Seaweed

The idea of leaving his flat for something else than work or, currently, strange grief support meetings, has sprouted a new kind of insecurity in him. Suddenly it has become very noticeable how his belt runs out of holes to cinch the pants with and how there is enough space for half of a human to fit under his sweater.

He squints at the numbers and when he sees the first two digits are a one and a four, his eyes close again. He’s lost something around 20 pounds. That’s enough knowledge to step off the scale with a sigh.

In the mirror he looks at himself carefully: face more angular than on his SDN lanyard, eyes weirdly bigger and more sunken. His pecks have flattened to a gentle swell, sternum jutting out his chest. When he lifts his arms, biceps hang, smaller than they used to be, a modest ball of muscle in a sack of thin underarm skin. Ribs visible. Hollow stomach with stubborn lines of what once was a six-pack.

The lower he gets, the sadder it becomes. Never much of a leg-day person, he’s finally earned himself a pair of protruding knees and shins that have that unhealthy shine of stretched skin on them. Ankles so prominent they’re prone to being kicked. At least his cock looks bigger.

He’s officially reached skinny.

There is little he can amend right now, so instead of chugging protein shakes (which in itself sounds like torture), he seeks something that used to be too tight and now will hopefully be only a size too big. Hammers an extra hole in his belt. Puts on two T-shirts in the same colour in case he has to shed an outer layer and picks the bulkiest-looking sweater.

This body feels wrong on so many levels and he’s mildly angry that he has to go through it again. During the coma Robert kissed goodbye at least ten pounds he’s never managed to put back on, so he focused on getting used to his new size. He spent maybe one or two comfortable months in it before Chase died.

Now he tries to fit into a role of a guy who’s enough just by being available and who can maybe engage in three hours of conversation if he’s this lucky. There’s a plan to fit into a guy who can wear and control two tons of metal around him, but that’s future Robert’s aspiration.

He decides on minimal deodorant, hair air-dried, and no flowers, because it’s not a date. Tells Beef it’s time to meet a new person, and gets encouraged by an enthusiastic tail waggle. Checks if that Chicago style pizza place he used to love is still open and hopes that either you will both manage to conquer one deep-dish monster together, or that you won’t mind if he leaves half of his food uneaten.

People, kind people and ones who have no idea what sort of thoughts clatter in his head, tell him that time heals wounds. Robert, however, is certain that time is a sentient enemy of humanity. It makes us older and weaker. It extends suffering and him specifically, it gave weeks spent folded on a hospital chair next to Chase. It cripples and hurts and Robert wonders, ironically, how much time has to pass before he sees all the mysterious ways it can heal him instead of mauling him.

He steps out into Torrance’s hybrid of afternoon and evening that doesn’t commit in winter. The sky sits low and colourless, a marine layer that’s less weather than mood. Cool air slides under the cuffs of his sleeves and finds skin like it’s been waiting. It’s not cold enough to feel heroic about, just cold enough that his body registers it as another small inconvenience. The light has that early-dying angle, a thin yellow that makes everything look slightly unfinished: stucco, chain-link, the backs of strip malls, palm trunks bandaged in old fronds.

If it’s rained, the asphalt holds it for longer than it should. Puddles in the bad patches of pavement. The gutters run slow with brown water and grit. Cars throw up a hiss when they pass, and the air tastes of wet concrete and exhaust, with something plant-green underneath. His hair is still drying at the roots. The damp sits there and cools, a quiet reminder that he’s outside and visible.

Streetlights start thinking about turning on. Windows glow behind blinds. Somewhere, a sprinkler runs because humans love routines more than logic. Robert walks with his shoulders slightly up, like he’s trying to keep himself from leaking out through the collar. He checks the sky, then the sidewalk, old reflexes. The neighbourhood looks normal in that Southern California way that always feels like a set: wide roads, too many lanes for the amount of people using them, parking lots that could host small wars. The world keeps functioning. He moves through it, aiming at the meeting point which is, begrudgingly, the clubhouse.

For you the days glue themselves together into chunks, stretching from one event to another. Three weeks of mandatory health leave (and aforementioned three following months of work under strict supervision plus bi-weekly health checks) have shattered all your compensation mechanisms and left you face to face with whatever you are desperate to not look at.

The first day is just a whole week of idle brooding before you decide you’ve been pressed to the wall so firmly you’re actually on the other side of it, rubble all around you. The introductory grief support meeting is a ripple and the timer resets: day two lasts until Robert’s first text message.

You stare until the screen dims, then tap it awake again because apparently you’re this desperate for anything to happen that isn’t inside your skull. The message is small. A dumb gif, two words—something that isn’t asking you to confess, just answer.

It finds you despondent amongst Sol’s clothes that you know you should get rid of, but can’t bring yourself to. Rips you away from a vacant state of putting things from one pile to another, none of the piles actually meant to be given away. 

Your stomach tightens. You type. Delete. Type again. In the end you send something survivable and watch it leave. Then you put the phone face-down and keep your palm on it, flat, like it might try to get away from you. From there, day two stretches until next Wednesday, when you meet Robert again.

And you recognise everything he’s talking about with such painful familiarity you wish there was something else to be said than sorry for your loss. He speaks of feelings omnipresent for anyone who’s lost something prematurely, unfairly, accompanied by dissecting all the moments the griever could’ve been better, thus mourning not only a person, but the time lost while the person was still there.

It makes you think of how reluctant you were to let anyone in, how you made Sol work for it like you were an actual prize, and how many days you gambled away to quiet.

Which is why, despite the bell ringing, telling you not to bind yourself to another broken, you accept the not-date, and then stand by it. There’s nothing else to do anyway: your family and work have temporarily forsaken you, the friends you’ve forsaken yourself, so the options are either to stare at everything that makes you sad, or go out. The choice is a no-brainer.

Wednesday lasts two days until it becomes Friday afternoon and you’re stuck, wrapped in a towel, clothes splayed in front of you, feeling confused enough your lips have fallen victims to canines one time too many.

Nervous would be one word to describe it. Off your game would be another. Truth is, it’s too soon for any kind of game at all, and too tied up with the fact that you’ve both seen each other at your worst to pretend this could ever be the easy, interchangeable kind of friendship.

You dress in clothes oversized enough to hide sharp angles and powder your face so it isn’t jaundice-yellow. Looking in the mirror, you decide it’s actually better this way. Omega-grace depleting has allowed you to exist invisible to suitors and go under the radar of anyone susceptible to pheromone charm. Besides, you’re sure you’ve stopped producing those altogether, since absolutely everything in your body is on strike.

Running through the puddles towards the clubhouse, you realise you have no idea about conversation starters, small-talk and civilised eating without getting a mild stroke.

Fully prepared for another session of mutual trauma-dumping you halt your steps when he’s indeed there, already waiting for you, and not alone. There’s a small creature beside him, much too fat for what its breed advertises, and much too cute for your mouth to keep frowning. Robert’s crouched beneath a little tin roof by the entrance and seems to be so engrossed in a conversation with his dog, that he doesn’t notice when you walk up to them.

“Am I interrupting?” you ask, mid way of Robert saying You gotta help me out today, buddy.

“I, uh—” He startles. “Hey. Hi,” Robert says awkwardly. “N-no, not at all. This… this is Beef.”

“Hi, Beef,” you say, bending to level with them. “I love you.”

“Great,” Robert huffs. “Another girl stolen by my dog. I give up.”

“Another girl?” you chide, frowning into a pearl-clutching expression that has Robert barking a laugh. “Is that the kind of dog you are?”

“It’s not his fault. Just look at him. He walks around naked like it’s legal.”

You start laughing too, pure and honest enough to hide your face in one of your palms. Robert blinks, soaking up every note of it. Wheezing through it, you say, “You’re so silly.”

He smiles the widest he’s smiled in ages. “Come on,” he says, warmth invading his chest. “I thought of a spot that’s most likely foolproof.”

There’s an extended hand offering you a leash, like the dog is supposed to make you less scared (he does make you less scared). Beef seems overjoyed to gain a friend and trods cheerfully by your feet. Robert walks with hands in his pockets, head low. The silence is both comfortable and not—there is a faint expectation for someone to say something, but it’s not pressing. More an opening, than a demand.

At some point Robert asks how you’ve been. You release air through your nose and give him a pointed look. He nods, and those few awkward gestures establish camaraderie: neither of you intends to or has to lie to each other about how harrowing things are in general.

A few-blocks journey on foot halts at the step of the restaurant. Eyeing the buzzing neon sign, you frown. “Deep dish pizza? That’s your foolproof spot?”

Robert scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah, I uh—”

“You are aware that I’m battling self-inflicted temporary malnourishment, right?”

“Yes, I’m familiar. On a personal level.” He takes Beef’s leash off your hands. Smiles—a small reassuring crook of his mouth saying I know. “I thought we could battle one together. And if not, well… that’s why I brought him,” he says, tilting his chin towards the dog.

A beat, during which you balance fight and flight on the decision scale. Finally, a sigh and a reconciliation: “His figure is no longer a mystery to me.”

“Shut up,” Robert chuckles. “So? I can even buy you a beer,” he says, eyebrows hopeful.

“Whoa, please stop trying to woo me, I thought we established this is not a date,” you say, having an odd moment of bargaining with yourself. Call it not-a-date all you want; you’ve still shaved your legs for it. The thought gets pocketed; remains a secret between the inner-you and outer-you.

“Alright.” He shrugs. Holds the door for you. “You’re getting your own beer then.”

“Oh, you’re insufferable,” you say, smiling. “I’m getting two.”

Not tragic, Robert thinks. And all the other self-reassuring things: so far so good, if it were indeed bad you’d probably call it quits sooner, or even worse, stand him up. He’s making steps towards the table and each one feels much more tremendous than walking: moving towards normality. Doing something mundane: meeting a friend for dinner during which he will eat, and talk, and possibly laugh on occasion, and have a beer or two. It feels stupidly massive for a man who’s spent most of his adult life sparing with bad guys in two tons of metal armour.

He leaves Beef next to you and goes to pick up the order. Puts the pizza in the centre of the table between you, deposits beers, and takes a seat. “Okay,” Robert says. “It’s not that scary.”

“It’s three inches tall,” you say, eyeing the plate. “The true terror lies beneath the crust.”

“Distract yourself with talking,” he says. “And we can ban the obvious topics, since we are forced to spill every Wednesday.”

“Alright,” you say. “But you first: why this place of all places?”

“Oh, I uh—” he stammers. Scratches his neck again, and you note that must be something he uses to brace for discomfort. “Opening the lid on that lore-can fast, yeah? I’m from Chicago. This is—”

“Familiar?” You offer.

“Yeah. Feels safe enough.”

You like that. That first shared crumb. Amongst little you can tell about him, California guy was never it. Cramped buildings and streets paralysed with ice during winter seem more like him. Suddenly the food becomes less frightening and more inviting.

“Well then, I must do my best to appreciate your regional cuisine,” you say, reaching for a slice. It looks more like a pie than a pizza and drips with obscene amounts of fat. A piece of comfort that you are convinced, once you force into your stomach, is going to write itself down as some sort of milestone.

“Yeah, you better,” Robert says. “Your turn: tell me about yourself?”

“That’s so specific Robert, I’m not sure I can disclose this kind of information on the first meeting.”

“Fine, fair,” he relents. “So, um—I don’t know, what do you do for a living? Do you have pets? Allergies? Student loan? Do you secretly hate pizza and just force yourself to eat it for the sake of not offending me?”

“Oh, lord,” you sigh. Plant your elbows on the table. “Okay. So—as every basic bitch on this planet I love pizza. Or… used to. I have a Shroedinger’s student loan.” Robert stops mid-transporting a slice onto his plate, eyebrows raised. “It doesn’t exist if we don’t talk about it,” you clarify.

He laughs, all guilty-looking. “Oops,” he says. “Sorry.”

You shake your head, fond. “Let’s see, what else… No allergies, no pets, though now I’m looking at your fur baby and I feel the feminine urge to change that. As for my work: I am a doctor, I work in an ER. Or, I used to, I’m currently suspended. Though they called it a mandatory health leave and smiled while they did it,” you mutter, jabbing the food with a fork.

Robert soaks all this information in and watches you closely. One channel registers the resume full of dull life-facts, the other focuses on delivery. How you laugh in the wrong places. How your eyes drop to his mouth when he chews, which makes him realise he’s doing the same. And then, when he stares too long, another thought appears: that it’s a really pretty mouth. Even with the fat-shine and crumbs of dough attached to it. Before you catch him doing something non friend-like, he blinks it away. “Damn, I’m sorry,” Robert says. “That’s an incredibly cool job though.”

“It’s… never boring, that’s for sure,” you say, mouth half-full. Endearing as fuck. “If I actually eat this pizza they might let me in sooner.”

“Hunger strike, hm?”

“Yeah, you know… not so much a strike, as just… eating is hard when you haven’t done it regularly for a while. It’s technically normal. Like, from a medical point of view. But it’s just hard to—”

“I know,” Robert says. “You can probably tell. It’s okay. I was half-hoping you’ve done something unhinged though.” He leans back in his chair, not even realising he’s equipped his puppy eyes on. Not realising it’s working either.

You lean in. Lashes low. A whisper: “Sorry to disappoint—” A smile appears and then lopsides. “I just fainted on shift which gave my boss free access to run tests and discover absolutely everything I was hiding.”

Robert looks like he has no idea what to say to this, and the impression that you’ve probably overspilled to a stranger is growing bigger and bigger in your throat. Refusing to give him a chance for another awkward politeness, you deflect: “Enough about me. Your turn. Pets and your relationship with pizza I already know, so please fill in the gaps about job and allergies.”

An unpleasant sheen of cold sweat breaks through the skin on Robert’s back. Right—job.

And well, he doesn’t know where this is going. But he sure as hell knows that once he comes out to you about his actual occupation this ride will end right here and now. He reckons he’s told full lies with a half-smile, so he can do it again with a half-lie too. It’s on the lips already. The bitch is in the smile precisely.

“Well.” He clears his throat. “My relationship with pizza needs improvement, that’s for sure. No allergies, just like you,” he says. “As for the job, it’s boring.” His mouth curves. “Security company. We get calls about suspicious activity and I send people to check it out.”

A pause, long and agonising. You nod, swallow. He watches it go down in a too-large gulp and has unhelpful thoughts about it. “You’re right,” you say. “It’s kinda boring.” 

There. You could’ve asked follow-up questions, but you don’t. Robert doesn’t think about it too deeply. All it does for now is making it easier for him to stay blurry where he wants to be blurry.

The back of his shirt is wet, hands damp and food grows in his mouth, but it’s done. He gets to keep this, whatever this is, for a little bit longer.

Another weird feeling flashes through him, like his whole internal system is asking why. Why has he decided that he has to lie to you in the first place? This is not what Robert has been doing for the past couple of months. And he knows, on some level, that the deviation is good—it’s a sign of change. But change is daunting. His survival instinct has settled on interactions that involve getting drunk next someone who’s getting drunk too, waiting for a signal it’s okay to invade their personal space, and then getting fucked quick and nameless in a bathroom stall or someone’s car. It hasn’t been significant enough to lie for it. So why is this?

He brushes it off. Chuckles to cover up the discomfort of a phantom nose growing and lets himself sink into small talk. Despite it making him feel exposed, he asks about things you like. You seem to have to take a moment to remember them. Favourite films—promising, much aligned with Robert’s distinguished taste of action movies and psychological dramas. You mention Fleetwood Mac as your beloved band and again, he finds it heartwrenchingly attractive. When it comes to your favourite shows, you both get busted on the irony.

“Seriously?” He chuckles. “Grey’s Anatomy? That’s so on the nose.”

“It’s even worse—it’s the sole reason why I became a doctor.” His eyes go bigger and brighter. “Well, what’s yours, jerk?” You ask, laughing.

“Uh, there was this—” Robert stalls. Part of him wishes to rewind the past thirty minutes and just tell you about SDN so you’d understand the similarities. The other part—cowardly, and unready for a rejection—decides it’s good enough as it is. “Okay, I guess you can laugh. The Six Million Dollar Man. I loved it as a kid,” he says.

“Jesus, my mom loved this show,” you wheeze. “As far as I remember it had surprisingly a lot of shots of the main guy’s ass in tight pants?”

“Yeah, totally. I was so into that as a four-year old,” Robert deadpans. 

“Freak,” you say, eyes shining. “Ah, this is hilarious. I love that.”

Weird. Robert’s face hurts from smiling. On the third round of beers the conversation deepens. He manages to tell you a little more about Chase. What a good guy he was and what a pain in the ass sometimes. Mercifully, you don’t talk much about your partner, you settle on your sister instead. It’s nice. After a while, Robert feels peaceful enough to stare at you for extended seconds. He indulges in stray glances that give him details exceeding what he should have catalogued during a first meeting. The way your teeth are a little crooked. The way your face wrinkles when you consider an answer. And the way your eyes stray too: towards his ear, his neck. He wonders if it’s because you like those places or because they carry obvious marks and you’re too timid to ask him. Either way he’s grateful: he doesn’t have to be dishonest again.

Your bodies talk a little louder than mouths. With muscles loosened and heads a bit woozy, you both assume positions that enable accidental contact. The top of his hand brushes your side when he leans to pet Beef. Your foot nudges his calf when you bounce it under the table. The closer he squeezes himself to the tabletop the more he can catch your smell again.

It could be perfume, Robert reasons. But something about the way it makes his cheeks feel warmer tells him, it’s most likely natural. Has it evolved since your introduction, or is it his nose playing tricks on him, he can’t tell. There was something fundamentally sad in it the first time you hugged him. Then, it tipped in the direction that balances life and death on an uneven surface—freezes the dilemma in time. A cold store for beautiful once-alive things doomed to eventually wither. Now it’s still this, but more insistent. More fight in it, than indisposition, as if the cut stem has decided that it’s not done yet and it’s growing the roots back.

“You know you can just ask me?” you say.

Your index finger is running across your lower lip and Robert can’t take his eyes off it. He doesn’t even try to. In fact, he’s so entranced by it, he hasn’t got the faintest idea what he’s just been caught doing. “What about?” he murmurs, realising he’s so close he could kill that distance with his face.

“Are you aware that I can tell you’re smelling me?”

You might be way off your game, but when you know, you know. It brings you a strange feeling of relief—so you aren’t entirely neutered. There is still some fight left in your body, it just needs to be shown a man who’s interested without making it painfully obvious. Also, alcohol loosens inhibitions, and apparently you are such light weight right now, you’ve actually had to stop yourself from calling him out on beer one.

He bites his lower lip often, especially when he tries not to smile too widely and you account this as a terrible loss. Whenever he leans to reach Beef (who’s seating faithfully by your side, making huge loving eyes at your plate) he doesn’t retreat fully. Stays that one inch closer. Another one. His legs stretch under the table, caging yours, and when your foot meets his calf at first he flinches, then comes back until the touch ghosts. The top of your shoe under his knee. Feet bumping. His finger a hairsbreadth from your elbow. 

Then, his face: pink cheeks, which he could blame on drinking of course, but you know better. That’s brain going fuzzy around the edges, leaning into instinct. And yes, this is not a date. This is not a date, yet in response to everything he does that could be labelled both innocent and suggestive, you feel the urge to do the exact same, fuelled by small adorable details of him: a tiny chunk of his ear missing and a small blemish on his neck that looks like a very shy hickey. The eternal demure dance of will-I-won’t-I that is a lethal weapon wielded by someone who’s undecided on mercy and has literally nothing to lose.

“I—” Robert stutters. Adjusts his stance. “I am just breathing,” he says, unconvinced. Then, inevitably, he loses the staring-smirking contest where your stare remains fox-like on habit, and smirk sharpens by necessity for a pinch of violence in eroticism.

“Ugh, fine!” he concedes. “Fine, fine. So—” A breath, smelling of a man’s mouth flushed with beer. “You are—”

Mercy does come—it seizes his incredibly awkward pause. “Evolutionally redundant?” You offer. “Yes.”

Evolutionally redundant. He looks at you and wonders how any of that can be marked redundant. How the presence that suddenly urges him to try harder, to finish his food, to grow stronger, to do better, can be called insignificant. 

“I mean…” he starts, then backs out into a joke. “I won’t deny you the right to give yourself a tragic label, but if you’d like to elaborate…”

“Smartass,” you chide. “You genuinely want me to explain or are you just playing a decent guy?”

“What do you mean?”

“Cross your heart that you haven’t done any research.”

Now that—that’s significantly worse than getting caught sniffing you or staring at you. Robert swallows, then stammers, effectively giving himself away before he even gets a chance to deflect. “I—”

“Ohmygod.” You hide your face in your hands, palms pressed to your eyes like you can physically erase the last five seconds.

“Hey,” Robert says, trying for casual and landing on guilty. His fingers fidget with the edge of his beer mat until it’s soft. “Like you wouldn’t.”

“I totally would.” A beat. You look at him and he’s smiling—apology all over it, boyish and sweet. “Okay, Jesus. What did you learn?”

“Just, uh… basics. Oh come on, give me a break.” He huffs a laugh, eyes dropping, then coming back up. “You can tell me your side of things. If you’re so worried.”

“Fine,” you say, and your mouth keeps trying to make a joke of it while your eyes don’t. “It is redundant, technically—there is less and less of… us. Like people with excessive body hair. Or, I don’t know. Webbed fingers.” You roll your wrist, bracing, when his face is still all question mark. “Uh, okay. The world is more advanced. We don’t need to procreate at all costs. There are far too many people in it anyway. So we are an artifact. A blip in human evolution that will eventually die out.”

“Shit, that’s…” Robert’s brows pull together. His thumb rubs at the side of his nail, worry working at him in small, irritating motions.

“Oh trust me, it’s good,” you say, fast, sharp, like you’ve had to defend that conclusion before. “It’s fine.”

“Sure,” Robert says, sceptical without trying to be. He leans back, then forward again, unable to settle. “I just thought of the last ones standing. Like, that must be… lonely?”

You go still. It takes a second to land—him looking at it from the end, not the middle. Your mouth opens on a reflexive answer and nothing comes out. A small, stupid pause.

“Omegas and alphas don’t have to be with each other,” you say finally, quiet. A little stunned. “Lucky people have that. Most of us are either alone, medicated, or just with… betas. Like you. ‘Normal’ people, as some would say—”

“Wow,” Robert cuts in, and his mouth quirks. “Now you’re moping. Incredible.”

“Fuck off!” you snap, laughing through it.

“I am so deeply sorry for your miserable existence,” Robert says. His eyes go bright. “Must be awful to be irresistible.”

“Robert,” you say, and tilt your head. “Are you being a dick?”

“I have my moments,” he admits, too easy, gaze steady on you like he’s taking the hit on purpose.

“Or…” You draw it out, watching him. “Are you saying I’m irresistible?”

“As I said,” Robert replies, and his grin goes crooked, wonderful. “I have my moments.”

Your cheeks warm and you’re surprised by how natural this feels. How with a pinch of flirting, some food, some jokes and opening yourself up a little bit, you’ve managed to forget most of the things forlorn waiting for you at home. How he makes breathing feel this much more tolerable.

You realise things did shift minutely, but significantly: a few weeks ago you’d go there. Seize that feeling and make it burn fast and bright to experience something else than sorrow, even if it’s just for one night. Now you find yourself curious about microdosing: no matter where this goes, you don’t feel like wasting it. You let him squeeze a foot in the door and watch what he does next.

Robert counts that as a success, and it scares him. He’s learned something that he already suspected to be true: that you are unique. Unique enough to make it unfair to try and drag you into bed and ruin it altogether. He’s managed to slip a compliment in and has to accept that it won’t bear fruit tonight. That this shouldn’t be a quick fix. That this is him, trying to do a normal thing with another person who feels similar. Him, trying to be normal for one evening. So Robert counts that as a success, because he feels surprisingly normal right now, despite it being scary as fuck. They’ve told him this is what healing would be like.

“Eat the last one,” he says, pushing the pizza dish in your direction.

“You sure?”

He nods. “I’m full. And… it wasn’t so bad in the end, was it?”

“No,” you say. “Poor Beef, though. So much promised, nothing delivered.”

“I think he’ll be fine,” Robert says, smiling when you smooth your fingers between Beef’s ears. “He prefers love to food anyway.”

“Don’t we all,” you say, looking at the dog instead of Robert, and thank god—at least you can’t see the face he makes.

He watches you eat that last slice and something in his chest gets swollen. Odd feeling, incomparable to anything else. Like he’s done something right, but bigger and smaller at the same time.

Trying to get back to treating the not a date deal with uttermost respect, he hands you the bill so you can split. When you stand up, your legs wobble. Robert spreads his hands, ready to catch. “You alright?” He asks.

“Yeah, I just—” you sigh. “I might have overestimated myself.”

He lets you settle. Then: “Come on. I’ll walk you home?”

“Sure. I suppose some exercise will do him good,” you say, nodding towards Beef.

“If we are going to be friends you really need to stop being mean to my dog,” Robert says, holding the door open for you.

“I’m saying all of that affectionately. Also, that’s just a reflection of your bad parenting.”

He’s about to bark something clever back, but the air carries another whiff of you in his direction. You slide in front of his chest, then wait for him to join, and he walks, noting how badly he’s overestimated himself too.

Head buzzing, he lets his feet drag beside you, listening, nodding, laughing, replying. Shamelessly ogling you in movement. The old thing that wants it better, faster kicks back in. With every block your scent gets more insistent in his nostrils until it feels like you’re crawling inside him through the pores of his skin.

Mouth becoming tacky, Robert starts to sense a strange pang of panic.

A person in his life who can read him. A person his bullshit won’t work on. A person he’s already lied to, who, by some weird joke of the universe, has not clocked that lie on him yet. But the lie sits. It starts accruing. He tells himself he’ll fix it later, that he’ll pick a cleaner moment, and the thought comes with a sour certainty: later is exactly when it’s going to hurt. Then, he realises how much work is ahead of him and that he doesn’t know if he has the willpower to see it through.

He walks, and the closer you two are to your apartment, the further away Robert feels from his comfort zone.

You stop by a four-storey building with a well-kept garden in front of it. “This is me,” you say, while he’s blinking rapidly. “I guess I should say that this was great and we should do this again, except that means it was horrible and I want you out of my sight forever, so—”

Drunken mind plays tricks on him. He’s trying his damndest at something but can’t pinpoint which one exactly—be it trying to awaken decency in himself (you’ve just lost a man this many steps higher than a mere husband after all), or the exact opposite: fucking it up. Fucking it up through nothing else than fucking, because his brain, the one between his legs, the untouched one, the one starved for human temperature, the one that tugs his gut mercilessly whenever you lick your lips, is currently waving a red hot flare of a warning in front of his heart. Dick it, Robert, before it grows larger than your cock, morphs into something god-forsaken and disgusting, like feelings.

He grabs you mid-sentence, right there on your doorstep. Lands his slurring hot mouth on yours, tongue and all, and sucks onto you like a leech. Inhales that sweet oasis scent and notices it has changed again: now the buckets with cold water have flowers in them, stems still green, petals frozen in that perfect bloom, firm, pert like young tits and toned butt cheeks, and there is some honey in it, a candy-like taste he can’t put his finger on. It’s creamy, narcotic sweetness with an animalic, fleshy depth, and when his tongue slides atop yours he realises you’re oozing want for him too.

There is a hand in his hair, tugging, pulling, scratching his scalp until a shiver licks his loins and bucks the eager hips into yours. Another, roaming lower: his chest, stomach, the ribbed side and the warm armpit. Your nails dig in there and hold. He groans, breaks, or rather slides down, takes your whole chin in his mouth, then finds your neck and stops there. “Fuck, you smell… so good.”

Your breathing changes. He can hear a small hitch, like you’ve caught yourself doing something off-limits. From where he’s standing, Robert notices he has you pressed to the wall, palms full of your ass where he’s groping you like a greedy drunken bastard.

“Wait,” you say. Place your hands on his chest, just shy of pushing him away. “Robert, I—”

“N-no, I get it.” He steps away. Part of him is just outright scared he’s done something without receiving explicit consent, or better, getting knighted beforehand. Another part—crestfallen that he’s managed to fuck this up with no fucking involved.

“This is not a rejection,” you tell him, one finger pointing up, wrist wobbling. Christ, shaking. Your hands are shaking.

“Fuck, did I scare you? Shit, I’m so sorry. Fuck,” he spits, turns and covers his mouth.

“No, Robert, please wait.” He gets hauled back in by the shoulder, forced to meet your eyes. “Please, I mean it. I like you. I really like you, it’s just too early for me,” you say and your face looks exactly like Robert feels.

“Why are you shaking then?” he asks.

“I just… I haven’t done anything close to this for a long time.” A grimace—one he knows all too well. Shame, though on you it looks more endearing, closer to juvenile abashment than the guilt he carries around. “I do like you. You are nice. And funny, and handsome, and you kiss… really fucking well—” There, Robert’s mouth curls. He notices your eyes shining, lashes sticky. “Fuck, I’m drunk,” you say. “Okay, I’m drunk, that should say it all. I just need it slower, is all.”

