It made your mouth dry, your hands tremble. You’d heard this man murder five people just minutes ago, and he still looked at you like he was made to serve you.

Maybe he is. Maybe God made him a weapon for you to wield.

You would never use him the way the Fisks did, to murder innocents who threatened their criminal empire. You would only bid him to help those who needed it most. Dex would listen. He would do as you say. In exchange, you would keep him good, keep him true. You passed the washcloth down his chest.

“Fuck,” he whimpered. His hips shift under the water.

Touch him. Make him beg. Make him cry. Touch him touch him touch him touchhimthouchhimtouchhimtouchhim—

No, not like that. Not that way.

You dropped the washcloth back into the water, slotted your index finger in that jagged scar on his cheek.

“Benjamin.” His eyes cleared faintly at the sound of his first name. “I see now what you meant when you said that was what you were made to do.”

Dex leans into your hand, brows creasing. It was a look of hope, of gratitude.

“I won’t report you, and I won’t leave you either.” You took his other cheek into your other hand to make him look at you fully. “I just need you to promise me three things.”

Slowly, trembling, he nodded.

“First, what you’re doing is ultimately a service to the community. A commitment to defending the weak and vulnerable. When you take violent action, you will do so with that in mind.” The bathroom was so silent that your voice seemed to echo. “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” he sighed.

“Second, you must obey me. If I tell you not to kill someone, you will not.”

“Yes.”

You swallowed, feeling a lump in your throat. A tear slipped from Dex’s eye that you gently swiped away. The way he looked at you, with such utter trust and total devotion. It was a taste of divinity upon your searching tongue. A power to be regarded with as much honor and integrity as he would dedicate to you.

“And finally,” you said, your voice wavering. “You need to take care of yourself, too. You, your body, must be treated with respect. You will not take unnecessary risks, and if you are injured, you will come to me.”

Dex’s final “yes” was little more than a broken exclaim, but it was enough. You pressed your lips to his forehead, a lingering kiss to seal his oaths.

“Thank you, Benjamin,” you hummed into his skin.

With promises made, you left Dex’s apartment before you did something else unforgivable. What had you done? His blood-soaked clothes were in your arms, and you had asked him to make promises as if you were—what? You couldn’t bear to think about it.

Dex was on your mind the rest of the day. Watching his clothes tumble in the wash, you thought of the pink tinge in his bathwater as he let you maneuver him as you pleased. The evidence of his want rising from the water, leaking pearlescent.

As you helped prepare dinner for the children, you thought about the bodega sandwich. How eagerly you devoured it, how much you wanted to devour him. The pull was almost physical, calling you to return, to finish what you’d started earlier.

Your mind was like a highlight reel of all those little moments, no matter what task you were completing. Soft skin, hard muscle, a crooked and hesitant smile, jagged scar perfectly shaped to your finger, glassy eyes, letting go, panting, softly keening.

He wants it. He wants you. He wishes you touched him. He probably touched himself as soon as you left. He rut into his hand with that washcloth stuffed in his mouth. He came with the taste of your touch and someone else’s blood on his tongue—

“Sister?” You were jarred out of your rapidly escalating thoughts by one of the other nuns looking at you, concerned.

You looked down, finding a knife in your hand and a carrot still uncut. How long had you been standing there, salivating and pulsing at the thought of Dex touching himself?

“Are you alright? You seem… distracted,” she said with a mouth quirked worriedly. “I don’t want to trouble you, but the others have been talking. Everyone’s starting to get worried about you. Is something wrong?”

Yes. I made a man swear obedience to me to assuage my own guilt while he murders. My thoughts of him are impure, and every time I see him, I get closer to succumbing to temptation. I’m losing my way, I’m becoming the person I used to be, the kind of person I tried so hard to escape from.

You said none of that. Instead, you placed the knife back on the cutting board. You smiled at the other nun, though you were sure it wasn’t very convincing.

“Everything is fine. I’ve just been feeling under the weather. Maybe I should rest.”

“Maybe you should,” she said, unsure. “Do you need anything?”

“No,” you muttered. “Just rest, I think.”

You didn’t wait for her reply, just breezed out of the kitchen in search of your room as the exhaustion of the day seeped deep into your bones.

Even in your dreams, you did not escape Dex. It was not quite linear, no true story to make sense of. Just disjointed sensation that burned under your skin. Salt and blood on skin, throbbing, rolling, thrusting. Open mouth, gasping. A slash of a smile, tongue reaching out, tasting. Clenching rhythm, growing stronger with every roll.

Hazel eyes, peering up. Bacon grease on his chin. No, not grease, but shining wet.

“Delicious, Sister. Thank you.” He said, breathless, grateful. So close, just a little more, such a good boy, Dex. Please, Lord, please. Almost. Dipping low, tongue parting your—

You woke, deep in the night with feverish skin, shaking. Your thighs were wet, soaking. Every single frayed nerve sitting atop a precipice. You pulse between your legs. Just a little more, just a touch in that slick place in exchange for satisfaction. It would have been easy, your body knew what to do, exactly what it wanted. Rutting animal friction for animal pleasure.

You couldn’t control the sound that whimpered from your throat as your fingers grazed your pubic bone. Barely anything, not a real touch that would break everything. But you might as well have, for the way your clit throbs with ravenous and neglected insistence. So long, it had been so long and you had been so good. God forgave those who asked.

Humans were fallible, corrupted. Man was born sinful in nature, prone to mistakes with an affinity toward evil. Dex was only human. You were only human. Your fingers dipped under the waistband of your panties.

“Oh my God.” Your spine arched without conscious thought, urging you just that little inch lower. Almost there. Fuck, just barely a touch and it would be enough. A little more. It would be so easy.

The sound of a nearby car alarm jarred you from your thoughts, like a bucket of cold water dumped unceremoniously over your lascivious trance. You pulled your hand away from yourself as if burned, panting. You stumbled out of bed with unsteady legs. You needed to get out of that room, somewhere, anywhere else. You barely had enough thought to grab your rosary from the bedside table before wobbling your way out.

The cool air in the chapel was like a balm for your overheated skin. Relief, finally. You look up, peering at the crucifix rising high above the altar. The injured and suffering gaze of Jesus avoids you, weak and cast down. You didn’t deserve his gaze. You, who had broken two of your three solemn Vows. You fell to your knees, clutching the miniaturized version affixed to your rosary hard enough for a well-deserved bite of pain.

“I’m so sorry. I failed You in almost every way possible. You gave me so many opportunities to overcome my base nature, and I turned away every time.” Tears spilled freely. You pressed your forehead to the altar, on the ground, where you belonged. “Please, Father, forgive me. Please, forgive me.” Your voice was hollow and shaking. You felt scooped out. Like someone had opened your ribcage and taken your heart into a fist to squeeze out every last bit of vitality you had to offer.

“Sister.” A voice, soft and gravel-rough, came from behind you.

No, not then. Not when you were at your weakest. You turned, and like an apparition from your sweetest dreams and worst nightmares, Dex was there.

He stood, holding the open door of the chapel. A slash of moonlight on him like a blue spotlight. The door fell closed behind him as he approached. You were too weak for this. With every step, the deepest, darkest parts of you called out to him. You were indecent, just a thin white nightdress and no veil.

Touch me, taste me, swear to me. Kneel. Beg for me.

You couldn’t tell him he shouldn’t be there, though you wanted to. The church was always open to any who seek refuge. So, you stayed silent in his approach, shifting to watch him. He kept his hands open and in front for you to watch as he kneeled at the bottom of the steps to the altar. He made no move to get any closer.

“What are you doing here, Dex?” You could not keep the broken and weary shake from your voice.

It took him a while to answer, you could see the conflict written over his face. Was he going to try to lie to you? Maybe it would make things easier if he did. If he lied, you could banish him away for it, hide and pretend you hadn’t violated nearly every rule you’d set for yourself.

No. You’d never do that to him. You’d made many mistakes in your time with him, but to abandon him would be unconscionable. If you did, the eternal suffering that awaited you after your death would be the least you deserved.

“I saw you,” he finally admitted. “When you were sleeping, you said my name.”

You’d had your suspicions, since receiving the journal, that Dex had been watching you. Keeping an eye out in the spaces you couldn’t see, couldn’t perceive. Sometimes you’d had this sensation under your skin, an awareness of a pair of eyes keeping track.

If you were being honest with yourself, it had flattered you. You had so little privacy already at St. Agnes, and if he was watching you, it meant he wouldn’t be spying on someone else who would be afraid. With the exception of your unclean thoughts, there was nothing you wished to hide from him. Those had stayed in the journal, and you trusted Dex to let you have that for yourself.

“I did,” you whispered. “I shouldn’t—”

“You were beautiful.” When had he gotten so close? Dex had advanced a step or two up the altar, close enough to touch. His hand, on the carpet, centimeters from your bare ankle. You could feel his heat like the shadow of a touch. Your skin pebbled with anticipation. “Sister, you’ve helped me so much; let me help you too.”

The chapel was still, silent. Not even a groaning from the wind. It was as if all of New York City, the whole world held its breath as Dex’s rough hand made contact with your ankle. You were so attuned to him, you could almost feel the whorls of his fingerprints. Every callus made contact with a reaching nerve, sending white-hot fire through you.

“I’ve been thinking,” Dex continued. “I know He sent you to me, to keep me good, to keep me straight.” His hand caressed up your calf. Soft. So, so soft. Your heart sped, your knees fell open in inches. “But I think He sent me to you, too.”

Dex pressed a kiss to the inside of your knee, and you couldn’t stop yourself from sighing. The habit-shaped leash frayed, holding on by a quickly diminishing thread. He pressed another kiss to your inner thigh, barely an inch from the first, but his other hand took your other calf and gently urged your legs wider. More room for his advance. His gaze was dark and heady on you. You shivered, nipples peaking under your nightdress.

“Dex—” you beseeched breathlessly. You could feel eyes on you, pressing like a weight. It wasn’t Dex’s wanton gaze. It was powerful, all-knowing. The ceiling of the chapel curved over you, an impossibly large space. God was watching. He could see you, desecrating this Holy altar with your depravity. Dex passed his tongue over your skin in an open-mouthed kiss, and your eyes rolled with a shaking inhale.

“I think He sent me to reward you. To give you what you deserve for all the time you spent serving Him, and for leading me to what I was meant to do.”

He was centimeters from your core. Dex’s breath fanned hot over where you were wettest. You throbbed for him, you clenched in anticipation of a thick intrusion. The leash creaks in your mind. God was watching, holding the Earth still until you overcame or yielded.

And suddenly, Dex pulled away, leaving you reeling. Why did he stop? Why were you suddenly so cold? Your thoughts jumbled and zoomed a mile a minute, refusing to organize into anything that makes sense. What you could identify, however, was a simmering indignation rising unpleasantly in your belly.

How dare he stop.

“Sister,” Dex said with shining, glassy eyes. His tongue swiped over his lower lip before croaking, “Please.”

The leash snapped. Let Him watch, the old pervert.

You leaned forward with speed that surprised even you, and your fingers found their place on the back of his head, pulling at his fine blond hair. His breath caught in his chest, going rigid, just as he did in the tub. Moonlight filtered through the stained-glass windows behind you, leaving a spotlight over his bared neck. You could see the flush creeping up his skin. You wanted to sink your teeth into him until he cried.

“I don’t remember telling you to stop,” you said lowly, dangerously. Dex’s Adam’s apple bobbed enticingly. “Finish what you started.”

His mouth fell open in a soft keen as he nodded eagerly. “Yes, Sister, yes,” he sighed breathlessly, beautifully. “I wanna taste you, I’ll make you feel so good, please, please…”

You released Dex to his work, and his mouth was back on your thigh. Moments ago, he was tentative, slow, giving you an opportunity to stop him, you realized. Now, with your permission, your demand, he feverishly sucked at your skin as if a man starved. Every pass of his tongue had an accompanying groan.

Clumsy hands reached for your panties, pulling them away, dropping them somewhere. You couldn’t be bothered to wonder where, because Dex was mouthing eagerly above your slit.

As his tongue finally parted your folds, grazed your clit, maybe you saw God, maybe you didn’t. Regardless, you felt something that could only be described as true sanctity. As he drank from you, you were holy, providing sustenance to a supplicant in need. Your body responded in kind, coating his tongue as a reward for his service.

Dex’s tongue circled, gentle upon your sensitive and needy bundle of nerves. Despite his bruising grip on the backs of your thighs, he was careful with you, reverent. Distantly, you could see his hips working at the steps of the altar, a desperate bid to rid himself of the building pressure in his cock. You shuddered at the thought, crying out, and he stuttered under you as if in response.

Your body tensed again and again, as a rising tide rose under your skin. Dex’s lips closed over your clit and sucked. You called out his name, echoing in the empty chapel. The build to that space you were in your body when you were dreaming was rapid. After so long without being touched, you were sensitive, as if your body was eager, greedy for release.

Close, so close. Your fingers found purchase in Dex’s hair, and you kept him still as you ground into his mouth.

“Yes, yes…” you found yourself saying, breathlessly, mindlessly, driven by a primeval instinct to reach that peak. “Good boy, almost there. I’m almost there, baby. Just a little more.”

The sound Dex made in response was broken and needy.

“Please, Sister,” he begged fervently, desperate. “Show me, please. I wanna see, wanna make you feel good. Fuck, I need it. Oh my God, please.” He was half-muffled, half unintelligible, pressed between your legs as he was.

You were right. Dex was beautiful when he begged. The whine in his voice, the pure, unadulterated commitment to your desire. Oh, fuck. Oh, God. He sucked again, your spine arched.

“Right there, baby. Don’t stop—don’t stop—”

Your toes dipped over the edge of a towering cliff, growing higher, higher. Your nails dug into Dex’s scalp as every individual muscle in your body bears down to focus on the singular point of rising sensation between your legs.

Your lungs froze, breath stopped in your throat. It was right there. There, there, please, theretheretheretherethere—

“Oh.”

Sanctity. Rapture. You convulsed with it. It spread its warmth from the soles of your feet to the top of your head. Your body belonged to you, but in that moment, you belonged to your shaking, sobbing, clenching body. You were a temple, hallowed and sacrosanct, meant for exactly. This.

A—fucking—men.

As all things must, the sensation fades. It should have left you languid, satisfied. Flexible bones melting into the floor.

However.

As Dex caught your gaze, lifting himself from your core, his chin glistened. He watched you with half-lidded, hazy eyes, panting like he’d run a mile. His lips quirked up in a hesitant, hopeful smile. Had he done well? Was he still a good boy? You could read it all over him.

He’d never been so beautiful. And you had never been so ravenous.

“Dex, come here,” you beckoned him with a curl of your finger.

Dex silently moved forward on hands and knees, climbing over you. With each inch approached, you let the tips of your fingers graze his fever-hot skin. His cheek, down the lines of his jugular, you could even feel it straight through his shirt. He must’ve been red all over.

“Did—“ he started.

“Shh…” you hush him with lips close enough to touch his. You let him lean forward, try to capture you in a kiss before pulling back at the last moment. Instead, before he’s able to feel too bereft at the loss, you allow yourself an indulgence.

Tongue out, you tasted yourself on his lips, his chin. The heady taste of his skin mixed with your own climax coaxed a sigh of pleasure from you as Dex’s breath froze- only to stutter right back to life as your hand reached its destination.

“You poor thing,” you cooed, pressing the heel of your hand into the twitching bulge in his pants. Hard as steel and throbbing. How long had he neglected himself? The thought made your mouth water.

“Oh fuck—” Dex’s voice caught as he pressed hard into the pressure of your touch. His arms shook, suddenly a struggle to keep himself upright.

“This probably hurts, doesn’t it, baby?” You stroked along his full length through layers of fabric, but Dex didn’t seem to care. He just nodded mindlessly, with hips stuttering in rhythm to your hand.

The urgency in which Dex moved against you, he would come just like that, wouldn’t he? He hadn’t asked, hadn’t indicated a want for more. Just you, the suggestion of your touch. He let out a high little whimper. Close, already.

“Sister,” he sighed, though his body did not stop. He pressed harder against you. “If you keep doing that…”

You removed your hand, reveling in the aborted grunt from the back of his throat as Dex clenched his teeth. His whole body seemed to lock up, reeling from the loss of you. You smiled, pressing a kiss under his ear just to feel him shiver.

“How long have you been like this?” You asked innocuously. He did not answer immediately, just panting against the bared skin of your neck. “Dex, answer me.”

“Since—” he swallowed. “Since earlier. In the bath.”

“That’s a very long time.” You let your lips graze along the shape of his scar. “Did you want to touch yourself?”

“Yes.” Dex was shaking again as you took the lobe of his ear between your teeth. Sensitive all over, he was.

So he hadn’t touched himself. Though he wanted to, oh, did he want to. That much was apparent from what you could feel under his jeans. What a sweet boy, keeping his hands off himself. Just how far would he go, if you asked?

“But you didn’t. Why?”

“You didn’t…” he trailed off, eyebrows twitching together in thought. “I didn’t think you wanted me thinking of you like that.”

Oh, he wanted your permission. The thought had you melting, dripping all over again. Something inside clenched deliciously. You graze your lips against the shell of his ear, petal-soft.

“If I told you to go home right now, to keep your hands off yourself forever, would you do it?” You knew the answer; you both did. You just wanted to hear him say it. The unfurling darkness you’d kept inside for years salivated for it.

“Yes, Sister” he whimpered, despite the twitch in his hips. Your skin prickled. “I’d never touch myself again. I wouldn’t. Not ‘til you told me to. I promise.”

Hearing him say it aloud, the words coursed through your veins like dominance. It tasted like power, like godliness. He’d worship at your feet, give you your pleasure, taking nothing for himself. And he’d thank you for it. You were so fucking wet.

“That’s the right fucking answer,” you said and surged forward.

Your lips crashed into Dex’s in a vicious kiss. Teeth, tongue, and hunger. You swallowed every sigh, every sound he gave you like they were little wordless prayers. He would take what you gave him and be happy for it, but that didn’t stop him from hoping for your benevolence. A loving touch, not because he needed a reward, but simply because it was your choice to bestow upon him. You sucked on his tongue, tasting your combined essence, and Dex keened.

You pulled back, but not before biting his lip hard enough to taste blood welling to the surface. Dex was ruined, hair mussed and clothes rumpled, a stripe of red across his mouth, but his heavy-lidded smile told you he was exactly where he wanted to be. He touched his tongue to the blood and folded his lip over his teeth to suck it away with the same pleasure he took from tasting you. You wanted to bite him all over, just to see if he’d lap that up, too.

“Take off your clothes,” you ordered with a smile. “Slow, I want to appreciate you.” To appreciate all the places you could bruise him, mark him as yours.

Dex swallowed, nodding. He backed away, standing at the bottom of the altar stairs. First, his jacket. As he pulled it from his shoulders, he revealed strong, flexible arms. Veins bulging under skin. You shifted your hips, just a little.

Next, his shirt. Peaked nipples and hard muscle. With every shifting of his shoulders, you could see the lines underneath, a veiled look at the inner machinations which propelled his body. You’d tasted his skin, felt it under searching hands. Now, there was so much of it, and nothing preventing you from taking. Already, you were aching again. Dex unbuttoned his jeans.

“Slower.” You wanted to feel the anticipation, rile yourself. Enjoy the creeping pleasure sinking back into your nerves. You graze the inside of one thigh, still wet from his saliva and your nectar.

Dex smiles, eyes locked on the hem of your nightdress, hiked high and hiding nothing. The evidence of his work on you glistened in the moonlight. With each pair of teeth separated in the zipper of his jeans, you inched closer to the place your body craves, already so greedy again after just being touched.

Dex eased his pants down his hips, revealing light gray briefs. They do little to hide the swollen length of him. He wasn’t kidding when he said he’d been hard since you left his apartment. The stain of his precum was still wet, shining in the limited light, clinging to the shape of his cock.

Letting your fingers finally graze the slickest parts of you, you sighed at the sight of him. An Adonis, truly, and leaking for you for hours. You stroked a little circle and Dex watched with rapt attention, lips parted and panting. One callused, overworked hand twitches. Oh, he wants to touch himself, wants to relieve that building pressure so bad. He’d been holding it in for so long.

But you hadn’t given him permission.

