Roi

The miserable guy in apartment 304—one unit down and slightly to the left of your own, 405. He’d nearly chewed your god damn head off for using his trash can one time when you’d first moved in. His trash can of all things. It had been an honest mistake on your part, and you’d sincerely apologized for it when he all-but cornered you in the mail room off the lobby a few days after the fact. But after the unpleasant exchange, the curmudgeon bought himself a padlock for his trashcan and has sent withering glares your way ever since. 

It’s been well over a year since then, but the chill has never quite broken between the two of you. 

The dark haired man, who seems to be perpetually suit-clad—or at least he has been in all the times you’ve spotted him—is easy enough to avoid given the floor’s difference between your units. But sometimes ill-fated meetings are inevitable in such close quarters. 

Your building (regrettably) only has one rickety old elevator. It’s an original feature from when the complex was first built, and it’s undergone minimal maintenance and sum total zero upgrades since it was installed decades prior. 

All of which is to say: it merits nothing less than being called a complete and utter death trap. 

And, as though the sluggardly descent from your apartment on the fourth floor down to the lobby isn’t harrowing enough, your ill-tempered neighbour standing less than a metre away from you in a tightly confined space surely makes it worse.

The elevator is old enough that it has two doors—an automatic door that opens on each floor, as well as a manual interior door that the passengers in the elevator are responsible for opening and closing themselves. Initially you’d found the antique system charming, quaint even, but after realizing that the interior door weighs about thirty pounds and only likes to open half of the time, it quickly lost its charm. You stare pointedly at the cursed iron grate of the aforementioned interior door as the elevator makes its slow downward journey to the lobby, cursing yourself for not just taking the fucking stairs. 

The lights on the side panel tell you you’re only one single floor away from your destination. If you just hold your breath and pray hard enough maybe everything will be fi—

“If you and your boyfriend plan to continue going at it like animals until four in the morning without any consideration for your neighbours, you should at least have the basic human decency to close your bedroom window.”

The elevator makes it to the ground floor just as his eviscerating remark draws to a close, the car dipping slightly upon arrival and sending your stomach sinking with it. Without missing a beat, your sour-faced neighbour pulls the confounded metal door open like it weighs nothing. You, in contrast, are frozen stock-still in shock, reeling in the wake of his words with a singeing heat flooding your cheeks. He steps off in the lobby without so much as a momentary glance in your direction, and you watch his back (in a crisp navy blue suit jacket) as he walks away.

You’re so completely stunned that you almost forget to get out too. 

Oh, you hate him.

You swear that you’ll forsake the cursed elevator entirely for the rest of your life, if only to avoid ever crossing paths with that bastard again.

Or, so you may have thought.

Weeks later, you find yourself on the fire escape outside your living room with tears drying on your cheeks. You sit quietly in the wake of a long, heated argument with your boyfriend. A loud argument. A relationship ending argument. 

Things have been bad for a few months. Maybe even longer, if you’re being honest. He’s always been a bit mean, a little careless, a little wrong—and you knew he probably wasn’t the one. But that doesn’t make the sting of yet another relationship crumbling in your hands any more bearable.

And so, not for the first time, you find yourself drowning your sorrows in a bottle of cheap, overly saccharine white wine and hiccuping in breaths of the fresh air as you try to soothe the ache while the sting of alcohol sears down your throat.

“Your boyfriend sucks.”

You jump a little, looking down the stairs to your right only to see your most loathed neighbour on his own fire escape with a glass of red wine in his hand. 

You’re not sure how long he’s been there, but you’re sure he heard most (if not all) of what had transpired in your living room if he had been home at the time. Your windows had been open, you realize too late to do anything about it.

“Yeah,” you scrub at your swollen eyes with the back of your knuckles, “he kinda does—”

You take a long, inelegant swig from the bottle of wine in your hand at the same time your neighbour lifts his own glass. This mouthful tastes more bitter than the last.

“—and he’s not my boyfriend anymore, in case it needs to be said.”

Your neighbour pauses with his glass at his lips. Based on the fact that your window had been open to the world at large, and your conversation with your now-ex had been less that even-toned, you doubt the point really stands to be highlighted.

“It doesn’t,” he replies, confirming your suspicions. “But sorry to hear that.” 

You snort mirthlessly. “Are you really?”

The man tuts, a little click of his tongue behind his teeth. But it’s not a sound that implies that he cares, just one that says he’s been found out. 

“No.”

You can’t help but laugh at his candour. It’s a nice reprieve from the tears.

And, strangely, things are almost… amicable after that. 

Now in the evenings when both of you sit quietly on your fire escapes, where once you’d skitter back inside to avoid his cold glare and oppressive aura, neither of you moves to silently retreat. 

Sometimes you even chat, as unlikely an occurrence as it once would have seemed to you. You talk about basically nothing—the weather, a new building that’s cropped up a few streets away, a noisy neighbour, the moon—and it’s usually just for a few minutes before you head to sleep. You tend to be early to bed and early to rise, but Apartment 304’s lights seem to be on at all hours.

Part of you wonders just how long he stays out on his balcony after you retire for the night. But, it’s sort of nice—this unlikely armistice you seem to have unspokenly signed.

You stick your head out the window one evening, a few months in to your ill-begotten amity, a little earlier than you normally would since you got home from work ahead of your usual return.

He’s already there. 

“Hey—” 

Your neighbour lifts his head to peer up from the pad of notebook paper he’s scribbling away on. He’s wearing glasses today. You’ve never seen those before. 

“—what are you having for dinner?” 

304 looks at you with a quirk of his brow. 

“A 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon.” 

You lean your elbows on the windowsill, angling yourself a little further out of it. “I just made a fuckload of food. If you split that red with me, I’ve got a plate for you.”

He eyes you, and seems to be considering your proposal. 

“What is it?”

“Roast chicken, some vegetables. Nothing fancy.”

“This wine pairs better with red meat.”

“Yeah? Well my last bottle of wine cost me 8 dollars and a 2-day hangover. Do you want the food or not?” you ask him, rolling your eyes lightly at his comment.

There’s a long pause. 

A sigh.

“Fine.”

You meet on the metal stairs halfway between your respective fire escape landings on the third and fourth floor; you're perched a few steps higher than your neighbour closer to your home, and he to his. 

He pours you a serving of wine into a spotless glass that he must have retrieved while you were inside plating up the meal, having evidently tucked his eyeglasses away at the same time as they’re nowhere to be seen. He accepts the plate of food you offer him and hands you the drink in exchange. Your plates are mismatched, so is your cutlery, and they clash with the delicate wine glasses he’s brought to your unexpected soiree. 

You watch cautiously as he takes his first bite, silently scrutinizing the way his brow furrows as he chews. After a moment the crease in his brow softens, and he seems content—or at the very least not repulsed. You almost laugh into the brim of your wine glass as you quietly read the expressions on his face. 

You tip your glass back and take your first sip.

“Holy shit, this is great,” you say, the flavour of the wine lingering on your tongue even after you’ve swallowed it down. It’s neither too dry nor too sweet, evenly balanced, and it doesn’t have the lingering tannic bitterness of the reds that you’ve tried before. Theres something rich but not heavy in the notes that first touch your palate, fruity but on the right side of neutral. You reach a hand out for the bottle and he passes it to you—albeit hesitantly. Reading the label, all you’re able to surmise is that it’s french. “This must not be cheap.”

“It certainly cost more than eight dollars,” your third floor neighbour snorts. He catches the flat look you shoot him, and suddenly is very preoccupied with cutting into his next bite of chicken.

And so from that point on you continue your evening chats, and even eat dinner together on a semi-regular basis. Apartment 304 has yet to turn down your offer of a free meal—and he always supplies the wine.

You’re not friends per se, but you’re certainly no longer mortal nemeses either. 

“Oi! 405!”

You hear your neighbour call to you late one afternoon, the sun rapidly slipping away along the city skyline outside, and rush towards your open window. You stick your head out onto the fire escape curiously. 