“Okay.” He nods. “Okay, I can do slower.” 

“Yeah?” you ask. Something hopeful, something bright in you tugs him closer.

“Yeah, of course I can.”

Then, the smallest thing happens. A brush of knuckles, coy and delicate. His fingers twitch, hand starts moving. He looks down and there you are, talking to him through touch, pleading for tenderness and patience.

You slip your fingertips under his, finding the soft underside where the nerves sit closer to the surface. Thumb to fingerpad, then the next, a slow counting, you trace the seams of his joints, the little creases where his hand folds into itself when he makes a fist, and he understands, dimly, that you’re asking him not to.

His palm turns, enough to meet you and answer.

He presses his thumb into the heel of your hand where it’s meatiest and made for holding. The flesh yields under him, a quiet collapse, then pushes back into shape as soon as he eases off. He does it again, firmer, testing whether you’ll flinch. There’s no flinching.

Then the social kind, uglier: the hunger to belong when your leg marks you out. The ache of benches where bodies shift to make room for anyone but you. He learned the workarounds—sharp tongue, sharper grades, carrying his own silence like a mouthguard. He fed himself on small acknowledgements: a partner who didn’t protest, a laugh that included rather than glanced off. Bare rations of kinship, eked out.

After that came the crackle in his head, the academic bite. Knowledge as protein; ambition as salt. Nights bled into mornings because discovery is a stimulant more reliable than coffee. He wanted a discovery one he could set on the bench and it would warm the room. Not ribbons, not applause—proof with a pulse, something that made the other hungers make sense. He pared himself to the quick chasing it and named the thinness discipline.

He thought hunger stopped there—stomach, tribe, mind—until his body finished with boyhood and unseated the neat accountant in his skull. A new appetite presented itself with no manners at all. Not romance. Not comfort. A need that ignores reason the way fire ignores furniture. He learned the true word for it and tasted how accurate the mouth makes it: lust.

None of that—alone or together—has prepared him for what hunger really is. It begins at his scalp, runs under his nails, prickles his soles, turns his spit sharp, licks his navel, makes him hard when he thinks about feeding. Death came once, draining, then rebirth; since then he has never been starved in the same way.

He woke as if skinned and reversed. The hollowing came after, clean and total, bones empty like those of birds. Grit in his mouth where there should have been blood—he knew instantly, a cruel programming of something genuine that escapes the laws of nature. After that there wasn’t a belly to feed—the belly was him: a yawning kiln of need, restless, self-powered, never shut off.

Then he met you.

Bottomless gut meets a walking feast—a human larder carrying the one thing he hunts, life, so bright it turns and hunts him back. If fullness was a myth before, with you it’s blasphemy. Love the brain inside the blood-bag and the feed sweetens past reason; every pull tastes like the first drink after drought, and he comes up hungrier than when he went in. He tells himself to ration. He can’t. You make the craving clever. You make it chase.

A reckless little thing, poor brakes on you. A merciless tease, too: you offer him bits of yourself—wrists, ankles, your soft lappet, the pad of a finger pricked with a needle, and whatever spot you’ve scratched or cut ‘accidentally’. Those starters are sand in the gears—his teeth itch, his tongue stings; he is more famished than before the crimson drop sinks into the grooves of it.

The main course comes when you decide he’s been tormented enough, when he’s worked hard enough for it, and—as much as he loves the game—sometimes impatience gets the better of him. At times he pins you with his newly acquired strength and threatens with a nib until it’s you begging to be bitten. The rite goes on until desire stops having owners. Everyone carries their own kind of hunger, he supposes.

Where he dines from depends on the day and the mood. The neck is the obvious, tasteful spot—elegant lines, delicious tendons—but banal in the way mythos dictates. He’s never been one for platitudes, and some habits carried over from his previous life remain—his lifelong fatal attraction to thighs among them.

Between quick meals at your wrists and shoulders, your chef-d’œuvre stays hidden from sight, meant only for him. It warms under skirts as your inner thighs rub—under stockings, marked by a garter belt and underwear—signposts pointing to where he belongs.

Tonight it’s the thigh again.

Whatever he took last time he sealed clean with his tongue; the skin gleams new, as if teeth have never spoken there. You made a meal of teasing him first—let him worry your lower lip and then drew back, laughed into his ear when his hips bucked under you, a soft wicked sound that took his breath out of step.

He snapped. Shirt torn, buttons skittering; bra yanked down until your breast spilled warm into his palm. The first bite he lays there, as gentle as he knows how: a neat ring around the nipple like a small tattoo, careful work on tender flesh. His hand holds the swell steady; your skin lifts in gooseflesh at the cold of his fingers.

When the points of his teeth meet skin the pain is dull to start with, a pressure that thinks about becoming hurt and then decides against it. The second the seal forms and he draws, the ache unravels into sweetness—heat travelling under the bite, a pulse turned liquid. Your mouth opens on a sound you don’t release and keep instead. He tastes it: salt, copper, a shock of you that makes his eyes shut.

He’s especially hungry and there’s no hiding it. Relief surges with that first mouthful—thick, bright, immediate—as if the world clicks into its socket. He makes himself slow. Counts. Keeps the circles of his tongue small and neat, keeps the pull shallow, lets your breath find its shape against his hair. But hunger is a grindstone and tonight it’s been working him down to the core. Your teasing still rings in his ear; your laugh lives at the base of his spine.

You stroke his nape; he forces himself to lift, to seal the marks with a working tongue, to admire the ring he’s drawn while it’s still there—clean, precise, a promise for later. “There,” he says, voice rough from being good. “Pretty.” You tip his face up with your knuckles, thumb the corner of his mouth, smear the pink.

And then he goes lower.

Kisses mapped down the line of your belly, a slow swirl of his tongue in your navel, the lick in the hollow of your hip where heat collects, the push of your skirt to your waist. Stockings whisper. Underwear peels, suspender marks arrow him in, faithful as ever. He splits your thighs open, presses his cheek to the inside of one, breathes you like he’s been above water too long. The skin here is warmer, thinner; his favourite hymn-book. He sets his mouth just shy of last week’s ghosts and smiles at how spotless the canvas is.

“Be good,” you murmur, which is a cruelty you both enjoy.

Red is your favourite colour, unironically. He knows what it means in your mouth: vision fuzzing, fingertips fizzing empty of circulation. Say ‘red’ and he stops—always.

He sinks his teeth. The pain blooms dull and round and then sweetens on the first draw, and his hunger—old, bottomless, obedient to no one—purrs like a machine finally given fuel. He takes a mouthful and the world brightens; he tastes iron, salt, something like fruit, something only you have. He pauses to breathe, to hold your thigh open with his palm, to listen to the little change in your breath that tells him you’re with him. Then another careful pull, measured, devoted, while his own body answers—hard, helpless—as if every swallow threads heat straight through him.

The sensation is nothing you’ve felt before and it might be your favourite. You can almost hear his thoughts settle—click, click—into their right places when he feeds. It feels indecently good to be this essential. The draw is a dull-edged ache that loosens into warmth; you dribble for him, not only blood. With his head between your thighs, your body misreads the brief and prepares you for what comes after dinner—slick, open, already there.

You look down. His eyes are shut; his cheeks—usually chalk—pink as if you’ve rubbed life into them with your own pulse. Some part of you is already moving inside him, swirling, making him rosier, more human-looking, and it’s all your doing. You never thought you’d meet a man who could make you feel fuller while draining you out.

You reach for him, seek his fingers; he laces them with yours without looking, drinks, breathes, drinks. The sight is mesmerising. ‘Red’ sits on the tip of your tongue and does not cross it. You close your eyes and breathe heavily. It isn’t unfamiliar: the body going spongy and weighty, a gentle absence in your hands, a hush in your feet. You tell yourself you have time. You keep telling yourself until a soft black washes under your eyelids and stays.

He holds your hand and is lost in it—the fit of your fingers, the small flex when he draws. Swallow after swallow, the belly he is fills, but never to the brim. Clarity shoves at hunger in his skull and, at the edge, something needles through: your skin is colder than usual. Your thighs hang apart, slack. The pulse that pours you into his mouth thins, thread-faint. He listens hard inside the roar—nothing. He didn’t hear ‘red.’ He would swear his undead life on it.

The wrong silence settles, and panic threads itself through his muscles.

He unseats his teeth. The first second is wrong in his mouth—air on enamel, a tender ache where fang met flesh, the cold of his own base temperature returning like a bad habit. He forgets to seal you with his tongue and instead, is already moving, crawling up, bracing your thigh aside with his forearm.

“Darling.” His voice is bent thin. He checks your face—water in his hands. When he lifts your shoulders your head lolls back, loose-necked. Another “darling,” sharper; two fingers at your throat, the other hand on your breastbone feeling for the rise. Breath, yes—shallow, stubborn. Pulse, there—small as a thread under water.

He fumbles the bedside—blanket, pillow. Legs up. He tucks your calves over his shoulder to raise them, presses, presses. “Come on. Come back. Come back, my darling.” 

His mouth tastes of guilt. He scrubs his thumb along your cheekbone, taps your chin lightly, angling your airway open the way he’s taught himself. The room is loud with his own heartbeat.

“Red,” he says for you, sick with it. “We’re stopping. We’re done.” He hears himself promising—never again, never this far, never—and hates the panic in the shape of the words.

About to call for help, the police for himself, about to rip his wrists open to give back what he took from you—

Your eyelids flutter once, then go still. He reaches for the glass on the bedside table, trembling, wets your lips, coaxes a little water in. A sweet catches his eye—a wrapped lozenge, ridiculous—he cracks it, tucks the shard under your tongue, strokes your throat until you swallow. He keeps your hand in his, trying to rub warmth into your knuckles. They are colder than he can bear.

“Please,” he says, low, tears blurring his vision. “I’m here. Come back.”

You gasp—a small, torn sound—and drag air. Your eyes open narrow, unfocused, then find him. He is already cupping the back of your head, already kissing your brow, already closing his eyes because relief hurts.

“Hi,” you manage, voice ragged.

“Hi yourself.” He laughs once, ugly with fear. “You went away.”

“Not far.” You lick your lips; the sweet sits glossy there. “Spun out. I should’ve—” Your fingers squeeze his. “I didn’t say it.”

“I didn’t hear it.” He swallows. “I should have heard.”

You breathe, deeper now, the colour walking back into your mouth in slow steps. “I’m fine.” You test your hands, flex your feet. “Head’s light. That’s all.”

He nods, fast. “I’m so glad.” He folds over you, all length and heat, mouth sealing on yours. “You wicked thing, I thought I lost you,” he says and you can feel the shape of it against your lips.

You taste yourself on the inside of his cheek—metal and spit—mixed with the sting of salt where tears have tracked to the corner of his mouth. It hits like a switch. Your hands are already in his hair, curling, tugging him closer; he answers with a low sound he doesn’t mean to make.

The panic unwinds between your teeth; relief comes in a rush and leaves want in its place, the way a storm leaves pressure behind. It’s that ordinary, that obscene—near-miss death and then the body remembering it’s alive and making a case for it.

He kisses you like he’s trying to put you back in, to keep you. No finesse, not at first; then the control returns in shards—his mouth softens, angles, opens for you. He shivers when your tongue finds the cut of his fang, when you thumb the hinge of his jaw. Your ribs learn his rhythm again, his weight settling you, and the shake in his hands goes somewhere you can use it. You breathe each other in. He noses your cheek, comes back to your mouth, stays there—hungry, grateful, unashamed; only breath now, the sounds of kissing, the long slow fact of not dying.

Hands work faster than brain—he palms between your legs, finds the wound still open. Unthinking, he smears blood and slick where he wants to claim you until it runs light red.

Fed and frightened, he shakes on the edge. Copper sugars the back of his palate, jaw aches from restraint, hunger and relief wrestling behind his eyes. Fear still gnaws, wants proof stronger than the rise of your chest under his palm. He needs function, not theory—to enter you, to have you warm around him and your muscles working.

“Tell me,” he manages, forehead to yours. His breath breaks. Hard still, thick with blood he drank, he grinds his hips between yours, scents of you and him so strong he nearly goes deaf.

Tell me anything, Viktor means. Tell me to stop, tell me to keep going, tell me you’re here.

“My darling,” you say, thighs coming to where he loves them—hugging his hip bones tight, ankles crossing in the small of his back. “Come now. Fuck me like you’re glad I’m here.”

His mouth opens just to drag across your face, brows knit. Crown already where it’s supposed to be, he enters you in one long drag and it’s another relief unspooling his loins. Hot, so hot it burns, he buries deep and stays until temperatures even out.

You lend body warmth to him—first shock, then bloom. He feels it: your cunt snug and wet around him, his cock cold at the tip, colder along the length, then—heat creeps in by degrees until he throbs with you. Your body teaches him back to 37—holds him there—while his hands learn the same lesson: backs of your thighs first, your neck next, chill giving way to human warmth once they’ve held long enough. He breathes against your mouth, shudders, waits out the burn like winter-bitten fingers under a tap, and when the ache thins to pleasure he moves again—still hungry and newly grateful.

“My sweet darling,” he rasps, hips settling into a pace that lets him listen. You answer with a drag of nails at his nape, a pulse squeezing around him that makes his vision grain at the edges. Each stroke lands like that proof he’s been searching: tight, alive, human. Fear sheds; brilliance crowds in; want blooms feral in its wake. He fits his mouth to yours, tastes iron turned sweet, and fucks you like you asked—like he’s glad you’re here.

It’s one thing to stop fearing hunger; another to be wanted for it—loved, even—by his beautiful-brained feeder. The first time he thought it a trick of biology, a mercy-chemical; now, with you under him and warm around him, he knows better. You don’t just allow the beast—you choose it, you choose him, and the choosing remakes him more completely than any resurrection did.

Once, he filed himself under unlovable at best, unkeepable at worst. No kin before; a creature after. He made peace with thinness and called it virtue. But the thought of losing you scours him clean. He would go hungry for millennia if you told him to; he would ration down to sips; he would take and then give it all back—time, warmth, every soft inch of himself—until the ledger balanced in your favour.

He moves like he’s signing that promise with his body—steady, listening; your name under his breath as if the sound could anchor him to you.

Pocket of your heat found, he works there—hips driving, rhythm tightening, breath breaking on your mouth. Your thigh slides higher on his waist; the bed knocks a small, regular protest. He catches your wrists, pins them above your head, not for power but for balance, for leverage, for the clean line it gives him to push deeper. You take him; you answer; his pace grows meaner, cleaner, the kind that steals language and leaves sound.

He wants your throat. Habit pulls him there—chin grazing your jaw, lips at the hinge, teeth testing the soft just under your ear. The urge bites back hard. He holds, shakes, chooses you over the itch. “No more marks today,” he says into your skin, an apology and a vow. You tip your head anyway, offering; he groans like a man punished and drags his mouth down, filling the need with kisses, with tongue, with the small bite his lips can give without breaking.

Heat climbs. He rocks you up the bed by inches, fingers learning you anew—one hand cupping your knee, keeping you close, keeping you his. Your chest brushes his; sweat gathers where your bodies meet; the cold he carried has nowhere to live now. He’s warm where it counts—inside you, mouth to yours, palms moulded to skin that welcomes him back.

“Talk to me,” he asks, not slowing. You breathe his name, high and wrecked, and it lands like petrol. He drives harder, finds the angle that makes you seize around him, holds it, works it, won’t let go until you wrench out from his grasp and drag nails down his back and say there. He gives you there again and again, head tipped, eyes blown. Control frays to threads and he lets it, chasing that proof you make with every clench.

The bite-urge surges once more when you arch—throat bared, pulse loud. He fits his open mouth over it, teeth sheathed, and hums against you instead, a helpless sound. “Red if you need it,” he murmurs, and your hand slides to his jaw, thumb stroking the place where fang aches. “Green,” you say, voice shaking. “Go on.”

So he does. Deeper, faster, rough with relief, careful with teeth. The mattress answers, the headboard ticks, your legs lock tight around his hips and hold him home. He loses the line between feeding and fucking and devotion; he just moves, chest to chest, mouth to mouth, as if he can write himself into you and stay there. When you go—when it takes you—he feels it grip and ripple and he follows blindly.

His hips punch deep, then falter; breath catching on a ragged sound he couldn’t choke back if he tried. It snaps somewhere in the middle of his spine; he drives once more and holds, buried to the hilt, every muscle strung tight while it steals him. The first pulse spills sharp and cold, a shock you feel bloom inside; the next follows—cool ribbons, then a slow flood that turns you goose-pimpled from the inside out. He trembles through the aftershocks, mouth open against your throat, grinding small to feed them, to empty everything into you until the shiver leaves his legs.

After, he keeps inside, nose to your neck, counting breaths without thinking, hands smoothing your hair, your ribs, your thigh as if polishing. Warmth holds. Home holds. He kisses the spot he didn’t bite and finally lets his jaw rest. “Still here,” he whispers, as much to himself as to you. “Still mine.”

Later he’ll call it a near-thing and tidy the ledger, but tonight he keeps the simpler count: your breath steady, the neat ring he kissed instead of broke, the word you didn’t have to spend, heat shared back into his bones, hunger turned quiet and domestic.

The encounter has made him two sizes at once. Bolder, because you answered to his voice and went still under his hands—proof that method can be made from ruin. Smaller, because you smiled while he was believing in it. That smile—satanic, luminous, amused—tells him progress was a costume you let him try on, and he wore it like a child parading in a father’s coat.

He cycles the feelings like beads. Anger, first: at you for playing him, at himself for being playable, at the world for making a cage and teaching you to rattle it for sport. Then sorrow—thin, constant—as if he’s misplaced something he never owned. Curiosity follows, the most dangerous one; it sits low in the body and asks for more data, more exposure, more you. Pity tries to rise and he kills it on sight. Kinship refuses to die; it taps inside his ribs like a moth against glass.

He tells himself he was a good physician trying not to bolt you under the wrong label. That he attempted what no one else had—refusing the lazy taxonomy, making space where you could be more than a diagnosis. That he discharged you because sometimes mercy is an unlocked door. The story is elegant. It fits in a note.

The truth is uglier. Ambition got there first and put its hands on the wheel. He wanted the case that proves a theory, the miracle of a mind untied by precision. He wanted the feeling of being right. Under that, older and harder to look at, is the thing you woke in him: a heat that doesn’t belong to medicine, a covenant with his own darkness he has been dodging for years.

He knows what boils over in him when he stops counting. He knows how often he chooses not to look. With you, there was an offer—transactional, exact—to look together: your abyss for his, a fair trade cut at the nerve. You didn’t want that. You wanted use without witness; you wanted to burn, not be seen. He signed the papers like a surgeon tying off a vessel and called it clean work. It still bleeds in him.

The city practice steadies him. Narrow stair, frosted door, his name in gold leaf that time has blunted. Inside: walnut desk, two chairs that never relax, a small sofa, a rug that hushes feet, the window facing another building and a small square he’s grown to prefer over nice views. He splits his days the way he always has—sanatorium in the mornings, city in the afternoons—stacking appointments until thought runs like a train on greased rails. He keeps his hands on files, his eyes on symptoms. He does not think of grass stains or of a wrist settling beneath his thumb.

This evening he has two left. The penultimate is a woman whose migraines cause her to pick skin until blood beads. Before he lets her in, he tells his secretary, “When the last patient arrives and signs, you may go home. I’ll close up.” She nods, gathers her scarf, leaves the desk lamp on. The patient sits, says her part, and he listens, adjusts the plan; the talk is careful, finite, graspable. Everything by the book.

The doorbell sighs. The last patient signs. He hears the secretary’s cheerful goodnight, footsteps fading down the stair, the click of the street door. Almost there—almost through another day.

He smiles with that warm smile that tries to say you are going to be alright to people who have no idea what alright means. The woman smiles back, nods, accepts the invitation for next week’s session, and steps out, leaving the door ajar.

Viktor checks his list and frowns—a new name. It’s not ideal to have an introductory session as the last one of the day, but so be it. “Come in,” he calls, and the hinges creak. He’s hunched over notes—preparing a fresh journal page alongside the official file. When he’s done writing the name down, he pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, looks up and—

The script—Your name, and what brings you in?—dies in his throat. One look at you and he knows you’ve been busy.

And oh, you’ve been so busy.

When you leave the sanatorium, you leave angry. Not at him—at what you’ve decided he refused. The truth. Or your truth, which is the only kind that counts. You fold the stamped discharge into your pocket like a curse and ride home with the window cracked, scarf tight, air needling your eyes until they stop trying to water.

You spend the first night proving him wrong in absentia. Lipstick too bright, bar too loud, a man with hands that shake until they don’t. You tell him what to do in a voice you want Viktor to hear, and when he tries tenderness you laugh in his mouth. When he tries roughness it’s clumsy, mean in the wrong place. You go home raw and righteous and untouched in the way that matters.

You run. Streets, parks, dirt that still remembers rain. You run until the lungs cut you open from the inside, until your knees go tacky with green and your calves sting. You think fast as you run, then not at all.

You hone yourself like a blade: nails longer; heeled shoes that change your walk; stockings that make you choose your steps. You wear lace because the mirror admits it suits you in a way that feels like losing an argument. You sleep in it alone because that feels like winning.

You keep busy the way people pray: regularly, with faith you don’t name. You collect mouths. Some learn. Most don’t. You try a therapist share. You sit on a springy chair and dare him to diagnose you. You speak in riddles for forty minutes and leave before he can say time. In the hall you write someone else’s name on the contact card and take satisfaction from the way the letters look on the line.

You sleep badly. When you do, the dreams taste of iron. You wake laughing the wrong way and drink water straight from the tap, hand pressed hard to your throat to feel something steady.

You rehearse cruelty in a bathroom mirror at four in the morning. You practice the exact tilt of your head for when you accuse a man of being afraid. You try on smiles until you find the one that feels like a weapon again.

You tell yourself you didn’t go back because of him. You went back because the quiet existed and now doesn’t, because you tasted stillness between your own ribs and want it again, because you can’t forgive him for being right in a way that made you feel small and mercifully alive.

You choose a name with edges. You give it over the phone in a sweet voice you learned for teachers you intended to destroy. You hear the secretary leave. You step into the room you pretended to forget. One look at you and—of course—he knows you’ve been busy.

You wear your hedonism like cologne: a skirt that looks modest until it sits, stockings that insist on choreography, a blouse buttoned exactly where it will draw the eye. Your mouth is newly careless. There’s an old bruise blooming in an unconvincing shade of makeup at the hinge of your jaw. Your nails are longer. Your eyes are brighter and emptier at once.

He doesn’t ask where you’ve been. He doesn’t need to. Across the missing weeks he can read the ledger: the bar bathroom with the good mirror; a man whose hands were clumsy where you wanted them precise; another who tried tenderness and earned your contempt; running at night until your lungs were knives; the nasty little stunts you pulled to see if any of it would turn the key the way his no had. It didn’t. You brought yourself here instead.

“Your name,” he says, because the ritual has shape and he clings to shape.

You look past him as if the bookshelves were an audience. “It’s written in the book.”

“It is not yours.”

A shrug climbs and falls. “You keep telling me to try new things. I did. New name. Old doctor.”

“Leave,” he says—without heat, and it is the lack of heat that sends a hairline crack through the moment. “This is a private practice. I cannot treat strangers under false entries.”

Your smile slides in like a blade. “You could call the police. Or my parents.” You click the door shut behind you, drift farther into the room, his desk ahead—territory he only ever yields on purpose. “Or you could hear me out, Doctor.”

Viktor sighs, slips off his glasses in a small performance of fatigue, rubs the bridge of his nose. “I know you’d be thrilled by the attention,” he says, “but you refused my help. You signed yourself out; I presume you no longer need my expertise.”

You ignore it, prowl toward him. “Did you miss me?” You take the chair without asking, lashes fluttering. “I sure missed you.”

He swallows. “That seat is reserved for my patients.”

“I am your patient.”

“You are not.”

A beat. “I want to be.”

“Why?”

“Because—” Your eyes glass; your mouth pulls wide in a helpless, toothy smile. “I need to be put down.” He looks at you, brows knitting; studies the set of your jaw, the tremor you try to hold back. “This whole world hurts me. It rotted me and now it denies me. You understand me—I am evil, but even evil things deserve to rest.”

Viktor stares for a few slow blinks. “You are not evil. Just—” he draws a breath, “troubled.”

You laugh—sharp, a little unhinged. “I thought you could do better than this.”

“Fine.” He sighs, nudges the glasses on the desk, pushes the files aside. “Tell me what you’ve been up to these few weeks, then,” Viktor says, leaning back in his chair.

“I’ve been looking for you,” you say. “Everywhere I could go. Pieces of you. But their hands were not right. Their mouths were too sloppy. They didn’t speak as nicely as you do.”

A small, ugly pang bites low—anger at strangers’ hands on you, at their incompetence, at the thought that if anyone is to put you in place it should be his hands. He catches it, collars it; the face he shows is neutral again.

He says your name, soft warning. “You cannot attend sessions if this is the only reason for your return.”

“Why not?” You coo. “Can’t I get attached to my therapist?”

“Not like this, no.”

“Why? Does it bother you? That I fucked other people thinking about you and they didn’t meet expectations? You should be proud—”

“Stop.” His palm cracks the wood; the sound is clean and final. “If you wish to tell me what bothers you, I will listen. If your only intent is to tease me and catalogue your conquests, I am not interested.”

You smile—but your eyes are still wet. It’s that smile, the one that means trouble. “I’ve been lonely without you,” you say softly. “Are you jealous?”

Exasperation flares; he smooths it into quiet, though his jaw ticks once. “Leave. Now.”

You catch the flicker—the small tick in his jaw, the thinness in it—and smell it: loneliness dressed as duty. You picture the quiet flat, the single mug drying by the sink, the shirts folded like apologies. Altruism feeds him but doesn’t fill him; you know that hunger by its careful manners. So you set the bait. You slide your bag aside like a chess piece, cross your legs so the skirt climbs one exact inch, loosen one button you can plausibly deny, soften your voice to bedside temperature. The trap is nothing but an open table and the promise of being studied.

“You also go home to no one, don’t you, Doctor? Fold your white shirt just so and climb into a bed that smells like antiseptic and need. No Mrs. Doctor to rinse the angel off your cuffs.” A tilt of your head, sweet as poison. “So you marry your cases instead. Girls who come in feral and leave stitched in your tidy thread. Do you keep a piece of us in a jar, or just in your notes?” You let your smile sharpen. “Tell me—are we at the part where you teach me to behave, or the part where you finally admit you want to see how far I’ll kneel?”

He stands so fast the chair skates back and bites the bookcase. In no time, Viktor is around the desk, the lamp throwing his shadow forward like a second body. His hand closes on your jaw, not cruel, not gentle—exact. “Enough,” he hisses, the word warm against your cheek.

You smile as if you’ve been offered a pear. Your hand drifts, knuckles nudge his belt, palm settling where the heat is; he’s already half-hard, the weight alive under cloth, thickening when you cup him. The intake of breath is small and satisfying.

“You want it too,” you murmur, smug.

It hits before he can cauterise it—a betraying twitch against your touch, a bright pulse that runs down his spine like a poured waterfall. His shoulders go very still; his breath catches once, then remembers itself. He holds your gaze for three long heartbeats, and you feel something inside him tilt in your direction. Then: “Bend over the desk.”

A moan almost breaks free at the command. Sweet victory floods your veins, slow like tar—it fills your mouth until you are full of it. 

You rise, eyes on him, and lower yourself, unhurried on purpose, palms flattening on the polished wood. Out on the corridor the building has emptied; last appointment, last light. The blinds throw grey bars over your hands.

“Not yet.” His voice has returned to its clinic register. You hear the lock turn; you hear him move—a jacket unbuttoned, a drawer’s soft slide, the rubber bump of something set on wood. When he speaks, the air tightens. “Use your words. Do you consent to me touching you now?”

“Yes.” Your breath feathers back from the desk.

“More than touch,” he says, steadying himself with the thought. “Impact. My hand. The cane.”

“Yes.” It comes out too quickly, greedy.

“What is off-limits?”

“Face,” you say, eager but precise. “No hitting my face. No… no leaving me unable to walk out when we’re done.”

“Good.” The word lands like a seal. “Safeword?”

You close your eyes, fish for something that tastes like mercy and won’t embarrass you to say. “Lighthouse.”

“You will use pause as well,” he adds. “If you say ‘lighthouse’, I stop. If you say ‘pause’, I slow or back off. Understood?”

“Yes.” Your hands press harder into the desk, as if agreement itself were a weight.

He moves into your periphery: the brace’s soft complaint, the cane’s familiar tap. You sense him lift it and lay it, idle, across the small of your back—cool lacquer and the faintest pressure. Your shoulders ease as if they’ve been waiting for exactly that line.