You were starting to pant a little yourself by the time he pulled down the soaking briefs to bare himself fully to you. His cock bounced against his stomach, leaving a mouthwatering smear of liquid. He was engorged, aching, and flushed with deep color. God, he was beautiful. And he was all yours. Your pussy clenches in anticipation. It had been a very, very long time since you’d last felt that stretch, the sensation of being filled right to the brim.

“You’ve been very good, Dex. I think you deserve a reward, don’t you?”

Dex swallowed, his cock twitched, he nodded.

“Please, Sister.”

With only a small hesitation, you pulled your fingers away from yourself. Your clit pulsed, deliciously unhappy. But your cunt was ready. You nodded your head toward a nearby pew.

“Sit. Hands at your sides.”

He obeyed easily, and you let yourself enjoy the sight of his body in motion. Years of diligent work to hone himself into a vehicle for bloodshed, now ready to be used to bring your body alive. How’s that for a balancing of the scales?

Once Dex settled into the pew, you approached him, pulling away your nightdress. His jaw slackened, his breathing stuttered. What did you look like to him in that moment? An angel? A messenger from God, come to grant absolution at last?

If that were true, no one told you.

You could hear the creak of the wooden pew under him. He was gripping the edge hard enough to turn his knuckles white. You were close enough to touch now, and he kept himself in check. He wanted to be a good boy. He wanted to truly earn the reward you would give him.

With the fingers you used to touch yourself, you touched the head of his cock, still leaking, still soaked. Dex hissed, involuntarily thrusting into the touch. How cute. You spread your index and middle fingers, watching liquid thread cling with tenuous connection.

Dex eyed your fingers, licked his lips.

Greedy boy. But you could humor him.

You placed one knee on either side of his lap, towering over him, letting him crane to look up at you. It was a heady feeling.

“Open.”

He did so, tongue peaking just past his lips.

“Good boy.”

You slid your fingers over his tongue, coating him in your combined taste. Dex let out a hungry groan, closing his mouth over them, sucking hard. The sounds he made were obscene, wet, desperate. Another taste of ambrosia for him, a reward in and of itself.

As you pulled your fingers away, he chased you with swollen lips and dilated pupils. You stop him with a gentle touch on the shoulder.

“Thank you,” he slurred. “Thank you, Sister.”

And you hadn’t even had to ask him. How sweet. Your entrance twitches, impatient. He was right there for the taking.

“Shh, baby,” you whispered, one hand at the side of his neck, thumbing at his gulping Adam’s Apple. “I have one last gift for you tonight. Do you want it?”

“Yes, please.”

“That’s what I thought.” you kept your voice low, pressing your forehead against his. “I’m going to fuck you now. You will not come until I say.”

“I wont—I won’t come. Please, Sister, let me feel you. Let me—”

You didn’t let him finish. Instead, you took him into your hand and settled your weight down. He parted you, stretched you, filled you, and you both shared a shaking sigh. Dex’s head fell back.

“Thank you God, thank you, thank you, thank you—”

Your hand tightened on his neck, stopping his exclaim short. You could feel him twitch inside you.

“God isn’t the one fucking you right now, Dex.”

With that, you started moving in earnest. A slow, excruciating rhythm that has you rolling your eyes. It only takes a slight shifting of your hips before he’s rubbing against that perfect spot inside, one that leaves you panting and shuddering.

Dex, however, is gone. With every downward press of your body, he’s calling out, slurred and unintelligible. Sometimes ‘thank you’ sometimes ‘please’, sometimes something altogether incomprehensible. He was flushed all the way down his chest, a sight that made your mouth water. His hands had not moved from the edges of the pew. They shook with pale knuckles and red fists.

“Touch me, sweet boy. Fuck me.”

The instant your order was given, Dex was in motion. One hand with a bruising grip on your thigh for purchase, and another arm around your back, pulling you close as he delivered a powerful thrust upward. He panted, open-mouthed and trembling against your neck.

“Fuck, thank you Sister. Thank you. Oh fuck, oh fuck…”

Finally unleashed, Dex’s pace is punishing, but the pain, the battering of your most sensitive parts, was exactly what you need after so much neglect. You meet him, thrust for thrust, feeling a rapid building of newly familiar sensation.

“Just like that. Perfect,” you cry breathlessly.

Dex cried out with every thrust, sweat beading over his body. He was already losing his rhythm, close, chasing.

“Are you close, baby?”

“I’m so close. I want—please let me. Please, I’m so close.” Dex’s voice cracked, wet.

Gripping his hair, you pulled his head back and clenched hard at the sight. Tears, freely running down his cheeks. Lashes wet. A beautiful crier. Begging and pathetic. You grind down hard as a full-body throb wracks through you.

“Not yet, baby.”

“I can’t. I can’t—”

“You can.”

You rolled your hips, now in pursuit of your own building climax. Dex crying, panting, moaning body moves on it’s own, as if he has no other function than to rut into you. And as far as he was concerned, it doesn’t. He was a machine whose only purpose was to submit to your pleasure.

Clutching his chin, you maneuver his head to the side, tasting the tears running down his face. The salty flavor burst over your tongue and you shiver. Another thrust. Another. Fuck, you might come.

Dex’s eyes were rolling. He was beyond words. just clutching your body and moving. His cries were high and broken and desperate.

“Almost, baby, almost. You’ve been so good. Such a good boy.”

You grind down again, once, twice. Oh fuck. Your clit rubbed against him. Almost there. Fingertips brushing the precipice. You wove your fingers in his at your thigh. He held it like a lifeline. Your body clenches.

Yes. Yes. Oh—

“Come for me, baby.”

The sound Dex made didn’t sound human. It sounded animal as his entire body shook, consumed with throbbing sensation taking complete control over his faculties. You felt him burst inside you, warm and filling just as you clamped down. You were only able to shake with him as your bodies worked in tandem for their basest functions.

As you came down from that final, fully satisfying high, Dex had his face buried in your neck, shoulders shaking as he struggled to control his breathing.

“Thank—you—thank—you…” he was muttering between sobs.

Hearing him, feeling Dex clutch to you so hard, you were filled with such affection that it nearly scared you. You wrapped your arms around him, running your nails along his back, scratching at his scalp as he slowly calmed down.

He wanted to be a good man. He was trying. He just needed someone to guide him in the right direction. He needed a North Star, an Angel to be his conscience. Maybe you weren’t the best person in the world, you’d broken nearly every promise you’d made, but you knew what he needed. You knew you could be what he needed.

You pressed a kiss to his temple, and Dex let out such a soft sigh that it nearly broke your heart.

It might be the way she rolled her shoulders back, or how her stoic eyes locked onto the zoid while she worked. Sometimes, it was the subtle way she rubbed the back of her neck. He collected those quiet signals like puzzle pieces, using them to piece together what she wouldn’t say out loud. That’s where his detail-oriented nature kicked in.

Tonight was one of those rare occasions when she worked later than he did. Knowing how drained she’d be, he figured the least he could do was take care of dinner. He’d gotten home earlier than usual, picked up Italian from her favorite spot, and had already set the table—plates laid out, utensils neatly placed. A small surprise, but one he hoped would make her night just a little easier.

She finally emerged from her home office, and from the slow, dragging sound of her steps through the living room, he could tell—she was worn out. But at least now, he could finally spend some time with her.

She sighed and dropped onto the couch, letting her body sink back against the cushions. Her eyes fluttered shut for a moment, grateful for even a second of rest. The tension in her neck was starting to rise, creeping up like a slow wave. She could’ve fallen asleep right there—if not for the warm, mouthwatering smell of basil, garlic, and Parmesan drifting through the room. 

She could’ve fallen asleep right there—if not for the cushion shift beneath Dex’s weight, his familiar warmth settling in beside her.

“Long day?” he murmured, his voice low and comforting as he wrapped his arms around her, drawing her gently into his chest. The scent of his cologne—something clean and woodsy—lingered faintly on his shirt.

She gave a quiet, absentminded nod, her cheek brushing against the soft fabric of his white button-up.

“Good thing I picked up dinner,” he said with a smile, his lips pressed against the top of her head.

The rich aroma of basil and garlic still hung in the air, warm and inviting, and her stomach gave a soft, involuntary growl in response.

“Ohh, how did I get lucky with such a good boyfriend?” She mumbled into his chest.

“I think the lucky one is me.” He said. 

A grin spread across his face, his dimples deepening as he basked in the warmth of her praise. A proud smile spread across his lips, beaming at the praise. He yearned to constantly please her, to stay in her good graces. When Dex got it right—when he read her correctly, or made her smile after a long day—it lit something in him.

She shifted onto his lap to face him, her movements slow, unhurried. The smile on his face—soft and full of admiration—melted the exhaustion from her body. His stormy hazel eyes held something unspoken, almost spell-like, especially in the way he looked at her—like she was the only thing that existed in this world. 

Her hand rose to cup his face, thumb tracing the curve of his cheek. His eyes softened as he leaned into her touch, savoring the moment. She leaned in and kissed him, a gentle press of lips that made his heart soar. He melted into her.

Then she rose up onto her knees, shifting higher above him. Her fingers threaded into his blonde hair, nails grazing his scalp in delicate, teasing strokes. The buzzing and tension in his head was soothed away by her tender touch. He closed his eyes, basking in the light scratch of her nails against his scalp, the way her touch moved through his blond strands—soothing, tender. 

“I missed you.” He mumbled, hiding his bashfulness against her neck. 

It was a slow burn under his skin, growing hotter with every heartbeat. His hands swept along her back, fingers rough and calloused, savoring the contrast of her softness against the hardness of his palms. Her scent clung to him, dizzying and addictive, flooding his senses and stoking the fire roaring inside him.

He needed her. Needed her like air, like salvation—needed to be lost in her.

“I missed you too.”

She saw it—felt it—in the way his hands gripped her, tracing every curve like he was trying to memorize her body, as if this might be the last time. Her nails grazed the base of his neck, drawing a shiver from him, feeling the tension coiled beneath her. Her hand slid into his hair, curling tight—a firm, commanding grip. Then she tugged, sharp and deliberate, pulling his head back to meet her gaze—commanding, electric. His breath hitched, eyes darkening as he looked up at her—jaw slack, lips parted, trembling on the edge of a plea, completely under her spell.

“Say you need me.” He pleaded. 

There’s a switch in her eyes. It hit him like a jolt, sending his heart racing with anticipation. Power radiated from her gaze—sharp, unflinching, utterly in control. And the sight of him—so captivated, so desperate—made her ache with a deeper hunger. His fingers dug into the flesh of her ass, pulling her closer as his tongue slipped between her lips, tasting her, claiming her. He was unraveling fast, barely holding on to any self-control. The way she rolled her hips against him—deliberate, maddening—ripped a groan from his throat, muffled by the ferocity of their kiss.

He bucked up beneath her, instinct and need colliding, and deepened the kiss until she pulled away breathless, trembling with the need for more.

“I need to feel you.” She breathlessly whispered.

She pushed herself up from his shoulders, eyes locked on his as she tugged her shirt over her head in one swift motion. His eyes took in the beauty of her bare skin. Her skin flushed, lips parted, she leaned back in, trailing rough, hungry kisses down the line of his neck.

His hands were already moving, quick and eager, working open the buttons of his shirt with practiced urgency. The fabric hit the floor, forgotten, as he gripped her shorts and dragged them down, desperate to feel more of her.

His mouth followed the curve of her body, kissing everywhere his lips could reach—devouring her with reverence and need. Her hands worked fast in unzipping and pushing his pants down. He helped her slip out of the last scraps of clothing, shedding every barrier between them until she was bare before him, every inch of her offered, glowing in the heat of his gaze.

She climbed right back onto his lap, thighs spread, and right back into his arms. He looked like a mess already, face flushed and leaking already. She lifted her hips, her hand wrapped around his cock and slid his thick leaking tip along her wet folds. He groaned, lost in the feeling of how wet she was, but displeased by the way she teased and toyed with him. 

“Don’t do this to me…” He pleaded. 

“You’ve been such a good boy, haven’t you?” She slid along his length, coating him in her warm arousal.

He nodded vigorously, “Please…” 

She sighed, savoring this side of Dex—tense, nearly trembling with need. His fingers dug into the cushion, knuckles white as he held himself back from grabbing her hips and slamming her down onto his cock. He looked wrecked—and so damn pretty with those pleading, desperate eyes.

“Such good manners,” she purred, guiding his tip to her entrance. He couldn’t stop staring, gaze locked on hers, wide and glassy with anticipation.

He swallowed hard, muscles taut, veins straining along his hands. Then—finally—she sank down onto him, slow and steady. Her jaw fell open from the stretch of him, coaxing a strangled moan from her lips. They moaned in tandem as her velvety walls engulfed him, his head falling back, jaw slack, lost in the overwhelming relief of being inside her. 

“F-fuck!” He groaned, his hands ran up along the curves of her body, cupping the swell of her breasts. 

His thumbs worked her nipples with slow, deliberate precision—pinching, rolling—until they were stiff peaks under his touch. The sensation sent heat rushing through her, dizzying and consuming, leaving her mind hazy with want. She lifted her hips, then slammed back down, a guttural moan ripping from her throat as he filled her completely.

“Oh god, Dex!”

Her nails sank into his shoulders, clinging to him as waves of pleasure rolled through her. She moved with wild rhythm, slick hips grinding, chasing the high they both teetered on. Each thrust echoed in the room—lewd, wet, and relentless—their bodies colliding in perfect, frantic sync.

"Slow down or I'm gonna cum.” With a rough grunt, he pulled her in tight, foreheads pressing together as if he couldn’t bear to let her go.

“I want you to cum inside me.” She breathlessly whispered.

The sound he makes—a deep, guttural rumble—reverberates through her chest, sparking a rush of pride that leaves her glowing. But what truly quickened her pulse is the way he kissed her: eager, ravenous, his lips crashing against hers with such fervor, she knew they'd be left red and swollen.

Her hips moved faster, chasing the mounting pressure coiling deep in her core. Each roll was frantic, desperate, as the tension inside her wound tighter with every slick drag of him inside her. Their bodies were soaked with sweat, skin sliding against skin.

His hands trailed down her spine, fingers splayed wide before gripping her ass with bruising force. She gasped—half from the sting, half from how it grounded her to him. He slammed her down hard, again and again. Despite being the one in control of her rhythm, he managed to hit every sensitive spot with ruthless precision. The sound of their bodies colliding was obscene—wet, raw, echoing with every bounce.

“You’re doing so good for me,” he groaned against her throat, voice raspy and reverent. “Taking me so fucking well.”

His mouth found her neck, teeth grazing, tongue teasing, lips sucking greedy marks into her skin, claiming her. Her arms wrapped around him like a lifeline, nails digging in as her thighs began to tremble. Her eyes rolled back, filled with tears, overwhelmed by the sheer force of sensation.

“Don’t stop!” she choked out, voice cracking, hoarse and desperate.

His hair clung to his forehead, soaked with sweat, his breath ragged as he slammed up into her at a punishing pace. Every thrust was relentless, purposeful—driving her closer, feeling the way her walls fluttered, clinging to him tighter with each movement. She was close—he could feel it in the way she trembled, in the desperate pull of her body around him.

“Come on—make a mess of me.” he growled, voice hoarse with need.

That was all it took. 

Her body clamped around him like a vise, a scream tearing from her throat as she came—hard and fast, her orgasm ripping through her like fire. Her body went rigid, then shuddered violently as wave after wave crashed through her. He didn’t stop thrusting, helping her ride through it, forcing himself deeper into the tight pulsing clutch of her walls.

He snarled as he came, hips bucking wildly beneath her, emptying himself in hot, thick bursts. His thrusts turned sloppy, erratic, and she milked every last drop from him. He didn’t stop grinding their hips together, not even as their release spilled between them, warm and messy, trailing down her thighs.

He chuckled, his fingertips gently tracing along her arms. “I think our dinner’s cold by now.”

She gave a tired nod against his chest. “Nothing Chef Mic can’t handle.”

He laughed, shaking his head at the ridiculous nickname she’d given their microwave.

“Alright, let’s get you cleaned up then.” He began to shift, but her soft whine stopped him. She snuggled deeper into his chest, refusing to move.

“I can’t,” she groaned. “You fucked every ounce of strength out of me.”

He grinned, quite pleased with himself, and kissed the top of her messy hair. “Fine. Five more minutes. But then you have to eat. I bet you haven’t had a real meal all day.”

You loved your brother dearly, you did. He did not crumble when your mother passed and was supportive of you. But it seemed that once you turned into a woman, he assumed you became a dainty lady in need of saving.

Specifically from handsome princes.

“Androw! Get off of him!”

Androw had thrown Valarr off of you and onto the forest floor. Valarr, as caught off guard as you were, did not have time to prepare for Androw jumping on top of him. Androw managed to land a blow on Valarr, but that seemed to wake Valarr up and spring him into action. Valarr grabbed Androw’s wrist before he could strike him again and kicked him in the side. He managed to flip them over, knocking Androw onto his back. Valarr got to his feet and you grabbed his arm, steadying him.

“Are you alright?” you asked him urgently, searching for any sign of injury.

“I’m fine,” Valarr assured you as Androw got back to his feet.

“Get your hands off my sister!”

“Androw,” you hissed, stepping towards your brother, “keep your voice down!”

“Get behind me,” Androw ordered, grabbing your wrist and pulling you towards him.

“Androw!”

Valarr stepped forward with a frown, but paused when Androw reached for his blade. Your brother was not stupid enough to remove the blade, but he left his hand nearby if needed.

“Do you think that you can just march into our home and defile my sister and no consequence will come to you?” Androw demanded of Valarr.

“Androw, stop it.” You stepped in front of your brother. “I was a willing participant.”

“That is a separate issue,” he snapped at you before turning back to Valarr. “Do you Targaryens have no shame after the mess you caused this morning?”

“That was not him and bite your tongue,” you reprimanded your brother.

“Do you always have the women you defile speak for you?” your brother taunted Valarr, who simply narrowed his eyes in return. “To defend you?”

“If you wish for satisfaction, I am not opposed to your challenge.”

“Valarr,” you called warningly, causing him to turn to you.

After a moment, Valarr relaxed his stance as he turned back to your brother. “But I believe it would be the best course of action to simply discuss my intentions with your father.”

“Your intentions?” Androw scoffed.

“I wish to court and marry your sister.” Valarr shared a look with you. “If she will have me, of course.”

You smiled and was about to speak when Androw cut in, “You forced her hand.”

“He did not force me into anything,” you snapped, punching your brother in his side. “And besides, it is not your responsibility to decide that. It is Father’s.”

“Then let’s go speak with him.”

Androw kept you separated from Valarr on the march back to Ashford Castle. A march of shame, if you would. It did not stop you from casting glances at Valarr, who seemed to return the same sentiments.

Your father was speaking with his counselors when the three of you walked in. “What is it?” he asked, glancing between the three of you.

“We need to speak about a delicate matter, Father.” Androw glanced at the gathered counselors, who were then dismissed by your father. As they walked out, Androw asked, “Where is Prince Baelor?”

“In the study. Why?”

“It is probably best that someone fetch him.”

A servant was sent out and Prince Baelor entered the room a few very long and awkward minutes later. The doors shut as he took his place beside your father, though standing at the center of the room.

“What is the matter?” he asked Valarr directly.

Valarr opened his mouth to answer, but Androw interjected himself, “I found the prince defiling my sister in the woods.”

“Seven hells, Androw,” you snapped, though your cheeks warmed as your father and Prince Baelor looked between you and Valarr.

“Explain yourself. Now,” Baelor directed at Valarr once more.

“We shared an embrace,” Valarr admitted, trying very carefully to pick the least horrible combination of words. “And while it may have been improper, it was not committed with ill intent.” Valarr turned from his father to your own. “Lord Ashford, I do apologize for any slight that this event may levy against your house. But please let me assure you that I have every intention of courting and marrying your daughter.”

Lord Ashford appeared to choke on air at Valarr’s words. He turned to Prince Baelor, who was too busy staring down his son to offer any counsel.

“You intend to marry my daughter?” he managed to choke out.

“Yes, I do.”

The confidence in Valarr’s tone caused heat to rise up your neck. You turned to look at him and found his mismatched gaze already staring at you. The two of you shared a smile before he turned back to your father, serious once more.

“I understand that it has been quite quick, which is why I suggest a few moons of courting first.”

Your father nodded as everyone turned to him to gauge his response. But he appeared to be sweating profusely as he struggled to find his words. Concerned, you stepped forward cautiously.

"Father?"

"I, uh . . . I believe I must sit down a moment."