Your neighbour is standing on his landing, staring up at you with a quirked brow.

“Did you lose something?” 

That’s when you notice the bra dangling off his outstretched finger. Your eyes shoot to your laundry rack where that very bra had been previously pinned to dry, as though you really need to confirm where it had come from. There’s a clothespin resting on the grated metal deck of the fire escape beside the wire rack, having clearly blown off in the wind. 

You swallow a mortified groan. 

“How do you know that’s not Misses Miller’s from upstairs?” You sniff, unduly defensive. The argument is weak and you know it; Misses Miller occupies apartment 506, the unit at the top of the fire escape stairs connected to your own—she’s nearly 80 and likely requires a bit more support than what the dainty lace bra looped around your neighbour's index finger offers. 

The dark-haired man’s lips quirk into something you might think vaguely reminiscent of a smirk if you believed him capable of it.

“I’m happy to go ask-“ 

“You’re a real jerk, y’know that, Third?” you cut him off before he can finish the thought, pulling yourself out through the window clumsily in your newfound haste.

He seems to be contemplating what you’ve said as you make your way down the fire escape stairs towards him, footfalls heavy with your indignation.

“Third?” he asks, peering up at you with his head titled inquisitively to the side.

“Third floor,” you explain, like it should be obvious.

“I don’t own the entire third floor.” 

You lean down from your place on the stairs and snatch your bra from his hand. “Well you sure act like it.”

You turn and stomp your way back up the fire escape towards your own apartment, bra clutched in a tightly clenched fist.

“So, should I let Misses Miller know you’re returning that to her, or—“

You slam your window shut behind you before you can hear the end of his comment.

A few nights following The Bra Incident—or the deBRAcle as you’ve come to refer to it in your mortified inner monologue—you wake to the unpleasant sound of toppling aluminium in the back alley. Sleepily, you shuffle out into your living room and lift your window, peeking your head out into the cool night.

A quick glance to your right tells you that 304’s lights are off. It’s late, admittedly, and this should be normal—but you can’t recall a night you’ve peeked down towards his apartment and seen the window dark. It’s all a bit unusual.

What you hear next even more so. 

“God fucking damn it—shit, fuck—mother of—“

“You alright down there?” You approach the railing of the fire escape and lean over the edge to peer down towards the ground.

Below you, beyond all odds or reasonable explanation, is your third floor neighbour. He’s dressed in a nice suit as usual, with his hair neatly slicked back, and he’s standing beside a knocked over garbage can with trash strewn about.

He blinks up at you owlishly.

It’s quiet for a moment as the two of you hold eye contact.

He speaks first.

“I forgot my house keys in my office.”

You raise a brow, propping your chin in your hand as you lean against the metal railing. “And so you picked a fight with an innocent trash can?” 

304 narrows his eyes up at you, a resentful squint. The sharp line of his jaw becomes even more pronounced as he grits his teeth. “I’m trying to reach the fire escape.”

The ladder that connects the fire escape to the ground is retractable, and has to be pulled from the second floor. He’d clearly been trying to use the garbage cans as leverage to reach the lowest rung of the ladder and yank it down—a security measure that had clearly done its job.

You purse your lips, fighting back a laugh. “Are you drunk?” 

Silence befalls the two of you once more, and your neighbours eyes only narrow further. 

“A bit.” Reluctance weighs heavily in his monotonous words.

You push yourself off from the railing, heading back towards your window. 

“Where are you going?” 304 calls indignantly after you, like now that you’ve spotted him you’re somehow obligated to come to his aid.

“I gotta grab something!” you chirp dismissively as you crawl back inside over the edge of the frame.

Something being your cellphone. Specifically to take a picture and commemorate the ordeal.

“You’re cruel,” your neighbour snarls from his place on the ground as you gleefully snap a few photos with flash, quickly turning his back to you in an attempt to preserve whatever remaining shred of pride he has left.

“And if you want me to drop this fire escape ladder then you’re at my mercy—so smile!” you cajole with a giggle as you lean precariously over the railing, pinching the screen of your cellphone to zoom in on his figure.

He flips you off over his suit-clad shoulder and it makes you laugh again. 

Once you’ve had your fun, and taken (conservative estimate) 400 photos, you climb down the stairs all the way to the second floor balcony—creeping across the grated deck as to not startle your unsuspecting lower-level neighbours—and finally push down the fire escape ladder. 

304 makes short work of clambering up the rungs, pulling himself onto the balcony with a heaving sigh. He stumbles slightly, and you grab him by the lapels of his suit to steady him.

“Take it easy, Third,” you say quietly, letting your hands unfurl from his suit jacket once you’re sure he’s regained his balance.

He rolls his eyes and pulls the creaky fire escape ladder up behind him once more. You both wait with bated breath, pulse spiking, to see if the lights inside the second floor apartment turn on. Mercifully the windows stay dark.

The two of you make your way back up to the third floor, and you’re just about to step onto the stairs towards your own apartment and return to the call of your bed as 304 move towards his window. He places both hands flat against the glass and pushes up.

Nothing happens.

It’s locked. 

“Oh my god,” your neighbour groans miserably, letting his forehead rest against the fingerprint-smudged glass, his dark hair hanging around his eyes.

“Holy shit, did something just move in there?” You gasp in fright, spotting something streaking through the darkness of his apartment through the pane.

“Yes, the fucking beast that’s taken over my home.”

You tilt your head. “I’m lost.”

The man before you sighs, turning over so instead of resting with his forehead against the glass his shoulders are pressed to the brick just beside the window frame. He tilts his head back, and a strand of hair falls from his slicked back style and curls in front of his eyes. He breathes out frustratedly into the night. “I’m currently babysitting my acquaintance’s evil cat.”

“You have a cat?” you ask excitedly. 

“No,”—he shoots you a pointed, irritated look—“it’s my acquaintance’s cat. And it’s the weirdest creature on earth. She can open windows and eats all of my bread.”

You press a hand to your mouth to try and hold back your giggles.

“Bread?” you ask him incredulously.

He nods solemnly.

“Well,”—you drag the toe of your fluffy slipper idly against the grating beneath your feet—“what’s her name?”

He stares at you blankly. Utterly unenthused. “Pancakes.”

And at that you have no choice but to openly and unreservedly laugh.

When you finally manage to get your giggles in check—exceedingly conscious of how the sound of your laughter seems to ricochet down the narrow, brick-lined alley you find yourself in—you manage to ask him a pertinent question.

“Does anyone have a spare key to your place?”

“My colleague, Erwin,” the man in front of you mumbles.

Acquaintance. Colleague. You’re starting to wonder if 304 has no friends, or just refuses to refer to them as such.

“Ok, so call him,” you encourage.

He shuts his eyes, his head still pressed back against the wall of brick behind him.

“…My phone is dead.”

You wince. 

“Christ, third strike you’re out.”

Your neighbour looks ready to pitch himself clear off the edge of the fire escape. 

“Get it? because you’re—“

“I got it.” 304 finally opens his eyes to shoot you a glare.

You do him the favour of not openly laughing in the face of his misfortune again, wracking your brain for something that may actually be helpful.

“Er, do you wanna come up to my place?” you ask. “I probably have a charger you can use for your phone, or you could just use mine to call. What kind do you have?” 

The man in front of you rifles through the inside pocket of his suit jacket and hands you the dead device. 

You survey it for a moment, turning the bottom of the phone up towards you to squint at the charging port in the dim night. It’s different from yours but all hope isn’t yet lost. “I think that ex of mine you liked so much had the same one, he left a charger up there. It’s all yours if you want it.”

It’s not like he really has any other choice.

As 304 follows you up the narrow fire-escape stairs towards your window on the fourth floor, you realize it’s the first time your neighbour has ever been to your apartment. Or even crossed the halfway point on the stairs, for that matter. You turn just before you get to the window, and suddenly realize how close you are on the narrow balcony outside of your home. 