“Tell me what you want,” he says.

“Instructions,” you breathe. “Order me.”

“Arch.” You do. “Feet apart.” You comply; the wood creaks. “Good.”

One word drops through you like coins into a deep well. Your exhale turns ragged.

A pause; then a clean, ceremonial crack as the cane meets the empty air above the desk. He is testing the noise, the room, the way sound alone floods you. He rests the rod across you again, taps once, a pacemaker’s kiss.

“What does that do to you?” he asks.

“It’s exciting,” you say, surprised at the accuracy. “Makes everything… line up.”

He reaches for the hem—only the fabric—and rucks it up without grazing skin. A small, deliberate ceremony: he shakes the skirt loose, fans it wide, and drapes it over your back like a cloak. The cloth pools at your shoulders; the edge kisses the nape of your neck. It makes a little room inside the room, a hush you can breathe in.

“Focus on my voice,” he says. “On the count of three.” 

A beat. “One.”

You grip the edge. Viktor’s gaze skates down the backs of your legs—scratches, grass-welts, the faint map of yesterday’s flight. Running fast is what you like, he remembers.

“Two.”

The air hums with the waiting. Lace hugs your ass—indecent in its obedience, you fucking minx. Garter straps cut the flesh into neat sections, running to mid-thigh where the clasps bite the stockings. All of it makes you look like a gift—wrapped and ready to be torn.

The thought rises before he can choke it down: mine. To mark, to claim, to spit on and split open and fuck—to take you to the point where tenderness blooms. He exhales once, hard, to bleed it off. He’d love to see you tender again. His throat is dry.

“Three.”

The stroke lands on the curve of your thigh—measured, not exploratory; not cruel, not soft. Heat blooms in a clean bar. Your mouth opens; a sound like gratitude slides out.

He listens to that sound the way some men listen to music. “What say you?”

“Keep going,” you say, already wanting the next.

Again, slightly lower. Crack. The pain is a bright, domestic thing; it knows where to sit. Your shoulders drop. Your eyes blur with something that is not quite tears and not quite joy.

“Speak,” he says.

“Please,” you manage. “Please again.”

Astonishing, the speed of it—the way you roll to show the soft of the throat as soon as the rhythm finds you. The please isn’t a trap this time; it lands clean, unbarbed, honest enough to sting. Feeling the urge to gentleness rise, he strangles it into precision.

He alternates thighs, then returns to the first, creating parallel tracks until your skin thrums like a tuned instrument. Nylon ladders when the hits repeat their landing in the same spot. Between strikes he lays the cane flat across hot flesh, as if cooling it, and you hear your own breath fall into discipline.

Shifting the line, he trails the cool handle over the swell of your ass—circling, teasing, mapping. “Now—here,” he says, and you mutter, “Yes—yes, yes,” mouth wet against the wood, breath fogging the polish. Viktor inhales and keeps the breath, a held chord in his chest.

You hear it before you feel it—the brief whff as the rod parts the air—then impact: bright, clean. It slices through clutter—through hunger, through the crackle of every violent thought—until what’s left is simple obedience, purring with delight. Your pupils bloom; your lungs open wide as if the room just found a window.

The muscle twitches—ripples from the struck curve down the back of your thigh—shuddering the whole limb before it loosens. Heat flowers into a vivid bar. He watches the red arrive, watches it saturate, and something unspools in his chest that does not belong to the doctor.

“How is that?” he asks, voice roughened.

“More,” you beg—teeth in your lower lip, voice borrowed from the creature that lives under your ribs. “Please—more.”

He answers with a set—measured, liturgical—laying stripes that crosshatch into heat, then two quicker kisses that make your knees skitter against the wood. Your thighs won’t stop trembling; the lace darkens where want soaks through, a bloom he clocks with clinical precision and something far less. The scent rises—sweet, heavy, almost buttery at the edges—and tells him he’s tuned to the right frequency. He settles the cane for a cooling touch, taps twice like a metronome.

“Look at me,” he says, and you lift your head enough to find the pale line of his shirt in the window’s reflection. His face is stern, yes, but lit from inside by focus—no pity, no apology. You could live in that look.

“Hands,” he says, and you push yourself off the desk, palms presented up. He lays the cane across them very lightly. “These are not the hands of a demon,” he murmurs, as if repeating an old conclusion. “They’re shaking because they know what they want.”

“They want you,” you say, shocked by how simple it is.

He puts the cane down. The sound of wood kissing wood is obscene. His palm finds the back of your neck; his other hand anchors your hip. He doesn’t press; he places. The contact is a benediction and a claim.

“Words,” he reminds, though the command has softened. “Tell me.”

“I want you to use me,” you say. “I want you to ruin me kindly.”

He exhales, a laugh flayed of humour. “Kindly,” he repeats, as if learning the shape. His hand leaves your neck, returns to your cheek, and turns your head so he can see your eyes. “I will not hurt you beyond what we agreed.”

In those eyes Viktor sees you, and for the first time he isn’t afraid to look. Beyond the lacquer of defiance, past the hide of the feral, frightened thing you wear, there you are: small—not because you were made small, but because you feel safe enough to shrink. Solemn in the way of someone who has been told they may stop running—and, for a breath, believe it.

“You won’t,” you say. “You’ll make me quiet.”

Something akin to pain passes through his expression—recognition or surrender; you don’t know. His palm cracks against the side of your thigh—sharp, open-handed, a punctuation mark—and the sound turns the room inside out. He watches the way your hips settle toward the sting.

“Pause?”

“No,” you say, relieved, submissive.

What follows is not a blur; it is a sequence. He bends you back over, structures it the way he structures an assessment: warm, strike, wait; breath, check, strike. He has you count in fours. On four, he gives you what you asked for. On the next four, he takes it slower to hear your nerves talking. He lets his hand teach your skin he can hurt and stop, demand and soothe, and your mind does what minds do when given a consistent pattern—it settles. He talks you through it—quietly, as if you are the only person who will ever hear this voice.

“Good. You’re here. You’re not bad for wanting this. Breathe. Breathe now,” he says and you wonder who is it for exactly—you or him.

When it threatens to tip from sacrament to static, he stops. The absence is deafening. You find yourself pushing back into his grip like a horse seeking the bit. He strokes down once with the back of his knuckles, barely there.

“What are you feeling?” he asks.

“Clear,” you say, and it’s ridiculous and true. “Myself.”

He laughs softly, disbelieving and unbearably fond. “You’re a menace.”

“You’re an angel,” you whisper, and the word doesn’t taste like mockery anymore.

He steps back a fraction, guided by the brace’s temper and his own restraint. The cane returns not as punishment but as a line he draws on your body: here is the edge, here is the centre, here is where you meet me.

And there you indeed meet him—eyes swimming and tender, as he imagined. There you are, soft for him, so he can smooth a hand from the small of your back to your neck and make you fall in line. For a moment he simply admires his signature painted on your flesh.

You feel the curved handle hook beneath the waistband of your underwear and pull—down, down—until the crotch unglues from your skin, from where you weep, from the last place he’s kept empty.

Metal teeth whisper; the zipper opens with a sound that runs a bright nerve through your skull—delicious, mechanical, perfect. A buckle sighs, fabric parts. He frees himself and steps in, heat finding the seam of you; the heavy warmth of him settles snug between your cheeks, not pressing forward, just there, claiming the cleft as a resting place. The weight is vulgar and merciful at once.

You make a sound he has never catalogued before. Not the cat’s jeer; not the fox’s scream. Something human and relieved.

“What do you want?” he asks, mouth near your ear.

“Fuck me,” you whisper. “Bend me, break me, please—”

He straightens, one hand guiding, the other steady at your hip, fingers wrapping under the garter’s strap—a convenient handle on an animal like you. The head finds you easily—hard flesh meeting the soft one—and he sheathes himself on a single, punishingly slow thrust. You feel the stretch take, incredible, brilliant; it burns in a way that bleeds into the sweet sting singing across your skin. He keeps going until there’s nowhere left to go. His cock feels rich, luxurious; your back arches to drink more of it.

He looks down to where he’s vanished into you—what a sight, salacious and holy. For a moment he forgets he is your physician. He feels powerful, whole. Below, your cunt gulps at him like a greedy little thing while your welted skin glows for his attention. He breathes out hard and sets his hands into the creases of your thighs, thumbs brushing the raised warmth he’s painted there. You clamp down; his grip answers, firmer.

“Patience,” he says, voice low.

He retreats all the way to the tip—slow enough to make you keen—and drives back in, hard. The strip of bare skin at his waist slaps your ass; the desk answers with a wooden gasp. He holds there, deep, until the quake in your legs steadies into a hum, then draws back again, slower, testing your edges.

“Pause?” he asks, a thread of control through the heat.

“No,” you breathe, breaking on it. “No, don’t stop.”

“Good.” His thumbs press, staking claim. He sets a rhythm—long, measured pulls that leave you hollowed, then solid, then hollowed again—each thrust aligning something that used to snarl. Your breath locks to it, steady as tide; his follows, coarse and human.

Viktor doesn’t notice the moment something in him aligns as well. The sunken void he carries fills by increments with every push and pull. He feels taller, broader; the room seems to make space for him as your bodies become wetter, sloppier. He watches the shimmer where you meet, the way it stretches in fine threads when he draws back, then gathers again. In his chest, ribs widen; air lands easier, cleaner.

Your back arches; your hips lift to greet him, chasing the angle that lets him land deep and decisive. Hit after hit, he fucks the wildling out, making room for the ingenious creature beneath.

His hand climbs, finds your hair, gathers it into a firm braid at the nape and lifts—your spine bows, your shoulder blades wing. You push off the desk, muscles singing. He leans, catches your jaw with free palm, mouth close to your ear. “What are you?” he whispers.

“A menace,” you breathe, broken-light and proud.

He pats your cheek—more punctuation than pain, the sound a little bell. “Wrong,” he murmurs, heat fanning your skin. “You are a good girl. Say it.”

“I’m—ah—” Your breath flares as the rhythm hits just right; your body clenches on instinct, voice skittering.

“Tell me what you are,” he says, fingers steady at your jaw, the other hand holding your hair just so—lifting, so he can see your face.

“A good girl,” you get out, the words catching and then slotting into place.

“Again.” His thumb strokes once along your cheek, not kind, not unkind—directing.

“I’m a good girl.” Your eyes gloss; your mouth softens around the consonants.

“Keep saying it.”

“I’m a good girl,” you repeat, voice lower now, steadier—“I’m a good girl,” breath hitching, lashes trembling—“I’m a good girl,” the last syllable turning to a small sound that isn’t fear and isn’t laughter but something beautifully, terrifyingly quiet.

Heat slicks everywhere—between your thighs, along the welted bands where his thumbs sat, down the crease he claims with every drive. He fills you indecently, a thick, deliberate pressure that stretches and drags and seats deep until your body clamps like a fist, milking on its own; the desk shivers under your palms, your breath saws, you leak around him in strings that catch the light when he pulls back. Each slap of skin is a wet comma, vivid in the blasphemous paragraph that writes about a girl fucking her therapist; each stroke redraws your edges until you’re nothing but mouth-open gasp, hips tipping to chase the angle, greed humming through muscle and marrow.

And then the tenderness slips in behind the filth, quiet as a hand over a fevered brow. The pain and want braid into something clean; the animal that never settles does, turned toward his voice like a compass finding north. You feel held without being caged, watched without being judged, remade into a shape that can breathe. It is unbecoming how grateful you are for it—how the word good lands like water—how, in the heat and the noise, you recognise the rarest thing you’ve ever known: a place inside your own body that feels like home.

Pleasure splits your tissues open—forceful, inevitable. Your orgasm builds and builds, blending pain and want and heat into one blinding wave. Your mouth loses restraint; your throat tears on moans fit for an A-class whore. At the edge of the roar you catch his voice, low and intent: “What do good girls say?”

You know what they say—you are one of them. “Thank you,” you keen.

He chuckles, all darkness. “Who are you thanking?” The lilt says he’s on a knife-edge too.

Another thrust—deep, splitting—you brush absolution. “Thank you, Doctor.”

He could leave it there. He is a doctor, after all—this could vanish into the clean ledger of duty. But something ugly and bright and human spreads its wings low in his loins, and the word slips past his better sense. “Wrong,” he murmurs. He wants you to remember him, not the catechism. “Say my name.”

“Viktor,” you breathe, and it is the only thing he can hear. “Thank you, Viktor.”

He punches in devastatingly deep and you break—hard and helpless. The orgasm rips through you like fabric torn on a nail: hips bow, spine bows, your cunt clamps and milks in fierce, involuntary pulses that ladder up your belly and shake your thighs. The wood squeaks under your grip; your voice goes raw and bright; heat flashes white behind your eyes and then floods down, leaving you shaking, emptied and refilled at once.

He drags himself back from the brink by a last, fraying thread. The feral urge to mark you—to seed you, to stamp himself into your body—rears up and he cuts its head off at the final second, pulling free. He spills over you in hot ropes, painting your welted skin—red banded under watery white—while his breath saws and stutters.

He watches the ripple take you—muscles clenching, unclenching—and holds you through it: one hand steady at your hip, the other a quiet weight at the back of your neck. He counts twelve beats in the hush. He does not speak. He does not let go until your legs remember you and your fingers flex against the wood.

Then he steps back, tucks himself away, smooths his shirt. “Water,” he says—clinical again, already moving—but you are faster. He doesn’t notice until your knees touch the rug and your arms lock around his legs. The fabric of his trousers darkens where your face presses. And then he hears it— 

“Thank you.”

A small, trembling gratitude, ridiculous and pure, pouring straight from your eyes. He stands there, floored, his palm hovering over your crown, unsure whether to bless or withdraw.

“Thank you,” you say again. His hand finds your chin; gently, he tips your face up. Your eyes are glass-clear; your mouth is soft in a way he has not seen on you, perhaps on anyone. Words assemble themselves without drama.

 “I have never felt like this,” you say.

Something unguarded breaks in his face—pride, horror, a terrible gladness. He wants to say me too and instead says, “We stop here.” He lowers his hand before it can caress your cheek. “Sit. Breathe. Tell me if anything hurts that shouldn’t.”

It’s the opposite—everything that should, hurts; nothing that shouldn’t. You sit inside it and, for once, there’s something to hold. Pain plaited so tightly with pleasure it feels dangerous, exciting, true. You wonder if it’s his magic hands, or simply this: the first time you asked for something and someone listened—named it, measured it, gave it back with care. Still, it was delicious to be cracked open by angel hands and then taken by a sacrilegious cock. Both can be true. Both are.

Only now do you notice you’re crying. Not joy, not sorrow, not relief. Tears that simply are—arriving because your body keeps replaying what just happened—like a bell that hums after the strike.

He guides you to the sofa; each tap of the cane sends a pleasant buzz up your spine, a tuning fork struck somewhere low. He presses a glass into your hand and watches you drink as if he might have to fish you out of water. A clean cloth appears—of course it does—and he turns you gently, lifts your leg, hooks your foot over his shoulder. He dabs the backs of your thighs where the cane sang too loudly. His hands tremble once and then remember their trade.

You watch all of it in silence. There is tenderness in his touch, but no indulgence. Clinical, the way a good doctor is: comfort without familiarity, exact without fuss. A nearly perfect transaction. You search yourself for where the breach might be and realise it happened a long time ago—back in the first session when you told him he was pretty and meant it.

And Viktor watches you back—the way you look around the room like you’ve never seen it square. There is no glee in you, no needle-mouthed triumph. You are intelligent in a new register—articulate, present, wickedly calm.

“You’ll write this down,” you say suddenly, almost smiling.

“I have to,” he answers, and for once the duty feels like a blessing.

“What happens now?”

He realises something must come next. If he’s enough of a fool to call this therapy, he should say: same time next week and pretend the words mean what they used to. Reason squares its shoulders; the other thing—what he keeps baptising curiosity—moves lower, heavier, and refuses to yield. He ought to tell you to leave and not come back. He ought to threaten, to set you free. At the end of the silence he discovers, not for the first time, that he is still a coward—so he passes the reins to the one of you whose recklessness can masquerade as courage.

He lowers your foot from his shoulder to the carpet, steadying the ankle with two careful fingers. “Do you wish to continue?” he asks.

“Yes.” No embroidery, no smirk. Just the word.

“I will keep this slot open for you,” he says. “You may come; you may not. Same time next week. I’ll be here.”

You nod—short, impersonal. You smooth your skirt, rise, and offer your hand. He stands to meet you, levels with you, accepts the shake; the pressure is firm, brief, absurdly formal, and it seals something neither of you will name.

“See you next week, Doctor.” You smile, and for a moment he could swear that behind your eyes he sees it—the creature—deep in slumber, purring, content.

—

Journal Entry:

The patient returned for further evaluation, signing under an alias. Presentation: composed, provocative; boundary-testing; language used as both weapon and invitation. Self-report of the interval: “searching for me,” multiple unsatisfying encounters, poor sleep, sustained anger, episodic loneliness admitted only when cornered. No explicit suicidality voiced; recurrent fantasies of self-erasure framed as relief.

I reframed the session around structure and consent: explicit limits, clear stop/slow signals, directive voice, paced breathing, graded stimulus and recovery, then standard grounding (hydration, inspection for adverse effects). No terms of endearment; no comforting gestures beyond clinical care.

Immediate response: rapid reduction in agitation; organised speech; tearful without disorganisation. Self-descriptions included “clear” and “myself.” She requested continuation; a recurring slot was offered with contingencies.

Risks noted: boundary erosion; reinforcement of a relational pattern centred on power and “use”; significant countertransference (anger, sorrow, curiosity, an unwelcome sense of kinship). Mitigations: explicit rules, ongoing documentation, readiness to terminate if harm emerges.

I have attempted an unconventional method. It proved effective.

They bring these things to appease him, or to pay for what they take—his water for their wheels, his fish for their pans. He rules only a small pond where the river slows into weed and silt, a poor kingdom stitched to the slough by a narrow runnel. Still, it is his. In summer he counts their gifts and lets the water run clear. In winter he sleeps—keeps their names in his mouth like pebbles and waits for the sting of salt,  taste of bread, the burn that loosens a lonely night.

The others are more malicious—greedy and mean; they play tricks on humans, frighten their children, and steal their chickens for a pure jest of it. He is only curious. Malice sits ill with a creature scorned by spirits, marked by weakness and desolation.

He was born with a mangled fin and a looseness in the muscle; the smallness of his kingdom is a blessing in that sense. Foolishly, they grant him faith reserved for a deity, but there is only so much he can do. Sometimes he takes gifts that are not meant for him—chains, pendants—and threads them along the cave to catch the light. He cannot guarantee a family’s health, or see that the miller’s daughter marries well. People put too much faith in what they do not understand.

He collects the offerings anyway—a small tally for letting them bathe untroubled, or for letting them foul his shore with their noises of lust when the months are hottest. Then curiosity peaks. He lies long in the weed-shadow and watches: hands fumbling and sure by turns, skirts hoisted, trousers pushed to the thighs, the quick scrape of bark against a back, a belt’s little chime before it is lost to breath. He watches mouths open and close like fish, watches the tilt of a throat when pleasure climbs it, the set of teeth in a lower lip, the way one plants their feet for leverage, the way the other forgets to be careful. He counts the beats between gasp and cry. He listens for the words that break them open—please, oh god, yes, harder—and for the names that spill at the end, bright as coins.

The sounds move the skin of the pond and go through him. His bad fin jerks and drags; his tail stirs against stone. Heat gathers low and stubborn, a slow tide; his body answers in spite of him, thickening in the sheath, blood knocking at the roots. He presses his belly to the warm slab, lets the current work along him until it blurs thought. Shame and pride come together like silt in a turn of water. He hoards the roughened pleas and the soft thank-yous, keeps them on his tongue for later, because voices are the richest gifts of all.

The one that rings in his chest, he shares seldom. He sings because that is what his kind do when the blood is up and the air tastes sweet—a lure meant to bring a mate. He stopped entertaining this whim long ago. His kingdom might be forlorn, but it is safe; the people who wander here are the wrong shape for his appetite, or already paired—and he knows better than to cross young stags, however much tail, even misshapen, beats leg in water.

So he sings out of habit, something carved into him by weather and current, a joke the elements won’t stop telling. Alone on the flat rock with the sun flashing on the surface, eyes shut, one hand tracing lazy circles, he hums what his throat remembers better than his mind—the old five-note run with the little hinge where breath turns. The day inhales and holds: flies hang, reeds drowse, the weir mutters to itself. He is part of it until a single rustle goes through the weed on the shore. He startles, folds, and slips from the stone into the green without a sound.

On dry land he’d be prey within seconds—that much is certain—but under the surface of this verdant lagoon nothing outclasses him. And he aches to see who does not know any better than to stalk the best hunter here.

He slips into motion, silent, first a wide circle until his ripple irons flat. Then, he sinks into the bloom of yellow water-lily, threads himself through hornwort and duckweed beneath the fringe of reedmace, and waits. Time draws; all seasons pass their hands over him. Then—there—a human. A girl.

He watches without blinking. Youth sits on you like a quick light; womanhood shows in the way you hold yourself, the purpose in your hands, the sure, unafraid tilt of your attention. It catches him clean. In your hands is a garland of wildflowers, rich and meticulous. You scan the basin, brightening whenever a fish tricks you; crestfallen when it proves only fish or frog. You lay the garland on the shore, look once more, and then run the way he knows the village lies.

When the white stain of your dress is swallowed whole by the green of the trees, he swims to the shore and inspects the wreath. It is a beauty: plaited rush and willow-bark, stitched with meadow-sweet, cornflowers, wild thyme, and yarrow, the stems turned all one way, the heads faced like a small choir. He has never been given anything so carefully made. No request is bound to it, no scrap of writing, no knot to untie—only payment. For what, he cannot tell.

He carries it as if it were alive to the grotto and sets it in the place of honour among the trinkets, hoping the flowers will not wither too soon. Then he waits, and the waiting is a kind of hunger; he hopes you will come back.

They say lake spirits are mean and wicked. Some drown whatever steps into their water. Others are tricksters who talk you into throwing a fat hen to a barren harvest or blessing you with a husband who drinks and breaks things. The old warnings are tidy and hard as stones.

Only elders and young lovers with nowhere else to go come to the pond they told you to avoid. It is overgrown, green-bloomed more often than not. You’re certain the scum is just from the stale bread some fool keeps tossing in. 

Because what you’ve heard from the water is nothing like a threat. It is near-angelic, more beacon than voice: a low, clean hum with a rasp of iron to it, the soft click of thought between phrases, vowels warmed as if by sun on metal, consonants shaped with care. It rides your spine the way heat does, a hand at the back, and you find yourself turning toward it before you know you’ve moved.

When you first saw him it was from afar, mostly a band of light kicked off his tail before someone hauled you back with a finger that threatens and a voice that warns children about bogeys. This time you bring a gift—seven afternoons in the making. You want to give him something worthy before Kupala—the shortest exhale of the night when creatures come out, wishes take, and impossible flowers bloom.

He is splayed in the sun like a god. Long—bigger than any man—yet lean through the arms and chest. His hair is damp and swept back from his brow. Along his ribs fine slits open and close; smaller combs lie where a man’s neck would be smooth. At the place his waist turns to tail he narrows, taut as a drawn bow. And there, below, he’s unreal: mother-of-pearl, colours sliding as the light moves—pond-green to smoke-blue to bruised violet, a sheen like beetle wing and rain on stone. He looks strong and breakable at once. He sings, solemn as a priest with no congregation, not luring anything, only keeping himself company.

It is so spell-true your bare foot slips on the wet grass. You flinch, look up—and he is gone, the stone he lay on rocking once, widening rings taking him back into water.

You wait for moments that stretch so long you are certain you’ve grown older. When nothing but a lazy frog surfaces, discouraged, you set the garland by the shore and go back to the village.

Expecting to find a bundle of withered flowers where you left it, you return a week later—three days before the solstice. Barefoot, in linen, hands grimed by work and feet sore from carrying, you scan the bright skin of the pond for anything that could have taken your gift. Probably animals.

You dip one foot into the water—clean today, cool as well. Carefully, you pick a path, rock to rock, until you reach the stone where he rested, hoping for a pearly scale to prove your mind did not conjure the whole scene.

It wobbles under your weight, then settles as you crouch. Knees rasping on the harsh surface, you reach into the water and bring up a handful of pebbles, feeling for the flat ones to skim across the surface.

You pick the best stones, hunch over your haul, then flick the round ones back over your shoulder. A small, offended hiss answers the splash. You start; muscle jumps; you begin to turn—and an unseen hand closes on your ankle and yanks. The world tips. Belly first into the water.

He has been watching you the whole time. From the shade he caught a splodge of white against the green—footsteps so soft on the undergrowth he would have missed you if not for the dress. He lies under the pondweed, corpse-still. You make straight for his favourite rock—of course. He is near found when you lean and bring up a fistfull of mud, but you are so intent on sorting it that he is spared. He slides closer to see what you are about just as a flurry of pebbles patters onto his head. The hiss is out before he can swallow it, and then his hand acts before he can stop it.

Underwater, a human is all promise. Cloth loosens and thins; your dress bells and breathes, showing the idea of skin, the slope and hinge of limbs. Warmth leaks from you in a slow bloom. His fingers find your wrist—the give of it, the live pulse—and the shock goes through him as if he had put his hand to a struck hive.

For a creature he has long counted feeble, you are hard to hold. He pins your hands; you wrench and kick, heels drumming his tail. One lands where he is weakest. Pain lights him; he yelps, teeth bare, and lets the anger rise and simmer—who are you to kick at him in his own water?

He drives up with you clawing at his shoulders and bursts onto the shoal that makes a low island in the pond’s middle. Water drains to your neck; you cough and drag air. He slams you onto the silted crown and hisses again. “You think you can attack me where I live and walk unharmed?”

At his voice, you go still. Just stare up at him, eyes so wide it seems they might fall. Droplets break from his nose and hair and patter your face, slipping down your cheeks like tears. Or are you crying?

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, I just—”

“You meant to hunt me,” he hums, accusing. His tail flicks once; the splash makes you flinch.

“No! No, I just—”

He presses you deeper into the silt. “Came to throw pebbles at me? Or did you come from the village to ask for things, hm?” His mouth is close, the words stroking your lips. “Good fortune? A babe? A husband?” A beat. “To complain the bloom sullies your bread?”

Even barbs sound bright in his throat; the notes land clean. Heat climbs your neck. Your jaw loosens; your hands stop fighting of their own accord.

Seeing his look sharpen, you scramble for sense. “No, I—” a breath, raw with embarrassment, “I was wondering if you liked the gift.”

His eyes narrow as he considers. “What gift?” he asks and it’s clear to you he does not know how to lie.

“T—the flowers. The garland, I…” You swallow, trying for steady. “I made it to—”

“—to buy something with it,” he mutters, his fingers easing on your arms.

“No. By the gods.” You sigh, roll your eyes despite yourself. He cocks a brow, surprised—almost amused. “To thank you. For the singing. It’s beautiful.”

The gills at his neck flutter; his mouth parts. In a blink he shifts from menace to something tender—brow pinched, face softened, caught between angel and boy, between animal and man. He searches your features for any seam of deceit and, finding none, slides off you and turns coy: belly to the wet ground, chin propped in his hands, tail flicking in the sun until the colours bleed into one another. “I enjoyed your gift,” he says, lashes long and drowsy.

“I’m glad,” you say, pushing up on your elbows. His gaze drops to you—two gold rings, shameless—and drags. It takes your mouth, the hollow at your throat, the small jump of your collarbone. It lingers where the wet linen clings and turns thin: the quiet press of your nipples, the shallow of your navel, the pull of fabric over the soft lower belly. It follows the line your dress makes at the tops of your thighs, where it rides close and shows the shape beneath; the hem is dark with pond water, pasted to your skin. He watches the spread of your ribs as you breathe, the flex of your calves, the scuff on a knee, the clean run of tendon at your ankle. His pupils notch; his gills twitch for more air. The tail lifts and settles, a lazy fan, as if to taste the sight again.

You bite down on the urge to tip your hips and offer yourself when his purr startles you again. “Will you bring more?”

“Yes. Yes—” you stammer. “I was going to give you one on Kupala night.”

The shiver runs him where you can see it. His eyes lower; something moves under the skin as if a current passes through. The gills along his neck and ribs sigh open and close; his tail quivers, then curls at the tip, slow and salacious. 

Kupala night—he could have a girl on Kupala night. A mate. Lure her to the shallows, let the claws show, take a mouthful at the neck and mark her as his. Unless—she walks into the water herself.

He comes close, close enough that you could kiss his cheek if you wanted. You shut your eyes, shape your mouth, keep the breath held—about to—when:

“I smell blood,” he says, studying your arm. Fingers light as will-o’-the-wisp slip around your elbow and lift, and there it is—a thin red line carving a path. “Forgive me,” he says softly. “I did not mean to hurt you either.” His fingers follow the red, gather it, smear it; then he brings them to his mouth. His tongue—long, deft—flicks out and licks you clean.