You walked to your father's side as he sat down rather roughly into a seat at the table. Valarr ignored "look what you did" expressions from both Androw and his father, watching you with concern as you gently rested your hand on your father's shoulder.

"Is, uh, is there some wine?" he asked you, causing you to nod hurriedly.

You walked over to the cabinet and pulled out a bottle and glass. You poured a glass for your father, hoping that the news of your sudden engagement would not send your father to an early grave. As he raised the glass to take a sip with his shaking hand, the door burst open with a loud thud, causing your father to spill his wine.

Prince Maekar strode into the room, dragging along a bedraggled blond man with him. One who looked like he had spent the night in a ditch. He took one glance around the room as he shoved the man towards a chair.

"What the fuck is going on here?"

"It appears that my son is getting married," Baelor commented, sending Valarr a look. "Should Lord Ashford consent, that is."

"Oh." Maekar glanced over at Valarr before looking over at you. "Well, congratulations." You winced at the sarcasm and turned back to your father. "But if you have time for an actual concern, Egg has apparently been kidnapped by some hedge knight."

"A hedge knight?" Baelor repeated, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion at the news.

"Yes. I'm going to search for him, but I needed to drop this son off somewhere where someone can watch him." Maekar gestured over to Daeron, who had managed to pick his head up. "Where is Aerion?"

"He was told to remain in his chambers after today's events."

"What events?"

Baelor let out a long sigh, folding his hands behind his back. "He ran a knight's horse through with his lance in the lists."

"Fuck me!" Maekar snapped, turning on his heel and heading out of the room.

Baelor sighed at his brother's response before turning to your father. "I apologize, Lord Ashford, for my brother's antics. Perhaps we should continue this conversation when everything has settled?"

Your father could only nod in response. Baelor turned to follow Maekar out of the room but paused beside Valarr.

"Please make sure that your cousin gets a bath and remains within the confines of the castle." Valarr nodded without complaint. "And I believe that Lady Ashford will need to spend her evening with her family in light of the news. It is probably best not to disturb them until we have figured out the proper arrangement."

"Yes, Father," Valarr returned, sounding like a scolded child.

Baelor nodded, giving Valarr's shoulder a squeeze before following after Maekar. You turned to Valarr, who looked apologetic for the disaster that the two of you now found yourselves in.

"I hope that we can continue this conversation later, Lord Ashford."

"Of course," your father agreed, nodding slowly. "Thank you, my prince."

Valarr nodded curtly and cast one last longing glance in your direction before he turned to his cousin. Throwing Daeron's arm over his shoulder, Valarr pulled Daeron to his feet. Based on his expression, it was not the first time he had done that.

"Spring flowers do not grow in Ashford," Daeron announced, causing you to raise an eyebrow.

"Yes, yes, let's get you upstairs."

Once Valarr had pulled Daeron out of the room and the doors shut behind them, you were left with your father and your brother. Androw still looked pissed as he stood with his arms crossed in front of him. Your father took a sip of the wine that remained in his glass before he leaned back in his seat.

"Androw, leave us for a moment please."

"But Father--"

"--Now."

Androw let out a huff but did not push further. He sent one last glare at you before making his way out of the room. You waited until the door shut behind him before turning back to your father, who was taking a long sip of his wine. Silence passed between you as you took a seat, fingers fiddling as you waited for your father to speak.

"I am not dreaming, correct?"

"No, Father."

"Prince Valarr intends to marry you?"

"Yes, Father."

"And Prince Baelor does not have any opposition to the match?"

"I do not believe so, Father." You forced your hands to still. "I believe that he will not, given the . . . spectacle."

Your father nodded before finally looking to you. He took your cheeks into his hands and planted a kiss on your forehead. You wrinkled your nose on instinct but froze when your father quickly wrapped his arms around you in a tight hug.

"Oh, my darling girl," he praised, pressing another kiss to the top of your head, "you are a gift."

"You are not angry?" you asked carefully, returning the hug.

"Not at all!" He pulled back and held you at arm's length. "My daughter, a daughter of House Ashford, is going to be queen of the Seven Kingdoms one day." He sniffled at the thought. "Your grandsire would weep if he were here. And your mother . . ."

"Papa," you called softly, seeing the tears start to build in his eyes, "we do not need to discuss it further tonight if it will upset you."

"I am not upset, my darling girl. I am so proud."

He pulled you in for a tight hug, like he did when you were a little girl who had skinned her knees out in the courtyard. You hugged him back, rubbing his back as his tears dripped down his cheeks.

*~*~*

You had imagined that your father and Prince Baelor would have been able to meet to discuss the details of your betrothal to Valarr during the afternoon or even the evening. Perhaps over dinner.

But then Prince Aerion had reportedly been assaulted by a hedge knight after Prince Aerion assaulted a performer of some kind. The details were fuzzy, but it was clear that the following morning would be marked with the first Trial of Seven in some time.

Your father had grown relaxed with your discipline, perhaps either overwhelmed at the idea of a Trial of Seven or still ecstatic about your upcoming nuptials. So, using the new leeway, you slipped out of your bedroom and down to the room that Valarr was staying in.

Knocking on the door, you glanced up and down the hall when the knob turned. Valarr opened the door and looked surprised to see you but did not hesitate to let you inside.

“Is it true?” you asked quietly, mindful of the volume of your voice. “Your cousin and a hedge knight are going to engage in a Trial of Seven tomorrow?”

“Yes.” Valarr sighed, running a hand through his hair. “They should have left Aerion in Summerhall.”

You rolled your bottom lip in between your teeth. “You’re not fighting, are you?”

“No, I will not. My uncle will surely be upset by it, but my father will not force me and therefore my uncle cannot force me.”

You nodded, some relief blooming in your chest. Valarr noticed your concern and stepped forward, taking your hands into his own. His thumbs brushed over your knuckles as he rested his forehead on your own.

“I’m sorry for all of this.”

“Well,” you began carefully, “at least I know that life with you will not be dull.”

Valarr let out a soft chuckle. “That I can guarantee.” His thumbs brushed your knuckles once more as he grew more serious. “Once this trial is behind us, I will speak with your father again.”

“He does not seem to have any qualms with the marriage. At least to me.”

“And your brother?”

“He will get over it.”

“I will believe it when he can pass by me without glaring.”

You spared a smile and snuck a chaste kiss. “I’m sure that you will be fine.”

“Perhaps.” Valarr brushed your hair from your face. “But your kisses certainly make it more believable.”

You smiled and leaned in once more when there was a knock on the door. “Valarr,” Baelor called through the door, causing your heart to leap into your throat.

“Fuck,” you whispered, sharing a concerned look with Valarr.

“The closet.”

Valarr led you over to the door and pulled open the closet. You stepped inside, kneeling down to hide behind the cloaks before Valarr carefully closed the door behind you. Trying not to rush to the door and appear frantic, Valarr carefully opened it to see his father standing in the hall.

“Father.”

“May I come in?”

“Of course.” Baelor stepped into the room and glanced around the space. “Is there something that troubles you?”

“A number of things.” Baelor turned around and held his hands behind his back. “Your uncle wishes for you to join Aerion’s side tomorrow.”

“He may wish, but that does not mean that I assent.”

“I assumed as such.” Baelor did not sound disappointed, but rather as if he was confirming a minute fact.

“I was not there to witness the scuffle, but I would bet all of the gold to my name that Aerion started it.”

“Be that as it may, he is still a prince of the realm.”

“One who is ninth in line for the throne,” Valarr replied, maintaining an even tone. “And yet he has caused more trouble for the Targaryen name than the eight men before him.”

“I do not disagree.”

Valarr studied his father’s expression, wordlessly assessing the intent of this visit. “What do you intend then? Surely, not to enter the trial.”

“Hopefully, it does not come to that.” Baelor stepped forward and rested a hand on Valarr’s shoulder. “But we, as the stewards of this kingdom, must not simply sit to the side and watch an injustice unfold.”

“But Father, you are the Hand of the King. The heir to the Iron Throne.” Valarr pursed his lips together to compose himself. “What if something happens to you during the trial?”

“There are maesters.”

“Maesters are not gods.”

“No, they are not.”

“You do not even have your armor.”

“I can simply borrow yours, can I not?” Baelor suggested, causing Valarr to sigh.

“Yes, of course, but this is still not advisable.”

“Well, I do not dispute that.” Baelor let out a breath and managed a smile. “But let us not dwell on the worst that occur now. We must get our rest.” Baelor turned for the door, but seemed to think twice as he faced Valarr once more. “Valarr?”

“Yes, Father?”

“Please ensure that Lady Ashford makes her way back to her own quarters at a reasonable hour.”

Valarr’s face burned and he could only nod as Baelor chuckled to himself. When he was gone, you stepped out of the closet and walked over to Valarr.

“How did he know?” you asked softly, causing Valarr to turn to you.

“He always does.”

*~*~*

You made your way out to the lists. Valarr, as the only royal not engaged in combat this morning, led the way with your father and took his place in the seat reserved for his own father just a day beforehand. Your father took his seat to Valarr’s right and Gwin took her seat beside your father. You found your seat on Valarr’s left side.

Although you knew it was risky, you took his hand into your own and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

The horn went off and you tried to keep track of everyone, especially Prince Baelor, but the chaos and mud proved that task to be difficult. You did not pull your hand away from Valarr and he did not pull his from yours as the trial dragged on.

But when the horn was finally blown and the trial concluded with victory for Ser Duncan’s side, Valarr was up from his seat and down the scaffolding towards the men in the ground. His cousin Egg was in front of him. With one glance at your father and sister, you hurried after them.

Walking through the familiar hall of your childhood home, your heart lurched in your chest when you heard Valarr yell out in pain. You sprinted around the corner to see Valarr holding his father’s head in his hands, which were quickly turning red with blood. Tears were slipping down Valarr’s cheeks

“Seven hells,” you gasped, holding a hand to your mouth. Pulling your handkerchief from your dress, you held it out to Valarr. “Put pressure on the wound. I will get help.”

You went running, yelling for guards, maesters, and servants. Striding alongside a royal maester, you returned to the area where Baelor laid with his head resting on Valarr’s hands. Your handkerchief was already soaked through as the maester kneeled beside him.

As the maester assessed Prince Baelor’s head wound, you kneeled down and began to remove the armor weighing Baelor down. Raymond Fossoway, noting what you were doing, got to his knees and began the same task.

“We need to get him inside and out of the mud,” the maester stated as you tossed aside another piece of Valarr’s armor.

“How is he?” Valarr asked the maester as guards arrived with a makeshift stretcher.

“The wound appears deep. I did not feel any break in the bone, but we must assess it more closely.”

After the armor was removed, the guards carefully loaded Baelor onto the stretcher. His eyes, which were eerily reflective of Valarr’s, were half-lidded and you knew that he was not fully conscious. But with a blow to the head like that, even the most noble men would be in such a condition.

The guards lifted the stretched and Valarr rested his hand on his father’s arm as he walked with them. He cast you one last glance before disappearing around the corner.

You stood there silently, allowing your mind to catch up with your body. You heard a few steps behind you and looked down to see Egg standing beside you.

“Will he be okay?” Egg asked quietly, looking up at you.

“Of course, he will,” you replied, if only to convince yourself.

*~*~*

The tents were mostly down and much of the parties had moved to return to their homelands when you ascended the stairs to your father’s chambers, which were now the infirmary for Prince Baelor. The guards on duty nodded to you and held the door open. You stepped inside and slowly made your way up the few remaining stairs to the bedroom.

Prince Baelor laid in the center of the bed with a thick bandage wrapped around his head. His neck was covered in cool wet clothes to help him fight the fever he reportedly had.

Valarr remained vigilant beside his father. His eyes were focused on his father, but based on the bags under his eyes and the way his head only remained up due to the strength of his arm, you were not sure how much he was concentrating. The sound of your footsteps seemed to wake him from whatever trance he had fallen into and he turned his head tiredly.

“How is he?” you asked, making your way over to him.

“Sleeping. The maesters do not believe that his skull is broken, but there was so much blood.”

You nodded and placed the tray you carried down on a table. “I brought you food. When was the last time that you ate?”

“I do not recall.”

You handed him a roll of bread as his stomach gurgled. Finding your own seat, you sat beside him as he slowly ate the roll, though, his eyes continued to flicker over to Baelor.

“Have you been able to sleep?”

“No,” he croaked, rubbing his eye. “I do not wish to leave his side. He would not leave mine if the roles were reversed.”

“Let us pray that never happens.”

You watched Valarr with concern. Turning to the tray of food, you started to cut up the meat. Handing Valarr a spoon full of meat and hash, he seemed to hesitate, but took the utensil from you.

“I can ask for them to bring a cot up here. That way you can sleep and still remain here.”

“You do not need to bother.”

“No, but I may need to insist.” You took the utensil from Valarr, filled it with food once more, and held it out to him. “Know that you hold all of my affection, but, you look horrible.” Valarr sighed, but took the food from you once more. “You need to sleep.”

“What if he needs something while I sleep?”

“I will remain,” you assured him, taking his hand. “As long as you need, I will remain.”

Despite his protests, when a cot was set up in the corner of the room for him, Valarr laid down and was asleep in the blink of an eye. You brushed his hair with your hand before retrieving a book and sitting at Baelor’s side while Valarr rested.

You flipped the page and glanced up to see a pair of mismatched eyes staring at you. Setting aside the book, you stood up and moved closer. You kept your voice low, not wanting to draw anymore pain to his head.

“Is there something you need, Prince Baelor?”

He cleared his throat and offered you a small smile. “I believe that you do not need to refer to me by any title in private now.”

“Of course.”

“Where is Valarr?”

“Sleeping.” You moved the chair out of the way so that Baelor could see his eldest son curled up on the cot. He let out a breath of relief.

“Good.”

“Do you wish for me to call for the maester?” you asked softly, clasping your hands together.

“No, not yet.” Baelor took a deep breath, seemingly trying to keep his head and neck straight. “Do you know where my brother is?”

“I believe he is either with Prince Daeron or Prince Aerion as they recover from their injuries.”

“Of course.” Baelor turned back to you. “I do hope that our troubles did not ruin your sister’s birthday.”

You managed a small smile. “I do not believe that she holds it against you.”

“Are you coming with us to King’s Landing?”

That question had your eyes widening. “I’m sorry?”

“For the announcement of your engagement to Valarr. Did he not discuss it with you?”

“No, I’m afraid that we had other pressing issues to address first.”

Baelor smiled. “Then I will allow him to ask you.”

“Of course.”

Baelor politely asked if you would go and get the maester and you did not hesitate to do so. The sound of the door shutting behind you caused Valarr to jerk awake. With half-lidded eyes, he whirled around, as if expecting a fight. He called your name, but it was Baelor responded.

“She graciously went to seek the maester.”

Valarr rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hands. “Father?” Valarr stood up and walked over to the side of his bed. “You are awake?”

“So it seems.”

“How do you feel?”

“Like I took a mace to the back of my head.”

Valarr sighed. “Well, that is to be expected.”

“I suppose.” Baelor paused a moment before asking, “Why did you not invite your betrothed to King’s Landing?”

Valarr’s eyes widened and his attempt to clear his throat lingered into a cough. “There was not a good time between her brother finding us and the trial.”

The door opened and Baelor wrapped up the conversation for now. “See to it that you do.”

“Your Grace,” the maester greeted, making his way over to Baelor.

You slipped around him and moved to stand beside Valarr as the maester began his examination. You silently brushed your hand against Valarr's and smiled when he took your hand in his own.

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@33shadowhunters

@menacing-pfeffernusse

As the elevators pinged, sounding the arrival of the 8th floor of the library tower, you lifted your shoulders slightly to adjust the straps of your bag as you and other fellow students pulled out onto the floor.  You looked around the floor, scanning it for any open seats, but the open common area had always been full of people in small student groups. You walk to the left, then make another left around the corner, deciding to just find a small, quiet study nook near the edges of the bookshelves, lined up behind the elevator area. It was quieter anyway and more private as the desks were designed like small booths where students could enjoy their small space. Walking past some of those booths, some being empty, some being occupied by students, you finally settled on one that was a bit further away from some booths with students in them, and you made yourself comfortable by setting down your bag next to the chair and draping your hoodie over the back of the chair.  Reaching over, next to the chair, you open the window just slightly to let some fresh air in before sitting down and turning on the light provided by the booth as you take out your laptop, ready to really lock in as the first wave of exams is approaching…

You sighed as you opened your laptop, slightly slouching down in your seat as you opened up your school’s portal website to access your classes to see your professors’ announcements on the exams. Typing in your school credentials and waiting for the page to load, you take a deep breath in the smell of autumn rain.  Looking to your right, out the window, it can be seen that the sky was very gloomy, pretty typical for this small college down in Arden… It's either raining or preparing for rain at any time of day and any season other than winter, when it paints the whole town white with snow. The soft sounds of rain only added to the soft music that plays through your headphones as you turn back to your laptop, seeing that the site is finally loaded. Looking down to check the time.

2:24 PM You had planned to stay until 8 PM, forcing yourself to lock yourself into studying for the rest of the day, as you had only one lecture in the morning and then a discussion block right after lunch. So you cleared the rest of the day for yourself to lock in at the library because god knows that if you had gone back to your dorm, you would not have touched upon a single note from the lecture and would be doomscrolling on your phone instead.  Opening up the announcements, you jotted down some notes about exam contents onto a notes tab on your laptop, making a detailed list for yourself to refer to as you study through the next couple of hours. As you typed, you suddenly heard a growl from the outside. You turned your head over to the window, looking out, when suddenly a small flash of light could be seen from a distance, and suddenly the wind blowing in from the small crack you opened up became a little too cold for your liking. Shivering a bit, you quickly shut the window as you assume a bigger storm is coming the town’s way.  Multiple dark, ominous clouds have started to gather around as the sky darkens further. The weather itself made you not want to even step outside, so at least that helped with forcing yourself to stay in the library and be productive. Reaching back, you grabbed your hoodie and threw it around yourself as you zipped it up, relieving yourself from the cold. Opening up a couple more tabs, you started to really get started on the studying, and you began with the easier courses to help ease yourself into a flow. Taking your notebook out and pulling up the lecture slides, you began to jot down some important information that you needed to memorize. You clicked on the back of the mechanical pencil that you held to push some more lead out for you to write. It was writing so smoothly until you accidentally applied too much pressure at a certain angle, and it… Snap Growls and the smell of musk began to reek out from the laboratory that was underground in the science building…

The underground level had always carried a certain stillness to it. The kind that pressed against the ears when the ventilation hummed too quietly, and fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. The stillness loomed over the laboratory with an uncomfortable coldness. A stainless steel tray clattered against the tile floor somewhere deep within the corridor, the sound echoing far louder than it should have in the empty hallway. Inside a lab room, a cracked glass vial slowly leaked its contents across a metal counter, droplets sliding down to the floor where they pooled beside discarded latex gloves. The research assistants who had once occupied the room were no longer standing where they had been moments before. One body lay collapsed beside a workstation, fingers twitching faintly against the linoleum. Another leaned unnaturally against the far wall, lab coat streaked with darkening blood that soaked slowly into the fabric. A wet, ragged breath filled the silence. Then another. The figure on the floor began to move. But it didn’t look right at all… It wasn’t the slow stirring of someone regaining consciousness, but something far more unnatural. Muscles jerked violently beneath the pale skin as fingers scraped against the tile. Nails clawed uselessly against the ground before the body twisted, spine bending at an angle that made the joints crack audibly in the empty room.

A low, guttural sound rolled from its throat. A growl The smell followed shortly after… A smell that was thick, metallic, and rotten. Footsteps echoed down the hallway outside. A supervising professor, Professor Hargrove, had entered the building, holding some marked-up data and lab reports from his PhD students, which he needed to give back. He figured he should stop by the lab as they worked to help guide and supervise as needed. He adjusted the glasses perched on the bridge of his nose as he approached the lab door, but something made him pause as he was about to reach for the lab door. It was too quiet.

There should be at least some clinking of tools being used and the occasional muddering between people. There was nothing this afternoon… No voices.