You pause.

“You know, I really shouldn’t be inviting a stranger into my apartment.”

Third tuts admonishingly. “We eat dinner together once or twice a week.”

“I don’t even know your na-“

“Levi.”

You’re a little taken aback in the wake of his offering, your eyes widening slightly.

“Levi,” you test the name over in your mouth like the wine the two of you so often share, and then you shrug. “Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as Third, but I guess it’ll do.”

“You’re impossible, you know that?” he huffs.

You turn to crawl through your living room window when you feel a gentle touch on your hip calling for your attention. You look back, and Levi pulls his hand away quickly, like he’s realized what he’s done.

You can’t help but think he doesn’t need to seem so suddenly abashed.

He clears his throat a little as you look to him inquisitively. 

“Your name?” 

You smile a bit, your nose scrunching up at how shyly he poses the question, and you tell him.

He nods curtly, like he accepts it, and it almost makes you laugh.

You go about making two cups of tea while you wait for the phone to power back on once he’s plugged it into the charger—which you dug out of a box you keep shoved in the back of your coat closet full of things your various exes have left in your apartment over the years. Thankfully it is the right fit for the device.

A quick glance at the time on your stove clock as you’re boiling the kettle tells you it’s already well past two AM—far later than your usual bedtime, though you don’t feel particularly sleepy.

Once the tea has been prepared, you tote the steaming mugs into the living room where Levi is waiting. You sit curled in an armchair, while your unexpected guest rests perched on the very edge of your sofa closer to the outlet where his phone is plugged into the wall.

“So, what had you out so late tonight, Thir-Levi?” you ask, correcting yourself last minute from using the nickname you’re so used to. You blow over the surface of your very hot tea as you wait for his reply.

“Work thing,” he grunts dismissively, his knee jiggling impatiently while he cradles the still-dark cellphone in his hands. He picks up his own cup of tea and takes a sip. He seems pleasantly surprised by the taste.

“Okay,” you draw out the word, “and what exactly do you do for work?”

Levi looks at you over the brim of his mug, an almost skeptical expression on his face.

“I’m a writer.”

Your eyes widen. “No shit! Like a novelist?”

“Journalist,” he corrects you, his lips pursing forward like he’s contemplating whether or not to divulge any more. He decides to indulge you, evidently, when he further supplies: “I’m a food and wine writer.”

“Really?” You lean forward in your seat, suddenly very interested. “A critic?”

He looks like he wants to correct you, but doesn’t. “I write reviews among other things, yes.”

You slump back in your chair a little bit, kicking your legs up to loop over one armrest. 

“Wow, a guy who writes about food and can’t even cook.”

“I can cook, I just choose not to,” Levi says defensively, his tone sharp.

“Sounds like something someone who can’t cook would say,” you say, punctuating the statement with a long sip of tea.

“I’ve eaten at some of the nicest restaurants in the world—there’s nothing I can make myself that could compare, so why try?”

“How fatalistic of you,” you say with a snuffle of a laugh against the edge of your mug. “You know, if I’d known you had such a refined palate I might have been a bit more self-conscious about serving you my cooking.”

Levi rolls his eyes. “You’re a decent cook.”

Your brows lift in surprise. A compliment?

“But you use too much salt.”

You bark out a defensive laugh. “I do not!”

You hear a subtle buzz of vibration and a soft chime as Levi’s phone, left momentarily forgotten on the arm rest of the couch, powers on. It seems to take you both by surprise.

“Well then, time to call your colleague in shining armour,” you say with an encouraging wave of your hand.

Levi leans forward to set his cup of tea down on the table in front of him.

“Coasters?” He pauses, looking around the room. 

“I found this coffee table on the curb outside my dorm in college, I promise you it’s seen worse than a hot mug.”

Levi’s face pinches slightly before he sets the mug gently down atop the table’s edge.

You watch as he picks up his phone, tapping around the lit screen for a moment before holding the device up to his ear. He’s curved a little awkwardly towards the end of the sofa due to the power cord connecting the phone to the outlet, the material of his dress shirt pulling taught around his frame. His suit jacket hangs on the back of a chair at your kitchen counter, the knot of his tie is loosened at his throat. 

It’s quiet for a moment, and then Levi pulls his phone away from his face and ends the call.

“He’s not answering,” he says with a frustrated huff, as though not answering a phone call in the dead of night is somehow unreasonable. He dials the number again.

“Well,” you say slowly, watching as the same series of events plays out once more, “it’s late. He’s probably asleep.”

“Oh, fuck,” he groans quietly, slumping back into your sofa. 

“Do you think the building Super would be awake?” you ask. The Superintendent has keys to every unit, so he’s the next most viable option. He’s a nice, helpful man, and only lives down on the first floor, but you suspect a knock at the door in the dead of night would be worse than an impromptu phone call.

“No, but he’d probably wake up if I called him,” Levi mumbles. He clicks his tongue behind his teeth in irritation. “How humiliating.”

He looks miserable at the mere prospect, but still reaches for his phone.

And maybe it’s because of how late it is. Maybe it’s how warm and dozy and pliantly agreeable the tea that you’d prepared for the two of you has made you feel. Maybe it’s just because there’s something inexplicably comfortable about being around Levi that has your guard lowered.

“You could always crash on my couch,” you find yourself saying before you really think it through. He looks up at you, clearly taken aback by the offer. “Then you can call your coworker in the morning and get your spare key.”

Levi appears uncertain. “You’d let a stranger crash on your couch?” 

“We eat dinner together once or twice a week, Levi,” you remind him with a little smirk, using his own words from earlier in your defence.

You bring out a pillow from your own bed covered in a fresh pillow case, and a blanket from your linen closet. You hand them to Levi, still seated in the same place on your sofa though a bit more at ease, and he dips his head in thanks while holding both items atop his lap.

“I have some clothes my ex left here that I would offer you, but he was a bit, uh…”—you make a vague gesture in roughly the same stature as your last boyfriend—“he had a different build than you.”

Levi looks at you flatly. 

“You’ve already done enough,” he says, though not altogether unkindly. 

“Alright, well… g’night,” you say with an awkward little wave, shuffling off in the direction of your bedroom. 

Levi calls your name just as you step across the threshold, and you peek back through the doorway towards him. His face is illuminated only by the glow of the lamp atop the table next to the sofa, and he’s looking at you with an unexpectedly earnest expression as he undoes the top button of his dress shirt, his tie resting undone around his collar. 

“Thank you.”

You smile, dipping your head in a little nod, and shut your bedroom door behind you.

When you wake the next morning, it takes a few languid blinks against the morning sunlight streaming in through the curtains and a couple moments more of proper consciousness to remember the events that had transpired the night before.

Well, that and the distant shuffling outside your bedroom door. 

You pull on a sweatshirt, pat your hair down into something you think (hope) is a little less dishevelled, and amble sleepily out to your living room. It’s empty, but Levi’s suit jacket is still hanging on your counter stool, his tie neatly rolled up on the corner of your coffee table, and your window is open. You can see the edge of his back seated just beyond the open pane. 

You poke your head out to see Levi on the fire escape. His button up shirt is undone to reveal the tight white t-shirt he wears underneath it, and his slacks are slightly creased from sleeping in them. His hair is messy—a hybrid between the loose hanging style you’re accustomed to, and the slicked back fashion he’d had it in the night before. He must hear you coming, because he turns to face you as you arrive. You look at him curiously as if to ask why he’s sitting outside.

“I didn’t want to bother you,” he explains without you even vocalizing the question on your mind. His voice is still a bit hoarse from sleep, deeper and rougher than its usual smooth tone.

You crawl through the window, yawning a little as you take a seat cross-legged on the little balcony behind him. Levi turns to face you properly, shifting his whole body in your direction where he sits at the top of the stairs leading down to his own apartment. 