He sighs as if pain had lived in him and you were the cure. “Do you have any wish?” he whispers.

“Sing for me again,” you say.

He gives a small, humming laugh—a lovely little thing. “Of course, sweet girl.”

With the promise of three days, he goes to find you a gift too. Something to charm, to seduce, to keep you. He cannot help the natural thoughts that follow the echo of your blood on his rough tongue—oh, to have your belly full of him; he never thought a chance like this would come.

He scouts the lake first: things people dropped that once shone and are now filmed with algae, but could be cleaned. He finds a silver bracelet and a single earring. Not enough. He works the shore next for pebbles and snail shells; the pebbles are dull and all the shells are lived in. He leaves them where they are.

At last, the grotto. All he has hoarded through his years of rule gleams and sulks there: ground glass, odd bits of jewellery, forks fretted with rust, and a particularly cruel joke—a pair of shoes. Then he sees it: a rowan-berry necklace on a red string. Someone left it hanging from a branch; he took it before the birds could, just before winter fell white and hard on his water. He threads one of his own scales onto the string for luck, or whatever humans believe.

The rest of his time he spends grooming for you: scrubs his tail clean, teases out the elflocks with a comb he found crawling the muddy bottom, rinses his mouth with crushed mint. When the sun drops on the longest day, he waits on the flat rock and watches the light die so the moon can burn. The sky spatters with stars and, where it meets the dark rim of the world, other stars appear—fireflies lifting—until it is hard to tell which is earth and which is not. He begins to sing and the woods sing with him.

Like rivers running to sea, you come to him, beguiled—a bright beacon in the dark. His song lifts when he sees you; the tail twitches without his leave. In your hands: a gift of gold. A crown woven from yellow wheat, fit for a king of the pond. He swells his hollow chest and his gills flutter with air as your feet take the water and the linen begins to darken.

You wade slow, holding the crown high. He keeps humming while you cross to him, though his body is wild with waiting. Your face is a gift by itself—open, smitten, lit from within. The hem climbs; the dress drinks; the shape of your breasts comes clear and he aches to touch, to weight them with his wanting until they’re heavy with milk.

You climb onto the rock and offer a timid smile. He answers with one of his own—teeth flashing, sharp, feral. You reach out; he bows his head for the coronation. The wheat sits heavy at his temples and smells like sun, like fresh bread, like safety. You lay your fingers on his cheeks, his neck; warm, careful touches brushing the places where he breathes. He hums low, a purr that moves through bone and into your skin.

“I have a gift for you as well,” he says, and shows you the necklace. In his pale hands the beads burn—rowan red with a thin moonflash of scale among them. You are struck dumb for a heartbeat.

You take him in and he looks unearthly in the light—skin taken up by the moon, tail sheened to milk and smoke, edges softened, hollows deepened. Only now you notice the beauty spots, one above his lip, one under his eye—so frankly human you forget he is not. You bow your head and let him anoint you. The rowan is cool at your throat, the knot neat at the nape. “Thank you,” you say, small.

His tail flops into the dark and slaps water up the rock as he moves in. His hands come to your ribs. You see his throat work; his pupils widen fast. He slides his palms upward, gathering wet linen, and sets them as a frame around your breasts. He draws you in, chest to chest; your heart beats against him, hard and bright. His tongue flicks—salt, clean—along the line of your neck, and when he finds your ear he breathes, “Will you give yourself to me?”

Suddenly coy, instead of answering, you reach out for his tail—smooth, taut, a body braced. When your fingers find one of the small fins he flinches, splashes you without meaning to.

“Are you scared of me?”

“No,” he says at once, stung. He doesn’t want you near the weak place. “You should be scared of me.”

You tilt your head. “Why? Will you eat me?”

“I could eat you. Your blood is sweet enough,” he says, running a finger over your chest. You look down in time to see the claw ease from his index, worrying the linen until it parts. He drags, lengthening the tear; night air slips to your skin. “Or I could just… take you.”

He holds your gaze and you lift your mouth to his—a silent yes. The kiss startles both of you—your lips soft, searching; his a hard line that doesn’t know what to do. For a beat he stays rigid, teeth dangerous at the edges, breath held as if the act itself were a trap. 

Then his eyes fall shut. You taste salt and clean water. Your tongue meets his—yours smooth, warm; his long, clever, shy at first and then curious. He lets you map him: the ridge behind his teeth, the newness of his palate, the little click at the hinge. When his tongue wakes it moves like current, slow and thorough, stroking along your mouth to the molars, down the arch, back again. You make a sound into him; he drinks it as if sound were something to swallow.

His hands go to your shoulders and peel the wet cloth aside. Dampness gives way to living heat; you’re bared to the night. He reaches for the curve of you and draws you onto him, fingers set deep, lifting until the two of you meet squarely. The want between you finds its join—your weight, his upward pull—and something in him answers.

At the seam where scale becomes lower belly, a hidden slit wakes and opens. Inner flesh shows—opal-pale, flushed with blood. From it rise two lengths, not quite human, not fish: twins sharing a root, slightly curved, the undersides ridged for purchase. They come up already slick, beaded with clear brine that strings when the night air takes it. Pulse finds them; they throb against your belly, one angling higher, one nosing lower, as if to bracket and fit. Heat runs his spine. His gills flare—neck, ribs—a faint shiver passing under the skin; the tail gathers and loosens, the weak fin trembling but not failing him. He breathes as if he’s been running, pupils nebular, crown of wheat rustling with each small move.

You take both of him in your hand, stacking your fingers so the lengths lie top to the underside. They’re hot and slick; your thumb finds the ridges beneath and strokes. He makes a choked sound—half click, half moan—and his eyes drop to watch. His hand slips from your hip, down the cleft of your ass. The claws draw back of their own accord when he touches you—something old in him going soft at the feel of tense flesh that promises tenderness within.

He finds your hole with a careful fingertip and circles. You’re tight; the ring resists, gripping at nothing. The resistance lights him. A clear wash beads along both cocks at once, stringing to your knuckles; he gathers it, returns to slick you, circles again, presses. You feel the first push—burn and pull—and then the pad of his finger is inside to the first joint. Your breath chokes, hand tightens on him without thinking; he jolts, pupils shining briefly, then going back to darkness, a low sound loose in his chest.

“Will you open to me—everywhere?” he asks, voice near your ear.

You nod, nervous heat climbing your throat. He sees it; his palm steadies at your belly. He draws more slick from himself and works it over you, patient, small turns and shallow entries until the muscle learns him. The sensation steals down your body—sharp, then sweet; the answer is a throb you can’t stop. He presses deeper, slow, then eases back, letting you breathe. One hand strays between your thighs, your fist moving on him; the other works at your rear, coaxing, matching the pace to your breath. When he curls his finger just so, a bright tug runs through you and your mouth opens on a sound. He takes it, shivering, and his tail gives a pleased pulse under you while he flexes and weeps fresh in your palm.

He hums, pleased, and drags you into another kiss—feral, edged—where teeth threaten and deliver. Sharpness nicks; your lip beads red to match the rowan. He licks the drops, eyes falling shut, tongue clicking soft against your palate as if tasting a note he’s been hunting. Need takes him clean. He hauls you forward, grinding your groin along himself; wetness mixes between you, yours and his, a warm glue that strings and breaks. The musk of it rises—iron-sweet, river-cool—and he sways, dizzy on the scent.

“Sing for me,” he breathes. Not a plea—an order softened by want. You give him the promise of the song he’s heard in the reeds: breathy, wrecked, the little rises and catches, and he aches for the chorus he’s imagined since spotting you on the shore.

You lift onto your knees, bracketing his tail, and set him where you want him. One hand at the root to guide, the other steady at his shoulder. Slick webs from him to you—fine as drawn sugar—stretching, snapping, reforming. The higher cock nudges your entrance and finds it open, eager; your body pulls, hungry for the push. The other slips lower, riding the entrance, brushing the finger-slick he’s left where you are tight. You feel the difference—one part of you calling, taking; the other braced and stubborn, only now learning to yield.

There, you sit on the crowns and stay, thighs quivering, breath confused between being held and sawing. He gets his hands under you to hold you up and purrs through it—low, steady—rocking you in small arcs so the burn can ease. Each shallow slide lets you down a fraction more; heat gathers, then loosens; your body learns the shape and asks again.

For him it is as if he carries two hearts. One is held inside you, cradled and squeezed with every tremor; the other waits at your gate, knocking, answered by the grip of your rim and the pulse in his own length. His gills flare—neck to ribs—in little shutters he can’t control; air feels thin, water loud. His fingers bite and soften on your hips; points threaten, then retract, his hands spreading to take your weight. The tail under your calves tightens and releases, the weak fin doing its best to hold him upright.

“Easy,” he murmurs, voice a warm thread in your ear. The second crown strokes the ring and pauses, strokes and pauses, asking. He could just take you, of course—split you open, clean and dirty, and not wait for permission. But the song he wants to hear is not the one of pain, so he’s patient as a hunter.

You ease your knees wider; he feels it. He rocks you again, kind, until the rim yields by a breath and the first inch is in—burn, then bloom. Your hands seize on him and he groans—short, ragged—everything in him braced not to drive. He keeps you steady, hums to you, and together you let the next small depth happen, then the next, until he’s seethed deep, breathing hard and fighting the urge to bite into your shoulder.

You sit there, full to the brim. Your body flickers around him and each small clutch pulls a sound from his chest. “I will make you all mine,” he says—quiet, solemn as a vow. 

Need runs your spine. “Yes,” you breathe, and start to move.

You rise a little, slow, then sink, slower—your thighs trembling on the way down. He answers with his hands sliding from your hips to your ribs, spreading wide as if to claim the cage that holds your heart. Each descent stuffs you sweet and complete; the deep one drags along the front wall and makes your belly flutter, the other strokes the tightness behind and keeps you open. The ridges work you both ways—lift and press, pull and settle—until your breath staggers into little bursts that sound like agreement. He hums back, low in his throat, and your pulse goes to meet it.

Sweat beads at your neck. He follows it with his mouth—laps the salt where it gathers, soothes and sharp in the same lick—then noses under your jaw to listen to the pace he’s set inside you. His gills tick your skin. The crown of wheat rustles when you rock, and he steadies you by the ribs, thumbs riding the swell beneath your breasts. 

“That’s it,” he grates. “Take me. Take all of me.” 

You nod, breath breaking. “More.”

He answers with his body—hands hauling you and setting you, a hard pulse up into you and a drag back that keeps you full. The slide fattens as you work him; the ridges tug and rake in all the right places until your hips learn the rhythm and indeed, take it. He sucks air through his teeth. “Do you feel that?” he pants. “You tight little thing—made to keep me.”

“Yes.” You move again—down, take, up, starved—and he groans, raw. Through the thin wall inside you he feels himself meet, the two of him rubbing like flints—glorious, maddening—each stroke striking spark along his spine. 

“I’ll flood you,” he rasps. “Fill you. Keep you warm with it till morning.”

“Do it,” you pant. “Make me keep you.”

Something old unlocks in him at that. A rightness. As if the world had been out of true until now and your body set it straight. He sees you heavy with him—kept, carrying—and the thought drags a sound out of him he has never made. “Say yes again.”

 “Yes.”

“Say mine.”

“Yours.”

He sets you to a deeper rhythm, hands sure. Drives you down to meet it, chasing the thick press, the promise of spilling and keeping, of making you his in the oldest way there is. The lengths inside seat and seat again; they ride your holes and slick them, teaching them open while you work him harder. Wet gathers where you join; heat climbs; your breath snags on every bottoming and lets go in little cries he answers with rough yeses of his own. He holds you wide for the next greedy drop.

And when it comes, you crest—the ache, the burn, blooming into light. Your body tightens and ripples, heat breaking open, the pulse dragging through you in clean waves. He holds you wide and lets it take you, shoulders set, jaw shaking as you squeeze and squeeze.

Ruined by it, instinct flaring, he turns you into the water. The world tips cold; sound goes soft. Your hair lifts and halos; your cries come out as bubbles that bump his cheek and slide away. He sets you on his length again and thrusts, feral, the pond closing over you. 

Buoyancy changes everything—your hips float, angle shifts—and the tightness yields another breath. He takes it, careful for a beat, then certain; both of him seat, deep and deeper, and you clutch around the pair with a shock that makes you keen into the green.

The pressure piles; the water bears you and he uses it, forcing you that last inch, hunting the heavy seat, the lock and seal that says you are his. Your nails rake his shoulders; his gills flare along neck and ribs in urgent shutters; the wheat crown slips free and spins on the surface above.

He breaks at your throat. Teeth set—skin gives—blood smokes into the water in two thin threads. He groans against you and floods you at once, both cocks hard as oarlocks, pulsing deep—again, again—the heat of it unmistakable even in the chill. What he pours into you, he takes in blood—iron on his tongue, your name not spoken but held. He stays there through the aftershocks, sealed to you, breath dragging like oars through silt.

When he tips you up and breaks the surface, you’re gasping, head thrown back to the moon. He floats on his back with you lain along him, still joined; the rowan beads are cool at your throat; the wheat crown drifts in a slow circle nearby. The pond moves around you in quiet rings while his hands keep you close and the night goes on glittering.

Calm comes on him like clear water—quiet, spreading, sure. Your weight settles into the hollows of him and feels right, as if the place were made for it. He softens in that safety; with your small answering hum he slips from you, both lengths ebbing, and with a last shiver they hide back into the slit.

Something unfamiliar lifts in his chest, sharp as a new tooth and tender all at once—an urge to guard what is his. He runs his knuckles down your spine, gathers a palm of cool water, and rinses the tear at your neck until the red thins and the skin lies clean. You nestle closer, boneless-warm. “Are you well?” he asks, voice low.

 “Yes,” you murmur, and the word warms him more than the sun ever could.

He floats and hums, the old five-note run turning soft against your ear, a lull made only for two. The reeds tick and answer. He thinks of the grotto, of the necklace on your skin, of the pond made quiet by your breathing, and the feeling in his chest grows until it fills him like tide.

Morning unrolls in pale strips along the trees. He watches you go, the ache in him bright and new, and though he has no word for it in the weed-speech of his kind, he has heard people name this thing. He mouths it once, just to feel its shape, and lets the sound sink. 

He straightens in the narrow booth, thumb and forefinger tugging at his collar until the white slip sits square over his throat. The little tooth of cloth, pale and dumb, covering the place where his pulse hammers—Adam’s apple, the first fruit ever bitten after temptation made a fool of the first man.

Then, the hinges whisper, and you arrive. The perfume is quicker than sight, seeping through the lattice, threading itself into the incense like a weed among flowers. Not some meek scent of lilies or soap but thick, dizzying: orange blossom drowned in musk, a trace of salt where it clings to your skin. It does to him what nothing should—burns a heat low in his body where he should be at rest, makes his fingers twitch on the wood as if he might dig through and seize you. The smoke and polish of the chapel cannot smother it; it eats straight through, like rot through varnish.

Your skirt sighs as you sit, close enough that he feels the air shift. His tongue sticks briefly to the roof of his mouth. He lowers his head, eyes shutting hard, and still the words come—clear, habitual, outright wicked in a way the phrase should be a greeting and acknowledgement—innocent and pure—yet when it rolls off your tongue, it sounds like bragging.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”

And God might as well have left him, because he cannot wait to hear what sacrilege you have brought him this time. He tells himself it is holy work: to bear the rot of others, to rake it up and scatter it so souls may breathe. Yet what it does to him is no act of charity. Each confession is a small sting under the skin, a drop of something poisonous that never drains. He has listened to gluttons who choked on their own plenty, adulterers who ended on the gallows, proud men snuffed out like Nebuchadnezzar crawling the fields on all fours. Every sinner has a ruin, and he knows it by rote—Samson, blinded for his appetites; Lot’s wife, nothing but salt for a single backward glance.

Still he leans close to the grille as if to drink from it, every word you offer licked into his ear. His chest is tight, ribs clawing at his heart. Heat rides the nerves of his thighs, skittering down into the meat of him, a pulse that should be tamped out but grows sharper with each syllable. He swallows—dry, papery, useless—and clasps his hands until the knuckles rasp, as if bone could make a better cage than God ever gave him.

He shifts, trying to make more space in his lungs, and the cane at his side tips, kissing the corner of the booth with a dry wood-on-wood click. A sound too sharp in the hush, like a nail driven. He closes his eyes.

“Speak, child.”

There is the small catch of a swallow, and his mind makes ruin of it—throat that bobs, fluid that slips the gullet, tongue that flattens, cheeks hollowing as if wrapped round something vulgar. The image grips him by the roots of his spine, sends a shiver raking down. He presses harder into the seat as your voice comes.

“I have lain with a man not my husband. More than once.”

He lets the words settle, all sour and sweet at once. His answer scrapes out low: “Do you know it does not work so? That you cannot rinse yourself clean and begin again each time?”

Through the lattice, a wrinkle flowers between your brows, caught square in the grid of shadow. He hurries to add, “I do not speak to shame you.” His tongue is heavy; it tastes of iron.

You hesitate, then ask, almost in challenge: “And how do you do it? How do you hold yourself apart from all this?”

A lie waits already on his lips, cold as stone: “By prayer, and by God’s grace, which is stronger than flesh.”

The words are ash. If he were not whipped already, he would scourge himself for them—for speaking what he knows to be false while wearing His cloth.

For sacrilege, he loses the cassock—slips it from his shoulders like a skin too heavy to wear, folds it badly, leaves it on the chair. He stands penitent under the cold stream, one hand braced disgracefully on the wall handle, the other tentative where he stops being priest and becomes man. 

The first time he swore it would also be the last. Then the next week came, and your voice with it. The confessions poured like oil down his spine, slicking him, marking him. He carried them home like relics, like curses, and the body in him begged until he gave it what it wanted.

He does not touch himself with hunger—he strokes with dread, slow, as if delaying execution, though the outcome is always the same: the water running hotter though he never touched the tap, the breath hammering until it ricochets off tile. When he finishes, he shudders like the condemned dropped through the gallows. The silence afterward is worst: the hiss of pipes, the clatter of drops, the shame packed thick as fat stuffed into a pig at a wedding feast—holy vows by day, then by midnight a dionysian revel, gluttony carved and swallowed till no one can stand. He dries himself not with care but with violence, red raw, as if he might rub away the crime.

“Do you truly never stumble, Father?”

The way you say it—low, full of knowing—makes him feel caught in the act, as if the booth itself had eyes. His breath huffs out, sharp. How cunning you are, or perhaps it is kinship—sinner to sinner.

“Everyone does,” he answers, voice steadier than he feels. “God forsakes no one, as long as we atone.”

A pause; the faint shift of fabric as you settle more comfortably. “That sounds like a man who knows what it is to stumble.”

He almost smiles, almost snarls—he cannot tell which. The trap gapes wide, yet he edges closer to it, moth to candleflame. “I know what it is to rise again.”

Your laugh is soft, teasing, the kind that slips between ribs. He should turn stern, shepherd you back to remorse, but the words dry in his throat.

“Lying with a man not my husband,” you continue, “is not the worst sin I’ve to confess.”

His stomach knots. Curiosity, he tells himself. Employment hazard. He must hear the depths in order to pull you out. But the ache that blooms in him knows better—it is hunger. The crumbs of you are all he gets, and he feeds on them as if starved. He leans closer into the grate, breath stirring the dust caught there.

“What then?”

Your answer falls quiet, but he hears it as if whispered against his ear: “It is lying with a man while thinking of another. Holding a hand over his mouth so I could imagine the voice of someone else.”

Spear lances through—his heart kicks once, violent. He presses his palm hard to his thigh to stop it from climbing higher, but the rush unfurls, undammable. He wants it—wants it to be him behind your hand, him named in your head, him the phantom stitched into your flesh. Lust runs his spine like molten tin, collects hard between his legs until he shifts, grinding down against nothing, cursing the cassock for being both barrier and accomplice.

He ought to flinch, to throw a psalm at the thought, but all he does is lean nearer, nose almost to the wood, as if the lattice might widen. Your voice has lodged inside his skull, and now every syllable rubs raw where he is weakest. He can see it—your palm sealing a stranger's mouth, your body arching, swallowing sound, his name forming silent on your tongue.

God forgive him, he aches to be the sin itself.

He clears his throat, forces his tongue to shape something priestly, something neutral. The words come out rougher than he means, snagged on the vacuum of depravity hollowing him out, tempting him to succumb.

“Indecency is indecency,” he says, tone meant to be cool, unshaken. But the scrape of his voice betrays him, heat bleeding through every syllable. “No matter if you are happy with your partner of choice or not.”

Even as he says it, he hears how it lands—harsher than doctrine, softer than reprimand, like a man defending himself more than judging another. He grips the edge of the seat until the wood prints crescents in his palm, praying you do not hear the truth in it: that indecency is all he can think of, and he wants it branded with your face.

You frown, or at least he hears it in your tone. “I thought you did not aim to shame me.” Your spine thumps back against the wood, a dull report, and before he knows it he has reached—fool that he is—lured and trapped like some creature of naïve age.

His fingers lace through the grate, panic rattling his throat. “I do not. I—” he swallows the rest, the words I sympathise locked in his chest. “Confess. Freely.” A beat too short, his voice already racing to cover itself: “But accept the atonement I will give you.”

You lean forward again, palm pressed flat to the lattice. Skin glides the wood until it meets his fingers, and the touch is obscene—an intimacy disguised as accident, as ritual. It feels like fucking.

He tears himself back, drops into the seat, drags his hand through hair that doesn’t need smoothing. Eyes shut, as if darkness might save him, he braces to listen.

“I am plagued,” you say at last, “by someone out of reach. A voice I cannot shake. Kind, forgiving, with words that stay in me long after they’re spoken. I find myself… repeating them. I find myself building sins around them.”

His gut turns. He is lost between knowing he should not listen the way he does—not as confessor but as deviant—and wanting more.

You shift then: fabric rustles, knees meet the narrow step—and your fingers thread through the lattice. They grope softly, searching, patient as roots.

“When I atone I already sin again. I touch myself praying, hoping he can feel me. Hoping he knows. I fuck other men, cover their mouths so they don’t moan in a voice I don’t want, cover their ears so I can say Father instead of their names—”

“Stop,” he chokes, sucker-punched, rendered culprit by the vile enjoyment of listening. Sin drowns him, sweet and cloying; he sees it all behind his eyelids—your hips driving down, the grind of your ass, calling him through orgasm stolen from an unsuspecting mate. Succubus unwanted, clawing at the door beyond which absolution lies.

“Don’t dismiss me,” you whisper, desperate. “I know when someone whispers my name with lust.”

He grips the seat, knuckles white, and hisses through his teeth, “It does not matter what I lust after. It matters that I do not follow.”

“Why?” you challenge. “Why must we be scorned for this?”

“You will not be,” he breathes, tormented. “I would be—I vowed. I promised. I gave myself, and there is no way off the path that will allow me to return.”

“That does not sound like a benevolent God.”

A scalding, childish fit—you might as well have said unfair. Heat floods his skull, a rage that is shame and desire mingled. He unhooks the grate sharply; wood scrapes, and suddenly there is a square-shaped gap, a tiny window framing your face. He leans in, seizes your chin in his hand.

“Foolish child,” he says, eyes burning into yours. “God is not benevolent.”

Your pupils spill into blackness, mouth slackens. He runs a thumb across your lip. “God is to be feared, not toyed with. You—” he pushes the thumb inside, feels the wet heat of you close around it “—tempt me. And I—” he drags a ragged breath “—am a weak man.”

“Please,” you say around him, words muffled, desperate, hands worming through the gap to clutch his cassock. “Please.” Your tongue flattens, and he presses down on it—communion emptied of the Body of Christ, reduced to body alone.

Something crumbles. Not slowly, but all at once, like a wall giving way to flood. He forgets the priest, forgets the collar, forgets the years bled into litany. The man takes over, violent in his hunger, and he is almost only a spectator to himself—watching as his body leans forward, as his hand steadies your jaw for more, as his breath hisses through clenched teeth with the sound of ruin.

A mean, human thought clicks into place: if he is to be condemned, he will not go alone. Let the angels tally two; let the same fire take you with him—accomplice, not supplicant.

“I will not give you absolution for this, do you understand?” His voice is low, hoarse, unrecognisable. “You will carry this sin to the grave.”

You nod, frantic, hands finding what they seek—a confirmation, hard beneath cloth, that the torment is mutual. Through the cassock you palm him, and he jerks, holy figure unmade into flesh and bone, nothing but man caught under your touch.

“Are you certain you’re ready to throw your soul away for a priest’s cock?”

“For yours,” you breathe, “I am ready.”

Viktor straightens as if dragged upright by invisible rope, head tipped back, eyes crushed shut. His hands cradle your skull—gesture caught between benediction and violence, as if he might bless you or snap you clean through. You wait there, patient, faithful, hands locked where his shame throbs under layers.

He shifts nearer. Nearer still. Until even the drift of your palms up to his stomach feels like desecration, like a hymn spat on the floor. And then warmth blooms warmer—your face presses hard to his groin, greedy, mouth parted wide, your breath searing through fabric. You cling as if he were the absolution itself.

But he knows better. Knows that all you gather from him is damnation. That what you drink in now, what you worship, marks you for eternal suffering unless another man of the cloth gives you leave. And he knows—knows with a gut-deep certainty—you will not seek it.

“Lost lamb,” Viktor hears himself say, tone wicked, not his own but something in him given over to hunger. Devil guides his tongue when he lets you undo the buttons, your hands sliding beneath cassock to find his bare thighs. You pause only at the brace, fingers brushing it with care, then squeeze his hip in quiet recognition. No question, no shame.

“Take what you want,” he tells you, voice a rasp. “The communion you deserve.”

But it is not fair, nor just. He is the one meant to guide, and instead he lets you think yourself Babylon’s whore while it is he who sells himself out for the delight of flesh. He marvels at how easily you bow to it, when the truth is that he is the one bent double, a priest trading away what cannot be restored.

You draw his underwear down, slow as if unwrapping a wound to tend it, as if your hands had been sent to heal instead of befoul. And then—oh—what was warm becomes warmer still. Your mouth finds him, tongue tracing from root to crown, and it feels like sacrament defiled, baptism not of water but of fire. Each lick scorches him, as though you were marking him with flame, branding him holy and damned in the same breath.

Desecration as worship—he braces both hands on the wood, knuckles moon-pale, as if the booth itself might hold him upright while you drag him into the pit. He knows he ought to pull away, to wrench himself free, yet he watches—no, feels—himself ablaze and cannot stop it.

You linger, cruel in your devotion. Tease him with the slick tip, tongue circling, lips grazing, your nose nudging the tender underside as though you would scent him, taste him whole. He is altar, you the supplicant, begging wordlessly with mouth and breath, and every twitch of your lips is prayer profaned.

Then your mouth closes around the head, warm and tight, and Viktor—certain hell’s gates swing wide for him—cannot fathom why damnation should feel like this: pure, undistilled heaven.

Your tongue flattens along the tender underside, serpent-slick, sliding with ancient cunning as though it knew him before he was born. Heat licks him there, sharp and wet, and the sound of it—the quiet drag, the small suck of pressure—turns the booth into an echo chamber of sin. He presses his face to the wood, blind, unable to see you, and so every sensation blooms larger: your mouth sheathing him inch by inch, the tremor of breath through your nose, the guttural hum when he twitches on your tongue.

The flame catches at his loins, roars up the base of his spine, eats his chest hollow until oxygen itself deserts him. He clings to the lattice, ribs heaving, delirium stealing all reason. At last, when he yields—when he lets himself be taken—every shred of struggle falls away.

He drowns in it. And in drowning he understands all sinners at once: why they return to their ruin, why scandal never dies. Because in your mouth wickedness does not taste foul, it tastes clean—like grace itself. The wet heat of you exposes the vacancy at the heart of what he preaches, strips it bare. How can this be wrong, he thinks wildly, when it feels like the only truth left to him?

He breathes out, “Fuck,” and you flinch at the sound but keep him pillowed on your tongue, mouth open wide, eyes turned up—glass-bright, hair clinging in damp strips to your temple. He dares to look. Power smites him like thunder.

“Attempting to drag me down with you, aren’t you? Is this what you wanted?” He slides free, drags himself along your face—slow presses to cheek and brow—slick shining where he leaves you marked. You give a tiny shake of the head. He chuckles, low. “No? What is it that you want then, my temptress?”

“More,” you whisper. “End me. Suffocate me. Live in me. Abide in me.”

Scripture curdles. He thumbs your jaw until it opens wider. “Then open,” he murmurs. “Take and keep.” One palm braces the frame, the other cups the hinge of your skull; he angles you, feeds you the wet crown by degrees. “Two taps if it’s too much.”