No equipment. Just the faint flicker of a fluorescent bulb above him. His eyebrows frowned slightly, trying to think of why it could have been this quiet… Did he get these days wrong? Was it supposed to be tomorrow that the students gathered in the lab? He checked his phone to confirm the time and date, but it all matched up. Placing his phone back into his pocket, he reaches for the door handle to the lab and slowly pushes it open. “Hello?” he called out, his voice echoing into the room and down the corridor, too. No response. The smell hit him next. He recoiled slightly, wrinkling his nose as the scent drifted through the doorway. Something foul… Thick and damp in the air. “Did someone spill something down here?” he muttered under his breath. He pushed the door open further. The overhead lights inside flickered weakly. At first, he didn’t understand what he was seeing. One of the graduate students lay motionless beside the workstation, lab coat crumpled beneath them. Another figure stood across the room, hunched forward with its back facing the door. “Hey—?” Hargrove started, stepping inside. “Are you alright? What happened in—”

The figure moved. Slowly Its head twisted first. Not turning normally. Rotating far further than it should have Crack The sound of bones cracking from the neck echoes in Hargrove‘s ears. The professor froze. Shivers of fear rang through his entire body as his hand felt as he dropped the papers that were once in his hands.

Its face came into view under the flickering lights…its skin pale and stretched tight, lips peeled back from teeth that were stained dark with blood. The eyes… they weren’t focused. They weren’t seeing him. They were searching. A deep, animalistic growl vibrated from its chest. Hargrove’s breath caught in his throat. It felt dry… “What the hell—” The creature lunged. The speed of it shattered the stillness of the room instantly. Metal trays crashed to the floor as Hargrove stumbled backward, nearly slipping on the slick tile as he turned and bolted for the hallway, arms crashing into the wall before using that as leverage to give him an extra boost. “Jesus—!” He didn’t look back. His shoes pounded violently against the linoleum floor as the growling behind him grew louder. Closer The echo of dragging footsteps followed him out of the lab as something slammed violently into the doorframe behind him. “Help! Someone—! Please!” The hallway stretched endlessly ahead as panic flooded his chest. He could feel his heart pounding throughout his body; at this point, he could hear it pounding…His hands fumbled into his coat pocket, fingers shaking as he yanked out his phone. His thumb slipped against the screen once. Twice. Finally, the call button lit up. He pressed it desperately against his ear as he ran. Behind him, the growling grew louder. Faster.

Closer. Then— Buzz…buzz… Leon huffed as he dropped into his car, the door shutting with a dull thud that echoed briefly in the quiet parking lot. He let out a tired groan, shifting slightly as he leaned back into the seat. His left arm came up instinctively, elbow propped against the window as his hand pressed against his temple. It had been a long day. Too long. The faint patter of rain tapped against the windshield while gray clouds stretched endlessly across the sky above New York’s outskirts. Autumn had settled in fully now, with the damp air, cold wind, and the constant smell of wet pavement lingering everywhere. Leon closed his eyes for a moment. Just a moment. He had been in the area for the last two days following a lead the DSO had received regarding Neo-Umbrella activity somewhere in the region. Nothing concrete yet, just mere whispers of stolen biological samples moving through underground channels.

Still, that alone was enough to send him.

Any mention of Umbrella… or anything connected to it… never stayed small for long.

He exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand over his face before finally reaching forward to start the car.

It had been almost 30 years since that fateful night in Raccoon City… Now working as a government agent, tasked with secret missions that dealt with bioterrorism within the country and abroad. The last couple of years had taken a toll on him, mentally and physically, but with this line of work, he knew… Sooner or later, he will be willing to die for it if it comes to that point.

The engine rumbled to life. For a moment, everything was quiet. His eyes glanced to the rear view mirror, his eyes then suddenly peered into his own in the reflection. He could see it, the wrinkles and lines around his eyes, his forehead… his eyes too. It was no longer that bright blue color he had in his youth, back before Raccoon City had taken the color out of them. They looked cloudy… Those who have life and years slowly sucked out of him.

Then the phone sitting in the center console lit up.

A sharp vibration buzzed against the surface as the screen illuminated.

DSO Headquarters.

Leon sighed softly under his breath.

“Yeah…” he muttered, picking it up and bringing it to his ear. “Kennedy.”

The voice on the other end came quickly, tense, and almost out of breath as it seemed like they were just on another call seconds before.

“Kennedy, we’ve got a situation developing.”

Leon’s eyes opened immediately, the exhaustion fading from his expression.

“What kind of situation?”

There was a brief pause…“We’re receiving multiple emergency calls from Arden University…”

Leon frowned slightly, then his phone buzzed with a notification. He lowered his phone and placed the call on speaker as he opened the attachment sent. It was the location of the university. Clicking it onto maps, he pinches in on his phone to see the route, and he squints his eyes slightly to see the information better.

“That’s about thirty minutes north of here.”

“Exactly.”

Static crackled faintly through the phone as the signal in such a remote area was difficult to control, but the operator continued.

“Initial reports mention violent behavior, possible contamination inside one of the science buildings. Campus security has already lost contact with several staff members, and local authorities are reporting multiple injuries.”

Leon sat up straighter in his seat.

His hand tightened slightly around the phone.

“…Define violent behavior.”

Another pause. When the voice spoke again, it was quieter, “Witnesses are describing… Attacks… Biting… Mutations…”

Leon’s jaw clenched. A familiar weight settled in his chest, it’s the kind that always came when a situation started sounding too much like the past.

Raccoon City

He stared out through the rain-speckled windshield.

“…Umbrella?” he asked.

“No… Neo-Umbrella…We can’t confirm yet. But given the intel you were already following in the area, command wants you there immediately.”

Leon didn’t hesitate.

“Understood.”

“Local law enforcement is already responding, but they have no idea what they’re walking into. They’re trying to gather as many survivors as they can and keep them in safe facilities… but ” the operator pauses before revealing…

“There are still many students on campus… It’s the middle of the semester.”

“Fuck…” Leon groans as the grip on the wheels tightens. The rain outside grew heavier, drumming softly against the roof of the car.

“Kennedy.”

Leon reached forward, shifting the car into drive.

“Get there fast.”

The call ended with a sharp click. Leon lowered the phone slowly, eyes fixed ahead as the pieces began to fall into place in his mind.

Thirty minutes.

“…Shit.”

The windshield wipers swept across the glass as he pulled out of the lot, tires cutting through the wet pavement as the car accelerated onto the road. Up ahead, far in the distance beyond the hills and thick forest surrounding the small college town…

He glanced over at the display in his car that was on a GPS guiding him to the university, and he saw.

Current Time: 4:58 PM

Estimated Time of Arrival: 5:32 PM

A storm was beginning to roll in.

And Leon Kennedy was driving straight into it… His wheels screeched across the pavement as he made a sharp turn, the car fishtailing slightly before gripping the wet road again.

Above him, the clouds rumbled violently, thunder rolling across the sky as the storm closed in over the darkening hills.

The windshield wipers swept furiously back and forth.

The town sat somewhere ahead in the distance.

Waiting.

Ping

Your pencil moved steadily across the page.

The quiet scratching of graphite against paper blended softly with the music playing through your headphones, each note fading into the gentle rhythm of rain tapping against the window beside you.

At some point, the world around you had faded away.

You were locked in now and fully immersed in the flow of studying. Words from the lecture slides blurred together with the notes filling your notebook, equations and bullet points forming neat lines across the page as your hand moved almost automatically.

Another line.

Another note.

Another page.

You clicked the back of your mechanical pencil again, pushing more lead forward.

The dim light above your study booth cast a small pool of warmth across the desk while the rest of the library shelves behind you faded into darker shadows between rows of books.

The floor had grown quieter over the last few hours.

Most of the students in the common area had begun packing up slowly as evening approached, their muffled voices drifting faintly down the aisles between the bookshelves. Talks of grabbing food from the dining hall or going to grab another can of Celsius slowly eased out with the occasional elevator ding.

Your eyes flicked briefly toward the window to your right.

For a split second, a bright flash split across the distant sky.

The light flooded the horizon beyond the fog-covered campus before vanishing just as quickly.

A beat later—

CRACK

Thunder roared through the sky so loudly that you felt the vibration hum faintly through the glass.

You blinked.

The air in the library suddenly felt… Different. It was heavier… Thicker somehow.

You shifted slightly in your seat, your gaze drifting away from your notes as you glanced around the dim section of shelves surrounding your booth. The only lights here were the ones mounted above each small study desk and the faint fluorescent strips lining the distant aisles. Beyond that, most of the floor sat in a comfortable shadow.

It was quiet.

Way too quiet.

Then slowly—

Noise began spilling in from the open common area again.

Chairs scraping against the floor.

Backpacks zipping.

Low murmurs of conversation as students started leaving earlier than usual, their footsteps echoing softly across the polished floor as they headed toward the elevators.

You glanced down at the corner of your laptop screen.

5:02 PM.

It was earlier than you expected people to start clearing out. You frowned slightly, and just as you looked back down at your notes—

Ping

A small notification appeared in the corner of your laptop screen.

You paused as the university portal had refreshed automatically, and your cursor hovered over the notification before you clicked it open.

EMERGENCY ALERT: ARDEN STATE UNIVERSITY

Your brow furrowed slightly, eyes squinting, but before you could even read the message—

A scream tore through the air outside.

Your chair scraped loudly against the floor as you shot to your feet.

“What the—”

You rushed to the window beside your booth, pressing a hand against the glass as you leaned forward, trying to look down toward the campus courtyard below.

But you couldn’t see anything…A thick blanket of fog had rolled in across the grounds, swallowing the pathways and buildings beneath the library tower.

The heavy gray mist hid everything beyond a few dozen feet.

Another scream echoed through the distance.

This time closer.

Footsteps suddenly erupted across the library floor behind you.

Fast.

Panicked.

People were running.

“What’s going on—?”

“I don’t know—!”

“Did you see the alert?!”

Your heart began to pound in your chest. You grabbed your phone quickly from the desk, unlocking it with shaky fingers as the emergency notification filled the screen.

Your eyes scanned the message…

EMERGENCY NOTICE: ARDEN STATE UNIVERSITY

Reports of a viral outbreak have been confirmed within the campus area.

Students and faculty are advised to seek immediate shelter and remain in a secure location until law enforcement personnel arrive to conduct evacuation procedures.

Avoid all contact with infected individuals.

Further instructions will follow.

For a moment—

Everything around you felt like it stopped.

Viral outbreak.

Your stomach dropped when another scream echoed outside, much louder this time.

And suddenly—

The entire library floor erupted into chaos.

Footsteps thundered across the room as students began running for the elevators, chairs toppling over, and bags forgotten as panic spread faster than the words people were shouting to each other.

You stood frozen beside the window, the glow of your phone lighting your face as the words on the screen blurred slightly.

Viral outbreak.

Seek shelter.

Law enforcement incoming.

Outside, something moved in the fog, but before you could focus on it, a terrified voice screamed from somewhere near the entrance of the floor.

“They’re inside—!”

Your head snapped toward the voice, and your body moved before your mind could even process the words.

They’re inside.

Your chair scraped violently across the floor as you shoved your belongings into your bag with shaking hands. Papers crumpled together, your notebook half-closed as you threw everything inside without thinking.

The zipper caught.

You yanked it harder.

Your bag flew over your shoulder as your feet finally obeyed the instinct screaming inside your chest.

Run.

You bolted out of the study booth, shoes pounding against the floor as you rushed down the rows of other booths lined up against the windows. You ran to the common area.

Students were everywhere now.

Some running.

Some shouting.

Some froze in place as the panic spread across the floor like wildfire.

“What’s happening?!”

“Move—MOVE!”

“Get to the elevators!”

The overhead lights flickered. You looked up and mentally cursed, and then you looked back at the elevator, where you saw multiple students trying to squeeze their way in. Even if you tried… You definitely wouldn’t be able to get a spot there.

The lights flickered once again…

Once.

Twice.

Then—

Darkness

A collective gas rippled through the library as the lights from the elevators shut down… it definitely wasn’t able to operate anymore, and students bolted to the emergency exits.

Your heart slammed violently against your ribs as the floor was swallowed in shadows, the only light now coming from the dim emergency strips along the far wall and the faint glow of laptop screens abandoned across desks.

Another scream tore through the air as the emergency doors opened up.

You knew that exit wasn’t safe either, so you turned and continued to run, but this time back to the quiet student area you once were… running then turning into the rows and columns of bookshelves.

You didn’t stop running.

You couldn’t.

Your breath came faster now, sharp and uneven as you turned down another aisle between towering shelves of books.

The rows stretched endlessly ahead of you.

Left.

Right.

Left again.

Your feet barely registered where they were taking you anymore.

The rows of bookshelves blurred together as you ran past them, your phone’s thin beam of light jittering wildly across hundreds of book spines that flashed past like endless vertical lines in the dark.

The aisles felt narrower now.

Too narrow.

Each time you turned a corner, another wall of shelves appeared, stretching taller and taller above you, their shadows leaning inward as the flickering emergency lights cast long, crooked silhouettes across the floor.

Your shoulder brushed against one of the shelves.

Books shifted.

The sound echoed far too loudly in the dark.

You stumbled forward again, breath hitching in your throat as your mind struggled to make sense of the layout you had walked through so many times before.

This floor of the library had always felt spacious.

Quiet.

Safe.

Now it felt like the shelves were rearranging themselves around you.

Closing in.

Each aisle is tighter than the last. Then you feel it, your ears ringing, muffling any sounds that reach it…

Your light swung wildly again as you turned another corner, the beam catching floating dust in the air that drifted like thick fog between the shelves.

Your chest tightened.

The air felt heavier here.

Like the walls were pressing closer.

Like the ceiling had dropped lower.

Like the aisles were shrinking every time you ran through them.

Your breath came faster now, shallow and sharp as your lungs struggled to pull in enough air.

You couldn’t hear the common area anymore.

Only your footsteps.

Only your heartbeat is pounding inside your ears.

Only the faint echo of something moving somewhere behind you.

Your stomach twisted violently.

Don’t look back.

Don’t look back.

Don’t look back.

Your phone light bounced across another aisle—

And suddenly—

A small metal door appeared between two shelves…

Your footsteps echoed far too loudly.

Every sound felt amplified.

Your breathing.

Your heartbeat.

The distant chaos erupts across the floor.

And beneath it—

Something else.

A low, guttural sound somewhere far behind you.

Your stomach twisted.

Don’t think.

Just hide.

A storage closet.

Your chest tightened with desperate relief.

You rushed forward, your fingers gripping the handle as you yanked it open.

The door creaked loudly. Too loudly for your liking as your grip on the handle tenses up even more than it already was.

You slipped inside quickly, pulling it shut behind you as gently as your shaking hands would allow.

Darkness swallowed you immediately.

The closet was small, with the smell of cleaning supplies hitting your senses as you tried to catch your breath. There was barely enough space for shelves filled with extra boxes of paper and cleaning supplies.

You squeezed yourself between them, pressing your back against the cold wall as you quickly shut off the flashlight on your phone.

Silence.

Your breathing was too loud… You pressed a hand over your mouth.

Outside the door—

Footsteps thundered through the aisles. You heard loud crashes as whatever it was… it was knocking over some bookshelves as it made its way through them… The echo of crashes can still be heard as one shelf toppling over creates some sort of domino effect, knocking over the shelf in front of it as it falls on top of it… It repeats...

You heard running, screaming, crying, but all from a distance…

Then something else followed.

Slow.

Dragging.

A wet growl echoed faintly between the shelves.

Your entire body went rigid.

You didn’t move.

Didn’t breathe.

The sound drifted closer.

Closer.

Until it stopped somewhere outside the closet door.

The silence that followed felt suffocating.

And for the first time since the alert appeared on your phone…

You realized something terrifying.

You were alone.

The realization settled heavily in your chest, colder than the air pressing against the back of your neck. Your eyes darted around the cramped storage closet, the small bit of light from your phone screen briefly flickering back on as your mind scrambled to think.

The door.

Lock the door.

Your hands moved quickly, fingers fumbling in the dim light until you found the small metal latch beside the handle. It slid into place with a soft click that sounded far louder than it should have in the suffocating quiet.

Your breath caught.

You froze.

Listening.

Nothing immediately reacted.

Good…Good…You thought to yourself. You swallowed hard and quickly clicked the power button on your phone and placed it in the back pocket of your jeans, plunging yourself back into darkness as your hands searched blindly along the shelves around you.

Your fingers brushed against plastic bins, cleaning bottles, and stacks of unopened printer paper. You grabbed what you could, slowly dragging a heavy box across the floor until it pressed firmly against the base of the door, the cardboard scraped faintly against the tile.

You winced.

Too loud.

You stopped moving.

Your heart pounded so violently that you were sure it could be heard through the walls as you felt the pulse all the way up to your head. For a moment, you simply stood there, one hand braced against the door as your breathing struggled to quiet itself.

Then—

A scream ripped through the library outside.

Not distant this time.

Close.

Too close.

Your entire body tensed as the sound echoed through the shelves beyond the closet.

Another voice followed.

Crying.

Pleading.

“Please—! Please!”

Something crashed violently against the floor.

The sharp crack of splintering wood followed.

Then another scream.

Cut short.

Your hearing slowly sharpened as the initial shock began to fade, each sound outside the small room becoming clearer now that the panic in your head had begun to settle into something colder.

Something more focused.

Footsteps.

Running.

More screams, then a sound of splatter followed by a gasp… You knew what that sound was…

The sound of something dragging across the floor.

A low, wet growl rolled through the air somewhere beyond the shelves.

Your stomach twisted violently.

Your hand slowly rose to cover your mouth, muffling the shaky breath that threatened to escape you.

You pressed yourself further back against the cold wall behind you, shrinking deeper into the cramped corner between stacked boxes and shelves of supplies.

The closet suddenly felt impossibly small.

A box.

A thin metal door separates you from whatever nightmare had swallowed the library outside.

Your eyes squeezed shut as the sounds continued.

Cries.

Crashes.

Something heavy is hitting the ground.

Then that horrible sound again. That growl…

Your chest tightened painfully as the truth finally settled in your mind.

Whatever was happening out there…

You should not leave this room.

Not now.

Not for anything.

So you stayed.

Silent.

Barely breathing, hoping the thin metal door between you and the darkness outside was enough.

You stayed frozen.

Your back pressed tightly against the cold wall, one hand still clamped over your mouth as you fought to keep your breathing quiet.

For a moment…

Nothing.

Just the distant echoes of chaos somewhere deeper in the library.

Then—

A sound.

Footsteps.

Heavy.

Slow.

Dragging.

Your eyes snapped open in the darkness.

The sound came from somewhere in the aisle just outside the closet.

One step.

Drag

Another step.

Drag

The noise scraped across the floor like something struggling to move properly, shoes…or maybe bare feet…dragging unevenly against the tile.

Your heart lurched violently.

It was close.

Too close.

A low growl followed, vibrating faintly through the thin metal door in front of you.

Your entire body locked up.

Don’t breathe.

Don’t move.

Don’t make a sound.

The footsteps stopped.

Right outside the door.

The silence that followed felt unbearable, stretching longer and longer until your ears began to ring from the effort of listening.

Your heartbeat pounded violently against your ribs.

Too loud.

Way too loud.

You were sure what it was… it could hear it.

Your fingers pressed harder over your mouth, muffling the shaky breaths trying to escape your lungs as you squeezed your eyes shut.

Calm down.

Calm down.

Calm down—

But it didn’t work.

Your chest trembled as panic flooded through you again, your mind spiraling as every instinct screamed that something was standing just inches away on the other side of that door.

The air inside the closet felt suffocating now, thick and stale as your lungs struggled to pull in quiet breaths.

Then—

BANG

The door shook violently as something slammed into it from the other side.

You flinched so hard your shoulder hit the shelf behind you.

A choked sound escaped your throat before you could stop it.

Your entire body went rigid.

Oh God.

Oh God—

Your heart felt like it dropped straight into your stomach, nausea twisting violently in your gut as the door rattled against the box you had pushed in front of it.

For one terrifying moment, you were sure it would break through.

Your vision blurred.

Your chest burned.

You thought you might throw up.

Your hand clamped tighter over your mouth as tears spilled silently down your face, your shoulders trembling as you fought desperately to keep any sound from escaping.

Don’t cry.

Don’t cry.

Don’t cry—

Another growl scratched against the metal door.

Closer.

Your nails dug into your palm as you squeezed your eyes shut, your body shaking quietly as you curled further into the corner of the closet.

You held your breath.

Hold your mouth shut.

Hold yourself together as tightly as you can.

And prayed—

Whatever was outside that door…Would leave. You didn’t want to die, you thought to yourself, hoping there was some higher being listening to your pleas and prayers as you curled up in the back of the storage closet.