“Any word from your spare key courier?” You blink through the tears that sprang to your eyes in your yawn, rubbing them away with your fist.

“He’ll be here in half an hour,” Levi replies.

You nod, a little tug at the corner of your mouth. “Thank God. Pancakes must be so worried all alone in there.” 

Levi’s lip curls in an unhappy sneer. “I watched her eat half a loaf of three-day-old brioche through the window this morning. I’m sure she’s having the time of her life.”

There’s no choice but to giggle at the image of a cat ransacking your excessively type-A neighbour’s home, even if he can’t see the humour in it.

“D’ya want some coffee?” you ask, pushing yourself up towards the window again.

“I’d take another cup of that tea from last night,” Levi replies, his tone almost hopeful, and you nod before pulling yourself back inside.

You return to your place on the fire escape a few minutes later, this time with two mugs in hand.

It’s quiet while you sip your drinks, listening to the building hum of the city waking up around you. 

“You always up this early?” you finally shatter the stillness with a question, but it’s not intrusive—slipping easily into the comfortable air around you.

“Yeah, usually,” Levi says, peeking over at you. He holds his mug a little strangely, you can’t help put notice—fingertips gripping the brim rather than the handle. It seems unduly precarious. “You wake up early too, huh?” 

You tilt your head, wondering how he might know that. 

“You sing a lot in the morning,” he explains, looking away by turning his gaze back towards the alley. “You’ve got terrible pitch.”

“Hey!” You reach out and swat at his shoulder. He’s warm to the touch, and even though it’s so basically human it still feels almost unexpected.

He huffs a little, neither a laugh nor far enough from one to discredit it; the sound is smug and indulgent.

“Yeah well you stay up too late,” you counter his observation with one of your own.

This time it’s his turn to be curious, lifting a dark brow as he peeks back at you over his shoulder.

“Your light’s always on,”—you tilt your head in the direction of his apartment down the stairs he’s seated at the top of—“and I don’t really take you for the nightlight type.”

“I don’t sleep much,” he admits.

You scoff. “What do you to with all those extra hours in the day?” 

“Writing, editing, researching, emailing my editor,” he explains with a shrug.

You roll your eyes a bit, taking a sip of your coffee. “So you’re a real workaholic, huh?” 

Levi drains the last mouthful of his tea, setting the mug down with a little clink as the porcelain meets metal. “There are worse things to spend your time doing.”

“There are better things too,” you counter. 

“Such as?” 

“I don’t know, socializing? Relaxing? Going out on a date?” You gesticulate with the hand not holding your mug as though to say ‘so on and so forth.'

“You think dating in this day and age is a fun way to pass the time?” Levi remarks flatly.

“Fine,” you concede, a sudden memory of your last ex coming to mind unwelcomely. You can’t help but note he doesn’t make mention of any partners of his own. “Don’t you have hobbies?”

Levi purses his lips, and seems to be wracking his brain. It takes a while. 

You stare at him, unimpressed. “When was the last time you went to a museum? An art gallery? A play? The movies? Anywhere that wasn’t work related?”

“I went to the National Gallery downtown a while ago,” he offers.

“Oh yeah?” you ask, disbelievingly. “When?” 

“A class trip in ninth grade.”

Your laughter echoes through the alley as it spills from your lips.

“You know they’ve always got new exhibits on display,” you say, gathering your composure. You lean forward, knees pressing into your chest. “You should visit again, I’m sure something has changed in the past eighty years since you were there last.”

Levi watches you curiously, a little too intently to be considered casual.

His phone jingles.

He blinks, and there’s a brief delay before he looks down at the device in his hand.

“That’s my key,” he says quietly. 

You nod, standing. Somewhere in the distance, a car horn blares. You hadn’t even noticed how noisy it’s gotten in the time the two of you have been sitting together, but the city is well and truly awake now.

One at a time, you both climb back in through the window—him letting you go first—and once you make it back into your living room you take Levi’s empty cup from his hand to take it to your kitchen sink and wash while he collects his belongings. 

Levi steps towards your front door as you dry your hands off on a towel hanging from the handle of your oven. You watch as he buttons up his dress shirt—though he leaves it untucked from his wrinkled trousers.

“Thanks again for… y’know”—he stops buttoning once he gets about half-way up the row and gestures vaguely—“all of this.”

You lean your hip against your kitchen counter. “I’ll slip a bill under your door for room and board.”

He rolls his eyes, but there’s a soft sort of exasperation to his expression as he does it. 

“You could just knock.”

You smile, and you feel a pinch in your cheeks from how wide it spreads. “Well, where’s the fun in that?”

You don’t see Levi again in the week that follows, as you’re stuck working late each night as you slog towards a project deadline. 

You leave for the office in the morning when the sun has barely crested, and come home long after it’s set. You’ve been eating mainly takeout from restaurants near your work, and whatever happens to be hiding at the back of your pantry since you haven’t had the opportunity to grocery shop—all interspersed with whatever mediocre, half-stale baked goods your coworkers have brought in and left in the staff kitchen for everyone to share.

After one particularly brutal day, you shuffle in the door with nothing but a day-old donut and three coffees in your stomach, though the clock has ticked past eleven. You drop your belongings on your kitchen counter and wonder if you still have that old bag of microwave popcorn kicking around in the back of your cupboard. You ponder this question as you cross your living room to crack the window and let in a bit of fresh air.

Outside, perched unexpectedly just below the window frame on the fire escape, is a brown paper gift bag.

You glance to the right and see Levi’s lights are still on, as usual, but his window is closed. 

Hm.

You pick up the bag and retreat inside, peeking at its contents as you go.

Inside you find a bottle of white wine—a nice bottle of white wine—along with a little piece of notebook paper, ripped along the edge and folded twice in half. You peel the edges of the page back to reveal neat scrawl in black ink. 

This didn’t cost 8 dollars. 

Thanks again for putting me up.

—3rd. 

(Levi)

It’s been a while since you’ve seen him, what with all the late nights you’ve been pulling at the office, and you realize that your last encounter was the morning after he spent the night at your place.

You smile to yourself, shaking your head, and tuck the note back into the bag.

The next Saturday morning, mercifully freed from the project you've been slaving away at, you have every intention of sleeping in to makeup of the overtime you've been banking. Instead, you wake to a strange rustling sound.

It takes a moment for it to register to your hazy, barely conscious mind—a sound so gentle you hardly process that it’s unusual until it’s been going on for just a few minutes too long.

“Mrrrrphm!”

Your eyes shoot open.

Now that noise, you immediately know is out of the ordinary.

You creep out into your kitchen on your tiptoes, towards where the rustling seems to be originating from.

Perched atop your kitchen counter, you see the tail end of a four-legged, ginger-furred little creature—with its head tucked into the rumpled paper bag containing the croissant you’d been planning to eat for breakfast. Its long, bushy tail sways back and forth happily as it rustles around inside.

“Hey!” 

The beast—soon revealed to be a cat once it pulls its head from the bag—has the remnants of your (now mostly-shredded) croissant hanging out of its little pink mouth. One of its ears is folded unnaturally, the fur around its neck is scruffy, and you realize upon closer inspection of your half-eaten breakfast that it has a snaggletooth. 

The cat seems fairly sociable though, as it makes no move to run as you slowly approach.

“I’m guessing you’re the illustrious Pancakes, huh?” you say as you reach up to scratch gently behind her ears. “I’m a huge fan of your work.”

The cat lets out a cheerful little chirp, your ill-fated croissant still hanging from her maw, bumping her head against your wrist. You pluck the bit of bread from her mouth and quickly scoop her up in your arms, heading towards your door as she squirms unhappily—you don’t quite trust yourself to descend the fire escape with such precious cargo in-hand.

Down on the third floor, you rap sharply against a door.

It swings open moments later to reveal Levi’s perplexed face. Glasses on.

“Your demon cat ate my croissant,” you say, holding the offender out towards him.

She meows innocently. 