You swallow him like you were made for it and this only. It doesn’t stop. First the wide maw—soft, careful, teeth held back—then the channel narrows; a small force, a push, and he feels the gullet take him, deeper, deeper still until your nose settles against the straining muscle at his base and you breathe through what little fissure you can find. Fully sheathed, he breathes too—thin, as if it were his throat blocked and not yours.

“Lust, greed, gluttony,” he grits. “Are you proud too?”

You nod, the motion tight, and he chokes on a moan. His palm firms on the hinge of your skull. “Hold.”

Your throat flutters; a wet, low sound folds around him. He feels the slick seal of you, the small convulsion when he pulses, the heat gathering where your lips bruise against him. A tear beads at your lash and clings; saliva tracks to his thigh. He fixes you there—no thrust, no mercy—thumb finding the soft notch beneath your jaw to feel himself inside you.

“Good,” he says, voice thinned to wire. “Keep it.”

The change in him is blunt as a gear slipping its tooth. Months you’ve been levering him open—confession by confession, notch by notch—until the hinge runs free. Mind and soul yap their cautions; the body shoulders past, takes the reins, answers to nothing but selfish, primal id. What sits in the booth now is not a shepherd but the animal that wore his coat.

He draws back a fraction and drives forward. Tightness closes over him—again the warm seal of lips, then the hard ring deeper in that grips like a fist. Your tongue flattens and sluices him on; the soft palate yields, the throat answers with that quick little clutch that spears sensation right up his spine. He feels the pull change as you swallow—pressure, vacuum, a slick squeeze that milks the length of him. Your nose nudges at the root; his breath notches. He holds you there a heartbeat, then works you in a slow, metered rhythm, using your mouth like it was made to keep him. The heat off your face dampens his belly; his thighs tremble against your palms.

If this is your mouth, what would your cunt do? The thought lands and keeps landing. He sees it when he shuts his eyes: you braced on the kneeler, dress rucked to your waist, his hand at the back of your neck to line you up. The first push in—tight, living grip, the hot clutch of you around the head; a roll of his hips to seat himself, to feel you take it. Your breath broken against the wood, your thighs opening because he asks, because you want; his palm low on your belly to feel himself through you while you clamp around him and shove back for more.

He sets his jaw and keeps your throat, but his mind is already there—inside you—falling without brakes, while you surrender and ask for nothing except that he doesn’t stop.

He eases just enough to let you breathe and speaks low—the words ring in the little wooden chamber, muffled to the nave where stone saints judge and holy water ticks into the basin. “Is that why you only confide in me? Why you wait until it gets late? Is that what you were hoping for all this time?”

You hum—answer and sin at once—and the vibration runs up his length. His mind flicks, unbidden, through every mass you’ve queued for, every time he set the wafer on your tongue: white body on pink, a sight that always felt wrong in his gut for reasons he would not name.

“Do you come to feed at the altar with your mind all dirty?” he asks, thumb at your jaw. “Do you accept the body of Christ pretending it’s mine?”

“Yes,” you breathe, shameless. “Do you not?”

It hits him—there’s no hiding one pervert from another. Kinship, filthy and exact. He drops decorum and lets the truth out on a whisper. “I do.”

The sound you make could knock a saint from a niche. It goes on as you reach for him again, greedy, mouth opening, throat flexing to take. He sinks back into you and whatever leash he kept snaps. He sets his feet, hauls your head in his palm, and drives—short, packed thrusts that seat him deep, then deeper, until your nose breathes in skin. Your swallow tightens; heat and pressure climb his body with their nails out. Spit strings to his lower abdomen; your eyes blur; the back of your throat learns him and holds. He uses you, steady and brutal, jaw to hinge, breath to breath, ignoring the sting of your tears because you don’t signal to stop—you only push closer.

If anyone’s listening, let them hear. Let the booth creak and the breath break and the wet carry. At this hour the nave is empty of witnesses; the only ear tuned to it is God’s, and Viktor moves as if to speak straight into it.

He talks as he works you—broken things, wicked things that don’t sound like him at all. “Open—yes—keep me—don’t spill.” A gasp. “Be a good little congregant.” Another, rougher: “Let me mark you. Hold. Hold.”

The rise comes on fast and ugly. Muscles jump in his legs; his hand tightens at the base of your skull. The grip of you climbs and climbs—wet seal, fierce ring, the small clench of your throat that drags him to the edge. His breath gutters; a raw sound tears loose.

“Look at me,” he manages, ragged. “Show me.”

You ease back just enough, keep him heavy on your tongue, mouth wide. He spills—hot, hard pulses—onto that pink cradle while you hold steady, unflinching. He whimpers, undone by the sight, and you close your lips over him again, gathering the last of it before swallowing with your eyes on his.

“Thank you, Father,” you say, earnest.

He falls back into the seat, cloth rumpled, collar askew, neck damp. He drags air in, broad and shaking, presses his thumbs into his eyes until sparks bloom. He waits—forces himself to—until you sit back as well.

“Are you alright?” he asks.

“Yes,” you say, quiet. “Are you?”

He is both—right and wrong. He scowls as, in the dark behind his lids, images and sounds flare: repentance, condemnation, the eternal flame licking at sinners, Satan’s laughter—sated, vicious. And opposite that: fulfilment—body well-fed, taken and kept, a clean dull glow of having been used and using. Restless panic scratches at his mind; at the centre of him sits a stillness he cannot argue with.

“I will be,” he says, solemn.

Silence stretches until breathing on both sides of wood thins back to nothing. You shift; he hears the small readiness of you leaving. “Your atonement,” he says. “Keep coming to church. See no other priest. Stray from futile delights until you see me.”

“Are you certain that’s how I truly atone?”

“No,” he says. “That’s how you abide in me.”

He stays in the booth, listening to the heels clack away until the sound thins and dies. Body heavy, slack with the after, he gathers himself, straightens the cloth, steps out. The church feels strange—like a house walked into after the furniture’s been moved. He decides to test if there is a way back, though his mind is already made. 

At the altar he kneels—pain biting the joints, a small sacrifice to placate a stern god.

“Forgive me, Father,” he whispers, crestfallen. “For I have sinned.”

On the north wall hangs a modest oil of Saint Peter after the cock has crowed—eyes swollen from weeping, beard coarse with tears, the keys glinting at his belt, a rooster skulking in the corner like a rebuke; the blue mantle gathered to his chest. 

The thin gilt frame jerks, slips its hook, and drops. A blunt thump, glass star-bursts, the mitred corner of the frame splits clean through. Candles shiver. Viktor jolts—and knows it then: he’s been left. 

The only saving grace was listening to your friends' problems. Like now, you were stretched out on a couch in the coffee shop on campus, listening to Jinx and Ekko talk about their fall break plans. They were arguing over the logistics of buying used music equipment.

“It’s a fucking steal, Ekko,” Jinx groaned, pacing behind the couch opposite you, “a bass like this goes for thousands, and this kid is selling it for a couple hundred!”

“Not really,” Jinx huffed, stopping behind where Ekko sat on the couch and crossing her arms. She waved a hand around as she tried to reason with him, “I mean, it’d be two days of driving, but we could make a trip of it. Take the van, go snowboarding at Blue Mountain? It’ll be fun…and I get a bass out of it.”

“Jinx.” He deadpanned, looking up at her with a raised eyebrow.

“Ekko,” She returned, looking down at him the same way. Then she stuck out her bottom lip, eyebrows pulled together as she pouted, “please. Please don’t make me go alone.”

He stared at her for a moment, gears clearly turning in his head. “Fuck!” Ekko groaned, tossing his hands up, “Fuck, fine. Yes, we can go to fucking Cleveland.”

“Why are we going to fucking Cleveland?” Viktor asked as he walked into the makeshift cafe living room.

You laughed, “We aren’t,” you inclined your head towards the couple, “they are. Because Jinx wants a bass. And because Ekko can’t tell her no.”

“That is not true!” Ekko defended, looking between you and Viktor. The both of you just stared back, blinking. Ekko groaned, “Fuck you guys.” and went back to working on his board.

You shook your head, looking back up at Viktor. His hair and the shoulders of his sweater were wet with snow. His cheeks and nose were flushed red from the cold, vivid against his pale skin.

“What’re you doing here?” You asked, doing your best to stamp down the heat in your chest, “I thought you were headed home after class.”

“Trying to get work done in the library,” he shrugged the straps of his bag off, “laptop’s dead, though…do you have yours?”

“I do. Get me a coffee, and I’ll let you steal it.” You joked, lifting the toe of your sneaker from the armrest and tapping his thigh with it.

“Already did,” he said, then swatted at your shoe, humming to get you to move. You huffed, pulling your knees in. He sat where your legs had just been, but when you moved to sit up, he stopped you. Instead of letting you drop your feet to the floor, he grabbed your shin, guiding your legs to lie across his lap. 

The motion was so casual. He barely even looked at you as he did it, still speaking to Ekko and Jinx about Cleveland while you short-circuited. You stared at the side of his face. Tips of his hair still wet, nose still red, beauty mark under his eye stark against his pale skin. He laughed, lips pulling back and giving you a flash of that crooked fang that you adored. Your eyes skimmed down to his hand, resting easily on your leg. His lithe fingers pulled absently at the frayed threads surrounding the hole worn into the knee. You didn’t realize you had floated away until the hand you were watching paused, fingers moving up just above your knee and squeezing. He was saying your name.

You flinched, blinking at him as you came back down to earth, “Sorry, what?”

“Hey there, space cadet,” he laughed softly, the smallest glint behind his eyes telling you he knew you hadn’t just zoned out on nothing, “can I have that charger?”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” you shook your head lightly, leaning over and disconnecting the charger from your own laptop. You held it out to him, then pulled it back, narrowing your eyes, “where’s my coffee?”

He rolled his eyes, then glanced over his shoulder. Turning to you with a smirk he said, “Right here.”

You followed his gaze to find one of the baristas walking over, a pair of mismatched coffee mugs in her hand. She had her eyes glued to Viktor, a pretty blush gracing her cheeks. Stepping in front of him, she gently handed over the mugs. If heart eyes were physically possible, she’d be sporting them.

“Here you go, Viktor,” his name came out soft and breathy, all the hopefulness in the world packed into the two syllables. 

“Dekuji, Donna.” He nodded, accepting the mugs with a polite smile. 

Donna’s smile widened, eyes barely blinking as she looked at him. She paused for a moment and then, with a pronunciation that wasn’t quite right, said, “Nemas zac…I’ve been practicing.”

“Ah, I can tell.” He raised an eyebrow, “Good job, Donna.”

She sucked in an excited breath, going to say something else when her eyes fell to Viktor’s hands as he passed you the second mug. Whatever she was going to say died in her mouth before it could come out. She blinked owlishly, looking between you and Viktor and your legs in Viktor’s lap. 

She frowned, then turned to you coldly, “Your shoes.”

“What about ‘em?” You asked, sipping at your drink.

“They’re on the couch,” she huffed, eyebrows furrowing, “your shoes are on the couch.”

“Oh, uh,” you panicked, the childish fear of being scolded flaring in your chest. Scolded by a freshman no less, you began to withdraw your legs, “yeah, sorry.”

“Oh, here,” Viktor cut in, drink set to the side as he leaned forward and stripped off his jacket. He laid it over the arm of the couch, tapping it to have you lay your feet back down, “sorry about that, Donna. Won’t happen again.”

He smiled at her politely. You wondered if he could tell that Donna didn’t actually give a fuck about the couch, or if he was truly just being sincere. 

“It’s, uh, it’s fine,” her shoulders slouched and she forced a smile, “see you later. I hope you have a good day.”

Donna very pointedly did not look at you when she said this.

You scoffed, watching as he took a sip of his coffee, humming in question around the rim of the cup.

“Since when did this place offer table service?” You smirked, handing over the end of the charger.

“She’s being accommodating," he shrugged, not meeting your eye as he balanced his laptop on your shins.

“Uh-huh, sure,” you nodded, leaning back onto the arm of the couch, “I’m sure you can expect those accommodations to end after this little display.”

“She’s already asked me out,” he said absently as he opened up his work, “I told her no, and she hasn’t stopped.”

“You didn’t tell me that,” you said, chewing on the inside of your cheek and pretending to be interested in the chipping polish on your nails.

“I didn’t think I needed to,” he said, turning to you, “she’s a freshman. There’s no chance I’d go out with someone so young.”

You spoke before you could stop yourself, “If she were our year, would you have said yes?”

Viktor let out a heavy sigh, glancing up at the ceiling and shaking his head. He turned to you, expression even, “What do you think?”

You pursed your lips, pretending to think for a moment before saying, “I don’t know,” and going back to your phone. You tried not to smile as you felt him staring at you.

“You two are the worst.” Jinx said from where she was now sitting next to Ekko, her nose scrunched in disgust.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Viktor insisted, turning his gaze to her.

“Okay, sure, whatever.” Jinx rolled her eyes, slouching down into the couch and crossing her arms, “Anyways, are y’all coming to the bar tonight?”

“Probably,” you shrugged, then glanced up at Viktor over the edge of your phone, “you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Viktor laughed awkwardly, “Jayce wanted me to remind you that it’s your turn to DD.”

“Booo,” you whined, then narrowed your eyes at him, “he had you ask me on purpose, right? He knows I’d bail if he texted me.”

  “Yes, exactly.” He nodded, “So…you’ll drive?”

“I mean, yeah,” you scoffed, “I’m not gonna be a dick.”

“Perfect,” Jinx said, clapping her hands together, “Sevika accidentally ordered ten bottles of Malort instead of two, and Dad wants it G O N E, gone. We get to drink as much as we want!”

You snorted a laugh and tipped your knee to the side, knocking him gently in the stomach, “Good luck with that.”

“Don’t insult me,” he scoffed, raising an eyebrow at you, “I’m not intimidated by American liquor.

-----

The snow still hadn’t let up by the time you picked up the residents of the Rune Street house. Fat, wet flakes - more like frozen raindrops - muttered against your windshield and created a layer of slush on the ground. You didn’t bother leaving the safety of the warm cab to knock; instead, you called Viktor.

“Ahoj Mila,” he cooed, warm and soft, “you’re here?”

“Mhm, didn’t want to get out of the truck,” you told him, “are the others ready?” 

He scoffed, “No, I don’t think so.” His voice became muffled as he shouted for the others, a beat, and then he was back, “They say five more minutes.”

“Lame, you wanna come out to get front seat?” You laughed softly, “Mel and Cait will try to bully you and Jayce both into the back.”

“On my way,” you heard the door open on the other line just before he hung up. 

You looked up towards the front door to find him standing in the entryway. The lights from the house backlit him, casting a long glow across the wet front yard. As he made his way down the path, you leaned over, popping the lock to the door. A cold rush of air flooded the cab as he climbed in. 

“Sorry,” he said, assuring his cane was inside before yanking the door closed.

“It’s fine,” you laughed softly, moving your coat to your lap to make room for him next to you. He didn’t need to be told; he just slid into the space made for him. Subconsciously, you leaned closer, breathing him in as he pressed up against you.

“How are you?” He asked, brushing a strand of hair that was blown loose when he opened the door back in place, “Did you put makeup on?”

“Mhm,” you nodded, leaning into his palm, "Lest's mom came by to pick her up for break; she’s lovely but judgmental.”

“Ah, I see,” he laughed, “trying to impress your lover's mom?”

“Yeah, obviously,” you snorted, “no, just trying not to give her a reason to talk shit. She loves to say I look tired, whatever that means.”

“Hm, well,” he narrowed his eyes at you, gaze moving around your face, “she should have nothing to say. I’ve seen you tired, and you're as beautiful as you always are.”

“Suck up,” you rolled your eyes, trying to play off the way your breath hitched, “I don’t need you to call me pretty.”

“Ah, you love it, though,” he said, smirking, “every time I do, you get all spacey for a moment. You chew on your lip, try to look away from me. You’re beautiful, I know you don’t need me to tell you that. I tell you because I like it when you blush. I like that I make you blush.”

You swallowed hard, realizing how close he was. You could feel his breath against your lips. You could almost taste him as he crowded in on you. The heat from his body making you sweat. 

“That’s not fair,” you muttered, wanting nothing more than to kiss him. It’d be so easy, just the slightest lift of your chin and his lips would brush yours. It’s all the permission he would need to really kiss you. To kiss you like you know he wanted to.

“All’s fair,” he breathed out. 

You could feel the way his lips moved when he spoke.

Then he was gone. Pulling back half a second before the truck door was yanked open. The cold dropped you back to earth. You sucked in a sharp breath, whipping around to face the steering wheel. The way Viktor turned blocked your face from view of the others - intentional or not, it was appreciated. You blinked a few times, pulling yourself together before looking over Viktor’s shoulder.

“Took y’all long enough,” you said, “hurry up and get in. It’s fucking cold.”

“Why does Viktor get the front?” Jayce whined as he clambered into the back seat after Cait, “He’s shorter.”

“Because he was on time,” you told him.

“Yeah, I was on time,” Viktor repeated, raising an eyebrow at Jayce, “something you wouldn’t know about.” 

“Hey, it wasn’t my fault.” Jayce scoffed, “The girls were still getting ready.”

“Don’t lie.” Mel said, pushing the seat closed behind Jayce, “You were still getting dressed, too.”

Mel turned to Viktor and you, fake whispering, “He couldn’t decide which jeans he wanted to wear. The dark ones or the ones that make his ass look good.”

“Mel!” He gasped, then tried to defend himself, “That’s not- it was the color, not-”

“Don’t defend yourself to us,” Viktor said, holding his hands up, “how you want your ass to look is your prerogative."

You giggled, Viktor turned your way just slightly and winked. 

‘Well, which ones did you go with?” Cait asked from the seat behind you; you could hear the smirk in her voice.

“I mean, the ones that make my ass look good, obviously.” Jayce said, then leaned on the back of the seat, his chin wedged onto Viktor’s shoulder as he tried to look at you, “Thanks for driving.”

“Ha, it's the best excuse to get out of drinking Malort," you scoffed, putting the truck into drive and pulling away from the curb.

“Oh, it can’t be that bad,” Mel said, fidgeting with the heater.

“N,o seriously, it’s awful.” You assured, eyes wide, thinking about the one and only time you had ever tried it, “Like, y’all need to prepare yourselves for the worst possible taste and then maybe it won’t be as bad as you think…maybe.”

“Actually, you can just bring me home,” Cait said.

“Too late,” you shrugged, “it’s already happening, you don’t have a choice.”

The warmth of the cab finally chased away the last of the cold air they let in, letting you relax better against Viktor. He placed a hand on his own thigh, fingertips ghosting against your leg every so often. 

-----

The Last Drop was as warm and inviting as ever. A stark contrast from the bitter, wet cold that seeped past the layers of your jacket. Jayce held the first door. Viktor held the second, bowing his head slightly and holding eye contact as you passed. Just inside the door, there was a coat rack that nobody but your friend group ever felt comfortable using. The five of you stood around, wrestling off heavy jackets and knocking snow off your shoes. Viktor waited a beat, watching as you hung your coat before placing his over it on the same hook. 

He slung an arm over your shoulder, smirking down at you, “You won’t let me make a fool of myself tonight, yes?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” You laughed, walking with him into the bar.

Sevika was seated at the end of the short hall, looking bored and angry as usual. Despite the cold weather, she wore a thick t-shirt with the sleeves removed. Showing off one ridiculously muscular arm and one scarred and tattooed stump where the other used to be. Even after knowing her through two and a half school years, you’d never not be intimidated by the woman.

You smiled politely from under Viktor’s arm while she pretended to check IDs. Your entire friend group had their first legal drink in this bar, she knew how old everyone was. 

“You two are being quite obvious tonight, aren’t you?” Sevika scoffed, making a show of checking your license for the security cameras. You stiffened, trying to pull away. You weren’t surprised by the remark. You should have expected it. Sevika was the first to call Viktor your “little boyfriend” after the show on Jinx’s birthday, scoffing at you when you tried to say you were only friends. 

“Heard about your ordering mishap, Sevika,” Viktor teased as he handed over his license, ignoring the remark and tightening his hold on you.

You elbowed him in the side, “It’s too early for you to be a smartass,” you scolded.

He snorted, taking his license back and turning away.

“Yeah, listen to your little girlfriend, kid,” she huffed as you slid your license back into your wallet, following Viktor. She muttered something about not getting paid enough to put up with brats as the two of you made your way into the main bar.

You glanced up at Viktor, assessing the position you were in. This was innocent. This could be innocent. Jayce had his arm around Cait frequently, walking just like this. Granted, he and Cait had never had sex, but technically, no one knew that you and Viktor had either. Not for sure that was. Not that you knew of, at least.

“You’re tense,” he said, glancing down at you, a hand squeezing the ball of your shoulder.

“I’m fine,” you assured him, shaking your head.

“You know to ignore her,” he said, dropping his voice, “she’s just teasing.”

“Stop, I know. I’m not tense,” you insisted, doing your best to relax your shoulders.

He dropped his arm from you, “Better?”

The space where his arm had been felt ice-cold without it.

“I didn’t mind,” you insisted.

He didn’t make contact again. You had reached the back room where the rest of your friends were gathered. Now he’d just be touching you for the sake of it. The back of his hand brushed against yours. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

You let Viktor break away from you, watching as he greeted Ekko. Jinx and him were already deep into a game of pool. Whoever was stripes was losing badly. You let yourself fall into line with your friends. Grateful for the night with them before everyone fled home for a week.

-----

It didn’t take long for the group to become thoroughly drunk. Vander had put a pause on the flow of liquor when Vi tried to stand on the pool table to fix a flickering lightbulb. Luckily, the door to the back room was closed by then, preventing his daughters from causing him too much public embarrassment. 

Viktor - who insisted that anything made in America paled in comparison to what was distilled in his home country - was more drunk than you had ever seen him. He was loud and boisterous and thoroughly enjoying the company of the other two men. Between drinks, the three of them - the scholars that they were - raved about the latest discoveries they had read about in their one shared class. Any meaning to their words was lost in the slur of alcohol. 

Luckily for you, Viktor was a beautiful drunk. A vision truly, with red cheeks and a smile that was only this wide when he drank. You loved seeing his teeth, loved the excited pitch to his voice as he jumped into conversation. The way he waved his hands, the way his accent grew so thick at times that you weren't sure if he was even speaking in english. The way every so often he’d turn to you with a smile so warm you were sure it was summer again. He’d place a hand on the back of your head and tip his forehead to meet yours. Telling you how drunk he was, how grateful he was for you, how pretty you looked. All quite enough for only you to hear. 

It all felt so… natural. Making sure he didn’t hurt himself in his fun, letting him compliment you and hold you close to him. All of it. It felt like you’d been doing this for years. You knew which way he’d tip if his cane caught on the old carpet. He knew not to crowd you immediately after taking another shot. Always waiting a respectable minute and washing the smell from his lips with a few sips of water before invading your space again. Even when he leaned against a low barstool, half sitting, and pulled you to lean against him. His arms wrapped around your waist from behind, breath warm against your shoulder as he murmured about a headache. Even in front of your friends, it felt fine. Normal. How it was supposed to be. For the second time that day, you wondered what the harm would be in moving that deadline from thirty days to zero.

“Do you want to get some air?” you asked, keeping an eye on the others. Jayce and Vi were playing a game of pool, shit talking each other while Cait and Mel cheered them on. Jinx and Ekko were slowly building a house of cards. Impressively four cards high, even with their drunk hands.

“Ano prosím,” he practically whimpered. You laughed softly at his dramatics, standing and turning to pull him up. 

He trailed behind you as you slipped out the back door. Even with the heaters sparked up and running, the back porch was vacant. You dragged a pair of chairs close to one, offering him the seat. When he sat, he let out a sigh, leaning his head back and feeling the cold air against his face. 

“Better?” You asked, smirking at his closed eyes and parted lips.

“Hm, much,” with his eyes still closed, he lifted a hand, holding it out for you to grab.

“What?” You laughed, taking his hand. He tugged you forward, pulling you down to sit in his lap. You gasped, trying to stand back up and frantically looking around, “What are you doing?”

“Just sit with me for a second,” he wrapped his arm around your waist and dropped his head to your shoulder. You slung your arm around the back of his neck, trying to keep your weight from fully pressing down on him, “Mila, relax, you’re not gonna hurt me.”

You huffed, “Why do you want me to sit in your lap so bad?”

He tipped his head back, cracking a toothy smile up at you. “I mean, if you’d rather sit on my face, you are more than welcome to.”

“Oh my god,” you gasped, fighting back a laugh and slapping your hand over his mouth, “Viktor, don’t say that.”

He laughed behind your hand, hand coming to grab your wrist as you hid your face against the side of his head.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he laughed, prying your hand away, “I’m sorry, it was too easy. I promise I wouldn’t have said that in front of people.”

“God, you are so drunk,” you huffed, face burning. You hated that you didn’t hate the teasing. You hated that it sent sparks down your spine. 

“Hm, very,” he nodded, pressing a kiss to the inside of your wrist, “thank you.”

“For?” You asked, letting yourself relax into him. 

He looked up at you with glazed eyes, reaching up and brushing a piece of hair back behind your ear, “For everything,” he said, voice soft.

“I’m going to get you water,” you insisted, only to keep yourself from kissing him. Again, you thought about your rule. Thought about if it was even worth bothering with at this point.

“If you must,” he sighed dramatically, laying a hand over his forehead.

You giggled, prying yourself from his grasp and standing up, “Don’t freeze while I’m gone.” 

“Yes ma’am,” he saluted with one hand and produced a pack of cigarettes from his pocket with the other.

Inside, you caught Mel and Cait whispering to each other, little glances thrown your way. You narrowed your eyes at them. The little gossips that they were.

“We’re gonna smoke outside if y’all wanna join,” you told them, raising an eyebrow. See, you thought, nothing happening out there at all…not really, at least.

“It’s too cold,” Mel grimaced, sitting up and shaking her head. She scoffed, “make it warm again, and we’ll join you.”

“Ha, yeah, I’ll get right on that,” you laughed, rolling your eyes at them before making your way into the main room of the bar. 

In the time that you had been secluded away in the back with your friends, the bar had filled up. There was a game of some kind on. Locals were crowded around tables, anticipation and nerves wavering off of them like heat as they watched the flatscreens. You squeezed through people. Bumping and mumbling apologies all the way to the bar top.

Vander met you, tossing a rag over his broad shoulders and leaning his palms on the varnished wood. Older men weren’t your thing…Except for Vander. Vander could fucking get it. 

“Hey, Kid,” he greeted, grinning down at you, “how’s it going back there?”

“Well, I’m cutting Vik off,” you laughed, “and the others are getting close to their limits, too, I’m sure. So if that’s an indicator.” You shrugged at him.

“I trust your judgment," he agreed, then raised an eyebrow, “how many bottles did you take off my hands?”

“Like, two and a half,” you told him, “a good portion of that did end up on the floor. That was Vi’s fault, I swear.”

He let out a warm laugh, rubbing a hand over his forehead, “Yeah, I don’t doubt that. Guess Malort is gonna be the special for quite some time.”

“How much do you buy the bottles for?” You asked him, tilting your head.

“Since we got them in bulk,” he sighed, “about 25 bucks a bottle.” 

“Fuck, you spent 500 dollars on Malort?” You gaped, “That…that’s rough. But hold on.”

He watched you curiously as you dragged your fingers on the bartop.

“Whatcha doing, Kid?” He laughed as you worked.

“Math, hold on.” You told him, holding up a hand and going back to your invisible calculations. “Okay, a suggestion if you're willing. Buck Fifty Malort shots. You could, at a minimum, make back what you spent, plus a couple of extra bucks a bottle. Or, if you do shots for two bucks, you’d make about 9 dollars a bottle and wouldn’t have to deal with it anymore.”

He blinked at you, glancing down to the bar like you had actually written on it and then back to you, “You need a job, Kid?”

“Ask me again in the summer," you laughed, “also, that was very simple math. Isn't your husband a business professor? You don’t need me, of all people, to solve Malort problems.”

“He is, and I keep him out of bar business,” Vander told you, “man’ll work himself to death if I let him.”

“I don’t doubt that,” you had heard from Vi and Jinx about how both their fathers were hard workers to a fault. 

“What’re you getting to drink, Kid?” Vander asked, hands going back to the bar, “On the house in exchange for your ideas.”

“Thank you, but I’m driving tonight. I’ll remind you next time, though,” you laughed, “but could I just get a glass of water? No ice.”

“No ice?” Vander asked you, raising an eyebrow, “Tap doesn't get too cold, are you sure?”

“It’s for Vik, he doesn’t like ice,” you explained, then shrugged, “it’s also freezing outside, he won’t notice.”

“Ah, I see,” he drawled, nodding to himself as he pulled a glass off the shelf.

“You too?” You scoffed, rolling your eyes, “Does anybody in this town mind their business?”

“I own a bar,” he shrugged, holding the glass below the tap, “I couldn’t mind my business even if I wanted to.”

You rolled your eyes, taking the lukewarm glass from him. “Keyword if?”