You didn’t want it all to end right now; you still had a family, friends, a job waiting for you in the outside world, a life. You prayed and prayed and even thought of some classmates, people you passed during the halls or in the library every day… Were they okay? Did they get out safely?

BANG

The door shuddered violently against the box you had pushed in front of it, the metal rattling hard enough that the entire closet seemed to tremble.

Your breath caught in your throat.

Your fingers dug deeper into your palm as you squeezed your eyes shut, your entire body locking up as you waited for the next impact.

But instead—

CRACK.

Gunshots rang out somewhere outside the building.

Police sirens wailed across the campus as flashing red and blue lights cut through the thick fog rolling over the university grounds.

Another gunshot echoed across the courtyard.

Then another.

Leon’s car skidded to a stop near the barricade of patrol vehicles blocking the main road leading into the university. The tires hissed against the wet pavement as he threw the car into park, the engine barely shutting off before he pushed the door open.

Cold rain hit his face instantly.

Officers rushed back and forth across the perimeter, some shouting orders while others helped injured students toward waiting ambulances parked along the edge of the campus.

The entire place looked like chaos.

Leon stepped out quickly, shutting the car door behind him as another series of gunshots echoed from somewhere deeper inside the campus.

Two officers nearby fired toward the fog-covered path leading between the buildings.

“Stay back! Stay back!”

Leon’s eyes followed their aim.

A figure stumbled out of the mist.

At first glance, it looked like a student.

But the way it moved—

Unsteady.

Jerking.

Blood streaked across the front of its shirt as it lurched forward.

“Drop it!” one of the officers shouted, but the figure didn’t stop, and another gunshot cracked through the air.

The body dropped instantly.

Leon’s jaw tightened.

Yeah… That confirmed it.

He moved quickly toward the police barricade where several officers were gathered around a temporary command setup.

One of them looked up.

“You can’t be—” the officer was about to scold him off the premises.

“Leon Kennedy. DSO.” Leon said quickly in a deep and dark voice, flashing his credentials.

The officer’s expression shifted immediately.

“Oh—shit. They said someone from the federal government was coming.”

Leon glanced past him toward the campus buildings looming through the fog.

“Give me the rundown.”

The officer exhaled heavily, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck.

“It started about an hour ago. Science building. Students and faculty started… attacking each other… At first, campus police thought it was just some altercation between students and staff members until we saw what they were doing…”

He hesitated slightly.

“Biting.”

Leon nodded once.

“Figures.”

“They looked like zombies, and anyone who was bitten became one of them…We’ve got units clearing lecture halls and dorm wings right now,” the officer continued, pointing toward the western side of campus where more police lights flickered through the fog.

“But there’s one building we haven’t been able to reach yet.”

Leon already had a feeling he knew which one. He had scanned the place to see shots and smoke ringing out of multiple smaller and lower buildings around campus…all except one.

“The library tower.”

The officer nodded grimly as he turned towards the tower, “It’s bad in there. A lot of infected moved inside when people started running. Too many for us to push through safely.”

Another gunshot echoed across the courtyard behind them.

“We know there were still students studying when the alert went out,” the officer continued. “Which means…”

He didn’t finish the sentence.

Leon looked up. The tall silhouette of the library tower loomed through the fog at the center of campus, its upper floors barely visible through the storm clouds rolling overhead.

Lights flickered weakly through some of the windows.

Somewhere inside that building—

People could still be alive.

Leon reached back into his car, pulling out the black case resting on the passenger seat. The latch clicked open, and inside sat his handgun and gear.

The officer watched him, “You’re not seriously going in there alone, are you?”

Leon slid the pistol into its holster, and the rain dripped steadily from the edge of his jacket as he shut the case. He looked back up at the towering building, “If there are survivors in there,” he said calmly, “they’re not going to last long.”

“I’ll have the team clear out anything from the ground surrounding the tower, from what I heard, there are no one past the 8th floor of that tower, even if students or staff needed to hide, they needed a special access to get to the 9th floor and beyond” the officer informed him as he walks away, pulling up his walkie as he radios to some subordinates to gather around the tower grounds to help assist as he leaves the tower itself to Leon.

Another distant growl echoed from somewhere deep within the fog-covered campus.

Leon started toward the library… The library tower loomed over the rest of the campus like a dark monument against the storm.

Even from across the courtyard, it dominated everything around it, its tall glass windows stretching upward into the fog where the upper floors disappeared into the low-hanging clouds. Lightning flickered faintly behind the structure, illuminating the building for a split second before darkness swallowed it again.

Leon slowed his pace as he approached.

Rain dripped from the edge of his jacket while his boots stepped quietly across the wet pavement. His handgun was already raised in a steady two-handed grip, the muzzle angled toward the entrance as his eyes scanned every shadow around the building.

The campus had gone eerily quiet here.

The police perimeter was several buildings away now, leaving the library standing alone in the storm. A faint groan echoed from somewhere inside.

Leon stopped just short of the main doors; the lobby lights inside flickered weakly, casting long, broken reflections across the glass panels of the entrance.

Movement shifted behind them.

Leon’s eyes narrowed.

Three figures shuffled slowly across the lobby floor. Students… Or what used to be students… Their clothes were torn and stained dark with blood, their bodies moving with the same unnatural jerking motion he had seen countless times before. One of them dragged its leg uselessly behind it as it wandered past the front desk. Another slammed weakly against a bookshelf before slowly turning its head toward the doors. The sound of the rain hitting the glass must have caught its attention as its face lifted. Its mouth opened slightly, then a hollow growl pressed faintly against the glass.

Leon exhaled slowly.

“Yeah…” he muttered under his breath. “Definitely the work of Neo-Umbrella...” by the looks of the mutation… he has seen something similar.

He reached forward carefully, pushing the door open just enough to slip inside.

The hinge creaked softly, and the infected reacted instantly with their heads snapping toward the sound, but Leon didn’t hesitate.

Pop.

Pop.

Pop.

Three quick shots echoed through the lobby. Each infected dropped almost instantly, their bodies collapsing heavily onto the marble floor as silence settled back into the building. Leon stepped inside fully now, the door closing quietly behind him.

The smell hit him first.

Blood.

Rot.

The same thick metallic scent that never left places like this. The flickering lights above him buzzed faintly as he moved deeper into the lobby, his boots echoing softly across the empty floor. Something about the scene made his chest tighten slightly.

The tall front desk, scattered papers across the floor, overturned chairs, and the silence that felt too heavy for a place that should have been full of people. For a moment, it didn’t feel like a university library; it felt like somewhere else, somewhere more familiar… Another building… Another night… Another outbreak.

His eyes drifted toward the wide staircase leading upward through the center of the building as lightning flashed outside the windows again, and for a brief second, the lobby lit up in white light.

Then the memory hit him.

The Raccoon City Police Department

The dark halls, broken lights, smell of blood in the air, and sounds of the dead moving through the building.

Leon’s grip tightened slightly around his handgun, “…Not again,” he murmured quietly. The storm thundered overhead, and somewhere above him in the tower a faint crash echoed through the upper floors.

Leon lifted his weapon again, eyes narrowing toward the stairwell. If there were still survivors inside this place…He was going to find them… He doesn't want another Raccoon City to happen… This time, he will make sure he can save someone… Anyone…

You didn’t know how much time had passed. Minutes? Maybe longer. At some point, the sounds outside the closet had stopped. No more footsteps. No more growls. No more screaming.

Just silence.

The kind that pressed against your ears so heavily it almost felt louder than the chaos that had come before… Your fingers slowly loosened from where they had been clamped over your mouth. Your hand trembled slightly as it dropped to your lap, the fabric of your sleeve damp where tears had soaked through.

Your chest still rose in small, careful breaths; you didn’t dare breathe any louder than that. You remained exactly where you had curled yourself into the corner of the closet, your back pressed against the cold metal shelving, knees drawn close to your chest.

Don’t move.

Don’t make noise.

Don’t exist.

Your eyes slowly opened; the darkness inside the small room hadn’t changed. It was still suffocatingly cramped, the faint smell of cleaning chemicals and cardboard filling the stale air. Boxes stacked around you formed uneven shadows that barely shifted in the faint gray light leaking through the thin crack beneath the door.

Your hand reached slowly into your pocket, taking out your phone as the screen lit up weakly as you unlocked it.

9%.

Your stomach sank, “…Shit,” you mouthed silently. Your charger sat uselessly inside your bag somewhere beside you, but it didn’t matter. The lights in the library had gone out when everything started, so if the building's power was down, there was nothing to plug into anyway.

You cursed yourself quietly in your head, knowing that you should have brought your portable charger. You almost always did, but today of all days, you left it in your dorm.

Your thumb hovered over the screen for a moment before the light dimmed automatically again. You quickly locked the phone, the sudden glow feeling far too bright in the small space. You couldn’t afford to waste the battery.

Not now… Not when it might be the only thing you had left.

The silence outside the closet continued.

No banging.

No footsteps.

Whatever had been outside earlier…It must have moved on. At least that’s what you told yourself, but still, you didn’t move, not even an inch. Your body remained locked in place against the wall, every muscle tense as if the slightest movement might somehow alert something lurking outside. Your ears strained against the quiet.

Listening.

Waiting.

Hoping.

The closet suddenly felt like the only safe place left in the entire building, so you stayed exactly where you were, far too afraid to even think about opening the door…

Leon moved carefully through the darkened interior of the library. The beam of his flashlight cut through the dim halls as he advanced, weapon raised and eyes scanning every corner before he stepped forward.

His boots echoed softly across the floor as he cleared another row of bookshelves, the shadows stretching long across the aisles as lightning flickered faintly through the tall windows.

The power was definitely out. Only the emergency lighting remained, draining whatever remaining energy there was in this tower, thin strips of dull red along the walls, casting weak illumination through the otherwise dark floors.

He checked another aisle. Empty.

A body lay near one of the study tables, motionless where it had collapsed. Leon paused only briefly, confirming the infection was down before continuing forward. Each step deeper into the tower made the building feel more and more like a maze.

Rows of shelves.

Study booths.

Endless corners.

Too many places for something to hide.

Leon reached the center stairwell and paused, listening, but there was nothing. He lifted his voice slightly, “DSO!” he called out. His voice carried through the quiet halls.

“If there are any survivors in the building, make yourself known!”

The words echoed faintly through the shelves, but there was no response, making Leon frown slightly. He had cleared the first few floors already, smaller lecture spaces, study areas, and reading rooms. Most had been empty aside from the infected that had wandered in when the panic started.

But if students had been studying when the alert went out…Some of them might have hidden, he thought; it seemed like a natural response. Leon adjusted his grip on the handgun and moved toward the stairwell.

One floor at a time.

The metal door creaked open as he stepped into the stairwell, the sound echoing loudly against the concrete walls as he began climbing.

Fourth floor.

Clear.

Fifth floor.

Five infected in the hallway.

Eight shots.

Silence again.

Sixth floor.

Empty.

Seventh—

A low growl echoed somewhere ahead as he stepped through the door, and Leon reacted instantly. A figure lurched out from behind a bookshelf, cracking and growling.ng

Pop.

The infection dropped.

Leon exhaled quietly and continued forward.

“DSO!” he called again, “If anyone can hear me, respond!”

Still nothing.

His boots hit the next stair landing.

Eighth floor.

Leon pushed the stairwell door open slowly. He scans the floor over; the floor beyond was darker than the others. The power here seemed completely out on this floor, as not even the light to the stairwell was on or flickering. He could see that the aisles between the bookshelves were swallowed in thick shadows as his flashlight swept slowly across the space.

Several figures moved between the rows. Four? Maybe five are infected. They wandered aimlessly through the aisles, their slow, dragging steps echoing faintly across the floor.

Leon’s jaw tightened as he stepped quietly onto the floor, raising his weapon as he prepared to clear the area, but the infected hadn’t noticed him yet.

Somewhere among the endless rows of shelves and study booths… Someone could still be hiding. He thought as he wandered through all the floors. All he has seen are those infected or already dead… He doubted himself for a second. Did he come too late? Could he have driven here quicker? Maybe then there could’ve been someone he found already…

Leon lifted his voice once more, loud enough to carry through the floor.

“DSO!”

His flashlight beam cut across the dark aisles, “If there are any survivors on this floor—”

He paused briefly, “Say something.”

This time, it sounded like a plea as his voice cracked. He prays… like genuinely prays… as he groans. He wants so hard to be able to not have this place become another Raccoon City. He had the chance to prove to himself that he was able to save and help people… tonight, he’s given another chance, and he sure as hell won’t let it pass him once again…

At first, you thought it was your imagination, a sound drifted faintly through the closet door; it was distant, muffled.

Pop.

Pop.

Your eyes snapped open, knowing that those sounds were gunshots, not the chaotic bursts you had heard earlier when everything started falling apart.

These were controlled.

Precise.

A pause.

Then—

“DSO!”

The voice echoed faintly through the floor outside, “If there are any survivors in the building, make yourself known!”

Your entire body went still, your breath caught in your throat. Your heart raced once again, knowing that there may be hope lying beyond the storage closet doors… Someone was out there… A person… Alive. Not the low, animalistic growls you had been hearing for what felt like hours.

Your heart started racing again, too fast, too loud, but another thought forced its way into your mind just as quickly. What if it wasn’t safe? What if being trapped here had caused you to start hallucinating and now hearing sounds? Your fingers tightened around the fabric of your sleeve. What if whatever those things were… could speak? What if it was a trap?

You stayed where you were. Frozen. Listening. Footsteps echoed faintly through the shelves outside, but they sounded slow, measured, not dragging, not stumbling, but moving with purpose and caution.

Then another gunshot cracked through the floor, then another… Your stomach twisted, and you flinched back at every shot as the sounds echoed between the aisles outside the closet. Whatever those things were outside these doors, someone was fighting them.

Your breathing trembled again as the voice carried through the shelves once more. Hearing figures drop onto the ground, with bullet carcasses clinking onto the floor as they fall.

“DSO!” You heard the voice again, closer this time, “If anyone can hear me, respond!”

Your body reacted before your mind could decide as you slowly shifted forward. Every small movement felt deafening in the tight space. Your hand carefully slid away from your mouth as you crawled across the narrow floor of the closet, your knees bumping softly against the stacked boxes as you moved toward the door.

The metal latch felt cold beneath your fingers. You didn’t open it. Not yet. You leaned forward slightly, pressing your ear close to the door, listening.

Footsteps moved somewhere between the shelves outside as you heard some shelves being slowly shoved away, and your heart pounded harder with every second. Your throat tightened. You hesitated. What if—

The footsteps began moving away.

Your chest dropped.

Through the thin metal door, you heard the faint shift of movement as whoever was outside began turning down another aisle, and the beam of light that had been faintly visible beneath the crack of the door started to drift away. Whoever this person was, they were leaving… About to move on.

Panic surged through you instantly.

“No—!”

Your voice burst out before you could stop it, “I’M HERE!” The words tore from your throat, louder than you intended, on the silent floor as your hand reached up, slamming against the door, fearing your voice was too low for the person to hear.

“PLEASE—!” Your voice cracked, “I’M IN HERE!”

Leon stopped mid-step, his head snapped back toward the aisle he had just cleared. For a brief second, something close to relief flickered across his face. There was someone…A survivor.

His eyes widened in shock as he thought this building and those who occupied it now were all…gone. But to hear a voice clear as day, he knew… this was all worth it. There was someone…

“Hey!” Leon called back immediately, his voice firm but calm as he turned and moved quickly through the shelves. “I hear you! Where are you?” The beam of his flashlight swept across the dark aisles as he retraced his steps back to the area he had just cleared.

Your voice came again, weaker this time, “Storage… closet…”

Leon followed the sound, his pace quick but controlled as he checked every corner he passed. His weapon stayed raised, the flashlight moving with practiced precision as he scanned each aisle before stepping forward. His heart raced slightly as he prayed that it wasn’t some sick joke his mind was playing on him.

He moved around the final shelf, and there it was… A small metal door tucked between two tall bookcases. Leon approached slowly, his light briefly sweeping across the surrounding aisles one last time. He lowered the gun slightly and stepped in front of the door.

“DSO, agent Leon Kennedy,” he presented himself, letting you know that he was an actual person and here to help. You in there?” he asked, making sure he wasn’t scaring whoever was behind the doors.

Your voice came from the other side, barely above a whisper, “…Yes.”

Leon can hear the shakiness in your speech, and he can definitely understand how this situation is making you feel. Knowing that most likely over 2 hours or so have passed since he got onto campus, he figures you had been hiding for way longer than that.

“Alright,” he said gently. “Listen to me.” His voice softened slightly, steady and reassuring, “The floor’s clear. You’re safe.”

You didn’t move right away; your hand still hovered over the latch as doubt and fear tangled in your chest. Safe? The word felt impossible after everything you had just heard outside that door. But his voice didn’t sound panicked; it was certain, assuring.

Slowly, your shaking hands began kicking away the boxes you had pushed against the door earlier. The cardboard scraped quietly across the floor as you cleared enough space to reach the handle; your fingers trembled as they slid the latch open.

The door creaked softly, and the moment it opened, a wave of air rushed into the closet. The smell hit you immediately, metallic, rotten… blood. Your stomach twisted as the stale air of the tiny room mixed with the heavy scent drifting through the library floor.

You looked up and your eyes squinted at the light hitting you as you reached a hand up to cover it slightly. The beam of his flashlight illuminated a tall figure standing just outside the door, handgun lowered slightly but still ready in his grip.

Through the beam of light, you see a figure with dirty blond hair, a dark jacket soaked from the rain, sharp blue eyes scanning you quickly to make sure you weren’t injured. He was an older man… You figured most likely a seasoned agent…

For a second, you just stared, your brain struggling to process that someone was actually there. Someone alive. Someone real. The fear you had been holding back for what felt like hours suddenly collapsed all at once.

Your vision blurred as a sob escaped your throat before you could stop it, “Oh my god—” Tears spilled freely down your face as your legs finally moved, carrying you forward out of the closet before you could even think about it. You rushed toward him, arms wrapped around him tightly, clinging to the front of his jacket as the panic you had been suppressing finally broke loose.

Your shoulders shook as quiet sobs escaped you, “I—I thought—” Your voice broke apart completely.

Leon froze for a brief moment at the sudden contact, clearly not expecting it, but then his posture softened. One hand came up slowly, resting gently against your back as he let you hold onto him. He had seen that look on your face when that door opened up.

To him, you looked like you had been through hell and back. Being in a situation like this, you didn’t deserve that. “It’s okay,” he said quietly, “You’re alright.”

Your grip on his jacket slowly loosened as your breathing began to settle, though your hands still trembled slightly against the fabric.

Leon waited a moment, letting you steady yourself before gently pulling back just enough to look at you properly. “Are you hurt?” he asked.

You shook your head quickly, “N-no… I just—” your voice wavered again, but you swallowed a sob hard and forced yourself to continue. “I was hiding the whole time.”

Leon gave a small nod, his eyes scanning you once more to make sure you weren’t injured before he stepped back slightly.

“Good,” he said quietly. “Then we need to move.” His gloved hand goes down to grab your hand firmly; his strength allows you to ground yourself a bit more. He glanced down the dim aisle of bookshelves again, the flashlight beam sweeping slowly across the dark floor.

He glanced briefly down the long aisles of the library again, all the places where people had been sitting just hours earlier. He then turns back to you to see if you’re ready to move yet. He takes in the sight of you fully now…still shivering, your hair a mess while some pieces stuck to your face due to the tears that were shed… for a second, Leon almost saw himself all those years ago…

The storm outside rumbled faintly through the tall windows of the tower.

“What about the others? Was there a—anyone else?” you choked on your words between the soft sobs as you asked him, looking up at him as your hand tightens around his that held yours, fearing he’ll accidentally slip away and leave you stranded once again.

He closes his flashlight and places it back onto his belt and frowns, unable to tell you the truth… He looks away from you and looks down. Just that reaction alone already told you everything you needed to know… You were the only one left alive in this building.

Your mind wanders back to when you just arrived at the library early in the afternoon, those faces you had passed, those figures that stood with you on the elevator, the laughs and smiles you glanced by at the common room… they could be any one of the dead bodies lying on the ground on this floor or below…

You shake, trying to hold back yet another sob as you cover your mouth with your hand. Your legs tremble. You should’ve helped and dragged some people into the closet with you… How could you be so selfish? Maybe someone else could’ve been safe too… “God… I could’ve—” your legs tremble and so do your words.