“Not my cat,” he replies flatly, taking Pancakes from your hands and setting her down on the floor just behind him. She hits the ground on all fours with a little thump, and trots off happily into the apartment out of sight.

“But you two look so much alike.”

Levi responds only with a narrow-eyed glare.

Then he sighs.

“Sorry… she must have crawled out through the window when I wasn’t looking,”—Levi reaches up under the lenses of his glasses, pressing the tips of his fingers against his shut eyes as though they’re aching—“I’ll buy you another croissant.”

“It’s fine,” you assure him with a little laugh, and his fingers splay under the metal frames of his eyeglasses to peek at you through the gaps. You wave your hand dismissively. “It’s my own fault for leaving my window open last night.”

“That’s a good way to be home invaded,” the dark-haired man chides you sternly, a little furrow of disapproval making itself known between his brows. His hands drop from his face, only for his arms to cross over his t-shirt clad chest.

“Yeah, well they’d have to pass your window first—and it’s not like you wouldn’t spot them Mr. Sleep-When-I’m-Dead,” you say, shooting him a bemused look. “At least you’d have a description to give the cops.”

“All you care about is the killer being caught? Not avoiding being murdered in the first place?” Levi drawls.

“Well, at least I could end up on a true crime podcast, so long as you agree to be a good samaritan and assist the authorities in their investigation,” you joke. You peek over Levi’s shoulder to where his curtain is ruffling in the morning breeze. “Hey, do you mind if I just go out through the window?” 

He shrugs, pulling his apartment door open a little wider to let you through. “Be my guest.”

Levi’s apartment is tidy and sparsely decorated, but it’s nearly identical to your own in terms of general construction. Your eyes can’t help flitter around the space as you shuffle through it towards the open window, your nosiness getting the best of you. There’s a steaming mug on the edge of his kitchen counter that he must have set aside when you came knocking at his door, a closed laptop resting on the edge of his coffee table next to a notebook, and there are bookcases lining the walls as you walk through the living room. You can’t resist pausing to take a closer look as you pass by one, and find a diverse variety of cookbooks and reference books on food, as well as beer, wine and spirits on the shelves. 

Your fingertip traces the gold lettering adorning the thick spine of an immense tome—V I N.

“May I?” you ask, peeking over your shoulder as you pry the book from its place on the shelf.

“You already are,” Levi replies from the kitchen where he’s retrieved his mug, taking a sip. “But sure.”

You let out a little laugh, cracking open the inordinately heavy book. 

“You speak french?” you ask, your tone lilting in surprise as your eyes trail over the language on the page in front of you—foreign, but distinguishable enough thanks to a few words you recognize from classes you took back in high school. The book seems old, antique possibly, and evidently well loved.

“Only a little,” Levi says noncommittally, but judging by the notes scribbled in the margins of the pages (in the same neat script scrawled on the scrap of notebook paper tucked into the gift bag on your kitchen counter) you suspect he’s underplaying his abilities. 

You close the book and slot it back into its place on the shelf.

“Thanks for the wine by the way.”

“Did you enjoy it?” he asks.

“I haven’t cracked into it yet,” you admit, making the last few steps towards the open window. You tap your hand idly against the spotless frame, turning back to look at where Levi is leaning against his kitchen counter. “I had a big deadline this week at work so I’ve been staying late every day. By the time I got home it was all I could do to force myself to eat something before I’d pass out on my couch.”

Levi’s brows lift, though the rest of his body seems to untense a bit for reasons you can’t quite place.

“I’ll be sure to give you a full and comprehensive review of its bouquet—or whatever—once I finally get the chance to enjoy it,” you remark, half-teasing, and he rolls his eyes. 

He takes another sip from his mug. He’s still holding it in that peculiar way he held your mug the morning after he slept on your couch. There’s something about it that you find almost endearing.

You lift your hand in a little wave, he nods in acknowledgement of the gesture, and then you crawl out through the window without another word.

You’re on the second step up the fire escape when Levi pokes his head out after you.

“Do you have breakfast plans?”

You pause, turning back to look at him.

You find him peeking up at you with an unexpectedly hopeful look on his face, if not a little guarded.

“Well, my plans are currently partially digested in your feline ward’s stomach, so... no.”

Levi blinks.

“Can I take you out for breakfast to make up for it, then?” 

You tilt your head to the side, a flutter of something keen and eager tickling the pit of your empty stomach.

“Fine,” you concede, feigning as though you’re hard done by. “But I get to choose the place.”

Levi’s lips pull down in an unsubtle expression of his displeasure. “You know that it’s literally my job to—“

“I don’t care,” you interrupt him, waving your hand as though batting his interjection out of the very air into which he spoke it before it has the chance to reach your ears. “I don’t want some fancy micro-meal from whatever masters of gastronomy you write about. I want waffles. A lot of ‘em.”

Levi huffs, grumbling something unintelligible under his breath before replying a single, reluctant: “Fine.”

“Meet you in the lobby in 10 minutes?” you ask, your lips stretching in a grin.

His own lips purse, and you almost think it might be halfway to a smile. “Sure.”

The two of you wind up at an old greasy spoon diner two blocks away that you’ve been going to since college, where the staff always make sure to give you an extra perfectly golden-brown waffle. Levi sits across from you in a dark green knit sweater that looks incredibly cozy and, to your utter surprise, a pair of jeans. He looks more comfortable and casual than you’ve ever seen him.

“It’s good, huh?” you ask over the table as Levi bites into his own breakfast: 2 eggs, over easy, bacon and toast. You notice he’s carefully separated all three components of the meal on his plate so none of them are touching, and has liberally applied black pepper to the semi-firm yolks of his eggs.

He swallows the bite he has in his mouth, wiping the corners with his white paper napkin. “It’s food.”

You snort a little, shoving another piece of waffle into your mouth. “Are your reviews always so inspired?”

Levi shoots you an unamused look. 

“C’mon, don’t tell me you only eat at fancy fine dining places?” you say, waving your fork around demonstrably. “This is what real food’s all about; little family run joints like this.”

Levi purses his lips.

“Have you ever even been to a fine dining restaurant?” he asks you skeptically.

“No,” you admit, drowning your plate in more of the cheap table syrup. Levi’s nose crinkles in disdain at the sight. The waffles are the same as always: just the right crispiness on the outside to not grow soggy too quickly under the river of syrup you douse them in, perfectly fluffy on the inside.

Fine dining, irrespective of being well outside your budget, has just never been your style.

“So who are you to judge?” 

Now it’s your turn to purse your lips. 

You stab your fork through a piece of waffle and syrup drips, slow and sticky, as you hold it up above your plate. You lift a brow challengingly as you stare him down across the table. “If you want to take me out to a fancy dinner so bad, all you have to do is ask.”

Levi’s expression doesn’t change.

“Fine.”

“Huh?” you nearly choke, though you haven’t yet put your next bite in your mouth.

“Go out to dinner with me,” he says.

“That’s not a question,” you remark, shoving your waiting forkful into your mouth just to give yourself something else to focus on.

Levi huffs exasperatedly. “Will you go out to dinner with me?”

You take your time to chew, the syrup making everything in your mouth indistinguishably cloying, and then swallow. “I’ll think about it.”

Levi’s jaw gapes, a look of betrayal flittering across his usually impassive features.

You laugh. 

“Fine, fine. But only if we can go to the national gallery first,” you say, enjoying every moment of Levi’s palpable misery, setting your fork down and reaching for your mug and taking a sip of coffee. It’s tempered down to a drinkable heat, a little bitter and burnt tasting just like it always is, and there’s something nostalgic in that.

Levi fiddles with his fork, cutting into his egg so the sunny yellow yolk runs across his white ceramic plate. “…I already went.” 

“Huh?” You place your cup back down atop the table, on the edge of your paper placemat.

“I went,” Levi repeats himself, though nothing is made clearer through the repetition. 

“When?” 