He nodded, “Key word if.”

You both laughed as you turned away from the bar. Working here wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. You wondered how flexible Vander would be with the hours, If it were something you could do while going to school to get some extra cash. All the summer internships you were looking into didn’t pay well, if they paid at all. You cringed to yourself, deadlines for those applications were going to be due at the start of next semester. You should ask them how their applications are going. 

You were lost in thought about application deadlines and where your friends may end up over the summer. So lost, you didn’t notice the body in front of you until you were already smacking into it. You hissed an apology as you recovered your balance, luckily only spilling a few drops of water. 

You wished you could retract the ‘sorry’ as soon as the person turned around. A face you knew far too well turned to look down at you. Your stomach dropped, and adrenaline flooded your body as soon as you made eye contact.

Aaron.

Your ex-boyfriend, Aaron.

Knew everything about you, Aaron.

Has met both your parents, Aaron.

Aaron, who you loved years ago.

Aaron, who you fucking hate now.

Aaron, who, despite the fact that he was the one who broke up with you, smiled like you hung the stars in the sky when he saw you. You saw his lips form your name. His teeth were still perfect. One was a veneer. He had knocked it out skateboarding at fourteen. You’d never be able to tell. 

Despite the proximity, his voice didn’t reach you. Everything else was louder. The crowd. The music. The TVs. Your own blood rushing through your ears.  You blinked up at him as he continued to speak to you, clearly not catching on to the fact that you weren’t pleased to see him. It wasn’t until his hand came to rest on your shoulder that you were able to move. 

You jerked away from his hand as if the contact alone burned you, managing a few steps backwards. You could feel your mouth move, but were sure you weren't saying anything coherent. Anything other than ‘no’. You didn’t even see his reaction to yours before you were practically running away. Taking a long arc around him, you made your way towards the room where your friends were.

You walked on shaky legs to the back door as it all came rushing back to you. The study dates that always ended with you under him in his twin bed. The projects you did together. The saved seats. The days when you’d ditch. The night, three days before the final in your only shared class. The three days of crying so hard, Lest and Mel almost called your dad to pick you up. The failing grade on your final test because how the fuck were you supposed to focus with the boy who said he ‘fell out of love with you’ five feet away. 

You looked down at the glass in your hand. The water inside too warm without ice to wet the outside. Here you were, doing it again.  Risking it again. You had one rule for yourself, and you were fucking it all up. You had let yourself create loopholes, particulars with terminology, and ambiguous behavior as if that was any better than calling it what it was. As if it were the labels that were going to break your heart and ruin your GPA. 

You steadied your breath as you reached the back door. You were being childish. You were being weak. You felt shame creep up the back of your neck, embarrassed by your lack of self-control. 

You found Viktor exactly where you left him. Leaning back in the metal chair and breathing out smoke. You didn’t let yourself look at him for longer than a second. Instead, you bypassed his open arms, setting the glass of water down on your way to the other side of the table. The cold metal of the chair bit through your clothes, uncomfortable even through the layers of fabric. You crossed one leg over the other, hands in your lap.

“Mila?” You swallowed hard at the sound of his voice, finally looking up at his face, “Why are you so far away?”

“What are you talking about? I’m right here?” I’m not your girlfriend, Viktor. We aren’t together. I can’t sit on your lap, I can’t kiss you. I can’t be weak.

“Well, you should be here.” He held a hand out to you, “Come here.”

“No,” you shook your head, “I’m fine here.”

“Mila, are you okay?” He tilted his head. You could tell he was still drunk, but was sobering up, “Is something wrong?”

“No, everything is fine.” Nothing is fine.

“Mila, wh-” he tried.

“Stop calling me that!” You snapped, cutting him off, “You said you were fine waiting for me, and you haven’t been waiting. I can’t date you. You know that. I told you that.”

He stared at you, eyebrows pulled down and mouth in a flat line.

“Fuck you.” The words were laced with hurt, less angry than you’d expect.

“What?” You flinched, gaping at him.

“Fuck. You.” He said, slow and measured, before pushing himself to stand. He trembled as he rose to his feet, alcohol and emotion throwing him off balance, “You are such a hypocrite.”

“Excuse me?” You stood as well, skin simmering with defensive anger.

“Why are you doing this to me? Fuck,” your name fell from his lips like a cherry pit - sweet until it wasn’t, “what am I to you?”

You blinked at him, “You’re my friend.”

“Really? I’m your friend?”  His voice broke on the word, “Because this isn’t how I’d treat a friend.”

“Vik, I-” you felt your throat tighten up.

“Don’t fucking Vik me,” he snapped, voice rising, “I don’t fucking understand. Tell me, why is it fine for you to kiss me when you're drunk? To lie in my bed and practically beg me to fuck you. But when I want you, it’s a problem? Do you only want me when you drink? Is that what it is? Because that’s what it seems like.”

“That is not true,” you growled, fists tightening at your side.

“Isn’t it? Every time you drink - Halloween, Jinx’s birthday, fuck even that day on the water,” He listed, face hard as he stared you down, “I’m sick of wasting my time. I’m sick of being your drunk decision.”

You felt your bottom lip waver, biting down to hide it and nearly choking as you tried to speak, “Wasting your time…”

Despite your best efforts, tears spilled over. Instantly, Viktor froze, eyes going wide as he caught sight of the silent tears rolling down your cheeks and dripping down your chin.

“No, Mila,” he gasped, trying to take a step towards.

“Stay away from me,” you yelped, stumbling back.

You stared at the ground as you rushed past him, his voice calling after you. The heat inside nearly suffocated you as you pushed the door open. Mel was already there on the other side, so close you almost smacked her with the door. Concern was all over her face, eyes wide and hands out as she tried to approach you. You shied away, a sob catching in your throat as you tried to get out. 

Your vision was a watery blur as you stumbled through the bar. Dodging people, ignoring concerned voices. You snagged your jacket from its hook, folding it over your arm as you made it to the gravel parking lot. You were burning up, hot everywhere in the worst way. A heat you couldn’t escape.

You didn’t realize that you had been crying out loud until Mel grabbed you by the shoulders, spinning you around and begging you to breathe. 

“Please, honey,” she begged, hands wiping the tears from your face, “please, you’re going to faint. I need you to calm down. What happened?”

You tried to do what she asked, sobs still racked your body as you shook your head. She pulled you into her arms, cradling you against her shoulder.

“It’s fine, it’s going to be fine,” you could hear her voice shaking.

“I…I want to go home,” you told her, forcing the words out.

She pulled away, hands on your shoulders as she nodded, “You can go home, honey. I’ll get us an Uber home or something. Just breathe for me, I’m not letting you drive until I know you're not gonna steer yourself into a ditch.”

She took a long breath in, you did your best to mimic. After a couple of solid inhale exhales, she dropped her hands, “Do you want me to come with?”

You shook your head, pulling your keys from your jeans pocket. She nodded, giving a sad smile and stepping away, allowing you to walk away to your truck. You didn’t let it warm up. Just turned it on and pulled out of the lot. The cold finally reached your muscles. You shivered as your truck tried to cough up as much hot air as it could with a cold engine. You reached for your jacket in the passenger seat, regretting not putting it on. You had tossed it to the side in your haste to get away. 

It took less than a second for you to realize that your jacket was still hanging on the hook back at The Last Drop. Instead, Viktor’s coat was lying across your lap. Cold and soft and far, far too familiar. A fresh round of sobs seized your body. Your vision blurred, forcing you to pull off the road. You cried in your parked truck until you couldn’t anymore. 

-----

You, like most people, moved faster than Viktor. Not held back by femoral anteversion or a hip to ankle brace, or a cane that more often than not slipped on snow and ice. He called your name, the type of adrenaline that comes with a really bad fuck up, making the muscles in his chest tighten up. He slipped, cursing whatever there was left to curse as he caught himself on the edge of the table, the cold metal biting into his palm. 

He realized as he took another off-kilter step, that not only did you have the physical advantage in the moment, you also had the sober one. By the time he made it to the back door, you were gone. Swallowed up past the door of the main bar. Viktor huffed, a hand on the door frame, and realized that all of his friends - aside from you and Mel - were staring at him with wide eyes.

He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He didn’t know what to say. Even if he did know what to say, He couldn’t remember how to say it in a way they’d understand. Too drunk, too angry, too scared to figure out how to turn Czech to English.

“Viktor…”Jayce spoke, voice cautious as he stepped closer.

Viktor avoided his hands, taking an awkward side step around Jayce. Unable to look anywhere except towards where you might be. He moved through the crowded bar. By the time he finally pushed his way out to the parking lot, you were gone. Only Mel stood in the gravel, shivering with her arms crossed over her chest. He couldn’t even see your taillights on the road.

“What the fuck is going on?” Jayce asked from behind them as he pushed out the front door. 

Viktor swayed on his feet. Lights around him blurred as the sky began to spin. He blinked, only realizing what his body was doing when it was already too late. Doubling over, he retched. Gagging up all of the nasty midwestern liquor onto the gravel. He heard Jayce curse from behind him, footsteps crunching as he jogged up to Viktor. He watched as red began to drip down his face, mixing with the stomach acid on the ground. Only a beat, and the drip was a flow, streaming onto the ground. He barely had time to reach for Jayce before the ground was rushing up to meet him.

-----

You had planned to stay on campus for most of fall break. To study, work on finals, and… spend time with Viktor. But without the latter, the others didn’t really seem worth it. So instead, you frantically packed. Thanking God that Lest wasn’t there to witness the pitiful display, or attempt to talk you out of making the four-hour drive in the middle of the night. You haphazardly shoved what you needed into a duffel bag, deciding whatever you forgot you could buy or steal from your dad. 

When you made it back to your truck, you hopped in and drove away before you had the chance to hesitate. You knew you should tell someone, Mel or Jayce, or even your dad. You knew whoever you texted would try to talk you out of it. There was only one person who’d actually be able to change your mind, and he had just told you to fuck off.

-----

When Viktor woke up in a bed instead of on the ground, he had one thought first. I hope to God Jayce didn’t carry me here. He blinked up at the lights above him. Something was familiar about them; blinding light from his childhood. These lights weren’t blinding. They were dimmed low, but they weren't soft, still sending a sharp sting to the center of his brain. He closed his eyes, trying to gather information without sight to determine where he was. Funnily enough, he instantly recognized where he was with his eyes closed. The metronome of heart monitors and hum of machinery. The smell of antiseptic and cleaning solutions doing their best to erase bodily fluids. The clamp of a pulse oximeter on the index finger of his right hand. The cold plastic of the cannula under his nose and against his cheeks. He’d been to the ER plenty of times as a child. It had been years, though, since an unplanned hospital visit. 

He listened to his own heartbeat, steady as he knew it should be, and forced himself to open his eyes. A curtain the color of sunbleached Scheele’s green to his left, and to his right, Jayce. It always shocked Viktor when Jayce managed to make himself look small, and right now, he looked tiny. Normally broad shoulders, hunched, his elbows resting on his knees, and face buried in his hands. Slow breaths, raising and lowering the curve of his spine.

“Jayce?” Viktor’s voice came rough and dry.

“Viktor!” The other man gasped, head jerking up. His eyes were rimmed with red, handsome face puffy with tears. He stood quickly, taking a step towards Viktor, hands outstretched like he was approaching a wounded animal.

A wounded animal. Viktor resisted the urge to laugh.

“I’m fine.” He tried to wave him off, hand held back by monitors.

“You are not fine, Viktor.” Jayce shook his head, eyes wide and corners of his mouth pulled down in disapproval, “What is going on? What the fuck was that?”

“Jayce, please.” Viktor brought the free hand up to cover his eyes, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.

He could hear the way Jayce recoiled, the shuffle of the chair as he dropped his weight back down, “I’m sorry, I just…I don’t know what’s happening.”

“Neither do I.” Viktor scoffed, taking his hand off his eyes, his words only partially true, “I did just wake up, remember?”

“Fuck, man, I’m sorry.” Jayce slumped back in the chair, “You’re right.”

“I normally am.” Viktor joked, smirking at him.

“Do you remember… anything?” Jayce asked, looking at him expectantly.

Viktor thought for a moment. He could remember the look on your face that shattered his insides to a thousand pieces. He remembered you rushing past him. He remembered the feeling of gravel against his face. He reached up, touching the right side of his forehead and, sure enough, found a row of butterfly bandages holding split skin together.

“I remember up to this, I guess.” Viktor told Jayce, “I’m assuming someone drove me here? What time is it?”

“It’s two in the morning,” Jayce told him, and then cringed as he admitted, “we called an ambulance.”

Viktor blinked at Jayce, letting out a heavy sigh, “You called an ambulance because I fainted?”

“No,” Jayce said firmly, “we called an ambulance because you threw up, started bleeding from your nose, passed out, and split your damn forehead open. All while we were too fucked up to drive you here ourselves and trying to figure out why our designated driver left crying.”

“I’m sorry,” Viktor pushed his head back against the paper-thin pillow, heels of his hands digging into his eyes until he saw colors that weren’t there, “fuck, I’m sorry... I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.”

“Viktor, stop.” Jayce tried, “C’mon, V. It’s fine, please.” Jayce stood, reaching over and grabbing Viktor’s wrists. He pulled his hands away from his face, looking down at Viktor.

“V, please, man, please just tell me what’s going on.” Jayce begged, “No one is upset with you. Either of you. We just want you to be okay.”

Viktor let out a shaky breath, trying to keep himself from crying again. The way Jayce looked down at him was heartbreaking. He hadn’t seen that look since they were both teenagers. Since the last time Viktor had a complete and total breakdown. Since the first time Jayce was worried what Viktor would do to himself.

“Jayce,” He choked out his name, “J, I really fucked up, man.”

-----

Hours after you left campus, the headlights of your truck finally swung across the front of your childhood home. Wet gravel crunched under your tires as you pulled into the vacant spot beside your dad’s truck. When you shut the truck off, you sat for a moment in the dark. It was a concerningly warm November; instead of snow falling softly against the roof of the cab, it was rain. Tapping, even and gentle, against the metal. Your grip tightened on the steering wheel, eyes squeezed shut as you told yourself this was the right thing to do. That space was what you needed. That space would fix this.

Without letting yourself spare a glance at the stolen jacket next to you, you slipped out of the truck. Hauling your bag over your shoulder and moving quickly through the cold rain to the front door. As you stuck the key into the lock, a recurring nightmare from your first year of college came flooding back to you. One where you’d come home at some random time of day to find your dad's truck gone and your key not matching the locks on the door. 

Luckily, this was a different kind of nightmare. So your key worked, letting you into the home that was so familiar that its unfamiliarity made your chest ache. You closed the door, holding the latch to keep it from clicking loudly into place, and toed off your wet boots. Despite your attempt at stealth, a muffled woof came from the back of the house. You froze, cringing as you waited for the dog to hopefully fall back asleep. No luck. After another soft bark, the door to your father's bedroom creaked open, followed by the sound of nails clicking against the hardwood floors. 

The big long-haired mutt came bounding up to you in the dark. Tail wagging so hard it pulled her hips back and forth. She turned, leaning her heavy body against your legs. 

“Hi Sadie,” you whispered, hands in her fur as she bounced around, “good girl, I missed you too.”

Your dad’s voice was filled with sleep and confusion as he spoke your name from the dark. You looked up at him, barely able to make out his broad form.

“Hey,” you said, voice shaking as a fresh round of tears threatened to spill, “I’m sorry, I should have called.”

“No, Buddy, don’t apologize,” he said, walking over and wrapping you up in his arms without hesitation, “what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

That question was enough to tip the tears over the edge. A sob tore itself from your throat as you buried yourself against your dad's chest. You felt like a kid again. Small with big feelings. Running back to your dad, unable to get words out amidst the tears.

He rubbed a hand over your back, holding you close like he did back then. Gently, he ushered you towards the couch. Helping you sit and settled himself next to you. He pulled away, smoothing your hair out, the other hand on your tired face, wiping away tears.

“Shh, baby, please,” He hushed, “can you tell me what's happening? You’re scaring me a little bit.”

Sadie hopped up onto the couch next to you, settling her head against your thigh with a gentle whine.

“See, Bud, even Sadie’s worried about ya.” He told you, hands moving up and down your arms.

“I-” You tried, clearing your throat when the words stuck, “I fucked up so bad, dad, I really did.”

He sat back more, hands cupping your jaw and looking in your eyes. Your eyes that were his.

“Is someone dead?” He asked.

You blinked at him, taking in a shaky breath and shaking your head ‘no’.

“Okay, good, are the police after you?” He asked, hint of a smile pulling at the corner of your lips.

You sniffed, shaking your head, “No.”

“Okay, good, that’s good.” He nodded, then paused, a nervous look crossing his face. He pulled in a slow breath through his nose, blinking once before asking with a cautious voice, “Are you pregnant?”

You let out a wet laugh, dropping your head against his shoulder, “God, no.”

He sighed in relief, hand coming to the back of your head, “Thank god. See, everything else we can handle. Honestly, we could handle all of those, too.”

“You could handle me being pregnant?” You teased, not a doubt in your mind that he would.

“Of course, Buddy,” He assured, “it wouldn’t be ideal, but I’ve got you. I’ve always got you.”

“Good to know,” You sniffled again.

“That isn’t an encouragement to get pregnant, by the way,” he said, head resting on your chin. You laughed, eyelids getting heavy with sleep, “I’m too young to be a grandfather, give me another five years at least.”

“Only five years?” You laughed.

“Don’t want to be too old,” he said, “someone’s gotta teach them to fish, and Lord knows you couldn’t teach a dog to dig.”

“Rude.” You said around a yawn.

“It’s two AM, buddy,” he told you, “you wanna get some sleep? You can explain what the hell is going on in the morning.”

“Yes, please.” You nodded as he stood, hands outstretched for him to haul you off the couch.

“Want Sadie?” He asked, leading you down the hall, the big dog trailing behind.

“Sure,” You stepped into your room, exactly as you left it months ago, only colder and staler. 

“‘Kay, Buddy,” he held the door open for Sadie, who trotted in and hopped up on the foot of your bed, “sleep tight, love you.”

You nodded, “Love you.”

He closed the door behind him. You didn’t waste a second in stripping off your jeans and old socks, your bra pulled from under your t-shirt. As soon as you climbed into bed, Sadie crawled up closer. Chasing away the cold and letting you hold onto her as you fell into a restless sleep.

-----

Jayce sat quietly as the doctor broke the news that Viktor was anemic. The disease, on top of the anxiety, alcohol, and panic Viktor had experienced, caused him to faint. Luckily, it was mild. Nothing supplements and attention couldn’t handle. When the doctor dubbed Viktor good to go after some paperwork was filled out, Jayce stopped being quiet.

Viktor sighed as Jayce asked again, “What’s going on?”

“You heard him,” Viktor deflected, frowning down at the pages stacked on a clipboard, what seemed like a hundred empty boxes begging to be filled in, “I’m anemic.”

“You know that’s not what I’m talking about.” Jayce said.

“How are we getting home?” Viktor asked, scribbling his information into the boxes, using his regular swooping handwriting in protest of having to fill it out at all.

“Mel and Cait dropped off my car.” He said.

“I’ll tell you on the way home,” he said, looking up and around the room, “can we just get out of here first?”

“Fine,” Jayce huffed, then stood and grabbed the clipboard from Viktor. He separated out half the stack of papers and gave the rest back to him, “Let me help. Damn thing needs the same information a hundred times over. I know your name, we live at the same address, and I have your phone number memorized.”

Jayce began rifling through the drawers built into the wall. Searching until he found an extra pen to fill out the papers with. 

“You have my number memorized?” Viktor asked, pen stalling on his page.

“Of course I do,” Jayce shrugged, not looking up from the papers, “yours, Mels, and my mom's.”

Viktor hummed to himself, drugged up and overwhelmed with emotions and doing his best not to let the small fact make him cry again. He made a mental note to thank Jayce for being a good friend. He was sure he didn’t do it enough.

With Jayce’s help, the paperwork was wrapped up, and they were on the road home before three. In the car, Viktor spilled his guts - metaphorically this time. He told Jayce everything. That first night in the garage. The lack of a proper introduction. You showing up in his class. You turning him down. All the moments since then. His long-term plan to ask you out as soon as classes were done. How he was sure he fucked it all up tonight. How he felt like he was being sucked through a black hole when he made you cry.

For the first time, probably in his life, Jayce sat in silence. Viktor watched his face as he finished speaking, trying to understand what he might be thinking. Jayce opened his mouth, words poised on his tongue, before his jaw snapped shut. He took another breath, blinking ahead at the road.

“So, are you…” Jayce said nervously, afraid to say it, “Do you think you’re…”

Viktor dropped his face into his hands, voice muffled as he responded, “Yes. Without a doubt.”

Jayce let out a low whistle, “Fuck, man.”

Viktor groaned, shaking his head, still buried in his hands.

“Does she…feel the same way?” Jayce asked, still dancing around the terminology.

“I have no idea!” Viktor yelped, voice cracking as he tossed his hands up, “I mean, up until tonight, I’m sure she felt something. Even if it was half of what I felt, it was enough. Now, though? I wouldn’t be surprised if she hates me.”

Jayce scoffed, “She doesn’t hate you. Trust me.”

“How can you be so sure, Jayce?” Viktor huffed, sending a sad look towards Jayce.

“If she hated you, she would’ve hit you.” Jayce assured him, glancing over and catching Viktor’s dubious look, “I’m serious, three years of knowing her and she only hates a handful of people. All of which she made very clear with an impressively solid right hook.”

“So you’re saying I didn’t completely fuck it up?” Viktor asked.

“No, not yet,” He shrugged, “just talk to her. It’ll be fine. Everything will be fine.”

Viktor leaned his head against the cold glass of the window, watching the rain slide along the glass. He hoped Jayce was right. That he actually knew you well enough to know that a conversation would fix this.

-----

You were relieved to find that retreating to your hometown wasn’t a horrible idea. Your dad babied you over the weekend, and you let him. He cooked for you, brought you coffee, let you have control of the TV, and most importantly, didn’t pry. He took ‘a fight with a friend’ as a good enough answer over breakfast on Saturday morning. He didn’t question why you had shut your phone off and hid it in the kitchen drawer. He didn’t say anything when you’d get teary and try to hide your face. Instead, he’d just pull you closer, hold you like you were ten again, and let you cry.

Best of all, he knew when to stop babying you. Monday morning, he shook you awake, asking for an extra pair of hands out on the boat. You didn’t waste a second in falling into the familiar routine. Dressed in warm clothes with bitter coffee, swaying sleepily in the passenger seat of your dad's truck on the way to the harbour. The overexcited greeting from the crew that had known you since you were an infant. The less enthusiastic greetings from the rookies who were wary of a young girl they hadn’t met. 

It came so naturally, the work you’d been doing since you were a teen. It felt like slamming the reset button. Final papers and relationship status, and designated drivers all fell to the wayside. Instead, it was about hauling lines and sorting fish and proving going away to university hadn’t made you soft. Most importantly, you were completely cut off from anything on land. Cell service was non-existent this far out. You didn’t even bother to bring your phone. 

You had sent a cursory well-being text to Mel, assuring her that you had made it home safe and would be back in Piltover on Monday. She had tried to ask for details of what happened, you pretended not to see the text. Just like you pretended not to see the several missed calls from Viktor. Your brain couldn't land on what to feel, so you did your best to feel nothing. 

It was easy, in the stress and work of the boat, to forget about him. Easy until crew members you hadn’t seen in months asked if you had a boyfriend. Easy, until the young bucks who didn’t catch on that their captain was your father started hitting on you. Easy until one of the girls you went to high school with brought Viktor up. 

“Is that the new guy you post your boyfriend or what?” She had asked, tone playful and teasing. She flinched when you snapped a harsh no and stormed off. Luckily, she accepted the embarrassed apology you offered during downtime.

When the day was done, your dad made up plans as everyone packed up to head to the bar. Insisting you go on ahead and catch up with everyone. That he’d see you at home. You had been to the bar after work with your dad plenty of times, but he wasn’t dumb. He knew you were freer without him hovering around. That you’d drink more, dance more, probably flirt more, too, when he wasn’t around. He trusted the others to keep you safe and in line. 

You hesitated when one of the young bucks, who introduced himself as Charlie, offered you a ride to the bar. You stood to the side as he threw clutter from the front seat of his shitty Toyota Corolla to the back. During the ride, you came to several conclusions about Charlie. He was sweet. He was handsome. He was boring. He would suffice. You let him buy you drinks and pull you into swing dances out on the floor. You smoked a cigarette with him in the parking lot, let his hands slide down your back. You let your blood fill with enough alcohol to make all decisions seem like good decisions. You let Charlie press you to the cold bricks of the outside of the bar. You let him kiss you, and you let yourself imagine you were kissing someone else. You let him go as far as a hand under your sweater. When he pressed his thigh - too wide to belong to the man you were imagining was kissing you - between your legs, you gently pushed him away. Some comment about it being late slipping past your lips.

When he drove you home, he didn’t get the door for you. Instead, he leaned in for a kiss that you pretended not to notice. 

“Goodnight, Charlie.” You said opening the passenger side door.

“Goodnight,” he said steal leaning towards you, then he sighed and said your name.

“Yeah?”

“I wasn’t going to say anything, but,” he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, “I gotta know, who’s Viktor?”

Your heart seized up. Without responding, you stepped out of his car and shut the door behind you. Not looking back as you walked up the drive. You hadn’t made it to the door before you heard tires crunch over gravel as he pulled away.

That was the only day you worked on the boat that week.

-----

On Monday, when the time came for Viktor to drop off Jayce and Mel for their trip to visit Ximena, whatever semblance of composure he had was beginning to crack. It had been over forty-eight hours since he had heard from you. Over thirty-six since you apparently told Mel you were home safe in Winter Harbour. Jayce asked repeatedly if Viktor wanted to join them in Texas. ‘Mom would love to see you’ is what he kept saying, and as much as Viktor would also love to see Ximena. The idea of anyone seeing him in the state he was in made him want to bury himself.

The last time he slept for more than two hours straight was in the hospital after fainting. It would be easier without Jayce home. He wouldn’t have to pretend to be okay. Alone, he could wallow in peace. No one would be there to ask if he’d taken his meds or had water today. As much as he appreciated the concern, right now all he wanted to do was wallow in peace. So, when Viktor idled in the departure lane at the Boston Logan International Airport, he had no problem lying to Jayce about his well-being. He’d be fine. He just needed a couple days of not being fine, first.

Instead of heading North on the 95, Viktor detoured south. You always told him how bad Boston traffic was, how you’d prefer to spend money and wait for the bus rather than drive. Viktor never found that to be a problem. He didn’t mind traffic, never had. He found it soothing in a way. Having something to focus on, like roundabouts and one-way streets. He had always pictured that a drive through Boston would include you in the passenger seat. Instead, it was just him, a tab of molly, and a ticket to the Museum of Fine Art.

The cold November Monday wasn’t particularly busy, still, he popped the tab in the safety of his car. He timed the onset of the high, only starting to feel the effects once he was well into the gallery. He took slow steps, finding himself admiring the intricate frames more so than the paintings within. He had to hold back a laugh when he came face to face with John Brewster, Jr’s Child with a Peach. The figure's blue eyes seemed too intelligent for the composition. He stared at the painting, amused at the uncanniness of it. He could imagine you next to him, a soft elbow into his ribs as you held back a laugh. Your quiet voice telling him to get it together as your teeth clamped down on the inside of his cheek. 

Imagining you in that moment was a mistake. Once the vision of you was in his head, you wouldn’t go away. He began to see you everywhere. In the casual lean of the figure in John Singer Sargeant’s A Capriote, in the deep, cold colors of Edward Steichen’s Moonlit Landscape, and the curved body in William Merritt Chase’s A Modern Magdalen. The woman’s bare figure drew him in. The tired rest of her head against the back of her hand. The way she curled in on herself. Bare and bold and yet still hiding yourself away. Shielding yourself from… whatever it was that you were so afraid of. 

He let himself view you in her figure. Let himself think about you. The exposed back of her neck, the slope of her shoulder, the swell of her breast. All the way down to the delicate shape of feet. One ankle hooked over the other. His fingers twitched, the desire to touch burning over his nerves. He wanted to feel your skin under his hands. The fascia ligament, taut under the skin of your soles. The ball of your ankle. The soft skin behind your knee. He wondered if you’d flinch and laugh if he touched you there. He wondered if he’d ever get the opportunity to find out. He pictured dragging his fingers up the sides of your legs, pressing his face against your hip. He imagined the blush across your body as he nosed against the crease of your thigh, breathing in the scent of you. 