“No,” Leon sternly says as he steps closer to you. He takes his free hand and pulls your head into his chest as he tries his best to soothe you. He knew these feelings of guilt all too well; he didn’t have anyone to walk him through it back then, the least he could do was to help you now. “Shhh… Don’t blame yourself, sweetie… Nothing was your fault; this isn’t something we can control," he assured you.

Your shoulders shake with every sob, but he pats the back of your head, allowing you to take out any emotions you needed to. Your forehead bumps into his chin slightly, and his stubble pokes you just slightly, but you didn’t care; his touch and words were all you needed right now.

Leon gave you all the time you needed in that moment, but he wishes he could give more when suddenly he hears a growl from the staircase he took up.

“Stay close to me,” he said, pulling back from you and drawing his gun out, but one hand still held your hand. “Don’t wander off, and if anything moves—” He glanced back at you briefly, taking in your expression. You were still sobbing and sniffling, but a lot softer now as you managed to compose yourself a bit.

Leon releases your hand and goes to grab a smaller pistol from his belt, hesitating on whether he should give it to you or not. You looked at him as he held onto a pistol; you knew he wanted you to hold it. Your hands shake just slightly, but you bite back your nervousness as your body adjusts back to survival mode.

“I’ll take it…” You said softly, but this time you looked at him determined. You’ve held a gun once… That was back when you had gone to a shooting range with some friends. Your aim wasn’t terrible, but you knew that in order not to accidentally shoot yourself or Leon, you had to stay composed.

Leon gives you a smile, and you notice how some lines and wrinkles become slightly prominent when he does. God, he sure did look fine as fuck right then and there…

“Alright,” he said quietly, holding the pistol for you. It felt cold, but you tried to adjust your grip around it. Leon sees you slightly shaking and struggling and goes over and takes your hand in his, adjusting it himself as he stands behind you. His broad shoulders leaned over yours as his strong arms came around you, as he positioned it comfortably in your hands.

“There you go, sweetie. Let me know if you don’t think you can use it, okay? I just don’t want you being left fending for yourself if something comes up behind you,” He says as he lets go of your hands, stepping back. You nodded at him, assuring him that you were alright and would check your surroundings as the two of you made your way out of this place.

“We’re heading for the emergency stairwell; the regular one has too many infected walking up and down,” he says, turning back to the location of the sound he heard earlier, holding up a flashlight, drawing a beam towards that direction, “Stay right behind me.”

You nodded quickly, even though your legs still felt weak, “Yes, sir…” you weakly replied. Hearing you address him as sir did have Leon feel a little bit amused.

Leon started moving, and you followed right behind him immediately. The moment he stepped into the aisle, you moved with him, your hand instinctively reaching forward to grab his arm. Your fingers clenched tightly around his bicep, and you had to admit, this old man definitely packs a lot of muscle, and you can definitely feel that under his jacket.

Leon didn’t, in fact, he thought it was enduring seeing you hold onto him. To make it more secure, he placed his flashlight back as he didn’t need it, and he took your hand in his. “Is this better, sweetie?” he asked, smiling, making sure this was comfortable for you.

Your grip on his hand tightens, and you nod, “Yes… just don’t accidentally leave me alone here,” you ask, still a bit nervous. He chuckles, he couldn’t hold it back when you looked too cute, asking for assurance with that cute pleading expression.

“Don’t worry, sweetie, I climbed all the way up this tower, I’m not leaving without the princess safe and sound,” he joked, lightening up the atmosphere a bit. You chuckle softly back at him as your shoulders slightly relax.

As you continued to walk, you made sure to look behind you and held the gun Leon gave to you in case you needed to use it. The library floor looked even worse now that you were out of the closet. As your eyes scanned around it, you had adjusted back to the dark already, so you could definitely make out your surroundings.

Papers from notebooks had been trampled and dragged through dark stains that smeared across the tiles, shelves flipped over, some broken, and books scattered everywhere. You tried not to look too closely, but your eyes caught something anyway.

A body.

One of the infected Leon had taken down earlier lay crumpled near the end of the aisle, a dark pool spreading slowly beneath its head. Your stomach lurched as you quickly looked away, your grip on Leon’s hand tightening.

Leon noticed, but he didn’t say anything about it. The building felt eerily quiet again, with only the sound of rain tapping against the windows far above and the soft echo of your footsteps following him.

You stayed so close behind him that your shoulder almost brushed his back with every step. The stairwell door appeared at the end of the aisle. Leon approached slowly, his gun lifting again as he reached the handle.

Your fingers tightened again as the door creaked softly as he pushed it open. The stairwell beyond was darker than the library floor, the emergency lights barely illuminating the concrete steps spiraling downward.

Leon stepped inside first, while you followed instantly. As you step into the stairwell, the door shuts behind you with a heavy metallic clang, and your footsteps echo loudly now as the two of you start down the stairs.

Step.

Step.

Step.

The narrow space made every sound feel amplified: your breathing, your shoes against the concrete, the faint drip of water somewhere deeper below. You stayed so close to Leon because if you lost him in this darkness… You didn’t even want to think about it… The thought alone made your chest tighten.

Halfway down the next landing, a sound echoed from below, a low growl, the same one Leon had heard earlier, and he stopped instantly. Your entire body froze behind him as the two of you peered down the gap in the middle of the stairwell.

A shadow shifted.

Something moved slowly up the steps below, dragging, and quickly Leon adjusted his weapon.

“Behind me,” he said quietly. You didn’t need to be told twice. The shape lurched into the weak emergency light, another infected… It staggered up the stairs toward you guys.

Leon fired.

Pop.

The shot echoed violently through the stairwell, and the infected collapsed instantly, its body tumbling down the remaining steps with a sickening thud.

The sound echoed through the tower, and for a moment, the stairwell went silent again.

Leon exhaled slowly, “Let’s keep moving.”

And the two of you continued descending into the darkness, the gunshot echoed through the stairwell long after the infected’s body stopped tumbling down the steps. The sound bounced off the concrete walls.

Once.

Twice.

Then faded into a heavy silence.

Your hands were trembling badly now; you hadn’t realized just how tightly you were gripping Leon’s hand until your fingers began to ache. The smell of gunpowder mixed with the metallic scent of blood drifting up from the stairs below, and it made your stomach churn.

Your breathing became shaky again.

Leon noticed.

Then—

A low growl echoed from somewhere below.

Leon’s attention snapped back to the stairwell instantly. There was more movement. The gunshot from earlier had carried and most likely had triggered the attention of some infected that didn’t turn and mutate fully just yet when he made his initial rounds up the tower.

Several dragging footsteps began echoing from the lower floors. “…Great,” Leon muttered under his breath as he saw shadows shifting in the darkness as he peered down. Too many… You were already clinging to him more as the noise reached your ears, too.

The two of you began moving again, descending the narrow staircase quickly but carefully.

Step.

Step.

Step—

Your shoe slipped as the sole caught against something slick on the concrete, and your foot slid forward suddenly. A small gasp escaped you as your balance disappeared, but before you could fall—

Leon’s arm shot back instantly. His hand caught your arm, steady and firm, pulling you forward into him before you could hit the stairs. Your shoulder bumped lightly against his back as he steadied you.

“Careful,” he said quietly.

Your heart was racing so fast you were sure it might burst out of your chest.

“I— I’m sorry—”

“You’re fine, sweetie, I got you,” Leon reassured as he patted your arm a couple of times.

His grip loosened slowly once he was sure you were stable again, but for a brief moment his eyes lingered on you. Up close now…Really looking. Your eyes were wide as they looked up at him. You blinked as you're so much closer to his face now. He was definitely older…You had noticed it before when you first opened the closet door. He looks to be most likely twice your age… Lines at the corners of his eyes, a maturity in the way he carried himself, but not the kind of old that most people meant.

No. Something about him was… different. Weathered. Experienced. Yet somehow… He looked good for his age. Maybe too good. For a split second, your thoughts drifted there before the reality of the situation snapped back in.

Leon noticed the look, and he almost raised an eyebrow in amusement, but before either of you could say anything, both of you heard growls coming from below… and above…

Your breath caught instantly, “S-sir—”

“I’ve got you.”

His voice was calm in the darkness, but the sounds below had grown louder now.

More footsteps.

More dragging.

More growls.

Several infected were climbing the stairs now as Leon glanced down the stairwell again.

“…Alright,” he said quietly. His voice shifted slightly… rougher… “We need to move. Now. Quickly.”

The two of you ran deeper down the staircase together.

The rest of the descent was a lot easier for you now that, for every turn, you expect the worst to come. Adapting more to the sick and horrific environment you were trapped in, but the warmth that you felt from holding onto Leon’s hand was comforting… It was safe.

As the floors passed by through every other turn you guys made, you began to count down for yourself… the floors leading to finally the outside world… Freedom.

Your eyes flicked toward the number painted faintly on the wall beside the stairwell door. 4 Your breath hitched slightly.

Four more floors.

Four more turns.

Four more chances for something to go wrong.

Your fingers tightened instinctively against the pistol you held as you silently began counting down in your head. Please let us make it. The stairs creaked softly beneath your shoes as you followed him down to the next landing. 3 A distant growl echoed somewhere deep in the building. You froze for half a second, but Leon didn’t slow, so you forced your legs to keep moving. 

Please let us get out of here.

Another turn.

Another flight of stairs.

Your breathing grew quieter now, more controlled as your mind focused on the numbers. 2 The faint glow of emergency lighting flickered weakly from the lower level, and you could almost smell the rain through the cracks of the stairwell door below. Your heart pounded. Freedom was close.

So close.

Please…

Please…

The final landing appeared. 1 Your chest rose and fell slowly. Just one more…Please let us make it outside. Leon stepped forward, and your feet followed right behind him as the two of you descended the final steps together.

Leon turns around for a second to check up on you as both of you finally step down to the ground floor of this tower of hell. His breathing was heavy from it all, and both of you could hear muffled shots and sirens ringing out from the outside.

“You alright, sweetie? Hangin’ in there?” he checks in as you look up at him, seeing worries paint over his icy blue eyes as he scans you over. With one of your hands still clenching onto his, you give him a reassuring smile.

“Yes, sir… I’m all good— WATCH OUT BEHIND!” Your softened eyes suddenly widen in horror as you see an infected creeping up behind Leon.

Instinctively, you like your body took control of itself, the arm that held the pistol pulls forward as it aims at the infected, as you were about to shoot, the hand that held Leon accidentally pulls back as he loses his footing slightly when he was out of the way just enough, your index finger pulls the trigger…

POP

His eyes widen just slightly as he is pulled forward towards you and stumbles a bit before grounding himself with a leg out in front of him. You flinched back slightly from the blast of the gun.

“I…” you stood there in shock, still holding the gun, hands shaking as you saw the infected drop dead in front of you with a splat. You looked down at them… a student, as you saw that they were wearing the university-branded hoodie…

Your legs buckled, and Leon can see the shock just radiating off your body, and quickly holds you as your legs finally give out on you.

Collapsing onto the ground, dropping the weapon, you couldn’t believe what you had just done… You shot… “Someone… S-Sir, I shot someone…” You whispered… as your throat became dry. You didn’t mean to… They were already dead, right? But that was still someone… They—

“Hey— Stop it.” Leon shakes you slightly to get your attention to him and not the body on the ground in front of you guys. He shifted his position just slightly to get in front of you, blocking your view from the body, holding your shoulders firmly as he tried to snap you out of the trance you were in.

“They weren’t a person anymore, they had already—” Leon tried to explain to you like an officer once did to him 30 years ago… shooting and killing something that looked so human yet wasn't a moral dilemma he had to get over…

“But…” you tried to cut him off, but he gave you no chance to do so.

“You helped me, okay? You saved me, you saved yourself, that's what matters right now. Whatever these things that you see are, they are too far gone to be human anymore.” 

Leon looks into you, knowing that it all was hard to process, he knew because he was there before…

You stared blankly at him for a bit, trying to calm yourself as you realized that you had been hyperventilating. You shut your eyes, trying to control your breathing when you feel one of Leon’s hands leaving your shoulders, then something drops onto your lap.

You open your eyes, and you are met with Leon’s thumb whipping away the tears that began to fall from your eyes. You didn’t even realize you were crying. You looked down to your lap to see Leon’s glove as he had taken it off to wipe your face.

“S-sir…” you begin, looking back up at him, but he only chuckles.

“No need to be so formal, you can just call me Leon, okay?” He says with a smile while he continues to help wipe any tears that continue to fall, while his other hand rubs your shoulder, lightly massaging it to help calm your nerves. “You haven’t told me your name yet, y’know, I can’t be writing your name, sweetie, on my report later on,” he jokes.

You huffed out a chuckle as you thought about how funny it could be if you were listed as just “sweetie” on a report. You whispered your name to him, your voice cracking a bit towards the end.

Looking up at him, you saw how comforting just his presence had been the entire night, since he had found you…

“I think sweetie still suits you more,” he continued, easing up the scene for you as you finally were able to get your breathing to a normal pace.

“Thank you…Leon,” you said with a smile. The way his name had rolled off your tongue, Leon tenses up just a bit, and what doesn’t help is the adorable innocent expression you had on. It was all too sweet for him.

“Come on, we’re almost there, alright? I’ll make sure you’re safe and sound,” he assured. He turned to the side to grab the pistol you dropped and placed it back onto his strap.

You nodded with a hum of compliance, and you tried to stand back up, but maybe the nerves were still within your system because it was really difficult to get up until—

Leon hooks an arm under your leg while the other wraps around your back. You instinctively held onto his glove while your other hand held onto his shoulder as he picked you up, carrying you.

“L-Leon, you don’t have to—” you began to protest, seeing he had already gone through so much physical turmoil to get to you and to get you down here/

“It’s alright, don’t worry, I don’t want you wobbling your way out of here,” he chuckles as he turns to the side exit door of the emergency stairwell so he can avoid going through the lobby. He turned his back and pushed the door open.

Cold air floods your lungs.

Rain pours down in heavy sheets, soaking through your hair and clothes almost instantly as Leon steps out into the storm. You inhale deeply, the smell of wet pavement, you sigh out in relief… You made it out… No…

We made it out.

Flashing red and blue lights scatter across the campus courtyard as law enforcement officers rush toward the two of you the moment you emerge from the side of the library building.

“Over here!” someone shouts, and boots splash through puddles as officers hurry closer. From where you rest in Leon’s arms, you can see the campus now. There was smoke rising from several buildings, emergency vehicles lining the roads, and sirens echoing through the storm. The lights are so bright after the darkness of the library that you have to squint, and your mind struggles to keep up as voices overlap around you. Then you see hands guiding Leon somewhere, questions being asked, but everything begins to blur together.

The tension that had kept your body moving for hours finally collapses all at once as your limbs feel heavy. Your head drifts slightly against Leon’s shoulder as he carries you across the edge of the campus through the rain and chaos.

He doesn’t put you down until you reach a temporary emergency tent set up beyond the police barricade, and a folding chair is pulled out quickly.

“Easy,” Leon murmurs as he gently lowers you into it; your legs barely feel like they belong to you anymore. The rain continues to fall outside the tent while paramedics and officers move quickly around the area.

Someone kneels in front of you. You looked up. An officer.

“Miss, can you tell me your name?”

Your lips part. The words feel slow coming out…

“And do you have any ID with you?” nod as you pull your wallet out from the back pocket of your jeans, the only thing you had left on you other than your phone since everything else was left in the storage closet…

The officer takes it carefully, jotting something down, then another question follows: “Can you tell us what happened inside the library?”

Your chest tightens, and your mind flashes with images, sounds, feelings, and you quickly shut your eyes before those visions develop yet another panic attack.

“…I—” The words refuse to come. Your hands start trembling again. Before the officer can ask another question, Leon’s voice cuts in calmly from beside you.

“She’s in shock.”

The officer looks up as Leon stands just behind your chair, rainwater still dripping from his jacket.

“She’s been through enough tonight,” he continues. “You’ll get more from her later.”

The officer studies you for a moment before nodding, “…Understood.”

He stands, flipping the small notebook closed. “We’ve gathered several other surviving students and staff. They’re being relocated to a hotel just outside town until we get the situation under control.” His eyes return to you, “We’ll have someone escort you there shortly.”

“No need, I could drop her off there; she has seen enough for the evening to have to wait for an escort that could take forever,” Leon cuts in before the officer leaves. You looked up at him, surprised at his offer, your hand still held onto one of his gloves; it was comforting.

The officer looks at Leon, but seeing as he was a federal agent, they don’t dare object, and they nod before walking away.

“Wait here, okay, sweetie? I just need to get my car—” your hand reaches up and grabs at his jacket at the sight of the slight movement of him walking away. You didn't want to be left alone, not here, not now…

“Please… I don’t want to be left alone…” You plead. The last thing you wanted right now was to be left alone with your thoughts that could run off elsewhere. You look up at him with your eyebrows frowning in desperation.

Looking down at that, Leon completely doesn’t have the heart to deny you. He chuckles softly as he picks you back up and carries you once again as you lay your head into his chest, seeking the warmth it provides.

Walking to his car that wasn’t that much further, he looked down at you adoringly as you held onto him. He knows he shouldn’t be feeling the way he does currently… especially for a girl that is young enough to be his daughter, but the way you had been clinging to him like he is the only thing that can protect you from the cruel world made him feel more protective towards you… and it aroused him.

His car approached up ahead, and then you see a familiar logo up front… That’s a fucking Porsche…

You looked up at him with a shocked expression, like damn how much money does this old man have.

He chuckles as he sees your head turning towards him, knowing you saw his car, “What? Expecting something more expensive?” he jokes with you, and he lets out a laugh.

“More expensive? How much more expensive a car could an agent like you get…” Your jaw is wide open as he approaches the passenger side door. “Are you sure you’re not secretly involved with the mafia or something? Just how much money does a federal agent earn…I lowkey may need to reconsider my career path.”

He found it amusing as you goshed over his car. He opens the passenger seat and carefully places you in it. “I’ll have you know, sweetheart, this is not an easy job, but if you like the benefits so much, you should maybe marry an agent,” he teases as he takes the seat belt and bends over slightly to click it in place for you.

“Marry one?” You chuckle thinking about it, “I probably should then, I’ll keep that advice in mind,” you giggled as he chuckled along. He pulls back and shuts the passenger side door softly before walking around the car to the driver’s side. You couldn't help but admire his walk and his figure. The driver's side opens up as Leon plops down onto the seat with a groan.

“Whoever your wife is, she must be lucky then,” you teased, tilting your head, but you were also curious to see if he was married or not.

“Wife?” Leon ran a hand through his hair, amused that you thought he had a wife. “No, sweetheart… I’m a lonely old man,” Leon glanced away with a crooked smile.

Your eyes widened in surprise, “Huhhh.” Your head jolted forward slightly, confused about how this hunk of a man doesn’t yet have a wife. “Well, someone better act quickly. If I were your wife, I would feel like I am set for life,” you added playfully.

Leon looked at you amusingly, feeling his ego boosted way off the roof of this car. He hasn’t felt like this in ages, talking to you like this definitely added a couple of years back onto his life span while also making him feel a lot younger. “My wife, huh? Sweetheart, people will think I’m your sugar daddy or something,” he teased as he started the car engine and placed the location of the hotel onto the GPS map.

25 minutes away

“So?” You cocked an eyebrow at him. The whole atmosphere you guys had created with each other had suddenly felt so natural, comforting, almost familiar. “They can think what they want to think then, they just be jealous that I have a rich man to support me,” you huffed.

Leon stepped on the gas and began driving away from this hell of a campus. “Careful now, it sounds like you want me to be your sugar daddy.” his voice is now lower as he teases you slightly, huffing out a quiet laugh.

He looks over at you from the road to see your face slightly flushed with pink, but looks away a bit embarrassed with a huff, making him amused. “If you want to pay off my student loans, then sure,” you snorted softly, crossing your arms in front of you, earning a low chuckle from him as he turned his head back onto the road.

“Being in this job is dangerous though, I recommend you stay with what you’re studying, and even if you do marry someone in this profession…” he pauses for a bit. Thinking back on how this job didn’t really allow him to have a personal life at all at times, especially back in his rookie days…

The pain this job has brought him was already too much to bear alone; he preferred not to reel anyone into it and have them carry the same burden as him. Especially not now when he…

One of his hands reached up to his right neck, where a dark, bruised wound sat… one that tied him back to Racoon city…

“It’s a difficult relationship to be in…” Leon whispered. You turned your head to him as you see how his eyes now look like he's grieving… grieving the loss of himself over the years, “It’s the constant fear on my end when I know that my job itself is a threat to any relationship I develop…”

From the experience you had tonight, you knew that this line of work was dangerous and tiring, and to know that Leon had to go through multiple events so similar to today made you feel guilty for being how you were just from one night.