“A couple days after you mentioned it. I was reviewing a bistro down the road—terrible by the way—“ he interjects, though you didn’t ask, “and I had some time to kill afterwards.”

“So… what was your verdict?” 

“Boring.”

“Oh, come on!” you say with a warm, pealing laugh, throwing yourself back in your seat. “You’re so uncultured! Didn’t you like their new installation on expressionism?”

“It was a mess.”

“That’s the point, it’s abstract!”

“If I wanted to see a disaster on canvas I’d look at those sneakers you’ve got on,” Levi says with a click of his tongue, but his eyes are bright and mirthful.

You peek under the table at your well-loved tennis shoes, gaping but still laughing. “You are so—!”

“Can I get you two some top-ups on those coffees?” The waitress who has been serving the two of you steps up to the table, coffee pot in hand, but she seems almost apologetic for interrupting. 

It’s the first time you remember you’re in public, and you settle down a bit, covering your mouth to clear your throat bashfully. 

“I’m alright, thank you,” Levi declines politely with a dip of his head.

“I’ll take a little extra please,” you say, and the waitress smiles and adds another bit of steaming, bitter coffee to your cup. It darkens the last few mouthfuls left from your already milk-and-sugared first drink; the deep brown of the fresh brew swirling into the tawny room-temperature remnants of the last.

Your eyes meet Levi’s over the table, and both of you quickly look away, fighting back your smiles.

The two of you walk back home once your meal has concluded and your bills have been paid—split at your insistence, though Levi seemed prepared to physically fight you on it. 

Back at your building Levi gets out on the third floor after a brief goodbye, but before the door to the elevator can slide closed behind him, and you can close the steel grate of the interior door, his hand shoots out to keep them open.

You look up in surprise at the sudden gesture.

“I’m not kidding about dinner,” Levi says, standing just beyond the threshold to the ancient elevator, staring at you with an almost unnerving sincerity. 

You blink, taken aback by how serious he is.

“What’s your cell number?” he asks when you can’t seem to find anything to reply.

You relay the digits to him and he scribbles them down into a little pocket sized, softcover notebook he produces from his jacket pocket. You’ve seen him scribbling in it before out on the fire escape, and realize he must take it with him everywhere he goes. Given the shape and size of it—only a little larger than the palm of his hand—you don’t doubt it’s the very book that the note he’d left with your bottle of wine had been torn from.

“I’ll send you a message and we can make a plan,” Levi says, tucking the notebook back into his pocket.

“Alright,” you agree and finally Levi lets his hand fall from where he’s keeping the doors open. 

He steps away in the direction of his apartment.

“Be careful, Levi,” you say to his retreating back as you pull the grated metal door on the inside of the elevator car closed, “or I might think this is a date.”

He pauses, glancing at you over his shoulder. Your eyes meet through the gaps in the metal, and in spite of the distance you can see the mirth in his gaze. “That’s exactly what it is, and it’s what breakfast was too.”

And with that, the door slides shut between you.

One week to the day later, you find yourself sitting across from Levi in a restaurant that feels almost too nice for you to be patronizing. Levi is dressed in a nice suit, as ever, and you’re wearing in the only truly nice dress you own—one you’d bought for a friend’s wedding a few years prior and never had the occasion to wear again. 

Until now.

It’s nothing like the meals you’ve shared on your fire escape, or the boisterous breakfast at the diner on that Saturday morning. There’s no bitter coffee or table syrup to be seen, no mismatched plates and cutlery. It’s quiet, ambient even. All hushed conversation and warm candle light.

But you still enjoy yourself all the same.

And the food is really fucking good. 

“I’m devastated,” you breathe out miserably into the cool night air as the two of you walk side-by-side along the quiet sidewalk in the direction of your little brick building. 

Levi had offered to flag the two of you down a cab, but the evening weather was actually quite nice and the restaurant wasn’t far from home so you’d instead suggested to walk. Your heels are starting to hurt your feet a little bit, a pinch in your toes and the early-makings of a blister forming at the back of your ankle where the strap of your shoe rubs against your skin, but you still can’t quite bring yourself to regret anything about the evening.

Not the walk, not the dinner, not the company.

“You didn’t like it?” Levi asks, a lilt of concern in his voice.

You shake your head emphatically, turning to look at him with a grave expression. “It was too good.”

“That’s a new complaint,” he muses, his mouth pulling at the corner in thinly-veiled triumph.

“How am I ever supposed to enjoy any food again now that I know it can taste like that?” you complain, tossing your head back to look up at the night sky and passing streetlights overhead. Your shoes click against the pavement with every step, but otherwise it’s refreshingly quiet.

Levi laughs into his closed fist. “Now you see my problem.”

“Hey,” you say suddenly, bringing your chin back down so you can look at him, “can you bring me home your leftovers when you go write your little reviews for places like that?” 

“No,” Levi replies immediately, decisively shaking his head. 

You pout, sucking in a sharp breath as you prepare to plead your case.

“But I’d like to take you out again, if you’ll let me.”

He’s not looking at you, his eyes fixed ahead on the pavement as the two of you walk side by side, but you can tell he’s anxiously awaiting your reply with the way his hand is flexing and unflexing at his side.

You feel heat climb in your cheeks.

“Well, if it’s the only way to keep access to that kind of food, I guess I’d be stupid to say no.”

Levi hums, his gaze sliding to meet yours from the corner of his eye. 

“Yeah, I guess you would.”

The elevator ride up to the third floor is quiet but not uncomfortable, though you both seem to be keeping your distance in the confined space—relegated to opposite sides, not dissimilarly to so many months ago when he was calling you out for fucking your atrocious ex-boyfriend too loudly. You could almost laugh at how much things have changed since then. 

He says goodnight as he pulls open the grated door, sending you a brief look as he steps out.

“Goodnight, Levi,” you return the sentiment, hesitating to close the inside door between the two of you once more. “Thank you for dinner.”

“You’re welcome,” he replies, and there’s an almost disappointing finality to his words, though you don’t dwell too long on it. 

And then he’s gone.

Upstairs in your apartment, you kick off your heels as soon as you step through the door. You stretch your toes against the cool hardwood floor to let the blood flow back into them before padding into your kitchen. You drape your coat across the back of a barstool, and drop your purse on counter, pausing momentarily to eye the gift bag with the wine Levi had given you tucked away in the corner.

Maybe it’s time to crack it open—if for no other reason than to try and drown the niggling feeling of dissatisfaction you have squirming in your chest. 

But first, you pad across your living room to open up your window.

At the very same time that Levi opens his, a floor away.

You pull yourself through without thinking, shivering a little bit against the cool breeze as it meets your exposed skin. Levi—his suit jacket shed, his tie loosened and collar unbuttoned—does the same.

You kneel at the top of the stairs, the metal of the fire-escape digging into your knees, and peer down at him.

“Y’know, I still haven’t opened that bottle of white wine.”

Your fingers fidget with the hem of your dress—it’s crept a bit further up your thighs thanks to the way you’re sitting. Levi’s eyes have caught the subtle rise, and through you see his gaze on your exposed skin, it soon flickers up to meet yours. 

“It’s not really a nightcap,” he says quietly.

You huff, half frustrated and half amused, but the sound is entirely too fond. 

“Are you coming up here or not?” 

Levi climbs the stairs slowly towards where you’re seated at the top. That same feeling underneath your ribs that had once been dissatisfied blooms into something else entirely, crackling like a flame inside your chest as you catch his tie between your fingers.

You pull him down with your grip on the dark green silk—slowly, slowly, slowly—to press your mouths together. 

The kiss is sweet. Unhurried. Decadent.

Levi cranes down a little further, his hands settling on the landing behind you, caging you underneath him. His proximity is more intoxicating than any of the wine you’ve ever shared. The feeling of his lips parting against yours and the gentle imploring sweep of his tongue is more satisfying than any food on earth could hope to be.