The sharp smack of an object hitting the floor broke him from the daydream. He looked behind him to find a woman on the other side of the room, sheepishly picking up her cellphone that had slipped from her hand. With his focus broken from the painting, he became aware of how tight the denim of his jeans suddenly felt. Doing his best not to panic, he carefully moved his cane, holding it in front of him with both hands against the pommel. He evened his breathing, trying to look casual as he glanced around the room. Luckily, it only took a few moments for the small crowd to move to the next room. With only the security guard present, and the poorly timed hard on giving now signs of going away, he shuffled awkwardly toward the restroom. He used his cane and an exaggerated step to hide the real reason for his stiff movements. 

He locked himself in an accessible bathroom. Grateful for the privacy. He leaned against the sink, hands braced behind him as he tried to will the blood back into any other part of his body. Every thought circled back to you. To your body. Your voice. Your taste. He couldn’t help the pathetic sound that slipped past his lips as the restriction of his jeans became painful. 

He sucked in a sharp breath, undoing his jeans and pushing them down, boxers going with. He was leaking already, hard against his stomach, “Ah, fucking molly.”

He gasped as he wrapped a hand around himself, the other still braced against the counter. He couldn’t believe how much of a mess you made him. Just the thought of you and he was rubbing one out in public. God, how he wished you were here. Bent over the sink or on your knees in front of him. He wanted you. Your mouth. Your hands. Your cunt. He whimpered, teeth clamped down on his bottom lip as he dragged his fist up and down his length. Moving his other hand down his torso, cupping his balls, and making himself shudder. He swiped his thumb over his tip, imagining it was your tongue gathering precum. His hips gave an involuntary buck as he sped up the movements. The drugs in his system wanted him to go slow, to think about you, laid out in front of him. To think about you keening for him, writhing in his sheets, begging him to fuck you. The Fine Arts Museum bathroom wasn’t the place for that, though. He sped himself up, curling over himself and breathing heavy as he fucked his fist. Your name filled his lungs, choking him as he came. He barely had time to rip a paper towel from the dispenser and save his clothing from cum stains. His shoulders trembled as he tried to regain composure. 

When he was sure he’d be able to stand without tipping, he tucked himself away. Tossing the evidence into the bin and turning around to face himself in the mirror. He was barely able to make eye contact with himself as he washed his hands. He was paler than normal, even with the flush across his neck and cheeks. The circles under his eyes had become severe over the weekend. He looked tired. 

-----

Every year during the holidays, you learned more and more how bittersweet growing up was. When you were a kid, the worst part of holidays was the stuffy dresses your mother would shove you into. Now you had responsibilities. Make sure the windows and floors were clean. Make sure you had everything needed to avoid a stressful last-minute grocery run. Make sure the dog was out of counter-surfing range. 

It wasn’t all horrible, though. Along with the responsibilities came the feeling of being a part of things. You had forever been the only kid in the family, which meant no kids' table to be banished to. Instead, you were crammed between your mother and father, stuck between them while they argued and pretended to love each other. No voice of your own allowed unless it was asked for. By the time the divorce was finalized, you were old enough to really help out. 

Your dad handled turkey and pie, an odd combination that required the type of patience he had perfected. You handled sides and table settings. Your grandparents - Rose and Mark - would arrive early with wine and homemade bread. Your uncle - Kris - would arrive late with whiskey, a board game, and work stories. These things all fell into place when your father deemed you old enough to drink. It was a funny thing, how the ability to hold the stem of a wine glass in your hand suddenly made you an adult. Tonight, you wielded that wine glass like a weapon. 

Luckily, your uncle managed to be the center of attention tonight. He had moved to New York City the past year and had plenty of stories. All of which your grandparents ate up. You were grateful to be spared the questions. Perfectly happy to eat and get drunk on rosé and listen to your grandparents grill your uncle about his new life in the city. Main plates were cleared, and pies were cut by the time the real attention turned to you.

“How has school been?” Your grandmother asked, passing the sweating bottle across the table to you.

“Good,” You told her, filling your glass, “super busy, this year. I have a STEM-heavy schedule. Lots of labs, lots of homework.”

“That’s good to hear,” She told you, “have you decided what you’re majoring in?”

That was something you had told her plenty of times. A decision that was made before college even started. You caught the warning look from your father, reading ‘I know, just drop it.’.

“Marine bio,” You told her, keeping yourself pleasant, “the U of P program is small, but has good connections.”

“Piltover’s a good school.” Your grandfather chimed in around a bite of pecan pie, then gestured to his eldest son with his fork, “Shame never graduated from there, Erik.”

“Mark,” Your grandmother scolded.

“Ma, it’s fine,” Your dad waved her off, “I don’t think it’s a shame at all, actually. I own a business, I own my house, have no debt, and a perfect daughter. Did it all without a degree from the University of Piltover. Graduating wasn’t necessary.”

He leveled your grandfather with a look. Old enough not to be bullied by his father anymore. Then he turned to you, finger and eyebrow raised.

“Except for you,” He said pointedly, “you don’t graduate and your ass is grass, ya hear?”

“What the fuck?” You laughed, “How’s that fair?”

“Because I said so.” He said, holding back his own laugh at the same time as your grandmother scolded you for your language at the table.

“Rest assured, I’ve put in too much work to quit now,” you snorted, taking another sip of your wine.

“Well, sometimes it’s not a choice,” your grandmother said, sipping at her water and glancing away, “sure wasn’t for your father.”

“Come on now,” Your father scolded, “might not have been a choice, but I wouldn't change a thing.”

“I’m just saying!” She defended, throwing her hands up, “Not like she can keep going to school if she gets pregnant.”

You gasped, “Jesus Christ."

“Mom,” your father snapped, “stop.”

“Oh please,” She scoffed, “it’s something every parent worries about, don’t pretend it isn’t.” She turned to look at you, “The only way to not get pregnant is to not have sex, you know that, right?” She whipped towards him, “You told her, right?”

“Oh my god, mom.” Your dad covered his eyes with a hand, “Yes, I’ve had safe-sex discussions with my child. Now, can we please stop talking about my daughter having sex at the dinner table?”

“I’m killing myself,” You muttered, dropping your head into your hands, elbows pressed firmly into the table.

You heard the telltale pop of a bottle uncorking and peeked through your fingers to find your uncle and grandfather tipping whiskey into their glasses. Silently, you picked up your own empty glass, extending it down the table towards them. The glass dipped with the weight of the drink. 

“I’m sorry!” She said, shrugging, “But things happen, okay. You can’t control God’s plan, but you can control what you do with your body.”

You tossed back the shot, brain lighting up at her words. Immediately forming the perfect ‘political fight at Thanksgiving’ starter response. You were milliseconds away from dropping your well-rehearsed ‘my body, my choice’ speech when your father's hand came down hard on the table.

“Mouth. Closed. Now.” He said, stern look on his face. He knew you too well. Your jaw snapped shut with an audible click. 

A beat, and then, “Man, this pie is great!” Kris said into the awkward silence, fighting back a laugh, “You should start a bakery as a side business, Erik. Call it Fish n’ Pie or something.”

“Fish and Pie?” You scoffed, “That’s so uncreative.”

“Well, college girl, you got a better idea?” He asked, jabbing a forkful of apple pie at you.

You thought for a moment, narrowing your eyes at him, “Not yet, but it will come to me.”

“Sure,” His voice muffled with a mouthful of food.

It was enough to break the tension and move the evening along. In no time, you were armed with a third glass of wine and a tiny pewter cat. You were losing, consistently stuck in jail, and only 3 lots to your name. Your dad and grandfather were, like always, being far too competitive. Your grandmother and uncle took turns throwing cheater allegations. 

You were idling in jail when your phone began to buzz in your pocket. The do-not-disturb timer had apparently come to an end, allowing your notifications to come through. It was Jinx mostly, spamming you to answer her. You cringed as you read the messages under the table. You hadn’t done your section of the lab, and Jinx was rightfully pissed about it. You sent her a text apologising and promising that you’d head back to campus tomorrow to finish the work over the weekend. That it would be done when it was due. She replied immediately.

I was straight up about to track down your house phone number if you didn’t text me back.

You snorted a laugh at her dramatics. Rolling your eyes and tapping out a quick reply.

Dude, what is 2008? We don’t have a landline.

Before you could see her response, Kris was nudging your foot under the table. You glanced up, eyebrow raised. He inclined his chin, nodding towards your hidden phone and smirking.

“Who ya texting?” He asked.

“A friend,” you rolled your eyes. Clicking the phone closed and sliding it into your pocket.

“A friend?” He asked, eyes narrowing, “Sure it’s not your boyfriend?”

Your heart sank. Of course, someone would have to say the fucking word. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Sure you do,” he scoffed. The rest of the table had gone silent, watching the exchange, “that skinny guy you’re always posting with.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” you insisted through clamped teeth, nails digging into your palm. The only person in your family to have social media, and he had to bring it up.

“Ha! Yeah, right!” He continued, “You two did that couple clown costume for Halloween. Super cute, by the way.”

“See, I told you,” your grandmother said, chin lifted at your father, “things happen.”

Your chair scraped loudly against the hardwood floor a you stood. Hands in fists at your side. You didn’t say anything as you turned and walked away, ignoring the appalled protests from your grandparents as you left. You stormed out the front of the house, yanking the door of your truck open and scrambling inside. You didn’t have the keys. You weren't sure you’d go anywhere even if you did. 

You looked down into the passenger seat. Viktor’s coat was still there, crumpled and cold. Your bottom lip began to tremble, threatening you. You reached out, grabbing it and pulling it into your lap. You half expected it to be warm. You’d never felt it cold before. Always warmed by him before being handed over. You leaned your forehead against the steering wheel, pulling the coat to your chest as tears began to silently drip down your face. Even after sitting for nearly a week, cold and abandoned in your truck, it still smelled like Viktor. You pressed your face to the collar, cheek against the red thread of his name. You jumped when the passenger door cracked up. Sitting up, you found your father standing in the open door.

“Can I come in?” he asked, as if the truck were your bedroom.

You sniffed and nodded. He slid in, keys jangling in his hand as he reached over and jammed them into the ignition. Instinctively, you pressed your foot to the brake as he started up the truck. He adjusted the heaters.

“I’m sorry I walked out.” You said, testing your voice.

“Don’t be.” He said, leaning back in the seat, “The way I see it, it’s better to walk out than freak out.”

“I guess.” You hummed, hands tightening on the jacket.

“Are you okay?” He asked.

“Not really.” You admitted, pouting.

“This guy is he…” Your dad asked, unsure.

“Viktor isn’t my boyfriend.” You told him, you barely believed yourself.

“Ah, Viktor,” he said his name, clicking his tongue, “your…friend.”

“Don’t say it like that.” You snapped.

“Like what?” He asked, hands up in defence.

“Like you don’t believe me,” you sniffed again, fighting more tears, “everyone says it like that. Like I’m lying.”

“I’m sorry, Buddy,” he cringed, “you’re right. That’s not fair.”

You huffed in response, turning to look out the window.

“But he is the reason, right?” He asked slowly, “that you came home early. That you’ve been so upset.”

You could hear him trying to hide that protective anger you were so used to.

“Yes.” You said firmly.

“What is he to you, then, to make you feel like this?” The dad voice mixed with that old therapist voice he never got to put into practice.

“He’s…I don’t know.” You shrugged, unsure how to explain the fucked up situation, “He’s my friend. Sometimes I acted like he was more than a friend…and sometimes I didn’t. Which is,” your voice cracked, “really fucked up.”

“Do you want him to be more than a friend?” 

“Yes,” you admitted, holding his jacket closer, voice shaking, “I really, really want him to be more than a friend.”

“Do you know…how he feels about you?” He asked, hesitant about what the question would bring up.

“I know he wanted to…go out with me.” You said, the use of wanted instead of wants made your chest ache, “he asked me out forever ago.”

“And?” He urged.

“I told him no,” you said, thinking about the dry heat that day. It felt like so much longer ago than just a couple of months, “I told him to ask me again at the end of the semester.”

“Why?” He was trying to fit the pieces together.

“Because we have a class together.”

“Ah, I see. You’re still doing that?”

“Yes, and there's a reason I do it.” You huffed, frowning at your hands, “He said he’d wait, but I think…I think I became impatient, which made him impatient. I started to forget why I was doing it in the first place, then I…” You choked on a sob as you saw your ex’s face in your mind again.

“Take your time, Buddy, what happened?” He grabbed your hand, squeezing your palm.

“I saw Aaron. It was like tearing open stitches.” You gasped, eyes wide as you looked at your father, “God, seeing him hurt so bad. I freaked out. I pushed Viktor away. I was so mean.”

“Take a breath,”  He rubbed his other hand across your back.

“He said,” you hiccuped a sob, sniffing as you tried to speak, “he thinks I only care about him when I’m drinking. That I’ve been hypocritical.”

“Why would he think that?” Your father shook his head, watching you.

“It’s my fault. I’m more…affectionate, I guess, when I drink.” You told him, more heat rising to your already red face.

“Oh.” 

“Not like that.” A half lie, but your father didn’t need to know that, “I just forget to care about all the stuff that I think I’m supposed to care about. So I drink and I forget this rule I’ve made and I let myself do what I want. I let myself be closer to him.”

“But when you’re sober?”

“I mean, lately I’ve been close to him sober, too.” You thought about the past school week. Waking up to him in your bed, head resting on your shoulder, lines of his face smoothed out as he breathed softly. “Wherever we are, we’re sitting next to each other. And he…he does this thing with my hair and… oh my god, dad, I miss him so much.”

 “Have you talked to him?”

“No…but he’s called a few times,” you admitted, looking away shamefully, “I couldn't pick up. I didn’t know what to say. I still don’t.”

“Well. What do you want to come of this?” He asked, always the logical one between the two of you.

“I want to say sorry without having to admit I did something wrong.” You huffed, rubbing the cuff of his jacket sleeve between your fingers.

“Not how it works, Buddy,” he said softly, offering a sad smile.

“I know, it sucks.” You scoffed a laugh, rolling your eyes.

“You want to know what I think you should do?” He raised an eyebrow, face gentle as he asked.

“Well, you’re gonna tell me either way, right?” You squinted at him, lips pursed.

“I think you should start by deciding if you want to stick to this rule or not.” He said point-blank, ignoring your sarcasm, “If it’s what you want. Either tell him he will have to wait for you, or tell him he doesn’t. There isn’t a right answer. 

“What if he doesn’t want to wait for me anymore?” Your heart seized at the thought, “or fucking worse. I tell him I don’t want to wait any more, and he still doesn’t want me.”

“Then you have to be okay with letting him go.” He squeezed your hand as he told you this.

“I can’t.” You shook your head, looking to your dad as panic rose in your chest, “I can’t, Dad. I can’t lose him. It’s more than just wanting to be with him. I can’t even explain it. It’s like, when he’s around, everything is just… right. All the noise and clutter in my brain just…goes away, like dust settling.”

“Oh, Buddy,” your dad sighed, leaning forward and wrapping his arms around you, pulling you into his chest. You felt him lay his cheek on the top of your head, “you know I love you more than anything in the universe, but you’re going to have to figure this one out on your own.”

-----

Without the adrenaline that had propelled you forward Friday night, the drive back to campus was borderline painful. Your dad had made you breakfast and coffee. You sat with him for an hour, almost two, slowly sipping and asking him about anything and everything to drag out your time at home. It wasn’t until he finally called you out on your procrastination, hugging you tightly and shooing you out the door, did you finally leave. 

You were halfway through the drive, the solitary confinement of your truck sending you up the wall. You tried distracting yourself with music, cranking the volume of your stereo as loud as it would go, to no avail. Instead of singing along or thinking about the chords of your favorite guitar lines, your thoughts pulled elsewhere. You didn’t realize how much you were dreading going back to campus until it was actually happening. You kept thinking about the scene you made. Crying in front of your friends. Running away from Viktor. Packing up and fleeing home without a word about it. You regretted the dramatics of it. You began to wonder how much people knew. You didn’t tell anyone about running into Aaron. Not even Lest. You weren't sure she even knew you went home.  You had barely looked at your phone over break, but you knew there were plenty of missed calls and messages waiting for you. Carefully, you opened your phone and clicked on the voicemail box.

“You have seven new voice messages,” The automated voice told you through the Bluetooth rigged up to your stereo. You waited as it began to play.

“New Message: Hey Honey, It’s Mel. I saw A- I saw him here. I’m so sorry, baby. Please call or text me when you're safe. It looks like you’re driving up to Winter Harbour. I really wish you’d just stop and stay somewhere for the night. I’ll pay for a hotel for you or something if you need. Call me if you can, or text me. Drive safe, I love you.”

“New Message: Hey, babe, it’s Lest. I just woke up to, like, a hundred texts from Mel about you leaving and Viktor making you cry. What happened? Are you okay? Did he hurt you? I swear to god, I will kill him. I have your location, but if you could call me or text me or something.”

You sighed as guilt began to shimmy itself in next to embarrassment. It wasn’t fair of you to let your friends worry about over their break. You marked the message for deletion, making note to yourself to call her back.

 “New Message: Hey. It’s Lest again. I know you’re home, but I’m still worried about you. Please call me or text me or something. A sign of life would be nice. You know how I get. Love you, bye.” There was a beat of silence and then, “And if you still want me to kill him, I will.”

You cursed to yourself. Carefully, you pulled your phone off its hook, holding it in your lap as you sent a quick text to Lest - Driving, will call when @ UoP. Sorry. Love you. It was sufficient enough for now. 

“New Message: Mila, I’m so sorry. I can’t even say how sorry I am. Please call me.”

You froze as Viktor’s voice bloomed around you. Hands tight on the steering wheel and vision blurring with tears. You sucked in a harsh breath, wiping at your eyes with the back of your hand.

“New Message: Please, Mila, please call me back. I was a fucking dick, and I’m so sorry. I should never have said that to you. I’m so sorry. Please, Mila.”

You pulled the truck over onto the shoulder. Leaning your head against the steering wheel and trying to slow your breathing as the next message played. 

“New Message: Mila, please…” His voice was slurred and heavy, “Please, I’m at a fucking loss. This is killing me. I need you to call me. Please, Mila, please.”

You clenched your teeth, holding back a sob at the way his voice sounded. You let tears roll down your face as the most recent message played.

-----

“Moje láska,” Viktor breathed, eyes closed as he lay in his bed, fist held tight around the first gift you gave him, “… I’m sorry.”

He hung up, dropping his phone onto the sheets next to him. He held the pearl over his face, rolling its asymmetrical form between his fingers. Gray and pink, and just as beautiful as the day you gave it to him. He closed his eyes, bringing the pearl to the line of his lips. He could practically feel how that day felt. The sun and the water and you… Your hands on his face on the boat. Your chest to his in the cave. Your lips, fleeting, against his cheek just after you gave him the pearl. He’d give anything to live that day a hundred times over again. 

He flinched as his phone began to ring. His fist closed tight around the pearl as he lurched up, brain lighting up with hopes of you. You. You. Hopes that were dashed as soon as he saw ‘JINXXXX’ as the caller ID. He groaned, declining the call only for it to instantly begin ringing again. He groaned, deciding to answer only because he knew she wouldn’t stop until he did.

“What?” he snapped down the line.

“Whoa, first of all, watch your tone,” Jinx said. He could practically see the look on her face, “and second, out of curiosity, have you done even a second of work on our project that's due Monday? Huh?” When Viktor remained silent, she continued, “Yeah, didn’t think so.”

“Listen, I’m sorry, Jinx,” He found himself apologising a lot recently, “I just have a lot going on right now.”

“Bullshit,” She snapped, “You have one thing going on. Just because you and Lovergirl are going through a divorce doesn’t mean you can risk my fucking GPA, got it?”

“We’re not-” Viktor cut himself off, coming to terms that arguing with Jinx was a losing fight, “I’m sorry, you’re right.”

“Yeah, I fucking know,” she told him, “I need you to get this shit done, Viktor. You have three days to do a week's worth of work. Get to the lab. Right. Now.”

She didn’t wait for a response before hanging up. Viktor dropped his phone next to him. She was right. He knew she was right. He needed to get it together. He groaned, sitting up and placing the pearl back into the dish that lived on his bedside table. It clinked softly against the ceramic, settling between his rosary and grandfather's watch. 

-----

Stolen jacket clutched to your chest and shoes dripping snow, you stood outside the door to the lab. Your heart was pounding, telling you to run rather than face this. Your dad's voice told you something else. Lest’s told you a whole other thing. 

There was no right answer but yours. 

No right answer but yours.

You pushed open the door, trying to still the shake in your hands. He was there. Like you knew he would be. Like his cellphone location told you. Crisp lab coat smoothed to his shoulders. Half leaning, half standing against a tall stool. Head bowed to the lens of a microscope. Wired earbuds, tucked down the back of his shirt. Ends of his dark hair pulled in odd directions by his fidgeting hands. The door closed heavily behind you, making him still. 

You watched as he pulled an earbud out, head tilting as he listened. Slowly, he turned his head, hesitant as if he was afraid to look. His eyebrows furrowed, the saddest look you’d ever seen on a man gracing his face. Still so beautiful, despite the lack of sleep and apparent torment you’d been causing him.

“Hi,” was all you could think to say, watching as he reached for his crutch and stood on shaky legs.

He opened his mouth to speak, closing it. His hesitation broke your heart. You took a step closer to him.

“Viktor…” You shook your head, lips parted as you tried to come up with anything to say.

“I’m so sorry,” he finally said, taking a step closer, hands raised slightly, “I’m so so sorry.”

“Vik,” You shook your head, matching his step, “I’ve been awful.”

Your voice broke on the last words, tears threatening to fall.

“I shouldn’t have said those things to you,” He blurted out, eyes wide as panic rose to the surface, “Oh my god, I can’t believe I ever spoke to you the way I did. I am so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“You were right, Viktor.” You told him, moving closer again, “You were fucking right. I was being horrible. I was being hypocritical. It wasn’t fair, but I… Vik, I… I care about you so much. I’m sorry I did anything to make you feel otherwise.”

“No,” He shook his head, another step, “It was unfair of me to expect more from you than you were ready for. You told me what you wanted, and I couldn’t control myself despite it. I'm so sorry. I’d endure decades of just being your friend as long as it meant I could be around you. It’s not a waste of time. God, Mila, you are never a waste of time. Never.”

He was close enough now to touch. Without thinking, you lurched forward, wrapping your arms around his middle and burying your face in his sweater. He smelled like himself. He felt like himself. He made you feel more like yourself. He froze for half a second before responding, arms wrapping around your shoulders and cheek resting against the top of your head. 

“I’m so sorry,” He muttered, I’m so sorry, moje laska.”

“I’m sorry that I went so cold,” You said, turning your head to speak, ear pressed to his chest, “It wasn’t fair, and I’m sorry I did it.”

“It’s okay, Mila,” He smoothed a hand over your hair, “It’s fine. It’s over.”

“I…I was going to cut it short.” You admitted.

“What?” He asked.

“The whole ‘not letting you ask me out thing’,” You scoffed, “I wanted to end it.”

“Wanted,” he repeated sadly, “Past tense.”

“Yes, past tense.” You leaned back, looking up at him, “I’d forgotten why I was doing it in the first place. It felt dumb.”

“But?” He encouraged, fingers moving against your face as he brushed your hair back. Just like you knew he would.

“The reason showed up Friday night.” You admitted,  “The reason looked at me like he did nothing wrong. The reason reminded me why I’ve been making us both miserable for the past 3 months.

“I’ve never been miserable because of you,” He assured, though you knew that wasn’t really true, “You’ve never told me about it…Do you want to?”

“Not right now.” You shook your head, “I will, but not now.”

“That’s fine, Mila.” He chewed on the inside of his lip, laughing bitterly, “I imagine this is your way of telling me I still need to wait.”

“One more month,” you said, tilting your head up at him, “not even, actually. Like, two weeks and some change. Think we can manage?”

“Anything for you,” he sighed, pressing a kiss to your forehead. They laughed softly, “Did Jinx demand you work here today as well?”

“She didn’t explicitly mention bodily harm,” you laughed, pressing your cheek back to his chest, “I wouldn’t be surprised if that gash on your face was from her, honestly.”

“It was a… whole thing,” He scoffed a laugh, thinking about the incident.

“You can tell me about it later.” You assured him, leaning into the way his chest moved under you when he laughed.

“So, should we start working?” He asked, unmoving.

You tightened your arms around him, shaking your head. Not ready to let go, “Yes, just in a minute. If that’s okay.”

You skidded to a stop, abandoned your bike while its front wheel still spun, and rushed to him—ready to tease him and laugh it off—until you saw Jayce panting, face flushed red, clutching his shin through gritted teeth.

“Jayce,” you said, pressing a sweaty palm to his forehead. “Are you all right?”

“Ah, it hurts,” he groaned when you tried to touch his knee. It was already swelling, blood ballooning beneath the skin where the bone had snapped and threatened to break through.

“Jesus Christ, Jayce,” you squealed. “Don’t move. I’ll call an ambulance.”

After barking quick instructions to the disoriented mother to keep watch over him, you sprinted to the nearest restaurant to find a phone. Thirty long minutes beneath the scorching sun later, an ambulance finally arrived and whisked Jayce to the hospital. His leg had been broken in two places and required an emergency surgery.

Two days later, he was discharged with a cast that reached his thigh—and with a three-month sentence of house arrest under Ximena’s benevolent care. There went Jayce’s summer internship; there came yours. Jayce, once again, vowed he would never challenge you to race back to the academy again, which was, of course, a lie.

Which is exactly how you have found yourself sprawled on an iron berth that bites into your back, rattling south on a twenty-four-hour train to Nice—drafted into Jayce’s place for a month-long, PhD marine-biology stint under Professor Moreaux, Heimerdinger’s wily old crony.

July 1st, 1992, 3:25 a.m.

You try to sleep, but your eyelids crack open every time the opposite cot groans—Viktor wrestles the same tin-rigged mattress, sighing like a ship in fog.

The two of you have been circling each other since first year, caught in the bright gravitational pull of Jayce Talis. Friendly, never intimate; sometimes rivals when marks go up, but never enemies. Jayce is the buffer, the chatter, the mortar that plugs every threatening silence. Without him, your contact shrinks to the odd, awkward study session or a 2 a.m. stagger out of a campus bar when only the jukebox and cheap beer are still awake.

You’ve cycled through phases with Viktor—first judging him an uptight martyr with a taste for self-imposed gloom, then suspecting a misunderstood genius, then enduring a brief, blistering crush that burned itself out before finals upon realising that he is entirely unapproachable and you are better off without the maladies of unrequited affection. What’s left is a courteous, arm’s-length détente that works only when Jayce is on hand to grease the social gears.

And Jayce, poor fool, is back home with his mother, trussed in plaster. Which leaves you here, locked in a rattling sleeper with Viktor, bound for four weeks of salt air, plankton nets, and unfiltered proximity. The whole endeavour feels as if someone has kicked the switch beneath your life and sent the carriage clattering down a wild, unmapped line.

You sigh into your pillow and roll over, earning yourself a displeased grunt. “Can you be less loud?” Viktor groans, treating you to the panoramic view of his back.

“Viktor, I’m just breathing,” you mutter, tugging the scratchy blanket higher over your shoulder. “Jayce said you’re gonna be a bit grumpy on the train, but so far it’s been you grumbling like an old man all the way through.”

“Because it’s just so vastly uncomfortable,” he whines, levering himself upright to punch the frustration out of his pillow. “And the sounds you are making are not helpful.”

“If I only could, I would hold my breath for your benefit, but alas I might not survive the journey,” you sigh, flopping onto your back to stare at the water-stained ceiling. “Just try to go to sleep, we still have a couple more hours.”

“Just try to go to sleep, she says, like it’s that simple,” he grumbles, knees knocking the cabin wall.

“You melodramatic beanpole,” you whisper, a sleepy laugh ghosting the words.

A chuckle—just the ghost of one—slips out of Viktor’s mouth; you could swear it. He says nothing for the rest of the night, and eventually his breaths, his tossing and turning taper into the slow rhythm of sleep as he rolls onto his back, one arm and one leg dangling off the cot.

Drifting in and out of shallow, lucid dreams, you watch him through sandy eyelids. His shirt has ridden up, exposing a narrow strip of taut stomach. His face, still marked by a faint frown, has slackened just enough for his mouth to fall slightly open. His lashes are long—impossibly long—you note, then curse yourself, rolling away and stamping out the tiny glowing embers of that old crush.

When you arrive in Nice, your backs are stiff, and the southern sun knifes through the flimsy blinds. The compartment air tastes of hot metal and yesterday’s coffee; your feet throb from a night spent curled against the wall. Viktor tries to stretch, but he’s too long for the berth and cracks his toes against the carriage door.

“Damn this tin hole,” he hisses, cradling his foot in both hands.

“Good morning, sunshine. Or should I say salut?”

He rolls his eyes, but the glimpse of the city waking below—pink roofs, palms trembling in first light—lifts his mood for a beat. “God, at last. A normal bed on the horizon.” His gaze slides to you, all rumpled clothes and sandpaper eyelids. “Did you sleep at all?”

“A little bit. You snore,” you say, half-mocking.