Your gaze lingers over his face, studying his expression. Under the dim lights reflected off by some street lights as well as the car’s headlights, you can see the way you looked forward. It’s the gaze that regrets not looking back.

The air has now changed within the car, and the drive is now… silent. You can almost feel and understand the feeling he had felt, taking you back to when everything broke out into chaos earlier today…

It felt like the world had, at an instant, spun at two times the speed; you couldn’t react fast enough to consider anything else. Your body had moved on its own like it was on autopilot, only worrying about the preservation of itself. At no point did you help anyone; you didn’t talk, didn’t scream, didn’t pull. The silence itself became your biggest flaw.

You were terrified… You wished you weren’t, if you hadn't been so— they could’ve—

“I’m sorry…” You apologized… Not sure who it was directed to… For Leon? For those bodies, you had to walk past? The one you had to shoot?

“I— I” your voice crackled and started to tremble once again as the memories of tonight rushed back into your head. You tried to really push it back once again, but it won't…

The thick air, the screams, the cries, the darkness.

You dripped onto the front of the passenger seat as you covered your mouth and closed your eyes, biting back a sob. Leon heard the shakiness in your voice, and he panics slightly, knowing he’s unable to comfort you when his focus should be on the road.

Quickly, he checks his GPS and sees there’s a pond at the next turn, so he speeds up a bit and turns into the driveway that overlooks a small pond in the middle of nowhere.

The turn was a little rushed and made you jerk sideways a bit as you clinged into the seat belt, and soon he came to a stop.

You looked at him as you tried to breathe normally, but couldn’t when the car suddenly felt just as suffocating as that storage closet. Leon quickly cuts off the engine and takes off his seat belt while reaching over to release yours, and you bite your lip trying to swallow the sob.

“Hey, hey, hey… Shhh, it’s alright, breathe…” he cooed as his hand came up to your face like before, wiping your tears as they fell. You really do try to breathe; you breathed in sharply, but it felt as if the air wasn't getting into your system. You feel hot as blood rushes to your face and your head pounds harder, matching the pulse of your fast heartbeat.

“I— I can't,” you managed to cry out before going to the door next to you, opening it, and stepping out to catch some fresh air. You bend over, head hanging low as you prop your hands on your lower thigh, as you try again to control your breathing. You hear Leon step out of the car and rush over to you to check in on you, hands going to rub your back.

You breathed in and out for a second before standing straight. Your breathing is still shaky. You walked over to a large rock that overlooks the pond, sat down, and continued to control your breathing. Leon followed along as well and sat right next to you, watching you and being there in case you needed anything.

The late autumn wind softly blows across your face, the tears that were left on your face made it feel colder than it should’ve and it made your body instinctively shiver just slightly. Leon looks over and sees the shiver.

You hear him walk behind you, but your eyes still gaze out upon the pond. Taking a deep breath, you exhaled shakily, your body still recovering from the breakdown you just had.

You hear Leon shuffle a bit behind you, and you turn back to see what he was doing, but you are met with the sight of his leather jacket as he draped it over your shoulder, covering you. The jacket was heavier than you thought, but it was warm.

Your hand goes up to grab the side of the collar as you pull it closer towards you, fingers brushing right over Leon’s hand.

“You wouldn’t want to catch a cold out here.” Leon let out a short breath as you sniffled up again. Your eyes wandered from his hand that remained on your shoulder, on the jacket, up to his face. You had to admit, the moon was definitely admiring this man’s looks as well from the way it highlighted all his sharp features.

“Thank you, Leon… but are you sure—“ you were about to ask if he was alright about not having a jacket, but he already knew.

“Don’t worry about me, sweetie, a bit of cold won’t kill me,” he jokes as he sits back down on the rock next to you. He has one leg stretched out while the other is bent, his arms resting behind him, propping himself up as he takes the time to enjoy the peace… a rare moment in his life.

Your gaze drifts to where his lead, which was the reflection of the moon on the surface of the water. You took another deep breath in, holding it for just a second longer before releasing it. Sounds of crickets echoing in the night, carried over by the winds.

Your head tilts slightly as you look at him…seeing how he breathes slowly… ”How do you live like this…?” you asked softly, voice cracking just slightly towards the end. Leon looked over at you when you had asked and hesitated a bit. He knew the question meant no harm, I mean…you had been through one hell of an event.ng

Leon stayed silent for a bit, not exactly sure of how he could even answer that question. He looks over your face, now illuminated by the moonlight, looking way too pure for his chaotic life. He sees how your eyebrows furrow up, worried, hesitant, how your eyes are stained red from all the crying you have done today. Oh, how he wishes he could take all your worries away and wipe away all those tears… The way your lips are slightly swollen, too…

His hand moved on its own as it left the rock; his other hand remained on to support him while his hand reached up to your face, cresting it softly, wiping some tears that hadn’t yet rolled fully off your face.

Unlike before at the library tower, the moment allowed him to really feel you under his rough hands, your soft skin contrasted under his, which were calloused. Your eyes never leave him as you lean closer to his touch, letting yourself into it.

“Sweetie…” he whispered, loud enough for you to hear but not enough for the winds to carry it off; these words weren’t for them.

You felt yourself melting as he continued to refer to you as such… It was something about an older man referring to you like that. Of course, it was normal for someone older to call someone younger certain names, but the way Leon said it… It had a hint of protectiveness, a sense of closeness when he calls out to you.

You didn’t know why he had such an effect on you, but similarly, Leon couldn’t help but be pulled in by you time and time again today.

“For me it’s been years… I lived, regretted, and I swear I try to forget… but it keeps crawling back." His voice was painful; everything about him carried those emotions he had felt over the years, the lines on his face, the sharpness of his glare, the gleam nowhere to be found in his eyes, the roughness of his hands. 

To you, though, they felt warm; the lines on his face didn’t bother you, his eyes were soft when they were on you, and his hands were protective when they were on you. To you, he was living proof that someone can live… he was proof that there is someone who you can count on… one that you can connect to.

Your hand raises to hold onto the hand that cupped your face, Leon taking a sharp breath in when your hand wraps over his much larger ones.

“I want to forget too…” You confessed, knowing that the events of today will continue to plague you for the rest of your life. You can ignore it as much as you want, throw out any evidence in your life that connected back to it, hell, even if you had transferred universities. The memory will continue to live on… You wanted instead your memories to be filled with something else…

“I don’t want to think about it… I don’t want to remember…” You plead… not only directing it to Leon, but your own consciousness too, as your gaze finally leaves him to look down as you feel another sob coming up.

Leon shifted his seating to get closer to you, knowing exactly how you feel because he, too, wishes for his visions back to Racoon City to disappear. He really tries to hold himself back when you plead like he wanted to help so badly, an instinct of his at this point.

“Let me help you, sweetie…” he offered his voice lower yet still soft as you turned your head back to him, but your eyes gazed towards his lips, they weren’t soft by any means, but you didn’t mind…

The two souls had connected and found each other through the chaos, two souls desperate to find any means to distract themselves from the path they had taken down life.

Leon’s gaze was the same as yours, his eyes glancing down to your lips, which looked so soft and plump from all the crying, but both of you were still hesitant… You guys had just met a mere couple of hours ago, and yet the relationship that developed had felt so concrete. The only stable ground the two of you guys ever stood on, it seems.

Slightly shifting forward towards his face, Leon did the same, his hand still on your face and your hand on his. Leon slowly connected his forehead to yours, his bangs slightly tickling your forehead, his eyes now only centimeters from yours as the two of you looked into each other.

You guys remained like for a couple of seconds, no words spoken, just felt.

It was like you were asking for some sort of confirmation, some sort of forgiveness for the feeling, the desire, the yearning that began to develop between the two of you.

“Please… tell me to back down,” Leon pleaded, wishing you could push him away, hoping you would turn away yourself so he could finally let go of the string that had kept on pulling him towards you.

You couldn’t bring yourself to do that, though, you didn’t want to… You wanted him to continue… You had come to realize how, whenever he touches your face or is with you within any proximity, you felt like you could only think of him… That’s what you wanted, that's what you needed.

Leon waited, but you didn’t move, you didn’t pull away, and he cursed himself for what he was about to do because his desire and yearning for something, for you, was already too much for him to hold back anymore.

The hand that cupped your face, your jaw, slowly raises slightly, as his forehead leaves yours as he tilts your head up slightly to him. You can feel each other’s breathing at this closeness…

Slowly leaning in, your eyes close, and so does his as his lips slowly connect to yours, just barely, caressing the surface with a peck, a test of confirmation, seeing if you would finally pull away from him.

You didn’t… You wanted more, and that was all Leon needed as his lips fully connected with his as the two of you both inhaled sharply. His grip is tightening softly on your face as your other hand goes up to hold onto his chest.

The kiss was soft, it was slow, cautious, and there was no rush. Your lips move in sync with his as he places soft, lingering kisses around your lips, and his other hand reaches for your waist, pulling you in closer to him.

“Sweetie… do you want this…?” he asked, between kisses, knowing that he was stepping over a line that he should have never stepped over; he didn’t want to seem like he was taking advantage of you. He was much older than you, maybe twice your age, more seasoned, he could have found a sense of relief with someone else, but yet he wants it to be you so bad at this moment.

“Yes… please” you whispered softly between kisses, and then leaned in closer as you got more desperate for more of him. Your mind was hazy; it wasn’t blank, but instead it was of him… You can feel his stubble grazing against your chin and occasionally on your lips, but it feels almost erotic as you whimper against his lips.

Leon melts into the deeper kiss as he beats with his own mind in the process. He knows how wrong this was, but you kept on pulling him deeper and deeper, and your soft pleas only added to his growing desire for you.

Leon groans against the kiss as he pulls you fully onto him, his hands resting under your thighs as he stands up with you, carrying you while his lips remain on yours. You let him move, only wanting to remain in his arms, his touch, his kiss.

Your back hit the side of his car, but he had cushioned the impact with his hand that rested on your back while the other held you up. His lips still on yours, groaning between kisses.

He brings you back up from his car as the hand behind your back leaves to open the backseat door, and he bends over to place you down onto the leather seats, giving you one last peck before breaking off for a bit.

You were a bit upset when his lips left yours, but you quickly scooted back a bit more so that Leon could get into the car as well.

The door closes with a soft thud and the jacket he had draped over you earlier has already fallen off your shoulders to the floor of the car, Leon could care less about that jacket right now as the door clicks as he locks it shut. You quickly kick off your shoes, and Leon follows suit, and his arm reaches over to your face, pulling you back in for a kiss to continue.

You again wrapped your arms around his neck as his other arm scoops over your back, pulling you in more and laying you flat down onto his seat.

“Fuck… sweetie…” Leon groans into the kiss as your hand moves up from his nape up to his hair, tangling your fingers through them. Leon licks across your lips, and just the sensation alone makes you let out a soft moan as he takes the opportunity to stick his tongue in your mouth, deepening the kiss.

The two of you explore each other’s mouths, occasionally accidentally bumping into each other’s teeth from how deeply you were kissing each other, but neither of you minds. Leon’s hand cups up behind your back and slips under your hoodie and t-shirt, his rough hands rubbing your bare waist softly.

He breaks away for a second to look at you as his thumb rubs your waist in slow motion, soothing you. You looked up at him, and the light from the moon that reflected off the water's surface was enough to help light up the interior of the car just slightly.

Leon looks down at you as your chest rises up and down, catching your breath as your face and ears are flushed pink, lips swollen from the makeout. “Sweetheart… you’re going to kill me…” he admits as he leans back down again, kissing your forehead, letting the kiss linger a little longer as you bask in the feeling of it all.

His hand behinds to slowly move upwards towards where the wire of your bra sat, and he pulls back from your forehead, connecting his forehead to yours as he looks into your eyes. “Is this alright…? Are you alright?" He asks, needing confirmation that the path this was heading was alright with you.

You looked back at him, eyes full of wanting…

Reaching a hand up to cup his face, his stubble poking at your hand as it rests there. You pull him to you, placing a soft kiss on his lips, whispering back, “Yes… you can continue”.

That was all Leon needed, and he reconnects your lips with his as he holds himself up slightly with one hand above you while the other under your shirt moves up further, under your bra to cup your breasts, kneading them softly.

He continues to kiss you and soon moves down to your jaw, trailing more kisses down your neck. Your back arches against his touch as you let out another soft moan. You can feel Leon's hand then slowly move to the back of your chest, finding the clip to your bra, unclipping it with ease.

“mmmm…Leon…more” you begged as you closed your eyes, enjoying the sensations you were feeling at the moment.

Leon chuckles against your neck as he hears the pleas. He swears just your soft little moans are enough to make him cum right then and there in his pants.

He leans back as you prop yourself up along with him, now sitting in the middle of the back seats. His hand finds your face again, and his thumb rubs your cheeks as the other goes to hold the edge of your hoodie.

Your hand follows where his was on your hoodie, and you help him pull it over your head along with the t-shirt that was under it, as well as the bra.

“Fuck… you’re so gorgeous, sweetie…” He says, admiring you under the dim moonlight, thinking you’re the purest thing on this god-forsaken Earth. He looks at you over and over again, hands running up your waist like he wants to carve every curve, every detail of you into his memory…

Feeling a bit embarrassed as he said that you instinctively lip your arms up a bit trying to cover yourself but he gets a hold of your arms, preventing you from doing so, “Don’t hide yourself please…let me see my pretty girl…” he whispers as his hands move down to cup your breasts as he leans forward to kiss your collar bones before trailing down further.

One of his hands goes to pick up one of your legs, bringing it over his lap, and you follow, now straddling him, and he has a much better angle to your chest.

“So perfect…” he groans as he continues to kiss down to your breasts, taking one into his mouth as his hand massages the other.

You throw your head back in bliss, and you moan out his name, “Oh yes…Leon…please…” With your pleas, Leon takes your nipple, swirling it around his tongue, trying to remember the taste of you on it.

“So sweet…” Leon moans as he is buried into your chest.

“Mmmm your shirt Leon… take it off…” You plead, your hands dropping to his shoulders, pulling at his compression shirt slightly.

He pulls back, and from your view, you could see just how dilated his pupils were; he was too into it, and his lips were glistening with some of his spit. He pants softly before pulling his shirt over his head, deshelveling his hair even more than your fingers did.

You lay back slightly, a hand trailed to his toned chest and then his arms. His muscles tense up at your soft touch. Throwing his head back and holding your waist as you enjoyed yourself, he chuckles.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart…? Realizing that I’m too old for you?” he teases as he kneads your waist and hips.

You leaned forward, giggling while placing a soft kiss on his chin, not caring that his stubble pokes at your lips. Your left hand traces down his cheeks to his jaw, then just as you reach his neck, you freeze slightly. Under your han you felt something… on his neck.

“Leon…” you muttered, and Leon knew…

His hand reaches up to hold your left hand, “Don’t worry about me, sweetie… I’ll be fine, it’s nothing,” he reassured as he pulled your hand up to his lips, placing a kiss on your knuckles. He doesn’t want to let anything related to the chaotic and dangerous life he lives interfere with the comfort between the two of you currently.

He leans forward to catch your neck, distracting you, wanting you to only focus on the pleasure he’s giving you as he goes back down to your breasts. Your hips move slightly, grinding on his hard-on under his pants, the feeling of it poking up at you made you feel very impatient.

“I want it, Leon…” you groaned as you tugged on his hair, his mouth still preoccupied with your breasts. “Fuck please… it’s so sensitive," you plead and whine as he licks and sucks on your breasts like a starved man. You grind yourself on his erection more as he continues to worship your breast and you can definitely feel your arousal seeping past your panties.

He is lost… completely in bliss in your embrace and warm as he is touching you. He couldn’t really believe it… He felt held, seen, and needed. After all these years, through missions, battles, losses, and regret, he is holding someone who understands it, feels it, and doesn’t pull away. Leon felt something ignite within him whenever he touched you, and he is chasing for that feeling to grow stronger as he pushes up against you even more.

After what felt like forever, your breath was shaky, and your breasts were almost completely sore and sensitive to any sort of touch. He lay your back down onto the seats and his hands settled onto your jeans. Your hands hurried to unbutton them as he helped you slide them off, and your panties came off along with them.

You are now lying down completely nude in front of him, and Leon is trying so hard not to just pound into you right then and there as he sees just how wet and lude you look right now, but he couldn’t do that to his sweet girl. He unbuckles his own belts and straps, throwing them to the back of the car, kicking his pants off, leaving himself in just his briefs.

You sat back up, your hands going to trace his chest and slowly drag them down, feeling his happy trails right above his briefs. Looking up at him, you bite your lips, taking in the sight of his hair disheveled, slightly sweaty, and his mouth slightly opened. You lean into his chest and start to go lower, but he pulls you back.”Nuh uh, let daddy be the one that pleases you.”

You swore you just grew wetter when he referred to himself as such, and you instinctively rub your thighs together. “Oh?” he smirks as he sees your action, his hand reaching down to spread out one of the legs, making you lie back down, eyes never leaving his.

Leon looks down as he parts your legs and sees you spread out like that… he dives straight down. It hooks both arms under your thighs as he looks at you from between your legs, and he places soft kisses down your inner thigh. His stubble tickling you a bit makes you jolt, but his hands keep you still. You whimpered against his touch as you clenched against nothing, needing to have some sort of relief.

“Is this okay?” He asks as he reaches your folds. His eyes pleaded more than his words did at this point, by the way he looked at you.

“Yes..” you exhaled, as you watched his every move. With your confirmation, he takes one hand up to slowly rub up and then down your folds, collecting the slick around. You let out a sharp breath as you throw your head back.

He was definitely taking his sweet time with you, but you didn’t mind…

“Oh my sweet girl… look at you… you're dripping,” Leon whispered against your pussy. His breath alone was enough to make you squirm slightly, but Leon still held you in place with his arms. His thumb spreads open your folds slightly as Leon’s tongue latches onto the bundle of nerves, licking and softly sucking on it.

“Oh my god… daddy please… mmmm,” you cried out in bliss, your hips rising up slightly to get more. Your jaw opens up as your breathing becomes ragged.

Leon works on your clit, basically nuzzling his face into your pussy at this point as he groans between licks. “You taste so sweet… It’s intoxicating…” he growls as he dives right back in, using his thumb to part your folds further as he shoves his fat tongue into your pussy, pulling you closer to his face. Your legs bend even more, back arching, and your thighs squeeze at Leon’s head slightly from the pleasure.

Your hand flies onto his head, gripping his hair as you crave more. Leon, on the other hand, was too busy eating you out, shoving his tongue in and out of your pussy as his thumb worked on your clit, rubbing it in slow circles, making you cry out his name repeatedly.

“Leon…Leon…” you squealed. The texture of his stubble only added to the mix of sensation, and you are completely lost as your pussy clenches down onto his tongue.

“That’s not my name, sweet girl…” he grunted as he detached himself from your pussy, making you clench around nothing. You whined and looked back down at him.

“Please, daddy… I need you so badly it hurts,” you cried as your hips buckled up, wanting him to continue.

He lets out a low chuckle, seeing his girl so needy for him, since she asked so nicely, he, of course, can't deny those pleas. His head dives straight back onto your pussy, eating it up, getting it all wet with his spit. He pulls back slightly before leaning back in and clamping down onto your pussy with his teeth lightly.

“D-Daddy—!” You squealed as he did that, which earned you a chuckle from him.

“Sorry, sweetie… Your pussy is too fucking sweet… I want to eat it all up… “ he teases as he licks your clit, his hand rubbing your folds, and then his middle finger ghosts over your pussy.

“I need your finger in me, daddy please… stretch me out…” You plead with no hesitation, as all the touching and kissing have gotten you very needy for him to just fuck you.

Leon continued to lick and suck on your clit as he slowly pushed his middle finger in, which went in smoothly with just how wet you were, and he felt you clench around it. “So wet this pussy… yeah… daddy’s making you this wet, right?” he asks with a smirk as his finger begins to pump in and out of you.