One of his hands trails up along your thigh, across that same skin you’d caught him eyeing moments prior. His touch is cold but still it burns. He gives your flesh a firm squeeze.

“Inside now,” he murmurs insistently against your mouth, “unless you want the neighbourhood to hear this.”

You pull away, peeking up at him through your lashes innocently.

“And what if I do?”

He swallows visibly, his tongue darting out to lave across his rosy lips before it disappears once more to click behind his teeth.

“Knew you were an exhibitionist.”

There’s a graceless, frenetic climb back through the window—with Levi’s hand cradling the top of your head all the while so you don’t knock it against the frame—and then the two of you are toppling down onto the soft cushions of your couch.

Levi’s body weight presses into yours as he hovers over you, mouths rapacious, your hips flush and hands greedy. You’re grabbing anything and everything that falls within your reaches: his hands on your waist, your thighs, your heaving chest; your own hands in his hair, cupping his jaw, fisting the fine cotton of his dress shirt. Your dress has rucked up around your waist in the excitement, and after a few moments of exploration Levi slowly breaks your kiss. 

He sinks to the floor on his knees, and your thighs part for him without thinking.

His eyes trace the dark spot on the centre of the delicate lace over your aching cunt, his thumb soon stroking against it with the exact same eagerness as his eyes. 

“Levi,” you say his name pleadingly as your hips wriggle to get closer to his touch, squirming further down the couch cushion towards him. “Please… more.”

Levi huffs a little; not a laugh, but something a little more chiding—a little more mocking. He leans forward so you feel every hot breath break against your skin on his exhales, his eyes still fixed to that little patch of wetness that’s caught his attention, the spot only growing larger the longer he toys with you. “Let me savour this.”

“Like a nightcap?” you ask him, aiming for levity but toeing the wrong side of breathless as his fingers follow the lace trim of your panties up along the curve of your thigh.

“An aperitif,” he rasps as he snaps the elasticated band against your hip, a sharp crack as it hits your tender skin, and his eyes flicker up to meet yours when you hiss. He smirks. “It makes you hungrier.”

Not once in all the time you’ve known him would you have denied the truth that Levi’s tongue is quick and vicious, but never would you have imagined its sedulity between your legs. 

The flimsy material of your panties tugged swiftly down and kicked away, it’s as though the meal the two of you had shared that evening has been forgotten, a thing of the past.

Levi devours you like he’s been starved.

“Fuck, oh—“ 

Your hips jump on the sofa but his strong forearm slings across your lower abdomen to pin them down and keep you at his mercy. Levi glances up at you from his position on his knees, his head bracketed by your thighs, his eyelids hanging low over his hungry gaze. The tip of his tongue flicks against your twitching entrance, laving back up to your clit. The cycle repeats. It’s filthy and fascinating to watch.

“—Levi, nggh—oh my god.”

You grab for anything, borderline delirious. Your nails on one hand dig into the throw pillow at the end of your sofa while the other knots itself through Levi’s dark hair. You grip both with an equal roughness, but Levi doesn’t seem to mind—suckling with a renewed insistence at the swollen bundle of nerves between his lips.

He reaches up and pries your hand away from the strands of his hair, twining your fingers with his own as he pins it down to the sofa beside your hip. Levi pulls away from your pussy with a string of saliva keeping you connected, slick smeared along his mouth catching in the light of the lamp.

“Be gentle, would you?” he rasps, “I’d like to keep my hair for the foreseeable future.”

“Sorry,” you murmur, your chest heaving from the way your breaths come ragged. “It feels good.”

“Yeah?” he asks, slipping two fingers into his mouth. They shine with his spit when he pulls them from between his swollen lips. He leans back down towards your cunt. “How good?”

“So good,” you whine, his two saliva-slicked fingers slipping inside of you at the same time.

“God,” you toss your head back and gasp, those two fingers inside of you crooking in a way that makes you feel so good. 

“You’re close,” Levi hums, not a question but rather a factual observation, before dragging his tongue up towards your clit again. His fingers keep curling against your walls with an almost unfair degree of skill, leaving you shaking and breathless.

“Y-yeah, gonna cum,” you whimper. 

“You’re gonna cum for me?” he mumbles against your clit, goading you as he carefully watches the expressions on your face.

It's not as though you have any other choice with the way he’s playing you like an instrument he’s long-mastered.

“Yes, fuck Levi, there.”

One last gasp and the lewd, pointed suck with his lips wrapped around your clit has you melting, your thighs clamping against his ears as your back bows up off the sofa. A strangled, desperate little sound tears out of the back of your throat, and your fingers tighten around his own—still entwined beside you on the sofa.

As you come down from your high, you drag his hand up with yours to your chest, pressing his palm flat against your sternum so he can feel how fast your heart is knocking against your ribs underneath the fabric of your dress. 

Your heart rate has nowhere near returned to normal when Levi stands from his place on the ground, wiping at his wet mouth with the back of his hand as he takes in your spent, trembling state. In one fell—impossibly deft—swoop, he picks you up and carries you off towards your bedroom.

“How the fuck are you so strong?” you gasp as you wriggle in his hold—but his grip is tight and he doesn’t waver.

He drops you down onto your bed, and you bounce lightly as you come in contact with the springy surface. You fall back, staring up at him as he peers at you with affront.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

You giggle a little as he crawls over your splayed form, his body warm as his lips find their way back to yours.

He kisses you again. And again. And again.

Your pretty dress comes off, finally—left discarded in a hapless puddle on your bedroom floor to be dealt with later. It's an end unbefitting of the nicest garment you own, though you can’t begin to bring yourself to care.

Levi’s fingers trace along the delicate lace of your newly revealed bra and you feel his lips curl up into a smirk against your own. He inches away, peeking down at your chest.

He dips down to mouth along the swell of your breast, his eyes still impossibly trained on yours, and your fingers tangle into the soft strands at his crown as you moan lightly at the gentle touch. 

He sucks against the soft flesh, before pulling off with a little pop!

“Does poor Misses Miller know you kept her bra?” 

You laugh in response to his teasing words, a reference to the early days of what you’d now call a friendship (if not something else entirely), tugging him away from your chest by your grip on his hair.

He quirks a brow at you with his head tilted back in your hold. 

You pout playfully, slackening your grip on his hair and letting your hand slip down along the front of his dress shirt, petting over his chest. “You know, I think I liked you better with your mouth full.”

Levi clicks his tongue behind his teeth, watching raptly at the flash of pink as your own tongue peeks out to moisten your swollen lips. Something shifts behind his gaze, and he leans back on his haunches beside you, reaching up and fingering the loosened knot of his tie.

“Do you trust me?”

The question is a little bit out of the blue, and relatively unwarranted considering only moments prior he’d been three knuckles deep inside of you, but you entertain it nonetheless.

Your head lolls to the side on your bedspread as you look at him curiously. “I let you spend the night on my couch when we barely knew each other.”

He rolls his eyes at your intentionally indirect response, leaning forward until your entire field of vision is filled with nothing but him once more. 

“Do you,”—Levi pauses with his lips ghosting over yours, soft as they brush—“trust me?”

A beat of tense silence stretches between you.

“Yeah.” You swallow lightly after murmuring the word. “I do.”

Levi pulls back again, and reaches up and tugs on the knot of his tie until it comes completely undone, hanging in two separated halves against his chest. Slowly he draws it out from under the fold of his collar.

“There was a trend in food criticism years ago,” he says, his grey eyes tracking up, up, up along your exposed body while you wait like eager prey beneath his gaze, “where critics used to think that you could taste better in the dark. Like the dulling of one sense would somehow improve the others.”

You swallow hard as he leans forward, moving slowly up the mattress towards you.

His tie is still in his hand.

He dips down and kisses you. 

Brief. Teasing.

“They thought you could taste more…”

Levi loops his tie around your eyes, and your breath hitches. You feel the soft slip of silk against your skin, the pressure tightening (though not unpleasantly) as he knots it at the crown of your head to keep it in place. You see only darkness.