“That I do not.” Viktor tilts his head, voice dry with disbelief, a scholar dismissing bad data. “Proof, or I deny everything.”

“It’s nasal,” you tease. “Very old-man like, suits you.” You drag out a wet, throttled hrrrrk—his alleged symphony—just in time for a pillow to smack your face.

“Hey! We’ve barely arrived and you’re already violent.”

“Old men get that way when cornered,” he chides, lips twitching. “Speaking of—may I ask your assistance?” He sits upright, the ceiling so low he must fold himself in half, eyeing the narrow ladder that felt twice as steep on the way down.

“Of course,” you whisper. You swing off your berth, knees soft, and offer both hands across the gap. His fingers lace with yours—warm, gentle—and you guide him, step by careful step, until his feet find the floor.

“You don’t have to look that concerned,” Viktor murmurs, still holding on. “One of my legs is perfect.”

You smirk, reach past his hip, and fish out the cane wedged between mattress and wall. “That I can see,” you say, twirling the polished wood before handing it over. “It’s a very good leg.”

“Thank you.” He plants the cane, steadies himself, and glances down the corridor. “We should probably get ready to disembark.”

“That we should. Last one gets the crappy bed.” You crouch to wrestle your bag from under the cot; the scaffold groans in protest.

“Ah, there it goes—” Viktor drawls, one hand waving around as if pointing out something obvious. “Taking advantage of the cripple.”

“Viktor!” You straighten, scowl sharp enough to slice paper. “You know I hate the C-word.”

“You can hate it all you like, but it’s my secret weapon.” He smiles, unapologetic, and swings his bag over one shoulder. “Allons-y, mon ami.” With a flourish he slides the compartment door open.

You huff, shake your head, and follow him into the passage, where the Côte d’Azur morning floods the narrow train corridor with salt-bright light.

The platform breathes heat even at this hour: a kiln-warm draught rolling off the tracks, spiced with diesel and sea salt. The June sky is a rinsed blue that promises nothing but fiercer light once the sun clears the station roof. You fan your collar and step down onto concrete already warm enough to prickle bare ankles. Viktor follows, cane ticking against the slabs, eyes narrowed to slits.

A man in a battered straw hat waits beyond the ticket barrier, holding a sheet of copier paper that says HEIMERDINGER in biro. Stocky, sun-torched forearms, a faded Breton-stripe shirt—a career handyman who can splice wires or gut a fish without changing knives. He touches the brim of his hat when you approach.

“Bonjour, salut! Gérard Arnaud,” he says, English wrapped in a Provençal drawl, then peers from you to Viktor and back again, bafflement pinching his face. “Il devait y avoir deux garçons?”—there were meant to be two boys? The words skim right over you. Viktor lifts a shoulder, equally lost. No idea how to tell him Jayce couldn't make it. Gérard shrugs, resigned, and waves you after him with a twirl of wrist that means come, no time for this.

The car is a sun-bleached Renault 4L Fourgonnette, paint the colour of old parchment, roof rack lashed with dusty rope. Gérard wrenches open the rear door; the hinges cough. Your rucksacks barely fit—one wedged in the boot full of miscellaneous items, the other jammed upright between you and the door on the cracked vinyl bench, making your knees knock on Viktor's each time the vehicle shudders.

Gérard coaxes the Renault north-west out of Nice, tyres whispering over dawn-damp asphalt. Blocks of concrete and neon fall away; oleander hedges rise in their stead, pink petals slapping the open windows like damp confetti. The road narrows, melting into pale limestone that snakes uphill, lavender paddocks stitching violet squares across the slopes. Each bend kicks a plume of dust that drifts back and powders the windscreen until Gérard wipes a clear stripe with a rag and mutters at the smear. From the tinny dashboard a crackling radio offers La Ballade des gens heureux—all sway and optimism in mono.

The higher you climb, the less the road bothers with civility: hairpins stacked like coiled rope, guard-walls shrinking to ankle-high stone or vanishing to bare sky. Now and then the Mediterranean glints between pines, a distant sheet of hammered tin. Viktor’s thigh brushes yours whenever Gérard stamps the brake—which is often. He murmurs apologies you can’t quite hear over the wash of old chanson he hums in counter-melody.

Heat thickens inside the cabin like poured syrup. You tug your shirt from your back, salt collecting on your upper lip, while Gérard shifts gears with a butcher’s precision. No conversation—just engine drone, toolbox rattle, cicadas sawing somewhere beyond the glass.

Villages dwindle to shuttered farmsteads, then to nothing but drystone terraces and stubby olive trees clinging to shale. In the mirror you catch Viktor tracing the topography with his eyes—equal parts wonder and calculation, already drafting some private map. The Renault bumps across a cattle grid at the ridge; suddenly the plateau opens below, quilted in lavender, wheat, and stray stripes of sunflower, all stitched together by a single chalk track Gérard takes without lifting his foot.

Dust gulps the car, tawny and choking, scented with thyme, warm stone, and engine oil. Ahead, blurred by glare, a farmhouse shoulders into view—bleached walls, blue shutters, a plane tree stretching like a green umbrella. Beside you Viktor lets out a breath, half-laugh, half-sigh, as though he too has just realised how narrow—how intimate—this summer is about to become.

You tumble out first, joints crackling, sweat already darkening the collar of your thin undershirt; the heat is thick enough to taste, half-earth, half-olive leaf. Viktor takes longer—cane, step, hiss through his teeth—and stands blinking at the house.

It’s the colour of baked clay, shutters washed a Provençal blue so pale they might once have been sky. Two storeys, then a scattering of outbuildings stitched to it like thoughts added after a long pause. A belt of olives hems the land; beyond that, lavender blurs purple under the sun.

From the wide front door shaded by on old plane tree emerges a compact man with rough silver curls, linen sleeves rolled past the elbow. At his side, a woman in espadrilles wipes flour from her palms.

“Bienvenue! Welcome!” he calls, accent seesawing between Marseille quay and Oxbridge quad. “I am Professor Moreaux, you can call me Quentin. And this—my wife, Odile. I received the letter from dear Heimerdinger about the change just yesterday.” He taps his temple, mock-aghast. “Storm last week—pfou!—telephone lines cooked.”

You exchange a glance with Viktor: so time does move slower here. The professor claps his hands. “You must be exhausted. Come, let me show you your new home for a month.”

Inside, cool shadow and the lemon scent of old wax wrap round you. The tiles underfoot are sage green, their grout a mustard yellow, sunlit even in gloom. To the left a lounge sprawls—books colonising every surface, armchairs sinking into themselves. To the right the kitchen opens on the back garden, a zinc sink muttering under a slow trickle of water.

“Lunch at noon sharp,” Moreaux says, guiding you through. “Apero and dinner six or seven, whenever all of us gather. Breakfast—help yourselves, same for drinks. If you find it, you may eat it or drink it.” His wife laughs, low and warm, and disappears toward the pantry.

He leads you to a varnished staircase in the heart of the house smelling of pine sap. On the right an old wooden door is swung open, revealing a vast sunken room with concrete floor. “Laundry room. We also keep ice cream there," professor says, waving his hand. "The rest arrived yesterday, so I had no chance for a room swap,” he explains, beginning to climb the stairs. Viktor plants his cane and ascends carefully; you hover behind, ready to catch.

On the first landing, Moreaux pauses, both hands on the banister. "If you can't find me anywhere, you will find me here—" He points a finger to a door marked with a small white plaque that says bureau. "There—" a nod to small blue twin doors on the opposite wall, "is where other students sleep, and there—" another point, this time to a little bridge conjoining the two parts of the first floor over the staircase, "is where me and my kids live. You will meet everyone over lunch."

What is left unattended is narrow white door. Moreaux opens it on to another stair—steep, corkscrewing, banister nothing more than a rope chafed smooth by decades of palms. You and Viktor both exhale a resigned breath—the higher you go, the hotter the house. Plus the vision of battling two sets of stairs every day is something that Viktor probably haven't anticipated.

The professor eyes him with a glimpse of worry. “I hope it won’t trouble your leg, dear boy—,” he says, voice echoing up the chute. "You’ll sleep in the séchoir, last free room left."

The attic greets you with the still heat of a forgotten loft: two small windows, a chaise-longue sagging between, a heavy wooden door, something hidden behind a curtain, and an open shower corner shielded only by a folding screen made of tatty wood. The floorboards complain under every footstep; the walls are rough round stone set in cement, cool to the knuckles. The space is decorated with dried lavender in handmade vases and rustic pictures.

You and Viktor trade looks—open shower, hardly ideal. Little do you know worse waits. Moreaux tugs aside a heavy yellow curtain: a solitary loo, squeezed into a nook like penance. “It is crude, yes, but these are old-house caprices. You two will arrange yourselves.”

He lifts the final latch on a barn-door plank and swings it wide. Behind it, the bedroom reveals itself: a modest chamber, lime-washed, a rickety bookcase, two narrow desks pressed together, a fan in the centre that turns with the enthusiasm of a tired priest. Three tiny windows gaze east over the olives. Against the far wall squats a single bed, mattress slightly concave, sheets white as surrender.

The professor beams, oblivious. “Voilà. Settle in, splash your faces, come down when you are refreshed, or have a nap. First day is for you to rest and recuperate!”

The door clicks behind your host; his footsteps fade down the rope-railed stair. Dust motes swirl in the weak breath of the ceiling fan, drifting like tiny satellites round its lazy blades. Beside you Viktor releases a sound that is half-laugh, half-prayer. Your pulse keeps tempo with the fan—one bed, four weeks—and you swallow a mouthful of dry tar, pasting on a smile braver than it feels.

“I’ll take the chaise,” you concede after a long beat of silence. It seems only fair: Viktor has groused enough on the train, and you can picture the opera he’ll stage if condemned to something narrower than a sofa. “Just… warn me when you need the loo—or the shower.”

“No. No.” He halts you with a neat flick of the cane, as if drawing a line on the boards. “Give me a second.” Fingers dig into the muscle above his knee; he winces, thinking. “Could we move the chaise in here?” Eyebrows lift, all hopeful architecture.

“It’s too big. Hardly room to breathe as it is.” You shake your head, hair sticking to the back of your neck. “It’s fine, V. We’ll be so wrecked after lab days I could kip on the floor and never notice.”

“That’s hardly fair.” He scratches his chin, a rasp of stubble. “We could switch—every day?”

“That’s ridiculous. Every week makes more sense.”

“Every three days, then. Or we could just—” He stalls, gaze snagging yours, an idea obviously not worth speaking out hanging between. We could just what? Before you can prise it out, he clears his throat. “Every three days seems reasonable.”

You puff a breath through unkempt hair framing your face. “Fine. But I’m taking the first chaise shift.”

“You don’t have to,” he says, swinging his rucksack down with a thud. The softness in his tone is almost a dare.

“Viktor, you spent a full day and night folded on a train bunk and climbed two flights of stairs. I’m honestly fine.”

“That’s exactly what you did,” he counters, cocking his head, challenging—baiting you to admit you’re going easy on him.

“I know, but you’re—” You turn; his stare is bright, daring you to finish.

“What?” he prompts, mouth twitching in wicked amusement.

“Oh, sod off and take the bloody bed while I’m still offering, you prick.”

“So vulgar.” Viktor chuckles outright, the bastard—head tipped back, cane tapping the boards in triumph.

“You’re impossible,” you mutter, dropping your rucksack with a thud and rummaging until your fingers snag a towel that seem to have sucked in all the moisture from the air. Clothes, notebooks, tube of sun-cream—everything spills onto the boards. “I’m taking the first shower, though.”

“Quite alright,” Viktor says, easing onto the mattress with a creak of springs, then letting himself down flat, boots still planted on the floor as if he doesn’t trust the bed to hold him without witness.

The séchoir’s shower is a stone alcove scarcely wider than your shoulders. The pipe sprouts straight from the wall; someone has jammed a brass rose on the end and tied a bunch of dried lavender upside-down from a nail overhead. You twist the tap: a cough, a spit, then a stream that never decides between ice-cool spring and boiling hot. Bliss all the same. You stand there until the train grime swirls away, lavender scent swelling in the damp heat, salt lifting from your skin in slow surrender.

Fresh swimsuit, loose cotton over the top, damp hair pinned up. You pad back across the creaking floorboards and find Viktor half-gone to the world, cane propped like a sentry beside the bed. His arm sprawls across his eyes; the fan nudges a curl of hair across his forehead.

You lean in, close enough to feel his breath feather your cheek, and blow a quick puff of air. He snorts, jerks, blinks at you in bleary accusation.

“Rise and shine, professor’s pet,” you whisper, grinning. “Your turn before lunch, unless you fancy meeting everyone wearing eau de wagon-lit.”

He groans something unprintable in Czech and pushes himself upright, but a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth as he reaches for the cane.

"No peeking," he tells you, towel swung over his shoulder.

"Dream on," you snort, sinking onto the floor to sort out your bag. And there you find yourself lost—should you unpack your bag to the wardrobe and into one of the desks? Should you take essentials? How on earth are you two going to navigate the every-three-day switch without invading each other's privacy?

Groaning, you kneel on the boards and begin triage—the always-within-reach heap goes first: two pairs of clean knickers rolled tight, a spiral notebook furred with graphite smudges, the dog-eared paperback you read on the train, and a fountain pen tucked inside its own sock. These live on the chaise with you for the next three days.

Then, the only-when-the-room-is-free mound: the rest of your clothes folded into rough rectangles, spare canvas shoes, a tiny bottle of jasmine hair oil, and an emergency post-sun remedy that is neither a lotion, nor an ointment. You stack them in your half of the wardrobe, that you allow yourself to pronounce yours during Viktor's absence.

Last, the bathroom cache: toothbrush wrapped in a tea-towel, travel soap, shampoo, a half-tube of SPF 50, and a crinkled paper bag of period essentials. You corral the lot into your canvas wash-bag and plant it by the door, ready for the next skirmish over the screen-walled shower.

Unbeknownst to you, Viktor is going through an identical dilemma. He finds himself in trouble the minute he steps into the nook, discovering that there are no handles, of course. Feet carefully padding, he wedges his cosmetics onto one half of an in-wall shelf, and steps out of his sweaty clothes, in what he notices, if not for the screen, would be nearly the middle of the room.

Having an option of either scalding or cryo temperature—given the heat—he settles for the latter, letting the water punch the air from his lungs in the initial few seconds. About ten shallow, open-mouthed breaths later it becomes a relief, ridding him of a sticky layer of perspiration and cooling his skin to a level that Viktor naively thinks will last for longer than a few minutes.

There, he finally allows himself to think. So far, everything has been simultaneously far from ideal and idyllic. The train ride? Awful, but oddly romantic, in that nostalgic, once-in-a-lifetime endeavour kind of way. The cot should be outright burned or serve as an instrument of torture in some high-security prison, but the view along the way almost made up for it. Viktor has never seen the land shifting so quickly from rain-slicked cramped cities to sun-baked opulent terrain with a sparkle of the sea glittering on the horizon. Another pleasant sight were your warmed-up cheeks when you napped slumped against the glass, your hair tossed around in the wind. He tried to read on the journey, but his eyes wandered onto both sides of the window so much that he ended up making pathetic progress—only one chapter.

Then, there is the suspicious location of this prestigious summer internship. The university with all its labs and open ocean access is in Nice, which, by his calculations, is about thirty kilometres away as the crow flies from where he is currently. Viktor senses some kind of trickery, where you will all have to do the professor’s silly bidding before the man even thinks about letting students into the lab. Both the house and the overall landscape of Courmes are full of narrow pathways and fucking stairs—either wooden or shaped by nature in limestone. But then, the prospect of homemade meals and accommodation away from the city with a private pool and endless fields of aromatic plants brings the promise of something Viktor hasn't done in the longest time—rest. Well, at least for three days straight, after which he has to take the chaise.

Yes, the one-bed dilemma. He feels bad for making you take the first shift on the shitty mockery of a couch (who even came up with this type of furniture? It's no good for sitting, let alone trying to get a decent sleep. It's just another instrument of torture, beloved by therapists). He feels bad, but at the same time, his leg is giving him so much grief after the journey, no amount of gaping upon pretty landscape or pretty legs will calm down the throbbing muscle.

Which brings him to you—or rather, your presence here. Equally preposterous, given that Jayce had to break a leg to make it possible in the first place, and swell, given Viktor’s fluctuating infatuation. Perhaps infatuation is too big of a word, but Viktor is definitely not blind, and he can spot and appreciate pretty from afar. He can also quickly catalogue which parts of pretty he considers attractive, and upon a thorough check on the train, he remembers that you possess a lot of parts that fall into that category.

He wonders whether it is possible—let alone ethical—to chase a thing so shot through with doubt when the chase itself is confined to a Provençal bubble both of you can disown the moment French summer shuts its ledger.

Your history? Polite and largely orbital. Long weeks of parallel study punctuated by rare collisions: a midnight pint after finals, a god-forsaken house-party where the stereo bled Jeff Buckley and someone’s cat got stoned by proximity. Across a scatter of late-night libraries and half-lit bars he kept catching what felt like slivers of permission—your knee ghosting against his under a seminar table, fingers brushing when you handed him a lighter, an eyebrow arched as though leaving a door ajar. He stacked courage like coins, meaning to spend it on one clear, impossible question, but each time he reached for the moment it had already folded itself away: you were back to rumpling Jayce’s hair, laughing about some dawn bike ride, and Viktor filed the whole notion under wishful misreadings and tiptoed away, retreating to the safe tundra of proper academic friendship.

Still, when all three of you landed PhD places, he’d felt a fierce, molten gladness. More time with people he likes, less with those he does not; more room to reinvent himself under the forgiving umbrella of research grants and late library hours. Doctoral life delays the cold independence the outside world demands, keeps adulthood’s paperwork at bay, and wraps ambition in corduroy and chalk dust. For all its impediments, Viktor is grateful that he gets to share it with two—no, his—best friends.

Yes, friends, he reminds himself under the hiss of icy water. Friends. So he resolves to keep the truce intact: three nights on, three nights off, no martyrdom, no squabbling.

The internship offers deeper waters—sensor rigs, plankton counters, a crack at results solid enough to buy him a year’s grace on the stipend committee. That is where his attention belongs. If, in the margins, he happens to glimpse you gliding pool-side in a swimsuit, that will simply be logged—purely for completeness—into the ever-growing catalogue of pretty, sub-folder attractive, never to be spoken of outside the sealed archives of his skull.

He shuts off the water and gropes for a towel. Only then does Viktor realise he hasn’t brought a single stitch of clean clothing from the bedroom. After a moment’s debate over boundaries, he opts for the half-measure: slips into the same crumpled, travel-stale shirt—unbuttoned—and knots the towel tight around his hips. The moment he steps from the cool alcove, sweat blooms between his shoulder-blades.

Back in the room you’re perched on the desk chair, knees hugged to your chest, a pocket dictionary open across one thigh. The fan toys with the wisps of hair at your crown while you mutter conjugations and scribble notes in the margin. Viktor tries for stealth, but the floorboards betray him—one loud creak under the cane—and you spin, pen cartwheeling from your fingers to the boards.

“Why the hell are you naked?” you blurt, scrabbling for the pen while staring determinedly at the wall.

“Half-naked,” he corrects, rummaging in his rucksack with a lopsided grin. “I forgot clean clothes, and every manoeuvre in this sauna is either dangerous or sweat-inducing. I didn’t peg you for a prude.”

You puff a strand of hair off your forehead. “I’m not, but usually there are a few steps between we are colleagues and the said colleague flashing me.”

Viktor chuckles, fishing out a pair of bathing shorts. “Forgive me for befouling your innocence; I’ll be decent in a second.”

“I—” The word breaks, the same small stammer that once convinced him the pull might be mutual. He hesitates, listening. You flick a dismissive hand, cheeks warm, and turn back to the dictionary. “Oh, do whatever you want. We’ll probably be half-naked most of the time anyway.”

“I suppose we will,” Viktor murmurs, tugging on the shorts and reaching for a clean shirt. “There—decent,” he announces, fastening the last button.

“Great,” you say, pushing yourself up. “It’s almost noon; I guess we should head downstairs?”

Your tongue starts at the third eye between his brows, tight with thought, furrowed in want. It smooths beneath your lips while they linger, wrinkles again as you drift lower.

His mouth, arid for breath, hunts what you won’t give. Under his ear he’s keen: muscle jumps when you hover, loosens when you bite. Neck—a slut for love’s abuse—sinew stacked under thin skin stretched like a dry riverbed.

Below the sternum, his heart kicks—frantic, traitorous. “Tease,” he chides—no venom, only fondness.

You lick his belly; his navel flinches, all sensitive. Soft hair stirs under your exhale—rough country, no soil wasted, stark and austerely beautiful. There, Viktor disobeys—his mouth gasps—ah—hips twitch—fuck—hands come to push you lower, impatient. 

Proud of yourself, you bend, tasting salt and iron where thigh meets root, then drag your tongue beneath—warmth trails from the slack weight of his balls up the length. Skin braces under the wet line, alive with drum-tight blood. At the slit you pause, lips hovering, and blow a single cool breath; flesh stiffens—a ripple you feel against your skin.

Bones kindle. His hips jerk up, chasing your mouth. You clamp the jut of each pelvis wing, pinning him to the bed. “Behave,” you whisper—so soft the word seems spoken only to the heat in your snare. His cock answers with a taut twitch, discipline trembling under the skin.

“Don’t torment me,” he says, voice ragged but clear.

“Don’t—or do?” You lift your eyes; he’s staring down, eyes vacant with darkness, a flash of sharp white splitting the curve of his mouth.

“Do,” he murmurs—then, harder, a command wrapped in need. “Do torment me.”

You brace his hips and sink, taking him in a single, hungry slide. Heat floods your throat; muscle flexes, protests, then surrenders. Viktor lets out a brutal hiss, spine sinking—only to have you follow, refusing distance, nose pressed to the hard plane of his abdomen. Coward, he tries to melt into the mattress, to vanish beneath the linen like some dusk-haunted thing, but you hunt him down each time he retreats, swallowing the space he abandons.

Once there, you hum around him, a muffled taunt. A low growl answers, torn from somewhere buried; his fingers claw your shoulders, equal parts anchor and plea.

“Hold me,” he murmurs, “hold me deep if you want me to break for you.”

A smirk gives you away. Your mouth works—greedy, devout—each pull a dark wave breaking over his nerves. The taste is raw metal and salt, proof of living and of the body bending. Viktor breathes like a dog; sweat beads and rolls, turning his skin to bitter brine beneath your palms. He chants broken syllables—your name, a beg, a warning—as if language might tether him to air.

You stay until jaw muscles burn and your throat feels sheathed in iron heat—tongue pinned, breath reduced to a thin ribbon slipping past the ridges of his cock. Every swallow tightens the seal around him, a pulse of muscle that answers the hammering in your skull. Spit and sweat slick your lips, vision sparks at the edges, but you ride the ache; the ache is proof you can take him whole. Only when darkness blooms behind your eyes do you ease back, dragging in night-cool oxygen while the world rights itself—balance struck between drowning and survival, both of you adrift in the hush that follows the answered hunger.

Saliva threads from mouth to cock, a silver lattice that clings and trembles. You gather it with a sweep of fingers, then stroke the slick along his length, glazing him until every vein shines in painted need. Viktor stares—eyes black, breath caught—like he can’t decide whether to flinch or offer praise.

He reaches, bold, fingers curling against your jaw. “Open,” he murmurs. You part your lips; his thumb presses to the wet centre of tongue, lingers, as if trying to squeeze out more spit. Then, he pulls your cheek out, releases—skin snaps back and you pout for show.

“I said behave,” you murmur.

“Make me,” he fires back, grin bright and reckless.

Challenge accepted, you take him again—slow and merciless, mouth parting around the head, lips pulled over teeth. The swallow is long, lasts until your nose meets the wetness at the root where the moisture lies wasted. There it pools, in a tiny muscle-well, while you guide him away from his stomach—there it gains a new taste, a new scent, as the second-hand tackiness settles into everything your greed produced. 

Air turns narrow; you breathe through what gaps you can find, tongue moulded to the underside, throat flexing around the pulse that leaps against it. His fist knots in your hair—steadying, not steering—yet tightens when you retreat an inch and drag him back with a hollowed suck, spit spilling over your chin.

Viktor moans—loud, undignified. “God, you’re—fuck, you’re perfect—” he pants. His thighs shake. His stomach quivers beneath your palm. You want to ruin him, and he lets you. Wants it too. Ruin offered, ruin received—both of you meeting in the fierce, perfect middle of it.

And this greed, it’s contagious—it jumps between hosts, seeking one that will break first. Lands on him, when he cups your cheeks and slides right back in. Hips working shy but steady, he rocks into your mouth, offering warmth, surrendering poise, all for you to feed on.

He thrusts forward in shallow strokes, trying for politeness while nerves screech. Your mouth seals tight—hot, slick, inexorable—and his spine bows, all pretense peeled away. He braces your skull, hair wrapped around his fingers, jaw slack; he watches the slick string of spit at the corner of your lip. Watches himself vanish down your throat and fights the need to apologise for how hungry he’s become.

Pressure climbs—low in the belly first, then higher, behind eyes and sinuses where thin vessels always protest. He should warn you, or retreat, but the vibration of your hum travels through his cock, turning caution to ash. Each pulse in your throat answers the frantic drum in his ribs, while all shrinks to the dark behind his lids.

You hollow your cheeks and moan around him—deliberate cruelty, and he chokes on a sound that starts in pleasure and ends in begging. 

Mouth barren for words, he groans like it’s pain. Release surges—white heat forks up his spine, muscles locking around a low-gut punch that empties him in fierce waves. He floods your tongue, hips jerking once before surrendering to gravity. Resistance gives elsewhere too—vessels swell and break, and in the same heartbeat a warm trickle trails from his nose, metallic on his upper lip. The sting registers, distant, almost tender.

A thin ribbon of liquid crawls from his nostril and he tilts his head back, half-reflex, trying to spare the linen. It slips instead along the rear of his palate—bright iron rushing over taste buds stunned by heavy breathing. He fights the urge to snort it away; lets it pool ruby-red against the pallor of his throat, a vivid, fleeting jewel on alabaster. Metal blooms on his tongue—sharp, electric—threading the afterglow with something feral and sweet.

And there, he’s perfect—cock bleeding cum, nose bleeding red, all dams destroyed. He wipes it, abashed, but you work fast. Hold him in, don’t swallow—keep it to share. Seed swims heavy between your teeth, tasting like the purest body of the man you adore while you crawl up, hands sliding on sweaty coat covering his skin.

It’s your turn to grab jaws. There is the island you love dearest, ready to be healed from neglect—lips that turn vermillion when pressed by pleasure. He’s pretty and shy, smiling with pink canines, gums absorbing what pours down his face. Your fingers lock around tendons and his mouth falls open. You spit what he gave you back to the source. Obedient, he gulps, shows you his tongue like a child that proves the syrup went down.

“What a beautiful gift you are,” you say and trail your lips along the red, stealing his colour. He chuckles and gives, keeps giving until your dirty mouth seals over long neck.

To devour him is nothing. To suck on his cock until dry is nothing. To pump him out of not one, but two gifts of life, is everything—you lower to his throat and lap the scarlet line before it can slip away. The blood is bright and thin, hot rain struck by lightning—ozone and salt, sharp as bitten tongue. Higher, where it pools at the hollow beneath his lip, it sweetens—an almost copper-honey note married to the smoky cream left on your palate. Ferocity and nurture braided together.

Waves crash on the shore you choose to stay at. Mouths meet in a slow, prowling slide—salt-metal tang and bittersweet musk mingling into something wholly his. The kiss opens wide, flattened tongues gliding, scooping, sharing what he’s spilled and bled. A lush mess, a quiet slurp and a gasp each time breath slips between your teeth. He tastes of iron gone warm, of the deep salt inside him, of skin shocked into sweetness by release.

Blood thickens at the corners of his mouth, drying to a sticky, rust-dark glaze you lick away before it flakes. Under your palms his body is slack, boneless; he melts into the mattress, seeking the press of your weight—the safety he begged for and now clings to. Fingers roam your back, pleading in half-formed squeezes, as though he could graft you on and keep the circuit humming.

The flavours shift as air cools: copper fades to something darker, earthy; the last trace of him on your tongue runs thin, then sweet. It goes on—slow, flooding, generous—mouths exchanging life in two languages, red and white. When you finally pull back, your lips shine with borrowed colour, his with yours; breath tangles, warm, then steadies into hush.

“How does it feel to rob me of everything?” he murmurs, voice husked and unsteady.

You stroke the curve of his mouth with your thumb, smearing the last drops of crimson into a softer stain. “Fantastic,” you breathe. “You’re my land to explore. Whatever I find makes me want to stay—and what I take, I’ll give back to you.”

Viktor’s fingers, streaked ruby, trail across your lower lip. “Will you bleed for me too?”

bonus caitvi :]