You gasp at just the size of one of his fingers, knowing damn well yours could never compare. “Yes… all for you, daddy… fuck..” you exhaled as he continued to work on your pussy as it drips for him. Lude wet sounds emanate from it as he licks, sucks, basically makes out with your pussy while his finger is getting soaked in your essence.

Soon, you feel his index finger slowly pushing into you along with his middle finger, and that's when you really feel the stretch. You haven't had any sexual relations with anyone in a long time, so being stuffed by Leon’s thick and long fingers, you had to adjust slightly.

“You alright, sweetie? Am I hurting you?” he had gotten up from your pussy and kissed your cheek, checking in to see if you were alright. Your hands touched him all over his jaw, neck, and broad chest as his two fingers stayed still inside you.

“Yes, I’m alright… just haven't done anything in a while…” You admitted, a bit embarrassed, turning your head away a bit.

Leon takes a sharp intake of breath at your confession, and chuckles, figuring that you most likely had only been with guys around your age before, which was true… None of those skanky frat bros from college could ever make you feel so blissful to the point where you feel like you’re becoming the reason why lust is considered a sin.

Leon starts placing soft, lingering kisses on your jaw. “That’s alright… Let daddy show you what it’s like being with a grown man,” he comforts before catching your lips in a kiss that was more intense than before, shoving his tongue into your mouth, making it his mission to become the taste you yearn for. 

His fingers begin to move, slowly at first, drawing it in and out before he curls them slightly upwards, feeling your gummy walls clench around them as it hits a certain spot that makes you throw your head back with a moan.

He continues, now opting to kiss your jaw, then your neck, to which he sucks on some areas, leaving dark red marks all over, as well as your chest. “You hear that, sweetie…?” He cooed as his fingers worked on your pussy, occasionally spreading them apart slightly to stretch you out.

You couldn’t even make out a correct sentence anymore as the pleasure was too much, and a feeling began to build up and pool in your lower abdomen. “See how much you are dripping…” Leon’s erection at this point was almost painful, but just seeing you moaning his name over and over again was enough already. “Going to stretch this pussy out with my cock later… you want that, yeah?” he has a cocky smirk on as he quickens up his finger, making you throw yourself forward a bit, your hand going to grip onto his tense arm that was fucking your pussy.

“O-Ohh— I’m going to— “ you moaned as your eyes met his, and he could just drink up that expression you had on right now, you were breathing heavily, sweaty as strands of hair stuck onto your face. At this point, the entire car was steaming up a bit with your breathy moans.

“Yeah? You’re gonna cum?” he asked, raising an eyebrow as your mouth opens up to an o as more lewd sounds come out of them as your breathing quickens and you clench down even more. “Yeah, that’s it, my sweet girl… go ahead… cum for daddy.”

With that, you shivered as you reached your high, as your essence drips out onto his hand and some onto his expensive leather seats, but Leon can’t bother to give a fuck about those seats.

You collapse against him, still holding onto his arm for support as you catch your breath. “That’s it… you did so well,” he comforts as his hand moves some strands of hair away from your face to kiss your forehead.

His fingers come out with a gushing sound, he brings them up to his mouth, giving a lick, “So sweet baby…”.

You covered your face as he said, “It’s so embarrassing, don’t do that…” you whined, but you knew that wasn’t going to stop him.

Leon sits back as he pulls down his briefs, finally freeing his aching cock. You remove your hands from your face as you watch him remove the last piece of clothing, and you slightly get concerned when you see his size…

Your eyes glazed down his happy trail that led down to his fairly unkept carpet, but you didn’t really mind when all you could focus on was whether or not he would fit…

“Don’t worry, sweetie… It’ll make it fit…” he assured as he basically read your mind, knowing exactly what you were thinking from your reaction. “I’ll go, sweetie… I won't hurt you,” he reassures as he leans down to kiss your temples.

He looks down, grabbing his cock and drags it over your folds that were covered in your own release, gathering it onto his tip, using it as lubrication. You shivered at the feeling of the tip dragging up and down. “Yes… fuck daddy, I need your cock inside me please…” You whimpered as you held onto his shoulder and face, kissing his cheek.

With that, Leon lines himself up with you before slowly pushing the head in. The feeling of that alone already has him closing his eyes, enjoying the feeling of your raw pussy around his tip.

You whimper at the stretch; it burned, yes, but it felt too good. Your back arches as your grip on him tightens.

“Fuck… so tight… relax for me, sweet girl, will you? You’re going to suffocate daddy’s cock” he grunts as he continues pushing in, as his hand goes down to rub your bud, making you loosen up a bit around him.

“It’s so big…” You whined as the combined feeling of him rubbing you while his cock stretched your pussy out was enough to throw you into ecstasy.

Leon grunts through it all as he slowly inches in more bit by bit, drinking every bit of your expression and the feeling of your walls. His head hangs down as he finally bottoms out and stays there for a bit for you to adjust.

He looks up at you, kissing you around your face, “Doing so well for me, sweetie, you’re making daddy feel so good… such a good girl,” he praised. He was propping himself up on his elbow, and he turned his hand slightly to rub your cheek as you finally opened your eyes to meet his.

Both of you stayed there like that for a while, just taking in the feeling of each other and holding each other, but just as Leon was asked if he could move, he felt your chest shake a bit as small sobs came out. His eyes widen in worry as he looks over your face, worried he has hurt you. You cried as you looked up at him.

“Am I hurting you? We can stop if you—”

“No…” you cut him off, “It’s not that… It’s just that I’m happy… I feel so loved and comforted… I just want to hold you close… I don’t want to think back to today… I just want to remember you” you sobbed into him as both of his arms cages around you and he leans to kiss your tears as they fall.

“Shhh, it’s okay, daddy’s here… Daddy will make you feel good… until all you can remember is daddy’s fat cock fucking your pussy” and with that he pulls out half way before slamming his whole length back into you making you moan out in bliss as leon catches your mouth with his, drinking in the rest of your moans.

His pace began slow but in all the right areas, which made you wrap your hands around his back, crawling at it as he continued to pound into you, groaning and cursing under his breath. He held you close the whole time, arms wrapped protectively around you.

“So perfect… your pussy was made for daddy, yeah?” he groans, as he pulls himself all the way out until only his tip remains in you before slamming it back.

Yeah that did it for you as you turned into a babbling mess, “Da— Daddy so full… mmm… Love daddy’s cock” you murmured as your legs lifted slightly to wrap behind his back. His cock is hitting the deepest part of your cervix now with every thrust.

“Yeah? You like it, sweetie? Like it when daddy stretches out your pussy? Ohhh fuck sweetie,” he coos into your ear as his pace quickens up and one hand goes back down to rub on your bud.

You tremble as you feel yet another release approaching as you whine more, oh Leon knew and continues at the pace he was going, “That’s it… cum all over daddy’s cock, always dripping for daddy’s cock right?” he encourages you as your back arches more to the touch, your breath shaking every time he pounds into you and soon your legs tremble as you clench down onto his cock.

“So proud of you, sweetie… fuck look at that… creaming all over daddy,” he smirks as he rubs your cheeks as you breathe heavily.

“So full…” You cooed, your eyes barely open, but then suddenly you felt yourself shift as Leon picked you up, flipping both of you around until you were on top of him, straddling him with his hard dick still in you.

“You still got another one in you, baby?” He asks as he helps fix yours slightly by moving them away from your face so that he can get a good look at you.

Through your hazy vision, you see his face, a light blush covering his face, and you nod, having barely any strength to make out any words. Leon chuckles, seeing how he has done a number on you already. His hands move to your hips, raising them up a bit as he slides down the seat just a bit, spreading his leg to the side, behind the passenger and driver’s seat.

He held your hips in place as your hands rested on his broad chest, holding yourself up, but they buckled and gave up as Leon started to thrust himself up into you. The sounds of his balls clapping onto your cheeks rang throughout his car as you fell onto his chest, unable to hold yourself up anymore.

“Daddy… Fuck…” you murmured lazily as you were way too tired to let out anything else other than whines and moans. Leon didn’t mind when your pussy clenched onto his cock basically asking to milk him dry. His chest rises up and down as he starts to breathe heavily, his grip on your hip shifts, and now he’s now gripping your ass tightly, and you groan when he squeezes them and basically fucks you onto his cock.

You didn’t care if it was going to be sore or it’ll leave a mark, “Yeah, daddy… f-fu— g-gonna c— again mmm!” you whined as you feel yourself needing another release…

“I know, baby… Ohhh fuck… Daddy’s gonna cum too… where you want me to—?” Lean tenses up as his speed quickens, chasing his own high as he throws his head back.

“I— Inside… on pill,” you whimpered out as you clenched and dripped onto him.

You hold onto him as he quickly thrusts up into you, as your dripping goes down his balls and onto the car floor. He grunts loudly on the last couple of thrusts before slamming into you hard and spilling himself all into you.

The feeling of him filling you up makes you tremble slightly as everything feels sensitive after 3 releases.

“So warm, sweetie… fuck so good for me” Leon praises you as he pulls you closer to his chest, letting you lay their as he places kisses onto your forehead while one hand rests behind your head and one rests on your hip as he remains in you, letting both of you recover from such a session.

You can hear his heart beat from lying on his chest, it was fast, but as time passed and the two of you just enjoyed the feeling of each other’s bodies, his heart beat slowly returned to normal, and so did yours. His cock softens inside you and soon he shifts a little, “Sorry baby…” he pulls himself as the mixture of the two of your releases spills out of you and onto his car, “Don’t worry about that sweetie just rest, leaving the cleaning to me” he pulls you back onto him as you now sat next to him, your eyes growing heavy as tiredness catches its way up.

“Shhh… It’s alright, I’ll take care of you,” he comforts you as you try to fight against the sleepiness, wanting to be awake and enjoy his presence.

“You’ll stay right…? You won’t leave?” You asked innocently with a tired tone as you looked up at him. He smiles.

“Don’t worry, sweet girl… I’ll be here… I’ll wake you up when we’re at the hotel, okay?” he promises you. He rubs circles on your back as he bends slightly to grab his jacket from the car floor and drapes it over you. Soon, you gave in to the tiredness, eyes fluttering a couple of times before they shut completely.

…

…

…

Still in the car, Lenon looks over at your sleeping figure as his jacket rises and falls slowly with your breathing. Your expression was peaceful, at ease as you slipped into slumber. Leon breathes in slowly as he runs a hand over his hair, pushing it back as he comes to terms with what had just occurred between the two of you. He wasn’t sure how he felt… He enjoyed your company, truthfully. He yearned for you; you satiated his troubles, his pain, and he helped you with yours, but he couldn’t come to terms with himself, promising you anything concrete, and it made him feel so guilty…

He slowly and carefully points back at his pants as well as his shirt and grabs some tissues from the car’s console in the middle as he begins to wipe you down slowly and carefully, as he doesn’t wish to wake you up. He didn’t bother with the seats as he figured he could just get them cleaned at a car wash.

He looks at himself from the rear view mirror from the back seat where he sat and where you lay down. He tilted his head just slightly to see the growing black wound on his neck, knowing he most likely doesn’t have much time left… He doesn't want you to deal with that part of him… the infection.

That was the one thing that he knew connected him back to Raccoon City, and soon he knew… He had to go back.

…

…

…

The rest of the ride to the hotel was quiet as Leon drove with you still sleeping in the back. He needed you to get to a safe place, make sure you could wash up, eat, and get a better rest because he wouldn’t want you to just settle for sleeping in the backseat of his car; it wasn’t at all what he wanted to provide for you. You deserve better.

As his car pulls into the hotel parking lot it was already very late into the night, or early morning, he didn’t bother checking as he steps out before opening the back doors and getting in, seeing you still sleeping peacefully, He smiles softly seeing you enjoying your sleep and wishes that he doesn’t need to wake you up but he had to since you had to get some clothes on you before he took you into the hotel.

“Mmm… Leon…” your voice was slightly rough as you groaned at him, nudging you.

“Come on, sweetheart, get some clothes on, we’re at the hotel now.” Leon chuckles as he sees you rub your eyes as they slowly blink open. You were definitely still half asleep as you pushed yourself up on your hands, letting his jacket slide off you as you bent down to lazily pick up your bra. You slowly put it on and then fiddle with his clasp in the back, definitely struggling, and Leon quickly helps you snap them on. I mean, he was the one who took it off, so it made sense he should help you redress.

He bends down, grabbing your shirt and hoodie as you drag your legs through your panties and then jeans, pulling them up before buttoning them back on. Leon turns you over, and you raise your arms for him as he helps you put on your shirt and then your hoodie, making sure to smooth out any noticeable wrinkles.

“Come on sweetie, I have some extra clothes in the back for you to change it later, I’ll help you get checked in” he coos as he helps lead you out of his car, as he heads to his trunk to grab the extra shirt and some sweats he had, definitely way too big for you but comfortable enough for you to sleep in before guiding you into the hotel.

Your eyes are half-opened as your body desperately wants to get you back asleep. You support yourself along Leon’s arm as he walks you into the hotel lobby before placing your own onto a seat in the lounge area, making sure you are okay before heading to the front desk and handling the whole annoying check-in process.

You sat down and rested your head in your hand as you propped your elbow into the seat’s armrests. You wanted nothing more than to sleep.

Leon then walks back to you with a key card and sees you dozing off as your head nods back and forth slowly as you try to remain awake. You definitely never fail to make him feel soft for you, and he walks over and bends down to you, rubbing your cheek with a hand.

“Hey, sweetheart, your room is ready. I got you a better room so you can be more comfortable, and don’t worry, I’ve taken care of it all, okay? Let’s bring you up, and then you can sleep all you want,” he murmured.

You barely managed a tired nod.

Leon slipped an arm around your shoulders again, helping you stand as you leaned heavily into him. Your body felt like it was made of lead, every step slow and sluggish as he guided you toward the elevators.

The ride up was quiet.

You rested your head against his shoulder, eyes barely open as the elevator hummed softly upward. Leon didn’t move away. If anything, he shifted slightly closer, letting you lean against him fully.

The doors slid open with a soft chime, and Leon led you down the hallway until he stopped in front of a room and swiped the key card. The door clicked open as Leon pushed open the door cautiously, just out of habit, as he flipped on the lights, warm light filled the room.

He guided you inside and closed the door behind the two of you.

“Alright,” he murmured, helping you sit on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipped beneath your weight, and you nearly collapsed backward right then and there. “Shower first,” Leon said gently, brushing a stray strand of hair from your face. “You’ll feel better.”

You nodded weakly as you entered the bathroom, and Leon entered right behind, placing the change of clothes next to the sink. You looked up at the mirror, seeing the reflection of him leaving, but not before looking back at you through the mirror.

“You’ll stay… right?” you hoped, asking in a whisper. Leon, though, wasn’t sure of what he should say, and so his eyes lingered on your face. You had trusted him with your life tonight, followed him through darkness, fear, and blood, and clung to him like he was the only thing keeping you grounded. And right now… You were looking at him the same way, and something in his chest tightened.

He needs to pull away… he wasn't going to drag you into the mess he needed to… deal with…

“Wash up, sweetheart, and get some rest, hm?” he smiled back before the door clicked shut softly.

You’re left with the company of your own reflection now, your hair slightly tangled. Slowly, you strip yourself of your clothes before you step into the shower.

The warm water did help. Standing beneath the shower felt like washing away the entire nightmare of the night… The screams, the blood, the suffocating fear in that closet. Steam filled the bathroom as you leaned against the wall, letting the water run over your shoulders.

Your muscles ached, but your chest felt lighter knowing Leon was just outside… You weren’t alone anymore.

Leon stood there for a second.

Just listening.

The hotel room felt too quiet now that you weren’t in it, now just filled with the sounds of the shower running.

He exhaled slowly and dragged a hand down his face before pacing once across the room, his boots muffled against the carpet.

You had looked so exhausted when you stepped into the bathroom.

Barely awake.

Barely holding yourself upright.

And yet you had still turned your head up to the mirror before he closed the door just to look at him... Like you were making sure he was still there.

Leon swallowed hard and looked away from the bathroom door.

He couldn’t think about that. Not now. His hand dropped to the edge of the desk, and he braced himself there for a moment, shoulders tense as he tried to steady his breathing. That’s when he noticed it… A dull ache spread through his hand. Leon frowned slightly and lifted it into the light.

The mark had grown.

The dark veins beneath the skin crawled faintly across the back of his hand, branching out from the infected bite like something alive beneath the surface. For a moment, he just stared at it in silence.

The faint sound of the shower continued behind him with soft hums as you were humming something quietly now. Some absent-minded tune under your breath as the hot water ran. The normalcy of it made his chest tighten.

You were safe.

For the first time tonight, you were safe. Leon clenched his hand slowly; the veins pulsed faintly beneath his skin.

“…Damn it.” His voice was barely above a whisper. He had felt it getting worse for days now, the creeping infection that refused to stop spreading.

Raccoon City was waiting. The answers were there. And if he doesn't get there soon… Leon looked down again at his hand. His jaw tightened. He couldn’t stay, no matter how much he wanted to. His gaze drifted slowly back toward the bathroom door. Steam curled beneath it now, drifting softly across the carpet.

You were probably standing under the water with your eyes closed, letting the nightmare wash away, he thought. Trusting that when you stepped out, he would still be here…

The thought made his chest ache. Leon leaned back against the wall and slid down into the chair beside the bed, staring at the floor. He remembered the library, the way your voice had cracked when you called out from the closet. The way you had thrown your arms around him the moment that door opened. The way you clung to him in the stairwell, like letting go would mean losing the only solid thing left in the world.

And later…

The quiet moments in the car…

Your head resting against his…

The warmth of you beside him…

Leon shut his eyes briefly. He knew he shouldn’t have let things go that far. Not with someone like you. Not when his life looked the way it did. Outbreaks… Monsters… Death….

Leon ran a hand through his hair, frustration flickering across his face.

“You deserve better than this,” he murmured quietly.

Then the water in the shower shut off, which made his head lift instantly as footsteps moved faintly inside the bathroom, sounds of a towel rustling. Leon’s gaze drifted once more toward his hand, and the infection pulsed again beneath the skin.

His jaw set.

That settled it.

He stood slowly.

He walked to the desk, finding the hotel notepad. The pen scratched quietly across the paper as he wrote just a few words. Nothing more. Anything longer would make it harder. Leon placed the note carefully beside his jacket at the foot of the bed, and for a moment, he just stood there, looking toward the bathroom door.

The handle hadn’t moved yet.

Steam still drifted slowly into the room.

If he stayed another minute… He might not leave at all.

Leon picked up his keys and quietly moved to the door, his hand paused on the handle.

“…You’ll be safer without me,” he said softly.

Then he stepped out into the hallway and closed the door behind him.

The latch clicked as Leon walked away…

​

Eventually, you dried off and pulled on the oversized clothes he’d given you. His shirt swallowed your frame, and the sweats hung loosely around your hips. You smiled faintly; they smelled like him. You stepped out of the bathroom, still rubbing the towel through your hair.

“Leon?” Your voice came out soft and sleepy. You expected to see him sitting on the edge of the bed, or leaning against the wall, or maybe half-asleep in the chair by the window.

But the room was quiet.

The bedside lamp cast a soft glow across the empty bed. Your smile faded slightly, “…Leon?” You stepped further into the room, and the chair by the window was empty; the curtains swayed faintly from the air conditioner. Your heart began to beat a little faster, the bathroom door clicked shut behind you as you walked toward the bed, and that’s when you noticed it…

His jacket.

Folded neatly at the foot of the bed and beside it… A small note. Your fingers trembled slightly as you picked it up, examining it, the handwriting quick but careful.

Get some sleep.

You’re safe now.

—Leon

You stared at the words for a long moment; the silence in the room suddenly felt much heavier than before. Your chest tightened. You had thought… You thought he would stay. Just until morning. Just until the sun came up. Just until you woke up again.

Your fingers tightened around the paper as you slowly sat down on the bed, the sheets still smelled faintly like him. You pulled his jacket closer to your chest without even thinking. The smell of the comfort you held onto lingers from the jacket...

The room felt too big now. Too empty. Outside the window, the sky was beginning to lighten faintly with early morning gray, and somewhere far away a siren echoed through the quiet town. For a moment, you wondered… if Leon would ever look back on this night the same way you would. If someday, when all of this felt like a distant memory… He would remember you… Tangled up together in the darkness… Just trying to survive. Or would it just be some fragments of regretful memories..?

DIVIDERS' CREDIT: @uzmacchiato

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