“…hear more…” Levi’s lips are right next to your ear; just a ghost of warm breath and his rich, deep voice that seems a little more strained than it had before. 

You’re breathing heavier now, or maybe you’re just more painfully aware of the rhythm of your own respiration.

“…feel more.” 

Warm fingers dance up along your ribs and you gasp aloud, not expecting the sensation. But as quickly as it appears, that feeling of his skin on yours, it’s gone again. You swallow. His touch continues in much the same way, fingers disappearing and then reappearing somewhere else, leaving you guessing. Leaving you wanting.

You feel goosebumps prickle up along your skin.

“Is that true?” you whisper as you push yourself upright and reach out blindly in search of Levi, though you aren’t quite sure where to find him.

“I don’t know—” Levi admits airily from somewhere before you, both nearer and further than you expect him to be. He takes your outstretched hand in his, pressing it to his cheek. It’s warm to the touch, and he turns his face towards your palm, pressing a barely there kiss to it.

Unexpectedly your bra falls forward, cool air kissing heated skin as the straps fall down your shoulders, thanks to a talented hand that had slipped behind your back unnoticed. You feel Levi’s lips curl into a smirk against your palm. 

“—but let’s find out.”

Next is an obscured, indecipherable blur of hot, open mouthed kisses; of gentle grazes and rougher gropes; of moans, and groans, and needy whines that you aren’t sure are even yours anymore. Your pussy’s left a wet patch on the thigh of Levi’s slacks that you can’t see but that you can feel as the sticky fabric ruts against your clit, your hips grinding desperately against it as he consumes you and whatever senses he’s left you. 

It’s infuriating. 

It’s immolating. 

It’s divine.

“Are you ready for me?” Levi pants against your stinging lips, his hand cupping your chin to keep your face tilted towards his even if you can’t see him. 

“Yes,” you mewl debauchedly, rolling your hips against that same crease in his pant leg that’s been tantalizing you for what feels like hours. You should be ashamed—of your words, of your tone, of your actions—but you aren’t.

You feel every second of the stretch as the head of his cock presses inside.

You wonder what it looks like, what he must look like right now, but you’re left only to feel.

“Oh,” he groans, the deep sound sodden and drunk with pleasure. “Amazing. Fuck, you’re taking me so well. You’re perfect.”

The first proper thrust—the in and the out—almost pulls you under like the currents of a tide. You’re fighting a losing battle to keep your head above water, to keep air in your lungs.

The springs of your mattress creak as Levi picks up the pace and mercilessly fucks you down into it, your breaths coming in pants broken by moans. You feel your sheets against your sticky skin, his hands twining with yours, his breath against your lips.

“Is it good?” he asks, mouthing clumsily along your jaw as his hips rail down against yours.

“So good,” you babble in agreement, nodding dumbly as much as you can with such little control over your own body. “Feels so good.”

“I love hearing you say that,” Levi rasps, tucking his face into the crook of your neck and letting his teeth graze over your racing pulse. “I don’t think I could ever get tired of it."

He groans as you clamp down on him involuntarily.

You’re close, and think he must be too when you feel the way his cock throbs inside of you.

“Please,” you murmur, voice breaking pathetically as you beg. It sounds like you’re near tears but with the silk still covering your eyes it’s impossible to tell whether or not it’s true. “I wanna see you.”

“Make a deal with me,” Levi grunts, his pace suddenly slowing to a torturous grind. You’re sure that you must be crying now with how devastating the change in pace is—still deep, but just languid enough that the cresting pleasure in the pit of your stomach threatens to recede. 

“A deal?” you ask, gasping as your nails drag along the musculature of his back.

“I’ll take it off,”—Levi’s touch trails up to your face, the tips of his fingers ghosting over your spit-slicked chin and searing cheeks—“but only if you let me take you out to breakfast.”

You’re in no position to be making counter-demands, or returning repartee.

“Anything,” you sob, clinging to him desperately. Your hips tilt up in a fruitless search for friction, your nails scrabble along his skin. “I’ll do anything. Please, Levi.”

He tugs the tie down, and your bleary eyes sting as they adjust to the light. 

Finally, you see him.

Levi is practically glowing, bathed in a sheen of perspiration that you can feel when your skin slips against his own. His dark hair is pushed back, away from the lines of his devastatingly handsome face; his strong cheekbones and the sharp line of his tensed jaw. His abs flex as he carves his way inside of you in that impossibly slow grind, a little trail of dark, coarse hair spanning from his navel to his cock, where you see a glossy ring around the base from you. 

He’s a feast to behold. To taste. To feel. 

“S-so?” he stutters, half-hissing from how viciously your core has tightened around him. His eyes search yours, avaricious and wild. “How does it compare?”

“Better,” you moan, a tear tracking back towards your hairline as you throwing your head back into your pillows, fighting as much as you can to keep your eyes open, “this is better.”

Levi laughs, breathy and wanton as the sound might be, and his hands grip behind your knees before peeling them away from their vice against his waist and pressing them back into your chest. 

He kisses you again—your mouths meeting desperately though they haven't long been parted—first chaste but then sloppily, bullying his way into your mouth like he wants to taste how sweet the words you’ve just said are off your own tongue.

He pulls back, a string of saliva stitching from his mouth to yours.

The corner of his lip ticks up in a smirk as his hips draw back, not in punishment but in preparation.

“Good.”

You wake the next morning with an ache humming in your bones and an effervescence sizzling in your chest. It takes you a moment to rouse, properly anyway, but when you do you feel the unmistakable weight of an arm curled around your bare waist, and a warm pressure perched atop your feet.

You open your eyes, blinking against the light that streams in through the curtains over your bedroom window—billowing gently in the morning breeze. You peek down towards the end of your bed, and see a little fluff of ginger fur sprawled out across your ankles. When you listen closely you can hear the little rumble of a purr.

Finally, you glance over to your side, and find Levi blinking back at you.

He looks sleepy and dishevelled, a sort of pleasant exhaustion in the rings beneath his eyes that you’re sure is mirrored in the shadows of your own skin. His hair is sticking up unkemptly at his temple, and there’s a line imprinted into his cheek from where it's been resting against your pillow. It’s a version of himself that you suspect Levi rarely shows to anyone, and right now it’s all deliriously, deliciously yours.

“Good morning,” your voice is so quiet when you finally risk shattering the stillness of your bedroom with a greeting.

“Good morning,” Levi rasps with a commensurate tenderness, even through the hoarseness of his groggy morning voice.

The city is waking up outside your window, the steady build of noise that will crescendo to a dull hum once the world gets underway. But for now it’s still quiet. For now you can still hear Pancakes’ slightly-wheezy purr.

Levi’s arm around your waist tightens, shifting you a little bit closer to him under the soft cover of your blankets. The gesture is hesitant. Half-committed. Like he’s still leaving himself open to be rebuked.

You smile, and close the rest of the distance yourself like crossing that final step along the fire escape. Traversing that halfway point. You curl into him and tuck your head underneath his chin as you rest your cheek against his chest.

Levi seems to soften slightly. To ease. To welcome your intrusion.

If it was ever that at all.

➤ 𝐒𝐈𝐌𝐎𝐍.

sensual, slow fingering.

and this one, because of his arms and hands.

eating you out as if you’re his last meal.

spanking his little rope bunny.

then fucking you, all pretty n’ tied up.

worshipping your sensitive nipples.

riding him ‘til he cums.

𝒆𝒙𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒔 ✦ one ・ two ・ three.

➤ 𝐊𝐎̈𝐍𝐈𝐆.

teasing you until he finally slides in.

toying with you during foreplay.

fucking you from behind and pulling your hair.

part deux. and another.

facesitting a handcuffed sub!könig.

some very cute mutual masturbation.

the afterglow.

𝒆𝒙𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒔 ✦ one ・ two ・ three.